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Jesse Payton Parkey
This is a brief but true story of the life of Jesse Payton Parkey written by his son Millard Huston Parkey. Jesse Payton Parkey was born January 27, 1878 at Whetstone near Snell Post Office and
died February 8, 1920. He married Mary Alice Sears in 1897 at Poplarville, Kentucky. Mary
Alice Sears was born March 6, 1883 and died April 28, 1965. To this union four children were born as follows:
1. Rev. Ollie Alford Parkey, Somerset, Kentucky, born 1900.
2. Millard Huston Parkey, Route #6, Box #406, Somerset, Kentucky, born 1902.
3. Ethel May Parkey Daniel, Monticello, Kentucky, born 1906.
4. Hattie Lizzie Parkey Randall,Indianapolis, Indiana, born 1908.
Jesse Payton Parkey was called "Pate" by most people at that time. He was a hard
working man, by trade a farmer, carpenter and merchant. For several years he worked in the
timber a lot. When he was young, probably in his teens, while loading an old time cap and
ball pistol, sitting putting in the powder and "tow" - a material used to tamp the powder into the cylinder of the pistol - having the powder and bullets pressed into the cylinder and the cap put on the powder tube with the gun resting on his left leg after completing the loading process, he released the hammer on the cap and it discharged. One bullet went into his left
knee and one penetrated his right hand slightly. The bullet in the knee was,, not removed until several years later. It was around 1918 while building his new house, which now belongs to Howard Hargis, my father was carrying lumber on his shoulder walking across the floor joists before the floor was put down, stepping from one joist to another, he accidentally missed one joist and fell. In falling his leg which had been wounded before went down beside one of the joists tearing the knee cap mostly off. Daddy had to have surgery on his knee.
The surgery was performed by Dr. Irvin Farmer and he was assisted by Dr. Ratliff. They thought it best to remove the bullet that had been in his knee so long while the cap was torn loose. The doctors seemed to think if the bullet was removed there might be a chance to loosen the knee joint which had been stiff for so long - about twenty years. The bullet was removed and is now in the possession of his son Ollie. My father remained a cripple the remainder of his life.
Daddy never accumulated much wealth in his lifetime. But, as has often been said, a
rolling stone never gathers much moss, we never remained very long at one place. We lived at Clifty. Ano, Kentucky was our post office when the three oldest children Ollie, Millard and Ethel were born. Hattie was born at Colo, Kentucky. We lived in Poplarville about two years. We moved from Clifty to Colo, near the Clay Hill Church.
While there my father farmed, as we children were too small to be of much help, he also helped build the Tramway as it was called. It was a railway leading from the coal mine a short way from where we lived. They used a small steam engine which was called a "Dinkey" which pulled four or five coal cars which would be loaded up at the mines and taken down the Tramway to the coal yard near the Pitman Greek bridge, near where the Ruth Post Office is presently located. There the coal was unloaded near the roadside to be hauled to different places. A larger part was taken to Somerset and sold there. It was hauled in wagons for there were not many, if any, trucks in the year of 1909. Many changes have been made in the Colo Community since the time we lived there.
In the spring of 1910 my Daddy, after selling the farm which is now owned by Elmer Erp near Clay Hill, moved his family to Grandfield, Oklahoma. There he rented a farm about fourteen miles northeast of Grandfield. It was here that he met with misfortune. He had planted corn and cotton and the season was very favorable. One mid-summer afternoon, when the corn was about knee high and the cotton was near the same height and in full bloom, a dark cloud arose in the east. My Daddy and Mother gathered up their children and took us to the storm dugout and it was but a few minutes until the storm was on. The people in Oklahoma called it a cyclone. There was a high wind, rain and hail - some of the hail stones that fell were near the size of a golf ball. After the storm was over, Daddy got out of the dugout, and as he looked out he saw our house was destroyed. The fields, where just a few minutes before were so pretty and encouraging for a good crop, everything lay desolate; the corn and cotton was beaten to the ground. Looking over the fields you would of thought there never had been any corn and cotton planted there.
Mr. Graves, the man we rented the farm from claimed to be an infidel and probably was.
