00:00:00CV: Which was the most dangerous--water or fire.
BM: Yeah.
CV: You know, fire killed [inaudible].
MM: Well I can't think of what [inaudible]
pause in recording
BM: People had a lot of fun at 'em.
CV: Yeah.
pause in recording
CV: You know, even the grown people would help out in those. You remember the
sp--oh, you don't remember the spelling bees, do you?
BM: Yeah.
CV: And the older folks would spell against one another, and I know my mother
won one time.
BM: And it's, uh, the last one in.
CV: Yeah, and the word was "recollect." I'll never forget that word,
"recollect." They all missed it but her. (laughs)
pause in recording
CV: Stuff like colored people.
BM: Mmm-hmm.
CV: [Indecipherable] but I--I just can't figure out, well, Baker boy, y'know, that--
00:01:00
BM: Which one is that?
CV: Howard.
BM: Howard Baker.
CV: Yeah, he went to school there, and then the oth--George, was it?
BM: Geo--uh, Matt.
CV: Matt.
BM: Yeah, that--I think that picture that I was talkin'--I think he's in that.
MM: Didn't they have some singing at the literaries?
CV: Oh, yeah, they had just a--children'd say it was--
MM: Singing.
CV: Oh, singing?
MM: Different adults sang songs?
CV: I don't think we did. Only at church, y'know, Sunday School, but on the lit--
MM: You had church and Sunday School in the schoolhouse, too.
CV: Mmm-hmm. When we moved up this country, did youse live here? In around in here?
BM: Aww, see, mom and dad was, was, married here. In 19-and-19, I think.
00:02:00
CV: Yeah, yeah I can remember when they got married.
MM: Mom went to school out there.
CV: Yeah, she did.
BM: 19-and-12.
CV: But I'm talkin' 'bout her momma and daddy.
BM: Aww, no, they came to Oklahoma in 19-and-07.
CV: Seven, well that's the year, then, when we moved down here, we moved in
about 1912, I think. [Indecipherable] got the schoolhouse and then Charlie
Dressler owned the place and dad rented it from him.
BM: He lived down on the Charlie Dressler place.
CV: Right south of the schoolhouse.
BM: Right south of the schoolhouse, that would be down--
CV: It's right close to the little creek.
BM: Be Mosquiter Creek.
CV: Mosquiter Creek, yeah. On--we lived on the north side.
BM: You had it on the north side--you must've lived in there where Ellis Head
lived over there.
CV: Well, that's--
BM: You lived there where Ellis-Ellis and Mickey lived there for years.
00:03:00
CV: Yeah, yeah, um-hmm, that's the place we lived. And I was trying to
think--Mickey and I, you know, [inaudible] Vann that year, and I remember Floyd
Wilson, he was just a baby. (laughs) And, I know a [indecipherable], we'd pack
him around, take care of him. But that--I don't remember 'em singing, only just
in church. I know they had reading, Da--I can remember--when I say "Daddy" I
mean Virgil, I remember him singin' a song about the grasshopper, and he still
knows that, it's a reading, rather, you know, and he still knows that good.
MM: I asked Virgil if--
pause in recording
BM: Back up--
pause in recording
BM: Uhh, what about those spankings? (tape interference)
00:04:00
CV: Well, in the evenings, y'know, we'd all walk home together on the road 'til
we'd get to Mosquito creek, or sometimes I would go on with a bunch up to the
next corner, on the south up there where we lived.
BM: Where the other school that--where the first schoolhouse was.
CV: Yeah. And--well not hardly that far. And momma, she kept tellin' me not to
do it, to come on home. And one evening I--told me not to do that no more. Next
evening I did, I went up there and I got a whoopin' when I got home. (laughs)
BM: You got a paddlin' when you got to the house!
MM: So did the teacher ever paddle you?
CV: No, I [indecipherable]
BM: Well what's up with the cotton pickin' mess that Virgil got into?
CV: Well I don't know, you'd have to ask him 'bout that. He--I know he was
00:05:00a'ridin' a horse out on the schoolground--
BM: Yeah-
CV: --and, uh, the horse throwed him, and throwed him up against a tree. He hurt
his shoulder, and [indecipherable] was tryin' to show off.
BM: 'Tryin' to show off?
CV: (laughs) Yeah.
BM: To the girls?
CV: We wasn't sweethearts then, we just--
BM: Just tryin' to show off to the girls?
CV: Yeah. That's what I expect. (laughs) He'll get me for that.
BM: Awww, we don't need to let him know 'bout that one. When it comes to that
one, why, we just shut 'im off. Or let it on forward, turn the volume down where
he can't hear.
CV: But you know the first school was Miss Whiteneck.
BM: The first teacher--
CV: Edith Whiteneck.
BM: Edith Whiteneck. Okay, now, then. Edith Whiteneck was the first teacher.
CV: For me, I can--
BM: Okay, she was the first teacher, period, the way I understand it.
CV: Yeah, I think she--
BM: Alright, uh, what was the teacher's name after Edith Whiteneck?
