The Great Depression was responsible for our coming to Medicine Lodge. It
  forced Sam to give up farming on his father's homestead northwest of Wilmore,
  begin other types of work, which eventually included carpentering and working
  on construction of National Gypsum;s wallboard plant in 1950.
     Samuel Basil was born August 4, 1900, Wilmore, youngest of four sons of
  Clifton and Anna McDaniel Wood. I, Gladys Rose, was born April 8, 1906, Beliot,
  youngest of five children of Melvin and Nellie Whitehouse Rose.
     Sam was raised on his father's homestead. My family moved to Woods County
  in 1908, and I attended Oklahoma schools and Hardtner public schools. I met
  Sam while living with my sister, Naurine, a teacher, in Wilmore. We married
  April 25, 1926, Hardtner.
     Our seven children were born at Wilmore. It was a large family and times
  were hard, yet today I feel far richer in treasure than any who extended us
  sympathy at that time.
     The children are Robert and Charlene Wood, Tumwater, Washington; Forrest
  and Phyllis Wood, Tucson; Shirley and Phillip Wiltfong, Aurora, Nebraska;
  Rose Ann and Bill Reneau, Mulvane; Richard Douglas, Tucson; George, who was
  killed in a car wreck, 1963; and Patricia and Roger Lukens, West Lafayette,
  Indiania. There are nineteen grandchildren; four great-grandchildren.
     The Depression years and dusty Thirties are not forgotten. I often had
  to do housework by light of a coal oil lamp, the days were so dark; and Sam
  worked for $1 a day. But $10 would buy more groceries than a car trunk could
  hold!
     Sam worked for neighboring farmers, W.P.A., and commercial construction.
  The mill's wallboard plant construction began in 1950; we moved in 1951,
  when housing was available.
     Later, Sam worked for Boeing, as a mechanic; on highway construction; as
  a core driller; courthouse custodian, until retirement; and night dispatcher
  in the sherrif's office for three years.
     In 1952 I began working at Hanson's Dry Goods Store, 102 South Main. While
  still in Wilmore, I had worked four years as high school lunch room supervisor -
  preparing menus and meals for one hundred students.
     September, 1954, I enrolled at Pratt Junior College, after an almost thirty
  year absence from classrooms. My goal was to obtain the necessary sixty hours
  of college credits for a teacher's certificate. After high school graduation
  in 1925, I did hold a one-year Oklahoma teaching certificate and had contracted
  to teach, but resigned before starting, to marry Sam.
     With one year at Pratt Juco and a summer term at Northwestern State College
  at Alva, I began teaching in the Medicine Lodge Elementary School, September 1956.
  I continued classes at Alva to receive my degree; and retired in 1971.
     We moved to 406 North Adams in 1966 and have enjoyed landscaping the lot
  around our permanently-situated mobile home. Our outside interests and activities
  have included hunting and the Masonic Lodge for Sam; Eastern Sater, Garden Club,
  oil painting, and creafts for me.
     Work has afforded us much comfort and rewards, but our greatest treasures
  are those derived from our individual families, and the family we created and
  nurtured.
                
     Source:Chosen Land - Barber County, Kansas,  pg. 494 
     Submitted by: Gladys Rose Wood