Edna Mae Durrett

Early Life

Edna Mae was born March 25, 1918 in the El Reno Sanitarium (what they called the hospital back then), El Reno, Oklahoma to Olive (Carlton) Seamands and Clarence Leske Seamands “Dutch”. Edna was the third of three girls. Mother Olive lost her first baby which was buried in the family plot at the Red Rock Cemetery, near Calumet, Oklahoma. Dutch named Edna after his first cousin Edna May Seamands (later Crane) who visited from Iowa occasionally. The next baby Virginia Ailene Seamands was born on July 12, 1916, then Edna and later little sister Ruth Lorraine Seamands, born on July 24, 1919.

When Olive and Dutch got married, they lived with her mother Phoebe (Frazier) Carlton who had been a widow for years on the Carlton Farm, 8 miles east of El Reno. The 3 girls were born to them but then mother Olive was diagnosed with cancer of the throat and shortly before she died in 1922 she miscarried twins, a boy and a girl, Dutch would have also had the son. Edna didn’t remember much about Olive since she was so young when she died except that she would make angel food cakes for them and to share with neighbors. It took a dozen egg whites and she remembered Olive standing in the kitchen whipping those eggs by hand until stiff white peaks formed.

Edna’s nickname was “Siso” but she was only called that by Virginia and Dutch. When Virginia met her new little sister she tried to say “sister” and it came out “Siso” and it stuck.

There was no fireplace in the farmhouse. They had an iron pot-bellied stove that heated the living room. The girls would hover around it when the north wind was blowing as the old farmhouse had no insulation.

Edna had only one birthday party when she was 10 years old in March, 1928. It was held at the Red Rock Church and all the children in the community were there. There was cake and home-made ice cream which was always her wonderful. Only present Edna remembers was from her cousin Sam Thompson, Aunt Hattie’s son, and it was a cup and saucer. The saucer got broken but she still has the cup.

Later that year Dutch married Marie (Laughlin) Davison, a divorcee (a scandal in those days, but he was a violent man) on 1 Sept 1928 in Oklahoma City. She had a daughter Sibyl Viviene Davidson who was also 10 years old at the time, and was one month and 5 days younger than Edna. Sibyl had allergies and couldn’t work outside, so she cooked in the kitchen and also loved to sing. Sometimes she would just belt out a tune.

The Dutch, Marie and the 3 girls then moved to the Leske farm, which they rented from Uncle Charlie Leske (Mary, Dutchs moms brother). It was later inherited by his three daughters, Laura (Leske) Costigan, and twins Lola and Rose Leske. The house faced Old Route 66, just West of El Reno 7 miles and was called the “Mother Road”. Dutch and Marie added Clarita “Rita” Kathleen to the family on 13 October 1930 and then baby girl Donna Louise on 14 April, 1932. Rose Leske later sold the farm to Henry Jo Von Tungeln that married the baby sister Donna.

Life on the farm in those times was hard and wonderful at the same time. They were dirt poor like most in those days, but they always had food with chickens and eggs, cows and a nice garden.

The Seamands farm always had a lot of relatives who came to visit, eat and enjoy their family with a lot of activity. Mother Marie had a piano and could play quite well, many hours were spent singing and playing piano. Sometimes we’d go down to Aunt Hattie’s (Marie’s sister), she had a piano and played too, then mother Laughlin (step-grandmother) would have all her children gather around her and they would sing hymns together.

Edna said “We had a radio set that became a neighborhood source of entertainment. Only one person could listen at a time because it could only be heard through ear phones. My dad liked listening to boxing and Gene Tunney was a favorite boxer of his. When the family wanted to listen to something or neighbors came by to listen, the head set would be passed around so everyone could hear for a little while. In his younger days, Dutch played baseball. Dutch had one of the first generators, a Delco that could light one lightbulb and run the washing machine. And later one of the first combines. The family and neighbors always would help one another get their wheat fields harvested. If it looked like rain that would work in the fields until they were finished.

We had a “Kelvinator” ice box when I was about 12. It ran on gas and it kept food cold but didn’t make ice very fast.

