Velma Collins - Part 1

WN: Wanda Newton. Today is February the 12th, 1994. I’m in the home of Velma Collins who lives north of town. So many people inquire about this lovely, big brick home at the edge of town, so we are going to let Velma tell her story. She can begin with her house.

VC: My father designed it, and I don’t know who helped him. I wish I had some blue prints that would tell me more about it. But anyway, it’s here, and, by in large, it’s just like he planned it. Very little that’s been done to it…made it a little larger. Mother added a couple of rooms that were advantageous. I was glad, even though they made the house too big for me as an adult and as a widow. But I grew up out here, and it didn’t look like it does now, because now, it’s full of beautiful antiques that 00:01:00daddy collected through the years, mainly from New Orleans. And when I came out here with John (John Leland Collins) some twenty years ago, it was full. Daddy bought things, as he said, they are cheaper by the dozen, so he had the house FULL. Mother, getting older, didn’t want to change anything, and we had a time getting rid of some things, but we came out with a lovely, lovely home for us. And I’m just sorry that John didn’t get to enjoy it but one year. I’ve been here twenty years as a widow, and it’s been a lovely setting, and I’m very, very thankful that I’ve had this beauty to look at.

WN: How long did long John 00:02:00get to live in this home after you fixed it?

VC: John lived here one year to the month. We moved out here in July of 1973, and he died in, no ’72, and he died in July of ’73, to the month. Well, that sort of changed my life considerably, but here I am as an older woman and enjoying the beauty that daddy provided for me, and that John and I assembled. We brought lots of things from our house in town out here, sold a lot of things, gave as much as we could to our children. The form of the house was just like houses were in that day and time, the two-story houses. A bedroom on each corner upstairs 00:03:00and a sleeping porch. Down below the sleeping porch was what they called the sun room or the sun parlor, and that’s the way I still call it when I show the house to people. There was a big dining room and a big living room and a music room, and then a porte-cochere with a circular drive which had to be done away with eventually, because people would come out and just love to go around. Anybody [indecipherable] on their way to and from town. But anyway, mother then added what she called the garden room and enclosed the porte-cochere and made a library out of it. So it’s a pretty good sized house, but it’s full of the previous antiques 00:04:00that they had acquired. And I love them all. They have history behind it, and I never fail to enjoy telling people about it when they’re interested. I don’t want to bore people with all of the details about this and that and the other, but I can remember living out here as a child when it was busy. I was an only child but we always had people around. There was plenty to eat because we had a great big vegetable garden, a huge vegetable garden. We had an orchard. We had cows, Jersey cows. We had all kinds of pets. I can remember through the years, you name it, and we had it…guineas and peafowl. Daddy had little dogs that he loved, and our other dogs all through the years, they were not particularly mine, but they were here 00:05:00for me to enjoy if I wanted to. And then…

WN: How about horses?

VC: We had horses. There was a horse barn, and I can remember having mules do a lot of work, and they did a lot of work, too, accomplished in one day, Mr. Shipman could tell me things he did in one day now that they’d spend more than that on even when they had machines, which would accomplish the same thing. But, nevertheless, it’s a different story. Then, he did build the swimming pool and all the children in the family loved that. And then he added a tennis court, and I never was very good at anything like that, but then I tried and had fun. No, I had to study when I came along, that’s what children did.

WN: Well, wait before you get into that. Tell us a little bit more about 00:06:00the out-buildings and some of the people who worked here in the early days if you can.

VC: Alright, there were a number of outhouses, negro families that lived here. One house was not too far from Mr. Shipman’s home, and to this day, I call it the Frank Winters house, because that’s where the colored family lived. And he worked in the fields and farming and so forth. She worked in the house. And then up in the fields it was another house, I’ve forgotten the family that lived up there, but…

WN: Was that the little house that still stands up there in the field?

VC: Yes, it’s just barely standing.

WN: Yeah. Did John used to put hay in it?

VC: Yes, uh-huh. But then there was a barn up there. Of course, there was a lot to do out here, really. And, I can remember 00:07:00them killing hogs and mother rendering the lard down in the basement. And I can remember her running the separator down in the basement, so there was never…

WN: Now your basement is so interesting. Tell us what the basement is like, because so many people in our community do not have basements.

