In 1928 my parents, Claud and Jennie Mae (McArdle) Keltner moved to a farm southwest of Douglas, in Garfield County. Dad Also had a store on the south side of Main Street in Douglas. It was a frame building with frame buildings on either side with a long wooden porch on the north side of all the buildings. I still remember the clop, clop sound the wooden floor made when people walked.

A few years later Dad built a brick building across the street. He had the post office in the southwest corner. A full length mirror with a wide gold frame was just inside the front door. Two fuel pumps, gasoline and kerosene, were outside the side door. In the garage, at the back of the building, were chicken pens. Chickens and eggs were trucked to Enid. Ice, produce and other supplies were brought back.

We used aluminum trade coins that had “Claud Keltner 1913, Douglas, Okla.” on one side and the value “good in merchandise” on the other side “10 cents to $1.00" Eggs were worth more if exchanged for merchandise or these coins which could be used later.

Once I opened a twelve dozen case of eggs a farmer had brought in and found two soft, fluffy yellow baby chickens in the top layer. It was a warm day and they had hatched on the way to town. Fresh eggs???.

The thirty dozen egg cases we shipped the eggs in came in flat bundles wired together. Dad had made a wooden frame to hold the two ends and middle while we nailed on the flat sides and bottom. I spent a lot of time making egg cases and learned to be fairly good with a hammer. Carpenter work became a hobby.

“Getting ready for Saturday” included sacking sugar. A hundred pounds of sugar came in a nice white sack (saved for tea towels) with a gunny sack on the outside. The sugar was dumped in a large wooden barrel and sacked with a scoop in five and ten pound brown paper bags and tied with a string. We avoided spilling any of the sugar if possible. It was really annoying to walk in it.

Bananas were shipped on the stalk which was cut from the banana plant. Dad hung it upside down in the window. We sold the bananas by the dozen, cutting them from the stalk with a sharp curved knife.

I’ll admit I wasn’t too good cutting beefsteak. Dad usually bought a hindquarter and hung it in the cooler. We only cut it as we sold it. We cut it all the way across and a large sharp knife. My slices didn’t turn out very uniform.

BY RUTH KELTNER HELTON FORTNEY, MARSHALL, OK
(Copied verbatim from the Garfield County History Book, Volume I.)