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beae7ac5e22dc21dd4b60cb9df56d792
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Title
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Family Histories
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Oral History
Subject
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Oral accounts of various family histories
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Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Wanda Newton
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Velma Collins
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https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/render.php?cachefile=OHP-0046B_Velma_Collins.xml
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5.4 February 12, 1994 OHP-0046B Velma Collins - Part 2 OHP-0046B 00:35:57 Bristow Historical Society, Inc. bristowhistory Velma Collins Wanda Newton 1.0:|11(11)|14(15)|26(15)|38(10)|54(10)|69(12)|81(17)|95(4)|103(14)|118(3)|128(19)|142(20)|156(12)|177(11)|195(11)|207(6)|218(17)|232(16)|247(6)|258(5)|276(13)|288(8)|306(7)|319(17)|328(16)|345(4)|357(18)|375(3)|388(11)|400(11)|407(14)|424(15)|437(13)|449(13)|478(6)|490(18) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0046B Collins, Velma.mp3 Other audio 0 Childhood Games WN: Velma is going to tell us about some of her early childhood and growing up.
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 ; VC: Well, I can remember playing hide and seek out here behind all these big trees, and, of course, it was quite a nice place to play hide and seek.
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 ; WN: [Indecipherable] who is we?
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 ; VC: Well, it was all just the children in the family. Minna Karl (Minna Karl Ekdahl), Etta Feild (Etta Feild Caves) [indecipherable] and, mostly, just the children in the family.
 ; Velma recalls playing games such as hide and seek and paper dolls with the children in her family. Minna Karl Ekdahl ; Etta Feild Caves ; childhood games ; !Goraseb, M. G. A. childhood games 0 149 Music Education WN: Well, tell us about your school years. [Inaudible] I found a thing in the paper where you and Etta Feild (Etta Feild Caves) [indecipherable] for the radio station.
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 ; VC: I had forgotten that, yes. We took piano religiously. They saw to it that there was a good teacher [indecipherable] I mean, somebody in the family [indecipherable] and we had a good piano teacher. It was unfortunate that I didn’t become a great pianist, because that’s what they would have liked for me to have done. And then every Saturday, we went to classes with the same teacher. We studied history of music and theory of music every Saturday morning.
 ; Velma talks about her love of music and music theory and having excellent piano teachers while she was growing up.
 ; Etta Feild Caves ; piano ; Vern Tomlinson ; Minnie Burrows ; Elaine Shelton ; Minna Karl Ekdahl ; Kansas City (Mo.) music education 0 313 College WN: Well, and you’re reading, too, because everybody read so prolifically.
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 ; VC: I tried to read a lot. I wouldn’t read some of the books I read as a child now. You couldn’t get the modern-day children to read them [inaudible]. But anyway, we did read. I went off to college pretty young. Daddy thought I was too young. Well, anyway, I was just 16, and he decided that was just much too young to graduate and go away from home, so he made drop a subject, so I wouldn’t have enough credits to graduate. Now I was crushed, just crushed! Well, Mrs. Hutton, Mrs. C.E. Hutton, the wife of the superintendent, was also the math teacher. I guess she felt sorry for me. Anyway, she arranged for me to take math, one of the subjects that I needed, or could use, in a study hall. And I didn’t say anything to my father. Well, when graduation time came, I had my credits. Now, he was pretty angry with me, but he couldn’t keep me from getting my diploma, so I went off to college. I wanted to go to Randolph-Macon (College), but Randolph-Macon at that time required four years of Latin to enter.
 ; Velma discusses graduating early and wanting to attend a co-ed college, but her father didn't approve. She talks about her time at Ward-Belmont College. Mrs. C. E. Hutton ; Randolph-Macon College ; Ward-Belmont College (Nashville, Tenn.) ; Nashville (Tenn.) ; University of Oklahoma ; Carl Albert ; Speaker of the House ; Kappa Kappa Gamma 0 742 Camp Care-Away WN: Uh, the camp (Camp Care-Away) was at Galena? 
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 ; VC: Galena, Missouri. It was out from that little town on the river.
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 ; WN: Is that camp still there today as you know it?
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 ; VC: I’m not sure. It was such a beautiful little spot, but they built a dam somewhere down the river, the James River, and the government said it would be flooded, so they required mother, at that time because she owned it, to move the camp up on a bluff. Well, that took away the charm of it because it was down there...
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 ; WN: By the river.
 ; Velma recalls the camp her father, R. L. Jones, founded called Camp Care-Away in Galena, Missouri. Galena (Mo.) ; James River ; Camp Care-Away 0 896 High Expectations WN: He really expected a lot of you, I think.
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 ; VC: Oh my, did they. When I say children were seen and not heard in my day, I mean literally. That keeps you from being able to communicate.
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 ; WN: Socially, really.
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 ; VC: Uh-huh. And Etta Feild (Etta Feild Caves) and I talked about it. She was, and you know, not to show your emotions when I grew up, no. If you were sad, don’t show it. If you were, don’t act like a hoodlum and laugh all the time, see. I don’t know how to explain it except that children had their place in that era. Well, I, I can’t think of anything that I might have left out. You were talking about games, I can remember as a child playing jacks. Oh, I would wear my fingers out playing jacks.
 ; Velma remembers her father, R. L. Jones, having extremely high expectations of her as a young person. Etta Feild Caves ; Jacks high expectations 0 961 Childhood Games WN: I don’t think I’ve seen any children playing jacks or hide and seek or anything in…
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 ; VC: NO! And, oh, we had all kinds of games and different parts of the jacks game. I can remember playing marbles. [Indecipherable] used to love to tell about the time I beat him playing marbles, and it made him so mad because a little old squirt of a girl beat him. It was probably just that one time. Anyway, I loved to do that as a child. I really did.
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 ; WN: Yeah. And they played games like Jack Straws and pick up sticks.
 ; Velma recalls the different games she played as a child. Hide and seek ; Jacks ; pick up sticks ; jack straws 0 1033 R. L. Jones' Generosity WN: I can remember Lyle Thurman coming out here and practicing organ and that was the highlight of his life. And look what led to for Lyle.
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 ; VC: That’s right. Daddy was good to people…awfully good to people. If they tried to be worthy.
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 ; WN: This was important to him.
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 ; VC: Uh-huh it was and that was good training. And that’s why I used to get, inwardly, so upset when I would see the boys smoking after he had given them a hundred-dollar bill to give it up. Daddy was good. Some people…
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 ; WN: He was trusting.
 ; Velma remembers how generous her father was to people in the community. Lyle Thurman ; generosity ; Organ and instruments R. L. Jones' Generosity 0 1083 Children - Rowland and Roger WN: Okay, now then, if you can’t think of anything at this point in time about your early days, tell us about your two sons.
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 ; VC: Oh, well, I used to say I wanted four children. Well, I thought they were a little bit different than that. I had to settle for two. But I waited a long time to get the second one. It just didn’t happen that way. They were different as daylight and dawn which often the case in families, no two are alike. Rowland (Rowland Lee Collins) was precocious right from the beginning. I don’t whether it was because I had to entertain him so much when he was recovering from surgery on his hands when he'd had the terrible burn. I did spend a lot of time…
 ; Velma tells about her two children, Rowland and Roger. Rowland Lee Collins ; plastic surgery ; St. Louis (Mo.) ; opera ; Princeton University children ; Rowland Lee Collins ; John Roger Collins 0 1270 Princeton University WN: Well, that was an honor in itself.
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 ; VC: Right. There wasn’t many, very many students from this part of the country at that time going east as there are now. Well, then when Roger (John Roger Collins) came along, he had that in mind, too, but he was afraid he couldn’t get in, however, he did. So, those were busy years, and I can remember when Roger went off to school, I said, you may not like it, but I think you better go on the train while it’s still going. So when he went to college, he had a roommate, or whatever they call them and went to Princeton and that was the last time he ever did because they began to fail, you know…
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 ; WN: No more trains running.
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 ; VC: Right! That’s right. But he went to college on the train. 
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 ; WN: Well, that’s a nice remembrance for Roger.
 ; Velma talks about both of her sons attending Princeton University. John Roger Collins ; Rowland Lee Collins ; Princeton University Princeton University 0 1430 Rowland's Trip to England WN: Tell about Rowland going to England. I think that was wonderful, honestly.
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 ; VC: Oh, Rowland got some grants that took him to England. He had a trip to Europe that was just fantastic, he and one of his friends. And that’s before there was so much travel in Europe. And that then later years, Sarah, his wife and I, did some of same route that he took. We found it very interesting, rather tiring, because it was so inclusive, but it was great, great. Then he stayed in England one year. He began to find things that were in his field. Now the one thing that Rowland did that was very, very outstanding was that when he began to teach out of college, he got his doctorate degree from Stanford, and I think he was, if not the youngest, the next to the youngest to graduate to get a doctorate’s degree. And John and I had said, well, why not go ahead and get it. We can help you a little bit now, and if you wait until you are married and have kids, by then it will be ten times harder. So, if you can, get it now, well, he did. Then he went to teach in Indiana. Well, Rowland was such an inquisitive mind that he went through some manuscripts in the library.
 ; Velma remembers Rowland being awarded grants that allowed for him to take a trip to England. She also recalls him receiving his Doctorate Degree from Stanford and having an exhibit of Old English manuscripts at the J. Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. England ; Europe ; Stanford University ; Rowland Lee Collins ; Old English manuscripts ; J. Pierpont Morgan Library ; New York (Ny.) ; Princeton University ; Guggenheim Grant England trip ; Doctorate Degree 0 1685 Roger's Trip to the Middle East VC: Uh-huh. Now Roger had a good trip with Billy Farha (Bill Farha, Jr.).
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 ; WN: Yes, to the Middle East.
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 ; VC: To the Middle East. I look on Roger as being a definite brunette and kind of dark. They described him as a blonde when he was in those countries. They said who’s that blonde with you? Both boys were good in French. I’ve always wanted to be able to speak French fluently. I think it’s a little late now to start, but both of them had a good tongue or lip or something for French. They worked at it, though, because the, Roger I don’t think had ever had any French until he got to college. College French is extremely hard. Velma remembers Roger taking a trip to the Middle East and being able to fluently speak French. John Roger Collins ; Middle East ; French ; Rowland Lee Collins Middle East trip 0 1784 Rowland's Honors and Death Rowland’s were in the literary field and he attained lots of honors.
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 ; WN: And he wrote a book.
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 ; VC: He wrote a book. He edited several books. He had, I can’t tell you all the honors because they’re in certain fields of literature at Rochester. He was, he was head of the English department there at Rochester for nine years. I don’t think anybody had served that long. Finally, he said, oh mom, I can’t take it any longer. He said all the professors were prima donnas. Some were, you know, pretty high on themselves. Well, they’re experts in their fields. They liked him, though, and he enjoyed it there very much, and it was a shame he had to be taken so young.
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 ; Velma talks about the different honors Rowland received throughout his life and talks about his early death. John Roger Collins ; Rowland Lee Collins ; Rochester (N.Y.) honors ; death 0 1883 Roger's Business Accomplishments WN: Yes, and you still have Roger and he’s done wonderfully well in the business world.
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 ; VC: Yes, Roger, has different talents. He’s had some fantastic experiences.
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 ; WN: Tell me some of the companies that he’s, just name some of the companies that he’s worked for.
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 ; VC: Okay, he worked for Vanply, Inc., which is the subsidiary of Skelly. He was stationed out in, lived out in Washington there for several months. During that time, it seems there was some skullduggery going on in the business and a lot of mismanagement. So, at one time, they sent him to North Carolina, somewhere down there, and the situation was SO bad, here was quite young, I don’t know why they solicited a man so young, but they did. Velma discusses the different successful business ventures Roger had. Vanply, Inc. ; Skelly Oil Company ; John Roger Collins ; Paris (France) ; Rowland Lee Collins ; Nordam Group ; Parker Drilling Co. business accomplishments 0 MP3 In Part 2 of this 1994 interview with Velma Collins, she talks about her childhood memories, attending school, her music education, attending college, and most extensively about her children, Rowland and Roger. WN: Velma is going to tell us about some of her early childhood and growing up. VC: Well, I can remember playing hide and seek out here behind all these big trees, and, of course, it was quite a nice place to play hide and seek. WN: [Indecipherable] who is we? VC: Well, it was all just the children in the family. Minna Karl (Minna Karl Ekdahl), Etta Feild (Etta Feild Caves) [indecipherable] and, mostly, just the children in the family. [Inaudible] VC: Oh, I can remember playing paper dolls around the table, and the paper dolls consisted of pictures cut out of catalogs [inaudible}…one was dressed up, one was [indecipherable] You’d be surprised how much fun we had. We made furniture from [inaudible]. And I can remember taking, oh, two or three [inaudible]. That was lots of fun. WN: I remember when the Riley’s lived out here, and Jim Riley played tennis. [Inaudible] And I remember Mr. Jones would let, sometimes he’d let people from town come out here and play. VC: Yes, yes. [Inaudible] WN: Well, tell us about your school years. [Inaudible] I found a thing in the paper where you and Etta Feild (Etta Feild Caves) [indecipherable] for the radio station. VC: I had forgotten that, yes. We took piano religiously. They saw to it that there was a good teacher [indecipherable] I mean, somebody in the family [indecipherable] and we had a good piano teacher. It was unfortunate that I didn’t become a great pianist, because that’s what they would have liked for me to have done. And then every Saturday, we went to classes with the same teacher. We studied history of music and theory of music every Saturday morning. WN: Was that Vern Tomlinson? VC: Yes, and she was an excellent teacher, too. I can remember a few before her, Minnie Burrows was one and Elaine (Elaine Shelton) somebody [indecipherable]. I love the theory, but I wasn’t too good at playing. My hands didn’t function right. They talked to us that we could go to, or I mean someone, when I say they, somebody in the family…the aunts or uncles or somebody would get all of us that wanted to go which was usually was Minna Karl and Etta Feild and I, who were interested. But anyway, we would go to opera. We would go to a few plays. I can remember going to Kansas City to see [indecipherable]. WN: And then you rode the train, then, of course. VC: Oh yes, yes, yes. And then even later, Oklahoma [indecipherable] metropolitan before Tulsa and somehow, well, we had to stay the night when we would go to Oklahoma City. WN: And stay in the hotel. VC: Uh-huh. Stay in the hotel and then come back the next day. And they thought it was worth the effort and the money. We did have a wonderful musical education [indecipherable] and even though none of us performed as adults, we did have the appreciation, and that’s worth a lot. WN: Yes it is, because so many people today have no earthly… VC: None. WN: Knowledge of any of it. VC: And I often think, oh, they missed so much enjoyment with not knowing what to listen for and how to listen. I wouldn’t take anything for my music education. WN: Well, and you’re reading, too, because everybody read so prolifically. VC: I tried to read a lot. I wouldn’t read some of the books I read as a child now. You couldn’t get the modern-day children to read them [inaudible]. But anyway, we did read. I went off to college pretty young. Daddy thought I was too young. Well, anyway, I was just 16, and he decided that was just much too young to graduate and go away from home, so he made drop a subject, so I wouldn’t have enough credits to graduate. Now I was crushed, just crushed! Well, Mrs. Hutton, Mrs. C.E. Hutton, the wife of the superintendent, was also the math teacher. I guess she felt sorry for me. Anyway, she arranged for me to take math, one of the subjects that I needed, or could use, in a study hall. And I didn’t say anything to my father. Well, when graduation time came, I had my credits. Now, he was pretty angry with me, but he couldn’t keep me from getting my diploma, so I went off to college. I wanted to go to Randolph-Macon (College), but Randolph-Macon at that time required four years of Latin to enter. WN: Oh my. VC: They offered only two years, and daddy was trying to help. He said oh can’t you take it on the side? And they required the fifth year your first year [indecipherable]. I told daddy there was no way I could take three years Latin and carry on. I just can’t do it. And he really thought I could. So, then we headed for another school which is a junior college then with accreditation if you took the right things, see, to go into the university as a junior after two years. So that’s where I went to Ward-Belmont. I enjoyed it and did a lot of growing up. WN: It was an all-girls school. VC: Yes, it was a girl’s school, and they even had day students down even in kindergarten and smaller children in the grades coming up. Of course, I went as a college student. And I mean… WN: Where is Ward-Belmont? VC: It’s in Nashville, Tennessee. It doesn’t exist now. It went away like a lot of other junior colleges. They just couldn’t [indecipherable]. And now it’s a four-year coed college called Belmont College, but it’s in the same place. We worked hard. I mean, it was just really university work. I mean, I didn’t take typing. It was college work and it was very hard. The classes were small, and we had to recite nearly every day you went there. They knew whether you had studied or not. And I did alright. I made pretty good grades, and I got some offices and things like that. I had my eyes set on going to a coed school. I didn’t get there my way. Daddy kind of waylaid me here. I stayed here in Bristow taking typing and shorthand in high school. And that was kind of a bitter pill after you’ve been off to college to go back to the local high school, but I did. And I got to OU and then that’s when I got my honors. I did more honor’s courses than I did studying, but I’d had such a wonderful time [indecipherable] in Ward-Belmont really. And I don’t mean that I failed. I didn’t, because I made… WN: You were voted most outstanding girl. VC: Yes, I was voted the most outstanding girl student they called it [indecipherable] girl student, not woman student. And Carl Albert received it for the boy [indecipherable]. WN: Well, for some of the people that might not know who Carl Albert is, because later on they may forget. VC: Yes, well, he was the Speaker of the House for many, many years and I guess nobody has exceled that, has exceeded that number of years yet. He was short like I was, and had a stool to stand on even in the House of Representatives in Washington. They have a replica of his, exact replica of his office down at OU. I looked around the desk to see if that little stool was there and it was! It’s not a stool, it’s more of a little block, a little step. WN: Well, and since that time, you’ve been honored several times by OU. VC: Yes, they have asked me to come back. One year Carl was there, and I got, oh, they had all the Letzeiser medal students [indecipherable] to get him to come back. And I did, and that was a really nice year. And I worked real hard in my sorority and got all the offices they had to offer. WN: And what sorority did you belong to, Velma? VC: Kappa Kappa Gamma. I don’t know how I knew one from the other because I had never been around people who had been to a university, you know, very much. But I did have a few friends from Ward-Belmont who had gone to OU, and one of them, ones I liked the most had gone into that sorority, so that sort of turned my attention to that, and I enjoyed it. Well, then when I came back here after school… WN: When did you graduate? VC: Oh, let’s see, I graduated from OU in ’31. I finished in ’30, but I got my diploma in ’31, in the spring of ’31. We were up in Missouri at daddy’s camp at the time, and he didn’t want me to go back to Norman. It was too long a trip, so I didn’t get to go to graduation, but I got my diploma. WN: Uh, the camp (Camp Care-Away) was at Galena? VC: Galena, Missouri. It was out from that little town on the river. WN: Is that camp still there today as you know it? VC: I’m not sure. It was such a beautiful little spot, but they built a dam somewhere down the river, the James River, and the government said it would be flooded, so they required mother, at that time because she owned it, to move the camp up on a bluff. Well, that took away the charm of it because it was down there... WN: By the river. VC: By the river and lots of trees where as a bluff is just [indecipherable] beauty. So, she, so I remember John and I went up there to help her get the deal consummated, and, but lots of boys went up there in the summertime. WN: I remember, the DeMolay, so many of the DeMolays. VC: Uh-huh, it was a, it was a big, big thing, and mother worked awfully hard. Well, we all did, everybody worked hard, because they had the program to outline and implement. You had to keep a bunch of folks busy. We were busy, too. WN: It was a great learning experience. VC: Oh yes! It really was for the boys. WN: It was really a Christian. VC: Yes, they were under good influences, and daddy [indecipherable] enjoyed boys, and talking with them and seeing if he could develop them and their personalities and guide them in the right direction. Now I’m trying to think what else you want. WN: I just want you to tell me anything stands out in your mind. Think about what you’d like for your grandchildren to know, you know. VC: Oh, about me? WN: About you and… VC: Well, some, one of them asked me during the Christmas holiday, said, Grammy, tell me something about your childhood. I said, well, while we were eating, I was a little hard-pressed to think of anything, because my life was SO different. WN: He really expected a lot of you, I think. VC: Oh my, did they. When I say children were seen and not heard in my day, I mean literally. That keeps you from being able to communicate. WN: Socially, really. VC: Uh-huh. And Etta Feild (Etta Feild Caves) and I talked about it. She was, and you know, not to show your emotions when I grew up, no. If you were sad, don’t show it. If you were, don’t act like a hoodlum and laugh all the time, see. I don’t know how to explain it except that children had their place in that era. Well, I, I can’t think of anything that I might have left out. You were talking about games, I can remember as a child playing jacks. Oh, I would wear my fingers out playing jacks. WN: I don’t think I’ve seen any children playing jacks or hide and seek or anything in… VC: NO! And, oh, we had all kinds of games and different parts of the jacks game. I can remember playing marbles. [Indecipherable] used to love to tell about the time I beat him playing marbles, and it made him so mad because a little old squirt of a girl beat him. It was probably just that one time. Anyway, I loved to do that as a child. I really did. WN: Yeah. And they played games like Jack Straws and pick up sticks. VC: Yes, yes. I can remember that, too. Later on, our playing hours were spent practicing the piano. It was a shame I didn’t become a wonderful pianist. Daddy had an organ, and I think he would like for me to have taken that up, so I could entertain him. Mother did play, and she loved it. She used to try to play… WN: I can remember Lyle Thurman coming out here and practicing organ and that was the highlight of his life. And look what led to for Lyle. VC: That’s right. Daddy was good to people…awfully good to people. If they tried to be worthy. WN: This was important to him. VC: Uh-huh it was and that was good training. And that’s why I used to get, inwardly, so upset when I would see the boys smoking after he had given them a hundred-dollar bill to give it up. Daddy was good. Some people… WN: He was trusting. VC: Yes, I think some people tried to work him a little bit, maneuver him, you know, soft-soap him. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. WN: Okay, now then, if you can’t think of anything at this point in time about your early days, tell us about your two sons. VC: Oh, well, I used to say I wanted four children. Well, I thought they were a little bit different than that. I had to settle for two. But I waited a long time to get the second one. It just didn’t happen that way. They were different as daylight and dawn which often the case in families, no two are alike. Rowland (Rowland Lee Collins) was precocious right from the beginning. I don’t whether it was because I had to entertain him so much when he was recovering from surgery on his hands when he'd had the terrible burn. I did spend a lot of time… WN: He fell on the floor furnace. VC: That’s right. A floor furnace, and he was little. He didn’t know to move, see. So, my back was turned when he fell, but when I turned around, see seconds count, why his hands were badly burned. His arm and his face, too, but it was the palms of his hands that were kept there. Nowadays I don’t think you see those floor furnaces. WN: No. VC: And I’m glad they don’t have them anymore. They are very, very bad for accidents with children. Anyway, there was no plastic surgeon in Tulsa or Oklahoma City at the time, so we had to, when he was about two, I could see that his hands were growing and drawing up. So we had to go to St. Louis for plastic surgery at Barnes (ph) Children’s Hospital. WN: [Indecipherable] VC: Yeah. Wonderful, wonderful. But then he didn’t have to have any more surgery until he was a teenager. Because his hands were growing, but all this time, see I had to spend a lot of time with him. And he was, had an inquiring mind. WN: Very, very intelligent. VC: I can remember we would take them to opera and I’d get a box of some kind, you know and make the stage and we would make characters and play out the story, so when he was old enough to go to opera, he knew quite a bit about it, very familiar as a high school student at the opera, and we didn’t have that money given in Oklahoma, but he was [indecipherable]. Well, then, when he went off to college, I think there was a Presbyterian preacher who was from the Princeton theological seminary, and we wondering where to send him. He said why don’t you go to Princeton. Well, I hadn’t even thought of that, you know. I didn’t know much about it, but he got in. WN: Well, that was an honor in itself. VC: Right. There wasn’t many, very many students from this part of the country at that time going east as there are now. Well, then when Roger (John Roger Collins) came along, he had that in mind, too, but he was afraid he couldn’t get in, however, he did. So, those were busy years, and I can remember when Roger went off to school, I said, you may not like it, but I think you better go on the train while it’s still going. So when he went to college, he had a roommate, or whatever they call them and went to Princeton and that was the last time he ever did because they began to fail, you know… WN: No more trains running. VC: Right! That’s right. But he went to college on the train. WN: Well, that’s a nice remembrance for Roger. VC: I kind of thought so, too. See, he never did after that. Well, it was my idea. I said, you better go because I don’t think they’re going to last long. WN: Now when did Rowland graduate from Princeton? VC: Oh, let’s see. Fifty-six, I believe. He graduated cum laude, worked. Both of the boys worked while they were there. WN: That’s great. VC: It, I think, we might have managed without, but we barely managed with them working. Because even then… WN: Oh, it was expensive. VC: Those schools were expensive. I can remember, once, they took different types of jobs in school. Roger, I mean Rowland worked in the library and then got to be sort of a secretary for one of the professors, which was wonderful. Roger helped a lady put in her flowerbeds. He did the digging in the dirt and made some good friends that way. I don’t regret it. I think maybe it would have been easier if they hadn’t had to work, but they got through alright, both of them. And they worked, I think it helped really. WN: Tell about Rowland going to England. I think that was wonderful, honestly. VC: Oh, Rowland got some grants that took him to England. He had a trip to Europe that was just fantastic, he and one of his friends. And that’s before there was so much travel in Europe. And that then later years, Sarah, his wife and I, did some of same route that he took. We found it very interesting, rather tiring, because it was so inclusive, but it was great, great. Then he stayed in England one year. He began to find things that were in his field. Now the one thing that Rowland did that was very, very outstanding was that when he began to teach out of college, he got his doctorate degree from Stanford, and I think he was, if not the youngest, the next to the youngest to graduate to get a doctorate’s degree. And John and I had said, well, why not go ahead and get it. We can help you a little bit now, and if you wait until you are married and have kids, by then it will be ten times harder. So, if you can, get it now, well, he did. Then he went to teach in Indiana. Well, Rowland was such an inquisitive mind that he went through some manuscripts in the library. WN: In Old English. VC: In Old English that nobody had ever paid any attention to, hadn’t classified them, even. So that’s when he became interested in these old, old manuscripts. And it became really a part of his well-known honors. WN: Yes, he earned a reputation. VC: Right, he, he at one time had an exhibit in the J. Pierpont Morgan Library in New York of all of these early manuscripts in the United States. WN: Oh my! VC: Well, that was quite a feat, and the catalog described them because nobody had taken the trouble to even learn the English of that old, old day. It was before Chaucer, you see. Before, you think Chaucer is pretty far back. Well, this is before that. I can remember, he went to Princeton one year. He had a scholarship, not a scholarship, but a Guggenheim Grant, something. He was granted entrée to their manuscripts. WN: So that’s an honor in itself. VC: Uh-huh. And they had certain light that you could help decipher what had been there. He really worked hard on that, and then he went to England, even, to study more in their library and had entrée to the British museum. He showed us a little cubicle. It was very, very interesting, and then, of course, he lived there. WN: Man, that is hard work. VC: Oh, yes! And the living conditions, I think they lived on the third floor, no elevator. Shopping, you know, everything was small, the shopping for food had to be done often. You can’t just get a whole bunch of stuff. You have no room to put it. Anyway, Sarah had a grant that year, too, and their daughter went to school in London, you remember. WN: Yes. VC: So that was a nice, nice experience for all of them. I wondered if he didn’t pick up a bug in London. WN: This could have been the start of it. VC: Uh-huh. Now Roger had a good trip with Billy Farha (Bill Farha, Jr.). WN: Yes, to the Middle East. VC: To the Middle East. I look on Roger as being a definite brunette and kind of dark. They described him as a blonde when he was in those countries. They said who’s that blonde with you? Both boys were good in French. I’ve always wanted to be able to speak French fluently. I think it’s a little late now to start, but both of them had a good tongue or lip or something for French. They worked at it, though, because the, Roger I don’t think had ever had any French until he got to college. College French is extremely hard. But he worked at it, and Rowland said his accent was better than his. Well, they were both good enough for me. Anyway, Roger told us about the time that he and Debbie Farha (ph) were on a ship cruising somewhere, and they were off to the, they were sitting at a table, and another group not too far away and they were speaking in French. Well, Roger knew what they were saying, and they were criticizing Roger and Debbie (ph). Roger said he never changed his expression until they got up and left, and then he just turned to them and said something and let them know that he heard every word they said. And knew what they said. Roger’s had experiences, too, in a different way. Rowland’s were in the literary field and he attained lots of honors. WN: And he wrote a book. VC: He wrote a book. He edited several books. He had, I can’t tell you all the honors because they’re in certain fields of literature at Rochester. He was, he was head of the English department there at Rochester for nine years. I don’t think anybody had served that long. Finally, he said, oh mom, I can’t take it any longer. He said all the professors were prima donnas. Some were, you know, pretty high on themselves. Well, they’re experts in their fields. They liked him, though, and he enjoyed it there very much, and it was a shame he had to be taken so young. WN: And how old was he when… VC: Fifty. WN: Fifty when he died. VC: Fifty when died in ’85. And that’s just the height of his career. It’s just one of those things you never will understand, but it happened. So, here I am, minus one son, minus a husband, and I’m going on. WN: Yes, and you still have Roger and he’s done wonderfully well in the business world. VC: Yes, Roger, has different talents. He’s had some fantastic experiences. WN: Tell me some of the companies that he’s, just name some of the companies that he’s worked for. VC: Okay, he worked for Vanply, Inc., which is the subsidiary of Skelly. He was stationed out in, lived out in Washington there for several months. During that time, it seems there was some skullduggery going on in the business and a lot of mismanagement. So, at one time, they sent him to North Carolina, somewhere down there, and the situation was SO bad, here was quite young, I don’t know why they solicited a man so young, but they did. He had to have a Pinkerton man with him everywhere he went. He had to change his motel every night, and it finally got settled, but I think someone was caught, and maybe one man committed suicide over it. I’m not sure, but it was a REAL problem. And Roger was in the middle of it. I didn’t know anything about it until it was all over. WN: Aren’t you glad? VC: I am glad. Another time, I don’t know whether he was, who he was, I don’t think it was Vanply, Inc. then, but he was in Paris and at the airport, the police [indecipherable] came and took him down to police headquarters, and what had happened was, there had been a big jewel robbery, and the man’s name was Roger Collins! His name was Roger Collins! Well, he knew French, and he didn’t know whether that was good or bad, you see, because, he knew things and this man was Roger, John Roger Collins. If Roger were to hear this, he might not think I’m telling it right, but anyway, they took him down to headquarters in Paris. WN: Oh my, how scary. VC: I didn’t know this until it was all over. Rowland told me about it. And they searched him and questioned him for quite a while before he proved that he wasn’t a jewel robbery. You know, well, anyway, that would have scared the wits out of me, and it did to hear about it. WN: Oh, yes! VC: But he came out of it alright, finally, it was another John Roger Collins. Isn’t that amazing? WN: Yes. VC: I don’t think he’s had such hair-raising experiences. WN: But he’s had some wonderful jobs. VC: Yes, when he worked for Parker (Parker Drilling Company), it was very, very pleasant. WN: Tell about the next job or whatever you want to tell. VC: This is a different type of job, not concerned with the oil business like Parker was, but it’s very challenging because they do things with the airplane industry. WN: Alright, now what company is this? VC: This is Nordam. WN: Nordam. VC: Nordam. I’d never heard of it until he began to work for them, but they are a big company. They’ve expanded several times since he’s been working for them, and I think they’re latest project is the hush kit which I think sounds wonderful if it can come to pass in completion. It’s to put on the biggest airplanes to cut the noise down. But it’s very expensive and it’s, it’s complicated. WN: This is for noise pollution? VC: That’s right. I just don’t know the phase of it now, how they’re coming along or…I think there are other companies that would like to have the patent or two, you know. So that brings complications, and anyway, I know he works awfully hard. WN: I know he does, too. And I’m going to stop right now because you have talked… audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/render.php?cachefile=OHP-0046B_Velma_Collins.xml OHP-0046B_Velma_Collins.xml
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Title
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Velma Jones Collins - Part 2
Description
An account of the resource
In Part 2 of this 1994 interview with Velma Collins, she talks about her childhood memories, attending school, her music education, attending college, and most extensively about her children, Rowland and Roger.
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OHP-0046B
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1994-02-12
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audio
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beae7ac5e22dc21dd4b60cb9df56d792
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Title
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Family Histories
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Oral History
Subject
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Oral accounts of various family histories
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Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Wanda Newton
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Velma Collins
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https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/render.php?cachefile=OHP-0046A_Velma_Collins.xml
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5.4 February 12, 1994 OHP-0046A Velma Collins - Part 1 OHP-0046A 00:47:15 Bristow Historical Society, Inc. bristowhistory Velma Collins Wanda Newton 1.0:|12(6)|22(7)|31(17)|40(3)|50(6)|64(16)|82(10)|95(5)|107(17)|118(11)|133(10)|156(4)|183(14)|190(8)|201(7)|214(15)|230(5)|248(10)|260(16)|271(5)|295(13)|306(8)|323(11)|350(10)|368(15)|394(3)|417(10)|444(17)|467(8)|485(13)|502(5)|528(9)|556(8)|570(18)|584(4)|606(5)|624(4)|647(18)|660(6)|669(8)|680(3)|698(9)|706(15)|720(5)|734(8)|748(15)|766(6)|768(6) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0046A Collins, Velma.mp3 Other audio 0 The Family Home WN: Wanda Newton. Today is February the 12th, 1994. I’m in the home of Velma Collins who lives north of town. So many people inquire about this lovely, big brick home at the edge of town, so we are going to let Velma tell her story. She can begin with her house.
