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My mother, the former Dewey Lee Stewart, was born September 5, 1901
in Oklahoma Indian Nation. Her name was a contraction of those
of Admiral Dewey and General Lee. Her parents, the former
Birdie Little and Thomas Bailey Stewart, were Oklahoma farmers.
Like the Gordons, the Stewarts were primarily of English and Scottish
ancestry, and were born in Texas. All of Mother and Dad�s
ancestors were �Founding Citizens� who had been in America prior
to the Revolution. Three were members of the Jamestown Colony, the
oldest continuous English colony in America; five were on the
Mayflower and were residents of the Plymouth Colony.
Mother�s father, T.B. Stewart had managed to obtain an education
through some two years of college, which was unusual for that time
and place.
The Stewarts and their three daughters Adelia, Dewey Lee and Grace
moved by covered wagon to New Mexico Territory in 1908, and homesteaded
near San Jon in eastern New Mexico. Finding it impossible to survive
on the arid prairie homestead, they soon returned to Oklahoma.
In 1990, my Aunt Adelia Stewart wrote:
Dewey had first been
taken to New Mexico as a 2-month old baby in 1901. Grandma
Stewart leased land about one mile east of what is now a town (Portales),
but was then a very small trading post on a railroad. Grandfather
had a lot of cattle. He and Papa (Dewey's father) drove the
cattle through and built a two-story house. When things were
ready, Grandmother Stewart, Mama (Adelia's mother) and I and baby
Dewey went there on the train. I have forgotten about train connections,
but for some reason we had to spend a night in a hotel near the
train station. The room partitions were made of 1 X 12"
boards and the occupants of one room could see the happenings of
those in the adjoining room. Every room had a pot-bellied
stove for heating. In the adjoining room to us were 2 men
and 2 women and several other men. The men were gambling and
drinking. Just as we were about to go to sleep, the law officers
broke into the other room to arrest the men. The men resisted,
the officers beat them with Billy Clubs, the two women cried, "Oh,
please stop, you are killing them." In the melee the
stove was tipped over and hot coals spilled onto the floor of that
room. The officers handcuffed the men, set the stove up right,
put the coals back in the stove and left with the men. But
Mama and grandmother had re-dressed all of us and were ready to
take flight when the hotel manager came in and assured all of us
that all would be well. So we managed to get some sleep before
we boarded a train to finish the journey.
When I was teaching
in Hope, NM (in the 1950's) I drove to Portales and grandpa's house
was yet there on the east side full of hay bales. We were
all there when an attorney from Henderson County, Texas came to
buy grandmother's inheritance from Champion Choate's land.
The attorney convinced grandpa that the land was worth only $25.00.
So a deed was made to the attorney. Several years later, the
heirs learned that oil wells were on the land at the time of sale.
The heirs sued, but the court decided in favor of the attorney.
There go riches. Just because we have all lost Dewey, my last sister,
please don't forget me. I love all of you. I'm awfully
lonely now, and not young. Excuse my writing. I realize it
is failing just as my health is. I know so much interesting
about early times.
Mother was an excellent student, but frequently had to miss school
in order to perform necessary farm work, including chopping and
picking cotton. She did not graduate from high school, but
took college entrance exams and passed with flying colors so that
she could enter Oklahoma State Teachers College with advanced standing.
Mother's childhood work and deprivations shaped her character and
life. She thirsted for knowledge, was inordinately ambitious
and imbued with the zeal to work hard and succeed even if it required
self-deprivation. Mother literally "pulled herself up
by her own bootstraps" throughout her life, and believed that
adversity created strength of character. Throughout her life,
her efforts and interests were focused on the well being of her
family. She firmly believed that no one with any of her genes
could be a failure!
Mother attended Oklahoma Central State College, the University of
Oklahoma, Texas Tech, and the University of New Mexico, as well
as taking numerous correspondence courses. She taught school
in various locations in Oklahoma and Colorado, and in New Mexico
at Page, Coolidge, La Joya, Riley and Mountainair. During
the formative school years of my brother Ladd and I, she either
taught where we attended school or did not teach so as to be home
when we arrived home eager to discuss our new knowledge, experiences,
and ask questions.
Mother enjoyed music, and loved to sing. She insured that
my brother and I learned to play several musical instruments, and
she always had a piano in our home.
Mother was unusually beautiful. As a nineteen year old, she
was chosen Queen of the 1919 Cotton Festival for the southwest area
of Oklahoma where the Stewart family farmed.
