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

A problem that comes to impigns
hard and early on the lives of mar
ried couples after life is tucked away
on farm somewhere and children
have come to adorn the hearthstone,
is, not that of merely getting a liv-
ing, serious as admittedly that is,
but the more momentous one of
bringing up the children in the way
they should go, otherwise and espec-
tally that of education.
Farm life history is full of exam
pie of people who have tried and
failed to properly and adequately
educate their offspring, while it is
equally replete with cases of others
who have as signally succeeded.
Why is the difference? Where
does the controlling factor lie? Does
it come back to the old question of
the man or the land? Thousands
have struggled on through all the
days of the youthtime of their chill
dren in quest of the answer to this
question, some to succeed happily,
many to fail ignobly.
A case in point concretely illus
trative of either side would no doubt
prove Illuminating, but one to en-
phasize that educational opportuni-
ties are possible under circumstances
deemed unfavorable would perhaps
have an effect more encouraging and
inspiring. Such a case is furnished
by the example of Mr. Gettys, far
mer, living near Decatur, in Wise
County, Texas.
From a small farm of ordinary
productive capacity, procured in the
beginning with attending circum-
stances of debt, Mr.. Gettys has pro-
vided the means of comforting clas-
sical educations on five sons of the
eight children of his family, and is
still in the process Of according sim
liar equivalent advantages to the
younger members as they grow up.
Yet Mr.. Gettys lives on a rolling lit
tie sandy-land cross-timbers farm,
and has had no income save that ac-
cruing from this farm. The results
are so striking and so seemingly dis
proportionate to the size, capacity,
and resources of the place. that the
example should be most encouraging
to all who are graphing with sim
liar problem, not alone from the fact
that this little farm has been made
to foot the bill for a long series of
educational courses, but that it has
been made to pay a dividend also in
contentment and happiness.
1t seems in the beginning that
this experience in living and educa-
tion himself began right. In 1890
he was newcomer in the region
from his native State of North Car
olina. AS a newcomer he possessed
the privilege of looking over and ap-
praising the farm practices then in
vogue, which he exercised duly and
carefully. He was looking for some
kind of farming industry he could
follow that had not hitherto been ap-
propriated. When it is said that he
had landed in typical cottOn-grow-
ing region everybody in the South
will understand that with the ex-
ception of every manner of farming
but that of raising cotton he had
everything to himself and no compe-
tition. Twenty-Five years ago there
was little existent sentiment for di-
versification and scarcely any at all
for specialized farming of any kind.
In the very solidified ope-idea
farming practice, however, Mr.. Get
tys found the opening for which he
was looking. He decided to become
a specialist. to split the vogue asun-
der and do som mething new, which
was to raise and market vegetables.
1t mattered little to him that that
business was not exactly popular; in
fact, it was in the region of its un-
popularity that he beheld his chance
and took it. He had SHE'D at the
idea of entangling his aims and his
hopes and his business future in
what he knew to be the doubtful ad-
venture of growing cotton, but in
this instance Of growing and sell
ing vegetables he knew there lay the
possibility of daily cash income
for every day in the year he chose
to have it that way. And Mr.. Get
tvs knew that he was going to have
an income to meet daily eventuali-
ties, not of one particular part of
the year. but of any and every part
of the year: hence his decision to
sell vegetables instead of cotton.
1t might have been due to the old
prejudice that existed against the
business of gardening that contrib
uted to the markets being bare of
vegetables most OF the time of those
days, but for some. reason they were
bare a good portion of the time.
Over at Decatur, a good little mar
ket, Mr. Gettys saw the people were
being most uncomfortably deprived
Of what they were too ready to CON
sumo of well-grown, fresh and sea-
sonable supplies of garden products,
and it was in the fact of this depriva-
tion that the newly arrived citizen