Records from Shaw, Mottershead & Badgery.
From Shaw, Mottershead & Badgery records
birth year based on birth of older! brothers.
Ancestral file Pedigree chart dtd 8 aug 1993 list marrage date 4 oct 1904, Personal records list 1903
!twin
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Lamar, Colorado Saturday, December 13, 1952 Final Rites Held For E. H. Gamble
Funeral services for Elbert H. Gamble were held at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday at the WoodFuneral Home chapel with the Rev. J. Graydon Wilson officiating.
F. E. Flynn sang "In The Garden", accompanied by Mrs. R. Clark Jones.
Pallbearers were Arthur Esgar, Richard Esgar, Harold V. Smith, D. S. Nevius, Charles Bates, and W. R. Dotson.
Honorary pallbearers were Byron Hays, Harley Rowe, Robert Colvin, W. H. Chaplin, Homer Bell, Ernest Temple, and Freeman Slack.
A floral offering was given in his memory and many attended to pay their last respects.
The Lamar Masonic Lodge No. 90 AF&AM conducted graveside services at Farimount cemetery.
OBITUARY
Elbert H. Gamble, son of Frank and Nancy Payton Gamble, was born Jan. 31, 1881, Tazelwell, Va., and died Dec. 6, 1952, at the age of 71 years (after a short illness).
He came to Prowers County in 1907 where he resided at Lamar and then moved in 1908 to Wiley where he was engaged in farming and where he spent the rest of his life.
Mr. Gamble was a faithful husband and father. Happiness in friendship was his main belief in life and he had many friends during his lifetime.
He was a member of the Masonic lodge of Hazelton, Kan.
He is survived by his widow, Lula Stephens Gamble; three daughters, Mrs. Robert Esgar of Wiley. Mrs. James McDonald of La Junta, and Mrs. A. E. King of Albuquerque, N.M.,
Two sons, Earl Gamble of Wiley and Harry Gamble of Granada; two brothers, Wes Gamble of Halstead, Kan., and Shelby Gamble of Oklahoma City. Okla.;
Two sisters, Mary Davis, El Paso Tex., and Grace Spooner, Phoenix, Ariz., seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
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The above Obituary was taken from the Lamar Daily NEWS dated Dec 8, 1952. Two columns over was the follow headline.
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Youth Killed In Fight With Shark
PACIFIC GROVE, Calif. Dec. 8 (UP)-A 17-year-old youth was killed after a furious struggle with a man-eating shark Sunday in the first such case ever known off the Pacific coast of the United States.Ancestral file Pedigree chart dtd 8 aug 1993 list marrage date 4 oct 1904, Personal records list 1903
!twinDear Mary Lou,
You have asked me several times about your grandfather and Bonnie has also asked me to jot down things that come to mind of days past so here are some of the things I remember and some that I was told. He was born a twin in Tazewell County Virginia but was raised as a youngster around Thomas Mills, Tennessee, where his father was in the lumber business. He loved to tell about the fun he had with his twin brother and his little colored friends playing among the logs. I remember in the spring he always spoke with nostalgia about the dogwood in bloom. Then Granddad moved his family to Butler County Kansas. Their mother had passed away by then and his sisters seemed to run the household but the boys were on a ranch where they lived in a bunk house and batched. He would tell how they could trick ride their spirited horses, jumping off and running along side then back in the saddle and off the other side. I don't know how Mother's family got there from Hillsdale, Kansas but she first had a few dates with Uncle Shelby. When she and Dad were keeping company he had the fastest pair of horses in the County and had a buggy with fringe on top. They were married and lived in Hazelton where Mae and I and Donald were born. At the time she was a tiny little beauty weighing a mere 98 pounds. Donald was still a babe in arms when they moved to Lamar. Granddad was in the flour milling business there at the time. It was not long before they both rented adjoining farms. Well, Granddad was certainly anything but a farmer so Dad was always helping him and his hired hand do the work. Ac lived on the old north farm until I must have been in the eighth grade. It had a stone house with very thick walls, seems like it was small but real cozy. It was here that we lived during the 1918 Influenza epidemic. Dad would go to town only to buy groceries and supplies, otherwise we were completely isolated so none of us got the Flu. Each time he returned home from town he would tell us of those who died, Reverend Macdonald, Mr. MeKenna the Pharmacist and many, many others. The black hearse with its four black horses with their shinning black harness studded with silver and black plumes on their heads would pass- our house. What a sad and eerie feeling that was, scary to little kids who knew so little about death. They were all buried in the little cemetery north of town. When Donald was older he would dig the grave by hand for the ones he knew to express his sorrow and sympathy to the surviving family.