VC: Well, this is a full basement. I mean under all the house except the two rooms that my mother added considerably later. And that makes a pretty good-sized basement. There was one room that was kept locked because it had all kinds of canned goods, not only home can, but bought. Because, as I say, daddy bought things by the case when it came to canned goods, and I can even remember one Christmas when I was an older girl, he filled the fire place up there in the upstairs with canned goods 00:08:00instead of other little things that people usually use at Christmastime, but anyhow. Then I can remember there was one room down there where the separator was, and that took a lot of shelves, and mother worked so hard with that, because there were cans of milk and we had homemade butter. We had homemade buttermilk. And daddy loved clabber, so it was all good eating, I’ll tell you. My mother killed hogs, oh my, the basement was just full of good and bad aromas. But those were busy days and seemed like it was a lot of activity around here because there were so many people.

WN: Now did she do her washing downstairs and carried it outside?

VC: The laundry room was in the farthest corner of the basement. And she had one 00:09:00of the first manuals, I guess, because it’s an antique [indecipherable].

WN: You still have that in your…

VC: Still have it in my basement, and I have thought about getting rid of it and selling it to the company for their old shows, but it’s so heavy, I’ve just left it there. But the clothes were hung out on the line and it was not too close to the house either, over there by Mr. Shipman’s (Noah Shipman) house. At one time, I can remember there was an Englishman who worked here, and he lived up over the garage. There was a little cement walk leading to the cow barn, and the stanchions (ph) are still out there in the that barn, 00:10:00by the way. He just did the milking and took care of the cows. Now I don’t know what else he did, but we had a number of Jersey cows so I think he had a good bit to do. The, uh, what else do you want to know?

WN: I know now, tell them about the size of the barn because I think the barn is so interesting.

VC: That is a cow barn. It’s huge. In fact, there are three big barns out here. I think the cow barn is not quite as large as the horse barn, the one that’s beyond that. And there was a fourth barn on the east side that burned.

WN: I read that in the newspaper. I read an article of it that the R.L. Jones barn burned.

VC: Uh-huh. And I can remember, I came home 00:11:00from Tulsa that day and saw the smoke coming up from that and it had just barely stopped being in flames. But daddy said the only thing he could think of was that some hobo was sleeping in there and smoked and caught hay or whatever on fire. There is a barn there but it’s not a big one like the one that was there. So that means at one time four big barns there. Well anyway…

WN: Well, now back up. How about your water? I noticed some old watering troughs out there, too.

VC: We have several wells on the place. There’s one down by the barn. There’s one right behind Mr. Shipman’s house. And there’s one right here at my back door. [Indecipherable] I don’t know how many, whether there were anymore or not. And, of course, then the big pond down here was for livestock.

WN: Okay now before you leave the early time, I remember the little house that used to sit about down there in the area where the Mattox (ph), didn’t the Mattox (ph) live there?

VC: Yes, I think the Mattox (ph) lived there.

WN: And I don’t know who lived there before them, but…

VC: Then there 00:12:00was another little house in that big pasture where the cook and her husband lived. Then there was one down east where the Shattucks…no, I’m not sure.

WN: Well, was it the Hinds (ph) Family? Was there a Hinds (ph) Family that ever lived in…was there a two-story house?

VC: Yes, that was the house daddy bought in town. I understood that it was the old Laurel Hotel.

WN: Oh.

VC: That had been my impression all the time that that was the old Laural Hotel that was bought and moved out there. But I heard other reports since then on the hotel and it didn’t include that. So, I don’t know.

WN: Well, let me ask you, how far did your land go to the south here? Uh, to 11th Street?

VC: Eleventh, no 12th.

WN: To 12th Street.

VC: Twelfth.

WN: Yeah, that’s right.

VC: It went to 12th Street. Well, and that’s the way it was. 00:13:00The first intrusion into the plot that daddy bought was the Turnpike. And, of course, we had to have a way to get the cows and they built a tunnel of some kind for the cows to come through. And then it was so low, it filled up with water and they didn’t like it, so I think daddy had to build another pond up there. It brought problems. Well, then (Highway) 16, you see, divided that, and so that’s when the industrial buildings went up over there. Because one good pasture, there was no water, divided the 00:14:00pond and the house. But I had always thought that my two boys would settle here some day and I found out there that they all have their own interests. And, so, I’m here.

