Elizabeth Dodson Gibson, neé Armstrong 1878-1974 Grandma Gibson used to tell me stories about her early life when Harl was a Deputy U. S. Marshal in "The Nations" -- Oklahoma prior to statehood. The one I recall the best is the story of Black Pete. Black Pete was a Cherokee who was wanted for something. (And a very handsome man, Grandma would always tell me.) Grandpa Harl captured him and was taking him to jail. I don't remember where he was taking him, but it was too far for Harl to go without sleep. Harl had been awake for far too long while hunting Pete down, so, exhausted, he stopped at his own house, which was apparently on the way. Grandma fed the two men, then they placed a cot across the door in such a way that it blocked the door and put Black Pete on the cot. Harl went into the other room to sleep for a few hours so he could continue his journey. Grandma sat up all night in her rocking chair in the room with Pete, holding a double barrelled shotgun in her lap. One of the things I find interesting about this story now is that Grandma must have been on 16 or 17 when this occurred. Another anecdote she told me many times was about living in the logging woods of California. Most of the loggers lived in tents in a kind of community. She said that during the night, when it snowed, a watchman would come through the camp and rouse them to get up and sweep the snow off their tents so the weight wouldn't collapse them. She also told me the story of a killing that embroiled her family in a dangerous situation. Grandma had several elder brothers, a couple of whom were a bit wild. The one she spoke most often of was Kav. One time, Kav and his buddies were at a camp meeting. The boys went every night, she said, and lots of them had bottle of whiskey and some of them had pistols "in their pockets." One night a Philips and a DeBerry boy got into a fight and the DeBerry boy pulled a knife and stabbed the Philips boy, who died of his wound. His family was enraged and tried to find the boys who were involved. The DeBerry boy left the country. The Philips' snuck around the Armstrong house at night trying to get a shot a Kav through a lighted window, but Grandma and her mother and sister hung bed sheets over the windowns so the Philips, who were crawling around on the hillside outside, couldn't see who to shoot at. It finally all blew over and Kav continued his life as a hellion.