The Davises-Balks A Patriotic Bunch

We had several family members serve in various branches of the militery in America`s wars beginning with Private John Hammond Sr. in the Revolutionary War to the present Iraqi War.  Fortunately I do not know of any that did not make it home.   Bill`s Uncle Don Short was a POW during the Korean Conflict.  The family did not know where he was for 2 years.  His mother`s picture during that time showed a face of true sorrow.  Don was held in a camp up in an out of the way forest.  He tried to escape 5 times.  His commrades told on anyone trying to escape in exchange for a blanket or a candy bar.  They were forced to march without medical care.  He was wounded in the heel.  The blood ran out of his boot as he walked.  When they came to a village they were stripped and put in a wire cage.  The local women came by and taunted them.  In response to the question  "Did that bother you?"  He said "Hell no I just strutted."  They carried wounded until they were able to walk or died.  At that point the head of the march always placed the body head down in water.  They passed many like that.  He never understood the reasoning for that.

A young Mexican soldier cultivated the guards until he was able to bathe in a nearby body of water away from the camp.  Finally in the nick of time for they were headed to China within hours,  while he was batheing the young man spotted an American General in a jeep and alerted him he was American and where others were.  He felt they would not have been liberated otherwise.

Don tried to remember funny things and gloss over sadness.  One thing they did was they weren`t allowed to boo so during indoctrination speeches they would cheer and whistle loudly to drown out the speaker.

Let me say Don was a bit of a rebel.  He joined the Navy as a teen probably because times were hard for this large family of 11 children.  He served a year before Grandpa Short got him out.  When he was of age he joined the Army and even after his Korean ordeal he served in Viet Nam.  It was hard for him to shoot women and children there but many were wired with explosives so he just shut his eyes and shot.

These stories make me less sympathetic to all those vets that came home and seem to be reclusive and not accomplish much.  Don and many others survived and led productive lives outside the service.  Don worked tirelessly by writing letters to congressmen after he came home to try to bring home POWS that he knew were force marched into China and never heard from again.  The war dept. denied they were there.  He saw so much death during his captivity he couldn`t bear to go to his own parents funerals a couple decades later.  I remember he came to the church but had to leave.

His younger brother, Charles, wrote a loving tribute to him after his death.  According to family this was very uncharacteristic of him to write such a thing.  It told of the sudden change on their mother`s face when his name came up #5 on the list of those coming home.

These memories were told to me by his sister, Jean Allin.  She was supposed to write a book.  Maybe she still will. 

Billy Wayne

Billy Wayne Davis was born at home January 17, 1946 in Matador, Texas.  His father Buford Coleman made his living as a professional gambler and service station attendant.  He related they went from brand new cars and houses to next to nothing shanties and old cars depending on Bud`s luck.  Bill suffered from diphtheria as a child and his mom, Fannie waited until the last minute to interrupt a card game for his dad to take him to the Dr.  That is why he has a cracked tongue even today.  Fannie contributed by canning anything she could find and sewing their clothes from flour sacks.  She bought all of one pattern sacks until they had enough to make shirts etc.  Bud died when Bill was 7 of a goiter operation.  There is some disagreement on whether he had cancer or not.  Aunt said yes and brother said no.  I tend to agree with Aunt as Earl was only 10 years of age.  They may have shielded the kids.  Fannie was left with 4 boys under the age of 10.  She went to work in the cotton fields pulling bolls.  She often pulled her sack with a young one on the end of the sack.  She later married a man who studied to be a Baptist minister.  He had small country churches thus began the moving to a dozen different schools before Bill graduated high school.  He never lived anywhere long enoug to be a Cub Scout thus his passion for scouting today was born.  He attended one room schools all the way up to Dallas city schools.  I think this is why he was a good counselor.  He had empathy for kids in lots of situations and coming from all sizes of schools.  In high school he didn`t want to move so Fannie found a family for him to live with in Geary, Oklahoma.  He spent quite a bit of time with Grandparents in Matador.  He listed his schools as K. he had a tutor named Mrs. Coldiron so he could skip 1st grade to be with older cousin.  The list then included Amarillo, Matador, Hale Center, Hugo, Oklahoma, 2 schools in Dallas named John B. Hood and S.E. Old Cliff, Mt. Pleasant, Mesquite, Pattonville, Broken Bow, Oklahoma,  Green Hill Country outside Mt. Pleasant, Matador,  Mt. Pleasant, and Geary Oklahoma.  Some years he attended 3 different schools in a school year.  Other years he returned to a school he had been in before.  They moved one year because the school tried to get them signed up for free lunches and Fannie thought they were trying to take her boys.  He sometimes went to school barefooted to save shoes for cold weather,  but then others did the same thing