I got a spanking one time. Daddy had asked us to water the chickens and we forgot and played and when he ame hom the chickens were about to die so I got a spanking. I also got one in about 3rd or 4th grade when we girls couldn’t qit talking. The teacher swatted us with a switch. I remember Christmas parties on Christmas Eve at the Red Rock Church and we had a big pretty tree and Santa came and would give us net sacks full of oranges, applies, nuts and hard candy, this was before dad married Marie. Later we had our own Christmas tree we decorated by stringing cranberries and popcorn and any other little trinkets we could make. We slept upstairs and it was so cold up there; one Christmas I got a pair of pink flannel pajamas which were warm and I was so thrilled with them. Kids have too much now a days.

We lived on the farm through the depression but the great drought and dust storms of that time did not affect us as much as other parts of the state. We did have piles of dirt that would filter through the closed windows and used bandanas over our mouth and noses when we saw great dark clouds of dirt coming. I remember mother putting strips of paper in all the cracks around the windows and doors, but it didn’t help much. Dad never considered moving west like the other Okies. We had enough to eat on our farm so we stayed where we were. I remember people coming to the door and asking for food or work; they were hungry and you could see it in their eyes. Mother would fry eggs and set a big turkey platter of eggs out on the table with a pitcher of skim milk and they would sit out on the back step and eat. This was where Steinbeck got his idea to write the “Grapes of Wrath”. One never forgets the look in the eye of someone hungry. The price we could get at the market for a dozen eggs was about five cents a dozen and my mother believed feeding hungry people was a better use of the eggs.

We saw many people heading west in front of our house during the depression. Their cars would be loaded with mattresses, ladders, pots and pans and other household goods. Route 66 was gravel in front of our house until the early thirties when it was paved. When it would rain cars and trucks sometimes would get stuck in the mud and people would come to our door asking for help or to use the phone. Not everyone had a phone, but we did. Dad would get out the tractor and pull them free of the mud. He was always ready to help in any way he could and unexpected and unknown visitors were always welcome. He was very kind and he rarely got mad or shouted. With 6 girls in the family – we enjoyed spoiling him.”

Dutch had one of the first generators, a Delco that could light one lightbulb and run the washing machine. And later one of the first combines.

Edna said she had very fond memories of her maternal Grandmother Phoebe Carlton as she “such a good soul”. She had to take care of them after Olive died when their dad was farming during the day. Edna said she and Virginia and Ruth were “so wild, we’d hang onto the edge of the barn and go to the top of the roof, on the ridge caps; we’d squat down and go over the shingles, bumpily bump until we landed on top of the cow shed and we’d go back and do it all over again. We had slick leather soles on our shoes which made us go very fast. Grandmother would be down there ringing her hands, “oh please children come down”. We replied that “but Grandmother we’ll be okay” and we’d just go back up and do it again, it was such fun! We were all very fond of her.”

Phebe was living by herself when she got ill and Aunt Mamie (grandmother Mary’s younger half-sister) came and took care of her until she passed on 8 February 1930. Edna remembered her daddy coming in and telling her “Oh, Siso, your grandmother just died”; he told her first since he knew how fond she was of her grandmother. Phebe had a glass eye, you couldn’t tell unless she was moving the other one because it looked so real; and she used to take it out at night and put it in a glass of water. She was a wonderful person, she was good, kind, and every body loved her.

Virginia started calling Grandmother Phebe Carlton, “Ma” and when Dutch’s mother, Mary (Leske) Seamands (later McKissack) came to visit, Virginia called her the “other Ma” and it stuck with all the grandkids. Other Ma was a good cook. When she came to visit, the family was so glad to see her. She would make homemade noodles and dry them on the chair and cook a fat chicken and then cook the noodles in the broth. It was WONDERFUL. She also made a hard candy; that she boiled and boiled, cooking a long time and then put nuts in it; it was very hard and it took a long time to chew it.

Daddy’s father David Alfred Seamands died when daddy was only 2 or 3 in Jackson County, Iowa. They owned a farm and David worked with his brother in his general store. When he died quite suddenly of pneumonia, Mary sold the farm and took the two young boys on the train to Louisiana where they were giving away homestead land. It would be yours if you proved up the land by digging a well and building a house. Her father, Karl (immigrating from Germany in 1852) was widowed and agreed to go help her. There is information that he didn’t trust the trains so he went on “foot” or horseback from Iowa to Louisiana to help his daughter and grandsons out and it took him 3 months to get there.