Mother worked side by side with my father when it came to painting,
carpentering, roofing, farming or plumbing. She was obsessed
with achieving and providing a sizeable estate for her sons and
grandchildren. The numerous homes and buildings that my parents
personally constructed at Coolidge, Las Cruces, Roswell, Safford,
Albuquerque, the New Mexico Boys Ranch, and La Joya attest to their
hard work and constructive lives.
Mother was unparalleled in her business affairs. Starting
with very little capital from my father's salary, she invested wisely
in real estate over a period of some thirty-five years and developed
sizable property holdings. She did not believe in investments
that she could not see and touch. She accomplished this with
a keen business acumen, self-discipline, hard work and consistent
self-denial. In her mind, the self-denial counted toward a
larger estate for her children and grandchildren. She said
she wanted to travel, but would never bring herself to spending
the necessary time and money. Mother was the driving force
and decision maker in all my parent's business affairs.
My mother could do anything, whether it was building a house, knitting,
sewing, crocheting, plumbing, riding a horse, using a gun, or being
shrewd and successful in business matters. All of this while
being a devoted, full-time parent.
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Mother "slipped the surly bonds of earth --- and touched
the face of God" on February 1, 1990.
One prominent community leader simply said,
"She contributed."
A lady whom Mother had taught as a first grade teacher in Oklahoma
in 1919 wrote:
I want to express
my deep feeling of gratitude I have to that dear teacher I had in
the first grade. She not only taught me to read, she instilled
in me the desire to do a lot of it. She went out of her way
to give a little girl a feeling of warmth and value. She would
write letters to me during the summer while she was in school, and
I learned to write letters at that early age. I have her to
thank for that and also the ability to write legibly, for she did
stress penmanship. I've tried to pattern some of my teaching
after the things I remember from my first grade teacher. I'm
sorry I wasn't able to tell her just how much she meant to me and
the influence she had on my life.
My friend Sarah Kotchian wrote:
She was a wonderful
pioneer woman who left many gift to New Mexico and the other places
she taught, and a great history of strength and pride to you, your
children and grandchildren. They are all fortunate to have
had her in their lives for so long.
Mother's friends Ruth and Stanley Fish wrote:
You and your families
meant much to her and she was very proud of each of you and you
accomplishments.
Albuquerque Mayor Louis Saavedra wrote:
It was inspiring
to read of her pioneer life and her exemplary work.
Among mother's treasures, as she called them, we found the following
which were read at her memorial services:
Dear loves, dear hearts, when
time is fled And I no longer sing, I leave this message to
be read In sunlight and in spring. Of life, of faith,
of years content Because our love was so, That when the form
in anguish went, The spirit would not go. And on
this page, in very truth A lyric and a flame, Immortal April
and a kiss, The music and your names.
High Flight
Oh I have slipped the surly bonds
of earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings:
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split
clouds and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of,
wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence.
Hov'ring there I've chased the shouting winds along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. Up, up the long
delirious, burning blue I've topped the wind-swept heights with
easy grace Where never lark, or even eagle flew. And, while
with silent lifting mind I've trod The high-untrespassed sanctity
of space, Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
John Gillespie Magee,
Jr.
Another instructive item which Mother had copied in her handwriting:
He has achieved success
who has lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has gained
the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children;
who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who has left
the world better than when he found it, whether by an improved poppy,
a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who has never lacked appreciation
of earth's beauty or failed to express it; who has always looked
for the best in others and given the best he had; whose life was
an inspiration; whose memory a benediction.
Bessie Anderson, 1904
Without attribution, Mother's personal belongings also included
the following in her handwriting, well worn and stained:
Our Anniversary
There are nice young men who
are nice pro tem, But look what happens when you marry them!
They turn into husbands - A sordid tribe Who gloom and yammer
and rant and gibe, And grouse 'round the house like a wounded
bear, And acquire that woefully wedded air. So I
haven't the least excuse, it's true, For the weak, rash moment
when I married you. I knew misgivings; I crawled with qualms;
I kept humming that minor lament of Brahms. So imagine, darling,
my pleasant surprise When you didn't changeling before my eyes.
For you were the nicest of nice young men - But now you're just
ten times nicer again! You don't barge 'round like a tin King
Kleagle - Maybe the ceremony wasn't legal! No husbandly halo
obtrudes its pall, And marriage has ruined you hardly at all!
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