Abdul Hammad Keck
Includes memories from Doris Keck, Sherman's wife, and
 Wilson Keck son of Flora and Abdul

	His nickname was Ab.  He was born 3 January 1885, at Montague, Montague, Texas, to Margaret Robertson and Wilson Keck.  He was seventh of ten children.
	His parents met and married in Arkansas.  Nelson, Manford, William Marion, Orpha Jane, and Elbert were born in Madison county Arkansas. Maudie May, Abdul, and Illie were born in Montague, Montague, Texas.  Delmer and Aulty were born in Shawnee, Pottowatama, Oklahoma.  
	Ab’s mother died 18 Jan. 1895.  Ab had just turned 10 years old.
	His father married Mary Francis Dunn on 10 May 1895, four months after his mother’s death. Wilson and Mary Francis Dunn had 3 children, Della, Lurenda, and Sylvia.
	His father was a farmer who worked hard, but had very little money. Ab didn’t have a religious background, though he did attend many different religious gatherings.
	Ab attended elementary school in Oklahoma City and after that he attended an institute of higher leaning.  He lived with his Uncle and helped him with his delivery service.
	The first time Flora met Abdul he was picking a banjo and she thought he was a regular smart aleck.  He also played the juice harp.  The next time she saw him, she was trying to get a squirrel out of a tree and he helped her get it out of the tree.  
	When Ab turned 21 he rode up to Neel’s on a sorrel horse to get Flora’s brother, Augustus Benjamin, to go to a dance with him.  Gus didn’t have anything but a mule to ride, but he rode it.  When they got to the dance they found it was for partners only so they tried to take the other persons partners from them and got into a fight.
	Abdul married Flora on February 29, 1908 in Okema, Oklahoma.  They farmed there and her mother and brother and two sisters lived with them in a small house.
	Ab bought a pool hall in Welty Oklahoma.  He made money but threw it away gambling.  One day he came home with a big, big, pig. A rope was tied to its leg.  The owner, that lost the pig, came with him.  Flora told the man to take the pig home to his family.
	They rented Marion Keck’s place.  Eva Iola was born here.  She died with a summer complaint at 14 months old.  Sherman and his twin were born here.  Sherman's twin, a girl, passed away at 11 days old. Dennis was also born in Welty, Oklahoma.
	Manford Keck and Ab’s brother in law, Marion Dunn, wrote him that Oregon was a good place to settle.  Ab sold the pool hall and bought a field of cotton and picked and sold it.  With this money they bought tickets to Nyssa.  When they arrived they had $60.00 left.
	They arrived April 1, 1916 at 4:00 in the morning.  Ab walked out to Mairon Dunn’s to get a wagon to pick up their belongings.  It was just sunup and Ab thought the Alkali on the ground was flour spilled on it.  Ab told Flora the people must be rich there because they were pouring flour on the ground.
	When they came they had with them 2 sons, Sherman 4 years old, and Dennis 2 years old. Also with them were Flora’s brother Augustus Neel, his wife Fanny, and two children, Dick and Rachel.  
That first summer they worked for Mr. Burr Wood, North of Cairo Junction. They rented a house from “Honeybee” Foster in Nyssa.   They were living there when Delmer and Elmer were born, January 19, 1917.  Ab worked there all summer and never collected his wages, until the end of the summer, and then he gambled it all away.  He was gone for three days. While he was gone the twins were born.  Fanny Neel came and shared her groceries with Flora.  When Ab got home Manford really told him off.  Ab never gambled again. Ab got a job digging ditch.  He told the men there that he had a pair of possums and they came out to see them and found out he was talking about his twins.
	That same year they began working for the Eastern Oregon Land Company.  Ab irrigated cultivated and stacked hay and Flora cooked for men.  They moved into a house on the number one ranch, which was just east of the Nyssa cemetery.  It was while they were living there that Marion and Maudie Dunn's five-year-old child lost her life in a brush fire.
	In 1918 Ab was hired as foreman of the number three ranch.  Soon afterwards they all became ill with flu and on April 18th Elmer died with pneumonia.	
