Prepared by: Louis Dolton, October 4, 2011
1904 was a leap year starting on Friday. In 1904, the Herero Rebellion begins in German South-West Africa. A Japanese surprise attack on Port Arthur (Lushun) starts the Russo-Japanese War. U.S. Army engineers begin work on The Panama Canal. The third Modern Olympic Games opens in St. Louis, Missouri, United States as part of the World's Fair. Republican incumbent Theodore Roosevelt defeats Democrat Alton B. Parker in the US Presidential election. The start of the Great War is still ten years away. Elza will be twenty-five years old on Black Tuesday; the day the stock market crashed (October 29, 1929). In Mustang, Oklahoma, the average high temperature is fifty-four degrees; there are 1.6 inches of precipitation; and 2.1 inches of snowfall. This is the world that Elza Dolton was born into.Elza Garland Dolton was born February 25, 1904, in Mustang, Canadian County, Oklahoma. He was the son of Frank and
Ida Olive (Ford) Dolton. Elza had seven brothers and sisters: William Jewel Dolton, Florence May Dolton, Nancy Isabell Dolton, Thomas Frank Dolton, Joseph Gilbert Dolton, Ines Olive Dolton, and Daisy Irma Dolton. While many of his brothers and sisters moved to California Elza lived in Mustang until his death on July 4, 1981.Elza had one wife, the beautiful Louisa Hattie Mohr (1909 – 1994). They were married at the Oklahoma City Courthouse in 1926 with Lawrence and Carrie Mohr as witnesses. Elza and Louisa had three sons: Louis Garland Dolton (born 1928), Joseph Lee Dolton (1930 – 1961), and Ronald Earl Dolton (born 1935).
Elza was an excellent student and enjoyed school. He enjoyed reading and art and was popular among his friends and teachers. However, something happened at the start of his eighth grade school year (1919) that caused him to stop attending school. He wouldn’t tell his parents what it was. They were not terribly upset by this as they could really use the help on the farm and whatever income Elza could bring in on the side. So Elza went to work as a farm hand for his father and others.
Elza’s future wife, Louisa, finished the 10th grade at Mustang High School before leaving school. She said she left school because she was on the Mustang community basketball team and the school was going to make her stop playing because she wasn’t doing well in school. She quit because she had rather play basketball than go to school (Louisa was about five feet tall).
In 1923 Elza worked at farmers market in OKC. Uncle Thomas worked there and the Dolton’s and Mohr’s took their produce to them to have them sell it at market. In 1924, Elza did some work in the oil fields and drove trucks for the oil companies. In 1926, Elza got a job working for Reed Robison at Auto Need’s in Oklahoma City at the intersection of California & Robinson Streets. Also in 1926, Elza and Louisa were married at the Courthouse in Oklahoma City; Lawrence and Carrie Mohr, brother and sister of the bride, were witnesses.
In 1928, Elza went into partnership with Earl Mohr in purchasing the Mustang Service Station, on Mustang Road (4 corners). Earl took over a co-located barber shop from Thomas Dalton in order to try and help them stay in business. However, the two partners extended too much credit to local residents and were forced out of business. They sold the station to Walt Pickering.
Family was very important to Elza. It was important to him that the families get together as often as possible.
Louis recalls that, ““We gathered every Sunday at Charles and Katie Mohr’s house and everyone brought whatever was their specialty to cook. Aunt Jenny always brought her angel food cake.”
Louis says on those days the children would run and play while the men played cards. “I’m not sure what the women did,” he said, “I think they quilted and crocheted and probably gossiped.”
The Mustangs school was one consolidated brick schoolhouse that encompassed grades one through twelve when Louis attended. He says he can remember the sign for Mustang indicating that the population was three hundred. From the time I was five until I was eighteen no more than five hundred people lived here,” he said.
Many of those people were relatives. Since there weren’t a lot of people there were several Dolton’s and Mohr’s who married. With so few people, crime was also low and Dolton says the worst thing that happened while he lived in the area who was when Mr. Dunbar was killed by hunters stray bullet while he was milking is cow. Other than that, he says, things were pretty quiet.
