This is Your Life - Don and Fern Powell

Janet Epperson records her parents telling their life stories.  Janet writes, "To the best of my knowledge, I just decided to do the cassettes one day while I was at their house. But when I transferred them from cassettes, I discarded the cassettes & have no idea of when they were done. I don't think they were marked."

These are not the only tapes Janet made of her parents.  We also have Don singing with his granddaughter, Lynne (here) on September 28, 1991 at an early celebration of Don and Fern's 65th anniversary (October 30, 1991).

Don Powell

  • Childhood (2:34).  Don is born August 4, 1907 in Fredonia, Kansas to Ner and Sadie Powell.  His dad tries farming, works for a packing company, buys a cafe, and works for a glass factory.
  • Church in High Prairie (2:12).  Don recalls attending a Methodist Church in High Prairie, Kansas, and credits his parents for raising him in a Christian home.
  • Ancestors (5:27).  Don remembers the faith of his grandfather, Finley Leonard Powell, who served the Union in the Civil War, and tells stories about his aunts and uncles, many of whom are buried in the Altoona, KS, cemetery.
  • Horses (2:31).  Don learns to drive a team of horses at age 6 and rides a horse to High School.
  • Basketball (0:39).  Don plays basketball in High School.
  • Double dates with Leonard (0:33).  Don goes on double dates with his oldest brother.  
  • Fern, Cities Service, and little Dean (2:02).  Don meets and marries Fern in 1926 and takes a job with Cities Service Oil Company, which will eventually move them to several cities in four states .  "Little Dean" is born and lives nine months (November 16, 1927 - August 16, 1928).
  • Moving around (1:43).  More moves between 1928 and 1932.