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 ; VC: My father designed it, and I don’t know who helped him. I wish I had some blue prints that would tell me more about it. But anyway, it’s here, and, by in large, it’s just like he planned it. Very little that’s been done to it…made it a little larger. Mother added a couple of rooms that were advantageous. I was glad, even though they made the house too big for me as an adult and as a widow. Velma talks extensively about their family home that her father built. She not only grew up there, but also moved back there to live after marrying. R.L. Jones ; John Leland Collins ; Noah Shipman ; Frank Winters ; Laurel Hotel ; Turner Turnpike family home ; Collins home 0 855 Relvue WN: Well, tell us about the name, how the name of the pond.
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 ; VC: Oh, yes, that is interesting. It’s Relvue, but it’s not spelled V I E W. It’s spelled R E L V U E, because that was the way my father started it. Now, the first three letters R E L are his initials. His birth name was Robert Edward Lee Jones, and he was named for General Robert E. Lee. Because Lee, General Lee was so revered in the south. But that was too many initials to write all the time, so daddy always signed his name R.L. Jones, and called “Bob”, I think, in the early days rather than Robert. His mother called him Robert. But, and he decided on V U E instead of V I E W. So this place is known as Relvue. Relvue Farm or Relvue Place, I’m not just sure which. I just call it Relvue. 
 ; Velma tells about how the pond, and subsequently, the farm got the name Relvue. Relvue ; R.L. Jones ; Robert Edward Lee Jones 0 1072 Attending School WN: Oh yes. Tell me about that school.
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 ; VC: Well, there was not much grass on that yard there.
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 ; WN: Well, now is it in the same block that Washington School…
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 ; VC: Yes, it was right there. Just right there. And it was a two-story, and we thought it was the enormous, and we thought it was real nice. But one thing I can remember over there, we had a may pole dance. It was the real thing. I don’t know who put it up or who put the streamers, but I can remember in and out, in and out twirling as the music played ‘till we got it woven clear down to the bottom. And I can remember on Friday afternoons, the teacher would read us a book. It would be a continuous thing, each Friday for an hour or so. Velma recalls attending school and some of her teachers and what they learned in the early days. Washington School ; Orva Henkins ; Gladys Banks attending school 0 1217 Other Homes VC: Huh-uh, no cafeterias. And so lunch pails were in order, I’m sure. I can remember then later, we lived on west 11th, and that’s where I learned to skate. There must have been a little sidewalk along there.
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 ; WN: Well now when did you build this home?
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 ; VC: This home?
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 ; WN: Uh-huh.
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 ; VC: This home was built in 1917 and I think over into ’18. But when we lived on west 11th, that’s where I learned to skate. And I can’t remember…
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 ; WN: Which house did you live in on west 11th?
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 ; VC: Oh, along where you lived, somewhere along in there. [Indecipherable] or somewhere right in there. I would go across the alley to school.
 ; Velma recalls living in some other homes around Bristow while their family home was being built.
 ; Clem Brown ; Jim Brown ; skating ; Cushing (Okla.) ; J.F. Sharpe other homes 0 1414 Living Above American National Bank VC: Yes, Mr. Sharpe was superintendent of schools when I came along. And I remember him vividly. And then we lived up over the American National Bank. Now some of those places might have been while this was being built. I’m not sure.
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 ; WN: And where was the American National Bank at that time? Do you remember was it on the corner of 7th?
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 ; VC: Yes, 7th and Main.
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 ; WN: 7th and Main.
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 ; VC: 7th and Main, and like I told you, an interesting thing is that we lived up there and that stairway was so, so high, because the ceilings were high in the bank. And we could look out onto Main Street. Then in later years, after I married, I took my baby Rowland (Rowland Lee Collins) up there, little boy, rather toddler, to see a parade from that same little turret type of room that was there.
 ; Velma remembers living above American National Bank for a short time while their family home was being built. J. F. Sharpe ; American National Bank ; Rowland Lee Collins ; Montford Jones ; Doodle Hamilton other homes ; American National Bank 0 1605 Mock Orange Plant VC: Daddy brought a plant, there’s an old plant out here. I just call it a thorn bush. I don’t know what else to call it. Has mock oranges…
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 ; WN: Oh, yes, right up in the corner.
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 ; VC: But that is from her house out there.
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 ; WN: Well, do you know I took one of your, several of your mock oranges and planted them just down in my wilderness in my front yard, and I’ve got one about this tall. I planted it out there several years ago. And I’ve got another one about that tall.
 ; Velma remembers her father bringing a mock orange plant to their house and planting it, and at the time of the interview, it was still living. mock oranges ; Allie B. Jones mock orange plant 0 1678 Childhood Memories VC: I’d love to see it! I’d love to see it, because I do remember that thing up there in that yard, and I can remember Aunt Allie (Allie Jones) would dress us up, Minna Karl (Minna Karl Ekdahl), Etta Feild (Etta Feild Caves) and I were the ones that she doted on. And we would wobble around in her old high heel shoes and put the lace over our heads. And I think she took our pictures, there, but I don’t remember if I still have them here or not, but…
 ; 
 ; WN: It would be fun if you ever run across any of them, we could copy.
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 ; VC: I know where they probably are…
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 ; WN: And we can put them in the museum.
 ; Velma remembers having fun as a child playing dress up with her aunt, Allie B. Jones. Allie B. Jones ; Minna Karl Ekdahl ; Etta Feild Caves childhood memories 0 1796 Running the Homestead WN: Okay, before we leave the farm now, can you tell me as many names as you can of families or people that have worked out here or lived out here if you can think of any.
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 ; VC: Well, now I can’t remember the names of very many of the coloreds, except, Frank Winters.
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 ; WN: Frank Winters.
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 ; VC: And his wife was named Rosa. And Rosa worked in the house. And then there was another one that waited on tables, on the table and helped in the kitchen. OH! Let’s see, I was trying to think of the name of the cook. But her last name was Jones and her husband. She just lived over in the pasture and Minnie (ph) [indecipherable]. But anyway, she was the cook and you don’t think, well, with one child, you’d have much to do, but there was because daddy always had a lot of company. Always a lot of company.
 ; Velma remembers the various people that lived on the farm and helped run the homestead. Frank Winters ; Rosa Winters running the homestead 0 1952 Noah Shipman VC: Three septic tanks. But you talked about names, see, Noah Shipman was still living when John died. And he had worked for daddy for years and years and years, and reared a family out there.
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 ; WN: Now that’s Betty Wilemon’s…
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 ; VC: Betty Wilemon.
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 ; WN: Father?
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 ; VC: Father. And she grew up out here. So I feel like daddy’s almost apart of the family. And I felt like Mr. Shipman was part of the family, too. He was SO good to me. Velma recalls her close family relationship with Noah Shipman. Noah Shipman ; Betty Wilemon Noah Shipman 0 2016 R.L. Jones Philanthropy VC: No, that was before the camp, long before the camp. The camp came later when daddy was much older. I don’t know just when he acquired that, but that was a big deal.
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 ; WN: And this was…tell just a little bit about his interest in the boys and the…
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 ; VC: Oh, I guess he really missed having a boy in the family, and he always said, like Mr. Kirchner (R.R. “Brick” Kirchner), he said, well, when you help a boy, you help a whole family.
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 ; WN: Mm-hmm.
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 ; VC: Because they do establish a family, and they have that responsibility, so you help many people when you help a boy. He was always giving things to boys. He did not want them to smoke. Some of them betrayed his trust. They promised not to smoke, and then went right into town and did. He also had, what he called, Bob’s Club, I think, in high school. He established a prize or something for the most dependable boy. Velma remembers how much her father helped the community and donated money and other items to the different clubs and organizations. R.L Jones ; R.R. "Brick" Kirchner ; Roger Collins ; Lions Club ; Rotary Club ; PEO philanthropy 0 2303 Family History WN: Alright, while you’re still talking about your father, go back and tell us as far back as you can remember, maybe you know who his father was, you know, so that we’ll have this for a genealogy record, too.
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 ; VC: Oh, okay, well daddy’s mother was one of two girls in, living in Virginia. They were late teens, 16 to 18, I think, somewhere along in there at the time of the Civil War. The father, I think, had passed away in the war, probably. The mother contracted pneumonia, which was almost [indecipherable] then, and she got sick from getting up at all times of the night to give soldiers who would come by, give them food, and died, leaving two girls, no boys, you see. No money, nothing but a house and land with nobody to farm it. She, daddy’s mother, married a doctor from the war. He was in the war, I think, a young doctor. Well, they moved from Virginia which was poverty stricken to Mississippi which wasn’t a whole lot better. He didn’t live too long, but he fathered ten children. Daddy was one of ten. They all lived to adulthood except one, and I think that’s amazing.
 ; Velma recalls some memories of her father's parents and R.L. Jones coming to Oklahoma with his brothers. Virginia ; Civil War ; Mississippi ; B.B. Jones ; Chandler (Okla.) ; Montfort Jones ; R.L. Jones ; Sapulpa (Okla.) ; Cushing (Okla.) ; Drumright (Okla.) ; opera house 0 2771 Bristow Businesses Velma recalls some early Bristow businesses. Community Bank ; Jackson's Meat Market ; Schrader Drug Store Bristow businesses 0 MP3 In this 1994 interview with Velma Collins, she talked extensively about the home her father built and the different people that worked there, along with other various homes she lived in as a child. She also talked about her life growing up in Bristow including attending school, learning to skate and swim, and how giving her father was to the community. WN: Wanda Newton. Today is February the 12th, 1994. I’m in the home of Velma Collins who lives north of town. So many people inquire about this lovely, big brick home at the edge of town, so we are going to let Velma tell her story. She can begin with her house. VC: My father designed it, and I don’t know who helped him. I wish I had some blue prints that would tell me more about it. But anyway, it’s here, and, by in large, it’s just like he planned it. Very little that’s been done to it…made it a little larger. Mother added a couple of rooms that were advantageous. I was glad, even though they made the house too big for me as an adult and as a widow. But I grew up out here, and it didn’t look like it does now, because now, it’s full of beautiful antiques that daddy collected through the years, mainly from New Orleans. And when I came out here with John (John Leland Collins) some twenty years ago, it was full. Daddy bought things, as he said, they are cheaper by the dozen, so he had the house FULL. Mother, getting older, didn’t want to change anything, and we had a time getting rid of some things, but we came out with a lovely, lovely home for us. And I’m just sorry that John didn’t get to enjoy it but one year. I’ve been here twenty years as a widow, and it’s been a lovely setting, and I’m very, very thankful that I’ve had this beauty to look at. WN: How long did long John get to live in this home after you fixed it? VC: John lived here one year to the month. We moved out here in July of 1973, and he died in, no ’72, and he died in July of ’73, to the month. Well, that sort of changed my life considerably, but here I am as an older woman and enjoying the beauty that daddy provided for me, and that John and I assembled. We brought lots of things from our house in town out here, sold a lot of things, gave as much as we could to our children. The form of the house was just like houses were in that day and time, the two-story houses. A bedroom on each corner upstairs and a sleeping porch. Down below the sleeping porch was what they called the sun room or the sun parlor, and that’s the way I still call it when I show the house to people. There was a big dining room and a big living room and a music room, and then a porte-cochere with a circular drive which had to be done away with eventually, because people would come out and just love to go around. Anybody [indecipherable] on their way to and from town. But anyway, mother then added what she called the garden room and enclosed the porte-cochere and made a library out of it. So it’s a pretty good sized house, but it’s full of the previous antiques that they had acquired. And I love them all. They have history behind it, and I never fail to enjoy telling people about it when they’re interested. I don’t want to bore people with all of the details about this and that and the other, but I can remember living out here as a child when it was busy. I was an only child but we always had people around. There was plenty to eat because we had a great big vegetable garden, a huge vegetable garden. We had an orchard. We had cows, Jersey cows. We had all kinds of pets. I can remember through the years, you name it, and we had it…guineas and peafowl. Daddy had little dogs that he loved, and our other dogs all through the years, they were not particularly mine, but they were here for me to enjoy if I wanted to. And then… WN: How about horses? VC: We had horses. There was a horse barn, and I can remember having mules do a lot of work, and they did a lot of work, too, accomplished in one day, Mr. Shipman could tell me things he did in one day now that they’d spend more than that on even when they had machines, which would accomplish the same thing. But, nevertheless, it’s a different story. Then, he did build the swimming pool and all the children in the family loved that. And then he added a tennis court, and I never was very good at anything like that, but then I tried and had fun. No, I had to study when I came along, that’s what children did. WN: Well, wait before you get into that. Tell us a little bit more about the out-buildings and some of the people who worked here in the early days if you can. VC: Alright, there were a number of outhouses, negro families that lived here. One house was not too far from Mr. Shipman’s home, and to this day, I call it the Frank Winters house, because that’s where the colored family lived. And he worked in the fields and farming and so forth. She worked in the house. And then up in the fields it was another house, I’ve forgotten the family that lived up there, but… WN: Was that the little house that still stands up there in the field? VC: Yes, it’s just barely standing. WN: Yeah. Did John used to put hay in it? VC: Yes, uh-huh. But then there was a barn up there. Of course, there was a lot to do out here, really. And, I can remember them killing hogs and mother rendering the lard down in the basement. And I can remember her running the separator down in the basement, so there was never… WN: Now your basement is so interesting. Tell us what the basement is like, because so many people in our community do not have basements. VC: Well, this is a full basement. I mean under all the house except the two rooms that my mother added considerably later. And that makes a pretty good-sized basement. There was one room that was kept locked because it had all kinds of canned goods, not only home can, but bought. Because, as I say, daddy bought things by the case when it came to canned goods, and I can even remember one Christmas when I was an older girl, he filled the fire place up there in the upstairs with canned goods instead of other little things that people usually use at Christmastime, but anyhow. Then I can remember there was one room down there where the separator was, and that took a lot of shelves, and mother worked so hard with that, because there were cans of milk and we had homemade butter. We had homemade buttermilk. And daddy loved clabber, so it was all good eating, I’ll tell you. My mother killed hogs, oh my, the basement was just full of good and bad aromas. But those were busy days and seemed like it was a lot of activity around here because there were so many people. WN: Now did she do her washing downstairs and carried it outside? VC: The laundry room was in the farthest corner of the basement. And she had one of the first manuals, I guess, because it’s an antique [indecipherable]. WN: You still have that in your… VC: Still have it in my basement, and I have thought about getting rid of it and selling it to the company for their old shows, but it’s so heavy, I’ve just left it there. But the clothes were hung out on the line and it was not too close to the house either, over there by Mr. Shipman’s (Noah Shipman) house. At one time, I can remember there was an Englishman who worked here, and he lived up over the garage. There was a little cement walk leading to the cow barn, and the stanchions (ph) are still out there in the that barn, by the way. He just did the milking and took care of the cows. Now I don’t know what else he did, but we had a number of Jersey cows so I think he had a good bit to do. The, uh, what else do you want to know? WN: I know now, tell them about the size of the barn because I think the barn is so interesting. VC: That is a cow barn. It’s huge. In fact, there are three big barns out here. I think the cow barn is not quite as large as the horse barn, the one that’s beyond that. And there was a fourth barn on the east side that burned. WN: I read that in the newspaper. I read an article of it that the R.L. Jones barn burned. VC: Uh-huh. And I can remember, I came home from Tulsa that day and saw the smoke coming up from that and it had just barely stopped being in flames. But daddy said the only thing he could think of was that some hobo was sleeping in there and smoked and caught hay or whatever on fire. There is a barn there but it’s not a big one like the one that was there. So that means at one time four big barns there. Well anyway… WN: Well, now back up. How about your water? I noticed some old watering troughs out there, too. VC: We have several wells on the place. There’s one down by the barn. There’s one right behind Mr. Shipman’s house. And there’s one right here at my back door. [Indecipherable] I don’t know how many, whether there were anymore or not. And, of course, then the big pond down here was for livestock. WN: Okay now before you leave the early time, I remember the little house that used to sit about down there in the area where the Mattox (ph), didn’t the Mattox (ph) live there? VC: Yes, I think the Mattox (ph) lived there. WN: And I don’t know who lived there before them, but… VC: Then there was another little house in that big pasture where the cook and her husband lived. Then there was one down east where the Shattucks…no, I’m not sure. WN: Well, was it the Hinds (ph) Family? Was there a Hinds (ph) Family that ever lived in…was there a two-story house? VC: Yes, that was the house daddy bought in town. I understood that it was the old Laurel Hotel. WN: Oh. VC: That had been my impression all the time that that was the old Laural Hotel that was bought and moved out there. But I heard other reports since then on the hotel and it didn’t include that. So, I don’t know. WN: Well, let me ask you, how far did your land go to the south here? Uh, to 11th Street? VC: Eleventh, no 12th. WN: To 12th Street. VC: Twelfth. WN: Yeah, that’s right. VC: It went to 12th Street. Well, and that’s the way it was. The first intrusion into the plot that daddy bought was the Turnpike. And, of course, we had to have a way to get the cows and they built a tunnel of some kind for the cows to come through. And then it was so low, it filled up with water and they didn’t like it, so I think daddy had to build another pond up there. It brought problems. Well, then (Highway) 16, you see, divided that, and so that’s when the industrial buildings went up over there. Because one good pasture, there was no water, divided the pond and the house. But I had always thought that my two boys would settle here some day and I found out there that they all have their own interests. And, so, I’m here. WN: Well, tell us about the name, how the name of the pond. VC: Oh, yes, that is interesting. It’s Relvue, but it’s not spelled V I E W. It’s spelled R E L V U E, because that was the way my father started it. Now, the first three letters R E L are his initials. His birth name was Robert Edward Lee Jones, and he was named for General Robert E. Lee. Because Lee, General Lee was so revered in the south. But that was too many initials to write all the time, so daddy always signed his name R.L. Jones, and called “Bob”, I think, in the early days rather than Robert. His mother called him Robert. But, and he decided on V U E instead of V I E W. So this place is known as Relvue. Relvue Farm or Relvue Place, I’m not just sure which. I just call it Relvue. WN: Do you know how many acres it entailed originally? VC: Yes, I think it was at least 600, maybe a little more, I’m not just sure before all this came. But it soon dwindled when you get highways to it, because you have to give them right-of-way…so many feet. WN: And then I remember when they built the big lake up there. That was on… VC: Oh yes, that is half on Relvue and half on the, on the Kellys. And the conservation or soil conservation people take care of that. I’m glad because I don’t even get up there very often. But that was a good thing, I know. The best conservation, I mean that has brought the best results really to this part was some of the dams up there from the bigger lakes. I can remember, one time only, when we were marooned out here. Believe it or not, it doesn’t look high, but we were surrounded by water. It was frightening. We were… WN: This little creek, Sand Creek? VC: Uh-huh. It was just solid water all down in the valley, little valley there and all out there, nothing but water! We couldn’t have gotten out except [indecipherable]. And I can remember one time when I was a girl, we had so much snow, that we couldn’t get me to school, so the Meeks (ph)…you remember them? WN: Oh yes. With the diary out there. VC: Yes, they came by in a boat and took me a round about way to school over on the east side. WN: The old high school over there? VC: Old, two-story, I think sandstone block house and I know when I got there, I think my hands were so cold, they were really frost-bitten. Oh, the teacher worked on them for a long time because we were just icy from the time we got…it was slow going, horse and buggy in deep snow from here over there. That was a long trip. But I have memories of that school, do you want me… WN: Oh yes. Tell me about that school. VC: Well, there was not much grass on that yard there. WN: Well, now is it in the same block that Washington School… VC: Yes, it was right there. Just right there. And it was a two-story, and we thought it was the enormous, and we thought it was real nice. But one thing I can remember over there, we had a may pole dance. It was the real thing. I don’t know who put it up or who put the streamers, but I can remember in and out, in and out twirling as the music played ‘till we got it woven clear down to the bottom. And I can remember on Friday afternoons, the teacher would read us a book. It would be a continuous thing, each Friday for an hour or so. I remember Gladys Banks was one I recall, very vividly, that she had a nice speaking voice and she was a good, good teacher. And I can remember Orva Henkins over there, and she, we learned math, too. But the rooms were quiet. There was no gum chewing. There was no chittering. It was all business. But, we learned, and of course, that building burned. And, I can’t remember where I went to school while other arrangements were being made, but I do remember going to school over there. WN: Did you take your lunch or did you come back home for lunch? VC: I just don’t remember but we probably took it, you know, it was quite a deal. WN: Because they didn’t have cafeterias. VC: Huh-uh, no cafeterias. And so lunch pails were in order, I’m sure. I can remember then later, we lived on west 11th, and that’s where I learned to skate. There must have been a little sidewalk along there. WN: Well now when did you build this home? VC: This home? WN: Uh-huh. VC: This home was built in 1917 and I think over into ’18. But when we lived on west 11th, that’s where I learned to skate. And I can’t remember… WN: Which house did you live in on west 11th? VC: Oh, along where you lived, somewhere along in there. [Indecipherable] or somewhere right in there. I would go across the alley to school. WN: Did you live across the street from Clem Brown? Is that where…and your mother’s brother, didn’t he live in Eleanor’s, didn’t he live in a brown house there? VC: I can’t remember that. No, I don’t remember Clem living there. I remember Jim Brown, her brother’s wife lived on near where the school gym is now in one of those houses. I think the one that’s been moved away. WN: Yes, I remember them living there. VC: But I can’t remember Clem living there. I doubt it, he was probably in the army. I know he was in the army, but I know I learned to skate there, because I had too many holes in my long black stockings. Every time I fell down there would be a hole. And, of course, I wore button shoes, high button shoes, and black. Then I had some white lace ones that were a little high, too. And I can remember wearing navy blue surge (ph) mini blouse and pleated skirt. I think that must have been the uniform almost because we wore it so much. WN: And your hair was black then? VC: Oh, yes, it was. My hair was really dark, dark, dark. I always had a lot of it then, too. But those were fun days. And I can remember going through the alley over to the school where, I don’t know what building, I don’t remember that. WN: Let’s see, when did you graduate? When were you born, Velma? VC: I was not born in Bristow, but I was born in 1906, and then but we moved here from Cushing in 1913, I think, yeah 1913. WN: And you lived first then on 11th Street. VC: I think so, but we had lived in another white house, not the two-story white, but where the old motel was. There was a one-story, white house that we lived there a while. WN: Oh, you mean, on Main Street? VC: On Main Street. WN: Next to the Carmans? Did you live next to Neva? VC: Uh, yes, seems there was something between that two-story white house. WN: Mr. Sharpe (J.F. Sharpe) then lived… VC: Yes, Mr. Sharpe was superintendent of schools when I came along. And I remember him vividly. And then we lived up over the American National Bank. Now some of those places might have been while this was being built. I’m not sure. WN: And where was the American National Bank at that time? Do you remember was it on the corner of 7th? VC: Yes, 7th and Main. WN: 7th and Main. VC: 7th and Main, and like I told you, an interesting thing is that we lived up there and that stairway was so, so high, because the ceilings were high in the bank. And we could look out onto Main Street. Then in later years, after I married, I took my baby Rowland (Rowland Lee Collins) up there, little boy, rather toddler, to see a parade from that same little turret type of room that was there. WN: Well at that time did they have lawyers and dentists and everything up there. VC: Yes. WN: And then the apartments, too. VC: Yes, up there. And that’s where we lived up there, was in an apartment. But I don’t think that was long. Probably while this house was being built. That’s my recollection. WN: But you didn’t, that was the last place you lived before you moved here, then to this house? VC: Well, either that or the little white house there on Main. I can’t, I can’t remember the move itself out here. I don’t know how I got here, but it didn’t make an impression on me. I guess I didn’t, didn’t have much to do with it, you know. I was probably too little. But I can remember going into the Montfort Jones house that was where Doodle Hamilton’s house is now in that first house, I can remember going into that old… WN: Well, I thought it was on the corner where the parking lot. VC: No, well, it, no it was where the garden was. WN: Oh, where the garden was. Oh, okay. VC: The garden, she had the garden to outline the old house. WN: I see. VC: That was… WN: The iris garden and all those gardens… VC: [Indecipherable] and you remember she had the little pergola out there… WN: Yes. VC: And all kinds of flowers. That’s what followed the outline of the old stone, block house, which is comparable to the old Abraham house, you see. WN: I can kind of remember that, just vaguely. VC: And that house had a little turret in it, too. My daddy was so sentimental, he, when that house was torn down, he brought those stone blocks out here in the pasture right now from that early… WN: I remember carrying one of those stone blocks. They were so big and heavy, but well cut, and putting it out at my picnic site out there and made a step out of it. It was a beautifully cut stone. VC: Yes! They worked on it, and it might have been just old [indecipherable] sand stone but they worked until they got it nice looking pieces of… WN: Oh, they are beautiful blocks. VC: Daddy brought a plant, there’s an old plant out here. I just call it a thorn bush. I don’t know what else to call it. Has mock oranges… WN: Oh, yes, right up in the corner. VC: But that is from her house out there. WN: Well, do you know I took one of your, several of your mock oranges and planted them just down in my wilderness in my front yard, and I’ve got one about this tall. I planted it out there several years ago. And I’ve got another one about that tall. VC: Oh, that’s wonderful! WN: I know, but I didn’t realize that that came from Ms. Jones’ house. VC: That’s from her house, and I can remember always avoiding that thing because the thorns, you know quite long… WN: Oh yes. VC: And vicious looking, and I’m sure they are vicious feeling cause I have trouble getting who want to prune that. WN: Well, I just took some of the little orange balls and planted them around, and I thought well maybe something will grow. And I noticed last year, I had one in amongst some other things where it shouldn’t be, but it’s about that tall. But I just have to plant wherever I can find the space between the rocks. VC: Oh, I’m glad it is something. WN: I’ll show it to you sometime. VC: I’d love to see it! I’d love to see it, because I do remember that thing up there in that yard, and I can remember Aunt Allie (Allie Jones) would dress us up, Minna Karl (Minna Karl Ekdahl), Etta Feild (Etta Feild Caves) and I were the ones that she doted on. And we would wobble around in her old high heel shoes and put the lace over our heads. And I think she took our pictures, there, but I don’t remember if I still have them here or not, but… WN: It would be fun if you ever run across any of them, we could copy. VC: I know where they probably are… WN: And we can put them in the museum. VC: But we had lots of fun up there, all the children. She was good to the children and daddy was good to all the children. I can remember swimming in some natural little [indecipherable] down there in the pasture. You know where the bridge is? WN: Yeah, where the bridge is, there’s a perfect little place. VC: Right in there. I think that was the original swimming pool out there before this one. WN: It must have had more water at that time. VC: Yeah, more water, I’m sure. And I think the contour was different. It’s changed probably. WN: Yeah. VC: But I know there enough water there that we could go swimming there, but not all the time, but some at least it was... WN: Well it’s such a pretty area there. VC: Uh-huh. It was more natural looking then than it is now. I can remember, I didn’t want to learn to swim. They had to make me learn to swim. I was afraid of the water. [Indecipherable] used to help me when we would go out on church picnics. That was a big deal. I’d go with the Baptist out to some creek that was a lovely spot, and we’d get on the tire swings and go out over and drop off. Oh, I didn’t ‘cause I was little and scared. But it was fun, it was fun. WN: Okay, before we leave the farm now, can you tell me as many names as you can of families or people that have worked out here or lived out here if you can think of any. VC: Well, now I can’t remember the names of very many of the coloreds, except, Frank Winters. WN: Frank Winters. VC: And his wife was named Rosa. And Rosa worked in the house. And then there was another one that waited on tables, on the table and helped in the kitchen. OH! Let’s see, I was trying to think of the name of the cook. But her last name was Jones and her husband. She just lived over in the pasture and Minnie (ph) [indecipherable]. But anyway, she was the cook and you don’t think, well, with one child, you’d have much to do, but there was because daddy always had a lot of company. Always a lot of company. WN: Your mother always cooked. VC: Oh, and she was, she was there to see that it was done right and do most of it. There weren’t many meals in the morning of cold cereal. There were cooked breakfasts, and I mean meals, hot biscuits. Daddy loved hot biscuits. We had three times a day! So ham that you had cured, chicken. WN: Now your chickens were right behind the house in this area here. VC: I think so. WN: And then all those sheds there were for wagons and tools? VC: All… WN: Tractors? VC: No, I don’t think there were many tractors, but the implements like the old plows, and store hay, you see. WN: And you had your own water tower? VC: Oh yes, because we had these wells, and I remember that was, not always an easy thing, because sometimes it wouldn’t, it’d use too much, you know, and we had to keep it going right. And then mother went to the city, and that didn’t work either. There were always troubles, so now I’m on city water with no trouble. There were days when we wouldn’t have… WN: Now are you all on sewage now? VC: No. I have septic tanks. WN: Septic tanks. VC: Three. WN: Three septic tanks. VC: Three septic tanks. But you talked about names, see, Noah Shipman was still living when John died. And he had worked for daddy for years and years and years, and reared a family out there. WN: Now that’s Betty Wilemon’s… VC: Betty Wilemon. WN: Father? VC: Father. And she grew up out here. So I feel like daddy’s almost apart of the family. And I felt like Mr. Shipman was part of the family, too. He was SO good to me. Here I was, see, left with this big place on my hands and he had been here for a long time. He came, originally, from Missouri. Daddy got him and brought him down here. And I don’t know whether, how many of the children were born in Bristow, probably daddy would… WN: Well, did he meet him through your, his camp… VC: No, that was before the camp, long before the camp. The camp came later when daddy was much older. I don’t know just when he acquired that, but that was a big deal. WN: And this was…tell just a little bit about his interest in the boys and the… VC: Oh, I guess he really missed having a boy in the family, and he always said, like Mr. Kirchner (R.R. “Brick” Kirchner), he said, well, when you help a boy, you help a whole family. WN: Mm-hmm. VC: Because they do establish a family, and they have that responsibility, so you help many people when you help a boy. He was always giving things to boys. He did not want them to smoke. Some of them betrayed his trust. They promised not to smoke, and then went right into town and did. He also had, what he called, Bob’s Club, I think, in high school. He established a prize or something for the most dependable boy. Now that was later, because I think Roger (Roger Collins) was in high school when that came. The school would have given it to Roger, but we didn’t want Roger to accept it, because it looked too much like it had been rigged. WN: It wasn’t fair though. VC: No, it wasn’t fair to Roger, but anyway, that’s the way it was, so he had to take it, bless his heart. Daddy was real good, real interested in boys, and I supposed he should have had a dozen. WN: Well, he did so many things for the community that people didn’t even know about. VC: That’s right. I came across an article, an old newspaper article the other day when it was talking about that he had established these scholarships, no that wasn’t the term, for the Lion’s Club and the Rotary, gave them each $10,000, which was a big sum… WN: [Indecipherable] VC: And they were to give scholarships for people who needed it to go to school. I think he gave PEO a small scholarship. WN: How much? VC: We’re still using it. It’s intact. In fact, it hasn’t grown much because we keep the money going the interest going. But I don’t think the Rotary and the Lion’s Club, they don’t have their money. WN: I don’t know where they have the money. I think Rotary still has a scholarship. I don’t know if they have that original amount. VC: I don’t either. I don’t either. When he gave that Legion Hut, that was a BIG, BIG donation. WN: Oh my. Such a wonderful thing for the community. VC: I think so, too. And I wished it could be used more, but maybe it could be worked out some, some day. There was a grand piano there, I remember at one time. There was an enormous grand piano in the high school auditorium. WN: Well, it’s still there. VC: I wonder if it’s still going, but then I still have the piano that I practiced on, the same make, as the one daddy gave everywhere. WN: I don’t think that grand piano has ever been replaced on that stage. It’s been on that stage ever since I can remember. VC: Really? WN: Still there. VC: Well, that’s good, that’s good. I can remember one time that, I didn’t know about it, ‘cause daddy never did tell me. You know, I came up in the era where children should be seen and not heard, so if I heard anything, I never said anything about it. But he gave typewriters to students here in town, because I had one of the Farha girls… WN: Oh I think Jeff Jordan and [indecipherable] and all those kids. VC: So he, daddy just loved to do things like that. WN: And he was very thrifty about everything he did. VC: Oh yes, yes. And he was great on kids learning to keep books. He liked that. WN: It was good training. VC: And it really was ‘cause he had, I can remember, down in the basement in the big room, and I mean, as you mentioned, that basement was a pretty big size. There was plenty of room for a big table with lots of boys around. Anyway… WN: Alright, while you’re still talking about your father, go back and tell us as far back as you can remember, maybe you know who his father was, you know, so that we’ll have this for a genealogy record, too. VC: Oh, okay, well daddy’s mother was one of two girls in, living in Virginia. They were late teens, 16 to 18, I think, somewhere along in there at the time of the Civil War. The father, I think, had passed away in the war, probably. The mother contracted pneumonia, which was almost [indecipherable] then, and she got sick from getting up at all times of the night to give soldiers who would come by, give them food, and died, leaving two girls, no boys, you see. No money, nothing but a house and land with nobody to farm it. She, daddy’s mother, married a doctor from the war. He was in the war, I think, a young doctor. Well, they moved from Virginia which was poverty stricken to Mississippi which wasn’t a whole lot better. He didn’t live too long, but he fathered ten children. Daddy was one of ten. They all lived to adulthood except one, and I think that’s amazing. WN: It is amazing. VC: Of course, that was in day when the doctors were paid with chickens and eggs and so forth. The mother taught school and many a times with a pallet over in the corner of the room and the latest baby. It was hard, hard going. Well, somehow, the early boys, the older boys in that early day got out to Oklahoma. That was B.B. (B.B. Jones) and him. They, they were in Chandler and then they got to Bristow. I’ve forgotten all the details of that and got into oil. The older one, B.B., had married and Montfort had married Mrs. Montfort Jones. They had many, many dry holes. I think Mrs. Montfort Jones put her widow’s money, she had been married before and her husband had died, money, last money into it, and that was when they struck oil. Then they had good luck. WN: Isn’t that wonderful. VC: But those were hard days. WN: Well, now did your father, did R.L marry your mother before he came to Oklahoma or… VC: No. My mother was from Mississippi, too, and she’s a cousin, a third cousin or fourth or something of Mrs. Montfort Jones. She came out visit her cousin. WN: Oh. VC: She married her cousin’s brother-in-law. Of course, Montfort was one of the older boys. Daddy was one of the next to the youngest ones. Mother and daddy lived in Sapulpa for a while, because he was [indecipherable] assistant county treasurer. I’d always heard treasurer, but then, anyway, then somehow, he got into business with his brothers. But in the meantime, he married this cousin of his brother’s wife. And daddy and mother lived in Cushing for a while. It was pretty primitive. Mother said it was awful. She can remember riding in a wagon with an old colored man from Cushing to Bristow, and it was ghastly, she said. The ruts were horrible and the wagon wasn’t comfortable, but anyway, they, now that was near Drumright, I think. Well, then they got to Cushing and then that’s when I entered the picture, because I was living across the street, but anyhow. Then they got over here to Bristow, and daddy was working with his brothers and acquired some means of his own. That’s where he stayed. The other brothers tried it and most of them left. Mother’s brothers, too, and sister lived here a long time. But not many of them stayed. WN: I know your father was successful, very successful. VC: Yes, he was successful on his own, and he said he didn’t think he did much. But I told him he did. I thought he had good sense. WN: Now he had the office down there where the old Chevrolet place is. Did he have an office downtown before that that you can remember of? VC: No, I can’t, I can’t remember anything before that. But he built that building I think. At one time we lived up there. And that was maybe while they were working on this house, too, I don’t know. But there were lots of people that lived up there. He had some school teachers. WN: Kind of a boarding? VC: Yes, uh-huh. I can remember that. I don’t know who had it unless it was Mrs. Jim Brown, might have had it up there. But later, she had a house of her own, so she was a widow of Jim Brown. I can remember they were living up there when I married because John came up there to see me when he was courting me. I think we must have moved from there out here. That was a busy building, you see, three stories, and it was pretty roomy. WN: Did you happen to remember the opera house? VC: No, I don’t remember the opera house. When I was a little girl, I heard the older people talking. WN: I think it burned before you probably came. VC: Right. And this is one thing I do remember about the opera house, I’d had my tonsils taken out, my operation. Well, this little girl’s mind connected the word opera and operation, and I made the statement, mother loved to tell this on me, that I said well isn’t it a shame that the opera house burned down. I could have had my operation there. Anyhow, but I don’t remember it, really burning, but I do remember these other places we lived. WN: Alright, now then, are there any businesses that stand out in your mind as a child that you went to, like a, I remember Mrs. Klingensmith had a millinery. VC: Yes, and [indecipherable] store. I can remember that. WN: A department store. VC: Seems to me there were some stores, so many of them are gone now, where the Community Bank is, there were some stores where we used to go. Then I remember Jackson’s Meat Market. You remember that? WN: Yes, and they made deliveries. VC: Right. Then I can remember Schrader Drug Store. I can remember the movie house. Oh my goodness, that was one thing I did get to do was to go to the movie every Saturday afternoon. I can’t remember, but there was these Syrians, and oh we looked forward to that. Diamond Mind or something like that. audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/render.php?cachefile=OHP-0046A_Velma_Collins.xml OHP-0046A_Velma_Collins.xml
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Velma Jones Collins - Part 1
Description
An account of the resource
In this 1994 interview with Velma Collins, she talks extensively about the home her father built and the different people that worked there, along with other various homes she lived in as a child. She also talks about her life growing up in Bristow including attending school, learning to skate and swim, and how giving her father was to the community.
