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https://bristoworalhistory.org/files/original/95af63492ca087da6ff78344917db4d0.jpg
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Pinehill Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
History of the Pinehill area north of Bristow
Description
An account of the resource
Several interviews were done by Mary and Bob Mc Carty of people who grew up in the Pinehill area north of Bristow. This collection is the Pinehill subset of the Bristow Oral Histories
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral history.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Robert L. “Bob” McCarty
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Leo Frank Bruce
OHMS Object
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Viewer)
https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0012-01_Leo_Bruce.xml
Interview Keyword
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between OHMS XML and the Omeka Record. This field does not impact the
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“keywords” field in the OHMS XML to the corresponding Omeka record.
Pinehill
oil
OHMS Object Text
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5.4 OHP-0012-01 Leo Frank Bruce OHP-0012-01 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Pinehill Community Bristow Historical Society, Inc. Pinehill Community and School Pinehill oil Leo Frank Bruce Robert L. “Bob” McCarty MP3 1:|28(7)|60(9)|78(12)|100(9)|122(15)|142(8)|165(10)|205(2)|229(4)|247(8)|258(8)|279(1)|314(10)|345(3)|358(4)|383(7)|409(1)|420(8)|439(11)|471(2)|496(2)|518(4)|546(8)|572(15)|598(15)|607(2)|614(14)|631(13)|647(4)|650(11)|661(13)|671(7)|693(3)|712(3)|727(1)|745(11)|759(8)|777(14)|785(8)|798(3)|810(5)|827(4)|847(12)|858(7)|876(6)|885(4)|905(9)|925(7) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0012-01 Bruce, Leo.mp3 Other audio 0 Family History BM: This is [indecipherable], 10—or 11/12/1976, ten minutes until four o’clock. Leo, whenever— MM: What was [inaudible] BM: What was your mother and dad’s name? Leo Bruce discusses his family history Abner Bruce ; Clarence Bruce ; Ella May ; Leo Frank Family History 158 Pinehill School BM: You stated here a while back, Leo, that you remembered when the first school was built there. LB: Well, I should be able to give you that [indecipherable] description, but I can’t and I don’t know— BM: Why, Leo, we—we uh— Discussion of the first Pinehill School being built Pinehill ; Pinehill School ; schoolhouse Pinehill School 240 Location of Childhood Home BM: At that time, Leo, where did your parents live? LB: They lived—well, now, they lived in a little—I’m turned around. I get my directions crossed up there. But the road that goes down to, past where Abner Bruce lives now? Well they lived on down that road at the foot of that hill, you know, there’s quite a hill there. Discussion of the location of his childhood home 1908 ; log home ; statehood childhood home 359 Pinehill School and Teachers BM: Tell us about what’s in that first schoolhouse being built. LB: Well, I was so small it’s hard for me to— MM: Tell us--you kind of played around it, [inaudible] while they was building it [inaudible]. Discussion of building of Pinehill School and teachers Nell Evans ; Nell Watson ; Pinehill School ; schoolhouse ; Witty McKeehan Pinehill School ; Teachers 511 Pinehill Classmates and Teachers BM: Who all went to school with you there at that time, Leo? That you can remember? LB: Well, that was— BM: Take your time now, and think. Memories of classmates and teachers and Pinehill School Big Mosquitoes ; Biggs ; Bill McEwan ; Charlie Stubblefield ; Clarence Myers ; classmates ; Ernest Sawell ; Frank Bruce ; Leo Pinehill ; Letch Stubblefield ; Mayes ; Pinehill ; Rosie Lindsey ; Sammy Stubblefield ; Tom McEwan ; Will Wilson ; Willie Mayes classmates ; Pinehill School ; Teachers 814 Moving back to Pinehill and running a store BM: In later years, then, Leo, in later years you went to—you came back in that country. You came back in that country. Did you or did you not? LB: Yes, it was several— BM: In later years, several, several years after that— LB: In later years. Discussion of moving back to Pinehill and opening a store armistice ; canned goods ; Coleman Bruce ; flour ; Pinehill ; Polecat Bridge ; tobacco Pinehill ; store 976 Father as County Clerk BM: When your parents moved into the Sapulpa area, what did your father—what was your father’s occupation at that time? LB: Well, of course he was a farmer, well then he was elected. He ran for county clerk. And he was elected county clerk. BM: He was elected country clerk. MM: What year? Leo Bruce's father is county clerk County Clerk ; election ; term county clerk 1090 Marriage and Children MM: What did your mom and dad do? Did they move back to the Pinehill community? LB: No. BM: At the present time, do you still-you still own some land out in that part, do you or do you not, Leo? LB: Yes. BM: Let’s back up. What year, Leo, did you get married? Discussion of marriage and children Cherry Creek ; Elesia Montaguerrez ; Francisca Alexius ; Ida Shockley ; Kay Don Bruce ; Robert Bruce ; Troy Livingston children ; marriage 1268 Locations of Pinehill Schools MM: How many Pinehill school buildings do you remember? [Inaudible.] LB: Well I don’t know whether there’d have been three, there were three, wasn’t there? BM: Well we’ve got reports of three, we’ve got reports of four, so we don’t know. MM: The one that [inaudible]— Discussion of the locations of the Pinehill Schools John Rossander ; Pinehill ; Pinehill school Pinehill School 1375 Creek County Sheriff BM: Was your dad—wasn’t your dad elected to a term as sheriff? In Creek County? LB: Yes, he served two terms as sheriff. BM: He served two terms as sheriff of Creek County. Well then, he was—that was in what year, Leo? Do you remember? LB: No, I don’t. I’m not sure, I’d have to look that up. Leo Bruce's father as Creek County Sheriff Creek County ; Sheriff Sheriff 1506 Activities at Pinehill School BM: --I never had got that off any of the, anybody else but you. (pause) Is there any funnies that you can—that you remember that went on at the school during your school days there? Is there anything, any funny happened that you remember? LB: Well, I can’t think of anything amusing right now. BM: To you memory, then, what, what all was the school used for, Leo? LB: It was—they had church there a lot, as I remember it, and then they had a literary society there in the community. I can remember those meetings were a lot. They’d have—they’d come in there of an evening and I guess they had a certain night of the week that they’d have the literary but I can’t remember when. Activities held at Pinehill School church ; dialogues ; kangaroo court ; literary ; Pinehill School ; recitations ; schoolhouse ; Virgil Vann ; voting Activities ; Pinehill School ; schoolhouse 1721 Family Tree MM: As far as we know, and as far as we’ve been able to tell, Leo, you were the first white child born in that community. Leo Frank Bruce. And you was born (pause) what the date was—10/01/1897. October the— LB: Ten the eighteenth. The family tree of Leo Bruce Abner Louis Bruce ; Adam Bruce ; Alpha Bruce ; Alpha Stephens ; Balsora Dalton ; Coleman Bruce ; Jonathon Bruce ; Katie Bruce ; Leo Frank Bruce ; Morton Bruce ; Pleasant Bruce ; Richard Bruce ; Susan Bruce ; Wesley Bruce Family Tree ; Leo Bruce 1901 Pinehill Memories and a Story of Shoes for a Dog LB: Well I was—I don’t know how to describe it. I really liked the community out there, you know, and of course the mental [indecipherable] child, why, they usually appreciate or like the child more than they do after they get grown and have to get out and face the— BM: Face the world. LB: --cold, cold world. MM: Well, you were never really apart from it. Your folks has always been there, you’ve been back and forth the whole dang—your life, haven’t you? Memories of growing up in Pinehill and a story about shoes for a hunting dog Coleman Bruce ; community ; dog ; fish ; Heyburn ; hunting ; Pinehill ; Polecat ; shoes ; swimming hole memories ; Pinehill 2200 Oil Industry and Crossing a Cold Creek MM: Do you remember any of the early oil industry in there, or anything like that? LB: Well now, see, when I had the store out there they had a (pause) I think they called it a booster station, didn’t they, the Texas Oil Company had a station right down below the hill there from where the store was. BM: Be out west. Discussion of early business including oil and crossing a cold cree, creek ; Oil ; oil industry ; Old Stockade House ; pipeline ; Polecat ; telegraph operator ; Texas Oil Company creek ; oil 2488 Surrey with a Fringe on Top MM: I believe you told me one time about you and Charlie Blythe watching the first surrey with a fringe on top. Do you remember that? It was there at your grandpa’s, and— LB: Yes, I just barely, I can remember. Well, I can remember that was kind of a, kind of a meeting place for a lot of people over the country there at my grandparents’ house. I think Charlie—seems like I can remember Charlie stopping in there more than once— MM: What about surrey with a fringe on top? Memories of seeing a surrey with fringe on top Charlie Blythe ; Cherry Creek ; fringe ; surrey Surrey 2556 Talks of Visiting and the Location of Leo Bruce's Property BM: You can still drive down—or you could, you could still drive down to that old crossing there on Cherry Creek. You could here a few years back. I don’t know whether you still can or not. Down by where the Old Stockade House was. There was a cross there, that was the roadway where the crossing was there on Cherry Creek, went right down to Polecat, on down to just above what they call the lower falls. LB: Those lower falls, I don’t know if I was ever right at that location or not. But I can remember the people speaking of the lower falls and— Discussion of visiting the Pinehill area and the location of Leo Bruce's property Cherry Creek ; Dan Masterson ; lower falls ; Loyd Bruce ; Mastersons ; Old Stockade House ; Pinehill ; Polecate ; Roy Bruce Pinehill ; property records In this 1976 interview, Leo Frank Bruce (1897-1990), the first white child born in the Pinehill Community outside of Bristow, Oklahoma, describes his life in the area prior to statehood including their early home structures and the approximate location of their homesteads. He also identifies some of the first schoolteachers and his schoolmates in the community. He discusses talks about running a small dry goods store prior to refrigeration/electricity, his family’s subsequent move to Sapulpa when his father was elected as the first Creek County clerk, and subsequently as the Creek County sheriff. Finally, he describes social events in the Pinehill community such as literaries, fishing, and the first time he ever saw a surrey with a fringe on top. BM: This is [indecipherable], 10--or 11/12/1976, ten minutes until four o' ; clock. Leo, whenever-- MM: What was [inaudible] BM: What was your mother and dad' ; s name? LB: My dad' ; s name was Abner, his middle initial was L.--Abner L. Bruce, but he was just known as Abner, you know, mainly everyone knew him as Abner Bruce. Now, my mother' ; s name was Ella May. I don' ; t remember how she spelled it--whether she spelled it M-A-Y or M-A-E, probably with a Y. I think they most--heared it spelled it back in those days. BM: Her maiden name was what? LB: Stowe. BM: Stowe. LB: S-T-O-W-E. BM: How many children were to that marriage, Leo? LB: Well, there were three children. Is it too warm in here for you folks? BM: No, it' ; s fine for me. UM: It' ; s a little bit too warm for me, but [inaudible]. MM: [Inaudible.] BM: There were three children to that marriage. LB: Yes. BM: And their names were what, Leo? LB: Well, let' ; s see--let me get the Bible. BM: Okay. pause in recording BM: There were three children. LB: Iva' ; s the oldest. Leo Frank. MM: Born in what year? BM: What year were you born, Leo? LB: Oh, in 1897. BM: 1897. LB: October the 18th. BM: Then? LB: Then Clarence Bruce was born March 3, 1902. And he died in infancy, didn' ; t live but a few days. And there was a girl born, oh the first--no, she was born February 4, 1906, and she didn' ; t--she died in infancy. She died May 1, 1906, that same year. MM: You were the sole-- BM: You' ; re the sole, you are the only one that-- LB: The only child. BM: The only child. LB: Mmm-hmm. BM: You stated here a while back, Leo, that you remembered when the first school was built there. LB: Well, I should be able to give you that [indecipherable] description, but I can' ; t and I don' ; t know-- BM: Why, Leo, we--we uh-- LB: [inaudible] BM: --we have the-- LB: --already-- BM: --we have the description and all of that. You stated, though, that you remembered when the first school was--first schoolhouse was built. Is that right? LB: Yes, sir. BM: Any particular thing happen during the building of that school that you remember of? LB: Nothing that was really of importance. I knew that I was just very small boy and I was standing around and getting where I was in the way when they were--the people were putting up the school, building the school. And they--some of them got after me for being in the way there, I can remember that part of it. BM: At that time, Leo, where did your parents live? LB: They lived--well, now, they lived in a little--I' ; m turned around. I get my directions crossed up there. But the road that goes down to, past where Abner Bruce lives now? Well they lived on down that road at the foot of that hill, you know, there' ; s quite a hill there. BM: Yeah. On that hill there. LB: Mmm-hmm. They lived on the, right past Abner' ; s. They lived on the left. BM: On the left-hand side-- LB: Left-hand side of the road right at the foot of the hill. BM: Right at the foot of that hill. LB: Mmm-hmm. BM: That would be on the north side of the road there, then. What' ; s that road run east, east and west. They lived here right at the foot of the hill, then, before they got down to that little creek where Frank' ; s house was. Is that right? LB: Yeah. Mmm-hmm. BM: What type of a house was that, Leo? LB: It was a log a house. BM: It was a log house. So, how many rooms was it? LB: I believe it was just two rooms. BM: How long did they live there in that house? LB: They lived there until statehood, you know, more of [indecipherable]. What would' ; ve been the election, you know, when they--in the fall of the year before statehood, would' ; ve been 1907, and I think statehood was January 1908. And they moved to Sapulpa in the fall of the year prior to statehood. BM: They moved to Sapulpa prior to statehood. MM: [Inaudible.] BM: Tell us about what' ; s in that first schoolhouse being built. LB: Well, I was so small it' ; s hard for me to-- MM: Tell us--you kind of played around it, [inaudible] while they was building it [inaudible]. LB: Well, I can' ; t remember that the--it was just out in open land, there, you know, and I don' ; t know whether they had any fences to speak of at that time that cut through there. Maybe it was just open land and I was just--didn' ; t have anything else to do that I would just, just knew of the men that were working there and a big part of the time I was in their way. MM: And they kind of chased you off. BM: Uh-- MM: And you started school in the year-- BM: You started to school there when the--in that year of 19--when the first school opened, then. Is that right? LB: Yes. BM: And that teacher-- LB: Well, it must' ; ve been Nell Evans (ph). BM: Nell Evans (ph)? Or Nell Watson (ph)? LB: Nell, Nell Watson (ph), now wasn' ; t she-- BM: She was the one that was in 1903. LB: --wasn' ; t her maiden name Evans? BM: Well I--it could' ; ve been, I don' ; t know. LB: And I think she married a Watson there in Bristow, could that be right? LB: Well, now that, that-- MM: No, Nell Evans was the third one. BM: Nell Evans was the third teacher down. LB: Oh, well-- MM: Might be the same one if she-- LB: I' ; m, I' ; m sorry--Witty McKeehan (ph) was the first teacher that, wasn' ; t that right? MM: No, Nell Watson-- BM: Nell Watson and then Witty McKeehan (ph) was the second teacher. LB: Is that right. Well, I don' ; t believe I went to school with a teacher Nell Watson on my time, I can' ; t remember that. Because I always had the impression that--well, Witty (ph) and I talked about it, but I told people that Witty (ph) was my first schoolteacher. BM: Mmm-hmm. LB: But that might' ; ve been wrong, but as I remembered it, and I can remember with Witty (ph) teaching school there, and I was thinking that he was my first schoolteacher. MM: And what do you remember about Witty (ph)? BM: What do you remember about Witty McKeehan (ph) as a teacher? LB: Well, I thought that--of course, it was easy for me to somehow make an impression on me, you know, but I thought he was really smart. (laughs) MM: [Inaudible.] BM: Who all went to school with you there at that time, Leo? That you can remember? LB: Well, that was-- BM: Take your time now, and think. LB: It' ; s hard to remember many of them because they' ; re so--there was a family by the name of Campbell. I don' ; t remember for sure how they spelled their name, I think it was C-A-M-P-B-E-L-L Campbell. I think they went to school there. And there was (pause) and there was two (pause) I want to say scholars, pupils, that were, they were practically grown. [Indecipherable] a boy and a girl, they--they were--to me they were man and a woman. BM: Mmm-hmm. LB: --went to school there, and I can remember that. And then there was, I think there was more than one Stubblefield, I believe. There' ; s a Charlie Stubblefield, I think Charlie Stubblefield is still there, and there' ; s--we knew him as Letch, was that his actual name? BM: I have a Letch Stubblefield-- LB: Letch Stubblefield. BM: There was a Letch Stubblefield as well as a Charlie Stubblefield. LB: And then Sam, there was a Sammy Stubblefield. Those three might' ; ve gone to school there. And I' ; m pretty sure Clarence Myers went to school there. And the Mayes (ph) children, Miss [indecipherable] Mayes (ph) was [indecipherable] a teacher there. And her brother, Willie, his name was Willie Mayes (ph), they went to school there. And a Tom McEwan (ph), I think his father' ; s name was Billy--Bill McEwan (ph), he would' ; ve been a nephew to the teacher, Woody. BM: To Woody. LB: [inaudible] Now that first year I can' ; t be sure about that but those are the pupils that I remember that went to school to Pinehill there in the early days. And Rosie Lindsey (ph) went to school there. And she was always in school. That was before she and Frank Bruce were married. BM: Your mother taught school there too, in case you hadn' ; t-- LB: That' ; s right. BM: Do you have any idea--there had been a story and we had been told that she didn' ; t complete her term there for some reason or other. Do you have any idea what that reason was, Leo? LB: Well, it' ; s possible that it could' ; ve been her--they moved to Sapulpa there. I don' ; t know. MM: No, that she-- BM: No, they said something about her health or something or other, about that time. LB: Can' ; t remember that. BM: Clarence Myers was the one that told us that. Now, could it have been possible that it could' ; ve been on the count of the youngest girl. LB: That' ; s possible. [inaudible] BM: I believe on her-- LB: It was 1906 when she died, that-- BM: Yeah, in 1906. So it' ; s very possible then, that the reason your mother didn' ; t complete that term of school was on the count of your sister. LB: I don' ; t know. MM: Do you remember Ernest Sawell? BM: Do you remember Ernst Sawell? S-A-W-E-L-L? LB: No, I don' ; t recall. MM: He finished the term [inaudible]. BM: He finished the term, that term, for your mother. That was according to Clarence Myers. MM: Do you remember Will D. Wilson (ph)? LB: [Indecipherable.] BM: He came in, Will D. came in, after your mother taught there. LB: It was the next term, probably, wasn' ; t it. BM: And Ernest Sawell, the next term, well then Will D. Wilson came in and taught the next term. LB: Hmm. Well I--you asked who went to school there, I' ; m sure Leo Pinehill went to school there. MM: Yes, [inaudible]. LB: And [indecipherable] probably Mary and-- MM: Mary. BM: The--all three of those kids. LB: --Pinehill children. UW: I don' ; t know whether the Biggs went that early or not. And some of the Big Mosquitoes (ph). LB: [Inaudible.] BM: In later years, then, Leo, in later years you went to--you came back in that country. You came back in that country. Did you or did you not? LB: Yes, it was several-- BM: In later years, several, several years after that-- LB: In later years. MM: About what year was that? BM: About what year was did you come back out in there, Leo? LB: Oh, (pause). When was the [indecipherable] war, well that' ; s--I just read it in the history--day before [indecipherable], World War I? When the armistice was signed? MM: [Inaudible.] BM: Nineteen-eighteen or 1919. LB: It was about two or three years before that, prior to that, that I was out there. BM: Was any you--when you came back out there, then, where did you, where did you move to at that time? LB: Oh, I just stayed there with my grandparents, Coley Bruce--Coleman Bruce. And I ran a store for a few years. BM: You ran a store there. Alright, where was that store located at? LB: It was about--how far would it be from where the last school was there east across--just across Polecat Bridge there, and about a quarter-- MM: Quarter east and a quarter north-- BM: No, half east and a quarter north-- MM: Half a mile east and quarter north. BM: Half east and a quarter north. MM: Alright, what kind of store, how big a store, tell us about it. BM: How big a store was that, Leo? LB: Oh I just--couldn' ; t really call it a store, it was more--in this day and time you' ; d think of it more as a concession stand because we had no refrigeration, you know, and didn' ; t even keep ice, but about all I kept was flour and canned goods and stuff that was not perishable, couldn' ; t spoil. And tobacco, cans of tobacco. MM: How long did you run it? LB: Didn' ; t even have, didn' ; t even have sodee pop. (laughs) BM: How long did you run that store, Leo? LB: I think it was a little over two years. BM: When your parents moved into the Sapulpa area, what did your father--what was your father' ; s occupation at that time? LB: Well, of course he was a farmer, well then he was elected. He ran for county clerk. And he was elected county clerk. BM: He was elected country clerk. MM: What year? BM: What year was he elected county clerk? LB: Well, that would' ; ve been in 1907, wouldn' ; t that be right? Nineteen-seven, prior to statehood. Statehood I think was January 1908. MM: How many years did he serve? LB: He served seven years [inaudible]. The election they held before statehood--or the first election as I remember it was an off year, and when they had the next election why, they held it when--on the regular year that the elections have always been held since and the [inaudible]-- BM: On an even year, then. LB: --the terms were two years, two year terms. And his first term as I remember it was only a year there. He just served a year until the next election and then it was like a regular term, for two more terms. BM: Now he was elected down near the--the first term, then, he would' ; ve been elected. He went in, then in about 1909. His first term would' ; ve been about 1909. MM: No, 1907-- LB: A full term. BM: A full term, first year--first term. MM: What did your mom and dad do? Did they move back to the Pinehill community? LB: No. BM: At the present time, do you still-you still own some land out in that part, do you or do you not, Leo? LB: Yes. BM: Let' ; s back up. What year, Leo, did you get married? LB: That would' ; ve been 19--(pauses), that would be 1927. It was [indecipherable]. MM: He was married October 18, 18--no. LB: It may not give it. MM: March 26, 1927. LB: [Inaudible.] BM: And what was her name? LB: Ida Shockley. BM: Ida Shockley. And to that marriage how many children were there, Leo? LB: Two. BM: Two. What were their-- LB: Two boys. BM: Two boys. What were their names? LB: Kaye Don, K-A-Y-E Don D-O-N, Kaye Don Bruce, and Robert Bruce. BM: Kaye Don and Robert Bruce. Are those children still alive? LB: Yes. BM: Where is Kaye Don at, at the present time? LB: He' ; s in Richmond, Washington. State of Washington. BM: And Robert? LB: He' ; s in Mexico City. BM: Mexico City. He' ; s down with all them pretty senoritas, then. LB: Well, both those boys married senoritas. BM: Oh, they did! MM: Kaye Don was married to Francisca Alexius (ph) and Robert married Elesia Montaguerrez (ph). BM: Kaye Don, I know, went to school out here. I remember Kaye Don going to school out there at Pinehill. LB: [inaudible] that' ; s right. BM: Kaye Don went to school out there. LB: About one year. BM: Yeah, and he--at that time, I think, my best memory, it was just--you lived just west of Cherry Creek (ph) on the south side of the road. In later years the house burned. Troy Livingston (ph)-- LB: Was living in there-- BM: Troy and Plessie (ph) was living in the house when it burned. I believe it' ; s right, is that-- LB: That' ; s right, that' ; s right. MM: How many Pinehill school buildings do you remember? [Inaudible.] LB: Well I don' ; t know whether there' ; d have been three, there were three, wasn' ; t there? BM: Well we' ; ve got reports of three, we' ; ve got reports of four, so we don' ; t know. MM: The one that [inaudible]-- BM: But when do you remember the ones that you remember, Leo? Where were they located at? LB: West--well the first one, of course, was there at the crossroads where--and the next one was (pause) Well, you see, the next one as I remember it was a higher elevation than the last one. BM: Yeah. LB: It was kind of up on the hill-- BM: It would' ; ve been a mile--the second one that you remember would' ; ve been a mile north and about a quarter of a mile west of where the first schoolhouse was built. Then the third one was built down in under the hill. LB: As I remember-- BM: Is that--that' ; s the way you-- LB: As I remember it, yes, but if there were four buildings, why-- MM: The first one apparently-- LB: --that could' ; ve been crossed up some way there, see. BM: The first one-- MM: The one they think was the second one only lasted three years before it was burned, from 1909 to 1912. LB: Could it' ; ve been where the last one burned? And then-- MM: No, one was a quarter of a mile--a mile south of the last one and about--what, a quarter east? BM: The first one, from the first school house, where the first one was built, was a mile south and about a quarter east, kind of sitting on the hill up there on the prairie. Was the third where you remember the first one being built, is that right? That would be at the crossroads. LB: That' ; s right. BM: That would be a mile south of the last schoolhouse. LB: That' ; s right. BM: And about a quarter east. Or was it right in the corner? LB: Seems to me like it was right at the road, almost at the road there. BM: Well on this, that would be the one John Rossander was talking about, then. MM: John Rossander says he can show you the foundation, he must know. LB: I guess so. MM: ' ; Course he-- BM: So then they tell me that there was another one built up on top of the hill, which would be east of the one on the crossroads. LB: [Inaudible] it' ; s possible, but I wouldn' ; t remember that. BM: Was your dad--wasn' ; t your dad elected to a term as sheriff? In Creek County? LB: Yes, he served two terms as sheriff. BM: He served two terms as sheriff of Creek County. Well then, he was--that was in what year, Leo? Do you remember? LB: No, I don' ; t. I' ; m not sure, I' ; d have to look that up. BM: Well they did Mote-- LB: Mote ran for sheriff but he-- BM: After Abner was-- LB: After Abner served just two terms, yes. BM: That' ; s what I--that' ; s the way I remember it but I never had got that-- LB: That' ; s right. BM: --I never had got that off any of the, anybody else but you. (pause) Is there any funnies that you can--that you remember that went on at the school during your school days there? Is there anything, any funny happened that you remember? LB: Well, I can' ; t think of anything amusing right now. BM: To you memory, then, what, what all was the school used for, Leo? LB: It was--they had church there a lot, as I remember it, and then they had a literary society there in the community. I can remember those meetings were a lot. They' ; d have--they' ; d come in there of an evening and I guess they had a certain night of the week that they' ; d have the literary but I can' ; t remember when. BM: We' ; ve got different reports on these literaries, but we never have really pinpointed it down to just what all went on at these literaries. LB: I can remember they had the dialogues and recitations and they' ; d have songs. They didn' ; t have a musical instrument there, but I think sometimes someone would try to sing a song, I can remember that. But the main thing that I remember was the recitations and dialogues and I can' ; t remember--I can' ; t remember the church meetings so well. That--I' ; m sure that they did have church in the first building. BM: Also we have been told that it was used for a voting precinct in later years. It was used as a voting precinct. And in the early days they held court in that school. Do you know anything about that? LB: No. BM: We' ; ve been told something about a kangaroo court and I' ; ve tried to pinpoint that down. LB: Mm-hmm. No. BM: I forgot now who it was that--Virgil Vann, I believe it was, that was telling us about the kangaroo court, but I never could get him pinned down. Tried to find out if the kangaroo courts--that they put on during one of these literaries meetings or whether it was a real honest to goodness kangaroo court. But I' ; ve never been able to get it pinned down. MM: [Inaudible.] BM: Okay. MM: As far as we know, and as far as we' ; ve been able to tell, Leo, you were the first white child born in that community. Leo Frank Bruce. And you was born (pause) what the date was--10/01/1897. October the-- LB: Ten the eighteenth. MM: --ninety-seven. Your father was Abner Louis Bruce and he was born 09/23/1871, died 01/18/1952. His brothers were Frank--James Franklin, J. Smith, and Moten R. and Roy Clyde and his sister was Cora Belle. Your mother was Ella May Stowe, she was born 06/27/1876 and died 05/09/1948. Your grandfather was Coleman Robert Bruce, he was born in 1847 and died in 1926. His broth--your uncles and aunts was--his brothers and sisters was Pleasant Alfred, James A. (ph), John H. (ph), Richard H., Moten (ph), Charles F. (ph), Wesley A., George Washington (ph), Adam Vivian, Alpha Ann, Laura E. (ph), Susie Jane, Dora Ree (ph) and Katie V. LB: There was a bunch of them. MM: And his wife was Alpha Ann Moore, she was born in 1848 and died in 1923. Your grandfather--your great-greatfather, then, was James Thomas Bruce, he was born August 1824 and married in March 1846, he married Francis S. Vivian pause in recording as tape switches to Side B MM: --Bruce was born December 1802 and died March 1885, he was married Elizabeth L. Swinney and I think that' ; s enough of the tree to go back on there. I just found the tree on his father' ; s side. His mother' ; s tree is here also but I don' ; t think we' ; ll run anything on it. This was from Leo Bruce' ; s family Bible. Leo, what do you remember--what did you think about Pinehill? What does it mean to you? LB: Well I was--I don' ; t know how to describe it. I really liked the community out there, you know, and of course the mental [indecipherable] child, why, they usually appreciate or like the child more than they do after they get grown and have to get out and face the-- BM: Face the world. LB: --cold, cold world. MM: Well, you were never really apart from it. Your folks has always been there, you' ; ve been back and forth the whole dang--your life, haven' ; t you? LB: Mmm-hmm. Yeah, I remember several times that we moved to town here, why, during my school vacation, why, I would go out there and when I' ; d go out there, why, I planned to stay all summer! And spend the summer vacation out there. But just a little while I, I' ; d get homesick, I' ; d want to see my folks and come back to Sapulpa and that, that' ; d be about the end of my vacation. BM: About the end of your vacation. MM: What' ; d you do on vacation out there? LB: Well, they--I pretended to help a little with the farming and I remember my grandfather Coleman Bruce, he and I fished a lot and I really enjoyed that. MM: Where' ; d you fish? LB: Fished in Polecat. MM: What' ; d you catch? LB: Well, we didn' ; t catch anything but little old--little fish. Perch and catfish. Sunfish. MM: Did you ever hunt? LB: Not much. I' ; ve hunted some but I' ; m not much of a hunter. MM: Where was your swimming hole? LB: Well the main swimming hole there was--it was in Polecat there, and it was just this side of where, where we lived, you know, when Don went to school there at Pinehill. Just this side there, down--walk to what would be the south side of the road there, just a little ways from the road. MM: Did you get in on them watermelon stealing on them summer vacations? LB: No, I can' ; t remember stealing any watermelons. But I can remember, I can remember the Polecat there, it wasn' ; t anything like it was in later years. I can remember one place on further down--can you two remember where the falls was? BM: Yes. I do. LB: I think since Heyburn' ; s been built, Heyburn dam' ; s been built there, I guess there' ; s not any falls there anymore, it' ; s filled up. But just above--just north of where the falls were there, I can remember at one time there was a big hole there and it was deep. And I can remember several times, people talking about it, that they were impressed with it--that you could take regular cane fishing pole, you know, and you couldn' ; t-- BM: Couldn' ; t touch bottom. LB: Couldn' ; t touch bottom. BM: Now, was that the hole that they call the old Blokesie (ph) Hole? LB: I wouldn' ; t know. I [inaudible]. MM: Was any hunting done, any--do you remember any hunting? LB: Well, not to speak of. I can remember my uncle Frank Bruce, I can remember that he hunted quite a bit and I can' ; t be sure about that. I don' ; t know--I noticed you said that in the [indecipherable] there, you read where they sold quails on the market, but I can' ; t--I don' ; t know if he ever sold quail on the market or not. But I can remember he had a bird dog that he was real proud of, and that poor old dog would--he hunted with him so much that he had, his feet would get sore. And I can remember he tried to--it wasn' ; t a success, he couldn' ; t do much good with it, but he would try to make shoes or moccasins for this poor old dog, for his feet. Course he wouldn' ; t keep them, couldn' ; t keep them on, you know, but that worried him a lot that-- BM: Thought the old dog' ; s feet would get so sore. LB: Mmm-hmm. MM: Do you remember any of the early oil industry in there, or anything like that? LB: Well now, see, when I had the store out there they had a (pause) I think they called it a booster station, didn' ; t they, the Texas Oil Company had a station right down below the hill there from where the store was. BM: Be out west. LB: And, yes, that' ; s right. They worked several men, I don' ; t--I can' ; t remember how many men, but there were several men worked there. And I know they had a telegraph operator. Of course they had the old line that went right along with the pipeline there, you know. MM: What, did they send messages to local people if they needed it? LB: No, not much, they may have but I didn' ; t hear of it. But they used it for the old business down there. But I can remember that the line walkers--they' ; d have a line walker that would walk this line and I think they had [inaudible] can remember more than one line walker that they had that' ; d stop in there at the store and-- MM: Do you remember any flooding caused at Polecat before the dam up in that area? LB: No, I don' ; t think it flooded much but I can remember that--I can remember the creek would really get high and they had more rain than they have now. I can remember you hear could the creek roar. You could hear the roar of the waters. I remember one time, I don' ; t know whether it would be of interest to you or not, it wasn' ; t very important, but really made an impression on me when--you see, my grandfather, that was the house where I was born as I remember it. They referred to it as the Old Stockade House. The logs were built, or placed, up-and-down and not--how do I want to say it? Horizontal? BM: They were vertical but wasn' ; t horizontal. LB: Mmm-hmm. And it was a story-and-a-half house, I guess. See, I know they had rooms or a room up above, they had a stairway I know. But I know that was the house where I was born, this Old Stockade House. Well I can remember one time my uncle Mote Bruce--we were going from that--as I remember it, now--we were, I was behind him on a horse, and we were trying to go from this Old Stockade House over to where my parents lived there at the foot of the hill where I told you about. I can remember the creek being up. And it was probably right there about where the bowl where the falls was, you can remember there was a crossing there. And I remember that he stopped there on the-- BM: Bank of the creek. LB: --other side of the bank of the creek and watched that water for, oh, several minutes. He didn' ; t say anything, you know, just sit there, we sit there on the horse and just watching the water. And he finally said to me, he says, Now Leo, you hang on to me real tight, you hear? Of course that made an impression on me and I grabbed ahold of him and we slid down into the water there. And course the water came right up to our waist, you know, we were--and all you could see of the poor old horse was just his head and ears sticking up there right in front of us and I can remember the logs and stuff floating down the river, the creek there. And I can remember that horse was really pulling, but we swam the creek to get on the other side but I never knew what was so important that he had to get from my grandfather' ; s house over there back to our house. He might' ; ve just been wanting to get rid of me! (laughs) He swam that creek to get-- BM: He swam the creek with the old horse to-- LB: To get back to where [indecipherable]. BM: To get back-- MM: I believe you told me one time about you and Charlie Blythe watching the first surrey with a fringe on top. Do you remember that? It was there at your grandpa' ; s, and-- LB: Yes, I just barely, I can remember. Well, I can remember that was kind of a, kind of a meeting place for a lot of people over the country there at my grandparents' ; house. I think Charlie--seems like I can remember Charlie stopping in there more than once-- MM: What about surrey with a fringe on top? LB: --on Sundays, you know. But what I remember, one time, there was a surrey that crossed that little--there was a little--oh, we called it--it was probably Cherry Creek. It was Cherry Creek would' ; ve been right there. I can remember that surrey with a fringe on top coming and crossing that creek and coming up right up by our--my grandparents' ; house. MM: Was it pretty or what-- LB: But who they were--yeah, it was, I thought it was a really fancy carriage. But I can' ; t remember who was driving it, who they were, or anything about it. BM: You can still drive down--or you could, you could still drive down to that old crossing there on Cherry Creek. You could here a few years back. I don' ; t know whether you still can or not. Down by where the Old Stockade House was. There was a cross there, that was the roadway where the crossing was there on Cherry Creek, went right down to Polecat, on down to just above what they call the lower falls. LB: Those lower falls, I don' ; t know if I was ever right at that location or not. But I can remember the people speaking of the lower falls and-- BM: Now, this next summer, when we present and dedicate this thing to the state of Oklahoma, we' ; d like--I want you to come out and if the Lord is willing, I' ; ll try to take you back up Polecat as far as we can and show you where the old falls that you remember crossing on the horse, where it is located today and show you where the old lower falls were there on Polecat and try to show you where the old roadway used to go down through there. LB: Mmm-hmm. BM: You can drive down quite a ways down in there by where the Old Stockade House used to be. What you would--at the present time you would have to cross from where you lived there where the house burned for Troy and Plessie (ph) lived, and it burned, you would have to come back east across Cherry Creek, to Cherry Creek. There' ; s Little Cherry and Big Cherry Creek. Big Cherry Creek-- LB: Yeah, that' ; s what I was wondering about-- BM: Big Cherry Creek was the one that you were talking about the old crossing was down by the Old Stockade House-- MM: I don' ; t think you asked him where his property he owns out there is. BM: --come back to where, oh, it' ; s about two hundred yards east of Little Cherry Creek, there' ; s a road that goes south, goes back off down, winds back around, down almost to where the Old Stockade House used to be. And where the old crossing was down here. At the present time I think Louis or Andrew, one of them, has it fenced in and you can' ; t drive all the way down to where the old crossing was. LB: I was--oh, several times I went over there when we lived out there, you know, in the house that burned, you know, when Troy and Plessie (ph) lived there. I went there several times, I went over to that location but it' ; s changed so much, it' ; s-- BM: It' ; s really changed now. LB: --wouldn' ; t, wouldn' ; t know it was the same place. BM: It' ; s changed, it' ; s changed altogether now to what it was then, even. MM: Ask him where his property is [inaudible]. BM: The property that you still own out there at the present time, Leo, where is it located? LB: Well, it' ; s right there at the corner of the road where the road, one road goes over to what is Shepherd Point and the other [inaudible] and seventy acres. BM: You own seventy acres there. LB: But I really don' ; t own that place because--see, I just had forty acres and that road goes right through that forty so forty in here a few years ago, I bought the surface thirty acres from the allottee, I forget who she was, she lives down at Okmulgee. That joins there on the west there, thirty acres, so I really have what you and me would call for seventy acres but the road takes up a lot of it, I don' ; t know how many acres [inaudible]. But part of that goes right where the, goes right up where--you remember where Loyd Bruce used to live there. I don' ; t know, you folks--did you ever [inaudible]. Because that' ; s--oh, Mastersons lived there a while, one of them. BM: Yeah, right there in the corner, say, Roy Bruce had the house right there in the corner with a cedar tree in the yard. LB: Yeah. Mmm-hmm. BM: We didn' ; t live there in that corner there. Dan, Dan Masterson (ph) lived there in the corner. And Louis lived south over there on--well, just north of the Old Stockade House. LB: Mmm-hmm. BM: Where the Old Stockade House was. LB: Mmm-hmm. BM: And we lived on south down there, well it' ; d just be right there on the banks of the creek. And we moved over in the field, back over west of there in a field by the old Blokesie (ph) hole, the old swimming hole. LB: Mmm-hmm. MM: [Inaudible.] BM: Then we moved back up-- end of recording. BM: This is [indecipherable], 10--or 11/12/1976, ten minutes until four o'clock. Leo, whenever-- MM: What was [inaudible] BM: What was your mother and dad's name? LB: My dad's name was Abner, his middle initial was L.