Mary (Leske) Seamands later married Jeremiah McKissack. She had two children by him, Anna May and John B. McKissack. Other Ma had a boarding house and a food place in Burkburnett, Texas (or Iowa Park, Texas) and oilfield workers would almost knock down the door to get her good food. Edna remembers some of them would drink sour or clabbered milk. Dutch took the 3 girls there to visit her once and before they left grandmother Phebe cooked them up a big platter of chicken to eat on the way. One time Edna got into Aunt Anna Mays makeup and put lipstick all over her lips. When they called her downstairs for dinner, everyone knew she had been in her makeup! Anna May married twice but had no children, she and her second husband Bill Priest owned a Beauty Supply Store. Anna Mae had her pilots license. Uncle John was spoiled by his rich Aunt, who gave him every thing; he wasn’t too ambitious and didn’t work much. He married and had one boy who was named John McKissack, Jr.

Edna said “we were fortunate having three grandmothers all at one time; Marie’s mother Lydia Westfall Laughlin (a tiny woman); Mary (Leske, Seamands) McKissack “Other Ma”; and Phebe (Frazier) Carlton or “Ma”.

Some 2 years after Marie and Dutch were married; they were blessed with Clarita Kathleen Seamands, born on 13 October 1930 and then Donna Louise Seamands, born 14 April 1932. Edna said “Daddy now had 6 girls! Boy was he outnumbered, but he held his own quite well. He used to make peach brandy out of the left over peach peels from canning and when all the sisters were married and he had his “sons” he would cut his eyes and the “council” would go down into the root cellar and all get a nip of his brandy.”

Ruth, Sibyl and Edna all sang in the Glee Club. They attended Oaks Elementary School out in the country that had one room with one teacher teaching all grades. When they built a new school the old one room building was taken to their farm and used as an outbuilding. When the girls were older “we could take a buggy to school with our horse “Old Gladys”. We then attended El Reno High School and when we were seniors Sibyl and I drove an old Chevy to school with bad brakes. We had to park it on a flat area so it didn’t roll away. We also had to push it and pop the clutch to start it up. But we were glad to have it!”

HIGHER EDUCATION

Edna and Sibyl graduated from El Reno High School in 1935. Virginia was the first to go to college at Oklahoma College for Women in Chickasha and lived in the dorm the first two years. Sibyl and Edna followed Virginia they rented a house near the college and Lydia Laughlin (Marie’s mom) was sent to keep house and chaperone them. They rented one room to two other girls who helped pay the rent. The family would bring milk, eggs and meat to the house to help pay for their keep. Sibyl and Edna were there only one year when they enrolled in Oklahoma A & M (now called Oklahoma State University). They rented a duplex and again grandmother joined them. Virginia moved back to the dorm and stayed at OCW.

Virginia’s best friend was Bonnie Bille (pronounced Bell) Buther (later Buchanan). Bonnie Bell was around for all the years and at all the big events. She was quite a character!

Sibyl met Ed Johnson and by the end of the year they decided to get married. They had a wedding outside in late August before they returned to school and Marie made them promise to finish their education if they married. Ed finished, had a low paying job so Marie subsidized them with food from home. Sibyl got pregnant before she finished and Lloyd was born there in Stillwater. She was taking Home Economics and Lloyd was taken care of at their nursery while she attended classes.

Sibyls marriage changed Edna’s plans. She was studying shorthand, typing, and office procedures so she enrolled at Hill’s Business College in Oklahoma City on W. Main Street. She met a longtime friend Armilda there at the school and an Alpha IOTA Sorority sister. She graduated highest in her class and went to work for Love and Law a food brokerage firm. She was there 2 ½ years but the government jobs paid more so she went to work at the Federal Housing Administration. This was where she met John Durrett.

JOHN DURRETT

A very handsome building inspector named John Durrett came into the office to leave his weekly report. They were immediately attracted to each other. This was in July of 1941.

