Don, the Bully

Don worked hard in his classes at OU, but he also worked hard to excel in sports. He not only went out for basketball, but also track. He ran the mile, the mile relay and he threw the javelin.  

Don was exceptionally strong in his arms. He had boxed since grade school, and he worked on improving his arm strength. He told me once that he used to do 300 push ups every night. When I was little I asked him why he didn’t have big muscles like weight lifters, and he told me that they weren’t a strong as they looked. He said that he had beat one of the weight lifters at OU in arm wrestling. 

Apparently Don didn’t quit fighting at OU, and from what I can gather he was short tempered and used to push people around. I didn’t find that out from him. It was Jim who told me that Don's brother Boyd had pulled him aside once or twice to tell him that he couldn’t keep bullying people and succeed as an adult.  

Don still spent his summers in Fay while he was in college, and he was something of a hero there, especially after he made the basketball team. When I went to stay with my cousin Bud in Fay, his dad, Uncle Check, told me that Don worked at a dairy one summer, and that he could unload ten gallon milk containers out of a truck without taking down the tailgate. I guess working on the farm helped Don stay in condition. He told me once that the hardest work he had ever done was to dig a well by hand.  

 

Don at Aunt Laura's Dairy in Canton, Oklahoma

(Cousin Marvin Gunning on L, Laura on R, Don next to Laura)

 

One summer Don had a job surveying for the county, and he told me a funny story about an old farmer he met that summer. What Don was supposed to do was to measure the dimensions of each farmer’s fields. He had a chain of a certain length, and he was supposed to walk along the fence line and count the number of chain lengths on the sides of each field.  

Don said as he walked up to one farmer’s house, he saw the farmer sitting out on his porch in the sun. The man told Don that the sun was good for his arthritis. He said that his boys worked his farm now, because he hadn’t been able to work for several years because of the arthritis. Don asked if any of his boys were around, that he was going to need someone at the other end of his chain. The old farmer said his boys weren’t there, but he’d try to help. 

Don said that the old farmer walked slow, but they eventually walked around every field, and the farmer kept going, even though the chain was heavy and sometimes Don was almost dragging him along. Don said he was feeling guilty about putting the old farmer through such a hard day’s work when they finally got back to the house, but to his surprise the farmer had a smile on his face. He thanked Don for putting him through the work out, and said that he hadn’t felt better in years.  

I don’t think Don continued his boxing matches after he went to college, but he didn’t lose his self-confidence. Uncle Check told me another incident that happened at a rodeo they went to together. Check said they were sitting in the first row, and that one of the cowboys tossed a bucket of water on the ground in front of them, splashing mud up on their pants. He said that Don said something to the cowboy about what he could do with his water, and the cowboy said, “Why don’t you make me?” At that point Don stood up to his full 6 ft, 4 inches, and started to climb over the fence. The cowboy retreated.  

I used to try to imagine what Don was like in school. The stories I heard of him as a young man portrayed him as cocky and belligerent, a person totally different from my father. I never once heard Don raise his voice, let alone lose his temper. He was always calm, gentle, and understanding. He never seemed to assert himself, but people respected his opinions. He was well liked by everyone who knew him. He was a supervisor in his job, and he was elected to positions of leadership elsewhere. He was on the vestry at church, and he was president of the Petroleum Accountants’ Association of Oklahoma.  

Don did tell me one story about why he had changed his personality. He said there was a boy at OU, a member of the track team, who admired Don for his prowess in sports, but Don considered him a pest, so he bullied him and tried to run him off. He said that in spite of Don's attitude though, the boy kept trying to make friend with him, so he gradually decided that he was wrong. He told me, “I just decided I didn’t want to be that kind of person anymore,” and he and the young man became friends.  

This story is another example to me of Don’s ability to change. I think that was the most remarkable thing about my father. A lot of people try to change or improve their  personalities, but very few are able to accomplish it. Don did, not just once, but over and over again.

 

 

Don in College

Here’s a letter that Don wrote to his dad in Enid the summer after his sophomore year in high school. As usual he was spending the summer in Fay. His mother was there too and also his little brother Everett. His older brother Boyd had stayed in Enid with Grandfather that summer. Boyd had just graduated from high school, and had a job in town.

