I Married Doc's Daughter, 2

By the time I arrived in the later years as Doc’s newest and last son-in-law, his kids were mostly grown and gone from their Central Oklahoma home-in-the-country.  “Doc”; G. S. Stiles, Sr., M.D., had spent his latter life as a country doctor serving central Oklahoma following his forced retirement from his active surgical practice at age forty-five in Houston, TX.

Serious coronary complications forced Doc to retire from a lucrative practice and terminate his political activity with Texas Democrats in the company of Jesse Jones Texas oil tycoon. It had been heady company for the man who as a five-year-old had driven the family’s Covered Wagon over the Trail of Tears. That trek had taken his family from North Carolina Cherokee country to Lead Hill, AR. 

As a young Arkansan, he later shoveled the coal as a fireman that fueled the engine pulling the train between New Orleans and Little Rock. That enabled him to graduate from the University of Little Rock and make his way to central OK while still Indian Territory.  Later on, his hard-earned education enabled him to give years of medical service before and after Oklahoma became a state, as well as work as translator at the nearby Indian Court.

 Doc served people freely and indiscriminately. Family members later counted as much as one million dollars lost in uncollected debts. Doc, who lost his first wife in a tragedy, eventually married a young New England girl who had journeyed all the way from New England to Oklahoma via Kansas in a covered wagon, under the full protection of her two brothers Bill and Dutch when their father died. 

I met Bill and Vergie who ran the 2,000 acre Tumbling-T Ranch I visited near Okemah, OK. I was quite enthralled with my introduction to his big red Santa Gertrudis cattle. At one time Uncle Billy served as Sheriff of Okfuskee County, while also operating his Mercantile Store, a quaint meeting place in the country where you could find most of what you needed. Uncle Dutch raised cattle on a smaller scale nearby.

Doc and Mary encountered the Church of God Reformation fairly early and each was soundly converted under the preaching of Brother David Ladd. That took place at the old Valentine Schoolhouse and Mary lived the remainder of her life as a steppingstone to the celestial. Twenty-five preacher-friends of the family attended that Memorial Service, conducted by former State Trooper and longtime pastor and friend of the family, Brother Joe Faircloth.  

Doc became a successful evangelistic preacher for about three years, according to family lore. This happened often in that era, especially with first generation converts like Doc and Mary. The family never could make sense of it all when Doc “gave it up” under pressure from that credentialing committee to foolishly and ignorantly burn his medical books before being ordained. Of course, those Oklahoma reformers did not believe in taking medicine; but they believed in faith healing. Mary had no problem living her life without taking medicine, but she had no problem living out what she believed either. 

Truth is, whenever Mary got into difficult times, especially in her later years, she inevitably came to stay with Tommie and me. She and I travelled many a mile by ourselves when I made long overnight hauls to bring her from her little house in Welty to wherever we were living at the time. She was comfortable to travel alone with me when sick; she knew I would stop for the necessary breaks and/or do whatever needed done; and, she knew we would neither force her to go to the hospital or to take medicine against her wishes.

I can say that by the time Mary died, Tommie had spent some highly difficult weeks working heroically to nurse and nurture her good-spirited and well-intended mother. I can’t say the siblings always appreciated her always turning to us, or of her sometimes extreme measures, but then she was the one that had Doc’s drive and determination.

Doc, on the other hand, consequently lived a very ambivalent life, right up until his death in 1961. He was well into midlife when I came into the family, but by all accounts he had lived an erratic and convoluted life divided between dedicated service to humanity yet supporting his family in active church life and seeing that they were well educated and progressively trained in understanding the Bible. Much of his life he reflected a highly schizophrenic side in his personal behavior that could by all accounts be considered borderline “demonic”. 

I remember making that all-night five-hundred-mile drive from the Mississippi Delta on the Yazoo to Welty, OK following the message of his death. I was not a happy camper when we arrived at the 5:00 a.m. hour only to discover that all the last minute arrangements had been left for Tommie to complete upon arrival, although she had prearranged everything ahead of time for just such a circumstance. 

I lacked a close bond with my father and I never developed much of a relationship with Doc in any personal way. His daughter, my wife, was pint-sized by comparison to him but the family considered her the one person most like her dad personality-wise, and the one in the family closest to Doc. Whereas he sometimes struck fear o  perhaps anger), among the family she probably understood him better than any of the rest and she remained utterly fearless. 

For whatever reason, in times of family crisis she was THE ONE, without fail, that he always turned to. Likewise, whenever an issue needed to be handled that involved him; without fail, she was the one on whom the family depended. And, I never saw her fail! In spite of her likeness to Doc, she lived her life of deep faith in God as the best replica of her deeply mystical mother although she remained troubled by what she knew. I thought my own childhood was self-limiting, but in retrospect I know she carried scars of traumatic memories that accompanied her all the way to her grave. It was more than any child should rightfully carry or need to deal with and it remained mostly buried for most of our seventy years. 

I watched it seep through the pores of her life during her “final days” when I patiently listened to old accounts retold, dreamed of and frequently traumatized by. On the other hand, I read Dee Brown’s troubling account of life on the Trail of Tears (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee) and I wonder how I would have handled that life as a five-year-old half-breed child. I have to believe Doc did pretty well, considering how a church body I have served all my life could have treated him so ignorantly.

He assuredly contributed his share of genes for a healthy mind in spite of her illness-plagued body. He gave his daughter a healthy regard for all that I consider of value to faith and life. He taught her to be fearless of man or beast, while also teaching her to live and love and lift with compassion and mercy for both man and beast. I loved her then,

                                                                        And I love her still; 

                                                                                                     I love her now,

                                                                                                                                 And I always will.
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