He worked out of town alot inspecting houses and was spending time in Lawton because Ft. Sill had been reactivated for more soldiers and they were building new houses and barracks. Finally one day he asked her if he could drive her home after work. They stopped at the Veazey Drug store and had a coke on the way to get to know each other better.

Edna said “I think our first date was going to a movie or a football game. I remember John took me to Norman to an OU football game. It started raining and we ran to the car then got blocked in the parking lot. So we sat in the car and listened to the game on the radio! I didn’t know that much about football because we were too poor to go to any high school games when we were growing up.

I had looked into joining the war effort and enlisting in the WAVES (women in the navy). When I told John this, he asked me to marry him just after that, I guess he was afraid I’d go off to war and he’d loose me, one way or the other.”

Edna was out at the farm visiting her family and John called wanting to know when she was coming back to OKC. She invited him out to the farm to pick her up. There he met the family. She doesn’t remember who was there but there was a lot of the family there at the farm house that day. It was scary and exciting all at the same time, but he immediately fit right in to the family.

When Dutch would go play pitch in Calumet, John would go with him. John didn’t grow up playing pitch, so he didn’t play very well. This was a card game and they didn’t play for money. They played in the back of a grocery store in Calumet. “ I remember one Thanksgiving daddy won 3 turkeys and gave one to Aunt Hattie.”

MARRIAGE AND THE WAR

Edna remembered “the summer we met was July 1941 and war was starting in Europe. In December the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and that started World War II for the United States. The next day after the bombing, President Franklin Roosevelt declared a state of war. John was working for the US Engineers in Tulsa where he had enlisted to fly with the Glider Program as he was a bit too old for flying in the service.

We got married in the base chapel at the South Plains Army Base (now a museum) in Lubbock, Texas on March 3, l943. The government decided there were too many glider pilots and asked the ones who had not graduated to sign up for something else. John signed up to enter US Engineers. His old class graduated and went overseas. We waited and waited for them to announce his enrollment in the Engineers and finally they put him back in the glider program as apparently they lost his file while he was waiting! He was with a good group of fellows from all over US and we had good relationship with most of them.

I found a room and stayed in Lubbock until locating a 3-bedroom house and rented it with another couple. The house had belonged to a man who owned a leather-saddle shop, and when his wife died and he remarried his second wife didn’t want anything—that’s why we were so lucky to get it. There were all kinds of things left for us to use: pots and pans, dishes, furniture, beds, etc. While we were living there and before John graduated the group was sent to Sheperd Air Force Base in Wichita Falls. There we also found a house to live in with another couple.

What a remember most about the few weeks we were in Wichita Falls was that the city water tasted like it had fish, sulphur and other sundry things in it. They were building a new lake and it wasn’t finished. Anyway, we went back to Lubbock and John graduated in the spring of 1942. We then boarded a train for N. Carolina for John to take the advanced glider flying. The town was Laurenburg, North Carolina and everything was fixing up all they could to take advantage of getting a bit more rent. We found a room to rent in a nice house, but our bedroom had originally been the dining room with a set of double glass doors and curtains into the house. The woman owner who lived there had added a bathroom with shower at end of hall for all the renters to use. She had cats in the house and we had to watch where we stepped!

Somehow, I don’t remember how, we heard of a duplex as another owner wanted to take advantage of the soldiers so she rented the duplex and moved in with her mother in law. The couple who moved in with us was in John’s group, was married and had a baby girl—Partricia and Pat Flagarety. Their baby took their first steps in that apt. It was such a HOT summer and since water was not too reliable (days before bottled water like we have now) and Army had all the soldiers wives also take diphtheria shots—three of them a week apart. I remember that I was sluggish and worn out from these shots.

The men eventually graduated from that school in the spring of l942 and we were sent to Fort Wayne, Indiana where we waited for them to be deployed overseas. One soldier was sending his car (A coupe) to Indiana to his parents home while he was overseas so I drove one car while the other was driven by another soldiers wife from Michigan. En-route we stopped in Indiana at Mariette’s moms house to get something before we went on to Ft Wayne. While we were we received information that our husbands train would be in the station for breakfast. How exciting! We would see our men again before they left for war!