Daddy begged him to go to the dugout with us. We children called him "Grandpa" although he was no kin to us. Mother and Daddy taught us to call him "Grandpa" to show our respect to him as he was near eighty years of age. He told us he didn't believe there was a God. It was kindly hard for we children to believe him, especially Ollie and me. I was eight years old, Ollie was ten, our sister Ethel was four and Hattie was two years old. Back to the story, but true of Mr. Graves. Somedays we, Ollie and I, would be playing in the yard in front of he house where he lived alone as his wife was dead there were days when he did not feel well he would be lying on his bed and we could hear him say, Lord, have mercy on me." We would think
if he believed there was no God, why was he calling on him for mercy. In reading this, you might be confused as to why Mr. Graves lived so close as I mentioned us playing around in front of his door and me saying before our house was destroyed in the cyclone. To make it clear, the house was a large frame house built in a tee shape with two rooms leading off from the front rooms of the house; we lived in these rooms and they were destroyed in the cyclone.
Mr. Graves would not go to the storm dugout with us although Daddy and Mother tried hard to persuade him. He was living in the part of the house that was not destroyed.
After the storm was over, Daddy said before leaving the dugout, "I guess the old man
was probably killed." After he saw our part of the house was gone, the remaining part reeled on the foundation, and going to the door of the room where he was, he found the door jammed tight. Daddy went to a window and he saw Mr. Graves walking the floor, so frightened, and his face as white as cotton. Daddy spoke to him in a loud voice but he being so frightened, was unable to answer for some time. My father was asking him if he was hurt. After prying the door open, he went to the old man and leading him out, Mr. Graves said, "I have never witnessed such a terrible time like this. After that, it was never any trouble to get him to go to the storm dugout. From then on, when there would come up a light rain cloud, you could
see the "poor old man," (if I should say such an expression) circling the outside, of his yard going to the dugout as he did not want us to see him going, because he had bragged that he would never go to the dugout and saying, "If there was such a thing as a God. he would not send a disaster upon people."
After leaving this place of Mr. Graves, where we had nothing left since our house and

crops were destroyed, Daddy moved his family to Uncle "Randall Parley’s" place on a farm about

eighteen miles southwest of Grandfield. There we lived in a tent for three or four months.
This was Daddy's brother and this farm was at Fort Auger. It was once an Army Fort where the Indians and white people had fought. Several miles around were Indian Territory called "Big Pasture."
My Daddy was soon able to lease a farm that belonged to some Indians as most of the land around there belonged to the Indians. We moved on this farm and Daddy bought two team of mules and all the fanning tools we needed. The disaster had caused my father to be very short of money and Uncle Randall and Aunt Matilda, his wife, were really good to us as we had no home. They asked us to come and stay until we could find a farm so we could put out another crop. I am most sure they helped Daddy every wav they could and of which T. "Millard" am very thankful for all they did for us when we really needed help. As the remark is often made, "A friend in need is a friend in deed."
The farm we leased did not have a storm dugout, so Daddy went to work to dig one very
soon after we moved there and had it completed shortly as the ground was a sandy loam soil, they made it like we make them here in Kentucky. After the pit is dug, they put the wall and roof of lumber. Then putting a vent in the top, and put dirt on the roof about ten to twelve inches deep. After that was finished, there was a lot of dirt left. One day Ollie and I remembered how the trains we had ridden on coming from Kentucky to Oklahoma, went through long railroad tunnels. We decided we would make a tunnel through this big mound of dirt. We
dug about half way through and then we began on the other side and soon we had the opening
through. Brother said to me, "You crawl through firsthand I, not realizing the danger since I was only eight years old, began to crawl through. I got about half way through and Ollie stepped on the top and the dirt caved in on me. Since ray face was being pressed to the ground and I could not move
my arms or legs, it was very difficult to breathe. Ollie seeing what had happened, got scared and ran away leaving me "buried alive." It so happened that mother was sweeping the floor and opening the door, she just happened to see me and saw my feet sticking out of the dirt. She ran as quickly as she could, got a hoe and began to dig. Soon I was rescued, just a heart beat between me and death.
Just about one quarter of a mile from our house was the Fort Auger School House where
we went to school. We attended school there three years-1910 to 1913. There was no church
house in the "Big Pasture" vicinity, so the people used the school house for church services.