We went to school every day. Boys carried knives and we played tops, marbles and mumbley peg at lunch,” he said. Mumbley peg was a game the boys played by flipping their knives and trying to get them to stick in the ground.
“Radio was a big thing back then,” he said. “We couldn’t wait for dad to get home from work so we could take out the car battery and hook it up to the radio so we could listen.”
All but one Mustang resident had well water and an outhouse. “Silver’s was the only one with septic and running water in the house,” Dolton said. “It was after 1939 before we had electricity out here. It was very rural.”
After the Service Station failure, Elza went to work for Cities Service Oil Company driving a delivery truck in the Capitol Hill area of Oklahoma City (OKC) through much of 1930. But, with the depression, this job did not last.
In 1932, Elza rejoined his father on his father’s farm in Mustang. In order to have a place to live they moved an oil field house onto a Mustang lot owned by Frank Dolton & Elza began a self-employed career. In the depths of the depression 25% of all men in America were unemployed and unable to support themselves or their families. The US didn’t begin to come out of the depression until the late 1930’s and the economy didn’t really become healthy again until World War II began.
In May of 1934, Elza’s family had lived in their own home for almost a year. The small, two room, oil field house had been moved onto a lot purchased from Elza’s brother-in-law Frank Mohr. The house was a two room shanty with walls built of vertical twelve inch boards and bats with no studs in the walls. The roof and floor was of conventional construction, but the total structure was intended for temporary housing of oilfield workers. This building was home to the family for the next twenty five years with rooms and porches added to the back, then to the east end of the house. Elza built a bedroom and a kitchen on the back of the house of proper construction.
In 1935, Elza and his boys would go to Frank Mohr's wood lot to cut down a tree and cut it into twelve to fifteen foot sections, and haul it home with horse and wagon. Back in Mustang, Elza set up a huge saw (must have been a 25 to 30 inch circular blade) where he and Grandfather Frank spent the afternoon cutting the sections into 18 inch lengths for the winter's firewood. In 1937, they began using coal oil. One coal oil stove, lighted by a coal oil lamp heated the house and cooking was done on another coal oil stove purchased through Sears Roebuck Catalog Order Company. They would heat and cook with smelly (smelled much like a diesel smell) wick kerosene stoves. In 1938, Elza installed electricity in his and several other Mustang homes.
A two-car garage was built from another trade for lumber from a large barn on a lot in Mustang. The garage was built on the order of boards and bats with a brick floor made from broken bricks you could get free for hauling them away at a brickyard in Oklahoma City. A shed on the side of the garage to house Louisa’s first washing machine. That Maytag Washer was powered by a small gasoline motor because they did not yet have electricity.
Over the next several years, with the help of his father and sons, Elza significantly improved his situation. He bought the eighteen acres adjacent to his home and began farming activities with his father Frank Dolton and what little help he could get from his sons (the eldest was four years old).
Chicken Venture
After moving from Frank Mohr's place across the alley to a place of their own, Louis Dolton Sr. remembers extensive plans were made to raise chickens as a cash crop to supplement Elza Dolton's income from various jobs he held during this time. Louis remembers going along the roads to collect sandstone rocks to build the walls for a chicken brooder house.The floor of the building was dug about one or two feet in the ground. The red sandstone rocks were set with red clay for mortar to a height of about five feet above the floor at the north end and six feet above the floor at the south end. A single door was built in the windowless cellar like building.
Elza had made a deal with someone that owned a saw to cut trees into lumber and brought home enough lumber to put a roof on the building with a single slope from front to back. The lumber left over was stacked to one side and later built into two or three coops for growing chickens. The coops were about six feet by eight feet and about four feet tall with a roof that opened to care for the birds. Elza had made other trades for egg incubators, brooders, watering troughs, feeders, a small grist mill and other apparatus probably by swapping labor for future produce for many items needed to commercially raise chickens.
When the project was ready eggs were placed in the incubators and the kerosene heaters lighted then carefully maintained at the proper temperature. The trays of eggs were marked and turned manually every day.
Finally, the chickens hatched, were put under the umbrella like brooders. They were about five feet across, raised about one foot above the ground and another kerosene device kept the area underneath warm as the chicks crowded around just as if they were under their mother. Another brood of chicks was started and then disaster struck. The chicks became ill. The treatment required each of the hundreds of chicks to be administered a purple liquid with an eye dropper. After that, the purple medicine was placed in their water supply and tragedy was averted.
