Dillard Baker

Interviewer: Bunny Baker (BB)

Interviewee: Dillard Roy Baker (DB) (1899 - June 21, 1996)

Other Persons: Unknown Man (UM); Terry Howe Baker (TB) (October 16, 1928 - ____)

Date of Interview: April 13, 1993

Location:

Transcriber: Melissa Holderby

Organization: Bristow Historical Society, Inc.

Original Cassette Tape Location: OHP-0017 Sides A&B and OHP-0018 Sides A&B

Length: 01:01:36

Abstract:

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.

BB: --the Bristow Historical Society. My name is Bunny Baker. The date is April 13, 1993. I will be interviewing Dillard Baker, or "Doc" Baker as he is called by most people. I'm the wife of Merle Baker, and Doc is Merle's uncle. Dillard, or "Doc," was born September 6, 1898 at Dean Springs, Arkansas. How old are you (whispering)?

DB: Ninety-four?

BB: As of this date, he is ninety-four years old and outstanding in many ways for a man of his age. How tall are you, Doc?

DB: Five nine and a half.

BB: Five nine and a half, and how much do you weigh?

DB: A hundred and forty-three.

BB: Hundred and forty-three pounds. And he still has a full head of hair, now white. But he doesn't wear glasses except for reading and at this time Doc is 00:01:00probably best known for his walking. He may very well spend more time walking than anyone in Bristow. How many miles is it that you walk a day, Dillard?

DB: Two to six.

BB: Two to six. He lives in the Senior Citizens' Center and he walks everywhere he goes--to church at the Advent Christian Church one mile south of Bristow where he lives, and he walks to the hospital to visit patients each day. He runs errands for elderly shut-ins, taking them groceries and so forth. He's a remarkable man for his age. In fact, in the morning, he leaves on an eight-day bus tour for Washington, D.C. Okay, Doc, what was the name of your mother and dad?

DB: John Esther (ph).

BB: And your mother?

DB: Cardy (ph). Cardy (ph) Cornelius.

BB: Overstreet was her last name.

DB: Yeah, Overstreet, yeah.

BB: And where--were they born in--where were they born?

DB: They was born in--both of 'em right around Dead Springs there.

BB: Okay. Do you remember the year they came to Oklahoma?

DB: Yeah, 1905.

BB: Nineteen-five. And how old were you?

DB: Seven.

BB: Seven? And how did they travel when they came to Oklahoma?

DB: Covered wagon.

BB: How many? One or more?

DB: No, it was three.

BB: Three?

DB: Mmm-hmm [in assent]. It was us and a fellow by the name of Baxter (ph) and then another guy--there was three families.

BB: Yeah.

DB: That come together on that trip. And we was twenty-eight days coming out here.

BB: From Dean Springs?

DB: Yeah. We was twenty-eight days going a hundred--I mean two hundred mile, on account of the water. There was no bridges, you know, and they had to wait until creeks and branches went down before we could cross.

BB: What type of work did your father do?

DB: Farm.

BB: He was a farmer?

DB: Farmer for life.

BB: Was your mother a midwife?

DB: Well, she wasn't a--registered or nothing like that, but she helped an awful 00:03:00lot of times. And from the time I was fairly old I had to go with her, because I was the oldest and if it happened at night and she was afraid to go by herself. So--

BB: What's the favorite stories you remember of your parents telling about their early days?

DB: Well, near about the earliest I can remember hearing them talk about was, oh, nineteen and I'd say ten--nine and ten--they used to tell us about there was a church house about eight mile from where they lived, and they all went to the schoolhouse and the only one that--where they went to church? Well, she used to go with a guy, and so this time when they went there, why she went with another guy and he come with another girl. And that's the way they met there, and they was already engaged to be married, you know. And it seemed like that caused some confusion.

(laughing)

BB: I'd think so!

DB: But that's about as early--that's about all I can remember.

BB: Was your grandfather or your--anybody in the Civil War that you know of?

DB: No. No, they wasn't. There was a battle that was fought about four miles from where--where I was born. There's a battle. Not major battle, just a little further over up there at Pea Ridge, they had that battle, you know, but--

BB: Have they told you, or do you remember any stories that they told about those days?

DB: No, I never heard them mention it.

BB: Do you remember them telling any stories about slave days?

DB: No.

BB: Indians?

DB: No, there was no Indians back in there.

BB: Okay.

DB: They didn't know what an Indian was until we started out here and got into Indian Territory.

BB: Okay. What was your favorite toy as a child?

DB: Well, our toys then was all made toys. I don't remember daddy ever buying us a toy when we were a little kid. Other than that, we got--oh, I'd say 00:05:00[indecipherable] and I. Just before we come out here, that'd make us about five and six. Well, I mean he was five and I was six, you know. There's thirteen months' difference in our ages. And dad come home one day with this little axe, one of these little axes, hand axes, you know. And it was a small one. And that's the first present I can remember getting. And he took it away from us pretty quick because he looked out there and we was chopping on a tree in the yard.

(laughing)

DB: Yeah.

BB: What was your favorite game as a child?

DB: Marbles.

BB: Marbles?

DB: Yeah.

BB: And what was your favorite food?

DB: Well, I'd say peaches, apples, fresh fruit.

UM: Fresh fruit.

DB: That--I mean, it still is, of course.

BB: Where did you go to school at?

DB: First day I went to school--well, we didn't, didn't have no primary there, 00:06:00but you was allowed to go and sit in the school to--as an observer. And that was at Dean Springs. I went for about a week and then where I first went to school was at Mills Chapel here, after we got out here.

BB: How many rooms were in the school building, do you know?

DB: Well eight--uh, ten to twelve. Eight children. Eight scholars.

BB: How many teachers did you have that handled all the grades?

DB: Just one that handled all of them, she--just--yeah, and they had them from the primary--well, it started in the first grade. Again, there wasn't no primaries in there, we started in the first grade. And they did have a system to where they--knowing that you couldn't start in there, you know, without knowing something and was taught up until then. But they just had the one there.

