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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
The person(s) being interviewed
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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ee959c4d38d760437d4b334f59c631e9
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Ed Cadenhead
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Ellis Shamas
Pearl Stoker
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5.4 June 20, 1979 OHP-0045B Ellis Shamas OHP-0045B 0:00-1:00:42 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Bristow Historical Society, Inc. Ellis Shamas Pearl Stoker Ed Cadenhead 1:|20(5)|33(6)|50(4)|63(4)|74(7)|84(9)|94(2)|105(7)|117(3)|127(9)|140(3)|152(10)|172(2)|183(13)|198(11)|211(5)|230(9)|241(12)|263(1)|273(8)|285(3)|300(11)|314(5)|338(10)|362(9)|405(12)|414(6)|424(5)|435(16)|458(13)|484(4)|507(5)|524(2)|538(13)|546(9)|563(2)|578(2)|585(2)|598(13)|605(7)|615(5)|628(1)|643(4)|655(11)|670(3)|681(7)|695(8)|705(6)|714(2)|725(1)|731(12)|738(7)|747(3)|761(7)|779(6)|790(15)|807(4)|814(1)|827(4)|836(6) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0045B Shamas, Ellis.mp3 Other audio 4 Family & ; Other Lebanese Families EC: Ellis Shamas, June 20th, 1979. Why don't you just start and tell me about your own family and how they ended up in Bristow and that'll lead us, I think, into some of these other families, Lebanese families. ES: To the best of my knowledge, my mother (Amalen Mehael Asad) came here in 1905 with a brother, Frank Mike. He had been here and returned to what was then Syria, today is Lebanon, to marry, and when he brought his bride, he also brought my mother, his sister, with him. EC: Well, well, I understand that many of the Lebanese families have a common name, Feghali somehow. The name Feghali is a name where... ES: That's a section of the country are in what we would term here as tribes. They follow a common ancestry from, no telling, how far back. This becomes the family name. Each son takes his last name, his father's first name. Ellis talks about his mother and uncle coming from Syria, family names and Joe and Ed Abraham. Amalen Mehael Asad ; Ed Abraham ; Frank Mike ; Joe Abraham ; Lebanese ; Lebanon ; Syria Ellis Shamas family ; Lebanese families 339 Clarke's Clothing & ; Haggar Slacks EC: Jumping around a little bit before I forget. It's true that Clarke started in Bristow, the Clarke's clothing store? ES: A.L. And Harry Clarke had a store here, probably, it was early as, I would say, 1921, 1922. I'm not sure of the year. They were located then about, I'd say, maybe on 120, maybe not that far on North Main. They moved across the street into a building that now is a vacant car lot. They were next door to where our bank was, American National Bank. They also, I think, opened a store in Cushing at that time. As best I know, Harry moved to Tulsa and bought out, I think, S& ; Q Clothiers (ph). I'm not positive of the [indecipherable], but that seems like the name. So this would've been possibly 1931, 1932. In the early thirties, Harry stayed in Bristow, and operated the store until, oh, I would say early fifties, store burned at that time, and he didn't go back into the business. AL Clarke ; Alex Wasaff ; Bill Haggar ; Clarke's Clothing ; Haggar Apparel Company ; Harry Clarke ; Joe Abraham ; Joe Haggar ; Saab Elias Clarke's Clothing ; Haggar slacks 603 Catholic Lebanese EC: I was asking your wife before you came in, I'd realized that most of the Lebanese were Catholic, and she said, yes, except you were not, and it wasn't unusual for the Lebanese who came here to be non-Catholic. Is that a, I don't know that much about Lebanon. ES: But [indecipherable] of course had a good many, that was the basis of most of the religions, absolutely. There was a Greek Catholic, which was a different church entirely from the Roman Catholic. They had their own bishop, their own priest. The village my father came from was primarily Greek Catholic. Mother came from, was primarily Roman Catholic, so there wasn't a Greek church, Greek Orthodox, I think, is the way they listed even yet. So my mother and my sisters and my younger brothers were brought up in a Catholic church. My father took me to the Christian Church. Many of the Lebanese settlers were Catholic, but Ellis' father took him to a Christian church. Catholic ; Christian ; Greek Orthodox ; Lebanese ; Roman Catholic Catholic Lebanese 668 Anti-Catholicism EC: This probably isn't an easy question for you to answer, but I have read that there was a lot of anti-Catholicism in Bristow and this came from one of the local Catholics. And I wonder, how much of what she thought was anti-Catholicism was anti-Lebanese or how much of what may have been appeared to be anti-Lebanese was anti-Catholic. Were you aware of any prejudices in growing up here in Bristow? ES: There was a lot of anti, all over the country. There was a lot of anti-WAFs (ph), a lot of anti-Shiites (ph), a lot of Jews, Yehudis couldn't go to a lot of places at one time. This was quite typical of that day and time, and this wasn't any different. Ellis talks about their being a lot of " ; anti" ; in the world at that time, whether it was anti-Jew, anti-Indian or anti-Lebanese, often people with common backgrounds would fall into their own groups. anti-catholicism ; prejudice anti-catholicism 751 World War I EC: Then your earliest memories of Bristow really would be, well, perhaps World War I might have been, but it was happening. But you really wasn't as gone much until the oil boom day. ES: So my earliest memories of World War I is, I don't know what they were called at that time, home guards probably, but young men would get out and drill, getting ready for whatever may come. And I do remember going to the railroad station, [indecipherable] neighbor going into the service. And this would have been like 1917 as best I can place a year. Ellis recalls " ; home guards" ; that were young men who would drill and be prepared for whatever may come. WWI WWI 790 Oil Boom EC: Since you were just a young child, were you conscious of the oil boom in Bristow? ES: Very much so, because, it was a very small town until the time the oil boom and people flocked in, took up every available place that they could live, sleep, eat, and it became an entirely different town from a small cotton country town. It became a town of people from New York, Pennsylvania, and other sections where they'd had oil previous to the oil boom here. And they were young people that came in, mostly without their families. Ellis remembers many people flocking to Bristow during the oil boom, going from a small, country town to having people from all over like New York and Pennsylvania. They would work in the oil fields then come back to town to find entertainment. curfew ; entertainment ; oil boom ; peace officers oil boom 991 Halloween & ; Sports ES: Halloween was one of the big things, and even the adults in those days enjoyed holidays. The Main Street would have almost as many adults and costumes as it would have young people. And of course, young people were permitted more leeway than they are today. This was a town with a lot of outhouses and like a lot of other towns, these outhouses suffered quite considerably. There was a lot of other things that went on, but it was quite common to soak windows and soak everything of this nature. I don't think the destruction was quite as expensive as today's destruction could be. The day and time, then, was only athletic activities took place in the afternoons. The football fields weren't lighted, the baseball fields weren't lighted, so when there was a football or a baseball game in town, the stores would close. It was that kind of game, and everybody would go to the football game. Ellis recalls Halloween being a big deal in Bristow with children and adults getting involved in the festivities. He also remembers how the town would shut down for things like football games. football ; Halloween ; Judge John Humphrey ; outhouses ; sports Halloween ; sports 1102 The Depression EC: Yes. Were there any special effects of the Depression on Bristow? Sometimes I have the feeling that small towns maybe didn't suffer as much as cities or maybe more, in other words, what strikes you from this distance about the effect of the Depression on Bristow? ES: It had been technically an oil and cotton town. The price of oil dropped so that a lot of the companies couldn't produce it. They fired, of course, a lot of their employees, farmers themselves, weren't on the commercial scale that they are today. This, of course, is not a farm area now it's a [indecipherable] country, but families grew on, like, 40, 80, 120 off the top, large families, and when cotton cease to become commercial, these people were heavily mortgaged either to their suppliers of the stores or to the banks. And if they didn't lose their property to the banks or to the people they had borrowed from, they lost it in taxes. Cotton dropped down at the gin, something like 9 cents. This would convert to 3 cents in the field. They had to pay a cent and a half to have it picked so it wasn't commercial any longer. Ellis recalls the effects of The Depression on Bristow citizens and how many lost their jobs and how cotton lost it's value. cotton ; Joe Abraham ; The Depression The Depression 1268 Type of People in Bristow ES: that you're wanting but there was a lot of money around the town and the people that had the money were young, energetic, aggressive people. Naturally, you could tell this because they brought KVOO into a town this size whenever Tulsa didn't have anything to compare with it. They built a hotel here in town that was equal to almost anything there was in the area. And as things began to dwindle, these same people lost their money. Not particularly in the oil fields here, but they plunged in other areas for it. Particularly, you've probably been told the hotel here was named after the two partners that had done real well. Ellis remembers there being a lot of money in town, along with young, energetic aggressive people wanting to achieve success. Glen Freeland ; KVOO interesting people 1467 Pearl Stoker - Coming to Oklahoma EC: Well, why don't you just tell me, Mrs. Stoker first about your family. Where were they from and how'd they happen to end up in Bristow? PS: Well, my, my family's all gone except one sister. I have one sister alive and she's in North Carolina. She's my baby sister. EC: Well, were you born here in Bristow? PS: No, I was born in Kansas. EC: Whereabouts in Kansas? PS: Parker. EC: And did your parents move to Bristow? PS: Oh, they come to, and they, and then we have been here since I was seven years old. EC: What when was that? What year? PS: Oh, I don't remember. (Unknown Speaker) She's 89. Pearl remembers coming to Oklahoma and crossing the Verdigris River in a covered wagon when she was just seven-years-old. Campbell Oil Company ; farming ; Kansas ; Nowata ; Oklahoma ; sharecropper ; Verdigris River (Kan. and Okla.) ; wagon coming to Oklahoma 1777 Memories of Bristow EC: What are your memories of Bristow when you first came here? PS: Oh, I thought it was terrible. EC: Did you? PS: No, it was quite a permissible town and they part had parts, wooden sidewalks here, and I thought it was terrible. But my mother had come here. She never went down the main street of Nowata after my father was killed. And she came here, she had a little insurance and bought a place on the east part of town. Pearl recalls not being fond of Bristow when her family moved after her father was killed in an accident. Bristow ; memories Bristow memories 1823 Working for Ed Abraham PS: No, I went to work to make a living. EC: Where did you work? PS: I worked at Ed Abraham's store. And then Mr. Wolf, LM Wolf gave me more money and I went there. Mrs. (Nellie Gray Campbell) Abraham didn't want me to quit and she tried to get Ed to give me more money and he wouldn't do it because she and I were very good friends. So I went to LM Wolfe's store was there right south of the, what's that other bank? EC: Community. PS: Community State Bank now. Pearl remembers working for Ed Abraham until LM Wolfe offered her more money, then she began working for him. Community State Bank ; Ed Abraham ; LM Wolfe ; Nellie Gray Campbell Abraham work life 1863 Married Life EC: And when did you get married? PS: Oh, 1916. EC: Alright. Was your, had your husband been living in Bristow long? PS: Well, he was an oil field worker and he came here and drilled some wells and got dry holes. He drilled for [indecipherable], and they got dry holes at that time. But later he came back and then after we were married he went to Shamrock and that's when the Shamrock boom was on. It was about 19, 1915, the Shamrock boom. And then in 1916 we got married and we went to Ponca City. And he worked for Marvin (ph) as his driller. Pearl married Clifford H. Stoker in 1916 and her husband was an oil field worker. Clifford H. Stoker ; oil field worker ; Ponca City ; Shamrock married life 1920 Oil Boom & ; Titanic EC: And that was because of the oil boom here? Was that because of the oil boom here in Bristow? PS: Yes. And he knew everybody here and he Marvin (ph) had to, well he had kind of overextended himself and he took the wells down and gone back east to get more money and my husband come right down here and stepped in the [indecipherable]. EC: Were there any particular stories that your husband told you about the oil field here at Bristow? PS: No. EC: Anything you remember about who were the people who really made money out of the oil here in Bristow? PS: [Indecipherable] the old poor farm that the state had bought, the county was out on the old highway and one, and I had [indecipherable] and I went out to get my wood and it was covered in snakes and that, well, I come in out there and the wind [indecipherable] and my feet were covered. There were [indecipherable]. Right down. Well, it just had a big tank. That's about all I can remember of his particular things. So it went broke. Pearl remembers the town being crowded during the oil boom. She also recalls it was at that time the Titanic sank and she would read newspaper stories to about it to Ed Abraham. cotton ; cotton gin ; Ed Abraham ; Joe Abraham ; oil ; oil boom ; Titanic ; WWI oil boom 2327 Interesting People EC: Who were some of the more interesting people that you knew in Bristow? Who were some of the more interesting people in Bristow? PS: Well, I guess the Joneses had the First National Bank, so [indecipherable] this parking lot where, [indecipherable] LM and OD, LM was the old man and OD was his son and they ran the bank [indecipherable] first one of the boys and he was a doctor and Hooker Groom (ph) was the pastor of the Christian Church here. When Mr. Groom died shortly after I came here and he was a man, well respected. Wasn't anyone in this town, I don't think was what loved Mr. Groom on Old Man Groom for then they built that building across the street that what is now against our insurance building there, and it went broke and the person and their first statement [indecipherable] the corner of seventh and main by the American National. That's where [indecipherable] that is the Jones Bank. OD, I mean, M Jones, [indecipherable] BB Jones. They dropped their money from the Drumright oil fields. Some of the interesting people Pearl remembers: The Jones Family, F. Hooker Groom, and the Indians, Drumright ; F. Hooker Groom ; First National Bank ; Georgia ; Green Corn Dance ; Indians ; M Jones ; OD Jones interesting people 2600 The Banks EC: Well what, surely you've got some other vivid memories of something that happened in Bristow. Do you remember one of the bank robberies or do you remember any of that? PS: Yes, I remember that. We were having a big faith convention in the Baptist church and Mr. Endsley had a meat market. He was cooking a ham for it and his daughter and I had gone to [indecipherable], and taken the car and gone after this ham for dinner. And when we got back there at the American National Bank, you know, the big crowd there and we didn't know what was wrong. And she jumped out of the car to run to find out and the bank had just been robbed, but they, then they went [indecipherable] the bank and they said by that time they called out [indecipherable] coming out of the bank. And that was the end of them. [Indecipherable] was sheriff of this county and was for years. Pearl recalls witnessing a crowd of people right after American National Bank was robbed. American National Bank ; bank robbery ; Baptist Church banks 2715 Merchants Going Broke The cotton got kind of short and it seemed like to me the oil had made this town. It used to be a little and tiny out here, and when that oil went down to 10 cents a barrel, it blew up. People lost their jobs. People were just, people lost their homes. Jim Fogle, he told me, we sat one night and ate together. I had known him for years and I was, I went back to work for Penny and. We used sat down there and he was telling me Jim had a hard time when he was telling me they had oil on his face. And he said, I'm setting pretty. Well I saw, I knew the times that Jim Fogle went on the WPA [indecipherable] had two boys and a girl. One of his boys was being, was educated to be a doctor. Dr. (Charles T.) Schrader was his uncle, and Dr. Schrader was sending him to school and the other boy told was going to be a preacher and a Methodist. After Jim went broke, the Methodist sent Joe on to be a preacher. Pearl remembers when oil went to 10 cents a barrel and people were losing their jobs and homes and merchants were going broke. Dr. Charles T. Schrader ; Jim Fogle ; oil ; soup lines merchants going broke 2941 Dr. Charles T. Schrader EC: Tell something about Dr. Schrader. [Inaudible] PS: Oh, I don't know why I don't, we just thought he was a wonderful doctor that was old. He, oh I know, we hadn't been here very long. My mother's youngest girl, my sister was 10 years old, and after Papa was killed, well, she just didn't know where she was [indecipherable] home and about 1919 [indecipherable] she couldn't talk [indecipherable] inflammation of the stomach. Pearl remembers Dr. Schrader and Dr. King performing surgery on her sister. Dr. Charles T. Schrader ; Dr. W. E. King ; flu epidemic Dr. Charles T. Schrader 3183 Albert Kelly EC: What can you tell me about Albert Kelly? PS: Oh, well, Albert Kelly was an old [indecipherable] and he loved everybody and [indecipherable] built an apartment house and they wanted a hospital here so bad, but he couldn't get no help. So [indecipherable] on sixth street, on Main Street. So he [indecipherable] that and [indecipherable] it to a girl. I learned for a hospital. And me, my sister was offered [indecipherable] but that was several years later in that hospital. But he couldn't get no help. He wanted to get help, help build a hospital. Nobody seemed to be interested in it. EC: That was Dorcas (Kelly). That was Dorcas. Pearl remembers Albert Kelly being a wonderful man who wanted to build a hospital in Bristow. Albert Kelly ; American National Bank ; Dorcas B. Kelly ; Dr. Charles T. Schrader ; Jones Bank ; oil Albert Kelly 3527 Flu PS: Oh, my husband, he did work 12 hours a day and went to bed the other 12 hours. Now, when we lived in Ponca City, he never missed a day for two years. That was the [indecipherable] had eight strings of tools on him, and my husband never missed a day for two years until he come down with the flu and he almost died. Marvin (ph) was a wonderful man. He there was no hospital there at that time and he just signed a check and took it to the Catholic priest and said, get him to somebody. And they had a sister or mother superior or somebody [indecipherable] came down there to Ponca City. They were loaded bed and they put him in a basement of the Catholic Church, and they took to take care of 12, but people died like, and we all, my mother, my husband and I was all down at one time. Pearl recalls her husband, mother and herself all being down with the flu, but her husband almost died from it. Catholic Church ; Clifford T. Stoker ; flu ; Los Alamos ; Texas ; Tulsa ; Washington flu MP3 In this 1979 interview which includes Ellis Shamas and Pearl Stoker, Ellis talks about his family, Clarke’s clothing, the oil boom and WWI. Pearl Stoker tells about coming to Oklahoma, working for Ed Abraham, the banks, hard times and Dr. Schrader. 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. EC: Ellis Shamas, June 20th, 1979. Why don' ; t you just start and tell me about your own family and how they ended up in Bristow and that' ; ll lead us, I think, into some of these other families, Lebanese families. ES: To the best of my knowledge, my mother (Amalen Mehael Asad) came here in 1905 with a brother, Frank Mike. He had been here and returned to what was then Syria, today is Lebanon, to marry, and when he brought his bride, he also brought my mother, his sister, with him. EC: Well, well, I understand that many of the Lebanese families have a common name, Feghali somehow. The name Feghali is a name where... ES: That' ; s a section of the country are in what we would term here as tribes. They follow a common ancestry from, no telling, how far back. This becomes the family name. Each son takes his last name, his father' ; s first name. EC: Oh, I see. ES: And in my mother' ; s case, her family name was Feghali in that country Feghali I don' ; t know how far back the ancestry goes, but the founder of the tribe was a person by the name of Eheli Feghali (ph). Her father' ; s name was Mehael in that country. And so she came over as Amalen Mehael. EC: Now as far as you are aware was Joe Abraham the first Lebanese to settle in Bristow? ES: The best of my knowledge, he came into Oklahoma with a pack on his back long before there were very many Lebanese in Oklahoma anywhere. EC: And he was joined by two brothers. ES: He, I think, first brought a brother, Ed Abraham over, and later on, a brother Useph Abraham came. The connection between my family and Ed Abraham was that my Uncle Frank, who came because Ed Abraham was here, was a partner with Ed Abraham in some kind of a business in a little village in Syria. EC: This was Frank Mike. ES: Frank Mike. He' ; s taken his name, they made Mike out of Mehael. This was the nearest of the English language would come to that name. EC: Your wife said there were 27 Lebanese families here at one time. Does that sound right? ES: I don' ; t really know the number of the families, but the oil boom brought a lot of cousins and uncles and aunts, the original, all Lebanese Syrians, I should call them, because that' ; s what they were called in those days, came because they weren' ; t doing too well in the villages where they were at, and each came to make his fortune and return. But the majority came, got married, started a family, and could never afford to return. EC: Right? Yeah. So that most of the Lebanese families in Bristow did have some family relationship? ES: The majority of the families came from two different villages. One of the villages, where Joe Abraham came from, was outside of Beirut, possibly 10 or 12 miles, as I understand, up in the mountains. This was [indecipherable] the village is still there. I don' ; t know how much it amounts to, I' ; ve never been there. The, most of the other families came from a village near what today is Israel. And that was, [indecipherable] and this is in the United Nations whatever it is that they' ; re holding there now. EC: Right. And then I believe your wife was saying that a couple of the families here that were not related, just the two we talked about, to make [indecipherable] were not related and maybe the Eliases were not? ES: The Eliases came from this village [indecipherable] outside of Beirut. But the villages there, apparently, were pretty close together. While the families knew each other, they didn' ; t have a...(pause) and relatives, cousins, uncles, whoever was here, would furnish the capital or would go to the bank and make arrangements for them to set up, not big businesses, maybe a pop stand, maybe a little grocery store somewhere. EC: Jumping around a little bit before I forget. It' ; s true that Clarke started in Bristow, the Clarke' ; s clothing store? ES: A.L. and Harry Clarke had a store here, probably, it was early as, I would say, 1921, 1922. I' ; m not sure of the year. They were located then about, I' ; d say, maybe on 120, maybe not that far on North Main. They moved across the street into a building that now is a vacant car lot. They were next door to where our bank was, American National Bank. They also, I think, opened a store in Cushing at that time. As best I know, Harry moved to Tulsa and bought out, I think, S& ; Q Clothiers (ph). I' ; m not positive of the [indecipherable], but that seems like the name. So this would' ; ve been possibly 1931, 1932. In the early thirties, Harry stayed in Bristow, and operated the store until, oh, I would say early fifties, store burned at that time, and he didn' ; t go back into the business. EC: Oh, what about, I' ; ve been told that the Haggar slack man started here. Did you know him? ES: Yes. Joe Haggar worked for a family by the name of Wasaff. He worked in a store. The store was located probably about 216, 17, 18. It' ; ll be on this side of the street, probably an even number, maybe like 218 North Main. I think a bakery is in the building now that Wasaff was in. His name was, as best I remember, Alex Wasaff. Joe Hagger was a clerk in the store. Married Wasaff' ; s daughter, started on the road selling pants. Got a chance during the depression to buy a few sewing machines in Dallas, and I believe, that location was on Commerce. I don' ; t recall exactly what block it would' ; ve been in, but the war was beginning to come on in Europe and he began to get a good many contracts like with the government, JC Penney, the people like that. And he expanded from this little [undecipherable] store operation and I don' ; t know how many plants they have now, but a good many and rated as one of the top pants manufacturers in the country. Their volume is not as great as somebody like Levi or Bluebell, but there are about fourth or fifth down in, in total volume. EC: What about the Besharas started in Bristow or, I guess, some of the Besharas lived here? ES: The Besharas lived here. I don' ; t know where they started. This was a family of people. They came probably in the early twenties, and it was Sandy Sheriff (ph), a sister of theirs, was married to Saab Elias, and there might have been others that I can' ; t recall right now. Bill Hagar, by the way, was in an interview with Menswear (ph) listed as Bristow as one of the places where he began. He listed Joe Abraham in this interview as one of the first people that he worked for. Joe Abraham hired him, according to the interview, as a cotton buyer. He told Joe Abraham that he didn' ; t know anything about cotton. He didn' ; t know how to [indecipherable] Joe Abraham, according to Mr. Hagger, asked him if he knew what a good-looking horse was like. Mr. Hagger said yes. He did know what a good-looking horse was like. He asked him if he knew what a good-looking woman looked like, and he said, of course, anybody knows that. Then Joe Abraham told Mr. Hagger, you' ; ll make a good cotton buyer. EC: I was asking your wife before you came in, I' ; d realized that most of the Lebanese were Catholic, and she said, yes, except you were not, and it wasn' ; t unusual for the Lebanese who came here to be non-Catholic. Is that a, I don' ; t know that much about Lebanon. ES: But [indecipherable] of course had a good many, that was the basis of most of the religions, absolutely. There was a Greek Catholic, which was a different church entirely from the Roman Catholic. They had their own bishop, their own priest. The village my father came from was primarily Greek Catholic. Mother came from, was primarily Roman Catholic, so there wasn' ; t a Greek church, Greek Orthodox, I think, is the way they listed even yet. So my mother and my sisters and my younger brothers were brought up in a Catholic church. My father took me to the Christian Church. EC: This probably isn' ; t an easy question for you to answer, but I have read that there was a lot of anti-Catholicism in Bristow and this came from one of the local Catholics. And I wonder, how much of what she thought was anti-Catholicism was anti-Lebanese or how much of what may have been appeared to be anti-Lebanese was anti-Catholic. Were you aware of any prejudices in growing up here in Bristow? ES: There was a lot of anti, all over the country. There was a lot of anti-WAFs (ph), a lot of anti-Shiites (ph), a lot of Jews, Yehudis couldn' ; t go to a lot of places at one time. This was quite typical of that day and time, and this wasn' ; t any different. Whenever people began to come into the area, they set up naturally and not [indecipherable], but in people that had common interests and the people that couldn' ; t speak English and that included the Indians too, fell into their own groups. EC: Right. How old are you? ES: 65. EC: All right. You were born then in 1914 or 15? ES: 1913 October this year. EC: Then your earliest memories of Bristow really would be, well, perhaps World War I might have been, but it was happening. But you really wasn' ; t as gone much until the oil boom day. ES: So my earliest memories of World War I is, I don' ; t know what they were called at that time, home guards probably, but young men would get out and drill, getting ready for whatever may come. And I do remember going to the railroad station, [indecipherable] neighbor going into the service. And this would have been like 1917 as best I can place a year. EC: Since you were just a young child, were you conscious of the oil boom in Bristow? ES: Very much so, because, it was a very small town until the time the oil boom and people flocked in, took up every available place that they could live, sleep, eat, and it became an entirely different town from a small cotton country town. It became a town of people from New York, Pennsylvania, and other sections where they' ; d had oil previous to the oil boom here. And they were young people that came in, mostly without their families. And not having any other type of entertainment, whenever they would go out on an oil rig or a pipeline or anything of that nature, they would stay until the end of the week. And then they would come in, not all, not everybody, but they would get paid sometimes in gold, sometimes in currents, and sometimes in silver. They would come in to Bristow because this was the nearest place for them. And then they would find their entertainment with whatever the town offered. EC: I judge the entertainment grew as the boom grew? ES: Well, it was a good deal of industry in the upstairs of these buildings. Now they' ; re all vacant. The, yeah, the fights were quite common. The town had a curfew, I don' ; t remember what the age, but I think the time was after seven o' ; clock in the evening. Everybody under a certain age had to be off the streets. The law enforcement