Tracing My Mother's Childhood: Snyder & Sayre

Wednesday, June 10--After a full day yesterday of exploring the country around Fort Sill, we set out in search of two other places where my mother spent part of her childhood. More red granite mountains rose above grasslands as we drove west to what remains of the tiny town of Snyder.

When I start formally on my genealogy project, I will have to figure out when mother's family lived in all of these places. I think the order is Sayre, Snyder and Ft. Sill, but I have few clues as to mother's age at any time in them. Not much remains of Snyder, which was once a thriving railroad town, but the water tower looms on one of the hills that ring the town. I remember mother talking about this geography, and also Snyder's famous tornado warning signal, the "whistle" (one long, two shorts) that went off any time day or night when threatening weather was sighted. She talked about running home from school one day to take refuge in a cellar with a neighbor boy. They consumed at least one jar of home canned cherries before the all clear was sounded. Today, only one business was open at the crossroads in the center of town: a gas station with a non functioning rest room. Because the weather looked threatening, we didn't linger. I wanted to look for signs of a church, school, or former plants where my grandfather might have worked, but I was feeling a little sick (maybe a touch of what Walt had earlier in the week?) and we went on toward Altus, and a restroom.


Our next goal was Sayre, a town on I-40 not far from the Texas panhandle. It's also on Old US 66. We stopped for lunch (just iced tea for me, thank you) at a Mexican restaurant, the only place open in Mangum, so we could out wait a nasty looking storm. We arrived in the afternoon, checked into our motel and then drove around town, looking for landmarks that might have been there in 1913, when my mother was born, or even earlier, when my great grandparents Jesse and Emma McElyea moved there, I think around 1910. The water tower is probably newer than those dates, but it is distinctive against the Southwest Oklahoma sky.

One famous Sayre landmark is the Beckham County Courthouse, dedicated in 1911. It cost $69,000 to build. The first settlers arrived in Sayre in 1891, and railroad promoters brought people from the east who wanted to buy lots that had been first claimed in the land runs. Oklahoma became a state in 1907. And of course, the courthouse with its distinctive dome had a cameo role in the 1940 movie, The Grapes of Wrath.

Sayre blossomed up in the valley of the North Fork of the Red River beginning with a tent city in 1901. One of the first permanent buildings was this one at the corner of 4th and Main. It housed the first drug store, Owl Drug. Sometime in the '20s, the First National Bank moved in and the drug store moved across the street.

Some restoration on this block is evident, but other buildings are still rather dilapidated. This building now houses Sayre City Hall.





When I saw this historic looking train depot I got excited, because I knew that my grandfather had worked off and on for railroads as a station agent or time keeper. But the plaque says this depot was erected in 1927, after all of the McElyeas had moved on. However, it houses a nice local museum and I was able to get a lot of information about the schools in early days, as well as churches and social conditions. It will be useful when I write the genealogy.

Across the street at the public library I found some new information about my great grand parents in the newspaper obituary files. I had always wondered what Jesse did, or what business he was in, that would account for the line in Emma's obituary that when she died suddenly of peritonitis in 1914, "almost all places of business closed during her funeral out of respect." I still have no idea, but Jesse's obituary from 1950 says he was a retired insurance and real estate man. Not a lot to go on. I tried looking at microfilm of newspapers from those years, but it was like finding a needle in a whole pile of haystacks. Indexing these papers is a time consuming and expensive task and it hasn't been done. I got my neck out of whack after two hours and had to give up.


One final stop in my hunt for information was the Methodist Church. The pastor was in and turns out he, like Norm, is a graduate of Iliff School of Theology in Denver. Small world. This building was built in 1931. The church had some records going back to its earliest years, but although Emma's obit said she was active in the women's organization, there was no mention of her name on rosters. But then most records dated from the 1930s.

The docent we talked with at the museum confirmed our growing suspicion that Sayre hadn't done much with its earliest history. The buildings, newspapers, and records were quite ephemeral and not much was saved. All of the old time settlers have passed on, and so have many of their children. One or two families have donated items to the museum from those early days--records of farming, or medical practices. It's a start and I hope they can preserve more of their history. I think my expectations of such have been raised by my experience in my husband's family, with Dad Linville writing and researching both family stories and western Kansas history, and museums like the one in Colby.

Soon I'll post more information about Emma and Jesse on my other blog, Thursday's Child. I found their burial place, and thus completed my quest to see the graves of all four of my Great Grandmothers. Give me a couple of days: the update will appear in the blog list at right.