VERDEN – Funeral services for Ansel Craddock Finley, 77, of Anadarko will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 16 at the First Baptist Church in Verden with interment following at Verden Cemetery.

He passed away Sunday morning, Feb.12, 2012 at VA Hospital in
Oklahoma City. He was born in Lincoln Township, north of Verden, on Oct. 25, 1934 to Willie Aubrey and Faye Geneva Finley, who worked hard on their farm. A year later his sister Sue Ann was born and soon to follow were Rosalee and Keith. Life during the early years was filled with wonder as each new day brought an adventure, applied wisely by a very creative mother. Play was serious work to all of them. Ansel played basketball and ran track at Verden High School where he graduated in 1952. He attended one semester at OSU, then
joined the Army Paratroopers School, where he graduated after two years. Upon leaving the Army he married his high school sweetheart, Reba Jean Singleton and they had two children, Rene’ and Kyle.

Ansel’s broad range of interest and talents introduced him to many jobs, including working mostly as a carpenter, then as an insurance salesman, water tester for the U.S.D.A. Grady County Agricultural Department, mobile home manufacturing, and finally for several years as a Chemist for PetraFina Chemical Corporation. He retired from Fina and moved to Alvord, Texas to live near Keith and set up the Three Possums Ranch. The sudden death of his brother, Keith, brought him back to Oklahoma where he experienced his first amputation as a result of vascular disease. During that time his brother-in-law, Max Upchurch died. It was a very difficult time for him, as he recuperated in the home of his sister and brother-in-law, Rosalee and Clifford Nath. When he was ready he moved into his own apartment and lived independently until this past November. During all these years his true love has been various areas of sportsmanship, including archery, bowling, hunting, fishing, horse-racing, golfing, camping and also music. Ansel was awarded many trophies and awards in archery and bowling and golf. The Finley and Craddock families have enjoyed many, many hours playing cards and dominoes and laughing and making music together.

Ansel is survived by his daughter Rene’ and husband Scott Sanders of Bethany, OK; son Kyle and wife Diane Finley of Poway, CA.; grandsons Aaron, Seth, and wife Rachel, Canaan, Bryce and Austin;
granddaughters, Chelsea and Ashley; great-granddaughters, Teagan Elizabeth Finley and Monroe Marie Sanders; sister Sue Ann Upchurch of Anadarko; brother-in-law Clifford Nath of Anadarko and many nieces, nephews, cousins, and extended family and friends. He is preceded in death by his father, Willie
Aubrey Finley; mother Faye Geneva Finley; sister Rosalee Nath; brother Keith Finley; and brother-in-law Max Upchurch.

He is in state at Steverson’s Funeral Home in Anadarko until 9 p.m. Wednesday. The family would like to extend sincere thanks to those who assisted and suffered with Ansel. Mary Burcham, Sue Upchurch, Clifford Nath, Vonda Neal and staff of the Anadarko Housing Authority (especially Danielle
Walters, Susan Smith, and Chaplain Dennis King), Grace Living Center in Chickashas, Quail Creek Nursing Home in Oklahoma City, VA 4^th Floor Paliative Care Staff, and Pastor Troy Taylor of Verden FBC.

By this time she had learned all the ins and outs of the business. I have no idea what the laws are now but at that time bars in the city limits closed at 12:00 midnight. Those outside city limits could stay open until 2:00 A.M.  She knew that lots of her customers weren’t ready to go home at midnight … especially on the weekends. With that in mind she narrowed her search to buildings outside the city limits of the towns in the area and that didn’t leave much to choose from. She finally found an empty house right on a curve in the highway 1 mile west of Binger and decided that would be the place.

We moved to Binger in the summer of 1962 and they started working on the place. It was just a small house on a 5 acre lot and I don’t remember what she paid for the place but it wasn’t much. Regardless of the price my dad was convinced it was no different than throwing that money away and they bickered (to put it nicely) about it from mom’s first mention. One day while getting the place ready mom brought up the subject of what they would call it and dad jumped on the opportunity. It’s been too long for me to remember the conversation word for word but his response was something to the effect of “well it’s so little you couldn’t get nothing in here but a room full of midgets … you ought to just call it The Midget Bar!” He was obviously being sarcastic but in a tit-for-tat move of master strategery (thanks W) she did just that. In keeping with the whole ‘midget’ theme, the sign she hung outside with the name on it was so small you could barely read it from the road. They were quite a pair!

