Granny's 1950 Jergens Lotion Bottle - Connecting the Present to the Past in Brown Addition, Idabel Oklahoma 74745
Fall is in the air in Brown Addition, Idabel, Oklahoma (74745) as it is in most of the country.
Even though we are in zone 7 of the USDA Hardiness Zone Map,
our average minimal temperature range in the winter is 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Around here starting in August, many people are cutting wood or ordering wood for fireplaces and wood burning stoves.
I love a wood fire in the winter. We keep and maintain some hardwoods on the farm for our firewood. August is our favorite time to get some of the week-end exercise of cutting firewood. Don will pick 
what trees need to come down and cut them. Then a young man that works for us on the farm will come along and gather them up, transport nearer to the house and use the log-splitter on them.
Those treks in the woods are a favorite time of mine. I have to take my camera and explore a little. Sometimes I get rewarded and find a treasure.
Last year I found a chunk of iron that had been used in a horse driven grist mill.
This year, my treasure was an old glass Jergens Lotion bottle. The glass bottle was almost buried under some leaves and pine needles,in an old fence row.
I brought it home, cleaned it up and stuck it under the sink. I hadn't thought too much about that Jergens bottle until this past week when I was digging around under there for a project that I'm working on.
Research on the Internet seems to indicate that the Jergens bottle was probably made in the late 1940s or early 1950s.
Now this is where it gets to be fun for Don and I.
This Jergens Lotion bottle would probably have belonged to Granny. Granny and Pop owned the Barrett farm at that time. (Turns out there are actually people selling bottles similar to this on the Internet!)
Don's grandfather bought this farm in 1943, waaaaay before Brown
Addition, Idabel, Oklahoma (74745) existed. Brown Addition came along in the late 1970's and early 1980's, just across the road from the farm.
So where would Granny have purchased Jergen's Lotion?
No Wal-Mart in Idabel Oklahoma at that time! There wouldn't have been that many choices for her shopping at that time.
Currently we have the Palace Drug on North Central, Idabel, Ok 74745, Raney Drug on SE Washington, Idabel, Ok 74745, and the Chandler-Hewitt Drug on East Main, Idabel, OK 74745.
Why was Granny's bottle of Jergens hand lotion in the fence row in the woods? There weren't any other items there, other than a bit of old fence wire and an old bois d'arc fence post.
In 1950s most folks, rural folks in particular, re-cycled everything that they could. It was not the "throw-away" way that we live now. That glass bottle that the Jergens hand lotion had originally been in, was probably re-filled with something that Pop was going to need while working on that fence.
I doubt that it got left in the fence row on purpose. There wasn't any other evidence of just trash that would have been left there.
When Granny and Pop owned this farm that is now surrounded by Brown Addition, there wouldn't have been many choices on buying supplies to repair or build fence.
Today when a farmer/rancher needs to build fence or repair fence around Idabel, Oklahoma 74745, he's got several choices of where to buy those supplies from. Southeast Feed, at the corner of highway 70 norther by-pass and highway 259, and Tractor Supply, on Southeast Washington, have the largest selection.
Idabel, Oklahoma, located in McCurtain County in the extreme Southeast corner of Oklahoma is still a rural area. With a population of less than 7000 people in the town limits, and a population of only 35,000 in the whole county of McCurtain, and only 16,000 homes county-wide, we still have plenty of room to wander and roam.
Even though many things have changed, for example Jergens hand lotions and creams come packaged in a plastic bottle or tubes, many things have not changed in Southeast Oklahoma.
Folks usually know who their neighbors are and stop and visit with them every now and then.
Come to Southeast Oklahoma and check us out. You'll find our taxes relatively low compared to other states along with our cost of living. Compared to the rest of the United States, Idabel's cost of living is 30.90% lower than the U.S. Average. Home and land average prices are usually lower than the average cost nationwide also.
According to the Oklahoma Department of Commerce: Oklahoma has the fourth lowest total tax burden in the nation. When combining federal, state and local taxes, Oklahoma ranks #47, making ours a very affordablestate in which to live and do business.
Brown Addition, which is just across the road from our farm and from my office, located on the east side of Idabel, Oklahoma (74745) is an ideal community to live in if you want to be near town and yet enjoy the feeling of living in the country.
Homes in the Brown Addition (which by the way is so named because the developer was J.L. Brown) are mostly Ranch Style homes. Some of the homes were built in the late 70's and early 80's with some newer homes also in the addition. There are different sizes of lots with some being on small acreages.
The homes in Brown Addition are on the Idabel Public Water Supply for city utilities and have private septic systems. Cable TV along with Cable Broadband Internet Service is available from Pine Ne
t in Broken Bow, Oklahoma.
Denison School is located about a mile from Brown Addition. Denison is a small elementary dependent school with classes through Eighth Grade (8th) grade. Idabel High School is only about 2 miles away.
Brown Addition is convenient to restaurants (Papa Pablano's Roma's, David Beard's Catfish King are all about 1 mile away) and shopping since it’s only about 2 miles from the main part of Idabel.
If you are wanting to be near town but not too near… outside town but not to far outside…
Brown Addition just east of Idabel, Oklahoma may be the right choice for you.
There’s not a lot of homes on the market in the area, but usually there’s one or two.
The two latest sales in the area have been at $93K and $85K.
Some of Brown Addition has the same type of wooded setting that we have in our "wood plot" on the farm next to the addition.
Come and find your own treasure in Brown Addition.. it probably won't be a Jergens bottle that your granny used but you may find that home that just suits you perfectly... now that's a true treasure!
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