BB: Do you remember what that teacher's name was?

DB: No, that--one of 'em was Lamb (ph), and he was from Arkansas. But he was--I 00:07:00don't remember the first one. All I remember about the first time down there--Ira Sloan (ph), she was about four or five year' older than I was, and--well, she was my girlfriend. We'd play together and we was the two oldest. I was the oldest boy going there at that time and she was the oldest girl. And, so she was up in a higher grade, of course. But we was--we paired off together and I got caught writin' her a note one time. And I didn't write any more when the teacher got through with it. They didn't believe in talkin' in them days.

BB: How did she punish you?

DB: Well I got a paddle!

BB: Did you use slates, chalk, pencils, or what?

DB: They [indecipherable] regular pencils. Slates to start with, and then of course we graduated into regular pencils.

BB: Do you remember what subjects you studied?

DB: Well, we only had reading and spelling and arithmetic. And geography. Course there was reading and spelling until you was about in the second grade, then you started on these others. And then you had geography and arithmetic--I mean, the--they had grammar. They'd call it two of every--draw everything on the board, you know, and big sentences running all over the board. Which never did do me no good.

(laughing)

BB: What about your school--well, how did you get to school?

DB: Walk.

BB: Walk. How far did you have to walk?

DB: Three and a half miles.

BB: What about your school lunches?

DB: Well, they was biscuits and sausage and we always had to take--we took milk. One time--I know we did because one time--they was put in gallon buckets, you 00:09:00know, and there was four of us going at this time, and two of--two of our lunches were put together in one gallon bucket. And so that time, when we started to eat dinner, I had mistakenly got ahold of a gallon bucket of milk. That's what I had.

(laughing)

DB: I remember that one.

BB: Was that all you had?

DB: That was all I had! Yeah!

BB: The wrong bucket, huh?

DB: I thought, that was the wrong bucket! And old Wayne (ph), he wouldn't let me have none of his. Him and Bessie, there for a while they'd--when Marie got big enough, of course Bessie and Marie took their dinners [indecipherable] you know. But that [indecipherable] later before Marie come in to it, she wasn't going to school then of course.

BB: Okay, we forgot to mention where you lived at that time, when you went to school at Mills Chapel.

DB: I lived two mile and a half north of Mills Chapel.

BB: Was that what we knew as the old Baker homestead place?

DB: No, it was the--we only lived there two year when we first come in. 00:10:00Nineteen-eight we farmed a mile and a half north of Mills Chapel, right in the bottom. And that's the year it rained all that year, too. And we had eighteen acres of cotton there and had eighteen acr--bales of hay--I mean cotton--piled up in one pile, you couldn't get out, the creek's all up and couldn't get it to town to sell. But it's about--about a mile and a half from the school right there. And then we moved out of the bottoms up on the higher ground and there's a place where Blansetts live, which was their mother was a VanOrsdol and she was kin to these VanOrsols we have around here now, that was their great-grandparents.

BB: Hmm.

DB: And that was nineteen-eight. I was at their--the oldest one--well, you know Fred and--well, I was at their wedding.

BB: Oh, really?

DB: In nineteen-eight. Yeah.

BB: Nineteen-eight.

DB: Mm-hmm [agreeing].

BB: Do you remember what the price of a new wagon was back those days?

DB: No, I remember dad buying one, this was in 1911 was the first time we ever bought a--we ever bought a new wagon. But we bought the other stuff at the same that that he bought me a saddle, he was ready to start raising mules and he bought me a saddle to break 'em with. And it was all on the same--just packaged up with the wagon, 'cause--but I know he bought one. That was one of the old high wheel wagons. And then I know he bought one of the rope wheel--iron wheel wagons the next year--or maybe '13--that had where you turned--where it could turn around with. It took an acre to turn around with them old high wheel ones, you know.

BB: Yeah.

DB: 'Cause they wouldn't really bend.

BB: Do you know what brand some wagon it was?

DB: Well, the first one we got was a Sooner.

BB: Oh? [pause] Okay, what crops did you raise, Dillard?

DB: Cotton, corn, kaffir corn, and milo maize, oats--for feed, you know, had to raise your own feed to make the next crop with. And so that's about it. [indecipherable] for sorghum. We always had our sorghum and molasses, and--

BB: Do you remember what--when they went to town for groceries, do you remember what groceries they bought?

DB: Well, they bought flour and coffee and the staples, things like that because we raised all the rest of the stuff, you know. And that was just it--flour and the coffee and the meal--we'd shell the corn, get up on the mule and take it to 00:13:00the mill and had it ground, you know. And we'd give--it'd cost us so much meal to get it, they took their wages out in meal. And that's the way, that's where we got our meal.

BB: Did you work in the fields?

DB: Yeah, from the time I was--I went--I done my first climb when I was a three-and-a-half year old. I can remember back that, to then. Can't go beyond that. But dad was a breakin' land. Ten acres was a big crop for one horse back by then, and he was using an eight-inch turning plow, and one horse. We had an old sorrel one-eyed horse. And so [indecipherable] the house about a hundred and fifty yards, something like that, and mom asked me if I wanted to take him a drink, and I said, Yeah. Well, he saw me a'comin', 'course he sat down on the plow and waited for me, and he got ready to go, he said, You want to plow? And of course I did. I couldn't reach the handles but I could reach the bar that, you know, run acrossways there. And I don't remember how far I plowed but anyhow it was until the plow fell over.

(laughing)

DB: And that's that. That's as far as I went.

BB: Did you, did you have to help with the milking? I assume you had cows?

DB: Yeah, yeah. I helped ma milk cows.

BB: How old were you when you started milking?

DB: Well, when I was about eight, well I--she sold cream and we were--nobody got no cream in the coffee, it was milk. And after the cream was skimmed off of it, you know. And it was my job every morning to take one of those old-time tin cups, beat it down to the cow lot, and milk enough milk for the coffee. That was my job in the morning while Liz (ph) and mom was gettin' breakfast. I'd run down there and milk that thing full of milk and mom would strain it and I'd put the cream in the coffee.

