by Ruby Rose Robertson Redmon

In the summer of 1901 Great Grandpa Morris and family and Grandma Heady came to Oklahoma to register for land. They weren't lucky enough to draw a number, however, there were some tracts left. Grandpa Heady got an 80 tract one mile west of what is now Cement. Aunt Sallie got an 80 tract that joined what is Cement on the west with Old Maid's hill on it. However none of them stayed on the places.

In 1902 Grandpa Heady and Scott Needham moved to Oklahoma with a wagon and team. In a few weeks Grandma Heady Uncle Perry and Mother came on the train. They lived in what became the town for a few weeks then moved out on Scott Needham’s farm where they were beginning to build a grade for the railroad. A sawmill moved in east of where Cement is built. Grandpa Heady bought lumber from it and built a one-room house with a wagon sheet for a door. Shunks Railroad camp was across the road. They could buy some groceries there but had to go to Chickasha for some of them. Grandpa Heady got a job making bridge timber and posts for the railroad. Grandma, Perry and Mother took his lunch to him. In the afternoon they peeled the bark off the posts.

Mother went to school in the Shunk Schoolhouse and then in Cement. They had moved southwest of Cement. Perry and Mother(Lucille) came to school by horse and buggy. After Perry quit, Mother rode horseback, She left the horse in the livery and walked up the hill to school. She finished the 8th grade and. was to go to Anadarko to take a test to become a teacher. She had to ride horseback and it was pouring rain the day she was to go so she didn’t become a teacher.

Dad(Raymond Robertson) came to the Kechi area with his family from Indiana around 1902. I know they were neighbors of the Pooler family. I don't know anything about the years before he met Mother. They met at a party at John Elder’s place south of Cement. Dad knew right away she was the woman for him. Little did he know they’d end up with 12 kids for neither came from a very large family. Grandpa Heady was bedfast for a year before he died in August of 1909, so they had to wait to get married. They married in September of 1909. He was 25 and she was 21. Grandma Heady and Dad went to Anadarko by horse and buggy to get the license. It was late when they got back but they went down to Preacher Johnson’s south of Cement, got him out of bed and he came out in the road in front of the house barefooted and married them.

They built a half dugout on an Indian lease. It had a dirt floor and dirt walls halfway up. It wasn’t long until they got the Colorado fever. They went to Colorado with the Perry Thompson family in a covered wagon. They lived there 18 months, got homesick and came back. My brother Walter Elmer was born while they were there on April 28, 1910. They left Colorado on December 11, 1911 to come back to Oklahoma. Never understood why they came in the winter for they had a hard journey. Ran into snowstorms and food and fuel were scarce. People let them burn their fence post and parts of their barns. One family asked them to Christmas dinner. They ate lots of jackrabbits and bread fried on top of the stove. They finally reached Grandpa Robertson’s place. They had 35 cents and the horses were very poor. Dad pulled boles and got money to buy materiel for gowns as Mother was expecting me.

After awhile Dad rented a log house on the Bill Day’s place, west of Cement. Grandpa Robertson gave them a cow and some chickens. Dad borrowed $50.00 to put in a crop. Elmer got pneumonia. Grandma Heady and Dad fried the onion sets he had bought to set out, and made a poultice to put on him. I (Ruby Rose) was born at Grandpa Robertson’s