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OHP-0046A
Date
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1994-02-12
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audio
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https://bristoworalhistory.org/files/original/0b60c455cd9823b555198248123c5e06.jpg
9e78304aec7410afa4bac86eddb8ac7f
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
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Family Histories
Type
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Oral History
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Oral accounts of various family histories
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Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
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Harlan Krumme
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Hyatt Chapman
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https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/render.php?cachefile=OHP-0052A_Hyatt_Chapman.xml
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5.4 August 2, 1979 OHP-0052A Hyatt Chapman OHP-0052A 00:47:30 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Bristow Historical Society, Inc. bristowhistory Hyatt Chapman Harlan Krumme 1:|13(15)|29(4)|48(2)|64(4)|81(3)|98(12)|119(2)|139(16)|155(11)|184(6)|209(6)|220(19)|234(10)|248(4)|277(13)|296(9)|319(12)|331(6)|352(10)|365(13)|388(7)|417(16)|435(13)|459(14)|490(8)|521(11)|542(8)|561(13)|575(9)|598(3)|601(5)|633(8)|660(2)|680(12)|715(15)|730(2)|748(7)|779(9)|799(13)|818(12)|842(15)|867(5)|896(5)|910(2)|931(10)|968(2)|976(13)|1001(13)|1014(9) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0052A Chapman, Hyatt.mp3 Other audio 0 Grandfathers HC: Well, my first memories about Bristow started when I was real young. I was pretty active around the place. My Grandfather Chapman (Isaac “Clay” Chapman), would take me around with him and my Grandfather Tyus (Thomas E. Tyus) is, he was pretty active in the Bristow settlement because he came from Birmingham, Alabama and moved his family up there. He was a United States Marshal of Birmingham while his uncle was a United States Senator. After his senator decided not to run in anymore, why he was reduced to a [indecipherable] United States Marshals sent to Indian Territory. Hyatt talks about his grandfathers, Thomas E. Tyus and Isaac "Clay" Chapman. Thomas E. Tyus ; Isaac "Clay" Chapman ; Birmingham (Ala.) ; U.S. Marshal ; Gainesville (Tex.) ; schooner wagon ; Red River ; Tol Foster 0 181 Alfalfa Bill Murray HC: And that is, a, one of the things that, and Tol Foster come over to my house while I lived in Bristow and told me about that. That was his deal while he was on this assignment, why he became friends with Alfalfa Bill Murray.
 ; HK: And what was his name? Now this was your mother's father. 
 ; HC: Tom Tyus (Thomas Edwin Tyus). 
 ; HK: Tom Tyus. Okay. 
 ; Hyatt talks about his grandfather, Thomas E. Tyus befriending Alfalfa Bill Murray and his grandfather being a U.S. Marshal. Alfalfa Bill Murray ; Tol Foster ; Thomas E. Tyus ; Red River ; Murray County ; Bill Tilghman Alfalfa Bill Murray ; U.S. Marshal 0 317 Chandler Homestead HK: Where did your father come from to Bristow? 
 ; HC: My father? 
 ; HK: Your father. 
 ; HC: He, my grandfather and my father came from Chandler. They settled on a homestead over, uh, four miles north of Chandler and two east. And, they, when the run was on, well, they moved down there. 
 ; HK: Yeah. 
 ; HC: And, then they settled on, I think it was 160 acres over there. And my grandfather didn't particularly like the thing and he came to Bristow and bought the place out east of town where he lived until he died. And my father also bought a little tract out there east of town. 
 ; Hyatt tells about his father and grandfather settling in Chandler on 160 acres. His grandfather didn't like it there and moved to Bristow. Chandler, (Okla.) ; cotton gins Chandler homestead 0 410 Bristow Jail HK: Well, getting back to your grandfather just, for just a second. It seems to me that I've heard you say he had something to do with the, one room, single cell jail that was, that was on the property between 7th and 8th Street, where Wells Food Market is now. It'd be just across the road from the [indecipherable] station.
 ; HC: That's right. while he was Assistant Deputy United States Marshal there, they built that little jail. And that was the escape proof jail in this part of the country that the biggest part of the marshals, Uncle Billy Freshour, bringing people into that jail and the marshal from Guthrie bring it in. And that jail remained there until just about maybe a year and a half or two years ago. 
 ; Hyatt and Harlan discuss the Bristow jail. Uncle Billy Freshour ; Guthrie (Okla.) ; Bristow jail Bristow jail 0 514 Washington School HK: Well, if you were born in 12, then where did you start to, where did you start school? Where was the school when you first started school? 
 ; HC: The school that I started to was the old Washington School. It was the old brick square building that finally burnt down there. Oh, I guess I'd been going to school there for two or three years and it, burned. And then we had to go to school in the churches. 
 ; Hyatt talks about starting school at Washington School. Washington School Washington School 0 588 Grandfather Thomas E. Tyus HK: Well, I don't want to leave your grandfather too quickly now. You were saying that he got killed and, and, do you remember about what year this was and what the circumstances were? 
 ; HC: Yes, from, what they told my mother and my uncle. 
 ; HK: Yeah. 
 ; HC: My granddad served as Deputy United States Marshal until he resigned there, and then he went as City Marshal for this little town of settlement of Bristow. And where the Presbyterian Church now stands, there was a story and a half building there. Well, I'm getting ahead of my story. While, he was City Marshal, he run the livery stable. The livery stable was where the Roland Hotel is right now. 
 ; Hyatt remembers his grandfather, Thomas E. Tyus, being a Deputy US Marshal and a City Marshal and some memories that went with those jobs. Thomas E. Tyus ; Deputy U.S. Marshal ; city marshal ; Tom Slick ; livery stable ; Slick, (Okla.) ; Cushing, (Okla.) Thomas E. Tyus 0 812 Early Freighters HK: Right. Well, did he supply, do you know, did he supply, he supplied rigs, uh, which I suppose was a buggy and a team, or maybe a buggy and one horse, I don't know. Did he also supply team and wagons to haul equipment with? 
 ; HC: No, he had hacks, what they call hacks and buggies. 
 ; HK: Yeah. Used the hacks. 
 ; HC: And, he didn't do that, but there was people there later on that did. Now my Grandfather Chapman, he, when he came from Chandler over there and settled at this place, he had, three, three teams and he was a freighter from Guthrie to Bristow. And it'd take him about six or seven days to go to Guthrie and come back with a load of groceries. 
 ; Hyatt talks in depth about the early freighters and where they traveled and what they hauled. hacks ; buggies ; freighter ; Chandler (Okla.) ; Guthrie (Okla.) ; Jim Jackson ; Jim Bogle ; Wilbur Harrington ; L.M. Wolfe ; Tulsa (Okla.) ; Drumright (Okla.) freighters 0 1013 Brick Streets HC: Oh, yes, he got into other kind of hauling even before, uh, even while he was hauling from Guthrie over here. He sold sand that he dug out of the Sand Creek bottom on his farm there. All the sidewalks in Bristow on all the concrete streets in Bristow, has got sand that was hauled, that he hauled in from there into Bristow to the contractor that put the cement for the sidewalks and the concrete streets down. 
 ; HK: So that brings up another thing. All the brick streets in Bristow are bound to be on a bed of sand.
 ; HC: Yeah he furnished their sand. 
 ; Hyatt talks about his grandfather hauling the sand from his homestead to the town of Bristow when they were bricking the streets. Sand Creek ; brick streets ; Arthur Foster brick streets 0 1157 Oil Teaming Contractors HC: There's, when the oil fields came into Bristow, the, my dad went into the, well, my dad, helped my grandfather haul from Guthrie over to Bristow, and he had his own team. And when the oil fields started coming in around Drumright, why, he'd go from Bristow to Drumright and do, uh, teaming from one well to the other, haul the tools from one well, because he didn't have trucks, and they all had to be moved by teams. And my dad was a teaming contractor, and my granddad was, my uncle was too. And in Bristow there was five different oil field teaming contractors there, and one was a fella that moved from Drumright over to Bristow. His name was Doc Martin (Howard “Doc” Martin), and his barn was right where your office used to be before he moved over on 9th Street. Hyatt tells about the various teaming contractors and what they hauled. Guthrie (Okla.) ; oil fields ; Drumright (Okla.) ; teaming contractors ; Howard "Doc" Martin ; L.C. Jones ; Seminole (Okla.) ; Elliott McCutcheon ; L.C. Jones Trucking ; Alex McCutcheon ; Basil Henson teaming contractors 0 1368 Banks at 7th & ; Main HC: And there was a, oh, any number of teaming contractors there in the early days. But, getting back to the early Bristow, uh, at 7th Street and Main Street, on each corner there was a bank. And, when, they first started there, there was no pavement. It was all dirt other than this water tank sitting out for the horses sitting out in the middle of the street. When you walked across the street, why, you'd have to walk in mud.
 ; HK: Yeah, right. 
 ; HC: And, so they finally decided they'd put crosswalks from each side, east to west there. 
 ; Hyatt recalls the banks that were located at 7th & ; Main and the wooden sidewalks that were built to keep citizens out of the mud. banks ; wooden sidewalks banks ; wooden sidewalks 0 1567 Dad Senter & ; Family HC: It really is. Well, getting back to Bristow, there's an old fella down there that the Bristow people will know. And his name, they called him Dad Senter. And he did more for Bristow along, all of the young ones knew him. He sold produce there, garden stuff. He raised a large family. 
 ; HK: Senter?
 ; HC: Yeah, S E N T E R.
 ; HK: S E N T E R. 
 ; HC: Dad Senter. Okay, he had, I believe one, two, three sons and maybe a daughter or two. Henry Senter, he, his wife was postmaster there. He was postmaster until he died. He got burned in a gasoline explosion. 
 ; Hyatt talks about the influence Dad Senter had on the town of Bristow. Dad Senter ; The Great Depression Dad Senter 0 1666 Maltby Hotel HC: And, there was a lady there who ran a little hotel. It's about where Shamus’ Grocery, I mean, Shamus’ Dry Goods Store is, upstairs. I believe her name was Maltby. Maltby Rooms (ph). And the people didn't think very much of her. They all wanted to run her out of town and all that stuff. Because, see, her hotel wasn't just exactly what it was meant to be. 
 ; HK: You wouldn't call it real high class. 
 ; HC: Well, no, it wasn't a high-class hotel. People didn't think very much of her.
 ; Hyatt remembers the Maltby Hotel and Dad Senter running a soup kitchen out of it during The Great Depression. Maltby Hotel ; Shamus Dry Goods ; soup kitchen ; The Great Depression ; Dad Senter Maltby Hotel ; soup kitchen 0 1924 School HK: Well, let's get back to some of your early school and after your grade school, after your grade school, uh, was there a junior high school in Bristow at the time you went into the seventh grade? 
 ; HC: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. There was a junior high school there. It was where the junior high school was right back of the old high school building.
 ; HK: Yeah. 
 ; HC: There on 9th Street at the back of the 9th Street, the big, square high school building that's there now. It used to be the high school. That was junior high school. 
 ; Hyatt talks about the different schools he attended when he was young. Edison School ; Bristow High School ; Texas A & ; M College ; The Great Depression ; Arthur Foster School 0 2135 Teaming & ; Trucking HK: Okie doke. Well, your dad was in the teaming and trucking business.
 ; HC: He was in the teaming and trucking business. 
 ; HK: Didn't you work with him for a while in, in that part of the business before you, uh, went out on your own? 
 ; HC: Yes, I've worked, I helped him drive teams on, in the summertime. He had three teams and, when school was out in the summer when I was, uh, around 11 or 12 years old, he would fire a skinner and I'd drive the team. 
 ; Hyatt talks about the teaming business and the transition into the trucking business. teaming ; trucking ; Slick (Okla.) ; Drumright (Okla.) ; tool pushers ; Sapulpa (Okla.) ; Kellyville (Okla.) ; oil derricks ; Sinclair Oil Company ; boiler wagon ; sludge pit ; Davenport (Okla.) teaming business 0 2700 Remembering the First Oil Well HK: Do you remember the first well that you ever saw drilling, where it was? A drilling well? 
 ; HC: Yes, I do. It was number one Red Bank, and it was out east of my dad, on the farm out there. And it was half a mile east of our house. Dad would put me on his back. I'd piggyback over there after supper. We'd piggyback over there and sit on the lazy bench and visit with the driller and tool dresser while they was drilling. And it was an old steam cable tool job. And it was, where this place was, it was a mile and a half west of Maye's Corner and three quarters of a mile north. 
 ; Hyatt recalls the very first drilling rig he ever saw and where it was located. oil well ; Maye's Corner ; Tim Cushing ; Wayne Hopper oil well 0 MP3 In this 1979 interview with Hyatt Chapman, he and Harlan Krumme discuss his Chandler homestead, the Bristow jail, school life, his grandfather, teaming contractors for the oil industry, Dad Senter, Tol Foster, Alfalfa Bill Murry and a host of other Bristow characters. HK: Okay, this is Harlan Krumme, and I'm talking to Hyatt Chapman. I was, born in Bristow, and went to school in Bristow, and we're gonna a little, reminisce a little bit about what Hyatt was like. About his early life, about his grandfather, and how he came to come there, and just anything. Hyatt, start in and tell us your first memories about Bristow. HC: Well, my first memories about Bristow started when I was real young. I was pretty active around the place. My Grandfather Chapman (Isaac “Clay” Chapman), would take me around with him and my Grandfather Tyus (Thomas E. Tyus) is, he was pretty active in the Bristow settlement because he came from Birmingham, Alabama and moved his family up there. He was a United States Marshal of Birmingham while his uncle was a United States Senator. After his senator decided not to run in anymore, why he was reduced to a [indecipherable] United States Marshals sent to Indian Territory. HK: Do you remember about what year that was? HC: I don't remember what year it was. It was a time that Parker was sent to Fort Smith, way, way back there. Bristow was just a crossroads. HK: Yeah, okay. HC: At that time. And his job was to come in here and ride herd on the people that was hauling whiskey from Texas. They'd go to Gainesville, Texas, and they'd take a schooner wagon, camp on Red River, unload half of their gallon jugs on the Red River bank, go into Gainesville and fill up the half that they took in Gainesville with them, come back to Red River and fill it up with water. Come on in and trade this whiskey to the Indians for hides and furs and cattle and horses that they would steal around there and gather up. HK: Yeah. HC: And that was his, his job mainly. HK: [Indecipherable]. [Inaudible] HC: This stuff and go on a masquerade, masquerade party and, and, run people out and kill them and murder them. And one particular instance my mother told me about her father was the time that he rescued Tol Foster and his family and put them under the meeting house underneath the floor while the Harjos went on a rampage, drunken r ampage, and burned their house down, stole their horses, and burned all of their hay up. HK: Oh my goodness. HC: And that is, a, one of the things that, and Tol Foster come over to my house while I lived in Bristow and told me about that. That was his deal while he was on this assignment, why he became friends with Alfalfa Bill Murray. HK: And what was his name? Now this was your mother's father. HC: Tom Tyus (Thomas Edwin Tyus). HK: Tom Tyus. Okay. HC: While he was on this assignment in the, Red River part of it, why, he run on to Bill Murray, Alfalfa Bill. They became real good friends. And, they came in, go down to the valley and come back to, uh, the settlement of Bristow. And, next time he'd go out why, he'd sickle down through Murray County and see, oh, what is now Murray County, what was this territory then, and, run on to the Murray family. And, let's see, one other thing he became. HK: Well, I understand that, he didn't carry a gun. HC: No. HK: He was a marshal and didn't carry a gun. HC: He was a marshal and didn't carry a gun. And that led to his downfall a little later on down the road, but he, he would go and if he was going to pick you up, he'd go tell you, okay, old buddy, I want to see you at the jailhouse at such and such time. You can come one or two ways, you can come peaceful by yourself, or I'll come get you one way or the other. If I come get you, I'll come get you [indecipherable] but has to be that way. He didn't carry a gun. He was a husky, old codger from what I hear. I was so little when he was killed that I didn't know him. Actually, I'm just getting my information from my mother and uncle. And, he was a great friend of Bill Tilghman and, Bill Tilghman and the marshal at Guthrie. HK: Where did your father come from to Bristow? HC: My father? HK: Your father. HC: He, my grandfather and my father came from Chandler. They settled on a homestead over, uh, four miles north of Chandler and two east. And, they, when the run was on, well, they moved down there. HK: Yeah. HC: And, then they settled on, I think it was 160 acres over there. And my grandfather didn't particularly like the thing and he came to Bristow and bought the place out east of town where he lived until he died. And my father also bought a little tract out there east of town. HK: What year were you born in? HC: I was born in 1912. HK: 1912. So Bristow wasn't not very large when you were born? HC: No, Bristow, I can remember Bristow when it had five cotton gins and the main street was two blocks long. And there wasn't no pavement on the streets of any kind. They had two watering troughs. One watering trough was at the intersection of 7th and Main Street now. And the other one was down at about 4th Street, right about where that little hamburger place used to be. HK: Yeah. HC: Right in there. HK: Well, getting back to your grandfather just, for just a second. It seems to me that I've heard you say he had something to do with the, one room, single cell jail that was, that was on the property between 7th and 8th Street, where Wells Food Market is now. It'd be just across the road from the [indecipherable] station. HC: That's right. while he was Assistant Deputy United States Marshal there, they built that little jail. And that was the escape proof jail in this part of the country that the biggest part of the marshals, Uncle Billy Freshour, bringing people into that jail and the marshal from Guthrie bring it in. And that jail remained there until just about maybe a year and a half or two years ago. HK: Had to about 1976 or 7 along in there. HC: And they was gonna move it out to the Veterans and Foreign Wars area. And they got in there and by golly they didn't have anything to move it, tear it, destruct it before they could get it out of there. HK: Right, it wasn't movable. HC: No. HK: It was, the walls were extremely thick on it and they the concrete and rock in the, base and foundation went down so deep that they couldn't move it. HC: They couldn't move it. They couldn’t root it out, so… HK: They had to destruct it. They built a real jail I’ll tell you that. HC: Yeah, they had one that they wouldn't escape out of. Of course, it wasn't, there wasn't no modern facilities there. They didn't have anything in it but just a room and a place for the marshal when he'd come in there. HK: Well, if you were born in 12, then where did you start to, where did you start school? Where was the school when you first started school? HC: The school that I started to was the old Washington School. It was the old brick square building that finally burnt down there. Oh, I guess I'd been going to school there for two or three years and it, burned. And then we had to go to school in the churches. HK: Yeah. HC: And, we went to school in different churches, and we'd have this class in one church, and that class in another church, until… HK: Do you remember what grade you were in when that school burned? HC: I was in the third grade when that school burned. Oh, wait a minute, second grade. HK: Well, you'd have been about eight-years-old. HC: I'd have been about eight-years-old. HK: Yeah. HC: Somewhere in the neighborhood of eight-years-old. HK: Well, it would have been roughly in 1920 that the school… HC: It was ‘19 or ‘20 when the school burned, as near as I can recall. Then they built a new school, the school is there now, and we went on to school there. HK: Well, I don't want to leave your grandfather too quickly now. You were saying that he got killed and, and, do you remember about what year this was and what the circumstances were? HC: Yes, from, what they told my mother and my uncle. HK: Yeah. HC: My granddad served as Deputy United States Marshal until he resigned there, and then he went as City Marshal for this little town of settlement of Bristow. And where the Presbyterian Church now stands, there was a story and a half building there. Well, I'm getting ahead of my story. While, he was City Marshal, he run the livery stable. The livery stable was where the Roland Hotel is right now. HK: While he was marshal, he ran the stable? HC: Yeah. HK: Okay. HC: While he was marshal, he ran the stable and then Tom Slick came down and rented all of his rigs and only used one of 'em there for a week to go out in different places and lease land and, around Slick and Cushing and around there he'd only use one rig, but he at leased all of 'em, and there wasn't any rigs for hire. HK: Right. HC: Well, and then just about a year after that, well, this place where he was killed is down where the Presbyterian Church is now. There was a story-and-a-half frame house, had a wood fence around it, had a gate, front gate on it where they opened the gate to walk up to the porch. They had a chain there with a bunch of iron hanging on it, so it'd draw it to when they pulled it to, it'd draw it to and close it. And, this desperado, who they was wanting real bad, was reported to have come to this house. This house was a, uh, half-breed Indian lady that run the house. And it wasn't, she kept, took in these guys hiding from the law and this, that and the other. They reported that he was down there, so my grandfather decided to go down and tell him what he wanted him to do. And he goes down and when he opens the gate, he opens the gate and steps up on the porch. When he steps up on the porch, this, outlaw shoots through the door and empties the six-shooter in his chest. HK: Wow. HC: And, they, when the shooting, when they heard the shooting, why here come people running, this outlaw took off. And they didn't get him for about six years after that. They finally caught him after six years because he took off and went to Mexico. And, my granddad lived from, that evening to about two or three days. And that was in 1911. HK: Did you ever hear your mother say whether this was on the very edge of town, or was the building on beyond it, west, or was this… HC: This was right at the edge of town. See, at that time, Bristow was just a small, little small place. And, there, there was, it was just a small area there, about four blocks around there. HK: Yeah. Yeah. HC: And when you got past the Roland, where the Roland Hotel is now, where the livery stable was, you was getting out in the country. His livery stable was right at the edge of what was the community of Bristow. HK: Right. Well, did he supply, do you know, did he supply, he supplied rigs, uh, which I suppose was a buggy and a team, or maybe a buggy and one horse, I don't know. Did he also supply team and wagons to haul equipment with? HC: No, he had hacks, what they call hacks and buggies. HK: Yeah. Used the hacks. HC: And, he didn't do that, but there was people there later on that did. Now my Grandfather Chapman, he, when he came from Chandler over there and settled at this place, he had, three, three teams and he was a freighter from Guthrie to Bristow. And it'd take him about six or seven days to go to Guthrie and come back with a load of groceries. HK: He picked up freight. HC: Yeah, he picked up freight at the depot there for, uh, Jim Jackson grocery and Jim Bogle grocery and, Hamilton (ph) and, Harrington (Wilbur Harrington) and Wolfe (L.M. Wolfe). Wolfe and Harrington. That's early day Abrahams. He hauled freight for Abrahams. HK: Why in the world would he go to Guthrie instead of, say, to Tulsa? Was there not a railhead? HC: Well there was no railhead here. HK: No railhead in Tulsa. HC: No, no, Guthrie was the only railhead. HK: Guthrie was it. HC: See, Guthrie was it because there was no railheads in Tulsa. And, then when they did get a railhead to Drumright, uh, a little later on, and he cut his haul from Guthrie to Drumright to Bristow. But then, when they, it was later than that when, they got, seems as though the problem was getting across the river. I don't think… HK: Probably right. You're probably right. HC: There's a railhead here, but it's on this side of the river, on the north side of the river. He couldn't get across the river with his rigs to pick up the groceries. HK: Right, but he couldn’t go to Guthrie. HC: He couldn’t go to Guthrie, and that was way back in early, early days. HK: Yeah. Well, I, there must have been a, a railhead at Drumright then before there was in Bristow. HC: Yeah, I think there was. I think there was a railhead at, Drumright, either that or, some, someone had a, a freight line from Guthrie to Drumright because a little later on, after he started his trade work there, why, he shortened the route from Guthrie to Drumright and Drumright to Bristow. HK: As far as you know, was there anybody else hauling, doing the same kind of work? Or was, he the sole supplier for the grocery stores? I mean, he was the freight man. HC: Yeah, he at that time was the freight man there in, in Bristow. HK: And the only one. HC: And the only one, because I think he was the only one that had the stuff to do it with. HK: Yeah, and I wouldn't be surprised. HC: And that's, and that was it there. HK: Well, then did, after the railroad came in, and I don't really know what year that was either, did he get into other kind of hauling then? HC: Oh, yes, he got into other kind of hauling even before, uh, even while he was hauling from Guthrie over here. He sold sand that he dug out of the Sand Creek bottom on his farm there. All the sidewalks in Bristow on all the concrete streets in Bristow, has got sand that was hauled, that he hauled in from there into Bristow to the contractor that put the cement for the sidewalks and the concrete streets down. HK: So that brings up another thing. All the brick streets in Bristow are bound to be on a bed of sand. HC: Yeah he furnished their sand. HK: And, and I've asked Arthur Foster, and everybody else I can think of, where in the world did the bricks come from? Did they come from Sapulpa, Stroud, Tulsa, Guthrie? Did you ever hear anybody say? HC: I've never heard anybody say where the bricks came from, but they, I think I never, I can't tell you for sure, Harlan, but now the sand, I know where the sand came from, it came from my granddad's farm. He hauled it in there. HK: Well, there was enough of it there. HC: Yeah, there was plenty of it there because, right out there at that area, there's about 10 acres of, of the prettiest golden grain sand that you've ever seen. HK: I'll agree with you. I've been out there and it is good lookin sand. HC: And, he, he sold it, I think he delivered a yard and a half into town for $3. HK: And I suppose that all the loading and unloading was done with just the old long-handled shovels? HC: Long-handled shovels, and they finally got, they finally got smart and put 2x8’s down in the wagon bed and so that they could lift them up and turn them and dump the sand out on the ground instead of having to shovel it out. But it took two or three years for them to figure that out. But, that was it. Now getting back to this hauling. HK: Yeah. HC: There's, when the oil fields came into Bristow, the, my dad went into the, well, my dad, helped my grandfather haul from Guthrie over to Bristow, and he had his own team. And when the oil fields started coming in around Drumright, why, he'd go from Bristow to Drumright and do, uh, teaming from one well to the other, haul the tools from one well, because he didn't have trucks, and they all had to be moved by teams. And my dad was a teaming contractor, and my granddad was, my uncle was too. And in Bristow there was five different oil field teaming contractors there, and one was a fella that moved from Drumright over to Bristow. His name was Doc Martin (Howard “Doc” Martin), and his barn was right where your office used to be before he moved over on 9th Street. HK: On 7th Street. HC: On 7th Street. And, at one time, why, he had a fire there and burned up a lot of horses. HK: My goodness. HC: Right there on, where your oil company office used to sit. Then right across the street from where your office is now, L.C. Jones started out in the teaming business right there. HK: That would be on 9th Street just east of the railroad tracks. HC: East of the railroad tracks and east of the gin. HK: Right. East of the gin. HC: Back there where the old Wilcox Oil Company had a little gasoline rack. HK: Yeah. HC: Between Charles’ house and the gin. HK: Right. HC: L.C. Jones started there. And then he migrated on to Seminole and then Elliot McCutcheon was another one of the L.C. Jones, you know, became one of the largest trucking contractors in the United States. HK: Oh, is that now Jones Truck Line? HC: No, that's, you're thinking about the Jones Truck Line here. It's the Jones Truck Line that, that used to be at Oklahoma City. HK: Oh, yes. HC: It was L.C. Jones Trucking. HK: So he went from teams right on into trucks? HC: He went right on from teams into trucks. My dad did the same thing. HK: Yeah. HC: And, Alex McCutcheon (ph). He left Bristow at midnight, broke, owing everybody in town. And he left and he didn't stop till he got to Kilgore, Texas. He moved his teams out, lock, stock, and barrel at midnight. HK: Right. HC: Left old Basil Henson with a big feed bill, and he, uh, he got down to Kilgore and went from teams to trucks and from trucks to the, he was one of the Texas millionaires now. His sons are, he's dead, but his sons, he went from teams to trucks to oil and he's one of the large millionaires in Texas. HK: He started out in Bristow broke. HC: He left Bristow broke. A lot of them did. HK: Yeah. HC: And there was a, oh, any number of teaming contractors there in the early days. But, getting back to the early Bristow, uh, at 7th Street and Main Street, on each corner there was a bank. And, when, they first started there, there was no pavement. It was all dirt other than this water tank sitting out for the horses sitting out in the middle of the street. When you walked across the street, why, you'd have to walk in mud. HK: Yeah, right. HC: And, so they finally decided they'd put crosswalks from each side, east to west there. HK: Right, HC: And north to south there at that corner. HK: Yeah. They did that at Seventh Street before they did it at sixth Street then? HC: Yeah. Oh yeah, Seventh Street was, really it, the center of town. It was the center of the town because, there wasn't any, much activity down further. When you go down past Sixth Street, why, by golly, you was getting kind of out of town again. HK: Getting out of town already. HC: Yeah, and at that time, so, my grandfather hauled the sand in off the place there and they built these things over there. That was way, way early. And I can remember when they decided to pave the streets, the main street there, but they wanted somebody to haul these crosswalks out of there. HK: Yeah, get them out of the way. HC: Yeah, get them out of the way. My grandfather went in and loaded them up on a wagon to haul them out to his place and they're still out there. He's still got them. HK: No kidding? You mean they're still out there? HC: They're still out there. They're still out there. HK: Maybe I better go out and take a picture. HC: Well, we'll, as soon as I can get down there. How quick would you want to take a picture? HK: Oh, anytime that you happen to be down, why, we'll go take a picture. HC: I, you know I'll, I'm fouled up here. As soon as I get squared up where I can drive the car and get down there, well, we'll go out there and we'll take a picture of that. HK: I’d like to do that. HC: And because, they’re early history big boy. HK: Yeah. HC: There wasn't but, one, one, two, three, four of them. It was all the crosswalks there was in Bristow at that time. HK: And where do they, did they ever build wooden sidewalks in Bristow? HC: Oh, wooden sidewalks was before… HK: Before the crosswalks. HC: Before the crosswalks, but they didn't cross the streets. They just built a, they just built them in front of the businesses that was there. HK: Yeah, in front of the businesses. HC: But, because the wagons were bringing cotton and freight in would bust the wooden ones down if they went across it. So, they just built them in front of the stores there. HK: Yeah. HC: And, that was, pretty interesting. I wouldn't change my life in any way coming along because we, I came from the horse and buggy days right on up to putting a man on the moon. HK: Right. HC: And we, Harlan, we are living in the most advanced age of time right now. HK: It's amazing. It's mind boggling, really. HC: It really is. Well, getting back to Bristow, there's an old fella down there that the Bristow people will know. And his name, they called him Dad Senter. And he did more for Bristow along, all of the young ones knew him. He sold produce there, garden stuff. He raised a large family. HK: Senter? HC: Yeah, S E N T E R. HK: S E N T E R. HC: Dad Senter. Okay, he had, I believe one, two, three sons and maybe a daughter or two. Henry Senter, he, his wife was postmaster there. He was postmaster until he died. He got burned in a gasoline explosion. HK: So Dora was his wife. HC: Dora was his wife. HK: Dora was Henry's wife. HC: Dora was Henry's wife. Then Alvin was, uh, Dad Senter's son. He was street commissioner there for Bristow when they did the street work with the horse and mules. And, old Dad Senter, he, started out, why in the summertime, while he'd, he'd, had an old hack and he had little bells on his horse. He'd get ice cream and go down the street. He was the first ice cream peddler. He was a Good Humor man. He was the first Good Humor man. HK: First Good Humor man. HC: Then when the Depression came along, the old gentleman went downtown. Everybody was on starvation there. I say everybody, not everybody, but the biggest part of the people. HK: Everybody was pretty hard up. HC: Pretty hard up. HK: