Where there's audio that I couldn't make out I noted with [brackets] or I added material to add context I noted with (parentheses). If you have a better ear and can fill in the blanks by all means please let me know.
I don't know who is there with Corene reading along and helping her with her notes. It doesn't sound like her daughter Inez, it could be one of her sisters, Bessie, Gladys, or Marie, or somebody from the Haskell County Historical Society.
Parts of the audio sounds very similar to an entry for "Cox, Corine[sp] (Farrell) F146" published in the 1989 book "Haskell County History Indian Territory - 1988" by the Haskell County Historical Society. The book cites it's taken directly from an audio tape that Corene gave to the Historical Society. This lines up with the tape I have being from 1987 and this published in 1988/1989. However several of the names/places/details in that entry do not match up with the audio I have, plus there is some details in the book that aren't in this recording and vice versa. I don't know if this tape was the same source material for the book, or if she just used the same notes and information for both.
Corene died a couple of years after this was recorded, in April 1990.
The raw audio file (MP3, 23 min. 11 sec., 320 kbps, 44.1 kHz) can be found here: Corene-Cox-history-1987-audio-raw.mp3. I intend to release a video with the transcription overlayed along with photos to illustrate what she's speaking about, but as you might imagine what started off as a simple idea has turned into "A Real Project."
Bryan Wann
Great-grandson of "Granny Cox" Annie Corene (Farrell) Cox
Fremont, CA
July 30, 2024
00:07 - I'm Annie Corene Farrell Cox, this is November the 11th 1987.
I was born in Guntown, Mississippi, September the 27, 1898, in the same house my daddy, Jessie Oliver Farrell was born in. December the 24 1872.
He married Chellie Raper December 5 of 1897 in Guntown, Mississippi
0:47 - Papa and mama, Papa's mama and papa was Elizabeth Farrell and Andrew Jackson Farrell. His mother died when papa was 13 years old Papa's brothers and sisters was John Farrell and Jim Farrell and there was another man but I don't remember his name, he died.
[do you remember?... sister? ...] I forget who but he died and I don't remember the name
01:41 - The two sisters, Aunt Sally and Aunt Alice they married brothers Kellums. Guy(?) Kellum and Jack Kellum [inaudble]. They all lived in Guntown.
[...]
Mama was born March 11 1898 ... 78 .. 78 from her mother and daddy are
Henderson Raper [??] he was born in 1828 and died 1918
Armanda Kent Raper was born in 1842 and died 1827
02:34 - My brother and sisters were Pearl ... Alice Pearl, born October the 15 1900, Guntown Mississippi, same house my dad was born in. She married [???] Oct 15 1900 Married John Shelton [??] Born in Ripley Mississippi. They had 3 children, Jimmy Louise, Junior Shelton ... Junior and Kathryn ... Lois Kathryn.
[...]
03:50 - Next brother was Guy Farrell. When we moved to Calvin, Oklahoma when he was about .. he wasn't a little over a year old, we took the measles .. he got the measles on the train going from Guntown, Mississippi to Calvin, Oklahoma, and he died about two weeks after we got there. And he's buried in the Calvin, Oklahoma Cemetery
04:24 - Then we went back to Mississippi. My mother never was satisfied there in Calvin after losing the baby, and we moved back to Guntown. Tolbert was born there.
Tolbert Farrell, what year was he born? Well, I can't remember the year
04:56 - and uh we moved to to Texas [..] I don't remember what year, how old is this
Bessie, Bessie Lucille was born in 19 70 ... 1907. Really I don't remember if we lived there one or two years and moved to Kinta, Oklahoma. Where mama's brother uncle Steve [Stephen] Raper was living here. and we moved to the, out to the country, called Fish Creek.
That's where I got, I got my eight grade education at Fish Creek School, I come to Kinta and went to school at Kinta High School in Kinta
05:47 - Gladys. Then we have Gladys, ... she was born .. she, my
sister Gladys, born January 8 1912
[...] doesn't tell how many children she had .. She married Earnest
Matthews, they had three children, Vernon, Helen, and Joyce.