We rushed to the tracks and kept hopping over one set of tracks to another until we saw the train come in. Some of them were hanging out windows and were quite dirty from the train soot. When they got off some man said ”GP (Glider Pilot) wives; I bet we see them in England too”. Anyway we had breakfast with our husbands, which was so exciting since we didn’t know if we would see them again after leaving North Carolina until after the war.

Then we drove on to Fort Wayne and delivered the car. We waited to hear from the men and finally Wanda Dalton got word from her husband first (she always was the first). Another man in the group was a General’s son. The soldiers were given a 7 day leave before going to overseas duty, but we didn’t have enough money to go back home so we called Norm Roseman, a former member of the group who was discharged because of stomach ulcers.

When he heard of our plight, we were invited to spend the time with them in Oberlin, Ohio.

Norm’s parents were little short German people and so nice. The dad had a route moving mail from one city to another and we had told them when we would arrive in Cleveland. Before we got to Cleveland a man got on the train calling our name. When he found us, he introduced himself as Norm’s father and we got off there which was closer to their home.

So John and I stayed at Norm’s house and we had a great time. Norm and his wife, a girl from Kansas, were our roommates in the house in Lubbock so we were well acquainted. We played croquet a lot and I beat Norm’s daddy and Norm just chuckled and chucked as none of them could beat him. We also went into Cleveland to a night club one night. Later John and I got back on the train and returned to Fort Wayne where he went back to base and I went back to the hotel with the women. We only saw the boys one or two more times. This is where I had the two pictures of John in his dress uniform made.

The boys left and went to embark from New York City and their ship rammed into another ship so they had to unload and move to a hotel for night. They went to a night club (one Barbara Walters father owned, can’t think of the name of it though it was famous). Wanda Dalton called me later to tell me of their mishap; as usual she got the word and passed it around. So much for the secrecy of troop movement!

I got a train ride to Oklahoma City. The train was very crowded and some of us had to sit on our suitcases part of the way. When I arrived daddy picked me up and I decided to stay at the farm for a while and until it cooled off before looking for a job.

During this stay is when we got word that Richard Frank (Ruth’s husband) was missing in action. That was on a Monday, and the next Monday word came that his body was found. It was such a sad time as little Richard “Corky” was not quite two years old. The military had been flying a C-47 over the Himalayans into Burma with supplies. Evidently his plane went down on the mountain and the army had locals who found the wrecked plane and bodies. They advised they had found and buried him and returned the diamond ring and his billfold with his name burned on it to be returned with his other personal things. He had visited the Taj Mahal and had a plaster model of the layout but it was all smashed up when Ruth received his personal belongings. The trip into Burma was supplies for General Shanault.

I looked for a job and found one as secretary to an assistant boss with the War Food Administration. This was the department that originally started the lunch meals in the schools and was administered by a woman in our department. Also, during the war men could get temporary permits to butcher cattle as it was needed for more meat locally and for troops. I did a lot of letters and work on this.

I continued to work for the War Food Administration until John got home. I went to luncheons for war wives in in the Oklahoma Club downtown but I had to take annual leave for a few hours to do so. We didn’t have TV then but listened to radio a lot and remember the day of a big invasion which said “every where were wrecked gliders with bodies and equipment about. It was a very difficult day not knowing if John was in one of them.

I found out later that at the time the planes took off and left for France, he and Bob Doane were on leave for a week-end. They saw a General who commented “you boys should get back to base as you are due for a mission.” When they got back to barracks, all the planes and pilots were gone and their foot lockers and bed pads were rolled up. The orderly said “If anyone gets sick or we need someone else you are it”. John woke up the next morning and Doane was gone and he was the only one in the barracks. He felt badly that he hadn’t participated with his group or with the invasion that he had prepared for during training.

There were several other times when they had checked in the footlockers and were ready for a mission only to have it called off because General George Patton and his soldiers moved so fast. “

John Ewin Durrett received three bronze stars during his time in the Army. After the war was over John had a glider plane in Marie’s pasture at the farm that a bull took exception to and tore it up. He never got another plane but several in the family flew and had pilots licenses. Virginia and Anna May.