--Abner L. Bruce, but he was just known as Abner, you know, mainly everyone knew him as Abner Bruce. Now, my mother's name was Ella May. I don't remember how she spelled it--whether she spelled it M-A-Y or M-A-E, probably with a Y. I think they most--heared it spelled it back in those days. BM: Her maiden name was what? LB: Stowe. BM: Stowe. LB: S-T-O-W-E. BM: How many children were to that marriage, Leo? LB: Well, there were three children. Is it too warm in here for you folks? BM: No, it's fine for me. UM: It's a little bit too warm for me, but [inaudible]. MM: [Inaudible.] BM: There were three children to that marriage. LB: Yes. BM: And their names were what, Leo? LB: Well, let's see--let me get the Bible. BM: Okay. pause in recording BM: There were three children. LB: Iva's the oldest. Leo Frank. MM: Born in what year? BM: What year were you born, Leo? LB: Oh, in 1897. BM: 1897. LB: October the 18th. BM: Then? LB: Then Clarence Bruce was born March 3, 1902. And he died in infancy, didn't live but a few days. And there was a girl born, oh the first--no, she was born February 4, 1906, and she didn't--she died in infancy. She died May 1, 1906, that same year. MM: You were the sole-- BM: You're the sole, you are the only one that-- LB: The only child. BM: The only child. LB: Mmm-hmm. BM: You stated here a while back, Leo, that you remembered when the first school was built there. LB: Well, I should be able to give you that [indecipherable] description, but I can't and I don't know-- BM: Why, Leo, we--we uh-- LB: [inaudible] BM: --we have the-- LB: --already-- BM: --we have the description and all of that. You stated, though, that you remembered when the first school was--first schoolhouse was built. Is that right? LB: Yes, sir. BM: Any particular thing happen during the building of that school that you remember of? LB: Nothing that was really of importance. I knew that I was just very small boy and I was standing around and getting where I was in the way when they were--the people were putting up the school, building the school. And they--come of them got after me for being in the way there, I can remember that part of it. BM: At that time, Leo, where did your parents live? LB: They lived--well, now, they lived in a little--I'm turned around. I get my directions crossed up there. But the road that goes down to, past where Abner Bruce lives now? Well they lived on down that road at the foot of that hill, you know, there's quite a hill there. BM: Yeah. On that hill there. LB: Mmm-hmm. They lived on the, right past Abner's. They lived on the left. BM: On the left-hand side-- LB: Left-hand side of the road right at the foot of the hill. BM: Right at the foot of that hill. LB: Mmm-hmm. BM: That would be on the north side of the road there, then. What's that road run east, east and west. They lived here right at the foot of the hill, then, before they got down to that little creek where Frank's house was. Is that right? LB: Yeah. Mmm-hmm. BM: What type of a house was that, Leo? LB: It was a log a house. BM: It was a log house. So, how many rooms was it? LB: I believe it was just two rooms. BM: How long did they live there in that house? LB: They lived there until statehood, you know, more of [indecipherable]. What would've been the election, you know, when they--in the fall of the year before statehood, would've been 1907, and I think statehood was January 1908. And they moved to Sapulpa in the fall of the year prior to statehood. BM: They moved to Sapulpa prior to statehood. MM: [Inaudible.] BM: Tell us about what's in that first schoolhouse being built. LB: Well, I was so small it's hard for me to-- MM: Tell us--you kind of played around it, [inaudible] while they was building it [inaudible]. LB: Well, I can't remember that the--it was just out in open land, there, you know, and I don't know whether they had any fences to speak of at that time that cut through there. Maybe it was just open land and I was just--didn't have anything else to do that I would just, just knew of the men that were working there and a big part of the time I was in their way. MM: And they kind of chased you off. BM: Uh-- MM: And you started school in the year-- BM: You started to school there when the--in that year of 19--when the first school opened, then. Is that right? LB: Yes. BM: And that teacher-- LB: Well, it must've been Nell Evans (ph). BM: Nell Evans (ph)? Or Nell Watson (ph)? LB: Nell, Nell Watson (ph), now wasn't she-- BM: She was the one that was in 1903. LB: --wasn't her maiden name Evans? BM: Well I--it could've been, I don't know. LB: And I think she married a Watson there in Bristow, could that be right? LB: Well, now that, that-- MM: No, Nell Evans was the third one. BM: Nell Evans was the third teacher down. LB: Oh, well-- MM: Might be the same one if she-- LB: I'm, I'm sorry--Witty McKeehan (ph) was the first teacher that, wasn't that right? MM: No, Nell Watson-- BM: Nell Watson and then Witty McKeehan (ph) was the second teacher. LB: Is that right. Well, I don't believe I went to school with a teacher Nell Watson on my time, I can't remember that. Because I always had the impression that--well, Witty (ph) and I talked about it, but I told people that Witty (ph) was my first schoolteacher. BM: Mmm-hmm. LB: But that might've been wrong, but as I remembered it, and I can remember with Witty (ph) teaching school there, and I was thinking that he was my first schoolteacher. MM: And what do you remember about Witty (ph)? BM: What do you remember about Witty McKeehan (ph) as a teacher? LB: Well, I thought that--of course, it was easy for me to somehow make an impression on me, you know, but I thought he was really smart. (laughs) MM: [Inaudible.] BM: Who all went to school with you there at that time, Leo? That you can remember? LB: Well, that was-- BM: Take your time now, and think. LB: It's hard to remember many of them because they're so--there was a family by the name of Campbell. I don't remember for sure how they spelled their name, I think it was C-A-M-P-B-E-L-L Campbell. I think they went to school there. And there was (pause) and there was two (pause) I want to say scholars, pupils, that were, they were practically grown. [Indecipherable] a boy and a girl, they--they were--to me they were man and a woman. BM: Mmm-hmm. LB: --went to school there, and I can remember that. And then there was, I think there was more than one Stubblefield, I believe. There's a Charlie Stubblefield, I think Charlie Stubblefield is still there, and there's--we knew him as Letch, was that his actual name? BM: I have a Letch Stubblefield-- LB: Letch Stubblefield. BM: There was a Letch Stubblefield as well as a Charlie Stubblefield. LB: And then Sam, there was a Sammy Stubblefield. Those three might've gone to school there. And I'm pretty sure Clarence Myers went to school there. And the Mayes (ph) children, Miss [indecipherable] Mayes (ph) was [indecipherable] a teacher there. And her brother, Willie, his name was Willie Mayes (ph), they went to school there. And a Tom McEwan (ph), I think his father's name was Billy--Bill McEwan (ph), he would've been a nephew to the teacher, Woody. BM: To Woody. LB: [inaudible] Now that first year I can't be sure about that but those are the pupils that I remember that went to school to Pinehill there in the early days. And Rosie Lindsey (ph) went to school there. And she was always in school. That was before she and Frank Bruce were married. BM: Your mother taught school there too, in case you hadn't-- LB: That's right. BM: Do you have any idea--there had been a story and we had been told that she didn't complete her term there for some reason or other. Do you have any idea what that reason was, Leo? LB: Well, it's possible that it could've been her--they moved to Sapulpa there. I don't know. MM: No, that she-- BM: No, they said something about her health or something or other, about that time. LB: Can't remember that. BM: Clarence Myers was the one that told us that. Now, could it have been possible that it could've been on the count of the youngest girl. LB: That's possible. [inaudible] BM: I believe on her-- LB: It was 1906 when she died, that-- BM: Yeah, in 1906. So it's very possible then, that the reason your mother didn't complete that term of school was on the count of your sister. LB: I don't know. MM: Do you remember Ernest Sawell? BM: Do you remember Ernst Sawell? S-A-W-E-L-L? LB: No, I don't recall. MM: He finished the term [inaudible]. BM: He finished the term, that term, for your mother. That was according to Clarence Myers. MM: Do you remember Will D. Wilson (ph)? LB: [Indecipherable.] BM: He came in, Will D. came in, after your mother taught there. LB: It was the next term, probably, wasn't it. BM: And Ernest Sawell, the next term, well then Will D. Wilson came in and taught the next term. LB: Hmm. Well I--you asked who went to school there, I'm sure Leo Pinehill went to school there. MM: Yes, [inaudible]. LB: And [indecipherable] probably Mary and-- MM: Mary. BM: The--all three of those kids. LB: --Pinehill children. UW: I don't know whether the Biggs went that early or not. And some of the Big Mosquitoes (ph). LB: [Inaudible.] BM: In later years, then, Leo, in later years you went to--you came back in that country. You came back in that country. Did you or did you not? LB: Yes, it was several-- BM: In later years, several, several years after that-- LB: In later years. MM: About what year was that? BM: About what year was did you come back out in there, Leo? LB: Oh, (pause). When was the [indecipherable] war, well that's--I just read it in the history--day before [indecipherable], World War I? When the armistice was signed? MM: [Inaudible.] BM: Nineteen-eighteen or 1919. LB: It was about two or three years before that, prior to that, that I was out there. BM: Was any you--when you came back out there, then, where did you, where did you move to at that time? LB: Oh, I just stayed there with my grandparents, Coley Bruce--Coleman Bruce. And I ran a store for a few years. BM: You ran a store there. Alright, where was that store located at? LB: It was about--how far would it be from where the last school was there east across--just across Polecat Bridge there, and about a quarter-- MM: Quarter east and a quarter north-- BM: No, half east and a quarter north-- MM: Half a mile east and quarter north. BM: Half east and a quarter north. MM: Alright, what kind of store, how big a store, tell us about it. BM: How big a store was that, Leo? LB: Oh I just--couldn't really call it a store, it was more--in this day and time you'd think of it more as a concession stand because we had no refrigeration, you know, and didn't even keep ice, but about all I kept was flour and canned goods and stuff that was not perishable, couldn't spoil. And tobacco, cans of tobacco. MM: How long did you run it? LB: Didn't even have, didn't even have sodee pop. (laughs) BM: How long did you run that store, Leo? LB: I think it was a little over two years. BM: When your parents moved into the Sapulpa area, what did your father--what was your father's occupation at that time? LB: Well, of course he was a farmer, well then he was elected. He ran for county clerk. And he was elected county clerk. BM: He was elected country clerk. MM: What year? BM: What year was he elected county clerk? LB: Well, that would've been in 1907, wouldn't that be right? Nineteen-seven, prior to statehood. Statehood I think was January 1908. MM: How many years did he serve? LB: He served seven years [inaudible]. The election they held before statehood--or the first election as I remember it was an off year, and when they had the next election why, they held it when--on the regular year that the elections have always been held since and the [inaudible]-- BM: On an even year, then. LB: --the terms were two years, two year terms. And his first term as I remember it was only a year there. He just served a year until the next election and then it was like a regular term, for two more terms. BM: Now he was elected down near the--the first term, then, he would've been elected. He went in, then in about 1909. His first term would've been about 1909. MM: No, 1907-- LB: A full term. BM: A full term, first year--first term. MM: What did your mom and dad do? Did they move back to the Pinehill community? LB: No. BM: At the present time, do you still-you still own some land out in that part, do you or do you not, Leo? LB: Yes. BM: Let's back up. What year, Leo, did you get married? LB: That would've been 19--(pauses), that would be 1927. It was [indecipherable]. MM: He was married October 18, 18--no. LB: It may not give it. MM: March 26, 1927. LB: [Inaudible.] BM: And what was her name? LB: Ida Shockley. BM: Ida Shockley. And to that marriage how many children were there, Leo? LB: Two. BM: Two. What were their-- LB: Two boys. BM: Two boys. What were their names? LB: Kaye Don, K-A-Y-E Don D-O-N, Kaye Don Bruce, and Robert Bruce. BM: Kaye Don and Robert Bruce. Are those children still alive? LB: Yes. BM: Where is Kaye Don at, at the present time? LB: He's in Richmond, Washington. State of Washington. BM: And Robert? LB: He's in Mexico City. BM: Mexico City. He's down with all them pretty senoritas, then. LB: Well, both those boys married senoritas. BM: Oh, they did! MM: Kaye Don was married to Francisca Alexius (ph) and Robert married Elesia Montaguerrez (ph). BM: Kaye Don, I know, went to school out here. I remember Kaye Don going to school out there at Pinehill. LB: [inaudible] that's right. BM: Kaye Don went to school out there. LB: About one year. BM: Yeah, and he--at that time, I think, my best memory, it was just--you lived just west of Cherry Creek (ph) on the south side of the road. In later years the house burned. Troy Livingston (ph)-- LB: Was living in there-- BM: Troy and Plessie (ph) was living in the house when it burned. I believe it's right, is that-- LB: That's right, that's right. MM: How many Pinehill school buildings do you remember? [Inaudible.] LB: Well I don't know whether there'd have been three, there were three, wasn't there? BM: Well we've got reports of three, we've got reports of four, so we don't know. MM: The one that [inaudible]-- BM: But when do you remember the ones that you remember, Leo? Where were they located at? LB: West--well the first one, of course, was there at the crossroads where--and the next one was (pause) Well, you see, the next one as I remember it was a higher elevation than the last one. BM: Yeah. LB: It was kind of up on the hill-- BM: It would've been a mile--the second one that you remember would've been a mile north and about a quarter of a mile west of where the first schoolhouse was built. Then the third one was built down in under the hill. LB: As I remember-- BM: Is that--that's the way you-- LB: As I remember it, yes, but if there were four buildings, why-- MM: The first one apparently-- LB: --that could've been crossed up some way there, see. BM: The first one-- MM: The one they think was the second one only lasted three years before it was burned, from 1909 to 1912. LB: Could it've been where the last one burned? And then-- MM: No, one was a quarter of a mile--a mile south of the last one and about--what, a quarter east? BM: The first one, from the first school house, where the first one was built, was a mile south and about a quarter east, kind of sitting on the hill up there on the prairie. Was the third where you remember the first one being built, is that right? That would be at the crossroads. LB: That's right. BM: That would be a mile south of the last schoolhouse. LB: That's right. BM: And about a quarter east. Or was it right in the corner? LB: Seems to me like it was right at the road, almost at the road there. BM: Well on this, that would be the one John Rossander was talking about, then. MM: John Rossander says he can show you the foundation, he must know. LB: I guess so. MM: 'Course he-- BM: So then they tell me that there was another one built up on top of the hill, which would be east of the one on the crossroads. LB: [Inaudible] it's possible, but I wouldn't remember that. BM: Was your dad--wasn't your dad elected to a term as sheriff? In Creek County? LB: Yes, he served two terms as sheriff. BM: He served two terms as sheriff of Creek County. Well then, he was--that was in what year, Leo? Do you remember? LB: No, I don't. I'm not sure, I'd have to look that up. BM: Well they did Mote-- LB: Mote ran for sheriff but he-- BM: After Abner was-- LB: After Abner served just two terms, yes. BM: That's what I--that's the way I remember it but I never had got that-- LB: That's right. BM: --I never had got that off any of the, anybody else but you. (pause) Is there any funnies that you can--that you remember that went on at the school during your school days there? Is there anything, any funny happened that you remember? LB: Well, I can't think of anything amusing right now. BM: To you memory, then, what, what all was the school used for, Leo? LB: It was--they had church there a lot, as I remember it, and then they had a literary society there in the community. I can remember those meetings were a lot. They'd have--they'd come in there of an evening and I guess they had a certain night of the week that they'd have the literary but I can't remember when. BM: We've got different reports on these literaries, but we never have really pinpointed it down to just what all went on at these literaries. LB: I can remember they had the dialogues and recitations and they'd have songs. They didn't have a musical instrument there, but I think sometimes someone would try to sing a song, I can remember that. But the main thing that I remember was the recitations and dialogues and I can't remember--I can't remember the church meetings so well. That--I'm sure that they did have church in the first building. BM: Also we have been told that it was used for a voting precinct in later years. It was used as a voting precinct. And in the early days they held court in that school. Do you know anything about that? LB: No. BM: We've been told something about a kangaroo court and I've tried to pinpoint that down. LB: Mm-hmm. No. BM: I forgot now who it was that--Virgil Vann, I believe it was, that was telling us about the kangaroo court, but I never could get him pinned down. Tried to find out if the kangaroo courts--that they put on during one of these literaries meetings or whether it was a real honest to goodness kangaroo court. But I've never been able to get it pinned down. MM: [Inaudible.] BM: Okay. MM: As far as we know, and as far as we've been able to tell, Leo, you were the first white child born in that community. Leo Frank Bruce. And you was born (pause) what the date was--10/01/1897. October the-- LB: Ten the eighteenth. MM: --ninety-seven. Your father was Abner Louis Bruce and he was born 09/23/1871, died 01/18/1952. His brothers were Frank--James Franklin, J. Smith, and Moten R. and Roy Clyde and his sister was Cora Belle. Your mother was Ella May Stowe, she was born 06/27/1876 and died 05/09/1948. Your grandfather was Coleman Robert Bruce, he was born in 1847 and died in 1926. His broth--your uncles and aunts was--his brothers and sisters was Pleasant Alfred, James A. (ph), John H. (ph), Richard H., Moten (ph), Charles F. (ph), Wesley A., George Washington (ph), Adam Vivian, Alpha Ann, Laura E. (ph), Susie Jane, Dora Ree (ph) and Katie V. LB: There was a bunch of them. MM: And his wife was Alpha Ann Moore, she was born in 1848 and died in 1923. Your grandfather--your great-greatfather, then, was James Thomas Bruce, he was born August 1824 and married in March 1846, he married Francis S. Vivian pause in recording as tape switches to Side B MM: --Bruce was born December 1802 and died March 1885, he was married Elizabeth L. Swinney and I think that's enough of the tree to go back on there. I just found the tree on his father's side. His mother's tree is here also but I don't think we'll run anything on it. This was from Leo Bruce's family Bible. Leo, what do you remember--what did you think about Pinehill? What does it mean to you? LB: Well I was--I don't know how to describe it. I really liked the community out there, you know, and of course the mental [indecipherable] child, why, they usually appreciate or like the child more than they do after they get grown and have to get out and face the-- BM: Face the world. LB: --cold, cold world. MM: Well, you were never really apart from it. Your folks has always been there, you've been back and forth the whole dang--your life, haven't you? LB: Mmm-hmm. Yeah, I remember several times that we moved to town here, why, during my school vacation, why, I would go out there and when I'd go out there, why, I planned to stay all summer! And spend the summer vacation out there. But just a little while I, I'd get homesick, I'd want to see my folks and come back to Sapulpa and that, that'd be about the end of my vacation. BM: About the end of your vacation. MM: What'd you do on vacation out there? LB: Well, they--I pretended to help a little with the farming and I remember my grandfather Coleman Bruce, he and I fished a lot and I really enjoyed that. MM: Where'd you fish? LB: Fished in Polecat. MM: What'd you catch? LB: Well, we didn't catch anything but little old--little fish. Perch and catfish. Sunfish. MM: Did you ever hunt? LB: Not much. I've hunted some but I'm not much of a hunter. MM: Where was your swimming hole? LB: Well the main swimming hole there was--it was in Polecat there, and it was just this side of where, where we lived, you know, when Don went to school there at Pinehill. Just this side there, down--walk to what would be the south side of the road there, just a little ways from the road. MM: Did you get in on them watermelon stealing on them summer vacations? LB: No, I can't remember stealing any watermelons. But I can remember, I can remember the Polecat there, it wasn't anything like it was in later years. I can remember one place on further down--can you two remember where the falls was? BM: Yes. I do. LB: I think since Heyburn's been built, Heburn dam's been built there, I guess there's not any falls there anymore, it's filled up. But just above--just north of where the falls were there, I can remember at one time there was a big hole there and it was deep. And I can remember several times, people talking about it, that they were impressed with it--that you could take regular cane fishing pole, you know, and you couldn't-- BM: Couldn't touch bottom. LB: Couldn't touch bottom. BM: Now, was that the hole that they call the old Blokesie (ph) Hole? LB: I wouldn't know. I [inaudible]. MM: Was any hunting done, any--do you remember any hunting? LB: Well, not to speak of. I can remember my uncle Frank Bruce, I can remember that he hunted quite a bit and I can't be sure about that. I don't know--I noticed you said that in the [indecipherable] there, you read where they sold quails on the market, but I can't--I don't know if he ever sold quail on the market or not. But I can remember he had a bird dog that he was real proud of, and that poor old dog would--he hunted with him so much that he had, his feet would get sore. And I can remember he tried to--it wasn't a success, he couldn't do much good with it, but he would try to make shoes or moccasins for this poor old dog, for his feet. Course he wouldn't keep them, couldn't keep them on, you know, but that worried him a lot that-- BM: Thought the old dog's feet would get so sore. LB: Mmm-hmm. MM: Do you remember any of the early oil industry in there, or anything like that? LB: Well now, see, when I had the store out there they had a (pause) I think they called it a booster station, didn't they, the Texas Oil Company had a station right down below the hill there from where the store was. BM: Be out west. LB: And, yes, that's right. They worked several men, I don't--I can't remember how many men, but there were several men worked there. And I know they had a telegraph operator. Of course they had the old line that went right along with the pipeline there, you know. MM: What, did they send messages to local people if they needed it? LB: No, not much, they may have but I didn't hear of it. But they used it for the old business down there. But I can remember that the line walkers--they'd have a line walker that would walk this line and I think they had [inaudible] can remember more than one line walker that they had that'd stop in there at the store and-- MM: Do you remember any flooding caused at Polecat before the dam up in that area? LB: No, I don't think it flooded much but I can remember that--I can remember the creek would really get high and they had more rain than they have now. I can remember you could the creek roar. You could hear the roar of the waters. I remember one time, I don't know whether it would be of interest to you or not, it wasn't very important, but really made an impression on me when--you see, my grandfather, that was the house where I was born as I remember it. They referred to it as the Old Stockade House. The logs were built, or placed, up-and-down and not--how do I want to say it? Horizontal? BM: They were vertical but wasn't horizontal. LB: Mmm-hmm. And it was a story-and-a-half house, I guess. See, I know they had rooms or a room up above, they had a stairway I know. But I know that was the house where I was born, this Old Stockade House. Well I can remember one time my uncle Mote Bruce--we were going from that--as I remember it, now--we were, I was behind him on a horse, and we were trying to go from this Old Stockade House over to where my parents lived there at the foot of the hill where I told you about. I can remember the creek being up. And it was probably right there about where the bowl where the falls was, you can remember there was a crossing there. And I remember that he stopped there on the-- BM: Bank of the creek. LB: --other side of the bank of the creek and watched that water for, oh, several minutes. He didn't say anything, you know, just sit there, we sit there on the horse and just watching the water. And he finally said to me, he says, Now Leo, you hang on to me real tight, you hear? Of course that made an impression on me and I grabbed ahold of him and we slid down into the water there. And course the water came right up to our waist, you know, we were--and all you could see of the poor old horse was just his head and ears sticking up there right in front of us and I can remember the logs and stuff floating down the river, the creek there. And I can remember that horse was really pulling, but we swam the creek to get on the other side but I never knew what was so important that he had to get from my grandfather's house over there back to our house. He might've just been wanting to get rid of me! (laughs) He swam that creek to get-- BM: He swam the creek with the old horse to-- LB: To get back to where [indecipherable]. BM: To get back-- MM: I believe you told me one time about you and Charlie Blythe watching the first surrey with a fringe on top. Do you remember that? It was there at your grandpa's, and-- LB: Yes, I just barely, I can remember. Well, I can remember that was kind of a, kind of a meeting place for a lot of people over the country there at my grandparents' house. I think Charlie--seems like I can remember Charlie stopping in there more than once-- MM: What about surrey with a fringe on top? LB: --on Sundays, you know. But what I remember, one time, there was a surrey that crossed that little--there was a little--oh, we called it--it was probably Cherry Creek. It was Cherry Creek would've been right there. I can remember that surrey with a fringe on top coming and crossing that creek and coming up right up by our--my grandparents' house. MM: Was it pretty or what-- LB: But who they were--yeah, it was, I thought it was a really fancy carriage. But I can't remember who was driving it, who they were, or anything about it. BM: You can still drive down--or you could, you could still drive down to that old crossing there on Cherry Creek. You could here a few years back. I don't know whether you still can or not. Down by where the Old Stockade House was. There was a cross there, that was the roadway where the crossing was there on Cherry Creek, went right down to Polecat, on down to just above what they call the lower falls. LB: Those lower falls, I don't know if I was ever right at that location or not. But I can remember the people speaking of the lower falls and-- BM: Now, this next summer, when we present and dedicate this thing to the state of Oklahoma, we'd like--I want you to come out and if the Lord is willing, I'll try to take you back up Polecat as far as we can and show you where the old falls that you remember crossing on the horse, where it is located today and show you where the old lower falls were there on Polecat and try to show you where the old roadway used to go down through there. LB: Mmm-hmm. BM: You can drive down quite a ways down in there by where the Old Stockade House used to be. What you would--at the present time you would have to cross from where you lived there where the house burned for Troy and Plessie (ph) lived, and it burned, you would have to come back east across Cherry Creek, to Cherry Creek. There's Little Cherry and Big Cherry Creek. Big Cherry Creek-- LB: Yeah, that's what I was wondering about-- BM: Big Cherry Creek was the one that you were talking about the old crossing was down by the Old Stockade House-- MM: I don't think you asked him where his property he owns out there is. BM: --come back to where, oh, it's about two hundred yards east of Little Cherry Creek, there's a road that goes south, goes back off down, winds back around, down almost to where the Old Stockade House used to be. And where the old crossing was down here. At the present time I think Louis or Andrew, one of them, has it fenced in and you can't drive all the way down to where the old crossing was. LB: I was--oh, several times I went over there when we lived out there, you know, in the house that burned, you know, when Troy and Plessie (ph) lived there. I went there several times, I went over to that location but it's changed so much, it's-- BM: It's really changed now. LB: --wouldn't, wouldn't know it was the same place. BM: It's changed, it's changed altogether now to what it was then, even. MM: Ask him where his property is [inaudible]. BM: The property that you still own out there at the present time, Leo, where is it located? LB: Well, it's right there at the corner of the road where the road, one road goes over to what is Shepherd Point and the other [inaudible] and seventy acres. BM: You own seventy acres there. LB: But I really don't own that place because--see, I just had forty acres and that road goes right through that forty so forty in here a few years ago, I bought the surface thirty acres from the allottee, I forget who she was, she lives down at Okmulgee. That joins there on the west there, thirty acres, so I really have what you and me would call for seventy acres but the road takes up a lot of it, I don't know how many acres [inaudible]. But part of that goes right where the, goes right up where--you remember where Loyd Bruce used to live there. I don't know, you folks--did you ever [inaudible]. Because that's--oh, Mastersons lived there a while, one of them. BM: Yeah, right there in the corner, say, Roy Bruce had the house right there in the corner with a cedar tree in the yard. LB: Yeah. Mmm-hmm. BM: We didn't live there in that corner there. Dan, Dan Masterson (ph) lived there in the corner. And Louis lived south over there on--well, just north of the Old Stockade House. LB: Mmm-hmm. BM: Where the Old Stockade House was. LB: Mmm-hmm. BM: And we lived on south down there, well it'd just be right there on the banks of the creek. And we moved over in the field, back over west of there in a field by the old Blokesie (ph) hole, the old swimming hole. LB: Mmm-hmm. MM: [Inaudible.] BM: Then we moved back up-- end of recording. audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0012-01_Leo_Bruce.xml OHP-0012-01_Leo_Bruce.xml
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Title
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Leo Frank Bruce
Description
An account of the resource
In this 1976 interview, Leo Frank Bruce (1897-1990), the first white child born in the Pinehill Community outside of Bristow, Oklahoma, describes his life in the area prior to statehood including their early home structures and the approximate location of their homesteads. He also identifies some of the first schoolteachers and his schoolmates in the community. He discusses talks about running a small dry goods store prior to refrigeration/electricity, his family’s subsequent move to Sapulpa when his father was elected as the first Creek County clerk, and subsequently as the Creek County sheriff. Finally, he describes social events in the Pinehill community such as literaries, fishing, and the first time he ever saw a surrey with a fringe on top.
