My great-grandfather.

Mose and Rhoda both moved with their families to Center, Oklahoma in January 1901. Rhoda's father didn't like Mose; as he saw it, Mose would be taking away his baby if he married Rhoda. (Rhoda was the baby of the family.) But the two of them were married two days before Mose's birthday in 1911. Rhoda was 19 and Mose was 18.

He worked as a cotton ginner for many years after their marriage until about 1930 when he became the county jailer. Then, a few years later, Mose was appointed the deputy sheriff of Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, under Sheriff Clyde Kaiser. The sheriff's bloodhounds, one of which was named Queenie, were kept at Mose and Rhoda's home. He served this job for several years until he resigned in Nov., 1938. The family lived in Center until World War II, farming some.

Upon the coming of World War II, three of Mose and Rhoda's sons joined a branch of the service. Lee, Millard, and Ray were already in California. When the war broke out, Ray joined the army, Fred joined the navy, and Jake joined the merchant marines. In 1942, Mose and their daughter, Helen, moved to California, leaving Rhoda, Letha, Betty, and Janette in Center, while Mose looked for a house. The four of them lived alone in Center for a year or more. During the summer of 1943, Millard came to Oklahoma for his mother and sisters. They rode the train from Oklahoma City to Oakland, California.

The family resided in a shack and the downstairs of another building, before Mose and Rhoda bought a home at 9901 Medford Ave., Oakland, in about 1946. In the early 1960's, Mose and Rhoda moved to a nursing home in Hayward that belonged to their daughter Helen and her husband, Ezra. Mose suffered from emphysema the last few years of his life and it left him very weak. The last year of his life, he fell and broke his hip. An infection set in and he died not long afterward. Rhoda suffered a lot of memory loss in her last years. She died while living in a Lodi, California nursing home.

He was preceded in death by his parents; his daughters Velma & Perline; his granddaughter Linda Gibbons; his sisters Sarah Henry, Mattie Henry, Lonie Dame, Bertha Dollahon, & Roxie Cheshier; and his brothers Benjamin, Charles, Jim, & Robert.

At his death, he was survived by his wife Rhoda; five sons Lee, Millard, Ray, Fred, & Jake; four daughters Helen Patterson, Letha Wofford, Betty Mott, & Jan Stockton; 20 grandchildren; two sisters Fanny Loman & Mary Townsley; and numerous great-grandchildren, nephews, nieces, & cousins.