The next disaster to strike this venture happened when three week pullets were placed in the coops for the night. An animal of undetermined genus dug under the walls of the buildings and killed them all, killing over 300 birds. The next batch of chicks was hatching, so production continued. A floor was put under the coops, fences were reinforced and work went on.
Commercial chickenfeed for the chicks was expensive, so the small grist mill had been put to use, but required too much labor to operate manually. Elza would take time of an evening or on weekends to jack up his Model "A" Ford car and with a bar from the hub of a rear wheel to the grist mill hub and a chain fastened to the spokes of the wheels turned the mill to grind corn. This worked very well. Someone had to pour the grain into the hopper of the mill that was still a slow process. The job often fell to Louis, age five, while his father did other chores.
Disaster struck again. When the mill ran out of grain, the chain would loosen. When grain was poured in the hopper, the chain would tighten and the mill would grind the corn again. Louis let the mill run out of grain, the chain loosened, and he quickly poured in more grain. Unfortunately the chain tightened on his brand new pant leg and threw him around and around the bar. His skull was crushed with over twenty inches of fractures, he was taken to the doctor where he was pronounced dead and the doctor began to make out a death certificate. Louis faintly called for his father; he was reexamined and treated, bandaged and sent home.
Louis' Aunt Florence Barefoot came to visit that weekend and as a practical nurse felt there was infection and that the wound would not heal. She had Elza take Louis to the Crippled Children's Hospital in Oklahoma City where Louis spent several weeks recuperating.
The commercial chicken venture was abandoned. The buildings fell into disrepair. But that did not end his attempts to find a way to supplement his meager income. Elza Dolton continued to raise chickens, a cow, pigs, and a garden for personal use.
Grandfather Frank Dolton moved to a house across the road from Elza and they decided to rent the 160 acres of land that joined Elza's property to the north and begin truck farming.
Truck Farm
At the end of the drought, by 1935, Elza purchased eighteen acres of land adjoining the alley by his city lot. He had taken possession of this alley and used it for a cow lot and occasionally enlarged his garden with part of it.Elza’s sons and their playmates often used the alley, one hundred feet wide by two hundred feet long to play softball when it was not cluttered with wood for the heating stove or the local buzz-saw many people in the community would set up to cut wood for the winters fires.
There was another alley-way between the Howard’s and Fred Mohr’s house for equipment access to the barnyard of the 160 acre farm north of Elza’s, so a walk-through gate was built at the back of the alley to provide entry to the eighteen acres which included the barn, sheds, well and orchard of apples, peaches and plums.
Elza rented the rest of the 160 acres which included a pond and about forty acres of hayfield. Grandpa Frank Dolton generally plotted the land into truck-farm crops, though large fields of cotton and corn were attempted without success.
Failure of the cotton gave way to planting theses large fields to winter and spring grass for grazing beef cows and continued until 1942. The land owner offered to sell him the rest of the farm, but while Elza considered it, he sold the land to another person.
Grandfather Dolton regularly attended cattle and farm auctions and the first year bought a one-horse hay baler, a buck rake and a wind-row rake. The baler was pulled out to the field after the hay was cut, dried and raked into rows (wind-rows). The big heavy baler was taken off its wheels, set down and rigged for a single horse or mule to walk around an eccentric shaft which operated a ram to compress the hay as someone fed the hay into a hopper. Hay was brought in from the by the buck-rake, fed into the hopper, the bales tied with wire and another person to stack the bales as they came out of the baler.
The hayfield always produced an abundant crop and was cut, baled and stored in the hayloft of the barn. Field corn produced well one or two years and it was picked and stored in one of the three feed bins (large rooms) opposite the animal stalls which were separated by a long hallway between them. Oats was usually purchased and kept in one of the bins. Another smaller bin was used to store commercial feeds for the pigs and mules.
The barn had three animal stalls. A stall for the mules and harness hooks to hold the harness that enabled them to pull the farm implements. The other two stalls could have been used for milk cows although these were never used much for that purpose as Elza had built a milk barn on the back of his lot for two cows and hay storage before he bought the eighteen acres. The implements were stored in the barnyard, painted, oiled and kept ready for when they were needed.