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OHP-0012-01
Subject
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Pinehill Community and School
Date
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1976-11-12
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audio
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Pinehill Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
History of the Pinehill area north of Bristow
Description
An account of the resource
Several interviews were done by Mary and Bob Mc Carty of people who grew up in the Pinehill area north of Bristow. This collection is the Pinehill subset of the Bristow Oral Histories
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Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
Type
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Oral history.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Robert L. “Bob” McCarty
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
John Rossander
Iva Irene (Millhouse) Rossander
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https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0005-02_John_Rossander.xml
Interview Keyword
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Pinehill
oil
farming
cotton
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5.4 OHP-0005-02 John and Iva Rossander OHP-0005-02 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Pinehill Community Bristow Historical Society, Inc. Pinehill Community and School Pinehill oil farming cotton John Rossander Iva Irene (Millhouse) Rossander Robert L. “Bob” McCarty MP3 1:|27(6)|49(2)|67(3)|83(2)|91(9)|105(9)|129(4)|150(7)|183(1)|215(14)|233(12)|265(5)|309(3)|344(7)|365(8)|401(9)|416(10)|436(14)|447(11)|466(5)|480(2)|488(18)|502(6)|514(3)|532(9)|550(8)|564(11)|591(3) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0005-02 Rossander, John & ; Iva.mp3 Other audio 0 Making the move to Pinehil BM: --here with John Rossander and Iva Rossander in their home, 10/22/1976 time 20 minutes ‘til four. pause in tape BM: John, what year did your mother and dad come into this community? JR: Nineteen-nine. BM: What was their names? JR: Zeke and Sarah Rossander. Discussion of moving to the Pinehill community Iva Rossander ; John Rossander ; Pinehill ; Sarah Rossander ; Zeke Rossander Pinehill ; Rossander 91 Pinehill School BM: How many of them went to the Pinehill School? JR: Well, every one of them except—no, let’s see, there’s four: Rubilee (ph)—I mean Maudie (ph), Rubilee (ph), Alice (ph) and Evelyn (ph) didn’t go. They died when they were young. BM: Whenever your folks came to this part of the country, where did they migrate in here? JR: Right from north of Drumright. Going to school at Pinehill and first teacher Edith Whiteneck ; Pinehill ; Pinehill School ; teacher Pinehill 183 Oil and Cotton BM: What did you family do for a liv—what did you or your parents do for a living whenever they came to this part of the— JR: (laughs) Farmed. Cotton. BM: They had a cotton farm. JR: Yep. Family's cotton farm and the first oil well in the Pinehill area cotton ; drilling ; Elsa Self ; farm ; Hennesson Ware ; Iva Ware ; oil ; Owen Ware ; wells Farming cotton ; Oil wells 346 Members of Pinehill Community BM: What year did you and Iva get married? JR: In ’26. BM: Well, we better back up a little bit. You said a while ago that you remember Jake Roberts (ph). Discussion of where Pinehill community members lived Jake Roberts ; L.J. Florence ; log house ; Pinehill ; Smith Bruce ; Vann log house ; Pinehill 505 First Pinehill School MM: Where was the first school he went to? BM: Where was the first school that you went to, John? JR: Victory Chapel. BM: You went to Victory Chapel first, then— Location of the first Pinehill school Abner Bruce ; Leo Pinehill ; Mosquito place ; Pinehill ; Pinehill school ; Victory Chapel Pinehill school 578 Location of Pinehill School MM: Did you check and see if it’s running? (pause) There weren’t but one. BM: There’s been talk that there was one schoolhouse here, possibly two. Now do you know anything about that? JR: Well now, that don’t seem right to me. But there wasn’t but one. And it was right in the corner, in the northeast corner of Mosquito Creek. That’s where it sat. I can show you the rock, I think, where it sit. It wasn’t in the corner on Pinehill, this was close to the road where it turns down— Discussion on the location of the Pinehill school Abner Bruce ; Mosquito Place ; Murta Mosquito ; Pinehill ; school ; schoolhouse Pinehill school 748 Second Pinehill School JR: Because they built the new schoolhouse over here, then. BM: They built a new schoolhouse up on the hill. JR: On the Grandpa Bly’s (ph) place. BM: On the Grandpa Bly (ph) place. JR: Yeah, other word to it was, I guess it was Phoebe Bruce’s. No? Location of the second Pinehill school Bly ; Phoebe Cairnly ; Pinehill ; Pinehill School Pinehill School 802 Activities at the school house BM: What all, what all activities was the school used for? JR: Well, when I went to school? BM: Yeah, when you went to school there, from the time that you remember the school starting— JR: It was just baseball and— The many activities that took place at the Pinehill schoolhouse baseball ; Christmas Programs ; church ; fairs ; literary ; pie supper ; Pinehill ; polling precinct ; school ; Sunday School activities ; Pinehill ; school ; schoolhouse 906 Mark Saxon BM: Who done the fighting? JR: Who? BM: That you remember? JR: (laughs) Uh, Mark Saxon (ph) and oh, I can’t think of that other guy’s name. That was the first fight I ever seen. Seeing Mark Saxon get in a fight and his family history Arthur Barnes ; Bill Baker ; Ellen ; fights ; Gertrude ; Mark Saxon ; Pinehill ; Skeeter Creek ; Smith Bruce Mark Saxon ; Pinehill 1088 Rabbits for dinner JR: Well, now, on this same place I can’t think of them people that lived there. After that, a while after that, they had two girls and one boy and they was great big old husky girls and what their names was now I can’t think of it. I used to tease Homer about one of them girls. In 19—I don’t know what. They killed rabbits and it was a baaaad winter. Hunting rabbits during a bad winter hunt ; Rabbits ; winter hunting rabbits 1191 John and Iva marry BM: What year did you and Iva, what year was you and Iva married? JR: In ’26. BM: 1926. JR: Third day of February. The date of John and Iva Rossander's marriage 1926 ; Iva Rossander ; John Rossander ; marriage Marriage 1224 Poem from the Literary BM: --you said while ago that you [inaudible] (tape garbled) --or you know a poem that—literary-- IR: --remember it—[inaudible]. (tape garbled) BM: Well, let’s have it! Iva recites the poem from the literary literary ; poem literary 1313 Working Days MM: You want to ask him about the [indecipherable]? BM: You, John, what all work have you done since you and Iva were, had been married? JR: Well, I mostly farmed, but we went to New Mexico in ’36. I worked for a rancher out there and I worked seven days a week from sun ‘til sun for two dollars a day. And I kept wantin’ them to give me a day off, ‘cause it was just driving me crazy. Memories of working and various jobs biscuits ; Culverson Saw Mill ; drop herds ; Edward Hunt Sheep Company ; farm ; lamb ; mutton ; sheep ; sidelined ; work farming ; sheep ; work 1530 Jake Roberts Place BM: What about the Jake Roberts place, you said something about the Jake Roberts place, the Jake Roberts lease or place? Earlier? JR: Well, Jake Roberts, they, they used to when we first came here, they had all the good horses. Good horses. They was workin’ negroes. Colored folks. Really working. And there was Jake, he was old as I am, and then there was Johnny Roberts (ph) and Walk Roberts (ph), and—Walk lives over here this side of the 66 yet. Arthur, that’s Arthur. Discussion of Jake Roberts and slaves allotted ; freedman ; horses ; Indian Slaves ; Indian Territory ; Jake Roberts ; Johnny Roberts ; Rubin Moore ; slavery ; Walk Roberts ; white slaves Indian Territory ; Jake Roberts ; slaves In this 1976 interview, John Rossander (1904-1984) and wife Iva Irene (Millhouse) Rossander (1905-1999) discuss their childhood and the early days of their marriage spent in the Pinehill community outside Bristow, Creek County, Oklahoma, as well as time spent working in New Mexico at a sheep farm during their early marriage. John describes childhood events such as tracking a missing hog for a neighbor. He also works with the interviewer to pinpoint the locations of neighbors and the locations of early Pinehill school buildings on a map. John also discusses the Jake Roberts, an African-American freedman living on an Indian allotment who was a successful horse breeder. BM: --here with John Rossander and Iva Rossander in their home, 10/22/1976 time 20 minutes ' ; til four. pause in tape BM: John, what year did your mother and dad come into this community? JR: Nineteen-nine. BM: What was their names? JR: Zeke and Sarah Rossander. MM: [Inaudible.] BM: What was your mother' ; s name before-- JR: Stanton. BM: Stanton. How many children were they to that marriage? JR: Twelve. BM: Would you give me their names? JR: Well (laughs), yeah, I can give--Vera (ph)--I mean, Esther (ph), then Vera (ph), John (ph), Cecil (ph), Homer (ph), Marcella (ph), Buford (ph), Rubilee (ph), Maudie (ph), Alice (ph), and Evelyn (ph). (talking in background) JR: I named Homer (ph). IR: Hilma (ph)! JR: Oh, Hilma (ph)! MM: [Inaudible.] JR: She was born after Evelyn (ph). BM: How many of them went to the Pinehill School? JR: Well, every one of them except--no, let' ; s see, there' ; s four: Rubilee (ph)--I mean Maudie (ph), Rubilee (ph), Alice (ph) and Evelyn (ph) didn' ; t go. They died when they were young. BM: Whenever your folks came to this part of the country, where did they migrate in here? JR: Right from north of Drumright. BM: What, do you know or did you hear them say what year they came to the state of Oklahoma? JR: Yes sir--oh! State of Oklahoma, oh, they were more or less raised here. Grandpa came from Kansas and dad came down here when he was twelve years old, out on the homestead. BM: They come down from Kansas, then, when he was twelve years old? JR: Yeah. BM: Who was your first teacher at Pinehill School? JR: Well, really I can' ; t really tell you for sure, but I think it was Edith Whiteneck. I was small for my age. BM: What did you family do for a liv--what did you or your parents do for a living whenever they came to this part of the-- JR: (laughs) Farmed. Cotton. BM: They had a cotton farm. JR: Yep. BM: What year do your--what year do you remember seeing the first oil well in this community? JR: Let' ; s see, [indecipherable] a well, it was--I guess it was 1912. Believe it was. BM: Was it--what do you remember about the old Ware (ph) place over there? JR: Owen Ware (ph)? I just, myself, the only thing I can remember, well, I can remember several things but I remember when they lived there, Iva Ware (ph) and all them was there, and Old Man--old Hennesson Ware (ph) had a hog to get out, a big old spotted sow, and he came over there to dad' ; s and wanted dad to take and go and get her in, get her for him, because he couldn' ; t--he couldn' ; t get her in, couldn' ; t find her. And somebody' ; d told him that we had a dog that' ; d trail a hog up might near, regardless how old the scent was. And we went off east of his house and found a track, which it looked dim to me. And I took that old--dad told him that he couldn' ; t, but he said I could. So I took my dog and went over there and I pointed down at the track, I said, " ; Get it, Nigs." ; And he took off. And he, he bayed that hog back east of Elsa Self, way back over in them hills in there. But what year that was, I can' ; t tell you. MM: You don' ; t remember drilling early oil wells on the Ware (ph) place, do you? BM: Do you remember the early oil wells that was on the Ware (ph) place? JR: No, I don' ; t remember what year that--I remember ' ; em but I don' ; t know what year it were. BM: What year did you and Iva get married? JR: In ' ; 26. BM: Well, we better back up a little bit. You said a while ago that you remember Jake Roberts (ph). JR: Yep. BM: You said also that you remembered when he came into this part of the country. Where did he settle first? JR: Over here east of Smith Bruce' ; s on Browder (ph), Browder' ; s (ph) place. In an old log house there. And Smith Bruce and them used to live there and in 1910 they built their log house over here. And they moved on that twenty acres. He bought twenty acres and he moved on it in 1910. BM: And he built a log house there in ' ; 20 that he bought-- JR: Yeah. In 1910. BM: In 1910. JR: And Jake lived there in that house down there I guess 1910, I don' ; t know what year it were. I can' ; t tell you that. BM: Then whenever they left, whenever they moved from the Browder Bruce (ph) place, they moved down over, then, and [indecipherable] the school, is that right? JR: No. BM: Where did they move to from there? IR: North of the school. BM: North of the school. JR: No, when they left there, they moved from there over to--they went from there over to L.J. Florence' ; s (ph) close to over here, and lived in a little old tent right over here by the big pecan tree and picked cotton for L.J. Florence (ph). Which that was their uncle. Yeah, that' ; d be Ella (ph) and them' ; s uncle. BM: When you say over here, back over here pointing back over here, what place would that be, John? JR: Well, that' ; d be the Vann place, used to be the Vann place, or BM: Step out there and get that map, Pat. We' ; ll come back to that in a minute, so get that map and then we can pinpoint, he can pinpoint the exact place that it was. MM: Where was the first school he went to? BM: Where was the first school that you went to, John? JR: Victory Chapel. BM: You went to Victory Chapel first, then-- JR: And they wouldn' ; t let us go up there because we was in a different district. BM: You were in Pinehill District? JR: Pinehill District. BM: So they stopped you from going to Victory Chapel. JR: Yeah. MM: [Inaudible.] BM: Now that first Pinehill School that you remember, where was it located at? JR: That I went to? BM: Yeah. First Pinehill School that you remember, where was-- JR: Oh, well I remember the one right there where [indecipherable] to Abner Bruce' ; s. Sat there in the corner on [indecipherable], one of the Mosquito places. BM: In other words, you remember this one here, then. JR: Yeah. BM: You remember the first one, then, that was built on Leo Pinehill. JR: Yeah, yeah. Well, it wasn' ; t Leo' ; s, wasn' ; t it? BM: Yeah, it-- JR: It was his dad' ; s, wasn' ; t it? BM: It' ; s Pinehill allotment, Leo--Leo' ; s JR: Yeah. BM: Leo' ; s, Pinehill' ; s allotment. JR: Yeah. MM: People argue that there wasn' ; t one. Some says that there was just one there and some say there were two. pause in recording MM: Did you check and see if it' ; s running? (pause) There weren' ; t but one. BM: There' ; s been talk that there was one schoolhouse here, possibly two. Now do you know anything about that? JR: Well now, that don' ; t seem right to me. But there wasn' ; t but one. And it was right in the corner, in the northeast corner of Mosquito Creek. That' ; s where it sat. I can show you the rock, I think, where it sit. It wasn' ; t in the corner on Pinehill, this was close to the road where it turns down-- BM: That runs east and westward. JR: Yes. It was in the northeast corner of that Mosquito place. MM: [Inaudible.] JR: I don' ; t know what section that' ; s in, but-- MM: [Inaudible.] JR: The section line goes east toward Abner Bruce' ; s. It sat right across the road in the northeast corner, right there. BM: Well that must' ; ve been there on--evidently, now, there had--there was two, there was two schools there, then. MM: Yeah. BM: There was two schools built there on that corner, then. The first one was built--this is that road that goes across there-- JR: This is north. BM: Right. This is the road that runs up and down the creek here. MM: [Inaudible.] BM: This right here is the road going across toward Abner Bruce' ; s. The first one was built on, over here on this Leo. And you said the other one was built in the northeast corner, so this' ; d have to be in here on this Murta M-U-R-T-A, Murta Mosquito, or something like that. JR: Yeah, it was built right in the corner. BM: Well, that would be right in this corner in here, then. JR: Well, I don' ; t know. I don' ; t understand-- MM: [Inaudible.] BM: That would be right here in that northeast corner. JR: And you know what happened to it, don' ; t you? BM: Well, they tell me this one here burnt in about 1908. The one up on the hill burnt in about 1908. And-- MM: Ask him what happened to that one. BM: What happened to this one? JR: Well, it burnt down, them boys, big boys, would go in there and have their parties and things in there and they, they just burnt it down. MM: See, now, he-- BM: Well how long-- MM: What year? BM: What, about what year was that, John? JR: Well, it was after 1909, I don' ; t know when. MM: About ' ; 12, I was told. JR: I can' ; t tell you that. IR: [Inaudible.] JR: Because they built the new schoolhouse over here, then. BM: They built a new schoolhouse up on the hill. JR: On the Grandpa Bly' ; s (ph) place. BM: On the Grandpa Bly (ph) place. JR: Yeah, other word to it was, I guess it was Phoebe Bruce' ; s. No? MM: [Inaudible.] JR: Grandpa Bly (ph) lived there, I don' ; t remember what year he came there. But it was built in the southeast corner of that place. BM: Down at Phoebe, Phoebe-- JR: Phoebe Bruce, Cairnly (ph). BM: Yeah, it' ; d be Phoebe Carinly (ph). JR: Yeah. Well, that' ; s where it was built. BM: Well that shows it to be right there. Then what year did that school burn, John? JR: I don' ; t know. BM: But it burnt too, did it or did it not? JR: Yeah. Yeah. MM: Three of them. BM: Then they built one down on the other hill. JR: Yeah. BM: Is that right? JR: Yeah. BM: What all, what all activities was the school used for? JR: Well, when I went to school? BM: Yeah, when you went to school there, from the time that you remember the school starting-- JR: It was just baseball and-- BM: What I' ; m trying to say, John, is this--was it used for other things than school activities? Now this goes back to the time that you remember the first school until it closed. What all different activities was it used for? JR: Well, they had a literary there and they had pie suppers there and they had Sunday school and church and--huh? MM: [Inaudible.] JR: And anyway, Christmas programs, all of them, they had them there. And that' ; s--huh? MM: [Inaudible.] JR: Yeah, they had fairs but I don' ; t know what year that were. But I think it were in--see I was about 14 or 15 years old. I guess I was 14, ' ; cause the year before I went to Inola. BM: Well was there any other activities that it was used for, besides what you had named? JR: Well, not that I can think of. BM: Did it ever, did the old--did the school ever use, was it ever used as a polling precinct? JR: Oh yeah, lots of--lot of fights there! BM: Who done the fighting? JR: Who? BM: That you remember? JR: (laughs) Uh, Mark Saxon (ph) and oh, I can' ; t think of that other guy' ; s name. That was the first fight I ever seen. BM: Sexton (ph)? JR: Mark Saxon (ph). BM: S-A-X-T-O-N? JR: Yeah. BM: Or S-A-X-O-N? JR: I, I don' ; t know which way it' ; s spelled. BM: Now, by any chance did he have two sisters? JR: Well-- BM: That you know of. JR: Now, Mark had, had two daughters. BM: Okay, now then, this--this is kind of light, now. That would be Gertrude and, oh-- JR: Ella-Ella-- BM: Ellen, Ella or something. I think it' ; s Ellen. Ellen. JR: Yep. BM: Gertrude and Ellen, that was their father. JR: Yeah, yeah. BM: Okay, where did they live, John, or do you remember? JR: Mmm-hmm. I don' ; t know who owned it, but I think Bill Baker owned it. Over on--well, let me see, it' ; d be three--one, two, three. It' ; d be three miles south and a mile east over here. Other words it' ; d be three miles straight south right down here by Smith Bruce' ; s. It' ; d be three miles straight south on the hill, the rocky hill up there. You know where Arthur Barnes lived. And it' ; s, it' ; s just built right around--and there' ; s a branch come in from the, the south and east, and then Skeeter Creek was on the west of it. And the house sat right up on that old rocky point. BM: In other words, they lived out on the very south end of the school district? JR: Yeah, yeah. Right on the south edge. BM: Right on the south edge of the school district. JR: Yeah. The section line runs through here and I think their house wasn' ; t as far as from here to the window to the highway. To the road. BM: To the road. But it was right on the south edge of the Pinehill district. JR: Yeah. BM: Alright. We get back to this, this thing I' ; ve got here, isn' ; t right. We know it isn' ; t, in fact it doesn' ; t cover enough south. MM: Well, but I was just going to say that poem from the literary-- IR: [Inaudible.] BM: And that' ; s one reason that I want you and Iva, when we get this other map and put these things down on it, you come up with some more information where people lived and anybody that I hadn' ; t run across yet. JR: Well, now, on this same place I can' ; t think of them people that lived there. After that, a while after that, they had two girls and one boy and they was great big old husky girls and what their names was now I can' ; t think of it. I used to tease Homer about one of them girls. In 19--I don' ; t know what. They killed rabbits and it was a baaaad winter. You could just go out with a club and just knock ' ; em in the head. And they had a barrel full of hind legs and backs. Backs. Of rabbits. Barrel full. And they had about a half a barrel full of front legs and the ribs and stuff. Sorted them! That was their meat for that summer. BM: But they used the rabbit as their--they used the rabbits as their meat. JR: Yeah, I told--that year, and they had them in the barn! Had these barrels out in the barn. BM: What year did you and Iva, what year was you and Iva married? JR: In ' ; 26. BM: 1926. JR: Third day of February. BM: Was there any children to that marriage? JR: No. [Inaudible.] (tape garbled) BM: --you said while ago that you [inaudible] (tape garbled) --or you know a poem that--literary-- IR: --remember it--[inaudible]. (tape garbled) BM: Well, let' ; s have it! IR: (reciting) " ; I jumped up in the cold morning in high glee and put on a [indecipherable] coat and [indecipherable] pants--Miss Kate [inaudible] (tape interference) when I got over there, there sat Bud Fat (ph)-- I did no more expect to see him sitting there than I' ; d expect to see a hare hid behind Uncle Tom Smith' ; s bald head. We got over there, we thought we' ; d go [indecipherable] hunting [inaudible] (tape interference) --one of these great big old squabby bullfrogs. He knew how to holler just as well as I did, he goes " ; WHOOO!" ; Knocked Miss Kate off in the creek half-waist deep. Old Fool Bud Fat (ph) ran down the creek to get a pole to help Miss Kate out and I jumped in there and I had her out in a little while! I ask her if she loved me to squeeze my hand, and she squeezed and she squeezed and she squeezed it off! My, how that felt. The next time Old Fool Bud Fat comes over to my house, I' ; m going to souse his head in the slop bucket." ; BM: (laughs) MM: You want to ask him about the [indecipherable]? BM: You, John, what all work have you done since you and Iva were, had been married? JR: Well, I mostly farmed, but we went to New Mexico in ' ; 36. I worked for a rancher out there and I worked seven days a week from sun ' ; til sun for two dollars a day. And I kept wantin' ; them to give me a day off, ' ; cause it was just driving me crazy. And they wouldn' ; t let me off. So I quit ' ; em. I' ; d been telling ' ; em I' ; d quit ' ; em. So I went to Culverson (ph) Saw Mill. And I begin to work at the mill. And I worked at the mill there for, oh, three to four days, a week, and they was supposed to get me some help and they wouldn' ; t do it--they didn' ; t do it. So I quit them and I worked for the--what' ; s his name? Hunt, Edward Hunt Sheep Company. And I picked up the drop herds. BM: When you say drop herds, what do you mean by the drop herds? JR: Well, the old ewes that had young and they wouldn' ; t claim ' ; em lot of times. And I had a thing concern with jointed pole and I' ; d hook them old ewes, I could see that they' ; d had young, and I' ; d hook them with that pole, catch ' ; em around the leg, and I' ; d hold ' ; em and I' ; d sideline ' ; em. And then I' ; d push a little lamb up there and they' ; d nurse, and I' ; d turn her loose. I mean, let her go. I' ; ve leave her sidelined. BM: What does sideline mean? JR: Well, I just put, tie her one front foot and one back foot together. That is, you know, where they can walk but still they couldn' ; t kick ' ; em or anything. And if you let ' ; em nurse one time, well then they' ; d take ' ; em and go on. BM: They' ; d take the, the little ones then and go on and raise the little ones? JR: Yeah, yeah. And I had to go to the sheep camp every day. I didn' ; t have to work only about--well, I' ; d start out early of a morning and then I' ; d have to go to the sheep camp and get there about 11:30. And I had to report in and every day I was there. There was hard tack biscuits and mutton and brown beans. That was the regular meal. MM: [Inaudible.] BM: Well how long were you in New Mexico? Why were you in New Mexico? JR: Well, I went out there more or less so maybe it' ; d help Iva, and she--other words, she had poor health and I thought maybe it' ; d help her, and she was homesick for her folks. BM: You mean Iva was still momma' ; s baby. JR: No, she was--she' ; s pretty good, but still she' ; s homesick. BM: She wanted to go see momma. MM: [Inaudible.] BM: What about the Jake Roberts place, you said something about the Jake Roberts place, the Jake Roberts lease or place? Earlier? JR: Well, Jake Roberts, they, they used to when we first came here, they had all the good horses. Good horses. They was workin' ; negroes. Colored folks. Really working. And there was Jake, he was old as I am, and then there was Johnny Roberts (ph) and Walk Roberts (ph), and--Walk lives over here this side of the 66 yet. Arthur, that' ; s Arthur. Walk is dead, that' ; s right. And them and then there, the old Rubin Moore' ; s (ph), back there across the road over there. We went right through their yard all the time. BM: The Robertses, then, the dealings that you had with Jake Roberts was buyin' ; horses off of him, is that right? JR: Oh, we didn' ; t buy any off of him, but they just had them-- BM: You weren' ; t trading with him, or-- JR: Huh-uh, no, we just knew him well, they was good clean colored folks. BM: Well you knew that, did you, or did you know that they, Jake Roberts was a freedman, out of slavery? Did you know that? JR: Well, yeah, yeah. BM: I' ; ve been trying to pinpoint down why that those colored people had been allotted land in the Indian territory. Some said they were Indian slaves. Others said no, they were white slaves. JR: I don' ; t know what, now, whether-- IR: There was-- JR: --Indians or whites, I can' ; t tell you that. IR: They were the Indian' ; s slaves. BM: Well that was report-- IR: They moved back here from the east, they had these slaves. BM: They were Indian slaves. JR: But I can' ; t tell you-- BM: Well, that there--that is what I wanted to make sure of. IR: [Inaudible.] BM: Speak up a little bit louder. IR: Oh, I' ; m just [inaudible]. BM: Okay. JR: But, I can' ; t, I can' ; t tell you that, but I do-- end of interview audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0005-02_John_Rossander.xml OHP-0005-02_John_Rossander.xml
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John and Iva Rossander
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In this 1976 interview, John Rossander (1904-1984) and wife Iva Irene (Millhouse) Rossander (1905-1999) discuss their childhood and the early days of their marriage spent in the Pinehill community outside Bristow, Creek County, Oklahoma, as well as time spent working in New Mexico at a sheep farm during their early marriage. John describes childhood events such as tracking a missing hog for a neighbor. He also works with the interviewer to pinpoint the locations of neighbors and the locations of early Pinehill school buildings on a map. John also discusses the Jake Roberts, an African-American freedman living on an Indian allotment who was a successful horse breeder.
