There was a 90th birthday party in Brooks last week, and

Evelyn Knapp Spaller was on the receiving end.

She was born March 27, 1909, in Lockridge, Okla., and reared

in Montana. How she got from one point to the other is most

interesting. It was by wagon train.

In 1914 along with her parents and three brothers,

she spent two months "on the road" to join two uncles already

in Montana, and there were two more uncles who traveled

in wagons with them. One of the uncles was a good shot and

kept them in meat along the way.

Her youngest brother was 1 year old during the move

and had respiratory problems. Her family had been advised that

he probably would not survive the trip. However, the open air

was just what he needed and lived to be 79 years old.

At one point they traveled through the part of Montana

that is known as "Battle of the Little Big Horn." It had only been

38 years since that enigma and the fields were still as they had

been after the fight, with men buried where they lay. When

she returned to the site two years ago it had changed in

appearance dramatically.

She had a maternal grandfather who was killed by

Indians in Kansas, leaving her grandmother with three boys and

a girl. The grandmother decided to take part in the Oklahoma

Land Rush in 1889 and reared her children there. Two of

these boys were the uncles who had already gone to Montana.

Arriving in the fall of the year, it was too late to build

a cabin or plant crops, so they stayed with the uncles until

the next spring. At that time her dad obtained a homestead of

360 acres. The land, however, was not conducive to growing

crops and they subsisted on milk cows, chickens and the

family garden. To earn additional income, her dad was handy

with repairing thrashers and would travel 40 miles away to do this.

When she was in eighth grade, the family moved to

a new place where farming was much more successful.

For her first two years of high school, she was sent to live

with an uncle in Idaho. The family moved closer to a town

and Evelyn finished high school in Sumatra, Montana, in 1927.

Mr. Knapp was quite good at playing the fiddle for

Saturday night dances and he would always take his daughter

with him. She said she can close her eyes and still hear the music.

Evelyn taught school for awhile and then married

a rancher, Herbert Spaller, who died at the age of 97 in 1995.

They successfully grew alfalfa seed and cattle.

The winter of 1948-49 was one of the most severe ever

experienced in the area. After talking it over, they decided to try

farming in the South. They traveled throughout all the

southern states and had corresponded with a Realtor in Griffin.

He showed them various areas of land, but a lot of it

had trees.Because she was reared on a prairie, Evelyn felt

she couldn't stand not being able to look out of a window and

see clear land. So when they were shown land high on a hill

in Brooks, they knew this would be their next home.

In 1951 they and their son, Ken, moved to Fayette

County where they grew cattle.

Ken lives next door and she has two grandchildren and

two great-grandchildren.

"Life has been interesting," she said. "People have

always been important in my life, and I couldn't get along without

being around folks. There hasn't been one aspect of my life that I felt

I could have done without."

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