 

To: Mr RB Gunning, 803 E Elm, Enid Okla., June 10, 1931

From: Don Gunning, Jn 11, 1931, Fay Ok.  

Dear Father: Well I guess I had better write you a letter. I meant to write you sooner but this is the first time I have had a chance. I have plowed and howed a lot while I have been here. We milk ten cows. I ran the whole row this morning, but I got done and it is raining now. I saw Mamma Sunday a little while at Fay, but don’t know when she will come out here. Gene went to town yesterday and Everett came out with him. I am learning him a lot of things, he can’t milk a bit. He tried to last night and barely got the bottom of his bucket covered.  

Somebody down here died and Gene went to help dig her grave this morning at 8 and didn’t get it done until one thirty. This rain is getting worse and it’s hailing a little bit. Everett saw Virginia Parks Sunday and they had quite a time. How is Boyd? I wish I was up there with him. If you ever see a job up around there between now and time for school to start I would be glad to come home. I like this all right but I would rather be up there with you and Boyd. Is Boyd going to Norman (OU) next year? Tell him to write me a letter & tell me what he has been doing. Write a letter to me and tell me all the news and how you are. I’ll write every time I have time. Harold is sending a letter in the same envelope to Boyd. (Harold was one of Don’s cousins) 

Your son, Don. 

Scrapbook 9, P 1 

I probably should have put this letter into the blog about Fay or into the one about Don in high school, but it does fit here too because it shows Don’s attachment to his brother Boyd. I think Don’s respect for Boyd is partly what inspired him to turn down his football coach’s plan to keep him in high school another year, and to go on to college instead.  

Anyway, in the fall of 1933 after he graduated from Enid High, Don did enroll at OU, and he moved in with his brother Boyd. Boyd was quite enterprising. He had to be, because his father couldn’t afford to send his sons to college charging 15¢ per haircut. When Don got to OU in Norman, Oklahoma, Boyd had established two sources of income. He worked as a kitchen boy for the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority house, and he also operated a laundry and cleaning delivery service for the sorority houses. When Don arrived they expanded the laundry service, and Don also went to work at the sorority house washing dishes.

 

Don and Boyd, about 1940

 

Don majored in business, and went out for basketball. After watching Don play at the first practice, OU’s basketball coach at that time, Hugh McDermott, pulled Don aside and told him not to waste his time, that he would never make the team. But Don had decided he was going to play basketball at OU. He had overcome obstacles in high school football, and he figured he could do the same in college. Don worked hard all that year, improving slowly and refusing to give up, and by the start of basketball season his sophomore year, he had made the team.  

Paying for tuition and for room and board at OU was tough, but with hard work and determination Boyd and Don kept themselves in school. Working around sorority girls was a definite plus. Boyd dated one of Kappa girls, Eleanor Adderhold, whom he later married, but Don decided that he couldn’t afford to date. When he became a star on the basketball team several of the Kappa girls asked him out, offering to pay the expenses, but he turned them down. He wasn’t going to let a girl pay his way.  

That didn’t dampen the girls’ spirits though. The sorority sisters all went to his games, sat together and cheered for him. They even made up a little ditty for him: 

To our athlete

So big and brave

About you constantly

We all rave.

 

 

 OU Basketball Team - 1937

Don in back row, 3rd from left

Boyd's girl friend Eleanor was a tall girl, and she was on the Kappa basketball team. Don watched her play, and then offered her some pointers. Since she was tall she got a lot of rebounds, but when she came down with the ball, the girls from the other team would take the ball away from her. Don advised her to hold the ball in close to her chest, to stick her elbows out sideways and to swing back and forth to force the other girls back away from her. She tried it, and it worked! She had no more trouble losing her rebounds. In fact, the other girls started calling her “Elbows Adderhold.” 