BB: How many cows did you milk?

DB: Well, it's from one to three. Just according to the pasture we had. 'Cause most of the places you didn't have enough pasture on there.

BB: You farmed all the land, didn't you?

DB: Yeah. I'd say it was, not counting dad and mom, there was eleven of us and we farmed about ninety acres and it took three teams to keep us going. 'Cause we raised all the meat and had chicken, eggs, geese, [indecipherable] and all that kind of stuff, you know.

BB: Did--I assume that you chopped and picked cotton?

DB: You're not kidding!

(laughing)

DB: Oh, highest day of picking was 427 pounds.

BB: I was gonna ask you how much you could pick in one day.

DB: I didn't pick that every day, but--because I had to--like I said, I had to help do the milking and stuff like that before I could get to the fields, see. And dad had to get on 'cause we always had the hands down there. And Wayne was always bragging about beating me at picking cotton, but he did because he got down there an hour before I did. Well, dad turned us loose that day and he told 00:16:00me, he said I'll settle this. He said, you guys get down there, same time, and play at the same time, and then he said, that'll settle this argument. So Wayne--I got 427 and Wayne got 421.

BB: Well.

DB: And he found two rocks in Wayne's sack!

(laughing)

DB: Sure did!

BB: As a child, can you remember any particular ornery thing that you did that was outstanding?

DB: Everything!

(laughing)

BB: And how were you punished for it?

DB: Same way!

(laughing)

DB: You had to go get your own switch at that time. That's what they used for whipping. I think the first times I really got the biggest kick out of Wayne and got a whipping with it, he never would hunt, he never would fish, but he'd go with me when I'd go out to the horses in the morning in the pasture, sometimes he'd go with me if I had a hook set up and then we'd run the hooks, you know, 00:17:00and then bring 'em back in. One time I caught an eel about five foot long. He thought it was a snake. And so when I turned it around, why, he started running. He was afraid of it. And I took after him. Had that eel a'hanging on the end of that pole out there, you know, I took off running up to the house. My dad heard him a'yellin,' he come out there and went up there and never said a word, he just took that eel off of that hook and gave me a durned good whipping with it, just like a black snake. Then he hung it to the--nailed it to the post, skinned it, cleaned it, mom put it in the skillet, when it began to get hot it began to jump around--you know how frog legs will jump? Well that's what that eel will do! And she--she thought something was wrong and just throwed the skillet and all out the door!

(laughing)

DB: But that's--and about those--something--oh, about that time, the first thing in, I mean, thing happened that's still in my mind just as clear as it was the 00:18:00day it happened: one Sunday afternoon--and like I said, we always had to make our fun, whatever we was doing. Well, there was a place at this [indecipherable] where they was building their first bigger building here at Mills Chapel--in brick. And they was gettin' sand out of there, and they had a hole--a cave out where they was diggin' out that sand. Well, man, a little girl by the name of Smith--Bessie Smith--was under there and Orville (ph) he was under there so far, and so when--'cause he was right close to the edge. Well this whole thing caved in. A big stump on top of it up there. And it buried her and it buried him in there. But he was close enough where we dug him before it smothered him. But it killed her. And, so we dug her out and there was a fellow there by the name of McClown (ph), and he was going to carry her, she was eleven year' old. She had a big crush on me and I had a crush on her sister. So (chuckling), but anyhow--I just picked her up and the bones was just crushed to where they'd pick her up 00:19:00and she'd just go right down between--it took two to carry her, you know, her [indecipherable] had broke up so bad.

BB: Well.

DB: And that has stayed in my mind all these years, just clear as it was that [inaudible].

BB: Well, you went to Mills Chapel before it became a brick--

DB: Oh, yeah.

BB: What was it before that?

DB: It was just a--made out of one of the [indecipherable] fixed at the--sawed at the lumber mill.

BB: Okay. And what--did you ever live in a log cabin?

DB: Well, no. Grandpa lived in a log cabin when we come out here, and he lived about a--nearly a quarter north of Mills Chapel. And we come out here that fall and stayed with them. And they had a big old log cabin--two big cabins with a 00:20:00big hall went between though, like they build 'em back then, and a kitchen was on the back. But there was two log cabins. They had a lot of log cabins.

BB: The kitchens were separated--

DB: Yeah--no they was built on just a slope, built off from the top of the house.

BB: Yeah.

DB: The house would run like that and they would just run--just like this would be here, and they'd just run that kitchen right on back out [indecipherable] I don't know what they used. Well, yeah, they may have [indecipherable] Surely they had a--one of them outfits, you know, a--

BB: Froe.

DB: Froe.

BB: Froe.

DB: And a maul. And they'd hit that froe there and then go to workin' like that so it'd split them [indecipherable]. Yeah, I'm sure they got 'em.

BB: What-what--how was your house furnished when you first remember?

DB: Very poorly. We had the necessities, what it took. We had--most of the mattresses was made out of shucks.

BB: Corn shucks.

DB: Corn shucks, yeah. You would hear 'em rattling when you turned over, you heard 'em all over the house. And so then most of the kids slept on pallets. We never had over one bedroom until we got--it was later, until--in fact, that's all we lived in that I know of. And most of the kids slept on pallets on the floor. And then we had--there was tents, just with hay and a cloth spread over the hay for a floor, you know. We lived in those, too. Then they got to where they'd box the tent up about [indecipherable], you might've saw some of them. Box a--put a floor in 'em and box a tent--I mean [indecipherable] one of the [indecipherable] and then put your tent over it, you know, and that way you had--down here you had lumber and then this tent was overhead. I remember, 'cause if it come a rain, they wouldn't leak a drop but you go over there and 00:22:00take your finger and just go down like that, wherever you stopped, well that's where that water'd run down in and start leaking.

BB: (chuckling)

DB: Yeah! We got more spankings for that when we were little!

BB: So you had plenty of air conditioning that way--

DB: Yeah, we had plenty of air conditioning, that's right.

