Marland T. "Marley" Hendrix

Marley (M.T.) Hendrix was my maternal grandfather. He was a dry land cotton farmer in southwestern Oklahoma during my lifetime. What he did before he moved to Erick, OK, I do not know; no one ever discussed that. I remember asking him when I was about ten years old what the two initials in his name stood for. He said, "Nothing. They are just initials." So, of course, I asked how he came to be called Marley. He said, "I named myself because I was tired of people asking me what the M.T. stood for." I have noticed as I have begun doing genealogical research that some people note him as Marland. I do not believe that was really his name, for wouldn't he have told his grandchild the truth when I asked him? Another thing I have noted is that "Ida A. Hendrix" is listed as his sibling. His wife, Ida Alice Snider Hendrix, had the same name. His sister Ida A. was b. 1897 and d.1969; his wife Ida A. (Snider) was b. 1895 and d. 1988. I remember Grandpa as the quietest person I ever knew. He read the newspaper daily as he sat in the rocking chair in the living room of the farm house south of Erick. Incidentally, the newspaper was delivered to the house by airplane. My sister and I would stand in the yard of the farmhouse, waiting for the pilot to come over the house. When he dropped the paper, we would run, among the rose bushes, down the slope toward the road, into the ditch beside the road, or among the wild plum bushes to catch it. We would sometimes be right on target for the paper, but at other times, we had to scamper to find it. After lunch each day M.T. would listen to the radio to hear the Futures. I never understood the importance of those numbers on the radio, but he certainly listened to the program and ordered us kids from the house so he could hear the program. I remember that he RARELY spoke ASL, American Sign Language, to his daughter, Ocie Odell, ( my FAVORITE person in the whole world) who lived at home with her parents. She had been left with deafness after a case of measles at the age of three. Grandmother did all the hand talking with her! The words she knew when she became ill comprised her oral vocabulary even late in life: Mama and snake. I remember Grandpa as tall and thin, quiet, and appearing to have a Native American heritage because of his color and angular face; there was no proof of my suspicions about that being correct.