 

Eleanor, with Don, Grandmother and Grandfather Gunning

 

My dad has always been my hero. I admire him for so many reasons, and these stories are starting to illustrate some of them. When I was little I admired him most for his athletic prowess and strength, but as I have grown older it is his other qualities that amaze me the most. First was his determination. He made the OU basketball team and became a star through grit and determination, even though his coach actually discouraged him. Second was his ability to make up his mind and to stick to his decision. He decided that he couldn’t afford to date in college. Sounds reasonable, given his circumstances, but how many guys could have carried through on it? I certainly couldn’t, especially if I had been a campus hero, actually being asked out by girls.

Don in High School

 

 

I don’t know too much about my dad’s high school years, but he did save the year books from his sophomore and junior years, 1931 and 1932. Here's his picture from 1932:

 

Donald D Gunning, age 17

Don’s older brother Boyd was a senior in 1931, and he was outstanding and popular. He was vice-president of the senior class, and a cheerleader. He was in the glee club. He played the trumpet like his father, and was among half a dozen chosen from Enid High School to go to the All-state Band. Boyd also starred in the senior class operetta, and was on the debate team. He was beginning to work toward his goal of becoming a lawyer. Here's his picture as escort for one of the May queen candidates:

Boyd Gunning, age 18

 

There were a lot of notes written in Don’s year books. There were a lot of complimentary notes from teachers, so he seems to have been a conscientious student. Here’s one from his English teacher:  

Don, I’ve always appreciated your attitude toward everything. You have some wonderful qualities, and I’m so glad I have had you in class. Always, Ruth Scott.

 

 

Ruth Scott, 1932

Don joined the math club his junior year and here's what his math teacher wrote:

Don, You get better and better. Since you’ve been through the real drudgery of math, now you should go on and take the fourth year where you can see the real fun in math. Sincerely, Grace Smith.

 

 

Grace Smith, 1932

In the 1931 book, Don isn’t pictured with either the football or the basketball teams, but there are a lot of notes consoling him on his tough luck in football. I didn’t figure out why until I read a note from a girl in his English class:

Don, Don’t forget the time you had a broken arm and you came out to our house and practiced for the Longfellow program. Remember me as a friend, Annabel Morrow.

 

 

Annabel Morrow, 1931

He didn’t make the football team because he broke his arm! 

Here’s the note written by Enid High’s football coach, Leon  R. Vance: 

Don, I have always said sophs were my favorites. I still do. A manly sophomore has such tremendous possibilities, and you are manly. Let’s work together and accomplish some real things. Leon Vance

 

 

Leon Vance, 1931

Lloyd Zuck was in Don’s class his sophomore year but not his junior year. I don’t know if he moved, or had to drop out of school. Here’s his note: 

Don, Remember me as a friend of yours. Remember the good old times we have had. If you try you will make the football team in 1932. You are a fine kid and a good sport. Always remember me as you gaze upon this handsome picture of me. L. Z.

 

Lloyd Zuck Kelly, 1931

(See blog post of Feb. 13, 2013)

 

Here’s a note from someone Don must have gone to grade school with:  

Dear Don, Remember the times when we used to go swimming in sewer creek, and also when we boxed in your back yard, and the good old days at Longfellow Jr. High School. An old friend, Jim Helton.

 

 

Jim Helton, 1932

And another: 

Don, I believe I’ve known you longer than anyone going to school now and we’ve sure had some keen times. Remember the keen times we used to have over on Maple with the ponies and how you used to whip Boyd’s bun? A friend. George Miles

 

 

George Miles, 1932

Don’s older brother Boyd was his best friend and mentor, but as a young boy Don was always trying to test himself against other boys, so I guess that included Boyd.

Don didn’t make the football team again his junior year, but he made the basketball team. Here’s a comment by the captain of the football team: 

Don, You sure have had plenty of bad breaks in football. I know you would have made the team this year. But after all I think more of a fellow that can take it on the chin like you did and then come back and letter in basketball. You sure have got the right stuff. And don’t forget bad breaks won’t follow you all your life. I know you will win out in the long run. Lots of luck, Dick.

