Durant weekly news. (Durant, Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 190?-1944, 1916-04-14

Is tne precise part sne mas played Tor
over 20 years in the Gettys plan Of
business. She has driven the wagon
and sold the vegetables at the town
OF Decatur, three miles away, and
on her efforts has rested the main
charge of the family veal or woe.
Not a member of her family will be-
grudge her this distinction. All have
worked, it is true; the children what
time they we're not In school, and the
husband constantly toiling, cultivat-
ing and producing, but that the
wife has been the forceful, achiev-
ing spirit is everywhere acknowl-
edged.
If in the Gettys family history
there is TO be found anything that
savors of the dramatic IL certainly
must lie in what may truly be called
the fifth-of-a-century's heroism this
woman has displayed in her efforts
to succeed. and by that success to
have her children educated. Ad-
mittedly, her initial purpose has
been to make money, about which
there clings a flavor of covetous-
ness, but behind all has been the an
imating motive, the passionate de-
sire to spiritualize the minds of her
children through and by the agency
of education. This at once lifts the
effort into the realm of the noble
and inspiring.
1t has been no simple task for a
woman to drive a market wagon
through every day of the successive
market seasons for period cover
ing 20 years. Rains, storms, cold,
bitter winds. hot suns. hot dusty
glares of roads. drudgery, accidents.
breakdowns, obstreperous teams, all
and more, stand down the fretted
course of the years to mark the OBJ
stacles over which this woman has
triumphed to achieve a purpose. A
purpose that means honor to parents
and service to society in power and
influence.
But success is hers-and theirs
Five trained and classically educat-
ed sons stand out as proof, five spir-
itualized men come forward to add
the increment of high character to
the veal of society. Cicero, Jesse,
Albert. Embry, and Plato Gettys,
each now flourish sheepskins intrin-
sically their own, duly accredited to
their respective names by one or the
other of the venerable educational,
institutions of the Southwest, in life
work now, lawyers. ministers, teach
ers of schools, broad, capable, in
spired young men, forcible units for
good in the world.
Apparently education meant more
to the Gettys' forbears than to many
parents; their views seem larger
and broader. Lined before them
was a string of tow-headed country
urchins, destined, unless providen-
TALLY hindered, for the usual fate,
for brief matriculation in the neigh
borhood schools and then to un-
changed and unaffected lives on the
other side. But they meant to
change this too common course of
affairs. Down the course of educa-
tional procedure marked out for
their sons to follow they saw clear
ly the essential neighborhood school
house, with its offering of element
ary studies, but far beyond, tower
ing as they hoped the minds of their
children would tower within the
ranks of men, they saw also the
domes of the university. This they
coveted for their children and this
they yearned and struggled for until
it was achieved.
On their farm in the forenoon of
a typical autumn day early last Oc-
tober the parents stood contented.
over the high points of the rolling
wooded landscape the yellow sun
played with warming and brighten
ing effect; blue hazes filled and
cooled the laps of the valleys. On
its high crest the old whitewashed
red brick house sat with its face to
the east to catch the first rays of the
morning sun and to companion with
the big cardinal road that unwound
itself from north to south just be-
low the yard fence. In the expanse
before the house bachelor buttons
and frowzy zinnias, planted after
the liking OF old-fashioned hearts,
suffused the precincts with a gay
riot of autumnal color. Down in a
low-land garden the parents gather
ed late string beans for market. AS
often as their minds reverted to the
subject they grew happy that they
had taken the common things at