BB: Did your--I assume that your mother made your own soap? Made your--

DB: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, she made all of our soap and, and she almost--well, she did make a lot of the clothes as far as us and the girls clothes, you know. And she made a lot of our shirts. And she--most of 'em was made out of flour sacks. And then they got to--if you remember, they got to where they got pretty flour sacks. We made everything out of 'em, then.

BB: Yeah.

DB: Pretty flowers, you remember? Yeah.

BB: How did she do her laundry? And did you have to help?

DB: No, I didn't--other than carrying, drawing water, haul it out of the well and carrying it and keeping water in the pot--you know, they used to--well they'd use a rub board on a bench. And then they had a--some water sitting there in another tub that they would rinse them in. Then they went in to a big--one of them big old black pots and boil 'em. That's where they boiled 'em, they used a stick to boil 'em, I mean--

BB: Punch it down. Punching stick, they called it.

DB: Yeah. A punching stick, that's right.

BB: Yeah.

DB: Broom, looks like a broom handle.

BB: That's what it was!

(laughing)

BB: Yeah, 'cause we had 'em too.

DB: Yeah.

BB: Okay, did you do your own butchering?

DB: Yeah.

BB: Both hogs and beef, or--

DB: No, we never did, we never did kill our beef. But there was people around in them days--and they found out something that was really good--if they was gonna kill a--they used a cow, they never used, they never used young stuff--they'd take a cow that was pretty poor, just run down, you know? Put her up and fatten her and right quick and you had the tenderest meat that you--you couldn't buy meat like that. But just all that meat was put on right just fast, see, and it was really tender. And then they'd put it in a wagon, put some brush over it and keep the flies off of it, the son would take off around the country and you'd go out and tell 'em what you wanted, where you wanted to get it, and they'd take an axe and cut it off from that old cow.

BB: Well.

DB: Now they quartered it before, so they could handle it, see.

BB: Was your primary meat pork?

DB: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Mama used to cut up--I know one time, the most I ever knew of her cuttin' up was four twenty-gallon lard stands full of lard. And that year 00:24:00we had six hogs we cut up that weighed average 600 pounds apiece.

BB: Now, how did you go about storing them? Butchering them and then storing the meat?

DB: Well, you take a--which, as you know, with--

(laughing)

DB: We'd always had a smokehouse and--which is generally made out of logs, and there would always be a bench in there and you put your--first you went in there with your fresh meats and you salted down, just covered it in salt, and the ham shoulders--there was all of it, you know. And then after that, what they called 'took salt,' why then give it a good washing and--with warm, soapy water--dried it good, and then put that--well they had a salt, a curing salt, and you could 00:25:00either get it with sugar in it or you'd put the brown sugar and rub that all over them hams and on--you remember how good that ham, that gravy was?

BB: (chuckling) Sure do! Okay, you want to tell us how grandma rendered the lard?

DB: Yeah, in this big pot I was telling you--in this big pot that--

BB: Did she render it outside?

DB: Yeah, outside, yeah, over--outside the fire.

BB: In the big black pot? With the fire built in there.

DB: I stirred that 'til I was--thought my arm was gonna go in a circle after it come off!

BB: Okay. Did you help in the kitchen?

DB: Well, other than wash dishes. Because I began to wash dishes pretty early. Mama, she's always a baby there every year or two. Well, Wayne and I was the closest, as I said, thirteen. Then about every two year it was. They were--so the last one was still a baby, you know, had to be took care of. And so 00:26:00they--I'd--when they'd go to town on Saturday after I got up in size, why, I didn't care about going. Well, I'd stay there. I cleaned up and I washed the dishes and then we always had that cornbread and milk for supper. And I'd do that and I'd have the cows up and feeding done by the time they got home. And then I'd get on a horse and I'd go to town or somewhere.

BB: What was your mother's favorite recipes? Your fav--in other words, the--

DB: Well, I don't--

BB: Other than cornbread. (chuckling)

DB: Cornbread was the main one, I'll tell you for sure. 'Cause she had a--kept a--there was some kind of a milk pie. She'd take--cook pie crust and set--start off that, put that in its place. And then she made it with milk and spices and it's all stirred up, and it got kind of thick, and then she'd fill that pie 00:27:00crust to about half full, and then she set another pie crust down in there and do the same thing, sometimes I saw eight and ten crusts!

BB: Well!

DB: In one pie, see?

BB: I've never heard of that.

DB: And mostly, we liked vanilla flavoring. That's what she'd flavor this milk with when she did it. Ahh, they're great. They just--when that soaks in that crust? And you cut that out and then--'course you can eat it with a spoon or whatnot. But you cut it just like you'd cut cake. And that stuff was all smoked in the--I mean soaked into them, them crusts. And you would never taste anything that tastes better. And she had that then--she could do that, and that was dessert for the whole crowd, you know. The whole family.

BB: What was the difference between stove wood and wash wood?

DB: Well, wash wood was brush, mostly. You'd--the wash wood that we used was small limbs that was too small to cut up in stove wood length and rick up or 00:28:00something like that, you know. But we always'd knock the little limbs off of it then put that in there. And so that's what we used for that. And the stove wood was cut--well, [indecipherable] about twelve inches long and then split into little small sticks--slabs, you know, and--

BB: In other words, your wash wood was scrap wood.

DB: That's right. It was just scraps and--

BB: Yeah, that's what we--

DB: --and Mom used to save wood. Why, she used to save cobs--corncobs, you know--and burn them. We'd go in for dinner--so you'd have to do something quick if you went in to dinner, you know, in order to get back out in the field. She worked right out there with us. And so that's why--that's down there where used them corncobs. They made a hot fire, and made it quick. And 'bout all she had to do was warm up a lot of stuff. Sometimes, she would cook the full dinner and 00:29:00then we'd have our leftovers for supper.

BB: Mm-hmm.

DB: To go with cornbread and milk, you know.

BB: Did she roast her own coffee?

DB: Neh. No, we never did roast it. Always bought the beans, and we had that--one of them kind of square coffee grinders, you know, had the little drawer in it?