 

Dick Gerren, 1932

 

The football team didn’t do so well that year but the basketball team won fourteen out of sixteen games and came close to winning the state title, finally falling to Cherokee, whom they had beaten during the regular season 28 to 13. The basketball coach, Perry McCoy wrote:

Perry McCoy, 1932

Well Don we had a great season this year. I’m looking forward to a good season for you next year. I’ve certainly enjoyed working with you, and knowing you. Next year we’ll beat Cherokee. Best wishes. Your coach and friend, Perry McCoy.

Here's Don with the Enid High basketball team of 1932:

 

Enid Plainsmen, 1932

(Don is in the middle row, 2nd to the left of coach McCoy)

 

I don’t have Don’s annual from 1933, his senior year. I know that he sang a lead in the school operetta like his brother Boyd, because he kept a copy of the program. Also he told me he finally made the football team as well as the basketball team, and was on the first string of both. He was actually a bigger star on the football team even though it was in basketball that he excelled in college.

In one game Don caught a pass and scored the winning touchdown. He told me that when he caught the ball he was on the 5 yard line, and even though he was tackled he struggled on across the goal line, dragging his tackler with him. Here's how football games looked back then:

 

Enid High vs. Oklahoma City Central, 1931

(It's hard to see clearly, but the uniforms had no leg pads, very thin shoulder pads, and the helmets were just thick leather with no cushion)

 

Football must have been very important at Enid High. That would explain the many condolences Don received the previous two years when he didn’t make the team, and also the following remarkable event, which occurred during Don's final semester. The school principal and Mr. Vance, the football coach, the same man who had complemented Don for being “manly,” approached Don’s father with a proposition. They suggested that they arrange to have Don’s teachers flunk him so that he would have to repeat his senior year and still be eligible to play football!

Grandfather was actually considering accepting the deal. He was always a big sports fan. I remember visiting him in a nursing home in his 90’s, and he had a radio by his bedside so that he could keep up with his favorite teams.  

Anyway, in spite of the pressure, Don turned the offer down flat. He proved that he was more "manly" than his coach. He knew that it was more important to get an education than to be a football star, and he had decided to join his brother Boyd at O.U.   

 

 

Uncle Les

 

When my dad was a teenager, he spent his summers in Fay, and did farm work with his uncles and cousins. He worked with his uncles: Gene, Alphonse, Les and Check. Check was six years older than him but as Don got older they were able to go places and do things together. I got to meet Uncle Check because I spent a week with his family one summer during high school. It was his son Grant or “Bud” who went through the engineering school at OU, and then decided to be a teacher so he could work closer to home.

 

                                              Don and Check, about 1922

 

Don worked with his Uncle Gene most often. Early on, before farm machinery was available, Gene worked with mules. Don told me that mules were stronger than a horse but they were mean and hard to work with. They would bite you or lean against you in their stall. Don claimed that Gene used to hit them with a board every morning just to show them who was boss.  

One summer Gene took his family on a vacation to Colorado, and he hired Don to take care of his farm while he was gone. Since Don didn’t have any sisters, he spent a lot of time in the kitchen with his mother growing up, and he was a good cook. I used to love his fried chicken. He always skinned them first. When I asked him why, he said to me, “If you knew how nasty chickens are you wouldn’t want to eat their skin either. Anyway, while Uncle Gene was gone, Don fried a chicken for himself every day.  

Wheat is one of the main crops around Fay, and Don told me a funny story once about working with his uncles harvesting wheat. He said that while they were taking a break,  someone, I think it was Uncle Les, started frantically trying to get out of his overalls. When they asked him what was wrong, he yelled out that a centipede was crawling up his leg. It was a struggle getting his overalls off over his boots, but when he managed it he discovered that the “centipede” was actually a head of wheat that had gotten stuck next to his leg. 

If Don had a favorite uncle, it would have been his uncle Les, Lester Morse, who was married to Grandmother’s sister Imogene, or “Imo.” As a boy, Don admired prize fighters. His heroes were boxers like Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney, and he especially idolized the professional wrestler they used to call “Strangler” Lewis. Don’s fascination with Uncle Les probably arose from the fact that Les had been a carnival strong man during his youth. When the carnival came to a town, Les would take on all comers. For a dollar you could get in the ring with him, and if you stayed there for three minutes you could win five dollars. 

