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Aunt Blanche Writes of Charles Templin She Finds in This By Aunt Blanche The whole, at present prices (tax
not added) could be bought for 73 cents. This statement includes all of us –
morons, smart folk, rich man, poor man, begger man, thief – Those chemicals are the elements
which, combined, constitute the human body, but we have something more. In our
makeup are certain things which cannot be seen, weighed or measured, and yet,
without them, all this iron, sulphur and other body chemicals wouldn’t amount
to a row of pins. What would we humans be like if we didn’t have grit,
imagination, sympathy, courage and above all, stick-to-it-iveness? This story is about a man who
perhaps has more than his share of the latter, but he needed every ounce of it
and he used it well. Over in If hungry, he made it known in such
an emphatic way that the whole family hastened to quiet him and so, when he got
the “Oklahoma fever” in 1899, no one tried to steer him in some other
direction. Charles had married Maggie Hartley
of Blowing Cave Springs, in the eastern part of the state. Maggie was a real
“belle” in her community. At parties, the young chaps all tried to get her for
a partner in their games. But when Charlie Templin decided she was the girl for
him, no other boy had half a chance. On With a wife to care for Charles
became more ambitious than ever. He at once began working for a neighbor for 13
dollars a month. Maggie had not been raised in idleness. She could card wool,
spin and weave. She helped work in the field when necessary and kept her house
spic and span. They lived on a 15-acre patch of
ground that Charles mother had given them. It was heavily wooded and had to be
cleared before crops could be raised, but that was just fun for this go-getter. The chances are the Templins would
still be in The more Charles thought of the wide
prairie country and the big chances for success, the less he thought of his
home in the hills of When he landed in the little prairie
town he had just 17 dollars in his pocket, but they were both ravenously
hunger, so they first ate a substantial meal at the restaurant before inquiring
for the Fox farm. Besides the Foxes another The only available house was a sod
building one mile north of the town owned by Mr. McMichael. This was better
than nothing, so they moved in and rented 25 acres of the ground. The boxes
which had been filled with bedding made two tables, and the baby slept in the
tray of the trunk. This Tennessean had a way about him
that always made him friends. When old may Tuttle (a near neighbor) heard that
the Templins had no team to put out a crop, he loaned them one, and another
near neighbor, Cal Bowell, gave them enough wheat to seed their ground. Luck favored the Templins and they
raised a good crop on the 25 rented acres. By this time Charlie’s reputation as
a good worker and reliability became known in the neighborhood. The Bigger
brothers were living alone on their claim and wanted a woman to cook and a man
to work. The Templins fitted perfectly into the picture and remained there for
over a year. By living plain and saving their
wages, they had enough money to go to farming for themselves, so the farm on
which the little sod house was rented and with a sulky plow and three horses, a
hundred acres was put into wheat. Before long a house was moved onto
this place and one of the happiest days of Maggie Templin’s life was the one in
which her belongings were transferred to the new domicile and she had
real-to-goodness board floors instead of hard dirt ground underneath her feet. There were a few other changes made
until the close of the war in 1918 when the family moved onto the Joe Krueger
farm which has been their home for 21 years. The family increased to nine
children, all of whom are living. William, the baby that came from
Tennessee with his parents, is with the Wakita Garage and his wife was Miss
Alleen Hardesty. Dan Templin moved over the line into Ted Templin drives an oil truck for
the Farmers Co-operative association of Wakita. He married Miss Beulah McNamer.
The daughter, Mary Templin Caywood also lives in Wakita. The only other girl in
the family, Mrs. Alma McKee, resides in All of these children attended the There is one thing a little out of
the ordinary about this big family of boys and girls. Not one of them wears
glasses. They are all strong healthy young people. The nearest to a tragedy in
the family was when Mary as a small child swallowed a kernel of corn and it
“went down the wrong way.” She was rushed to a Mr. Templin had an heirloom that
belonged to his mother’s mother and no amount of money could buy this article.
It is a long oval bread mixing tray, hand carved out of buckeye. This try or
bowl and another one like it were used for mixing biscuit and bread dough and
also corn bread. This was in the days when baking was
done either in a Dutch oven or an open hearth and a large batch was baked each
time. Mr. Templin also has vivid recollections of the old spinning wheel and
loom and the strings of dried apples and pumpkin hanging from the oak rafters. When asked if they had ever been
back to visit their childhood homes, they shook their heads “no.” Then Mr.
Templin, who always looks on the sunny side and never becomes moody over things
that cannot be helped, looked up with a smile on his weatherbeaten face and
said: “It took all we had to raise our
family. The only way we could ever go back would be to walk and I’m afraid it
would be too long a trip for my dogs.” Then, after we all laughed, Mrs.
Templin said in a serious way: “We have never had much but none of
us have ever had to go to a hospital for an operation. We haven’t anything in
this world to be proud of but out children.” As I drove away, I thought: “There
are other things besides riches that make people happy.” Thanks to Jim
Templin, |