Fern Powell

  • Childhood (10:22).  Fern Isabelle Richardson is born June 21, 1910 in Brooks, Kansas, but lives in Arizona and California for a few years before moving back to Kansas.   She has two younger sisters, Gwendolyn and Virginia, and a younger brother, Stanley Max II, and receives her first doll. Her father disappears when she is 6, and her siblings go to live with other families.  Fern attends several schools, then goes to live with Lizzie and George Washington just before her 9th birthday.  On her 10th birthday, she receives the news that "your mother is dead and you have a baby brother."
  • Ancestors (3:19).  Memories of Grandpa and Grandma Housley and Uncle Carlos "Tuck" Housley.
  • Meeting and marrying Don (5:42).  Fern leaves George and Lizzie when she is 12, and by age 15 is living with her Aunt Audrey, cousin Neva, and their girlfriend Martha in Neodesha.   She meets Don at the Powell Cafe in Neodesha and marries him when she is 16, on October 30, 1926. Fern works as a housekeeper, as a head waitress at a hotel, as a cook for Don's oldest sister, Emma, and as a live-in nanny for the Matthews family.  When the cafe closes, Don goes to work at the glass factory in Fredonia, and when that goes down, he gets a job with Cities Service.
  • Little Dean (4:31).  While moving around Kansas for Cities Service, Fern becomes pregnant with Donald Dean and gives birth on November 16, 1927.  She contracts the "milk leg," and the doctor tells Don that Fern won't live 24 hours.  Fern prays that she won't die and leave her baby, as her Mama had.  That baby, Fern's half-brother, was raised as Donald Leroy Monroe by a family in Oklahoma, but Fern has never been able to contact him. [Mr. Monroe's obituary is here.]  Nine months to the day after he is born, Donald Dean dies of dehydration following a bout of diarrhea.
  • Moving around (2:00).  Fern and Don move to cities in Kansas and Iowa between 1928 and 1932.  They try Clayton, New Mexico but don't even stay overnight because it is too dry and dusty.  George and Lizzie move to a new farm the winter of 1931, so Don and Fern stay with them that winter to help out.  In April, they move to a house northwest of Fredonia in exchange for Don's work on the house.
  • Roger, Lowell, and Janet (3:01).  (Leonard) Roger is born May 19, 1932.  Don hunts rabbits, squirrels, and ducks for meat to eat, but they have a wonderful garden that year.  When Roger is nine months old, they move to the Fitzmorris place where (Russell) Lowell is born March 21, 1934.  In May, 1935, all the crops and their garden are flooded out.  On November 1 of that year, Don loses his job, and Janet (Avalon) is born the next day, on November 2, 1935.  They make it through the winter, and on March 1, 1936 Don is rehired by Cities Service in Wichita, KS.
  • Life in Wichita, Kansas.(4:05).  Twins Ronald (George) and Richard (Henry) are born January 3, 1938 in Wichita.  Don is laid off from Cities Service and works at a filling station from September, 1939 through December, 1940, while Fern takes care of the children and the cows.  Roger and Lowell build a bonfire in an old car.  Fern and the children are caught in a terrible storm.  The children enjoy trips to the zoo and the park. Roger and Lowell start to school.
  • Move to Barnsdall, Oklahoma (6:07).  On January 6, 1941, the family moves to Barnsdall, Oklahoma, where they will stay until December, 1955. They live first in the Dahl house, then on East Main, then behind the grade school, close to the Baptist church.  Ronald swallows a nickel (but that was in Wichita).  The kids all have scarlet fever, and they milk cows at the edge of town and sell the milk.  Don runs over a man in the garage and Janet rides on a sled made by Grandpa Housley (but that was in Wichita, too).  They keep Gwen's kids, Jeannie and Beverly, after Gwen dies in September, 1941. More Wichita stories: Lowell falls off the chicken house and hangs on a nail.  Lowell stabs Roger in the forearm with a pointed stick.  Ronald has convulsions.
  • Life in Barnsdall (6:42).  Janet wears Roger's red cape.  Several sets of twins in town.  Childhood sicknesses. Living in the country the spring and fall of 1944.  Brown sugar sandwiches.  Playing in the woods.  Dog Blackie is run over.  Janet starts playing the piano.  Black widow spider bites Fern on the ankle.  Tarantulas.  Milking cows.  Lots of homemade ice cream.  Moved back to town January, 1945 and lived at 304 West Walnut.  Always had a garden, chickens, and rabbits.  Picking strawberries.  The boys are in Boy Scouts, and Fern and Janet are in GA camp.
  • Church in Barnsdall (2:31).  Roger, Lowell, and Janet are saved in the Baptist church in the spring of 1943, and Don, Fern, and Janet are baptized on Easter Sunday, 1943.  [Janet was 7 the Easter of 1943, not 1942, as she says here. See Janet's recap and Don's eulogy below.] The whole family is active in the church from then on. The twins are baptized when they are 8 [in 1944].
  • More Barnsdall memories (11:25).  Barnsdall grade school and high school.  Roger and Lowell, then Richard and Ronald, deliver the Bartlesville Examiner and Grit newspapers.  Roger and Lowell work in the drugstore.  Roger, Lowell, and Janet are in the band (Roger on cornet, Lowell on clarinet, and Janet on saxophone).  Janet plays piano accompaniment for Jackie Terrell.  Fern is in Eastern Star, Don is in the Masons, and Janet is in Rainbow Girls. Lowell gets best citizen awards.  Lowell and Janet get scholarships.  Youth leaders Fred and Myrtle Deweiss. Anita Bryant's aunt; Anita was six months old the first time they met her.  Lowell is very sick.  Richard causes an explosion. Neighbor Agnes. The kids play in the street. The twins collect snakes. Remodeling the house. Ice-cream socials. Taking home forgotten babies from the church nursery. Fern's sister, Virginia, and son Ronnie come for a visit. Fern learns a few pieces on the piano, and is joined by her children and the neighborhood kids on their instruments.  Close friends with the Nickels family.  The twins kill and roast a rabbit in the woods.  The boys enjoy swimming in the creek, and Fern worries until Don discovers the twins "swim like fish."  They meet Janet Knobloch and Avanelle Hogsett.
  • Trips to Fredonia (1:23).  Going to the Powell reunions, being close to the cousins.  Grandma Sadie and Grandpa Ner Powell.