at that time probably consisted of maybe six to seven peace officers. Best I remember, the town had a city marshal. He might have had one or two helpers. There was a couple maybe, constables, in that day and time. There could have been in the area, two US marshals, and that was probably the entire peace force in a town that had in it probably 15 to 20,000 people crowded and everything that they could live in. And in the area itself, maybe like 30 to 40,000 people. It' ; s considered this the shopping center. EC: I would imagine you probably started working for your father when you were still in school. Is that true or did you have other jobs? ES: No, I started working in the store probably like 8, 9, 10 years old. Jennifer worked, but in that day in time, a good many people quit school at the eighth grade and worked in the oil fields and places. An education then was eighth grade, a good deal more than a lot of other people had. And a high school graduate could almost teach school. EC: Yes. What do you, what memories do you have of your own days in school here? Anything that stands out when you reminisce about school days? ES: Nothing really that would be of any interest to anybody but myself, personally. EC: Well, I was thinking more of the kind of, what kinds of things did young people do for fun, for entertainment? What, you know, do you remember things like Fourth of July picnics or parades or athletics or whether some particular kind of shenanigans the kids got into when you were young to get a flavor for the times? ES: Halloween was one of the big things, and even the adults in those days enjoyed holidays. The Main Street would have almost as many adults and costumes as it would have young people. And of course, young people were permitted more leeway than they are today. This was a town with a lot of outhouses and like a lot of other towns, these outhouses suffered quite considerably. There was a lot of other things that went on, but it was quite common to soak windows and soak everything of this nature. I don' ; t think the destruction was quite as expensive as today' ; s destruction could be. The day and time, then, was only athletic activities took place in the afternoons. The football fields weren' ; t lighted, the baseball fields weren' ; t lighted, so when there was a football or a baseball game in town, the stores would close. It was that kind of game, and everybody would go to the football game. I only know this story by hearsay. This is by a friend of mine who isn' ; t living now, but he told of the justice of peace, if I could use a name that was, Judge (John) Humphrey, that had a case going in his court early in the afternoon and there was a football game to begin about 1:30 or 2, whatever time this was. This may be a story only, I don' ; t know if there' ; s any truth. He listened to the two lawyers, plead the case for quite a while, just before game time. He stopped them, told them to go ahead and plead their cases, that he was going to football game, that they would find the decision in the top drawer. EC: (laughs) What about... ES: You' ; ll hear a lot of these things around town, you know, you never know whether that' ; s true or not. EC: It sounds probable. ES: Well, if you had known the man, you would' ; ve known it could have been very possible. EC: Yes. Were there any special effects of the Depression on Bristow? Sometimes I have the feeling that small towns maybe didn' ; t suffer as much as cities or maybe more, in other words, what strikes you from this distance about the effect of the Depression on Bristow? ES: It had been technically an oil and cotton town. The price of oil dropped so that a lot of the companies couldn' ; t produce it. They fired, of course, a lot of their employees, farmers themselves, weren' ; t on the commercial scale that they are today. This, of course, is not a farm area now it' ; s a [indecipherable] country, but families grew on, like, 40, 80, 120 off the top, large families, and when cotton cease to become commercial, these people were heavily mortgaged either to their suppliers of the stores or to the banks. And if they didn' ; t lose their property to the banks or to the people they had borrowed from, they lost it in taxes. Cotton dropped down at the gin, something like 9 cents. This would convert to 3 cents in the field. They had to pay a cent and a half to have it picked so it wasn' ; t commercial any longer. And had one of my pictures that shows that day and time, I' ; ve been told, you could have gone down Main Street from cotton wagon to cotton wagon and never put a foot down on the street itself. So, the buyers, the as best I remember, six gins, Joe Abraham was the owner of one of the gins. The others had other owners, of course. And the buyers would bid to get the cotton, but they would get into a lot of fights and all this type of thing, the buyers themselves. So one year they reached an agreement that they would pay a certain price and only a certain price for the cotton. This would eliminate the fights and the bad feeling and all of this. And Joe Abraham also agreed with the rest of the owners of the gins to, to hold by this price. And he only paid the agreed price for the cotton, but he paid a dollar a dozen for the eggs for everybody that sold the cotton to him. Eggs at that time was something like 10 cents a dozen. EC: Right. Has there been anything oh, outstanding, amusing, exciting, interesting, the kind of thing that I might not know to ask you about that has happened in Bristow that comes to your mind? ES: I' ; m not sure exactly the kind of thing, you know, that you' ; re, EC: oh, that' ; s, anything that, yeah, that strikes ES: that you' ; re wanting but there was a lot of money around the town and the people that had the money were young, energetic, aggressive people. Naturally, you could tell this because they brought KVOO into a town this size whenever Tulsa didn' ; t have anything to compare with it. They built a hotel here in town that was equal to almost anything there was in the area. And as things began to dwindle, these same people lost their money. Not particularly in the oil fields here, but they plunged in other areas for it. Particularly, you' ; ve probably been told the hotel here was named after the two partners that had done real well. There was two brothers here that produced their own oil, refined their own oil, and sold it to their own service stations. That was Glen, Glen Freeland and his brother. You' ; ve probably been heard a lot of this from, people heard know a lot more about it than I have. It' ; s unfortunate, but one of the Freelands died just possibly 60, 90 days ago. There' ; s a lot of people still living in this area that would give you something a little different than I can give you. Some are connected with peace enforcement, some are connected with the Indian tribes. Some are connected with the fire department. EC: Well, now you mentioned the Indian tribes and the police enforcement and fire departments. I, and fire department I talked to Curt Gillaspie, who would be the only person I' ; m aware of connected with the fire department and I have, do you have everybody particularly in mind for police or Indian? ES: This woman' ; s husband, she' ; s in a rest home now, but her mind is still pretty alert. She' ; s in her nineties. He was one of the early justices of the peace here and also a city, they called them city marshals in those days. They and their chief of police. EC: Right. ES: This woman is a granddaughter of the fella by the name of Allen, who was one of the early, these are Indians. EC: Right? ES: This fellow Allen was one of the early US Marshals appointed from Fort Smith before this was statehood. And the best I know her. She' ; s still alert. EC: Right. ES: You know, she would still be a good person if she wanted. EC: Yeah. ES: If she will [indecipherable] with you. She would be a good person if you hadn' ; t already had these names, given them to you. This man served on the police force, years, oh, on the police force, and he was a fireman too. This goes back a good many years and the town is quite young. This lady got married in a building two doors down from me in a bakery. She, thinking she may still be visiting here, but I' ; m not sure. This is an old timer that was in the oil fields that would know a good deal about the oil fields, a lot more than I. EC: Sure. ES: I don' ; t have. EC: Well, why don' ; t you just tell me, Mrs. Stoker first about your family. Where were they from and how' ; d they happen to end up in Bristow? PS: Well, my, my family' ; s all gone except one sister. I have one sister alive and she' ; s in North Carolina. She' ; s my baby sister. EC: Well, were you born here in Bristow? PS: No, I was born in Kansas. EC: Whereabouts in Kansas? PS: Parker. EC: And did your parents move to Bristow? PS: Oh, they come to, and they, and then we have been here since I was seven years old. EC: What when was that? What year? PS: Oh, I don' ; t remember. (Unknown Speaker) She' ; s 89. EC: Okay. You' ; re 89 now. And you were, came here when you were, PS: Oh, she would say that. EC: You came here when you were seven? PS: Yes. EC: Ah do you know why your parents chose to come to Bristow? PS: No. My father was just hunting green pasture. EC: What did he do for a job? PS: He was a farmer. EC: A farmer? PS: Yeah. EC: He, what' ; d he do get a, an allotment, a lease, an allotment. PS: Oh, no, we were not Indians, EC: But I thought maybe he, PS: No. EC: Where' ; d he get the land to farm? PS: Oh he just was a sharecropper. EC: Oh, I see. What do you remember about coming to Bristow the first time? PS: The thing I remember coming to Oklahoma was when we came across the Verdigris River and the horses, we were in the covered wagon and the horses had to swim, and one of my sisters laid down and put her head under a quilt, and mama was driving, papa was driving the big team. They were covered wagon and he took all the kids and put us in that wagon and mama was [indecipherable]. And mama said, now I' ; ll not come in that river. They told us that it, we were going to come across that river tonight because of it rising all the time. And so, mama said you come back after me, I won' ; t come in there. But when she started that team that she was driving, they just stood up on their hind feet and they were going too. And when mama got up, when Papa got across the river, the horses had swum the river in the covered wagon. He had another team in front of him. Another man [indecipherable] mama that, that horse [indecipherable] sat on the back of the seat of the surrey. And I looked out the window. I was seven years old and I looked out that little fold in the back of the covered wagon and I could see the team, but we couldn' ; t see mama. She was sitting on the back end of the seat and she come up and stood the beside of papa and he said, where' ; d you come from? She said I had to come! The horses, I couldn' ; t hold them. And that' ; s the most thing that impacted me. And then the first Indians we saw was at Blue Jacket, and I was scared to death of them. And some of ' ; em didn' ; t have anything on but a [indecipherable] pile. EC: Well, what about Bristow itself? PS: Well, after my father was killed, my father was killed when his team ran off, and the line broke. The man that he was working for the Campbell Oil Company, he had lost everything he had during, well, during McKinley about the year McKinley was killed. He had a mortgage on sixteen head of cattle and four big horses, and they foreclosed on him. And so we came and he went into the oil field to work out of Nowata. And he was killed coming in from work one night. Team, it was a very bad team, and had always been, had already killed one man. And he was working in the Home Shooter Field (ph) and they had got a big gas well, and Mr. Campbell had come after him and his driller and the team, just as they got into the town of Nowata right on Main Street, the team started to run and the line broke. And my father was a head buck boy at that time, and my father was putting on the brake and the other men jumped and Papa jumped, but his foot was caught, and it broke his neck. That was in 1910. EC: Okay. When did you, and you came to Bristow, PS: 1911. EC: 1911. PS: Yes. EC: What are your memories of Bristow when you first came here? PS: Oh, I thought it was terrible. EC: Did you? PS: No, it was quite a permissible town and they part had parts, wooden sidewalks here, and I thought it was terrible. But my mother had come here. She never went down the main street of Nowata after my father was killed. And she came here, she had a little insurance and bought a place on the east part of town. EC: A farm? PS: No, just a house. EC: Just a house. PS: And there were four of us children in the home. My older sister was married and gone from home. EC: Did you go to school here in Bristow? PS: No, I went to work to make a living. EC: Where did you work? PS: I worked at Ed Abraham' ; s store. And then Mr. Wolf, LM Wolf gave me more money and I went there. Mrs. (Nellie Gray Campbell) Abraham didn' ; t want me to quit and she tried to get Ed to give me more money and he wouldn' ; t do it because she and I were very good friends. So I went to LM Wolfe' ; s store was there right south of the, what' ; s that other bank? EC: Community. PS: Community State Bank now. EC: And when did you get married? PS: Oh, 1916. EC: Alright. Was your, had your husband been living in Bristow long? PS: Well, he was an oil field worker and he came here and drilled some wells and got dry holes. He drilled for [indecipherable], and they got dry holes at that time. But later he came back and then after we were married he went to Shamrock and that' ; s when the Shamrock boom was on. It was about 19, 1915, the Shamrock boom. And then in 1916 we got married and we went to Ponca City. And he worked for Marvin (ph) as his driller. EC: Came back to Bristow later? PS: Then, he came back, oh, about 1925, I guess [indecipherable]. EC: But you came back here to live? PS: Yes. EC: And that was because of the oil boom here? Was that because of the oil boom here in Bristow? PS: Yes. And he knew everybody here and he Marvin (ph) had to, well he had kind of overextended himself and he took the wells down and gone back east to get more money and my husband come right down here and stepped in the [indecipherable]. EC: Were there any particular stories that your husband told you about the oil field here at Bristow? PS: No. EC: Anything you remember about who were the people who really made money out of the oil here in Bristow? PS: [Indecipherable] the old poor farm that the state had bought, the county was out on the old highway and one, and I had [indecipherable] and I went out to get my wood and it was covered in snakes and that, well, I come in out there and the wind [indecipherable] and my feet were covered. There were [indecipherable]. Right down. Well, it just had a big tank. That' ; s about all I can remember of his particular things. So it went broke. EC: It went, broke? You? PS: No, he did. EC: He did. Well, what happened? PS: Well, oil went to 10 cents a barrel. We got [indecipherable] became contractors and we would get along pretty good. And then we had two wells. He drilled two wells of his own and you know, [indecipherable] oil was 10 cents a barrel and these big companies filled their tanks for, and we had 500 barrels of oil. And when my husband went to the gate to take the oil [indecipherable] taking it, he said, I can' ; t take it. My tanks were all full. Well, the state took it for back taxes the state tax on oil, and that was the end of our contract. EC: Who were the people? Who were some of the people who made money in oil here in Bristow? Who were the big oil people in Bristow? [Indecipherable] You came here in 1916. You got married in [indecipherable]. What the, did you notice anything about World War I, did it affect Bristow at all? Did you notice any? What about, go ahead. Go ahead. I thought you were gonna say something. What about when they all boom hit Bristow? Did the town change? PS: Oh, yes. EC: What kind of changes did you see? PS: You couldn' ; t find a place to stay all night that people came here, at one time, Bristow was 15 south population people set up in the depot [indecipherable]. EC: Is that right? Was it a rowdy town, like a lot of oil towns, a lot of activity and were fights on the streets and things like that? PS: Well, no, I can' ; t say [indecipherable]. People came here and [indecipherable] and they were all small. [Indecipherable] I didn' ; t buy it. He passed away now and has been gone for some years. EC: What were some of the more interesting things that you can remember happening? Anything funny or exciting or memorable? PS: No. I have some things, but I wouldn' ; t wanna tell them. EC: Why not? PS: Well, it' ; s people here that might not appreciate it. EC: I see. PS: [Inaudible] Oh, well, when I came here this town was a for a cotton town, 1st of September, the street that he bought the cotton buyers and cotton wagon. And Ed had a lot of money out. Mr. Wolf had a lot of money [indecipherable] and, but Ed was a [indecipherable], and that' ; s the year the Titanic went down. [Indecipherable] Titanic, went down and Ed could not read [indecipherable] and he would go out and buy papers and want me to read about the Titanic. And then. Joe Abraham, his brother, came here ahead of him and he built where Anthony is now. That was Joe Abraham [indecipherable] moved our [undecipherable] up there and Ed had a building and and Joe had one and Joe had was a cotton, he had a cotton gin and also he put in a cotton mill gin, a piece mill (ph), to piece the salt. And so Ed had a lot of money out and of course when they, each person came, he went under. He died here. EC: When did he die? PS: Oh, about a year ago. But Joe' ; s been dead for some time. EC: Who were some of the more interesting people that you knew in Bristow? Who were some of the more interesting people in Bristow? PS: Well, I guess the Joneses had the First National Bank, so [indecipherable] this parking lot where, [indecipherable] LM and OD, LM was the old man and OD was his son and they ran the bank [indecipherable] first one of the boys and he was a doctor and Hooker Groom (ph) was the pastor of the Christian Church here. When Mr. Groom died shortly after I came here and he was a man, well respected. Wasn' ; t anyone in this town, I don' ; t think was what loved Mr. Groom on Old Man Groom for then they built that building across the street that what is now against our insurance building there, and it went broke and the person and their first statement [indecipherable] the corner of seventh and main by the American National. That' ; s where [indecipherable] that is the Jones Bank. OD, I mean, M Jones, [indecipherable] BB Jones. They dropped their money from the Drumright oil fields. EC: Oh, they did? Were there people in Bristow who lost money in the bank? PS: Oh yes. One man lost $90,000 in the bank. And he [indecipherable] my husband, he [indecipherable] and they had an awful hard time. They owned a [indecipherable] and they struck oil. And they called it [indecipherable] all the children were married but the youngest girl and they' ; d gone to Norman and she was going, and when the bank went broke, he called Mr. Davidson (ph) and he came up and he had $90,000 [indecipherable]. EC: Tell me about the old green corn dance. PS: Well, I can' ; t tell you much about that. I' ; ve been trying to get the information. I went out there, the Indians used to have a green corn dance. I, maybe they do now. There was a lot of Indians here, then most of them have died off. And so I went to the store out there. We had a horse and buggy [indecipherable] night. Well, I wouldn' ; t get out the buggy. Things didn' ; t look very good to me out there. And I was a kind of a fussy old person, and I, [indecipherable] was killed out there. His name was Ralph (ph), but I' ; ve never been able to understand what his last name is. I called two men last night that I had known, and none of them could remember. Well, his wife was pregnant. His [indecipherable] wife was pregnant and she lost her baby and he [indecipherable] same call, but I never could, I can' ; t remember who that last name was. No. EC: Was the Green Corn Dance the same time as, what do they call it, the Green Onion, the Green Onion dance or something different? PS: Green Corn Dance Days. EC: What about the, most of the Indians have died off. Were there Indians who lived in Bristow? Like they lived outside? PS: No, they lived mostly they [indecipherable] and they had come here, you know, [indecipherable] and these Indians were part nigger, part colored I should say, and they came here to, they was a year coming from Georgia. I had a friend who was born in a covered wagon on the way. EC: Well what, surely you' ; ve got some other vivid memories of something that happened in Bristow. Do you remember one of the bank robberies or do you remember any of that? PS: Yes, I remember that. We were having a big faith convention in the Baptist church and Mr. Endsley had a meat market. He was cooking a ham for it and his daughter and I had gone to [indecipherable], and taken the car and gone after this ham for dinner. And when we got back there at the American National Bank, you know, the big crowd there and we didn' ; t know what was wrong. And she jumped out of the car to run to find out and the bank had just been robbed, but they, then they went [indecipherable] the bank and they said by that time they called out [indecipherable] coming out of the bank. And that was the end of them. [Indecipherable] was sheriff of this county and was for years. EC: Did you have children? PS: No. EC: Did you or your husband were you or your husband ever involved in politics in any way? PS: No. He oil, this was his life. He was a mason and a Baptist, and that' ; s just as far as it went. He was the first man, a first person, ever baptized in the Baptist Church, 1921. EC: Is that right? PS: [Indecipherable] The cotton got kind of short and it seemed like to me the oil had made this town. It used to be a little and tiny out here, and when that oil went down to 10 cents a barrel, it blew up. People lost their jobs. People were just, people lost their homes. Jim Fogle, he told me, we sat one night and ate together. I had known him for years and I was, I went back to work for Penny and. We used sat down there and he was telling me Jim had a hard time when he was telling me they had oil on his face. And he said, I' ; m setting pretty. Well I saw, I knew the times that Jim Fogle went on the WPA [indecipherable] had two boys and a girl. One of his boys was being, was educated to be a doctor. Dr. (Charles T.) Schrader was his uncle, and Dr. Schrader was sending him to school and the other boy told was going to be a preacher and a Methodist. After Jim went broke, the Methodist sent Joe on to be a preacher. EC: Were there many merchants here who went broke? PS: Oh yes. Yes. EC: Do you remember any soup lines or anything like that? PS: It was just done for, we had a lot of oil well [indecipherable] and in fact the town just boomed overnight. I never saw a town where people come and sat on your porch because they couldn' ; t find a place to stay all night. Their own hotel was not built at that time. It was a livery barn [indecipherable] and imagine a livery barn that[indecipherable] helped put that hotel up there. And I' ; ve seen the time, but they said they had the lobby full of people that come here to get jobs and they sat in the lobby for days waiting for a place to live. EC: Bishop. Oh Bishop, what about John Bishop? PS: John Bishop? I don' ; t know. No, I don' ; t remember him. John Bishop? No. There was a Groom thing and Jones thing. And then the first state, it was a Mr. Flurry (ph) and Mr. Harry Hunter (ph) had that. He went broke [indecipherable] screwed up. [Inaudible] EC: Community. PS: Oh, he had that now, don' ; t he? That was, well, they reorganized and they got that bank for going and I don' ; t know of anybody, if they ever got any that money. [Inaudible] EC: Tell something about Dr. Schrader. [Inaudible] PS: Oh, I don' ; t know why I don' ; t, we just thought he was a wonderful doctor that was old. He, oh I know, we hadn' ; t been here very long. My mother' ; s youngest girl, my sister was 10 years old, and after Papa was killed, well, she just didn' ; t know where she was [indecipherable] home and about 1919 [indecipherable] she couldn' ; t talk [indecipherable] inflammation of the stomach. But Dr. Schrader had been out here three or four times out to my mother' ; s house, and he couldn' ; t talk her into operate on my sister because my oldest sister lived up here by [indecipherable] and she told her not to. So that [indecipherable] and he said, I want you to come home. And I said, how' ; s my sister? He said[indecipherable] grabbed me and took me in and said, we' ; ve got operate on her. My mother was walking me back of the yard and crying, but [indecipherable]. They came down, they, the three days was already up and they had her packed in ice and the next day they [indecipherable] and Dr. Schrader, and Dr. (W.E.) King and Dr. [indecipherable] nurse all came out and still my mother [indecipherable] had talked me into it. Well, I realized they knew more than my mother about that. [Indecipherable]. 12 o' ; clock everything was done and they had gone and she got along wonderful. On the table. They told me that. He told me to take everything outta the living room, Dr. Schrader did, and wipe the walls down. [Indecipherable]. They came out and my mother [indecipherable] another time and my mother and he told her, he said, one more way [indecipherable]. I waited too long now [indecipherable] and he took the penny the first thing [indecipherable] all over Jessie' ; s (ph) stomach. And he said it was twice [indecipherable]. My mother had said she know [indecipherable] EC: Was there a flu epidemic in Bristow or small pox? PS: We had that [indecipherable] they didn' ; t have that here when I was here. We had that [indecipherable]. EC: What can you tell me about Albert Kelly? PS: Oh, well, Albert Kelly was an old [indecipherable] and he loved everybody and [indecipherable] built an apartment house and they wanted a hospital here so bad, but he couldn' ; t get no help. So [indecipherable] on sixth street, on Main Street. So he [indecipherable] that and [indecipherable] it to a girl. I learned for a hospital. And me, my sister was offered [indecipherable] but that was several years later in that hospital. But he couldn' ; t get no help. He wanted to get help, help build a hospital. Nobody seemed to be interested in it. EC: That was Dorcas (Kelly). That was Dorcas. PS: Then he was married to her, and I think they' ; ve had six or seven children. And wonderful man. And they, I, they have the bank now instead of the Jones Bank. It' ; s the Kelly Bank. It' ; s the American National. [Indecipherable] wonderful man. EC: Where did Albert Kelly make his money? PS: Oil. EC: Oil. PS: Well, he and Dr. Schrader, and a [indecipherable] that was a county commissioner, and Albert had the oil, you know, [indecipherable] and that' ; s where they that' ; s where he made his money. EC: [Indecipherable] the county commissioner. PS: Well, no, this was [indecipherable] at that time. Now Paul Foster (ph) saved the people in this town [indecipherable]. He gave a steer every other month, every month. And the boys went out and butchered it, went out and bring half of it in, and the other half, put in ice, that' ; s all there was to it. And, but they couldn' ; t sell [indecipherable], a wonderful thing. EC: Who was county commissioner who made money on the [indecipherable]? PS: Johnny (ph) EC: He owns some of the mineral rights himself. PS: Yeah. He and [indecipherable] and he went out to California and one of his daughters is living here now. And he and his wife, youngest child went out on a trip to Wyoming and Connie (ph) died out there of a heart attack. And his wife come back and she kept [indecipherable] a million dollars in their hand, and they didn' ; t take it, but it [indecipherable] there. They just closed. They couldn' ; t tap it. They couldn' ; t, there was so much gas, they couldn' ; t tap it and it just pulled itself out. EC: Who were some of the other people, like your husband who worked in the oil fields that weren' ; t... PS: Well, Jimmy [indecipherable] and oh, I can think of a hundred if you hadn' ; t asked me. EC: Well, was Brick Kirchner one? PS: [Indecipherable] No, he never worked, Brick didn' ; t, where my husband worked, but he never worked. [Indecipherable] They were the ones that, they had the money and my husband had worked for them. [Indecipherable] and a wonderful man to work for. EC: Roy, you know Roy? PS: Yeah. Anyway, he came later. Yeah, we wasn' ; t here then. My husband had, [indecipherable] but at that time my husband had been in the hospital, [indecipherable] she died of cancer. I knew her. EC: Tell me what you did for, what did you do for fun? Socialize. Did you go to dances or PS: No, I didn' ; t have any fun. Oh, it took all, I had to go home and make a living for my family. EC: Well, after you got married? PS: Oh, my husband, he did work 12 hours a day and went to bed the other 12 hours. Now, when we lived in Ponca City, he never missed a day for two years. That was the [indecipherable] had eight strings of tools on him, and my husband never missed a day for two years until he come down with the flu and he almost died. Marvin (ph) was a wonderful man. He there was no hospital there at that time and he just signed a check and took it to the Catholic priest and said, get him to somebody. And they had a sister or mother superior or somebody [indecipherable] came down there to Ponca City. They were loaded bed and they put him in a basement of the Catholic Church, and they took to take care of 12, but people died like, and we all, my mother, my husband and I was all down at one time. But a doctor, a little doctor came out and he took a nurse off of another state and brought him. And I' ; ve had that man come at two o' ; clock in the morning. He came every day for 30 days and I looked up one morning, one night, and there he stood in the door, there were a cup of coffee and a piece of bread and he said that' ; s all I' ; ve had this morning. [Indecipherable]. EC: Let' ; s see, Mrs. Stoker lived in Texas and then in the state of Washington and at Los Alamos with their husband, returned to Tulsa and moved back to Bristow around 1975. audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0045B_Ellis_Shamas.xml OHP-0045B_Ellis_Shamas.xml
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Ellis Joseph Shamas & Pearl M. Stoker
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In this 1979 interview which includes Ellis Shamas and Pearl Stoker, Ellis talks about his family, Clarke’s clothing, the oil boom and WWI. Pearl Stoker tells about coming to Oklahoma, working for Ed Abraham, the banks, hard times and Dr. Schrader.
