Carroll

A few years ago I had the opportunity to "interview" Mom and record some of the conversation.  I've used her responses to write this biography.  At times I had to piece together the story with my own words, but I hope those that loved her as I did will enjoy this record.  Jim Carroll

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"I was born in Koshkonong , Missouri , in a peach orchard.  We lived in a little house in the peach orchard behind the main house where Daddy's parents lived.  Grandpa Lingle ran a grocery store in Koshkonong.  We all moved to Siloam Springs , Arkansas about 1916.  That's where my sister, Willie, was born. Grandpa Lingle and Daddy put in a grocery store in Siloam, but they didn't do very well, so we moved to the farm north of Siloam on Flint Creek.    Actually we lived in several places in the area of Duckworth School where I started.  Later, we moved to the Nicodemus community where Willie started school.  When I was in the sixth grade, we moved into Oklahoma near Beaver Springs.  Later, we moved to Moseley Prairie for about a year, then we moved to Chewey, about a mile from the Chewey store and post office.  I took my eighth grade examinations there."  

"One of the first homes I remember was a farm we rented.  We called it the Kinsey place.  There was an old bachelor that lived across the road from us.  Most people were afraid of him because he was fairly unsociable; however, Willie was very brave.  She crawled under the fence one day to accept cookies from the old man.  After that we weren't quite so afraid of him.  Another incident that happened while we lived there was that another neighbor, Lydg Collins, lost his wife in a fire.  Juanita and I were so awed by such a violent death that we ditched school to attend the funeral." Juanita Lingle was actually Ella's aunt, but she was very close in age with Ella.           

"Another place we lived was the Dunlap place north of Siloam Springs.  We moved there about 1919.  Grandpa and Grandma Lingle and Juanita lived in a large three story house there.  There was a wooden walk between Grandpa's house and the small two room cottage where Daddy, Mama, Willie, and I lived.  There were two large beds crowded into one of the rooms arranged around a wood stove.  I remember that we were all down with the flu one winter.    The big house wasn't lavish, but it did have a parlor with a fireplace and a bay window.  We children weren't allowed in the parlor much accept occasionally when guests gathered there.  Mama would play the organ while Aunt May and Aunt Della would sing hymns."  

Ella started school at the Duckworth schoolhouse in 1921, at the age of six.   Lucille, her second sister, was born that year.  Ella says, "I remember that we were playing outside and Aunt May came out to tell us that we had a baby sister."  By now there were several children around to play with.  Juanita was close, and Aunt May's girls, Louise and Evelyn, visited often  Grandpa Lingle, who was crippled with arthritis,  would watch the girls play while the rest of the adults worked around the farm.  "There were always lots of bees among the clover.  Grandpa Lingle would rub tobacco on our stings to ease the pain.  We'd be ready to resume our playing after just a little while."

"We had a graveyard for our pets behind the chicken house.  We first buried some baby chicks there.  Later, when Juanita was climbing backwards through a window, she stepped on her pet kitten.  It died within a few hours.  We had a funeral for the kitten, and buried it back there with the baby chicks."

The girls also played church quite often.  They copied their style from tent revivals they visited in Siloam Springs.  "Daddy and Mama would  take us to the revival meetings.  We traveled in a wagon pulled by one of our horses.  A bed was arranged in the buckboard for us girls to sleep on the way home."  

When asked about her childhood relationship with her parents, Ella said:  "Daddy always had a special place in my heart.  Mama was always so busy with the demands of keeping house that she never had time to play with us kids.  Daddy, on the other hand, would tease us and play with us even though there was plenty of work to attend to on the farm: cows to milk, hogs to feed, and always a big garden to care for.  He called me Cottentop.  I remember him saying 'Now, get out of the way, Cottontop'. 

"Daddy was born in Moko, Fulton County , Missouri , but the family moved to Koshkonong, and Grandpa Lingle opened a store there.  The Ballews already lived in Koshkonong.  I don't think that Daddy and Mama went to school together, but this is where they met and where they were married."

"Mama was a twin to Elgi Ballew, who was married to Ben Alexander.  She and her two daughters, Bernice and Marie, came to visit us on the farm north of Siloam, out on Flint creek.  Daddy was cutting hay when they came.  Her girls were about four and six;  Willie was about five, and me almost eight.  As Dad would cut the hay, I remember, Aunt Elgi chased the rabbits.  Aunt Elgi later lived in Mounds, Oklahoma ; then, she moved to Barnsdall.  We were poor, and couldn't get together much to visit.  She took pneumonia and died, and Mama didn't get to go to the funeral.  Years later, Mama wondered and worried about what happened to Bernice and Marie.  After Bernice was married, remembering she had an aunt near Watts , Oklahoma , she tried several times to find Mama.  Richard Quick, my sister Nina's husband, was working at a service station there in Watts .  Bernice happened to stop at that service station and asked about her aunt.  She said 'Her name is Eva and she had a bunch of kids."  Richard said, 'I bet you are looking for my mother-in-law'.  Of course, Mama was beside herself with joy to meet her long lost niece after so many years."