Larry Craddock

I know that I had a wonderful time, even if I was forced to wear a Pink shirt the entire time. Playing music with my high school band mates was a personal highlight. We may all have gained a hundred pounds since then but let me tell you, we still rocked like no time had passed.

The pitch tournament was a blast, despite the fact that I nearly ruined everything by accidentally bringing pinochle cards. I’m sure I won’t live that down anytime soon. Lynne tried to get a picture of me with one of those decks of cards. I’m curious to see if she has the nerve to post that picture online, ha. I didn’t fare so well in the tournament. I went 3 and 3. Joe Craddock and Rodney Craddock both won all 6 games. The trophy came down to points of which Uncle Joe had 3 more.

On Sunday, we all headed to Chickasha to the family reunion. As I believe I have mentioned before the reunion has been held every year for over 60 years. I had a great time talking to family I hadn’t met before as well as those that I hadn’t seen in a long time. Come to think of it, I also enjoyed the company of those who I see all the time. Most everyone brought a dish and the food was excellent. After we ate Bob Craddock got on stage and filled us all in on our shared heritage. You can count on me posting those stories here in the next few weeks. Before it was time to go home, several of us got up and picked at the guitar and sang a few songs. For me the reunion can’t be over until I hear a duet from Dan and BJ Craddock.

I think we all had a great time and I’m already looking forward to next year. Aunt Ada and Aunt Debbie have managed to reserve a pavilion at Fort Cobb lake next year which we will either use for the Pitch tournament or the family reunion depending on how a few things work out.

I hope the rest of you had as good of a time as I did. Be sure to comment below and tell us your favorite moment of the reunion weekend. I’d really appreciate hearing from you.

As it stands now we are expecting around 30 people attending and nearly 20 playing pitch. I appreciate all of you who have let me know that you are coming and what you intend to bring. Any of you that haven’t let me know, please do so. You can see who has committed to bring what here. After much consideration we have decided that the pitch tournament this year should be an adult get together only. Of course all the kiddos are welcome at the Family Reunion the next day at the Grady County Fairgrounds in Chickasha. If anyone is going to have a problem finding someone to watch the kids please let me know and I’ll see what I can do to help.

The time for your defeat is very near. I look forward to visiting with those of you attending and watching you pitch players out there sweat when you find yourself at the same table with me.

As you know, the tournament will be held and Joe and Debbie Craddock’s place near Oney, Ok. We are well into planning the details of the event but it would be nice to know who all is going to make it this year and what they will be bringing. If you could please confirm your attendance that would be wonderful. You can do that by commenting below or sending me and email at erik@craddock.org.

Also since Uncle Joe will be hungry and the rest of us might want a snack between games, we will need food and drinks. Typically in years past, everyone would bring something to snack on and share it with the other attendees. It would be nice if not everyone brought the same thing. If you will let me know what you are bringing I will post it here so that others will know to bring something different. I know what your thinking “but Erik, what should I bring?, what do you need?”, below is a list of things I’m told would be nice to have, but bring something different if you’d like.

• Decks of Cards – Erik Craddock
• Hot Dogs – Debbie Craddock
• Relish Tray – Debbie Craddock
• Chips and Home made salsa – Linda Craddock
• Guacamole dip – Larry Craddock
• Burrito Casserole – Samie Craddock
• Brisket or Chicken – Sue Ann Upchurch, Clifford Nath, Ansel Finley
• Desert - Sue Ann Upchurch, Clifford Nath, Ansel Finley
• Dip (Cheese, bean etc) – Stephanie Intagliata
• Veggy Tray – Stephanie Intagliata
• Soft Drinks
• Coffee
• 1 Case of Coke – Stephanie Intagliata
• 1 2 liter of Coke – Heidi Dent
• Finger Food
• Cookies – Stephanie Intagliata
• Plenty of ice – Lacey Craddock
• Watermelon – Ada Morris
• Flatware and napkins – Ada Morris
• Paper Plates (regular and saucer sizes) – Ada Morris
• Plastic or Styrofoam cups – Ada Morris
• Your special dish that you make better than anyone

Let me know what you’re bringing and I’ll keep the list above updated. Also again please let me know that your coming and if you intend on playing pitch or not. We need to know so that we can figure out how many tables we need to procure. Help me get the word out to everyone.