[tape distortion begins]

BB: Mm-hmm.

DB: And you can grind that. And you'd grind that--and you'd grind that coffee so much--you'd grind that blame little deal under there and [indecipherable] it looks like--but you'd grind that full every morning for a pot of coffee.

BB: (chuckling)

DB: And then had to put so much milk in it, you know, to drink it.

BB: Didn't go far, did it?

DB: No, it sure didn't!

BB: And she canned her own things--

DB: Oh, yeah, she canned. Oh, everything, I mean! We put sheets on top of the house--or shed-- like the kitchen I was talking about, and dried fruit, apples, peaches, and apricots, and we had a lot of that dried fruit. And then all we had to do was put it in sacks like, maybe like pillowcases, you know, and tie the end up and put it up in one of the rooms or something [indecipherable]--

BB: Do you remember how many cans of fruit you picked? Usually, per year?

DB: The most I know that we canned was 600 quarts.

BB: Goodness.

DB: And that's a lot of fruit.

BB: [Indecipherable]

DB: [Indecipherable] apples, peaches, plums, apricots, blackberries, and [indecipherable] she canned a whole lot of little potatoes, and put 'em in beans, when she canned beans, now she'd put them in beans, there, and [indecipherable]. I remember that year, she had went overboard, and she still had some, so, and she'd give the neighbors [indecipherable].

[taper distortion]

DB: --and she had--forgot what I was talking about, now.

BB: The canned fruit.

DB: Oh, the canned fruit, yeah.

BB: Yeah.

DB: And, but--was her own canning food was the worst and it was 1920 when they'd 00:31:00gone to town one day and she had about 300 cans in the cellar out there at the old place, you know where they moved from? And went home that night and she'd told dad to go down cellar and get a can of sausage. You know, you used to can sausage--put a little grease in 'em, turn 'em upside down so it'd seal the lid. He went down there and somebody had cleaned the cellar out while she was gone to town that day. And all the time that I've lived there, or I mean lived in Oklahoma--that was the first time they'd ever been bothered, anything'd ever been stolen. But you talk about a woman mad, that was one mad woman!

BB: (chuckles) What about home remedies? What diseases and sicknesses did you all have, and she treated?

DB: Well, I most type of the fevers--

BB: How did she treat them?

DB: --Well most of it, for several years when we was kids, was chills. And so we had fever, you know, with them, them chills. Them chills was, was malarial. And 00:32:00quinine was the main--as dad used to say, when they was picking cotton, why we'd all be picking, he'd say, Come on, kid, and get your food, and he'd take out a quinine bottle and his knife, open the blade, and dip--get some quinine on the blade of that knife, put it on the mouth and then we'd take a sip of water to wash it down with. You talk about a bitter taste! Oh, boy! But that's what we had to do.

BB: Did you she give you spring tonics?

DB: Yeah, we had--I probably can't think of it now--

BB: We had black draughts.

DB: Oh, we had that, yeah! That black draught! You're not kidding!

BB: (chuckling)

DB: But there was some other kind of a tonic, was a just really a kind of a soupy stuff, and I hated that worse than--

BB: None of it tasted good! (chuckling)

DB: No, none of it tasted--that asafetida you had around your neck didn't smell good, either, when you went to school!

BB: Did she make you wear that?

DB: Ahh, all winter!

BB: What did it have in it? The little bags?

DB: It had asafetida! You ever smell asafetida?

BB: No!

DB: Oh, Lord!

BB: What's it made of?

DB: Oh, I mean, it's asafetida, I guess!

(laughing)

DB: But you can smell that stuff--I tell you, it's just something. And you wore it all winter, see.

BB: Oh you did?

DB: Yeah! That--

BB: To prevent colds, or what?

DB: To keep off the cold.

BB: Uh-huh.

DB: And you wore it just like you wear necklaces. Strapped around your neck--I mean tied around your neck with a string! And all the kids wore 'em, so you didn't smell 'em, 'cause--

BB: You didn't smell any worse than anybody else.

DB: We all smelled just alike. 'Cause nobody'd take a bath or [indecipherable].

BB: Can you remember the flu epidemic of 1918?

DB: Yeah, that's when I joined the service, was in the later part of 1918. And I 00:34:00was working at Shamrock, and that's the year dad bought the place over there and moved over there, at that last place where he lived.

BB: Let's see, that's what--five miles south?

DB: Five miles south and a mile east.

BB: Yeah. Of Bristow.

DB: Yeah. And so when he moved over there, there was only twenty acres broke out, and we'd just three teams, and so I wasn't needed. So I went to--and grandpa had moved to Shamrock, and I went up there and stayed with them and--until they went to--well I was out in the hill camp barely three miles from Shamrock, but it was in the oil boom, you know, and that's when they were building that there. And I stayed out there, they moved into town and then my uncle and me bought, bought that house and that's the same where I stayed there. And that's where I went--was building rigs up there, and when I left there and 00:35:00went to the Merchant Marines. And joined the Merchant Marines for the duration, and then--which wasn't very long. We didn't really make but one run, and we come in and we sailed--the Oklahoma ship Oklahoma was our headquarters there at--right across from Newport News, Virginia.

UM: Norfolk?

DB: Norfolk! Yeah. And so we was lined up there, getting ready to go on a trip, and take examination before--you had to take a examination before. And there was twelve of us lined up to take examination, and this doctor--which was a sergeant--I mean a lieutenant colonel--and before he got in there, phone rang 00:36:00and he went back and the war was over. They'd told him. Well, we'd enlisted for the duration and he turned us right around and we right around and went to the pay window and got paid off before we ever put on a stitch of clothes. That's how quick they got us out of the Merchant Marines!

BB: Well, when was it that you went into the Army? Before that?

DB: Nineteen--no, I was nineteen after I come back.

BB: Yeah.

DB: From there. We come back and I got to thinking about it, and it was the only time that I'd ever have a chance to go over, you know, to that country, anyhow, and so, they--that army of occupation--remember them talking about the electrical coming over in and, was over in Germany on the Rhine River there for thirty-two months.

