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Volume 12, Issue 30 - Feature #5626

The Old Courthouse

I remember the old Woods County Court House in the square in Alva. It was a stately, impressive old building and my parents Maudie Stapleton and Whit (Bud) Childers were married there in 1915. Both the Stapletons and Childers homesteaded near Edith. My own marriage license was placed in the files in 1952. In later years, we've traveled back to make copies of many of those old records for genealogy research. At that great meeting featuring William Jennings Bryon, as speaker, my mother was about six years old and enjoyed the beautiful fireworks until a "dud" Roman candle rolled under her long skirt and went off, burning her back and parts of her arms. She bore the scars until her death in 1975. Mom talked about the event, passing along the excitement of the speech by Byron and the beautiful fireworks. She rarely mentioned her serious accident. She later worked as a nurse at two of the medical clinics in Alva from 1948 to about 1952. ... Kathy Childers Zehr

Kathy Childers Zehr - 2010-07-30 04:04:35

I got to thinking later and believe the Old Firehouse was where I climbed the stairs for the brownie scout meeting.

Linda McGill Wagner - 2010-07-27 20:20:13

I don't have a memory of the old courthouse (I'm too young--HA!), but I have a story from the old courthouse. When my grandfather, O.E. Brown, was Court Clerk, he, the judges, and the attorneys would go down to the basement during their free time to play checkers on a wooden checkerboard that my granddad made in his shop. That antique checkerboard is on display at the Cherokee Strip Museum in Alva. If only that old checkerboard could talk...

Scott Downs - 2010-07-26 20:58:55

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