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OHP-0045B
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1979-06-20
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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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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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Lafayette Johnson
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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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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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Etta Feild Caves
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5.4 December 4, 1990 OHP-0039A Etta Feild Caves OHP-0039A 0:00-27:11 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Bristow Historical Society, Inc. Etta Feild Caves Wanda Newton 1:|24(5)|47(3)|64(5)|88(6)|93(7)|100(5)|123(2)|140(1)|157(7)|175(2)|194(2)|202(11)|214(10)|230(14)|242(1)|262(2)|273(5)|294(5)|309(8)|325(7)|338(3)|351(4)|360(3)|383(3)|400(4)|411(3)|423(8) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0039A Caves, Etta Feild.mp3 Other audio 0 Early Life & ; Coming to Bristow WN: …Tuesday, December 4, I’m Wanda Newton and I’m at the Rainbow Nursing Home and we’re going to have a little conversation with Etta Feild Caves. Etta Feild how long have you been in the nursing home now, do you remember? (pause) I don’t know, do you? EFC: No. WN: Okay, about a year, would you say? EFC: Oh, yeah. About a year. WN: Okay, Etta Feild, can you tell us when you were born? EFC: Yes, I was born January 12, 1904. WN: And were you born in Bristow? EFC: No, I was born in Mississippi, and I-- WN: When did you leave Mississippi? EFC: I left Mississippi when I was ten years old. WN: Did you come directly to Bristow? EFC: And came directly to Oklahoma. I had visited out here before but that was the first time. WN: Who did you visit when you came out here? EFC: I visited the R.L. Joneses. Etta Feild was born in Mississippi and moved to Bristow at the age of 10. Drumright ; Mississippi ; RL Jones early life ; moving to Bristow 218 Family WN: How many brothers and sisters did you have, Etta Feild? EFC: I was the oldest, and then Mary Helen, my sister, is twelve years younger than me. And the third boy, the oldest one, was Robert Lee. And he was always called ‘Brother.’ And Brother (pause) Well, let’s see, he was almost two years younger than me, his birthday was in October. Then along about I’m thinking six years younger than me were the twins, and they were Vernon and Edward. Etta Feild recalls each of her brothers and sisters and also being at the house of her aunt, Allie Montfort Jones. Allie B. Jones ; family ; twins family 393 School Can you tell us anything about your early school? Where did you go to school, Etta Feild? Do you remember where the school was? EFC: Well, the first year when I was in school the building stood there where Edison is. And I was just there but one year and anything. And there was six grades. WN: Do you remember any of your early schoolteachers, Etta Feild? The names of any of them? (pause) I can’t remember any of mine, I thought you might’ve had a special—you never did get a spanking in school, did you? EFC: No. Now we had a man teacher that—to start out with, which was a different—you know, from Mississippi. Etta Feild remembers attending a school where the Edison Elementary stands currently. She also recalls having a male teacher, which at the time, she wasn't used to. school school 510 Entertainment & ; Chores WN: What did you do for entertainment? EFC: Well, we read books ourselves and certain ones were read aloud, you see, to a group of children, maybe. WN: How about your lessons at home? Did you parents make you study your lessons at home? EFC: Oh, yes, we studied our lessons at home at night. WN: And your parents listened to you read and everything? You didn’t have any radios or anything like that so you spent your time—did you have to sew? Learn to sew? What did you have to learn to do as a child? You didn’t have any chores that you had to do, did you Etta Feild? EFC: I don’t think so, except to look after the younger ones. (laughs) Etta Feild remembers reading books for entertainment and not having many chores other than looking after her siblings. babysitting ; books ; entertainment ; sewing chores ; entertainment 630 Church WN: Okay, can you think of anything special that you remember about your early church, Etta Feild? EFC: Well, I know that it was a wooden one, and it sits right there where the Methodist Church is now. WN: And you’ve always been a Methodist? Were you Methodist in Mississippi, too? EFC: I was Presbyterian and then a Methodist in Mississippi, and out here, why, I was a Methodist and then a Presbyterian when—in some later years. Etta Feild recalls following the Presbyterian and Methodist faith both in Mississippi and once she moved back to Bristow. church ; Methodist ; Mississippi ; Presbyterian 773 Staying with Family & ; Oil Days EFC: I remember using horses when I came in from Drumright when I was eight years old, you know, [indecipherable]. WN: And you stayed with Mr. Jones and Mrs. Jones then, over in Drumright? EFC: Yes. WN: So— EFC: And then I stayed with them, some of those years and I went to school in Bristow when my family were out in the oilfields. WN: Do you remember anything unusual that happened during the early oil days? Did they have difficulties then like they have now? You know, with workers or financing or can you remember any of them talking about anything like that? EFC: Well of course you’d hear the bit about financing, you know, and at noontime the men would generally walk home from down at the American National Bank— Etta Feild remembers staying with her aunt, Allie B. Jones, when her family worked in the oil field and attending school in Bristow. Allie B. Jones ; American National Bank ; Drumright ; oil fields family ; oil days 860 Transportation to School WN: What’s the farthest you ever had to walk for school or anything? (pause) You never had to walk a long way, did you, or did they take you to school? EFC: The third and fourth year in the seventh—eighth grade I had learned to ride a bicycle and that’s the way that I went from up on 11th street—let’s see, 10th street— WN: And went to school on your bicycle. Do you remember any early Christmas celebrations you had? Anything special you ever got? A doll, or anything that was really wonderful to you? EFC: Well, I wasn’t so very fond of dolls and so I never did—(laughs)—have any of those, and— Etta Feild recalls learning to ride a bike and using that as transportation to school in eighth grade. bicycle ; school ; transportation transportation to school 997 Attending College & ; Travel WN: And then you went from there to what school? Did you go to Ward-Belmont or where did you go? EFC: I went to Washington, D.C. because I had an uncle and aunt who had moved to Washington, and it was called National Park Seminary. WN: All girls? EFC: Yes. All girls. WN: And then you came back to Bristow? What did you do after you finished school? EFC: Well, I get mixed up on the— WN: Is that when you took a trip to Europe, or were you in school when you took your trip to Europe? Your first trip? (pause) Or had you finished school? Do you remember? EFC: Well, I took two trips to Europe and I think they were ten years apart, something like that. Etta Feild remembers attending college in Washington DC at National Park Seminary and taking the train for the commute back and forth. She also recalls two trips to Europe. Europe ; National Park Seminary ; trains ; Washington DC college ; travel 1102 Trains WN: Can you tell us anything about the early days of catching the train in Bristow and about—now, I know that the depot was segregated, can you tell me anything about the white and the black, you know—when you traveled, you remember anything about the distinction they made between the white people and the black people when they traveled? Or at the depot or anything? EFC: I—I can just recall it was mostly white people that rode on trains. WN: Do you remember anything— EFC: --and the trains left out of here, oh, five or six in the evening, you know, some of them would come down to the station and see us off— Etta Feild remembers the trains leaving in the evening time and friends and family would come see them off at the depot. trains trains 1177 Marriage When did you get married, Etta Feild, do you remember what year you were married? EFC: Isn’t that terrible, not be able to recall just exactly what year— WN: I don’t know what year I was married. I never can remember whether I got married in 1941 or ’42, so no, it’s not terrible. At least I’m going to say it’s not terrible because I can’t ever remember, either. So I don’t know. And can you tell us who you married, Etta Feild? EFC: Yes, I married (husband, Boyd Forbes Caves) WN: You’ll think of it. Handsome young man. EFC: Yes, of course he was a handsome young man! He was a little older than me and— Etta Feild married Boyd Forbes Caves. Boyd Forbes Caves ; marriage ; Tchula (Miss.) marriage 1409 Children WN: Was Elaine born in that house that you built on sixth street? EFC: No, she wasn’t. We lived in one house—we lived in two houses— WN: Oh, you did? You lived in that house where Norma Smallwood lived at one time? Where Margie Neal lives now? EFC: Yes, we lived there the second. The first one went up—we lived (pause) almost across the street on seventh street. WN: On seventh street. And then you built your house after Elaine (Caves Nolan) was what, about two or three years old? Or how old was Elaine when you started building your house, do you remember? EFC: She could walk because I have on a— WN: On a movie? Etta Feild remembers her daughters Elaine Caves Nolan and Denise Caves. Denise Caves ; Elaine Caves Nolan Children 1500 Gardening WN: Okay. So, anyway, now, so we’ve got you here on sixth street and you’ve had a wonderful, wonderful life and have certainly been an asset to our community. And I see where the park entryway has your name on it, and I think that’s a nice thing for our community, also, honoring Etta Feild Caves who certainly was one of the pioneer garden people in Bristow. Can you tell me anything about some of the early people that you worked with? I know Mrs. (JV “Beula”) Dorman was— EFC: Yes, Mrs. Dorman was a real hard worker and gardened— Etta Feild remembers JV " ; Beula" ; Dorman working hard and helping her with gardening projects around Bristow. garden club ; gardening ; JV " ; Beula" ; Dorman gardening MP3 Etta Feild Caves discusses her move to Oklahoma from Mississippi at age 10, early Bristow days, her family, school, church, early transportation and her community involvement. WN: --Tuesday, December 4, I' ; m Wanda Newton and I' ; m at the Rainbow Nursing Home and we' ; re going to have a little conversation with Etta Feild Caves. Etta Feild how long have you been in the nursing home now, do you remember? (pause) I don' ; t know, do you? EFC: No. WN: Okay, about a year, would you say? EFC: Oh, yeah. About a year. WN: Okay, Etta Feild, can you tell us when you were born? EFC: Yes, I was born January 12, 1904. WN: And were you born in Bristow? EFC: No, I was born in Mississippi, and I-- WN: When did you leave Mississippi? EFC: I left Mississippi when I was ten years old. WN: Did you come directly to Bristow? EFC: And came directly to Oklahoma. I had visited out here before but that was the first time. WN: Who did you visit when you came out here? EFC: I visited the R.L. Joneses. WN: They were already here? EFC: Yeah. Well, that wasn' ; t here, that was in Drumright Field. WN: Oh, in Drumright. And when did you move to Bristow, do you remember that? About when? EFC: In--I had moved to Bristow when I was ten years old and so that was nineteen hundred and-- WN: Let' ; s see you were born in-- EFC: In nineteen hundred and fourteen. WN: 1914. Where did you live when you first came to Bristow? Do you remember which house you lived in? EFC: The house I lived in isn' ; t standing today. It was across there from the (pause) WN: That' ; s alright. EFC: (pause) --from the-- (sighs) WN: Now don' ; t worry about it. EFC: --the--(pause) WN: Or maybe you' ; ll think of it pretty soon. EFC: Wait just a minute. Anyway it' ; s almost on the side of the Legion. WN: Oh, the Legion Hut? EFC: Yes! WN: Oh! And then when did you move in the house on east 11th. Didn' ; t you live on east 11th? EFC: East 11th. WN: Did you live--didn' ; t you live in a two-story house there? EFC: Yes-- WN: Isn' ; t that where my brother lives now, did you not live there? EFC: Yes, I lived there longer than any place but oh, so many houses in between. WN: Oh, so many in between. Did you-- pause in recording WN: How many brothers and sisters did you have, Etta Feild? EFC: I was the oldest, and then Mary Helen, my sister, is twelve years younger than me. And the third boy, the oldest one, was Robert Lee. And he was always called ' ; Brother.' ; And Brother (pause) Well, let' ; s see, he was almost two years younger than me, his birthday was in October. Then along about I' ; m thinking six years younger than me were the twins, and they were Vernon and Edward. WN: I didn' ; t know they were twins! I never did know that. Can you think of anything that was outstanding in your childhood that you remember real well about anything that you did when you were little, Etta Feild? EFC: Yes, I can recall Aunt Allie--Mrs. Monfort Jones--having us in when she was entertaining one of the womens' ; clubs. I don' ; t know what that could have been. And it was to hear a lady who was the instructor down at Chickasaw, and the principal thing that she gave was Enith (ph) Ardon (ph). WN: You mean she gave the reading? EFC: Yeah. WN: My word! EFC: We sat on the staircases and-- WN: And listened? EFC: Well, we children did. WN: So now, you always had Negro help didn' ; t you, Etta Feild? When you were a child? EFC: Yes, I think we always did. WN: I remember Mrs. Jones always had help. We don' ; t have it like that, now. Can you tell us anything about your early school? Where did you go to school, Etta Feild? Do you remember where the school was? EFC: Well, the first year when I was in school the building stood there where Edison is. And I was just there but one year and anything. And there was six grades. WN: Do you remember any of your early schoolteachers, Etta Feild? The names of any of them? (pause) I can' ; t remember any of mine, I thought you might' ; ve had a special--you never did get a spanking in school, did you? EFC: No. Now we had a man teacher that--to start out with, which was a different--you know, from Mississippi. WN: (laughs) EFC: And that man was--well, maybe I' ; ll recall it later on. WN: Well, that' ; s alright. Mother had a man by the name of Mr. (John F.) Sharp, but that wouldn' ; t have been him, would it? EFC: No, Mr. Sharp was still connected with the school but he wasn' ; t--may have been still head of the WN: Of the schools at that time? Do you remember any of your schoolbooks? I remember looking in the old library, you know, list of the newspapers and I saw that the Joneses and some of the people were sort of responsible about getting a library at that time. We didn' ; t even have a library. EFC: No, we didn' ; t have a library. WN: What did you do for entertainment? EFC: Well, we read books ourselves and certain ones were read aloud, you see, to a group of children, maybe. WN: How about your lessons at home? Did you parents make you study your lessons at home? EFC: Oh, yes, we studied our lessons at home at night. WN: And your parents listened to you read and everything? You didn' ; t have any radios or anything like that so you spent your time--did you have to sew? Learn to sew? What did you have to learn to do as a child? You didn' ; t have any chores that you had to do, did you Etta Feild? EFC: I don' ; t think so, except to look after the younger ones. (laughs) WN: With brothers that can be a chore sometimes, too. And how about your clothing? Did your mother make your clothing? EFC: Yes. Mother made some of it but generally it was somebody who was real good about making clothes. WN: Like a seamstress. EFC: They were kind of, a little fancy, like these pants that we wore, why, they had tucks in them and-- WN: Lots of lace, didn' ; t they? Did you have a lot of lace? EFC: They might' ; ve had lace on the bottoms. [Indecipherable] lace. WN: Did you ever have to iron any of them? Did you have to learn to iron or do anything like that? EFC: I don' ; t think so. I don' ; t believe I learned to iron at that time. WN: Okay, can you think of anything special that you remember about your early church, Etta Feild? EFC: Well, I know that it was a wooden one, and it sits right there where the Methodist Church is now. WN: And you' ; ve always been a Methodist? Were you Methodist in Mississippi, too? EFC: I was Presbyterian and then a Methodist in Mississippi, and out here, why, I was a Methodist and then a Presbyterian when--in some later years. WN: I know, Etta Feild, in my contact with you, you' ; ve always been so special to so many different people because you always did so much for everybody and you--and in your club work you were always so special. Can you tell me anything about the early clubs that you belonged to? I know I read in the paper, I think, did you belong to Embroidery Club and Culture Club and--do you remember--I know you' ; ve always done so many things and you' ; ve been so active in your church, I know that. But can you remember anything special that happened in any of the early events? (pause) I know the Culture Club and some of them helped start the libraries, I read in the paper where it had a library in a schoolroom once, but I didn' ; t get to read the rest of the article, I thought maybe you might remember some of that. (pause) Did you all have a car? EFC: Oh, yes. We had one car for all of us. WN: But you--you don' ; t remember using horses or carriages here in Bristow at all, do you? Or did you? Do you remember any of that? EFC: I remember using horses when I came in from Drumright when I was eight years old, you know, [indecipherable]. WN: And you stayed with Mr. Jones and Mrs. Jones then, over in Drumright? EFC: Yes. WN: So-- EFC: And then I stayed with them, some of those years and I went to school in Bristow when my family were out in the oilfields. WN: Do you remember anything unusual that happened during the early oil days? Did they have difficulties then like they have now? You know, with workers or financing or can you remember any of them talking about anything like that? EFC: Well of course you' ; d hear the bit about financing, you know, and at noontime the men would generally walk home from down at the American National Bank-- WN: Everybody came home for lunch, didn' ; t they? EFC: Yeah, for lunch. And then walked back. WN: What' ; s the farthest you ever had to walk for school or anything? (pause) You never had to walk a long way, did you, or did they take you to school? EFC: The third and fourth year in the seventh--eighth grade I had learned to ride a bicycle and that' ; s the way that I went from up on 11th street--let' ; s see, 10th street-- WN: And went to school on your bicycle. Do you remember any early Christmas celebrations you had? Anything special you ever got? A doll, or anything that was really wonderful to you? EFC: Well, I wasn' ; t so very fond of dolls and so I never did--(laughs)--have any of those, and-- WN: But did you like books and games better or what, Etta Feild? EFC: Yes, I think so. WN: And birds, I know you' ; ve always liked birds, haven' ; t you? EFC: Yes, but I don' ; t know that we had any books on birds in those days. WN: I thought maybe you might' ; ve had a canary or something for a pet. Did you ever have a dog for a pet? EFC: No, I never did. We had a dog when we were over where--the Fords, you know. WN: And then, Etta Feild, after you finished high school, you finished high school here in Bristow? Did you finish high school in Bristow? Or did you go to a private school? Do you remember if you finished high school in Bristow? EFC: Oh, I finished high school in Bristow, yes. WN: And then you went from there to what school? Did you go to Ward-Belmont or where did you go? EFC: I went to Washington, D.C. because I had an uncle and aunt who had moved to Washington, and it was called National Park Seminary. WN: All girls? EFC: Yes. All girls. WN: And then you came back to Bristow? What did you do after you finished school? EFC: Well, I get mixed up on the-- WN: Is that when you took a trip to Europe, or were you in school when you took your trip to Europe? Your first trip? (pause) Or had you finished school? Do you remember? EFC: Well, I took two trips to Europe and I think they were ten years apart, something like that. WN: Oh, look at your little sparrow! They' ; re so cute, aren' ; t they? EFC: (laughs) WN: Etta Feild, tell me--when you went back and forth to school, how you got there. Did you, somebody drive you back to Washington or did you all go on the train? EFC: Went on the train, yes. WN: And you caught the train from Bristow? EFC: Yes. WN: Can you tell us anything about the early days of catching the train in Bristow and about--now, I know that the depot was segregated, can you tell me anything about the white and the black, you know--when you traveled, you remember anything about the distinction they made between the white people and the black people when they traveled? Or at the depot or anything? EFC: I--I can just recall it was mostly white people that rode on trains. WN: Do you remember anything-- EFC: --and the trains left out of here, oh, five or six in the evening, you know, some of them would come down to the station and see us off-- WN: --meet the trains. Oh, that was always exciting, wasn' ; t it? They used to love to watch the trains come in. Like Dickie Walker (ph), he used to go down and meet them with the girls. (laughs) When did you get married, Etta Feild, do you remember what year you were married? EFC: Isn' ; t that terrible, not be able to recall just exactly what year-- WN: I don' ; t know what year I was married. I never can remember whether I got married in 1941 or ' ; 42, so no, it' ; s not terrible. At least I' ; m going to say it' ; s not terrible because I can' ; t ever remember, either. So I don' ; t know. And can you tell us who you married, Etta Feild? EFC: Yes, I married (husband, Boyd Forbes Caves) WN: You' ; ll think of it. Handsome young man. EFC: Yes, of course he was a handsome young man! He was a little older than me and-- WN: Did your parents object? Did they think he was too old for you? EFC: No, they didn' ; t have anything to say about it. It was after we left Mississippi that I married him and he came down to Tchula, Mississippi and down there and we had a wedding party and my cousins were the bridesmaids, you know. WN: Oh, well how exciting, I didn' ; t know that! And then you all came back to Bristow, and-- EFC: Yes, and he was a good friend of the Wolfs--a Steve Wolf, and Mrs. Wolf, and so he was in that house and I came right out there and would look after the house in a way, they had a cooking, and stay live in year after year. WN: Was he a boarder at their house or was he related to them? EFC: No, he wasn' ; t related, he was just--I don' ; t know, sort of like an adopted son. WN: Oh, how wonderful. And then when did you all build your house on sixth street? You lived other places before you built your house on sixth street? EFC: Well, let' ; s see. We lived first in the Wolf house because they were not there. And so then we had tried to select our lot to live on and we wanted to live on the one down on the corner, but Mrs.-- (pause) WN: Well, don' ; t worry about it. She didn' ; t want to sell her lot, or share it? EFC: No, she didn' ; t want to sell a lot. WN: Is that the lot right next door where Marvin Sullivan' ; s house was built? Is that the lot? EFC: Right next door? WN: Uh-huh. Or where Aileen Wagoner has her house? And the Sullivan house was built? EFC: Yeah. WN: So then you went across the street and got that lot, is that what you did? And when did you build that house, do you remember what-- pause in recording WN: Was Elaine born in that house that you built on sixth street? EFC: No, she wasn' ; t. We lived in one house--we lived in two houses-- WN: Oh, you did? You lived in that house where Norma Smallwood lived at one time? Where Margie Neal lives now? EFC: Yes, we lived there the second. The first one went up--we lived (pause) almost across the street on seventh street. WN: On seventh street. And then you built your house after Elaine (Caves Nolan) was what, about two or three years old? Or how old was Elaine when you started building your house, do you remember? EFC: She could walk because I have on a-- WN: On a movie? EFC: [Indecipherable.] WN: But now Denise (Caves) now was born in that house. EFC: Yes. WN: Okay. So, anyway, now, so we' ; ve got you here on sixth street and you' ; ve had a wonderful, wonderful life and have certainly been an asset to our community. And I see where the park entryway has your name on it, and I think that' ; s a nice thing for our community, also, honoring Etta Feild Caves who certainly was one of the pioneer garden people in Bristow. Can you tell me anything about some of the early people that you worked with? I know Mrs. (JV " ; Beula" ; ) Dorman was-- EFC: Yes, Mrs. Dorman was a real hard worker and gardened-- WN: She was one of the first people to get the flowers started at the entryway and then what was the lady who lived south of town out on the oil camp that helped so much with the garden club? Do you remember her name? Then she moved to Texas? When her husband died? And she had a daughter? But Mrs. Dorman and you all worked so hard with those children out at the park, I can see you yet--you all out there getting the little Junior Garden Club people to try to be interested in helping their community. Was Mrs. Kelly in Garden Club, too? EFC: Yes. WN: Because I remember she tried to get projects down there by the Hamburger King, you know, beautification? You all were always doing something that was to help. I can remember you, too, helping so many children who needed clothing and how many times you came by my house with garments for children to be fixed and what a wonderful thing you did, Etta Feild. See, you' ; ve forgotten all those things you did, haven' ; t you? Well, other people haven' ; t forgotten. Okay. end of interview audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0039A_Etta_Feild_Caves.xml OHP-0039A_Etta_Feild_Caves.xml
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Etta Feild Caves
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Etta Feild Caves discusses her move to Oklahoma from Mississippi at age 10, early Bristow days, her family, school, church, early transportation and her community involvement.
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OHP-0039A
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1990-12-04
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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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Ed Cadenhead
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Herbert Abraham
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5.4 May 23, 1979 OHP-0045A Herbert Abraham OHP-0045A 0:00-41:41 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Bristow Historical Society, Inc. Herbert Abraham Ed Cadenhead 1:|10(11)|24(10)|40(9)|63(5)|74(8)|83(12)|94(10)|110(2)|120(8)|129(11)|142(9)|153(14)|169(6)|186(9)|200(5)|210(5)|222(10)|232(5)|245(14)|257(9)|273(3)|282(8)|291(8)|307(6)|323(8)|337(2)|348(1)|358(4)|370(11)|380(1)|388(9)|397(4)|408(14)|416(5)|434(1)|443(17)|454(6)|466(2)|477(10)|489(5)|504(1) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0045A Abraham, Herbert.mp3 Other audio 1 Lebanese Settling in Bristow EC: Herbert Abraham. Okay. I, one of the questions as an outsider I've had is, how'd the Lebanese end up here? HA: How did they end up here? Well, originally Joe Abraham was the founding Lebanese settler in this community. He had a brother named Useph Abraham and Ed Abraham. Ed Abraham was a well-known merchant, had one of the largest stores in Bristow for many, many years. During the Depression, he accumulated probably a hundred thousand dollars in outstanding accounts that his various customers owed to him. He was known as the poor man's friend, and he never turned a man down, regardless of the man's financial standing, who needed groceries. Herbert tells of his father, Joe Abraham, and how he came to Bristow. boomer ; Ed Abraham ; Governor Charles N. Haskell ; Governor Robert L. Williams ; Joe Abraham ; sooner ; statehood ; The Great Depression ; Useph Abraham Lebanese Settlers 154 Joe Abraham's Business Ventures HA: I, no, I'm, I'm not sure who it was there. But anyway, these fellas from Oklahoma City who were active in Oklahoma politics would come to Bristow and they always called on Joe Abraham. He was active in making Oklahoma a state, and he settled in Chandler to start with and was there, I believe, married in Chandler and then came to Bristow and was married to Fannie Abraham, who came from Lone Jack, Missouri. EC: What business was he in? HA: So how's that? EC: What business was he in? HA: Who's that? EC: Joe. Joe, yeah. HA: Joe was in the cotton business. He had a cotton oil mill, made cotton seed cake, had seven gins. EC: I mean, when he, when he came to Bristow? HA: Oh, when he first came to Bristow, he was a peddler. He came, he, when he first landed in New York City, he of course was not married, and just had enough money to pack a suitcase with various items that would be sold to people in outer lying districts. And he walked as a peddler from New York City to, to Philadelphia and, and some, and going out of New York, he, he just said he said, where's, which way is Philadelphia? Herbert talks about Joe Abraham's business ventures, such as being a peddler on his way to Bristow. He also had several businesses while in Bristow and greatly contributed to Bristow's economy. Bristow Gas Company ; Chandler ; Claude Freeland ; Continental Refinery ; cotton ; cotton gin ; cotton oil mill ; cotton seed cake ; Fannie Abraham ; Frank Barnes ; Havana Tip ; Joe Abraham ; Leon Thevenin ; Lone Jack (Mo.) ; New York City ; peddler ; Philadelphia ; Wilcox Refinery business ventures 434 Lebanese Families EC: When did his brothers come? HA: Well Ed came, I don't know exactly how many years after dad came, maybe five or six years, not very many years, and then, and Useph later came . And Ed married Nelly Campbell, a local native of Oklahoma. And… EC: I don't know whether you said did, when did Joe come to Bristow? HA: Well, he came to Bristow in about 1889, I believe, near that, near that time. And… EC: Was there any, you know, there, there's some other Lebanese families that settled here. Was there any connection between them and Abraham's? HA: Well, yes, Joe Abraham had a sister named Esthier (ph). And Esthier (ph) is the word that comes from Eastern Star, from the book of Esther out of the Bible. And many of father, my father's sisters were, had biblical names. One was named Hannah well known biblical name, and dad's name was Salim (ph), which is the Celtics of Jerusalem as Salem. And Salem was the, and the original king of that taught the king of Salem, the king of peace was Jerusalem, was that city when the original Abraham landed in, in the Holy Land. Herbert talks about when Joe Abraham's brothers came to Bristow and many other Lebanese families that settled in Bristow. Bill Shibley ; Deeb Slyman ; Dolly Joseph ; Don Abraham ; Ed Abraham ; Ella Slyman ; Frank Corey ; George Joseph ; George Slyman ; Jeanette Abraham ; Joe Abraham ; Lebanese ; Mayor of Bristow ; Nelly Campbell ; Paul Joseph ; Useph Abraham 691 Oldest Buildings EC: Change the subject a little. What, what are some, what are the oldest buildings still standing in Bristow to your knowledge? HA: Well, at the present, one of the oldest would be the the Rexall Drug Store. It was constructed, I believe, by Joe Abraham in 1903, and another rather old building next to it would be the Anthony Building that was constructed by Joe Abraham in 1912. And those are, 1903 is a rather old building. EC: Yes. Yes. What about let's see, there's a Stone building there? HA: There, yes. AH Stone, that's an old building. I, that's maybe have a, maybe it has a head marker on it tells the date. I don't know when it was constructed and I don't know whether AH Stone built that building or not. Herbert remembers some of the oldest buildings around Bristow. AH Stone ; Anthony Building ; Episcopal Church ; Joe Abraham ; Rexall Drug Store ; Stone Building oldest buildings 832 The Depression EC: How did, how did the Depression affect? HA: How did the what? EC: How, how did the Depression affect your family? HA: Well, Joe Abraham died in 1927 and the, and the Depression struck at, at the time when, if I may say so, that I had to take over. EC: Right. HA: Which was and I had probated the estate myself. And ,we, as other people, we were land poor. We, in a sense, we were broke. We went for five years without paying our taxes. Many, many people in Oklahoma went for five years without paying any ad valorem tax. There was a moratorium on the payment of taxes with the starting of the moratorium on the World War debts, which were saddled on Germany. And Germany could not pay and did not pay. And with the moratorium on the war debts, we were headed, well, heading into the depression days. So with the closing of the banks there just wasn't any money. We operated with scrip, with the Chamber of Commerce was our bank. Our bank was a Chamber of Commerce we operated with scrip, and we were short of money. Herbert remembers the effects of The Depression on his family and the community. He talks about no one having money or paying taxes and how cheap cotton, corn and wheat was. Ad valorem tax ; Chamber of Commerce ; Joe Abraham ; scrip ; The Depression The Depression 993 Childhood EC: In thinking about just your memory as a child, mainly. Are there any particular things about life as a child in Bristow that stands out? HA: Oh, yes. We used to go to the Star Theater for 5 cents, and that was to start with, the kids here didn't know what a picture was. We didn't know what a a moving picture was at all, and most of us were afraid to even have our pictures taken. We were afraid of the little red canary or the little blue and green canary, so we went to the picture show for 5 cents. We bought all of the popcorn we wanted for 5 cents, and we sat on the front row, all the kids. And the first the first 10 or 15 seats were just filled with kids. And we could buy watermelons for a nickel a piece, and ice cream cones, milkshakes, haircuts a quarter. And we as children, we had everything we needed and a lot more. Herbert remembers having everything he needed as a child. He remembers going to the movie theater, riding horses, buying watermelon and ice cream cones. Bill Smith ; blacksmith ; Hooker Groom ; Star Theater childhood 1123 Ku Klux Klan EC: Do you remember the Ku Klux Klan being in Bristow? HA: I remember when Jack Walton was governor of Oklahoma and the Ku Klux Klan was rather rampant, and I knew some of the Klansmen in those days and many of them were leading citizens in our community, and I was not interested enough nor old enough to be deeply interested in the Klan's work or what it did. But I do remember the Klan and I remember seeing Klansman. Herbert recalls the Ku Klux Klan being rather prominent and knowing some of the Klansmen even though he had no interest in what they were doing. Cushing ; Governor Jack Walton ; Joe Abraham ; Ku Klux Klan ; Shamrock ; Stone House Ku Klux Klan 1237 Oil Boom EC: Mm-hmm. What what effect did the oil was the oil boom, the biggest boom to hit? HA: Oh yes. The oil boom definitely was the biggest boom that ever hit this town. EC: What kind of effect did it have you just remember as a... HA: Well to start with, there were no paved streets in Bristow and it didn't have large trucks in those days when the boom first started and the mud was over ankle deep and you even walking across the street. We didn't know what jaywalking was. We just walked and they parked cars in the middle of the street. And there were all kinds of teamsters. They, they had wonderful horses and, and, and they would haul most of the oil field equipment, the pipe and the tanks and the tools were hauled by horses. Am Frierson (Ambrose Frierson), a well-known citizen now, deceased, was one of the early truckers in this community, and he did well in trucking. Later became an oil man and his family now has oil. But the oil boom definitely was paramount in Bristow's history. Herbert recalls the oil boom being paramount in Bristow's history. Ambrose Frierson ; Arbuckle ; Bartlesville ; BB Jones ; Boots Jones ; Depew ; Drumright ; Dutcher ; Jones sand ; Layton sand ; M Jones ; Midcontinent field ; oil boom ; oil wells ; Oklahoma Natural Gas Company ; paved streets ; RL Jones ; Shamrock ; teamsters ; Wilcox sand oil boom 1411 Life as a Teenager EC: What, What did you do as a kid, you know, teenager? What was the typical, what'd you do for fun? What