We remember that. HC: And, there was a lady there who ran a little hotel. It's about where Shamus’ Grocery, I mean, Shamus’ Dry Goods Store is, upstairs. I believe her name was Maltby. Maltby Rooms (ph). And the people didn't think very much of her. They all wanted to run her out of town and all that stuff. Because, see, her hotel wasn't just exactly what it was meant to be. HK: You wouldn't call it real high class. HC: Well, no, it wasn't a high-class hotel. People didn't think very much of her. HK: Right. HC: But, uh, she owned that building. She paid for that building. She owned the building downstairs. She owned the rooms upstairs. And there was a, I believe, a car agency in the place down under there, but it all went broke and under depression and had to leave and go get out of there. Dad Senter went down and asked her if she would mind if he used that building. She asked him what he wanted it for. He said he wanted to put in a soup kitchen. HK: Yeah. HC: And she said, well now, where are you gonna get the stuff to do this work with? HK: Make this stuff. Make you soup. HC: He said, well, never mind, I'll get it. She said, well, I've got an old stove up here. We'll just take it down, we'll hook it up. This old lady paid the gas bill for the stove and furnished this building. HK: Yeah. HC: Dad Senter would get up at daylight and go downtown and, with baskets, he carried on his arm, he'd go around the stores where they'd cut leaf off of cabbage or celery that was bad. They'd give it to him and he'd take it there and dump it and go get more. And then he'd, after he made the rounds of the little, place there, he'd go down and he'd make soup out of all the stuff he got. He'd get everything. He'd get a dog bone, he'd take it down, he'd make soup out of it. And about , people had come down with five, five pound lard buckets to get that soup. HK: He made that much? HC: He made... HK: Five pound lard buckets? HC: You know, five pound, five pound buckets. Okay, they'd come down, and Harlan and I have seen them lined up there from the center of that block up to the Community State Bank back to the alley. From the center of that block down to 5th Street up to Braces Electric place. HK: Gracious. HC: During the Depression. HK: And he gave it away. HC: He gave it away. HK: I'll be darned. HC: That old man, he saved a lot of people's hides down there. And if you'd go up to some of those people and say, my goodness, I saw you in the soup line back in 1928 and 29, they'd want shoot you now. But now, he, did it now. HK: Yeah. Well that it was a, great thing for Bristow. HC: It was, a good thing he did it. HK: Yeah. And it was great for him. HC: Yeah. He enjoyed doing it. He enjoyed doing it. He was a swell old man. He lived up on Sixth Street. Do you remember where this guy used to run his junkyard south of town? He lived between Oak and the next street west on 6th on the north side of the street, about the middle of the block. HK: Oh, the junkyard that used to be on Chestnut. Ben Arcader. HC: Ben Arcader. HK: Right. HC: Dad Senter lived where Ben Arcader did. HK: Yeah. HC: But not in the house that was there now. HK: Yeah. HC: It was house they built. HK: Yeah. HC: And that, Dad Senter did a lot for Bristow and for the people in Bristow during the hard times. HK: Well, let's get back to some of your early school and after your grade school, after your grade school, uh, was there a junior high school in Bristow at the time you went into the seventh grade? HC: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. There was a junior high school there. It was where the junior high school was right back of the old high school building. HK: Yeah. HC: There on 9th Street at the back of the 9th Street, the big, square high school building that's there now. It used to be the high school. That was junior high school. HK: That was junior high school in there. HC: Yes, sir. HK: Was the old, we, when I was in school, we called it the old band building. It was between, it was a, I believe a three-story brick building, uh, on 10th Street in, in the block that all the schools are in now in between Edison and the, what was the junior high school when I went to school, was that building there when you went to junior high school? HC: Yes, it was, but they tore it down, along in there, I believe after I…that building stayed there until after I got out of high school. HK: Yeah, because it was there when I graduated from high school in ‘37. HC: Yeah. HK: And it was still there then. HC: Yeah. Well, it was still there until, it was, I guess, about the World War II time they tore it down. HK: Must have been. HC: You see, the Edison School was here. And here was this, building we're talking about. Now that used to be the old Bristow High School building. HK: That's what I wondered. What was it used for? HC: That was the old Bristow High School building. HK: That was the high school. HC: That was the high school. HK: Oh, great. HC: That was the high school before any of the rest of the schools was there. HK: Yeah. HC: And, we, they used it, the, they used it for, well, we had DeMolay meetings there. And we had boy scout meetings there in the basement. And while we was going on, they had quit using it for class rooms. The Edison School was here and the Junior High School building was here. And the High School building was that big three-story building or double-story building where it is now. HK: What year did you graduate from high school? HC: I should have graduated in high school in 1930, but I left school when I was a junior and went over to A& ; amp ; M College. Took special entrance examination and went in college to study, uh, dairy husbandry and butter making, cheese making, ice cream making. HK: Right. HC: And, everything was going real good then. And the depression hit and I had to drop out. So I came back. Went back to school and I think it was 1930 I graduated. I graduated with Arthur Foster and those guys. And I believe your sister was in that class. HK: I think my older sister was in that class. HC: Yeah, she was in that class. HK: Okie doke. Well, your dad was in the teaming and trucking business. HC: He was in the teaming and trucking business. HK: Didn't you work with him for a while in, in that part of the business before you, uh, went out on your own? HC: Yes, I've worked, I helped him drive teams on, in the summertime. He had three teams and, when school was out in the summer when I was, uh, around 11 or 12 years old, he would fire a skinner and I'd drive the team. HK: Yeah. HC: Through the summer months. HK: Yeah. HC: Then, when school started, why, he’d hire another fella to drive the team, and I'd go to back school. HK: You'd go to school, and he'd take your place. HC: Yeah. Then when Christmas vacation would come, why, I’d help my dad and go with the teams. It's funny, we'd leave, all the way at four o'clock in the morning, and get back eight, nine, ten, sometimes midnight. HK: How far away did you, how wide a range did you cover? HC: Well, my dad would, uh, normally, Slick, which would be eight or ten miles. HK: Right. HC: And do whatever they had to do and then get back. And there's times when he had to be Slick at daylight, why he had to leave Bristow along about three o'clock in the morning. HK: So you'd be out to Slick by daylight. HC: Yeah, I'd be out to Slick at daylight because it took about, two or two and a half hours to get out there in a wagon. And, the times we'd work up at Drumright, it'd take, we'd leave, Bristow about 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning, and it'd be up in the evening before we'd get to Drumright, and then we'd have to stay, we'd have to bunk down under the wagon at night and do our work. It was a two-day operation. HK: Two-day operation to get to Drumright. HC: Do some work up there. HK: How did he find out where he was supposed to go? Did he have a telephone? HC: Well, back, at first he didn't. Because the telephone system wasn't large enough to reach out to our house where we lived. HK: Right. It couldn't get out there. That’s what I wondered. It didn’t come out there yet. HC: It didn't come out there yet. And, finally, and, it didn't get out there till about 19, oh, 16 or 17. Yeah, we got, telephone out there. HK: Right. HC: Because when the war was over, World War I, why, they called and told us the war was over and this that and the other. HK: So you remember the telephone. By the time the war was over, you did have a telephone. HC: We did have it by the time World War I was over, we did have a telephone. And before then, whoever Dad was working for would get on a horse and ride out there and tell them where to go. HK: Ah, I see. HC: You see the tool pushers and, and the people looking and supervisors had horses. They rode horses. They didn't have automobiles then. HK: Well, he had, he helped move the strings of tools from well to well then at Slick and Drumright both. HC: Oh yeah, Slick, Drumright, Sapulpa, Kellyville, all around. HK: Did he haul lumber, any lumber that you remember to build those rigs, all those old wooden derricks out of Slick? HC: Yes, sir. He hauled a lot of them out of Slick. And at 8th Mile Corner where, used to be, not Singer, but yeah, Singer, Citron's (ph) place. He hauled all the derricks out there then. HK: Did he? HC: For them from Bristow… HK: Yeah. HC: He hauled from the lumber yard is sitting where, right across the street from J& ; amp ; J Cafe was the, main lumberyard there in Bristow. HK: Right. I can remember that. HC: And, when, he had hauled stuff from there to Slick and from there to different places. I can remember, uh, we hauled, and when I was about, I wasn't drive, big enough to drive a team for him then. We hauled the lumber from that lumberyard out to, a well, about, uh, four miles north of Bristow, there at Sinclair built, and you own that well now. HK: We own the well right now. Yeah, we do. HC: And by golly, it's on the west side of the highway, and it was in the middle of a cornfield when we hauled that rig out there. And there's an old board derrick and this was Sinclair Oil Company. But there's a lot of history around Bristow there that... HK: Did he have these, did he have these big wide tired wagons there? They had their low wheel on them. Seemed to me like they were oil filled wagons and the wheel was about four, three and a half feet diameter. And the tread on them must have been twelve to fourteen inches wide. HC: You're, thinking about the boiler wagon. HK: That's the boiler wagon. HC: Eight, eight wheels on them. HK: Right. HC: Big wide wheels. The regular wagons, it took one team of horses to pull that wagon. It was so heavy. HK: Right. HC: And bulky. My dad had a team of horses and he worked on what they call the wheelers, which was one that's hooked up to the tongue and right onto the wagon, and he had two other that he put out in the front, which would be a six up, what they call a six up. HK: Yeah. HC: And, he'd, he'd hook up that deal. If he got an extra big boiler or extra heavy load, then he'd call, go over to his dad's and get two teams of his. HK: Two teams from him. HC: Yeah. And we, there's times when we had, that I've seen, that he had six pairs of horses out in front of that boiler wagon. HK: That's a pretty good sized boiler wagon. HC: Yeah, it is. Well, it didn't make any difference about the size of the boiler. The deal was the terrain you had to... HK: Well, that's true. Some of it was pretty rough. HC: And it was rough and some of it was soft. It's a lot softer than it is now. HK: Well, when we have as much work to do in making a location in the times that we're working in right now. We have bulldozers, and we have backhoes if we need them, and we can move that dirt around. We can actually move the dirt and scrape it away and make roads. And yet, you see some of the places where they build these wells, back in the late teens and in the twenties, and it makes you wonder how in the world they got there in the first place. HC: That's right. And you'll have to remember those old boys was pretty, pretty salty. They was pretty smart to take what they had to work with and get done what they got done. HK: They really did. They really were. HC: And, I've been out with my dad when we’d have to take a plow and a team, and where they'd build a sludge pit, well, they'd have to plow this dirt and then take a slip or fresno and scoop it over to make the rim. Then you'd have to get in there and plow again. HK: Plow it again. And move it out. HC: Move it out again. And it'd take, sometimes three, four days to build a sludge pit at this well. HK: Well, did you stay out on the job, at that time? You just stayed there and you got it done. HC: That's right. HK: Cooked on the job. HC: Batched and whatever. And I can remember back in the early day, when Davenport was on the boom, why, Dad did an awful lot of work over there for Magnolia. And it was a day over there, and he'd stay three or four days, well, somebody'd have to take him oats and hay for his teams. HK: Right. HC: And, these, these teams, the teams that he had, the team that he drove, each one of those horses weighed a ton. 2,000 pounds. HK: 2,000 pound horses. HC: And they took a bushel of oats each to feed them. HK: Gracious. HC: And they, he fed them three times a day. HK: Well, he was working them hard, so he had to feed them good. Right. HC: And at night he'd, he'd, bale, throw the baled hay down for them a bed, and then he'd fix a place for them to have hay to eat while they, was sleeping and resting. If they wanted to eat hay, there's hay there for them. HK: Right. HC: And it, took, take a load of hay. I've seen them when they get ready to go out to make a location at around where they couldn't drive back and forth, he'd take a load of hay and a load of oats and a load of food. HK: Right. HC: And go out there and we’d stay there… HK: Until you got the job done. HC: Got the job done. HK: Do you remember the first well that you ever saw drilling, where it was? A drilling well? HC: Yes, I do. It was number one Red Bank, and it was out east of my dad, on the farm out there. And it was half a mile east of our house. Dad would put me on his back. I'd piggyback over there after supper. We'd piggyback over there and sit on the lazy bench and visit with the driller and tool dresser while they was drilling. And it was an old steam cable tool job. And it was, where this place was, it was a mile and a half west of Maye's Corner and three quarters of a mile north. HK: Of Maye’s Corner. HC: Of Maye’s Corner. HK: Right. Maye’s Corner for information is northwest of town. HC: Yes, it's nine, at one time it was nine miles northwest of town, but the roads have shortened now. HK: The roads have changed now. It isn't quite that far. HC: It's not quite that far. HK: Right. HC: But, that's, that's, where it is. Use Maye’s Corner to direct you to the spot. HK: Yeah. Okay. Do you remember, Tim Cushing (ph) used to have an oil field, uh, tool house and machine shop, I guess, on the corner of, just east of railroad tracks, and on 8th Street on the north side of the street where the barbeque, there's a barbeque place in there now. HC: Yes, sir, I remember that place well, because my dad hauled pipe, casing, and tools out of there. And, I knew the old man Tim, and I knew Chester, and I knew the fella that was their business manager. In fact, unless he's died in the last little while, his business manager, he lives here in Tulsa. HK: What was his name? HC: Hopper. HK: Wayne Hopper. HC: Wayne Hopper. HK: Wayne was business manager for Chester and Tim. audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/render.php?cachefile=OHP-0052A_Hyatt_Chapman.xml OHP-0052A_Hyatt_Chapman.xml
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Hyatt Chapman - Part 1
Description
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In this 1979 interview with Hyatt Chapman, he and Harlan Krumme discuss his Chandler homestead, the Bristow jail, school life, his grandfather, teaming contractors for the oil industry, Dad Senter, Tol Foster, Alfalfa Bill Murry and a host of other Bristow characters.
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OHP-0052A
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1979-08-02
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audio
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Family Histories
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Oral History
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Oral accounts of various family histories
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Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Wanda Newton
Interviewee
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Lucinda Johnson
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https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/render.php?cachefile=OHP-0049B_Lucinda_Johnson.xml
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5.4 February 19, 1992 OHP-0049B Lucinda Johnson - Part 2 OHP-0049B 00:08:35 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Bristow Historical Society, Inc. bristowhistory Lucinda Johnson Wanda Newton 1:|13(2)|30(2)|53(15)|69(6)|81(4)|93(8)|111(2)|123(2)|134(10) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0049B Johnson, Lucinda.mp3 Other audio 3 Children LJ: She (he) was about nine months old, and her (he) and I had gone to visit his mother, you know, where she lived. And we came back by and we stopped over at Grandpa's, and, uh, Papa said, he said, Lou, you better take this baby home, cuz, and take care of her (him), because she has pneumonia. I didn't have any idea, you know, if there was anything wrong with her. And, uh, I took him home, and Dr. Reynolds come out. Dr. Reynolds and Porter were great friends. They could both drink together. And when they got there, when the doctor and Porter got back, they were both feeling no pain. Lucinda talks about her baby being ill, the doctor that helped him and her other children. Porter Tiger ; Dr. E.W. Reynolds ; Lucian A. Tiger ; Alvin Lee Johnson ; Daniel Tiger ; Majel K. Frye ; Dr. Charles T. Schrader ; Dr. F.H. Sisler ; Dr. W.F. Snorgrass ; Dr. J.E. Hollis ; Dr. O.H. Cowart ; Dr. E.W. King ; Gus Johnson Children 0 373 Snake Creek WN: Well, occasionally I read in the paper, I would read in the early Indian Territorial Enterprise, you know, that Indians doing this and that. Now, where was Snake Creek? I read about an uprising on Snake Creek. The Indians told the white people to get out of Bristow. 
 ; LJ: Well, Snake Creek is run by Bixby. 
 ; WN: Oh, by Bixby. 
 ; LJ: Over in there. 
 ; WN: But I had read in there that the Indians came to Bristow and issued an ultimatum for the white people to get out of that area. And that they were going to come back, and so they fixed some kind of a, I don't know, whatever, but the Indians never did come back, so. 
 ; Wanda asks Lucinda about the uprising at Snake Creek where the Indians told the white people to leave Bristow. Snake Creek ; Bixby (Okla.) ; Indian Territorial Enterprise 0 437 Tom Slick LJ: [Indecipherable] know where Slick got its name. 
 ; WN: No, he didn't say that. 
 ; LJ: Well, I know. Slick. It was Tom Slick. He was a young man from Pennsylvania when he came here. And he came, he walked from Bristow to our house. And sometimes he'd eat, eat with us, meals, you know. And he was taking leases, oil leases, and he, um, had a lease, uh, I guess it’s east of Slick. I don't know how far east, but that's where he, Tom Slick, first struck his well. 
 ; Lucinda tells about how the town of Slick got it's name. Tom Slick ; Slick ; oil boom 0 MP3 In Part Two of this 1992 interview with Lucinda Johnson, she talks about her children, her husbands and Tom Slick. WN: Okay. LJ: She (he) was about nine months old, and her (he) and I had gone to visit his mother, you know, where she lived. And we came back by and we stopped over at Grandpa's, and, uh, Papa said, he said, Lou, you better take this baby home, cuz, and take care of her (him), because she has pneumonia. I didn't have any idea, you know, if there was anything wrong with her. And, uh, I took him home, and Dr. Reynolds come out. Dr. Reynolds and Porter were great friends. They could both drink together. And when they got there, when the doctor and Porter got back, they were both feeling no pain. WN: Oh me. And then you had? LJ: Then I had Lucian (Lucian A. Tiger) was next. And then Alvin Lee (Alvin Lee Johnson). I had four. WN: All beautiful children, weren't they? LJ: I thought they were. I just have one picture of Daniel because he was small, you know. WN: Uh huh. LJ: And you didn't have Kodaks or things like that. I've got one picture of him. He was a pretty baby, too. WN: Did he look like Alvin Lee or? LJ: No. [Indecipherable] Johnson. WN: Yeah. But I always thought Alvin Lee looked a lot like Majel, in a way. Just a little bit. LJ: Well, I never did think so? Alvin was an awful pretty baby. And when Alvin Lee came, why, Dr….what is that… WN: Schrader (Charles T. Schrader)? LJ: No. WN: Sisler (F.H. Sisler)? Reynolds? Reynolds? LJ: No. WN: Coppedge? LJ: No. WN: Snorgrass (W.F. Snorgrass)? LJ: No. WN: Hollis (J.E. Hollis)? LJ: Huh? WN: Wouldn't be Hollis, would it? That was the eyes, ears, nose... LJ: No, no. You know, he, he died not too very long ago. WN: Cowart (O.H. Cowart), Dr. Cowart. LJ: Huh? WN: Wouldn't be Dr. Cowart, would it? LJ: Oh, no, he's, he’s farther back than that. Oh. You know him. You know him well? Unknown: Dr. King (E.W. King). WN: Dr. King. LJ: Yes. Dr. King. WN: Oh, Dr. King. LJ: Yeah, when Alvin Lee was coming, well the Gus (Johnson) was all excited, he said, well, I'm going get the doctor. Then doctor came in and another young intern was visiting Dr. King, all came back, they got here about 8 o'clock, and that was in August. And it was so cold. WN: Cold? LJ: Cold. That young doctor sat right there in the kitchen by the kitchen stove all night. And then Alvin Lee didn't come until the next morning about 8 o'clock. WN: Oh my. And you had the baby here at the house then? LJ: Yes, uh-huh. All of my babies were born at home. WN: Oh, that's, that's remarkable. Well, you all had to learn to endure, didn't you? LJ: I guess we did. WN: Shoot. Oh, me. LJ: Those were the early days. WN: Now, is there anything else that you can think of? I've kept you long enough. I don't want to keep you any longer. Now, I'll come back sometime and I'm going to have you all speak some Euchee for me. LJ: Okay. No, I don't know of anything more. WN: Is there any advice you'd like to give to your children or your grandchildren or your great grandchildren that you think they ought to... LJ: That they ought to do? WN: Yes, and wisdom from their... LJ: No. I just always told them to do what was good, not get into any mess of any kind. The only mess that I knew of was...Lucian got married awfully young. He married, uh, well, the chief's daughter. The Euchee Chief's daughter. Her name was Dorothy Jean Brown (ph). And they were both too young to be married, but they did. They didn't stay married. WN: Now, was Grandmother Conneisenney out there, that, she was, how was she related to you? LJ: She's Majel, uh, mother-in-law. WN: Mother-in-law. LJ: That was Porter's mother. WN: Oh, I see. Now that's the first time I knew that. LJ: And, uh, Porter lived way out in the country. I guess he ruled the town. But you know, he was with the Bristow baseball. WN: Oh, he was an athlete then. LJ: Yes, and I've got a picture of him where he and Ralph Corey, and there used to be some Tidwells, didn't they? WN: Yes, yes. Yes, Tidwells. LJ: He was a great big old tall boy. And then there was a Smith, there were some Smiths, I have a picture of them, Porter, you know, had his picture taken with them. WN: But one day I was reading the newspaper and it was talking about what a wonderful team the Indians had. They used to, the ball team, the Indians, there were some Indians around here who had a wonderful team. Would that be the same? LJ: No, because Porter was the only Indian on the Indian on the team? WN: Well, occasionally I read in the paper, I would read in the early Indian Territorial Enterprise, you know, that Indians doing this and that. Now, where was Snake Creek? I read about an uprising on Snake Creek. The Indians told the white people to get out of Bristow. LJ: Well, Snake Creek is run by Bixby. WN: Oh, by Bixby. LJ: Over in there. WN: But I had read in there that the Indians came to Bristow and issued an ultimatum for the white people to get out of that area. And that they were going to come back, and so they fixed some kind of a, I don't know, whatever, but the Indians never did come back, so. LJ: Well, I don’t know about that. WN: Well, I just happened to read that in the paper, but I, every once in a while in the paper as I was going through it in the early days, I'd read about somebody doing something that was really exciting. I thought, oh gah, would like to know more about that. But now listen, we're going to quit for today. LJ: [Indecipherable] know where Slick got its name. WN: No, he didn't say that. LJ: Well, I know. Slick. It was Tom Slick. He was a young man from Pennsylvania when he came here. And he came, he walked from Bristow to our house. And sometimes he'd eat, eat with us, meals, you know. And he was taking leases, oil leases, and he, um, had a lease, uh, I guess it’s east of Slick. I don't know how far east, but that's where he, Tom Slick, first struck his well. WN: And this is the beginning of the oil boom then? LJ: That was the beginning of the oil boom. Because I think Tom Slick was the first one that ever built, that ever drilled a well in this part of the country. WN: Now that's interesting to know. That's interesting. LJ: [Indecipherable] eat a meal with us [indecipherable]. WN: He didn't have a family then, did he? LJ: No, he wasn't married. He was just a young man, just prospecting is what he was doing. And he started roots out there. WN: That's wonderful. LJ: That's where, that's where he got his first start. audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/render.php?cachefile=OHP-0049B_Lucinda_Johnson.xml OHP-0049B_Lucinda_Johnson.xml
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Lucinda Johnson - Part 2
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In Part Two of this 1992 interview with Lucinda Johnson, she talks about her children, her husbands and Tom Slick.
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OHP-0049B
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1992-02-19
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audio
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Family Histories
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Oral History
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Oral accounts of various family histories
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Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
Oral History
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Wanda Newton
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Lucinda Johnson
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5.4 February 19, 1992 OHP-0049A Lucinda Johnson - Part 1 OHP-0049A 00:00:00 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Bristow Historical Society, Inc. bristowhistory Lucinda Johnson Wanda Newton 1:|15(5)|30(6)|43(7)|56(11)|70(4)|90(14)|109(14)|120(7)|132(11)|149(4)|161(7)|171(17)|184(13)|200(9)|215(2)|226(3)|242(7)|263(3)|286(5)|305(11)|316(15)|326(3)|335(4)|345(5)|360(2)|371(4)|386(10)|398(6)|412(9)|428(4)|445(14)|456(13)|471(11)|482(5)|498(6)|511(6)|530(4)|544(7)|558(2)|572(13)|588(15)|602(12)|615(5)|625(13)|631(6) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0049A Johnson, Lucinda.mp3 Other audio 0 Birth Place WN: Okay, this is Wanda Newton and today is February the 19th, 1992. I'm in the home of Lucinda Johnson, which is located, what, a mile north of Slick? 
 ; LJ: Yes. 
 ; WN: A mile north of Slick. But anyway, Ms. Johnson has consented to tell us a little bit for posterity. One of the things that I wanted to ask Ms. Johnson first is, tell us your full name, and where you were born, and... 
 ; LJ: Well, my name is Lucinda Allen Johnson, now. And I was born six miles east of Bristow, on Skull Creek. And I've lived there all my life, except when I got married and moved here. And what else do you want to know? 
 ; Lucinda talks about being born six miles east of Bristow on Skull Creek. Slick ; Skull Creek birth place 0 147 Family WN: Yeah, that's wonderful! Ha ha! Everybody will know how to be gorgeous when you're 98 now. Ha ha! What can you tell me about your mother and father, Ms. Johnson? 
 ; LJ: Well, my father was Jesse Allen. I really don't know what year he was born, though. And he was grandpa (it is believed Lucinda is talking about here father, Jesse Allen, not her grandpa) was more Irish than he was Euchee. He was only a fourth Euchee. And what I can remember about grandpa (it is believed she's referring to her father here), he, he was United States Marshal, Assistant United States Marshal to Ledbetter (James Franklin "Bud" Ledbetter, Jr.), what's his first name? 
 ; WN: Oh, heavens, I don't know, Ledbetter. But somebody will, maybe. 
 ; Lucinda tells about her father, Jesse Allen and that he was the assistant to the United States Marshal, James Franklin "Bud" Ledbetter. She also talks about her mother, Lizzie Allen, being full blood Euchee. Jesse Allen ; Euchee ; James Franklin "Bud" Ledbetter ; Hell on the Border ; United States Marshal ; Fort Smith ; Indian Territory ; Jim Miller ; Creek ; Abraham Allen ; Joseph Allen ; Jesse James Allen ; Joe Allen ; Ada Allen ; Ella Allen Burgess ; Ann Coppinger ; Skull Creek ; Lizzie Allen family 0 390 How Skull Creek & ; Bristow Got Their Names LJ: And the way Skull Creek got its name, after the Civil War, there were so many skulls on, on, on the creek. 
 ; WN: Oh my. 
 ; LJ: That they named the creek Skull Creek. And that's where Skull Creek got its name. 
 ; WN: [Indecipherable]. Ha! Well once you told me a story of how Bristow got its name, and do you know that James Neighbors (ph) told me that Mr. Longacre told him the same story about the peddler that you did. So, but would you tell that story to me again? 
 ; LJ: Well, I guess it was, I don't know what year, the railroad came through, but anyway, he had a little camp right about where oh that's a [indecipherable]. Abraham, what was it? 
 ; WN: Oh, you mean down on J& ; J? The J& ; J… 
 ; LJ: Yes, I think it's J& ; J. But he had his camp right about there. Just a little camp. And I guess he was just a, a drifter, more or less. And he stopped there for a while. Of course, Bristow wasn't named. So then they gave the Bristow its name. His name was a, can't think of his first name. But anyway, that was his surname, [indecipherable] Bristow. That's where Bristow got its name. 
 ; Lucinda tells the stories of how Skull Creek and Bristow were named. Skull Creek ; Bristow ; Civil War Naming Skull Creek ; Naming Bristow 0 549 Childhood Memories WN: That's an interesting highlight. Now let's go back to when you were a little girl. Tell me some of the things that you remember when you were a child. Some of the things that you did or... 
 ; LJ: Well, we were just like all the other children just growing up. Mostly went swimming every day. 
 ; WN: In Skull Creek?
 ; LJ: Yes, in Skull Creek. 
 ; WN: Well, tell me, how, how does the creek compare now to the way it was when you were a young girl. 
 ; LJ: Well, there was a good stream there and there's a lot of rocks where the road is now. And that's about all there is to it. 
 ; Lucinda talks about swimming in Skull Creek. swimming ; Skull Creek childhood memories 0 621 Attending School WN: Well now where did you go to school, Ms. Johnson?
 ; LJ: Well, I went to Euchee Boarding School in Sapulpa. 
 ; WN: In Sapulpa? 
 ; LJ: And I was there until about, well, I went to Euchee Boarding School. Then the next time I went to school, I went to Haskell Institute at the... 
 ; WN: At Kansas? 
 ; LJ: At Lawrence, Kansas. And then, I went for a while in Bacone after I came back from Haskell, and that's all the only places that I've been. Lucinda discusses the different schools she attended growing up. Euchee Boarding School ; Sapulpa (Okla.) ; Haskell Institute ; Lawrence, Kansas ; Bacone College attending school 0 703 Daughter Majel K. Frye WN: That's how Majel (Majel K. Frye), that's how come Majel is so good at it, isn't it? 
 ; LJ: I guess so, and, well, it's surprising how she is. She didn't know one cow from another. And then when she moved over there, why then she got in to do the business, you know. And she's just a full hand. 
 ; WN: It would be hard to fool her on anything, wouldn't it? 
 ; LJ: Yes, and, oh, right now she's having a lot of trouble. Young heifers are dropping calves. And she said she had one that had, now you're not reporting that. 
 ; WN: No, I won't report that. 
 ; LJ: And she said one little heifer, well, I guess she’s about three-years-old. Her first calf, she had twins. 
 ; Lucinda tells about her daughter, Majel, and how she became a cowgirl and rancher. Majel K. Frye ; cattle ; ranching ; farming daughter Majel K. Frye 0 828 Parents & ; Family WN: I think that's wonderful. Now, let's back up to your schooling. Now tell me what you can remember most about your mother and your father, about their appearance and, and… 
 ; LJ: About their parents? 
 ; WN: Uh-huh, uh-huh. 
 ; LJ: I didn't know either one of my grandparents. 
 ; WN: You didn't know either one of your grandparents? 
 ; LJ: My father, the Euchees were a camped at the…what town? 
 ; WN: Okemah?. 
 ; LJ: No, this camp? No. 
 ; WN: Oh, the camp. 
 ; LJ: Where I asked you to go and look for some, oh, something about Grandpa, you know? 
 ; WN: Oh, at Fort Gibson.
 ; LJ: Yeah, Fort Gibson. 
 ; Lucinda tells about her each of her parents, her grandparents and her children. She shares family pictures with Wanda. Euchee ; Fort Gibson ; Alvin Lee Johnson ; Lucian Tiger ; Gus Johnson parents ; family 0 1214 Trips to Town WN: There's that Majel, she's something else. Oh, that's wonderful. Alright, now then, Ms. Johnson, tell me anything that you can about what life was like, like when you went to town, or how did you get to town?
 ; LJ: Well, we got to town, we kids got to town maybe once a year. See, we had to go in the hack from home to Bristow and that was six miles, and we just had dirt roads. And one Fourth of July, all of us kids got in the hack. You know, those two, two seated things, all [indecipherable]. So, we met a we met a wagon coming in. We were going in, and we had to cut off the road. And I wish I had that picture. And I thought the hack was going to do a turnover. So, I jumped. And then they have them, [indecipherable], oh what did you stop your wagon with?
 ; Lucinda tells some stories about riding the hack to town and almost wrecking. She also recalls going to Muskogee because her father had jury duty. wagon ; hack ; Sapulpa ; Muskogee ; jury duty ; McAlester trips to town 0 1486 Indian Remedies & ; Clothing WN: Oh, well now, tell me about some of the early Indian things that you used to go to, and I remember last summer, I, they honored you at the stomp dance at Kellyville. Did you always go to the green corn dances there, or did they have...tell, tell me a little about the Indian celebrations they used to have. 
 ; LJ: Well, the, I'll tell you about the celebration first. This, then we were going, see we were in Indian Territory, and then right across the line at Stroud, was, you know, Oklahoma. 
 ; WN: Old Oklahoma. 