CV: Oh, let me see now, the other day I remembered. (pauses) Ethel. Ethel Logan.
00:06:00
BM: Ethel Logan. Was the teacher. Was the teacher after Edith Whiteneck.
CV: Yeah.
BM: Alright.
CV: I think that Edith--
BM: Who was the teacher after her?
CV: A man teacher.
BM: Man teacher then? After Etta?
CV: Yeah, I think that's the way it was because I know, uh, we didn't live down
there too long 'til we moved up here on this [indecipherable] and, uh, he was
teachin' school--
BM: He was teaching school when--
CV: Well when my brother got killed. Alvin.
BM: When Alvin got killed, well, he was the teacher there then. That was Alvin
Hicks. Okay, then After Alvin Hicks there was who.
00:07:00
CV: He was, uh, drivin' a one of them--cuttin' stalks, cotton stalks--
BM: Cuttin' stalks with a stalk cutter.
CV: Yeah, yeah. Stalk cutter. Henry died when that--and he come home from school
and he had wanted to ride on that and he got on that thing and rode by himself
about a hundred foot and it went to runnin' (tape interference) down onto the
ditch, the thing turned over and caught him and he was dead.
BM: It had cut him all to pieces.
CV: Yes. So, and then, I just, I didn't go to school down there so I didn't
really know. I imagine Ivy'd remember what--
BM: Oh, uh, we'll check with Ivy on it, too. We've got, uh, a few to go.
00:08:00
CV: It was 'fore I was married, just not too long afore I was married, when she
got married in sixteen? Nineteen?
BM: Nineteen--you got married in 1915. So he was killed in 1915.
CV: It was the thirteenth--I mean on the fourteenth or fifteenth, I think I've
got it in the Bible. Ivy might know.
BM: Ivy might recollect what day it was--what day it was that he was killed.
CV: Yeah.
pause in recording
CV: --went home, you know children used to go home with children. I was with
Esther Wilcox that day. (tape interference) --they sent somebody down to tell me
about him.
(tape interference)
00:09:00
CV: And you haven't talked to any of the Vanns, or--
BM: No, uh, you're the first, uh, we just got this thing today, got ahold of--
CV: I guess I better let [indecipherable] let them talk.
BM: Well you tell what you can and on that part, I'll come back to that, and,
uh--it was after you and Virgil--
CV: I think it was after we was married, or just before. I think it's after,
when they did that.
MM: How did they run off and get married?
CV: I don't know.
MM: Are they the ones that were on the train to Sapulpa and got married?
CV: I don't think they went very--couldn't have went very far in them days they
just had buggies, you know.
MM: Somebody went to--who was it your momma used to tell about--
BM: Uh, I think they were married afore.
CV: Uh, let's see, when we first come up to this country, down there, they just
00:10:00got through with a revival. They had the biggest revival they'd had. And
when--they just called her Sister Mary, the woman done the preaching, but I
never did learn her name, they just called her Sister Mary. But that was before [indecipherable]
BM: Yeah.
CV: Grandma and grandpa did.
BM: Grandma and grandpa Dot.
CV: You know, uh, Mary Bly (tape interference)
CV: --and uh, what else maybe I can--
BM: [Indecipherable.]
CV: Oh, yeah, Smith Bruce and them--
BM: Okay, Smith Bruce--
CV: --back over here a little, and--
BM: Yeah.
CV: And you folks, and Jay Crawford--
00:11:00
BM: Jay Crawford.
CV: Yeah, and his family lived on the black--what they called the black place, a
little house there in there where dad--your grandfather let 'em use it. And, uh,
Milt and Phoebe lived there, I remember them, and uh, Sally Pinehill, I remember
I went to her funeral. And, uh, Annie Pinehill, the one with the husband (tape
interference). It's just mostly Bruces (tape interference).
BM: And what was Grandpa Bruce's name, was that Abner Bruce? [Indecipherable]
man Abner?
CV: I don't know what his name was, we just always called him Grandpa Bruce, he
00:12:00was always--he loved children. I used to ask him to go home with him for dinner,
but I--to tell you the truth, it must've been [indecipherable] the boy's names
back then, mustn't it? Would Phoebe know?
BM: I'd have to talk to her.
CV: They made that [indecipherable]. And Naomi Ballard went to school there.
And, uh, Wilson? What was his name? John Wilson?
BM: John Wilson.
CV: His family, they lived there. And uh, Wares, you remember them? And then
W.O. Baker and their kids went to school there. And the Ware kids went there,
00:13:00Owen Ware and Iva Ware.
MM: What about the Perrymans, was there any of them?
CV: Yes, they lived there too.
MM: Yeah.
CV: The Perrymans lived there.
MM: Mmm-hmm.
CV: And what was those kids' names, I can't think of them--
MM: That would've been--
CV: Or Parkham, if it's close enough. You know, half the [indecipherable] from
down at the cemetery's, it's down on Pinehill, you know, in that creek, Pinehill
Creek. And, uh, he died, Pinehill, Grandpa Pinehill died for, when we went to
his funeral. And, uh, they put in there his lunch, in a shoebox, they fixed him
a lunch, and they put his saddle and then--I don't know whether it was a gun or
00:14:00a bow and arrow.