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OHP-0005-02
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Pinehill Community and School
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1976-10-22
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audio
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550
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https://bristoworalhistory.org/files/original/411367f5f3b7767e49262235dff6485d.jpg
923e640f8860c105361aa8238e760a76
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Title
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Pinehill Histories
Subject
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History of the Pinehill area north of Bristow
Description
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Several interviews were done by Mary and Bob Mc Carty of people who grew up in the Pinehill area north of Bristow. This collection is the Pinehill subset of the Bristow Oral Histories
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Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
Type
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Oral history.
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Robert L. “Bob” McCarty
Interviewee
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Ira Lester Jones
Bonnie Muriel (West) Jones
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https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0005-01_Ira_Jones.xml
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Pinehill
School
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5.4 OHP-0005-01 Ira and Bonnie Jones OHP-0005-01 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Pinehill Community Bristow Historical Society, Inc. Pinehill Community and School Pinehill School Ira Lester Jones Bonnie Muriel (West) Jones Robert L. “Bob” McCarty MP3 1:|24(9)|46(5)|88(2)|106(10)|137(8)|158(4)|193(2)|225(8) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0005-01 Jones, Lester & ; Bonnie.mp3 Other audio 0 Life in Pinehill BM: What year, Lester, wait a minute, let me back up a minute. This is a tape of Lester Jones and his wife in their home living room, 10/18/76, time 7:30. Lester, what, what year was it that you was in the Pinehill community? LJ: Nineteen-and-twenty-five. BM: Did you ever go to school here? LJ: No. Life in Pinehill and the cattle operation cattle ; Indian land ; Lester Jones ; Molton Bruce ; Pinehill cattle ; Pinehill 120 Blackberry Thicket MM: What about the blackberry thicket? BM: What about that blackberry thicket that you— LJ: That blackberry— BM: --started telling me about a while ago. Memories of picking blackberries blackberry blackberry 184 People of Pinehill LJ: Yeah. I remember Walt Bolin (ph). BM: Up in the north. LJ: He lived on the north side of Polecat going straight north to Pinehill school. And his mule kicked him! And he had a scar of this mule’s foot on his-a lot of, some people called him “Mule Tracks.” BM: Do you remember a Frank Bruce? The people of Pinehill and Indian allotments Allotment of land ; Arthur Roberts ; Bob Lucas ; cemetery ; Curtis Scott ; Elsa Self ; Frank Bruce ; Indians ; oats ; Pinehill School ; Polecat ; slaves ; Smith Bruce ; steam thrasher ; Sunrise ; two room school ; wagon ; Walt Bolin ; wheat Allotment of land ; Pinehill 371 Moving to Pinehill and more Pinehill classmates BJ: Now didn’t you go to school at Pinehill? LJ: No, no. BJ: I thought you went to school there! Just lived there? Remembering more people in the Pinehill Community Ed Abraham ; Florence Stanley ; Pickett Prairie ; Pinehill ; Posey Place ; Theodore Abraham ; Velma Carson Classmates ; Pinehill School In this 1976 interview, Ira Lester Jones (1908-1988) and wife Bonnie Muriel (West) Jones (1908-1983) discuss their early life in the Pinehill Community outside Bristow in Creek County, Oklahoma, including picking blackberries, thrashing wheat and oats with a steam-powered thrasher, and the names of some of their classmates and neighbors in the community. BM: What year, Lester, wait a minute, let me back up a minute. This is a tape of Lester Jones and his wife in their home living room, 10/18/76, time 7:30. Lester, what, what year was it that you was in the Pinehill community? LJ: Nineteen-and-twenty-five. BM: Did you ever go to school here? LJ: No. BM: What was some of the things that you remember happening there in the Pinehill community? LJ: Well, one of the main things was Mote Bruce' ; s cattle operation. BM: What do you mean by Mote Bruce' ; s cattle operation? LJ: The way, now on these places that he had this Indian land range and he always reserved the stock field. And he grazed these, these cattle and these, in those creek bottoms in the wintertime, that' ; s where he wanted them. BM: Anything else that you remember? LJ: And remember real well a one-legged colored man that-- BM: What was his name? LJ: All I remember is " ; Big Boy." ; He had both of his legs--I' ; m sorry, he--both legs were off. And, one below his knee and one above his knee. And he picked cottons walking on his knees, and he pick four-fifty, four hundred fifty pounds of cotton a day out of the, out of the creek bottoms. BM: You said something while ago that you knew my mother and you knew my dad. What year did you get acquainted with them? LJ: Well I got acquainted with them in 1924. BM: Anything in particular that you remember happened, that was before my time. Anything that you remember happened that--with them in particular? LJ: Well, yeah. I thought about what a nice neighbor they, that family was a lot of times. Real, real nice people. MM: What about the blackberry thicket? BM: What about that blackberry thicket that you-- LJ: That blackberry-- BM: --started telling me about a while ago. LJ: --more rabbits in it, more blackberries, and a few snakes, than any patch of blackberries I ever seen in my life. It was one acre of solid wild blackberries. Me and Casey went over and we picked a tubful of blackberries in about three hours. Number--number one washtub. BM: You remember that spring that was here by that old blackberry patch? LJ: No. No, I don' ; t remember a spring. BM: It was right south of the blackberry thicket. LJ: Oh is that right? BM: Uh, no, it wasn' ; t that blackberry thicket, it was right around it. It was right around that spring. LJ: Yeah? Well we just went in the west side over there next to Casey' ; s place and we just, we just went out in there, in there, and we just picked right in one little spot there. Oh, it was place bigger than this house, you see. But I never, I ain' ; t never seen such-- MM: Just picked until you got tired? LJ: Ma' ; am? MM: Just picked until you got tired? LJ: Just picked ' ; til we got a tubful and went to the house. BM: Now this old spring that I was speaking about a while ago, it' ; s still there as of today. LJ: Yeah? MM: The blackberry patch is not there. BM: The blackberry patch is gone. LJ: Yeah. I remember Walt Bolin (ph). BM: Up in the north. LJ: He lived on the north side of Polecat going straight north to Pinehill school. And his mule kicked him! And he had a scar of this mule' ; s foot on his-a lot of, some people called him " ; Mule Tracks." ; BM: Do you remember a Frank Bruce? LJ: Real well. Used to work for Frank, let' ; s see--I was about, about thirteen or fourteen, just getting big enough to go to the thrashin' ; and help ' ; em thrash. We hauled a bundle wagon. Hauled wheat and oats in to his place down in the pasture. The Roberts boys here at Bristow, colored--these two colored men? They, they were, they had that was their thrashing machine. Steam thrasher. BM: You mentioned Roberts a while ago. Did you by any chance know that they were some of the freedmen that were in this community? LJ: No, but I figured maybe they was. I figured maybe they was. MM: But you did know that the freedmen were out here to the allotments along this-- LJ: Oh yes, they, they were slaves of the Indians, right. BM: This Arthur Roberts, Arthur Roberts still lives on his allotment that he was allotted whenever they--his dad came to this part of the country and had taken out his allotment. Arthur Roberts still lives on his land of allotment. LJ: Yeah. BM: His sister, Irene, lives on hers. LJ: Yeah. MM: And Elsa Still still lives on-- BM: Elsa Self still lives on his original-- LJ: We used to--or I went to school at Sunrise when Elsa' ; s wife was teaching. But she was--they had a two-room school and Claudie was in--he taught the other grades. I was in the, in the, Self' ; s-- BM: Well, Elsa taught there, taught there too. LJ: Yeah. BM: He' ; s got a miniature school building of the first Pinehill--uh, Sunrise school-- LJ: Yeah, we' ; ve seen it. We' ; ve seen it. BM: --with all the pictures and everything in it. LJ: He had it over to the cemetery one day, at Sunrise. BM: Who was some of the other people that you remember in there, Lester? LJ: I remember the-- BM: I mean at that time, now. At that time. LJ: Curtis Scott (ph). He lived a mile and a half south of Pinehill school. And ' ; course I knew all the, all the Bruce family. Not, not all of them. Smith Bruce, he lived in there. And Bob Lucas, knew them well, goes to school there at Pinehill. MM: Mrs. Lucas comes to the reunion every year and won' ; t eat bite, she' ; s afraid she' ; ll miss some gossip. LJ: Oh, well that' ; s--(laughs) MM: [Inaudible] is something else. LJ: Yeah, that' ; s where I first--first knew him was at-- BJ: Now didn' ; t you go to school at Pinehill? LJ: No, no. BJ: I thought you went to school there! Just lived there? LJ: No, we--I went to school with Casey, the fall of ' ; 25, and of course I was out in there for the whole two years Casey was there, you see. But we moved from right here on the Posey place, we moved to Pickett Prairie. BM: When you left the Posey place, then you moved to Pickett Prairie. LJ: Mmm-hmm. BJ: Now we could talk about Pinehill [inaudible]. LJ: Yeah. BJ: They even went to school there. LJ: There was a Florence Stanley, the name is Florence, and Jake--he lived [inaudible] (tape garbled). BM: [Indecipherable.] MM: Ellen and-- BM: Ellen was [inaudible] (tape garbled). LJ: And-- BM: Ellen was the oldest, then Myrtle. MM: Myrtle. LJ: Yeah. That' ; s--was a Carson girl that married Claude Bruce. BM: That was Velma Carson. LJ: Velma, yeah. MM: We interviewed Claude yesterday. LJ: Yeah? Claude' ; d be a lot of help on that thing. BM: No, he hadn' ; t [indecipherable] brother was more help than--[inaudible] (tape garbled) BM: --baby brother was more help. MM: They are writing a history but I' ; ve heard [inaudible] (tape garbled) BM: Claude did real well on his [inaudible] (tape garbled) LJ: Yeah. BM: When you were in there [inaudible] (tape garbled) BM: Did you ever help out [inaudible] (tape garbled) LJ: And I tell you something [inaudible] (tape garbled) LJ: Theodore Abraham, he had a big cattle--[inaudible] (tape garbled) LJ: --bought the cattle, and Ed Abraham was his father. BM: Right. LJ: And they were a big operator, had a big store and they dealt with the farmers a lot. That was Theodore, they used to be a [indecipherable] here. BM: Can you think of anything else you might want to ask him? end of interview audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0005-01_Ira_Jones.xml OHP-0005-01_Ira_Jones.xml
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Ira and Bonnie Jones
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In this 1976 interview, Ira Lester Jones (1908-1988) and wife Bonnie Muriel (West) Jones (1908-1983) discuss their early life in the Pinehill Community outside Bristow in Creek County, Oklahoma, including picking blackberries, thrashing wheat and oats with a steam-powered thrasher, and the names of some of their classmates and neighbors in the community.
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OHP-0005-01
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Pinehill Community and School
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1976-10-18
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audio
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Pinehill Histories
Subject
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History of the Pinehill area north of Bristow
Description
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Several interviews were done by Mary and Bob Mc Carty of people who grew up in the Pinehill area north of Bristow. This collection is the Pinehill subset of the Bristow Oral Histories
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Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
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Oral history.
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Robert L. “Bob” McCarty
Interviewee
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Louis Edward Masterson
Virginia (Bruce) Masterson
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https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0004-01_Louis_Masterson.xml
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Pinehill
school
fairs
community
crops
livestock
Heyburn Lake
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5.4 OHP-0004-01 Louis Edward Masterson OHP-0004-01 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Pinehill Community Bristow Historical Society, Inc. Pinehill Community and School Heyburn Lake Crops and Livestock Pinehill school fairs community crops livestock Heyburn Lake Louis Edward Masterson Virginia (Bruce) Masterson Robert L. “Bob” McCarty MP3 1:|8(4)|35(6)|71(7)|108(3)|139(7)|154(17)|184(8)|211(11)|228(2)|245(1)|277(2)|301(12)|333(7)|352(7)|373(7)|399(3)|418(3)|433(12)|446(4)|470(6)|501(10)|539(7)|556(4)|595(7)|613(9)|629(2)|661(2)|685(4)|716(12)|755(10)|773(10)|795(2)|814(13) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0004-01 Masterson, Louis & ; Virginia.mp3 Other audio 0 Family History BM: --during the 1900s, starting back about 1900 up to the present time of 1976, second day of October 1976. Sitting on their front porch. The first question, Louis, I’ll ask you, who was the first, or do you know who the first people—white people—that came in and settled in this community? LM: I sure don’t know, Bob, I don’t know. Family history of the Masterson Family Abner Bruce ; Alpha Bruce ; Coleman Bruce ; Cora Bruce Carson ; family ; J. Smith Bruce ; James Bruce ; Moten Rheudulph Bruce ; Pinehill ; Roy Clyde Bruce ; Theodocia Bruce Family history https://www.geni.com/people/Coleman-Bruce/6000000036577893136 Family History 163 Crops and Livestock BM: Alright, now then. They were some of the first ones that came in and settled in this part of the country. For their livelihood at that time, what was their main source, do you remember hearing them say? Of livelihood? LM: You mean farming? BM: The way they made their livin’ when they first came in here. LM: Well, they just what little—Dad, they farmed, you know, like corn and stuff and they, what they lived on— Discussion of crops and livestock cane ; cattle ; cattle drive ; corn ; crops ; farming ; maize ; oats ; railway ; sorghum molasses ; wheat cattle ; cattle drive ; crops ; farming ; livestock 331 Selling Eggs and Butter VM: --grandma’d churn her butter, take it in on, you know, Saturdays, to Bristow and they’d sell their eggs there. They’d drive ‘em in the wagon, you know. Dad’d take ‘em in the wagon, take all their stuff that they had to sell on Saturday ‘cause— MM: Cream. Selling eggs and butter for grocery money and clothing butter ; cream ; eggs ; wagon butter ; eggs 382 First Oil Wells BM: Now, Louis, to your knowledge, do you have any idea when the first oil well was drilled in this community. LM: No I don’t, Bob, I don’t know where they was [indecipherable] ’22 or ’23, so they done a lot of drilling after then but I don’t know what the first well drilled. They drilled on the Elsa Self when I come here, he had drilled on it and Frank Lucas (ph) had some on his. BM: Are some of the wells that were drilled in 19-and—when you came here, then, are they any of those wells still in production? The first oil wells drilled in the Pinehill community barrels ; drilling ; Elsa Self ; Frank Lucas ; Moten Bruce ; oil ; oil well ; well drilling ; Oil well ; Pinehill 515 Schoolhouse and teachers BM: Okay, now then, we’ll go into the school itself. Leo gave, said he was around when the first school was built. VM: Up on the hill? BM: Up on the hill south, a mile south from where the last school was. He gives pretty good stories there about it. To your memory, what—which one of the schools did you go to? VM: I went to that one up on the hill, just right west of— Discussion of school teachers at Pinehill School Miss Easton ; Mr. Hicks ; Pinehill School ; school ; teachers school teachers 676 School House and Community Activities BM: Do you remember them having those old time literaries that they had? VM: I remember them but I don’t know when it was, you know. But I know dad was always on the school board from the time the school started. Dad was always on the school board. BM: What—was the schoolhouse ever used for anything besides school? LM: Well, they had church there and— VM: Yeah, they had— Schoolhouse being used for community activities and memories of fairs canning ; church ; community assemblies ; elections ; fair ; literaries ; pie suppers ; schoolhouse ; sewing ; voting election ; pie suppers ; Pinehill school ; schoolhouse 924 Lake Heyburn BM: What year, Louis, did they come in here, the government come in and buy up this land along Polecat Creek and Skeeter Creek? LM: They started in ’48. BM: Nineteen forty-eight. LM: And they, they didn’t get the dam built until the next couple of years, you know. VM: That was ‘51. LM: They had to gorge all of this out. VM: ‘Cause Elsa, Elsa went down there and worked on it, when he was, he came back from— Building of Heyburn lake and the families displaced Boyds ; Canfields ; cattle ; dam ; Ellis Head ; farming ; Frank Bruce ; Hennessey Jones ; Heyburn ; John Wilson ; Les Wilson ; Mr. Bruce ; Nehemiah Jones ; Pinehill ; Polecat Creek ; Reeds ; Skeeter Creek displacement ; Heyburn Lake ; Pinehill 1202 Watermelons and daily life MM: Just a minute. Ask him—Virgie didn’t tell why she doesn’t know watermelon. You ask her— BM: Okay, now Virgie what meanness—when you were going to school as a little girl, what meanness did you get into? MM: What real funny happened? Memories of stealing watermelons and chicken fries chicken ; chicken fries ; Mr. Bruce ; watermelon chickens ; watermelons 1306 Community Parties VM: No, I sure wasn’t. We went to parties, brother used to take us to a lot of parties with him, but as far— (all talking at once) VM: Yeah, we had town parties, you know— MM: What about the singings in the school I’ve heard about? LM: Yeah, didn’t we— Discussion of town parties Crawford ; Dunham ; parties ; play parties ; town parties ; Vann ; Victor's Chapel parties ; town parties 1426 Games BM: What kind of games did you play? VM: Oh, Skip-to-the-Lou-My-Darling and (laughs) BM: Go on. You never did play Post Office? VM: Oh, yeah. We played Post Office, oh sure. And Ditch ‘Em! BM: Ditch ‘Em? Games played at town parties cake ; Ditch 'Em ; games ; Post Office ; town parties games ; town parties 1570 Creeks and falls BM: Now there’s another question, on these old falls around, like this, the upper falls and lower falls, that upper falls is the one that would be there coming across the creek here— LM: That was down by Frank’s. BM: That was down there by Frank’s. VM: And the other falls was, you know, where we lived there on the creek, where we’d go across the big—that was our big swimming hole, what was called the Old Biloxi (ph). LM: That wasn’t a falls, there. Creek and falls in the Pinehill area cornfield ; creek ; falls ; Ned Butts ; Old Biloxi ; Shepherd Fall ; Snake Fall ; swinging bridge creeks ; falls 1700 Gravestones Near School MM: What about them little gravestones at the schoolhouse? LM: Which schoolhouse would that be? MM: At the Pinehill School [indecipherable]. VM: Crawford—it was just up the hill where Crawford lived, but it wasn’t any kin to us. We just knew it was a grave there and they knew who was buried there, but I can’t remember who mama said it— Gravestone near Pinehill School gravestone ; Jack Claver ; Pinehill School gravestone 1753 Town Parties MM: When you mention town parties where [indecipherable] and them were eating, do you think it would have real pot lucks or something for they—they called them town parties and you took food and stuff in to them. I thought that’s what you were talking about. VM: No, that was just for a party we’d go to. MM: Well that’s what I thought you meant, was town parties, and town—you know, or two married couples sometimes— Town parties and weenie roasts by the creek creek ; pot luck ; town parties ; weenie roast town parties 1793 Frozen Creeks in the Winter MM: Well, has anybody ever been skating on them creeks, on there? LM: Well, [inaudible] (interference on tape) would get up there on the ice and everybody’s get up there and skate all the way [inaudible] (interference on tape) in ’29 or maybe ’30 when we had that bad winter. Man that froze up! And I had some reels down there in that [indecipherable] and I couldn’t leave them in the water and we didn’t have no water in the wells, we had to often times carry ‘em and wash ‘em in the creek. And you’d, you’d fall down and it was froze up, you couldn’t walk— Walking to school and bonfires near the frozen creek Birdie Reed ; bonfire ; Creek ; frozen creek ; ice ; John Wilson ; Pinehill School ; Skeeter ; Willa Greenwood frozen creeks ; walking to school In this 1976 interview, Louis Edward Masterson (1903-2000) and wife Virginia (Bruce) Masterson (1909-2002) discuss the early settlement of the Pinehill community in Creek County, Oklahoma including the crops and livestock that were raised by farming families, daily life, school life, social life including town parties and socials, the establishment of the Pinehill School, early oil well drilling in the area, the construction of the Heyburn Lake dam and its impact on the local families as their land was seized by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for its construction. BM: --during the 1900s, starting back about 1900 up to the present time of 1976, second day of October 1976. Sitting on their front porch. The first question, Louis, I' ; ll ask you, who was the first, or do you know who the first people--white people--that came in and settled in this community? LM: I sure don' ; t know, Bob, I don' ; t know. BM: Well, now, would--do you have any idea when Moten, Frank, Rowe, and them came in? Do you, Virgie? (pause) Were they in here before statehood? VM: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Mmm-hmm. MM: [Inaudible.] BM: Well then let' ; s kind of put this--put a date on that, say, around-- MM: Let' ; s let her look it up, she can see-- BM: --around 1900. LM: Well they was here before 1900. VM: Oh, yeah. LM: They were here before 1900? VM: Oh, yeah. BM: Well let' ; s go back, on back then, say around 1890. LM: [Inaudible.] MM: Leo was born up here in 1897. LM: Well, Moten was only [inaudible]. VM: You mean Uncle Alvin? BM: Leo was born-- VM: Leo. BM: Leo was born here in 1897, I believe is what he said on that. VM: Mmm-hmm. BM: So that would throw them somewhere around 18-and--in the neighborhood of 1895, -4, -5, somewhere in that neighborhood. LM: Yeah. BM: And there was four brothers, is that right? LM: Yeah. VM: No, there was five boys. BM: Five boys. VM: Five of ' ; em. BM: Okay, who were those boys? VM: Uncle Abner, Uncle James, Uncle Smith, dad, and Uncle Roy BM: " ; Dad" ; would be Moten. LM: Mmm-hmm. BM: Alright, now then. They were some of the first ones that came in and settled in this part of the country. For their livelihood at that time, what was their main source, do you remember hearing them say? Of livelihood? LM: You mean farming? BM: The way they made their livin' ; when they first came in here. LM: Well, they just what little--Dad, they farmed, you know, like corn and stuff and they, what they lived on-- BM: Alright, you said " ; corn and stuff," ; now what, what other stuff did they plant besides corn? LM: Maize, I think-- MM: Little bit louder, Louis. BM: They planted corn and maize-- VM: High gear. BM: High gear, wheat-- VM: Wheat. LM: Wheat, oats. BM: Oats. VM: Oats. BM: And that was their farm products, and they raised cattle. VM: Yeah, and they raised cattle. MM: What was that crop-- BM: Whatever they, you know-- BM: Where did they go, if they went to sell any of this, of their farm product, where did they take it to? VM: Well, they shipped their cattle to Kansas City and Oklahoma City. BM: They shipped their cattle to Kansas City and Oklahoma City. VM: Yeah. BM: Their grains and corn was such as that if they sold any of that they would' ; ve had to take to a railway- VM: They just sold it to the neighbors and things, you know-- BM: Sold it to the neighbors-- VM: --raised it and sold it to the neighbors that didn' ; t raise, you know, the farming stuff. BM: They raised it for themselves and if the neighbor got in trouble and had a little burnout or hard luck, why they all chipped in and helped one another out. LM: You know, they take ' ; em farmer teams and that' ; s the way certain of ' ; em would do it-- VM: Yeah, they' ; d farm a lot of cane and a lot of sorghum molasses. LM: [Indecipherable] cane and sorghum-- BM: Louis, you said a while ago that they shipped their cattle to Kansas City and Oklahoma City. How did they get the--how did they get their cattle to those points? LM: Well, we' ; d drive up about three hundred head from here to Kellyville [indecipherable]. MM: It was community cattle drives? BM: You had the community cattle drive. LM: [Inaudible.] (dog barking) pause in tape VM: --grandma' ; d churn her butter, take it in on, you know, Saturdays, to Bristow and they' ; d sell their eggs there. They' ; d drive ' ; em in the wagon, you know. Dad' ; d take ' ; em in the wagon, take all their stuff that they had to sell on Saturday ' ; cause-- MM: Cream. VM: Yeah. And their cream. MM: What' ; d they do with the money? VM: Well, that' ; s what they bought their groceries with. BM: That' ; s what they bought their staples with. (all talking at once) VM: and their, what they had to use for our clothes, you know, and just their living [indecipherable]. BM: Now, Louis, to your knowledge, do you have any idea when the first oil well was drilled in this community. LM: No I don' ; t, Bob, I don' ; t know where they was [indecipherable] ' ; 22 or ' ; 23, so they done a lot of drilling after then but I don' ; t know what the first well drilled. They drilled on the Elsa Self when I come here, he had drilled on it and Frank Lucas (ph) had some on his. BM: Are some of the wells that were drilled in 19-and--when you came here, then, are they any of those wells still in production? LM: Yeah, the Elsa Self lease is still in production. BM: Elsa Self lease is still in production. Now up here where you live, is there any of those wells to your knowledge that were drilled during that time? LM: Well, they-- VM: They were drilled in, uh, 19-and-- LM: --' ; 22. They' ; s had--I was here for that first discovered well in this field here. He had drilled on Moten Bruce' ; s and the drilling started in ' ; 27, ' ; 6 or ' ; 7. BM: Twenty-six or ' ; 27. LM: And they drilled all this in here. BM: To your knowledge, how much--how much did the first well produce? LM: That kind were making all the way from a hundred to three hundred barrels, these wells right here, these. BM: A day. LM: They were flowin' ; well. BM: They were flowing well. LM: At that time. BM: And there' ; s still some of those wells still in production. (pause) Virgie, do you remember any of the earlier ones than that? VM: [Inaudible.] BM: Alright. LM: And these wells all were drilled here [indecipherable]. VM: Brucie was a baby. ' ; 26 and ' ; 27 [indecipherable]. BM: Okay, now then, we' ; ll go into the school itself. Leo gave, said he was around when the first school was built. VM: Up on the hill? BM: Up on the hill south, a mile south from where the last school was. He gives pretty good stories there about it. To your memory, what--which one of the schools did you go to? VM: I went to that one up on the hill, just right west of-- BM: Is there anything in particular that you remember that went on at that time? (pause) Your first teacher was who? VM: Hicks. Mr. Hicks. BM: Professor Hicks. VM: Mmm-hmm. BM: You know his first name? VM: No, I don' ; t. We always had to call him Mr. Hicks, and that the way we were about--mom and dad always made us call her Miss Easton (ph) when we didn' ; t know their name. BM: And your, you said Miss Easton (ph)? VM: Mmm-hmm. BM: Now Miss Easton (ph), was she your second teacher? VM: Mmm-hmm. BM: She was your second teacher. Who went to school with you at that time? VM: [Inaudible.] BM: How many other--others went to school with you that you can remember? That went to school at the same time that you did? VM: Myrtle and Ellen. BM: Myrtle and Ellen who? VM: Crawford. BM: Who else? VM: And, well, [indecipherable] Bruce. BM: Any more that you can think of? VM: Well-- LM: [Indecipherable.] VM: Yeah, Claude. BM: Claude Bruce. VM: Yeah, Claude Bruce. And Larry and Annie Pinehill. BM: Pinehill. Yeah, their last name (poor tape quality) VM: --and Martha Day-- BM: Do you remember them having those old time literaries that they had? VM: I remember them but I don' ; t know when it was, you know. But I know dad was always on the school board from the time the school started. Dad was always on the school board. BM: What--was the schoolhouse ever used for anything besides school? LM: Well, they had church there and-- VM: Yeah, they had-- LM:--church and pie suppers and all that stuff, you know, and get-togethers. BM: They used it for church activities. VM: Mmm-hmm. BM: Any other activities besides church? VM: Yeah, -- LM: I guess they did have some literaries there but, you know, I never did go to one of those, you know, and-- BM: Would they use it for a place for the people in the community to go to-- LM: Community assemblies, that' ; s what it was. VM: Mmm-hmm. BM: The school was used as a community center or meeting place for everybody. It was used, then, for several different activities. LM: Yeah. BM: Do you remember of the tri-county state--tri-county fair being held there? VM: The school over there? Yeah! BM: So there was fairs up there. VM: Yeah, there was a fair out there. BM: Okay, what--how was this fair conducted? Was it conducted then as it is today? As these county fairs are conducted today? VM: Well, it was more or less, you know, like people canned stuff and bring there. I don' ; t remember bringing the stock and stuff, but they--you know, exhibit their--what they bake or, and what they can, and what things they made like quilts and dresses. BM: What did you take? Did you ever take anything to one of these fairs? VM: No, but Plessy did, I don' ; t know what-- BM: But Plessy taking-- VM: Plessy took something but I don' ; t remember what it was. I think it was canned. MM: [Inaudible.] VM: The more I think about it, she said that she did sewing. She didn' ; t [indecipherable] and she took sewing. And penmanship, she, you know, she-- BM: Penmanship and sewing. VM: Mmm-hmm. LM: Well when I come up to this country, your dad and Moten was both on the board there, and they was on the board for often years and years. BM: Louis, did you ever take anything to one of those fairs that was out there? LM: No, no, I didn' ; t, you see I was gone-- BM: There has been brought up that a--there was a, at one time there was a talking movie presented at Pinehill Schoolhouse. Do you know or do you remember or know anything about it? MM: Valerie said she-- BM: Valerie said--Valerie' ; s the one that came up with that. VM: It must' ; ve been after I [indecipherable]. BM: But the school was used for all different activities. VM: Where they went and voted and things, you know, they' ; d hold-- LM: It was open [indecipherable]. BM: What year, Louis, did they come in here, the government come in and buy up this land along Polecat Creek and Skeeter Creek? LM: They started in ' ; 48. BM: Nineteen forty-eight. LM: And they, they didn' ; t get the dam built until the next couple of years, you know. VM: That was ' ; 51. LM: They had to gorge all of this out. VM: ' ; Cause Elsa, Elsa went down there and worked on it, when he was, he came back from-- BM: Built in ' ; 51, the dam was built in ' ; 51. What year was it completed? LM: That was when it was completed, in ' ; 51. BM: They completed it in ' ; 51. VM: ' ; Cause he worked down there in ' ; 49. LM: He was running with the sand and the concrete and the [indecipherable] but now it' ; s washed in [indecipherable]. BM: How many--to your knowledge, how many people was affected or that lived in these bottoms that had to leave here? Had to leave this community on account of all of the--on the account of the government coming in and buying up this land where they wouldn' ; t have a way to make a living? LM: Well, now, I figure, Bob, was at least fifty families--and they all had families and all that, the head of families--moved-- BM: Fifty head of the family. LM: Yeah. [Indecipherable] when they bought it they had to move, you didn' ; t have no place to go when you accepted like they had [indecipherable]. Frank Bruce place [indecipherable] stay. And those others all just about newcomers come in here since [indecipherable] and built these homes that' ; s in here now. BM: Can you name some of the people that was affected by, that farmed these bottom lands-- LM: Yeah, you-- BM: --they was farming these bottom lands whenever the government came in and bought the land up. LM: Well, you, there' ; s Ellis Head for one, and Les Wilson, and John Wilson, see it took all their farm, and they took from that over at Mr. Bruce' ; s place, and there was families all in here [indecipherable] in here was a farm. Hennessey Jones (ph), Nehemiah Jones (ph), they had a bunch of stuff in--Canfields, Reeds, Boyds, they was [indecipherable]. Then I know there was every bit of fifty of, you know, head of families. Head family. BM: Well, here' ; s another question I want to ask you: What do you think that this lake dam being built in this community do you think, what' ; s your opinion on it? What' ; s your opinion on this lake-- LM: Well, I just think, Bob, that it just had no business to build it because it took so much good land out of it that the farmers need to make a livin' ; on and put people to movin' ; and they had to go and relocate and things and left me, now I [indecipherable] up