This year many of those issues have been corrected. The 2011 Craddock Family Pitch tournament will be played on Saturday, July 16th at the residence of Joe and Debbie Craddock near Oney, Ok.  Play will begin at 4pm central standard time. All attendees should bring a small snack as well as their wits. There will be plenty of banter, laughing and good times to go around.

To avoid any type of game play issues, etiquette concerns, or tournament rules confusion, I am publishing a list of Craddock Family Pitch Rules for everyone’s consideration. I encourage everyone to read the rules and speak up if any of them seem incorrect. I also have a glossary list of terms for those of you who are unfamiliar with Pitch.

I’m looking forward to seeing everyone and more importantly having everyone else see me walk away with the trophy. I will be posting more reunion and pitch related stories later this month and early next month. If you would like to be notified whenever new articles are posted on the Craddock Connection, I encourage you to sign up for our newsletter. You can do this by entering you email address in the text box at the top right and clicking the Join button.

I stood one day surveying, for the first time, the ruins of the old fort St. Joesph, on that beautiful peninsula, which guards, like a crouching lion, the entrance to St. Mary’s River. There was the old road, the crumbling walls, the gun emplacements, and the most impressive of all, some gentle garden flowers, which have wasted their fragrance on the desert air of over a hundred years; a gentle but sure reminder of the place where human beings lived. There mail symbols of the past drew me into a reverie of retrospection and I saw in fancy the old fort of 1812; I saw men in the scarlet and blue of the British Army, men in blankets and leather stockings, men rough and unkept called voyageurs, and I saw women and children. I heard the blast of the bugle, the tramp of men and the jumbled sounds of a human community. But then, what’s the use of daydreaming? Fancy may be far from fact. 

I left the fort that night resolved that I would search here and there til I knew the facts about some of the individuals who lived there during the stirring days of 1812. Thank fortune, I have not searched in vain, and I am now able to tell the story of some of the sturdy souls who lived and wrought there.

There is one whose life story claims singular attention to the citizens of St. Joe, because he was born at the old fort. He was the child of Lieut. John Craddock, of the 42nd regiment, who served for a number of years on the frontier defenses of Canada. The lonely, rough life of the backwoods had its effects on John’s spirits and aspirations and he was “jollywell bored and beastly omesick” when he chanced to meet and finally marry a winsome halfbreed daughter of lower Candaa. There was a flutter of excitement at Fort St. Joeseph when this soldier, with his wife and little Katrine arrived one day in the fall of 1811. The soldiers had their gossip on the side about this “andsome hofficer and ‘is bloomin’ awf awf”, but they agreed she looked like a good fun and there was nought better to be ‘ad or oped’ for in this bloomin wilderness.

One morning in the spring of 1812, the doughty officer was offered the conventional congratulations on the arrival of a wee, dark-skinned baby boy. The answer to the query, “What yer going to callim?”; he answered, I expect we’ll call him Joesph, in honor of this bloomin fort, and he was christened Joseph Craddock, the fort baby, the pet and mascot of the garrison.

