The Girl From The Ozarks

By Myranda Belle DeLay Covey

I was born in Centerville Iowa, February 7-1892. I remember very little about Iowa, as we traveled by covered wagon to the Ozark Mountains in MO. when I was 4 years old.

I remember that my 1 sister and 3 brothers and me were hurried to the neighbor’s house to stay all night and when our father came after us, he told us that we had a little baby sister. We were so excited and rushed into the house. I will never forget seeing my beautiful mother lying there in bed. She had on a white gown with ruffles around the neck and holding this wee baby to her heart. We loved that sweet baby and named her Lily May-She had blue eyes and blond hair like my mother.

We lived, loved and played on that huge farm with the apple orchard near the house and hickory nut trees too. We lived near a stream of water called “Little Piney”. It had a flat rock bottom. We played on the rocks in the water. It was a beautiful playland for children. We had a large log house with a fireplace in the living room. For entertainment we children would lie on the floor, look into the fire and see different images of horses and most anything.

About 25 miles from us was a large river called Rubidoux (pronounced Roo Be Doo). Once or twice during the year we would take a camp outfit and go in the covered wagon to fish at the (Rubidoux). We would stay several days. It was a real vacation. In fact, everything there was a great vacation-a great playland. Also, my father said, a great place to make money. The stock all ran loose, even the hogs, as it was open range.

My father raised, corn, maize and sugar cane. We made our own sorghum, took the corn to the mill, where they made the corn meal. Flour was a luxury, also Sugar. My father would go into Springfield once a year to buy the staples we would need thru the winter. The coffee came in the green stage like beans- mother would put it in a large flat pan in the oven to roast and brown it. We had a coffee mill to grind it for each meal. It was a chore we kids hated, as it was every day- I remember the brands we used were Lions Head and Arbuckle’s. Matches also were an extravagance and a luxury. So, Mother made lighters from paper by rolling it around a pencil- we had a container of lighters on the mantle to save matches, as one box of matches would last a year or until my father would go for supplies again. One time when he got home from getting supplies, he had something great to tell us that he had seen. He sat down in his big chair in front of the fireplace, with Mother squeezed in beside him and us kids sitting on the floor. He had seen what was called a TALKING MACHINE-He thought it was the greatest thing he’d ever seen-I could visualize a sewing machine that could talk-So I treated mother’s sewing machine with great respect, thinking someday it would talk to me.

The roads were so rocky that you could hear a wagon coming 5 or more miles away. It was a red-letter day when a wagon passed our house. We had a flat roof shed in the barn yard, so when we kids heard a wagon coming, we would run and climb on the shed with great anticipation, to watch the show (a wagon passing) and we could hear it long after it passed as it rattled over the rocks.

One night I would long remember, a mountain lion came into our house, the door was open and no screens. My father fought him out of the house, he broke several chairs over his head and backed him out slammed the door, loaded his shot gun and with Mother and we kids all crying- he went out and shot the lion. I was not scared as I knew my father could always take care of us.

One of our neighbors was an elderly man, a distant relative of my father, had a young man working for him. They were at our house quite often. The elderly man stopped coming- none of the neighbors had seen him, they noticed his hired hand was wearing his boss’s clothes even his gold watch. They asked the young man where he was. He said he had gone to Kansas to visit relatives.

We kids were at school, and heard this wagon coming

over the rocks, it was recess, the wagon got there with the

young man driving the horses in a run. He stopped at the

school, we all ran out to climb on the wagon, but he said

“No get away from the wagon!” He had a large trunk in the

back of the wagon. He rested the horses a minute, as they

were covered with foam from running. He whipped them and

off he went over the rocks and out of sight.

The next day two boys hunting spied this unusual pile of brush, and tearing into it found the old man’s body. In this trunk. He had been chopped to fit into the trunk. A posse formed of all the neighbor men, my father included to look for the hired man. Trey looked for several days aid finally found him at his girl’s house- He was sent to prison for 99 yrs.

By this time my parents decided it was no place for us children- once again we packed the covered wagons. My father sold out- he used to laugh about selling his two farms saying “the man could not read or write so I Slipped the other farm off on him”

We were on our way to Kansas. My dad’s father was sheriff in Topeka Kan,[1] we stopped and visited them. they lived in a large house with a winding stairway. I’ll never forget the fun running up and down those stairs. We then went on to Seneca, where mother’s parents lived, they also had a stairway. I did so love those stairways. We stayed in Seneca (a town in northeast Kansas) until I was almost 7.