WN: Well, tell us about the name, how the name of the pond.

VC: Oh, yes, that is interesting. It’s Relvue, but it’s not spelled V I E W. It’s spelled R E L V U E, because that was the way my father started it. Now, the first three letters R E L are his initials. His birth name was Robert Edward Lee Jones, and he was named for General Robert E. Lee. Because Lee, General Lee was so revered in the south. 00:15:00But that was too many initials to write all the time, so daddy always signed his name R.L. Jones, and called “Bob”, I think, in the early days rather than Robert. His mother called him Robert. But, and he decided on V U E instead of V I E W. So this place is known as Relvue. Relvue Farm or Relvue Place, I’m not just sure which. I just call it Relvue.

WN: Do you know how many acres it entailed originally?

VC: Yes, I think it was at least 600, maybe a little more, I’m not just sure before all this came. But it soon dwindled when you get highways to it, because you have to give them right-of-way…so many feet.

WN: And then I remember when they built the big lake up there. That 00:16:00was on…

VC: Oh yes, that is half on Relvue and half on the, on the Kellys. And the conservation or soil conservation people take care of that. I’m glad because I don’t even get up there very often. But that was a good thing, I know. The best conservation, I mean that has brought the best results really to this part was some of the dams up there from the bigger lakes. I can remember, one time only, when we were marooned out here. Believe it or not, it doesn’t look high, but we were surrounded by water. It was frightening. We were…

WN: This little creek, Sand Creek?

VC: Uh-huh. It was just solid water all down in the valley, little valley there and all out there, nothing but water! We couldn’t have gotten out except [indecipherable]. And I can remember one time when I was a girl, we had so much snow, that we couldn’t 00:17:00get me to school, so the Meeks (ph)…you remember them?

WN: Oh yes. With the diary out there.

VC: Yes, they came by in a boat and took me a round about way to school over on the east side.

WN: The old high school over there?

VC: Old, two-story, I think sandstone block house and I know when I got there, I think my hands were so cold, they were really frost-bitten. Oh, the teacher worked on them for a long time because we were just icy from the time we got…it was slow going, horse and buggy in deep snow from here over there. That was a long trip. But I have memories of that school, do you want me…

WN: Oh yes. Tell me about that school.

VC: Well, there was not much grass on that 00:18:00yard there.

WN: Well, now is it in the same block that Washington School…

VC: Yes, it was right there. Just right there. And it was a two-story, and we thought it was the enormous, and we thought it was real nice. But one thing I can remember over there, we had a may pole dance. It was the real thing. I don’t know who put it up or who put the streamers, but I can remember in and out, in and out twirling as the music played ‘till we got it woven clear down to the bottom. And I can remember on Friday afternoons, the teacher would read us a book. It would be a continuous thing, each Friday for an hour or so. I remember Gladys Banks was one I recall, very vividly, that she had a nice speaking voice 00:19:00and she was a good, good teacher. And I can remember Orva Henkins over there, and she, we learned math, too. But the rooms were quiet. There was no gum chewing. There was no chittering. It was all business. But, we learned, and of course, that building burned. And, I can’t remember where I went to school while other arrangements were being made, but I do remember going to school over there.

WN: Did you take your lunch or did you come back home for lunch?

VC: I just don’t remember but we probably took it, you know, it was quite a deal.

WN: Because they didn’t 00:20:00have cafeterias.

VC: Huh-uh, no cafeterias. And so lunch pails were in order, I’m sure. I can remember then later, we lived on west 11th, and that’s where I learned to skate. There must have been a little sidewalk along there.

WN: Well now when did you build this home?

VC: This home?

WN: Uh-huh.

VC: This home was built in 1917 and I think over into ’18. But when we lived on west 11th, that’s where I learned to skate. And I can’t remember…

WN: Which house did you live in on west 11th?

VC: Oh, along where you lived, somewhere along in there. [Indecipherable] or somewhere right in there. I would go across the alley to school.

WN: Did you live across the street from Clem Brown? Is that where…and your mother’s brother, didn’t he live in Eleanor’s, didn’t he live in a brown house there?

VC: I can’t remember that. No, I don’t remember Clem living there. 00:21:00I remember Jim Brown, her brother’s wife lived on near where the school gym is now in one of those houses. I think the one that’s been moved away.

WN: Yes, I remember them living there.