BB: Okay, now tell me about this incident that happened in--May 13, 1920?

DB: Well, there wasn't much to it. It's just--all I done was just went out a ways in that waters from out there, jerked off my coat in from out there and got that--picked up that baby, and--

BB: Did it fall in the water or what?

DB: Yeah. It fell, fell out of the boat into the water.

BB: Oh!

DB: And it was floatin'! The river was up, up big. And it was up to the banks of--way, way up there. And so, then of course, when I got--I could get to the bank with it, I had to swim, I couldn't turn, they kept going down the bank, I had to swim at an angle and--with that baby--and so--I said baby, it was about a two-year-old. And so that was what it was all about. And then of course there was many that helped there, to, you know, that helped me out--

BB: Helped get you out, then. When did you come back from the army of occupation?

[break in recording]

DB: --we were talking about the Rhine.

BB: Yeah.

DB: Well, then the next summer, why the river got so low that the [indecipherable] was up normal, I bought a place there, it was four story high and built like a castle. I was gonna make money there, I was gonna rent it out 00:38:00to soldiers, you know, make kind of a rooming house out of it. Well, the outside just kept a'going down and going down and finally dried up and it was sitting there on dry ground! (chuckling) I was sitting there with nothing, just an old house sitting on a dry ground. But anyhow, when I bought that, I first took out forty marks to the dollar. The first dollar I got over there paid--we'd exchange it for German money, got forty marks to the dollar. And then the last one that I changed I got sixteen thousand. But you see, the stuff hadn't gone up any higher. You could buy stuff for the same price at sixteen thousand for the dollar as you could for, for forty for the dollar. And then we was kings, that was all, really rich. And really had a time. And so, you'd get a good meal. Of course it was horse meat, we knew that. But then you could get a good meal for 00:39:00about seventy-eight cents and I [indecipherable] there and I got a shave every morning and a haircut every Saturday morning for inspection, and the highest barber bill I ever paid was seven cents. I kept a room--they'd pull out cards, you got white, blue, and red--and pink. Well, you started at the bottom and then you build yourself up. You got a white one, you didn't have to stand on formation on Saturdays, Sundays--of course, you know, on Sunday they don't have it. On Saturday. You didn't have to be in bed on Saturday or Sunday night, all you had to do was be there Monday morning, you know, for revile. And so I went downtown and got a room in a hotel, there was a sitting room and a little--wasn't a kitchen, but a sitting room and a library and bedroom. And it cost me twenty-five cents a month. So I kept that for, oh, I don't know, several months. And anyhow, she began to talk around and [indecipherable] lip, this that 00:40:00and the other, and I asked one day, what was the matter with her? She said that she was gonna have to raise the rent. And I said, Why don't you? She said, Well, she was afraid I'd leave and that was because it was after the war and the town was full of empty rooms, you know. And she--I asked her how much, I said, Tell me how much? She said, Well, she'd have to have so many marks, I don't remember, but anyhow after that I had to pay twenty-seven cents instead of the twenty-five, you know. And you could get about a hundred miles from Koblenz to Cologne, they had big cathedral, a big cathedral up there. And I used to go up there and we had to leave on Saturday morning so we could stay all night up there and have Sunday to run around. And we was supposed to leave there, leave 00:41:00away from there at twelve o'clock midnight on Sunday night, but the train didn't come in there 'til about 12:30 and of course there's a [indecipherable] in the depot, why those MPs didn't say nothing to you if you didn't bother 'em. But anyway, we just barely get in, take just about around six hours to--for that train to go that hundred miles. We could've picked up every milk can and delivered every empty milkcan and everything else.

BB: When did you get out of the Army?

DB: (pause) Must've been--I just don't know. [Inaudible] I sure don't.

BB: Do you have any idea how many--about how long you were in the army?

DB: Well, I was in the army for thirty-two months--about three year. Three year.

BB: Three year.

DB: I was overseas thirty-two months.

BB: Yeah.

DB: I got a furlough. See, I come home from Germany on a furlough, month's 00:42:00furlough, and then when, when I went back to New York--I was stationed on New Rochelle Island out just about, oh, eight or nine miles, something like that, from New York City, out in the ocean there. And they had--that's where they had the guys come in. That's where they landed, went out there. And so I put in, when I went back, for a furlough on a Sunday--I mean a Friday night. And I was supposed to [indecipherable] some mail to Hamburg, Germany. And I went in, and the major there in the office, he told me, he said, Baker, he said, There's nothing I can do about it, said, These orders come from overseas, and he said, Ain't nothing I can do about it. Well, Monday morning when I was supposed to leave I had my bags packed full of stuff, of course, I took it up there and I--and that's one thing I swore to do, you never go by a blackboard without looking up there to see if he was on duty. And then he knows what to do for the 00:43:00day, [indecipherable]. And when I got up there, I looked up there, and I'd been transferred out to Camp Dixon, New Jersey. [Indecipherable] somewhere, you know, so that's where I spent the rest of the time. That's where I went back on furlough. I was gonna surprise dad and mom and all of 'em on furlough, and I had a pocketbook that the girl over there had got me for Christmas. And I had my money in it--you had to show three hundred dollars, for that's enough to get you from New York home and back. And then they took care of getting to the boat and the boat ride, so you didn't have to pay for that. And somebody got it, stoled it. I was using that--they used them--the lifeguard was blocks, about that thick square, of some kind of foam, and it had that ducking so [inaudible]. And I split one of them and put this pocketbook in there. Well, when we get there I 00:44:00want peanuts. I told the guy I'd pay for it, and we [indecipherable] and he said okay and well, I went to get the money and there wasn't a bit in there, somebody'd got every bit of it. So when we got in there I had to call dad, have him to cash bonds at American National Bank, send to me for I could come home, see.

BB: Well, let's get back to your early days of--you know, back when you were growing up. I forgot to ask you these questions. What kind of socials did you have?

DB: Parties. Just parties. Which were the type--

BB: What'd you do? What'd you do at those parties?