kind of life did you lead, you know, kind of thing that... HA: Well, we first, we. EC: Kind of thing you wouldn't wanna tell your kids about? HA: Well, we did…we did a lot of things in those days that a lot of kids do now. We had horses. Some of us started out with jennies. We started out just like other kids. We had skates and later a tricycle and later a bicycle, and later came the automobile. And, and we had horses and, and skating rinks. We did everything that all the kids do today and a lot more, too. We played Go Sheepy Go, and sometimes we'd go and didn't come back. Herbert remembers riding horses and jennies as a teenager. He also remembers having a tricycle, bicycle and then an automobile. Go Sheepy Go ; horses ; jennies ; skating life as a teenager 1463 Bootleggers & ; Bank Robbers EC: I was, I was thinking somebody told me that you, about some bootlegger that used to live here. HA: Oh, you, EC: Was bootlegging. HA: Oh, bootlegging was, next to the oil industry, was the biggest industry in town. Bootlegging was a way that many, many families, families I'm speaking now, and some of their children, the children of the old-time bootleggers, I don't know whether I should mention any names or not, but we had some bootleggers that were considered probably among some of the best liked citizens. I started to say best respected, but they were respected bootleggers. Some of 'em took more preachers fishing than anybody else in town. Herbert recalls bootlegging being big business in Bristow. He also remembers various bank robbers and baseball players. bank robbers ; baseball ; bootlegger ; dance hall ; Hammond Vickers ; oil boom ; Palm Confectionery ; Pretty Boy Floyd ; Punk Corey ; Ralph Corey ; Roy Brandon ; Smooch Jones bank robbers ; baseball players ; bootleggers 1681 Politics EC: Yeah. What about politics? Have there been any interesting politics in Bristow? Anybody? I know they had the elections all the time, but any of 'em real hotly contested? HA: Well the, as I recall, at one time, Bristow had the streets filled with the political groups. And the question was, well, where were we going to have the the county seat? Would it be in Bristow or Sapulpa? So there was a real hot election, and of course Sapulpa won, but Bristow was in the big middle of that, and we, of course won the county seat here. Herbert tells about Bristow's streets being filled with political groups during the time they were having an election to decide where the county seat would be located. Bill Cheatham ; Bristow Newspaper ; congress ; county seat ; democrats ; Ed Mackensen ; Judge Charles Oliver Beaver ; politics ; Sapulpa county seat ; politics 1757 Agriculture EC: Well just let your memory run. What are some of the things that you know, you remember about Bristow that maybe nobody else knows or kind of things that stand out in your mind about life in Bristow? HA: Well, as I recall it, on Saturday you could walk up Main Street and see nearly all of the farmers that lived within trading area of Bristow. And most I knew most of the farmers because I had weighed cotton at the cotton gins for dad. And, also, we had a number of farms and just my business to know them, and I knew the farmers and, and we, we would visit and stop and, and take out time to talk. And it was a lot of sociability among the people in those days. Herbert talks in depth about the importance of agriculture to Bristow, including cotton, cattle and peanuts. Bigpond Family ; blackjack trees ; cattle ; cotton ; cotton gins ; farmers ; housing ; humus ; Indians ; over grazing ; peanuts ; Tiger Family ; trading ; Wells Grocery 2259 Black Community EC: Change the subject again. Was there a black community here all along? HA: Oh yes. We had Lincoln Heights, which was on up by the standpipe on the, the west side of town. And that was the original colored community. And we had some wonderful colored citizens in this area. We still have them. And the colored community later, it was moved to the east side of Bristow and we call it the East Side now on East 12th Street and East 11th Street. And there are many old original families that are still here and there. Herbert recalls the black community was located, originally, in the Lincoln Heights area and then moved to East 12th area. Alfonso Farmer ; Chuck Farmer ; Jake Roberts ; Joe Abraham ; Lincoln Heights ; McKinley Shoals ; Roland Combs ; Slick ; Standpipe Hill ; Wilson Family black community 2386 Indians EC: What about Indians? Did Indians, full bloods, I suppose, live in Bristow, or did they stay out from town? HA: Very few Indians stayed, lived in Bristow. A few, Jay Clinton, lived here at one time, and then there was a a member of the Tiger family that lived here. And not too many Indians lived in the city of Bristow. EC: Was there prejudice or discrimination against Indians? HA: Never. Has there been any prejudice or discrimination against an Indian nor a Negro in this community. Yeah, I know, nor any other nationality. Never have I known of any prejudice. Herbert remembers that there weren't too many Indian families that lived in the town of Bristow. He also felt there was no discrimination or prejudice shown towards any nationality. discrimination ; Indians ; Jay Clinton ; prejudice ; Tiger Family Indians 2445 School System EC: Mm-hmm. What about the school system here? Has it been adequate all along compared to other schools? HA: Yes, we, we've had a wonderful school system and I believe we've got the best school system today that we've ever had. We have a superintendent who's active. He's forward thinking. He's brought us a brand new school system. And they've got a wonderful new school building here, two of them. And, primarily, I think we can give him credit for that. We have an outstanding school system. EC: Well, you and your brother and sisters all went to school here. HA: Yes, we all went to school here. EC: And you have good memories of it because HA: Oh yes. EC: Overall. HA: Oh, yes. At Bristow has always had a top-grade school. EC: Well, let me think what I… Herbert speaks very highly of the school system in Bristow. school system school system MP3 In this 1979 interview with Herbert Abraham, he talks in depth about the Lebanese community and his father, Joe Abraham, and his life and contribution to Bristow's history. He also recalls his childhood growing up in Bristow, the Ku Klux Klan, bootlegging, agriculture, the black community and the schools. EC: Herbert Abraham. Okay. I, one of the questions as an outsider I' ; ve had is, how' ; d the Lebanese end up here? HA: How did they end up here? Well, originally Joe Abraham was the founding Lebanese settler in this community. He had a brother named Useph Abraham and Ed Abraham. Ed Abraham was a well-known merchant, had one of the largest stores in Bristow for many, many years. During the Depression, he accumulated probably a hundred thousand dollars in outstanding accounts that his various customers owed to him. He was known as the poor man' ; s friend, and he never turned a man down, regardless of the man' ; s financial standing, who needed groceries. So Ed, during the depression days, as all others, went through a period when people could not pay their debts. They did not pay him, and he, in turn, could not pay many of the people who he purchased goods from that the bills were not to be paid until later in the fall after the crops were made. So Ed went out of business and Useph Abraham was here and was also in business in the oil business. He later went back to Lebanon. But the question as to how the Lebanese got started, Joe Abraham. EC: Joe was the first one. HA: Yes. EC: Okay. How did he end up in Bristow? HA: Well, he first settled in Oklahoma long before statehood. He was not a sooner. He was a boomer. A boomer was a fellow that was for statehood, and some of the rest of them didn' ; t want statehood. His dad did want Oklahoma to become a state and was active with some of the early settlers. And the first governor of Oklahoma, Governor (Robert L.) Williams, I believe. EC: Was, it was (Charles N.) Haskell? HA: Was it Haskell or Williams? EC: So, you know, you know more about... HA: I, no, I' ; m, I' ; m not sure who it was there. But anyway, these fellas from Oklahoma City who were active in Oklahoma politics would come to Bristow and they always called on Joe Abraham. He was active in making Oklahoma a state, and he settled in Chandler to start with and was there, I believe, married in Chandler and then came to Bristow and was married to Fannie Abraham, who came from Lone Jack, Missouri. EC: What business was he in? HA: So how' ; s that? EC: What business was he in? HA: Who' ; s that? EC: Joe. Joe, yeah. HA: Joe was in the cotton business. He had a cotton oil mill, made cotton seed cake, had seven gins. EC: I mean, when he, when he came to Bristow? HA: Oh, when he first came to Bristow, he was a peddler. He came, he, when he first landed in New York City, he of course was not married, and just had enough money to pack a suitcase with various items that would be sold to people in outer lying districts. And he walked as a peddler from New York City to, to Philadelphia and, and some, and going out of New York, he, he just said he said, where' ; s, which way is Philadelphia? And they showed him, he says, where' ; s the railroad track? And they showed him the railroad track says, why are you going on the railroad tracks? He says, well, he says, I can' ; t get lost. And he said, if I get, if I get tired of walking on the ties, I' ; ll walk on the rails. So he went from New York City by foot and came west. And as he traveled, he made friends and he, he never lost a friend. He was always anxious to make a friend and had good merchandise that I bet many of the old timers around Chandler, some of ' ; em are still there now. And they said, well now one thing about Joe Abraham, he had good merchandise, and he would come with his pack and stay all night at our house. And finally got enough money to buy a horse and and a buggy. And he increased his stock of goods and and, and was quite a trader around Chandler for two or three years. And then he came to Bristow where he was married to Fannie Abraham and opened a, a small store here in Bristow. And he grew as Bristow grew and was instrumental in, in financing some of the first industries in Bristow, if you would call them industries. There was a glass plant here at one time. He opened a cigar factory here at one time and called it the Havana Tip. And he also owned the, bought the Bristow Gas Company from Claude Freeland, and I believe, Frank Barnes might have been an instrumental in it. And he accumulated a little money and would trade with the Indians and the local people. He invested his money in land. Land was cheap, of course, and the Indians were afraid that there wouldn' ; t be enough white people to buy the land. And he was afraid there wouldn' ; t be enough land for the white people. So he just bought land and, and accumulated five or six thousand acres of land during his lifetime. And was instrumental in opening the refinery. Wilcox later the Wilcox Refinery, but it was first the Continental Refinery. A man named (Leon) Thevenin, who was a Frenchman, knew something about refining and the Bristow refinery was open and he had a one fourth interest in it and later sold that interest. I think I mentioned that he opened a glass factory. And he had three strings of standard tools and drilled many gas wells around in the neighborhood of Bristow to supply gas to the Bristow Gas Company, which company was later sold to the, another company and then it became the Oklahoma Natural. And of course, his family was always instrumental in helping him along in the store. As children he would, he would teach us how to clerk and cut salt meat and sack sugar and rice and beans and, and dig, serve, gas service lines all over Bristow. EC: When did his brothers come? HA: Well Ed came, I don' ; t know exactly how many years after dad came, maybe five or six years, not very many years, and then, and Useph later came . And Ed married Nelly Campbell, a local native of Oklahoma. And-- EC: I don' ; t know whether you said did, when did Joe come to Bristow? HA: Well, he came to Bristow in about 1889, I believe, near that, near that time. And-- EC: Was there any, you know, there, there' ; s some other Lebanese families that settled here. Was there any connection between them and Abraham' ; s? HA: Well, yes, Joe Abraham had a sister named Esthier (ph). And Esthier (ph) is the word that comes from Eastern Star, from the book of Esther out of the Bible. And many of father, my father' ; s sisters were, had biblical names. One was named Hannah well known biblical name, and dad' ; s name was Salim (ph), which is the Celtics of Jerusalem as Salem. And Salem was the, and the original king of that taught the king of Salem, the king of peace was Jerusalem, was that city when the original Abraham landed in, in the Holy Land. EC: Well now let, let' ; s see. I heard somebody told me that there was somebody else from the same village in Lebanon. I think it was, came to Bristow. HA: There was a man named Bill Shibley who came later, quite later. Bill told me that he was an orphan boy and that dad' ; s mother reared him. Bill was of course, mayor of Bristow, not long ago. And there' ; s a Corey, a man named Frank Corey, was a Lebanese who was married to Joe' ; s sister, Esthier (ph). Another man named George Joseph, the Joseph family is here now, had a boy named Paul Joseph. And Paul has a sister named Dolly Joseph. They' ; re all Lebanese. And Useph Abraham had a boy named Don Abraham, and also a, a daughter named Jeanette. And Jeanette is here now recently from, from Lebanon, and her husband was killed in the recent war there. And a son, I believe, was killed or injured. And she' ; s making, she' ; s, she' ; s here visiting now, and there were many other Lebanese families. The Elias' ; s-- EC: Right. HA: Was Elias was here, and Saab family named Saab. EC: Was there any reason that they, what about Slyman? HA: And Yes, Slyman was here. Deeb Slyman and Ella Slyman. Deeb Slyman was a well-known merchant for many, many years in Bristow and has a wife here now, Mrs. Slyman. She lives here in Bristow. She has recently returned from Lebanon where she was there. She went there to take care of her, of her sister, who was, who' ; s now deceased. And then she returned here now. And there are many Slyman children. And there was a, another Slyman boy named George Slyman, who died early, and he had several children. I can' ; t recall all of their names, and they' ; re business people now in this area here now. EC: Change the subject a little. What, what are some, what are the oldest buildings still standing in Bristow to your knowledge? HA: Well, at the present, one of the oldest would be the the Rexall Drug Store. It was constructed, I believe, by Joe Abraham in 1903, and another rather old building next to it would be the Anthony Building that was constructed by Joe Abraham in 1912. And those are, 1903 is a rather old building. EC: Yes. Yes. What about let' ; s see, there' ; s a Stone building there? HA: There, yes. AH Stone, that' ; s an old building. I, that' ; s maybe have a, maybe it has a head marker on it tells the date. I don' ; t know when it was constructed and I don' ; t know whether AH Stone built that building or not. EC: And let' ; s see, what about the, the Episcopal, the old Episcopal church building? The Christian science... HA: The old Episcopal church building on west seventh street, I believe. That' ; s one of the oldest buildings, one of the oldest buildings in town, that still remains. EC: What about Joe Abraham' ; s house? When was that? HA: Well, that house, the original, Abraham house was on the lot, just west of the present Stone house. And that was a two-story frame house. All of the family was born there, with the exception of Pauline, and she was born in the present Stone house. I think that was constructed around 1912. I, I, I' ; m not sure about that date. EC: What about, did Joe get involved in any of the banks here? HA: As a stockholder? I think he might have been a small stockholder in in the First State Bank at one time. I' ; m not sure about that. But he was not an active banker. EC: How did, how did the Depression affect? HA: How did the what? EC: How, how did the Depression affect your family? HA: Well, Joe Abraham died in 1927 and the, and the Depression struck at, at the time when, if I may say so, that I had to take over. EC: Right. HA: Which was and I had probated the estate myself. And ,we, as other people, we were land poor. We, in a sense, we were broke. We went for five years without paying our taxes. Many, many people in Oklahoma went for five years without paying any ad valorem tax. There was a moratorium on the payment of taxes with the starting of the moratorium on the World War debts, which were saddled on Germany. And Germany could not pay and did not pay. And with the moratorium on the war debts, we were headed, well, heading into the depression days. So with the closing of the banks there just wasn' ; t any money. We operated with scrip, with the Chamber of Commerce was our bank. Our bank was a Chamber of Commerce we operated with scrip, and we were short of money. We had vacant buildings. I had no money to pay insurance, no money to pay taxes, no money to pay repairs. Nobody had very much money. Bales of cotton lined the street at $25 a bale. You couldn' ; t get enough money to pick the cotton out of a bale of cotton after you' ; d picked it and put those bands of steel around it. Cotton was cheap. Corn was 30 and 25 cents, 17 and a half cents a bushel. It was in the fields in Iowa as everybody knows, the depression days, if you know anything about it, it was cheap corn, and the wheat were lined up at at the export points in New Orleans and they piled it on, on the ground there. They couldn' ; t even find boats to take it out, and there was so much wheat. Train loads of wheat would line up there and they' ; d pile it on the ground, no place to put it. And hamburgers were three large hamburgers for a quarter. And many places, hamburgers, 5 cents a piece, a smaller hamburgers. So you say, how did depression affect us? Just like it did everybody else. We didn' ; t have any money. We were broke. EC: In thinking about just your memory as a child, mainly. Are there any particular things about life as a child in Bristow that stands out? HA: Oh, yes. We used to go to the Star Theater for 5 cents, and that was to start with, the kids here didn' ; t know what a picture was. We didn' ; t know what a a moving picture was at all, and most of us were afraid to even have our pictures taken. We were afraid of the little red canary or the little blue and green canary, so we went to the picture show for 5 cents. We bought all of the popcorn we wanted for 5 cents, and we sat on the front row, all the kids. And the first the first 10 or 15 seats were just filled with kids. And we could buy watermelons for a nickel a piece, and ice cream cones, milkshakes, haircuts a quarter. And we as children, we had everything we needed and a lot more. We had donkeys. Rode horses. There were blacksmith shops on the corner of, of fifth and main street by Bill Smith. He was the blacksmith with the large hands. And we' ; d stop there and watch the sparks fly across the floor, and it was a real honest to goodness town. The children went to Sunday school. There was a little church on east ninth street, and Brother Hooker Groom was the preacher, and he was an old style hell, fire and brimstone preacher. He had us all going to the hotspot every once in a while. And so we had our, we, we were just a, a, a wonderful hometown community. And everybody was friendly and they kept their word. EC: What thing back, let me just ask you, when were you born? HA: Oh, I was born in 1901 on December 8th. EC: Do you remember the Ku Klux Klan being in Bristow? HA: I remember when Jack Walton was governor of Oklahoma and the Ku Klux Klan was rather rampant, and I knew some of the Klansmen in those days and many of them were leading citizens in our community, and I was not interested enough nor old enough to be deeply interested in the Klan' ; s work or what it did. But I do remember the Klan and I remember seeing Klansman. EC: I, I, I didn' ; t know if it ever caused any ruckus. HA: I also remember that we, that one time, when Joe Abraham was to build a cotton gin in Shamrock, Shamrock was a new oil town, and he received a letter from somebody. We don' ; t know whether it was from the Klu Klux Klan or who it was from. But he did receive a letter and had me to read the letter to him. He could not read, but he could write his name, Fannie' ; s name, so dad, on the front porch of the Old Stone House, handed me the letter and asked me to read it. I read it, and it said that you got to discontinue building the cotton gin in Shamrock, that we don' ; t need a gin in this community. And if you do, something will happen. Well, I don' ; t recall exactly what the words were, but I do know that dad was very much concerned over that letter. I don' ; t know whether that was the Ku Klux Klan' ; s letter or not. I don' ; t think it was. I think it was somebody who did not want the gin constructed over there because of competitive reasons, because of the gin that was located probably over in Cushing. EC: Mm-hmm. What what effect did the oil was the oil boom, the biggest boom to hit? HA: Oh yes. The oil boom definitely was the biggest boom that ever hit this town. EC: What kind of effect did it have you just remember as a... HA: Well to start with, there were no paved streets in Bristow and it didn' ; t have large trucks in those days when the boom first started and the mud was over ankle deep and you even walking across the street. We didn' ; t know what jaywalking was. We just walked and they parked cars in the middle of the street. And there were all kinds of teamsters. They, they had wonderful horses and, and, and they would haul most of the oil field equipment, the pipe and the tanks and the tools were hauled by horses. Am Frierson (Ambrose Frierson), a well-known citizen now, deceased, was one of the early truckers in this community, and he did well in trucking. Later became an oil man and his family now has oil. But the oil boom definitely was paramount in Bristow' ; s history. It started with a discovery of some shallow wells in the Layton sand and later found some production in the Jones sand and later Bartlesville and deeper down to the Dutcher and then Wilcox sand. And there have been a few Arbuckle tests made in around Bristow, but very few here over in around the Drumright area. There' ; s been some Arbuckle production, but the, the field spread from primarily it, it hit, it hit around Drumright and Shamrock in that area, big, first, and the Jones family here, that would be RL Jones and M Jones and BB Jones and, and Boots Jones, the fam, the Jones family, which is probably the best known family in Bristow. They, they owned a large interest in the, in the Midcontinent field over around Drumright. And later liquidated their interests, and they were settled here in Bristow, but the, the refinery was the result of oil. And we have a, a deep gas storage facility that the Oklahoma Natural Gas Company has now, maintained south of Depew, stores gas in the summer. Of course, we use it in the winter and there' ; s many, many structures still around Bristow that are being drilled today. EC: What, What did you do as a kid, you know, teenager? What was the typical, what' ; d you do for fun? What kind of life did you lead, you know, kind of thing that... HA: Well, we first, we. EC: Kind of thing you wouldn' ; t wanna tell your kids about? HA: Well, we did--we did a lot of things in those days that a lot of kids do now. We had horses. Some of us started out with jennies. We started out just like other kids. We had skates and later a tricycle and later a bicycle, and later came the automobile. And, and we had horses and, and skating rinks. We did everything that all the kids do today and a lot more, too. We played Go Sheepy Go, and sometimes we' ; d go and didn' ; t come back. EC: I was, I was thinking somebody told me that you, about some bootlegger that used to live here. HA: Oh, you, EC: Was bootlegging. HA: Oh, bootlegging was, next to the oil industry, was the biggest industry in town. Bootlegging was a way that many, many families, families I' ; m speaking now, and some of their children, the children of the old-time bootleggers, I don' ; t know whether I should mention any names or not, but we had some bootleggers that were considered probably among some of the best liked citizens. I started to say best respected, but they were respected bootleggers. Some of ' ; em took more preachers fishing than anybody else in town. They were, and these, some of the bootleggers didn' ; t drink. They followed it as a business and paid the federal tax. And the, and the state officers, and the county officers didn' ; t do too much towards stopping them because they, if they if they knew anything about it, they didn' ; t try to stop it. EC: Have there been any famous old crimes or trials or scandals or anything that made the news, newspapers or something in Bristow? I know you had your share of run of the mill assault and battery and that kind of thing, but I, has there been any famous events? HA: I don' ; t , I don' ; t recall. There used to be some, some bank robbers around here. Brandon (Roy Brandon) was one and Pretty Boy Floyd used to come through town. I' ; ve seen him standing in the highway down here. And there' ; s probably others that I, I, I, I would remember if their names were suggested. Bristow was not a hideout, but there were some well-known, I would say, criminals who passed through here and stayed here at times. EC: During the oil boom, I have heard there were, oh, there was a dance hall or something back of a drug store. I was thinking when the oil boom came, you had oil field workers who were just here to, to work and spend their money and have fun. HA: Well, there was a, there was an old, a place we called the Palm Confectionery that at one time was operated by, I believe, we called him, his name was Ralph Corey, he' ; s now deceased, Punk Corey . He was a great baseball player in our estimation. And that I might mention that Bristow had some outstanding baseball players, Hammond Vickers and Punk Corey and Smooch Jones. And, and many of those fellas were considered just topnotch baseball players. And we had a baseball team that was a, a topnotch team and we' ; d go to baseball games on Sunday and this drugstore, what you mentioned, where they would dance, used to dance down in the Palm Confectionery area some. And there was another drugstore where they used to dance up here on North Main Street near the city hall. There was a dance hall back there at one time. I don' ; t recall too much about those dance halls. EC: Yeah. What about politics? Have there been any interesting politics in Bristow? Anybody? I know they had the elections all the time, but any of ' ; em real hotly contested? HA: Well the, as I recall, at one time, Bristow had the streets filled with the political groups. And the question was, well, where were we going to have the the county seat? Would it be in Bristow or Sapulpa? So there was a real hot election, and of course Sapulpa won, but Bristow was in the big middle of that, and we, of course won the county seat here. And Bill Cheatham at one time was a candidate for Congress here and Judge CO (Charles Oliver) Beaver, both of whom were Democrats. He was a candidate at one time for Congress, and I believe that Ed Mackensen, the present editor of the Bristow Paper, was a candidate for Congress. EC: Well just let your memory run. What are some of the things that you know, you remember about Bristow that maybe nobody else knows or kind of things that stand out in your mind about life in Bristow? HA: Well, as I recall it, on Saturday you could walk up Main Street and see nearly all of the farmers that lived within trading area of Bristow. And most I knew most of the farmers because I had weighed cotton at the cotton gins for dad. And, also, we had a number of farms and just my business to know them, and I knew the farmers and, and we, we would visit and stop and, and take out time to talk. And it was a lot of sociability among the people in those days. And the many of the Indians would come to town, the Bigponds and the Tigers and and many others would come in and some of them would get rather drunk and there was a jail that we had to build ' ; em outta cement and put some steel bars on it. And I don' ; t know whether the jail house is still here or not. It was down in the area of where Wells Grocery store is now. May have been torn down. And it' ; s those Indians would get in there and they' ; d, hoot we, we saw all kinds of, of Indian regalia in the early days. Drive out on the country roads and the trees were rather large and more or less independent. They were, there was not a lot of, of running blackjack in the early days. The grass blue stem, big blue stem, little blue stem, and various prairie grasses would, would grow and get rather tall. And when the fires came through, well, the fires were hot enough to kill out the undergrowth under those trees, which is not, which is there now a lot of the areas that you see that are completely covered with with a dense blackjack growth and other kinds of trees there. To start with, that was not that way. The cause of the blackjack growth and the running, running blackjacks and so forth was overgrazing. Many of the, of the farms would have a pasture and there just wasn' ; t enough grass. Farms were, were small and the tenants would over graze and where the overgrazing, we didn' ; t have the fires. No fires. Then the acorns would fall and the sprout and the fires kept down the this tremendous growth in the early days, but we, we' ; ve got a growth now that we have to brush beat (ph). EC: Has cattle been important in Bristow' ; s economy? HA: Cattle probably today is is going, is is one of the big industries of this community. You can believe it or not, but within two miles of Bristow, I can show you an 80-acre tract of ground that now has, believe it, 200 head of cattle and the man who has the cattle paid over $2,000 rent. He doesn' ; t. Now I can show this to you as seeing is believing and the, the grass that are, that are being grown there, and it would be fescue, sericea and big and little yellow hop and, of course, native Bermuda grass and the other native grasses and [undecipherable] at the, when one crop is grazed down, another one comes on. And then there' ; s some, some cheat grass from what we call wild oats here. That it' ; s it' ; s, it' ; s unbelievable as to what the, the carrying capacity of this land for grazing purposes, if we have enough rainfall and with proper tillage, deep tillage, we can catch the rain through the season and retain that rain. And that is being done by the ranchers out here today. EC: Well, is, is this something fairly new? HA: This is fairly new. This is, this is as brand new as it can be. And there there isn' ; t any question about it. The future for this area is absolutely fabulous. EC: Well, now, am I correct Bristow started out with cotton as its main crop? HA: That' ; s probably correct. EC: And somewhere in there, peanuts got important. HA: Later they came with peanuts and then tried to, after the peanuts, sap the soil. They tried to put on a cover crop, but very few people did that. And excessive fertilization was used that shoots the soil and allows the plant to extract from the soil the native food values and nutrients faster than should be done. But grazing is quite different. And the peanut was taken out, the whole plant was taken out, and no humus was left in the soil. But today, with grazing and fertilization and proper cultivation, we have a deeper root system. So we' ; ve got humus in the soil. Humus is the item that holds the water. And then the, the extra growth on top of the soil keeps the soil cool and the sun doesn' ; t extract by capillary attraction that the water that we can catch. So you can go out here today and find just dozens of farms. I can take you to dozens of farms that are carrying cattle today. And with the price of cows you can get well over, well over $500 for a nice, good sized cow and some of them up to, to 650 just for the cow and, and many times 750 for a cow and a calf. Depends of course, on the size, but you can go out here and just see these little small herds that are in the making. You can see that the future of this area is is agriculture. It' ; s industry. We have new industries around our town. Now we have the, the lock plant is here, and there' ; s some prefabricated house materials are being manufactured near Bristow. We have the future of this community is absolutely settled. We have homes being constructed out here by, by the dozen set there equal to homes anywhere in the country. And these people have good jobs and they' ; re competent. They know how to do things, and they are doing things and they' ; re working everywhere, and they' ; re, they' ; re independent free-thinking people. It' ; s different from the original tenant farmer who followed the oil boom communities. Quite different. The first farmer was an itinerant and he was a worker, and he worked some in the oil fields, maybe pump a little, do this and do that. But today most of these people who are settled around Bristow live in, in houses that are just far superior to the houses in Bristow. It would make the houses of Bristow look shanty to go out and see these wonderful new, fabulous homes that surround this community. EC: Change the subject again. Was there a black community here all along? HA: Oh yes. We had Lincoln Heights, which was on up by the standpipe on the, the west side of town. And that was the original colored community. And we had some wonderful colored citizens in this area. We still have them. And the colored community later, it was moved to the east side of Bristow and we call it the East Side now on East 12th Street and East 11th Street. And there are many old original families that are still here and there. EC: Who are some do by name, do you think? HA: Well, the Wilsons would be an original family and the man that was janitor up school for so long. He was ill here a while back, Shoals, and then there' ; s another colored family that I' ; m having a little difficulty recalling his name, but he, he worked for Joe Abraham as one of the, one of Joe Abraham' ; s cotton samplers. He cut samples and worked with dad and, Willis, we called him. His first name is Willis. I can' ; t recall his last name now. I may think of it in a minute. And then [indecipherable] Sanders is one of the earliest farmers here. And Jake Roberts was a, was a family. The Roberts lived up north of town up here. They still live in this area some Roberts. And then Combs. Roland Combs had a, a son that teaches school. He was lived out around Slick, would come to town. He has a daughter who was a school teacher, and this Chuck Farmer and Alfonso Farmer, a Farmer family, and any number of them, they' ; re still around here. EC: What about Indians? Did Indians, full bloods, I suppose, live in Bristow, or did they stay out from town? HA: Very few Indians stayed, lived in Bristow. A few, Jay Clinton, lived here at one time, and then there was a a member of the Tiger family that lived here. And not too many Indians lived in the city of Bristow. EC: Was there prejudice or discrimination against Indians? HA: Never. Has there been any prejudice or discrimination against an Indian nor a Negro in this community. Yeah, I know, nor any other nationality. Never have I known of any prejudice. EC: Mm-hmm. What about the school system here? Has it been adequate all along compared to other schools? HA: Yes, we, we' ; ve had a wonderful school system and I believe we' ; ve got the best school system today that we' ; ve ever had. We have a superintendent who' ; s active. He' ; s forward thinking. He' ; s brought us a brand new school system. And they' ; ve got a wonderful new school building here, two of them. And, primarily, I think we can give him credit for that. We have an outstanding school system. EC: Well, you and your brother and sisters all went to school here. HA: Yes, we all went to school here. EC: And you have good memories of it because HA: Oh yes. EC: Overall. HA: Oh, yes. At Bristow has always had a top-grade school. EC: Well, let me think what I-- audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0045A_Herbert_Abraham.xml OHP-0045A_Herbert_Abraham.xml
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Herbert Abraham
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In this 1979 interview with Herbert Abraham, he talks in depth about the Lebanese community and his father, Joe Abraham, and his life and contribution to Bristow's history. He also recalls his childhood growing up in Bristow, the Ku Klux Klan, bootlegging, agriculture, the black community and the schools.
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OHP-0045A
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1979-05-23
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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/.
