History of Sam Adalaski and Linda Hancock Hines McKinney

HISTORY OF SAM ADALASKI AND LINDA HANCOCK HINES MCKINNEY

Sam McKinney, born February 29, 1860, married Linda Hines on Christmas day, December 25, 1882, in Arkansas. (He called her Lin.)  Linda was sixteen years old when she “ran off” with him to be married. Linda received an inheritance of 80 acres in or near Perryville, Arkansas prior to their marriage. They sold this land and moved to Oklahoma, settled on Bibs Mountain, near Marble City, Oklahoma, County of Sequoyah, in the Cookson Hills about 30 or 40 miles north of Sallisaw, Oklahoma [it’s actually 10 – 15 miles]. Sam owned 100 head of hogs when they settled on Bibs Mountain. At one time they owned two farms. After the sale of one farm they had fifty acres left and leased a small farm from “Will Whitchett.”

Sam’s chief occupation was raising cattle and hogs. He also raised fruit, corn, cotton, sorghum cane or milo in addition to a vegetable garden.

Linda used a wood cook stove. It had four lids on top.  Minnie  (their daughter) said, “It was a dinky old thing–too small–not enough room on top to cook anything.” When Minnie was big enough she helped gather wood for cooking and the fireplace. They canned most all their food and raised their meat and vegetables.

On occasion, Linda went to town with Sam to buy groceries. They traveled in a wagon to Sallisaw, Oklahoma about 40 miles from Bibs Mountain [it’s actually 10 – 15 miles]. Purchases were sorghum syrup, ten gallons at a time to last the winter, brown and white sugar (mostly white). Sam bought light bread because baking powder bread hurt his stomach. The also purchased supplies for farming and sewing, items they couldn’t make or produce on the farm.

Laundry was done on a rub board using lye soap which was made in huge iron kettles. Lye soap was also used for bathing.

A cedar bucket and gourd dipper was used for family drinking water.

Newspapers were used as a substitute for wallpaper to insulate walls from the cold in winter.  A paste of flour and water was used to apply it to walls.

Nail kegs were used for chairs. They had no chest of drawers or closets. Clothes were kept in boxes. If they were too wrinkled to wear they were ironed or pressed with the old flatirons heated on the stove.

Clothing was handmade. Flour sacks were a source of material (cotton) in those days. Bessie (another daughter) made almost all of her and Minnie’s clothes. Bessie did not like to sew for Minnie because she had such little bitty shoulders. Aunt Bessie was right. I (Evelyn, Minnie’s daughter) have sewn for mother.

Minnie, being next to the youngest, can tell us very little of the time period before her birth in 1903. One incident she related with laughter was the evening Sam, her father, came in and had been drinking. He was sitting on a nail keg and “something must have crossed his mind.” He suddenly picked up the keg and threw it into the fire. No one said a word; neither did he. He silently proceeded to take one of their kegs to sit on.

Another time and the only time Minnie remembers physical violence between Sam and Linda was when Sam and their oldest boy, John, were going out one evening to gamble with cards. Sam asked Linda to give him their money. She said, “No Sam I am not going to give it to you.” With that, he slapped her face as hard as he could. She turned around and picked up a potato big as a coffee mug and hit him square between the eyes, making a huge knot on his forehead. With that he went outside and told John he couldn’t go because Lin wouldn’t give him any money. John said “Oh hell, just leave her alone.  Come on I’ll give you some money.” We don’t know how the card game came out, but Linda still had their grocery money. John, at this time, was not married but did have, Minnie recalled, “a lady friend.”  John was traveling about in a hack, or coach (stage coach).

During the summer months, the men would hide in the bushes, spread a saddle blanket on the ground to play cards and gamble. When Linda’s brother George would come to visit they headed for the bushes to gamble. Nettie, George’s wife, would miss him and ask where he was. Pearl, their daughter would say, “Momma I know where Daddy is. He is hiding out in the bushes playing cards.” That would tear it with “Aunt Net” as Minnie called her. She said “Aunt Net” was an Irish woman if she ever saw one.”

Minnie said on one occasion her father, Sam, called her to the bedroom and asked her to go to the corn crib in the barn and make sure his bottle was well covered so that Linda wouldn’t find it because she would for certain hunt for it and break it. She didn’t find it and Sam never drank enough of it that Linda knew he had a stash.

The whole family shared with the field work and other chores. Sam was not one to physically punish their children but he was a great one to make them do extra field work, chores or ground them.

They had no radio. Their source of music was when Sam played the fiddle or organ. Sam and Linda allowed dances in their home. Furniture was moved around and he would play music for their children and friends. He sometimes went with his children and played at dances for them. Sam took along their organ, a non-electric, with stops that pulled out, an up-right with a mirror on it. Violet “Peggy” Wilson McKinney Clark’s mother sold the organ to him. (Violet’s father was “Uncle Box Wilson” as Minnie called him. Violet was Minnie’s best friend. Violet at one time owned a cafe in Sallisaw, Oklahoma.  (Uncle Box was Minnie’s step-uncle.  He and most of his siblings used McKinney as their last name).  I never found any evidence of them using “Wilson”. agr

Memories of Minnie McKinney Deatherage as recorded by her daughter Evelyn in 1982