Carl Wilhelm (Charles W.) (Charley) SCHEIHING

                   Excerpt of a letter dated 5/24/1971 from Melinda Broyles Marian, grand-daughter of Grace and Frank Scheihing:

"David Scheihing (Clara Scheihing Benson says also Karl Wilhelm) was actually born in the family home, which is still standing, in Untertürkheim. The family had for several hundred years raised grapes and run a winery. The family was for a certain time the winery for the local king (of Württemberg).

"The family is very old. The first mention of the name is in 1380 in an old public notice. Paul Scheihing thinks the family is one of the oldest in southern Germany. The family is certainly one of the oldest in Untertürkheim and has been there for over 450 years."

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The Logan County History 1889-1977
Volume I - The Families
Published by The History Committee of the Logan County Extension Homemakers Council. Guthrie, OK: 1978, p. 580-581
By Cora S. Benson and Helen S. Egelston, with additions from the stories of Clara Scheihing Benson

In 1891 Charley and Eleanora and their one year-old son Henry William, came to  Oklahoma. Charley bought a quit claim on the northwest quarter of section 8, 15N, 2W,  Springer Township, from a Mr. Ritchie. For the next twelve years they lived in a log cabin built by Mr. Ritchie on this farm 6.5 miles south of Guthrie. The log cabin consisted of one room and a loft. Later Charley added a lean-to kitchen. The log cabin still stands on the farm. In 1999 Marvin Elliott, grandson of Charley and Eleanor, son of Ada Scheihing and Warren Elliott, who had purchased the farm from the estate, sold a portion of the farm, including the cabin and Big House, to Gerhard Labay, a first generation German emigrant. Mr. Labay is restoring the homestead..

In this home five more children were born: Ada Louise, Walter Herman, Eleanor, Carl Emil and Helen Christine.

The first year they arrived too late to plant any warm weather crops and only turnips grew sufficiently to provide food for the first winter. That winter they survived on turnips and whatever game Charley could shoot.

In the spring Charley immediately began planting his farm with fruit trees, which he grafted and budded himself, always selecting the trees most suited to Oklahoma's climate for his parent stock.

The peaches were Elbertas, About 15 or 20 pickers would bring the peaches to the packing shed on large, flat-bed wagons pulled by horses. The packing shed could be opened on all sides. Some 20 women were hired to pack the peaches which were emptied into bins for sorting and packing. The top of each bushel basket was "ring packed" with the nicest looking peaches. The fuzz on the peaches made the packers very uncomfortable, so they used talcum powder on their arms. The Scheihing children carried cold water to the shed for the packers to drink.

A man named John Russell bought the peaches. He hired an inspector, who was a bachelor, especially interesting to the single packers. The children remember these packers "making eyes" at the inspector.

The car loads of peaches were loaded on the Santa Fe at Seward, 3 miles west of the farm. Later, the interurban railway was built a mile west of the farm and the cars were loaded there. John Russell eventually hired Charley to go to Colorado as a buyer for him.

Two other early day fruit growers were W. B. Elliott, whose son Warren married Charley's daughter Ada; and Emil Nau, a brother-in-law of Charley's (wife of Charley's sister Christianne Elizabeth), who lived in a farm on the quarter section south of Charley's. The last year these fruit growers and Charley sold peaches they received 50 cents a bushel for them.

Emil Nau and Charley both made wine and Charley also made beer. When Emil bought a Model T Ford, he used the worst of his wine for anti-freeze in the radiator. Emil was a notorious penny-pincher.

In 1903 the family moved into a new 8-room house Charley and the boys built next to the log cabin. There were five bedrooms to house the large family. Two more children were born in this house: Rudolf Hirzel and Clara Elizabeth. (The house and farm was the set for the 1990s film  "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys.")

During World War I cotton prices were high. Charley decided to plant some of his land in cotton. After one day of picking cotton he decided this was not the crop for him. The cotton was picked by hired help and never planted again.

One July when the whole family was going to a nearby lake for the holiday festivities, Rudolph and Clara, the youngest, had not finished picking the blackberries that morning. Charley would not let them go with the rest of the family to the picnic until they finished. So Rudy and Clara, angrily and grudgingly, put the stockings on their arms and waded into the blackberries in the heat of the afternoon. When they finished picking the berries, they put the flat of fresh, plump berries on top of a fence post in the full blaze of the hot July sun. Charley had insisted they pick the damn blackberries but he hadn't told them what to do with them So there the berries sat. That evening when the family returned from the picnic the blackberries were just dripping mush - totally ruined. Charley looked at them and broke out in a gale of laughter at the stubbornness of his youngest two children, a stubbornness so typical of Scheihings and, indeed, of all Schwabs.