For a few weeks John Craddock experienced the joys and comforts of a happy little home, even if it were improvised and on the edge of the great wilderness and then the cruel god of war tore his family asunder, for the god of war mocks domestic felicity and shows his teeth at all tender feelings of men. One beautiful morning, in July of that fateful year, John bade his little family a soldier’s hasty farewell and hurried on board the schooner Caledonia, to take part in the expedition that was to capture the fortress of Mackinaw; for war had been declared. “You’ll likely ear from me within the forenight”, were among his last assurances, and “I’ll come get you when we’re settled.” But the fortunes of war reeled otherwise and John was never again to see his dusky loved ones at the old St. Joe from Mackinaw. He was went as dispatch runner to Montreal and from there was ordered back to England and the last we hear about him, he was numbered amont the slain at Waterloo.
What became of little Joe? do we know? Yes, we know. For sixteen years he lived with his mother and little Katrine in the shadow of the forts at Mackinaw and Drummond Island and then in 1928, they moved with the garrison to the new base at Penetanguishene, where Joe grew to manhood.

What kind of man was he, this son of the old fort? Was he worthless or worthwhile? Good or good for nothing? Is his name worthy of remembrance or had he better be forgotten? These are the very questions by which history will search all our lives in the great future and the fire shall prove every man’s work, of what sort it is. And there is the fire of history and it has no respect for persons.

Joesph Craddock lived well past the allotted time, dying in Coldwater in 1900, full of years and adorned with creditable record, for it is written of him that “He was scrupulously honest and upright in all his dealings, highly respected and a pattern to the community in which he Lived.” A splendid epitaph one which might be the pride and the envy of us all. Great opportunities and favoured circumstances were not his: the fort, the wilderness and the shore was his world; the indian, the soldier, and “the awf and awf”, his companions, yet he leaves the record: scrupulously honest and upright in all his dealings, highly respected and a patter to the community in which he lived.

http://members.tripod.com/joanne_rice/

It all started in 1980. I was six years old, my sister Stephanie was four and my mother Samie was pregnant with my brother Nathan. Dad was a successful contract cable splicer who had worked for numerous telephone companies all around the country. Once I began school my parents decided that my sister and I needed a more stable life than traveling around the country at a moments notice. They decided to move back home to Caddo County Oklahoma. One of the most reputable companies in the state, Western Farmers was the obvious choice for a job application. The only problem was that they weren’t hiring. Even worse, past mistakes had left dad with a less than desirable history with the U.S. Army. This was definitely an issue with a department full of ex-military including the division manager who was a World World II P.O.W. Despite these obstacles, dad never gave up and his persistence paid off. He began his job at Western Farmers Electric Cooperative on May 13, 1980 as a Telecommunications Support Mechanic.

A Telecommunications Support Mechanic turned out to be a fancy job title for the guy who climbed towers and replaced lights, repaired air conditioners and generally cleaned up. When he wasn’t sweeping the floors, he was taking correspondence courses in basic electronics and radio communications. He had been promised the opportunity to work as a technician if he acquired an FCC license. Larry Craddock received an FCC Radio Telephone Operator License Second Class on October 8, 1980 and was promoted to the position of two-way technician soon afterwards. Johny Watkins, a long time co-worker and family friend, recounts a memorable event early in dad’s career as a two-way radio technician. Johnny and dad were asked by their boss Al Brooks to investigate an issue with a radio located at Fort Supply which is about 150 miles from the home base in Anadarko. Not long after fixing the bad piece of equipment, they received another call.  This time the Hugo plant had a bad two-way radio and it needed to be fixed as soon as possible. As Johnny tells it, “Now it is about 350 miles from Fort Supply to the Hugo Plant but since Larry and I were such good company men (had nothing to do with overtime pay) we proceeded to drive to Hugo.” As it turns out the Hugo plant radio was on the third level of the plant’s smoke stack which is at an elevation of about 400 feet. To make things worse the weather was extremely cold which caused the misting rain to begin freezing. Johnny explained sarcastically that it was “excellent weather to ride a gear driven elevator mounted on the side of a 400 foot smoke stack”. He continued “We loaded the elevator with our test equipment and proceeded to the landing where the radio was located. This radio was located about half way around the stack on the expanded metal floor with only a few hand rails on the outside”. Just imagine being 400 foot up in the air standing on top of a five foot wide expanded metal floor with the wind blowing sleet in your face while also covering both the equipment and the floor in ice.  Johnny concluded with “I don’t remember if we fixed that radio or not but the forty foot trip from the elevator to the radio was DEFINITELY, free from all ambiguity, uncertainty or obscurity a trip to remember”.