06:18 - Marie, Marie Farrell born in what year? 1909 ... was
born
[..??..]
Marie had four children, Tommy, Jeanette, Joann was the oldest, ... Tommy,
Jeanette, Patricia
She married Troy Cumnmings, he died March 11 ..first.. 1986 (meant to say
he died first?) [..inaud..]
07:10 - Sewell, Sewell Farrell was born at Fish Creek in 1909 and he married Lela Martindale (Lela Martin?) from Enterprise, Oklahoma They had four girls. Lela, Nancy was the youngest, Ann, can't think of the other [...texas...] they had one more girl He was a baptist preacher, missionary.
08:02 - J O Farrell Jr was born 1919 May the 19th I believe it was 1919 I'm gettin old and can't think, sick to boot ha ha ha gotta broken bone And he died in the service 1949. had [had the funeral in Kinta?]
[..59..64....?]
8:44 - Mama Farrell, my mother, had, well, there was 10 of 'em in that family. She ... when grandpa and grandma Raper were married, one of them had 2 children and the other one 4 children, really I don't know which is which. But I know grandma's name when she married grandpa Raper was Kent. Amanda...Arminda Kent. And she had two little boys, and grandpa had 4. And there were 10 children born to this family.
There was uncle Steve Raper, uncle Thomas Raper, uncle Jeff Raper, and Uncle Rob Raper, and then lets see Uncle James, he was the youngest boy. Then there was aunt Loanzi Raper, aunt China Raper, and my mother Chellie Raper, and aunt (Miranda Reid)?? married a Reid, and aunt Susanetta married a Stevens. [...?] She was killed in a car wreck.
09:59 - My mother died in in 1953 I believe it was. She had been paralyzed. [???] she liked one month laying four years as an invalid. Marie Cummings, my sister and I helped take care of her in her home, but she died.
10:30 - I met Will Cox at Fish Creek School, we went to school together. We married November the 5th, 1916. At the preacher in Sans Bois Oklahoma. Then, it was a pretty good little town, but it's not now. But Kinta wasn't even hardly started then, but after the railroad went through Kinta and it was all moved here to Kinta. Anyhow we were married, and he ran a garage here in Kinta.
11:24 - Our first baby was born [...] 10 months to the day after we were married, and he only lived 5 weeks. Otway, named Otway, and was buried at [..??..] Lindsey, Oklahoma to be with my parents because I wasn't [well? there??] [the baby hadn't been well all its life?] and it died there and was buried at Blanchard Oklahoma Cemetery.
[..??..]
11:54 - Come back home to Kinta, [and lived in two different?] houses. But my husband was still a mechanic in the only garage in Kinta. But he had to go, the war broke out and he had to go to war in Vancouver Washington, in the service there. I was pregnant then, and Mitchell was born when he got home. He wasn't in the service for six months but he got home just a month before Mitchell was born at Lindsay, Oklahoma. I lived with my parents there.
12:49 - Mitchell was born at Lindsay April the 5th 1919. We
[made one crop
there?? one corn crop?] but we sold out everything and moved back to Kinta
the next year, and then
[.....]
Oh yeah [..] he was carrying the mail when he come back to Kinta. We
bought the old Herbert Moore place (mentioned in The Kinta Years), which I
live in now. And we got back to Kinta February 10th, 1920
Mitchell was just [... a year old?]
13:44 - And Will began carrying the mail three days a week, and rode a horse, horseback. There was two routes outta Kinta, Mr Louis (J. T. Louis) had route one and Will had route two. But Mr Louis died and the routes were consolidated. So he carried both routes until he retired, when did he retire? what year he retired? (Retired 1950) Anyhow, he carried the mail a little bit over thirty years. But he had a car wreck that hurt him pretty bad, and he was in and out of the hospital a lot. He died March 11, 1970.
[..] he carried the mail on a blind horse, yes he did, rode on an old blind horse.