 ; LJ: And Grandpa decided we would go to the Stroud and buy some liquor. He bought them in five-gallon jugs. These white jugs with the brown top on them. And he bought two, two bottles. Five gallon, I mean five gallons apiece. Well, Grandpa didn't drink. And Grandpa never drank at all. But he was a medicine man and he bought that for medicine. And in the summertime he would call what he was a purifying us, I guess. He'd made a lot of medicine, you know, outside in the yard. And then he built a little [indecipherable]. He’d put us in there and then pour hot water over. Oh, he had some big ol irons there. Poured hot water over the those pipes and we were inside in the, in clothes. He was sweating us out. 
 ; Lucinda remembers her father going to Stroud to buy liquor to make Indian remedies for the family. She also recalls her mother making all of their clothes and calico dresses for the her and her sisters. stomp dance ; Kellyville ; Indian Territory ; Stroud ; Indian remedies ; Dr. Ernest W. Reynolds ; Lucian Tiger ; calico dresses ; Sand Creek ; Green Corn Dance ; Nuyaka ; Skull Creek Indian rememdies ; clothing 0 1856 Slick WN: But now, do you remember the, when Slick was so big and everything, you know, when the town came into being, did that make any difference in your life? 
 ; LJ: No. Yeah, I was already married then, wasn't I? 
 ; WN: I don't know, it seemed like Slick came into being about 1920 or 21 or something like that.
 ; LJ: No, I remember Slick, but we never go to Slick very much. One time I was in that old Cafe there on Main Street, and I guess I decided I was hungry, so I went into this cafe, you know, and got myself a sandwich and there were two other young men sitting just little ways from me. They were talking about the [indecipherable], and I was, I had it on my thing and I've already forgotten what they said. I thought, well, let them talk if they want to.
 ; Lucinda recalls when Slick became a town. Slick Slick 0 1926 Bristow Businesses WN: Do you remember any particular stores in Bristow when you'd go? Do you remember? 
 ; LJ: We never did get to Bristow but maybe about once a year.
 ; WN: Did you… 
 ; LJ: I remember when the Vogel, 
 ; WN: Vogel Dry Goods? 
 ; LJ: Yes, was there. And the West. Jim, 
 ; WN: Charles or Jim West? 
 ; LJ: Charles. Nellie, Nellie West. 
 ; WN: Nellie West. 
 ; LJ: I knew them, and those were about the only stores they had in Bristow when I was growing up, I guess. 
 ; Lucinda recalls different businesses around Bristow back in the early days such as Vogel Dry Good, First State Bank and the cotton gins. Vogel Dry Goods ; Charles West ; Nellie West ; First State Bank ; cotton gins Bristow businesses 0 2118 Farming WN: Well, now how much land did you own back in those days? You had a lot of people, you had tenants on your farm?
 ; LJ: Oh yes. Well grandpa had a lot of his children all right around that white house. And we had tenants all over the place.
 ; WN: Now you had, you had slaves? Did they have slaves back in those days? 
 ; LJ: No, because we always had a lot of colored people farming, you know, and… 
 ; WN: Well, now, what is the story on that little house right there that I painted that old picture of? 
 ; LJ: That, that's the little house right here. 
 ; WN: Yeah, that was right there. 
 ; LJ: Well, no, that was well, you know, there were a lot of colored people called Freedmen's. They were allotted to, you know. 
 ; WN: Oh, the Freedmen were allotted.
 ; Lucinda remembers having a lot land and tenant farmers on their land. She recalls having many Freedmen farming the land and the government making them the Freedmen move to Canada. tenant farming ; Freedman ; Woodland Queen 0 2299 Kellyville, Stagecoaches and the Trading Post LJ: And then Kellyville, Kellyville was, it’s older than Bristow, I think. It has a, Kellyville was built in 18 something.
 ; WN: Yeah, 18, I think I looked, what was it, Bill, did we say 18? 
 ; LJ: You know, it's on the highway. 
 ; WN: Yeah. 1886. 1886 or 18... 
 ; LJ: Oh, yes, I remember it was, it was just two years old, I remember Kellyville was just two years older than I am. And that was on the only trading post you know that we had there.
 ; WN: Oh, I didn't know that. 
 ; LJ: And this man, his name was James Kelly, had a trading post there. And, of course, all the Indians, the Euchees, just traded with him. He was a nice looking, dignified looking. I think he was an Englishman that started Kellyville there. And then over across Deep Fork, they had another trading post while a stagecoach came through there. 
 ; Lucinda tells the story of when Kellyville became a town and they had the only trading post. She also recalls the stagecoach stops in the area. Kellyville ; trading post ; James Kelly ; Euchee ; stagecoach ; Deep Fork ; Slick Kellyville ; stagecoaches ; trading post 0 MP3 In this 1992 interview, Lucinda Johnson talks about her family, where she was born and grew up, how Bristow got its name, attending school, stagecoaches, Bristow stores and farming. Users are warned that there may be words and descriptions which may be culturally sensitive and which might not normally be used in certain public or community contexts. Terms and annotations which reflect the creator's attitude or that of the period in which the item was written may be considered inappropriate today. WN: Okay, this is Wanda Newton and today is February the 19th, 1992. I'm in the home of Lucinda Johnson, which is located, what, a mile north of Slick? LJ: Yes. WN: A mile north of Slick. But anyway, Ms. Johnson has consented to tell us a little bit for posterity. One of the things that I wanted to ask Ms. Johnson first is, tell us your full name, and where you were born, and... LJ: Well, my name is Lucinda Allen Johnson, now. And I was born six miles east of Bristow, on Skull Creek. And I've lived there all my life, except when I got married and moved here. And what else do you want to know? WN: And when did you get married, Ms. Johnson? LJ: Oh, my first marriage to Majel's father was in...do I know? Let's see. Gee, I can't tell you. WN: Okay, well you can tell me the year you were born. LJ: Well, I was born in 94. WN: 1894? And so you are now... LJ: The 21st of July, 1894. WN: 1894. LJ: And then this next coming July, July 1992, I'll be 98 years old. WN: Oh, it's fantastic. Oh, you have such beautiful skin. You should leave your recipe for the world to use. LJ: Such as what? WN: You should leave your recipe for your skin cream for everybody. LJ: You know, I haven't washed myself, put any cream or anything on my face for about three months. Since I've hurt my arm, I haven't been able to wash my face like it should be. Is that recording? WN: Yeah, that's wonderful! Ha ha! Everybody will know how to be gorgeous when you're 98 now. Ha ha! What can you tell me about your mother and father, Ms. Johnson? LJ: Well, my father was Jesse Allen. I really don't know what year he was born, though. And he was grandpa (it is believed Lucinda is talking about here father, Jesse Allen, not her grandpa) was more Irish than he was Euchee. He was only a fourth Euchee. And what I can remember about grandpa (it is believed she's referring to her father here), he, he was United States Marshal, Assistant United States Marshal to Ledbetter (James Franklin "Bud" Ledbetter, Jr.), what's his first name? WN: Oh, heavens, I don't know, Ledbetter. But somebody will, maybe. LJ: It's probably in that book, Hell on the Border. That's the book that was written. But anyway, grandpa (it is believed she is referring to her father here) was assistant to this Ledbetter. He was United States Marshal. And they were officers in Fort Smith. We didn't have anything here in Indian Territory then. I should have told you I was born in Indian Territory, too. WN: Yes! Indeed! LJ: And so, and mama, she was a full blood. And she didn't… WN: She was a full blood Euchee? LJ: Yes. And she didn't know how to talk English when she married my grandfather (it's believed she means her father). She had to learn to talk Euchee (it is believed she means she had to learn English). But Papa himself was raised among the Euchees, but I don't know who raised him. And he could talk fluent Euchee, talk better Euchee than a lot of the full bloods. WN: Oh, how wonderful. LJ: He had a friend that lived over here, east of us, his name was Jim Miller, and he was a full blood Creek, and he couldn't talk English. So he and Grandpa (it is believed she is talking about her father) would sit there on the porch, and Miller would talk Creek, and then Grandpa would answer him in English. And they’d just talk, you know, just like anybody else. And I don't know what else I can tell you. WN: Well, tell me how many brothers and sisters you had. LJ: Well, I have three brothers and three sisters. WN: Can you name them? LJ: Mm-hmm. Abraham Allen was the oldest one. He served in World War I and Joe (Joseph Allen) was the next one. WN: Do you have, again, do you know their birth dates at all, Ms. Johnson? LJ: You know, if I had my old Bible, I could just tell you, but I really don't know. WN: Okay. LJ: And then my, well, my last, the baby brother, though, was born in 1900. I know his birth date. And... WN: What was his name? LJ: Jesse (James Allen). WN: Jesse. LJ: And in the middle was Joe, Joe Allen, guess you've read it. WN: Oh yes, Joe. LJ: And those, and then I have two sisters (based on research, it is believed there is an oldest sister named Ada Allen not mentioned). WN: Okay, and what are their names? LJ: Ella Allen Burgess and Ann Coppinger. WN: Are they still living? LJ: Yes. WN: And how old are they? LJ: All three of us girls are alive and all the brothers are gone. WN: Well, how old was your mother when she died? LJ: She was ninety-two. WN: Ninety-two. LJ: And grandpa (it’s believed she is talking about her father) was only about eighty-two when he died. WN: Now are they buried in that cemetery on the... LJ: Allen Cemetery (ph). WN: Was that your home all, is that where you were born, Ms. Johnson? LJ: Where the old house is now. WN: Where the old Allen house is. LJ: On Skull Creek. WN: On Skull Creek, got it. LJ: And the way Skull Creek got its name, after the Civil War, there were so many skulls on, on, on the creek. WN: Oh my. LJ: That they named the creek Skull Creek. And that's where Skull Creek got its name. WN: [Indecipherable]. Ha! Well once you told me a story of how Bristow got its name, and do you know that James Neighbors (ph) told me that Mr. Longacre told him the same story about the peddler that you did. So, but would you tell that story to me again? LJ: Well, I guess it was, I don't know what year, the railroad came through, but anyway, he had a little camp right about where oh that's a [indecipherable]. Abraham, what was it? WN: Oh, you mean down on J& ; amp ; J? The J& ; amp ; J… LJ: Yes, I think it's J& ; amp ; J. But he had his camp right about there. Just a little camp. And I guess he was just a, a drifter, more or less. And he stopped there for a while. Of course, Bristow wasn't named. So then they gave the Bristow its name. His name was a, can't think of his first name. But anyway, that was his surname, [indecipherable] Bristow. That's where Bristow got its name. WN: And you told me once that your father had a watch made by him for you. LJ: Oh yes, he did. He was a silversmith, more or less, I guess. So he...grandpa was friendly with him and so he decided he'd make grandpa a watch if grandpa would give him the silver. So, grandpa gave him the silver, what the denominations were. But anyway, and then right around the near the crystal, he had a gold band clear around it, and that's all it was to it. Oh, there's a big watch or something about it like that. WN: Oh my word. LJ: Well, I think maybe Raymond has it now. I never did ask, but that's how Bristow got its name anyway. WN: That's an interesting highlight. Now let's go back to when you were a little girl. Tell me some of the things that you remember when you were a child. Some of the things that you did or... LJ: Well, we were just like all the other children just growing up. Mostly went swimming every day. WN: In Skull Creek? LJ: Yes, in Skull Creek. WN: Well, tell me, how, how does the creek compare now to the way it was when you were a young girl. LJ: Well, there was a good stream there and there's a lot of rocks where the road is now. And that's about all there is to it. WN: Has it filled with sand and everything since you were young or is it just about the same? LJ: You know, I haven't seen Skull Creek in a long time. We cross the bridge and we don't look down. WN: Well, now let me tell you, I ask you, you said Skull Creek got it's name from all the skulls. How did Chicken Creek get its name? Do you know? LJ: I don't know. WN: Well now where did you go to school, Ms. Johnson? LJ: Well, I went to Euchee Boarding School in Sapulpa. WN: In Sapulpa? LJ: And I was there until about, well, I went to Euchee Boarding School. Then the next time I went to school, I went to Haskell Institute at the... WN: At Kansas? LJ: At Lawrence, Kansas. And then, I went for a while in Bacone after I came back from Haskell, and that's all the only places that I've been. And when we were growing up, of course, everybody had a horse, we all rode. And Grandpa, of course, raised cattle anyway. And, and Grandpa always had three or four cowboys, you know, hands. When I was young, I was the only one though, girl, growing up. I was the only tomboy. My other two sisters were not tomboys, but I was, and I rode and roped cattle with the cowboys. WN: That's how Majel (Majel K. Frye), that's how come Majel is so good at it, isn't it? LJ: I guess so, and, well, it's surprising how she is. She didn't know one cow from another. And then when she moved over there, why then she got in to do the business, you know. And she's just a full hand. WN: It would be hard to fool her on anything, wouldn't it? LJ: Yes, and, oh, right now she's having a lot of trouble. Young heifers are dropping calves. And she said she had one that had, now you're not reporting that. WN: No, I won't report that. LJ: And she said one little heifer, well, I guess she’s about three-years-old. Her first calf, she had twins. WN: Oh. LJ: And it's very unusual for Angus cows to have twins. Anyway, she had twins and Majel had to see that they got, they could nurse, you know, and everything. Then she had another one that wouldn't take her calf. Majel had to just stand over her, and I think she had to have a bottle or two. And I asked her the other day how she got along, and she said she's getting along all right. And then she had a big old bull that was sick. So, she said she had to go out and see about him every day. And she had the vet out there. WN: Oh, I don't know how she does all of that. LJ: I don't either, but she does. WN: One day I was out there, and I saw her kick off hay just like she was lifting out a, I don't know what. I think she's a... LJ: Majel had never did anything like that before, but she's in school all the time. WN: I think that's wonderful. Now, let's back up to your schooling. Now tell me what you can remember most about your mother and your father, about their appearance and, and… LJ: About their parents? WN: Uh-huh, uh-huh. LJ: I didn't know either one of my grandparents. WN: You didn't know either one of your grandparents? LJ: My father, the Euchees were a camped at the…what town? WN: Okemah?. LJ: No, this camp? No. WN: Oh, the camp. LJ: Where I asked you to go and look for some, oh, something about Grandpa, you know? WN: Oh, at Fort Gibson. LJ: Yeah, Fort Gibson. WN: Oh yeah, Fort Gibson. LJ: The Euchees were stationed there at Fort Gibson, I think, for protection. And Grandfather, I mean, Papa's father was a man in the army. He was an Irishman. He was straight from Ireland. And I guess he got friendly with the grandmother. I don't know whether he got married or not. But anyway, she was Euchee and French. She was half French and she was half Euchee. And when the war was over, he was going back to Ireland. And he wanted to take his wife with him. But her parents, her people wouldn't let her go. So, she stayed. And he went back to Ireland. Grandpa nearly [indecipherable] paid it off. And that's a... WN: Do you have any pictures of her? Do you remember what she looked like or anything? LJ: Her name was Lucinda though. WN: It was? So that's how Lucinda... LJ: Grandpa named me after his mother. (It is believed she is referring to her father, not her grandpa.) And then my mother, she was just... I think she was an orphan, too. And some of my relatives raised her, and she'd never, she's never, she'd never gone to school, and she never did get to go to school. And she learned to talk English after seeing [indecipherable]. It's about all, but she was just a full blood. WN: Well, what did, did she look like you? I mean, do you look like your mother, or? LJ: I got a picture of her right on that little folder right there, on the table. WN: This, down here, this? LJ: No, on the table. WN: Oh, on the table. Oh, right here. Oh, I'd like to see that. LJ: I have two pictures of her. [Indecipherable]. WN: Let me get my, let me get my glasses. Where's my purse? Now this is the picture of your mother. LJ: And these are my three brothers. WN: All right now, which porch is that? Is that that back porch down there? LJ: Is that what? WN: Is that the back porch down there at the house? LJ: Oh yeah, and here's that water well. WN: Oh yeah, the well, yeah. LJ: And this is our washing machine back there. WN: And who are these three men? Do you know who those are? LJ: Oh, they're my brothers. WN: Those are your three brothers? This is, is that Jess? Joe? LJ: That's Jess. WN: That's Jess. LJ: And this one is Joe.. And this is Jim. WN: Oh, that's a wonderful picture of your mother. She was very petite, wasn't she? LJ: I have one better than that. This is in Alaska, too. That's Alvin Lee (Johnson) on Bartender (ph). WN: Oh, I remember Alvin Lee riding that horse so well. LJ: He loved it. WN: He loved to ride, didn't he? LJ: Yeah, he did. WN: Oh, is that, LJ: That's Lucinda right there. WN: Oh! LJ: And this is Eddie, that's... WN: Ed Porter's son? LJ: The last son, huh? WN: Oh, isn't she pretty? LJ: Yeah, this is Ed Porter and Lou right in the end there. WN: Lucinda, isn't it? Ed Porter looks so much like Lucian (Lucian A. Tiger) there. LJ: That's Gus (Johnson). WN: Yeah, that's Gus. LJ: He was going to John Gould's (ph) funeral. He was all dressed up. So, Lucian happened to be here and he said, well ,I'll just take this picture while he is dressed up. WN: That's a good picture, too. LJ: It is a good picture of Gus. WN: I always liked Gus. LJ: That's about the last picture he ever had. This is Jerry (ph). WN: Yes, that’s Jerry. LJ: And this is a picture that I like of Mama. WN: Oh, how wonderful. LJ: You see her garden plow? WN: Oh, yes, and look... LJ: She was going out to the garden and she has her bonnet on. WN: Oh, that is so cute, Bill. Look at this darling picture. [Inaudible] Boy, she had wonderful posture, didn't she? LJ: Oh, yes, she was straight as she could be. WN: Oh, that is, that is fantastic. LJ: Those are the only pictures I think I have of Mama. WN: Oh, that is so neat! LJ: She's so straight, did you see how straight she was? WN: Yes! LJ: Oh, she must have been in her 60s then. WN: Now, she had beautiful posture. LJ: Yes, she did. WN: But she was short, though. LJ: No, she was tall. WN: She was tall? LJ: She was about 5'6. WN: In this picture back here, she looks so short, wherever that picture was. LJ: She was taller than each one of them. None of us girls were as tall as she is. WN: Well, I just, I think that's such a precious picture. LJ: I like it, too. WN: You ought to have that enlarged sometime. LJ: Oh, I think I should, huh. WN: There's that Majel, she's something else. Oh, that's wonderful. Alright, now then, Ms. Johnson, tell me anything that you can about what life was like, like when you went to town, or how did you get to town? LJ: Well, we got to town, we kids got to town maybe once a year. See, we had to go in the hack from home to Bristow and that was six miles, and we just had dirt roads. And one Fourth of July, all of us kids got in the hack. You know, those two, two seated things, all [indecipherable]. So, we met a we met a wagon coming in. We were going in, and we had to cut off the road. And I wish I had that picture. And I thought the hack was going to do a turnover. So, I jumped. And then they have them, [indecipherable], oh what did you stop your wagon with? WN: Break? LJ: Yes, uh-huh, breaks. I started to jump out. I caught my skirt, it was a wide skirt, caught it on the, on the brake, and just threw that whole thing out. And there I was, I was going to the 4th of July picnic in Bristow. And they had a, I don't know what year it was, but anyway, when they had their 4th of July picnic, why, they had [indecipherable], no they weren't [indecipherable] either. They had platforms, I guess you would call it. The [indecipherable] had their dance floor, you know. And then it falls over, the niggers had theirs. So, they all had a good time I guess. Well that's one of the, one of the trips. Then one time, I remember, I was there along, I was about seven, I guess. Grandpa was on the grand jury in Sapulpa in Okmulgee in Muskogee. Of course, you had to go in his hack, you know. So, we went and we stayed all night, one night, with some friends that lived between Muskogee and Bristow. The next day, we got to Muskogee. And they had what's called a camp house, I guess. You could rent them. And we stayed there maybe about a week. And grandpa was on that grand jury, and then last night, he said we could go to the courthouse if we wanted to. So we, Mama and Joe and and their baby [indecipherable], we all went to the courthouse. They were trying a woman, she's, for killing her neighbor over some goslings. WN: Oh my. LJ: And you know, it just, oh it was about 15 years ago, this is the one that had killed the other one. She said she didn't have any place to go. So, she stayed there in McAlester all this time. They told her that she could stay there if she wanted to. And then I, well, I, I've been over 10 or 15 or 20 years ago where she was pardoned. She had lived there all this time. WN: My word. LJ: I don't know where she went after that. She was an old woman though anyway by then. WN: Wow, that was a long trip to make to serve on the jury, wasn't it? LJ: Yes. WN: Oh, well now, tell me about some of the early Indian things that you used to go to, and I remember last summer, I, they honored you at the stomp dance at Kellyville. Did you always go to the green corn dances there, or did they have...tell, tell me a little about the Indian celebrations they used to have. LJ: Well, the, I'll tell you about the celebration first. This, then we were going, see we were in Indian Territory, and then right across the line at Stroud, was, you know, Oklahoma. WN: Old Oklahoma. LJ: And Grandpa decided we would go to the Stroud and buy some liquor. He bought them in five-gallon jugs. These white jugs with the brown top on them. And he bought two, two bottles. Five gallon, I mean five gallons apiece. Well, Grandpa didn't drink. And Grandpa never drank at all. But he was a medicine man and he bought that for medicine. And in the summertime he would call what he was a purifying us, I guess. He'd made a lot of medicine, you know, outside in the yard. And then he built a little [indecipherable]. He’d put us in there and then pour hot water over. Oh, he had some big ol irons there. Poured hot water over the those pipes and we were inside in the, in clothes. He was sweating us out. WN: Oh my word. LJ: And we sweated too. And let's see what else can I tell you. WN: You stayed healthy that way? LJ: Yes. WN: Oh, you didn't have to drink anything did you? LJ: Oh yes, we had herbs. WN: Herbs. LJ: And he always gave liquor. Well, he'd give us a, I mean he'd put that with the… WN: Herbs? LJ: With the herbs. That was our, that was our drinks. That was our medicine, rather. WN: Well, you didn't have doctors, so you had to do something. LJ: No, no, no. No, there was no one there. I guess when Lucian was coming, we were living up there on the hill, we were there. And we had Dr. Reynolds (Ernest W. Reynolds). Old Dr. Reynolds. WN: I remember old Dr. Reynolds. LJ: Where he came in. But I have a [indecipherable]. But Lucian was already there then. The doctor was late, but he came in to a [indecipherable]. He had to keep, she had to keep me warm. I think Lucian's birthday is in January. So, it was pretty cold at home. He stuck it on my back, keeping me warm and everything. But we were all healthy. I guess due to grandpa sweating us out in the spring and giving us herbs all the time. WN: But now, how did you dress when you were a young girl, Ms Johnson? Did your mother make your clothes? LJ: Mom sewed and made everything for us. WN: She had an old treadle machine, or what did she do? LJ: She had a machine, but she would stay up until twelve o'clock at night, sewing for us kids, cause there was quite a few of us. She'd make the boys pants, just like they were bought. WN: My word. LJ: And she made all of our dresses, too, you know, calico dresses. And every Christmas we had a new dress, us girls had a new dress. And the boys had pants, you know, and everything. WN: Did you have, did you go to church, Indian church, back in those days? LJ: No we didn’t have an Indian church. WN: You didn't have an Indian church then. LJ: No. And then, well, we'd go to stomp dances. Grandpa didn't care about stomp dances. Mama would load us up all in this hack, you know, took us kids to stomp dances anyway. WN: Where were the stop dances around in these days? LJ: Well, there was one on Sand Creek. And then there was one, stomp ground, just west of Kellyville, up there in the hills and it’s still there. WN: Is that the one that they had the green corn dance in? LJ: Yeah. WN: The same place almost. They moved it up just a little bit, didn't they? But now this one on Sand Creek, was it, whereabouts on Sand Creek? Do you remember? LJ: Well, it was pretty close to where Grandma Tiger's house was. Just about where the, her graveyard is now. WN: Uh-Huh. But now, did you ever go down to Nuyaka or any place like that? LJ: No. WN: Those were all… LJ: That’s Creek territory. WN: Creek territory. Yep. That's right. It is, isn't it? LJ: Yeah. Oh we was just like any other children did. Any other child, you know. Went swimming every day in the summertime. WN: Who taught you to swim? LJ: I guess my older brother. Well, Grandpa used to go with us to take us swimming. On Skull Creek, you know. WN: Yeah. Did you fish down there too? Were there fish? LJ: Oh yes. Well, Skull Creek was a good stream. It was deep. WN: Oh. LJ: And after [indecipherable] they don't have the water and you know. WN: But now, do you remember the, when Slick was so big and everything, you know, when the town came into being, did that make any difference in your life? LJ: No. Yeah, I was already married then, wasn't I? WN: I don't know, it seemed like Slick came into being about 1920 or 21 or something like that. LJ: No, I remember Slick, but we never go to Slick very much. One time I was in that old Cafe there on Main Street, and I guess I decided I was hungry, so I went into this cafe, you know, and got myself a sandwich and there were two other young men sitting just little ways from me. They were talking about the [indecipherable], and I was, I had it on my thing and I've already forgotten what they said. I thought, well, let them talk if they want to. WN: Do you remember any particular stores in Bristow when you'd go? Do you remember? LJ: We never did get to Bristow but maybe about once a year. WN: Did you… LJ: I remember when the Vogel, WN: Vogel Dry Goods? LJ: Yes, was there. And the West. Jim, WN: Charles or Jim West? LJ: Charles. Nellie, Nellie West. WN: Nellie West. LJ: I knew them, and those were about the only stores they had in Bristow when I was growing up, I guess. WN: Do you remember the, the, when they had board sidewalks and mud in the street or any of that? LJ: Oh yes, that's what they had, just board sidewalks. [Indecipherable] I guess, well, the First State Bank, bank was on the east side. There's an old eating joint there now. And then across was the National Bank. And then over on the other side was The Groom’s bank. What was it? WN: I don't know. LJ: The Groom’s bank. WN: That's the one that they had a lot of trouble with. Went broke or something, didn't it? LJ: I don't why they couldn’t work. I don't know. But anyway. We had two banks at one time. We had the State Bank, that was Corey's (ph) bank, and then the one right across there then was Jim Boom’s (ph) bank, and then the Jones Bank, you know, it was on the other part, that’s about all I can think about that. WN: Do you remember the cotton gins? LJ: Oh, yes. I think we had three cotton gins there at one time. And the farmers, you know, after they got their cotton picked, why, there would be just the rows of red birds. WN: Oh yes. LJ: The farmers taking their cotton to Bristow, you know. WN: You had a thrash out there too, a brown thrash. LJ: Oh. WN: Thrash or thrasher or something. Isn't that a, that's a, that's a thrush, wasn't it? LJ: I guess it was, it wasn't a red bird, but I’ve got some red birds around here. WN: Yes, I, I saw a couple of those red birds there. Do you remember the flu epidemic that they had, or any smallpox epidemic, or? LJ: Yes, when I was a, we were a kid, but somehow, we didn't, any of us get smallpox. But all others and all around, they were just all sick. WN: Well, now how much land did you own back in those days? You had a lot of people, you had tenants on your farm? LJ: Oh yes. Well grandpa had a lot of his children all right around that white house. And we had tenants all over the place. WN: Now you had, you had slaves? Did they have slaves back in those days? LJ: No, because we always had a lot of colored people farming, you know, and… WN: Well, now, what is the story on that little house right there that I painted that old picture of? LJ: That, that's the little house right here. WN: Yeah, that was right there. LJ: Well, no, that was well, you know, there were a lot of colored people called Freedmen's. They were allotted to, you know. WN: Oh, the Freedmen were allotted. LJ: They were allotted to help with the, with the Creeks. And that house there was a man by the name of Hector Beaver built that house right there, just as you came in the gate, there… WN: The chimney still stands and the cistern still stands there. But I made the, the storm cellar. It's not the same. I put that storm cellar in, but it looked like a, you know, it looked like a gravestone marker, and so I took it out. I, I just moved the rocks around a little bit, cause... LJ: And then it had a little porch on there too, you know. WN: Yeah, and the little porch is down in the back. It's kind of falling down, but I didn't know if there was a porch on that front part or not. LJ: Yeah, there was one right in the front. WN: Well, that porch had fallen off when I, by the time I saw… LJ: There’s another porch on the back where the kitchen is. WN: Oh, uh-huh. LJ: Well, that's about all I know about that house. Well, they were what you call Freedman’s that built that house. And then later on, I don't remember what year it was, I don't know whether it was the government or what, moved a lot of these people, these colored people, and they moved them to Canada. I was just small, I just remember. There's a lot of our tenants that had to go, too. WN: The government made them leave, then. LJ: Yes, I don't know why. And I don't know what [indecipherable]. WN: Let me back up a little bit. Do you ever remember Bristow being called the Woodland Queen? LJ: Why would it be called Woodland Queen? WN: Well, I don't know. I hear that, you know, I read these stories that Bristow at one time was called the Woodland Queen. And I've heard people say, no, that's not true. There was nothing, they'd never heard of the name Woodland Queen. LJ: And then Kellyville, Kellyville was, it’s older than Bristow, I think. It has a, Kellyville was built in 18 something. WN: Yeah, 18, I think I looked, what was it, Bill, did we say 18? LJ: You know, it's on the highway. WN: Yeah. 1886. 1886 or 18... LJ: Oh, yes, I remember it was, it was just two years old, I remember Kellyville was just two years older than I am. And that was on the only trading post you know that we had there. WN: Oh, I didn't know that. LJ: And this man, his name was James Kelly, had a trading post there. And, of course, all the Indians, the Euchees, just traded with him. He was a nice looking, dignified looking. I think he was an Englishman that started Kellyville there. And then over across Deep Fork, they had another trading post while a stagecoach came through there. WN: Oh, now that's something I meant to ask you about. Can you tell me kind of where the stagecoach went here in Bristow? LJ: Oh, well I don't know where. WN: I mean where did it… LJ: That's what I don’t know, see, I don’t know where it came from, Texas somewhere, I expect. WN: But they did have a, whereabouts on Deep Fork, do you know… LJ: Well, you know where, you go through Slick, and then across, where the bridge is. WN: Yeah, where the bridge is, down by Golden Crenshaw's (ph) place, down in there? LJ: Yeah. Only you cross the bridge in there about where Paul Montgomery lives now. WN: Oh, Paul Montgomery? And that's about where the stage... LJ: Oh, that's where the stagecoach was. And his name was, I don't know what his first name was. The police that was known as Phillipsburg (ph). WN: Phillipsburg (ph). LJ: Mm-hmm. See his name last name was Phillipsburg (ph). And that was a, the another stage stop, and then it went to Kellyville, and then on to Red Fork. WN: Oh! LJ: They were all stage stops. WN: Stage stops. And do you ever remember seeing one of the stage stops? How did they look? Were they just houses, or what were they? LJ: Well, just kind of a house, you know, maybe a porch a [indecipherable]. WN: Did somebody stay there all the time? Well, James Hill stayed at his place and this man Phillips, I guess he stayed there too, just in an old one room house, maybe had a little store there. WN: What, can you describe a stage coach for me? What did they, did they look like they do in the movies or… LJ: Yeah, something, they’re just about the same. WN: And how many horses did they usually have pulling them? LJ: All the, those that came through here just had two horses plus, I mean the ones that I saw. I never did [indecipherable] them. WN: Yeah. Did you ever ride one? LJ: No, I never did. But I was lucky, then when Phillips was selling out, he was going to quit the business, I guess. Grandpa was going over there, he was going on horseback. And I was Grandpa's tail, so I wanted to go and he said, well, get on. So, I got on the back of the saddle. We went to Phillipsburg. That's quite a ride. WN: Yes. LJ: And so, then this, Mr. Phillips, why, he had, it was a cute little churn here or something, a little old churn about that big. It held just about a gallon of milk. And it had a turn on it. And he gave that to me. And I, I had it until about, well I got, I still had it when we moved here, I know. And Majel was throwing away things and I think she threw it away. And I asked her about it and she said no she didn't throw it away. But I think I knew where, I have an idea of where she threw it, and I keep telling myself I'm going to go back there and see if I can find my churn, but I never have gone. WN: Now when did you move to this house right here, Ms. Johnson? Did you, you built this house, didn't you? LJ: Well, Porter (Tiger) and I moved here in about 1910, I expect. And I'll tell you the [indecipherable] it was on these ready cut houses. WN: Like you ordered from Sears and all that? LJ: Yeah. Well, it had the kitchen, the dining room, and the living room and two bedrooms then, so I just kept adding on. Well, it's beautiful. WN: Did you marry, you married then when you were very young? LJ: No, I was eighteen when Porter and I got married. WN: And then you had Majel (Majel K. Frye) and Lucian (Lucian A. Tiger). LJ: No, I had Maj, I had Majel. And then my, the second baby was a boy. WN: Oh. LJ: His name was Daniel. And then... WN: Did he die as an infant? LJ: Well, no. He was about... audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/render.php?cachefile=OHP-0049A_Lucinda_Johnson.xml OHP-0049A_Lucinda_Johnson.xml
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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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Lucinda Johnson - Part 1
Description
An account of the resource
In this 1992 interview, Lucinda Johnson talks about her family, where she was born and grew up, how Bristow got its name, attending school, stagecoaches, Bristow stores and farming.
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OHP-0049A
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1992-02-19
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audio
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https://bristoworalhistory.org/files/original/08407e7e3e6a832c8010462834569c3b.jpg
c62a61b35a0311c58de7f5a0059672d7
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
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Family Histories
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Oral History
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral accounts of various family histories
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Wanda Newton
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Howard Fugate
OHMS Object
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https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0048B_Howard_Fugate.xml
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contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka
5.4 May 24, 1993 OHP-0048B Howard Fugate OHP-0048B 00:12:47 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Bristow Historical Society, Inc. bristowhistory Howard Fugate Wanda Newton Bill Newton 1:|17(8)|337(9) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0048B Fugate, Howard.mp3 Other audio 7 Hauling with the Team Wagon HF: We lived out, and him and Joe come down there. Dad, he, he put his pistol, he stuck it right down there with his open jacket, see, and jumped it on. And, they had a, they had their pistols on, each one of them had a pistol and a Winchester on their saddle. Dad wasn't afraid of nothing. 
