After making the wagon bed one foot wider on both sides so we could sleep crossways, she put bows on the wagon, and covered them with canvas, then she bought three horses, two cows, one rooster and six laying hens. Finally she got us children all ready, baked a large batch of light bread, got some root vegetables and potatoes, a sack of flour and others things to eat.

We started out in the spring when it was not cold on the road. We were to meet the wagon caravan at the Solomon River but missed it.

After several days on the road our bread was all gone. We camped beside a stream of water under some trees.

Mother took the cook stove out of the wagon and baked some more bread. She gave all of us children a good bath and washed all our clothes. We started out on the road again and traveled all the way to Oklahoma by ourselves.

After crossing the Cimarron River we started over the gyp hills and canyons. We met Mrs. Reed with a horse and buggy going toward her home. She asked us to go home with her. She said that across the road from her son's place in Woodward County was a good 160 acres not filed on yet. Amos Reed and Mother went to Mooreland where Mother filed on the land located three or four miles south of Haskew.

We moved out on the homestead. We dug a hole in the ground the size of the wagon cover, set the wagon cover over the hole and there we lived until Mother got the sod house built. One of the first things we did was dig a well in a canyon. This gave us plenty of water, but we had to carry it up hill to our house.

Then we all started building a house. My brother Henry, who was twelve years old, plowed up the sod. One of the older children cut it in eighteen inch pieces, and the other children carried these pieces to build the sod house. Mother laid the pieces of sod with two pieces one way and the next two the other way. Some cowboys came and helped us put up the framework for the roof, using some wide pine boards. Mother put clay over these boards and dirt was put on top of the clay. Our house had a good-sized bedroom and a combined kitchen, dining room and living room. Mother put foot wide pine boards down for the floor. We had five or six windows and two outside doors.

After we moved into the house, the east forty was plowed and planted to corn. Mother made a big garden. How things did grow!

Mother built a stable in the canyon bank for the livestock. She gave a shaped piece of land of five or six acres between two canyons to the county for a schoolhouse. This was where we went to school until 1908, when we moved to Woodward.

Submitted by Mrs. Lucy J. (Behrens) Magoon

ROY AND ALTA BELEW

Roy and Alta Belew moved to Woodward in June 1908. They immediately found work in Dad Null's Hotel. Roy as a night clerk and Alta waited on tables plus doing the laundry. Between both five dollars a week was earned and room and board. Later the same year, they moved to a two-room house on East Main. Roy went to work in a plumbing shop and Alta took in laundry.

On October 21, 1913, their only child was born, a son, Hershel Lee Belew. In 1920, they purchased a four-room house in the 1200 block on Kansas Avenue. In 1923,

Roy started his own plumbing shop. After a couple of years, Roy went out of business and started working for the Boyle Bros. Tin Shop. After working for them for approximately 10 years, Roy then went to work for Roy Butcher's Metal Shop until his retirement in 1948.

In 1923, Alta started to work for Scaggs Variety Store. Later, Scaggs sold to

T. G. & Y. She continued working for them until her retirement in 1967.

In 1926, the Roy Belews sold their home on Kansas Avenue and built at 1017 Madison, where Alta still resides.

Roy Belew was born in Johnson County, Texas, September 17, 1883, to Samuel and Mary Ellen Belew. He was one of seven children. They moved to Stone, Oklahoma Territory (8 miles west, and 5 miles south of Vici, Old Day County). In 1885, they purchased the Black Farm, which had a three-room log cabin on it. (This log cabin now stands on the Ellis County Courthouse yard at Arnett, Oklahoma.)

On the 26th day of June, 1906, Samuel Belew received the Patent on this land. Roy Belew lived on this land until his marriage to Agnus Alta Tosh, in 1908.

In September 1896, Roy's grandfather, Aaron Belew, made application to the Honorable Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes, for Citizenship in the Cherokee Nation. After a Supreme Court ruling, the Belew family was denied Head Rights in the Cherokee Nation because of insufficient information to what tribe their ancestry was from.

Agnus Alta Tosh was born in Valley Falls, Kansas, October 30, 1891, to George and Sarah Jane Tosh. She was one of 11 children. At the age of two, Alta and her family moved by covered wagon to Kingfisher, Oklahoma Territory (across the road from the Samuel Belew farm) where they made their home in a dirt dugout, for 6 months until George Tosh could build a frame house, which still stands on the old farm site. George Tosh received the Patent on this land the 19th of May, 1908. Alta went to school in a log cabin two miles from the farm and helped her parents on the farm.

On March 20, 1908, Roy Belew and Alta Tosh came to Woodward and rode the train to Canadian, Texas, to be married. Alta being under age (16), the Court Clerk at Canadian would not issue them a marriage license.

Page 40