The successful crops of the first year were sweet potatoes, watermelons and cantaloupes. Peppers, onions, and tomatoes planted in a lowland area were also a success, but the rest of the farm was sold and Elza and his Father, Frank, had to be satisfied with their small acreage from that time on in 1939.
There were always animals. Chickens were never again considered for production, but there were the beef cows, and pigs were kept from the very first and “hog-killing” and selling was always looked forward to in the fall.
Much of the food for the pigs came from the excess produce after the profitable season for their sale had passed. Pigs ate watermelons, cantaloupes, then turnips and sweet potatoes. Later they were fattened out on oats and skim milk, especially after Elza ran the milk route and was able to buy skim milk and swing by the bread stores for week old bread.
Elza needed more income than the small farm would produce and took advantage of an opportunity to buy a rural milk route in 1939. He left early in the morning, about four in the morning, and drove his truck to various farms, to pick up dairy farmers raw milk in ten gallon milk cans. These were transported to three different dairies in Oklahoma City - the Meadow Gold Dairy, the Stephens Milk Company and the Oklahoma Farmers Milk Cooperative Dairy.
He bought four more cows and became a milk producer himself which required him to wake at three in the morning to milk his cows and then drive his route. This left little time for the farm and those duties fell to his father and his oldest son Louis.
There was a summer when small maize (kind of corn) did not grow anything but tiny stubble. Elza plowed it under and hand sowed it to turnips. In no time, it seemed, he had an abundance of turnips, and there were very few turnips on the market. There was much money that year and plenty of feed for the pigs.
One year, the hog lot was moved and the old lot planted in tomatoes. Once again, there was an unexpected bonanza. The field was small, but the vines were large and heavy with tomatoes and it seemed they would never stop producing. There were plenty of tomatoes to sell, to preserve big beautiful red canned tomatoes, to make into green tomato chow-chow, to make green tomato pickles and some to feed the pigs. The same small field, the next year, produced tomatoes, but not as many.
The orchard was always a disappointment. There was never enough fruit to sell and very little to eat or preserve. Five or six peach produced peaches to preserve by canning, but none to sell. If you walked through the orchard at the right time, you might find an apple to eat or enough for an apple pie. That was nice but no profit. There were four plum trees, and they did produce one year, but the next year they began to rot around the root, branches died and broke off and the trees fell down.
The hay field, beef cows, pigs and the sweet potato field were always dependable. Out of ten years of farming, the sweet potatoes failed one time. Grandpa observed that the field seemed to be going to vine and the vines were so abundant that the go-devil (an implement that had two sets of disks built on a sled to straddle the potato rows normally used to control weeds) was used to trim the vines.
It did not work. When the potatoes were harvested, row after row produced only finger sized potatoes good only for putting in the potato cellar until next year. There was not a potato big enough to eat, much less to sell.
Other people had good crops using potato plants from the Dolton’s potato bed, so there was nothing wrong with the plants. It was never determined what went wrong that year.
Sweet potatoes were always so successful in other years that special equipment was purchased at the farm auctions grandfather regularly attended to tend them with. Besides the go-devil, there was a potatoes setter. The machine had two wheels that carried a water tank, a small plow to open a furrow, two small wheels to close the furrow and two seats for the two men who sat on the seats. These seats just clear the ground. Each man alternately took a potato plant (potato slip) and set it in the opened furrow, water flowed from the barrel through an adjustable pipe into the furrow and the two small wheels closed the furrow often on the fingers of the men who were planting the seedlings.
Each year, several bushels of the smaller potatoes were put in a rented room (potato bin) of a local farmer who kept a large building heated at a temperature just above freezing to preserve Irish and sweet potatoes for the next planting season.
This building was dug into a hillside to keep it cool, but when the weather became freezing, small stoves were lit and monitored to keep the produce stored in the barn from freezing. Frozen potatoes would render them unable to produce seedlings the next planting season.
