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STEPHEN THEOPHILUS 'S.T.' NEELY November 21,1896 - November 4, 1957; almost 61 years old
Bonnie Evans Neely and S.T. Neely were married and lived in Barstow, Texas. At first they hauled their water - every bit that they used. Mother said that the wind blew all of the time and so did the dust.
When Mother went to teach her first year after obtaining her lifetime certificate from San Marcos (in 2 years), she met my father in a unique way. They had a picnic. She and some of the other teachers were sitting on the side of a wagon as they went to the picnic and she had on a brand new pair of boots. S.T. and some of the other boys rode past on ponies with mesquite branches in their hands. S.T. dragged his across her boots, thereby getting her attention.
My older sister, Theo, must have been born during their stay in Barstow. They had no luck having another child until I came along 3 1/2 years later. By then they were living in Tempe, Arizona, as I was bom April 3, 1923 on McCallister Avenue at a maternity home.
I called Eulalah “Mama” and W.H. “Papau”. I don’t know what they called each other. One time I slept on a pallet overnight by their bed and was afraid, as Grandfather, Papau, snored so loudly.
They taught me how to cut up my tomato on my plate. Papau’s birthday was April 2 and mine on April 3, so many times my mother made an angel food cake (beating by hand) for our birthdays.
We cousins used to play “Annie-over”, over the bam in Gilbert. They put glass eggs in the nests so the hens would be inspired to lay more. The little kids had to take naps out on the ditch bank under the cottonwood trees. Aunt Sarah Dix would be in charge of us and I would get so angry when I woke up, because Theo and cousin Virginia, who had only pretended to take a nap, were up playing.
Mama made soap, and while my mother was teaching, she also took care of Theo. One day while making soap she told Theo to stand back or else she’d fall into the boiling pot and be scalded. Mama turned her back. When she came back, Theo said “Ha, ha, I went up and looked in and didn’t get scalded.”
My father S.T., earned money to send his sister, Aunt Fairye, to business school. She “homesteaded” near Tucson later. When she died, she left her homestead to Aunt Sarah Dix.
My dad just went through the 11th grade in school before he quit to go to work.
By Joe Bob Neely April, 2002
I was born in Tempe, Arizona, September 8, 1925, the 3rd of four children Bonnie and S.T. Neely had: Theo, Aleene, Dick, and myself. Of the four, Theo is the only one who is deceased [2002] . We were raised on a 40 acre farm 4 1/2 miles from Tempe. There were no paved roads or electricity. Water was from a well pumped by a gas engine. I don’t remember when the electricity came, but I was old enough to recall Daddy stapling Romex wiring in the house (not quite up to today’s electrical code).
This was during the depression so there was not a whole lot of money, but we had cows, chickens, and four teams of horses that worked the land. Mother always had a garden. She would can everything: meat, vegetables, and fruit. You name it, she had it canned in her cupboard. Mother ran the farm and did everything while Daddy was at Fort Whipple in Prescott. I don’t remember how long he was there, but while he was gone Mother did it all.
After Daddy got back he started to farm more land. Theo graduated from college and taught school. Aleene did the same. She taught in Central America for a couple of years. I graduated from high school in 1943 and joined the Naval Air Corps V-5 program. I trained to be a fighter pilot. The atom bomb was dropped in August 1945 and I was discharged in October that year. I came home and went to college. I married my wife Rickie, 55 years ago in June 1946. We had three children: Bobby, Gary, and Charlotte. After college I farmed for 38 years with a lot better equipment than my Dad had. I retired in 1985. The equipment that is used today in farming makes mine look like junk. There are lasers, computerized planters and cultivators, 6 row cotton pickers, 8 row corn cutters and mechanized potato harvesting. Farming is now very high tech and expensive.
My wife and I have had a very good life. Our golf games are not the quality they used to be but, we are still playing with our friends. We still live in Tempe and have a summer home in Pinetop, Arizona. It is 7500 foot elevation there, so it is nice and cool.
Tempe is quite big compared to what it was when I was young. ASU has an enrollment of approximately 53,000 students. When I graduated from college in 1948 there were 217 graduates; what a change. All the land I ever farmed is developed clear to the Indian Reservation. I served on the Board and Council of SRP (Salt River Project) for 22 years, approximately 15 of those with Uncle Otto. Uncle Otto and I became very good friends. He passed away at the age of 86 January 1, 1987. I was in the hospital room when he passed away.
I have some old pictures that I will share with everybody. There is one of Grandma Neely when she was young. Aunt Edna gave it to me one day. The others were given to me by Doris Comett after Bill passed away. The pictures were in an envelope with my name on the outside. I have listed all the people in the pictures.
Additional things remembered about S.T. by Doris Cornett
S.T.’s favorite expletive was always, “Well, John Brown it.” Most people didn’t realize what an unfavorable connotation that had for a Southemer. Bonnie often said, “Well, tut.”
S.T. referred to himself as the Mayor of Yaqui Town because their house was on the south side of the Highline Canal, the same as Guadalupe. A foot bridge crossed the canal at the side of the house because the corrals, citrus grove and farm land etc. were on the north side of the canal. S.T. made good use of the canal water. Anytime it rained and people cancelled irrigation water orders, S.T. wanted that free water to irrigate his land and “put it into the ground.”
Bonnie and S.T. regularly played Canasta with a group of friends from church. S.T. made the children of those friends feel important because he paid attention to them and teased them. The young people and S.T. enjoyed each other’s company.
In 1946, while a senior in high school, Bill Cornett’s future wife, Doris Sommer, lived just to the east, down the canal about 1/4 mile. Uncle S.T. taught her to milk and to ride Aunt Bonnie’s horse, Nellie.
Bonnie served as the president of the church women’s group for a number of years during the WW II era. She was instrumental in having the organization purchase several War Bonds at 3.25% interest with the money earmarked for a new church kitchen. For several decades one of the major fund raising activities was the Washington’s Birthday Dinner; people came from all over the East Valley to attend. The dinner menu, of course, featured both chicken pie and cherry pie. There is no way to begin to estimate the number of chickens Bonnie cleaned and cooked over the years or the number of biscuits she made. S.T. was a great dishwasher for those dinners.
Sometime before his death, S.T. was in the hospital. There were many pigeons in the area and he was convinced he was being served pigeon eggs because the eggs he was given were so small, not at all like the ones he was accustomed to eating.