Uncle Les really was strong. Don said that he could load a 500 pound bale of cotton onto a truck single handedly. He’d put a hook under one of the metal bands around the bale, then hoist it onto his back and up on the truck.

Les didn’t farm. He owned the ice house and the filling station in town, and for a while I think he was the postmaster. In spite of Uncle Les’ experience as a fighter, Don said he never saw him actually fight anyone. The closest he came was one day when a guy who was hanging around the filling station started throwing his weight around. Les told him to settle down, and so the guy challenged Les to a fight. Les ignored the challenge, but the man wouldn’t leave him alone, so finally Les just twisted his arm up behind his back, dragged him over to the water hydrant, and hosed him down.  

Uncle Les taught Don how to box too, and Don became his protégé. Every weekend when the farmers and their families came into town for supplies, Les would host boxing matches out behind his filling station. This time it was Don who took on all comers. He fought all the tough farm boys in the county. Don got so good that Les tried to talk him into becoming a professional boxer.  

Probably the most exciting adventure that Don had with his uncle Les was one day when they went together to deliver ice. Don was just a small boy at the time, and he felt pretty special getting to go out with his uncle on his deliveries. Just a few miles north of town there was a pretty big hill, and since the truck was fully loaded, its gears were straining by the time they got to the top. The truck picked up speed on the way down the other side of the hill, so Les started pulling on the brake, a lever that extended up through the floor, but the truck didn’t slow down. Something was wrong. Les pulled harder and harder, but the brake was stuck. He had to slow the truck down, because going straight wasn’t an option. At the bottom of the hill was the Canadian River, and there was no bridge. Les knew that the weight of the ice could easily turn the truck over. As the truck went faster and faster Les pulled on the brake with both hands. Finally, unable withstand Les= great strength, the brake lever just came off in his hands. Don said the truck leaned over to one side as they turned the corner, but they didn=t go into the river.

 

(Sorry, I don't have a picture of Uncle Les)

 

 

 

Fay Memories

(This is my dad’s contribution to Fay’s Centennial book of 1994.)

Some of my fondest memories are of the times spent in Fay, Oklahoma, during the summers and holidays. I am Donald Gunning, and I was born in Fay, February 25, 1915, to my parents, R. B. Gunning and Jessie Boyd Gunning. My father was a barber in Fay for four or five years, then we moved to Enid. 

My mother was the oldest daughter of Grant Boyd and Laura Cavey Boyd. She had four sisters: Eva Boyd Tower, Imogene Boyd Morse, Alta Boyd Wilson and Ruth Boyd Litsch; and two brothers: Gene Boyd, Check and twins who died at birth. 

My grandparents lived in a two story brick house one half mile west of Fay. My grandfather and a neighbor Katey Jones made the bricks and built this house about 1904. Grant Boyd’s parents made the Oklahoma Run with four sons and one daughter, and they all staked claims in Dewey County close to Fay. For a few years Grant and Laura Boyd also ran a boarding house located west of the Daddy Gillespie Livery Barn. In those days passenger trains and freight trains came through Fay daily and railroad men and salesmen stayed overnight.  

Charley Parks had the first car, a Model-T in town and everyone wanted to see it and ride in it. He would take people to Watonga and back for 25 cents. They couldn’t drive to Thomas because there was no river bridge.  

                           Beulah, Lloyd and Luvern Widney

                              fording South Canadian River

 

 

Note: Watonga was 12 miles away. Thomas was also about 12 miles but it was on the other side of the Canadian River and the nearest bridges across the river were at Taloga and Bridgeport, each about 30 miles away, so the trip to Thomas was 60 miles by road. People would ford the river when it was low. A Mr. Delaney operated a fording service and would pull your buggy across the river for $1.00. If you tried to ford the river on your own and got stuck, the price went up to $5.00. When the Sam Hawks Bridge was finally built in 1934 to connect Fay and Thomas - This was Don’s first year in college – the opening ceremony attracted 10,000 people. Will Rogers was among the speakers.  