The roads were paved with gravel in the early nineteen forties and how many families would take produce they grew into the farmer’s market in Oklahoma City. It would take a long time to get there on the roads with a horse and wagon, so they would start early in the morning around one or two in the morning. They slept under the wagon and came back to when they sold everything.
“The Dolton Gang,” was the family band. Each member of the family played an instrument. Louis played the guitar; his brothers Joseph and Ronnie played the steel guitar and accordion respectively; their mother Louisa played the bass fiddle, Elza, the drums. They played at dances all over Canadian County. They had a Saturday morning spot on KTOK that was sponsored by the Red Feather Drive-In. The group played their instruments, live, every Saturday for the show.
In 1940, Elza bought a used butane tank to support heating and cooking in his little house with butane gas. (At that time, butane was normally burned off as a waste product in the production of gasoline.) In 1942, Elza added an electric water pump to his well and piped it to a single spigot by the back door and in 1943 ran a pipe across the street to his father's house at his back door. Grandmother Ida Dolton no longer had to pump water.
By 1944, Elza had been injured in an accident on the milk route. He had several operations on his back and sold the route to a lifelong friend, Walter Pickering.
Elza’s sons, Louis, Joe and Ron, all drove trucks at one time or another for Walt over the next few years.
Elza now built a feed grinding mill on part of the eighteen acres bordering Mustang Road. Again, local auctions produced a large wagon scale, a smaller scale for feed sacks and a tractor. The mill, itself, was new and quite costly, but it filled a need for the local farmers, cattlemen and dairy farmers who needed to have fodder and corn ground almost daily for their farming operations.
There was another mill in town, but it was run down and not operated daily or on schedule. It was often broken down and not running at all.
The building was a large room containing the mill. A shed contained the tractor, a huge two cylinder beast used for power instead of a stationary engine. A small room to one side held a hopper for catching and sacking ground corn or wheat. Fodder was passed through an opening on the side of the building where a customer pulled up on the scale and weighed full, then weighed empty, then tripped a catch on a huge overhead hopper to allow the ensilage to fall back into his wagon (mostly wagons) or into his truck or trailer.
Elza’s operation was fast, processing as many as thirty loads of feed from six to ten in the morning and producing an income of six hundred dollars per month from September to March each year. He did not handle commercial feed and by 1947, customers were driving away.
He was already planning ahead. World War II was over and times were changing. The price of grinding mills was coming down, his mill was wearing out, and each farmer was getting his own mill, buying new tractors and modernizing into a new way of doing business.
He sought out an old friend and found the Meadow Gold Dairy was expanding and needed a new field inspection man to go the farmers and monitor their milk production facilities. The plant needed more Grade “A” milk for whole milk sales and much of the milk arriving daily at their plant was only fit for cheese and butter.
He sold two parcels of land, two acres on each parcel, and downsized the farm production to beef and hogs. He attempted to raise twenty calves on skimmed milk, but they all died of dysentery.
Louis recalls that during World War II some things were hard to come by in Mustang. Most folks couldn’t drive their cars because of rationing. The Dolton’s had to ride in a wagon to Grandpa Mohr’s on Sundays because we didn’t have gas. Margarine came in at that time because of rationing. They rationed sugar and butter and they couldn’t sell yellow margarine. That way people knew it was margarine and not butter. People had to mix dye in with their margarine at home if they wanted it to be yellow.
Elza’s oldest son, Louis, returned home from World War II in 1947, but went away to college. His father, Frank Dolton, became less active perhaps due to a mild stroke. Frank moved his family to Oklahoma City to live with his daughter whose husband had passed away.
Louis married, built a house by the old mill building, and then moved away. Elza sold his old house. Took over Louis’ house and modernized it adding two bedrooms, a bathroom, a front and back porch, carport, and a “fraidy hole” (below ground storm shelter).
Elza decided to raise pheasant in the old mill building. Working with the county, he was raising five hundred birds. Half of these were to be turned loose; the other half could be sold. One more disaster, a tornado blew the building away killing most of the birds and scattering the ones that survived ending this operation.
Louis talked his father Elza into building the remaining acreage into a golf course. It was a beautiful little nine hole course, but took a lot of effort to keep up, even though he bought a used golf course mower to pull behind his tractor. Then Louis moved away again and the other boys were not interested in golf.