Don Powell

  • Scaring the children (0:43).  Don plays "ornery tricks" on the kids.  Janet remembers picking blackberries and pecans.
  • Testimony (4:16).  Don is saved at a revival in the Baptist church in Barnsdall, and "he knew it".  The whole family becomes workers in the Baptist church.  Pastor Alley, Jess Ditmar, Brother Kloniger.
  • Fern and Janet memories (1:18).  Fern had known Brother Kloniger when she was living with George and Lizzie. Janet recalls Brother Cox who sang out of the side of his mouth and is thankful to remember a Daddy who studied his Bible.
  • Study and witness (2:17).  Don sees his new desire to study the Bible as evidence of his salvation.  Don witnesses to a man at church with surprising results.

Fern Powell

  • A mother who sings (0:53).  Janet is thankful to remember a mother who sang while she worked.
  • Vacation to Salt Plains Lake (1:29).  Janet and Fern recall a vacation to Salt Plains Lake at Cherokee, Oklahoma.
  • Roger, Lowell,and Janet leave home (3:02).  Roger graduates in 1950, moves to California, lives with his Uncle Stan and attends college for a semester, then joins the Navy.  Lowell graduates in 1952, and that summer, he and Janet go to Draughon's Business College in Tulsa.  In the fall, Lowell goes to Wichita University, works a full shift at Boeing, and starts dating Janet Knobloch.  Don is transferred to Wichita for a few months and "baches" with Lowell in Leonard's basement.  Roger comes back from the Navy and marries Nell April 2, 1955 in Pampa, Texas.  Later that month (the 18th), there is a big celebration in Neodesha, Kansas for Grandma Housley's 90th birthday.  Janet and Carl are married in Barnsdall on the 6th of August, and Lowell and Jan are married in Wichita the 28th of August.
  • Move to Oklahoma City (4:01).  In December, 1955, Cities Service transfers Don to Oklahoma City, where he and Fern will live until March 13, 1963. Janet and Carl and Roger and Nell are already there, living across the hall from one another, while Carl and Roger go to Oklahoma University.  Roger and Nell's son, David, is born on February 21, 1956 while Roger is supposed to be taking final exams.  Fern stays in Barnsdall with the twins, who graduate the Spring of 1956, then sells the house and moves to Oklahoma City.  They live in a rent house and build a house on the empty lot next door, at 5908 ITIO Boulevard.  The family does all the work except a little bit of the plumbing, and Don and Fern move in the first of October.  Lowell has finished two years at Wichita University and transfers to Oklahoma A & M (now OSU) in Stillwater.  Roger transfers there as well, so he and Lowell can share books. Ronald marries Janice and Richard marries Sondra.  While Fern isn't taking care of babies, she works part-time for Kerr's department store, then at a dress shop, then at Anthony's department store.  For a while, they go to the church close to Shields Boulevard where Janet is the pianist, then transfer to the Foster Church...[tape ends].

Janet Epperson

  • Recap (13:51).  Janet fills in some details of her parents' lives.  After Oklahoma City, Don and Fern move to Chico, Texas, where he builds another house.  Don begins singing solos, and he and Fern sing often for special occasions. Don is ordained to preach while in his sixties. Don retires from Cities Service, and on July 1, 1972, he and Fern move to Cherryvale, Kansas to be close to George and Lizzie.  In 1974, they go to Muskegon, Michigan to attend the Child Evangelism Fellowship Leadership Training Institute, and are active in CEF when they return to Kansas, working in nine southeastern counties. Through her life, Fern has taught all ages in church and church-related activities, from nursery through adult.
  • Letters (13:05).  Janet reads several letters to and from Fern.  The earliest is dated June 13, 1920, from Fern's mother, Leatha Richardson, to Fern, just a week before Leatha's death.

Lex Fox

  • Eulogy (8:02).  Brother Lex Fox (or Wayne Hett?) delivers Don's eulogy on June 23, 1994.