VC: But I can’t remember Clem living there. I doubt it, he was probably in the army. I know he was in the army, but I know I learned to skate there, because I had too many holes in my long black stockings. Every time I fell down there would be a hole. And, of course, I wore button shoes, high button shoes, and black. Then I had some white lace ones that were a little high, too. And I can remember wearing navy blue surge (ph) mini 00:22:00blouse and pleated skirt. I think that must have been the uniform almost because we wore it so much.

WN: And your hair was black then?

VC: Oh, yes, it was. My hair was really dark, dark, dark. I always had a lot of it then, too. But those were fun days. And I can remember going through the alley over to the school where, I don’t know what building, I don’t remember that.

WN: Let’s see, when did you graduate? When were you born, Velma?

VC: I was not born in Bristow, but I was born in 1906, and then but we moved here from Cushing in 1913, I think, yeah 1913.

WN: And you lived first then on 11th Street.

VC: I think so, but we had lived in another 00:23:00white house, not the two-story white, but where the old motel was. There was a one-story, white house that we lived there a while.

WN: Oh, you mean, on Main Street?

VC: On Main Street.

WN: Next to the Carmans? Did you live next to Neva?

VC: Uh, yes, seems there was something between that two-story white house.

WN: Mr. Sharpe (J.F. Sharpe) then lived…

VC: Yes, Mr. Sharpe was superintendent of schools when I came along. And I remember him vividly. And then we lived up over the American National Bank. Now some of those places might have been while this was being built. I’m not sure.

WN: And where was the American National Bank at that time? Do you remember was it on the corner of 7th?

VC: Yes, 7th and Main.

WN: 7th and Main.

VC: 7th and Main, and like I told you, an interesting thing is that we lived up there and that stairway was so, so high, because the ceilings were high in the bank. And we could look out onto Main Street. 00:24:00Then in later years, after I married, I took my baby Rowland (Rowland Lee Collins) up there, little boy, rather toddler, to see a parade from that same little turret type of room that was there.

WN: Well at that time did they have lawyers and dentists and everything up there.

VC: Yes.

WN: And then the apartments, too.

VC: Yes, up there. And that’s where we lived up there, was in an apartment. But I don’t think that was long. Probably while this house was being built. That’s my recollection.

WN: But you didn’t, that was the last place you lived before you moved here, then to this house?

VC: Well, either that or the little white house there on Main. I can’t, 00:25:00I can’t remember the move itself out here. I don’t know how I got here, but it didn’t make an impression on me. I guess I didn’t, didn’t have much to do with it, you know. I was probably too little. But I can remember going into the Montfort Jones house that was where Doodle Hamilton’s house is now in that first house, I can remember going into that old…

WN: Well, I thought it was on the corner where the parking lot.

VC: No, well, it, no it was where the garden was.

WN: Oh, where the garden was. Oh, okay.

VC: The garden, she had the garden to outline the old house.

WN: I see.

VC: That was…

WN: The iris garden and all those gardens…

VC: [Indecipherable] and you remember she had the little pergola out there…

WN: Yes.

VC: And all kinds of flowers. That’s what followed the outline of the old stone, block house, 00:26:00which is comparable to the old Abraham house, you see.

WN: I can kind of remember that, just vaguely.

VC: And that house had a little turret in it, too. My daddy was so sentimental, he, when that house was torn down, he brought those stone blocks out here in the pasture right now from that early…

WN: I remember carrying one of those stone blocks. They were so big and heavy, but well cut, and putting it out at my picnic site out there and made a step out of it. It was a beautifully cut stone.

VC: Yes! They worked on it, and it might have been just old [indecipherable] sand stone but they worked until they got it nice looking pieces of…

WN: Oh, they are beautiful blocks.

VC: Daddy brought a plant, there’s an old plant out here. I just call it a thorn bush. I don’t know what else to call it. Has mock oranges…

WN: Oh, yes, right up in the corner.

VC: But that is from her house out there. 00:27:00WN: Well, do you know I took one of your, several of your mock oranges and planted them just down in my wilderness in my front yard, and I’ve got one about this tall. I planted it out there several years ago. And I’ve got another one about that tall.

VC: Oh, that’s wonderful!

WN: I know, but I didn’t realize that that came from Ms. Jones’ house.

