At the active, youthful age of 100, Ruby McCurry of the Caney/Caddo area still keeps busy every day. She works daily at the home where she recently moved, keeping house, bringing in the moving boxes and unpacking them. “I have worked all my life. Even when I was a kid I worked — I stood on a stool and washed dishes. Work never hurt anybody!”
She made the decision to stop driving a few months ago. Her son asks every day if she wants anything from town, so she doesn’t really miss driving. When asked about turning 100, McCurry said, “It didn’t depend on me! It depended upon the Good Lord!” She continued, “I love living! I thank God for every day that he gives me!”
Born in Bray, Oklahoma, to Thomas Otto Hopkins and Dora Wade Hopkins, she and a twin, Jewel, had their early years on the farm. At the age of 4, their mother passed away, and soon afterward the twins and a younger sister, Rosie, were sent to Goodland Indian School near Hugo. “They treated us very well,” said McCurry. “The matron, Riddles, fixed up a room with three beds so we could all stay together. She said her years at Goodland began when she was in first or second grade. Before that, school was at Nix, east of Caney.”
“I have been down (to Goodland) afterward. Me and my sister and my husband at the time. It looked like the campus had shrunk! I thought it was a big place when I was little.” She went to Goodland 11 years but didn’t quite finish the 12th grade. “I got married in May to Sampson McKracken. His mother was a high school girl matron and he went to school there, too.”
She said there weren’t a lot of chores at home for her, but she had chores at school. “At Goodland sometimes we would wait on the tables in the big dining room, and sometimes help in the kitchen with cooking and washing dishes. Sometimes we would fold clothes in the laundry. They taught us well how to work and why we needed to work.” These life skills prepared the children for adulthood. “We had an hour each day of Bible study while we were in school.”
For fun, the students could participate in football, basketball and tennis. She enjoyed playing basketball. The girls were allowed to go for walks on the campus. After supper, when the kitchen and dining area were clean, the high school girls and boys were allowed to go out and visit with each other. “That is how I met Sampson. He was on the football team.” She and Sampson had one son.
She married Kenneth Young, and they raised seven children together. He passed in 1978. “I married at the age of 68 to Malcolm McCurry. We went to church together. He died about 15 years ago.”
McCurry said while at Goodland growing up, “Seems like it was different to be Choctaw. We all knew which students were Choctaw. A few spoke Choctaw, but most of us didn’t. I learned songs and Bible verses in the Choctaw language from other students, but I have forgotten the language now.”
McCurry said she made a lot of friends while at Goodland. When the sisters discovered some of the students stayed there year-round, the girls quit going home for holidays and remained at Goodland for summers and for holidays. “Christmas was celebrated like a family. The matron would get us in a big room and read us a story about the birth of Jesus. The school provided little gifts. When I was a child, I would get a little doll (about 4 to 6 inches tall) and I was tickled to death. We received an apple and an orange with the little gift. We would play with the little dolls. If you have nothing, then anything makes you happy.”
She said Easter featured an egg hunt after church. “Halloween was a holiday but not like it is today. We went trick-or-treating from dorm to dorm.”
Students kept busy at Goodland. “We learned to quilt and weave baskets. The boys fed the animals and raised a garden. Sometimes the high school girls helped in the garden, such as picking and snapping beans.”
Goodland is Presbyterian. McCurry said she and several friends planned to go down and talk to the preacher and let him tell them how to be saved. “I don’t think I was saved then, because I didn’t feel I was changed. When I was 27, there was a two-week revival in Caney at a brush arbor. I went up the first or second night and was saved and knew it! I could feel the difference!” She said her husband was also saved at the revival later that same week.
If she had to describe herself? “An old sinful woman who has been changed by God’s love!”
McCurry said her son offers to get her a hamburger every day, but her favorite meal is still beans and cornbread — and an onion to go with it.
“We have always raised a garden until this year. We didn’t because we were moving. I love cabbage from the garden,” she said. “When my kids were growing up, we canned in fruit jars. We put up 500 jars every spring! These were kept stored in the cellar with the potatoes (Irish and sweet potatoes) that we grew!”
She remembers when growing up, her dad had a smokehouse to sugar-cure hogs for meat.
Her father got his first car when she was about 10 or 12. “It was a Nash. I remember it was an ugly color — and it was a big, long car.”
When asked about her siblings, McCurry said, “With me, there were five girls and three boys: Abel, Mary, Lena — nickname Dolly, Tom, me and Jewel, Rosie, and Sam. My oldest sister, Mary, was 12 when our mother died and she took care of us.” McCurry had two siblings by her father’s second marriage, Lucille and Roy Paul.
McCurry also raised a big family. She said, “My children were born at home except two, who were born at Talihina. I liked that hospital. They were good to me.” Her children are Leonard, Martha (deceased), Michael (deceased), Donna, Kenny, Robby and Tony.
McCurry spent over 20 years sewing at a factory, and still loves to sew. She enjoyed sewing clothing for her children as they grew up.
When asked to share some important lessons learned in life, McCurry said, “Really, it is from what is in the Bible. I have learned to treat people right. When you do right there is no wrong in it,” she said, “I know grandparents are a lot older than grandchildren. We have lived and learned a lot longer! How we teach and how we live our life kind of makes (the grandchildren) what they are. I would tell (the younger generations) to listen to your grandparents. They won’t tell you wrong.”
McCurry has 23 grandchildren and many, many great and great-great-grandchildren.
Asked what makes her happy to have lived this long, she said, “Because I have been blessed and still go and listen to the most beautiful sermons. It hits me just right whenever I hear a sermon preached because that is the Word of God.” She said, “God does miracles every day. My advice to others is to trust in the Lord with all your heart and he will fill your desires.”
Lastly, McCurry had these words: “They say your life speaks volumes. I have tried to live a good life. Tried to please the Lord. When you are happy in God, you are joyful. Let the Spirit lead you!”