Charley and Eleanor were fiercely American. They refused to speak German in the presence of their children, unless the conversation was not for small ears, once the children had begun school.

Eleanora worked along with Charley and the eight children harvesting fruit. She usually canned 400 to 500 quarts a year with the peaches that were too ripe to ship to market. She had a flock of chickens and made some butter to provide butter and egg money for everyday expenses.

The fruit money was used for improvements and paying for a second 160 acre farm, the northeast quarter section adjacent to the original quarter section, stretching all the way to old Highway 77.

Christmas and Easter were festive celebrations in the home. Eleanor spent much time baking the tradition German cookies and breads, such as Springerles (typical of the Swäbish area of Germany). The Christmas tree of native cedar was decorated on Christmas Eve after the children were in bed. Christmas night was spent around the pump organ, and later the piano, singing Christmas carols. Many of the songs were sung in German on this occasion. Before the girls were old enough to play the organ or piano, Charley played the accompaniment on a zither.

Educating the large family was no small task. The older children, except Ada, attended 2 years of high school and then business college. The younger four children all graduated from high school, and Clara graduated from Central State Teachers College (now Central State University) in Edmond.

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Remembrance by Helen Scheihing Egelston

My father also raised blackberries. During World War I he sold them for $6.00 a crate (24 quarts), mostly to Crescent Grocery in Oklahoma City, and how he cared for that blackberry patch Not a weed was in sight. He kept the soil well cultivated, as moisture escapes through the soil if it is allowed to pack. The loveliest big berries were inside the bushes. The bushes had so many stickers we had to wear long black wool stockings with the feet cut out on our arms to protect them from the stickers. Man It was so hot picking those berries and we hated them because we had to pick them, but a good hot blackberry cobbler with plenty of whole fresh milk was mighty good. Besides Dad paid us one cent per quart to pick them. (A man's family was an asset in those days.) The berries were taken to the interurban that ran near our home and on to the grocery in Oklahoma City.

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Though two of Charley's brothers also lived in the Guthrie area, he did not get along particularly well with them, especially his brother David. David's family, for example, spoke Germany all the time at home and the children spoke English with a heavy Germany accent, which offended Charley's Americanism.

Also there was a long dispute between Charley and David over who developed the "Scheihing apricot." Clara Elizabeth Scheihing Benson says Charley found this natural mutation apricot on one of his trees, which produced apricots the size of a lemon and stood up well to shipping. Charley grafted and budded shoots from this tree and sold them for $1 each all through the Depression. Clara Benson says Charley gave some grafted/budded trees of this apricot to his brother David Henry; David Henry Jr. during the Depression then sent a sapling to the Neosho Nursery at Neosho, MO (now called Big Spring Nursery, 417-451-2420) and claimed it as his own.

The former owner of Neosho Nursery, Joe Weston, then worked in the wholesale dept of Stark Brothers Nursery, Louisiana, MO, 800-325-4180. 

Big Spring Nursery now carries no fruit trees at all. A search by Stark Bros. in 1997 of the nursery stock sourcebook for an apricot under the name "Scheihing," "Improved Superb," "Improved Suburban," "Superb," and "Suburban" was unsuccessful.

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The Oklahoma Railwayan, Vol. 1, Number 18, Tuesday, December 1, 1925
The Men Who Man the Cars

This, ladies and gentlemen, is C. W. Scheihing, the Oklahoma Railway company's agricultural agent and the man who once convinced half the state of Iowa that you can't pull the well known wool over an Oklahoman's eyes.

Mr. Scheihing owns and operates a model farm near Guthrie, close to the interurban tracks. Qualified by his great agricultural successes to act as advisor to Oklahoma farmers, the Oklahoma Railway company has induced him to act in that capacity for the farmers living in the territory served by its lines. The model farm is open to inspection by the public and you'll find a hearty welcome if you choose to visit it.

But to get back to the time when Iowa met Oklahoma.

Once upon a time, Mr. Scheihing shipped a couple of carloads of peaches to a couple of Iowa commission houses and in a few days receive a check for about half what he had been led to expect  he would receive. Naturally he thought he detected the presence of a dark complexioned gentleman in the wood-pile.

So he bought a cowboy hat and fifteen cents worth of chewing tobacco and started for Iowa. Arriving there he turned detective long enough to find out that his peaces had reached their destination in good condition and had sold for a good price.

The commission merchant, however, produced  a small army of Italian vendors who swore the peaches had been sold at a ridiculously low price. Right there was where Mr. Scheihing began to act like the typical bad man of the great open spaces.