	In 1919 they bought 26 acres of land from Fenn Warren, a long-time resident who owned a flourmill in Nyssa.  They bought an old house for fifty dollars and paid fifty dollars to have it moved to the island.  It was in the winter and they had to move it across the river on skids.  This land, which became know as “Keck Island”, was in the “Y” where the Owyehee River runs into the Snake.  As there was no irrigation, they raised dry land barley.  They later leveled the land and purchased a Parma water lifter.  On May 11, 1919 Wilson and Willard were born.  This made the third set of twins for Abdul and Flora.  
	On October 3, 1921 Rosa Viola was born, and December 20, 1923, Elsie was born.
	It was in 1922 that they bought an adjoining 25 acres from Keith Bailey.  They lived on the island until 1924 when they moved into a house a mile or two west.  It was on 160 acres they rented from George and Sid Skinner.  Wilson remembers catching gophers and selling the tails to Sid and his father.  They continued farming the home place.  Abdul Houston was born April 30, 1926 and on July 13, 1929, Dallas was born.
In 1931 they moved back to the island and began raising vegetables and melons, besides selling them to the local stores; they sold them as far away as Burns and John Day in Oregon and McCall in Idaho. Wilson remembers that Ab was very giving.  The first year they had more than they could eat. He would sell to other people.  Then the next year he would plant more than he needed.  When he was selling he would put their name down and credit them to pay.  Then he threw the book away every year and never collected. 
Ab had a brother Manford who was blind.  Ab bought many things for Manford and Manford wanted to pay him for them but Ab said he had got the things really cheap.  October 29, 1931 a letter was written by Wilson Keck and Mary Francis Dunn Keck thanking Ab for sending money so they could pay the taxes on their farm so they would not lose it. 
Two more sons were born to them, Ray on March 8, 1932 and Teddy Lee on December 10, 1934.  Eight sons and two daughters were born in Malheur, county, Oregon.  They were all born at home with the aid of Dr. J.J. Sarazin. 
 Sherman and Dennis started to school in Nyssa, and then when they moved to the island, they attended the Hogback school until the Oregon Trail school was built.  They had to go to Nyssa for High School.
	Wilson remembers going to Willow Creek with his father and they went fishing and there weren’t any fish.  The thing he remembers the most is working with his father.  	Ab liked to fish but didn’t have much luck.  One time he went hunting with his Browning Automatic 12 gauge gun Flora had given him.  He went to the Island he was plowing the ground for next years planting.  When he came home Flora asked him if he got any pheasants.  He said no but I sure made the feathers fly.  Unlike Flora she took one shell and a pheasant jumped up and she shot it at the same time one jumped at her feet and she got them both.  One time Ab went hunting.  The shot ricocheted off a rock and got a deer. 
	Ab was a little careless with his money.  He had a brand new pair of bib overalls. He would carry his change in his pocket.  It wore a hole in his pocket.  He was losing change all over the farm.  Flora had a big leather bag she gave to him for his change.  From then on he put the change in this bag.  Wilson said that one year he paid off the help with all silver dollars kept in this purse.  
	When Ab drove the pickup he would rock going up the hills, to help it along.  
He smoked for years.  He would roll his own.  He would talk and the cigarette still in his mouth.
	Ab didn’t listen too well when he asked Flora a question. She would answer him and each time getting a little louder.  After the third time he would say well that is plain enough.  
	Doris Keck said she met them in 1935 and she described them in this way.  Ab was 50 years old, a shy, good-looking man. He was blue eyed, black haired, later salt and pepper gray hair, happy man.  Flora was 45, very nice looking for having had fourteen babies.  They worked long, hard hours to keep the farm going and to make a living.   She said,”Dad was a gentle, generous man.  Only once did I see him correct one of his kids; he swatted Ted across the rear with his old felt hat, as for the generous part, in 1943, when we had a baby in the hospital for three weeks and had no money to pay the bill.  Dad signed his name on a check and handed it to Sherman.  Sherman truly loved and respected his father and always tried to help him when he could.” 
	The name of Keck was well respected among the merchants and neighbors of Nyssa.  Ab was very straight forward, he told people just how he felt.  Some people felt his ideas a little communistic, but he was respected for his honesty.  He didn’t like the way the government was run.  He laughed at how the government abused the people then the people voted them back into office.  
