00:00:00Interviewer: Mary Lee (Fuller) McCarty (1929-2007) (MM)
Interviewee: Charles Lionel Klock, Sr. (1927-2003) (CK)
Other Persons: Robert L. "Bob" McCarty (1927-2007) (BM)
Date of Interview: June 7, 1977
Location: Drumright, Creek County Oklahoma
Transcriber: Melissa Holderby
Organization: Bristow Historical Society, Inc.
Original Cassette Tape Location: OHP-0011 Side ALength: 0:20:39
Abstract: In this 1977 interview, Charles Lionel Klock, Sr. (1927-2003)
describes his very early childhood memories in the Pinehill Community outside
Bristow, Oklahoma including fights with schoolmates, opossum hunting, the first
time he ever tried corn mash alcohol (moonshine), and attending an Indian dance
as a child.
Preface: The following oral history testimony is the result of a cassette tape
interview and is part of the Bristow Historical Society, Inc.'s collection of
oral histories. The interview was transcribed and processed by the Bristow
Historical Society, Inc., with financial assistance from the Montfort Jones &
Allie Brown Jones Foundation. Rights to the material are held exclusively by the
Bristow Historical Society, Inc.
The reader should bear in mind that he or she is reading a verbatim transcript
of spoken, rather than written prose. Insofar as possible, this transcript tries
to represent the spoken word. Thus, it should be read as a personal memoir and
not as either a researched monograph or edited account.
To the extent possible, the spelling of place names, foreign words, and personal
names have been verified, either by reference resources or directly by the
interviewee. In some cases, a footnote has been added to the transcript in order
to provide more information and/or to clarify a statement. Some uncertainties
will inevitably remain regarding some words and their spellings. In these
scenarios, a (ph) follows a word or name that is spelled phonetically. The
notation [indecipherable] is used when the transcriber has not been able to
comprehend the word or phrase being spoken. The notation [inaudible] is used
where there is more mumbling than words, or when interference on the tape has
made transcription impossible.
MM: Seventh--afternoon of June 7, 1977. We're talking to--
CK: Charles Lionel Klock.
MM: Charles Lionel Klock, and he's going to tell us about his family. Lionel,
what was your mother and dad's name?
CK: Dad's name was Charles Ishmael Klock and mother's name was Sybil Emmaline Klock.
MM: What was your mother's name before she married?
CK: Williams. They was--had moved here to Drumright area and mother and dad
married in that area. Followed the oilfields around here for a while and finally
settled here in Bristow at the little pumping plant out north of town.
MM: How many brothers and sisters do you have?
CK: I have one brother and three sisters.
MM: What's their names?
CK: Well, Daphine--do you want me to give their married names?
BM: Yeah.
CK: Daphine--Dorotha Daphine and her last name now is Holmes. She lives in Texas
00:01:00City, she's a registered nurse. And Vernon Klock lives in Beaumont, Texas and
he's a retired--I guess you'd call him superintendent for the McDermott (ph)
shipyard out of Morgan City, Louisiana. And we have Aline Sanders who is there
in Beaumont, lives in Beaumont, her husband's a butcher for the market
[indecipherable]. And then my youngest sister which is Thelma Dean Ross (ph),
and she lives in [indecipherable], Texas which is a little old town just about
ten miles out of Beaumont.
MM: Your mother and dad still alive?
CK: No, mother's living but dad died two years ago on Easter Sunday morning of a
heart attack, there in Beaumont, Texas.
MM: Did all of you children go to Pinehill school?
00:02:00
CK: No, just the three oldest--Daphine and myself and Vernon. I think that was
the only ones that really went to the Pinehill school.
MM: How many years did you go?
CK: About two, I believe, because--well, really, I went, I went--I started for
three, but it just so happened that I was a little early in my going to school
and so after about two or three weeks in school I can remember one day I got up
behind the curtain on the stage and jumped out and hollered "Boo" at everybody
and just immediately after that, Mr. Thomas sent a letter home to my momma and
said, "Mrs. Klock, please keep Lionel home," says, "He won't study and won't let
nobody else." So I had to stop and drop out that year and then I started again
the next year. So hopefully that helps.
MM: What kind of sports did you play?
00:03:00
CK: Well, the only thing I can remember playing at Pinehill is that we had an
excellent slide there, we got the old wax--paper wax off of the bread wrappers,
off of the bread. And we put it as slick as you could possibly get it and then
the only other sport that I ever really remember playing at the Pinehill was
they could throw that ball over and catch it and then run around and hit
somebody with it on the other side of the school.
MM: Annie-Over.
CK: What would you call that?
MM: Annie-Over.