here now, cost me around four thousand dollars to move the house out from around there so I could move off of government land. They took all our good land and left the hills, and so-- BM: About all there' ; s left to do now, there' ; s no farming land, about all there' ; s left to do now is to run a few cattle. LM: Yeah, run a few cattle. And they' ; ve talked about taking it away from [indecipherable] state have it. BM: Let the state have this land down here now. LM: Is there anything else you can think of? MM: Does he have a list on who sits on Pinehill [indecipherable] of the families on something I thought that you could get it, and I don' ; t-- LM: Yeah, I' ; ve got that list here of every people that was affected to this dam, their name [inaudible] (interference on tape). BM: Okay. MM: Just a minute. Ask him--Virgie didn' ; t tell why she doesn' ; t know watermelon. You ask her-- BM: Okay, now Virgie what meanness--when you were going to school as a little girl, what meanness did you get into? MM: What real funny happened? BM: What real funny, come on, tell us something real funny. VM: Aww! (laughs) BM: Tell us something real funny. MM: Tell us something funny on Louis, or one or the other, we' ; ve got to have something funny. BM: We gotta have something funny on you. VM: Well, the only thing I can think is Louis' ; d come to the schoolhouse when I, you know, when we were going together and I' ; d walk home with him after all the evenings up there, and I--course he would just kiss me, I guess! (laughs) LM: And Bob Lucas, he never did run me off! I' ; d go up there and get her and then go take her home! BM: Did you never--did you ever go watermelon stealing, Virgie? VM: No, I really didn' ; t. I never did. MM: Who raised the best watermelons? VM: Huh? BM: Louis, who raised the best watermelons during that time? LM: I don' ; t know, I stole a lot of ' ; em. I never tore no patches up, I just go get it, and-- VM: We just never thought about stealing any watermelons. Grandpa always raised-- BM: We got to have your vote on the one that raised the best ones. LM: Well, I don' ; t know for sure but I believe that' ; d been Mr. Bruce up there, my dad, you know, raised the best watermelons but he didn' ; t have ' ; em. BM: Moten raised the best watermelons? LM: [Inaudible.] VM: Not really [indecipherable]. BM: You never did go on some of these old chicken fries, did you, Louis, these old--go out here, steal somebody' ; s poor old farmer' ; s hen? LM: No, not up there. I did where I come from. VM: Now my brother and them did. BM: Now, Virgie, never was in the middle of it, was you? VM: No, I sure wasn' ; t. We went to parties, brother used to take us to a lot of parties with him, but as far-- (all talking at once) VM: Yeah, we had town parties, you know-- MM: What about the singings in the school I' ; ve heard about? LM: Yeah, didn' ; t we-- VM: Oh, yeah, we used to go--oh, yeah! We would all--what was it, Crawfords and that Marvin, oh, what was their name? MM: Some of the Vanns, wasn' ; t it-- LM: I can' ; t think of Marvin' ; s name now. MM: Was it some of the Vanns? VM: We' ; re kin to Crawfords, now. LM: Yeah, you take the Vanns, they--there' ; s also their land [indecipherable]. MM: What about them singings. We need something on tape on that. [Indecipherable.] VM: Well, yeah, we used to go over there out at the schoolhouse of a night and sing, you know. Even had--some of them, some of the teachers give us singing--you know, singing lessons and things. MM: Did you go to other communities? VM: Oh, we' ; d gather at our houses, like Crawfords and-- MM: I mean, did other communities come and sing, people from other communities would--? LM: Oh, yeah, they-- VM: Oh, yeah! Mmm-hmm, yeah. Come from up from Victor' ; s Chapel (ph) up there, and Dunham (ph), and-- LM: Dunham (ph), and [indecipherable]. MM: How long did they last? VM: Oh, they didn' ; t last more than a couple hours, I guess, over there, gatherings and things. MM: Did you go to the other places, then, when they had singings? VM: No, we went to parties, we threw--we' ; d walk to the town parties or ride horses to the town parties [indecipherable] ride a horse. BM: What kind of parties was them, Virgie? These old play parties? VM: Yeah, just play parties, yeah. BM: What meetings did you-- VM: We' ; d have town parties, like a cake, and take a cake down there, you know. BM: What kind of games did you play? VM: Oh, Skip-to-the-Lou-My-Darling and (laughs) BM: Go on. You never did play Post Office? VM: Oh, yeah. We played Post Office, oh sure. And Ditch ' ; Em! BM: Ditch ' ; Em? VM: And play, you know, they' ; d come in and they' ; d say, " ; Who do you love?" ; you know, and they' ; d tell all who they just loved, how much they loved certain-and-certain people, you know. But all they wanted ' ; em to say was just, say " ; Who do you love?" ; (laughs) BM: Now this party that--Ditch ' ; EM, now how was that played? VM: Well, you' ; d take a certain boy that, you know, [indecipherable] and if he didn' ; t--if he wasn' ; t the right one then you would start over-you' ; d ditch ' ; im! And run back to--in the house, and get another! All the girls done all the ditchin' ; . (laughs) And ditched the boys! BM: Is there anything else you can think of? LM: You turn that porch light off, them bug' ; s' ; ll-- MM: That' ; s fine. Turn it off-- BM: Okay, I' ; ll turn it-- pause in recording BM: Alright, about these town parties. VM: Well, one time they had a town party down there at Uncle Frank' ; s house, set down the road there? And Cora went with all of us girls, they was about--Flossie (ph) and Hazel (ph) and Vivian (ph) and Velma (ph) and I forgot. And Cora went with us. And she was carrying the cake, and we as all trying to get--to help her, you know. But she went followin' ; , you know, with the cake, and she run off. She fell with it. But we saved the cake! It didn' ; t hurt it at all, so Velma at that party--and I don' ; t know who all else brought cakes like that, you know, well we played party games and that' ; s all there was to it. BM: Now there' ; s another question, on these old falls around, like this, the upper falls and lower falls, that upper falls is the one that would be there coming across the creek here-- LM: That was down by Frank' ; s. BM: That was down there by Frank' ; s. VM: And the other falls was, you know, where we lived there on the creek, where we' ; d go across the big--that was our big swimming hole, what was called the Old Biloxi (ph). LM: That wasn' ; t a falls, there. BM: No, that wasn' ; t a falls there, that was a-- VM: But there was a rock. LM: The other fall is down here, the Shepherd fall (ph) is down here to the Snake fall (ph). VM: But it was just a rock fall. BM: Now that fall went across--which way did that go across there on Shepherd' ; s fall (ph) there. LM: You know right there, Bob, where that going-in place where they go in and go--make that bend around there where the--where you put your boats in there? BM: Mmm-hmm. LM: Well, it just went across that--there used to be a cornfield in there, a big field in there, I rode through there often. BM: Well there was an old swinging bridge across that, that field right there-- LM: Yeah, that was a little further up past the way. [Indecipherable] just [indecipherable] and they had an old train[indecipherable], big long thing that was there for years and years. VM: And Ned Butts (ph) built a swinging bridge across the--down here at the--just across from the old Indian cemetery. BM: Where that swinging bridge went across there, that was where--called the old Thomas place, wasn' ; t it? Didn' ; t they call that the old Thomas place? LM: No, I don' ; t know if I, if that' ; s true. [Indecipherable] was the last year I lived down there but the guy owned [indecipherable] over there, but the last time was in ' ; 23 was the guy--oh, I can' ; t think of his name. MM: [Inaudible.] LM: He--I can' ; t think of the guy' ; s name now, but I always had [indecipherable] one of them girls. And I don' ; t know what her name was. She--Lynn, Lynn, that' ; s right. Boomer and Lynn [indecipherable] they was there then in ' ; 23 when they come in. And they kept it up so the schoolkids from the sidewalk crossed it [indecipherable]. MM: What about them little gravestones at the schoolhouse? LM: Which schoolhouse would that be? MM: At the Pinehill School [indecipherable]. VM: Crawford--it was just up the hill where Crawford lived, but it wasn' ; t any kin to us. We just knew it was a grave there and they knew who was buried there, but I can' ; t remember who mama said it-- MM: We had some of the other kids ask about them graves in there close to the schoolhouse. VM: Yeah, there' ; s a, there' ; s a grave just right there on the-- BM: Which way from the schoolhouse, Virgie? VM: It' ; d be west. BM: Be west up on top of the hill. VM: West and a little back north, uh-huh. BM: Be up in there somewhere, then, about-- VM: Just be like straight north of Jack Claver' ; s (ph) house, I believe, I don' ; t know where it-- BM: Be right straight north up there, then, north of where Ennis' ; s house was up on the hill. VM: Mmm-hmm. BM: Well I never did know that there was a graveyard out-- LM: The old schoolhouse is up there, you know, the old one was up there where the old [indecipherable] was. But they had this new one built when I come here, I don' ; t know how long it' ; d been built. MM: When you mention town parties where [indecipherable] and them were eating, do you think it would have real pot lucks or something for they--they called them town parties and you took food and stuff in to them. I thought that' ; s what you were talking about. VM: No, that was just for a party we' ; d go to. MM: Well that' ; s what I thought you meant, was town parties, and town--you know, or two married couples sometimes-- LM: There' ; s [indecipherable] weenie roast that we did about every--every week, pretty much, [indecipherable] marshmallows and we' ; d have a roast, maybe be 25-30. BM: Twenty-five or thirty couples get off by the creek-- LM: Yeah. VM: Mmm-hmm. LM: Build up a big fire. BM: Big bonfire and have a big weenie roast. LM: Big weenie roast. MM: Well, has anybody ever been skating on them creeks, on there? LM: Well, [inaudible] (interference on tape) would get up there on the ice and everybody' ; s get up there and skate all the way [inaudible] (interference on tape) in ' ; 29 or maybe ' ; 30 when we had that bad winter. Man that froze up! And I had some reels down there in that [indecipherable] and I couldn' ; t leave them in the water and we didn' ; t have no water in the wells, we had to often times carry ' ; em and wash ' ; em in the creek. And you' ; d, you' ; d fall down and it was froze up, you couldn' ; t walk-- VM: I remember that I stayed all night with Birdie Reed (ph) and we started to school, that' ; s when my house was all--the house was right (pauses) --you know where Willa Greenwood (ph) lived, didn' ; t you? They lived in that house. LM: We lived up on that corner of Skeeter--[indecipherable]. VM: Well we come and John Wilson lived over at Aunt Sally' ; s house, was down the other side of the road where-- LM: Where the schoolhouse was when I come here-- VM: Well I and Birdie got to playing and cuttin' ; up and playin' ; in that snow ' ; til we froze our hands and feet. John Wilson and Ida took us in and thawed our feet out and then we went on to school, but we was tardy, but ohh we froze our hands playing. And Dorothy was with us, she tried to get us not to, you know. MM: What did they do, go out and build a big bonfire on the creek and then skate and play around it? VM: We was just going to school, but we just got to playing in the snow and the ice on the way there, when we froze our hands and feet. MM: Well. How far is the farthest you ever walked to school? VM: Well, we went downhill on the creek where we--the houses were, down here where we was talking about, where Coleman was born down there, where, and Bruce, he--well, Raymond was born down there. The house sit not too far from the creek down here. LM: Be about a mile and a half. Mile and a half. VM: And that was the furthest we ever walked. BM: Louis, you was on the school board here for quite a while. How, how deep did--how much land area did the school district cover? MM: How many miles wide-- BM: How many miles wide and how many miles long? LM: Well, the it went plum out to this 33 highway up here, it went to back in the corner right in here [inaudible] (interference on tape) where you started coming down that blacktop. BM: So that was the south edge of it. LM: Where Elsa' ; s, that was the south edge of it, right along-- VM: Then it took the, the old Livingston place. LM: --everything off the 48 highway right there, way down the place where the Vanns live [indecipherable] on the schoolhouse. Went up this way with the--the other line was down here to [indecipherable] where that guy built that house [indecipherable], everything inside that was Pinehill. BM: Everything inside of that would be Pinehill, then. MM: Well, so, he' ; s better off than I thought. BM: Yeah. He was better off than I thought he was. LM: But I don' ; t remember just how many miles it was in the square here, in this district. But you see, that took in Jones, Shady Jones (ph), the horse-stealin' ; all going on out there toward-- MM: Point at that map, it shows about ten miles square. LM: I imagine it is, that just about covers it. BM: Now this map, the--our teacher, she' ; s end of interview. audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0004-01_Louis_Masterson.xml OHP-0004-01_Louis_Masterson.xml
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Louis and Virginia Masterson
Description
An account of the resource
In this 1976 interview, Louis Edward Masterson (1903-2000) and wife Virginia (Bruce) Masterson (1909-2002) discuss the early settlement of the Pinehill community in Creek County, Oklahoma including the crops and livestock that were raised by farming families, daily life, school life, social life including town parties and socials, the establishment of the Pinehill School, early oil well drilling in the area, the construction of the Heyburn Lake dam and its impact on the local families as their land was seized by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for its construction.
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OHP-0004-01
Subject
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Pinehill Community and School
Heyburn Lake
Crops and Livestock
Date
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1976-10-02
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audio
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60615430ec9a2e7d39fe65094427396f
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Title
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Pinehill Histories
Subject
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History of the Pinehill area north of Bristow
Description
An account of the resource
Several interviews were done by Mary and Bob Mc Carty of people who grew up in the Pinehill area north of Bristow. This collection is the Pinehill subset of the Bristow Oral Histories
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Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
Type
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Oral history.
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Robert L. “Bob” McCarty
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Abner Dalton Bruce
Mary Lee (Fuller) McCarty
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https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0004-02_Abner_Bruce.xml
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Pinehill
Heyburn
oil
school
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5.4 OHP-0004-02 Abner Dalton Bruce OHP-0004-02 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Pinehill Community Bristow Historical Society, Inc. Pinehill Community and School Oil Pinehill Heyburn oil school Abner Dalton Bruce Mary Lee (Fuller) McCarty Robert L. “Bob” McCarty MP3 1:|15(13)|37(12)|69(1)|88(12)|113(1)|126(3)|142(2)|167(13)|191(15)|207(3)|222(2)|235(13)|253(16)|281(10)|302(10)|337(4)|375(6) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0004-02 Bruce, Abner.mp3 Other audio 0 Abner Bruce family history BM: This is a personal interview with Abner Bruce and his wife sitting in their living room. MM: We want to put the date on so other people can— BM: October 3, 1976. Alright, Abner, to your best knowledge, do you know of some of the first people that settled in this part? Or when did your folks come into this part of the country? AB: Bob, I can’t tell you any—[indecipherable] they came into Oklahoma, but I don’t know for sure what time they went in to this right here. Abner Bruce discusses his family Abner Bruce ; Alpha Bruce ; Coleman Bruce ; Cora Belle Bruce Carson ; Frank Bruce ; J. Smith Bruce ; James Bruce ; Moten Bruce ; Roy Bruce ; Theodocia Bruce Abner Bruce ; family members https://www.geni.com/people/Coleman-Bruce/6000000036577893136 Family Records 166 Quail, Crops, and Cattle BM: Alright, whenever they first come in to this part of the country, Abner, what source of income did they have? I already know these questions, I want you to answer them yourself. AB: Well, the main thing my dad used to talk about was the market and hunting quail. They came in here and paid to ride a horse to Mannford or somewhere and come home. That was when they shipped these quails to Kansas City. And I don’t know whether that—of course, I know they farmed, but I don’t know, that’s the thing that stuck out. BM: Do you remember what, did you ever hear him say what crops that they planted? At that time? Discussion of selling and shipping quail and cattle cattle ; corn ; crops ; open range ; quail ; stockade fence ; trains selling cattle ; selling quail ; shipping cattle ; shipping quail 337 First Oil Well BM: Now then, number four question: Do you remember hearing say, Abner, or—when was the first cotton planted in this part of the country or community? Do you remember hearing say— AB: I don’t. BM: Okay, now here’s a ques—here’s a question that I was told that you would probably be the only one in the country that could answer this question. When was the first oil well drilled in this community? AB: I can’t tell you that one, but I—in this area right here, why I would think— Discussion of the first oil well drilled in the Bristow area 1922 ; drilling ; Elsa Self ; Mike Hartman ; oil well First Oil Well in Bristow 497 School and Township Fairs BM: Okay. Okay, now then, we’ll come on down here to number six, which would be the school situation—the school. Now, Leo gave us a lot of this information on the schools. AB: Leo would know a lot more about it. BM: When was the first school built? Now, Leo said that he remembered the first school being built in 1903. And his first teacher was a teacher by the name of Nell Watson. Discussion of the school house and township fairs church meeting ; community meeting ; election ; Nell Watson ; school ; teacher ; township fair school ; township fair 675 Development of Heyburn Lake BM: What year did the government come in go to buy up all that land? (pause) Can I tell? AB: [Indecipherable] I think it was about ’49, ’48 or ’49. BM: To your knowledge, Abner, whenever the government come in and went to buy this land up, to your knowledge how many families was affected by it? AB: I couldn’t tell you. I don’t have a recollection of the [indecipherable]. Discussion of the development of Heyburn Lake government ; Heyburn Lake ; lake Heyburn Lake 806 School Teachers at Pinehill BM: Who was your first teacher? Would that be any chance Mr. Bob Lucas? Or was that Mr. Taylor? MM: He said, “Not really.” AB: Before that. BM: Well it must’ve been—well, now, just a minute. Discussion of teachers and classmates at Pinehill school Bob Lucas ; Mark Shockley ; Minnie Mayes ; Nancy Curtis ; pinehill school ; teacher classmates ; Pinehill School ; school 887 Watermelons and Chicken Roasts MM: Oh, just a minute! Who raised the best watermelons? When you was a young who—who, who got some good, who raised the best watermelons? AB: I always thought Joe Fobbs (ph) did. MM: Who? That’s the one you stole the most of? AB: Huh? MM: Is that who you stole the most of them from? Discussion of watermelon stealing and chicken roasts chicken ; Greer ; Joe Fobbs ; W.O. Baker ; watermelon chicken ; watermelon 952 School Teachers BM: Well, I—who was your first teacher, Eunice (ph). UW2: Oh, I started school down at [indecipherable], so I didn’t come here until I was ten years old. BM: Alright, what was your first teacher’s name? Discussion of teachers at Pinehill School Bob Lucas ; Charlie Thomas ; Mark Schockley ; Pinehill School ; school ; teachers Pinehill School ; teachers 990 Oil Companies in Bristow AB: [Indecipherable] started out the Prairie and then Sinclair and then [indecipherable]. BM: Sinclair and what other—which other—what others was in here on that, Abner? AB: Prairie, Prairie Oil Company. BM: Prairie Oil Company. Discussion of the oil companies in the Bristow area Conoco ; drilling ; Mid-Continent ; oil ; Prairie Oil Company ; Shell ; Sinclair ; Sun Oil Company ; Sundocks drilling ; oil ; oil companies In this 1976 interview, Abner Dalton Bruce (1918-1987) describes his early life in the Pinehill Community outside Bristow Oklahoma including his family’s income from the quail market in Mannford, farming, shipping cattle on the railroad, early oil drilling in the community, participation in fairs, and the impact of the construction of Heyburn Lake upon the community. BM: This is a personal interview with Abner Bruce and his wife sitting in their living room. MM: We want to put the date on so other people can-- BM: October 3, 1976. Alright, Abner, to your best knowledge, do you know of some of the first people that settled in this part? Or when did your folks come into this part of the country? AB: Bob, I can' ; t tell you any--[indecipherable] they came into Oklahoma, but I don' ; t know for sure what time they went in to this right here. BM: What--when I said folks-- AB: Well he did though, he had a sign, 1895, that was [indecipherable]. BM: Eighteen-ninety-five, okay. On 1895, Abner, do you know how many of the boys was that come in here at that time? How many of the Bruce boys come in here at that time? AB: Why, I think their father-- BM: What was his name? AB: --brought the family in here. Coleman Bruce. BM: Coleman Bruce. Alright, then there was five brothers, is that right? AB: [Indecipherable] I believe they' ; re[indecipherable]. BM: Alright, what was their names? AB: Five brothers and one sister. BM: Okay, let' ; s have ' ; em. AB: Abner Bruce was the oldest, and my dad, Frank Bruce, and-- BM: Mote? AB: Smith! BM: Smith? AB: And then-- BM: Then Mote. AB: Then Mote. Then Roy. BM: Then Roy. AB: Then the sister' ; s name was Cora. BM: Cora. Alright, we' ; ll go on--get just a little bit further here now. Whenever they come in here-- AB: Here' ; s why--[indecipherable] grandmother was--she came in here with my grandfather. B: Grandfather and grandmother moved the family in to this part of the country. MM: What was the grandmother' ; s name? BM: What was the grandmother grandfather' ; s name? AB: Coleman and Alpha, I believe, was her given name. She was formerly Moore but [indecipherable]. BM: Alright, whenever they first come in to this part of the country, Abner, what source of income did they have? I already know these questions, I want you to answer them yourself. AB: Well, the main thing my dad used to talk about was the market and hunting quail. They came in here and paid to ride a horse to Mannford or somewhere and come home. That was when they shipped these quails to Kansas City. And I don' ; t know whether that--of course, I know they farmed, but I don' ; t know, that' ; s the thing that stuck out. BM: Do you remember what, did you ever hear him say what crops that they planted? At that time? AB: I sure don' ; t remember. BM: Alright, we' ; ll go a little further. Now, the quail that you say that he--they also had a few cattle in there too, didn' ; t they? AB: Yeah, yeah. BM: They had cattle and they had, they had the quail market. Why, I do know that during that time they planted corn and stuff to grow-- AB: Yeah, I would think so. BM: --planted corn and high gear and feeds, feed-- AB: But another thing, there wasn' ; t enough fences in here for these cattle, so [indecipherable] at that time-- BM: It was all open range. AB: --the fences. ' ; Cause they had to have a stockade fence. BM: Had another question, where did they take it to sell it? Where did they take their product to sell? AB: Well back on the cattle, as far as I know, Oklahoma City. They shipped them on the trains. BM: Alright. AB: And the quail I was speaking about, they shipped them to Kansas City. BM: You stated there that they shipped their cattle to Oklahoma City, their quail to Kansas City. How did they get these cattle into Oklahoma City? AB: They drove them to the stockyards in Bristow. And they' ; d load them on there and [indecipherable]. BM: And the quail, they' ; d dressed them-- AB: Dressed them and iced them, and some were [indecipherable], I don' ; t know, back in there at that time, cold weather' ; s when you hunted, they dressed them out and ideally [indecipherable]. BM: Now then, number four question: Do you remember hearing say, Abner, or--when was the first cotton planted in this part of the country or community? Do you remember hearing say-- AB: I don' ; t. BM: Okay, now here' ; s a ques--here' ; s a question that I was told that you would probably be the only one in the country that could answer this question. When was the first oil well drilled in this community? AB: I can' ; t tell you that one, but I--in this area right here, why I would think-- BM: I mean, that would be over here on the Elsa Self, then back up north up here around Louis' ; s, that, now, see that would be this community. AB: That was all [indecipherable]. This over here, I think 1922. BM: Nineteen-twenty-two. Do you have any--do you have any idea who drilled that first well? AB: A man named Mike Hartman (ph), I think. B: That' ; s great. And where was it drilled? AB: Well, it was one of these--Harjose (ph). BM: Harjose (ph). Harjose (ph) lease. AB: Offset to this place of place of my dad' ; s. BM: And that would be drilled in 1922. AB: I believe so. BM: Do you have any idea, Abner, if that well--that first well--do you have any idea how many barrels, or did you hear them say how many barrels-that that well made? When it came in? AB: No, it was pretty light and it--it didn' ; t last but a short while. BM: It didn' ; t last but a short while. Then they went to developing that--drilling around the rest of the community. AB: Well now, they drilled offset on my dad' ; s, it was still producing. BM: The offset drill from the first well that was drilled on your dad' ; s is still in production. Do you have any idea how much the offset well produced when it came in? AB: No, I couldn' ; t [indecipherable]. BM: Okay. Okay, now then, we' ; ll come on down here to number six, which would be the school situation--the school. Now, Leo gave us a lot of this information on the schools. AB: Leo would know a lot more about it. BM: When was the first school built? Now, Leo said that he remembered the first school being built in 1903. And his first teacher was a teacher by the name of Nell Watson. AB: [Indecipherable.] BM: Yeah. And, now then, on this school-- AB: Wait, I would like to ask you, where did he tell you it was built? BM: Well right up here on the north part, right up here on the corner. Which would be-- AB: I know, I know the location. BM: Look, look at this map, it' ; d be right here. That you got right there in your hand, it' ; d be right there. This other one down here was the church. And it went--moved up to here. There were two burned here, and the last one was here. Alright, Abner, here' ; s another question I want to ask you: What all purposes was that school used for? AB: Well, the last one is the only one I' ; m familiar with. BM: Okay, do it. What all was it used for? AB: About every committee or community meeting, or church meeting. It was used for the churches. [Indecipherable.] BM: It was used for churches. AB: Well, fairs--township fairs and election purposes. That was about it. BM: Alright, now then, you' ; re the third person that I' ; ve heard this " ; fairs" ; from. I don' ; t remember it. You said " ; township fair." ; What all was exhibited at these fairs? AB: Oh, at that time-- BM: The ones that you remember, Abner. AB: Well, I remember stock--horses, cattle, and crops. And a few of the crops at that time were cotton and corn and [indecipherable] and et cetera. BM: In other words, it' ; s just like the fairs of today, then. It was held at the, at the school. AB: Yeah. BM: What year did the government come in go to buy up all that land? (pause) Can I tell? AB: [Indecipherable] I think it was about ' ; 49, ' ; 48 or ' ; 49. BM: To your knowledge, Abner, whenever the government come in and went to buy this land up, to your knowledge how many families was affected by it? AB: I couldn' ; t tell you. I don' ; t have a recollection of the [indecipherable]. BM: Okay, we' ; ll go on down here to the last question: How do you feel about this lake? AB: You might want to get me in trouble. BM: No, I don' ; t want to get you in trouble, I want your honest opinion. I want your honest opinion, I' ; m asking everybody that, that question. I need it for the park recreation and planning. These tapes will help with the park recreation and planning. MM: Well, you know, it [indecipherable] if we don' ; t want it to, you don' ; t have to. BM: They want to know. They want to know this family' ; s situation-- pause in recording as tape switches sides BM: --the reason I hit you with that. They want to know how the people feel. Now that' ; s, that' ; s the reason I hit you with that question. AB: Well, I was against it before it started and I haven' ; t changed my mind, but it' ; s all done and done, but it never was [indecipherable] put down our throats is how I think about it, don' ; t sound right but that' ; s the way I' ; ve always felt. pause in recording BM: Who was your first teacher? Would that be any chance Mr. Bob Lucas? Or was that Mr. Taylor? MM: He said, " ; Not really." ; AB: Before that. BM: Well it must' ; ve been--well, now, just a minute. MM: He knows, he' ; s got a list of ' ; em-- BM: It wasn' ; t Nancy Curtis (ph), then, no it must' ; ve been Minnie L. Mayes (ph). AB: Mark Shockley (ph). BM: Mark Schockley (ph). MM: You was wrong. BM: No! I wasn' ; t wrong on that either! Mark Shockley (ph) come in there after Killian (ph). See, Killian (ph) was in there and then Mark Shockley (ph), and then Bob Lucas (ph). AB: Just one year for him. BM: Right. MM: Who was the first--who was the first [indecipherable] Sunday school-- AB: Well, I was talking to them today, the graduating students who were in eighth grade because they had changed. Of course my cousins--Eva (ph) and Nolan (ph) and myself and (pause) is all I can think of at that time. MM: Was Valerie in your class? AB: Yeah! Valerie was. I guess she was? BM: Yeah. Alright, Abner, let' ; s-- MM: Oh, just a minute! Who raised the best watermelons? When you was a young who--who, who got some good, who raised the best watermelons? AB: I always thought Joe Fobbs (ph) did. MM: Who? That' ; s the one you stole the most of? AB: Huh? MM: Is that who you stole the most of them from? AB: No, I didn' ; t have to steal from any of these [indecipherable]. MM: Who' ; d you steal one of those off of? AB: I never stole but one watermelon in my life (laughs) and I got caught in that, but Greers. BM: Mr. Greer over there, he lived over on the W.O. Baker place. AB: Yeah. MM: How about them chicken roasts, did you ever go on any of them? AB: Well, I heard about them but I, I didn' ; t, no. MM: Some of the younger kids, I think, did that [indecipherable] steal from their own folks and take them and roast them. AB: No, I never--I didn' ; t take that--I heard them talk about them. MM: [Inaudible.] BM: Well, I--who was your first teacher, Eunice (ph). UW2: Oh, I started school down at [indecipherable], so I didn' ; t come here until I was ten years old. BM: Alright, what was your first teacher' ; s name? UW2: Oh I can' ; t remember that far back. BM: Why now, say, Mark Shockley (ph) was Abner' ; s, and you come in here when you was ten years old, so therefore it had to be about eight or-- UW2: Bob Lucas, I think that Bob Lucas taught at [indecipherable]. MM: Charlie Thomas (ph), then. AB: You went to the new schoolhouse, when you started school. MM: Did you ever go to Pinehill School? UW2: [Inaudible.] AB: You was in this township. BM: You was in the township but you wasn' ; t in this district. pause in recording AB: [Indecipherable] started out the Prairie and then Sinclair and then [indecipherable]. BM: Sinclair and what other--which other--what others was in here on that, Abner? AB: Prairie, Prairie Oil Company. BM: Prairie Oil Company. AB: I believe they' ; re actually the ones that built it. And then Sinclair bought the Prairie Oil Company. MM: I need some information on the early oil companies-- BM: Now, did Sundocks or Sun Oil Company--didn' ; t they some stuff in here, too? AB: They never did down in here. They had some stuff over there north of Louis--where Shell is. BM: Shell. AB: And I believe, I believe it' ; s Sun. BM: Sun and Shell both-- MM: Did Mid-Continent have-- AB: But they was both out of here before-- MM: Mid-Continent-- B: Mid-Continent and Conoco, Conoc--Mid-Continent was over there, too. AB: Well that' ; s, that' ; s what they call Sun now. BM: That' ; s what they call Sun. AB: Yeah, I called them Sun but it was, it' ; s Mid-Continent, yeah. MM: How many [inaudible]. BM: No, we' ; re going to have to go, we got some more stuff we got to do. end of interview audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0004-02_Abner_Bruce.xml OHP-0004-02_Abner_Bruce.xml
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1900
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Abner Dalton Bruce
Description
An account of the resource
In this 1976 interview, Abner Dalton Bruce (1918-1987) describes his early life in the Pinehill Community outside Bristow Oklahoma including his family’s income from the quail market in Mannford, farming, shipping cattle on the railroad, early oil drilling in the community, participation in fairs, and the impact of the construction of Heyburn Lake upon the community.