Here is a picture of Justin Boyd and some of the other workers during the construction of the bridge.

 

 

Justin Boyd with Mule Team

 

 

After the Fay bank was robbed, the merchants all decided to each buy a high-powered rifle for protection. The salesman told them the gun was so powerful it could shoot through a railroad rail. Tom McAlister and some of his friends decided this claim should be tested so they took one of the rifles down to the tracks and tried it out. The bullet didn’t go through the rail, but it did ricochet and hit Tom in the forearm. The arm healed, and Tom never bothered to have the bullet removed.  

My parents were married in Fay in a double-wedding ceremony with Newell and Eula Boyd. Newell and Eula had four boys: Keith, Wayne, Wilbur and Edward. My parents had four boys: Boyd, Don, Everett and J. E.. Boyd graduated from O.U with a law degree and served 37 months in the Pacific Theater of World War II as a captain in the artillery. He returned to O.U. and worked for the University for 40 years. Don graduated from O.U. with a degree in accounting and worked for Boeing six years and for the Standard Oil Company of Ohio for 37 years. Everett joined the Navy after high school and was on the battleship Oklahoma when it was sunk in Pearl Harbor. How he survived is memorialized in a book entitled "Trapped at Pearl Harbor" by Stephen Young. Everett survived the war and worked for Southwestern Bell Telephone for 30 years. J.E. graduated from O.U. with a degree in accounting. He served in the Navy during World War II, then returned to Enid and managed Gray’s clothing store. He later managed several other clothing stores and is currently working for Dillards.  

Submitted by Donald Gunning  

The most surprising thing to me about my dad’s contribution to Fay’s Centennial book is that the story he related is new to me. I thought I had heard all his stories. The bank robbery he refers to is described elsewhere in the book. Two of his uncles, Check Boyd and Les Morse, were at the bank when it was robbed. Don would have been 14 at the time.

               Chester Boyd (L) and D. P. Karns at Fay State Bank.

                On left is vault into which they were forced along with

              Mrs. Karns and Lester Morse during the robbery of 1929. 

 

The owners of the bank were Mr. and Mrs. D. P. Karns. Working there was Chester Boyd. One day in the year 1929 this bank was robbed. A robber came in when the bank was at a full days work. The robber had a gun in his hand and told Mr. and Mrs. Karns and Chester to hand over the $1200 that was in the bank. About that time Lester Morse walked in. the robber told him to hold up his hands and get over with the others. Then the robber told them to get in the vault and wait for 20 minutes. Because Mrs. Karns could open the vault they just waited for ten minutes. The robber drove off in a black roadster. Mr. and Mrs. Karns, Chester and Lester got in their car and went after him, but didn’t catch him.  

Later Mr. and Mrs. Karns, Chester and Lester went to Tulsa to identify some robbers and one was the robber of Fay State Bank.  

Jay Minton (nephew of Chester Boyd and Lester Morse)

 

Fay

No story of my dad’s life would be complete without a large part devoted to Fay, Oklahoma. There’s no way that I can do justice to this remarkable little community, but I’ll have to try.  

Don’s home was Enid, Oklahoma, where my grandfather worked as a barber, but Grandmother was from Fay, and most of her family still lived there. She visited as often as she could, and of course when she went she took her sons along with her. I was raised on stories about Fay, about my dad’s aunts, uncles and cousins. After Don got out of grade school he spent his summers in Fay, working for one of his uncles, on the farm or in town at the filling station.   

Fay would seem to be just an ordinary farming community, inhabited by hard working men and women trying to make a living and raise their families, but it had a fascination for my dad that made it seem almost magical, and he transmitted that feeling to me. 

When I was in college at the University of Oklahoma, Bud, one of my cousins from Fay, was also in school there studying engineering. He was a year or two ahead of me and I’ll never forget a conversation I had with him just before his graduation. He told me that he couldn’t go on in engineering, because he’d have to move away from his home and his family, so after going all the way through the engineering school, he changed his major to education, and went back home to work as a teacher in Thomas, just a short distance from his father’s farm. He became principal of the junior high school there, and that’s where he lives today.  