CK: Annie-Over! Boy, we had a time with that, now.
MM: Did you ever get in on any of those chicken stealing when you lived there?
CK: No, no, I didn't get into any of that, you know--we lived, when we first
began to go to Pinehill, we lived over on the old Indian home. I don't even
00:04:00remember what the Indian family was, but it was over close and had a neighbor by
the name of Vann. We had five gates between us and school and we rode a horse.
Daphine and I would ride the horse and mother and dad would always instruct us
to be sure to stop at each one of those gates and open and close it when we went
through. And so we did, we faithfully did our part--at least until we found out
that the horse could jump and from that point on, I don't believe we stopped to
get any--to open any of them. But we--Bobby was showing me here, Minnie Davis
(ph)? Is that where we was living?
BM: That's where he lived, yeah.
CK: Out on the Minnie Davis (ph) place. Anyway, we never did stop to--from that
00:05:00point on, when that horse came to the gate it always jumped it and how we held
on I don't know, but we made it home safely anyway.
MM: Did you mom and dad know you was jumping the gate?
CK: (laughs) No, they didn't.
MM: Have you told your mother in later years?
CK: Yeah, yeah. You know, I don't know, we--in our going home, we had one place
that we stopped off. I don't know where [indecipherable] it was, don't even
remember the name of the family, but it was somewhere between after we turned
off of a certain road going back over through to the house, we'd stop off at
these people's house and get warm! Well, I tell you, when we was coming home,
it'd be cold, snow on the ground and our feet would get mighty cold and I tell
you what, I didn't particularly like the boots that I had and I burned the soles
off of them at those people's house by putting my foot up close to the fire. It
got warmed, but I burned the heel--the sole off of 'em, anyway. (laughs)
MM: About how many spankings a day did you get when you was going to school? Bob
00:06:00tells how many he got.
CK: Oh, I was a good boy. I don't know, I know I got some but it was mostly hold
your hand out and with a ruler on it, you know, and a lot of that kind of
situation. Only one time I really did get a switching from Mr. Thomas, but I
wasn't alone in that one. There was several others that got a whippin' on that one.
MM: You didn't go, though--if you got up to the seventh or eighth grade like Bob
did, you'd have got a few more.
CK: Maybe so, maybe so.
MM: You missed a few things--
BM: I didn't have to [indecipherable]
MM: Did you ever hear about--did you even hear about those chicken roasts? Would
you like to hear, would you like to hear a story--CK: No, Daphine--Daphine, now,
I think Daphine--
MM: Would you like to hear the story about them?
CK: Yeah, I'd like to hear that.
MM: They would go to various famers, usually the one that was the crankiest in
the community, and they'd steal a chicken.
CK: Oh?
MM: And they'd take it down to the creek and they'd wrap it in--they had a
certain place where there was good clay, and they'd make a thick layer of that
clay, just wring it's neck off and make a thick layer of that clay on that chicken--
00:07:00
CK: Yeah?
MM: And just throw it in the fire and let it bake and then when it got done
they'd just break that clay off and just eat it with their fingers.
CK: Uh-huh.
MM: So I asked Loyd Bruce on his tape, I said, "Loyd, did you remove any
undesirable parts of those chickens?" And he paused a minute and he said he
didn't believe they did! But they said you can take the toughest old rooster or
old hen and wrap it in that clay that way and it'd get tender and good.
CK: I would suppose they would.
(all laugh)
MM: But they cooked it guts, feathers and all.
CK: Oooh, boy! (laughs)
BM: [indecipherable]
CK: I think I'll [indecipherable], I'll tell you.
MM: Did you steal any water--no, you wouldn't even be big enough to steal--
CK: No, no, I, I didn't, I never did really, I didn't--let's, let's see, it
must've been--so really first, second grade is about all that I really got to go
there. Well, I tell you--
MM: Well, you missed the fun years.
CK: Well--
BM: Then they moved up to Oilton.
CK: Yeah, we moved up to Drumright and to Oilton in-between there.
00:08:00
MM: Well, you missed the fun years out there, then.
CK: Well, maybe so. But I had plenty of fun. Going out to--going out in the--
MM: Do you remember the Christma--
CK: --you know, dad'd take us out hunting at night. We'd go out and hunt opossum
or it just so happened that many a times we'd (laughs) we'd run over with a old
hound, we had an old hound that went out ahead of us. Instead of a opossum he
found a, a good skunk. And run in on top of that skunk and it hit him right in
the face. And I never (laughs), I never heard one dog holler so much and waller
so much, throw his head on the ground and roll and squall and bawl and, you
know? That ruined our hunt for that night. We didn't get to go any further.