One summer when we were picking our cotton, I said we, anyway Ollie and I helped a
little, Ollie was ten and I was eight - Daddy and Mother did most of it although Daddy hired three families, eight people in all to pick cotton. It is a wonderful memory to me, after a days work was done in the field all would gather around after supper, sitting down under the beautiful "Oklahoma Moon" and hearing these people tell jokes. Two of these families moved in the house with us until cotton picking season was over and the remainder of the crew lived in small shacks as we called them that my father had built for these folk.
One summer when Daddy was very busy during cotton picking time, a revival began at
Fort Auger School House. Ollie and I wanted to go so Daddy and Mother let us go. After the first night we wanted to go every night, so naturally we were hard to get up in the rooming.
Daddy decided he would try to stop Ollie and me from going so much. One night while we were at church Daddy made a "Tall Jane" putting it on a goose neck hoe, using a sheet so he could hold
it high in the air.
I do not think Daddy was a Christian at this time. If he had been, he probably would not have cared for his going. Anyway, that night as Ollie and I were coining home from church we got very near the house and looked and there arose a "great" ghostly looking object like a man or a woman and looked to be about ten feet tall. We were scared so badly, we started running back to the schoolhouse where the church service had been held, although everyone had
gone home. We were afraid to go down the road so we decided we would try again to make it to the house. But, when reaching the same place in front of the house, the same ghostly thing rose up again.
This time seemed like there was two but was only one. So, away we went running again.
Daddy thought this time he would go down through the cornfield to try to get ahead of us and run us back to the house, but him running through the com and the rattling of the com blades scared us even more. After this we were too frightened to try to go home that night. There was a big coal-bin built beside the school house and we decided to go there, although it was half or two-thirds full of coal. We managed to get the heavy lid up - Ollie almost eleven and myself nine years. It seems you are a little stronger when you are scared but anyway, we both
crawled inside and let the lid down. Just a few minutes later we looked through a crack and we could see something moving around outside. Of course, it was Daddy looking for us I am sure, but he did not open the lid. If he had, we would have died with fear. We were so scared, but

could have almost heard our heart beat. We both lay there all night on these hard lumps of

coal. Next morning we crawled out of the bin all black and dirty, but anxious to get up to the house and tell what an awful night it had been and what we had seen. Daddy or Mother never said much until we had finished our story. We never attended the meeting again.
One day while Daddy was picking cotton with the rest of the crew, he came to the house
to get a jug of water to take. Back to the field. After filling the jug, he went Lo the com crib and got a burlap sack. Not examining it closely, he wet the sack thoroughly with water, wrapped it around the jug and tied it securely with strings , He put it on Ms shoulder and there was a centipede hidden in the bag and it stung Daddy on the shoulder. and in just a few minutes he was going into fits, he was suffering so. Mother got someone to get a doctor. When the doctor got there he gave him a shot. He said if he had been a few minutes later, Daddy probably would have died.
In the year of 1913, Daddy decided we would move back to Kentucky, My Daddy bought a farm on Whetstone from Delbert Langford, now belonging to the Dock Stogsdill (deceased) heirs.
Then leaving there, we moved near the old Whetstone Schoolhouse and built a store house and living quarters, or three rooms adjoining the store building. We lived there less than one year. Daddy wanted to go back to Oklahoma to farm again. So Daddy, Ollie and I went back to Grandfield and put out a crop of com and cotton. Then within six months, Daddy decided to come back to Somerset, Kentucky, as he still owned the store, Mother and my two sisters Ethel and Hattie had stayed here while we were gone and kept the store.
After coming back, he decided to buy a farm. He bought two hundred acres from Nancy Phelps about the year 1915. This was originally the Robert (Robin) Randall farm. Daddy sold Robert L. Hail one hundred or somewhere close acres on which Robert L. Hail now lives. The house we moved into was an old time large log house, although it was also weather boarded. The
rafters were fastened on with wooden pegs, the roof of boards put on with cut square nails, it was a real old house near one hundred years old at that time. So Daddy moved the store from Whetston and he had to build a store house. He decided to build a new dwelling house-he did this in the year of 1918. Daddy worked very hard to support his family. We had plenty of clothing to wear and plenty to eat for which we were very thankful.