By the late 1980’s we had moved out in the country and the shop was upgraded from a room at the back of the garage to a full fledged building that was about 40 foot long. The electronic repair “side” business had morphed into a personal computer and networking business, Total Technologies was born. It was my job to assemble the computers by placing motherboards in cases, attaching peripheral cables to boards, locking processors into place and hooking up I/O cards and memory. By the age of 13, my father had taught me how computer hardware worked and how to trouble shoot issues and fix them. These machines ran Windows 3.1 on top of DOS 5 in the beginning. Dad would also setup 10Base2 networks for libraries, schools and other businesses.  It was around this time that he became an EMS Software Analyst at WFEC, a change made possible by his discovery of programing languages including Assembler and C. One of his biggest achievements as a software analyst was his role designing and developing a Substation Automation system. This system gave authorized employees the ability to remotely track and control substations in most of Oklahoma and parts of surrounding states. This was a powerful system capable of amazing feats. Once while testing a governmental required feature, he accidentally shut down power for what felt like half the state. Everyone ran around like mad men for a little while until they brought it all back up but the application’s effectiveness was proven.

Another increasingly important obsession for dad was online access starting with bulletin boards, moving on to services such as Delphi and finally true Internet access. We had magazines that listed bulletin board numbers for a variety of different purposes. I was particularly fond of Sierra Online’s board as they offered tips for those poor souls such as me who were stuck while playing their games. Dad was more interested in the message boards where he could discuss hardware and software issues with other technophiles. Delphi was more like the Sam’s Club of bulletin boards. Services such as these had large communities for most any subject. Eventually, dad purchased an account with IONet which was the largest Internet service provider in Oklahoma City. The Internet was fresh and new and not the crowded marketing machine that it is now. The speeds were outrageously fast at 28.8 Kbps. It was a beautiful thing except for one problem, it was expensive. It wasn’t the actual price of the account that was the problem, it was the long distance fees from the telephone company. This meant that online time had to be curtailed. This just wasn’t acceptable so the Total Access era began.

In the early 1990’s we all moved back to Anadarko, Ok. Eventually Total Techologies opened up shop on NE 1st street. This was the era before nationwide long distance and dad was not the only resident of Anadarko unhappy about paying long distance fees to access the Internet. My father was apparently the only resident willing to do anything about it. In late 1994, dad purchased a T-1 line along with 16 modems capable of handling connections with speeds up to 28.8 Kbps and began selling Internet access to the citizens of Anadarko and the surrounding communities. He setup servers running Slackware Linux to handle services such as Web, Mail and News. I can still remember the first time I downloaded an application from the Internet at T-1 speeds, it felt instantaneous. At this time I was in the Air Force and living in Boosier City, La. I would regularly make the 6 hour drive home and I would always lug my desktop with me so that I could plug it into dad’s network. In the meantime mom and dad were working constantly. Dad would work for WFEC during the week and come home to a to do list such as build, repair or deliver computers, add new subscribers, fix security holes that needed to be plugged and this is only a small example. My mother, Samie Craddock, handled the finances and day to day operations which included tasks such as tech support, Internet and/or computer training, signing up new customers as well as billing and user management to name a few. They both worked hard seven days a week and earned the respect of the community by always doing their best to offer quality products and services. After years of hard work mom and dad sold Total Access in 1998.

