One last road trip with Onis

by Erik Craddock - Jul 17, 2024

My Uncle Onis passed away on January 5th, 2024. He was born on July 12, 1936. He lived to be 87 years old. He was married to Betty Craddock for 54 years. They had six daughters: Nona, Verna, Linda, Rhonda, Karla, and Trica. Sadly, Nona has since passed as well. Onis was the fourth oldest of eleven siblings. They are Leonard, Reginald, Lonnie, Paul, Ada, David, J.W., Dan, Larry, and Joe. All of them, except Larry and Joe, were born at what they called the old homestead right on the banks of what is now Chickasha Lake in Grady County Oklahoma.

Uncle Onis and Aunt Betty were always hitting the road. They had a 5th wheel or an RV of some kind for as long as I can remember. They would come visit us in Oklahoma from their home in Ohio every year like clockwork. It was only in the last couple of years that Uncle Onis stopped taking those trips because of poor health. His wishes were that his ashes be scattered at the place where he was born. This meant that he with the help of five of his daughters went on one last road trip from Ohio to Oklahoma to fulfill those wishes. Trica and her husband Jeff drove down from their home in Nebraska. While Verna, Linda, Rhonda, Karla and her husband Gary all drove in from Ohio. From all accounts, they had quite the trip on their way here. They shared lots of great pictures that had us all laughing.

The homestead is no longer a place where people live. In fact, there isn’t a lot of evidence anyone ever lived there at all. There is nothing remaining of a house, and there is barely even a road. Honestly, there may never have been a proper road for anything other than a horse and buggy. Larry, who is my father, was the first not born out there in 1951. This means that their parents, Van and Lucille probably moved sometime in the late 1940’s. The only real evidence that anyone ever lived there is an old cistern and a root cellar that still exist.

Uncle Onis told us a lot of stories about that place. He talked about walking to Anadarko from there, which has to be at least 10 miles away. He did this as a boy of about 11 years old. He remembered times where it rained so hard that he had to sleep in the woods on his way home. He also told us about hanging a hammock at the top of one of the trees to spend the night. Apparently, one time it started storming while he was asleep up there. Grandma Lucille tried but couldn’t wake him up to come down. She yelled and threw rocks at him to wake him up but kept missing. She finally sent one of the other boys up there to wake him, but apparently, she didn’t stop throwing the rocks and didn’t miss him.

The girls decided to scatter Uncle Onis’s ashes, at the place he was born, on the day he born, July 12th. Summer in Oklahoma can be very, very hot, and that day was somewhere between 95 and 100 degrees. I had the honor of taking them out there. We met at Vivian’s Cafe in Verden, Oklahoma. However, our first stop was the Verden Cemetery, where many of our family have been laid to rest. We paid our respects to our grand parents, Van and Lucille Craddock, as well as several other loved ones. We decided to make this stop first because we knew how hot it was going to be at the homestead. The likelihood of us going anywhere but home afterwards was unlikely.

So we headed north out of town and then back west until we got to the old dirt road that would take us to our destination. We drove a few miles until the road ended at a metal gate over a cattle guard. There were “no trespassing” signs, but we continued our quest anyway. It was time for the hard part, a half-mile trek over prairie grass on what might have been a cow path. We marched on for about 15 to 20 minutes until we arrived at the old homestead.

Once there, the girls looked around for a suitable place to scatter his ashes. They finally decided on the base of an old walnut tree that was probably there when Onis was a boy. It might have even been the very one where he slept in a hammock. Trica’s husband Jeff did the honors. Each of the girls said their final goodbyes. It was very emotional, and there were a few tears shed.

Far too soon, it was time to head back. It was too hot to stay there long. Did I mention that all of the girls are over 50 and some over 60? Not really old in my book, but probably too old to be trekking cross-country in the summer heat in Oklahoma. I had warned them ahead of time but being Craddock women, none of them were going to back down. Everyone made it without serious injury, but it was a close thing. We resorted to pouring water over Karla’s head, trying to prevent heat exhaustion. Verna actually accepted my help getting back to the truck, which says a lot about how hard she was having it. We did all make it back unscathed; mission accomplished.

Uncle Onis was a great man whom I highly respected. Much of what I know about our family history, I learned from him. He loved his family more than I could possibly express. From where I sit, each of those girls took after him in all the right ways. I was grateful that I got to share this moment with them.