| A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR GRANDMA AND GRANDPA ROBERTSON TAKE FROM A HISTORY WRITTEN BY OUR COUSIN CARL IKARD Our Grandparents spent the first years of their married life in Sullivan, Indiana. They farmed mostly, yet Grandpa followed his Father's trade as a master carpenter to help support his family. They wandered and followed his Father and Brother to Gordon, Nebraska to work as carpenters for a few years. They found the winters so cold and carpenter jobs scarce so they decided to travel southward and try the new frontier Territory. In 1894 they came by covered wagons, leading and driving a few horses, cattle hogs, chickens and their personal belongings in three wagons to what they hoped would be the promised land, a new life and a new beginning. They finally settled down at Mountain View, Oklahoma—then the Cheyenne and Arapaho Indian Territory. An endless struggle on the land refused to produce hardly more than they needed for food, but they were together and determined. It provided a roof over their heads, from their own labors, food for their bodies, guidance for their lives and most important of all abounding love of their hearts. They were Sooners on land that hadn’t opened up for settlement yet, they lived in a half dug-out home For those of you who do not know what a half dug-out is, it is dug into the ground like a cellar and has a wood shelter above ground. It has dirt floors and the walls are dirt half way up and wood the other half. Grandma took care of the children and had to look Indians and other Pioneers in the eye a few times to keep the children, stock and other things from being stolen. Grandpa and his Dad and Brothers traveled around and went as far as Wichita Falls, Texas to help build houses. The territory was being opened up for settlement so they were chased off their sw(q?)atter home by a homesteader who had drawn the quarter section they were on. They moved to a farm west of Verdon, Oklahoma for a few years. While they were there, Grandpa and his Dad helped move the Verdon cemetery from below the hill to the top of the hill, where it still stands today. Grandpa loved to tell about the petrified baby they dug up, said it looked like a white chalk doll. They also built coffins for the bodies and dug graves and buried them in the new cemetery. In 1933 they moved near Fairwell, Oklahoma and lived there for one year. They then moved to three miles south of Cement, Oklahoma for a few years. In December 1922, they lost practically everything in a house fire. Carl has a newspaper clipping stating that a Lanson O'Dell Ikard collected $500.00 dollars from the people around Cement, and Cyril and gave it to Grandma and Grandpa so they could have a new start. They finally moved a mile east and two miles south of Cement where they lived until around 1927 or 1928 when they moved in with us and lived with us until they passed away. Daddy later leased the Indian land just south of their house and we kids farmed it. Later our sister Ruby and her husband, Wood, lived in the house and farmed the land. Our Grandparents remembrance will be in the hearts of those their lives touched.. A heritage to be passed down by generations to come. |
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