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 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.
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.
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