"Grandpa and Grandma Ballew came to see us twice that I remember.  One time they came, and I remember Mama cried, she was so happy to see them.  Grandpa said, 'If you're going to cry, we'll go back home.'  Mama said, 'They are tears of joy!'  another time when they visited, I'd been fighting wasps and had knocked down a wasp nest.  A wasp had stung me above the eye and my eye had swollen shut.  Only once do  I remember being at their home.  After they moved to Fresno , California , they sent us a box of fruit for Christmas.  We didn't know what grapefruit was; we thought they had sent us green oranges."

"Uncle Frank and Aunt Ella Ballew had a son name T.J.  I dreamed about him being my brother, but I never saw him.  I was Ella's namesake."

Three other children were added to the Lingle family over the next few years.  They moved to Beaver Springs , Oklahoma about 1925.  Everett, Jr. (Buck) was born there.  A couple of years later they moved to Moseley Prairie.   The family later moved  to Chewey , Oklahoma . Another brother, Jimmy Andrew, was born in 1928.   James and Harriet Lingle, Ella's grandparents,  had moved back to Siloam Springs, so Eva had gone to stay under Mother Lingle's care during the final weeks of her pregnancy.  This explains why Jimmy was born in Siloam Springs, though the family was living in Chewey.  Ella actually completed her eight grade examinations twice at the Chewey school house.  There was no high school.  She went to John Brown University in Siloam Springs for a summer session, and stayed with her grandparents while she completed one year of study at Siloam High School .  She worked for a while for Dolly and Tom Garrett in Siloam, taking care of their baby.   In 1933,   Willie was married  to Chester Erickson.  In 1934, Ella's mom gave birth to her last daughter, Nina Lee. 

Ella, like most unmarried young girls of that day lived at home, helping  her mother with  the household chores and helping to care for the younger children.  "Some of my closest friends when growing up were Ethel Varner, Mary Lewis (in Siloam), and Flora Marshall at Chewey.  Also there was Audrey Downey, a neighbor girl, and Syrena Folsom.  I first met Clarence Comingdeer at his dad's store in Chewey, about 1927 or 28."

After Willie married Chester Erickson, she and Chester moved out to Drumright.  Ella was visiting them when she was asked to care for Mrs. Eliza Carroll.  It was while working in her home, that Ella met Woodrow Carroll.  They were married in 1938. 

On August 24, 1939 their first son, Bobby Dale was born.  "We were living in a two room shack just south of Bryan 's house.  Bobby had yellow jaundice when he was born, but he soon recovered.  He was a good baby with curly blond hair, almost white.  We burned coal to heat the house, so by morning his hair was blue.  He was named Bobby Dale because I thought it was a cute name.  Mr. Carroll (Ham) would laugh and say 'Glad I didn't name him!'  I remember that when Bobby was about three years old, we got him a tricycle for Christmas.  He'd say: 'Boy, it runs like a ruptured duck.' "

Woody moved his family to Sims , Illinois in late 1941 on a pipeline related job. It's probable that Woody's brother, Bryan, and his wife Lilly Mae Kirk, were with them for Bryan was a welder and worked on pipeline jobs most of his adult life.  Ella was pregnant with their second child.  The baby was born on January 7, 1942 (just one month after the attack on Pearl Harbor ).  "We named the little girl Phyllis Jean because Mae liked the name.  She was born in the middle of winter.  I remember that I went to town to see the doctor, and on the way home my water broke.  By the time we reached the house, my clothes had frozen stiff.  We had to call the doctor to come out to the house to deliver the baby."

Woody brought his family back to Oklahoma after the job in Illinois was completed.   They found a place about four miles west of Drumright.  Their third child, Donna Kay, was born on July 24, 1943 .  She was born at the home of Ella's Aunt Juanita.  Eva Lingle was visiting at the time.  "The doctor came to check me, and said that it would be awhile before the baby came; however, she was born before he could get back to the hospital and return.  Mama wanted to cut the cord, but I told her to wait for the doctor."

The following winter of 1944, Woody got a job in Drumright with the Service Pipeline company.  Six weeks later, he received his notification of induction into the army.    He was officially inducted April 19, 1944 .   Before leaving, he  bought a house on the Pure Oil Lease on the outskirts of Drumright so that the family could be near town while he was away.  He served in the European conflict, and returned home from the war on November 1st, 1945 .