DB: Well, just played games.

BB: Yeah. What kind of games?

DB: Oh, we--the name of them I--don't know whether I can think of that or not.

BB: Did you go to dances?

DB: Yeah, after it got over, but that--that was a type of dancin' that the folks didn't know it, see.

BB: Was it--

DB: They'd let us go to a dance, but we'd go to a party and they'd make music, and of course we would dance anyhow--

BB: Was that what they called swinging games?

DB: Oh, yeah. That's--

BB: Really square dancing, wasn't it?

DB: And then that square dancing, yeah. But I can't remember what we played, one of 'em was you ran a ring around and then you had some kind of cards and you drew these cards and then you had a judge sitting over there and you drew these cards. You hand to him and he would pair you up to somebody, then he was to judge whether--with a girl, see, a boy and a girl. And he was to judge and [indecipherable] you go out to the gate and back, or you do this or that, 00:46:00something like--just some silly thing, see.

BB: Yeah.

DB: And that--I don't know what they called it, but that one, we played that one.

BB: Well, what was the rules on courting?

DB: Well, wasn't a whole lot. Of course you didn't go to courting no ten or eleven year old, stuff like that.

BB: How old were you, and the girls too, how old were they when they were allowed to be out with the boys?

DB: Well, dad never did--he never did say a word to me about--him or mom either one, about when I started courting. Because when we, when we was walking--we'd walk to church over there from that place, and the Smiths lived on the right, one of the girls I was talking about getting killed. And the Sloanes lived up about three quarters of a mile up the other way. Well, I come in, they both was afraid to go home in the dark. I'd have to take this one home, the Smiths home first 'cause that was just a quarter, see, then I'd come back and have to take Ira (ph) home and come back.

BB: (chuckles)

DB: That was every time we went to church, that's what happened!

BB: You walked 'em home.

DB: Yeah, I walked 'em home. And that was where I just got in the habit of it and then Birdie--you remember my cousin, you know, Birdie--

BB: Birdie Dykes.

DB: Yeah, Birdie Dykes. Me and her was just like two peas in a pod. I mean, we was together every minute we could. But a lot of Saturdays, why, I started over there and me and her'd come over to our house. We hunted, we fished, we done everything together. And so lots of times I'd go over there when [indecipherable] night when there was gonna be a party somewhere, you know, and then we'd go to the party and then I wouldn't have to go back across the creek. So it just, it just--for me it just come in natural. And I didn't get a riding horse until I was about fifteen year old. And however, dad would take--we had a little team of ponies, he called 'em 'cultivator ponies,' and he'd--that was after we got to going to dances, you know. He'd take them out at noon, he 00:48:00wouldn't work 'em that afternoon and let them rest that afternoon for us to--me and Wayne to ride to church--I mean to dances.

BB: Did you ever go to a chivaree?

DB: Oh, yeah.

BB: What did they do at chivarees?

DB: Well, they--well it was before, before, what they done before a chivaree! (laughing)

BB: (laughing)

DB: But we never could find out! You know, did you ever know [indecipherable]? Well, we went to their chivaree, one time. Let's see, that was in--in nineteen-and-sixteen. And so, wouldn't let us in the house, we was knockin' on the door and they wouldn't let us in the house, [indecipherable] hollered, Get away from here, and stuff like that. And, so we finally--Ms. Morgan--she owned that, that's her--her place, she opened the door and let us in. And then she had 00:49:00to make them open the door to the bedroom. And [indecipherable name], you know how she'd talk, some of 'em said, What the heck was you thinkin' about anyhow, she wouldn't let us in here? She said, I don't know, but we wasn't thinking about no chivarees! (laughs)

BB: (laughing)

DB: That used to be a big thing. And then another thing that happened--of course, this happened after I got back from the service--you got any more questions you want in there?

BB: No, go ahead.

DB: Well, it was--when I got married, you know that story.

BB: Well, yeah--I want to get, I'll hear about that now.

DB: Well--

BB: How did you meet Edna?

DB: Well, I met her, I went over to [indecipherable name] when they lived south of Mills Chapel on the hill over there and the [indecipherable name] had moved in a quarter north over there, gonna farm some land for Mills. And the first time I seen Edna, her mother come to the door and Edna was peepin' out around her dress. She was standing behind her, she wouldn't--she wouldn't get out where 00:50:00you could see her. And she was peekin' around her, around her lookin' at us, you know? She was about six-and-a-half, seven year old, something like that. And we just grew up together. But we never--no, we had a date, I mean, we was engaged before we ever had a date.

BB: Oh, really?

DB: Yeah. That--

BB: How old were you at that time?

DB: I was--when we got engaged?

BB: Mm-hmm.

DB: Well, I was twenty-two.

BB: How old was she?

DB: Twenty. And she was engaged to Fred Mattox (ph). And so, at that time I was riding with twenty-two girls. Oh, I mean forty-two girls.

BB: (laughing)

DB: And a staff sergeant, and I would write--back then paper was just--as Terry (ph) knows--was just thin as, as a tissue paper. And you could write twenty copies at a time. And I'd write twenty letters--I wrote two letters! Two of 'em got the originals and the rest of 'em got copies!

BB: (laughing)

DB: My buddies would give me their sisters' address and their cousins' address and so I was the only one, really, in the whole bunch that showed any sign of Christianity. And so, the highest school--Sunday school--highest number I ever had in Sunday school was 500. Was right out in the street with, just, right off the street there. And then I got this Mary (ph), I kept writin' to her, and her letters just got--well, like I said, [indecipherable], see? And we'd then, we'd run around together all the time, just in groups. And I never walked her home in her life, and I never had a date or nothin', and so [indecipherable] standin' out and I just cut the rest of 'em, you know, and I just write less often, and I was writin' to her, and I kept a'writin' to Betty Higgins (ph).

UM: I don't think I remember her.