Elza settled in to just do his job, but decided on one more try to turn the old farm into a cash producing venture. He planted houses. He bought a small house that was to be torn down, built a foundation behind the old mill concrete pat and moved it in to be renovated and rented.
Another house, and then, in 1943, he was forced to retire from injuries to his back. He sold the houses and then cut the rest of the farm into streets and lots. He utilized the old alley to cut a street through from the south and named an east-west street “Frank Dolton Road”, and sold off everything but his house.
In 1951, Louis Garland Dolton, Jr., (Elza’s first grandchild) was born to Louis and Darlene Dolton. The family called Louis Jr. by his middle name so that father and son would not be confused when they were called by name. Louis was stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, in El Paso, during the Korean War and Louis Jr. was born there. Elza and Louisa went down to visit after the birth. Garland’s recollections of his Grandmother and Grandfather follow.
Both Elza and Louisa were pioneers born in Mustang, Oklahoma after their parents came there. Their parents arrived after the rush and bought land and settled in Mustang. They were all active in the community and tried lots of ways of developing the community. They helped open the coverall factory, prospected for oil, grew fruit which was shipped all over the Midwest, helped establish a mill, and much more that is probably not documented.
Grandma Dolton played monopoly with me and cooked us dinner when the family came out on weekends. She went fishing with us and took care of us all. Her dinner special was roast with potatoes and gravy, carrots, green salad, tomatoes and cottage cheese, iced tea, with cake for dessert. She also played cards and "bump" (aka Chinese checkers) with us. She served us coke in Grandpas shot glasses and later allowed me to serve myself. She was wonderful to be around.
Grandpa took me fishing on his pontoon barge he built himself (ask me about the carp), let me shoot his BB guns & shotguns, let me mess up his garage and never complained (much), let me ride and then drive his farm tractor (til he got rid of it) and then let me drive his mower tractor, he built a golf course on his property and played golf with me, he bought me chocolate milk when I visited him at Meadow Gold Dairy where he worked for several years. He arranged it so we could ride the pony next door (even though the darned thing threw me off into the stickers one day).
Many years later Grandma and Grandpa opened THE Mustang Carwash, wash your own, self-serve carwash. He let me help him collect the money from the machines at the car wash and make change for customers who came to the back door of the house when they didn't have enough change. I also was a very little help on those occasions when it broke down while I was there. He did all his own troubleshooting and repair on the equipment.
Grandma and Grandpa were both Deputy Sheriffs of Canadian County and served as far back as I can remember as the dispatchers, until the area outgrew them. When I first remember, Grandpa Elza had a great deal of the farm left he had inherited and worked for Meadow Gold in Mustang. But, he didn't work for them later and opened up a car wash. And he slowly sold off the land he had until he had only about eight lots left when I was in Norman at Oklahoma University about 1972. They always had a garden, sometimes large, but later it grew smaller. It was productive until about three years before Grandpa died. Grandma's home canned green beans were the best imaginable.
They always had gopher problems in the red soil of Oklahoma. We trapped them to keep the population down. When I was older, I'd sit out on the back porch with a shotgun and wait for one of them to stick his head up out of his hole, and try to pop him. Never did find a corpus so I guess I missed every time. Frankly though the fun was in the trying.
Before he sold the land off, grandpa had built a golf course on his property with five or six holes. That was great. And there was a substantial apple orchard there while I was young. I ate lots of those apples and red or green they were great. I loved climbing trees and in addition to the shorter apple trees there were some very tall trees lining the south boundary of the property that I loved to climb and sit in when the wind was blowing. We'd climb way up, as close to the top as we could get, and they'd sway in the wind. I even tried to sleep up there but couldn't. But, I'd just sit up there and listen and listen to the wind blowing in the trees.
Grandpa’s garage was a place to explore and to hide so that you could do those things which parents sometimes disapproved. Very early in my life Grandpa still had many of the old tools from the farm. He had a forge and large anvil, tongs, horseshoes, large handsaws, posthole diggers, traps of various kinds, golf, football, and baseball equipment, and so much more that I couldn't see or reach. The garage was also a blind from which I picked off the birds that pestered Grandpa's garden. After I killed them, I buried them in the garden to fertilize the soil that they had robbed.