 ; WN: Oh, that's great. Well, you got it all settled then. 
 ; BN: You had to be brave then. 
 ; HF: But, we moved up there to Lovett place after that, and he was the best neighbor we had. He'd horn him, and brand him, and [indecipherable] him, and this and that. And where's them, where's them pictures of them two? I'm, and Emmett on the horses. 
 ; WN: Oh, right here. 
 ; HF: Emmett brought that horse, that, there's a, no, no. 
 ; WN: That's not the one. Here's the, here's the horses right here. 
 ; HF: Yeah. 
 ; WN: No. 
 ; HF: That's, that's, that's alright. It's not in there. It's, I've seen it somewhere. 
 ; WN: I've got these two with you on it.
 ; HF: No.
 ; WN: No, not that. 
 ; HF: No, that's a cow horse, see. 
 ; WN: Oh. 
 ; HF: These are all work horses here, see. Now, see, that's the way a horse looks when he's pulling. 
 ; WN: Huh. 
 ; HF: See, they're stretching. These here is not doing too good, and here they are…
 ; WN: Really straining there, aren't they? 
 ; HF: Yeah. See, I'm, I'm have pushed this old, this old mare here, this gray mare here. She, she is a [indecipherable]. You could slap her on the back a time or two, she'd, well, she'd run away with 'em horses. See. 
 ; Howard talks about all the different things the hauled with his team wagon.
 ; rig timber ; team wagon ; bullwheels ; Sylvester Johnson ; Gus Johnson ; Lee Johnson ; Lowdwick Johnson hauling with team wagon 0 MP3 In this continued 1993 interview with Howard Fugate, he talks more in depth about all the different oil field items, among other things, that he hauled with his wagon team. HF: He said, bring me money. I said, I'm not taking no checks. He'd give
 ; different ones a check, you know.
 ; 
 ; WN: And they bounced?
 ; 
 ; HF: We lived out, and him and Joe come down there. Dad, he, he put his pistol,
 ; he stuck it right down there with his open jacket, see, and jumped it on. And,
 ; they had a, they had their pistols on, each one of them had a pistol and a
 ; Winchester on their saddle. Dad wasn't afraid of nothing.
 ; 
 ; WN: Oh, that's great. Well, you got it all settled then.
 ; 
 ; BN: You had to be brave then.
 ; 
 ; HF: But, we moved up there to Lovett place after that, and he was the best
 ; neighbor we had. He'd horn him, and brand him, and [indecipherable] him, and
 ; this and that. And where's them, where's them
 ; 
 ; pictures of them two? I'm, and Emmett on the horses.
 ; 
 ; WN: Oh, right here.
 ; 
 ; HF: Emmett brought that horse, that, there's a, no, no.
 ; 
 ; WN: That's not the one. Here's the, here's the horses right here.
 ; 
 ; HF: Yeah.
 ; 
 ; WN: No.
 ; 
 ; HF: That's, that's, that's alright. It's not in there. It's, I've seen it somewhere.
 ; 
 ; WN: I've got these two with you on it.
 ; 
 ; HF: No.
 ; 
 ; WN: No, not that.
 ; 
 ; HF: No, that's a cow horse, see.
 ; 
 ; WN: Oh.
 ; 
 ; HF: These are all work horses here, see. Now, see, that's the way a horse looks
 ; when he's pulling.
 ; 
 ; WN: Huh.
 ; 
 ; HF: See, they're stretching. These here is not doing too good, and here they are…
 ; 
 ; WN: Really straining there, aren't they?
 ; 
 ; HF: Yeah. See, I'm, I'm have pushed this old, this old mare here, this gray mare
 ; here. She, she is a [indecipherable]. You could slap
 ; 
 ; [00:02:00
 ; 
 ; ]
 ; 
 ; her on the back a time or two, she'd, well, she'd run away with 'em horses. See.
 ; 
 ; WN: Well, you worked well with your horses then, didn't you?
 ; 
 ; HF: Yeah, I yeah. I was a good team hand. And my brother, older than me, he was
 ; a cowboy. He made, he made all, he sold a Joe Ihle horse, a cow horse there, and
 ; I seen that picture somewhere. One time we was loading pipe, and I was working
 ; this team, and my brother, he was, we always tried to work our, our, our
 ; sorriest team, or horse, you know, to make him better, to load stuff with it.
 ; And we was loading eight inch pipe, and one joint at a time on short skids, you
 ; know, just rolling up. The wagon was a couple of way out long, and it was about
 ; that 30-foot pipe, you know, on one load.
 ; 
 ; WN: Oh, that was heavy.
 ; 
 ; HF: He rolled up, rolled that up there,
 ; 
 ; [00:03:00
 ; 
 ; ]
 ; 
 ; and he was, he had a little Appaloosa horse. He was driving him and a gray mare
 ; together. And he was loading that pipe with the Appaloosa horse, and he was
 ; doing alright on one, one joint, so he had rolled. He said hook me on two of
 ; them, roll me on two of them, and I said, Reggie, you can't load them. He said,
 ; I bet you you can. I bet him. He whooped and beat that old horse around. And my
 ; uncle, my Uncle Cully (ph), he was driving a bay pair of mares, and he said, I
 ; got one loaded. And I said, load two of them. And I said, I bet you, oh, we just
 ; bet a dollar or something, you know. And he, he hooked that old mare on there
 ; and said and she couldn't, she wouldn't load it. And I said, I'll bet you a
 ; dollar or two or whatever it was. I got one loaded, and they wanted to use that
 ; young horse that I had.
 ; 
 ; [00:04:00
 ; 
 ; ]
 ; 
 ; I said, no, I work with old Belle (ph). So, I hooked on to him. I held her by
 ; the bits, and I got it was just a board about like a shingle. About that wide.
 ; And I got that board, and I held her by the cheek and right there. And slapped
 ; her on the back two or three times. And I started rolling back and said, come
 ; here, Belle (ph). Doll was her name. And it sounded like a cannon going off
 ; that, that pipe was rolling over each other. They, they wouldn't get after it
 ; fast enough to, to jump one pipe over the other.
 ; 
 ; WN: But you did it.
 ; 
 ; HF: And I, she ran me plum back into the bell hole, see. Yeah, and, and she,
 ; she, she'd have went on further. I pulled her a lot of times and pulled her head
 ; up to a building, you know. And with her head out in front, she could, she'd
 ; turn her head, you know. I've had
 ; 
 ; [00:05:00
 ; 
 ; ]
 ; 
 ; her put her shoulder again in the building. As long as them tugs tied, she'd go.
 ; She crippled a guy after after Dad traded her off to that guy that was up there
 ; on 7th Street, I think. They was moving timber, rig timber. We used to haul, we
 ; hauled all the rig timber out to build them rigs when we first started.
 ; 
 ; WN: Where did you get the rig timber?
 ; 
 ; HF: Out of the, they had big lumber yards.
 ; 
 ; WN: Oh, and they cut the trees from around here?
 ; 
 ; HF: No, no. Oh, no. It was shipped in here.
 ; 
 ; WN: Oh.
 ; 
 ; HF: And see them walking beams, they was, they was 36 inches deep and, and, and
 ; 18 inches wide. Wide is it?
 ; 
 ; WN: Oh my.
 ; 
 ; HF: And they was, they was thirty something feet long.
 ; 
 ; BN: Oh yes, way [indecipherable].
 ; 
 ; WN: How did you handle them?
 ; 
 ; HF: Well, dad started out he worked in a logging down in Missouri with oxen
 ; 
 ; [00:06:00
 ; 
 ; ]
 ; 
 ; and stuff when he was young. And, they lifted and used can hooks. You ever, you
 ; know what a can hook is?
 ; 
 ; BN: Yeah.
 ; 
 ; WN: I don't.
 ; 
 ; HF: They're just a pole with a hook on them, and you, you hook on the log, put
 ; the pole over the log and it's hook under here.
 ; 
 ; BN: It's got a and flexible piece.
 ; 
 ; HF: Put it, it had a swing hooks.
 ; 
 ; WN: Oh.
 ; 
 ; HF: And put your shoulder in it. You could roll. And he, he'd wanna roll in
 ; stuff on there. And I said, dad, that's too hard. And I'd load, I'd take my team
 ; and load them see. And you take, you take them, beams now see them, them was
 ; square. I mean, they was square shoulder. They wouldn't roll like a pipe, you
 ; know. And you flop them. Well, it takes, and if you, you flop once, and when you
 ; go down, if you keep your, your horses a going, well, it, it'll, it'll, it'll,
 ; 
 ; BN: Catch it just right.
 ; 
 ; HF: Go right on up. I went out here one time, I asked a
 ; 
 ; [00:07:00
 ; 
 ; ]
 ; 
 ; farm boss out there for some of his work, see, for, after I'd taken them
 ; pictures there, and he said, well, I've got a man out here with a pair of mules
 ; that's doing a good job for me, and he's been out here a long time, and says
 ; he'd do anything I wanted him to do. I said, okay, I thought maybe you might
 ; have more than he could do. And you know, it wasn't three days, but he'd come up
 ; to my house and said, can you move a set of bullwheels? And I said, well, sure I
 ; can. I said, well, that ol' boy that had working out there, he said he, he, he
 ; come over late one evening, he said he's been trying to load them bullwheels all
 ; day and broke his wagon down by 3 o'clock and had to quit.
 ; 
 ; BN: Yeah.
 ; 
 ; HF: And he said, well I said, if I can't, if I can't load them in 20 minutes,
 ; 
 ; [00:08:00
 ; 
 ; ]
 ; 
 ; I'll, it won't cost you a dime to work out there all day. So I went out there
 ; and, he was going to send me a helper and, and he told the helper to go help the
 ; pumper start two wells and then go on up there and help Howard load them
 ; bullwheels. Well I got up there and he had all the blocks he could find, on the
 ; lease I guess, piled up out there around them bullwheels. And I moved them, and
 ; this and that, before I get my wagon right inside of them bullwheels.
 ; 
 ; BN: Yeah.
 ; 
 ; HF: And when that guy come up there to help me, I was moving them down. See, I
 ; done have them over here. And I went down, I hauled them down to the rig. See,
 ; they was cleaning and, cleaning wells out, see. They weren't they had these
 ; bullwheels was, you know what the bullwheels is in the back of the rig there?
 ; 
 ; BN: I think so.
 ; 
 ; WN: That's the big wheels.
 ; 
 ; HF: It's in the, in the back of the rig. They're not in the,
 ; 
 ; [00:09:00
 ; 
 ; ]
 ; 
 ; I don't know, bell hole.
 ; 
 ; WN: Oh.
 ; 
 ; HF: There's a band wheel in there, see.
 ; 
 ; BN: Yeah.
 ; 
 ; HF: There's a [indecipherable], bull wheels, and what other kind of wheels is
 ; this? I don't know, I'll read that. Anyhow Mabel's uncle, Vester Johnson
 ; (Sylvester Johnson), you remember him when he was commissioner here? Or do you
 ; know him?
 ; 
 ; BN: No.
 ; 
 ; HF: You wouldn't know him. He he was dressing tools [indecipherable] in the
 ; drill over there. And I said, Vester, if you'll fold that [indecipherable] out
 ; at that rig up there, I'll pick them bullwheels off and set them on, in the
 ; [indecipherable] for you, so they left them. And he said, can you do that? And I
 ; said, try me. And I put down there a [indecipherable] and put my team to that
 ; end of the line. They hooked on those bullwheels and I picked them up and they
 ; swung right in there where they went. And I, I could pick them up. I could, with
 ; them old horses, I could just move them a little
 ; 
 ; [00:10:00
 ; 
 ; ]
 ; 
 ; bit at a time. And I held them up there and they scooted a big post on them that
 ; they set in, see. And over a while I'd come up there and he said, and when you
 ; get that, he said, I wanted to see you load the bullwheels. And I said, well you
 ; didn't get up here in time. And he said, after you get that other stuff moved
 ; down there, I had a stand to take down there and some water lines and stuff. I
 ; loaded that up and take it down there and he, he hooked me on four more sets of
 ; bullwheels that day, see.
 ; 
 ; WN: Oh, your poor horses, didn't they nearly die?
 ; 
 ; HF: No, no. You can roll, you can roll a big, a round thing, as big as a round
 ; is, easier it is to roll. Yeah. Ain't that right?
 ; 
 ; WN: Oh, shoot. Well, listen.
 ; 
 ; BN: You gotta know what you're doing.
 ; 
 ; HF: Yeah. See he was, I don't know, he was going to block them up some way. I
 ; don't know why. See, I just rolled it right up again
 ; 
 ; [00:11:00
 ; 
 ; ]
 ; 
 ; in the wagon. And see, it's got two grooves for a rope that big or bigger for
 ; the bull ropes on one end and the other is the brake wheel, see. Well, I just
 ; rolled, I just pulled my wagon right up close to them and just rolled them up
 ; again in the wagon, in the wagon and hooked a chain on my wagon down to the
 ; bottom of the band wheel, see. And this end down here, I hooked the chains to
 ; the wagon, you know, and run it right on to them grooves over and hooked my team
 ; on that.
 ; 
 ; WN: Hey, that was an engineering feat.
 ; 
 ; HF: And see, I just got them by the face and, and they just went, went to pick
 ; it up. And that other chain, the hole in there, just looked and it couldn't turn
 ; it. It couldn't come on over them, see.
 ; 
 ; WN: Oh, gah.
 ; 
 ; BN: Vester Johnson, would he have been kin to Gus Johnson?
 ; 
 ; HF: He is Gus's brother.
 ; 
 ; BN: Gus's brother.
 ; 
 ; HF: Huh. Full brother.
 ; 
 ; BN: And Lee Johnson.
 ; 
 ; HF: Yeah. Gus, Lee, and Loddie
 ; 
 ; [00:12:00
 ; 
 ; ]
 ; 
 ; (Lowdwick Johnson). Remember Loddie?
 ; 
 ; BN: No, I never did know Loddie.
 ; 
 ; HF: He was the youngest one.
 ; 
 ; BN: That right?
 ; 
 ; HF: You know Charles Ray?
 ; 
 ; BN: Yeah.
 ; 
 ; HF: That's his dad. Loddie.
 ; 
 ; WN: Loddie was his dad.
 ; 
 ; BN: Yeah, I know Charles Ray [indecipherable].
 ; 
 ; HF: He came out here a while back and we sat out there and talked to him.
 ; 
 ; WN: He's a nice looking fella, isn't he?
 ; 
 ; HF: Yeah, he's a good guy.
 ; 
 ; WN: Yeah, he's a nice person.
 ; 
 ; HF: I didn't know who he married. I noticed his dad and mother, I mean, her dad
 ; and mother she was down in the rest home for a while.
 ; 
 ; WN: Interesting people back in those days.
 ; 
 ; HF: Yeah, I guess they will be.
 ; 
 ; WN: Listen, we're going to stop for right now.
 ; 
 ; audio 0 https://viewer.mybcpl.org/viewer.php?cachefile=/render.php?cachefile=OHP-0048B_Howard_Fugate.xml OHP-0048B_Howard_Fugate.xml
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Title
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Howard Lem Fugate - Part 2
Description
An account of the resource
In this continued 1993 interview with Howard Fugate, he talks more in depth about all the different oil field items, among other things, that he hauled with his wagon team.
Identifier
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OHP-0048B
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1993-05-24
Format
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audio
-
https://bristoworalhistory.org/files/original/e11ba7bf7fd98b76eea31f117fa18eb1.jpg
c62a61b35a0311c58de7f5a0059672d7
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
Family Histories
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral accounts of various family histories
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Wanda Newton
Bill Newton
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Howard Fugate
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-0048A_Howard_Fugate.xml
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 May 24, 1993 OHP-0048A Howard Fugate OHP-0048A 0:00-27:33 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Bristow Historical Society, Inc. Howard Fugate Wanda Newton Bill Newton 1:|31(5)|60(2)|79(12)|95(10)|126(4)|146(4)|171(12)|208(5)|239(2)|269(1)|304(2)|333(4)|349(6)|361(4)|407(6)|455(10)|488(3)|532(4)|573(10)|617(5)|666(9)|677(4)|694(14)|716(4)|737(6)|758(7)|787(6) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0049A Fugate, Howard.mp3 Other audio 0 Team Wagon Hauling WN: This is Wanda Newton. Bill and I are at the home of Howard Fugate on south Poplar and… BN: Poplar and Pueblo. WN: Yeah. Poplar and Pueblo. Mr. Fugate is 89 years young. HF: Right. WN: And he's just given us a tour of his neat garden that he has planted. And I've looked at his great workshop that's all very neat. BN: This is May the 24th. WN: Yeah, this is May the 24th 1993, he is sharing some pictures of his family and of his horses and he's told us some tales and he was starting to tell me about a contractor who used to have mules here down where the housing development is. So he's gonna tell us about that contractor that didn't treat his mules very nice. HF: I had a hundred mules. Howard tells about hauling pipe in the oil fields with team wagon. mud hog ; mules ; wagon team wagon hauling 128 Early Oil Field Days WN: Oh, too scary. Well, tell me about the early oil field days. HF: The early ones. WN: Yeah. Uhhuh. HF: Well, the early days when we first started, we come in into Bristow here, well, we moved the boiler off of a flat car, down by Slick, the first heavy step we ever hauled. And dad made it for old man Richardson, had a sawmill down there, old JS Richardson, just right out this side of Slick . And dad reinforced that bridge out there, Sand Creek Bridge to haul that boiler across. And we hauled that down. Howard remembers having team wagons and hauling boilers, among other items, in the oil field. boiler ; John Roberts ; John Shelton Richardson ; oil field ; Sand Creek Bridge ; Slick oil field days 457 John Bishop WN: Well, one time I was talking to John Bishop and he said he was over there making money off of Tom Slick and all of 'em selling them groceries. HF: Yeah he, well, that he had that store there with the mules was right there by him, see.. WN: Oh yeah. BN: John did. Yeah. WN: Well, I asked him one time about the depression, how the depression affected him, and was he poor? And he said, no, I never was poor. BN: He said, I worked and made money. WN: He said, I always made money off of somebody else. Howard and Wanda discuss John Bishop and how he was always working to make money, even during the Depression. John Bishop ; The Depression ; Tom Slick John Bishop 533 Early Life in Bristow WN: 25 years. I mean, where did you live in Bristow before you, when you first came? HF: Oh. I was born right out here, east of Bristow. WN: Yeah, I know. HF: And I worked in the oil field about all my life and I never lived in Bristow very much, see. WN: You just lived east of town then. HF: Lived and on the, I lived right over here when our baby, she'll be this fall, she'll be 60 years old and she was born about, about three miles east of here on a lease, see. Hazel (Lorene Fugate Smith) and Virginia, you know, both of them. Howard talks about being born in Bristow but always living outside of Bristow in the country east of town. early life ; Hazel Lorene Fugate Smith early life 579 Businesses on Main Street WN: Do you rem, do you remember anything about the Main Street or any special people or stores down on Main Street? Do you remember when the Conger Opera House burned or? Do you remember an opera house down on Main Street? BN: It's on east sixth street. WN: Or a livery stable? I've been trying to find the names of some livery stables that were here. Do you remember the names of any liv, livery? HF: One of 'em was the Star. WN: One of 'em was the Star. HF: Star. BN: And where was it? Do you remember? HF: Huh? It was on Fourth Street right off of right there, out where the Oklahoma, I mean the Goodyear Tire is now. Howard remembers the Star Livery Stable, board sidewalks and dirt streets. Conger Opera House ; dirt streets ; livery stables ; Star Livery Stable main street businesses 686 School WN: Sack of candy. Well then where did you go to school? Did you go to school? Did you go? HF: Did they have any school back then. I graduated out here at the Lovett School house. WN: Oh shoot. BN: Is that where you got your brick out of? WN: Is that where you got your brick? BN: No, I mean our brick. WN: Our brick from the Lovett School. BN: The [indecipherable] get that out of the Lovett School? Howard remembers attending school at the Lovett School House. Lovett School ; OF Kane School 748 Wagons for Work HF: [Indecipherable] when Slick was first started. It was on a farm out there and I had traded a horse and saddle for a pair of old mules, old mules, and a steel wheel wagon. And we had a dump, dump bed on the wagon. And you didn't raise it up like you do these trucks. You, it was built out of 2x4s. And you'd sharpen each end see it just so you get a hold of it and you put the end gate in when you get to the location, you just pull the end gate up out each end and start pulling that 2x4 outta one side and you could, that gravel would just run. WN: And just run right on. HF: And I went down there, my uncle was down there he had a contract moving blocks out of and coal cars and hauling to build houses down there. Howard recalls purchasing a steel wheel wagon with a dump bed and some mules to use for work. Mabel Mary Fugate ; mules ; Sam Gaskins ; Slick ; steel wheel wagon using wagons for work 856 Bristow Factories WN: Do you remember a brick factory being in Bristow? Do you remember any brick factory ever being in Bristow? You remember a glass plant? HF: Yeah. WN: You remember the glass plant? HF: Yeah. WN: Where was it exactly? Do you remember? HF: I think it, I thought it was over there pretty close to where [indecipherable] on East Fifth. WN: Oh, where the [indecipherable]. HF: I think it was. Howard remembers the glass plant, various cotton gins, and peanut plants in Bristow. brick factory ; cotton gins ; glass plant ; John Bishop ; Newby ; peanut plant Bristow factories 995 Drugstores HF: See we, we still live down there by Slick. We raised cotton and corn, some corn. [Inaudible] Who's them drugstores [indecipherable]? Actually, let's see. See if I can see. [Inaudible] WN: Is there a Humes Drugstore one that, was there a Humes Drugstore or a Duncan? HF: I wouldn't see. WN: Cahill was, how about Cahill? BN: Well, Cahill been up here in this middle block, middle of this block. WN: I don't know when Cahill came, but he was one of our town characters, wasn't he? BN: We can put this under our magnifying glass. WN: Yeah, maybe. BN: See a little bit more. Howard remember various drugstores in Bristow. Cahill Drugstore ; Duncan Drugstore ; Humes Drugstore drugstores 1036 City Park Picnics WN: Yeah we'll take it and see. Well, is there anything that you remember, particularly in your life as you were growing up or anything about coming to Bristow for any celebrations, like I read in the paper where they had big celebrations in the park and had big picnics. HF: At where? WN: At? Out in the Park. BN: City Park. HF: You know where it was? WN: No. Where was it? HF: It was right north of 12th Street. BN: Out there at Sand Pipe Hill. HF: Where that standpipe is. WN: Oh. BN: That was the park then. Howard recalls enjoying picnics at the city park which was located on 12th Street on Standpipe Hill. city park ; Fourth of July ; picnics ; S & ; M Drugstore ; Standpipe Hill ; Winey Harjo city park picnics 1259 Country Living HF: Yeah. And they was raised in town. We was raised in the country. I never lived in town when I was growing up. We'd go down there, come in there and a bunch of them and old these other city boys would take us down out that creek and we'd climb up them long willow trees and bend them over and load 'em down and they'd keep, I know, keep a edge in this little fell to get up on my head, see, and then they, the old big boys would jump off. Tree would be way over here, see, and the water was way over there. WN: Oh man. [Indecipherable] It's a wonder you lived to tell the tale. HF: It was, it was fun, it was rough, see. Momma'd, get after us and she'd [indecipherable] every boy [indecipherable]. Howard remembers always being raised in the country playing in the creeks, raising cattle and farming. Jesse Allen ; Lucy Johnson ; Oklahoma Territory ; Slick ; Wyatt School country life MP3 In this 1993 interview with Howard Fugate, he talks about using wagon teams to haul boilers, oil men, living in Bristow, his children, livery stables, attending school, cotton gins and the drugstores in town. Users are warned that there may be words and descriptions which may be culturally sensitive and which might not normally be used in certain public or community contexts. Terms and annotations which reflect the creator' ; s attitude or that of the period in which the item was written may be considered inappropriate today. WN: This is Wanda Newton. Bill and I are at the home of Howard Fugate on south Poplar and-- BN: Poplar and Pueblo. WN: Yeah. Poplar and Pueblo. Mr. Fugate is 89 years young. HF: Right. WN: And he' ; s just given us a tour of his neat garden that he has planted. And I' ; ve looked at his great workshop that' ; s all very neat. BN: This is May the 24th. WN: Yeah, this is May the 24th 1993, he is sharing some pictures of his family and of his horses and he' ; s told us some tales and he was starting to tell me about a contractor who used to have mules here down where the housing development is. So he' ; s gonna tell us about that contractor that didn' ; t treat his mules very nice. HF: I had a hundred mules. WN: He had a hundred mules and he didn' ; t put shoes on their feet. Half the time. HF: And at one time we went out, we were going out to the cemetery. We went out there with a load of pipe, see, and we had ice shoes on our horses. And this contractor had 10 teams on one big wagon, see? And had a mud hog on. WN: What' ; s a mud hog? HF: It' ; s what they pump mud into these wells and [indecipherable]. WN: Oh, okay. HF: And I was in the lead and I drove up behind them and they, half the mules was down, see on that ice. BN: Yeah. HF: And I just pulled off in the bar ditch and drove right on around. We was loaded. Had one team load on each wagon-- BN: and had ice shoes. HF: Yeah. BN: On your mules? HF: Yeah, on our horses and mules. We had some mules. BN: Yeah. HF: I liked horses better in the oil field than I do mules. You can' ; t work from a mule around a steam engine very good. WN: How come? HF: Too scary? WN: Oh, too scary. Well, tell me about the early oil field days. HF: The early ones. WN: Yeah. Uhhuh. HF: Well, the early days when we first started, we come in into Bristow here, well, we moved the boiler off of a flat car, down by Slick, the first heavy step we ever hauled. And dad made it for old man Richardson, had a sawmill down there, old JS Richardson, just right out this side of Slick . And dad reinforced that bridge out there, Sand Creek Bridge to haul that boiler across. And we hauled that down. We have, we come in here with one team to move it and we was getting three, three more teams or two more teams left. No, it' ; s three. You had to have four teams on a boiler, see, then you could put, and we hauled some stuff. There used to be a big tank out there right across this road from where, where McAdams (ph) place is right in front McAdams (ph), right in the little curve, right in the creek. We hauled some stuff out there, just light stuff on a wagon, bed [indecipherable]. And then we got these teams and we moved out down there and they put it in the boiler house, take it, drug it in there, you know, with teams after unload off the wagon, drug it in there, and set it up in that big building. We started in about ' ; 22, see, when we started in. We had seven teams most of the time, so-- WN: That' ; s you and your father combined? HF: My brothers. WN: And your brothers? HF: Yeah. And [indecipherable]. You work for $8 a day. See, team, wagon, horse. BN: Yeah. HF: I' ; ll bet, I bet you this, see, this is what you call a housing, see? That there. WN: Oh, Uhhuh. HF: That' ; s the decoration on on. See here, dad. He didn' ; t care anything about, see, he didn' ; t have nothing on his team, see. WN: Yeah. HF: And them rings, every time I' ; d get two or three dollars extra, I' ; d buy-- WN: Something fancy for your horse? HF: Yeah. WN: Whatever happened to that contractor with all of these mules? HF: Well, I don' ; t know. He course they was, I bet they was 25 or 30 contractors here. Old doc Jones was, I forget now, what was there where seven, I mean Super H is now. WN: Oh, Uhhuh. HF: All that block in there, there was teams out there on Seventh Street, facing Seventh Street. You remember old Grassy (ph) that stayed at the police station, all the time? WN: Oh, lopsided. Yeah. HF: He worked, he was what called a barn dog. He stayed around and looked after the barn-- WN: And took care of the-- HF: Well, he didn' ; t take care of all of ' ; em, so he couldn' ; t, John Roberts was his name, that he had a bunch of good teams and, but this [indecipherable], Scott, he' ; s the one that had the the old poor mules and everything and he, he got just as much as we did, but he couldn' ; t get so much done. BN: So, yeah. WN: Well, did you do you remember anything exciting that happened during the, when you were working in the oil fields, when the wells came in? How was it? And people get excited. Did they come out or? HF: Well, see, I wasn' ; t around too much then when the well come in. But yeah, they got excited and, just like, did you remember reading, oh, what was the old oil man that died a couple years ago? Back... WN: Frierson? Kirschner? HF: Kirschner. BN: Brick. HF: You read that? Do you remember reading that? WN: Yes, I remember seeing that. HF: I kept that for a long while. See, he, he worked out of Slick now when he first started and he' ; s talking about coming, getting by them teams a lot of times. We went out here one time dad sent us up here to the oil well supply there on Sixth Street. WN: Uhhuh. BN: Yeah. HF: To get a, a boiler, move it out just right this side of the bridge. And well up there on the south side of the road, we had to pull out there and turn up that hillside. And I was driving this team right here then I was working these horses. I had them in the lead. We only had three teams on that boiler there, but hit at a [indecipherable] in the middle and I' ; d never handled up one up. I' ; m saving my life. WN: But you made it up the hill and everything? HF: Well, I did we had trouble loading it. We broke every chain we had jumping them horses into the you can push it back a little bit to get ' ; em to the face and push ' ; em back. And then step back and holler, come here or here. And they just said anything. Just like a-- BN: [indecipherable]. HF: Yeah. BN: But did you know about J Paul Getty? HF: He was an oilfield man. BN: Yeah. HF: Yeah. WN: Did you ever encounter Tom Slick or anything? HF: Well, I remember him seeing when he was here. WN: Well, one time I was talking to John Bishop and he said he was over there making money off of Tom Slick and all of ' ; em selling them groceries. HF: Yeah he, well, that he had that store there with the mules was right there by him, see.. WN: Oh yeah. BN: John did. Yeah. WN: Well, I asked him one time about the depression, how the depression affected him, and was he poor? And he said, no, I never was poor. BN: He said, I worked and made money. WN: He said, I always made money off of somebody else. HF: Oh, I guess he' ; s he didn' ; t make any off me. He wouldn' ; t loan me any money. He loaned Mack (ph) money. BN: Yeah. HF: And I thought maybe I borrowed $8,500 one time to buy [indecipherable] in Virginia. WN: Yeah. HF: They was in with me there on that steamer. And he told me he didn' ; t have that kind of money, and anytime he wanted to buy a car or anything he' ; d go and tell them. WN: He had charm. Huh? HF: He' ; d say, tell go around and tell [indecipherable] to give you so and so. BN: Yeah. WN: Shoot. Oh. When did you all move out here? HF: 25 years ago. WN: 25 years. I mean, where did you live in Bristow before you, when you first came? HF: Oh. I was born right out here, east of Bristow. WN: Yeah, I know. HF: And I worked in the oil field about all my life and I never lived in Bristow very much, see. WN: You just lived east of town then. HF: Lived and on the, I lived right over here when our baby, she' ; ll be this fall, she' ; ll be 60 years old and she was born about, about three miles east of here on a lease, see. Hazel (Lorene Fugate Smith) and Virginia, you know, both of them. WN: Yes. Yeah. HF: And they was born just a mile east of Bristow here, out there where we had our team see. WN: Yeah. HF: And WN: Do you rem, do you remember anything about the Main Street or any special people or stores down on Main Street? Do you remember when the Conger Opera House burned or? Do you remember an opera house down on Main Street? BN: It' ; s on east sixth street. WN: Or a livery stable? I' ; ve been trying to find the names of some livery stables that were here. Do you remember the names of any liv, livery? HF: One of ' ; em was the Star. WN: One of ' ; em was the Star. HF: Star. BN: And where was it? Do you remember? HF: Huh? It was on Fourth Street right off of right there, out where the Oklahoma, I mean the Goodyear Tire is now. BN: Oh yeah. On west fourth. HF: And there was one up there right on Fifth Street, right on the corner. Where that filling station on Fifth and Main. BN: Yeah. HF: There' ; s one there. And the, and they was, there was, yeah. I remember when that they had board sidewalks here. WN: Oh, you do? HF: And when and right there where you come off of the board sidewalk, there was two steps, from down on to sixth street. WN: Uhhuh. HF: And all them streets was muddy, you know, and I remember when they used to spray, spray them streets, you know, with a wagon and team. WN: Oh, to keep the dust down? HF: Yeah. I, yeah. When we first started going to town well we lived on, in the country on a farm, we never got to go to town very often and, and that, but dad went to town about every Saturday. See, he' ; d haul [indecipherable] back. We called him [indecipherable]. BN: Yeah. WN: Sack of candy. Well then where did you go to school? Did you go to school? Did you go? HF: Did they have any school back then. I graduated out here at the Lovett School house. WN: Oh shoot. BN: Is that where you got your brick out of? WN: Is that where you got your brick? BN: No, I mean our brick. WN: Our brick from the Lovett School. BN: The [indecipherable] get that out of the Lovett School? WN: I don' ; t think so. I, one time Mr. OF Kane, did you know him at Slick? HF: Yeah. Yeah. WN: Anyway, he had a bunch of old brick to sell, and so I went over to buy that old brick so I could make a patio back behind my house, and I' ; d get up before the store open and go over to Slick. BN: And she' ; d use a pickup from the store? WN: I' ; d use the pickup from the store, and I, it' ; d be 5:30 or 6:00 early in the morning and I' ; d be throwing that brick in the bed of the pickup, you know, and it' ; d clunk, clunk. And finally, some of the people in Slick came and told me not to come early in the morning anymore. I was waking up the town. HF: [Indecipherable] when Slick was first started. It was on a farm out there and I had traded a horse and saddle for a pair of old mules, old mules, and a steel wheel wagon. And we had a dump, dump bed on the wagon. And you didn' ; t raise it up like you do these trucks. You, it was built out of 2x4s. And you' ; d sharpen each end see it just so you get a hold of it and you put the end gate in when you get to the location, you just pull the end gate up out each end and start pulling that 2x4 outta one side and you could, that gravel would just run. WN: And just run right on. HF: And I went down there, my uncle was down there he had a contract moving blocks out of and coal cars and hauling to build houses down there. And I went down there and worked two or three days when I was just a kid with him, you know, hauling bricks and stuff and built that and, you know, where, oh, have you, was you out at the rest home while when Mabel (Mary Fugate) was in there? She was in the room there with an old lady that her husband was raised, they worked at Slick and had a whole bunch of big old boys. What was their name? He died there. Several years before she did see I, Sam Gaskins. WN: Oh, Gaskins. HF: Know where the Gaskins, you know where they live there? WN: Yes. HF: I hauled brick and stuff there to that building and one, right, right, west of us now or east of us. WN: Do you remember a brick factory being in Bristow? Do you remember any brick factory ever being in Bristow? You remember a glass plant? HF: Yeah. WN: You remember the glass plant? HF: Yeah. WN: Where was it exactly? Do you remember? HF: I think it, I thought it was over there pretty close to where [indecipherable] on East Fifth. WN: Oh, where the [indecipherable]. HF: I think it was. WN: Over in that area. HF: I believe that' ; s where it was. WN: Okay. And another thing, do you remember where all the cotton gins were? Exactly? HF: Oh yeah, most of them. WN: Okay. Can tell me where you think they were? HF: Well, there' ; s, you know, over there where on Eighth Street, north Eighth Street, there' ; s one there. BN: John, where John Bishop' ; s was. WN: Where John Bishop' ; s was. HF: Where John Bishop, that there was a scale house, where his office was. WN: Yeah. HF: Where you weighed your cotton and there was, they was one down there by the railroad, right north of the ice plant, see. WN: Where Root' ; s kind of have their-- BN: You' ; re about third street then. HF: Huh? Between-- WN: Fourth and Fifth. HF: Between Third and Fourth. BN: Third and Fourth. WN: Between Third. Oh yeah. HF: And then there' ; s one, there was two right across there, right across the there from, oh, on, on south Main there. And on Second Street, you know. BN: Where the old peanut lady in there. HF: Yeah. Where the peanut plant. WN: Oh, well there was a, HF: There' ; s a, there was seven here at one time. WN: Wow. HF: There' ; s Epps and Jones. Jones had one, and Abraham. BN: Does [indecipherable] have one then? WN: Or Bishop or? HF: I don' ; t think Bishop had it. BN: Maybe the only one they had was down there by Newby. HF: Yeah, they had that one at Newby. BN: Newby, yeah. HF: And yeah, we' ; ve hauled cotton. I' ; ve hauled cotton up there and seen a lot of them. Lemme go out there and get that other picture. You might get. WN: Calendars that Eddie Strong used to. HF: Yeah. WN: Used to Eddie do that. HF: Two or three years ago. WN: Well, now I don' ; t know that he did the calendars. I believe Shamases did the calendars and he saved them. I remember reading one time where Shamases says were, HF: Yeah. WN: Collecting pictures or people would bring pictures in and then they' ; d make ' ; em into calendars. HF: Yeah. WN: You know, and this is a, HF: If you wanna take that and put it up there. WN: Alright I' ; ll take this. This is September the 10th, 1916 of the [indecipherable]. HF: See we, we still live down there by Slick. We raised cotton and corn, some corn. [Inaudible] Who' ; s them drugstores [indecipherable]? Actually, let' ; s see. See if I can see. [Inaudible] WN: Is there a Humes Drugstore one that, was there a Humes Drugstore or a Duncan? HF: I wouldn' ; t see. WN: Cahill was, how about Cahill? BN: Well, Cahill been up here in this middle block, middle of this block. WN: I don' ; t know when Cahill came, but he was one of our town characters, wasn' ; t he? BN: We can put this under our magnifying glass. WN: Yeah, maybe. BN: See a little bit more. WN: Yeah we' ; ll take it and see. Well, is there anything that you remember, particularly in your life as you were growing up or anything about coming to Bristow for any celebrations, like I read in the paper where they had big celebrations in the park and had big picnics. HF: At where? WN: At? Out in the Park. BN: City Park. HF: You know where it was? WN: No. Where was it? HF: It