Those were happy, carefree days for us kids I guess. In the summer we played under the trees along the side of the irrigation ditch. Mother was afraid of gypsies and would always gather us in and hide us when they came around. It was rumored that they stole little children (with so many of their own that was a likely myth).
But when the Tinker came out our way that was something different. He would mend the pots and pans and sharpen the kitchen knives and fix the tools. After Mother invited him to a home cooked meal he gave everyone a gift of their choice. It was so eye popping to see all the trinkets and gaudy junk he had in his Van that it was hard to make a choice. One time I selected a string of tiny blue beads that were woven into a rope. I thought it was so beautiful and I had it for a long time until the string began to break and I lost most of the beads.
Mother was also afraid of storms and would always get us all down in the fruit cellar which was not attached to the house. Sometimes Dad and the hired man would join us. After the storm was over they would raise the collar doors and we kids would scramble over each other trying to get out to play in the hail. Little did we realize the heart break it was for Dad to find his crops beaten into the ground after all his hard work, and he would have to borrow money to start over.
I remember those summer days when we would be lolling around the house reading the books we had checked out of the church library while Dad was working out in the hot fields cutting and stacking hay or harvesting the wheat which had to be gathered together in shocks until the threashing machine came. There is nothing hotter in this world than a wheat field after the grain is cut.
Grandpa Stephens had one of those threashing machines. It had a big old "Case" tractor which I think was powered by steam, and you could hear it a mile away, even the ground throbbed! We all loved our Grandpa Stephens and would all run up the road to meet him and Mother in her apron would be waiting at the gate. He was a big fat man and always wore his sleeves rolled up over his huge arms and it felt so good to be clasped in those loving arms. He loved children and we adored him. He lived up by the lakes and usually brought a lot of catfish with him and what a treat that was for we seldom had fresh fish
Harvest time was a busy time for Mother as the neighbors helped each other at that time and she had to cook up a storm on the old wood stove. The kitchen was like a furnace but I think she enjoyed the compliments and her reputation as the best cook in the area. The kids had some small jobs like turning the crank on the ice cream freezer and shooing out the flies with tea towels. They drank gallons of ice tea.
Sometimes if Dad was short of help Mother would help him in the hayfield by running the stacker which was an implement pulled by horses that would pick up the hay, lift it to the stack and Dad would be up there with a pitchfork moving it around to form a stack. That must have taken some fancy maneuvering to get the horses to do that.
Then there was the irrigation. Seems like the water was proportioned into rights and when it was running Dad would sometimes be up all night trying to take advantage of every drop. The Russians lived up stream and they were always trying to steal water from him. They pretended not to understand much English but when Dad's eyes began to shoot fire and he threatened to flatten them with a spade they understood. His method was not very diplomatic but it was very effective.
When the work was done in the fields at sunset that was not the end of the working day for the horses had to be unhitched and the harness re-moved. Then they had to be brushed down with a curry comb and fed hay and oats. I do not remember how many horses Dad owned but our livelihood depended on them and they were treated with great respect, right after the family. I shall never forget the pungent smell of the big old weather beaten barn with it's odor of horses sweat, manure, hay and the smell of the leather harness and saddles.
Sugar beets were another crop that was a lot of work. They required a lot of water and had to be cultivated often for weeds. The itinerant Mexicans were called in to thin them out so they would produce larger beets. When they were mature they topped them and put them in piles. All fall and into early winter Dad and Donald hauled them to town to be weighed and shipped to be processed into sugar. The sugar content was very important for the higher it was the more you got paid.
