Chapter 1 - OKLAHOMA:

A BOY, THE THIRD CHILD of Nora Belle Tanner and Charles Edward Guthrie, was born in Okemah, Oklahoma, on July 14, 1912. Charles, an ardent Democrat and active campaigner, named his son Woodrow Wilson Guthrie, in honor of the Presidential candidate of that year, but called him "Woody" from the very beginning.

Oklahoma had become a state only five years before, in 1907. The territory was a magnet for traders, fur trappers, and cattlemen, who were drawn by its good grassland and water and dreams of vast ranches on the endless plain. A few were adventurers and get-rich schemers, but most of the settlers were homesteaders looking for sprawling ground. The rest were Negroes and various Indian tribes. Nora Guthrie's mother, Mary Tanner, had been one of the first log-cabin school teachers in Okfuskee County. The schoolhouse on the banks of the Deep Fork River, about fifteen miles from Okemah, was in pioneer country in those days.

The tales and songs Mary Tanner heard from the motley collection of settlers were, as her grandson recalled: "full of the wild cat, the panther, the coyote, the overgrown wolf, the mountain lion, and the fights between man and beast to settle Okfuskee County. It was, in the quicksands and muds of the river's rising, the wind that blew and whipped from east to west in a split second, the lightning that splintered the barn loft, the snakey-railed cyclone, prairie cloudbursts, . . . fiery drouth . . . timber fires ... in the fights of the man against all of these, that I was born and heard my mother sing to my brother Roy, and to my sister Clara."

Charles Guthrie, born in Texas cotton country, had played guitar and banjo in cowboy bands until he married Nora Tanner. But though he "hung up his deviled strings," as Woody put it, and settled down to domestic life, Charlie, as everyone called him, never gave up singing. "He was always out talking, dancing, drinking and trading with the Indians. . . . Taught me to count in Chickasaw or Choctaw, Chero-kee, Sioux, Osage or Seminole dialect. He was a Clerk of the County Court and our house was full of the smells of big leather law books and poems of pomp and high dignity that he memorized and performed for us with the same wild pioneer outdoor chant as he sang his Negro and Indian square dances and Blueses."

Grandpa and Grandma Tanner built a house on their farm a few miles out of Okemah and bought Nora a piano. She learned to play the chords of the Irish and Scots songs and ballads her parents had taught her. Later on they bought one of the first phonographs in the country. "The first notes of so-called civilized music," Woody claimed, "echoed in the holler trees along Buckeye Creek and in the leaves of the sumac and the green June corn. ..."

Coming back to town from Grandma Tanner's farm every Sunday, as he neared his house. Woody could hear his parents' voices blending in perfect harmony on hymns, spirituals and soul-saving songs. "The color of the songs," he wrote, "was the Red Man, Black Man, and the white folks."

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now I'm found Was blind but now I see.
Shall I be wafted to the skies On flower beds of ease
While others strive to win the prize
And sail through bloody seas?

At home, Nora Guthrie sang her ballads and all the children had their favorites. Clara loved to hear the old ballad, Under the Greenwood Siding:
O baby, O baby; if you were mine, All along and alone-y;
T would dress you up in scarlet so fine, All along by the greenwood siding.
O mother, O mother, when I was yours,
You pierced me through my poor tender heart.
O mother, O mother, thou hast cut stakes,
You shall be the keeper of hell's gates.

Woody would lie on the rug listening with his chin in his hand as Nora sang Gypsy Davy:

It was late last night
When my lord came home
Asking for his lady. . . .

Okemah, which means "Town on A Hill" in Creek, was one-quarter Negro, one-quarter Indian, and one-half white. During the oil boom its population was to swell from 1,500 to 5,000 souls. The land around town was nothing but brushy-sand hills with farms scattered among patches of scrub oak, sycamore, and cottonwood trees.

By the time Woody was born, Charlie Guthrie was a pros perous and important man in the community. He owned about thirty farms, raised prize cattle, bulls, and hogs. He had pedigreed bird dogs "with their family trees all printed and framed all over the house." All the children helped take care of the animals.

As a real estate dealer Charlie became active in the hurly-burly of local politics. He trained the children to help out during elections. Even before Woody could read Charlie had him out along the streets on a hay wagon singing campaign songs and making speeches . . . "and he put words in my mouth to make me poke fun at the socialists." As a young man Charlie had written two anti-socialist books, and held views that his son was never to follow.

Until Woody was two years old, the Guthries lived in a comfortable six-room house in a good section of town. It was painted bright yellow and surrounded by flowers and green lawn.

Those were the prosperous years, and Nora surrounded herself with beautiful things, but it came to a sad end one day when the beautiful house burned down. This was the first in a series of disasters which led ultimately to grinding poverty.

After the fire, Charlie bought the old London house, named after its previous owners. It was quite a comedown. The big rooms on the first floor were dug right into the side of a rocky hill, and the walls were cold and clammy.

A few nice things had been saved from the fire, but all the rest was secondhand furniture that had seen better days. Charlie made all kinds of plans to transform the London house into a decent home for the family but they would hear none of it. They just could not reconcile themselves to living there at all.

The London house was hated by the other members of the family but Woody, as the youngest, found its good points. Best of all was the high porch along the top story, the highest in Okemah. From this lookout he could see the bottom of the hill, and watch the wagons rolling into t6wn with entire families atop bales of cotton. He could see them driving under the shed at the gin mill, disappear and appear again with the wagons full of cotton seed. From another point he could watch the trains, hear the wild-sounding whistles and see the black smoke belching up from the smokestack. So what if London house wasn't the most beautiful place in Okemah? Woody's friends were there frequently with him, watching the trains and the cotton wagons from his porch lookout, and that was what home meant for the boy!

For no apparent reason, Nora became irrational at times, even violent, and was depressed for long periods.

She would make some excuse. "It's the London house, and it takes so much to keep it clean."

Finally she took to sitting at home by herself, never visiting anyone, never receiving visitors. Sometimes she would try to read a book but it would lie open in her lap, while her eyes stared outside.

One day, the heat was stifling. Not a breath of air stirred, not a leaf, not a blade of grass. An unexpected gust of cool air surprised Woody as he walked with his father. Dark clouds of dust were swirling along the ground, and higher, blocking out the sky. The wind swept everything in its path.

It was a great lark for Woody, but his father was alarmed. A cyclone was coming. What if its snaky black tail were to suck away the little they now had-the old London house? What would become of the family then?

As they pushed against the wind, Nora and Grandma came towards them. The rain was already pelting down. "We're heading for a shelter, here's a raincoat," they shouted, and ran for the cellar.

Charlie lifted Woody onto his shoulders, covering them both with the coat. Woody clung to his father's neck more tightly as he felt the powerful thrust of the wind and the driving rain. Tubs and planks spun around in midair. Barn doors swung loose and splintered into a thousand pieces. The storm howled and roared around them, stronger and more destructive with every passing moment. "Keep your head down!" Charlie yelled.

Just as they came within sight of the shelter, a fresh gust of wind and rain drove them behind a cow barn. A moment later the barn was torn from the ground and lifted fifty feet in the air. The two fell forward. Charlie crawled to the cellar door dragging Woody underneath him.

"Let us in, let us in!" he yelled, banging his fists on the door. It opened a little and they squeezed through. Fifteen people huddled and shifted around the storm cellar. Several lanterns cast strange shadows on the walls. Woody climbed into his mother's lap and was sung to sleep with the words of The Sherman Cyclone:

You could see the storm approaching And its cloud looked deathlike black And it was through our little city That it left its deadly track.

At last the door opened and a voice called in:

"The worst is over!"

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