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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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Ed Cadenhead
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Wendell List
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5.4 July 16, 1979 OHP-0044B Wendell List OHP-0044B 0:00-39:35 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Bristow Historical Society, Inc. Wendell List Ed Cadenhead 1:|29(9)|50(12)|62(9)|79(4)|90(13)|100(4)|124(9)|145(11)|155(17)|167(15)|176(9)|191(5)|207(7)|223(5)|242(6)|256(2)|273(2)|288(1)|307(5)|334(8)|348(8)|361(1)|373(8)|392(8)|405(1)|420(5)|430(2)|440(9)|452(1)|466(11)|481(7)|512(1)|544(2)|565(8)|578(11)|592(11)|605(3)|617(13)|634(11) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0044B List, Wendell.mp3 Other audio 0 Moved from Tulsa EC: Let's see. Now your name is Wendell List, right? WL: Wendell O list. EC: Wendell O List. And this is July the 16th. Why don't we just start then. Tell me how you happen to come to Bristow. WL: Well, my dad and I bought the Ford agency here in 1923, and we took possession of it the 1st of October, 1923. EC: Okay. Where'd you come from? WL: We came from Tulsa. EC: Okay. Wendell moved to Bristow from Tulsa after he graduated to help his dad run the Ford Agency. Ford Agency ; Tulsa Ford Agency ; Tulsa 46 Tulsa Race Riots And that was the, the year that they had the race riots. EC: That's right. Okay. WL: And I, the, the race riot has become more and more wild and wicked. Ever since that time. I was all through the whole thing. EC: Oh, were you? WL: Yes. EC: Well, that didn't have much to do with Bristow, but tell me what you do know about it. I've heard some of those conflicting stories. WL: Well, the latest story I've heard was that there was 39 people killed in the Tulsa race riots, and I can almost guarantee that there was only three. Wendell talks about witnessing the events that occurred during the Tulsa Race Riots in 1921. Brady Theater ; Greenwood ; McNulty Park ; Palace Clothiers ; Paul Jankowsky ; Standpipe Hill ; Tulsa Central High School ; Tulsa Race Riot, Tulsa, Okla., 1921 Tulsa Race Riot, Tulsa, Okla., 1921 540 Acquiring the Ford Agency EC: Well, getting back to Bristow there. How did you, your father, happen to pick Bristow? Was it just because the agency was available or was there some other… WL: No, actually, an aunt of mine, I got a call. My aunt's [indecipherable], Mr. EM Vanderslice (ph) was a Ford dealer in Tulsa, the only Ford dealer they had at that time. He also owned Ford agencies in Claremore and Pawhuska and Claremore. And I believe another one or two at that time you could, yeah, you [indecipherable]. And he also had the Ford Tractor Agency for area. And so he got killed in an accident in a freight yard. Wendell talks about moving to Bristow to partner with his dad to run the Ford Agency in October 1923. Claremore ; EM Vanderslice ; Ford ; Harrisonville (Mo.) ; Pawhuska ; Tulsa Central High School Ford Agency 674 Oil Boom EC: Was the oil boom still on in Bristow? WL: That place the oil boom is pretty well over by that time, however, most of the oil field work was still being carried on with teams. And they had these big groups of people who were [indecipherable]. They had like that type work and they had a lot of cases of photos here. Can't remember, I can't remember his name right offhand this little [indecipherable], you know, to remember. Wendell remembers the oil boom coming to an end around the time he moved to Bristow. oil boom oil boom 714 Wrestling WL: But he was quite a well-known fellow and there was a fellow here named Williams. It was a [indecipherable], and he was also a wrestler and they had professional wrestling in Bristow at the time. And most of the wrestling was [indecipherable] on at a building, which is now the J& ; J Cafe down on south main. EC: Yeah. Right. WL: And then they also had some of their, their wrestling matches in the theaters. The old Walmur Theater is where the Community State is now located. And at that time, why they were all silent movies Wendell remembers there being professional wrestling in Bristow. J& ; J Cafe ; professional wrestling ; Walmur Theater 755 Movie Theaters and Entertainment EC: That's the, I'm gonna ask you. I don't know for sure when, which movie started. I've heard of the Walmur . I've heard of the Princess, the Star, and I don't know which one. WL: They were all here as I remember. I believe they were all here at the time that I was here. And then the the Walmur Theater had vaudeville quite a bit of the time. And they had regular vaudeville shows came in here. And then they had these touring shows came through. EC: You were still young enough. Were you married by then? WL: No, I, I was. EC: Okay. You were young enough and single. What did a single young man do in Bristow for entertainment or, Wendell talks about the various movie theaters around Bristow and the things they did for entertainment, such as swimming at Cole's Park. Cole's Park ; Joe Orr ; Laurel Hotel ; Louie Meyer ; Princess Theater ; Sapulpa ; silent movies ; Star Theater ; swimming ; vaudeville ; Walmur Theater entertainment ; movie theaters 940 The Depression EC: Right. What about oh, I guess jumping ahead a little bit, but what effect did the Depression have on Bristow? WL: As far as we were concerned, we never did notice it too much. The [indecipherable] business fell off and everybody, everybody came tightening their belts and all that sort of thing. But actually, most of us was somewhat of a primitive type and the Depression didn't hurt us too much. Of course there was lot people, [indecipherable]. And we had to do what they called their soup lines with the merchants around town. Wendell remembers the Depression as not having too great of an effect on him. He did say merchants would get together and provide soup in soup lines since there was no public assistance at that time. public assistance ; soup lines ; The Depression The Depression 1000 Radio Station EC: Backing up a little. You hear when the radio station was over here? WL: Oh, yes. Yes. Ed Rollestone, [indecipherable] and previous to him though they had a radio station right down here in the old Chevrolet building they had up here on the second floor, this building right down here. EC: They had one first. WL: Yes, they had one first, a small one. And I don't know whether Ed was financially involved in that one. I'd rather think not, but it was in the second floor of the three-story building right here at Mercer's. Wendell recalls the radio station being in town, KFRU. Boyd Delano ; Chevrolet building ; Ed Rollestone ; glass plant ; Jimmy Wilson & ; His Catfish Band ; KFRU ; KVOO ; Mercer's ; Merritt Delano ; radio station KFRU ; KVOO ; radio station 1171 First Radio WL: I had the first portable radio in this town. EC: Did you? WL: In an automobile? At that time, all of the receivers were these high price, expensive [indecipherable] or I forget the name of the other one, but they were very complicated. [Indecipherable] had about a dozen dials on them. And you got more static than you got sound. And they were tremendously difficult to operate. Oh, almost took an engineer just to operate one. They had a big harness set up on top and, but all, all of us kids found out that the that you could make a crystal set. Now, I don't know whether you ever saw a crystal. Wendell tells about having the first radio in an automobile in Bristow. Ford Coupe ; radio radio 1340 World War II EC: Okay. Well that, that's interesting. What effect was any particular effect of World War II on Bristow, other than just what you'd expect? WL: Well, they made a great deal more ceremony out of out of the war than we have in any subsequent time. At that time, whenever a group of boys were going to the army they always had the band out and they gave 'em a big sendoff and they always transported them on the train nearly always. And everybody in town would be the station. Wendell recalls there being quite a send off for troops heading off to war. train depot ; troop trains ; WWII troop trains ; WWII 1402 Bristow Business - Cotton & ; Peanuts EC: A business like Bristow, it went through its cotton days before you came, really. WL: And at the time I came here, I believe there were seven or eight cotton gins in operation. The biggest thing, yeah, two biggest ones were Kelly's that's Albert Senior and he was, one of them was down on the south lane, right there at the railroad track, and the other one was down here on east seventh street. The building is now destroyed there. EC: And then of course, the oil business came in and after... WL: All business is already pretty well established. I think our main oil boom in Bristow was somewhere around 1921, 22 I think. Wendell remembers cotton and cattle being good business for people of Bristow, but also, peanuts added to the economy during that time. allotments ; cattle business ; Chamber of Commerce ; cotton ; cotton gin ; garment factory ; oil boom ; peanut mill ; peanut washing machines ; peanuts ; row cropping Bristow business 1586 Land & ; Housing EC: Well, has there been or have there been obstacles which you're aware [indecipherable] Bristow, I've heard, for example, there have been problems with housing [inaudible] its size [inaudible]. WL: RL Jones, who lives right out the edge town out here were principle land owners around here. RL owned nearly all the land west of town around the the city park and all out through there. And Albert Kelly and RL Jones had the growth pretty well shut off on the north and they wouldn't sell any land to anybody. So the growth had to be constrained to was constrained to just south and east pretty well. But they were both real civic minded in a way, except that they wouldn't sell their land. Wendell recalls RL Jones and Albert Kelly being prominent land owners. Albert Kelly ; housing ; land ; RL Jones housing ; land 1673 Bank Failures & ; Other Events EC: Well, have there been any particular events that you either witnessed during this time, heard about that maybe not everybody knows about that are worth recording, preserving? You weren't involved in any of the bank robberies or? WL: Well, I was here when they happened and I was here when two of the banks went broke. The First National went broke there, hit [inaudible] and I can't remember the dates of any. But the first one that went broke was the First State Bank over on the corner where, Pacific Finance is over there, the corner of Seventh and Main on the east southeast corner. And that was a bank in there and it went broke. Wendell remembers there being several banks that failed in Bristow, and Clad Purdy ran an insurance agency and had influence in the town. Clad Purdy ; Ed Rollestone ; First National Bank ; First State Bank ; Groom Bank ; Groom Brothers ; Mr. Freeland ; radio station bank failures ; Clad Purdy ; radio station 1859 Newspapers EC: Speaking of newspapers, I, I'm supposed to talk to Mr. Cook, WL: Who's IL Cook who ran the paper here for years. EC: Well, what's the story? I've heard that Cook and Nichols had quite a fight going over something. I don't know what. WL: The main deal over that was that Cook put in a competitive newspaper. EC: Ah. WL: And Nichols tried to run him out of town. EC: I see. WL: But, but IL survived him and finally bought his old newspaper after he died. Wendell remembers the competition between rival newspapers owned by IL Cook and LM Nichols. IL Cook ; LM Nichols ; newspaper newspaper 1956 Politics EC: What about politics? You ever get involved in politics in Bristow? WL: No, not particularly. I run for mayor one time and they beat my tail, but I was very unhappy with a lot of the things that were going on, and I thought that I could put the city of Bristow on a business basis, rather on a political basis, but they didn't agree with me. EC: So as politics, as far as city elections are concerned, has it been a, a partisan thing or just an individual thing? WL: I think probably more of it is between Democrats. Wendell remembers politics in Bristow being rather nonpartisan. He also ran for mayor and lost. elections ; mayor ; nonpartisan ; OG Ross ; politics nonpartisan ; politics 2053 Race Relations EC: Now we started talking about the Tulsa race riot. How have race relations been in Bristow? WL: Race relations in Bristow have never been strained in any manner. My wife was teaching school here when the integration came to the school. And there's never been a, an incident of any, of, any consequence at all as far as the integration of the, of the races at all. Now, of course they do have, they did have a few little difficulties with maybe blacks, so that they had the same number with the whites, but the black schools over here, way over here on west tenth,yeah, I guess they're on west tenth. Wendell didn't feel there were any strained race relations in Bristow. He recalls the excitement of going to basketball games during that time. basketball ; Haskell Thompson ; integration ; race relations race relations 2123 School Athletics EC: Well, I understand high school athletics have been fairly important to a town like Bristow. WL: Bristow has been fortunate in either having good coaches, I think Hafer of course was the forerunner of our better athletic team. See, Hafer, who was still alive, I think saw him now over a couple years ago, and he lives in Edmond at present time. But EC Hafer is who our football field is named after. And, after he started this football going in a big way, we've had some excellent football teams. The fact is we've won the championship and been in the playoffs year after year years. Any football season is a highlight of Bristow and I think. Wendell recalls school athletics being a big deal in Bristow. He remembers Sapulpa being Bristow's biggest rival in football and champion hurdlers, Jack Carman and Sammy Allen. athletics ; football ; HC Hafer ; hurdlers ; Jack Carman ; rivalry ; Sammy Allen ; Sapulpa ; state championships Sapulpa rivalry ; school athletics 2277 Highway Markings EC: Well, I know that there are a lot of things that I haven't touched on. Is there something I should have asked you about that comes to mind that ought to be preserved? WL: Well, and one thing that you might be interested in, when I first came to Bristow, there were very few highways around here except just dirt roads. One of the first highway markings, I believe, was the old Ozark Trail. . And all it was, was a band of green and white paint around a tree or a fence post with [indecipherable] printed on this. And that was the original marking for any highway around Bristow. At that time, you could get lost a half a dozen times going from here to Tulsa. Because you just went on the section line roads. Wendell talks about the first highway markings on Ozark Trail. He remembers it was tough to get around and easy to get lost on section line roads. highway markings ; Ozark Trail ; Sapulpa ; section line roads ; Springfield, Missouri MP3 In this 1979 interview with Wendell List, he talks about the Tulsa Race Riots, the first radio station, the first newspapers, politics and race relations in Bristow. 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. EC: Let' ; s see. Now your name is Wendell List, right? WL: Wendell O list. EC: Wendell O List. And this is July the 16th. Why don' ; t we just start then. Tell me how you happen to come to Bristow. WL: Well, my dad and I bought the Ford agency here in 1923, and we took possession of it the 1st of October, 1923. EC: Okay. Where' ; d you come from? WL: We came from Tulsa. EC: Okay. WL: I was, I was just outta high school. I graduated from Tulsa High School, Central High School, when there were, that was the only high school up there, of course. And that was the, the year that they had the race riots. EC: That' ; s right. Okay. WL: And I, the, the race riot has become more and more wild and wicked. Ever since that time. I was all through the whole thing. EC: Oh, were you? WL: Yes. EC: Well, that didn' ; t have much to do with Bristow, but tell me what you do know about it. I' ; ve heard some of those conflicting stories. WL: Well, the latest story I' ; ve heard was that there was 39 people killed in the Tulsa race riots, and I can almost guarantee that there was only three. EC: Is that right? WL: Yeah, there was only three, and I was all over the territory. All over the thing because Paul Jankowsky, whose father was the, the Palace Clothiers in Tulsa, he owned the Palace Clothiers down at Fifth and Main. EC: Yeah. WL: And Paul lived very close to me, and he came down in his car and took us down to the police station. We parked close up by the police station and parked. And then by the time we parked and walked over to the police station, there was a, an officer came out and handed each one of us a shotgun, told us to go shoot a nigger. And I said, hell, I' ; m not gonna shoot anybody. I' ; m not gonna shoot anybody. But he said, well, take the gun anyway. He said, you, he said, well, what do you want us to do? He said, all right. You go over on Greenwood and there' ; ll be some officers over there, some people in charge, and they' ; ll tell you what to do. And so they put us searching houses for the people who were still around, you know, most of ' ; em had already fled, but there was quite a few people still in these houses, they' ; d just holed up. So we were searching every house. We had four men search each house, and two of us would go into the house each time. One would cover the other one with a shotgun while the first man walked in. And if there was more than one room, we had to enter with the man that walked in the front door, he' ; d, he' ; d hold his gun on the behind the back up the other fella, and he' ; d go in next to him. We just stair stepped each other into the complete house. EC: Yeah. WL: And every once in a while we' ; d find somebody, of course they were scared, terrified, but we' ; d take ' ; em out in the street and just tell ' ; em, stand there and somebody take ' ; em along. So we' ; d accumulate quite a few and we' ; d, a couple of us would take ' ; em down and put ' ; em in a congregation point. At one time we had about a thousand congregated down there on Standpipe Hill, and there was four of us that marched a thousand down. Well, an officer told us we' ; d been taking ' ; em to the, to the what do they call the old convention hall? They called it The Old Lady of Brady Street. EC: Oh, yeah, yeah. WL: Well, we had already decorated this, this place for our graduation. But by the time. It was time for our graduation where they they had about 6,000 blacks in there for protective custody and they were searching all of ' ; em out on the front porch. There must have been a pile of razors and pocket knives and just different kind of knives and weapons of that sort. We took ' ; em all away from ' ; em before we let ' ; em inside the building and they they had must have had a pile there, but then, 15 or 20 feet across. Must have been a foot deep in the middle. A tremendous amount of, but they put ' ; em in there until that was completely filled. And then they put the surplus over what that building would hold and convention off, and they took ' ; em down to McNulty Park, which was in the baseball field down on 11th Street and we took two groups down there about, oh, anywhere from five or six hundred to maybe a thousand. We just put ' ; em inside because these people were afraid that somebody would see them. Now, this early this morning, I saw one black that had been shot and they told us that there was another one that had had been wounded, that didn' ; t get killed when they had they had had turned these baggage trucks down at the depot. They had turned them over and using them for barricades. And there was one, one body down there in the railroad yard. And then we saw one other body, and then I heard of another one who had been killed. And I believe that I' ; m accurate in saying that three was all that was killed. At the end of the race riot, the last newspaper article I saw sometime around three or four, five months ago, claimed then that there was 39 killed. And I' ; m sure that, that highly exaggerated. I don' ; t think that' ; s true at all. EC: In fact, there was stories I guess about machine guns being set up and bodies being loaded in the box cars. WL: And some of the wildest tales that you ever heard in your life. And the tails have gotten wilder and bigger ever since this happening. EC: Yeah. WL: And it' ; s now, the last report I read in the paper said 39 killed. And I' ; m certain that that was an error. I didn' ; t know that it couldn' ; t have. EC: And you said Paul Jankowsky was with you? WL: Yes, we were some of this together all day. EC: Oh good. WL: And but we walked after, after we got over into Greenwood, we parked the car over there and just walked all around and we searched these {indecipherable] for ' ; em. Oh, I guess about five or six hours. And then we started transporting ' ; em down to get them in protective custody so it got heard. Well, that might be an interesting story. EC: Yes. WL: Very little Bristow.. EC: I understand. WL: But I' ; d seen Bristow. EC: But, but I have read the thesis on the race riot, or rather, I know there is one, and I' ; ve heard about it all these years. WL: Well, the way it started they had taken some a black boy in custody. He tried to assault a an elevator girl in one of the buildings there along, late at night, and they took him down to jail and put him in jail. And there was a group of other blacks, little [indecipherable], I think like they were, but they came down there and they were gonna release him, and they called in all the officers that were not on duty and just made a ring around the courthouse. And they were they were having a little hassle there on the steps. And in, in the many one of the blacks grabbed for one of these, Officer' ; s guns. And when it did, the gun went off and they were quite, a crowd had gathered and it shot one of bystanders across the street, shot her in the, in the thigh. And, of course, she started raising a lot of fuss about that. Hollering screaming. So they they called an ambulance for her of course. And then all these blacks run, they ran down Main Street. Off Main Street, right? Petty much all around the jail at that time was they all ran down and they all gathered again down at the depot. And that' ; s where that [indecipherable] little battle started. As near as I could tell, one and possibly two were all that were killed there. And then during the rest of the riot, there was another one killed and he ran from some guys and that shot him. EC: Well, getting back to Bristow there. How did you, your father, happen to pick Bristow? Was it just because the agency was available or was there some other-- WL: No, actually, an aunt of mine, I got a call. My aunt' ; s [indecipherable], Mr. EM Vanderslice (ph) was a Ford dealer in Tulsa, the only Ford dealer they had at that time. He also owned Ford agencies in Claremore and Pawhuska and Claremore. And I believe another one or two at that time you could, yeah, you [indecipherable]. And he also had the Ford Tractor Agency for area. And so he got killed in an accident in a freight yard. He got caught between two freight railway cars. [Indecipherable] engine bumped two cars together and caught him between and killed him. Well, my dad was her closest relation, and so he was, he went down to [indecipherable] at Harrisonville, Missouri, and that summer I had grad, I hadn' ; t graduated, I had just finished the junior class and I came to Tulsa, went to Tulsa Central High for my 1921 year, and graduated from Tulsa Central High School that spring. But then from then we went to Claremore and operated the Claremore place for a couple years. And then we came back to Tulsa and we operated a motor rebuilding plant there, dad and I did. And about that time I this Agency became available here in Bristow and so we, my dad and I bought the partnership. Both equal partners. When we bought this agency here in 1923, we bought it the first day of September. And took, took it over on the first day of October. My dad was down here all that time, but he didn' ; t actually take possession until the first day of October, 1923 EC: Was the oil boom still on in Bristow? WL: That place the oil boom is pretty well over by that time, however, most of the oil field work was still being carried on with teams. And they had these big groups of people who were [indecipherable]. They had like that type work and they had a lot of cases of photos here. Can' ; t remember, I can' ; t remember his name right offhand this little [indecipherable], you know, to remember. EC: Sure. WL: But he was quite a well-known fellow and there was a fellow here named Williams. It was a [indecipherable], and he was also a wrestler and they had professional wrestling in Bristow at the time. And most of the wrestling was [indecipherable] on at a building, which is now the J& ; J Cafe down on south main. EC: Yeah. Right. WL: And then they also had some of their, their wrestling matches in the theaters. The old Walmur Theater is where the Community State is now located. And at that time, why they were all silent movies. EC: That' ; s the, I' ; m gonna ask you. I don' ; t know for sure when, which movie started. I' ; ve heard of the Walmur . I' ; ve heard of the Princess, the Star, and I don' ; t know which one. WL: They were all here as I remember. I believe they were all here at the time that I was here. And then the the Walmur Theater had vaudeville quite a bit of the time. And they had regular vaudeville shows came in here. And then they had these touring shows came through. EC: You were still young enough. Were you married by then? WL: No, I, I was. EC: Okay. You were young enough and single. What did a single young man do in Bristow for entertainment or, WL: Well, about, about the only entertainment there was in the summertime, of course, we had the old Coles Park, which had a swimming pool, and that was the only swimming pool around here, with the exception of, of going to the creek or something like that. But also, we made friends with Louie Meyer' ; s dad over at Sapulpa, and he had that, he had that big home and a big pond in [indecipherable] bath house and all that. So, we' ; d get dates and go over there and go swimming over there. The park had a little swimming pool about 10 feet wide and probably 25 feet long, and they had a little bath house out there and that' ; s all there was there. But they also had camping facilities around the area and that' ; s where the Elk' ; s Club is located now. EC: Oh, okay. WL: That' ; s the same location as the old Cole' ; s Park. EC: Yeah. WL: And let' ; s see what else might be, oh yes. One of the, let' ; s see if I can remember the name of it. On East sixth Street, just east of the alley from Main Street was an old hotel. And don' ; t remember the name of it, but I' ; m sure there a lot of people, remember the name of, the name of that hotel. But Joe Orr-- EC: The Laurel. WL: Yeah, Laurel. That' ; s it. The Laurel Hotel. Thank you for reminding. It was the old Laurel Hotel and it was on that corner, which is vacant at the present. And it was a two story hotel, and it was more, I think, more of a honky tonk for gals and all. They were available there at all times. And then the rooming houses upstairs, up and down Main Street were also had girls available in nearly all of ' ; em because after, during the boom and after the boom, these were oil field workers and they, they drank [indecipherable] and they had the facilities to take care of them. EC: Right. What about oh, I guess jumping ahead a little bit, but what effect did the Depression have on Bristow? WL: As far as we were concerned, we never did notice it too much. The [indecipherable] business fell off and everybody, everybody came tightening their belts and all that sort of thing. But actually, most of us was somewhat of a primitive type and the Depression didn' ; t hurt us too much. Of course there was lot people, [indecipherable]. And we had to do what they called their soup lines with the merchants around town. There was no federal assistance or anything at that time. But the I don' ; t think there was any federal assistance anyway, the merchants and, and people who had a little money donated money to provide bread and soup, and that' ; s about all they got at those. But they they had these places where they could use an empty store building and they' ; d make great big cups full of soup and serve soup, and that' ; s about all. But that was enough to keep ' ; em alive. EC: Backing up a little. You hear when the radio station was over here? WL: Oh, yes. Yes. Ed Rollestone, [indecipherable] and previous to him though they had a radio station right down here in the old Chevrolet building they had up here on the second floor, this building right down here. EC: They had one first. WL: Yes, they had one first, a small one. And I don' ; t know whether Ed was financially involved in that one. I' ; d rather think not, but it was in the second floor of the three-story building right here at Mercer' ; s. EC: Yeah, that' ; s the first time I' ; ve heard of that I think. WL: Merritt one of the Delanos named Merritt. Let' ; s see, what was the other Delano boy' ; s name? EC: Boyd. WL: Do you remember? Remember Merritt was one of them. And then also back in about that same somewhere, right along in there, we had a big glass plant move in to Bristow and they had a glass plant right over here about in the location where the city water well over there on, on 12th Street and they produced bottles. I think about the only thing they built over there. EC: Getting one question about the radio that you may not know. I' ; ve been told they started a radio station here and it was KFRU. WL: Correct. EC: And then somebody told me that KFRU was sold to, they thought Columbia, Missouri, it was sold. Then KVOO was started. WL: [Indecipherable] sold the original KFRU equipment and all to the this college in Columbia, Missouri. And then KVOO was started. EC: It was KVOO right here in Bristow? WL: Yeah, I think so. And then they they sold it out, Ed Rollestone sold it to [indecipherable] to people in Tulsa. I don' ; t know. I don' ; t know whether they, I don' ; t know who bought it or, but at the time we had here, some of the main entertainment was Jimmy Wilson and his Catfish Band, and they broadcast as if they were on the [indecipherable]. EC: What was the, the first station you' ; re talking about started by Delano taken over by Rollestone, or had gone out of business? WL: No, he just, he just quit. I think. However, I think it' ; s that one I think bought some of the equipment that the Delanos had down there. EC: I see. WL: And his was down there in the second floor [indecipherable]. EC: Who, is there anybody around you think would know the details of that first station still? Because that' ; s the first I' ; ve heard of it. WL: Oh, really? EC: Mm-hmm. WL: I had the first portable radio in this town. EC: Did you? WL: In an automobile? At that time, all of the receivers were these high price, expensive [indecipherable] or I forget the name of the other one, but they were very complicated. [Indecipherable] had about a dozen dials on them. And you got more static than you got sound. And they were tremendously difficult to operate. Oh, almost took an engineer just to operate one. They had a big harness set up on top and, but all, all of us kids found out that the that you could make a crystal set. Now, I don' ; t know whether you ever saw a crystal. EC: Oh yes, I made one once. WL: But you used a little chunk of coal, and what we used anyway. And we had a tickler on it and a coax, which we could tune to the frequency of the station. We' ; d set that tickler on the top of the car, and had a headset that we could listen to the radio from. So I got the idea [indecipherable] at the time, so I had a, a Ford coupe and I took copper screen wire and put it underneath my headlining in the top of this coupe. And then I took this kicker and put it on it, that crystal deal, and I got back on it so it wouldn' ; t work away from that. But you couldn' ; t drive, you couldn' ; t drive and listen to the radio at the same time, but I' ; d take my girlfriend out. Now, I couldn' ; t go over careful, [indecipherable] I had a hole drilled on my floorboard and I could jam this grounding rod into the dirt through this hole in the in the floorboard. And I had two sets of ear phones. And you, you and your girlfriend both sit there, listen to the radio. However, it was always difficult to make love with a, with pairs of headphones on. But but we had but I had, I had to monopoly on all the best dates in town for a while until these other guys caught up and started building them themselves and after they did that, well of course all I filled ' ; em up on these sets like mine. EC: Yep. Yeah. WL: But we' ; d one of the, one of the city park was out. We got real good reception and also it was an isolated place, that was before the lake, was what I had. And it was all woods in there. And we' ; d go out there and park in these woods down there and listen to our radio. EC: Okay. Well that, that' ; s interesting. What effect was any particular effect of World War II on Bristow, other than just what you' ; d expect? WL: Well, they made a great deal more ceremony out of out of the war than we have in any subsequent time. At that time, whenever a group of boys were going to the army they always had the band out and they gave ' ; em a big sendoff and they always transported them on the train nearly always. And everybody in town would be the station. Maybe we' ; d have 20 or 25 young fellows going, but everybody would gather down at the railroad station and send them off with a big band playing and everybody, all that sort of thing. EC: Yeah. WL: But it was quite a ceremony. And then the troop trains came here through here all the time. After they were inducted, they were all over the country. They were being [indecipherable] for training [inaudible]. EC: A business like Bristow, it went through its cotton days before you came, really. WL: And at the time I came here, I believe there were seven or eight cotton gins in operation. The biggest thing, yeah, two biggest ones were Kelly' ; s that' ; s Albert Senior and he was, one of them was down on the south lane, right there at the railroad track, and the other one was down here on east seventh street. The building is now destroyed there. EC: And then of course, the oil business came in and after... WL: All business is already pretty well established. I think our main oil boom in Bristow was somewhere around 1921, 22 I think. EC: And then somewhere along in the [inaudible]. WL: Established the peanut mill, which is still, the building' ; s still there quite a bit, and there between the second and third street on South Main. And he bought, oh I don' ; t know, 10 or 20 peanut washing machines that the boys could come in and borrow and harvest a peanut, huh. Very beneficial in promoting this peanut business. And it did give us a shot in the arm because it was one of the biggest money crops that we had had up until that time. The cattle business, of course, was pretty good, but primarily we were a row cropping community at that during those years, they raised corn and cotton, and of course, cotton was our primary. And I remember we had seven cotton gins, but the peanut business turned out to be a real good thing until they promoted it to such a degree all over the southwest that they got a surplus of peanuts and they started in a [indecipherable] acres you could plant in peanuts. Well, that soon they just kept a lot cutting their allotments down to the point, wasn' ; t very long, [indecipherable] maybe they' ; d been planting two acres and they' ; d get down to maybe a third of an acre or something like that, and they wouldn' ; t fool with ' ; em on the basis they couldn' ; t produce. So, the peanut business died out when the allotments got so bad. EC: When did they start to promote the [inaudible] something fairly recent or has that been going on? WL: I don' ; t, I don' ; t remember the date, but really the first, first thing here I can remember really a great magnitude was the garment factory out here, and I don' ; t remember exactly what year that was, but the Chamber of Commerce pulled a shenanigan to build that thing. It was as illegal, I think, as anything could possibly been. But what the did, the parking lots down here [inaudible]. EC: Well, has there been or have there been obstacles which you' ; re aware [indecipherable] Bristow, I' ; ve heard, for example, there have been problems with housing [inaudible] its size [inaudible]. WL: RL Jones, who lives right out the edge town out here were principle land owners around here. RL owned nearly all the land west of town around the the city park and all out through there. And Albert Kelly and RL Jones had the growth pretty well shut off on the north and they wouldn' ; t sell any land to anybody. So the growth had to be constrained to was constrained to just south and east pretty well. But they were both real civic minded in a way, except that they wouldn' ; t sell their land. All they wanted to do was buy more. All they wanted was what joined them. That' ; s all. And out there nearly all this paving around Bristow was put in after I came here. Main Street, however, was paved when I came here, as I remember. EC: Well, have there been any particular events that you either witnessed during this time, heard about that maybe not everybody knows about that are worth recording, preserving? You weren' ; t involved in any of the bank robberies or? WL: Well, I was here when they happened and I was here when two of the banks went broke. The First National went broke there, hit [inaudible] and I can' ; t remember the dates of any. But the first one that went broke was the First State Bank over on the corner where, Pacific Finance is over there, the corner of Seventh and Main on the east southeast corner. And that was a bank in there and it went broke. But it so happened we owed them more than than we had in it. And so we got all our money back by just paying off the balance of our notes. And then when the Groom Bank went broke, and that' ; s the National Bank, and that' ; s the northwest corner of Seventh and Main that was run by the Groom brothers. And it was my understanding that they lost the bank' ; s money speculating in Florida real estate.I don' ; t think they profited from it, but they broke the bank. And Mr. Freeland was around here then he was a big operator in Florida real estate, and he' ; d made a lot of money, but he didn' ; t take any, and got caught in the, in the, in the Depression when, when he lost all his fortune. Pretty well in that. EC: Yeah, WL: It' ; s Purdy. I' ; m sure you' ; ve heard of him. EC: Yes sir. WL: You know, kind of, he lived in this house, right yonder, back there on 10th Street Clad, everybody called him Clad Purdy, he ran a insurance place here and he was quite influential in town for a long time. [inaudible] was related [inaudible] in some way was related to, I think it was Ed' ; s wife' ; s brother, possibly. And he was an artist, organist, and piano player. And he was one of the principal entertainers on [inaudible] they' ; d have kids come up and sing and they' ; d have [inaudible]. EC: People will tell me that that was the first radio station in the United States. And then there are others that say it was the first one in Oklahoma. And I don' ; t know for a fact about even that. WL: I don' ; t think it was even the first in Oklahoma, because there were some others I think, operating at the time. But it was one of the main ones. There were very few at that time. It was a new enterprise altogether. Ed, Ed Rollestone was wealthy from all them, and he he was the one that put it in and promoted. EC: Speaking of newspapers, I, I' ; m supposed to talk to Mr. Cook, WL: Who' ; s IL Cook who ran the paper here for years. EC: Well, what' ; s the story? I' ; ve heard that Cook and Nichols had quite a fight going over something. I don' ; t know what. WL: The main deal over that was that Cook put in a competitive newspaper. EC: Ah. WL: And Nichols tried to run him out of town. EC: I see. WL: But, but IL survived him and finally bought his old newspaper after he died. EC: Is that right? Okay. WL: And IL Cook still lives here. EC: Alright. And then the present owner bought it from Cook. WL: That' ; s right. EC: Okay. WL: Yeah, he sold it to him alright. But IL Cook is still here in town and I' ; m sure his, with his and his wife too. They both were in the newspapers. And I feel like that either one of ' ; em would be invaluable sources of a lot of, not quite as early as maybe I' ; m familiar with, but they' ; d have a probably a more comprehensive idea of a lot of these things than I would because that was their business, keeping track of news. Competitors were not were not friendly in any respect. EC: When was that? In the thirties? WL: Back before then, I believe. EC: Before then? WL: Yeah, before the thirties I believe. Alright. I' ; m not very good or sure on dating on things like that. EC: Well, you think it was primarily a business rivalry? It wasn' ; t anything. WL: There was nothing personal because they didn' ; t even know each other personally. EC: There was Democrat passed against Republicans or something like that. WL: They were all Democrats, Uhhuh. There' ; s never I I been any preponderance of anybody but Democrats in this. EC: Right. WL: In this county. EC: What about politics? You ever get involved in politics in Bristow? WL: No, not particularly. I run for mayor one time and they beat my tail, but I was very unhappy with a lot of the things that were going on, and I thought that I could put the city of Bristow on a business basis, rather on a political basis, but they didn' ; t agree with me. EC: So as politics, as far as city elections are concerned, has it been a, a partisan thing or just an individual thing? WL: I think probably more of it is between Democrats. EC: Yeah. WL: As far as the Republican minority, they never were able to do much. But we' ; ve had, we' ; ve had a few Republican mayors, I believe OG Ross was a Republican mayor, and his daughter, Mrs. Curtis Turner lives here now. And they' ; re living in the old OG Ross home. EC: I believe there' ; s been a few Republican County commissioners. WL: Yes, that' ; s right. That' ; s true. But I think I think this community around here has largely been. In favor of the individual. And I don' ; t think it made that much difference between a Republican and Democrat. We never did, I didn' ; t feel like, adhere to party lines at all. EC: City elections are pretty nonpartisan? WL: I think so. Yes. I believe so. Most of our people that get elected to things are well known people that have been around here for quite a while, and they vote for ' ; em on their personality and not their politics. EC: Now we started talking about the Tulsa race riot. How have race relations been in Bristow? WL: Race relations in Bristow have never been strained in any manner. My wife was teaching school here when the integration came to the school. And there' ; s never been a, an incident of any, of, any consequence at all as far as the integration of the, of the races at all. Now, of course they do have, they did have a few little difficulties with maybe blacks, so that they had the same number with the whites, but the black schools over here, way over here on west tenth,yeah, I guess they' ; re on west tenth. And it' ; s now private [indecipherable] over there. They tore down most of the buildings, but Haskell Thompson now lives in the, the grade school building over there and they converted it into a residence. But they had a big gymnasium over there and they used to have all their basketball games and everything, and it was a, it was a big deal to go to one of the black basketball games. They' ; re enthusiastic. I mean, the rooters are. EC: Well, I understand high school athletics have been fairly important to a town like Bristow. WL: Bristow has been fortunate in either having good coaches, I think Hafer of course was the forerunner of our better athletic team. See, Hafer, who was still alive, I think saw him now over a couple years ago, and he lives in Edmond at present time. But EC Hafer is who our football field is named after. And, after he started this football going in a big way, we' ; ve had some excellent football teams. The fact is we' ; ve won the championship and been in the playoffs year after year years. Any football season is a highlight of Bristow and I think. EC: I' ; ve heard that when the games were held in the afternoon, which they may still be for all I know, that they used to close down the businesses and-- WL: But there' ; s that one game in particular, we used to play Sapulpa and of course the Sapulpa game was always a, a very tense game because of the fact that Sapulpa and Bristow vied with each other to get the, the the county seat. And Sapulpa, we claimed stole it from us. And I don' ; t know how true that is, but we always claim that Sapulpa stole it from Bristow because we were the logical winner. We should have been it, but we didn' ; t get it right. And, but it did start a rivalry, which never did cease until we kept quit playing them. They got so large, we were not in their conference anymore, and we didn' ; t, we haven' ; t played them for several years now, seven or eight years. But football has been a, has been a major activity of the high school. They play basketball and track and those other things. We have, by the way though, had some outstanding track people from this town. We got Jack Carmen, who still lives here. He was one of the best hurdlers. He held a hurdle championship for the state Oklahoma for years. That was before they put ' ; em in conference. You just competed against everybody. And then Sammy Allen was another hurdler from this town, and he was much later than that Jack Carmen. But he was outstanding and held several state championships in hurdles. EC: Well, I know that there are a lot of things that I haven' ; t touched on. Is there something I should have asked you about that comes to mind that ought to be preserved? WL: Well, and one thing that you might be interested in, when I first came to Bristow, there were very few highways around here except just dirt roads. One of the first highway markings, I believe, was the old Ozark Trail. . And all it was, was a band of green and white paint around a tree or a fence post with [indecipherable] printed on this. And that was the original marking for any highway around Bristow. At that time, you could get lost a half a dozen times going from here to Tulsa. Because you just went on the section line roads. EC: Yeah. WL: And of course, many times you' ; d get on a road no longer passable with an automobile. At that time, when we first came here, we never thought of driving to Tulsa and trying to transact any business without staying all night and coming back the next day because the roads were so poor. EC: Sure, sure. WL: That with the transportation that we had and the roads that we had, you' ; d consume hours just, yeah. EC: And you went to through Sapulpa even then, didn' ; t you? WL: Yes. Uhhuh went through Sapulpa, but there were no paving. EC: The Ozark Trail, huh? WL: Yeah. Have you ever heard of it? EC: I' ; ve heard of the Ozark Trail, but I had no idea where it was. WL: Well, I don' ; t know where it started, but it started, I think, somewhere around Oklahoma City and went to Springfield, Missouri. And that I think was the first. audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0044B_Wendell_List.xml OHP-0044B_Wendell_List.xml
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Wendell O. List
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In this 1979 interview with Wendell List, he talks about the Tulsa Race Riots, the first radio station, the first newspapers, politics and race relations in Bristow.