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OHP-0004-02
Subject
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Pinehill Community and School
Oil
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1976-10-03
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audio
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99ca05401f4ba42b4810f193651248a2
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Pinehill Histories
Subject
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History of the Pinehill area north of Bristow
Description
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Several interviews were done by Mary and Bob Mc Carty of people who grew up in the Pinehill area north of Bristow. This collection is the Pinehill subset of the Bristow Oral Histories
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Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
Type
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Oral history.
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Robert L. “Bob” McCarty
Interviewee
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Virgil Rufus Vann
Carrie May (Millhouse) Vann
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https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0001-03_Virgil_Vann.xml
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Pinehill
school
teachers
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5.4 OHP-0001-003 Virgil Rufus Vann OHP-0001-03 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Pinehill Community Bristow Historical Society, Inc. Pinehill Community and School Pinehill school teachers Virgil Rufus Vann Carrie May (Millhouse) Vann Robert L. “Bob” McCarty MP3 1:|32(11)|64(5)|80(3)|103(11)|120(8)|137(9)|154(11)|167(6)|180(4)|194(2)|206(11)|215(10)|232(12)|243(6)|275(14)|284(16)|295(13)|304(14)|314(7)|326(10)|360(10)|374(12)|383(5)|402(11)|420(13)|437(10)|461(14) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0001-03 Vann, Virgil.mp3 Other audio 0 School teachers and classmates in Pinehill BM: --seventy-six, five p.m. MM: Alright, now— BM: Your first— MM: Just a minute, back up, see if it’s recording right quick. BM: Your first teacher was, the first teacher that you went to was who? VV: [Indecipherable] the best I can remember, it might’ve been someone else before that, but-- BM: You don’t know what year it was she told him, huh? Discussion of school days, classmates, and community events in the Pinehill Community Carl Carson ; Charlie Line ; church ; community ; Dewey Carson ; Earl Phillips ; Elsa Self ; Etta Logan ; Howard Baker ; Indians ; Laurie Vaughn ; Leo Pinehill ; literaries ; Mary Vaughn ; Matt Baker ; pie suppers ; Pinehill School ; school ; teacher ; Walt Biggs classmates ; pie suppers ; pinehill ; school 390 Pitch Game and a poem about a Grasshopper BM: What did you do after the literaries? VV: Sometimes we’d have a pitch game. (laughs) BM: Pitch game? VV: Yeah. The boys would. And then we all got scared one night and we saw the community got tired of it, they got that—they didn’t like it a bit in the world, the board didn’t like it, ‘cause we was havin’ a pitch game. We didn’t mean nothin’ by it, just passin’ the time off. I remember one night we’d just got started, you know, and somebody rattled the door, it’s under the law, they’d already warned us. And “Stop that thing!” And somebody rattled and took ahold of the knob and pulled out on the door, tried to break it in. And we had a lock, you know, but they began to shake it and we all broke out of there. Somebody, I remember, someone, they went out, they kicked a big old chair right in the door and we finally just leaped over that chair, hit the ground, and I remember, it kinda knocked the breath out of me when I went over. (chuckling) It gave us such a scare that that ended the pitch game. We never did try that anymore. That was orneriness. And, oh, I don’t know what made us do that, but we didn’t mean nothin’ by it, you know, just havin’ fun. Memories of a pitch games and a poem from school Art Bolin ; Bob Biggs ; Charlie Line ; Frank newman ; Les Stubblefield ; pitch game ; Ralph Newman pitch game 593 Stealing a Rooster MM: What about Albert Cree’s (ph) rooster? VV: Ohhh (laughs) I’m gonna have to tell that again? BM: Yep! We didn’t get it down a while ago. School boys stealing a rooster Albert Cree ; Bob Biggs ; Charlie Vine ; Earl Phillips ; Hog Barnes ; Lester Wilson ; rooster ; stealing rooster 774 Schoolhouse burned down and moving BM: You said a while ago somethin’ about the schoolhouse burnin’, you said that you knew the reasons why that Ella Bruce (ph) and Willie Wilson (ph) didn’t teach anymore. What was that reason? VV: Well, Bob, the best I remember that I don’t know what time of the year, but I don’t know, it seems like they had their election along in March, don’t the school election? Pretty much. But anyway they had the school election there and they had—one of the parties was trying to put the other one out and put some more people in, you know, on the school board. Well, all of the community come out and those that didn’t, why, they’d have the hacks and they’d have buggies and somebody would go after ‘em and bring ‘em in and get ‘em to vote. And so that night, why, after the election, why the schoolhouse burned down. And they wasn’t no more school that year. Memories of the schoolhouse burning down and moving Big Deep Fork ; cotton ; crop ; Ella Bruce ; fire ; Newby ; Pinehill ; school ; schoolhouse ; Willie Wilson school 1136 Oil wells and the Vann children BM: Another question, Virg. Do you remember, or do you remember hearing them say, when the first oil well was drilled in this community? VV: Yeah, I think I do. Pretty sure I do. It was about a mile south of the W.O. Baker place. Glen Freeland and his brother was in the drillin’ business at time. Glen is still livin’. That’s where the first oil well was drilled, I think. I think he’s still livin’ but it ain’t certain for me. BM: Well would Glen Freeland still be around the Bristow area? VV: Yeah. I think he is. He got some wells back over there. The first oil well being drilled and the names of the Vann children covered wagons ; Donald Christopher Vann ; Eliza Elizabeth Grimes ; Glen Freeland ; oil well ; W.O. Baker children ; oil 1394 Courtship and showing off for girls BM: Alright, you and Carrie’s courtship, how did that go? When you were courtin’ Carrie, when you was courtin’ Carrie, how did that take place? VV: How’d it take place? BM: Yeah. VV: Well I got stuck on her. (laughs) I just got kind of stuck on her and we went together, was goin’ together. She wasn’t but fifteen when we married and we didn’t go together—how long we go together, mom? Discussion of courtship with Carrie, showing off, and watermelon stealing courtship ; horses ; Louis Masterson ; Molton Percy ; Owen Ware ; schoolhouse ; watermelon courtship ; horses In this 1976 interview, Virgil Rufus Vann (1895–1983) and his wife Carrie May (Millhouse) Vann (1900-1982) discuss their early-1900s childhoods in the Pinehill Community outside Bristow, Oklahoma, including the first teachers at the school, classmates, their courtship, community social events such as literaries, the loss of the first Pinehill school by fire, and Virgil’s boyish antics such as playing “pitch,” stealing watermelons, and the theft of a rooster. BM: --seventy-six, five p.m. MM: Alright, now-- BM: Your first-- MM: Just a minute, back up, see if it' ; s recording right quick. BM: Your first teacher was, the first teacher that you went to was who? VV: [Indecipherable] the best I can remember, it might' ; ve been someone else before that, but-- BM: You don' ; t know what year it was she told him, huh? CV: So she was teaching-- BM: So what year did you start school? VV: I think it was 1910, I' ; m pretty sure it was. BM: Alright, then she had to have been the teacher there in 1910. VV: Is that the way you got it wrote? BM: No, that' ; s not the way I got it, but-- MM: Well, she could' ; ve taught more than one-- VV: Well, now, I wouldn' ; t be positive on that, I just wouldn' ; t be sure. CV: Five years later we moved up there and she was teaching then. VV: She was? CV: So she might not be teaching VV: She must' ; ve--somebody else must' ; ve--you don' ; t know what year Etta Logan-- BM: Yeah, that was before that. VV: Before ' ; 10? BM: Yeah. VV: It was. I know I went to school with her, didn' ; t I? CV: I did. BM: No, Etta Logan was after Ella. CV: Yeah. MM: We may have that in some of that papers BM: Naw, I ain' ; t got any of that with me. VV: [Indecipherable.] BM: That damn thing, got it runnin' ; now? MM: Yeah, it is. CV: Didn' ; t you say [indecipherable] BM: When you first moved in here to go to Pinehill School where did you live at that time, Virgil? VV: Over on the Elsa Self place BM: You lived on the Elsa Self place. VV: Yeah. BM: Do you remember offhand the kids that went to school with you at that time? VV: Well there was Howard Baker (ph) and Matt Baker (ph) and Charlie Line (ph) and Laurie (ph) and Mary Vaughn (ph) and there was boys, Earl Phillips (ph), I think, [indecipherable] Phillips, Carl and Dewey Carson (ph) I believe, anyway I wouldn' ; t be sure. CV: Well, the Indians-- BM: The Indian kids-- VV: Leo Pinehill, I believe he went to school there, Walt Biggs (ph), and the Wilton (ph) boys, Esco (ph) and Lester (ph) I believe. What year was it that Alvin got killed, do you remember? CV: I think we figured that out. BM: Fifteen. CV: Ware. The Ware (ph) boys. VV: Huh? BM: The Ware (ph) kids. VV: Yeah. Yeah that' ; s right. Oh there' ; s probably some more but I honestly it' ; s out of my mind. BM: Okay, did you--what all activities was the school used for? VV: Well, community purposes, pie suppers and literaries and kangaroo courts, why nearly anything that people in the community-- CV: Church. VV: --wanted to use it for, why it was open. It was open to the public, you know. BM: Every kind of activities for the community, community purposes. VV: Yeah, that' ; s right. And church purposes, you know, they had church there, pretty regular all the time. BM: Now when you first went to go to school there, do you remember these old literaries? VV: Yeah, I remember very well. They' ; d have programs, you know, people would sing songs and different things. Anything that people, any kind of gathering that they wanted, why they was open to the public, you know. MM: Kangaroo courts? VV: Huh? BM: Kangaroo courts, uh, was that, uh, kangaroo courts, was that held as a, one of these literaries or was that-- VV: Well it just seemed to me like they would have literaries, what you mean by " ; literaries" ; is they just had songs, you know, and things like that and to entertain the people, you know. BM: Now this kangaroo court that you was talkin' ; about a while ago, uh, was that officially or was that a, held as a dialogue at these get-togethers on Friday night? VV: No, during literaries they didn' ; t have no dialogues in their programs, you know. They had school programs. They only had dialogues, you know, on the last day of school they' ; d have a program, you know. They' ; d have dialogues and speeches and [indecipherable]. MM: What did you do after the literaries? BM: What did you do after the literaries? VV: Sometimes we' ; d have a pitch game. (laughs) BM: Pitch game? VV: Yeah. The boys would. And then we all got scared one night and we saw the community got tired of it, they got that--they didn' ; t like it a bit in the world, the board didn' ; t like it, ' ; cause we was havin' ; a pitch game. We didn' ; t mean nothin' ; by it, just passin' ; the time off. I remember one night we' ; d just got started, you know, and somebody rattled the door, it' ; s under the law, they' ; d already warned us. And " ; Stop that thing!" ; And somebody rattled and took ahold of the knob and pulled out on the door, tried to break it in. And we had a lock, you know, but they began to shake it and we all broke out of there. Somebody, I remember, someone, they went out, they kicked a big old chair right in the door and we finally just leaped over that chair, hit the ground, and I remember, it kinda knocked the breath out of me when I went over. (chuckling) It gave us such a scare that that ended the pitch game. We never did try that anymore. That was orneriness. And, oh, I don' ; t know what made us do that, but we didn' ; t mean nothin' ; by it, you know, just havin' ; fun. BM: Who all was playing pitch? VV: Oh, there was Les Stubblefield (ph), Charlie Line (ph) and Bob Biggs (ph) and Frank Newman (ph), Ralph Newman (ph), and [indecipherable] Phillips, I think, and Art Bolin (ph)--aw, there was a whole host of us that played. But that ended up the pitch game that night. BM: Now, Carrie said something ' ; bout you had some of these school get-togethers, you said a little poem. What was this little poem about? VV: Oh, it was ' ; bout a little old grasshopper. BM: Would you care to repeat it? VV: Well, it goes like this: There was a little silly grasshopper/ He was always on the jump/ He never looked ahead/ He often got a bump/ His mother said to him one day/ While they were in the stubble/ You don' ; t watch before you leap/ You' ; ll get yourself in trouble/ The silly little grasshopper/ He despised his wise old mother/ And he said I know what to do/ And he decided not to bother/ He hurried on across the field/ And all at once he took a great big old jump and he landed in the brook/ He struggled hard to reach the bank/ But he finally decided he couldn' ; t do it/ He give up/ And all at once an old trout came out/ And tore him all to pieces. And that' ; s a warning, you know, for young people, to take warning from their mother. BM: That' ; s right. MM: What about Albert Cree' ; s (ph) rooster? VV: Ohhh (laughs) I' ; m gonna have to tell that again? BM: Yep! We didn' ; t get it down a while ago. VV: Well, we and us boys--they' ; s a whole bunch of us, oh there must' ; ve been eight or ten of us, we was always tryin' ; to play some prank, you know, on someone, and well Albert Cree (ph), he had an old fine rooster. And he thought a lot of ' ; im, but we decided we' ; d steal that old rooster that night and [indecipherable] was his brother-in-law, wasn' ; t it? He went out and borrowed his gun so that he couldn' ; t use that on us, and on ' ; bout little before we' ; s bedtime we slipped out to the henhouse and one of ' ; em, I forget--he grabbed that old rooster. He began to make his call and finally Albert came to the door and he had his dog about him, too. " ; Get him out! Get it!" ; and old dog just stand there and barkin' ; and barkin.' ; And we' ; d make that old rooster squall as loud as we could. Finally we decided we' ; d take him home and roast ' ; im. We started across the blind side, across an open field there and we, rather than walk through the brush we decided we' ; d walk around the edge of the field. We got over there a certain place and Albert, he cut across the field, you know, he didn' ; t go like we did. But he cut across and he run right into him. And he said, " ; Boy, give him up," ; he said, " ; I come after him." ; And well, he didn' ; t do it, he just hand the old rooster over and Albert went back to the house with the old rooster on his arm. And we didn' ; t bother old Albert no more, that--and with that ended up the rooster roast that night! BM: Who all was in on that rooster roast that night? VV: Huh? BM: Who all was in on that rooster roast? VV: Oh, Hog Barnes (ph), Charlie Vine (ph), Lester Wilson (ph) and Bob Biggs (ph) I believe, and Earl Phillips (ph)--all them, there' ; s a whole bunch of ' ; em. We just out having a good time, you know. And we--we didn' ; t get to roast that old rooster. The way we' ; d do it, we' ; d roll that--roast of ' ; em--roll them old roosters in mud, you know, then we' ; d put them on the pole iron and bake ' ; em. And, well, then we' ; d eat ' ; em. Not salted or nothin' ; . We didn' ; t like ' ; em very well, but we' ; d had a big time, you know. BM: You said a while ago somethin' ; about the schoolhouse burnin' ; , you said that you knew the reasons why that Ella Bruce (ph) and Willie Wilson (ph) didn' ; t teach anymore. What was that reason? VV: Well, Bob, the best I remember that I don' ; t know what time of the year, but I don' ; t know, it seems like they had their election along in March, don' ; t the school election? Pretty much. But anyway they had the school election there and they had--one of the parties was trying to put the other one out and put some more people in, you know, on the school board. Well, all of the community come out and those that didn' ; t, why, they' ; d have the hacks and they' ; d have buggies and somebody would go after ' ; em and bring ' ; em in and get ' ; em to vote. And so that night, why, after the election, why the schoolhouse burned down. And they wasn' ; t no more school that year. BM: Wasn' ; t any more school that year? VV: No. MM: How many schoolhouses-- VV: Finally that fall they built a new schoolhouse down up on the hill where the last one was. I don' ; t know if anybody remember it--do you remember that, where that was at? BM: How many schools do you remember being in the Pinehill District? VV: Three. BM: Three. VV: Three. Three different buildings. BM: Three different buildings. VV: Yeah. BM: Virgil, when you and Carrie came back from Arizona where did you move to? VV: We moved on the old Biggs' ; (ph), well, he owns it now. But dad had bought that place-- CV: Ella Grayson' ; s (ph) place. VV: Well it was up on the hill from dad' ; s house, on the Patty Grisham (ph) place, square-top house. And that' ; s where we lived for--I forget what year it was, we come back in nineteen eight-- CV: Well we lived in an old log house on your dad' ; s place first. VV: Well we moved from there on the [indecipherable] place. No, we moved from down in the field in the longhouse up to the square top house. Ella Grayson' ; s (ph). Then we lived there some years ' ; til 1929. We moved up on John Hader' ; s (ph) place. And we lived there two years and we moved there to Pinehill. And we lived there two years, we moved down on Big Deep Fork. We lived there two years and we moved from there over to Newby, a while east of Newby. That was in ' ; 35. We lived there one year and we moved back over on Kelly' ; s (ph) place south of Bristow five miles. Then we lived there one year and made a crop. We made one bale of cotton that year and we got stalled out. That was the hardest year I ever spent in my whole life, I guess. end side A of tape ; begin side B at 00:00 VV: --and we went from there to forty-four. We been there--that was in ' ; 36. That was a dry year. Were no crops to speak of at all. We left there in August, we went to New Mexico and picked cotton down in the valley that fall, and we left there and went to California. And we stayed there for one year I believe, and we come back to Oklahoma. And that' ; s the year dad had bought the old Phelps (ph)--not--I forgot where it was he bought that from. CV: Old Jake Corns (ph) was livin' ; on it. VV: Yeah, but I forget who it, who we bought it from. But we moved down in the little log house down in the field, and an old dug well in there. And we lived there a while, ' ; til nineteen-and-twenty-nine, we moved up on the Hader (ph) place, John Hader (ph) place. About two miles south of the sub (ph) station. And we lived there two years, two years--that' ; s right. We moved from there on the Leo Pinehill place a mile south of the old Pinehill schoolhouse. We lived there two years and we went to Big Deep Fork. We lived there two years, am I right? Oh, I' ; m all mixed up, ain' ; t I? CV: [Indecipherable.] BM: Another question, Virg. Do you remember, or do you remember hearing them say, when the first oil well was drilled in this community? VV: Yeah, I think I do. Pretty sure I do. It was about a mile south of the W.O. Baker place. Glen Freeland and his brother was in the drillin' ; business at time. Glen is still livin' ; . That' ; s where the first oil well was drilled, I think. I think he' ; s still livin' ; but it ain' ; t certain for me. BM: Well would Glen Freeland still be around the Bristow area? VV: Yeah. I think he is. He got some wells back over there. BM: Would you repeat all of the Vann kids' ; names? Your dad, your mother--dad and mother-- VV: Yeah, they was fourteen of us children. BM: Okay, start with your mother and dad. VV: That' ; s with brothers and sisters. BM: Start with your mother and dad' ; s names, Virg. VV: Dad' ; s name was Donald Christopher. BM: Donald Christopher Vann. VV: Yeah, and my mother' ; s name was Eliza Elizabeth. BM: What was her name before they were married? VV: Mother' ; s name was Grimes. BM: Grimes, okay. VV: Dad' ; s name was Vann. (laughs) BM: Alright, then-- VV: He married when he was seventeen years old, dad did. BM: The children' ; s names was what? VV: Huh? BM: What was all the kids' ; names? VV: Well, Vernie (ph) was the oldest, then I' ; m next. Pearl is next, then, um--- CV: Grace? VV: Grace, and Eamon (ph). That was the oldest ones that--then dad had a younger family after that of about four or five. Gertrude and Meehan (ph) and Louis (ph) and Cletis (ph). Four. Yeah. MM: How old was you when Cletis (ph) was born? VV: Huh? BM: How old was you when Cletis (ph) was born? VV: Cletis (ph) was born after I was married, I was married 1915. Cletis (ph) was born and he' ; s the youngest, he' ; s the baby, and he was born while we was in Arizona. And also, he was born a very--born the day that Maude (ph) died. See, Maude' ; d married Hog Varner (ph). And they went--when we went to Arizona, why they was five of us in the--five covered wagons. Six? Five or six. And we got out in Arizona, they lived there a while and Maudie (ph) died. CV: Not in Arizona. VV: And mother couldn' ; t even go to the funeral. They brought Maude (ph) back and buried her, but mother couldn' ; t go to the funeral because Cletis (ph) was born that day. BM: Alright, you and Carrie' ; s courtship, how did that go? When you were courtin' ; Carrie, when you was courtin' ; Carrie, how did that take place? VV: How' ; d it take place? BM: Yeah. VV: Well I got stuck on her. (laughs) I just got kind of stuck on her and we went together, was goin' ; together. She wasn' ; t but fifteen when we married and we didn' ; t go together--how long we go together, mom? BM: Did you ever pull any--show off to the girls at the school? VV: Did I what? BM: Did you ever show off to the girls at school? VV: Well, yeah, I tried to. (laughs) BM: What did you do showin' ; off? VV: Well I' ; d get down there and ride horses, you know, buckin' ; horses. I remember one time Owen Ware had a little horse and he was a buckin' ; little horse, and I told him I' ; d ride him behind the saddle. And the more I got on that little ole' ; horse and he run out and throwed me up in the tree and I fell down. Fell and knocked me unconscious, and I remember Carrie comin' ; out--I don' ; t remember but she said afterward, she come up there to help me, pick me up. (laughs) Yeah-- BM: So that was the start, that was really the courtship? VV: (laughs) Yeah. BM: When you was a lad growin' ; up, did you ever go watermelon stealing. VV: Oh, yeah, that sounds very common. BM: Who in your opinion, who raised the best watermelon? VV: Well, I just don' ; t remember, Bob, they was all good melons. BM: But you don' ; t--anyone in particular? VV: No, no, I don' ; t, I just don' ; t. But I remember we would, when we' ; d go get a watermelon, we' ; d just get a watermelon, we wouldn' ; t cut the--cut the green ones and mess the pipes all up, we was very respectable along that line. We wanted the people, you know, not to think hard of us and we' ; s just pretty good boys. BM: Okay--- VV: But we did play pitch once in a while. BM: I got a report that one time that you rode your horse into the schoolhouse, is that right? VV: In the what? BM: Into the schoolhouse. VV: No, no, I wouldn' ; t do nothin' ; like that, I don' ; t think I ever did. I believe I did ride him up on the porch, didn' ; t I? CV: I don' ; t know. BM: You rode him up on the porch, you never did get him on inside the schoolhouse? VV: Naw (laughs) no, I-- BM: Do you remember any of the other boys riding them in there? VV: No, no I don' ; t remember anybody. They could' ; ve but I don' ; t remember. BM: How long have you known Louis Masterson (ph)? VV: Well, let' ; s see, can' ; t remember, Bob. I didn' ; t go to school with him, I' ; m pretty sure. But he moved, they moved in the community in later years, I think, best I remember, and he married Molton Percy' ; s (ph) little girl, Virgie (ph). BM: I believe that' ; s about everything, Virg. end of interview audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0001-03_Virgil_Vann.xml OHP-0001-03_Virgil_Vann.xml
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6510
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Virgil Rufus Vann
Description
An account of the resource
In this 1976 interview, Virgil Rufus Vann (1895–1983) and his wife Carrie May (Millhouse) Vann (1900-1982) discuss their early-1900s childhoods in the Pinehill Community outside Bristow, Oklahoma, including the first teachers at the school, classmates, their courtship, community social events such as literaries, the loss of the first Pinehill school by fire, and Virgil’s boyish antics such as playing “pitch,” stealing watermelons, and the theft of a rooster.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
OHP-0001-03
Subject
The topic of the resource
Pinehill Community and School
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1976-10
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
-
https://bristoworalhistory.org/files/original/4b92ebb88101dcdab3da0735fa52211a.jpg
1db4ce2efc85366ed6a04d0158ec1394
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Pinehill Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
History of the Pinehill area north of Bristow
Description
An account of the resource
Several interviews were done by Mary and Bob Mc Carty of people who grew up in the Pinehill area north of Bristow. This collection is the Pinehill subset of the Bristow Oral Histories
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral history.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Elsa Ray Self
OHMS Object
This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS
Viewer)
https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0001-01_Elsa_Self.xml
Interview Keyword
This field adds keywords to the Omeka Oral History item type. Keywords are
included in the OHMS XML, this field in Omeka will allow for full data migration
between OHMS XML and the Omeka Record. This field does not impact the
OHMS / Omeka integration and is optional if you do not need to map the
“keywords” field in the OHMS XML to the corresponding Omeka record.
church
school
teachers
roads
OHMS Object Text
This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the
contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka
5.4 Unknown Date OHP-0001-002 Elsa Ray Self OHP-0001-02 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Pinehill Community Bristow Historical Society, Inc. Pinehill Community church school teachers roads Elsa Ray Self MP3 1:|19(8)|45(8)|64(6)|79(3)|98(9)|118(4)|147(2)|173(3) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0001-02 Self, Elsa.mp3 Other audio 0 School Teachers BM: --recording everything you say. MM: It is—oh just stop it just for a minute to, and get start- stop it just for a minute BM: Alright, just— pause in recording ES: The first building was, uh, one mile south of the last building and a quarter mile east. Then the third building—the second building was, uh, a quarter of a mile west of the last building there. The last building was in the corner right here— Memories of teachers and school in the Pinehill Community Bob Lucas ; church ; Edith Whiteneck ; Etta Logan ; Mark Schockley ; school ; teachers school ; teachers 161 Oil, Fairs, and Church BM: Yeah. Now on the history situation, Elsa, is there anything in particular that you can think of that we ought to put down here in this history, that history on that thing? Like these, this oilfield stuff through here--something on that order there, is there any history on that that you can think of that we might ought to put in, in that. ES: No, I think not. This oil development started in here in the early twenties. I’ve got eleven wells on my place here, and the first one was drilled in 1923. And there was a few up in the north of there, north of here toward Pinehill, but I don’t know how close. Discussion on oil wells, churches, and fairs Charles Thomas ; church ; fairs ; literaries ; Mr. Rufus ; oil ; Pinehill ; statehood drilling ; fairs ; oil ; school 353 Land Development and a Hilarious Interruption BM: On developing this thing out this far in this country through here in 19--when you came back through here, who was some of the more prominent people that helped, was helping in on that at that time? ES: On what? BM: On helping get these roads and things built through here? In the community, helping get these roads built and— Discussion of land and road development and a hilarious interruption. Bruce ; Indians ; Molt Bruce ; Perrymans ; Pinehill ; roads ; Stubblesfields ; Velma Vann development ; roads In this 1976 interview, Elsa Ray Self (1901-1984) discusses the first pre-statehood buildings constructed in the Pinehill Community outside of Bristow, Oklahoma, the first teachers at the Pinehill School, the identities of some of the first families to settle in the area, and early drilling activity in the region. BM: --recording everything you say. MM: It is--oh just stop it just for a minute to, and get start- stop it just for a minute BM: Alright, just-- pause in recording ES: The first building was, uh, one mile south of the last building and a quarter mile east. Then the third building--the second building was, uh, a quarter of a mile west of the last building there. The last building was in the corner right here-- BM: Right. ES: Now then, they had a little church house a mile south of that, uh, old building, of the fir--the last building, and it was just a church house that stayed there a year, a few years. (pauses) Now, the people who lived here I' ; ve known many of them. BM: Uh, now, here' ; s a question, Elsa do you remember the first, the first teacher that taught-- ES: No. No, I haven' ; t lived here all my life, so-- MM: Which is the first teacher you remember? BM: Which, which is the first teacher that you remembered? ES: Well it might' ; ve been Bob Lucas. BM: Bob Lucas. Well, see I have one back before Bob Lucas, that was, uh, Mark Shockley. ES: Mark Shockley, yes, I remember Mark-- MM: [Inaudible] BM: Then there' ; s one, uh, one before him, there was a lady before him by the name of Edith Whiteneck and another by Eddie, uh, what is that name? You got it wrote down there, that was after Edith Whiteneck-- MM: Hicks. BM: Hicks, yeah, what was that Hicks' ; last--first name. MM: Etta, uh Edith Whiteneck, Etta Logan, and then something Hicks. ES: Well that' ; s before I came here. I didn' ; t come here until, didn' ; t move here until 1922. BM: 1922 ES: I owned this place since 19-and-02. BM: Well that, that' ; s what I know. ES: I owned this, well, I owned this place since 19-and-02 and I could tell you people who lived here, well, but these uh school buildings here I just know about them. BM: Yeah. Now on the history situation, Elsa, is there anything in particular that you can think of that we ought to put down here in this history, that history on that thing? Like these, this oilfield stuff through here--something on that order there, is there any history on that that you can think of that we might ought to put in, in that. ES: No, I think not. This oil development started in here in the early twenties. I' ; ve got eleven wells on my place here, and the first one was drilled in 1923. And there was a few up in the north of there, north of here toward Pinehill, but I don' ; t know how close. UW: Well that number one was the first oil well that went---ever drilled in here. ES: No it wasn' ; t. UW: At that time. ES: It wasn' ; t. BM: Is there anything that you can think of that-- ES: Now, I went to church in this first building right up here, way down here back before statehood. I remember going there to church before statehood. My father was a minister and he went there and preached once in a while. But then when that building burned they moved it north and northwest. MM: What about the literaries? BM: Do you remember anything on those old time literaries that they had? ES: No. UW: They was over by the time he was back. MM: What about the fairs? BM: Do you know anything about fair that was held? Fairs that was held? ES: No. MM: At Pinehill School itself. ES: No. MM: Starting about middle of 1928, ' ; 29 out there. At the school itself, a fair. UW: Do you know when, uh, that was during Mrs. Rufus' ; time, I was substituting there for her and, uh, they was having a literary going-on there then because I was in a play that was there. BM: Okay--so you' ; re helping out here too. ES: I did a little substitute work there for Charles Thomas. BM: Yeah, I knew that. ES: But not much. BM: On developing this thing out this far in this country through here in 19--when you came back through here, who was some of the more prominent people that helped, was helping in on that at that time? ES: On what? BM: On helping get these roads and things built through here? In the community, helping get these roads built and-- ES: Well, I' ; d say the Bruces, Bruce families-- tape hilariously interrupted KID1: (excitedly) --and the top comes off, and it' ; s got little benches, and everything! Don' ; t we, mama! KID2: Mama! DAD: What the hell goin' ; on here! Somebody been playin' ; with this damn thing again? MOM: [Indecipherable.] No, what ya did, turned on them on or somethin' ; , did you wind it back? DAD: Yeah. MOM: I gotta do it again? DAD: Nope. tape continues ES: And then there was Vann, Velma (ph) Vann was here, he lived here on my place. Stubblefields lived here from 1902 to 1912, they must' ; ve had quite a bit to do with it. BM: Well see, that-- ES: Stubblefield. BM: Stubblefield. MM: What years did the Vanns lived on this place? ES: Well, they lived here, I' ; d say, uh, 1912 to about ' ; 17, 1917. They lived here five, six years. MM: If you' ; d ever let me in it, you wouldn' ; t have got me out, this is a nice, my idea of an ideal place to live. ES: Pinehill? MM: No, this place right here. ES: Oh. (laughs) Well-- MM: What about the [inaudible] BM: Alright, let' ; s kind of-- MM: --' ; cause they still, they still own the property there across from where the school was, they was the Perrymans and the Bruces and-- ES: Yeah, they were Indians. Yeah, they was an Indian lived east of that there and she was, he was Molt Bruce' ; s wife' ; s brother but I forget his name, terrible with his name. BM: Noble? ES: I' ; m not certain whether it was Noble, or-- MM: Well they say one of the Perrymans owned this-- ES: Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn' ; t know who-- end of interview audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0001-01_Elsa_Self.xml OHP-0001-01_Elsa_Self.xml
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5600
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Elsa Ray Self
Description
An account of the resource
In this 1976 interview, Elsa Ray Self (1901-1984) discusses the first pre-statehood buildings constructed in the Pinehill Community outside of Bristow, Oklahoma, the first teachers at the Pinehill School, the identities of some of the first families to settle in the area, and early drilling activity in the region.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
OHP-0001-02
Subject
The topic of the resource
Pinehill Community
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio
-
https://bristoworalhistory.org/files/original/7458576b2256960266608938b37dd941.jpg
e63d20283fc90287b998fe93091e12c7
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Pinehill Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
History of the Pinehill area north of Bristow
Description
An account of the resource
Several interviews were done by Mary and Bob Mc Carty of people who grew up in the Pinehill area north of Bristow. This collection is the Pinehill subset of the Bristow Oral Histories
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral history.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Robert L. “Bob” McCarty
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Carrie May (Millhouse) Vann
OHMS Object
This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS
Viewer)
https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0001-01_Carrie_Vann.xml
Interview Keyword
This field adds keywords to the Omeka Oral History item type. Keywords are
included in the OHMS XML, this field in Omeka will allow for full data migration
between OHMS XML and the Omeka Record. This field does not impact the
OHMS / Omeka integration and is optional if you do not need to map the
“keywords” field in the OHMS XML to the corresponding Omeka record.
