Elmer's's History

i was the only one of Mom and Dad children that was not born in Cement. I was born in Lamar, Colorado but returned to Cement when I was two and have lived around here ever since. My grade school years were broken up, sometimes only went to school part of the year. With Mama and Ruby’s help and a lot of studying on my part I was able to catch up on my grades and graduated in 1929. I remember when I was nine we moved east of Cement on the Katrun place and it had a creek running through it. One day Lva,. Ruby and I were down on the creek playing and the dogs killed a skunk. I picked it up and carried it to the house. When we got to the house we went to the front door and called for Mom, when she opened the door I threw the skunk on the floor, of course I got a whipping for doing it. From then on I stayed away from skunks. When I was about ten, Mr Katrun wanted 20 acres of land cleared. He told Daddy if he would clear it he could have the wood and post plus all he raised on it the first year. Daddy and I cleared the land with a crosscut saw and an ax. I remember one old burook (burdock?) tree was so big around that we couldn’t saw straight through it so we sawed around it. Daddy sure, had a hard time keeping me ahold of the saw handle long enough to saw it down. I was afraid it was going to fall on me. I did a lot of farming when I was young and guess it got in my blood because I continued to do some farming after I was married and worked in the oilfie1d. I remember one time my friend Woodrow Redmon (he later married Ruby) wanted to get the Holiness Preacher drunk so I stole some of Daddy’s wine and gave it to him and he did get the Preacher drunk. During the depression we raised most of our food and had cattle and pigs that we butchered. Around 1933 the people had to pay a Poll Tax to keep up the roads, they could either pay cash or work it out so some of them hired me to do the work and paid me. I went to work for Mid-Kansas Oil Co., I worked with a team of mules hauling pipe and digging ditches. I worked at this for 2 years and then worked on the pipe line for 6 months and then started working as a roustabout in the oil field with Daddy. The company had changed to Marathon Co. When I had the time I went hunting and fishing.

Trevah was a friend of Iva's and I always liked her. We dated for 7 years before I got up enough nerve to ask her to marry me. We were married in 1934. After we were married we lived in town and our first son was born there, we then had 5 girls and another son, I named him Lamar after my birthplace, they were all born when we lived on the farm, We moved out to the north part of town and I worked as a pumper for the Marathon Oil Co. In 1942 we bought 20 acres of land to farm and then 2 years later another 20 acres and in 1962 we bought another 70 acres. We raised cotton and feed grain and had cattle. I did some roustabouting and then went back to pumping until I retired in May of 1970. 1 continued farming and raising cattle. After Mama passed away in 1971 we moved to Mom and Dad’s place and sold the farm. After Junior passed away we bought the 10 acres from the other kids and have made a home there. In 1976 I started working for Donald and after Trevah passed away I did some carpenter work to keep busy.

In 1979 I had to go to the Chickasha hospital for an operation and Mary was my nurse. She took such good care of me I asked her to marry me. Mary has continued with her nursing and I felt since I had worked so hard all my life it was time for me to take life easy. I had joined the Assembly of God Church in 1948 and we enjoy attending Church Services and helping out in any way that we can. By Walter Elmer Robertson

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