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Life in rural western Missouri offered plenty of challenges during the late 1800s, including dwindling amounts of available land. But with the Indian Appropriations Act of 1889, President Grover Cleveland officially proclaimed the Oklahoma Territory open for settlement. It was then that land fever swept the countryside, but those who heeded the call faced an entirely new set of challenges as they crossed Kansas during their long journey south to Oklahoma.
In author Sally Jadlow’s first creative nonfiction book she tells a compelling story about her grandfather, Sanford Deering, and his family, based on short notes on ragged, yellowed diary pages that he wrote from 1887 through 1896.
“December 25, 1888 - Everyone met at our house today.”
Throughout this sweeping saga, small details such as sewing dresses from flour sacks and plugging holes in sod walls to keep out cottonmouth snakes bring this family’s story to vivid life.
It was a time when “prairie coal” (cow pies) rather than wood — because of its scarcity in Oklahoma — were used for fires; birthing boxes were a necessity; and amidst all the hardships, prayers of anger, uncertainty and thanks still demonstrated the unwavering faith of these early Midwesterners.
As the story opens, the Deerings are in the midst of growing their young family in Missouri. Then Sanford makes a life-altering decision to stake a land claim in Oklahoma.
He leaves home for several months, claiming land for his family and extended family, and in doing so misses the birth of his second child, which his wife, Lucy, delivers alone.
Not long after his return and much to Lucy’s chagrin, they pack their belongings in a boxcar and move from their safe, familiar Missouri home to what Lucy considers to be ‘Indian Territory.’ The Deerings travel through early Kansas towns on their way to the wild Oklahoma Territory, leaving behind traditional frame houses and bounteous gardens for hand-built sod homes set in red-dirt country, where trees and water are scarce.
As months and years pass, the family plasters and whitewashes their sod home, plants crops and welcomes more friends and family to their Oklahoma community. Unusual characters such as drifter Jeremiah Jump and a ‘water witcher’ with an uncanny ability to find sources of drinking water color their lives.
Through it all, the homesteaders endure drought and famine, prairie fires, towering thunderstorms and blinding snowstorms. They subsist on turnips and await financial relief from Congress.
When a close friend back in Missouri suffers a heart attack, Sanford once again leaves his family for many months. Death claims beloved family members and friends while new families form, and after five years in Oklahoma, the Deerings finally own their homestead. Yet, as this saga draws to a close, unexpected upheaval occurs again.
Appealing for an audience from young readers to seniors, The Late Sooner offers a close, personal and heartfelt look at how a desire for land, strong faith and close family ties shaped early development of the central United States.
Q & A WITH AUTHOR SALLY JADLOW
435 South: When you discovered your great-grandfather’s notes, in 2003, they were 119 years old. Why did you write this book?
Sally Jadlow: I think people today forget how much people suffered to establish where we live now - especially the kids - and it’s been less than 125 years. Also, if you can put a story with historical events, then it makes history come alive.
435 South: You work as a chaplain. How did you fit in your research and writing?
SJ: My Saturdays were set apart to get online, and check out and buy books. I read a lot of period stuff so that I kind of soaked it in. I wrote when I had an hour here or 30 minutes there. I brought another chapter to a critique group, every two weeks. I visited Oklahoma twice to do research at the historical society in Guthrie, to walk the land and see Lucy’s grave; that’s where I learned about the famine of 1890. I walked the land in Missouri and saw those graves too. I also ordered a reprint of a Sears Roebuck 1897 catalogue to answer questions such as ‘Did they have screen doors in 1890?’
435 South: Your great-grandfather’s notes were very sketchy. How much of your characters did you create without factual information?
SJ: I met my great-grandfather when I was about five and I remember him. He was threshing when my grandmother was born and people didn’t come home for a week when they were threshing. I think that colored the whole tenor of things. [Regarding emotions I asked myself] “If my husband said, ‘We’re moving to Oklahoma,’ how would I react?”
435 South: Prayer figures prominently in the book. How was faith important in this story?
SJ: Faith was such an integral part of their lives. I don’t think people would have had this burning desire to acquire new land, if they didn’t have faith that this was a God-ordained calling.
435 South: What do you hope readers will learn from this book?
SJ: A new appreciation for what we have and a new gratitude for what we’ve been given.
To learn more about Sally Jadlow and The Late Sooner, visit www.sallyjadlow.com.
