Okay, I have now read the entire abstract. It is not as big as you might think, as there have only been 3 families live here (besides us).
Here is what I have found out so far:
Mr. Smith bought a good-sized piece of land in 1902 from the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations. He and a handful of other men, bought large parcels of
land and established the town. At the time this was (as I already knew) Indian Territory. There is a road 2 miles west of here which was the
dividing line between Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory. This was the Indian Territory side. (And of course in 1907, when the "Union of the
Twin Territories" took place, and Oklahoma became a state, that all went away). (Anecdotal information for those that give a hoot: It was illegal
to have any liquor in Indian Territory, so along 2-mile road, on the WEST side of the road (Oklahoma Territory), it was pretty much lined with saloons
to induce the red-man to spend his money.)
Okay, so Mr. Smith buys all this land, and possibly??? builds this BIG house (for that period of time it was BIG) and then turns around and signs over
ALL of the property and the house to his sister! Now he's married (this isn't in the abstract, this is common knowledge), but apparently he either
lived in this house, with his family and his sister...with everything being in his sister's name. OR, he built the house and let his sister live in
it...until...
his sister died in November 1918, at the age of 57. This is taken from an affidavit from a "personal acquaintance" of the sister. She was never
married, and her sole heirs were her two brothers...which means, it went back to Mr. Smith. One brother was 71 at the time of her death and living in
another part of Oklahoma. Mr. Smith was living in this town and was 58 years old.
BUT, I have to throw in some information that does NOT come from the abstract. There was a teacher who wrote two books about this town about 15 years
ago. These books are filled with newspaper articles from about 1892 on. In 1921 it states "Mr. X Smith is building a modern bungalow on (this
street)."
SO...is the g-g-grandson wrong? He had stated that the little girl on the front porch in the picture he gave me was "Ann", and that she appeared to
be about 4 years old in the picture. Since she was born in 1902, the picture obviously was taken in 1906...so that is how the picture has been dated
so far. Maybe he is all wrong. Maybe the house wasn't built until 1921 (the modern bungalow spoken of in the newspaper). So maybe Mr. Smith
didn't build the house until his sister passed away and he got the land back. Just a thought. BUT, there are construction characteristics about the
house that say it is much older than 1920's...another thought!
Now Mr. Smith did okay. He died in this town (in this house??? don't know) in 1949 with a value of over $121,000 and property all over the state of
Oklahoma. That's pretty good for this area of the country...and in 1949!
So he has a number of children (I count five, 2 boys and 3 girls) at the time of his death. And his estate goes to them. No mention made of his
wife. So I go out and I search the directory of the local cemetery and it shows that she died in 1936.
So the kids immediately sell the entire piece of property to the second family who lived in this house, in 1950. Sale only states man's name (Mr.
Jones). He is the one that owned a merchantile here in town. (My dad states that at one point this man got in trouble when he got caught putting
formaldehyde in his beef to keep it "good"...great! so we can at least count this guy as seedy, right?)
Mr. Jones dies, in this town (in this house??? don't know) in 1961. And he has a sole heir, a daughter. No mention is ever made of his wife.
UNFORTUNATELY, I cannot find him or his wife in the cemetery log. BUT, the cemetery log is only complete through what is considered the "old
section" of the cemetery, so they may be buried in the "new section". I will try to locate their graves to see when the wife died.
But something odd happened here. There is no transfer to the the daughter until 1967. She sold the house to the next owners (the teachers) in 1962.
BUT, the transfer of the property to her (Mr. Jones daughter) did not occur until 1967! And apparently, this all came about because some kind of
lawsuit ensued, initiated by the heirs of Mr. Smith! So, I have a two part abstract. The abstract proper, and then a second document that the title
company stated "must accompany the abstract at all times". This second document is as thick as the abstract! And is titled "Complete transcript
of county court case in the matter of the estate of ...Mr. Jones, Deceased."
Now the weird thing about this second document is that it is a record of this sole heir, spending bunches of money on lawyer fees and filing every
kind of document in the world, but there is NEVER any clear reason why she is having to do all this. There is one obscure reference to the heirs of
Mr. Smith, but NO DOCUMENTS concerning some kind of contention??? In comparison, when Mr. Smith died, there was just a will filed in the abstract;
and he had five kids! But when Mr. Jones died, with only one daughter...it took another book!
So then on to the third owners...the teachers. The first thing I want to point out that was astonishing to me, was the list of land they owned
through out Oklahoma, when they died. This is a town of 1500 people. Both of these people were primary educators in this school system. They sure
made the most of their money!
I was wrong before about one thing. The son died in 1994 (he was the first to die). And I have to go off the rumors that he was in Louisiana when he
died. I'm going to also state that it is pretty much accepted that he was gay, and died of Aids. The reason I state that, is because of some one
who has u2ud me, and it might be of benefit to them. But him dieing BEFORE the parents is really odd, because our closing on this house was held up
for a month because "the brother had not paid his inheritance tax on the property"
Do what? THAT is why I assumed he died after the
mother.
The male teacher, Mr. Johnson, died in 02/2000 of renal failure in this town (in this house...most likely, as there is no hospital here now.) Mrs.
Johnson died in 04/2002. But here is something important. She did NOT die in this town. She was in a nursing home in Arkansas! (One really bizarre
aspect of this is that the only living child, adopted as she may be, was living in Texas and still does. My sister-in-law who was a good friend to
the daughter once stated to me "I have no idea why they ever adopted any kids. They were NOT cut out to be parents.)
There is a fairly big problem with finding this out. I haven't found ANYBODY on this street who knew she WASN'T living here before she died. And
my nephew and my niece (as I have stated in a prior post) had told me right after I moved in that they were glad that I had opened the windows up
because the old lady that lived here before always kept the drapes pulled and would only peek out through the drapes when they would take their walks!
They only moved in their house about 4 to 6 months before the date of her death...who was peaking out???
So, basically, to sum up, so far, if you've bought the house, you've stayed there till you dropped dead...Hotel California...you can check in, but
you can never check out...bah...
I'm going to go set up my recorder and go to bed.