VIVIAN (PUTNAM) BEANLAND
Across
the Fence
By
Arvord Abernethy
We
recently had a most enjoyable visit in the Owen Drake home where they were
entertaining Owen’s cousin, Mrs. Vivian Beanland of
Gould,
Oklahoma, which is near my home town of
Hollis.
Since she
and I grew up in the same county, and she had recently helped in putting
out a history book of
Harmon
County, we had a lot to talk about. There were worlds of people that we both
knew, and she brought me up to date on many of them, even some of the
gossip.
May we go
further back in our story. Mr. Carl Putman, the father of Mrs. Beanland
and uncle of all the Drakes here, was living here in
Hamilton
County
when he married Miss Jennie Lou Henderson from over Shive way on
June 1, 1892
.
Soon
afterwards he started the 300 mile trip to Greer County, Texas, which was
to become a part of
Oklahoma
a little later, in a covered wagon with his young bride in the spring seat
beside him and all their worldly possessions back in the wagon. They had
$140.00 in silver in their purses, and a great store of golden dreams in
their minds as they traveled toward the open land in
Greer
County
where they could homestead.
They filed
on some land near where Gould was later to be built; but he continued to
teach school for short terms when he could find one. My mother, who had
gone out there with her parents in 1892, remembered him teaching in a
school near them and she attended the school.
Mrs.
Beanland remembered going to the same school with Bro. R. C. Tennison, who
was once the pastor of the
Hamilton
First
Baptist
Church
.
I remember
going by to see Mr. Putman one time and he was out on his tractor working
up a storm. He was past 80 years of age then, and Mrs. Beanland said he
continued to drive his car and tractor until he was past 90.
She seems
to have been cut from the same piece of material her father was, as one
would never take her to be well over 80 years of age and driving this trip
which will take her on to Lampasas, then to Junction and Marfia and
finally back to
Duncanville
before returning to Gould.
Bon
Voyage, Vivian Beanland
ACROSS
THE FENCE