Granddad was quite a religious man (sometimes we kids thought he was a hypocrite but I guess he was sincere), so Dad was influenced to be a little straight laced and righteous when he was young and there were a lot of things we were not supposed to do and he disapproved of dancing. I guess playing cards was acceptable. He was honest almost to a fault as he would rather be cheated that have anyone ever say he had cheated them. One time when I was very small, possibly between four and five a neighbor or a hired hand pulled out a Jew's Harp and started to play a lively tune. I was sitting on a big box and I got up on it and danced my little heart out. Everyone was surprised, they said I did a perfect jig which was strange because I had never seen anyone dance, let alone do a jig. But I was kindly told that was a no-no. However by the time we were young ladies Mother took care of that. She also was the instigator in getting our piano. How we loved it and we took lessons and learned to play very well. One other thing I remember about my early childhood was when I was Sleeping Beauty in a school play. I was a little bit of a girl and mother braided my curls so when they were combed out I would have long wavy hair that came below my waist just like a Princess. We could not afford white shoes so she covered my black summer slippers with cloth and put a big bow on them. I was supposed to be sleeping in a little bed with posters and curtains so I guess I missed all the play but my own part - when the Prince opened the curtains and took my hand and we danced and danced all around the stage, then I think it was finis and curtain.
In the wintertime there was a little reprieve from all the hard work and sometimes the folks would get together and play cards. Pitch seemed to be the favorite. Mother loved to play cards and was very good at it. They would serve refreshments and have a good time.
In the summer the Chautauqua would come to town and Dad would get season tickets. They had a matinee and evening show and everyone enjoyed that very much. At one time some one showed some outdoor movies. We would all go on a hay rack so that our seats were assured and we had a good vantage point. That was when I met Pearl White and saw "The Perils of Pauline". And we also saw "The Birth of The Nation".
When Granddad got too old to farm we moved to his farm which was only about a mile from town but the house was a ramshackle affair and a real deep freeze in the winter. Dad got some dairy cows and that supplemented the income but was more hard work. Finally they got a milking machine which eased the chore and the boys were now big enough to help. My job in the summer was to sit in the milk house where the milk cans were set in cool water and stir the milk until it had lost its animal heat. It was so tiresome and I hated it.
Some of Mothers work consisted of washing on a board or using some other crude contraption they had for a washing machine, baking bread every day along with three hearty meals, growing a garden and canning in the fall, but she never wanted her girls to work hard and we did not help as much as we could have if she had let us. She was so busy and worked so fast I don't think she wanted to fool with us. So we had the softest hands, the most shining hair and the whitest teeth of any of the girls around. I remember sometimes Dad would stop his work to go get a tank of soft water so we could bathe in luxury and wash our hair. And the clothes she made for us would put the present day couturieres to shame.
After I was married the folks moved to the farm you knew so well. It was really a more fertile and productive farm. By that time Mother had a gasoline powered Maytag washing machine and they had a model A Ford and the horses had given way to a Fordson tractor. All the kids were married and their life was much easier but Dad continued to farm until they retired and moved to town. They never complained about the hard work and sacrifices they made but I wonder if they ever felt all their efforts were unappreciated.
Jessie Gamble King 01/24/1985
Birth place on Temple records is near Hillsdale, Miami, Kansas.
Birth year probably 1885Based on a deleayed Birth Certificated for Jessie Inez Gamble Lula's birth name is "Lulu Gladys Stephens"
!A Picture of James Little Stephens had his faimly written on the back of the photo listing name as LULA
From FGR first marrage was 11 OCT 1965 (1963 should be correct).
Robert Michael was original named Michael Esgar. Robert was legally added to reduce the teasing..
From Ancestral File (TM), data as of 5 JAN 1998.
From FGR first marrage was 11 OCT 1965 (1963 should be correct).
Robert Michael was original named Michael Esgar. Robert was legally added to reduce the teasing..
From Ancestral File (TM), data as of 5 JAN 1998.
From FGR first marrage was 11 OCT 1965 (1963 should be correct).
Robert Michael was original named Michael Esgar. Robert was legally added to reduce the teasing..
From Ancestral File (TM), data as of 5 JAN 1998.