With a quick movement he shot his hand back to his hip pocket at the same time emitting an awful noise that was a cross between an Indian warhoop and a steamboat whistle. The Italians fell on their knees and told the truth about the peaches. Mr. Scheihing got a check for the actual sale price of the peaches and an additional amount to pay the expenses of his trip.

But the climax was not yet. When it was all over Mr. Scheihing rounded up all the actors in the little drama and showed  them what he had in his hip pocket - a cotton handkerchief.

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In 1891 Charley and Eleanora and their one year-old son Henry William, came to Oklahoma. Charley bought a quit claim on the northwest quarter of section 8, 15N, 2W,  Springer Township, from a Mr. Ritchie. For the next twelve years they lived in a log cabin built by Mr. Ritchie on this farm 6.5 miles south of Guthrie. The log cabin consisted of one room and a loft. Later Charley added a lean-to kitchen. The log cabin still stands on the farm which is now owned by Marvin Elliott, grandson of Charley and Eleanor, son of Ada Scheihing and Warren Elliott.

In this home five more children were born: Ada Louise, Walter Herman, Eleanor, Carl Emil and Helen Christine.

The first year they arrived too late to plant any warm weather crops and only turnips grew sufficiently to provide food for the first winter. That winter they survived on turnips and whatever game Charley
could shoot.

In the spring Charley immediately began planting his farm with fruit trees, which he grafted and budded himself, always selecting the trees most suited to Oklahoma's climate for his parent stock.

The peaches were Elbertas, About 15 or 20 pickers would bring the peaches to the packing shed on large, flat-bed wagons pulled by horses. The packing shed could be opened on all sides. Some 20 women were hired to pack the peaches which were emptied into bins for sorting and packing. The top of each bushel basket was "ring packed" with the nicest looking peaches. The fuzz on the peaches made the packers very uncomfortable, so they used talcum powder on their arms. The Scheihing children carried cold water to the shed for the packers to drink.

A man named John Russell bought the peaches. He hired an inspector, who was a bachelor, especially interesting to the single packers. The children remember these packers "making eyes" at the inspector.

The car loads of peaches were loaded on the Santa Fe at Seward, 3 miles west of the farm. Later, the interurban railway was built a mile west of the farm and the cars were loaded there. John Russell
eventually hired Charley to go to Colorado as a buyer for him.

Two other early day fruit growers were W. B. Elliott, whose son Warren married Charley's daughter Ada; and Emil Nau, a brother-in-law of Charley's (wife of Charley's sister Christianne Elizabeth) who lived in a farm on the quarter section south of Charley's. The last year these fruit growers and Charley sold peaches they received 50 cents a bushel for them.

Emil Nau and Charley both made wine and Charley also made beer. When Emil bought a Model T Ford, he used the worst of his wine for anti-freeze in the radiator. Emil was a notorious penny-pincher.

In 1903 the family moved into a new 8-room house Charley and the boys built next to the log cabin. There were five bedrooms to house the large family. Two more children were born in this house: Rudolf Hirzel and Clara Elizabeth. (The house and farm was the set for the 1990s film  "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys.")

During World War I cotton prices were high. Charley decided to plant some of his land in cotton. After one day of picking cotton he decided this was not the crop for him. The cotton was picked by hired help and never planted again.

Blackberries were also raised. During World War I Charley sold them for $6 per crate (24 quarts), mostly to the Crescent Grocery in Oklahoma City.

Charley loved his blackberry patch, which was just north across the driveway from the 1903 farmhouse. Not a weed was in sight. He kept the soil well-cultivated, as moisture escapes through the soil if it is allowed to pack down. The loveliest big berries were inside the bushes. The bushes had so many stickers the children, who did most of the blackberry picking, had to wear long black stockings with the feet cut out on their arms to protect them from the stickers. It was so hot
and miserable picking those berries that Clara Benson would never, to her dying day, eat blackberries no matter who picked them or how they were prepared. Charley paid the children 1 cent per quart to pick the blackberries.

Charley and Eleanor were fiercely American. They refused to speak German in the presence of their children, unless the conversation was not for small ears, once the children had begun school.

Eleanora worked along with Charley and the eight children harvesting fruit. She usually canned 400 to 500 quarts a year with the peaches that were too ripe to ship to market. She had a block of chickens and made some butter to provide butter and egg money for everyday expenses.

The fruit money was used for improvements and paying for a second 160 acre farm, the northeast quarter section adjacent to the original quarter section, stretching all the way to old Highway 77.

Christmas and Easter