Pinehill
school
fairs
OHMS Object Text
This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the
contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka
5.4 OHP-0001-001 Carrie May (Millhouse) Vann OHP-0001-01 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Pinehill Community Bristow Historical Society, Inc. History of Pinehill Community Pinehill school fairs Carrie May (Millhouse) Vann Robert L. “Bob” McCarty MP3 1:|36(2)|68(7)|103(12)|121(5)|141(15)|181(9)|206(9)|222(4)|242(2)|269(2)|294(3)|307(8)|320(4)|341(2)|371(2)|400(13)|424(16)|461(1)|498(2) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0001-01 Vann, Carrie.mp3 Other audio 0 Spelling Bees and School CV: Which was the most dangerous—water or fire. BM: Yeah. CV: You know, fire killed [inaudible]. MM: Well I can’t think of what [inaudible] Memories of spelling bees and school in the Pinehill community Charlie Dressler ; Ellis Head ; Floyd Wilson ; Howard Baker ; Mosquiter Creek ; schoolhouse ; singing ; spelling bees ; Virgil School ; Spelling Bees 235 Teachers and getting into trouble BM: Uhh, what about those spankings? (tape interference) CV: Well, in the evenings, y’know, we’d all walk home together on the road ‘til we’d get to Mosquito creek, or sometimes I would go on with a bunch up to the next corner, on the south up there where we lived. BM: Where the other school that—where the first schoolhouse was. CV: Yeah. And--well not hardly that far. And momma, she kept tellin’ me not to do it, to come on home. And one evening I—told me not to do that no more. Next evening I did, I went up there and I got a whoopin’ when I got home. (laughs) Memories of getting into trouble as kids and the first teachers of Pinehill Edith Whiteneck ; Ethel Logan ; school ; teacher school ; teachers 389 Death of Alvin Hicks CV: Yeah, I think that’s the way it was because I know, uh, we didn’t live down there too long ‘til we moved up here on this [indecipherable] and, uh, he was teachin’ school— BM: He was teaching school when— CV: Well when my brother got killed. Alvin. BM: When Alvin got killed, well, he was the teacher there then. That was Alvin Hicks. Okay, then After Alvin Hicks there was who. Carrie Vann speaks on the death of her brother Alvin Hicks. Alvin Hicks ; stalk cutter ; teacher Alvin Hicks ; teacher 533 Families in Pinehill CV: And you haven’t talked to any of the Vanns, or— BM: No, uh, you’re the first, uh, we just got this thing today, got ahold of-- CV: I guess I better let [indecipherable] let them talk. BM: Well you tell what you can and on that part, I’ll come back to that, and, uh—it was after you and Virgil-- A discussion on the families living in the Pinehill community Abner Bruce ; Annie Pinehill ; buggies ; Iva Ware ; Jay Crawford ; John Wilson ; Milk ; Naomi Ballard ; Owen Ware ; Perrymans ; Phoebe ; revival ; Sally Pinehill ; sapulpa ; Sister Mary ; Smith Bruce ; train ; W.O. Baker Pinehill Families 908 Fairs BM: Tell us about this fair situation. VV: Well, I don’t— MM: Uh, Alex—you might start with Alex— VV: Well, really, I don’t know, I think Alex Myers was one of the judges, wasn’t he? Of the milk cows? CV: I don’t remember. VV: Oh yeah, I’m sure he was, uh, you can have these old timers like John or somebody can tell you more about that, but I can’t, ‘cause they—I was just a kid, you know, ‘bout seven years old. Discussion of fairs in Pinehill Alex Myers ; church ; Deep Fork ; fair ; Judges ; Pinehill Fairs 1010 Bruce Family and Playing in the Creek VV: And old Smith Bruce, I heard him talk, you know, he, he might’ve, uh, raised some big ones. All I know, I know he raised a lot of cane down there, I shipped cane for him myself. MM: Now, honey, you don’t put the ashes in her vases-- CV: No, here, right here, that’s what it’s for— VV: Now I just don’t remember anything about the watermelon. CV: Well, you wasn’t born then, when what I’m talkin’ bout— Memories of playing in the creek chicken house ; creek ; Smith Bruce creek ; rooster In this 1976 interview, Carrie May (Millhouse) Vann (1900-1982) discusses the history of the Pinehill Community outside of Bristow, Oklahoma in the early 1900s, including the first teachers at the school and her classmates, her childhood, courting her husband Virgil Vann, social events such literaries, and the childhood death of her brother Alvin. CV: Which was the most dangerous--water or fire. BM: Yeah. CV: You know, fire killed [inaudible]. MM: Well I can' ; t think of what [inaudible] pause in recording BM: People had a lot of fun at ' ; em. CV: Yeah. pause in recording CV: You know, even the grown people would help out in those. You remember the sp--oh, you don' ; t remember the spelling bees, do you? BM: Yeah. CV: And the older folks would spell against one another, and I know my mother won one time. BM: And it' ; s, uh, the last one in. CV: Yeah, and the word was " ; recollect." ; I' ; ll never forget that word, " ; recollect." ; They all missed it but her. (laughs) pause in recording CV: Stuff like colored people. BM: Mmm-hmm. CV: [Indecipherable] but I--I just can' ; t figure out, well, Baker boy, y' ; know, that-- BM: Which one is that? CV: Howard. BM: Howard Baker. CV: Yeah, he went to school there, and then the oth--George, was it? BM: Geo--uh, Matt. CV: Matt. BM: Yeah, that--I think that picture that I was talkin' ; --I think he' ; s in that. MM: Didn' ; t they have some singing at the literaries? CV: Oh, yeah, they had just a--children' ; d say it was-- MM: Singing. CV: Oh, singing? MM: Different adults sang songs? CV: I don' ; t think we did. Only at church, y' ; know, Sunday School, but on the lit-- MM: You had church and Sunday School in the schoolhouse, too. CV: Mmm-hmm. When we moved up this country, did youse live here? In around in here? BM: Aww, see, mom and dad was, was, married here. In 19-and-19, I think. CV: Yeah, yeah I can remember when they got married. MM: Mom went to school out there. CV: Yeah, she did. BM: 19-and-12. CV: But I' ; m talkin' ; ' ; bout her momma and daddy. BM: Aww, no, they came to Oklahoma in 19-and-07. CV: Seven, well that' ; s the year, then, when we moved down here, we moved in about 1912, I think. [Indecipherable] got the schoolhouse and then Charlie Dressler owned the place and dad rented it from him. BM: He lived down on the Charlie Dressler place. CV: Right south of the schoolhouse. BM: Right south of the schoolhouse, that would be down-- CV: It' ; s right close to the little creek. BM: Be Mosquiter Creek. CV: Mosquiter Creek, yeah. On--we lived on the north side. BM: You had it on the north side--you must' ; ve lived in there where Ellis Head lived over there. CV: Well, that' ; s-- BM: You lived there where Ellis-Ellis and Mickey lived there for years. CV: Yeah, yeah, um-hmm, that' ; s the place we lived. And I was trying to think--Mickey and I, you know, [inaudible] Vann that year, and I remember Floyd Wilson, he was just a baby. (laughs) And, I know a [indecipherable], we' ; d pack him around, take care of him. But that--I don' ; t remember ' ; em singing, only just in church. I know they had reading, Da--I can remember--when I say " ; Daddy" ; I mean Virgil, I remember him singin' ; a song about the grasshopper, and he still knows that, it' ; s a reading, rather, you know, and he still knows that good. MM: I asked Virgil if-- pause in recording BM: Back up-- pause in recording BM: Uhh, what about those spankings? (tape interference) CV: Well, in the evenings, y' ; know, we' ; d all walk home together on the road ' ; til we' ; d get to Mosquito creek, or sometimes I would go on with a bunch up to the next corner, on the south up there where we lived. BM: Where the other school that--where the first schoolhouse was. CV: Yeah. And--well not hardly that far. And momma, she kept tellin' ; me not to do it, to come on home. And one evening I--told me not to do that no more. Next evening I did, I went up there and I got a whoopin' ; when I got home. (laughs) BM: You got a paddlin' ; when you got to the house! MM: So did the teacher ever paddle you? CV: No, I [indecipherable] BM: Well what' ; s up with the cotton pickin' ; mess that Virgil got into? CV: Well I don' ; t know, you' ; d have to ask him ' ; bout that. He--I know he was a' ; ridin' ; a horse out on the schoolground-- BM: Yeah- CV: --and, uh, the horse throwed him, and throwed him up against a tree. He hurt his shoulder, and [indecipherable] was tryin' ; to show off. BM: ' ; Tryin' ; to show off? CV: (laughs) Yeah. BM: To the girls? CV: We wasn' ; t sweethearts then, we just-- BM: Just tryin' ; to show off to the girls? CV: Yeah. That' ; s what I expect. (laughs) He' ; ll get me for that. BM: Awww, we don' ; t need to let him know ' ; bout that one. When it comes to that one, why, we just shut ' ; im off. Or let it on forward, turn the volume down where he can' ; t hear. CV: But you know the first school was Miss Whiteneck. BM: The first teacher-- CV: Edith Whiteneck. BM: Edith Whiteneck. Okay, now, then. Edith Whiteneck was the first teacher. CV: For me, I can-- BM: Okay, she was the first teacher, period, the way I understand it. CV: Yeah, I think she-- BM: Alright, uh, what was the teacher' ; s name after Edith Whiteneck? CV: Oh, let me see now, the other day I remembered. (pauses) Ethel. Ethel Logan. BM: Ethel Logan. Was the teacher. Was the teacher after Edith Whiteneck. CV: Yeah. BM: Alright. CV: I think that Edith-- BM: Who was the teacher after her? CV: A man teacher. BM: Man teacher then? After Etta? CV: Yeah, I think that' ; s the way it was because I know, uh, we didn' ; t live down there too long ' ; til we moved up here on this [indecipherable] and, uh, he was teachin' ; school-- BM: He was teaching school when-- CV: Well when my brother got killed. Alvin. BM: When Alvin got killed, well, he was the teacher there then. That was Alvin Hicks. Okay, then After Alvin Hicks there was who. CV: He was, uh, drivin' ; a one of them--cuttin' ; stalks, cotton stalks-- BM: Cuttin' ; stalks with a stalk cutter. CV: Yeah, yeah. Stalk cutter. Henry died when that--and he come home from school and he had wanted to ride on that and he got on that thing and rode by himself about a hundred foot and it went to runnin' ; (tape interference) down onto the ditch, the thing turned over and caught him and he was dead. BM: It had cut him all to pieces. CV: Yes. So, and then, I just, I didn' ; t go to school down there so I didn' ; t really know. I imagine Ivy' ; d remember what-- BM: Oh, uh, we' ; ll check with Ivy on it, too. We' ; ve got, uh, a few to go. CV: It was ' ; fore I was married, just not too long afore I was married, when she got married in sixteen? Nineteen? BM: Nineteen--you got married in 1915. So he was killed in 1915. CV: It was the thirteenth--I mean on the fourteenth or fifteenth, I think I' ; ve got it in the Bible. Ivy might know. BM: Ivy might recollect what day it was--what day it was that he was killed. CV: Yeah. pause in recording CV: --went home, you know children used to go home with children. I was with Esther Wilcox that day. (tape interference) --they sent somebody down to tell me about him. (tape interference) CV: And you haven' ; t talked to any of the Vanns, or-- BM: No, uh, you' ; re the first, uh, we just got this thing today, got ahold of-- CV: I guess I better let [indecipherable] let them talk. BM: Well you tell what you can and on that part, I' ; ll come back to that, and, uh--it was after you and Virgil-- CV: I think it was after we was married, or just before. I think it' ; s after, when they did that. MM: How did they run off and get married? CV: I don' ; t know. MM: Are they the ones that were on the train to Sapulpa and got married? CV: I don' ; t think they went very--couldn' ; t have went very far in them days they just had buggies, you know. MM: Somebody went to--who was it your momma used to tell about-- BM: Uh, I think they were married afore. CV: Uh, let' ; s see, when we first come up to this country, down there, they just got through with a revival. They had the biggest revival they' ; d had. And when--they just called her Sister Mary, the woman done the preaching, but I never did learn her name, they just called her Sister Mary. But that was before [indecipherable] BM: Yeah. CV: Grandma and grandpa did. BM: Grandma and grandpa Dot. CV: You know, uh, Mary Bly (tape interference) CV: --and uh, what else maybe I can-- BM: [Indecipherable.] CV: Oh, yeah, Smith Bruce and them-- BM: Okay, Smith Bruce-- CV: --back over here a little, and-- BM: Yeah. CV: And you folks, and Jay Crawford-- BM: Jay Crawford. CV: Yeah, and his family lived on the black--what they called the black place, a little house there in there where dad--your grandfather let ' ; em use it. And, uh, Milt and Phoebe lived there, I remember them, and uh, Sally Pinehill, I remember I went to her funeral. And, uh, Annie Pinehill, the one with the husband (tape interference). It' ; s just mostly Bruces (tape interference). BM: And what was Grandpa Bruce' ; s name, was that Abner Bruce? [Indecipherable] man Abner? CV: I don' ; t know what his name was, we just always called him Grandpa Bruce, he was always--he loved children. I used to ask him to go home with him for dinner, but I--to tell you the truth, it must' ; ve been [indecipherable] the boy' ; s names back then, mustn' ; t it? Would Phoebe know? BM: I' ; d have to talk to her. CV: They made that [indecipherable]. And Naomi Ballard went to school there. And, uh, Wilson? What was his name? John Wilson? BM: John Wilson. CV: His family, they lived there. And uh, Wares, you remember them? And then W.O. Baker and their kids went to school there. And the Ware kids went there, Owen Ware and Iva Ware. MM: What about the Perrymans, was there any of them? CV: Yes, they lived there too. MM: Yeah. CV: The Perrymans lived there. MM: Mmm-hmm. CV: And what was those kids' ; names, I can' ; t think of them-- MM: That would' ; ve been-- CV: Or Parkham, if it' ; s close enough. You know, half the [indecipherable] from down at the cemetery' ; s, it' ; s down on Pinehill, you know, in that creek, Pinehill Creek. And, uh, he died, Pinehill, Grandpa Pinehill died for, when we went to his funeral. And, uh, they put in there his lunch, in a shoebox, they fixed him a lunch, and they put his saddle and then--I don' ; t know whether it was a gun or a bow and arrow. MM: It might' ; ve been a bow and arrow. CV: I don' ; t know whether they used guns then or not, the Indians. And, let me see now. Yeah, they just packed him down there and the rest of them walked down Pinehill ' ; cause it wasn' ; t very far there. BM: I was sayin' ; to her, over in, uh, the road there that [indecipherable]. CV: Yeah. BM: Over there in the creek. CV: Yeah. [Indecipherable.] BM: Yeah. CV: Somebody told me here awhile back somebody' ; d been digging in the graves over there, I don' ; t know if that' ; s right. BM: Yeah. That' ; s what I heard. CV: That' ; s the reason, don' ; t you think? BM: Ahh, I imagine so. MM: [Indecipherable.] CV: [Indecipherable.] pause in recording BM: Tell us about this fair situation. VV: Well, I don' ; t-- MM: Uh, Alex--you might start with Alex-- VV: Well, really, I don' ; t know, I think Alex Myers was one of the judges, wasn' ; t he? Of the milk cows? CV: I don' ; t remember. VV: Oh yeah, I' ; m sure he was, uh, you can have these old timers like John or somebody can tell you more about that, but I can' ; t, ' ; cause they--I was just a kid, you know, ' ; bout seven years old. pause in recording BM: You' ; re on. You' ; re on, buddy. You' ; re on. VV: I can' ; t talk into one of them little old things. BM: No, you were talkin' ; a while ago, you were tellin' ; me all about it, and you--now you, now what about this, uh, prize that you won. VV: Well, I took, uh, I went out in dad' ; s field and got some sudan, you know, and took it up there and won first prize there at the fair. Well they bring their work horses, you know, their cows, everything, they grew everything. MM: ' ; Bout what year did it--what years did that? VV: Well must' ; ve been ' ; 28, ' ; 29, or ' ; 30, in there you know, well, we moved to Pinehill what was ' ; 33 when we moved down there was. They, we -- there to, I mean to-- CV: ' ; 30-- VV: I mean to Deep Fork. CV: It was ' ; 30 when we moved to Pinehill. VV: ' ; 30? So it must' ; ve been ' ; 28 and ' ; 29 when I went to school down there. And they even used to have fair, uh, a fair up here at this church up here, you know, uh, Liberty, okay? They had a fair there, they had one at all these little places around here, they had their own little fair. I can remember, I don' ; t remember takin' ; anything up there but I remember going up there to the fair. That' ; s when the old church sat on back west up on the hill there, you know? And I was a kid goin' ; up there. pause in recording VV: And old Smith Bruce, I heard him talk, you know, he, he might' ; ve, uh, raised some big ones. All I know, I know he raised a lot of cane down there, I shipped cane for him myself. MM: Now, honey, you don' ; t put the ashes in her vases-- CV: No, here, right here, that' ; s what it' ; s for-- VV: Now I just don' ; t remember anything about the watermelon. CV: Well, you wasn' ; t born then, when what I' ; m talkin' ; bout-- pause in recording BM: Alright, now then. VV: --and we' ; d pull it back up on the one leg and kids would get on there and ride it-- CV: --I had some things, I had a basket of the things [indecipherable] and ride it down the creek-- MM: Why was it put there?-- CV: They built it, the boys-- VV: It was up in a great big old elm tree, see-- MM: Oh you built it yourself? VV: Yeah, put a pulley on there and a seat, you know, and we' ; d pull it up there and climb up the tree and get on and ride down the creek, you know, and we had it tied to another tree and you stopped, it was just something to play with, you know. pause in recording VV: And somebody came there and broke some [indecipherable] off and took off, and that was it--we lived back over there by Smith-- CV: Well, we lived down on the corner-- VV: But he found out who it was, I think, but he just let ' ; em go, said they was hungry. CV: Way over Bruce' ; s place, well not way over Bruce, the little Pinehill' ; s place-- VV: That' ; s where your chicken house was, far away, them birds CV: (laughing) VV: Over up on that Pinehill place. pause in recording VV: Well where' ; d you live at? CV: Uh, dad lived up on what call--used to call Pike' ; s Peak, that big hill where you turn, you go down to-- VV: Way up on there on that cave? MM: Yeah, uh, dad lived up there. VV: You know, where they played ball? BM: Yeah. VV: Where it turned west? On the south side of the road just--I was up there here, I was telling Carrie it' ; s still up there, no sir, they had a mother that lived in an old cellar there-- CV: No, we lived in a tent. MM: Albert Cree (ph)-- CV: Dad had the-- MM: Albert Cree' ; s (ph) rooster' ; s who he' ; s tellin' ; -- CV: Yeah. (laughs) MM: What' ; d they do with it? CV: Oh, they--he got after ' ; em with his gun and they had to turn it loose. (laughs) Dad still tells that. VV: I don' ; t remember that. pause in recording CV: [Indecipherable] and that really got him, he said you know' ; d I didn' ; t [indecipherable]. VV: Who was that? CV: [Indecipherable] Bruce VV: Oh. CV: [Indecipherable.] end of interview audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0001-01_Carrie_Vann.xml OHP-0001-01_Carrie_Vann.xml
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Carrie May (Millhouse) Vann
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In this 1976 interview, Carrie May (Millhouse) Vann (1900-1982) discusses the history of the Pinehill Community outside of Bristow, Oklahoma in the early 1900s, including the first teachers at the school and her classmates, her childhood, courting her husband Virgil Vann, social events such literaries, and the childhood death of her brother Alvin.
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OHP-0001-01
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History of Pinehill Community
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1976-10
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Pinehill Histories
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History of the Pinehill area north of Bristow
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Several interviews were done by Mary and Bob Mc Carty of people who grew up in the Pinehill area north of Bristow. This collection is the Pinehill subset of the Bristow Oral Histories
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Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
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Oral history.