was right north of 12th Street. BN: Out there at Sand Pipe Hill. HF: Where that standpipe is. WN: Oh. BN: That was the park then. HF: Let' ; s see, the picture there of my mother and dad, of course, she didn' ; t have that then. Where that, well, the one you got right on top. BN: This one. HF: Lemme see that. I remember, of course, I couldn' ; t then, see, I went after, long after this. Well, I had it before 17. Now she died in 17. So, WN: Yeah. HF: I remember going to picnic, Fourth of July picnic, right there by the standpipe. And some kid, dad said, had a one of them cap pistols. WN: Uhhuh. HF: And they were around there cutting up and this and that, and he just said, let me have your pistol, wanting to shoot his wife. And he put it up in her face and powder burned her face. She died with that. BN: Oh. HF: Yeah, she passed. BN: Is that right? HF: He did it. That cap was an extra, a larger one, or something wanted come through there. WN: Oh, my word. HF: Just powder burned her face. WN: Oh my word. But what did you do at the picnics? HF: What did we do? WN: Yeah. HF: Well, you drink lemonade and. WN: Did you take your own lunch and everything? HF: Yeah. Yeah. WN: And put your food all out together or did you eat it? HF: Well, I dunno whether we put it all together or just eat it. I imagine they did, see. WN: And you had ball games or what did you do? HF: Just pitch horseshoes and stuff like that. And us kids just run and played and all we know to do. WN: Did you get-- BN: Well, you was wondering about the drugstore while ago. Here' ; s what you was wondering about, wasn' ; t it? That' ; d be the S& ; M Drugstore. I bet. WN: Okay. HF: Is that a S& ; M? Was that Smith? There used to be a WN: Smith' ; s Drugstore on the corner. HF: Yeah. WN: Well, let me go back to the BN: [Indecipherable] WN: Yeah. BN: [Indecipherable]. WN: Well, let me go back to the picnic stuff a minute. Did you did, were there any tables there or anything, or was just a field? HF: No. No, you just had to put her on the ground or bring your own.... WN: What about chiggars and ticks and stuff like that? HF: All, I don' ; t never remember them bothering, bothering anything like they do now. BN: [Indecipherable] HF: We could left them home, see, instead of taking them with us. BN: Yes. WN: Well, lemme ask you Mrs. Harjo, you know Winey Harjo? But she told me there used to be HF: Winey, wasn' ; t it? WN: Yeah. Is it Winey? I always call her Winey. BN: Winey. WN: I know it' ; s Winey. BN: She calls it Winey. WN: I don' ; t know. HF: I don' ; t know. Yeah. Is she still living? WN: Uhhuh? BN: Yeah. WN: Yeah. She' ; s 90 something. BN: Out north of town. HF: Huh WN: She' ; s HF: Out there. Yeah, I know where she lives. WN: Yeah. Well she was telling me there used to be lots of trees and everything. Do you remember trees being... HF: Oh yeah. Yeah, there was a lot of trees out there and all that down in there and big rocks and this and that. WN: And she' ; d play in the creek sometimes down there. HF: Well, the creek was half mile east of town here, see, where BN: You in the same creek? HF: Yeah. I can remember when I was that small, my uncle and aunt by the name of Charlie Brown, and dad' ; s sister lived up here pretty close to the corner of Oak and first up there, you know, WN: Uhhuh. HF: Yeah. And they was raised in town. We was raised in the country. I never lived in town when I was growing up. We' ; d go down there, come in there and a bunch of them and old these other city boys would take us down out that creek and we' ; d climb up them long willow trees and bend them over and load ' ; em down and they' ; d keep, I know, keep a edge in this little fell to get up on my head, see, and then they, the old big boys would jump off. Tree would be way over here, see, and the water was way over there. WN: Oh man. [Indecipherable] It' ; s a wonder you lived to tell the tale. HF: It was, it was fun, it was rough, see. Momma' ; d, get after us and she' ; d [indecipherable] every boy [indecipherable]. WN: What kind of relationship did y' ; all have? Did you have any Indian neighbors or anything like that? HF: Yeah, we had the old Uncle Jesse Allen out there when we was growing up down there by Slick. Well, they had a, he had cattle over this country, see, white-faced cattle. And he would, and owned a lot of land. He would, would he put them cattle in them stalk field and feed ' ; em out, you know, after they gathered the crop, and if they got into anybody else' ; s crop, well, back in them days you' ; d charge, it was a customary, you' ; d charge someone a dollar a head for anything that you caught up, you know? BN: Yeah. HF: And I remember a place dad owned up there north of the eight-mile corner, one mile on top of that hill. He bought that in 1910, and he had a couple of sharecroppers up there, see. And we lived down there by where Lucy Johnson lived. WN: Oh, Uhhuh. HF: That' ; s where my youngest brother was born there. WN: Oh. HF: Then he had a field right close to them up there, and they got into them old, that old people' ; s field and just eat the food outta that cotton and corn. And he, they put ' ; em in the lot and he went up there and kicked the gate down and drove them out had Winchester shotguns and he and my dad bought a Johnny. Fair (ph). Fair (ph), I guess it was two of them boys, they used to work for them. Married one of them married Lucy' ; s sister. WN: Uhhuh. HF: Ella, did you ever know that? WN: I' ; ve heard Ms. Johnson speak of Ella. HF: And dad bought a load of corn on off ' ; em about 1910. Her brothers and them that is Joe' ; s half-brothers. WN: Uhhuh. HF: They proceeded to come get that corn. Dad, dad used to go on these [indecipherable], hunting these bank robbers and horse thieves. When they' ; d call him, well, he' ; d always go. We lived up there in the holler between here and the Wyatt School House on the, see, the old road didn' ; t used to come from Sapulpa down here. It didn' ; t follow the section line like it is now. WN: Uhhuh. HF: It cut across. It crossed out here, oh, I can remember where it crossed the road 66 out there. And come in, we used to come into town from out east of town, back northeast, down in, in what we called nigger town, across down of the railroad bridge. WN: Oh, Uhhuh. HF: We come in down across there [indecipherable]. That' ; s where the old trail went. WN: And what trail was that? What was it called? HF: OT. WN: Oklahoma Territory. HF: And they come over there to get that corn one night and we did have some hard hands was we had an old long log house there and they built that another lumber house down in the valley, like it is. It was about far from my garage street out here, down on the hill. And I remember she went to the, my mother went to the door with a shotgun and she' ; d shoot the first one that test that wagon. He pulled it in that wagon shed there at the barn and had to unload it. And he went on this [indecipherable] and they was going to take that wagon and all. WN: She was a pretty brave soul then, wasn' ; t she? BN: Eight-mile corner one you were talking about [indecipherable]. WN: Yeah. HF: And you know, what when we lived down there by Slick, he put his cattle in there where on Lucy' ; s place. He' ; d [indecipherable], one day and when they' ; d owe us a bunch of the nights we would, even when we had cattle in, we' ; d we' ; d bunch ' ; em, you know, all night and try to bed them down before we leave ' ; em, and he had a we called ' ; em niggers then see he had a nigger of BN: Were they slaves? HF: Huh? WN: No. HF: No, there wasn' ; t. No, I don' ; t remember any slaves around there. WN: They were freed people. BN: Yeah. Freedmen. HF: Yeah. They was and, but that we had crank phones, you know? And he went and ran, he called him Uncle Jesse WN: Uhhuh. HF: And he said Uncle Jesse said, I heard him talk to him. I remember just, well, he said that, damn nigger of yours bunch them cattle up in my field down there and said, and the sand had washed down off that hillside we live on. And that fence wasn' ; t much over that high. WN: Uhhuh. HF: And that' ; s the only year that I ever remember his farm. So, he farmed here in 20, the last time he farmed down in around Oklahoma. But he said, I' ; ve got corn and cotton in that field. And he said, I, he said the old man hung up on him, see. And said, I got a man looking after the cattle. The next morning there was 101 of ' ; em in our field. WN: Oh! BN: That right? HF: And Emmett, my old brother and a hard hand, and dad put ' ; em in the WN: Pins. HF: Big hole. audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0048A_Howard_Fugate.xml OHP-0048A_Howard_Fugate.xml
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Howard Lem Fugate - Part 1
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In this 1993 interview with Howard Fugate, he talks about using wagon teams to haul boilers, oil men, living in Bristow, his children, livery stables, attending school, cotton gins and the drugstores in town.
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OHP-0048A
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1993-05-24
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audio
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Family Histories
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Oral History
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Oral accounts of various family histories
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Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Wanda Newton
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Percy Mayes
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https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0047A_Percy_Mayes.xml
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5.4 August, 17, 1992 OHP-0047A Percy Mayes - Part 1 OHP-0047A 00:00 to 30:02 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Bristow Historical Society, Inc. Percy Mayes Wanda Newton 1:|10(8)|31(18)|58(4)|67(12)|80(5)|98(10)|108(13)|122(10)|151(3)|176(7)|197(7)|215(1)|222(2)|232(14)|248(10)|264(9)|275(5)|283(8)|291(4)|300(8)|317(3)|349(2)|373(6)|390(7)|405(12)|427(16)|440(10)|458(11)|479(4)|510(7) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0047A Mayes, Percy.mp3 Other audio 0 Family WN: August the 16th, and I'm in the church that the Reverend Mayes, Percy Mayes has helped establish, and he's gonna tell us today about himself and also about his church. First of all, Reverend Mayes, I'd like for you to tell us your full name and when you were born and anything you can think of, like your parents and your grandparents, their names on both sides of the family because we want this to go in the genealogical library in Bristow. And maybe one of these days, one of your grandchildren may come back and wanna know everything about Granddaddy. PM: Thank you. I'm Percy Alford Mayes. My parents were Eric Arthur Mayes and Gurtha L. (Lee) Wortham Mayes. There were six children born to the family. I have one older brother, Ozie Mayes, who passed away last year. The rest of the children are all living. Just one had passed. Reverend Mayes talks about his parents and his siblings and where he was born. Arthur City, Texas ; Doris Maybell Mayes Terry ; Eric Arthur Mayes ; Gurtha Lee Wortham Mayes ; Ozie Lee Mayes ; Roxie Lillian Mayes Tate ; Vera Mayes Dade family 173 Coming to Bristow WN: And did you come up to Bristow about when, Reverend Mayes? PM: I came up, I came to Bristow with my parents in 1929, in the month of November. WN: You came right at the height of the depression then, didn't you? PM: Yes. And just before in that awfully bad winter, 29 went to 29, 30 real cold. We walked across a pond during the time when it was real cold being in an area we were unfamiliar with, we did not know that we were walking across a pond on our way to school because it was all iced over, and you just think he was walking on the ground if he didn't know where he was. So one day on our way from school, from the Sand Creek School in Okfuskee County, east of Boley. We walked out on the pond that we didn't know was there, and it began to crack. Reverend Mayes remembers coming to Bristow in 1929 with his parents. Boley (Okla.) ; Sand Creek School coming to Bristow 261 School PM: Fell in the pond or anything like that. But the entire group, that is myself, the rest of the children, finished our elementary schooling at the Sand Creek School. I went on along with my brother to Boley High School, where we finished high school in 1937. During that time, we were, they were accepting boys in the service and they had a cc, what they call a CC Camp. There, boys could find employment. When I was not able to get enough money to go to college, I wanted to be in the CC Camp where I could earn enough to get, WN: Yeah, that was amazing. PM: To pay for my own college education, and there was a group of boys along with myself who took the examination, and we were all accepted, but they took the number they wanted before they got to me. I left home to go to work, then, in order to put myself through college. Reverend Mayes remembers attending school at Boley High School and also attending a CC Camp to find employment and raise enough money to attend college. Boley High School ; CC Camp ; college ; Thelma Ryans Mayes CC Camp ; school 471 Married Life WN: How old were you when you were married? PM: 21. WN: 21. And how old was Thelma? PM: Thelma, if I got a correct age, she was 19. WN: Very romantic. PM: And we've lived ever, we've lived together since that time. Have six children. Reverend Mays recalls marrying his wife, Thelma Ryans Mayes and also talks about his children. He had six children, five girls and one boy. The only boy passed away at a young age. Eliza G. Watts Ryan ; marriage ; Thelma Ryans Mayes children ; married life 637 Ministry PM: And I have always studied the Bible from a small child. I've been interested in what was written in the scripture, the message for us. WN: You've always had such a wonderful way of speaking every time I've ever been around where you've done anything, you just do the Word so nicely. You put everything together so well. PM: I think you, kindly. I believe in studying and I love it. I still do that today. I'm doing a little more writing now than ever before. So, I was appointed a deacon of the church at an early age at Saint Emanuel Baptist Church, where I served as superintendent, the Sunday School at one time, and also, a deacon of the church. WN: Alright, now. Where is that church? PM: It's at Boley, Reverend Mayes recalls studying the Bible from a young age. He felt called to the ministry. He was appointed Deacon of Saint Emanuel Baptist Church at an early age, and his love for ministry grew from there. Boley ; Greater Mt. Herman ; Saint Emanuel Baptist Church ; Sunday School 955 Duffey Chapel Baptist Church History PM: Duffey Chapel Baptist Church History. This was written in 1981. WN: Okay. PM: “In Bristow, Oklahoma, on August the 15th, 1919, near a persimmon tree on the east side of this present structure, Reverend Frank Duffey, Mrs. Frank (Lela) Duffey, Mr. Beatty Duffey, Brother McKinley Shoals and a borrowed deacon from Lincoln High named Johnny Williams, met in a small oil field house measuring approximately 14 by 14 by 16 feet. These charter members organized the Duffey Chapel Baptist Church and later purchased this lot where the church now stand for $125. Reverend Mayes reads the written history of the Duffey Chapel Baptist Church. American National Bank ; Beatty Duffey ; Carl Cole ; Clyde McDaniel ; Duffey Chapel Baptist Church ; First Baptist Church ; Johnny Williams ; Jonas Thompson ; Lela Duffey ; Lewis Hamilton ; Lincoln High School ; Lodge #74 ; M. Jones ; McKinley Shoals ; Raymond Bird ; Reverend A.M. Garrett ; Reverend David Shibley ; Reverend Eric Arthur Mayes ; Reverend Frank Duffey ; William Cheatham Duffey Chapel Baptist Church History 1307 Bristow Businesses WN: Great. And this might give us some other people to contact also when we get to do and on the black community. And then you have a summary of the past reunions there and some wonderful pictures. Oh, I think that's great. That is really good. I will. We surely will. Alright, now then, let me ask you, let's go back to the town then. Can you think of any businesses that were here on the street? I know some of 'em are gone 'cause I can remember there used to be a funeral home there, I know. Wasn't there? At one point in time. PM: The Fields Funeral Home (ph) was located in this block on the south side of the street and on the corner of the 10th and Chestnut Street, there was a hotel, a two-story building. Reverend Mayes recalls different businesses that were located near his church. Fields Grocery Store ; Masonic Lodge ; Oliver's Grocery Store ; Peevy Grocery Store ; Willie Fields Bristow businesses 1556 Living as a Black Individual in Bristow WN: You know what I really would like to know, too, is I'd like to know some of the feelings that some of the early people had about living in, in the Bristow area. What kind of relationships did we, I mean, to me it's always been really good. But then, see I was over there and somebody was over here, so I've never known of any friction but I'm sure there has been. But I know that horrible thing they had in Tulsa spilled over into Bristow at that one point in time when they were doing things to the Black. But I, I've always felt like that's the black people in our community have been so wonderful about so many things, some so cooperative and so, you know, they just have been, I don't know whether it, I just have wondered about their real feelings sometimes and it maybe it's not worth expressing, you know. Reverend Mayes recalls being black in Bristow was a peaceful experience, and that there was a lack of prejudice between the races. Boley ; Earl Walter Ford ; Lincoln School ; peaceful being black in Bristow MP3 In this 1992 interview, Reverend Percy Mayes talks about God’s call on his life to be in ministry, establishing the Duffey Chapel and businesses that were near his church. WN: August the 16th, and I' ; m in the church that the Reverend Mayes, Percy Mayes has helped establish, and he' ; s gonna tell us today about himself and also about his church. First of all, Reverend Mayes, I' ; d like for you to tell us your full name and when you were born and anything you can think of, like your parents and your grandparents, their names on both sides of the family because we want this to go in the genealogical library in Bristow. And maybe one of these days, one of your grandchildren may come back and wanna know everything about Granddaddy. PM: Thank you. I' ; m Percy Alford Mayes. My parents were Eric Arthur Mayes and Gurtha L. (Lee) Wortham Mayes. There were six children born to the family. I have one older brother, Ozie Mayes, who passed away last year. The rest of the children are all living. Just one had passed. WN: Give me their names, but before you give ' ; em the names, tell me how to spell Ozie' ; s name so we' ; ll have it right in the newsletter. PM: O Z I E. WN: O Z I E. Okay. PM: It' ; s really Ozie Lee Mayes. WN: Ozie Lee. Oh. PM: L E E M A Y E S. WN: Okay. PM: He' ; s oldest. I' ; m next to him. We attended grade school together, high school together. Even though Ozie was older than I, I finished high school with him. I guess I was a little more mischievous than he was, and I made two grades in one year. WN: Oh, how wonderful. PM: Caught up with him and stayed along with him until graduation. WN: All right, now what about the other four children? Can you give me their names too? PM: The other children, Vera (Mayes Dade) is next to me, then Velma, Roxie (Lillian Mayes Tate), Junior. That is, [indecipherable] May Junior, and Ola and Doris (Maybell Mayes Terry). WN: Alrighty. PM: All living. WN: Now where were you? Where were you born? In what area? PM: I was born in Arthur City, Texas WN: In Lamar County. PM: 1919, May 18th, 1919. WN: And did you come up to Bristow about when, Reverend Mayes? PM: I came up, I came to Bristow with my parents in 1929, in the month of November. WN: You came right at the height of the depression then, didn' ; t you? PM: Yes. And just before in that awfully bad winter, 29 went to 29, 30 real cold. We walked across a pond during the time when it was real cold being in an area we were unfamiliar with, we did not know that we were walking across a pond on our way to school because it was all iced over, and you just think he was walking on the ground if he didn' ; t know where he was. So one day on our way from school, from the Sand Creek School in Okfuskee County, east of Boley. We walked out on the pond that we didn' ; t know was there, and it began to crack. WN: Oh my. PM: We turned and went back and went around. So nobody got-- WN: You didn' ; t have catastrophe. PM: Fell in the pond or anything like that. But the entire group, that is myself, the rest of the children, finished our elementary schooling at the Sand Creek School. I went on along with my brother to Boley High School, where we finished high school in 1937. During that time, we were, they were accepting boys in the service and they had a cc, what they call a CC Camp. There, boys could find employment. When I was not able to get enough money to go to college, I wanted to be in the CC Camp where I could earn enough to get, WN: Yeah, that was amazing. PM: To pay for my own college education, and there was a group of boys along with myself who took the examination, and we were all accepted, but they took the number they wanted before they got to me. I left home to go to work, then, in order to put myself through college. WN: Now wait a minute. Back up. Was that discrimination? Was it white and black or were PM: No. WN: It was not. PM: No, it wasn' ; t discrimination. We just so happened that my family worked bottom land. We had good land where we were, and there was something to do all the time. And the yield from the crop planted was quite satisfactory. WN: Your father must have been a good farmer, wasn' ; t he? PM: He was. He was a good farmer, willing to work, and he was in good place where we were, but we just wasn' ; t able to get to college, so I ran away from home. I went to Texas, went to work over there and from where I was, I had intended to go on further south in Texas. And from there I had planned to go to Washington, the state of Washington, where I had an uncle who was quite well off. I wanted to get up there, not to get any of his money, nor his help but to work. And while I was there, this may sound a little funny, but it' ; s true. My brother married and his wife was a friend to Thelma. So [indecipherable] began to correspond with Thema. Thelma wrote me a little card, just a simple little postcard and whatever she had on it sound good. Instead of me going to Texas and to Washington, I came back to Bristow. I mean, I came back to Boley and we were married. WN: How old were you when you were married? PM: 21. WN: 21. And how old was Thelma? PM: Thelma, if I got a correct age, she was 19. WN: Very romantic. PM: And we' ; ve lived ever, we' ; ve lived together since that time. Have six children. WN: All right. Now I want you to be sure and tell me what her maiden name was now, and I want the names of all of your children, because this may be important one of these days. Very important. PM: All right. Her maiden name was Thelma Ryans. WN: Ryans. And can you tell me her mother and father' ; s names for your grandchildren? PM: Eliza Ryans was her mother. WN: Do you know what her maiden name was? PM: No, I don' ; t. WN: Okay. All right. I thought it might help your children one of these days. If you can think of it, maybe it' ; ll come to you or something. PM: I' ; m sorry. WN: That' ; s all right. I don' ; t know. PM: Dukes. *(Based on research, her name was possibly Eliza G. Watts Ryans.) WN: Oh, Dukes. That' ; s great. PM: It was Dukes. WN: that may help your child sometimes. PM: Yes, it was. It was really Dukes and that' ; s about all they is to it. WN: Alright, now then, give me the names of your children. PM: All of them? WN: All of them. And if you can do their birth dates, do that too. PM: I can' ; t. WN: You can' ; t. Okay. All right. Just gimme the names, their names PM: The oldest daughter is Garnett (ph). The next daughter is Marian (ph), then Margaret, Barbara, Anna and Brenda. WN: All pretty girls, huh? PM: All mean as they can be. The only boy born into our family was named Percy Alford Mayes. He suffocated and he was left in a car in Okemah while my wife was shopping, and he turned over towards his nose, toward the back seat. You know? WN: Yes. PM: He in the back seat with the nose toward the back of the seat and was down against the back of the seat and he kind of suffocated and then I guess the cool air or something pneumonia developed from, was too complicated from he passed away. WN: I know that was, PM: That' ; s the only boy we had in the family. WN: All those girls PM: and I have always studied the Bible from a small child. I' ; ve been interested in what was written in the scripture, the message for us. WN: You' ; ve always had such a wonderful way of speaking every time I' ; ve ever been around where you' ; ve done anything, you just do the Word so nicely. You put everything together so well. PM: I think you, kindly. I believe in studying and I love it. I still do that today. I' ; m doing a little more writing now than ever before. So, I was appointed a deacon of the church at an early age at Saint Emanuel Baptist Church, where I served as superintendent, the Sunday School at one time, and also, a deacon of the church. WN: Alright, now. Where is that church? PM: It' ; s at Boley, WN: At Boley. PM: East of Boley. WN: East of Boley. PM: Just a few miles east of Boley on 60 off of 62 highway south. And in my love for the study of the Bible, I was drawn to into a close fellowship with the Lord and the studying of the Bible because I wanted to be obedient to what was said in the Bible, and tried hard to live it. And working with different ministers, I felt the urge to surrender fully to the Lord and let him have his way in my life. And under Reverend JW Tumbling (ph) one of my favorite pastors, I felt the urge to preach, and yet I was so ashamed to get up before people. I didn' ; t like public speaking, but I felt that this is what God wanted me to do. So I surrendered to the call, preached my first sermon in Saint Emmanuel Baptist Church east of Boley. Later on, I was called to the, I was ordained and after ordination, I was called here to the church south of Bristow, the what, the church that is now Greater Mt. Herman. WN: Oh yes. PM: I pastored there two years, and after the two years, was up people here requested my service. here, but I was reluctant to leave that church because I really loved those people. They loved me. I was quite satisfied at that. But after praying over it, I felt that here was a place where the Lord wanted me to be. So I gave up, accepted a call here, and I moved here October 26th, 1950. I looked at the cemetery [undecipherable] on the east side of the church and there' ; s a rock there. I stood on that rock and summing everything up, I said for myself, five years here will be the limit. And I then, but I missed it. I' ; ve been here 42 years. WN: Oh my word. But now, when you first came, where were, was the church right here? PM: Yes, the church was on this spot. It was, it is a frame. It was a framed building here. WN: Okay. Now you' ; ve written the history of this church, haven' ; t you? PM: I have the history. I also have the picture, some pictures here. I' ; ve got ' ; em together for you. WN: Oh. Now can I take those pictures and have Mr. Coleman make some prints of them. So we' ; ll have ' ; em for the library and for the historical society? PM: If you can use them, you' ; d be quite welcome to them. WN: I don' ; t wanna take anything, I mean, I' ; ll have a print made of the things and then I' ; ll bring them back to you, but I surely want a copy of this, the history that you have written for our library down here. PM: I have it here. I have a copy for you. I have copies for you, and I will go over this one, if you will. WN: Oh yes. Now I do it orally because now we' ; ll have people that' ; ll come down to the library, won' ; t read, but they will listen. So if I' ; ve got it on the tape and I have it written and we have, you know, double contact. PM: Duffey Chapel Baptist Church History. This was written in 1981. WN: Okay. PM: " ; In Bristow, Oklahoma, on August the 15th, 1919, near a persimmon tree on the east side of this present structure, Reverend Frank Duffey, Mrs. Frank (Lela) Duffey, Mr. Beatty Duffey, Brother McKinley Shoals and a borrowed deacon from Lincoln High named Johnny Williams, met in a small oil field house measuring approximately 14 by 14 by 16 feet. These charter members organized the Duffey Chapel Baptist Church and later purchased this lot where the church now stand for $125. The church held an evangelistic crusade at the southeast corner of 10th and Poplar Streets. The meetings were held under tents borrowed from Mr. M Jones. Reverend Johnson conducted the meetings. This effort led to the building of a frame structure, serving as a meeting place for worship until it was demolished. Carpenters building this house were Mr. Shaw, Mr. John Hall and others. The first stage of our new building [indecipherable] was completed in 1964 with Mr. Manset Hale (ph) contractors. The plumbing and electrical work was done by Brother Caesar Tolen. The members of our brotherhood helped with the construction. On March 3rd, 1973, Brother Jonas Thompson offered a motion that we start on the sanctuary of the church. The motion passed and the construction began as soon as plans were completed. Building contractors were Mr. Clyde McDaniel, Mr. Carl Cole and Mr. Raymond Bird. Plumbing and electrical work was done by Mr. Caesar Tolen. On June 10th, 1973, we laid the cornerstone. Reverend A.M. Garrett was guest speaker, and the stone was laid by Bristow Lodge # 74. Reverend I.G. Crawford served as alternate. Our church furniture was purchased at Wagner Brothers Manufacturing Company (ph) of Booneville, Arkansas. One table was donated to the church by Mr. and Mrs. William Cheatham, one by Brother Lewis Hamilton and few cushions by the First Baptist Church of Bristow, Oklahoma. Brother McKinley Shoals was instrumental in getting the cushions for the church. We thank God for His continued blessings. We thank the American National Bank and the Creek Farmers Federal Credit Union for counseling and for financial assistance. We thank the donors for the many contributions to the church. Dedication services were held on April 26th through the 28th, 1974. Reverend David Shibley was guest speaker on April 26th at 7:00 PM and Reverend Eric Arthur Mayes was guest speaker at 3:00 PM on April 28th." ; WN: Yes, I just, I wanna ask you we' ; ll back up to the community, our black community here. Tell me as much as you can about any businesses that were here on this street. And also I' ; d like to know a little bit about Lincoln School over there. What you remember. And if you can name me, any of the teachers, or The Reverend Mayes has just handed me a reunion catalog that they worked out, and it was August the 28th, 29th, 30th, and 31st and September the 1st in 1985. Gosh, it looks fantastic. Who put this thing together? PM: Group of alumni. WN: The group of alumni. Wow. You all did beautifully. Is there a copy of this down at the library that you know of? PM: If you don' ; t have, you' ; re welcome to. WN: Do you have a spare copy? Could we have, if I could find a spare copy, one for the museum and one for the library at some point in time? I don' ; t want to take this, but if we--did you sell ' ; em? PM: You might have that if you like, because I have others. WN: Oh, do you? PM: Yes. WN: Alright. I' ; m gonna take this and put it in the public library then. Would that be all right with you? PM: You' ; re quite welcome to. WN: Okay, now, if anybody ever wants to look at one of these and you hear ' ; em, just tell ' ; em to go back to the desk and ask for the key to the genealogy section. They keep it in a, we keep it in a little cabinet there, and we' ; re trying to make a genealogy library. This would be wonderful and this will answer questions of a lot of people. PM: Lot of names. You would, WN: Oh yes, you have all these wonderful names PM: And if you can use that. WN: Oh yes. Oh, this would be PM: Just feel free. WN: Great. And this might give us some other people to contact also when we get to do and on the black community. And then you have a summary of the past reunions there and some wonderful pictures. Oh, I think that' ; s great. That is really good. I will. We surely will. Alright, now then, let me ask you, let' ; s go back to the town then. Can you think of any businesses that were here on the street? I know some of ' ; em are gone ' ; cause I can remember there used to be a funeral home there, I know. Wasn' ; t there? At one point in time. PM: The Fields Funeral Home (ph) was located in this block on the south side of the street and on the corner of the 10th and Chestnut Street, there was a hotel, a two-story building. WN: Do you remember the name of the hotel? PM: I don' ; t remember the name of it. WN: Yeah. PM: It was there when we moved here, and I' ; m quite sorry, but I don' ; t remember the name of it. WN: Yeah. PM: But I don' ; t. WN: Was there a grocery store there? PM: There was two grocery stores here on this block. One was the Oliver' ; s Grocery Store to the west of the church on the adjoining lot. There was a Fields Grocery Store (ph) that was, at one time, the Peevy Grocery store. WN: Oh, yes. PM: I remember on the other side of the street. After the Peevy' ; s left, then Willie Fields took the store. There was a Masonic Lodge right over here on this corner. There was the lodge. That' ; s the way I was raised in that lodge, right on this corner. WN: On that corner. PM: Those are the only businesses that we had in this particular area. WN: Yeah. PM: Later on I established and operated a barbershop on 10th Street, just across Chestnut, there by where C.D. Ashley lived. WN: Oh, yes. PM: In the building that he once operated his office with the extension, so to say. WN: Then when did they build our, when did they do the community center here? The building down there on the corner. Has that, how many years has that been? See, it' ; s escaped me. I have, PM: I don' ; t know just exactly what year. WN: But it' ; s been in operation for some time. PM: It was. But in 1930, I' ; m trying to get it together, in 1940, I believe long there, that' ; s when they built the building, but I don' ; t know whether it' ; s 41, 42. WN: Yeah. PM: Must been in the forties. WN: Okay. Then in my mind, and I haven' ; t been down there in a long time, didn' ; t there used to be a park down there in connection with the school, a playground area for kids. Seemed like I used to come over there once in a while and play ball with somebody, but I don' ; t remember. PM: There was a playground to the north of the school. WN: Yeah, down in that low area down there PM: From the school down to 12th Street. WN: Yeah. PM: There was a playground there at the school. WN: You know what I really would like to know, too, is I' ; d like to know some of the feelings that some of the early people had about living in, in the Bristow area. What kind of relationships did we, I mean, to me it' ; s always been really good. But then, see I was over there and somebody was over here, so I' ; ve never known of any friction but I' ; m sure there has been. But I know that horrible thing they had in Tulsa spilled over into Bristow at that one point in time when they were doing things to the Black. But I, I' ; ve always felt like that' ; s the black people in our community have been so wonderful about so many things, some so cooperative and so, you know, they just have been, I don' ; t know whether it, I just have wondered about their real feelings sometimes and it maybe it' ; s not worth expressing, you know. PM: I would like to express my personal feelings about, I would, I' ; d like to begin by saying I was raised in an all colored town, and that was Boley. When I came to Bristow, this mixed town, that is, we had white and black people here, but I found a wonderful relationship existing between all people in the city. It was first of all, it' ; s peaceful. Then I found that in the trade section, people were so nice to, to their customers. And especially your father (Earl Walter Ford), you know? WN: Yeah. I' ; m gonna tell you, my father, PM: You may not want me to mention this. WN: No, that' ; s, no. PM: He was so nice to our family and other families I talked to, your father was nice to them. WN: I just grew up and he' ; s, he just loved some of the people. They were, PM: I think he loved, just loved people and was concerned about people and was willing to help people. And he will always be remembered by people that are here. WN: I just, PM: And I didn' ; t find any, I didn' ; t find a lot of prejudice here in our community. Its friendly. And yet on the other hand, it was a town that was people were businesslike. They were not clownish. WN: Yeah. PM: At all full of business. And I admire them for their Christian relationship existing between the people of all races here for the Indians or blacks or whites. WN: Are they Syrians or anybody else? PM: Yes. Oh, WN: Great. Yes. PM: I just give Bristow a good rating, not because I' ; m speaking to you on this, but because I found it that way. WN: I remember when I' ; d come over to Lincoln School, my, the discipline, the children were just so wonderful and everybody was so happy. And I just, it, it really has changed these last few years, hasn' ; t it? PM: Yes, it has. WN: So, and I' ; m sorry to say that, but it PM: One time we could sleep over here without our doors locked, maybe out on the porch if we got too hot in the house. WN: Yeah. PM: That has changed now. WN: Yeah. PM: We' ; re a little afraid to do any of those things. WN: That' ; s not only here. It' ; s PM: Yes WN: In my place and everything else. It' ; s just, it' ; s a change of the time. PM: I' ; m sad to say that something in the larger cities has filtered down to. WN: Yes, it' ; s too bad. But you know what? When people like you all and everybody keep working in the church and everything, something good' ; s gonna happen one of these days, it' ; s gonna swing back around. I just have great faith in that. audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0047A_Percy_Mayes.xml OHP-0047A_Percy_Mayes.xml
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Reverend Percy Alford Mayes - Part 1
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In this 1992 interview, Reverend Percy Mayes talks about God’s call on his life to be in ministry, establishing the Duffey Chapel and businesses that were near his church.