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OHP-0044B
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1979-07-16
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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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Ed Cadenhead
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Milly Thompson
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5.4 July 12, 1979 OHP-0044A Milly Thompson OHP-0044A 0:00-22:17 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Bristow Historical Society, Inc. Milly Thompson Ed Cadenhead 1:|29(2)|49(8)|69(10)|89(7)|104(2)|136(7)|152(8)|173(7)|185(1)|203(4)|222(7)|242(5)|258(4)|276(1)|296(12)|322(12)|338(5)|369(13)|391(10)|412(6)|423(2)|449(12) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0044A Thompson, Milly.mp3 Other audio 0 Family & ; Childhood History July the 12th, 1979. Well, first of all, if you would just tell me about your family, what you know, your parents, where they came from, how they had to come to Bristow, anything like that. MT: My father came to Bristow from Texas. My mother came from Kansas. EC: And his name was what now? MT: Ed Wyatt. EC: And her name? MT: Josie Wyatt, Josie Hill before she married him. And they lived out east of Bristow in the community that is now known as a Wyatt school, eight miles east of Bristow. EC: When did they come here? Do you know about? MT: I don't know. I can't tell you the date. Well and then later, we moved north of town, lived 12 miles north of town. Moved there when I was eight years old. Milly's family moved to the Bristow area when she was 8-years-old where here father was a farmer and cattleman. Ed Wyatt ; Josie Hill Wyatt ; Victor Chapel ; Wyatt School childhood history ; family history 139 Early Memories EC: Okay. Well, tell me about your own earliest memories of Bristow as a child, I guess. Before you moved into town even? MT: Well, I called farmers. We went to town on Saturday, met other farmers, did our shopping, went home and Saturday was a big day. And cotton of course, lots of cotton grown in those days. That was what I remember of childhood days. EC: Mm-hmm. Did you have any particular close friends who lived in Bristow as a child? MT: No. No. EC: Come out around where you were living, I imagine. MT: No. Not in town. We traded the Jackson Lee store. It was years ago. It was a general store. We bought, we bought everything there. Milly remembers shopping on Saturdays and trading at the Jackson Lee General Store and all that went along with cotton farming. cotton ; cotton wagons ; Jackson Lee Store cotton farming ; Jackson Lee Store ; trading 222 Cotton Farming MT: Oh, no, we, my father grew cotton and sold it. I used to go town [indecipherable] little cotton. That was the very height of enjoyment for a kid to get to go with Dad to town, right? EC: Since Bristow really wasn't wild West there was no such thing truly as Wild Indians. But I've run into a few people who seemed to have fear of them at that age. Do you remember anything about the Indians? Milly remembers her dad growing and selling cotton. cotton farming cotton farming 251 Indians MT: No, we had no fear of them. I went to school with them. I went to school with the Beavers and they had strange names, Indians, and we were always friends. But I can remember my mother when she was would used to tell when she lived east of town of the Indians that would come and they would knock the people in the windows, and she was afraid of them. And they, they didn't talk much. They would hang around all day, but if they said something, you'd have to go out and, and ask them what they wanted because... Milly recalls going to school with and being friendly with Indians. Indians 305 World War I EC: Mm-hmm. Do you have any recollections of the effect of World War I? MT: Yes, we had I remember we all high school children, girls and boys went in the military training. I remember that part of it. Mm-hmm. And, yes, we were all very conscious of World War II. EC: Did MT: World I, I mean. Milly remembers being very aware of the effects of WWI and all high school children had to have military training. military traning ; WWI military training ; WWI 349 Milly's Husband & ; Oil Boom Days EC: Was your husband, where did he come from? MT: He came from Kansas. He worked in American National Bank, and that's when I worked for the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company. That's where we met. EC: You were here then during the oil boom days? MT: Yes, yes. EC: Do you have any particular memories of what Bristow was like at that time? MT: Oh, yes, of course the oil industry was a big industry. It was, I remember there were a lot of men killed on the rigs, and first it was, they used horses teams, you know, so much to pull the pipe and things like that. But there was not a lot of activity in, it was a real industry. Milly remembers meeting her husband when when he worked at American National Bank and how the oil boom was such a big industry during that time. American National Bank ; husband ; Kansas ; oil boom ; Southwestern Bell Telephone Company meeting husband ; oil boom 433 Depression EC: Well, moving ahead from the oil days were there any particular effects of the depression on Bristow that you recall? MT: Except we all felt it. It was a reality. EC: Did you have such things as old soup lines or soup kitchens or anything like that that you can remember? MT: Yes. They had soup kitchens. Had soup kitchens. Oh, I don't remember how many, many men I fed at the back door. Men that, you know, just passing through. They had to have something to eat. Milly recalls during the Depression helping to feed people at soup kitchens. Depression ; soup kitchens ; soup lines Depression ; soup kitchens ; soup lines 468 World War II EC: Right. Now, World War II, did it have any dramatic effect on Bristow? Obviously, the town was affected like every town, but do you think particular that stands out about World War II? MT: No, my son was 14 when World War II begun, of course my first thoughts were of him, would he be in the fighting. All mothers had those thoughts and he was in the Navy, but he never had saw any action. And I was a volunteer having communications right across communication on air bases, often world during World War II. And it was a reality to me. It made it more real because I worked with military families and… Milly's son was 14 when WWII began, and she was, of course, concerned about him having to fight in the war. WWII WWII 521 Teen Social Life EC: Well, going, let's go back and dredge up some of your memories. Were there any particular, I don't know how to put this, well, what did a, a girl your age in high school, what was, what was social life like? What kind of things did you do for fun? MT: No. Well, I didn't have very much social life because mother and daddy wanted me to go home every weekend and almost every weekend I went home and I studied hard and, and oh, there were a few parties and a few picnics and things like that, but I didn't have a great deal of social life during high school days. Milly recalls not having much of a social life when she was a teenage because her parents wanted her home when she wasn't in school. picnics ; school ; social life picnics ; school ; social life 562 Married Life EC: Mm-hmm. And when did you get married? What year? MT: 1925. EC: Okay. Well, in your early married days, what did young couples do besides, you know, try to get along and survive? What was, what was life like? MT: Oh, at the church we used to all have activities for the young people. In the evening, we met Sunday evenings and we had a lot of picnics and things like that. And later on we had a swimming pool and people went swimming. Milly was married in 1925 and remembers picnics and swimming as forms of enjoyment during that time. Cole's Park ; married life ; picnics ; swimming married life 658 Wealthy Bristow Citizens EC: You think it was, were there, this is a hard question, I guess to maybe, if you'd even remember exactly, were there people who were considered rich in Bristow before the oil? MT: But I can't answer that. All I remember is [indecipherable] oil, who there are quite a few of them. EC: Who are some of the names that come to mind most easily when you talk about the people who made money off of oil? MT: Oh, Eddie Rollestone and Albert Kelly and the Jones. There was BB and M Jones. And they're supposed to have been 13 millionaires, I think, in this little town. Milly recalls several wealthy people from the oil booms days such as Eddie Rollestone, Albert Kelly, BB Jones and M Jones. She also remembers there being 13 millionaires from that time. Albert Kelly ; BB Jones ; Eddie Rollestone ; M Jones ; oil boom ; wealthy oil boom ; wealthy citizens 706 Life in Bristow EC: Okay. 13 millionaires. I don't think I've ever heard that figure. What church do you belong to? MT: First Christian. EC: As you may know, I've been trying to get churches to put together some little written histories of themselves, you know, so we can collect that too. And I think I, I'm not sure I may have one already. You know, we sometimes forget, I think, but I do at least that really even the events of say the last 30 years and our history now. MT: Right. EC: What particular changes have occurred in Bristow? Just you know, in your adult life that stand out? MT: Well, Bristow is not nearly as large as it used to be. You know that Bristow is perhaps a third, but the size it used to be. Milly attended the First Christian Church and recalls Bristow being a third of the size it used to be due to the younger generation moving away. First Christian Church ; population First Christian Church ; population 806 Exciting Events EC: Have there been any particular events that you witnessed or maybe heard about in, in Bristow that stand out. I mean, they don't have to be important. Just things that were either funny or exciting or no particular characters. MT: A lot of interesting characters. I remember when American National Bank was robbed, was rather exciting. EC: You weren't in town at the time. MT: I was in town. I was working for the telephone company. The telephone company was just back, the American National Bank, and after the robbers left, they exchanged shots and it was quite an exciting time. I remember the first airplane I ever saw it landed out at RL Jones's. And I was in high school and they dismissed high school and we went out to see it. Milly talks about witnessing American National Bank being robbed and watching the first airplane land at RL Jones Airport when she was in high school. American National Bank ; plane landing ; RL Jones Airport ; robbery bank robbery ; first plane landing 870 Interesting People EC: You say there were some interesting characters. When I, when I say that, who comes to your mind? MT: Oh, I better not the main characters. There were a lot of interesting characters though. EC: Well, I've heard of, I guess the most frequently mentioned ones, been a town marshal by the name of Freshour. MT: Yes. He killed lots of people. EC: And I've heard some everybody seems to have known Dr. King. Milly remembers several characters from her time living in Bristow such as, Billy Freshour, Dr. King and Albert Kelly. American National Bank ; Billy Freshour ; Dr. King Interesting people in Bristow 968 Broadcasting Station MT: It was really something, you know, I think we had all probably about first in the nation, and people from Bristow would travel. They said if someone asked where they from, Bristow, they'd always respond, oh, that's the place that has that big broadcasting station. And I remember the opening night, grand opening. It was really something. And then it was moved to Tulsa. You know, KFRU became KVOO. And then Mr. Rollestone, of course, killed himself in Tulsa. EC: I've also heard about, and I think maybe I've had two different places identified for this purpose, but the thing about KFRU, there was apparently some, presumably, very famous hamburger place here in town. Milly recalls what a big deal it was to have the first broadcasting station, KFRU, later to become KVOO. broadcasting station ; Eddie Rollestone ; KFRU ; KVOO First broadcasting station 1016 Hamburger John MT: Oh yeah. Hamburger John. EC: Hamburger John. Mm-hmm. What was his name? Do you know? MT: John Lambeth. L A M B E T H. I think. EC: And where was it located? Do you recall? MT: South Main, I think. EC: Yeah. And this was supposed to be where the entertainers dropped in when they were in the neighborhood or something. MT: He got new Hamburger John. There was a famous hamburger place in town called Hamburger John owned by John Lambeth. Hamburger John ; John Lambeth 1048 Teachers, School Life & ; Sports MT: Oh, I dunno if he's taught at Bristow School. In Bristow well now he taught in the country, as I remember, JH was the country, but most of the time in the rural areas. EC: Oh, I see. Well, you do find Lucy West? MT: Yes, I remember her. EC: About as the first teacher remember her and other places you'll find JH Dumas and two teachers at the first school. MT: Maybe it's possible. EC: And it's hard to believe they would need two schools given them the, you know, the size of the town in 1898. But you, you do think that Dumas was in the neighborhood at least. MT: Oh, yes. I knew them. Knew them well, yes. He worked for school all his life. Mm-hmm. Milly remembers many teachers and the schools she attended growing up. Charlie Hutton ; Coach Hafer ; JH Dumas ; Lucy West ; Wyatt School 1268 Riding Horses EC: I've heard that the boys in growing up in Bristow, of course most of 'em had ponies and I guess they rode, played or whatever. It just occurred to me, did girls ride ponies a lot too? MT: Oh yes. Yes. I always had a pony when I was a child. EC: Well, is there anything that you can think of that I ought to ask you that I haven't thought of to ask you? MT: No, I can't think of anything. Milly recalls that boys AND girls rode horses growing up since they didn't have cars at the time. horses MP3 In this 1979 interview with Milly Thompson, she talks about her early life in Bristow including her family being farmers, going to school, cotton farming and Indians. She also talks about the effects of the war and what it was like to be around during the oil boom and the wealthy people that resulted from it. EC: July the 12th, 1979. Well, first of all, if you would just tell me about your family, what you know, your parents, where they came from, how they had to come to Bristow, anything like that. MT: My father came to Bristow from Texas. My mother came from Kansas. EC: And his name was what now? MT: Ed Wyatt. EC: And her name? MT: Josie Wyatt, Josie Hill before she married him. And they lived out east of Bristow in the community that is now known as a Wyatt school, eight miles east of Bristow. EC: When did they come here? Do you know about? MT: I don' ; t know. I can' ; t tell you the date. Well and then later, we moved north of town, lived 12 miles north of town. Moved there when I was eight years old. EC: Okay. And what did your father do? MT: Farmer. EC: Farmer. MT: Cattleman. EC: Okay. And you went to school where? MT: Well, I originally went to what is known as the Wyatt School, east Bristow, and then later on to Victor Chapel, which is north of Bristow, later on to Bristow High School. EC: Okay. Did you ever, did your father happen to, let' ; s see, you were born here after they, they got married. MT: 1903. I was born February 21st, 1903 in Indian territory. EC: Okay. Did you ever hear either one of them have anything to say about the earliest days of Bristow that you can recall? MT: Oh, except that they were here before there was a Bristow here. EC: Okay. You know, there' ; s, there are two names that sometimes get credit for starting Bristow and you may or may not know something about it. There was a man who' ; s the first postmaster, a man named Crane who actually set up the post office out here, here to the railroad. There was a Dr. Bland who apparently had some property here and sometimes is given credit for starting Bristow. Have you ever heard anything about that? MT: That I know nothing of either one. EC: Okay. Well, tell me about your own earliest memories of Bristow as a child, I guess. Before you moved into town even? MT: Well, I called farmers. We went to town on Saturday, met other farmers, did our shopping, went home and Saturday was a big day. And cotton of course, lots of cotton grown in those days. That was what I remember of childhood days. EC: Mm-hmm. Did you have any particular close friends who lived in Bristow as a child? MT: No. No. EC: Come out around where you were living, I imagine. MT: No. Not in town. We traded the Jackson Lee store. It was years ago. It was a general store. We bought, we bought everything there. EC: That was of course in the days before pavement on, I' ; ve heard that the streets were muddy and on bad days and so forth. MT: Right. EC: I don' ; t imagine it was too different from other similar towns at that time in bad weather. But I' ; ve also seen the pictures of all the cotton wagons that you' ; ve probably seen. MT: Yeah. EC: Was that a, did you ever see anything like that or have you just seen the pictures? MT: Oh, no, we, my father grew cotton and sold it. I used to go town [indecipherable] little cotton. That was the very height of enjoyment for a kid to get to go with Dad to town, right? EC: Since Bristow really wasn' ; t wild West there was no such thing truly as Wild Indians. But I' ; ve run into a few people who seemed to have fear of them at that age. Do you remember anything about the Indians? MT: No, we had no fear of them. I went to school with them. I went to school with the Beavers and they had strange names, Indians, and we were always friends. But I can remember my mother when she was would used to tell when she lived east of town of the Indians that would come and they would knock the people in the windows, and she was afraid of them. And they, they didn' ; t talk much. They would hang around all day, but if they said something, you' ; d have to go out and, and ask them what they wanted because... EC: Let' ; s see. Did you, you say you went to Bristow High School? That would' ; ve been about 19, I' ; m guessing 20 along in there. MT: 1919, finished in 22, I believe. EC: Mm-hmm. Do you have any recollections of the effect of World War I? MT: Yes, we had I remember we all high school children, girls and boys went in the military training. I remember that part of it. Mm-hmm. And, yes, we were all very conscious of World War II. EC: Did MT: World I, I mean. EC: Yeah, of course. Now, when did you move into Bristow itself? MT: Well, my family never moved in. I came in and boarded in town and went to high school. EC: Okay. MT: And but my father lived in country until he died. EC: Right. MT: And then later I moved into town. EC: But you were here and then. You married here, I suppose. MT: Yes. Yes. EC: Was your husband, where did he come from? MT: He came from Kansas. He worked in American National Bank, and that' ; s when I worked for the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company. That' ; s where we met. EC: You were here then during the oil boom days? MT: Yes, yes. EC: Do you have any particular memories of what Bristow was like at that time? MT: Oh, yes, of course the oil industry was a big industry. It was, I remember there were a lot of men killed on the rigs, and first it was, they used horses teams, you know, so much to pull the pipe and things like that. But there was not a lot of activity in, it was a real industry. EC: Did, oh, I, I know I, I' ; ve heard this during the oil days, as you suggest, it was crowded. And a lot of transient people who were living here, of course, and working and some, especially women, have told me and complained because they said they weren' ; t even allowed to go downtown. It was too dangerous. Did you have any... MT: Oh, I don' ; t think it was as dangerous as is now. Really, I don' ; t. Our crime rate is greater now than it was in those days. EC: Well, moving ahead from the oil days were there any particular effects of the depression on Bristow that you recall? MT: Except we all felt it. It was a reality. EC: Did you have such things as old soup lines or soup kitchens or anything like that that you can remember? MT: Yes. They had soup kitchens. Had soup kitchens. Oh, I don' ; t remember how many, many men I fed at the back door. Men that, you know, just passing through. They had to have something to eat. EC: Right. Now, World War II, did it have any dramatic effect on Bristow? Obviously, the town was affected like every town, but do you think particular that stands out about World War II? MT: No, my son was 14 when World War II begun, of course my first thoughts were of him, would he be in the fighting. All mothers had those thoughts and he was in the Navy, but he never had saw any action. And I was a volunteer having communications right across communication on air bases, often world during World War II. And it was a reality to me. It made it more real because I worked with military families and-- EC: Well, going, let' ; s go back and dredge up some of your memories. Were there any particular, I don' ; t know how to put this, well, what did a, a girl your age in high school, what was, what was social life like? What kind of things did you do for fun? MT: No. Well, I didn' ; t have very much social life because mother and daddy wanted me to go home every weekend and almost every weekend I went home and I studied hard and, and oh, there were a few parties and a few picnics and things like that, but I didn' ; t have a great deal of social life during high school days. EC: Mm-hmm. And when did you get married? What year? MT: 1925. EC: Okay. Well, in your early married days, what did young couples do besides, you know, try to get along and survive? What was, what was life like? MT: Oh, at the church we used to all have activities for the young people. In the evening, we met Sunday evenings and we had a lot of picnics and things like that. And later on we had a swimming pool and people went swimming. EC: Do you recall, I don' ; t know how long or when they had the 4th of July picnics, Christmas parades. Do you recall these kind of events? MT: I remember 4th of July celebrations when I was a little girl. We lived north of town and and we came daddy, mother and the children in the wagon into town of 4th of July. We wouldn' ; t miss it. Everybody came. EC: Mm-hmm. Where did they hold it, there, do you remember? MT: We used to have what they call Coles Park, south of town. That' ; s where you usually had it before we had the City Park. EC: They also used to have, apparently, Christmas I don' ; t know whether they had parades or what they did. Do you remember anything special about the town on Christmas? MT: I can' ; t remember Christmas, the way that day when I was a child in town. In fact, I think I was usually at home in the country Christmas time and didn' ; t participate in the oil [indecipherable]. EC: You think it was, were there, this is a hard question, I guess to maybe, if you' ; d even remember exactly, were there people who were considered rich in Bristow before the oil? MT: But I can' ; t answer that. All I remember is [indecipherable] oil, who there are quite a few of them. EC: Who are some of the names that come to mind most easily when you talk about the people who made money off of oil? MT: Oh, Eddie Rollestone and Albert Kelly and the Jones. There was BB and M Jones. And they' ; re supposed to have been 13 millionaires, I think, in this little town. EC: Okay. 13 millionaires. I don' ; t think I' ; ve ever heard that figure. What church do you belong to? MT: First Christian. EC: As you may know, I' ; ve been trying to get churches to put together some little written histories of themselves, you know, so we can collect that too. And I think I, I' ; m not sure I may have one already. You know, we sometimes forget, I think, but I do at least that really even the events of say the last 30 years and our history now. MT: Right. EC: What particular changes have occurred in Bristow? Just you know, in your adult life that stand out? MT: Well, Bristow is not nearly as large as it used to be. You know that Bristow is perhaps a third, but the size it used to be. EC: Has there been, do you feel there' ; s been an exodus of young people from Bristow? MT: I think so. I think young people who grow up here have to go away from Bristow, find good jobs, and most of them leave Bristow. When my children come back here, they, they seldom see their old friends because they have left Bristow. EC: Seems to be the pattern of an awful lot of small towns. Maybe it' ; s gonna be reversed with the energy problems. MT: It might be. EC: Have there been any particular events that you witnessed or maybe heard about in, in Bristow that stand out. I mean, they don' ; t have to be important. Just things that were either funny or exciting or no particular characters. MT: A lot of interesting characters. I remember when American National Bank was robbed, was rather exciting. EC: You weren' ; t in town at the time. MT: I was in town. I was working for the telephone company. The telephone company was just back, the American National Bank, and after the robbers left, they exchanged shots and it was quite an exciting time. I remember the first airplane I ever saw it landed out at RL Jones' ; s. And I was in high school and they dismissed high school and we went out to see it. EC: That' ; s the first time anybody' ; s mentioned the airplane to-- MT: Would have heard of it. We never seen them. EC: You say there were some interesting characters. When I, when I say that, who comes to your mind? MT: Oh, I better not the main characters. There were a lot of interesting characters though. EC: Well, I' ; ve heard of, I guess the most frequently mentioned ones, been a town marshal by the name of Freshour. MT: Yes. He killed lots of people. EC: And I' ; ve heard some everybody seems to have known Dr. King. MT: Yes. He practiced when he' ; s, after he' ; s 90 years old, he was still, and older people didn' ; t have anyone else. They swore by it. EC: Who were some of the more prominent Lawyers. MT: Oh, Cheatem and Beaver were, I suppose, most prominent lawyers at that time. EC: Did your husband work in the bank? MT: He worked as a teller at the bank. Yes. EC: And worked there until he retired? MT: Yes. EC: Which bank? You? MT: American National. EC: American National. All right. And who was, let' ; s see, that' ; s the one that the Kelly' ; s now have? And who had it before the Kelly' ; s? Trying to is that the Jones Bank? MT: No, the Jones never owned it. It was Albert Kelly owned it even before his boys took over. He owned it most of the Stockton bank. [Inaudible] broadcasting session. Radio broadcasting station. EC: Yes, it was. MT: It was really something, you know, I think we had all probably about first in the nation, and people from Bristow would travel. They said if someone asked where they from, Bristow, they' ; d always respond, oh, that' ; s the place that has that big broadcasting station. And I remember the opening night, grand opening. It was really something. And then it was moved to Tulsa. You know, KFRU became KVOO. And then Mr. Rollestone, of course, killed himself in Tulsa. EC: I' ; ve also heard about, and I think maybe I' ; ve had two different places identified for this purpose, but the thing about KFRU, there was apparently some, presumably, very famous hamburger place here in town. MT: Oh yeah. Hamburger John. EC: Hamburger John. Mm-hmm. What was his name? Do you know? MT: John Lambeth. L A M B E T H. I think. EC: And where was it located? Do you recall? MT: South Main, I think. EC: Yeah. And this was supposed to be where the entertainers dropped in when they were in the neighborhood or something. MT: He got new Hamburger John. EC: Yeah. MT: Oh, I dunno if he' ; s taught at Bristow School. In Bristow well now he taught in the country, as I remember, JH was the country, but most of the time in the rural areas. EC: Oh, I see. Well, you do find Lucy West? MT: Yes, I remember her. EC: About as the first teacher remember her and other places you' ; ll find JH Dumas and two teachers at the first school. MT: Maybe it' ; s possible. EC: And it' ; s hard to believe they would need two schools given them the, you know, the size of the town in 1898. But you, you do think that Dumas was in the neighborhood at least. MT: Oh, yes. I knew them. Knew them well, yes. He worked for school all his life. Mm-hmm. EC: Did you know Mrs.West? MT: Oh, yes. Ms. West. EC: Was she still teaching by the time you got into town? MT: She taught in the country. She taught at the chapel after I had gone away to high school. Mm-hmm. And she taught various places in the country later on after she died down. Yes. She was very centric and I remember her quite well. EC: What did, what were, what were the schools like, I guess the high school particularly. Is it, that was Bristow of, did you feel it was a good? You had nothing to compair it with, but did it, did you think it was a good school? MT: I, I think we had a good school. We had Mr. Hutton was superintendent, Charlie Hutton, for years, and his wife was the math teacher, and I think they had a good school. I think he had qualified teachers and I really do think they had good school in those days. Think teachers were dedicated. EC: Like so many small towns and high schools, athletics was always a big thing. MT: Yes. EC: Do you recall excitement about things like that? MT: Yes. I remember football before they even had a stadium. They always had football and Coach Hafer, everyone in the school remembers Coach Hafer. Because he did some marvelous job at working with the boys. He was truly dedicated. EC: By the way you, I should have asked you this earlier. You named where you grew up was, was that named after your father, the community? MT: Yes. He gave them the land out East town for school district and they named the school for him, Wyatt School. EC: Well, now did he buy the land here since most of this was allotment land? MT: Yes, he bought the land. EC: Because I, I don' ; t know the legal details of how the exchanges were made in Indian territory today is, and the, I was guessing that was probably allotment land that he acquired. Are there any particular stories that you can remember your father or your mother telling you maybe about things about the Bristow or the area that, that were interesting to you, stuck in your mind all these days? MT: No, not particularly. Of course, and I remember the days, of course, before there were cars. And I was a child even in high school there were very few cars, you know, coming to town from 12 miles was all days journey, you know, to town and back. EC: And were there roads along the section lines back then? MT: Yes, yes. EC: I' ; ve heard that the boys in growing up in Bristow, of course most of ' ; em had ponies and I guess they rode, played or whatever. It just occurred to me, did girls ride ponies a lot too? MT: Oh yes. Yes. I always had a pony when I was a child. EC: Well, is there anything that you can think of that I ought to ask you that I haven' ; t thought of to ask you? MT: No, I can' ; t think of anything. EC: Well, were there any were you ever involved in politics in Bristow? MT: No. Not at all. EC: Or your husband? MT: No. EC: As best I can tell, Bristow had its, you know, city elections and that sort of thing, but I can' ; t tell whether they were ever very hotly contested or not. Do you recall, well, division between Republicans and Democrats, or was it personal? More than, MT: I can' ; t recall anything regarding that. EC: Okay. audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0044A_Milly_Thompson.xml OHP-0044A_Milly_Thompson.xml
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Milly Bell Wyatt Thompson
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In this 1979 interview with Milly Thompson, she talks about her early life in Bristow including her family being farmers, going to school, cotton farming and Indians. She also talks about the effects of the war and what it was like to be around during the oil boom and the wealthy people that resulted from it.