VC: That’s from her house, and I can remember always avoiding that thing because the thorns, you know quite long…

WN: Oh yes.

VC: And vicious looking, and I’m sure they are vicious feeling cause I have trouble getting who want to prune that.

WN: Well, I just took some of the little orange balls and planted them around, and I thought well maybe something will grow. And I noticed last year, I had one in amongst some other things where it shouldn’t be, but it’s about that tall. But I just have to plant wherever I can find the space between the rocks.

VC: Oh, I’m glad it is something.

WN: I’ll show it to you sometime.

VC: I’d love to see it! I’d love to see it, because I do remember that 00:28:00thing up there in that yard, and I can remember Aunt Allie (Allie Jones) would dress us up, Minna Karl (Minna Karl Ekdahl), Etta Feild (Etta Feild Caves) and I were the ones that she doted on. And we would wobble around in her old high heel shoes and put the lace over our heads. And I think she took our pictures, there, but I don’t remember if I still have them here or not, but…

WN: It would be fun if you ever run across any of them, we could copy.

VC: I know where they probably are…

WN: And we can put them in the museum.

VC: But we had lots of fun up there, all the children. She was good to the children and daddy was good to all the children. I can remember swimming in some natural little [indecipherable] down there in the pasture. You know where the bridge is?

WN: Yeah, where the bridge is, there’s a perfect little place.

VC: Right in there. I think that was the original swimming pool out there before this one.

WN: It must have had more water 00:29:00at that time.

VC: Yeah, more water, I’m sure. And I think the contour was different. It’s changed probably.

WN: Yeah.

VC: But I know there enough water there that we could go swimming there, but not all the time, but some at least it was...

WN: Well it’s such a pretty area there.

VC: Uh-huh. It was more natural looking then than it is now. I can remember, I didn’t want to learn to swim. They had to make me learn to swim. I was afraid of the water. [Indecipherable] used to help me when we would go out on church picnics. That was a big deal. I’d go with the Baptist out to some creek that was a lovely spot, and we’d get on the tire swings and go out over and drop off. Oh, I didn’t ‘cause I was little and scared. But it was fun, 00:30:00it was fun.

WN: Okay, before we leave the farm now, can you tell me as many names as you can of families or people that have worked out here or lived out here if you can think of any.

VC: Well, now I can’t remember the names of very many of the coloreds, except, Frank Winters.

WN: Frank Winters.

VC: And his wife was named Rosa. And Rosa worked in the house. And then there was another one that waited on tables, on the table and helped in the kitchen. OH! Let’s see, I was trying to think of the name of the cook. But her last name was Jones and her husband. She just lived over in the pasture and Minnie (ph) [indecipherable]. But anyway, she was the cook and you don’t think, well, with one child, you’d have 00:31:00much to do, but there was because daddy always had a lot of company. Always a lot of company.

WN: Your mother always cooked.

VC: Oh, and she was, she was there to see that it was done right and do most of it. There weren’t many meals in the morning of cold cereal. There were cooked breakfasts, and I mean meals, hot biscuits. Daddy loved hot biscuits. We had three times a day! So ham that you had cured, chicken.

WN: Now your chickens were right behind the house in this area here.

VC: I think so.

WN: And then all those sheds there were for wagons and tools?

VC: All…

WN: Tractors?

VC: No, I don’t think there were many tractors, but the implements like the old plows, and store hay, you see.

WN: And you had your own water tower?

VC: Oh yes, because we had these wells, 00:32:00and I remember that was, not always an easy thing, because sometimes it wouldn’t, it’d use too much, you know, and we had to keep it going right. And then mother went to the city, and that didn’t work either. There were always troubles, so now I’m on city water with no trouble. There were days when we wouldn’t have…

WN: Now are you all on sewage now?

VC: No. I have septic tanks.

WN: Septic tanks.

VC: Three.

WN: Three septic tanks.

VC: Three septic tanks. But you talked about names, see, Noah Shipman was still living when John died. And he had worked for daddy for years and years and years, and reared a family out there.

WN: Now that’s Betty Wilemon’s…

VC: Betty Wilemon.

WN: Father?

