I went to the Davis nursing home and stayed 4 months while they were building onto the house. I was about ready to go home when I took sick on Saturday night. I was visited by about 10 angels. They come in my room about 8 o’clock at night and stayed until 3 o’clock in the morning. That night they had on white robes and white hoods. I talked to some of them. Some of them I knew. The next day on Sunday I looked on the ceiling and I saw Christ and his Disciples. I seen him when he was riding the colt that had never been rode before. People were spreading blankets in front of the colt and waving tree twigs [tree branches?] as he passed by.. I seen him when his mother was taking him out of Bethlehem. After lunch on Sunday I was laying down on the bed but was wide awake. I heard a voice coming though the concrete blocks at my head. I knew the voice. It was Frank WARREN a man I had knew about all my life he was a neighbor and a close friend. He had not been dead too long. He was talking to someone here on earth. I thought it was his boy Jack. Whoever it was asked Frank how he liked it up there. Frank said it was all right. Frank said I seen the HINDS boys the other day. Roy and Bulda Ardel. Bulda was his nick name and Frank always called him Bulda. The Hines men died before Frank did. We were all good friends. When he said that I got up and didn’t hear any more. [It appears he was hearing voices through a wall like they were in the next room but they were all dead.]
About 4 o’clock that evening I was sitting in my chair and Mack HOUSTON [Walter’s sister Pearl’s husband.] was sitting in his wheel chair. We shared a room together. Mack was my brother in law. Two men walked in one of them was Frank WARREN the other one was Frankie ALLEN. At that time Allen wasn’t dead but he is now. I shook hands with them and got them seats. Mack Houston’s eyes were bad and his hearing was also. He asked me who were they. I told him, he said yes I know them. Frank Warren looked at my rest room door and asked me if he could use it. I told him he could . He went in and was gone so long I wondered what he was doing in there so long. There was no other way out. I looked in and he was gone but I looked an another rest room and I seen him standing there and I said Frank come out of there he said all right but he never did. I went back in where Allen was and he was gone but heard him say that he was leaving so that ended that. They took me to the hospital some time that night. I never knew when they left with me or when I got there. I was out 72 hours.
The doctor said my heart quit beating for 5 minutes. He told my daughter if I come out it that I will never would know anything . But when I come to I talked to my grand daughter [Donna Jo Johnson] on the phone in Vermont.
While I was out I was taken up to heaven. I seen the Pearly gates. They opened enough to let me look in. I seen the golden streets and a big gold building. It had a long steeple reaching away high reaching over everything. I was glad. The Pearly gates were beautiful. All the time that I was out I heard singing. One song that they sang over and over again was when it looked like the sun would not shine any more the Lord put a rainbow in the clouds.
It seemed like this all happened in a moment of time. But I really think it took 72 hours. I got better and my daughter took me home. They made a real nice house out of mine. I had a room to myself and everything I needed in it. I made my daughter a deed to the place. I had a grandson that was a heir to what I had. We paid him off in money. I got to stay at home about three years. I joined the senior citizens and went 5 days a week for lunch.
My daughter and husband retired and I didn’t want to tie them down and I went back to the Davis Nursing home. I have been here now going on 3 years. I have a room to my self and all I need in it.
I will finish my life here I know. It will not be long until I will make my last move. The Lord has given me a good long life. I have had a lot of sorrow but I have so much to thank the Lord for.
My wife and boy were good Christians. I have 4 grand children and three of them are good Christians. I have 7 great grand children and 4 of them are Christians. I have no uncles or aunts living. I had some double cousins and they are all gone now. My mother had six sisters. I never did see but 2 of them. Aunt Linda [Malinda Rachel HANEY DOWLING.] I cannot hardly remember her but I did see her once also Aunt Mary [Mary Amanda HANEY JARVIS. We lived close to her. She was with us when my mother died. She stayed with me some after her husband Uncle Sam Jarvis died. I got letters from Aunt Jane KISSINGER [Martha Jane HANEY] as long as she lived. I loved her and missed her letters but her daughter wrote to me as long as she lived. Now I get nice letters from her daughter so many of my folks I have never got to see in this life but I am looking forward to seeing a lot of them, I hope, all of them in heaven. I never got to see my grandpa Haney [Benjamin J. HANEY] or my grandma Haney [Theresa Matilda LUTTRELL] There was 8 of us kids and there is just me and one sister left. [Sister that is still alive at this writing was Leticia Faye NEEL RUDY she was a twin and the twins were the youngest of the family. She died 11 Oct 1997 age 92.] She lives in Burbank California. She is 81 years old. I don’t guess I will ever see her any more in this world.
In 1937 I had a brother killed here in Tahlequah. [Charley Neel died Oct 1st 1937.] A man by the name of Roy FISHER killed him. My brother Charlie lived in west Texas. For a few years he was a cotton farmer. My brother had knew Fisher all of his life. Fisher lived out here by Gideon. He would take his family in the fall and go to west Texas and pick cotton for my brother. He went one fall to pick cotton and he was early and the cotton was not ready for picking yet. Fisher was broke so my brother got him a house to live in and bought him groceries to live on till the cotton was ready to pick. When the cotton was ready my brother had several hands that went to work . My brother had to go off somewhere that morning and when he got back FISHER had got drunk and was a running his workers out of the field. He tried to quiet him down and could not do it. He could not do anything with him. He had to call the law. They came and got him and put him in Jail until he sobered up. When he got sober my brother went and paid his fine and brought him home. He went to work and there was nothing more said about it.
My brother had moved back to Oklahoma and bought a place close to Gideon. FISHER was his neighbor. There was a revival meeting going on at Peggs My family and I were going. A man by the name of RUTHFORD was holding the meetings. We went one night. My brother, Charley, and some more men were there from Gideon. My brother got saved that night. Before church was over my wife took sick. I had to take her to Locust Grove to a doctor. The doctor said she had appendicitis and I took her on to Muskogee to the hospital. Dr Pat FITE examined her and he told me it would be all right to go home. It would be a day or so before he could operate. I went and told my wife what the doctor said. I told her I would be back early the next morning. In the morning me and her dad started to the hospital early. As we went through Gideon my brother was there and he went with us to the hospital. We stayed at the hospital until about 3 o’clock and then we started home. When we got to Tahlequah my brother [Charley] got out and was going to ride home with a neighbor, Andy TAYLOR. His father-in-law Mr. HUBBARD, was with him. My brother and Mr. HUBBARD had started to the car to get in to go home and then they met Roy FISHER and he was drunk. He jumped my brother for having him put in jail. He then hit him and broke his neck. [Pauline, Walter’s daughter, says that Roy Fisher was a very large man and that Charley was small in statue and build and that Roy picked up Charley and threw him backwards over his shoulder and killed him immediately.] Fisher was tried and he got 4 years. He was in prison for just 21 months and then they let him out. He left here and went to California. I later heard that he is dead now. If I had my way whiskey would be stomped out. It has caused more heart aches than any thing.