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1979-07-12
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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
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Denise Caves
Carolyn Foster
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Ola Lee
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5.4 June 28, 1979 OHP-0043B Ola Lee OHP-0043B 0:00-14:16 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Bristow Historical Society, Inc. Ola Lee Denise Caves Carolyn Foster 1:|8(12)|17(6)|25(11)|46(6)|65(11)|81(7)|95(2)|105(1)|130(5)|146(3)|172(6)|197(8)|214(1)|239(7) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0043B Lee, Ola.mp3 Other audio 26 No Fire Department OL: At that time Bristow didn’t have a fire department. Somebody was running and rang all the church bells. And then the men would have the bucket ready and they’d go and get the water and [inaudible] dad heard the church bells ringing. Well, he thought it was a fire, so he got up and ran down and grabbed his bucket and ran down to the street yelling, “Fire! Fire! Fire!” When Ola was a girl, Bristow didn't yet have a fire department, so they would ring the church bells and bring their buckets if there was a fire. fire department fire department 79 Circus Coming to Town OL: When dad had the store down here on main street, every year he sold [inaudible]. And he would come down here and stay at the hotel and [indecipherable] every night. All the town would turn out to see what [indecipherable]. Our [indecipherable] when they came to town [indecipherable]. It was right on main street, and dad let them have groceries, and at the end of the time they would stay, they would always pay dad, and then they would go on to some place else. When the circus came to town, they didn't have the money to pay their bill for groceries at her dad's store, so they ended up trading him a horse to settle up their bill. circus ; horse ; unpaved streets circus ; horse ; unpaved streets 230 Books DC: Well, now you’re a reader. Where did you get your books to read when you were growing up and there was no library was there? OL: No. There was no library, but we always managed to have books. Mother was a great reader herself. DC: And then you borrowed books? OL: Yes, we borrowed books, and then dad bought us a great big encyclopedia and a dictionary, and unabridged dictionary. Ola talks about always having books, and that even though there was no library, they would borrow them to make sure they had something to read. Her father always made sure they had a lesson with the dictionary and encyclopedia before bed. books ; reading books ; reading 271 Family Life After Losing Her Mother DC: How old were you when your mother died? OL: I was, let me think about it. She died in 1911. I guess I was about 13. DC: And you were the oldest? OL: No, I wasn’t the oldest but dad wanted me to take the responsibility. DC: But anyway, there were still young children in the home. OL: Oh yes. Mother had taken three of the youngest ones, which was the [indecipherable] to New Mexico [indecipherable] and kept the baby out there, oh for about a year, because mother got so sick, she couldn’t feed the baby. And they called dad to come out and get the baby. We went out on a train, and we came back, why he gave the baby to me. He said I could take responsibility for that year. I cooked all the meals. Made the clothes. Made my little brothers some pants and shirts. Ola's mother died when she was 13-years-old which required her to take more responsibility in the family cooking, cleaning, making clothes and caring for her siblings. family ; loss ; mother family responsibilities ; mother dying ; nanny 407 Working in the Store CF: Did any of you work in the store? OL: Oh, yes, at times, I’d work in there. Ms. Nellie Smallwood (ph) was one of the leaders in the store. She would show us how to do. In daddy’s store back in the back where the groceries were, we always had a great big lot of cheese in that lower round roll and beside that would be the pickle barrel and a cracker barrel. And when the people would come in the store, they would go down towards the cheese and a nickle’s worth of crackers and maybe a dill pickle and they would stand around and eat their lunch. Ola talks about Nellie Smallwood helping show her how to work in her father's store. coffee ; cracker barrel ; Nellie Smallwood ; pickle barrel ; store coffee ; groceries ; lunch ; store 472 Stores in Town DC: Was there a restaurant in town at the time where people could buy food or if they were in town and had to eat they would have to go to a store? OL: Well, I don’t recall a store. DC: A restaurant. OL: I just didn’t recall that. CF: What other stores were there in town then? OL: Oh, there was Mr. Stone had the hardware. DC: Was it the same big building there? OL: Mm-hmm. And there was a bait shop right close to the store. Where Fords are now, that was the school house. It was a tin school house painted like brick. Ola tells about different stores in town like Stone Hardware. Ford ; restaurant ; Stone Hardware stores 523 School House DC: Well, was it a public school? OL: Yes, that was a public school. DC: It was a public school right there on main street. Well, I had never known that. Was it a grade school or? OL: Yes, it was a grade school. And I don’t know whether we had any more schools or not. Might have but… DC: I think there was one over on, where Washington School is now, wasn’t here? OL: Well, there was a two-story house over there with a basement. That burned down. DC: Yes. Ola talks about a tin public school that was painted like brick and sat on main street. main street ; Methodist Church ; public school ; Washington School main street ; public school 630 Family Home on Ninth Street DC: Was it easy to get hired help if you could, if you needed it? OL: Well, dad got Laura for us, that negro. And he built a little two-story, two-room house on the back of the lot and that’s where she… DC: Was this up on ninth? OL: Up on ninth street. DC: Which house or which block on ninth? Do you remember whereabouts on ninth your house was? OL: End of the fourth block. DC: End of the fourth block. OL: There’s a house up there now and… DC: It’s kind of two-story. Is that the one? Ola tells about their two-story home on 9th Street. Darrel Stiles ; family home ; hired help ; Ninth Street family home ; hired help 695 Standpipe Hill CF: Where did you take the cow to pasture? OL: Way up on Standpipe Hill. DC: Now Standpipe Hill is where it is now on 11th? CF: All the way across town. OL: And a little boy would go around and gather the cows up and take them up there. And we paid him so much a month to do that. In the evening then he’d go and get them and bring them back home. That’s where we always had our Fourth of July picnics up there. And that was for everybody. We all had our [indecipherable] with our baskets and bottles of pop and fried chicken and cakes and everything. Each, two or three families would go off together and eat their… Ola talks about a boy coming and getting their cows and taking them to Standpipe Hill to be put in the pasture. She also talked about 4th of July picnics and fun times there. 4th of July ; picnics ; Standpipe Hill 4th of July ; picnics ; Standpipe Hill MP3 In this 1979 interview with Ola Lee, she talks about her mother passing away when she was just 13-years-old and what it was like growing up without her. She talks about her dad's store and what it was like working there, as well as, other businesses around town. Partial Recording -- The first part of the cassette tape did not record properly. [Inaudible] OL: At that time Bristow didn' ; t have a fire department. Somebody was running and rang all the church bells. And then the men would have the bucket ready and they' ; d go and get the water and [inaudible] dad heard the church bells ringing. Well, he thought it was a fire, so he got up and ran down and grabbed his bucket and ran down to the street yelling, " ; Fire! Fire! Fire!" ; [Inaudible] OL: When dad had the store down here on main street, every year he sold [inaudible]. And he would come down here and stay at the hotel and [indecipherable] every night. All the town would turn out to see what [indecipherable]. Our [indecipherable] when they came to town [indecipherable]. It was right on main street, and dad let them have groceries, and at the end of the time they would stay, they would always pay dad, and then they would go on to some place else. One time, when the circus came in here, and they didn' ; t have any money, so they asked dad if he would lend them some money to buy their groceries with. And he did. At the end of the circus [indecipherable], they couldn' ; t pay their bill. They had an old horse that pulled the merry-go-round [inaudible]. That old horse went round and round and round. Well, there was nothing dad wanted except that old horse. He took that. They never did come back for their horse. But dad let us children have that horse. And everybody in town, the children would ride horses after school. And they let one of us have that old horse. I don' ; t know which one it was, but anyway, when anyone got on him, he would start going round and round and round. We' ; d have to get off and pull him every little distance to get him started the right way. [Inaudible] DC: Now at that time the street wasn' ; t paved, was it? OL: Oh no, you just walked in mud up to your ankles. CF: Do you recall that first block that was paved on main street? OL: Well, it was brick, wasn' ; t it? I do not recall that. CF: It was between sixth and seventh. OL: Was it? DC: Well, now you' ; re a reader. Where did you get your books to read when you were growing up and there was no library was there? OL: No. There was no library, but we always managed to have books. Mother was a great reader herself. DC: And then you borrowed books? OL: Yes, we borrowed books, and then dad bought us a great big encyclopedia and a dictionary, and unabridged dictionary. And at night after mother passed away, he would get his children around the table, which was five, and we had the old dictionary and the encyclopedia. We never went to bed until dad knew his children had their lessons. DC: How old were you when your mother died? OL: I was, let me think about it. She died in 1911. I guess I was about 13. DC: And you were the oldest? OL: No, I wasn' ; t the oldest but dad wanted me to take the responsibility. DC: But anyway, there were still young children in the home. OL: Oh yes. Mother had taken three of the youngest ones, which was the [indecipherable] to New Mexico [indecipherable] and kept the baby out there, oh for about a year, because mother got so sick, she couldn' ; t feed the baby. And they called dad to come out and get the baby. We went out on a train, and we came back, why he gave the baby to me. He said I could take responsibility for that year. I cooked all the meals. Made the clothes. Made my little brothers some pants and shirts. DC: Now how many were there in the family? OL: There were five children. DC: Five. OL: A boy and four girls. Well, it wasn' ; t very long for dad to get more money, and he could hire someone to do the cooking. Negro woman by the name of Laura. I don' ; t recall her last name. I had the responsibility of looking after the children and give them their clothes. Those days you couldn' ; t got to town and buy clothes or [indecipherable]. You had to make the clothes. DC: You had close neighbors that could help and advise. OL: Yes. We had a great aunt that taught out here at [indecipherable] school and in the summer time she would come down and stay with us [inaudible]. CF: Did any of you work in the store? OL: Oh, yes, at times, I' ; d work in there. Ms. Nellie Smallwood (ph) was one of the leaders in the store. She would show us how to do. In daddy' ; s store back in the back where the groceries were, we always had a great big lot of cheese in that lower round roll and beside that would be the pickle barrel and a cracker barrel. And when the people would come in the store, they would go down towards the cheese and a nickle' ; s worth of crackers and maybe a dill pickle and they would stand around and eat their lunch. Also, right there by the pickle barrel was a great big coffee bin. People didn' ; t buy coffee ground then. It was all by the bean, and most of the time, we would roast the beans and then have it ground. DC: Was there a restaurant in town at the time where people could buy food or if they were in town and had to eat they would have to go to a store? OL: Well, I don' ; t recall a store. DC: A restaurant. OL: I just didn' ; t recall that. CF: What other stores were there in town then? OL: Oh, there was Mr. Stone had the hardware. DC: Was it the same big building there? OL: Mm-hmm. And there was a bait shop right close to the store. Where Fords are now, that was the school house. It was a tin school house painted like brick. DC: Well, was it a public school? OL: Yes, that was a public school. DC: It was a public school right there on main street. Well, I had never known that. Was it a grade school or? OL: Yes, it was a grade school. And I don' ; t know whether we had any more schools or not. Might have but-- DC: I think there was one over on, where Washington School is now, wasn' ; t here? OL: Well, there was a two-story house over there with a basement. That burned down. DC: Yes. OL: Because I started teaching in the basement of the Methodist Church. Oh, there was a bank there. We had a bank or two. We had a drug store. [Indecipherable] and we were something. I bought one one time and paid $25 for it. [Inaudible] DC: That' ; d be like $150 now. Well, I bet it was beautiful. OL: It was. CF: Now did you have photographers here at that time? OL: I don' ; t know whether we did or not. DC: That was before Annabelle. CF: People didn' ; t have their picture made, did they? OL: No. Everybody did their own washing which was the old iron pot out in the yard. DC: Was it easy to get hired help if you could, if you needed it? OL: Well, dad got Laura for us, that negro. And he built a little two-story, two-room house on the back of the lot and that' ; s where she-- DC: Was this up on ninth? OL: Up on ninth street. DC: Which house or which block on ninth? Do you remember whereabouts on ninth your house was? OL: End of the fourth block. DC: End of the fourth block. OL: There' ; s a house up there now and-- DC: It' ; s kind of two-story. Is that the one? OL: Yes. Darrel Stiles bought that house and was fixing it up, then he passed away. DC: I think there' ; s been a beauty parlor in it some of the time. I used to leave down on the other corner of the block. CF: And it had chickens and a cow. OL: Oh yes, we had chickens and a cow. CF: Where did you take the cow to pasture? OL: Way up on Standpipe Hill. DC: Now Standpipe Hill is where it is now on 11th? CF: All the way across town. OL: And a little boy would go around and gather the cows up and take them up there. And we paid him so much a month to do that. In the evening then he' ; d go and get them and bring them back home. That' ; s where we always had our Fourth of July picnics up there. And that was for everybody. We all had our [indecipherable] with our baskets and bottles of pop and fried chicken and cakes and everything. Each, two or three families would go off together and eat their-- DC: Now were there trees then, and it was more like a park? OL: Yeah. Well, they planted trees up there. DC: And the grass was down where you wouldn' ; t-- OL: Yes, mm-hmm. DC: Where you wouldn' ; t get swallowed in it. OL: And after dinner, the children would run races, sack races and play ball, some of them. The men and women always had a band stand up there, and of course, we always had the band there and somebody to speak, and he' ; d speak all afternoon. DC: On a patriotic subject or just-- OL: Yeah. DC: Now how far, this spot on Standpipe Hill, would that be from where the new high school is now? Now the new high school is over on the other side-- OL: Yes it would be back this way DC: Back this way. OL: Yeah. DC: There' ; s homes in there now. CF: Now, wasn' ; t there a gate at the end of 10th street, going up the hill right about there? OL: I don' ; t recall that. DC: Who are some of the families that you remember that were here during your early years? OL: I thought of some of those the other day. I guess Ms. Freeland will tell you that. I think that' ; s about all I can tell you now. DC: Thank you very much, Ola. OL: Yes. DC: That was real enjoyable. audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0043B_Ola_Lee.xml OHP-0043B_Ola_Lee.xml
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Ola F. Lee
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In this 1979 interview with Ola Lee, she talks about her mother passing away when she was just 13-years-old and what it was like growing up without her. She talks about her dad's store and what it was like working there, as well as, other businesses around town.
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OHP-0043B
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1979-06-28
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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
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Denise Caves
Carolyn Foster
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Dora Wolfe
Fay Freeland
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5.4 June 27, 1979 OHP-0043A Dora Wolfe OHP-0043A 0:00-23:44 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Bristow Historical Society, Inc. Dora Wolfe Fay Freeland Denise Caves Carolyn Foster 1:|9(11)|35(7)|54(3)|59(11)|66(5)|78(5)|92(10)|107(10)|114(6)|125(12)|142(4)|155(2)|180(5)|194(9)|205(3)|222(14)|260(13)|276(8)|285(4)|292(5)|303(4)|327(10)|347(2) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0043A Wolfe-Freeland.mp3 Other audio 2 Moving to Bristow DC: It’s 1979. Ms. Wolfe, when did you first come to Bristow? DW: In 1919, my father bought the Morris Drug Store, and he changed the name to Palace Drug Store. And I came the following year to teach school. I taught school one year. He sold out, oh my goodness, [indecipherable]. He’d have to stay open until 11 and 12 o’clock. And it was just too hard on his health, so he sold out. Then we went to Claremore, and I was there three years, and he had a drug store over there. Then I liked it better here, so I came here. Dora came to Bristow in 1919 when her father purchase Morris Drug Store and changed the name to Palace Drug Store. Morris Drug Store ; Palace Drug Store ; teacher drug stores ; Moving to Bristow 65 Attending Various Colleges DC: Now where did you go to college? DW: Well, I went to… [Inaudible] can’t think of the name of it. DW: Central College for Women [indecipherable]. At that time we called it Methodist College. DC: Now how was that? DW: That was at Central. DC: Uh-huh. DW: You want some of the members that went there? DC: Well, okay. Dora talks about attending various colleges throughout the years. Central College for Women ; Methodist College ; Mrs. Exelton ; Ola Lee ; Tahlequah ; University of Idaho ; University of Oklahoma Attending college 235 Car Accident We had a wreck on the way. I was supposed to go with this group that was to make an English course, you know, for the Bristow Schools. [Indecipherable] And I was supposed to that, and we had a wreck. The car had [indecipherable] so Ms. Exelton sent a telegram to Mr. Black, I mean to her father. Well, she did have uh…what am I talking about…well, anyway, she had, well anyway. She was sending that to the telegraph office, and she said, “I wished you were going.” And I said, “I was just sitting there thinking that trying to word a telegram to Mr. Black.” So I did. She almost jumped over the table, because she had about a thousand more miles to drive by herself. Well, so we got the telegram the next morning from him. Got out of bed and he said, “By all means go on.” He said, “I’m sorry you had the wreck but I’m grateful that none of you were hurt.” So we went on. On a trip to the University of Idaho, Dora and Mrs. Exelton were in a car accident. car accident ; University of Idaho car accident 442 Elementary School Library Program DC: Well, what year did you, do you remember, that you started the elementary school library program in Bristow? I think that’s been such a… DW: I don’t remember what year we did but… DC: But you did it a long, long time. DW: Yes. I graduated from Tahlequah in 1936 and we moved back here. Then we bought our home. Dora talks about starting the elementary school library program and completing her library studies at the University of Denver. library program ; University of Denver ; University of Oklahoma elementary library program 603 Instilling the Love of Reading DC: And you taught at least two generations, didn’t you? Read and enjoy books. DW: Oh, yes, that many. DC: Enjoy. Well, I’ve always given you credit for instilling a love of reading in an awful lot of Bristow kids. DW: Well, we had fun, really. I think they enjoyed it, and they enjoyed books and poetry that they memorized. You taking this down? Dora taught at least two generations to read and enjoy books. library ; poetry ; reading love of reading 631 Teaching the Bible DW: Well, we memorized portions of the Bible in Psalms. In the third grade, we had the 23rd Psalm and in the fourth grade, I think we had the 100th Psalm. The fifth grade we had the 121 and in sixth grade we had the, we had the 101. No, we had the first one. I told Brother Bob (ph) the other day, we were talking about it, I said I’d get arrested now if I did it. Dora explains how she taught different grades to memorize different Psalms from the Bible. Bible ; Psalms teaching the bible 767 Bristow Public Schools DC: Well, now you’ve been to lots of different schools and things, how have you felt that the Bristow, as a school system, rated during the years you taught? Do you feel it rated high or? DW: Not because of my teaching. DC: No, but I mean the whole school. DW: Oh, yes. Very high. And you know one time it was considered extremely high. Mr. Black became president of the Oklahoma Education Association. You remember that? Dora talks about how Bristow Public Schools were known for offering a quality education. Bristow Public Schools ; Mr. Black ; Oklahoma Educations Association Bristow Public Schools 962 Superintendents DC: Who was the superintendent that you served under first? DW: [Indecipherable] Hutton. DC: And then after Hutton came? DW: Black. DC: Black? Unknown: E.H. Black (ph). DC: After E.H. Black (ph), was it Bob…? DW: Bob Nichols. DC: And then Mr. Sims. DW: He was a nice one. Dora talks about the superintendents she served under. Bob Nichols ; E.H. Black ; Mr. Hutton ; Mr. Sims 988 Doll Collection Unknown: And Dora, you had such a nice doll collection, did you not? And you would bring those dolls… DW: Oh yes, used those a lot. I still have those. If we get the museum, I can put those in the museum. DC: Oh, well how nice. DW: If we get it, but… DC: Well, we’ll keep working. DW: Now really girls, I don’t like the idea of having that depot for us, because those trains are going by, people that are going to donate old things, supposed it’s glass and things like that. You know, the vibration will break those. Dora talks about her doll collection and how she would like to donate it to the museum. doll collection ; Jones Estate ; Mr. Hockett ; Mr. Shibley ; Mr. Veit ; museum doll collection ; museum 1299 Traveling to Tulsa DC: Did you get to Tulsa very often? FF: No, I didn’t. DC: Wasn’t like nowadays when you could zip up in an hour. FF: No, if you went to Tulsa, you went to Tulsa in a horse and buggy. I never will forget one time when we went, and it was stormy. All the roads were terrible, just muddy, and I wondered if we would ever get home. Fay talks about traveling to Tulsa via a horse and buggy. buggy ; horse ; traveling ; Tulsa traveling to Tulsa 1352 Shopping in OKC FF: No, we generally stayed at a hotel. And then my folks, my mother, she did a lot of her shopping in Oklahoma City. DC: Oh. FF: We’d go down there and buy clothes. We could go down and get on the train in the morning, and go down and get a train back at night. And we’d have time to do all our shopping. DC: Do you remember the stores in Oklahoma City where you shopped? Was it John A. Brown? Fay talks about her family shopping for clothes in Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City ; shopping shopping in OKC MP3 In this 1979 interview with Dora Wolfe, she talks about all the colleges she attended and being a long-time teacher in Bristow Public Schools. Fay Freeland also discusses shopping and traveling to Tulsa in a horse and buggy. DC: It' ; s 1979. Ms. Wolfe, when did you first come to Bristow? DW: In 1919, my father bought the Morris Drug Store, and he changed the name to Palace Drug Store. And I came the following year to teach school. I taught school one year. He sold out, oh my goodness, [indecipherable]. He' ; d have to stay open until 11 and 12 o' ; clock. And it was just too hard on his health, so he sold out. Then we went to Claremore, and I was there three years, and he had a drug store over there. Then I liked it better here, so I came here. And I was here the rest the time. I taught 39 years in Bristow. My first year I taught in Miami in 1919, and that' ; s when we moved here. DC: Now where did you go to college? DW: Well, I went to-- [Inaudible] can' ; t think of the name of it. DW: Central College for Women [indecipherable]. At that time we called it Methodist College. DC: Now how was that? DW: That was at Central. DC: Uh-huh. DW: You want some of the members that went there? DC: Well, okay. [Inaudible] DC: Oh, I know, well just skip that. You went to Central College for Women. DW: And, then, well Roger' ; s nephew [indecipherable] was there. DC: Oh, really? DW: And niece was there. And Ola. DC: Ola Lee? DW: Ola Lee [indecipherable] and then all of us sisters went the next year. Rachel, [indecipherable] she was at home. Now, was there anybody else that went from here, I don' ; t know. But those did. I graduated from there in the next year, I mean two years. And that' ; s when I came here. DC: Uh huh. DW: And I was sort of a strange student. I didn' ; t hardly stay in the school all the time. So I went to Enid one summer with some girls, some teachers that was on from Claremore. Let' ; s see, where I went the next time. I suspect it was OU. And I taught--I went to school--I don' ; t know how many summers I went to school at OU. I worked off my, I was majoring in English, and I worked off my major all except one course. And then I went to Tahlequah. My mother went to Tahlequah. She didn' ; t graduate. She got married when she was too young. And I graduated from there, oh, in 1935, I believe it was. Then in the summer of 1936, Mrs. Exelton and I went to the University of Idaho. And we made a nice trip out of it. We had a wreck on the way. I was supposed to go with this group that was to make an English course, you know, for the Bristow Schools. [Indecipherable] And I was supposed to that, and we had a wreck. The car had [indecipherable] so Ms. Exelton sent a telegram to Mr. Black, I mean to her father. Well, she did have uh--what am I talking about--well, anyway, she had, well anyway. She was sending that to the telegraph office, and she said, " ; I wished you were going." ; And I said, " ; I was just sitting there thinking that trying to word a telegram to Mr. Black." ; So I did. She almost jumped over the table, because she had about a thousand more miles to drive by herself. Well, so we got the telegram the next morning from him. Got out of bed and he said, " ; By all means go on." ; He said, " ; I' ; m sorry you had the wreck but I' ; m grateful that none of you were hurt." ; So we went on. DC: Now this is on your way up there to go to school? DW: Uh huh. The University of Idaho. Oh, and we had a lot of fun going up there. You can imagine all those roads up there under construction. You know that had a bad winter, and we road across the bridge. I wouldn' ; t do it again for any amount of money. Ms. Exelton said, " ; Now we will wait here and see if those people get across." ; Oh, it was dusk. She said if they can get across, we can get across that bridge. It wasn' ; t completely [indecipherable]. So went on across and we stayed at, well, I don' ; t know where it was. And then we would go to Oregon and stay there, which we did, but we didn' ; t get there as soon as we thought we would. Then we went across to [indecipherable] and on into, we were about three days late, getting into Idaho. And, oh, we had a lot of fun-- DC: Now that' ; s the only year that you went there? DW: That was the only year and we came back through Yellowstone Park and just made a trip coming back, the girls came back with us. DC: Well, now, were you doing library work at that time? DW: No. Then when I came back, I went to--oh, I took a number of courses at OSU during the summer. You know, when Clara Jones (ph) was living, we went with her. DC: Yeah, uh huh. DW: And we took those during sometimes on Saturday. And then-- DC: Well, what year did you, do you remember, that you started the elementary school library program in Bristow? I think that' ; s been such a-- DW: I don' ; t remember what year we did but-- DC: But you did it a long, long time. DW: Yes. I graduated from Tahlequah in 1936 and we moved back here. Then we bought our home. Well, I bought the home in 1943. And I think I' ; d been doing library work then, because I went back to OU and took a library, not a library course, but they were, oh subjects that--they didn' ; t count toward a degree in library science, but it was on children' ; s education and things like that. I met this teacher from the university of, I can' ; t remember, she was my instructor and we became very, very good friends. So, I said, that' ; s what I' ; ll go on and get a degree in library science. I said Irma (ph) [indecipherable] she said they don' ; t give any work toward a degree in library science at OU. I wasn' ; t satisfied, and I wrote to OU, and they didn' ; t. Oh, yes, at that time, I went to school at SMU, too. [Indecipherable] So I said, well, recommend some. Well, she said, Chicago, and I said, yes, I thought about Chicago, and it was too hight. And I thought about Peabody, and it was too high. And she said, well, it' ; s nice in Denver. She taught in Denver, too. But she would come to Oklahoma and teach in the summer time. So, she wanted me to go to there, so I got my degree of library of science at the University of [indecipherable]. Unknown: Denver. DW: Denver. And that was in 1941. And from then on, we-- DC: And you taught at least two generations, didn' ; t you? Read and enjoy books. DW: Oh, yes, that many. DC: Enjoy. Well, I' ; ve always given you credit for instilling a love of reading in an awful lot of Bristow kids. DW: Well, we had fun, really. I think they enjoyed it, and they enjoyed books and poetry that they memorized. You taking this down? DC: It' ; s all taken. DW: Well, we memorized portions of the Bible in Psalms. In the third grade, we had the 23rd Psalm and in the fourth grade, I think we had the 100th Psalm. The fifth grade we had the 121 and in sixth grade we had the, we had the 101. No, we had the first one. I told Brother Bob (ph) the other day, we were talking about it, I said I' ; d get arrested now if I did it. DC: Oh no. DW: But those children learn in a hurry. So, one little girl came to me and she says, " ; Mrs. Wolfe, the police said [indecipherable]." ; I said, " ; What?" ; Well, she said, " ; It' ; s not from our Bible." ; She had to have him [indecipherable]. And I said, " ; Well, alright, learn it from your Bible. I said, " ; You bring me your Bible or a copy of the Psalm that' ; s in your Bible and if you get it right, that' ; s fine. It doesn' ; t make any difference to me whether you learn it from there or from yours." ; So that' ; s what she did. [Inaudible] DW: So, that' ; s what I was teaching. DC: Well, you had a great deal of pleasure, didn' ; t you, from knowing all these children. DW: And, in between there, I taught music and did a lot of plays. Not plays, but-- DC: Programs? DW: Yeah, but we didn' ; t call them programs then. DC: Assemblies? DW: Oh, dear me. Girls, I' ; ve been asleep. I can' ; t even talk. DC: Oh. DW: But, we taught, oh I taught, music for quite a while. I went to OU and took my [indecipherable] public school music. DC: Well, now you' ; ve been to lots of different schools and things, how have you felt that the Bristow, as a school system, rated during the years you taught? Do you feel it rated high or? DW: Not because of my teaching. DC: No, but I mean the whole school. DW: Oh, yes. Very high. And you know one time it was considered extremely high. Mr. Black became president of the Oklahoma Education Association. You remember that? And, well, I don' ; t know. Alright children go back to him and apologize for the way they' ; ve acted. That was [indecipherable]. And said well I' ; m just sorry that I acted like that. They weren' ; t real bad. DC: They were just being boys. DW: They were just being mischievous, that' ; s all they were. Nobody, I didn' ; t have anybody that was malicious, unless it was one or two of them, and they came from homes, you know, where that was typical. It was a lot of fun. DC: Well, I' ; ve had a lot of students tell me, grown citizens, senior year, grown people say that you were one of their very favorite teachers, so you evidently made an impression. DW: Well, thank you. Let me see, I never taught but three or four places. Well, let' ; s talk about the first one in Miami. I guess you want this. I taught for $75 a month. Taught fifth grade homeroom. [Indecipherable] came over one day and said we' ; d like you to return. And I said well Mr. Locklin (ph), I' ; ve already been offered a job in Bristow, and I said, I can get $90 and stay at home! His eyes just popped out of his head. He said well, I can' ; t give you that. And I said, well, I' ; m sorry, because I' ; m going to Bristow. DC: So, you did. DW: So, I did. And then I taught there three years and taught here the rest of the time. Which made 43 years. DC: Forty-three years in all. Well, that' ; s a quite a bit of time. DW: I liked Miami real well, don' ; t put this in, but I didn' ; t care too much for the superintendent because he was, oh, he came from Wichita, and every time he had to teach with me, it was about Woodstock. And I don' ; t like that. DC: No. DW: I did teaching in Wichita and teaching here and wasn' ; t supposed to teach here. But now in Wichita we did this and Wichita we did that [indecipherable]. DC: Who was the superintendent that you served under first? DW: [Indecipherable] Hutton. DC: And then after Hutton came? DW: Black. DC: Black? Unknown: E.H. Black (ph). DC: After E.H. Black (ph), was it Bob--? DW: Bob Nichols. DC: And then Mr. Sims. DW: He was a nice one. DC: He was the last one. Unknown: And Dora, you had such a nice doll collection, did you not? And you would bring those dolls-- DW: Oh yes, used those a lot. I still have those. If we get the museum, I can put those in the museum. DC: Oh, well how nice. DW: If we get it, but-- DC: Well, we' ; ll keep working. DW: Now really girls, I don' ; t like the idea of having that depot for us, because those trains are going by, people that are going to donate old things, supposed it' ; s glass and things like that. You know, the vibration will break those. DC: Hadn' ; t thought of that. Unknown: [Indecipherable] DW: Pardon? Unknown: Maybe we could use the City Hall. DW: Well, I talked to Mr. Veit about that. I said, well, it was condemned one time. And he said yeah, but I believe that it could be made into a good one. I said, well, you have a parking lot problem. And he said, yeah, that' ; s right. And David said one time that there was one in the new buildings. So, I don' ; t know, I' ; ve been on the committee for BPW for years, and I' ; ve talked to David a number of times, and I talked to [indecipherable] about getting money, you know, from the, Jones Estate. I never could get any satisfaction about what they were going to do. And I talked to Mr. Shibley, and Mr. Shibley has given a lot of his things especially petroleum things, oil equipment in the fields, you know to Drumright. Now, Emma Lou' ; s husband, what' ; s his name? He stopped me the other day and he said, Dora, what are you doing, hun? I said, I' ; m finding a place to have our museum. He said, I' ; ve got some things. Well, I said, save them. Don' ; t you dare... DC: Mr. Hockett. DW: Hockett, yeah. He said, I have some things. And a number of other--now Kay Carter (ph) has, too. Which she said you want to hurry up and [indecipherable] and get upstairs to get them. Don' ; t put that in there or she will kill me. But I did want to put the dolls in. Now there are a number of them, foreign dolls, and they' ; re authentic. All those I put up for the children and for [indecipherable] were authentic. Many of them were ordered from [indecipherable] Company which is in Independence, Kansas and Independence, Missouri. I hadn' ; t ordered any for a long time. I have a story about a native woman that they sent me, and a negro doll [indecipherable] and it was supposed to have been in the 80' ; s. It was made of [indecipherable] and they illustrated it for me, and I didn' ; t know they were going to do that. And they illustrated it for me and told the story of it. And they told the story of some of these, for instance, I had a Polish doll, and it was in the port in the United States when the Nazi' ; s-- Unknown: Dora, aren' ; t you going to eat? CF: Well, you' ; ve seen a lot of interesting things. What, as you remember, was the most exciting or the most drastic thing that happened in Bristow? We didn' ; t ever have a tornado that blew the place away like Drumright. Didn' ; t have an Indian raid. [Inaudible] FF: Oh yeah, had that and then on the weekends, you know, the Indians always had something out in the country. And people would go out, they' ; d put on their dress up clothes and perform. CF: Then you went to the ball games, didn' ; t you? FF: Yeah. CF: That was on Sunday afternoon? FF: Well, whenever it was. DC: Did you get to Tulsa very often? FF: No, I didn' ; t. DC: Wasn' ; t like nowadays when you could zip up in an hour. FF: No, if you went to Tulsa, you went to Tulsa in a horse and buggy. I never will forget one time when we went, and it was stormy. All the roads were terrible, just muddy, and I wondered if we would ever get home. DC: Well, you couldn' ; t--could you go in a day in a horse and buggy? Could you go up and then come back in one day? FF: We generally went up and stayed all night. DC: Where did you stay in Tulsa? Was it a hotel or at a friend' ; s house? FF: No, we generally stayed at a hotel. And then my folks, my mother, she did a lot of her shopping in Oklahoma City. DC: Oh. FF: We' ; d go down there and buy clothes. We could go down and get on the train in the morning, and go down and get a train back at night. And we' ; d have time to do all our shopping. DC: Do you remember the stores in Oklahoma City where you shopped? Was it John A. Brown? [Inaudible] FF: Yeah. I got a bad broken leg [indecipherable]. DC: Oh, gracious sakes. I' ; ll say you have. FF: That' ; s what put me in here. I broke the leg and the ankle. DC: Yeah, well, it' ; s good we had a place where you could come without having to actually go to the hospital. FF: Well, [indecipherable] I had help [indecipherable]. [Inaudible] FF: I had to go some place where-- DC: Yes, that' ; s right. Well, we surely do thank you for sharing your-- FF: Well, you' ; re welcome. audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0043A_Wolfe_Freeland.xml OHP-0043A_Wolfe_Freeland.xml
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Dora Wolfe
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In this 1979 interview with Dora Wolfe, she talks about all the colleges she attended and being a long-time teacher in Bristow Public Schools. Fay Freeland also discusses shopping and traveling to Tulsa in a horse and buggy.
