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Together for 70 years
Couple moved to town from Missouri in 1944
| Monday, Apr 9 2007 11:15 PM
Last Updated: Monday, Apr 9 2007 11:39 PM
When Charley and Allie Fry married in 1937, they had a grand total of $20 in cash.
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They also had a bolt-action rifle, 10 acres in the Missouri Ozarks and enough love to last seven decades.
The 20 bucks is long gone, the rifle disappeared years ago, and the family farm was left behind for a better life "out west."
And the love? It still glows in their eyes like warm embers as Charley and Allie look back in contentment at their 70 years together and all it has wrought.
"Maybe we're not rich in dollars and cents," Charley, 89, says as he sits next to Allie in the living room of their home in old Rosedale. "But we're rich in trust."
It was the heart of the Great Depression, but many living in the Ozark Mountains were already making do without indoor plumbing, running water or central heating. In many ways, the Frys, too, were still in the 19th century.
In dry years they had to carry water on foot or by horseback as far as two miles. Charley still recalls the Dust Bowl years.
"The dust from Kansas blew and blew overhead until it blocked out the sun," he remembers. "It was just a dark circle in the red sky."
Though there were tough times, they remember great joy and moments of pure paradise: warm summer evenings when the young people would sit around a neighbor's cool spring, sipping sweet water and telling stories; taking walks together along the country roads; or enjoying the taste of hot cornbread spread with home-churned butter and sweet sorghum.
Once when they were courting and Charley was walking Allie home, one of the dogs tracked what Charley thought was a "possum" into the woods. Charley followed, but the prey turned out to be a skunk and the teenage would-be Lothario received a dose of "perfume."
"She walked on one side of the road and I walked on the other," Charley remembers, chuckling. "The farthest I got that night was to the gate."
Charley Fry and Allie Oxley were married March 10, 1937, in Almartha, Mo..
According to 87-year-old Allie, Almartha was "named for a man named 'Al' and a woman named 'Martha.'"
After the wedding, they moved into a modified chicken house with board walls and no insulation. It was heated by a wood stove whose stovepipe glowed red-hot in the winter.
By the time they had had four children, Charley was coming to the conclusion that the farm -- and all the work he did on the side -- was, sadly, not enough to support their growing family.
"Besides farming and selling a little milk, Dad worked on other farms, cut wood, made shingles, did carpentry, and anything else he could to provide for his family," says Charley and Allie's son, Charles Fry. "He didn't always receive cash for his labors, and any wages to be had in the Ozark hills amounted to 10 cents an hour."
Like so many others before them, the Frys decided to go to California in 1944, where Charley could earn about $1 per hour -- 10 times his income back home.
They sold their horses, household goods and farm equipment and bought a 1931 Chevrolet to carry them to something like the promised land, arriving in the heat of August.
"We camped on the shore of the Kern River near Chester Avenue," Allie recalls.
But days later, Charley landed a job in the oil fields with Shell Oil. He started as a roustabout, but would eventually work his way up to the position of surveyor. He retired in 1980.
They had four more kids in California, bringing the total to eight. And their commitment to each other, faith in God and unstoppable work ethic has left a lasting impression on their grown children.
"There was never any doubt in our minds whether Mom and Dad loved one another," writes Freda Martin from her home in Arkansas. "I never remembered seeing Dad leave for work or come home without giving Mom a kiss. Their affection for one another was and still is very apparent."
Charley and Allie continue to enjoy life, and they love to see their eight children, 26 living grandchildren, 57 living great-grandchildren, and five great-great-grandchildren.
Including spouses, the Frys' descendant list comes to 137.
"I never thought we'd see so many happy years," Allie says, smiling. "We didn't think we'd last this long."
“Muddy Little Feet”
By Allie R. Fry, Feb. 13, 1957
Muddy little shoes,
Eight pairs of them in all;
Tracking in the mud,
Through six rooms and a hall.
Sometimes I grow discouraged,
Though I know I never should;
But it seems that cleaning house,
Does so very little good.
I scrub and clean and hang up clothes,
To make the house look neat;
And then the kids come home from school,
With muddy little feet.
They throw down coats and books and all;
Just any place you see,
And training them to put them up,
Seems very hard for me.
But if I keep on trying,
Someday perhaps I’ll win,
And make good mothers of my girls,
And my boys good honest men.
But when they’re all grown up and gone,
I’ll wish so much to see,
Those muddy little tracks brought in,
By muddy little feet.