Several weeks before police came knocking on Sheliah Crutcher’s door to tell her that her son had died in a car crash, the gospel song “Because He Lives” popped into her head.

She couldn’t let it go. She sang it and ran it through her mind over and over.

It was the message of that song — that because Jesus lives — that helped her through one of the worst times of her life, Crutcher said.

It also was not Crutcher’s first experience with death. Her father Sherman Manuel had died when Crutcher was 13 years old.

“I was a daddy’s girl,” she said. “If I cried or whimpered or anything, I would get what I wanted. My mother would just moan (at how I was being spoiled).”

One of the main lessons her mother, Thelma Manuel, had taught Crutcher and her siblings was to always be prepared for the unexpected. That lesson has helped Crutcher not only through deaths, but also through life, she said.

It was one of many lessons her mother taught her over the years, Crutcher said.

Many of the lessons were stories that Thelma Manuel passed along to her children. At the time, she might not have told them as lessons in life, but they stuck with Crutcher and she has applied them in her life.

She also learned a lot about life in getting her psychology degree and worked many years in counseling before joining the county election board staff several years ago.

“I accepted the job, not even knowing what I was coming into,” Crutcher said.

She had some experience in politics and had campaigned door-to-door with her attorney, Bill Settle, when he was running for state senator. He was successful in that race and was county Election Board secretary when she got the clerk’s job there.

She loves the work and the people, but hopes that when her daughter finishes college, she can go back into the psychology field and plans to relocate out of state to do that.



Happy childhood

memories are plentiful

Remembering her years of growing up on Muskogee’s South Second Street brings a smile to Sheliah Crutcher’s face.

“There were so many families,” she said. “Every house within a few blocks had a father, mother and a minimum of six kids.”

She remembers spending practically all day, every day, playing in the neighborhood.

One of their favorite activities was going through the neighborhood gathering up cents-off grocery coupons. They would get magazines from neighbors and clip the coupons, then take them to one of the neighborhood markets, where they would cash them in.

A 25-cent-off coupon might bring them a penny or a nickel — whatever the grocer would give them.

Crutcher didn’t realize until she was grown that the grocer was illegally cashing them for the face value without having sold the goods.

“If he gave us a dollar or a dollar and a half, we were on,” she said. “Back then, if you had a dollar, you could stay out all day.

“If we got enough, we would go to Mrs. Harold’s and get a hamburger for 15 cents and a soda for a dime.”

If they weren’t able to raise the money, there were always plums or apples growing on trees in the neighborhood that could be picked to satisfy their desire for sweets, Crutcher said.





Times were different

for Crutcher growing up

Besides gathering coupons for money, Bebb’s Greenhouse on Kalamazoo Street often turned a good profit for Crutcher and her friends.

The greenhouse threw out plants that didn’t meet their standards for sale.

“We would take them and fix them up and sell them to the little old ladies in the neighborhood for them to plant,” Crutcher remembers.

She said she also remembers that her father frequently would bring home a case of soda pop.

It wasn’t available to them as regularly as children have it today, so it was always a treat, Crutcher said.

“There were kids in our neighborhood who didn’t have as much as we did and we would always have to share, share, share,” she said.



Music built a bridge

in segregated times

Sherman Manuel made his living both as a carpenter and as a musician, Sheliah Crutcher said.

He built their home by himself when she was very young. It is still a residence today, with another family member living there.

While he was a good carpenter, he loved music, she said.

“It wasn’t anything for me to come home and find him playing the piano,” she said.

He liked all kinds of music, including country.

He also liked all kinds of people, so frequently the men who were making music with him were Caucasian, even though Muskogee was very segregated at the time, she said.

She said she learned from those jam sessions at the family home that all people, no matter the color of their skin, were alike.