14:50 - We didn't have anything hardly but we paid $600 down on the house we got now, I'm living in now. And of course we saved and I kept school teachers, boarded them. Got it fixed up pretty good now, it's a nice home. I had all my children there, Inez was born there and then had another baby boy there which died at three weeks old. His name was Willard Roy, named after his daddy. And then in two more years Billy Joe was born. And he had to go to the World War II, and was killed in just a few months after he went in Germany right at the end of the war. His body was returned to the United States in a few of years after he was killed, and buried at the Sans Bois Cemetery. That's where all of our relatives are buried.
16:01 - Then I had one more, a baby girl born dead (Shirley, 1937).
I've lived by myself, just in and out with my daughter. She, Inez,
married Leon Wann and they live just real real close here to me.
Michell lives in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. He married Connie Dunn from
Stigler. He taught school there at Bartlesville, retired. She worked for
the school, she wasn't a school teacher, but worked for the school. She's
now retired. They have two children, Anne and Linda. And they have five
grandchildren.
16:48 - Inez has two .. two sons, and how many grandchildren, four grandchildren. And one great grandchild, I have a one great great grandchild, Jeremie Wann.
17:14 - I've been a member of the First Christian Church here in Kinta ever since I was 14 years old and I am now 89 years old. I carried the communion tray there for around 50 years now. Only missed two Sundays where I had been gone, we had went on vacation ??? my husband had 2-3 weeks vacation and we toured the whole United States. Seen every capitol in the United States. Even in Canada and old Mexico. My husband was superintendent and became a Christian later than I did in I believe in 30 or 31, and they put him in as superintendent and Sunday school teacher then. And he remained in that until his death in 1970.
18:20 - Jerry took his place for a while, Inez's son. He was transferred to some oil company way off and had to move. So Larry Joe took Jerry's place as superintendent. And uh he's been teaching the class now for a number of years, a long time. He's a wonderful teacher. I've heard so many around here say they go down just to hear Larry pray every Sunday morning. Wonderful man. So was my husband, and Jerry.
19:04 - [..I remember?..] out at Fish Creek when Bessie was small, a baby, a small child. Anyhow I had her out in the yard and Tolbert had a little red wagon. And he come around that house, [..] pedal just as hard as he could and ran into her and knocked her down, course knocked the breath out of her. I thought she was dead! I grabbed Tolbert and I shook him and I said I'll kill ya I'll kill ya because you killed Bessie! You killed her! [..I said right just before she got knocked out of her?...] She got up alright. ha ha ha
19:50 - Gladys too when she was little, crawling around there, crawlin, didn't have mats on the floor like we have now, carpets and all, just floor boards. Anyhow she stuck a splinter, a big o' big splinter under one of her fingers. And it was up in there bad and didn't realize how bad it was until the nail came off. Anyhow she lost that finger back to the first joint, completely just rotted off back to the first joint. I don't know how it would've done that but it did. Some things like that I remember well.
20:33 - We all worked hard, went to the field to pick cotton. The year I married, the fall that I married in, 1916, was a beautiful fall with weather. Papa had a big crop of cotton. Made 25-30 bale of cotton. I picked four bale of cotton myself and every time I picked 200 pounds, papa would give me 50 cents. and I did that for days and days. Saved up my money and went to Fort Smith and bought my wedding dress. I bought a pretty blue suit, a hat, shoes, and things like that for my wedding which was November 5, 1916.
[..???..]
21:27 - Trying to think of that preacher's name at Sans Bois that married us [Henry Sutton ..] ?? Hutchins?? my cousin, and Vinita(?) Raper stood up with Will and me. Both my cousins. Kenny?? [Henry] Sutton was the preacher that married us. And when we celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary Ira?? Hutchins? [Ivy Hodges?] and Vinita stood up with us again for a mock wedding. A lot of folks were there that day, enjoying the day. My brother, uncle, Sewell there did a, well I'd say, a mock sermon that day for us.
22:23 - I don't know what else
[...]
23:06 -end-
