Living Earnestly: Earnest Geis recounts 100 years

Living Earnestly: Earnest Geis recounts 100 years News Staff Fri, 02/09/2024 - 12:28 pm

• (THOMAS WALLNER | THE GRAHAM LEADER) Earnest Geis, who has been a Young County resident for over 60 years, is approaching his 100th birthday next week. Geis has had a number of jobs throughout the years and seen much in his time.
• (THOMAS WALLNER | THE GRAHAM LEADER) The home of Earnest Geis that he built in 1959 with his wife Ada Mae. As Geis approaches 100 years old, he still resides in the home built over 60 years ago.
• (THOMAS WALLNER | THE GRAHAM LEADER) The fireplace mantle of the home of Earnest Geis which shows a photo of him in the mid 1940s with his first wife Evelyn. Shown to the right is a picture of his grandmother playing the fiddle.
• (THOMAS WALLNER | THE GRAHAM LEADER) The road to the property of Earnest Geis on Indian Mound Road in Young County which he moved into in August 1959.

Thomas Wallner editor@grahamleader.com

From his humble beginning in Scotland, Texas to his country life in Young County for over 60 years, Ernest Geis has been through thick and thin as he approaches his 100th birthday next week.

Geis was born Feb. 12, 1924 to William Henry Geis and Ada Christine Geis in Scotland at a two-story house across the street from the catholic church. He is the oldest of six children, three brothers and two sisters, and his youngest sister Lucille is his only remaining sibling.

One thing that is apparent to many was Geis’ devotion to his three wives and how much he cared for them until the end.
He married his first wife Evelyn in 1945 when he was only 21 years old. It was while working as  a mechanic and for oil companies that he found out something happened with Evelyn.

“When I took the bills home on the first of September, she wrote them out with a pen. We mailed them and she told me, 'If you'll buy me a typewriter, I will type the bills out for you.' So I went to Wichita in September and bought her a typewriter,” he said. “I took my bills that September and she sat down at the table and started typing the bills and she noticed she couldn’t work her fingers in her left hand like she could, and she was a whiz on a typewriter.”

He said by the first of December she was completely paralyzed and he had to carry her wherever she went.

He could not find out what was wrong and finally took her to a doctor in Dallas who found that she had a tumor growing in her spinal cord which eventually took her life in 1950 at the age of 25.

He remarried his second wife Ada Mae in 1952 who was the mother of his biological son Earnest Jr. and had a daughter Gloria and son Danny.

One of the prides of Geis is that he and Ada Mae constructed the home he still occupies on Indian Mound Road which they moved into in the last week of August 1959.

“Ada Mae sawed every board in this house and I nailed it up,” he said. “I was running a garage in Archer and I would close my shop on Friday evening and we would come down here and work Saturday and Sunday evening and then go home.”

The 159-acre property was purchased by Geis for $8,000 and the couple bought an old house, tore it down and framed up their current home with the lumber.

Ada Mae eventually passed away in 1969 at the age of 47 due to cancer.

Geis remarried for a third and final time to Gladys in 1972 who was with him until her passing in 2016. Despite passing in the hospital, Geis set up a hospital bed in their living room to take care of her until she passed at the age of 99.
The longtime resident of Young County said he has “done a little bit of everything in his lifetime.”

Geis worked as a roustabout, roughneck and derrick hand in the oilfield. He worked in Wichita Falls as a mechanic and eventually moved to Archer City and opened his own mechanic shop.

He had a business where he sold eggs from 1962-1969 and distributed them locally to a variety of vendors, such as grocery stores.

“The last year I ran that (egg business), I sold $87,000 worth of eggs. …I sold to hospitals, cafes and restaurants extra large eggs for 50 cents a dozen,” he said.

Geis also worked previously at a gravel pit east of Wichita Falls and made 10 cents an hour. Both he and his father made a total of $8 per week from the work.

He eventually hauled rock to help construct the runways in the Sheppard Air Force base in Wichita Falls and the former Bryan Air Force base in Brazos County west of Bryan.

Another job Geis performed was he raised cattle and did custom farming from the 1970s to the 2000s.

One of the things that you can pick up about Geis is how much he can recall events in his life. In 1934 in Scotland, he made his first $1 by cutting the weeds out of 40 acres of cotton with his older sister and brother.

“We got to the field when the sun was coming up and it took 10 rows to make an acre,” he said. “He paid $1 an acre for us to chop the weeds out of that cotton.”

Geis was drafted into the U.S. Navy and took a train to Chicago to enlist but did not pass the physical exam and was discharged. That was the farthest away from home he has ever been, and somewhere he doesn’t want to return.

“I don’t ever want to go back up there. …They said it was nine below zero and they said it was warming up. It was in March and I just had a little light coat on,” he said.

One memory he shared is of his brother Robert being shipped out for service in the U.S. Army and being present for the testing of the atomic bomb.

“They shipped him out to... New Mexico and they tested the atomic bomb and... they were on this side of the hill and the bomb came from this way and he said when that went over that heat was so hot this side of that hill was solid glass,” he said.

Graham resident Glenn McGee began meeting with Geis through a program with the First United Methodist Church in Graham.

Their friendship has continued for seven years since and McGee makes weekly trips to visit. Along with visits from McGee, others in the community have come together to help Geis.

“Eugene and Delores Osborne live right down here on the corner and they are wonderful neighbors,” McGee said. “They help him with shopping and bringing things by. He lives by himself, but he's fortunate he's got a pretty good network of people watching out for him.”

Geis’ 100th birthday will be Monday, Feb. 12, and his son Danny is visiting with other friends to celebrate the occasion. He said as he approaches turning 100, his fondest times he remembers are those with his family.

“My best memories are being out here in the country with my family,” he said. “We all had a good life together and I worked hard.”

• Lifestyles

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