MM: It might've been a bow and arrow.
CV: I don't know whether they used guns then or not, the Indians. And, let me
see now. Yeah, they just packed him down there and the rest of them walked down
Pinehill 'cause it wasn't very far there.
BM: I was sayin' to her, over in, uh, the road there that [indecipherable].
CV: Yeah.
BM: Over there in the creek.
CV: Yeah. [Indecipherable.]
BM: Yeah.
CV: Somebody told me here awhile back somebody'd been digging in the graves over
there, I don't know if that's right.
BM: Yeah. That's what I heard.
CV: That's the reason, don't you think?
BM: Ahh, I imagine so.
MM: [Indecipherable.]
CV: [Indecipherable.]
00:15:00
pause in recording
BM: Tell us about this fair situation.
VV: Well, I don't--
MM: Uh, Alex--you might start with Alex--
VV: Well, really, I don't know, I think Alex Myers was one of the judges, wasn't
he? Of the milk cows?
CV: I don't remember.
VV: Oh yeah, I'm sure he was, uh, you can have these old timers like John or
somebody can tell you more about that, but I can't, 'cause they--I was just a
kid, you know, 'bout seven years old.
pause in recording
BM: You're on. You're on, buddy. You're on.
VV: I can't talk into one of them little old things.
BM: No, you were talkin' a while ago, you were tellin' me all about it, and
you--now you, now what about this, uh, prize that you won.
VV: Well, I took, uh, I went out in dad's field and got some sudan, you know,
and took it up there and won first prize there at the fair. Well they bring
00:16:00their work horses, you know, their cows, everything, they grew everything.
MM: 'Bout what year did it--what years did that?
VV: Well must've been '28, '29, or '30, in there you know, well, we moved to
Pinehill what was '33 when we moved down there was. They, we -- there to, I mean to--
CV: '30--
VV: I mean to Deep Fork.
CV: It was '30 when we moved to Pinehill.
VV: '30? So it must've been '28 and '29 when I went to school down there. And
they even used to have fair, uh, a fair up here at this church up here, you
know, uh, Liberty, okay? They had a fair there, they had one at all these little
places around here, they had their own little fair. I can remember, I don't
remember takin' anything up there but I remember going up there to the fair.
That's when the old church sat on back west up on the hill there, you know? And
I was a kid goin' up there.
pause in recording
VV: And old Smith Bruce, I heard him talk, you know, he, he might've, uh, raised
00:17:00some big ones. All I know, I know he raised a lot of cane down there, I shipped
cane for him myself.
MM: Now, honey, you don't put the ashes in her vases--
CV: No, here, right here, that's what it's for--
VV: Now I just don't remember anything about the watermelon.
CV: Well, you wasn't born then, when what I'm talkin' bout--
pause in recording
BM: Alright, now then.
VV: --and we'd pull it back up on the one leg and kids would get on there and
ride it--
CV: --I had some things, I had a basket of the things [indecipherable] and ride
it down the creek--
MM: Why was it put there?--
CV: They built it, the boys--
VV: It was up in a great big old elm tree, see--
MM: Oh you built it yourself?
VV: Yeah, put a pulley on there and a seat, you know, and we'd pull it up there
and climb up the tree and get on and ride down the creek, you know, and we had
it tied to another tree and you stopped, it was just something to play with, you know.
pause in recording
VV: And somebody came there and broke some [indecipherable] off and took off,
and that was it--we lived back over there by Smith--
00:18:00
CV: Well, we lived down on the corner--
VV: But he found out who it was, I think, but he just let 'em go, said they was hungry.
CV: Way over Bruce's place, well not way over Bruce, the little Pinehill's place--
VV: That's where your chicken house was, far away, them birds
CV: (laughing)
VV: Over up on that Pinehill place.
pause in recording
VV: Well where'd you live at?
CV: Uh, dad lived up on what call--used to call Pike's Peak, that big hill where
you turn, you go down to--
VV: Way up on there on that cave?
MM: Yeah, uh, dad lived up there.
VV: You know, where they played ball?
BM: Yeah.
VV: Where it turned west? On the south side of the road just--I was up there
here, I was telling Carrie it's still up there, no sir, they had a mother that
lived in an old cellar there--
CV: No, we lived in a tent.
MM: Albert Cree (ph)--
CV: Dad had the--
00:19:00
MM: Albert Cree's (ph) rooster's who he's tellin'--
CV: Yeah. (laughs)
MM: What'd they do with it?
CV: Oh, they--he got after 'em with his gun and they had to turn it loose.
(laughs) Dad still tells that.
VV: I don't remember that.
pause in recording
CV: [Indecipherable] and that really got him, he said you know'd I didn't [indecipherable].
VV: Who was that?
CV: [Indecipherable] Bruce
VV: Oh.
CV: [Indecipherable.]
end of interview
