Cass Grady (son of Louis A. Grady and Lula Dowdy) was born October 26, 1905, and died June 1985 in Granite, Greer, OK. He married Audra Hogan on February 09, 1924.
Notes for Cass Grady: The following information was taken fromn the Willow Community Historical Association.
Cass Grady was born in 1905 and was a cowboy, farmer, shoe repairman, and fiddler. At the age of about 70, his daughter, Gaye, gave him a typewriter and he began to write poetry. In 1982 or early 1983, his book of poems was published as "Memories of An Okie". Along with his poems, he included commentary on his life and the times.
The following was written by Cass Grady and transcribed by Mary Dowdy, Sept. 1993. Mary passed away May, 13, 1994.
I am a full-blooded Okie. I was born one mile south and one-forth mile west of the old wagon bridge south of Sayre, Oklahoma Territory, on the south side of North Fork River, just inside Greer county. My Grandfather Grady was born in Roanoke, Virginia, about 1826, just after his folks came from Ireland. My grandmother, Mary Jane Hodgeson, was born in Liverpool, England in 1847. She had been married twice and had four children before she married my grandfather. He fought in the civil War for the North, then rejoined the army to go to North Dakota to fight the Indians. He also was a freighter and carried mail.
My mothers people ( Tom Dowdy's daughter, Lula ) came from Alabama to Texas after the Civil War. They along with my father's side of the family, all landed within 3/4 of a mile of one another in Greer county, Oklahoma Territory, in 1898. My dad was born in Jacksonville, Illinois, in 1884, and died in 1956. My mother was born in Bell county, TX, in 1886, and died in 1951 . Her father was killed in Granite, OK, in 1901 when a team of mules pulled him off a cotton platform causing him to hit his head on the hub or rim of the wheel. His wife, my Grandmother Dowdy, died in Feb. 1902, the night my uncle, Floyd Dowdy, was born.
My mother, Lula, was oldest of seven children and she kept all of them but the baby which was born the night Grandmother died. Uncle John Dunham and Aunt Ella Dunham raised Floyd. After my parents married, the children were scattered among different families. They kept in close contact with each other. My mother and dad kept the boy next to baby, Loyd. He was six years older than I. I was a great big boy before I found out Loyd was not my brother. I used to wish I was as old as he so I could call my folks Lew or Lula like he did.
I was born 26 Oct. 1905. The north Fork of the Red River was the north boundary of the place my grandparents owned. It was Greer County then, but Beckham County now. My dad worked for Rock Island railroad from 1907 to 1918. During that time, we lived in Clinton and Sayre, OK, and in Amarillo, TX. We moved back to my mother's home place in 1915. Dad continued to work for the railroad for three years. I attended school at Willow, OK. As a teenager, I continued to help on the farm but my first love was breaking horses. I took off when I was about 15, saddled up and rode to Byers, TX, a three-day trip. I worked on the Bar Double L Ranch for several years. They contracted horses for oil field work, gravel hauling and for rodeos.
I married Audra Hogan on 9 Feb. 1924. Our family kept growing, so we had to move to the farm where I was raised, and together we raised seven girls and five boys. Two babies died as infants. Farming on 160 acres wasn't an easy life, so I had to supplement my income with other means and operated several different shoe repair shops.
In February 1984, my wife, Audra, and I will be married 60 years. We were only 17- and 18- years old when we married, and we were parents within a year. We really had some rough and tough times making it those 60 years but now it seems like yesterday. We raised our twelve kids almost entirely on the home place east of Willow. We all worked hard bringing in our cotton crop, raising cows and chickens, and always canning something to help feed the family through the winter months. Though I worked hard, as did all the kids, the one who held us all together was my wife, Audra. She is the one who got up early, stoked the fire, washed clothes all day long, cleaned house, cooked meals and sewed clothes. But while she was doing all that, she was always singing, thinking everyone worked as hard as she did. In the evening, she'd often be found in the back yard playing games of chase the ball with the kids. We raised twelve, but I had to watch her suffer when we had to bury our oldest son, Cecil, and the two little babies that never got to be a real part of our family. If it hadn't been for her, I'm sure I wouldn't think so positively about this institution called "Marriage."
More About Cass Grady and Audra Hogan: Marriage: February 09, 1924
Cass Grady (b. October 26, 1905, d. June 1985)
Notes for Cass Grady: