Page 24 - Amarillo Senior Link Magazine Spring 2022 - Online Magazine

Charles and Polly
Gillingham
Humble
from Start
to Finish
by Ted and Jody Wilson
uring the Depression,
Charles Gillingham began
Dlife in rural southwestern
Oklahoma, while in the Woodward
area of northwest Oklahoma, Letha
Pauline Nations started a similar
life on the farm. Both were raised
in rather primitive conditions,
compared to today’s standards.
Woodburning stoves for cooking
and heating, oil lamps for light,
cows, chickens, pigs, gardening,
field work, canning, and more were
among the commonalities of their
early lives.
Charles’s family moved to his
grandfather’s farm, between Albert
and Binger, OK, when he was in the
third grade. He attended a one-room
school at Willow Creek through
seventh grade. He graduated from
24 Amarillo Senior Link
Oney Schools in 1953
where he was active
in FFA showing
Hampshire hogs.
Throughout school,
he worked with his
dad, bailing alfalfa
and prairie hay in the
summer and peanut
hay in the fall after
harvest.
Charles attended
Cameron Junior
College in Lawton, OK for
two years with the intention of
becoming a science teacher. He
was enrolled in ROTC, which was
mandatory, and graduated with an
Associate Degree in Science.
He transferred to Southwestern
State College in Weatherford,
OK in 1955. As a college student,
Charles had joined the 45th
Infantry Division of the Oklahoma
National Guard and served for
7.5 years, before being discharged
as Sergeant 1st Class. He drove
a school bus for the Weatherford
School district before and after
classes. He attended Noon Chapel
on campus and the college youth
group on Sunday at the First
Methodist Church. That is where
he met a pretty lady named Letha
Pauline (Polly) Nations who took a
liking to him.
Polly was born in her uncle’s one- Charles, Red lost, and Charles won.
room house on Moscow Flats. Her
dad made a living by cutting fence
posts, then driving the maintainer
for Woodward County. Attending
Moscow Sunday School introduced
her to two loves, music and her
Lord. During a revival, at the age
of six, Polly and her sister both
accepted Jesus. She attended Mutual
Schools and would often go to a
neighbor’s house to listen to an
older boy play the piano. Later
she took lessons, and her parents
eventually purchased a piano for
her to practice.
After moving into Mutual during
her freshman year, Polly walked
a block to school. She and her
younger brother cleaned the
Methodist Church (where they
were active in the youth ministry)
on Saturdays, making enough
for a down payment on a bicycle.
Unsophisticated in the ways of
finance, Polly wondered why
she would have to pay “carrying
charges” on the balance, when her
dad had been the one to carry it
home.
Polly graduated as valedictorian of
her class in 1955 and then attended
Southwestern State College,
offsetting education costs by
working as a secretary to the college
librarian and adding occasional
baby-sitting jobs. Her passion to
become a typing and shorthand
teacher switched to pharmacy and,
subsequently, chemistry. She led
singing at the Methodist Church on
Sunday mornings and connected
with David (Red) Gillingham. They
dated some, but on one particular
double-date with Red’s brother,
She and Charles married on her
birthday, August 22, 1957, soon after
his graduation.
The newly married couple moved
to Ardmore, OK, where Charles
worked in the laboratory at the
Bell Oil and Gas Refinery. He had
received his degree in Chemistry
and had also changed his mind
about teaching. In that lab, he
learned countless testing procedures
for the various petroleum products
refined at the plant. Their two