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Mary Lee (Fuller) McCarty
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Heyburn
Mary Lee (Fuller) McCarty
Pinehill
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5.4 OHP-0008-03 Mary Lee (Fuller) McCarty OHP-0008-03 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Pinehill Community Bristow Historical Society, Inc. Pinehill Communit and School Heyburn Mary Lee (Fuller) McCarty Pinehill Mary Lee (Fuller) McCarty MP3 1:|11(2)|21(5)|33(5)|42(1)|48(14)|58(1)|67(10)|77(11)|87(1)|97(4)|106(3)|113(9)|121(4)|130(7)|136(1)|146(2)|155(6)|162(8)|172(4)|179(1)|186(10)|196(9)|205(4)|214(7) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0008-03 McCarty, Mary.mp3 Other audio 0 Pinehill History This is Wednesday, November 17, 1976, the time is twelve o’clock noon. I’ve had several people ask how Bob and I got into the Pinehill research and history writing. And I thought that I would tape my reasons at least. In May of 1972 Oma Head (ph) was at decorations at 44 Cemetery when I took my mom McCarty out there and she told me that she and Donnie Johnson were going to have a Pinehill community reunion that August. When I came home I told Bob and he was pleased. In July he contacted Oma (ph) and she said, “Oh, we just talked about it, we haven’t done anything about it,” so Bob got busy and he and I contacted a lot of people. We had 82 people present at the Pinehill reunion on August 20, 1972 at Rocky Point. Everyone had a good time and vowed to hold a reunion each year on the third Sunday in August. We elected Chester Wilson as president and a committee of five to assist the president, with Lenora Darnell as secretary. The committee of five were Mildred Kerley (ph) in Tulsa, Frankie McKinzie (ph) Oklahoma City, Chester Wilson Sapulpa, Neiman Mark (ph) Drumright, and Lenora Darnell and Eva Carson (ph) of Bristow. Discussion of reunions in the Pinehill Community and those who helped organize them. 44 Cemetery ; Chester Wilson ; Clarence Myers ; Della Brake ; Donnie Johnson ; Eunice Perryman ; Eva Carson ; Frankie McKinzie ; Lenora Darnell ; Leo Bruce ; Leo pinehill ; Mildred Kerley ; Neiman Mark ; Oma Head ; Phoebe Perryman ; Pinehill ; Pinehill Road ; Rocky Point ; school ; Shepherd Point Pinehill Community Reunion ; Pinehill School 330 Map of Pinehill During research and getting the county records from J.L. Darnell who was county superintendent when I was doing the research, he told me about a map of Oklahoma that hangs—a four, five foot, I would say, map hangs in the courthouse in Sapulpa. It’s either 1902 or 1903 map of the original Indian allotments. I—the names and the figures and the map fascinated me but I didn’t do any—I looked at it and I’ve looked at it several times since and thought how to copy it. We thought of photography and different ways. The people at the courthouse would not let us take the map off the wall to do anything with it because it’s old and it’s fragile. So I got busy with other things. Trying to obtain a copy of the map of the Pinehill Community Augustine Kelly ; Heyburn Lake ; Indian allotments ; Iva Rossander ; J.L. Darnell ; Kathy Thompson ; map ; Pinehill ; Ranger Station ; Rick Cane ; Shepherd's Point Map of the Pinehill Community 750 The Bruce Family, Crops, and School Taping these people, older people, and getting their personalities in them has been a wonderful thing. And to get the feel of community is interesting also. What we found out is this: In 1885 the Bruces, the first white settlers, came into Pinehill community. In 1896 the W.O. Baker came in—family came in. We really have no dates on the people as they came in after that. In 1897, as far as our history can tell, Leo Bruce was the white, first white child born in the community. They were five of the Bruce brothers that came into the community. And some people says it’s a Bruce history—it’s not. They were just the first there, and a lot of people and the ones that Bob and his family knew best—and that most people knew best. They were workers, they were builders. The thing that kept the community alive was the rich bottomlands and then the oil and gas wells—mostly gas wells, of the oil industry. The people in the oilfields moved so often that we really have no history on persons of the oilfield, but the oil industry was one of the team that kept the community alive. Discussion of the first settlers to the area, the Bruce family and the early school days bootleg school ; Bruce ; cattle ; church ; corn ; cotton ; Creek Indian ; Creek Indian Nation ; Creek Nation ; crops ; Della Brake ; grains ; horses ; Leo Bruce ; maize ; school ; subscription school ; voting precinct ; W.O. Baker Bruce Family ; crops ; farming ; school 1093 Railroad and Heyburn Lake When the government surveyors surveyed the railroad for the line between Tulsa and Oklahoma City, one of the surveys—surveyors, Dr. Fath, surveyed the area for oil and gas. He must’ve been a very remarkable man, and we have—were kindly given some photostatic copies of one of Dr. Fath’s books by George Krumme. He—his records called the area the Bristow Quadrangle. The Pinehill community were—was included in it. The second successful well in the Bristow Quadrangle was drilled close to Wild Horse Prairie in section 17-9 in 1911. ‘Producing well,’ they called it. There had been others drilled but that was the second producing well. It was a gas well and it was drilled at depths of 990 to 1,010 feet. And it produced seven million cubic foot of gas a day. Discussion of railroad and Heyburn Lake Bristow ; Bristow Quadrangle ; Dr. Fath ; gas ; George Krumme ; Heyburn Lake ; Kellyville ; oil ; oilfields ; Olive ; pipeline ; railroad ; Wild Horse Prairie Bristow Quadrangle ; Heyburn Lake ; railroad 1335 Repeat of Introduction This is Wednesday, November 17, 1976. The time is twelve noon. I’ve been asked by several people why Bob and I started the Pinehill research and history and so I thought I would tape it today. In May of 1972 at decoration at 44 Cemetery, Oma Head (ph) told me that she and Bonnie Johnson were going to have a reunion for the Pinehill Community in 1972 in August. Mrs. McCarty appears to be restarting her narrative at this point in the tape and re-reading from her notes. Pinehill Pinehill In this 1976 monologue, Mary Lee (Fuller) McCarty (1929-2007) gives a summary of her efforts, along with her husband Bob, in compiling the history of the Pinehill Community in Creek County, Oklahoma. She also provides a summary of their findings regarding the early Pinehill School, early settlers to the area, and their efforts to memorialize their research in an informational display at Heyburn Lake. This is Wednesday, November 17, 1976, the time is twelve o' ; clock noon. I' ; ve had several people ask how Bob and I got into the Pinehill research and history writing. And I thought that I would tape my reasons at least. In May of 1972 Oma Head (ph) was at decorations at 44 Cemetery when I took my mom McCarty out there and she told me that she and Donnie Johnson were going to have a Pinehill community reunion that August. When I came home I told Bob and he was pleased. In July he contacted Oma (ph) and she said, " ; Oh, we just talked about it, we haven' ; t done anything about it," ; so Bob got busy and he and I contacted a lot of people. We had 82 people present at the Pinehill reunion on August 20, 1972 at Rocky Point. Everyone had a good time and vowed to hold a reunion each year on the third Sunday in August. We elected Chester Wilson as president and a committee of five to assist the president, with Lenora Darnell as secretary. The committee of five were Mildred Kerley (ph) in Tulsa, Frankie McKinzie (ph) Oklahoma City, Chester Wilson Sapulpa, Neiman Mark (ph) Drumright, and Lenora Darnell and Eva Carson (ph) of Bristow. The second annual reunion was held August 19, 1973 at Shepherd Point with 136 present. We said we had a better time. The reunion was growing each year, we held them each year the third Sunday in August, and we intend to keep on holding them. We have new ones that comes each year and some of the older people can' ; t make it and some just don' ; t care for them. Of course, some of them are quite old and illness and death is taking away them each year. I would sit and listen to people talk and different ones would say, Well, the first school was a stockade school, or The first school was a log school, and I found no one who really knew. In 1974 I started taking notes and interviewing people along in October. Leo Bruce is the only one that I found then, or I find now, that remembers the first school. He wasn' ; t to school age when they were building it and he was watching them build it. He said he got chased home from the site many a time from getting in the carpenter' ; s way. It was built about a quarter of a mile east of the section line that we call the Pinehill Road on the Leo Pinehill original Indian allotment. Then Leo Bruce started to school there in the school term of 1903 along with several of the other children. He told us the name of the first teacher and then the second and Clarence Myers remembered a bunch of the early teachers, Bob' ; s mother started to school in the 1907-1908 and Della Brake (ph) was the teacher that year. She remembered and I was taking the notes very well. We' ; ve had different opinions. We know the first school was built on the Leo Pinehill allotment. It burned in 1909. The controversy was the second school and where this schoolhouse was, but it would--if it was the second school we heard about was built a quarter of a mile west of the first on the section line corners, and it was there only three years. In 1912 they moved the school one mile north and about a quarter of a mile west on the Phoebe Perryman allotment and it burned in 1918. Then in the year 1918 the school records show that the final school was built a quarter of a mile east from that school on the corner and it is the Pinehill School on the Eunice Perryman property, and that is the school most people remember and know as the Pinehill School. All of them were the Pinehill School, buildings burned or changed but the school itself remained the Pinehill School. During research and getting the county records from J.L. Darnell who was county superintendent when I was doing the research, he told me about a map of Oklahoma that hangs--a four, five foot, I would say, map hangs in the courthouse in Sapulpa. It' ; s either 1902 or 1903 map of the original Indian allotments. I--the names and the figures and the map fascinated me but I didn' ; t do any--I looked at it and I' ; ve looked at it several times since and thought how to copy it. We thought of photography and different ways. The people at the courthouse would not let us take the map off the wall to do anything with it because it' ; s old and it' ; s fragile. So I got busy with other things. So in this fall of 1976 I went over to the courthouse and stood and copied the allotments off the map, section 17-9 -- township, I might say, 17-9, off from this map because I didn' ; t know very much about maps. I started at the site of the last Pinehill School and just went in a circle around it ' ; til my paper was gone, which was a very foolish way to make a map, I should' ; ve just copied the section of 17-9. I did not get hardly far enough south, so Bob went back and copied them, and somehow in copying and recopying the map was several points incorrect. Kathy Thompson is making a good map for us for the use in the Pinehill stuff. So we just couldn' ; t bear to put an incorrect map out for people to see, so we contacted the map companies in Tulsa to see if we could get a map of the original allotments for that section and they put us in touch with Augustine Kelly. She is the wife of the maker of this original map. We drove to Tulsa. I called her and then I drove to Tulsa and got the copy--twelve-inch square this section. It' ; s made from an obsolete process now and she' ; s very old and ill and when she dies this map will be gone. The newer map makers do not use the process of using these old maps, but I was very fortunate, I bought the copy--twelve-inch square copy of the original map, so Kathy' ; s using it so the map will be entirely correct. My notetaking was very unsatisfactory. I use a brand of shorthand only I can read, so we bought the tape and now we have quite a number of tapes of the people. Oddly enough we found out that people would say things to us for the taking notes that they won' ; t say on the tape. I heard several stories in the tape that some of them, if I thought I would embarrass or hurt the descendants of the original people in the stories that I didn' ; t write down. Some of them I wrote down for Bob and I. And some at the time I wrote down hoping to make a history in booklet form for the people that cared about it. I showed the map to one of the farmers and to Iva Rossander and she said, ' ; Well, what are you going to do with the map when Kathy makes it for you, the teacher makes it for you?' ; I told her, ' ; Well, I' ; m going to frame it and hang it on the wall for Bob.' ; And she said, ' ; Well, it' ; s just a shame to do the map that way, to put it in a private place that way when it would belong to the community of Pinehill and the people.' ; Bob and I next day drove to Oklahoma City and talked to the state parks and recreation division and they told us there that since it was a--the community did join Heyburn Lake, the school district and it was history local and people were still interested in it that they didn' ; t see why that we shouldn' ; t be able to erect an information shelter at the Heyburn Lake to put the map and the condensed history and different articles of history for people to see. We drove--they sent us to the park planning division and we drove to North Lincoln and talked to Rick Cane (ph) there about the map, possibility of putting this information shelter at the lake. They told us if we wanted it at the Y at Shepherd' ; s Point that they would build a shelter for us because of the value to us at least of the articles that were to be put in it, we would prefer it to be put at the Ranger Station and if not there at the picnic shelter on Shepherd' ; s Point at Heyburn Lake. Our plans at this time call for the map, a list of all the people that have ever lived in the community--the township of 17-9, and a key to the map where they can find the area they lived in, or their ancestors, their family lived in. There would also have the plaques that shows all the teachers that ever taught in the school, the main community builders, and the committee that' ; s working on the historical information shelter. Taping these people, older people, and getting their personalities in them has been a wonderful thing. And to get the feel of community is interesting also. What we found out is this: In 1885 the Bruces, the first white settlers, came into Pinehill community. In 1896 the W.O. Baker came in--family came in. We really have no dates on the people as they came in after that. In 1897, as far as our history can tell, Leo Bruce was the white, first white child born in the community. They were five of the Bruce brothers that came into the community. And some people says it' ; s a Bruce history--it' ; s not. They were just the first there, and a lot of people and the ones that Bob and his family knew best--and that most people knew best. They were workers, they were builders. The thing that kept the community alive was the rich bottomlands and then the oil and gas wells--mostly gas wells, of the oil industry. The people in the oilfields moved so often that we really have no history on persons of the oilfield, but the oil industry was one of the team that kept the community alive. The early crops were corn, maize, and the grains. In 1909, cotton came in as the money-making industry. They always raised horses and cattle on the hillsides and in the early years they killed quails and shipped them to Kansas City. There were some game, they used to game, but it was still--needed the money crop of cotton terribly bad. pause in recording --there were many other public buildings in the community at one time for a couple years. Leo Bruce ran a small concession-stand-like store. The school was their schoolhouse, it was their church house, it was their voting precinct, it stood for every--it was used for all community purposes. Their pie suppers, their Christmas trees, the literaries. When I first heard--I' ; d never heard the word until they were talking about it, it fascinated me. They were--people were [indecipherable] and they sang, read poetry, whatever they wanted to do to entertain each other during the winter season. In the early days the school was only three months--November, December, and January, and then later years it was, they had school then during June, July, and August, and then the winter months were lengthened out a little. The early school was a subscription school. The parents each paid so much toward the teacher' ; s salary and they boarded in their homes. The salary was about $17 a month. Della Brake (ph) was the first teacher hired by the state as that. [Indecipherable] looking at the Creek Indian Nations, and they called the schools a bootleg school. It was never registered with the Creek Nation, or Creek Indian Tribe as a school. If it' ; d been done so, the early history would be written history. The way it is, the state has a list of the teachers from 1916 through 1954. No record was kept either in the state or the county offices of the pupils in the school. We did borrow and copy the census books, the school census books that showed all the school age children and young people that lived in the community--but that doesn' ; t necessarily mean they went to the school. Everyone that we' ; ve asked in the state or county offices has been cooperative, they just didn' ; t keep the records. pause in recording When the government surveyors surveyed the railroad for the line between Tulsa and Oklahoma City, one of the surveys--surveyors, Dr. Fath, surveyed the area for oil and gas. He must' ; ve been a very remarkable man, and we have--were kindly given some photostatic copies of one of Dr. Fath' ; s books by George Krumme. He--his records called the area the Bristow Quadrangle. The Pinehill community were--was included in it. The second successful well in the Bristow Quadrangle was drilled close to Wild Horse Prairie in section 17-9 in 1911. ' ; Producing well,' ; they called it. There had been others drilled but that was the second producing well. It was a gas well and it was drilled at depths of 990 to 1,010 feet. And it produced seven million cubic foot of gas a day. It was turned into the big pipeline, eleven-inch line that went from the Glenpool area to Oklahoma City. Oil and gas drilling were prominent in the community from about 1911 on up until recent times--a major part of the community. In 1948 when they bought up the land for Heyburn Lake, they bought--the government bought the bottomlands and it caused a number of families to move out when they bought it. At the same time, the oilfields were dying down, so the community died. The community reached such a low point that it could no longer support the school. Part of the children went to Olive, part to Bristow, and part to Kellyville. I for one watched them build Heyburn Lake and we' ; ve used it for recreational purposes every year since it was built. All the--all the time since it was built. To some of the older families it was such a heartbreak. It tore up their farms, it took out the productive land, and they didn' ; t want the school to go. I can see that very well. pause in recording Incidentally, the first school was a frame school. All the schools were frame schools, as we know them, there were no log schools involved and I had the Krummes to research and as near as they could tell, the Bristow Quadrangle was an area of sixteen square miles, as the term was used in Dr. Fath' ; s book. pause in recording This is Wednesday, November 17, 1976. The time is twelve noon. I' ; ve been asked by several people why Bob and I started the Pinehill research and history and so I thought I would tape it today. In May of 1972 at decoration at 44 Cemetery, Oma Head (ph) told me that she and Bonnie Johnson were going to have a reunion for the Pinehill Community in 1972 in August. So long in July, Bob contacted Oma (ph) and she said, ' ; Oh, they had talked about it but had done nothing about it so Bob and I got busy and contacted various people. We had the reunion August 20, 1972 at Rocky Point. Eight-two people were present. Everyone had a good time and voted to hold the reunions each year the third Sunday in August. We elected Chester Wilson as president and a committee of five to assist the president with Lenora Darnell as secretary. The committee of five were Mildred Kerley (ph) in Tulsa, Frankie McKinzie (ph) Oklahoma City, Chester Wilson Sapulpa, Lehman Mark (ph) Drumright, Lenora Darnell and Eva Patterson (ph) of Bristow. The second annual reunion was held August 19, 1973 at Shepherd' ; s Point. We had 136 present. Chester just wouldn' ; t--did not work at being the president so he just told me, ' ; Well, Bob did the work this year, I didn' ; t, I just accepted the position,' ; so since then Bob has been officially president of the Pinehill Reunion and I have been the--assisting him. Sitting at the reunions, I did not go to Pinehill School so sitting at the reunions listening to other people talk of Bristow-- end of recording 1 audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0008-03_Mary_McCarty.xml OHP-0008-03_Mary_McCarty.xml
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Mary Lee (Fuller) McCarty
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In this 1976 monologue, Mary Lee (Fuller) McCarty (1929-2007) gives a summary of her efforts, along with her husband Bob, in compiling the history of the Pinehill Community in Creek County, Oklahoma. She also provides a summary of their findings regarding the early Pinehill School, early settlers to the area, and their efforts to memorialize their research in an informational display at Heyburn Lake.
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OHP-0008-03
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Pinehill Communit and School
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1976-11-17
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audio
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Pinehill Histories
Subject
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History of the Pinehill area north of Bristow
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Several interviews were done by Mary and Bob Mc Carty of people who grew up in the Pinehill area north of Bristow. This collection is the Pinehill subset of the Bristow Oral Histories
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Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
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Oral history.
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Robert L. "Bob" McCarty
Interviewee
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Loyd Raymond Bruce
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https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0008-02_Loyd_Bruce.xml
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Pinehill, Bruce, cattle drives, school, Heyburn, crops, landrun, electricity, movies
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5.4 OHP-0008-02 Loyd Raymond Bruce OHP-0008-02 'Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive' Parkhill Community Bristow Historical Society, Inc. Pinehill, Bruce, cattle drives, school, Heyburn, crops, landrun, electricity, movies Loyd Raymond Bruce Robert L. "Bob" McCarty MP3 1:|12(16)|22(1)|34(3)|45(13)|52(10)|65(15)|80(14)|93(9)|120(14)|137(2)|147(7)|164(15)|178(7)|197(5)|222(15)|249(10)|283(15)|305(2)|326(7) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0008-02 Bruce, Loyd.mp3 Other audio 0 Bruce Family migrates to Pinehill BM: [Inaudible] --in their living room, 10/13/76, ten minutes ‘til 9 o’clock. MM: [Inaudible.] BM: Loyd, to your knowledge in your research that you’ve done on the Bruce family, would you say they were the—some of the first people that came in to the Pinehill community? LB: Yes, according to the information that I have on our family they migrated from Missouri into there just east of Oklahoma City in 1889, 1890 and ’91 during those runs from the Kansas line, and my father made the run in 18—either 1889 or ’90, I haven’t been able to determine for sure, and staked a claim just east of Oklahoma City. He was fifteen years old at that time and had to wait for his older sister who was legal—of legal age—help him make that claim. Then they stayed there for a few years, I’m not sure exactly how many, but they settled in what is now Creek County--it was Indian Territory then—near the Pinehill community, and my grandfather Coleman Bruce and wife Alpha Bruce had come after the claims were staked east of Oklahoma City. They had come, moved their family here and they built a rock house east of the last Pinehill school, down near Polecat Creek bottoms, and raised their family—at least partially raised their family there. So I’m sure that they settled sometime between 1895 and possibly 1898 in that area and it’s my understanding that they were the first white people in that part of the country at that time. Discussion of the Bruce Family migrating to the Pinehill area in the late 1800s. Alpha Bruce ; Bruce ; Coleman Bruce ; Indian Territory ; landrun ; Loyd Raymond Bruce ; Pinehill Landrun ; migration ; pinehill 175 Crops and Cattle BM: To the best of your knowledge, do you have any idea what their first crops were whenever they came in there? LB: I heard them mention corn all the way back, and I heard the crop of maize mentioned being raised, and kaffir corn. Cotton came around sometime but it’s my understanding that it was several years later, possibly after statehood, before cotton became popular in Oklahoma. Discussion of cattle drives and cattle sales. Albert Kelly ; Bristow Depot ; carload ; cattle ; cattle drive ; corn ; cotton ; crops ; kaffir corn ; railhead ; railroad ; statehood ; W.O.Baker cattle drives ; crops ; farming ; railroads 416 School days and fairs BM: Alright, we’ll move on down to the school. To your best memory on the school itself, how many schools were built there, Loyd? LB: I can only recall the last school that was built there. I went from primary to the eighth grade there, however I heard before, I’ve heard it talked in the family that there were a total of three schools and a church associated with one of those schools. I think initially there was a church that—it may have been one building that was used as a church and a school. And this may have happened to more than one of the schools, but I remember that one building served as a school and a church for the neighborhood. Discussion of various activities held at the school pie suppers ; school ; township fair ; voting precinct school 526 Heyburn Lake BM: --to your knowledge, when did the government come in and go to buying up that land along the creeks and bottoms there in that community? LB: This would’ve had to be in ’46—no, correction, about ’47 or ’48 they did the actual purchasing of it. And then I think maybe the construction of the dam and so forth was a year or two later. BM: Do you have any idea how many people was affected by— MM: Displaced. Discussion of Heyburn Lake being built and families displaced displacement ; Heyburn ; lake Heyburn Lake 683 Christmas Programs, Pie Suppers, and Electricity MM: --talk about the Christmas tree, the Christmas programs. What did they [inaudible] LB: Oh yeah, I remember the Christmas programs. It used to be one of our days of enjoyment planning for the Christmas tree because usually the kids got out of school and the neighborhood, one of the neighborhood residents would volunteer a truck and we would go up into the Keystone area and cut a Christmas tree a few weeks in advance of Christmas, and this was a treat in itself to get away from school. Then we would bring it back and take part in decorating the tree and we got away from some of our usual school chores and enjoyed doing these things. Then at the time of the actual Christmas program there were, well—I’m leaving something out, the box suppers that was held, the pie suppers and so forth to raise funds for the Christmas program was also part of this sequence of events, and when the money from that came in then there was candy and nuts and apples and oranges and things that were a treat to us in those days that are common now. They were provided for all of us and in some cases it was for needy people who really appreciated it, and it turned out to be a very successful gathering and festive time at Christmastime. MM: Now what did the boxes and pies sell for at those pie suppers? Discussion of entertainment, school days, and sources of power Christmas program ; electricity ; gasoline lanterns ; kerosene lamps ; movies ; pie suppers ; potbellied stove ; school ; western movie Christmas programs ; electricity ; school life 929 Watermelons, Chickens, and School Memories MM: Did you ever steal any watermelons? LB: (laughs) Gosh, that’s like asking me if I ever lived. MM: Who raised the best watermelons? LB: I would say—well, there was Walter Reed east of us raised real good watermelons. John Mizell (ph) raised real good watermelons. And I think his were the best because we felt he was the meanest. And it took a little more risk to climb over his fence and get his watermelons, so I think they— MM: Did you ever ride your horse with a watermelon underneath your arm? Memories of school days, stealing watermelons, and old girlfriends Alton McCarty ; CHarlene Digby ; chicken ; Fay Myers ; John Mizell ; lunch pail ; Polecat Creek ; Rosalina Vanmeter ; Walter Reed ; watermelon chicken ; school ; watermelon In this 1976 interview, Loyd Raymond Bruce (1920-2006) discusses his family’s early settlement of the Pinehill Community outside Bristow, Oklahoma. He describes early crops and cattle shipments on the railroad, community social programs such as pie suppers, life before electricity, early schools in the community, and the impact of the construction of Heyburn Lake upon the community. BM: [Inaudible] --in their living room, 10/13/76, ten minutes ' ; til 9 o' ; clock. MM: [Inaudible.] BM: Loyd, to your knowledge in your research that you' ; ve done on the Bruce family, would you say they were the--some of the first people that came in to the Pinehill community? LB: Yes, according to the information that I have on our family they migrated from Missouri into there just east of Oklahoma City in 1889, 1890 and ' ; 91 during those runs from the Kansas line, and my father made the run in 18--either 1889 or ' ; 90, I haven' ; t been able to determine for sure, and staked a claim just east of Oklahoma City. He was fifteen years old at that time and had to wait for his older sister who was legal--of legal age--help him make that claim. Then they stayed there for a few years, I' ; m not sure exactly how many, but they settled in what is now Creek County--it was Indian Territory then--near the Pinehill community, and my grandfather Coleman Bruce and wife Alpha Bruce had come after the claims were staked east of Oklahoma City. They had come, moved their family here and they built a rock house east of the last Pinehill school, down near Polecat Creek bottoms, and raised their family--at least partially raised their family there. So I' ; m sure that they settled sometime between 1895 and possibly 1898 in that area and it' ; s my understanding that they were the first white people in that part of the country at that time. BM: Uh, there has been other names mentioned. This George Lindsey, what--what connection was George Lindsey to the Bruces? LB: George Lindsey was my grandfather on my mother' ; s side. He moved in to that area from Kansas, but the year that he moved there I can' ; t recall exactly. I do think it was some few years later than the Bruces settled there. He moved into that area and became associated with the guardianship of some of the Indian children there. He brought his family there and settled about a half a mile west of the first Pinehill school and church in the latter 1890s or it could' ; ve been slightly after 1900. BM: To the best of your knowledge, do you have any idea what their first crops were whenever they came in there? LB: I heard them mention corn all the way back, and I heard the crop of maize mentioned being raised, and kaffir corn. Cotton came around sometime but it' ; s my understanding that it was several years later, possibly after statehood, before cotton became popular in Oklahoma. BM: I have pretty well pinpointed on the cotton, it was about 1909. Albert Kelly, W.O. Baker, in 1913 built a gin there by the ice plant at Bristow where there was already three other gins there at that time. And it has been pretty well traced out that around 1909 is when the first cotton came in--money crop for the sellers and farmers in that area. The cattle situation--I know that they raised cattle in there. Do you know when they--or have you heard where they took their cattle to sell them? LB: Initially I, it' ; s my understanding that the railroad only came as far as Sapulpa in the very early days of marketing cattle, and ran up to Kansas City. And in the earlier years they took their cattle to Sapulpa because the railroad terminated there. A few years later it was extended on to Bristow and on west and the marketing area, or the area where the cattle was raised was closer to the Bristow depot there for loading, and they started taking them to Bristow and initially they sent them to Kansas City from Bristow. Then later when the stockyards in Oklahoma City developed, they shipped them to Oklahoma City. BM: Now, getting over to the railhead they had these big cattle drives, is that right? LB: Yes, that' ; s right. I can remember as a child myself making cattle drives to Bristow. Car--in carload lots, we would take either one or two carloads of cattle to Bristow and get up early in the morning and drive them there and it made it necessary to drive through the residential area in Bristow and there were times when we were guilty of damaging the yards and the flower beds and whatnot and having to stop and pay people for damages for running cattle through their area. It was quite an exciting time for me because I was a child, but it was quite a responsibility for the adults at the time. BM: When you said " ; carload lots," ; how many did they count as a car? LB: As I remember, a carload at that time was ninety head. BM: So then you would take as high as 180 head at a time in to be shipped out? LB: That is true. There was, there was times when the yield from my father' ; s herd was over 200 for that season. I' ; m not sure how it fit in to the carload lots but I remember him selling 230, 240 head per year from the yield from his herd. BM: Alright, we' ; ll move on down to the school. To your best memory on the school itself, how many schools were built there, Loyd? LB: I can only recall the last school that was built there. I went from primary to the eighth grade there, however I heard before, I' ; ve heard it talked in the family that there were a total of three schools and a church associated with one of those schools. I think initially there was a church that--it may have been one building that was used as a church and a school. And this may have happened to more than one of the schools, but I remember that one building served as a school and a church for the neighborhood. BM: What all functions was the school used for? LB: It was used as I said, as an educational purpose. Also a social purpose, they would have pie suppers and this sort of thing where raising money for various functions in the neighborhood. And then it was used for church and I' ; ve heard it mentioned that they had fairs there but I can' ; t recall ever seeing or attending a, I guess it would be a district fair rather than a county fair that they had in the school there. MM: Township fair is what they called it. LB: Township fair. BM: It was also used as a voting precinct, too. LB: Right, that' ; s right, it was. BM: And singing conventions and such as that. LB: Mmm-hmm. MM: We' ; ve never heard anything talked about a Christmas tree. BM: Loyd, to your-- MM: --Christmas program-- BM: --to your knowledge, when did the government come in and go to buying up that land along the creeks and bottoms there in that community? LB: This would' ; ve had to be in ' ; 46--no, correction, about ' ; 47 or ' ; 48 they did the actual purchasing of it. And then I think maybe the construction of the dam and so forth was a year or two later. BM: Do you have any idea how many people was affected by-- MM: Displaced. BM: --displacement of the government coming in and buying this, this land up and erecting this dam? LB: Mmm, that would take some thinking. There were several families, several homes relocated. Several families and offhand I would say upwards of 25 families which might involve two or three hundred people were affected or relocated because of the construction of the lake project there. BM: I know there is a lot of hard feelings on the lake, but how do you feel personally, your personal opinion, about that lake? LB: Well I, I feel like it depends on how you look at it. I think for the public good, the public in general, it has been good because it has offered a flood control project that saved a lot of valuable bottom land below it. It' ; s also offered a recreational and park atmosphere for people who want to go out for recreation on their time off. And looking at it from that point of view I think it' ; s been a success and beneficial to those particular people involved. If you look at it from the point of view of the people who has their history and heritage in that area, I feel that they feel that they' ; ve lost something, that it no longer represents what they remember as the area they grew up in and if it was their intention and goal to live in that area the rest of their life, I can see where they would be highly disappointed. BM: Good enough. (pause) MM: --talk about the Christmas tree, the Christmas programs. What did they [inaudible] LB: Oh yeah, I remember the Christmas programs. It used to be one of our days of enjoyment planning for the Christmas tree because usually the kids got out of school and the neighborhood, one of the neighborhood residents would volunteer a truck and we would go up into the Keystone area and cut a Christmas tree a few weeks in advance of Christmas, and this was a treat in itself to get away from school. Then we would bring it back and take part in decorating the tree and we got away from some of our usual school chores and enjoyed doing these things. Then at the time of the actual Christmas program there were, well--I' ; m leaving something out, the box suppers that was held, the pie suppers and so forth to raise funds for the Christmas program was also part of this sequence of events, and when the money from that came in then there was candy and nuts and apples and oranges and things that were a treat to us in those days that are common now. They were provided for all of us and in some cases it was for needy people who really appreciated it, and it turned out to be a very successful gathering and festive time at Christmastime. MM: Now what did the boxes and pies sell for at those pie suppers? LB: Oh, I can remember pies selling for as little as fifteen cents and then I can also remember some of the people in the area, particularly those who were fortunate enough to have a job with an oil company and a little money to spend, spending as much as twenty dollars for a pie. MM: What' ; s the most you ever gave? LB: Gosh, I would say not more than thirty-five or forty cents, probably. I don' ; t really remember, to tell you the truth. MM: When did they bring electricity in there, that' ; s one that--to the school. That' ; s one thing Bob gonna need to know. BM: When did electricity come in to that part of the country? LB: That would' ; ve been in the latter--that was after World War II, which would' ; ve been in the latter ' ; 40s, ' ; 46 or ' ; 47 as I remember it. We had gas in our home up until that time and the school itself might' ; ve gotten it before. MM: Did they use gas for lighting the school before electricity? LB: No, it was gasoline lanterns and kerosene lamps. Gasoline and kerosene lamps were used prior to that time. MM: What--did they ever put modern heating or did they--what type of heating did they use? LB: They used wood heating, there was a large potbellied stove in the corner with kind of a circulating jacket around it that would circulate the heat through the building. And to my knowledge it wasn' ; t replaced. It might have been in later years. MM: Did they ever put modern bathrooms in it? LB: No. Not to my knowledge. BM: To your knowledge, Loyd, I was told that there was at one time there was a talking movie presented there at Pinehill school. Do you know anything about that? MM: Any movies. BM: Any movies. LB: Yes, I do. I remember a movie, I can' ; t remember whether or not they were talkies or not, but I remember going there to movies, it was quite a treat to go to a movie anywhere at that time and it was a real big time to have a movie out in the schoolhouse. And I remember going to a movie but I can' ; t remember whether it was a talkie or not. MM: What type of movies? LB: They were western movies. Cowboys. MM: You don' ; t remember any of the stars in the movies, or any other things? LB: Offhand I don' ; t. BM: Valerie came up with the, with that first. She was the first one and the only one that I found yet that remember--that said anything about the movies. MM: Did you ever steal any watermelons? LB: (laughs) Gosh, that' ; s like asking me if I ever lived. MM: Who raised the best watermelons? LB: I would say--well, there was Walter Reed east of us raised real good watermelons. John Mizell (ph) raised real good watermelons. And I think his were the best because we felt he was the meanest. And it took a little more risk to climb over his fence and get his watermelons, so I think they-- MM: Did you ever ride your horse with a watermelon underneath your arm? LB: I probably have. I probably-- MM: They say that' ; s quite a feat. LB: (laughs) MM: Did you ever steal any chickens? LB: Yes, I' ; m afraid I' ; m guilty there, too. MM: Who' ; d you steal ' ; em from? LB: I think it was back to John Mizell (ph) again, I mean, he was the one that, that we for some reason we liked to needle him because he was always kind of after the youngsters. We thought he was, but he was really a good old person. MM: What' ; d you do with them after you stole them? LB: We took them down the creek bank of Polecat Creek where we found some clay and rolled ' ; em up in clay and then threw them in the fire and roasted them and-- MM: Did you remove any undesirables prior to, before you roasted them? LB: I don' ; t think we did. (laughs) I really don' ; t. MM: Did you ever play hooky from school. LB: Yes, I' ; ve played hooky from school. MM: When, and why? LB: Well, I played hooky from school one time, I was about the seventh grade and for some reason I didn' ; t make the basketball team and I thought I should have, and our teacher took the basketball team to a neighboring school to play ball and while he was gone, he and two other friends and I, rather-- MM: What two friends? LB: Let' ; s see, what two friends, gosh I can' ; t remember. One of them was--hmm, I can' ; t recall their names, I should know offhand but I can' ; t remember. But we played hooky. MM: What was the results? LB: We played hooky and one of them--let' ; s see, one of them was a Myers boy, one of they was Ray or Fay Myers, I believe. And I was trying to remember, one of them may have been Alton McCarty (ph). BM: You sure it wasn' ; t Coleman [indecipherable] in on that, too? LB: Well, Coleman [indecipherable] may have been in on that, now. I' ; m not sure. MM: Did they ever have any shop-type work at that little school? Never? LB: No. MM: Did they ever--in your time they didn' ; t have the money for it. What did you take in your lunch pail to school? LB: Well, we took what would be considered real wholesome and desirable food now, but then we thought we were kind of underprivileged because we had to take fresh ham and cold biscuits. We didn' ; t have, usually didn' ; t have light bread but we had--we always had fresh ham and we had biscuits for bread and some of the, there were some that were fortunate enough at that time to have light bread and bologna and we thought that was a real treat, but-- MM: Your mother made cake and pie and such-- LB: Right, that' ; s right. Mmm-hmm. MM: Who was your favorite girls while you was in school? We haven' ; t asked this for (inaudible) LB: (laughs) Oh, let' ; s see. Charlene (ph)--her name was Digby (ph) then and she married one of the Vann boys. She was my first girlfriend, and then Rosalina Vanmeter (ph) was also one of my girlfriends. MM: Rosalina' ; s (ph) dead, you know. LB: Yes, she died a couple years ago. MM: You wouldn' ; t care if [indecipherable]. We interviewed Charlene (ph) earlier this year but we didn' ; t have a tape. BM: I think that' ; s about all I can think of, you pretty well covered everything. MM: You never did ride a horse in the schoolhouse did you? LB: No, no. BM: Yeah, he would' ; ve drive on a late model Ford to school. LB: (laughs) MM: I thought he crossed his fingers when he heard that. BM: He drove a late model-- MM: Was you old enough to get in on them-- end of interview audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0008-02_Loyd_Bruce.xml OHP-0008-02_Loyd_Bruce.xml
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Loyd Raymond Bruce
Description
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In this 1976 interview, Loyd Raymond Bruce (1920-2006) discusses his family’s early settlement of the Pinehill Community outside Bristow, Oklahoma. He describes early crops and cattle shipments on the railroad, community social programs such as pie suppers, life before electricity, early schools in the community, and the impact of the construction of Heyburn Lake upon the community.
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OHP-0008-02
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1976-10-13
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audio