My father had heard of the golden opportunities in Calif. He bought tickets on the train and we were on our way. At school in Kansas, we kids had been exposed to the Smallpox, so consequently we broke out with the dreaded thing on the train.

My parents knew that we would have to leave the train before people noticed us, we were then in Okla. Territory at Guthrie, the capitol. We got off the train, my father rented a house and we moved right in. Smallpox was almost always fatal, and a dreaded thing. My parents had been vaccinated so could care for us. Each city had a PEST HOUSE-where they put the victims, handing their food and medicines over the fence. As we were strangers, no one knew.

In due time we all recovered and started to school on Capitol Hill. Several great events happened that year-one-my sister and I started music lessons— (two)our teachers at school told us that we were going to march out and see a horseless Carriage-out we marched and stood at attention and here comes that buggy running up the street without a horse hitched to it. It was an amazing thing to see. (3rd event) not long after that my teacher was crying and wringing her hands. We had our morning prayer, then she told us that President William McKinley had been assassinated, and we could all go home for the day. I ran all the way home to tell mother “The president, William McKinley, was killed, and we don’t have to go to school today!” [2]

---

[1] Belle’s Grandfather, Rueben DeLay had been Sheriff of either Downs or Osborne County, Kansas in the 1880’s before moving to Topeka.

[2] President McKinley was shot on Sep 6, 1901 and died on the 14^th.

About this time Oklahoma City officials stole the Capitol from Guthrie, they came in the night, and stole all of the papers-so that’s how Okla. City got the capitol from Guthrie. I think it was about 1901. We school children were up in arms and ready to fight, but it was all settled, except for the hard feelings.

We attended church and Sunday school at the Methodist Church, it was there in 1902 that my sister, older brother, and me joined the church.

That summer my sister and I went to Kansas, by train, to visit our Grandparents. We were going to stay 2 weeks, but Okla. Territory was having a land run. The rules were that whoever staked 160 acres first could claim it. So, men came on horses, in buggies, in trains, and on top of trains to claim the coveted land.

So, we could not come home for 2 mo. Our little sister Lily was ill when we got home. She had Malaria fever and passed away that summer. Oh, how we missed her, we had her such a little while.

San Francisco had that terrible earthquake in 1906. Our schools and town were so concerned we sent a car load of clothes to the victims of that disaster.

There was so much increasing lawlessness and corruption in the territory of Okla., that the people were fighting for STATE HOOD, and after much Opposition from some white people and Indians, Okla. Territory became a state called Oklahoma. Theodore Roosevelt was our president in 1907.

That same year in U.S. most all banks went broke causing a panic, a crisis brought about by improper management of financial institutions. People descended on the banks drawing out their money~hence the Panic of 1907—

My parents had purchased a farm with a peach orchard and black berries and we were settled again with my father and boys working on the farm and mother and I canning peaches and cooking for our own and two hired boys.

My sister (Loney) had married and moved to her own home by this time. I was taking violin lessons, and when I squeaked out “Home Sweet Home” my father was SO proud, he told everyone “She is the best violinist in the state.”

My brothers and I each had our own saddled ponies-I used my mother’s side saddle- our friends had their own ponies also. One day while my father was at the well drawing water for the stock, two young men came by-with suitcases and one carrying a guitar-they asked for a drink and said they were looking for work-my dad hired them. One was especially good looking, with black, black hair and blue grey eyes, and he played the guitar and violin, and as I was also interested in music, we played guitars together and much to my surprise he asked me to walk with him, when we would all walk to church. From then on, we were a pair, we sang at all the musicals.

At our church our choir was made up of young people – I played the organ and we sang because we loved to sing. He soon bought himself a saddle horse and was one our crowd. After church we would get our horses and go various places for picnics and sometimes meet with kids from a different locale.

On Saturday we would meet in town – walk around together, go to the show -then home again.

“Those were the days my love, those were the days.”

Belle DeLay would go on to marry that young man, Edgar Covey. She wrote another memoir about their 50 plus years together.

Covey Family History- https://azrockdodger.com/2022/07/29/covey-family-history/

Thill DeLay Family History: Thill, DeLay Family History – Outlaws, Outrages and Outright Lies (azrockdodger.com)

Main Menu: www.azrockdodger.com