Dutch and Marie moved to a farm in Kansas which I think may have been in the family. (Possibly David Carlton’s as he and Phebe lived in Kansas). Dutch had a massive heart attack on the farm and died in 1948.

CHILDREN – life after war

John, Jr was born in Texarkana, Arkansas on March 16, 1945 while John was getting discharged from the Army. John got home from England bringing presents in the spring of 1946 and Edna met him in Tulsa. This is when he decided to go into business with his brother Jack. So they moved to Stigler.

Dina Marie was born Oct 25, 1950 in the hospital in Oklahoma City, but they were still living in Stigler while John worked in eastern Oklahoma with his family, Edna was missing hers. She convinced John that they could move closer to the farm to Oklahoma City. So they did around 1954 or 1955.

During Edna’s entire life she was very close to her family and sisters. There were 16 children born to these sisters and most would congregate at the farm on the weekends.

Except the Little’s (Virginia & Everett) who lived overseas for many years, but they would come and visit and there would be a big party. Imagine the gang all meeting at the farm house at the same time, with all the adults and Marie would have been 29. Then add the friends that would also drop by and it was quite a group. The kids would run outside and play; the parents all brought food to share and they would lay out the feast. They would drink coffee and play bridge while the kids found ways to entertain themselves.

Henry Jo and Donna bought the Leske farm when the last Leske sister died. He owned a herd of milk cows and of course they continued growing wheat. Henry Jo at one time was head of the Wheat Commission and he wouldmake as many as 600 loavaes of bread at a time for fundraisers or to just give away. He would always give the sisters two loaves of bread when they visited, which was almost every weekend. We all had very fond memories of hours spent at the farm. Was of the biggest events was the July 4th celebration. There would be a big feast with homemade ice cream that the kids would have to take turns cranking. There was every explosive available purchased and blown up all day long. When the sun went down all the adults would come out and line up the lawn chairs. The aerials would fly; the roman candles; pinwheels; bottle rockets. Many a pyro was created on the 4th at the farm!

Edna worked as a part time secretary until the kids were out of school then took a full time job with the Governor’s office. The kids had many activities. Johnny played baseball and was in Boy Scouts. Dina danced, took piano lessons and was in Blue Birds.

Johnny became a Pharmacist and married Wylene and they had two beautiful daughters who have now married and had a total of 5 great grandkids for Edna to love.

Dina married Jeremy Beattie in 1980 and had two handsome sons who have also married.

She later was the caregiver to John who developed Parkinsons Disease and sadly he passed away in January of 1995.

Edna lived independently at their house in Oklahoma City until she was 90 years old when she had a horrific wreck pulling her Crown Victoria out in front of a fully loaded dump truck. She had many injuries but none were life threatening, but spent a couple of months in the hospital and rehab. When she returned to her home, without a car, Edna tried various modes of transportation per the kids insistence only to receive a letter from the DMV that they wanted to revoke her license. No WAY, she thought, how will I get around?

So she took a cab to the DMV who showed her the complaint filed by John, Jr…which of course angered her and she disputed the charge. So to keep her drivers license, she had to have two Doctors approvals that she was physically fit; an eye exam; written and driving tests which she passed all with flying colors. She then went and bought a car. So you see Edna was stubborn and independent.

A year later she decided she would like to move into an Independent Living apartment and was there for over 5 years when she broke her up and had to move to Assisted Living.

Edna was an avid reader and belonging to many book clubs, a lifelong Kappa Delta Sister, a member of the Lynwood United Methodist Church, Meals on Wheels, travelled with her sisters extensively and back and forth to California to visit Dina’s family; was involved with the Glider Pilots Association and various Parkinsons support groups. She was also very artistic and a great cook. Her strawberry jam was famous!

Edna always had such a positive and cheerful attitude. She was a practicing Christian her entire life and spent many hours working with the church, driving with meals on wheels and doing various bible studies. The Lord truly blessed her with many happy and fruitful years and we who are left behind will someday meet her again.

Services will be on Monday Sept 14 at 10:30 am at Bill Merritt Funeral Service in Bethany, who will live stream the service on Facebook.