(laughs) That old dog just--hooked him up and he went back to the house after that.
MM: You start talking about that fight, you said there was about eighteen of you?
00:09:00
CK: Oh yeah, well--
MM: You told me while ago there was about eighteen of you got a whipping. How
many of them was in school that year, if eighteen of you got a whipping?
CK: I don't know, I would say it was at least half of the school got it, but the
fight really--I don't know exactly what Bobby's part of it is, but I know I come
home crying and dad said, "What you crying about?" and I said, "Well, somebody
jumped on my back." And sometimes it was Bobby! Other times it might've been
somebody else but that particular time it was Bobby. And he told me, he said,
"Son," he said, "I'll tell you what: If you come home tomorrow night and you're
crying because somebody jumped on your back and you hadn't done nothing about
it," he says, "I'm gonna spank you." Well, the next evening it just happened to
be that Bobby was the one that jumped on my back. And for the next mile and
half--next half a mile, really--it was either me on bottom and him on top or I
00:10:00was on top and he was on bottom, I don't know how it all wound up like, but I
assure you one thing, this is some--at least thirty-five or thirty-six years
afterward and I'm still bearing the scars of those, that fight (laughs) in my face.
MM: It'd have to be better than forty years, you didn't go to school out there
after you was ten.
CK: Well, no, let's see--
MM: Come on, now.
CK: Well, five years--six years old, yeah! It's got to be forty, forty-four
years ago. About forty-four to--forty-three to forty-four years. That'd be it.
But I'll tell you what, I didn't get a whipping when I got home, and I can't say
whether I got the best of the fight or Bobby got the best, or who got the worst,
or what have you. I'll tell you we both come out with plenty of scars, and not
only us--you know, Alton (ph) and Daphine got into that, too. Alton (ph) wound
up with a pretty good scar on his face over that rack--and Daphine had some
pretty good nails and she shore did get him right across the face.
BM: [inudible]
00:11:00
CK: Clear from the forehead clear to the chin, I'll tell you, he really got a
good one.
MM: And on top of all that, I believe your mother and Bob's mother were best friends.
CK: Ooo-hoo! (laughs) Yeah, yeah! And after that, Bob and I was pretty good
friends, too! (laughs)
BM: (laughs)
MM: Our son that was killed and a boy got into it and knocked each other's teeth
loose and everything else and the next day they wanted visit each other and we
said, "Mose (ph), we thought you were angry," and he said, "Why, just 'cause
your fighting's no sign that you're mad at each other!"
(all laughing)
BM: But you know, Mr. Thomas didn't like what he heard about that fight. He--the
next day at school he begin to name off the ones that he wanted to talk to after
school, and he kept the boys in one room and the girls in the other. The only
thing is, he appointed Daphine and one of the other girls to go out and they was
to pick the switch that we was to get switched with, and naturally for
00:12:00themselves they pretty--picked a pretty good, a very small little switch. But
for the boys, I'll assure you we got our--they got the right size. I don't know
if that was a peach limb or just what it was, but I'll assure you--and when Mr.
Thomas laid it on, he was--didn't spare the rod. (laughs) I can remember it.
Now, I also heard from other reports, though, that when he spanked the girls
it--that just the skirt really got the blistering. It really never did get down
next to the body on the girls. But the skirt really did get the blistered on.
CK: I think everybody went down that south road and got a lickin' that day.
00:13:00
BM: (laughs) Eighteen of us, at least.
CK: I know'd it, anyway.
MM: Well, you and the McIntyres (ph) got into it one time, didn't you?
CK: No, me and the Wilson boys got into it.
MM: Wilson.
CK: Hey, Bobby, did you ever get up in the country there, especially up behind
old Ellis Head's (ph) house? You ever go up in there? You ever see those pigs
laying up there in that mud?
BM: Yeah?
CK: --get so drunk on that sour, sour mash that them poor sows couldn't get up?
(all laughing)
BM: You know the last time, last time I talked to old Ellis--oh, before the lake
was--had a lot of water in it. When I--
MM: Ellis died slow and hard with that cancer, he had a terrible time of dying--
BM: --I went out and bought some corn off Ellis to fatten out some hogs. And--
MM: --and Lord, that was twenty years ago. Almost twenty years ago.
BM: --I got talking to him that afternoon, and "Say, Ellis, when is the last
time you ran off a batch of corn?" He said, "Oh, Bob, it's been a good long
00:14:00time." He said, "I'll tell you what, I'll tell you where there's a twenty-gallon
keg of it buried." He said, "I buried it and I runned it off."
MM: I guess it's still there!
