Earley Bales died when Charley (my grandfather) was seven. I think he was in his early forties. I don’t believe the Indians did him in. Disease and the rugged conditions of the Texas frontier were the great widow makers of the early settlers.
After his father died, his mother remarried and moved to Indian Territory (Oklahoma). Apparently, Grandpa went with them. This probably occurred sometime near the beginning of the twentieth century.
My information concerning his early life is pretty sketchy. He frequently said that he only went to school until he was in the second grade. It was my understanding that he had to quit school because his father died while he was yet a young man. However, the death of Earley S. Bales took place in 1889. He would have been nine – a little old for second grade.
Whatever his reasons for dropping out of school, he was a man who labored diligently to educate himself. He read voraciously. He had an enormous interest in politics, and was highly opinionated. He was a lifelong Southern Democrat. He broke with the party only once. In 1928, he refused to vote for Al Smith because he was a Roman Catholic. At the time it was commonly believed the Catholics had plans to take over the country, so there was no way Al Smith was going to get his vote.
He blamed Hoover for the depression and never made the mistake of voting for another Republican. In 1960, he told me that he had decided not to vote. He couldn’t support John F. Kennedy, for the same reason, he couldn’t support Al Smith. He would not vote for Richard Nixon. That was his last opportunity to vote in a presidential election, and he missed it.
Grandpa was also an excellent singer. In those days, traveling singing schoolteachers came through the country and taught people to read shape notes. He mastered the art of shape note sight-reading. He loved to buy new song books, and the day he got one, he would sing through the entire book. He was a particular fan of the Stamps Quartet and listened to their noon program on KRLD in Dallas every day. He led singing for local churches and for “protracted meetings” as they were called in that day. I have a picture of he and a friend practicing their song leading. They’ve got the books in one and the other hand in the air to beat the time.
When I was 12, I got hit in the eye with a rock on the playground at school, resulting in a blood clot. I had to take it easy for a week or so. Mama was unable to care for me at the time, so I spent two weeks with Grandpa and Grandma. They taught me to love Southern Gospel music in general and the Stamps Quartet in particular. I loved going to the book case and pulling out those old paper back songbooks. I couldn’t wait for 12:30, when I would hear a familiar glide down the piano keyboard, and then I would hear the deep bass voice of Frank Stamps sing, “Give the World a Smile Each Day” – the Stamps theme song. I still love that song today even though I can’t do the syncopation in the chorus.
Daddy couldn’t carry a tune, but Grandpa was a self-made music man. I owe a lot of my love for music to him.
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