Gertie Barber of Muldrow has released her fourth book, “Doc UpChurch & ‘Hairy Trigger’ A Legend of Wilson Rock & The Arkansas River.” A book signing has been scheduled for 12 noon on Oct. 9, at Stanley Tubbs Memorial Library in Sallisaw.
Barber, who was born along the Arkansas River in the Redland community during the Great Depression, is a 1955 graduate of Gans High School. Barber said while she doesn’t have a college degree, she did enroll for a business course at Indian Capital Technology Center in Sallisaw in 1984. She said it was while attending classes there that she was approached about writing a book by her instructor.
“Each week, our assignment was to write and spell 50 business words, then write a paragraph with each word,” Barber recalled. “One morning before class, the instructor, Mrs. Margie Walters, called me to her desk, then softly said, “Gertie, have you ever thought about writing a book?” I told her no, but never did forget the encouragement.”
Barber’s first book, written in 2005, was “The Buck Stops Here! Bullets, Broadheads, Whitetails and Me,” which was followed by her second book, “Grandma Charlotte: A Family History” in 2022. Her third book, “Hunting — Whitetails, Fuzzytails, Cot- tontails and Me!” followed in 2023.
Barber said this book was written from the memories of Doc Up-Church, who was a long-time family friend.
“I began writing this manuscript in 1993 by using an electric typewriter, but laid the work aside until recently,” she said. “With the use of my Dell PC and Microsoft Word, I decided to finish the manuscript and share these stories about Doc, or they would be lost forever.”
Barber said Doc Up-Church was a fisherman and farmed an “island” in the middle of the Arkansas River from the mid 1920s until the flood of 1943 forced him to higher ground.
She said records from 1918 are the first recorded source she has found of Doc.
“They were his registration papers for World War 1, on Sept. 12, 1918, and he is listed as living in Stigler,” she said.
“During the 1920s Doc cleared away trees and brush from the 40-acre “island” surrounded by water from the Arkansas River and claimed,“squatters rights,” she said.
“The island was fertile, a mile and half long and one-half mile wide, located seven miles northeast of Spiro. Doc cleaned up the entire island using a span of mules, crosscut saw, and chopping axe. Old timers said he fed a lot of hungry people during the 1930 Depression, with the abundant vegetables he grew, and hogs he butchered with the help of his friends.
“He built a small ferry to transport his mules and wagon from the north side of the island when the river water backed up, when there was no other way to his shack and the fertile soil he farmed.”
Barber said the historic flood of 1943 destroyed everything he owned on the island, and his eyesight was failing.
“He then was forced to move to higher grounds, but was still able to fish using a 12foot wooden boat and sold them to customers at Wilson Rock, Fort Coffee and Spiro,” she said.
Wilson Rock is located a half mile east of the “island” that Doc called home.
Barber said “The Rock” was well known far and near; was a place for both Cherokees on the north and Choctaws on the south to receive and swap their goods. She said anglers who fished the river said the water was 80 feet deep.
“He had many friends and one enemy. That enemy beat him up and harassed him one time too many,” she said.
Barber said Doc was harassed many times for several years by a much younger man and once beaten up badly at the Redland election polls site.
“This same man came to Doc’s shack at Wilson Rock on Oct. 23, 1952, and that was a bad mistake. Doc shot him, then was hauled to the Sequoyah County Courthouse and arrested on misdemeanor charges. His many friends rallied around, and the verdict was ruled not guilty,” Barber said.
She said Doc spent the next several years at local nursing homes and died on June 15, 1970, in Spiro.
Barber has shared the preface of her book as follows: Doc UpChurch was a tall and slim man, wiry and full of life. Clothing were a pride and by choice he wore khaki pants, shirts, and a white Stetson hat, with the brim curled up on each side. But mind you, it did not matter how much they needed washing he wore them that way and refused to wear them if they were torn and patched.
According to Federal documents and per his own testimony, Doc UpChurch was born in Kentucky or Tennessee, between 1881 and 1885.
Doc did not talk about his family, but when asked he said he was born in Kentucky. He told our family that after a severe beating from his dad, he slipped out of the house one night wearing only the clothes on his back, his beloved coon dog close by his side and his old single barrel full choke, 12-gauge shotgun, over his shoulder. Asked why he called the gun “Hairy Trigger” he said it was because the gun would fire with a slight touch of the trigger.
He said he walked two days and nights fearing his father would track him down! Being exhausted and tired he could go no farther and found a cave at the mouth of a small creek, then went inside, and lay down and rest. The months that followed were hard on a 14-yearold boy, but with his hunting skills and working odd jobs along the way, he survived the next four years of hardship.
Doc told us he came to Leflore County, Okla. from Tamaha, Haskell County, Okla., a small farming community a few miles west of Wilson Rock. Wilson Rock is a famous landmark and was named after William Wilson, Sr. who operated a ferry and steamboat crossing. This legendary site is located eight miles south of Muldrow, Okla. Doc told our family while working for a doctor in Tamaha, his duties were taking care of the doctor’s horses, livery stable and often driving the horse drawn surrey for the doctor on medical calls.
The book can be purchased at Rocky’s Corner in Roland, Sooner Liquor Store in Muldrow, Chapters on Main in Van Buren, Ark., or by using the name Gertie M. Barber with your Pay Pal account.
For more information on the book, Barber can be reached at 918235-4850 or antlerlady1937@ sbcglobal.net.
