Thomas Lafferty
Tulsa Tribune April 26, 1930

84 This Summer, Thomas Lafferty Is Still at Work
And His Story is Winner in Trib's "50 Years of Farming" Contest

Still hale and hearty, though nearly 84, Thomas Binks Lafferty of Rogers County still is going about his daily job of farming after more than half a century of it, because, he says, "I have to work to keep alive." His story, written by J.M. Ballantyne, Claremore, is the fifth of the best five stories in the "Fifty Years of Farming" contest conducted by "About the Farm." but there are other treats to come in 11 letters on other who have farmed 50 years, and to which honorable mention was awarded. you might even think some of the 11 to follow should have been among the first five.
***

On August 16, 1940, Thomas Binks Lafferty will be 84, and from all accounts he is the oldest farmer in Rogers County still well, hale and hearty and working at his job.
Lafferty came to Rogers Count in 1900 from Dutch Mills, Ark., and settled 8 miles northeast of Claremore in what is known as the Foyil country. He was a widower with four children, two teams, a horse-powered threshing machine and $300 indebtedness.
He rented 550 acres of land and in 30 years he has been here he acquired a clear title to all the acreage, built a fine farm house with modern barns, a good fence and well constructed farm equipment. His land is rich, black well-watered upland close to the Frisco railway.

BUT STILL WORKS
His children are all grown and well married. He saw to it that they got every opportunity in educational lines possible.
He never married again, his wife having died 40 years ago in Dutch Mills.
He has sub-rented some of his land, and in the eyes of his neighbors he is now on "easy street." but Thomas Binks Lafferty finds no charm in sitting still. He is yet one of the most active and hard working farmers in Rogers county.
One of his grandchildren--he was 15, and 11 great grand-children-- said to him one day: Gran'daddy, why do you work so hard? You don't have to". "Oh, yes I do, " he replied with a twinkle in his keen gray eyes, "I have to work to keep alive."
He is a spare man, six feet tall with iron-gray hair and beard. He works at plowing with either tractor or horse with the toughest of young men. Ever since he came to Rogers county and many years before that in Arkansas he has never missed a threshing season. Every summer he is out with his steam-driven machines and threshes the wheat and oats of his county.

"LIVES AT HOME"
He keeps good stock and raises his living on his farm lands and a surplus for the markets. He has learned to handle a car. His terse opinion on what is wrong with to many farmers nowadays is that "they are living to fast."
Pork is his favorite meat and he eats lots of that. he doesn't drink and is for prohibition. He chews tobacco and on picnic occasions will smoke a cigar.
Thomas Binks doen't even get sick. Oh, he had a touch of sciatic "misery" 20 years ago, but since that time has never been down. When he was indisposed he mixes his own medicine. He believes that lots of fresh air, hard work and good food is the best mixture for keeping a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

AN ACTIVE MIND
Homer Paul of Paul's Valley, state legislator, who married Helen Lafferty, a granddaughter of Thomas Binks, expressed amazement at the older man's knowledge of history. he reads farm journals, the Christian Herald, the Claremore Progress, Claremore Messenger and all the state papers he can get hold of. He has a regular little library down on the farm. Now and then if there is a good movie on he will go see it.
He is a steward of the Methodist church and believes in the Book. Yet he does not "view with alarm the way the younger generation is behaving." He thinks the way women dress is kind of awful, "but is not losing any sleep over it.
He is a Republican Is he radical? "Fairly so." He is a Knights Templan, and has been put on the honor roll by the local lodge.
If Thomas Binks Lafferty were an entry in a contest as the healthiest in body, mind and spirit of any farmer who has worked for over 50 years at his job, he would come close to being champion of Oklahoma.

***
1932 Newspaper Article. Photo with caption
Thomas B. Lafferty, left, 86 years old, farmer for 33 years in Rogers County and still at it there as the oldest farmer in the County, is greeting Dan H. Otis, right, Chairman of the agricultural commission of the American Bankers' association, when Otis appeared on the program of the banker- farmer meeting at Claremore, last Monday.
***

Originals were courtesy of Violet Higgins Redman.
Transcribed by Mary Lafferty Wilson

©2008 Genealogy Trails