The other kids from Fay were the same way. My uncle Boyd, who spent his summers in Fay like my dad, worked for the University of Oklahoma, and it was a standing joke that he couldn’t get any one from Fay to go to OU. They all went to Southwestern, a junior college closer to Fay. Actually Bud was the first to attend OU, but now you know how that turned out.

 

    Boyd in Fay Band (standing between two drummers), about 1925

 

It has always intrigued me that the kids from Fay were so reluctant to leave. Maybe it’s something about farming, about working with the soil. My dad felt it too. He spent his life living in a city working for an oil company, but he told me once that he wished he had an acreage, just a small piece of land where he could go and putter around, plant a garden and some crops. He always grew flowers and vegetables in our yard, even when I was little. I used to hate his rose bushes because I would scratch myself on their thorns while I was playing.  

My mother also understood the virtues of farm life. I recently ran across a paper she wrote while she was in College in the school of social work. The paper is about Garvin County, the community where she was raised. In it she describes how farm families have a low divorce rate. She concluded that it was because everyone on a farm has to pitch in and work together, and this makes their conflicts seem less important. I think there must be something to that.  

Still, there has always been something special about Fay, and the Boyd family. I know a little bit about the Fay’s history, both from what Don told me, and from a book written in 1994, on the occasion of Fay’s centennial celebration.  

The area around Fay, north of the Canadian River, was first settled by white men during the land run of 1892. The town wasn’t named until a federal post office was placed there in 1894. When the railroad was built in 1903, it only came within one and a quarter miles of the town so the town was moved. Some of the buildings were torn down and reassembled and others were pulled by teams of horses over bridge pilings laid end to end.  

Back then Fay was a bustling town with several hotels, cafes, bars, a  grocery and dry goods store, a blacksmith shop, livery, bank, cotton gin, stockyards, a telegraph office and three newspapers. My great grandparents, Grant and Laura Boyd, came from St. Joseph, Mo. In 1893 or 4 and bought their farm west of Fay for $35, the price of a train ticket home for the man who had unsuccessfully homesteaded there after the run. They also ran a hotel. (see my post of Jan. 13, 2013)  

 

 

                                     Fay during the early 1900’s. 

 

Probably Fay’s earliest claim to fame was Joe Gillespie, who won a 1000 mile horse race in 1893. Joe was working as a cowboy breaking horses in Nebraska when some businessmen decided to organize a horse race from Chadron, Nebraska, to Chicago, Illinois, where Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show was scheduled to perform. Doc Middleton, a Nebraska horse thief, wanted to enter the race, and he asked Joe to be his guide since Joe knew the Nebraska countryside.  

After a few days, Doc fell behind from spending too much time in bars along the way, and so Joe Gillespie decided to finish the race on his own. He had two horses, Billy Shaffer and Billy Mack. Someone gave Billy Mack an extra bucket of oats along the way and foundered him, so Joe had to go on with only Billy Shaffer. Joe was six feet tall and 180 pounds, bigger than most of the other riders, so he would get off and run to give the horse some relief. When he got too tired to run, he held onto Billy Shaffer’s tail and slid along on his feet until his boot soles wore through. Joe won the race and the prize of a Colt 44 six-shooter, a new saddle and two hundred dollars. Joe and his wife stayed with Buffalo Bill’s show until it left the country to tour Europe. They decided not to travel overseas, and to move to Oklahoma where they settled in Fay.   

Billy Shaffer was always spoken of like one of the family, and Joe’s grandson, Harold Comer, who recorded his grandfather’s story, said that he was six or seven years old before he found out that Billy Shaffer was actually a horse. Billy is buried near Fay.

 

 

                           Joe Gillespie (L) and Billy Shaefer (Center).

Don

 

Don Gunning, age 10, 1925

 

 

This is a picture of Don Gunning, my father, at the age of 10. I don’t know where the picture was taken, but seeing the black eye and his rumpled hair, I’ve always imagined that it was taken after one of his fights to defend his friend Lloyd Zuck from the neighborhood bullies. The photo is one of my prize possessions.