	Doris remembers; they loved to play games with Flora and Ab, usually pitch, poker or pinochle.  Ab was always saying, “I never won a game’, which anyone who played with him knew was far from so.  Or “I’m up salt creek without a paddle.” When the relatives came to play poker the stakes were really high!  You could buy ten matches for a penny!  When a bunch of the relatives came, Flora would sic Buster, the dog, on some chickens, fry heaping platters full and along with everything else, proceed to “feed the Boys!”  The women and children had to wait and hope there would be something left.
	Ab didn’t have too many accidents, but one was when he was driving a 1923 model T. Ford.  He was used to horses.  When he came to the gate and had to stop to open it. He hollered whoa; whoa, but it didn’t stop. He ran right through the gate and tore the fence down.
	Ab loved his grandchildren.  He would sit and watch them with a smile on his face.  Cheryl remembers spending a couple of weeks each summer on the island and Grandpa taking her around the farm and showing her the twin calves.  He would let her help with separating the milk.  She remembers riding into town in the back of the pickup truck and Grandpa talking to everyone he met.  She also remembers that Grandpa was kind of shy and when she would get ready to go home, he would wait for her to kiss him and then smile and blush. 
Ab was in pretty good health but he would contact pneumonia every year.  Flora would put mustard plasters on his chest.  One time she got it way too strong and burned him pretty bad.
	One special memory Doris has is making sorghum.  Ab raised a small patch of sugar cane and in the fall some folks by the name of Stout would bring their equipment, which included a mule, and would set up this grinder that the mule would turn by going around and around at the end of a long pole the juice would come out a spout and it was carried in buckets to a huge black kettle that had a fire under it. It would boil until of the right consistency.  Doris remembers Elsie getting spoons for all and we would skim the foam off the top for a real treat.  Flora made the best sorghum cookies ever.  
	Living on a farm they had experiences with animals.  One was a bull that was across the highway.  This bull would push against the poles until he pushed the fence down.  Then he would get out and also the cattle.  He pushed Ab’s fence down and was in the hay field, Ab had a single barreled shot gun 12 gauge.  Ab saw the bull out in the field.  He shot him in the rear the bull just snorted and kept eating.  So Ab ran up in front of him and hit him right between the eyes with the gun.  It bent the barrel.  The bull snorted and ran into the fence and tore it out for half mile.  
	The reason for calling the farm “Keck Island” was because it was bordered on the east by the Snake River, on the West and North by the Owyhee River and on the South by a slough that only had anything in it when the water was high.  Before the Owyhee Dam was built, the farm never flooded.  Afterwards, in the spring, the reclamation bureau would turn all the extra water loose at once and the farm was almost completely flooded several times, causing the folks to leave.  They kept a boat in the Owyhee River North of the house on a cable so they could go out whenever necessary.  That is how the kids went and came home from school all those years. 
 After the kids were gone, the boat happened to be on the house side of the river one day when Flora decided to get in the pickup and go somewhere.  While she was gone the water came up and the slough filled with water and she was unable to drive back home.  So she stopped across the river and called and honked the horn, trying to get Ab’s attention.  Realizing that wasn’t going to work, she decided to drive down the Owyhee Corner and call Ab.  Well, Ab hated to talk on the phone, so when it rang, he picked it up and hollered into it, “she’ll be back pretty soon!’ and slammed down the receiver.  So Flora called him right back, and when she heard him pick up the receiver, she hollered, “She never will be back if you don’t come across the river and get her!”
	After they retired from farming they worked a few years for the Idaho canning company.  Flora made quilts for missionaries and grand children.  She liked to fish but Ab didn’t. He could be found reading his Bible a lot.  Ab joined the Nazarine church late in life; before he died he read the scriptures daily.
Ab never met a stranger.  His neighbor Charlie Marshall came to see him out in the field irrigating in the field.  He asked him to go to Vale with him.  Ab left and didn’t tell anyone he was going.  He was gone all day.  Ab would say he was going to town.  He would spend the whole day talking to people.  Sometimes Flora went with him.  He would leave her in the car while he would talk to someone for hours.  It was so funny at the Keck table they would all talk at once.  No one was listening to the other.  The family would probably have more good stories to tell if they would have listened.  
On the 19th of January 1963 Ab had a stroke he wasn’t able to say anything.  This was hard on him because he loved to talk. 
Abdul Hammad Keck died on May 5th 1963.