VC: Father. And she grew up out here. So I feel like daddy’s almost apart of the family. And I felt like Mr. Shipman 00:33:00was part of the family, too. He was SO good to me. Here I was, see, left with this big place on my hands and he had been here for a long time. He came, originally, from Missouri. Daddy got him and brought him down here. And I don’t know whether, how many of the children were born in Bristow, probably daddy would…

WN: Well, did he meet him through your, his camp…

VC: No, that was before the camp, long before the camp. The camp came later when daddy was much older. I don’t know just when he acquired that, but that was a big deal.

WN: And this was…tell just a little bit about his interest in the boys and the…

VC: Oh, I guess he really missed having a boy in the family, and he always said, 00:34:00like Mr. Kirchner (R.R. “Brick” Kirchner), he said, well, when you help a boy, you help a whole family.

WN: Mm-hmm.

VC: Because they do establish a family, and they have that responsibility, so you help many people when you help a boy. He was always giving things to boys. He did not want them to smoke. Some of them betrayed his trust. They promised not to smoke, and then went right into town and did. He also had, what he called, Bob’s Club, I think, in high school. He established a prize or something for the most dependable boy. Now that was later, because I think Roger (Roger Collins) was in high school when that came. The school would have given it to Roger, but we didn’t want Roger to accept it, because it looked too much like it had been rigged. 00:35:00WN: It wasn’t fair though.

VC: No, it wasn’t fair to Roger, but anyway, that’s the way it was, so he had to take it, bless his heart. Daddy was real good, real interested in boys, and I supposed he should have had a dozen.

WN: Well, he did so many things for the community that people didn’t even know about.

VC: That’s right. I came across an article, an old newspaper article the other day when it was talking about that he had established these scholarships, no that wasn’t the term, for the Lion’s Club and the Rotary, gave them each $10,000, which was a big sum…

WN: [Indecipherable]

VC: And they were to give scholarships for people who needed it to go to school. I think he gave PEO a small scholarship.

WN: How much?

VC: We’re still using it. It’s intact. In fact, it hasn’t grown much because we keep the money going 00:36:00the interest going. But I don’t think the Rotary and the Lion’s Club, they don’t have their money.

WN: I don’t know where they have the money. I think Rotary still has a scholarship. I don’t know if they have that original amount.

VC: I don’t either. I don’t either. When he gave that Legion Hut, that was a BIG, BIG donation.

WN: Oh my. Such a wonderful thing for the community.

VC: I think so, too. And I wished it could be used more, but maybe it could be worked out some, some day. There was a grand piano there, I remember at one time. There was an enormous grand piano in the high school auditorium.

WN: Well, it’s still there.

VC: I wonder 00:37:00if it’s still going, but then I still have the piano that I practiced on, the same make, as the one daddy gave everywhere.

WN: I don’t think that grand piano has ever been replaced on that stage. It’s been on that stage ever since I can remember.

VC: Really?

WN: Still there.

VC: Well, that’s good, that’s good. I can remember one time that, I didn’t know about it, ‘cause daddy never did tell me. You know, I came up in the era where children should be seen and not heard, so if I heard anything, I never said anything about it. But he gave typewriters to students here in town, because I had one of the Farha girls…

WN: Oh I think Jeff Jordan and [indecipherable] and all those kids.

VC: So he, daddy just loved to do things like that.

WN: And he was very thrifty about everything he did.

VC: Oh yes, yes. And he was great on kids learning to keep books. He liked that. 00:38:00WN: It was good training.

VC: And it really was ‘cause he had, I can remember, down in the basement in the big room, and I mean, as you mentioned, that basement was a pretty big size. There was plenty of room for a big table with lots of boys around. Anyway…

WN: Alright, while you’re still talking about your father, go back and tell us as far back as you can remember, maybe you know who his father was, you know, so that we’ll have this for a genealogy record, too.

VC: Oh, okay, well daddy’s mother was one of two girls in, living in Virginia. They were late teens, 16 to 18, I think, somewhere along in there at the time of the Civil War. The father, 00:39:00I think, had passed away in the war, probably. The mother contracted pneumonia, which was almost [indecipherable] then, and she got sick from getting up at all times of the night to give soldiers who would come by, give them food, and died, leaving two girls, no boys, you see. No money, nothing but a house and land with nobody to farm it. She, daddy’s mother, married a doctor from the war. He was in the war, I think, a young doctor. Well, they moved from Virginia which was poverty stricken to Mississippi which wasn’t a whole lot better. He didn’t live too long, but he fathered ten children. Daddy was one of ten. They all lived to adulthood except one, and I think that’s 00:40:00 amazing.