BM: As far as I know it's still there.
MM: So it's--Bob's been--
BM: You know, [indecipherable]
CK: You know, I guess there might be others that would dispute it but
I--according to my particular knowledge of it, he made some of the best that--
BM: That's right!
CK: --that was run off in our country. I know about the only time that I ever
really got a good, I got exposed to it, so to speak, I think they come over to
the house and three men and dad were standing out in the yard and they had the
bottle and so they started off and tilt that bottle up, you know, and finally it
went around to all four men and then finally dad handed it to me and says,
00:15:00"Here, son," he said, "Here, take a swig." Well, you know, I thought I had some sodee-pop.
BM: Yeah?
CK: And, boy, so I turned that thing up like I would a sodee-pop bottle and I
got me a mouthful and I learned quickly that the white lightening didn't its
name just because it was a white, or clear. It had something else--
BM: (laughs)
CK: It had a little fire! And I don't know that I have ever been burned so in
all my life. I think that did help me, though, to one extent--I never have
touched the stuff very much since.
BM: (laughs) One one of old Ellis--he always, when he was making, he had a few
of 'em that would come around, he'd get 'em to come around and [indecipherable]
with him, especially when he was running off a batch. And you could just almost
tell when old Ellis would run off a new batch--
CK: (laughs)
BM: --'cause there'd be some old boy around over the country throw a big dance
00:16:00that weekend.
CK: Well, you know, this is a lot of memories that you can have about a place
and I guess one of the things that I--stands out most in my memory, you
know--Ollie Hooky (ph) was--I don't know exactly how good he was at his
particular trade in that area, but I do know he was pretty good at selling it,
anyway. We went with him one night down to country out of--somewhere down below
here, out on the--to an Indian dance. You know, called 'em Indian stomp dances.
MM: They still have them.
CK: And so--but unknown to us, the car was lined with white lightening, and he
was selling it to the, to the different Indians there at the dance. Well, I'll
00:17:00tell you, I had a ball! I had, I was just big enough that I could slip in and
out of line and I'd get ahold of a fellow in front of me, I'd get ahold of his
hip pocket and here I'd go around that bonfire, stomping and dancing. Well, if
that fellow in the front of me happened to have a bottle in his pocket, I
slipped out of line right quick. I didn't stay behind him. I'd get behind
somebody that didn't have a bottle, anyway. But that particular night--
MM: Why would you do that?
CK: Huh?
MM: Why would you--
CK: Well, I wasn't particularly wanting to--the man in my--he didn't have a
bottle in his pocket, but I didn't want--I was trying to get somebody that was
maybe, may not have been quite so drunk as the other one (laughs), but that
night we, as we's sitting--and sitting there, or as the stomp dance continued,
the deputy sheriffs in this county happened to find one of the men that they
00:18:00were looking for, and they couldn't catch him. And he had jumped on a truck and
was taking off and so the deputy took his gun and fired and shot the man,
really. The leaves that--he shot through the tree and the leaves that fell off
of the tree fell right down in mother's lap. If the bullet had been just a few
inches lower she would've--well it probably would have hit her instead of the
man. But I'll assure you one thing: when that shot rang out, that stomp dance no
longer was a stomp dance but it turned into a war party. Those Indians jumped
out, went to their teepees and they come out with knives and guns like you never
seen. Well, Ollie (ph) and dad beat it to that car, throwed us kids in the back
00:19:00seat and I want you to know, that was one wild ride out of there that night. Now
that's one thing that stands out in my memory about that.
MM: What were some of the kids' names that went to school with you?
CK: Well, I really don't remember a whole lot of 'em. Naturally Bob Imhousen
(ph), then Lena Hooky (ph)--
MM: She must've been a pretty little girl. You keep talking about her.
CK: Well, Lena (ph) was--she was my dancing partner at the different dances and
I'll assure you, we could cut a pretty good rug, I guarantee you.
We'd--especially when Lena (ph) and I got started dancing, well, the whole dance
floor cleared off and I'll assure you we did the two-step. Now, if you had it
today--I don't know what you'd call that dance today but I'll tell you what, I
00:20:00sure did enjoy those few times that we did get to dance together. (pause) But
now, really, some of the others, I'm sitting here trying to remember, but I--the
names of many of those children, or young people at that day, I guess just
doesn't--you know, that's forty-four years ago, it doesn't stay with me. Or it
didn't stay with me.
BM: That's right.
CK: They didn't make an impression on me like Bobby. (laughs)
MM: And Lena. Bobby can fight and Lena can dance, huh?
BM: There you go! There you go!
(all laughing)
end of interview