One reason he wanted to stay in Geary was because of sports.  He participated in all sports but basketball was his love-playing in the Big House in 1963 where he promptly fouled out.  He was competing with teammates that were nearly a foot taller than he.  He often walked miles home from ball practice.  He always felt bad because his parents never saw him play a game.  They had to save their money for pop and other things.  He would take an odd job to buy athletic shoes but when typing had a lab fee he just didn`t take it.  A decesion he later regretted when college papers were graded down because they were handwritten in neat print or he hunt and pecked his way thru his years as counselor at the high school.  He could type nearly as fast as I with my 2 years of typing.    His coach Keith Covey and Grandparents Davis helped him go to Northwestern.  He went a couple years but the oil fields of west Texas lured him away.  The money was good but work was 7 days a week.  For entertainment he played summer baseball.  One semester out and he was back at Northwestern.  He was a math major and a job offer in the business world was forthcoming.  He turned it down for his love of education.  The only semester he had financial aid was the semester he bought my engagement ring.  We married in 1967 and he graduated in 1968.  He immediately enrolled in graduate school for the summer.  In the fall found us in Lebanon, Nebraska teaching in a tiny town of about 300.  All 3 of the elementary teachers were not college graduates.  They had taught for years but never finished their degree because they lacked student teaching.  They made 1/2 the salary of a degreed teacher.  We spent 2 years there going back to Alva in summers for school.  He taught math and coached basketball and helped with football.  One year he taught Chemistry and set the lab on fire.  He played town league basketball in a larger town.  At the end of 2 years we decided to move and found a job a little south of Lebanon in Lenora,Kansas.  We moved our furniture there and went to Alva for the summer.  During the summer Keith Covey recruited him for a job in Stroud.  Marty and we took a farm truck up and got our furniture.  In 1970 we started our tenure in Stroud.  We continued to go to Alva summers and he got his Masters in 1972.  One summer in 1973 we lived in Weatherford for him to complete his math degree.

Goodbye Dorothy

We traveled to Enid today to bury my Dad`s sister, Dorothy.  She never had children so her brother Ernie, sister Ramonda, and about 15 others mostly neices and nephews gathered at a funeral home for a short service.  Sister Margaret age 95 being in ill health sadly was not able to attend.  Then off to pretty Bison cementery for burial.  It is about 2-3 miles from the Balk homestead.  We stopped at the original house built in about 1906 where nobody now lives so is too quickly running down.  The original woodsiding is in places peeking out from behind layers of more modern coverings.  It still bears the original yellow paint and is in remarkable condition.  Beadboard covers front porch ceiling.

Eleven people lived there in 2 small bedrooms, kitchen, large room across front divided by sliding doors, and full not totally finished attic where the kids slept.  Our next adventure is trying to visit inside the house to look for pictures and papers reportedly hid in a bedroom wall when Grandma feared Joseph might be deported at the beginning of WWII like Peter was in WWI.  I did bring home a very old brick from a collapsed chimney.

The question came up why they settled there.  An older cousin related the men traveled by train that ran within a mile of where the house stands.  All related men jumped off and ran to stake claims and that is where they landed.  Joseph Balk, a teenager, was one of them and his future in-laws settled across the road.

There are only 2 aunts and 1 uncle left.  I mentioned we were running out of older people to gather for.  Karen brought up the sobering fact-we are moving into the older group.

We finished the morning at Golden Corral toasting Dorothy`s 85 years with fudge-a secret  treat of her youth.