WN: It is amazing.

VC: Of course, that was in day when the doctors were paid with chickens and eggs and so forth. The mother taught school and many a times with a pallet over in the corner of the room and the latest baby. It was hard, hard going. Well, somehow, the early boys, the older boys in that early day got out to Oklahoma. That was B.B. (B.B. Jones) and him. They, they were in Chandler and then they got to Bristow. I’ve forgotten all the details of that and got into oil. The older one, 00:41:00B.B., had married and Montfort had married Mrs. Montfort Jones. They had many, many dry holes. I think Mrs. Montfort Jones put her widow’s money, she had been married before and her husband had died, money, last money into it, and that was when they struck oil. Then they had good luck.

WN: Isn’t that wonderful.

VC: But those were hard days.

WN: Well, now did your father, did R.L marry your mother before he came to Oklahoma or…

VC: No. My mother was from Mississippi, too, and she’s a cousin, a third cousin or fourth or something of Mrs. Montfort Jones. She came out visit her cousin.

WN: Oh.

VC: She married her cousin’s brother-in-law. Of course, 00:42:00Montfort was one of the older boys. Daddy was one of the next to the youngest ones. Mother and daddy lived in Sapulpa for a while, because he was [indecipherable] assistant county treasurer. I’d always heard treasurer, but then, anyway, then somehow, he got into business with his brothers. But in the meantime, he married this cousin of his brother’s wife. And daddy and mother lived in Cushing for a while. It was pretty primitive. Mother said it was awful. She can remember riding in a wagon with an old colored man from Cushing to Bristow, and it was ghastly, she said. The ruts were horrible and the wagon 00:43:00wasn’t comfortable, but anyway, they, now that was near Drumright, I think. Well, then they got to Cushing and then that’s when I entered the picture, because I was living across the street, but anyhow. Then they got over here to Bristow, and daddy was working with his brothers and acquired some means of his own. That’s where he stayed. The other brothers tried it and most of them left. Mother’s brothers, too, and sister lived here a long time. But not many of them stayed.

WN: I know your father was successful, very successful.

VC: Yes, he was successful on his own, and he said he didn’t think he did much. But I told him he did. I thought he had good sense.

WN: Now he had the office down there where the old Chevrolet place is. Did he have an office downtown 00:44:00before that that you can remember of?

VC: No, I can’t, I can’t remember anything before that. But he built that building I think. At one time we lived up there. And that was maybe while they were working on this house, too, I don’t know. But there were lots of people that lived up there. He had some school teachers.

WN: Kind of a boarding?

VC: Yes, uh-huh. I can remember that. I don’t know who had it unless it was Mrs. Jim Brown, might have had it up there. But later, she had a house of her own, so she was a widow of Jim Brown. I can remember they were living up there when I married because John came up there to see me when he was courting me. I think we must have moved from there out here. 00:45:00That was a busy building, you see, three stories, and it was pretty roomy.

WN: Did you happen to remember the opera house?

VC: No, I don’t remember the opera house. When I was a little girl, I heard the older people talking.

WN: I think it burned before you probably came.

VC: Right. And this is one thing I do remember about the opera house, I’d had my tonsils taken out, my operation. Well, this little girl’s mind connected the word opera and operation, and I made the statement, mother loved to tell this on me, that I said well isn’t it a shame that the opera house burned down. I could have had my operation there. Anyhow, but I don’t remember it, really burning, but 00:46:00I do remember these other places we lived.

WN: Alright, now then, are there any businesses that stand out in your mind as a child that you went to, like a, I remember Mrs. Klingensmith had a millinery.

VC: Yes, and [indecipherable] store. I can remember that.

WN: A department store.

VC: Seems to me there were some stores, so many of them are gone now, where the Community Bank is, there were some stores where we used to go. Then I remember Jackson’s Meat Market. You remember that?

WN: Yes, and they made deliveries.

VC: Right. Then I can remember Schrader Drug Store. I can remember the movie house. Oh my goodness, that was one thing I did get to do was to go to the movie every Saturday afternoon. I can’t 00:47:00remember, but there was these Syrians, and oh we looked forward to that. Diamond Mind or something like that.