On September 29, 1946 the couple's fourth child was born.  "Me and the girls wanted to name him Jimmy",  Ella remembered, "but Woody thought that the name James would be better. "  'We can just call him Jimmy', Woody had said.  The Hamilton name was taken from his grandfather, Henry Hamilton Carroll.  "My doctor was Dr. W.O. Starr who was a full-blood Cherokee indian. During the birth process, the baby was in the birth canal longer than normal.  When he was born, he was blue from the loss of oxygen.  I had a sweet nurse name Arnie Reddling who watched over Jimmy during the critical hours.  I didn't see him until the day following the birth. "  

During the late forties and early fifties, the oil industry around Drumright began to decline.  The Pure Oil Lease was closed, so Woody had his house moved to a lot across the street north of Lincoln School .  It was in this house, on September 18, 1949 , that the fifth child, Jerry Clay,  was born.  "Doctor Godtel came to the house, but my neighbor, Geneva Brown, always took the credit for delivering the baby."

"While we were living in Drumright, across from Lincoln School , I went a few times to the Baptist church.   But, I had a neighbor, Sister Dovey Lee, who was always telling me about the Assembly of God church.   I visited the church, and this became my church home for many, many years."  Ella taught Sunday school and vacation Bible school a number of times during the years the kids were growing up.

About 1951, Woody sold their house in town, and moved the family into a house south of the Tydol refinery.  That's where they were living when their last child, Billy Mack, was born.  He was born July 20, 1952 in the Yale hospital.  Ella's physician was again, Dr. Godtel.

In August, 1952, the family moved to the farm originally owned by Ham Carroll. Bobby was going into the eighth grade, Jimmy was entering the first grade.  The family lived in this house for a number of years while most of the kids grew up and left home. 

Jerry and Billy were in high school when difficulties arose in Woody and Ella's marriage.  Woody and Ella separated several times during those years.  Only Jerry and Billy could express the emotional hardships they encountered during this time.  By 1970, Jerry had graduated and joined the Air Force; Billy dropped out of school his senior year. 

Ella had gone to work to help support her and the boys.  When the boys left home she moved to Ponca City for a while and lived with her daughter, Phyllis,  and ran a coin-operated laundry.  Later she moved to Cushing and worked for Phyllis in a clothing business that Phyllis had bought.   In the mid-seventies, Ella was able to secure a small apartment in Drumright.  Here she was able to again return to her home church.  She and Woody had finalized their divorce.  She was living comfortably, but still somewhat lonely.

It was then in the early 1980's that she was introduced again to a childhood acquaintance, Clarence Comingdeer, at the home of her sister, Willie.  Clarence was a widower, and lived near Tahlequah , Oklahoma .  He, Chester , and Willie had kept in touch over the many years since they had all been children living in the Chewey community in eastern Oklahoma .  Clarence and Ella  renewed their old acquaintance, and on December 23, 1982 they were married.   They made a comfortable home about a mile north of Moody grocery, about 12 miles north of  Tahlequah.  Clarence , a devout Bible student, was an active Gideon.  The couple enjoyed getting out and about as much as possible, enjoying travel, fishing, gardening, and other joys of retirement.  In 1986-87 both Ella and Clarence went through a local educational program and each obtained a Certificate of High School Equivalency..  

Being once again in eastern Oklahoma gave Ella much more opportunities to keep in touch with her one living brother, and three sisters.  After living a few good years with Clarence, it seems that Clarence decided that he no longer wished to remain married.  He divorced Ella and went to California .   Ella eventually moved to Siloam Springs , Arkansas , close to her sisters, Willie and Nina; however, when she could no longer live alone, she moved to Ft. Smith , Arkansas to live with her daughter, Donna Kay Garrett and family.  Later she lived in Perry, Oklahoma again with her daughter, Phyllis.  In 2007 she needed greater care and moved into a nursing home in Drumright, Oklahoma near her sons and where most of the family could visit her often.  Her health, however, failed and she passed away on October 25, 2007 at the age of 92 years.

Ella was greatly loved and admired by all who knew her.  To her children, she was known for her unfailing loyalty, her un-condemning nature, and the joy with which she would greet them.  Her children do "rise up and call her blessed".  They appreciate the hardships she endured during the process of their growing years, the love, the devotion, the care.  Never will there ever be one so dear as she.

Obituary

Collecting Our Kin: A Family History Collection, copyright 1998-2007, is a not-for-profit, personal, on-line genealogy project, formatted and presented by James H. Carroll, Goodlettsville, TN.  Excerpts and contributions from other sources have been used sparingly and with appropriate credit given. You are welcome to copy information found at this site for personal use and share information with other researchers or genealogical organizations, but this information may not be sold or used in a commercial project without expressed permission.