American Legacies Organization, Inc.

Louis Tesio was born in New York on July 29, 1896. He had 2 younger brothers, Frank (AKA Frankie), John, and a sister, Nina. He was the oldest of his siblings. He grew up speaking Italian. His mother and father were from the Pimontese region of Italy (Torino).

One of the places they grew up in was the Bronx, NY. He followed in the footsteps of his father and became a musician. He owned a music store, Tesio Music, which his father had begun and gave lessons to the neighborhood children.

During the Great Depression, a man had come to him begging for work. But Louis had none to offer him, so he had him play at an event with other band members. He used resin on the bow of a violin, and the man "played" with the band, getting paid for his "work". My grandfather was known for acts of kindness like these.

When they got closer to the river, with Charlestown on the other side, Paul Jr. could see a boat rocking with the tide. The two men that were with his father got into the boat and looked toward the man-of-war's masts outlined against the new moon. They motioned for Paul Sr. to get into the boat also, but he hesitated.

"The oars will be heard. We cannot risk that." he said.

The sound of his father's words excited Paul Jr. He wanted to help his patriotic father, so he ran back to the house where the girl had called out to him. He picked up a small pebble and threw it at her window to get her attention. When she came to the window, he whispered, "Toss me down a bit of soft cloth in the name of the Sons of Liberty-any type of cloth-for muffling my father's oars. He is bound for Charlestown in secret, and when I give it to him, I must go home."

The little girl tossed down her red homespun petticoat and the young patriot took it to his father where it helped muffle the oars on the boat that took Paul Revere to the Charlestown side of the river, so he could mount the saddled house which Deacon Larkin had sent for the "Midnight Ride of Paul Revere."

My Uncle Walter Mansell was crippled and had to walk on his knees. He owned a Shoe Shop in Perkins, Oklahoma.

The twins were babies when we made this trip in the wagons. My mother had three babies, then, and so we led a cow behind the wagon to have milk for them. We were on the road for eight days coming 160 miles, from Durant to Perkins. My parents settled on the south side of the Cimarron River with some people that we met. We camped there until we rented a farm from the McGee family."

"On Christmas Day, we would get an apple, orange, banana, or some candy. We always had a big Christmas. The fruit was a big treat, then, because we didn't get stuff like that very much. We always had a Christmas tree, but we didn't have no boughten fancy stuff to decorate our tree with, so we made our decorations out of paper. We would make rings and paste them together to make a chain to decorate our tree. We colored the paper with crayons because we didn't have no boughten paper."

This four barrel 22 caliber Derringer was made in Italy. It previously belonged to Lloyd Floyd. Lloyd Floyd was born around 1890. After statehood he was elected Sheriff of Le Flore County, Oklahoma. He carried this Derringer in his boot during the entire 42 years he served as sheriff. He was even reelected as Sheriff after his youngest brother Pretty Boy Floyd was killed for bank robbery.

I also have a cobblestone pill box big enough to hold 60 people., that came from Lincoln County, Oklahoma. It's round and has two floors in it and slots about four inches in diameter all the way around it. If the Indians attacked, the settlers would all run and get into it. They kept enough supplies in it to last them about a month. The pill box was fixed so the settlers could lay on the floor, stick their rifle barrels up to these holes and shoot out of them. They had to be careful not to stick their rifles out of the holes, because the Indians could grab them.

In 1933, when I was a kid, I was out coon hunting one day. I found this tree with a hole in it. I reached down into that hole, and I could feel something soft. I had gloves on and I pulled it up. It was an old leather pouch and I dropped it. Of course, when it hit the ground, it came apart. I took a pouch and gathered it all up and took it home. Then we spread it all out on the table. I found a treasure in that old oak tree. I found 33 gold pieces and thousands of dollars of Confederate money.

My Grandfather, William Coate, was born April 11, 1835, in Bloomingdale, Indiana. My grandfather and two of his brothers were shoemakers. There was something physically wrong with all of them. One of them got hurt in the Civil War. I forgot what was wrong with the other one and my grandfather had club feet. My grandfather moved from Indiana, where he was born, to Eudora, Kansas, just west of Kansas City, where he and his two brothers opened a shoe repair shop called `The Cripple Shoe Shop.'

I was five years old when we moved to Oklahoma back in 1929. We had a Moon Car and my sister used to make Dad so mad because whenever there was any sort of trouble with the car and he would crawl under the car to do something to it, my sister would sing an old song to aggravate him called `Get Out and Get Under the Moon.'

I went into the Air Force and while I was in the service, I went through mechanic school first, then through gunnery training. I was an engineer on a B24. That means that I was a flying mechanic. I took care of checking the flaps, landing gear, generator, etc. I also manned the top turret guns when we were out on combat. Then later, I retrained on B29's.