Then, there was the "fraidy hole" or storm cellar. Here was another refuge for boys. It usually had water standing in it and had to be pumped out after heavy rains. Grandpa had a sump pump with a float. Whenever the float rose in the storm cellar to a certain point the sump pump kicked on and pumped the water out. There were two by sixes nailed to two by fours to walk on because as I say, there was usually water in there. The storm cellar was a necessity as Mustang is in an area prone to frequent tornado. I saw two tornados while living there but neither came real close. Others hit the town when I was not there and did much damage.
Grandpa Dolton was a stalwart lifelong member of the Masonic Lodge. He was elected Master of the lodge several times and almost always served in some capacity. He went there to be with friends and I hope to worship God. I don't ever remember Grandpa going to church but he claimed to be a Methodist. I joined the lodge in Mustang too. The reason I joined was to please my Grandfather. I attended meetings as often as I could while living in Norman and going to school, but could not go very often. When Grandpa died so did my association with the Masonic Lodge. I hope Grandpa understands.
My Dad, Louis Garland Dolton, was Grandpa Elza's first born child. Joseph Lee was second. Joseph married Mom's aunt (who was also Mom’s cousin) Luzell London. Joe died in California soon after the birth of their only child Pamela Jo Dolton. About ten years after Joe's death Luzell married Cecil Sullivan. Several years after the marriage Pam decided to adopt the last name of Sullivan. Pam married Lynn Adams and they divorced after having two children: Lindsay Adams and London Adams. Then, Pam married Gary Williams.
Uncle Ronnie was the baby (Ronald Earl Dolton). I remember many good times with Uncle Ronnie. We would be rasslin' on the floor of Grandmas house and all the while her threatening to "go get a switch." Usually she just enjoyed it but sometimes she got that old wire fly swatter and wailed on us until we quit. Ronnie is the best. I love him and Aunt Betty dearly. They've always been good friends and helped me whenever they could. Ronnie got me a job one summer where he worked, at Dayton Tire and Rubber. It's on Council in Oklahoma City. It was non union then. This was a plant where they made tires. Uncle Ronnie worked there as a tire builder on the line and was eventually promoted to a supervisory position. When they unionized the plant they changed the name to Firestone. I used to drive my 1960 canary yellow Ford Falcon to work on the swing shift each night. It took a quart of oil each way to get from Norman where I was going to OU, to work and back. That job helped make it possible for me to finish school a little more independently than I otherwise would have.
I grew up with three sets of grandparents. This was really great at Christmas and on birthdays. Both Paul and I got lots of presents. We were the first grandchildren for all three pairs of grandparents.
Elza sold the car wash just before he died. In 1981, Elza died, at age 76, after four days in the hospital.
His wife, Louisa, lived on the last several acres of the Dolton farm until she could no longer get around by herself. She sold the house and moved into a retirement home at “Strawberry Field” in another part of Mustang in 1986 thus ending the era of the Dolton “Truck Farm”. Thirteen years later; in 1994, Louisa, died in her sleep, at the Masonic Home in Guthrie, Oklahoma, at age 85.
Elza was honest and friendly. He lived his life on the square and compassed his life so that he might live according to the Word of the Great Architect. He was blessed by God with a long life and worked throughout to earn a living and help the people in his community. He was in love with his wife and spent his life proving it. Together they raised a family and their children and grandchildren were a blessing to them. He was stubborn in his support of what he believed to be right. He spent several fortunes having a good time, but he worked until the end. He was always plowing, planting, weeding, and harvesting. He also took whatever other work was available in order to make a living. In the end God called him home and now he can rest.
What was his name?
In 1910, the census taker misspelled the names of Elza and his sister Ines Dolton. The census taker spelled them Elsie and Inez. Frank's family Bible and many other records have the correct spelling: Elza and Ines. In the 1930 census, it looks to me like the census taker spelled grandpa's name correctly; it's Elza. But, whoever transcribed the census record into the database added an "i" to his name making it Eliza. That's wrong. Grandpa's name was ELZA!!!I’ve attached a couple of the cards from his wallet below so that you can confirm it. Please correct it in your records.