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OHP-0047A
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1992-08-17
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Family Histories
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Oral accounts of various family histories
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Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
Oral History
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Wanda Newton
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Percy Mayes
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5.4 August 17, 1992 OHP-0047B Percy Mayes - Part 2 OHP-0047B 0:00-05:31 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Bristow Historical Society, Inc. Percy Mayes Wanda Newton 1:|17(9)|31(12)|49(10)|69(3)|91(2) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0047B Mayes, Percy.mp3 Other audio 0 Rev. Dr. Eric Arthur Mayes, Jr. PM: Trouble calling him doctor. I have books that he has written, and I'm impressed with the books he's putting out, he's putting out. He has taught school, well to speak of one school there, [indecipherable] now Oklahoma City, he taught English in that school for about six years. Then he went on to OBU at Shawnee and other schools. I like to tell him when we are together, I forget about him being a doctor, just my little brother. My little brother, I'm quite proud of him. Reverend Mayes speaks of his brother being a doctor and how proud he is of his accomplishments. brother ; doctor ; Rev. Dr. Eric Arthur Mayes, Jr. Rev. Dr. Eric Arthur Mayes, Jr. 44 Children WN: I think you would be proud of 'em, and I think you'd be proud of your children too. PM: Yes I love them very much. WN: Oh, you didn't tell me what, you haven't told me what your children do. Come on, start at the top. PM: I'll tell you about the good ones. Alright. Garnett is employed in Oklahoma City. She has a good job and I don't know whether she's working with the school system or not, but she has a good job. Her husband works for the post office. And she has a daughter who has passed the bar exam. WN: Oh my. PM: In Minnesota, a graduate from Cornell University. She's the only daughter in Garnett's family, that's my oldest daughter. Her son has finished a tour in Asia and back home now. Reverend Mayes tells about each of his children and their families. Alaska ; children ; Oklahoma City children MP3 Reverend Mayes talks about his brother being a doctor and about all his children and their families. PM: Trouble calling him doctor. I have books that he has written, and I' ; m impressed with the books he' ; s putting out, he' ; s putting out. He has taught school, well to speak of one school there, [indecipherable] now Oklahoma City, he taught English in that school for about six years. Then he went on to OBU at Shawnee and other schools. I like to tell him when we are together, I forget about him being a doctor, just my little brother. My little brother, I' ; m quite proud of him. WN: I think you would be proud of ' ; em, and I think you' ; d be proud of your children too. PM: Yes I love them very much. WN: Oh, you didn' ; t tell me what, you haven' ; t told me what your children do. Come on, start at the top. PM: I' ; ll tell you about the good ones. Alright. Garnett is employed in Oklahoma City. She has a good job and I don' ; t know whether she' ; s working with the school system or not, but she has a good job. Her husband works for the post office. And she has a daughter who has passed the bar exam. WN: Oh my. PM: In Minnesota, a graduate from Cornell University. She' ; s the only daughter in Garnett' ; s family, that' ; s my oldest daughter. Her son has finished a tour in Asia and back home now. He was in the recent war conflict, one of the first ones in after the [indecipherable], WN: Oh my. PM: Came back and he' ; s in, in college now, in Oklahoma City. Garnett has a son, oldest son who is in Alaska, the only great grandson I have is her son' ; s child in Alaska. WN: Ah, have you been up there to see him yet? PM: No, but they' ; ve been over here to see us. I fascinate fascinated by what they tell me about Alaska. WN: You must go sometime. PM: And Marian is going to teach school next year. She is, she' ; s, she was a good student and she' ; s been working, but she wanted to go back into the school, so she gonna teach school. WN: Where' ; s she going to teach? Do you know? PM: It' ; d be somewhere in Oklahoma City? I don' ; t know the name of the school, but in the city And Margaret is home with us now with her little children. And they are the worst little dudes on the block, but we love them very much. WN: Of course, I bet you' ; ll get ' ; em guided in the straight and the narrow. PM: Barbara is working for a financial institution in Oklahoma City. Could be a bank, but I' ; m not sure the name, but it is a financial institution. WN: Oh, yes. PM: She does quite well. A few weeks ago, maybe last week, she was through here going to Okmulgee, they were going to close out a deal over there on a home, something like that. The bank signed her to go and do this transaction. WN: Oh, how nice. PM: And Brenda is home with us right now. That' ; s a, that' ; s our youngest child. WN: Yes. A pretty, pretty, Brenda. PM: Her daughter is in Kansas. Her husband is a teacher and he will be a counselor in this school over there with Kansas City. Yeah which one did I miss? Anna? WN: Yeah, you missed Anna. PM: Anna' ; s in Oklahoma City. She' ; s working and still same old. Think she' ; s throwing away money away. WN: Oh, I tell you, you' ; ve done well. You' ; ve done well. PM: Thank you. WN: Your children, and you and your wife are certainly a pillar of personification of right in this community. What a wonderful influence you guys have been. PM: We wish only to do that. That' ; s what we are here for. WN: Your life shows that. PM: Aggravated because we can' ; t do more. WN: Hey, you have to let go and let God do some of that stuff you' ; re trying to do. PM: We' ; re happy when we can do something worthwhile and we wish to do nothing but help. WN: Oh listen, I don' ; t care what you do. There' ; s no way you can shift things around. People have to make their own mistakes. PM: Oh yeah. WN: They have to work out their own ways, and we just have to extend a loving hand to ' ; em. That' ; s the only way we can solve anything. Then I can' ; t solve it. audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0047B_Percy_Mayes.xml OHP-0047B_Percy_Mayes.xml
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Reverend Percy Alford Mayes - Part 2
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Reverend Mayes talks about his brother being a doctor and about all his children and their families.
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OHP-0047B
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1992-08-17
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audio
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Family Histories
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Oral History
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Oral accounts of various family histories
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Bristow Historical Society, oral history collection
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Wanda Newton
Interviewee
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Lafayette Johnson
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5.4 November 28, 1990 OHP-0039B Lafayette Johnson OHP-0039B 0:00-15:55 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Bristow Historical Society, Inc. Lafayette Johnson Wanda Newton 1:|32(5)|66(3)|96(9)|142(2)|171(16)|205(16)|241(14)|285(9)|315(5)|353(3)|384(10)|408(11)|428(14)|456(5)|486(1) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0039B Johnson, Lafayette.mp3 Other audio 0 Family WN: Wednesday, November 28, 1990. I’m in the Red Bird Shoe Store and I’m talking with Lafayette Johnson. Okay, Lafayette, will you tell us when you were born and where? LJ: March 17, 1936 in Creek County, Bristow, Oklahoma. WN: Okay, can you tell me anything at all about your mother? LJ: My mother was raised in Creek County. WN: And what is her name? LJ: Annie Belle Whittenburg. WN: Can you tell me anything about your grandparents? LJ: My grandmother—they was farmers. WN: Where did they farm, Lafayette? LJ: We farmed here in Bristow. WN: North? East? South? LJ: East of Bristow. WN: East of Bristow. And how many children were there in your family? LJ: There was six. WN: And where were you in the family? Were you the oldest? LJ: Next to the oldest. Lafayette talks about his family and being the next to the oldest of six children. Annie Belle Whittenburg ; Creek County ; family family 65 Farming & ; Travel Can you tell me anything that your mother and father did while you were out in the country that was of particular interest? What did they farm? LJ: They farmed mostly cotton. WN: Did you own your own land? LJ: No, we was farm sharecropping. WN: You were sharecropping. Lafayette recalls cotton as the primary thing his family farmed as sharecroppers and also traveling via horses and a wagon. cotton ; farming ; horses ; sharecropping ; travel ; wagon farming ; travel 185 School WN: Okay. Do you remember where you went to school, Lafayette? LJ: Lincoln High. WN: At Lincoln High. Can you tell me what it was like at Lincoln High? How many years did you go? LJ: Twelve years. WN: You went twelve years. Can you tell me what it was like? LJ: It was a great school. WN: It was a great school. Can you remember a special teacher you had? LJ: Well, Mr. Franklin (WH “William” Franklin). Lafayette remembers attending Lincoln High School and his favorite subject being history taught by Mr. Franklin. discipline ; Lincoln High School ; Okmulgee Technical School ; school ; WH " ; William" ; Franklin school 286 Wagons & ; Farming WN: Okay, did your mother and daddy ever have a wagon—a new wagon or can you remember anything special that they had? LJ: Well we always had a nice wagon because that’s how we had to travel! (laughs) WN: Do you remember picking cotton ever? LJ: Yes, ma’am! WN: You remember how much you were paid? LJ: Well just by what you could eat, and in clothing, I mean—(laughs) WN: Alright, do you happen to remember how many cows that you owned, Lafayette? LJ: Well, we probably had—we had probably, had two or three cows. Most every people, most all farmers had they own milk cows because that’s where they got the milk. Lafayette remembers having a nice wagon for the family and working on the farm with his siblings. cattle ; cotton ; farming ; wagon farming ; wagon 365 Home Life WN: What kind of a house did you live in when you were little? LJ: Oh, they was probably about a three-four room house. They was just farmhouses, just farmhouses. WN: Okay, you didn’t have any—no log cabins or anything. LJ: Naw. It wasn’t any electricity then, when I was— WN: You didn’t have electricity? You had the outhouses? LJ: Yeah, outhouses, kerosene lights. WN: And did you have to chop wood? LJ: Yeah. Started with a crosscut saw, not with a chainsaw. (laughs) WN: Did your mother ever make any soap? Do you remember your mother making soap? LJ: No. I think my grandmothers made lye soap. Lafayette recalls living in a small farmhouse with an outhouse and no electricity. He remembers helping around the house with everything from laundry, chopping wood or cleaning. butchering ; crosscut saw ; farmhouse ; kerosene lamps ; outhouse ; rendering lard ; washing board home life 510 Town Trips & ; Social Life WN: Alright, what you remember best about Bristow when you were a little boy? LJ: Well, the most important time I used to come to down, you know, is when you picked cotton all week and then you’d come to down and you’d ride, you’d see ‘em gin the cotton. And then you’d eat a hamburger and get a Coke and that was special because most then you didn’t—you wasn’t used to that. WN: Well, I expect that’s true. Well, tell me what about your social life? LJ: Well, we rode horses, swim. WN: Where did you swim? LJ: We just swim the creeks. Lafayette fondly remembers weekly trips to town after picking cotton all week. The highlight was purchasing a hamburger and a coke. horse riding ; Little Deep Fork ; swimming ; town trips social life ; town trips 566 Clothing & ; Church WN: Alright, how often did you get to buy new shoes, Lafayette? LJ: Well, most of the time you bought shoes in the fall of the year, you know, when you get the crop, you know, you get two pair of shoes—a work pair and a dress pair. WN: And where did you go to church, Lafayette? LJ: I went to the Baptist Church. It was out in the country. It was called Jacksonville. You remember Mr. Jackson used to live down here out east of town? WN: Yes. LJ: It was a Baptist church and that’s why they named it Jacksonville Church, Jacks— WN: Do you remember who the minister was? LJ: Reverend Taughtry (ph). Lafayette remembers getting to purchase two pair of shoes once a year and also attending the Baptist Church. Baptist Church ; church ; clothing church ; clothing 634 Jail WN: Were you ever in jail, Lafayette? LJ: Oh, yeah, once or twice. WN: What for? LJ: Oh, everybody gets out and take a drink or two, you know. (laughs) I mean, that’s part of growing up! (both laugh) Lafayette recalls being put in a jail a time or two. jail jail 647 Jim Crow Laws WN: What did you think about the Jim Crow laws when we had segregation, Lafayette? LJ: I never had very little problem, you know, and they had them here in Bristow, your restrooms, but—and I think everybody makes his own segregation, in my though--my thinking. WN: Well, that’s a nice way to think, isn’t it. But we have had—we haven’t had many racial problems here in Bristow— LJ: No, I started work at Bristow and Raymond (Raymond Cecil) for – when I was fifteen years old in the shoe shop. And I had very little trouble out of anybody in Bristow. WN: Yeah, you had lots of friends, didn’t you, Lafayette, yeah. LJ: Yes! WN: Okay, can you think of anything that was especially hard for you, Lafayette, because you were black? LJ: Well, no I really, I don’t think—I think, I think it might’ve been—because the last year I finished school I took mechanical drawing, and that was 1958 and Lincoln was segrega—I mean, was integrated. Lafayette didn't feel that segregation or racism really affected him in his life in Bristow. Jim Crow Laws ; Raymond Cecil ; segregation Jim Crow Laws 794 Clothing WN: Okay, well let’s see what else we need to (sound of pages flipping) find out about here. Let’s see. What dress fashion did you think was the – maybe the best for you? LJ: Well I always wore boots and Levis, overalls, you know, that what I was raised—you know, I was raised in that. WN: And that’s your favorite? LJ: Yeah. WN: That’s your favorite thing. Do you remember any dust storms at all, Lafayette? LJ: No, I never was in any dust storms. I was, that was way back. That was back in, I think, in— WN: In the ‘30s. LJ: In the ‘30s, I wasn’t born ‘til ’36, so— Lafayette recalls boots, Levis and overalls being his primary clothing. boots ; clothing ; Levis ; overalls clothing 829 Family Disasters WN: Wow, so you missed all that. Well I remember that. Do you remember any kind of disaster that happened to you or your family? LJ: Yeah. Well I remember one year that we was—I think we was gathering the crop, we was on the—closing it out and we come back and our house was completely burnt down, and we’d just bought all the clothes, all the Christmas presents, and everything. We come back to all ashes. WN: And what happened after that? LJ: Well, I was in a tornader. You know when the tornadoes through here? WN: Yes, I remember that. LJ: That was a night disaster. WN: That was in the ‘60s, wasn’t it? LJ: Yeah, it was in the 60s. Lafayette remembers his family surviving a house fire and a tornado. He also recalls having open-heart surgery and the kindness of his friends and townspeople who visited him after. disasters ; house fire ; Red Cross ; surgery ; tornado family disasters MP3 Lafayette Johnson (1936-2002) discusses his early life on a farm east of Bristow, chores, trips to town, social life as a young man, Jim Crow laws, dress fashions, and family disasters and events. WN: Wednesday, November 28, 1990. I' ; m in the Red Bird Shoe Store and I' ; m talking with Lafayette Johnson. Okay, Lafayette, will you tell us when you were born and where? LJ: March 17, 1936 in Creek County, Bristow, Oklahoma. WN: Okay, can you tell me anything at all about your mother? LJ: My mother was raised in Creek County. WN: And what is her name? LJ: Annie Belle Whittenburg. WN: Can you tell me anything about your grandparents? LJ: My grandmother--they was farmers. WN: Where did they farm, Lafayette? LJ: We farmed here in Bristow. WN: North? East? South? LJ: East of Bristow. WN: East of Bristow. And how many children were there in your family? LJ: There was six. WN: And where were you in the family? Were you the oldest? LJ: Next to the oldest. WN: Next to the oldest. Can you tell me anything that your mother and father did while you were out in the country that was of particular interest? What did they farm? LJ: They farmed mostly cotton. WN: Did you own your own land? LJ: No, we was farm sharecropping. WN: You were sharecropping. Do you remember anything that your mother told you particular about when she was a little girl? Or your grandmother? Can you remember anything? LJ: Well, one thing they told me would be honesty. Tell people the truth. WN: Okay, how did they travel? How did your mother travel? Did you all have a car? LJ: No we traveled wagon. WN: Wagon. LJ: And walk. WN: And did you have any horses? LJ: Yeah! WN: What else did you grow besides cotton? LJ: They growed high-gear (a type of sorghum), corn, vegetable crops, you know, and gardens. WN: Can you tell me whether your grandparents or anybody in your family was involved in any war or can you remember any stories of the Civil War or World War I, or-- LJ: No, I had an uncle that was in World War II. WN: In World War II. When your mother had her children, do you remember, did she have a midwife, or? LJ: I had a midwife that birthed me. WN: You had a midwife that birthed you. LJ: Yeah. WN: Did you ever help with any of the births of any of the children? LJ: Nah. WN: Did your mother ever go to the hospital for any of them? LJ: I don' ; t remember. WN: You don' ; t remember. Do you remember anything that she--did she ever tell you anything about the early slave days, Lafayette? LJ: No, my grand--my mother wasn' ; t in the slaves, the slavin' ; . WN: She was not in the-- LJ: No. I think some of my great-grandparents were, but-- WN: You don' ; t remember where they were? LJ: No. I think they was raised around Paris, Texas. WN: Okay. Do you remember where you went to school, Lafayette? LJ: Lincoln High. WN: At Lincoln High. Can you tell me what it was like at Lincoln High? How many years did you go? LJ: Twelve years. WN: You went twelve years. Can you tell me what it was like? LJ: It was a great school.WN: It was a great school. Can you remember a special teacher you had? LJ: Well, Mr. Franklin (WH " ; William" ; Franklin). WN: Mr. Franklin. Can you tell us any kind of memories about him? LJ: Well, he was a history teacher. WN: He was your history teacher. LJ: And he was the basketball coach at Lincoln High for a long time. WN: What kind of discipline did you have at the school? LJ: Very strict. WN: Did you ever get a spanking? LJ: Yeah. Two. I can tell you who I got ' ; em from, too! WN: Who? LJ: It was W.M. Bitsy (ph). WN: Oooh! And what did you do, Lafayette, to have to get a spanking? LJ: Well, I just mis--misobeyed her orders and she-- WN: (laughs) What did you use in school? Did you have your--did you have to buy your own books, or? LJ: Well we bought, I think we bought, we had to buy our own workbooks. WN: And your own pencils and papers and things like that. LJ: Yeah. WN: Can you tell me what subjects you studied in school at any time that were important to you, Lafayette? LJ: History. WN: History. That was your favorite one. When you finished high school, Lafayette, what did you do? LJ: Well, I went to work at the shop here and then I went to go--I mean I went to Okmulgee Tech and took shoe repair. WN: Did you ever make enough money, Lafayette, to buy a car? LJ: No. I mean, I never did care for a car! (both laugh) WN: Okay, did your mother and daddy ever have a wagon--a new wagon or can you remember anything special that they had? LJ: Well we always had a nice wagon because that' ; s how we had to travel! (laughs) WN: Do you remember picking cotton ever? LJ: Yes, ma' ; am! WN: You remember how much you were paid? LJ: Well just by what you could eat, and in clothing, I mean--(laughs) WN: Alright, do you happen to remember how many cows that you owned, Lafayette? LJ: Well, we probably had--we had probably, had two or three cows. Most every people, most all farmers had they own milk cows because that' ; s where they got the milk. WN: Do you remember working for anybody else in the fields? LJ: Yeah, I worked for--you remember the Grimeses (ph) in here, don' ; t you? I worked with them. WN: Yes, I do. LJ: You know, they was about eighteen or twenty of those in the family. WN: Yeah. Did your brothers and sisters work on the farm, too? LJ: Yeah. Most all of us worked on the farm. WN: And you' ; re all--don' ; t tell me that Frankie ever-- LJ: No, no, he, no, he' ; s the youngest one, he never did get any of that. He got in the wood cutting and everything, like that. WN: Can you remember the most cotton you ever chopped or pulled or anything like that? LJ: Well, I never was a very good cotton picker, I never could pick enough to go to sleep on. (laughs) WN: What kind of a house did you live in when you were little? LJ: Oh, they was probably about a three-four room house. They was just farmhouses, just farmhouses. WN: Okay, you didn' ; t have any--no log cabins or anything. LJ: Naw. It wasn' ; t any electricity then, when I was-- WN: You didn' ; t have electricity? You had the outhouses? LJ: Yeah, outhouses, kerosene lights. WN: And did you have to chop wood? LJ: Yeah. Started with a crosscut saw, not with a chainsaw. (laughs) WN: Did your mother ever make any soap? Do you remember your mother making soap? LJ: No. I think my grandmothers made lye soap. WN: My grandmother did, too. Did you ever help with the laundry? LJ: Sure, I learned everything. How to wash my clothes, and-- WN: Are you--did you have a washing machine? LJ: We had a washing board, mostly. WN: Yeah, that' ; s right. And you helped your mother? LJ: Yeah. I used to help clean house, wash dishes, cook, I mean--do anything. WN: Did you remember anything about butchering back in those days? LJ: Yeah. WN: Well tell me a little bit about how you butchered. LJ: Well, you used to take a hog, you know, and they used to--and you' ; d boil a swill (ph) and get it real hot then you' ; d put lye in there and then you' ; d put the hog down in there with the lye, you know. WN: And you stuck the hog? LJ: Yeah. In the hot water, you know, and got all the hair off. WN: I know, but you had to kill it, first. LJ: Yeah, you had to kill it and cut its throat. WN: Oh, did you ever do that? LJ: I helped folks do it, I helped my folks do it. WN: You didn' ; t cry, or? LJ: Naw, you get used to it. WN: (laughs) And then after you got it in the lye water, what did you do, Lafayette? LJ: Then after you pull out, then you scraped all its hair off and then you hang him up and let him, you know, cool out, you know. WN: How long did that take? LJ: Probably two or three days. ' ; Cause it' ; d be so cold, you know, they would freeze. And then all that blood, you know, drip out. WN: Do you remember your mother rendering lard? LJ: Yeah. WN: How did she do that? Out in the open or in the house? LJ: Yeah, used to do it in the house, you know, used to take that fat and you just cook it all, and the grease, and let it set, and when it sets, you know, it forms, you know, and it cools down. WN: And then she stored it in cans? LJ: Yeah. WN: Oooh. Alright. Do you remember anything that was special that your mother used to cook for you that you really liked? LJ: Blackberry cobbler. (laughs) WN: Who picked the blackberries? LJ: Oh, I' ; d pick the blackberries. WN: Where did you find them? Out on your fields, or-- LJ: Yeah. Out in--you' ; d find ' ; em out in the farms around. WN: Alright, what you remember best about Bristow when you were a little boy? LJ: Well, the most important time I used to come to down, you know, is when you picked cotton all week and then you' ; d come to down and you' ; d ride, you' ; d see ' ; em gin the cotton. And then you' ; d eat a hamburger and get a Coke and that was special because most then you didn' ; t--you wasn' ; t used to that. WN: Well, I expect that' ; s true. Well, tell me what about your social life? LJ: Well, we rode horses, swim. WN: Where did you swim? LJ: We just swim the creeks. WN: Oh, in the creeks? Which creek? Sand Creek, or-- LJ: Well we live out east of town there, it was called, it was part of Little Deep Fork. Little Deep Fork, you know, runs through lots of places. WN: Well were you ever worried about the quicksand? LJ: Naw, you didn' ; t worry about anything. (laughs) WN: How about sand burrs? LJ: Oh, yeah, you' ; d get a bunch of those, uh-huh. WN: Alright, how often did you get to buy new shoes, Lafayette? LJ: Well, most of the time you bought shoes in the fall of the year, you know, when you get the crop, you know, you get two pair of shoes--a work pair and a dress pair. WN: And where did you go to church, Lafayette? LJ: I went to the Baptist Church. It was out in the country. It was called Jacksonville. You remember Mr. Jackson used to live down here out east of town? WN: Yes. LJ: It was a Baptist church and that' ; s why they named it Jacksonville Church, Jacks-- WN: Do you remember who the minister was? LJ: Reverend Taughtry (ph). WN: Reverend Taughtry (ph). Oh, I remember the Taughtrys (ph) real well. LJ: And there was another one that was Reverend Morrisey (ph) used to preach after--used to ride a bicycle from town. WN: Oh, my. LJ: If we took up three dollars, that was great, you know, that was a big offering. (laughs) WN: Well, things have changed, haven' ; t they? Well how about your social life out there, Lafayette? Did you all--did you have most of your social life with the church, or-- LJ: Yeah, it was mostly church activities. And you played a little baseball and a few games and other things like that. WN: Were you ever in jail, Lafayette? LJ: Oh, yeah, once or twice. WN: What for? LJ: Oh, everybody gets out and take a drink or two, you know. (laughs) I mean, that' ; s part of growing up! (both laugh) WN: What did you think about the Jim Crow laws when we had segregation, Lafayette? LJ: I never had very little problem, you know, and they had them here in Bristow, your restrooms, but--and I think everybody makes his own segregation, in my though--my thinking. WN: Well, that' ; s a nice way to think, isn' ; t it. But we have had--we haven' ; t had many racial problems here in Bristow-- LJ: No, I started work at Bristow and Raymond (Raymond Cecil) for -- when I was fifteen years old in the shoe shop. And I had very little trouble out of anybody in Bristow. WN: Yeah, you had lots of friends, didn' ; t you, Lafayette, yeah. LJ: Yes! WN: Okay, can you think of anything that was especially hard for you, Lafayette, because you were black? LJ: Well, no I really, I don' ; t think--I think, I think it might' ; ve been--because the last year I finished school I took mechanical drawing, and that was 1958 and Lincoln was segrega--I mean, was integrated. WN: Integrated, yes. LJ: Well, I think sometimes, you know, it' ; s--I would say, you know, it' ; s--it wasn' ; t too embarrassing because I never did want to force myself on anybody. WN: I know, but have you found it difficult in any situation with the--between the whites and the blacks? Did you feel resentful when you couldn' ; t go swimming in the swimming pool and these kinds of things? LJ: No, I--that--I never was around the pool. WN: And so it just didn' ; t simply, didn' ; t bother you. Did you do any kind of--well, let me go back up. Did you ever feel that your parents or your grandparents suffered because they were black? LJ: Well, I--I think back then, people, you know, they--if they had, you know, if they was qualified they wasn' ; t hired after jobs, you know. And you know, some of them didn' ; t have an opportunity to get an education, but I had to get it. WN: Yeah. And that was the greatest difficulty, getting-- LJ: Yeah. WN: --getting an education. Did you ever, were you ever in the military, Lafayette? LJ: No, ma' ; am. WN: Okay, well let' ; s see what else we need to (sound of pages flipping) find out about here. Let' ; s see. What dress fashion did you think was the -- maybe the best for you? LJ: Well I always wore boots and Levis, overalls, you know, that what I was raised--you know, I was raised in that. WN: And that' ; s your favorite? LJ: Yeah. WN: That' ; s your favorite thing. Do you remember any dust storms at all, Lafayette? LJ: No, I never was in any dust storms. I was, that was way back. That was back in, I think, in-- WN: In the ' ; 30s. LJ: In the ' ; 30s, I wasn' ; t born ' ; til ' ; 36, so-- WN: Wow, so you missed all that. Well I remember that. Do you remember any kind of disaster that happened to you or your family? LJ: Yeah. Well I remember one year that we was--I think we was gathering the crop, we was on the--closing it out and we come back and our house was completely burnt down, and we' ; d just bought all the clothes, all the Christmas presents, and everything. We come back to all ashes. WN: And what happened after that? LJ: Well, I was in a tornader. You know when the tornadoes through here? WN: Yes, I remember that. LJ: That was a night disaster. WN: That was in the ' ; 60s, wasn' ; t it? LJ: Yeah, it was in the 60s. WN: Well did people befriend you and come and-- LJ: Yeah! Everybody helped us. And they--it was no problems. WN: And it all worked out then, didn' ; t it? LJ: Yeah. The Red Cross helped to get us a house and everything we [indecipherable]. WN: Well that' ; s wonderful. Well, is there anything you' ; d like to say on the tape, Lafayette? This is gonna be for posterity, now, I' ; m gonna put this tape in the library and it' ; s gonna have Lafayette Johnson' ; s name on it. Can you think of anything you' ; d like to say? LJ: Well, the most recent I had an open-heart surgery, you know, back in 1988, ' ; 89, and which the people of Bristow was real grateful and I really enjoyed it. WN: Well, you enjoyed that surgery?! LJ: I enjoyed the visits after it, you know, and the kindness. WN: Oh, that' ; s wonderful. LJ: And I think it gives you a new lease on life, you know. Because when you' ; ve got friends-- WN: You' ; ve been a good friend to everybody! LJ: That' ; s right! WN: I' ; ll never forget, Lafayette, when you tried to sell me that cream to make me beautiful-- (both laugh) WN: You' ; ve did a lot--done a little bit of everything, haven' ; t you? LJ: I was up there at baseball, I' ; ve made it all! WN: Yes, you' ; ve helped a lot with the young people, haven' ; t you? LJ: Yes. WN: And what suggestion would you make for the black people in our community today? LJ: Is to work real hard and get an education and be qualified. WN: That' ; s the most important thing, isn' ; t it? LJ: Yes. WN: Alright, this is Wanda Newton and Lafayette Johnson, signing off, on November 28, 1990. audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0039B_Lafayette_Johnson.xml OHP-0039B_Lafayette_Johnson.xml
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Title
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Lafayette Johnson
Description
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Lafayette Johnson (1936-2002) discusses his early life on a farm east of Bristow, chores, trips to town, social life as a young man, Jim Crow laws, dress fashions, and family disasters and events.
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OHP-0039B
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1990-11-28
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audio