Glen A. Cordell

Your dad remembers a lot about Henryetta - he had two paper routes, learned to swim in the Nichols Lake and knew the town from one end to the other. He told me about the time he learned to swim. There was a floating dock out a ways from shore and your dad wanted to go out to that dock so bad that one day he started walking out to it and then had to tiptoe and start bouncing and when he couldn't bounce high enough to get a breath he started swimming.

This is Glen and his sister, Frances.

He has stories about some of the people and dogs on his paper routes too. He showed me the house they bought with Papa's GI bill. It was at the edge of town then but is in town now. They were so proud of that house, their first and only new house, and then the smelter went on strike. I guess they let the house go back, I don't think they sold it.

The house they lived in while Papa was gone was right across the street from Lahey's grocery. One of the pictures shows the store in the background. The grade school was one direction from home and the junior high and high school was the other direction, all within walking or bicycle distance. The house is gone now and so are most of the school buildings. They have one large school now I think.

The last time we were in Henryetta I took a picture of the church where your dad was baptized. The First Christian Church and it still looks about the same as it did back then.

--as told to me by my mom, Lynell Cordell

Kenneth Sumpter & Glen Cordell, Henryetta, Oklahoma

Glen Cordell & Bruce Snider, Henryetta, Oklahoma