By D. E. Smoot
Phoenix Staff Writer
June 02, 2008 12:32 am
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Wayne Fleming lived quite a few years before he became an Okie from Muskogee.
He has lived quite a few more since then — he and his wife, Mamie Fleming, bought their home here 54 years ago.
Fleming, who spent many years working on farms, said work brought him to Muskogee in the mid-20th century. Fleming went to work for a local feed mill when he first arrived here, then later worked at a poultry processing plant located where Arrowhead Mall stands today.
“Me and another guy would kill 45,000 to 50,000 chickens a day,” said Fleming, who earned about $1.28 an hour for his efforts. “I’d pick up every other one, cut their throats and they went on to the scalding tanks.”
Years later, Fleming went to work for Dr. Eugene Henry, doing maintenance work at his local medical clinic and lots of other work on the doctor’s farm near Taft.
“I cut his hay and baled it,” Fleming said about the job. “I did everything but haul it — twice a year. I really enjoyed that work.”
All those years of work, Fleming said, finally took a toll on his physical abilities. He spends his time now doing what he can in the garden and coming up with ideas for his handicrafts.
“I just let my imagination run away with itself sometimes,” Fleming said.
Okie moved east in Dust Bowl days
Wayne Fleming was born in 1922 “out around Elk City.” He drifted east as a teen with the dust kicked up by storms that uprooted hundreds of western Oklahoma families — and the topsoil — during the depths of the Great Depression.
“It was rough back then,” Fleming said about growing up during the 1930s. “Those old dust storms would come up and just level the dirt pulled up around the cotton rows. I guess we just got tired of it and moved.”
Fleming said his family landed for about a year at Lincoln, Ark., where “it rained almost every day we was down there.” Fleming said his stepfather and another man would go out at night and steal apples to keep the family fed.
“That was a rough situation, but I believe people enjoyed it more than they do nowadays,” Fleming said about life in Arkansas. “Back then, if you couldn’t earn it, you had to steal it just to stay alive.”
The Fleming family pulled up stakes again and eventually sank roots near Checotah, where he sharecropped some Canadian River bottomland now buried deep beneath the surface of Lake Eufaula.
“We picked a lot of cotton back then,” Fleming said. “There was some corn, but they didn’t grow any soybeans like they do now.”
World War II interrupts romance
Fleming said he met the woman who would become his wife while living in Checotah. But World War II came along and it would be several years before they were married.
Fleming said he never fought in the war. He was reclassified after a man who worked at the McIntosh County Election Board told the Selective Service Board that Fleming was needed to work in the fields at home.
Mamie Mitchell moved to California and joined the war effort as World War II spread into the Pacific Theater.
“I used to be a welder at the Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond,” Mamie Fleming said, recalling how she had to show her sugar card to prove she was old enough to work there. “I had to go to school for two weeks. The instructor told me I was so dumb I would never learn anything, but in three days out there in that shipyard I became a certified welder.”
Fleming said she thinks the instructor gave her a rough time “because I wouldn’t flirt with him.”
Fleming said she didn’t care much for California, so after working a while at the Richmond, Calif., shipyard, she took the opportunity to move back home after landing an assignment at the Ammunition Depot outside McAlester. She later worked at Camp Gruber.
After the war effort wound down, the military jobs were gone, and the Flemings were married April 8, 1946.
Tough times made couple self-reliant
The Flemings’ experience of growing up during the 1930s and World War II gave them a keen sense of self-reliance. Both of them learned how to make do with less.
That knowledge and those skills came in handy. Mamie Fleming became quite handy quilting.
“I can’t do it any more because I don’t see so good anymore,” she said.
But her husband whiles away the hours making an assortment of things — organizers, letter holders, memory boards, wall hangings and other such stuff.
“It kind of relaxes my mind sometimes,” Wayne Fleming said. “I can take an old cardboard box, some paper plates, and make just about anything I want.”
Of course, Fleming likes to dress up his projects with decorative rocks, beads, some paint or whatever else might catch his eyes. Fleming puts some of his pieces to use, but his collection continues to grow.
“We used to take some of it over to sell at the sale barn in Fort Gibson, but we don’t make it over there much anymore,” Fleming said. “My mind still wants to, but my legs won’t let me get around like I used to.”
While age has slowed down Fleming some, he still gets out and works in his garden when he can. And he stays busy visiting with friends and relatives.
“I just keep hanging in there and hoping for the best,” Fleming said. “I’m 85 going on 86. I think that’s a pretty good deal.”
Q&A
HOW DID YOU COME TO BE AN OKIE FROM MUSKOGEE?
Work brought me here.
WHAT DO YOU DO WITH YOUR FREE TIME?
Arts and crafts, and visiting with my family and friends.
HOW DO YOU MAKE A LIVING IN MUSKOGEE?
I am retired now.
NAME AN OKIE FROM MUSKOGEE YOU ADMIRE AND EXPLAIN WHY YOU LOOK UP TO THEM.
Dr. Eugene Henry. He was a good friend to me, and I worked for him on his farm for many years.
IN YOUR OPINION, WHAT COULD BE DONE TO MAKE MUSKOGEE A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE?
The roads could be improved, and the old buildings and homes around town could be torn down.
WHAT IS THE MOST MEMORABLE THING THAT HAS HAPPENED TO YOU SINCE YOU HAVE LIVED IN MUSKOGEE?
I bought my home and got it paid off.
HOW WOULD YOU SUM UP MUSKOGEE IN 25 WORDS OR LESS?
It is a great town to live in. Everyone is friendly.
Meet Wayne Fleming
AGE: 85.
HOMETOWN: Checotah.
CAREER: Farm labor.
FAMILY: Wife, three children — a son and two daughters — eight grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
HOBBIES: Gardening, arts and crafts.
Hey, Okies!
Are you proud to be an Okie from Muskogee? Tell us why.
Do you know someone who is a proud Okie? We’d like to know that, too.
You don’t have to be a native of Muskogee, just a proud resident of Muskogee today.
E-mail news@muskogeephoenix. com, fax 684-2865 or mail the information to Proud Okie, Muskogee Phoenix, P.O. Box 1968, Muskogee 74402-1968.
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.
Photos
Wayne Fleming and his wife, Mamie, have been married since 1946. Phoenix Staff Photographer