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OHP-0043A
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1979-06-27
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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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Winey Harjo
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5.4 March 6, 1991 OHP-0042B Winey Harjo - Part 2 OHP-0042B 0:00-30:13 Bristow Historical Society - Oral History Archive Bristow Historical Society, Inc. Winey Harjo Wanda Newton 1:|33(2)|55(2)|77(2)|105(9)|141(6)|158(9)|174(14)|188(6)|222(2)|249(4)|279(3)|305(2)|339(15)|367(8)|400(1)|427(1)|443(6)|460(11)|494(4)|524(11)|553(7)|574(12)|592(7)|611(1)|646(4)|664(3)|695(3)|721(10)|739(8)|773(4) 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/interviews/OHP-0042B Harjo, Winey.mp3 Other audio 0 First Car WH: We just give $300 for the T-Model. WN: You gave $300 for your first car? WH: Model-T, it didn’t run but on battery. It runs on mash. And you had to crank it. WN: Well did you pay cash for the car or did you… WH: I don’t remember. I don’t think so. WN: You had to pay it out like we all… WH: Yeah. You didn’t have to buy no tag or nothing. Winey's first car was a Model-T that cost $300 and ran on mash. mash ; Model-T ; wagon first car ; Model-T 62 Early Life WN: Alright, can you tell me, did you ever take a summer vacation anywhere? WH: No. We didn’t know nothin’ about no summer vacation. I don’t do that now. WN: You just work all the time, don’t you? WH: Yeah. WN: Tell me, your children, tell me about your early children. When you had them did you have a doctor? When you had your children, did you have a doctor? WH: Well, an Indian doctor. WN: An Indian doctor. Winey talks about using an Indian doctor for her kids, her kids attending school, making squaw bread and their first refrigerator. Edison Elementary School ; Indian doctor ; Indian language ; Indian Mission School ; Indian school ; refrigerator ; squaw bread early life 361 Church WH: And I know what preacher has pastured our church. WN: Who was that? WH: His name was Jasper Bale and the other one was Louie Dunson (ph). WN: Oh, that’s such a wonderful bit of info…tell me anything else about that church that you can remember. Can you tell me how people came? Did they used to have more Indians coming or less? Tell me about your church. WH: Oh, well (speaks Indian). WN: Oh, that’s so lovely. Winey remembers attending church and the pastor being Jasper Bale. church life church ; Indian prayers ; Jasper Bale ; pastor 453 Stomp Dances WN: Oh wonderful! What did you do for entertainment when you were about 15 or 16-years-old. What was it like being a teenager? WH: For entertainment? WN: Yeah, what did you all do? WH: Go to Indian stomp dance. WN: Well, come on in Wesley and join us. WH: We’d go to Indian stomp dance. WN: You went to the Indian stomp dance. WH: Yeah and had a big dinner and everyone dance and… As a teenage, Winey enjoyed going to Indian stomp dances. stomp dance ; Wesley Harjo stomp dance 486 Marriage WN: Well, what did you look for in a husband. What did your mother tell you to look for in a…how did she tell you to look for a husband? WH: How did I do? WN: Yeah, what did your momma say to you to get a husband? WH: She said…she didn’t say. She didn’t want me to marry, but after I meet this man in church, you can go ahead and marry him if you want to. WN: Well, how old were you? WH: Well, see I married in 1911, and I was just 15-years-old. WN: 15-years-old. Wesley, what do you think of that? Winey was married in 1911 at the age of 15. husband ; marriage marriage 617 Wesley's Childhood WN: Wesley, what do you remember about being a little boy? What’s the favorite thing you remember about your mother when you were a little boy…and your daddy? Did you have any favorite toys or favorite thing that happened to you with you and your father? [Inaudible] WH: They’d go to church every day with us. WN: Well, that’s something. WH: But they got up into the teenage.. WN: And then things changed, didn’t it? Did you work in the fields with your father, Wesley? WNH: Yeah [indecipherable]. Wesley talks about working with his dad in the corn fields, having pneumonia, his best friend who was killed and attending school. arrowheads ; bodock tree ; bow and arrow ; childhood ; church ; corn ; Deep Fork River ; medicine man ; Nuyaka Indian School ; pneumonia ; Tony Harris ; work Wesley's childhood 907 Husband & ; Children WN: He didn’t have the patience, did he? How long has your husband been dead, Mrs. Harjo? WH: Oh, how long is it, Wesley? WNH: About 30 years. WH: I think he died in 1960, along in there. WN: Okay, did you have a special Indian ceremony for him? WH: Huh uh. WN: Just a regular church. WH: Just at church. WN: Just at the church. How many children do you have living now, Mrs. Harjo? Just Wesley? WH: And two girls. Winey's husband passed away in 1960 and at the time of the interview she had one son and two girls still living. children ; husband ; Indian benefits ; Okemah ; pension children ; husband 1114 Social Security WH: This year, I guess it must be about a year ago, they told me to get on that disabled social security. WN: Uh huh. WH: So, I signed up on that. WN: Did you get it? WH: I got $137. WN: A month? WH: A month. Could you live off of $137? WN: No! Well, I’d have to change my way of living, I tell you. Is that what you live on? WH: That’s all I get. Winey talks about not receiving any benefits after her husband's death. disability ; pension ; social security social security 1141 Wesley in the Service WH: ‘Course Wesley draw soldier pension. WN: Yeah. WH: Cause he’d been to the army. WN: Well, of course. But you earned every dime of that in the service. When did you go into the service, Wesley? WNH: Nineteen-forty…I think it was forty-one. WN: And did you have to…you served overseas? WNH: Yeah. WN: Where were you stationed? WNH: In the navy. Wesley served in the Navy overseas. navy ; pension ; service Navy service 1251 Grandchildren WN: Oh, that’s wonderful. That’s wonderful. How many children, grandchildren do you have? WH: Oh, about nine. WN: About nine? And how many great grandchildren? WH: Ten, eleven. WN: You all ever get together and have any… WH: No. They won’t even come see me yet. WN: They won’t? That’s terrible. Well, do they live far away? WH: Well, one lives in, oh dear, not Chickasaw, but that other…Anadarko. WN: Anadarko. Winey's words of wisdom to her grandchildren is to do right by other people and to go to church. advice ; Anadarko ; grandchildren ; Indian Church ; Sunday School advice ; grandchildren 1502 Indian Songs & ; Stomp Dances WN: That’s right. And when were in that cemetery, nobody going to know the difference between anything. No, they really aren’t. I wish you’d sing some more for me in Indian. WH: Sing some more? WN: Uh huh. Or sing some more for me in Indian. Because I think that’s so wonderful. We’ve got a little bit left on our tape, and I want you to tell me some more in Indian. WH: (Sings in Indian). I’ll say three times. WN: Okay. WH: (Sings in Indian). Winey sings a song in Indian and talks about the fun they had at stomp dances. Indian songs ; stomp dances Indian songs ; stomp dances 1603 Medicine WH: I know they used that red root. WN: Red root? Can you think of anything else you used for medicine? WH: Uh, let’s see. What did they call that? I can’t recall the name of that medicine. I know what it is in Creek, but… WN: Well, say it in Creek. What was it? WH: (Speaks Creek). WN: Okay. What else did you use for medicine? Did you use… WH: Oh, you could use this horsemint and uh… Winey talks about the different natural medicines they used to cure ailments such as toothaches. chewing gum ; horsemint ; red root ; sassafras ; toothache 1778 Indian Dance WN: Well, I’m going to have to look at that tree and see if I can figure out what it is. Did you ever use feathers, you know, for… WH: On the head? WN: Uh huh. Never used feathers? You used ribbons on your… WH: Yeah. You actually call that the ribbon dance. WN: The ribbon dance. And the gar dance? Winey talks about the different Indian dances she would do. buffalo dance ; gar dance ; Indian dance ; ribbon dance Indian dances MP3 In Part Two of Winey Harjo's 1991 interview she continues talking about their first car, speaks and sings in Creek, talks about her grandchildren and medicines they used for ailments. She also introduces her son, Wesley, and he talks about what it was like growing up in Bristow. Part Two WH: We just give $300 for the T-Model. WN: You gave $300 for your first car? WH: Model-T, it didn' ; t run but on battery. It runs on mash. And you had to crank it. WN: Well did you pay cash for the car or did you-- WH: I don' ; t remember. I don' ; t think so. WN: You had to pay it out like we all-- WH: Yeah. You didn' ; t have to buy no tag or nothing. WN: You didn' ; t have to have a driver' ; s license? WH: No. WN: Could you drive the car? WH: Yeah. No one didn' ; t teach me. I just sittin' ; in the car [undecipherable] you know driving, and I just learned. WN: Learned by yourself? That is fantastic. Well, after you got your car then you didn' ; t use your wagon anymore? WH: Yeah. WN: You used your wagon some? WH: Yeah, we' ; d use the wagon, too. WN: Alright, can you tell me, did you ever take a summer vacation anywhere? WH: No. We didn' ; t know nothin' ; about no summer vacation. I don' ; t do that now. WN: You just work all the time, don' ; t you? WH: Yeah. WN: Tell me, your children, tell me about your early children. When you had them did you have a doctor? When you had your children, did you have a doctor? WH: Well, an Indian doctor. WN: An Indian doctor. WH: Then after that, well, doctors came in pretty regular in Bristow, different ones, you know. [Indecipherable] children didn' ; t get sick like they do now. WN: Yeah, well it' ; s because they didn' ; t eat all the junk. WH: Yeah. They would play in the woods, you know, and swim all the time. They didn' ; t have time to get sick. WN: And they minded, too, didn' ; t they? WH: Oh yeah. WN: They didn' ; t sass you. Do you remember your first radio? Do you remember ever getting a radio. WH: Yeah, but it was run by battery. WN: It was run by battery. How long was it before you got a refrigerator? How did you keep your food from spoiling? WH: Well, we didn' ; t have much to cook anyway, so when we cooked, there was none left over because with a bunch of kids. WN: Fill ' ; em up! WH: Yeah, they would eat between meals if there was anything left over. It didn' ; t have time to just spoil like it do now. And I remember when we first got an icebox, we had to buy ice and put it in there, the refrigerator. WN: Well now let me ask you, did you make squaw bread all the time? WH: Oh yeah. After they started selling flour, made squaw bread. WN: But you made corn bread before? WH: Yeah. WN: Well, let me ask you again, when your children were little, when they went to school, were you living here, right here, when the little ones went to school? WH: Yeah, not here. WN: Not here? WH: Huh uh. We used to live right back here. WN: And the children walked to school? WH: No. WN: No. WH: Well, most of them did until they started driving the bus. WN: Well, now let me ask you, did your children all go to this school right here at Edison, or did they go over to Washington? WH: No, Edison. WN: They all went to Edison School. WH: Yeah, and Wilson and Wesley, they went to [indecipherable]. WN: Are they the only ones that went to an Indian school? Well, you didn' ; t have any children that went over to Sapulpa then to the school-- WH: Yeah, two of them. WN: Two of them. WH: There was Barney and Taylor. They went to that Sapulpa Indian school one year. WN: Indian Mission School. WH: One year. WN: They didn' ; t like it? WH: Well, they liked it, but it closed down. WN: Oh, I see. WH: And, so they just went to school here. WN: How did you teach your children about their Indian ancestors. Did you make them speak Indian any? WH: They wouldn' ; t. This school wouldn' ; t let them talk it. WN: Oh, they wouldn' ; t? That' ; s awful, isn' ; t it? WH: I don' ; t know how come. But see me and my husband would talk it all the time between them at home, but they wouldn' ; t pick it up. WN: The didn' ; t learn to speak Indian? Wesley doesn' ; t? Can Wesley talk Indian now? WH: He can understand but he don' ; t talk it. WN: Would you say something in Indian for me on this? Can you just tell us anything in Indian, and we won' ; t ever know what it is. WH: Okay. WN: Alright. WH: (speaking Indian) WN: Oh, I wished I had a television [indecipherable]. You' ; re such a beautiful person, Mrs. Harjo. Oh you' ; re just such a nice person. WH: And I know what preacher has pastured our church. WN: Who was that? WH: His name was Jasper Bale and the other one was Louie Dunson (ph). WN: Oh, that' ; s such a wonderful bit of info--tell me anything else about that church that you can remember. Can you tell me how people came? Did they used to have more Indians coming or less? Tell me about your church. WH: Oh, well (speaks Indian). WN: Oh, that' ; s so lovely. WH: That means a lot of them used to come, but they don' ; t now, because some of us stay sick and some of them come and some of them don' ; t. That' ; s what I said. WN: That' ; s wonderful! Sing me an Indian prayer. Can you sing me an Indian prayer? WH: Yeah. (Speaks Indian). WN: Oh wonderful! What did you do for entertainment when you were about 15 or 16-years-old. What was it like being a teenager? WH: For entertainment? WN: Yeah, what did you all do? WH: Go to Indian stomp dance. WN: Well, come on in Wesley and join us. WH: We' ; d go to Indian stomp dance. WN: You went to the Indian stomp dance. WH: Yeah and had a big dinner and everyone dance and-- WN: Well, what did you look for in a husband. What did your mother tell you to look for in a--how did she tell you to look for a husband? WH: How did I do? WN: Yeah, what did your momma say to you to get a husband? WH: She said--she didn' ; t say. She didn' ; t want me to marry, but after I meet this man in church, you can go ahead and marry him if you want to. WN: Well, how old were you? WH: Well, see I married in 1911, and I was just 15-years-old. WN: 15-years-old. Wesley, what do you think of that? WNH: [Indecipherable] I guess. WN: How old are you, Wesley? WNH: 76. WN: 76. Your oldest baby, isn' ; t it? WN: Yeah. WN: And she told me you didn' ; t learn to speak the Indian language very well. Shame on you, Wesley. WNH: I couldn' ; t help it. They didn' ; t like us talking it at that government school. WN: I want you to tell me what made an Indian handsome in those days. Why did you choose your husband? WH: Because he would go to stomp dances and sing these stomp dances, and then we' ; d enjoy and we like to hear it. WN: Alright, now can you sing me a song? WH: That' ; s Indian? WN: Yeah, you sing-- WH: Oh, I can' ; t sing that. WN: Well, sing me any song. WH: Indian song? WN: Any, any. WH: Oh--(sings in Indian). WN: And what the title of that song? WH: I don' ; t know it has any title. WN: Oh, well it sounds good, doesn' ; t it? Did you understand it? WNH: No. WH: No, he doesn' ; t. WN: Wesley, what do you remember about being a little boy? What' ; s the favorite thing you remember about your mother when you were a little boy--and your daddy? Did you have any favorite toys or favorite thing that happened to you with you and your father? [Inaudible] WH: They' ; d go to church every day with us. WN: Well, that' ; s something. WH: But they got up into the teenage..WN: And then things changed, didn' ; t it? Did you work in the fields with your father, Wesley? WNH: Yeah [indecipherable]. WN: And do you remember some of the things that you planted and everything? WNH: Yeah. Planted corn and [indecipherable] and chopped corn and everything else. WN: Did you help your mother a lot? WNH: Not as much as I did my dad. WN: Your girls helped you a lot? WH: Yeah, when they wasn' ; t getting married. WN: When they weren' ; t married. WH: And then when they get married well then [indecipherable]. WN: Well, yeah, that' ; s the way it always happens, isn' ; t it? Wesley, do you remember ever being sick or anything? WNH: Yeah. I had the pneumonia. WN: And did the medicine man cure you or did you go to a doctor? Do you remember? WNH: I had to go to the doctor. WN: You had to go to the doctor for that. Who was your best friend when you were growing up? Do you remember having a best friend? WNH: Tony Harris, I think. WN: Was he an Indian boy? About as old as you are? WNH: Yeah. WN: Do you remember Tony Harris? WH: Yeah. WN: Was he ornery or a pretty good boy? WH: He was ornery. He got killed in a car wreck. He was staying with us [indecipherable] raise him, too. WN: Oh, really? And he was killed in an automobile--not the Model-T was it? WH: No. WNH: He got killed down at Nuyaka Indian School. WN: Oh, tell me about that Nuyaka Indian School. Did you all ever go down there? WH: Where? WN: To Nuyaka? WH: I never did, but I know where it was at. WN: But isn' ; t there a place you had stomp dances down there sometimes, down in that area by Deep Fork? WNH: Yeah. WN: I want to know, how come everybody finds Indian arrowheads down on Deep Fork? WH: I don' ; t know. WN: Well, I thought maybe it was part of yours when you were killing the rabbits or something. WH: No, I never did go down there, but I know where it was at. WNH: Didn' ; t you used to shoot them fish in that Deep Fork River, but I guess it broke the arrows, and that' ; s the way-- WN: Well, when you were shooting the rabbits, did you make your own bows and arrows? WH: Yeah. WN: What did you make them out of? WH: Bodock. We got a bodock tree. WN: That one that has the big orange--the big things on it? WH: Yeah. Of course, you make your arrow where the tree grows with that certain thing, it would go just as straight and you make arrows with that. WN: And then you just sharpened the point? WH: Yeah, you just peel all that skin off it, and then heat it on the blaze fire. Brown it. And then make a spike. Then you cut the spike in a V-shape and wrap it over that. WN: What did you wrap it with? WH: A hammer. WN: A hammer? And just hammered it like that? WH: Yeah. WN: What did you use for feathers? Did you have a feather on the end? WH: That' ; s when you make a--kill a squirrel, you put that feather on--any kind of feather. You put that feather on there. WN: Chicken feather or anything? WH: Yeah. Shoot and make it go straight. WN: I would have starved to death back there. I bet I couldn' ; t have shot. WH: You didn' ; t kill a squirrel with no gun. You shoot it with a bow and arrow. WN: Did you ever kill a squirrel with a bow and arrow, Wesley? [Inaudible] WH: Fish. Shoot the fish. WN: He shot the fish with the--yeah. WNH: I was too young to shoot bow and arrows. I tried to shoot them, but I couldn' ; t [indecipherable]. WN: He didn' ; t have the patience, did he? How long has your husband been dead, Mrs. Harjo? WH: Oh, how long is it, Wesley? WNH: About 30 years. WH: I think he died in 1960, along in there. WN: Okay, did you have a special Indian ceremony for him? WH: Huh uh. WN: Just a regular church. WH: Just at church. WN: Just at the church. How many children do you have living now, Mrs. Harjo? Just Wesley? WH: And two girls. WN: And the two girls. I forgot to tell you when we were doing this. This is March the 6th, 1991, so they' ; ll know when I was interviewing. I forgot to tell that at the very first. Well, let me see what else I need to ask you. I' ; m just--eh--let me see. I should have just gone over here to the page and asked you some more. Oh, what did your husband do? Did he do anything but farm? WH: That' ; s all. He didn' ; t work. That' ; s the reason when he passed away, I didn' ; t get no kind of-- WN: You didn' ; t get any pension or? WH: No. WN: You didn' ; t get anything? You don' ; t get a government check or anything? That' ; s awful! That' ; s terrible. WH: We just didn' ; t have no money to buy clothes, just barely living buy a little rent. My cattle [inaudible] and then we had someone was renting up here. We' ; d collect that rent at $3 a month for about four or five houses, and we' ; d live on that. Buy us something to eat, clothes-- WN: That is terrible. You know, you Indians really ought to have an uprising and shoot all the white people. That' ; s what you should do. That' ; s terrible, Mrs. Harjo. WNH: Yeah, it was pretty rough back in them days. WN: That is awful. I don' ; t know how you can even talk to a white person. WH: I think in Muskogee they used give the kids a little clothes, shoes and sweaters or something like that when they going to school. WN: But not much. WH: Not much, no. [Indecipherable] no pants or shirts or nothing like that. They get shoes and coats and sweaters. WN: Yeah. Well, that is, that is terrible. Well now you all can go to the Indian Hospital, but then you have to drive to Claremore, don' ; t you? Do you, can you go to the hospital now over at Okmulgee? WNH: No, they got one over at Okemah. WN: Okemah for you. Well, do you get any, you don' ; t get any Indian benefits at all now then? WH: No. WN: That is terrible. I' ; m going to write my congressman. I think that' ; s awful Mrs. Harjo. Well, you have done-- WH: This year, I guess it must be about a year ago, they told me to get on that disabled social security. WN: Uh huh. WH: So, I signed up on that. WN: Did you get it? WH: I got $137. WN: A month? WH: A month. Could you live off of $137? WN: No! Well, I' ; d have to change my way of living, I tell you. Is that what you live on? WH: That' ; s all I get. WN: Well, I swear, I did not know that. WH: ' ; Course Wesley draw soldier pension. WN: Yeah. WH: Cause he' ; d been to the army. WN: Well, of course. But you earned every dime of that in the service. When did you go into the service, Wesley? WNH: Nineteen-forty--I think it was forty-one. WN: And did you have to--you served overseas? WNH: Yeah. WN: Where were you stationed? WNH: In the navy. WN: Oh. In the navy. And were you wounded then? WNH: Huh? WN: Were you wounded or anything but you get a service pension? WNH: No. When you' ; re in combat all the time, they' ; d get pretty lucky, they' ; d get wounded. WN: Yes, I' ; d say you were lucky. I remember your grandson, Larry. I had him in school. He was such a handsome boy. Ornery but handsome. I think it' ; s wonderful that you' ; ve come back here to be with your mother. WNH: Yeah. WN: You help her all the time now? WNH: Yeah. WN: She looks like she' ; s pretty agile herself. You do all your own work and everything, Mrs. Harjo? You do your own cooking? WH: No. I can' ; t. WN: You can' ; t cook. Do you cook for her, Wesley? WH: I can, I can cook, but, and I can clean the kitchen up, but I can' ; t clean no big room or things like that. WN: Yeah. Well. WH: Of course, I can' ; t get around too good. I just clean the kitchen and wash dishes. I can cook a meal. WN: Oh, that' ; s wonderful. That' ; s wonderful. How many children, grandchildren do you have? WH: Oh, about nine. WN: About nine? And how many great grandchildren? WH: Ten, eleven. WN: You all ever get together and have any-- WH: No. They won' ; t even come see me yet. WN: They won' ; t? That' ; s terrible. Well, do they live far away? WH: Well, one lives in, oh dear, not Chickasaw, but that other--Anadarko. WN: Anadarko. WH: And then Taylor had three, but I don' ; t know where they went. Tulsa, but I don' ; t where they at now. WN: Well, now, Wesley, I' ; m so glad I got your voice on. You know what I' ; m going to do for this? I' ; m going to put in the library, down here, so that people who come after us, if they want to hear Mrs. Harjo or any one of your children or grandchildren are going to want to hear you talk, and we are going to have in down at the library. But I am going to make a copy of this and give to you all so that you' ; ll have it for your family--for your family, too. I want to know, if you were going to tell your children, give your children and grandchildren any advice, what would you like to say to your grandchildren? You tell me something that you' ; d like to say to your children and your grandchildren. WH: Oh, you' ; re meaning, I would like to talk to them? WN: Yes, tell them what you want them to do after you are gone. Yeah, I want you to tell them so that when they come to listen, they will say, hey, look what my grandmother wanted me to do, and maybe they' ; ll do it. WH: Well, I wouldn' ; t know how to say that, but I don' ; t know what I would say about them. WN: What would, what do you want them to do? Tell them how you want them to act after you' ; re gone. You' ; re going to be up there looking down at them. WH: Go to church and do right and go to Sunday school or something like that. WN: Yes, that' ; s right. WH: If I pass and go on, well, they can go to church and Sunday school go to these Indian church. WN: That' ; s what I want you tell them. Go to the Indian churches and learn about their ancestors. They need to, don' ; t they? WH: Yeah. WN: Because we need to make some changes for the Indians. I really think we do. We owe you guys a lot. Yes, we really do. We came in and took your land. Did you ever feel resentful? Did you ever hate the white person for some of the things sometimes? WH: No. I don' ; t hate nobody. WN: Well, I know you don' ; t but didn' ; t you feel badly sometimes or didn' ; t you feel--you must be a wonderful Christian that' ; s all I' ; ve got to say. I would have taken one of those arrows and run it through their belly button. WH: You know I don' ; t hate white folk, and I don' ; t hate colored, and I don' ; t hate-- [Inaudible] WN: Okay, Wesley. Well, that' ; s wonderful, that' ; s wonderful. WH: Cause I don' ; t, I ain' ; t done nothing to them, and I don' ; t think they anything to me. WN: Well, that' ; s a wonderful-- WH: So I don' ; t have nothing against them. WN: That' ; s wonderful. Well, I just think that' ; s great. And I want to tell you that I appreciate-- WH: I know one white man sure hate colored people. WN: Oh, that' ; s too bad, isn' ; t it? WH: I wonder how come? WN: I don' ; t know because we all come from God, don' ; t we? WH: We all going to the same place. WN: That' ; s right. And, boy, when were-- WH: [Indecipherable] divided. WN: That' ; s right. And when were in that cemetery, nobody going to know the difference between anything. No, they really aren' ; t. I wish you' ; d sing some more for me in Indian. WH: Sing some more? WN: Uh huh. Or sing some more for me in Indian. Because I think that' ; s so wonderful. We' ; ve got a little bit left on our tape, and I want you to tell me some more in Indian. WH: (Sings in Indian). I' ; ll say three times. WN: Okay. WH: (Sings in Indian). WN: Oh, that' ; s great. Now one other thing I want you to tell me. When I was a little girl and went to the stomp dances, they always had a big pot that they had cooking something in, you know, at the stomp dances? What was in that pot? WH: Oh, they' ; d make uh--they' ; d call it the beef (ph) soup for Indian. It had corn and make that pot for soup for the Indians. WN: Alright then, what was in that pot where the boys scratched their arms and put some of that stuff on the--they took sticks and-- WH: [Indecipherable] WN: No. When they were dancing. WH: Oh. I don' ; t know. They had a certain doctor to doctor them. WN: And they put in on there. WH: Yeah. But I don' ; t-- WN: But you don' ; t know what was in it. WH: Huh uh. WN: Oh, okay. WH: I know they used that red root. WN: Red root? Can you think of anything else you used for medicine? WH: Uh, let' ; s see. What did they call that? I can' ; t recall the name of that medicine. I know what it is in Creek, but-- WN: Well, say it in Creek. What was it? WH: (Speaks Creek). WN: Okay. What else did you use for medicine? Did you use-- WH: Oh, you could use this horsemint and uh-- WN: What did that cure? WH: Well, it make you medicine, well they put that in there. Sassafras tea. WN: Where did you get the sassafras? WH: Well, you go down towards Muskogee and get it. They can dig that root and you can buy it now. You can buy that sassafras. WN: Well, I declare. I didn' ; t know that. WH: You didn' ; t? WN: No. WH: Yeah, the sell it in the store. WN: Well, can you remember anything else you used for medicine? When you had a toothache, what did you do? A toothache. WH: If a tree had lightning had hit a tree, lightning had struck a tree, and you get that splinter, like a splinter come off it, you can find a little splinter, and just pick that place where that toothache is. [Indecipherable] and that tooth will rot out. WN: You gotta be kidding--I' ; m gonna try that. WH: Yeah. I don' ; t do it now because I don' ; t have no teeth. WN: When did you lose-- WH: I guess I done, well, see the Indians had a chewing gum. It' ; s a tree grows, an Indian makes gum out of it. WN: Well, how did you get the gum out of the tree? WH: Strip that first bark off that tree and get the second bark, and then they put it in that water and beat it. And beat it fine, and then they' ; d take that and chew it. And when they chew it, that' ; d get chewing gum. But it rotten your teeth. WN: It did rot your teeth? WH: Oh, yeah. That' ; s the reason I ain' ; t got no teeth now. WN: Cause you chewed it all the time. WH: Cause we used to chew that all the time. I got three of them growing right out yonder there that tree that make that gum. WN: And what' ; s the name of that tree? WH: I don' ; t know. They just called it [indecipherable]. WN: Well, I' ; m going to have to look at that tree and see if I can figure out what it is. Did you ever use feathers, you know, for-- WH: On the head? WN: Uh huh. Never used feathers? You used ribbons on your-- WH: Yeah. You actually call that the ribbon dance. WN: The ribbon dance. And the gar dance? WH: Yeah. WN: And the buffalo dance. WH: Yeah. WN: Did you ever see any buffalo out here? WH: No. I never did use that, but I did use that ribbon dance. WN: Oh, and did your children learn to do those dances, too? WH: No. WN: They didn' ; t? Not any of them? audio 0 https://bristoworalhistory.org/ohms/viewer.php?cachefile=OHP-0042B_Winey_Harjo.xml OHP-0042B_Winey_Harjo.xml
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Winey Harjo - Part 2
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In Part Two of Winey Harjo's 1991 interview she continues talking about their first car, speaks and sings in Creek, talks about her grandchildren and medicines they used for ailments. She also introduces her son, Wesley, and he talks about what it was like growing up in Bristow.
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OHP-0042B
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1991-03-06
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audio