Life went back to normal for the most part. In 2002, dad was promoted to a Controls Coordinator position which meant that he was a technical liaison for Western Farmer’s member cooperatives. By 2003 he was put in charge of cyber security for the company network. As had become customary, he flew around the country taking classes and learning as much as he could. It was around this time that the new management closed the doors on Total Access. People in Anadarko, still requiring Internet access, started calling dad and asking his advice. Eventually there was a large enough demand that he started another Internet Service provider, this time he named it Netride Internet Services. With experience as their guide, mom and dad toned down the number of services they were offering and ran the business out of their home in the garage, my old bedroom. In addition to dial-up access, Netride also offered high speed wireless access which could be utilized all over town. He put up a tower next to his house with a dish that negotiated a point to point connection with another dish that was located at the top of a tower next to the McDuffy’s auto shop down town. It was a marvelous system that was well ahead of it’s time. The only negative that I could see was that when there was bad weather it tended to cause issues with the equipment and that usually meant climbing towers. I can only imagine that this must have brought back memories of his early days at WFEC. In an apparent effort to mitigate the dangers of tumbling off of the top of a tower, dad hired his nephew John Morris to do some of the heavy lifting, tower climbing, modem installations as well as many other responsibilities. Despite this precaution, it seems that calamity was still lurking in some of the most unlikely locales as described by John: “We had gotten some chicken strips from Step n Fetch.  Suddenly Larry started beating at his chest with one hand and pointing toward his open mouth with his other hand as he stood up.  I’m sure you can imagine Samie’s reaction.  I began to worry as i could barely put my arms around him, but finally managed to get into position to perform the Heimlich.  By this time Samie was nearly in shock and as you can probably image Larry was closer to death from laughing rather than choking.  Through the years I had heard many stories of unc laughing in the face of death, from that point on I believed all of them.  After a few good squeezes the chicken became dislodged and after about 15 minutes Larry finally stopped laughing, and finally after about 3 hours Samie calmed down and everything was back to normal.”

Time flowed predictably for several years, dad continued at Western Farmers in his role as the cyber security czar with his title being changed officially to Sr. Network Security Coordinator in 2006. A trip to dad’s office as a child was like visiting a nerdy amusement park and growing older never changed that. There were computers everywhere, stacked on top of tables, under his desk and even in drawers. He had all sorts of other equipment laying around too, ROM burners, modems, test sets and many other things only he could explain. In fact he had so much stuff that he ended up customizing his desk. He cut out a square out of the top of it, replaced the wood with a piece of glass and added an angled shelf under it so that his monitor could be placed inside. It was almost as fun listening to him describe his “modifications” as it was seeing them. Those descriptions almost always started with the words “Oh man, you’ve GOT to see this”. Things couldn’t have been going any better, that is until 2008.

In January of 2008, dad was diagnosed with colon cancer. It was a devastating event in our family. It was life changing for us all. My intention is to recount dad’s work history starting with his job at Western Farmers only, so I won’t be going into details. However, this incident had a very real effect on every aspect of his life including his job. Nearly the entire year was spent in surgery or recovery and dad was unable to work most of it. As with every bad situation I’ve ever seen my father be involved with, he bravely faced adversity and won. Dad has been completely cancer free for over 3 years now. He was warmly welcomed back to WFEC but fighting cancer and running a Internet service provider was a bit much. With the skill of a seasoned negotiator, mom sold the wireless Internet portion of Netride leaving their nights and weekends open to more enjoyable pursuits. Dad returned back to work but after that experience it was inevitable that he would retire just as soon as he could.

From my earliest days of childhood, through adolescence, after starting my own family and career, my father has always been my guide. When I am unsure of which path I should take I look to him. Notice I said look and not ask, he has never pushed his opinions on me much. Either he thought it best for me to develop those myself or was wise enough to know that I wouldn’t listen anyway. When I ask, he listens. He always craftily manages to turn it back on me and what I think but I’m wise to this trick. I’ve learned to follow his example in work ethic, fatherhood and life in general. I am by no means the only one who has learned this lesson. Dad has positively effected people all throughout his life. I have never found anyone willing to criticize him, most offer nothing but praise. My father is universally respected by all who know him and for good reason, he is the embodiment of integrity. Dad now passes the time by working on projects at home with mom, spending more time with his grandchildren and making plans for traveling around the country. Both mom and dad seem as happy as I’ve ever seen them. To be honest I’m quite envious. I can only hope that when my children are grown that they’ll be as proud of me as I am of my parents.

This will be a day dedicated to catching up with family members you know and meeting those that you don’t. It surely will be a great time for young and old alike. Please let me know if you have any questions.

2011 Craddock Family Reunion

Grady Count Fairgrounds

July 17, 2011 starting at aournd 10:30 AM