The Gunnings

My Grandfather was Robert Benjamin Gunning. He was born in Metcalf, Illinois, in 1888 to James E. and Linnie A. Cooper Gunning. James and Linnie brought their family to Oklahoma Territory in 1893 and made the land run into the Cherokee strip. Grandfather was five years old.  

My mother was right about the Gunnings. They were Yankees. My great grandfather James fought in the Civil War on the side of the Union. It is interesting that my other great grandfather who fought for the Confederacy was also named James. I don’t know anything about James Gunning’s service except that he thought a lot of his commanding officer, so much so that he named one of his sons after him – Captain - Captain Gunning . My dad knew him as Uncle Cap.  

I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t know much about my grandfather’s family. They all lived close to Enid, Oklahoma, where the family settled after the Run of 1893. The family was close - there were five sons and a daughter. They used to get together, but I was never a part of that, because we spent most of our time with my mother’s side of the family.  

I’m not sure how my grandfather spent his early life. Uncle Jay says he has a picture of him with six guns strapped to his waist, so he must have needed to be ready to defend himself. The first thing I know about him after his parents' migration to Oklahoma Territory is that at the age of 22 he was working for the Frisco Railroad operating a pile driver, placing pilings for a railroad bridge near Fay, Oklahoma, where my grandmother’s family lived. I do have a picture of a pile driver that was taken close to Fay about that time.

                          Pile Driver near Fay, Oklahoma, early 1900's

 

Grandfather’s career as a bridge builder ended when his pile driver fell on him, crushing his leg in the process. When he recovered, he could no longer do construction work, so he served an apprenticeship as a barber in Hitchcock, Oklahoma, about 15 miles from Fay. That's when he met Grandmother, Jessie Boyd. They were married in 1912. My uncle Boyd was born in 1913 and my dad in 1915. My other two uncles, Everett and Jay were born in 1921 and 1928. There were no daughters. 

Footnote: NP GF 1968: The Enid Daily Eagle, Sept. 23, 1968. Robert Gunning Has
Been Clipping People 58 Years.

My grandparents moved to Enid in 1916, where Grandfather’s family lived, and where he opened a barber shop on the town square, but Grandmother still made frequent trips back home to Fay, and it was on one of those trips that my dad lost his thumb.  

You would never have known that my dad didn’t have a thumb unless you just happened to look down at his right hand. He was strong; he played football, baseball, basketbalI, and tennis. He was also a good bowler, and he threw the ball hard too. I was always fascinated by how he could pass a football. He could throw it a lot better than I could, although he couldn’t grip it. He just balanced it somehow on the palm of his hand. 

Anyway, my dad lost his thumb when he was three. My grandmother was visiting her parents, Grant and Laura Boyd, at the time. Don had wandered out to the windmill and he was watching the pump rod go up and down as it operated the piston to pump water. The pump rod had a hole in it for a bolt to lock it in place when the water tank was full, and little Don noticed that the hole was just about the size of his thumb. During a lull in the wind when pump rod had paused, Don poked his thumb through the hole. Just then the wind came up again, bringing the pump rod down, severing the end of Don’s thumb.

Don ran back to the house crying, and his mother and grandmother bandaged his thumb. Then they called the doctor. The old country doctor came out to the house, and after looking at Don’s thumb, decided to try and reattach its severed end. As the story goes, he borrowed a needle and thread from Don’s grandmother, Laura, and after putting some cobwebs on the wound the stop the bleeding, sewed the end of Don’s thumb back on. The doctor’s attempts at repair failed, so Don was left with an inch long stub instead of a thumb.  

                                                  Don, at Age Three

 

If you look closely, you can see that Don's right thumb is just a stub.

Back in those days it was normal for parents to live with their children as they got older, so just like Jim’s grandfather James Rosser, Don’s grandfather James Gunning also lived with his family. Don’s grandmother Linnie had died before he was born. James helped Don's  mother with her chores. Don told me how his grandfather always turned the crank of the washing machine when his mother did her washing.  

Like my mother’s grandfather, James Gunning told his grandchildren stories, and he entertained them in other ways too. Don was especially impressed by his grandfather’s marksmanship. He used to tell me how James used to sit out in the yard in a chair and shoot flies off the side of the garage with a B-B gun.

Good news! The Blogger picture brouser is fixed so I have uploaded the pictures for my previous two blogs.