Movie set in Sallisaw opens Friday

25 Years Ago

(From the April 27,2000, issue of the Sequoyah County Times) —The best-selling novel “Where the Heart Is” by Billie Letts, is making its way to movie screens across America.

The novel is about a 17-year-old girl who is seven months pregnant and stranded at Wal-Mart in Sequoyah, which is said to be Sallisaw in disguise, left to fend for herself and her unborn child.

In author’s comments in the book, Letts said she always dreamed of being a real writer with her name in the credits of a movie or on the cover of a book. Her dreams have come true. In 1995, “Where the Heart Is” was published and became a best-seller, and the movie based on her novel opens in theaters, Friday following previews last weekend.

50 Years Ago

(From the April 24,1975, issue of the Sequoyah County Times) — The Sequoyah County grand jury issued the final report Wednesday at 12:15 p.m., returning one misdemeanor indictment and a number of recommendations.

Asst. Dist. Atty. John M. Butler was indicted for discharging a firearm in a public place. The indictment grew out of a confrontation last Thursday between Dist. Atty. John Russell and Jack Lay, an agent of the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation.

The incident occurred as Russell was leaving the grand jury room after testifying. When approached by reporters, Russell said he would talk with them, but not in front of Lay, whom he called an s.o.b. Lay came up from the bench on which he was sitting and when the scuffle could not be broken up, Butler drew a pistol and fired it into the ceiling.

75 Years Ago

(From the April 28,1950, issue of the Sequoyah County Times) —Orendorff’s Modem Home Appliance Store received another carload of Frigidaire Refrigerators last Monday, April 24, it was learned from O.M. and C.M. Orendorff.

The carload makes the second full carload of Frigidaires received by Orendorff’s this year, C.M. Orendorff said, “We are celebrating this occasion with a full page ad in this issue of Your TIMES,” Orendorff continued.

Orendorff’s Modem Home Appliance Store is the only distributor of Frigidaire Refrigerators in Sequoyah County, according to O.M. Orendorff.

—J.S. Henry of Gans will open a new produce and cream buying station in Sallisaw Saturday, April 29, he announced Wednesday.

The produce will be located in Carlin Rogers’ brick building formerly a service station, located across the street northeast from the courthouse.

Henry has lived in the county nearly 35 years, having moved to Gans in August, 1915. He said the new firm would serve as a cream buying station for the Sugar Creek Creamery Company of Fort Smith, Ark.

100 years ago

(From the April 24,1925, issue of the Sequoyah County Democrat) — One of the worst tragedies ever enacted within this county occurred on Wednesday afternoon of the present week, when Jack Anderson, a prominent and prosperous farmer living near Brent, on the Edgar Smith farm, shot to death is wife and then turned the gun upon himself, inflicting what must have been mortal wounds that brought instant death.

The news of the tragedy reached Sallisaw about 6:00 p.m. that evening, immediately following the close of the track meet and County Attorney Harry Pitchford, accompanied by Deputy Sheriff Geo. Ritter and local physicians, hurried to the scene. They found that the wife had been shot through the right breast and had apparently hurried from the house and run as far as she could. Her body was found several feet from the front porch. Jack Anderson, husband, and father of six children, was found dead about 100 yards back of the house a rifle bullet through his right side.

A six-year-old boy was in the house at the time and saw the shot fired which killed the mother. From all information available and from evidence found, it is thought that after shooting the wife to death, that the husband carried a trunk containing her clothes and private belongings to a spot in the field nearby and burned all contents with the thought in mind of destroying certain incriminating evidence or charges contained in a written letter, the copy of which failed to bum and which was later found and preserved. The six-yearold boy hurried to the adjoining field and informed an older brother who hurried to the home only to find both father and mother cold in death.

Temporary insanity is attributed as the real cause of the tragedy, and those who knew him best are positive that he would never have committed the crime in a saner moment.

A large family of children is left to moum the loss, he having six children by a former marriage and she also having six by a former marriage.

-Sequoyah Comity Times, April27,2000

From the files of Your Sequoyah County Times