In the latter part of Sept. 1919 I, Millard Parkey decided to go to Indianapolis, Indiana to work. At that time we lived on the farm now owned by Howard Hargis. Daddy had gone to Somerset to take a wagon load of lumber. A short distance down the road I met Daddy coming home. He stopped the mules and got out of the wagon to come talk to me. He asked me where I was going. I said, "back to Indiana to work." He asked me if I had enough money for my fare and I told him yes but he handed me a dollar bill, saying this is all I have got in my pocket.
He then took my hand and we said "goodbye" not thinking we would ever see each other alive here on this earth. It was the last time I saw my Daddy alive, but someday I will see him alive, for my Daddy was a Christian. He trusted Christ as his Saviour in 1915 under the preaching of Rev. U. B. Harp. After leaving Daddy there on the road, I went on my way to Indiana.
Daddy was never much well after that time. He worked many days I am sure when he did not feel like it. While I was away, the home folks never sent me but very little information about what was happening back home. So in January 1920, Daddy decided he would have a sale, which he did, selling all the personal property and most of the household furniture. He rented the farm to Robert L. Hail and also sold him the store.
My Daddy wanted to move back to Oklahoma, that making the fourth time he had been there. Since I was away, I knew nothing about the sale until about two weeks later. Daddy's plan was to leave the rest of the family here and he would go on to Oklahoma first and rent a farm, buy a team of mules, farm tools he needed and then send for the rest of the family after he had everything ready. So myself still in Indiana, this being the winter of 1920 when the influenza was so bad and so many dying with it. Daddy arrived at Temple, Oklahoma and went first to uncle Randall Parkey, his brother near Temple. My Mother said that Daddy had planned to come through Indianapolis to take me with him, but somehow he didn't.
Oh how I wish that he had. Daddy was already sick when he got there and four days
later on February 8, 1920 he died. It really was a great shock to me as I did not know about the sale or about Daddy going to Oklahoma. I was at work at the Link Belt Company in Indianapolis. Around eleven A.M. February 9, 1920, the scale clerk where I was trucking steel told me there was a telegram at the office that had just come in saying my father was bad sick. Of course, I thought he was joking.' I said, "Oh, you are joking." He watched me to see how I was taking it. Then he told me what the telegram said, "J. P. Parkey, your father is dead." I knew then it was true. Then I got my money at the office and left my job running. It was about six blocks to where I boarded and I hurried to catch the train home thinking Daddy had died at home here in Kentucky. It seemed like a dream - it was so hard to believe it to be true.
Once in a while, I would take the telegram out of ray pocket and look at it. Yes, it
was so. I came on the train to Somerset and when I got off the train, I noticed several people at the depot from out home waiting, including my brother Ollie. I was wondering why so many people were there, not just to meet me surely. So I asked Ollie why they were all there and he told me they had come to get the body of Daddy, that he died in Oklahoma and Uncle Alford Parkey, Daddy's brother was bringing the body by train.
As we waited for the train to come, which was two or three hours after I had arrived,
I still felt it was only a dream. Each time a train came in while we waited, Ollie and some of the others would go out to listen and see. It did not seem to me that either train was the right one. I did not go out each time a train came in. Near midnight, or maybe a little after, I heard a train coming. It did not sound like any of the others - it had a lonesome sound. I said to Ollie, "This is the train." Walking to the door of the depot, my eyes were set on the baggage coach which the body of my Daddy was in. Sure enough, as the big door rolled back the first thing that was brought out was the white box that contained the casket which held the body of my Daddy. We put the casket in the wagon, brought it out to the old home place and to its final, resting place to await the coming of our Saviour and "The Great Rapture."
Daddy had said to me while living that he wanted to work and get something ahead so he
would not have to work so hard when he got old. But the Good Lord knows what is best. Daddy never lived to be very old. He died February 8, 1920 at the age of forty-two years, He had finished building our new house but never lived long enough to enjoy it much. But he will live in a mansion where there will be no more suffering and death, We are going to meet our loved ones someday.
This written in memory of my Daddy Jesse Payton Parkey by his son Millard Houston Parkey.
1976. " I loved him dearly"

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