DB: You didn't know her. Well, she never [indecipherable] and he--Levi, her husband--I mean, her brother--was about my age and Betty was--and Bessie was about the same age. And mom wouldn't let Bessie go to parties and stuff then without--or dances--so I went with her, so I decided to go with her. And, well, and the same way, about Higgins, and so--naturally I'd walk with Betty and he'd walk with Bessie, you know. Well, that Betty, she was a mess. But anyhow, to make a long story short, she wrote me a letter while I was in Germany, the night before she got married. I didn't even know they was goin' together. John Morton, you remember him? Well, that's who, that's who she married. And she (laughing)--she wrote me one of the durndest, mushiest letters you ever read! Well, I just fired one right back to her, you know? And John got ahold of it. Man, that sucker wouldn't speak to me for two year after I got back. They got 00:53:00married the next day after she wrote it! They were already married before she got my letter! And I sent that mushy letter! (laughing) Both of us just fun, you know, it didn't mean a thing, I didn't--she was just a friend, that's all she was to me, because she was too durned--oh, I don't know.

Now this might--the schoolteacher was a young schoolteacher there, and so we'd have things to do of a week. Literary on Wednesday night, you know, where we'd have Bible study now. And I'd walk her home, see, now nobody's going over there and I'd walk her home [indecipherable] and I'd come right over the hill to the house. And, well, she was going to give a party to where she stayed. And Betty knew it, and so I went over there to pick her up to go to this party. And I said, Well, [indecipherable] or two. I said, We gotta go if we're goin' get there before this, this party's over. And she said, You're gonna stay here, 00:54:00[indecipherable] you and the party. And I said, No, I ain't either. And she said, Doc, there's a party here. And I said, Well good, just give it--goodbye! I just took off! Because I'd already been invited to that other--she's just doin' that just for meanness, see? And she did, she had her a party that [indecipherable] other at the other party.

BB: Well. Where did you and Edna get married at?

DB: Courthouse in Bristow.

BB: In Bristow? And--

DB: We, we stepped up there, I had a suit at the laundry, and she had the dress up there, we wore old clothes, and we got a little train into Bristow. We changed clothes after we got in Bristow. Her brother went to the--up to the courthouse with her. I followed afterwards. We got married. He took her down and I waited a while, went down, we both went and changed back clothes. Got back on the streets, she went one way and I went the other. And then when she got with the girls, why, of course we was watchin', see, when they got with the girls, why then, I went down there, and we acted just like we'd just met. And so, we 00:55:00rode that train back out home--

BB: Now, which train are you talking about, Dillard?

DB: Huh?

BB: What, what train are you talking--

DB: That little train out from Bristow to Slick.

BB: Okay.

DB: That went down through the country.

BB: The one that the tracks went south of Bristow?

DB: Yeah, south of Bristow and we crossed it down--you remember where we used to cross that railroad track?

BB: That crossed just north--

DB: The other side of Deep Fork?

BB: Yeah, north of the Deep Fork bridge--

DB: That one, yeah, run right through them bottoms on there.

BB: Okay.

DB: And, so there was [indecipherable] farmers down there then, you know, and there was a branch there you could sit on and that was the depot where you waited for it, you know, to arrive. And we went home and we got there about four or four thirty, and so we sat there and talked for a little while and drank some lemonade. I took off for home, and I didn't see her for a week.

BB: (chuckles)

DB: [Indecipherable name] and Georgia Henderson was gonna--they'd been goin' together for years--and they was gonna be the next to get married. Well, I just thought let's slip up there and get--off and go up there and get married, and that's how come we was to not see one another for a week after that, just to keep them from knowin'. And then we really could pour it on 'em when they found 00:56:00it out, you know.

BB: Yeah. Let's see, and you and Edna just had the one son, didn't you?

DB: Yeah. He's sittin' right over there.

BB: Yeah. What's his full name?

DB: (laughing)

BB: Terry--

DB: Terry Howe. H-O-W-E.

BB: And when was Terry born?

DB: When was you born, Terry?

TB: Twenty-eight.

BB: Twenty-eight?

TB: Twenty-eight.

DB: Yeah, in twenty-eight, but what--August the sixteenth?

TB: October.

DB: October, wasn't it? Yeah. October the when?

TB: Sixteen.

DB: Sixteen. Yeah, I [indecipherable] next time.

BB: Alright, now just some questions from out of the blue. Did you ever meet any of the outlaws in this area? Or see of 'em?

DB: No, not that--there was plenty outlaws but--

BB: You didn't--

DB: There was horse thieves and stuff like that when we was movin' out here. Dad had to--got into Indian Territory there, and we had to stick with three wagons. You couldn't make a circle but you could put a round up where you could corral 00:57:00the cows, you know, and watch 'em. And him and them other guys had to take nights about sittin' on in there with a shotgun, you could keep 'em from getting' stole. That's what this--the law advised them to do because, said they really stealin' fast. Of course we were never bothered. Which I guess they knew--

BB: Did you ever hear of horse thieves being executed or hung or anything?

DB: Huh?

BB: Horse thieves.

DB: Oh, yeah, they were all sent to old Judge Parker there at Fort Smith. That's where them horse thieves were, they were all out of Indian Territory thieves horse thieves and murderers and stuff like that was, was sent to, there was--see that, Indian Territory, that was government. And he was a government judge, now, a federal judge. And the only one that was around. And this stuff was all sent to him. I mean, all the people were. And I saw his old hanging tree. Of course it's nearly all dead now, but the bowl (ph) was still there last summer.

BB: In Fort Smith?

DB: In Van Buren. I mean, in Fort Smith, yeah, on there right there on the Arkansas River banks, [indecipherable].

BB: Do you know whether or not the Indians was for or against statehood?

DB: I never did, and I never heard 'em say, they'd never given us no trouble, and--of course, that's all we had to play with was colored people and the Indians, you know. And of course the Indians didn't go to school, and well the colored people didn't, either. There was that little old school house when we first started. But the Indians had a mile and a half north--west of where lived in nineteen-eight. And which is three mile and a half south of town, two miles east, and a half a mile north. You know where that old Indian stomp ground is over there?

BB: Mmm-hmm.

DB: Well, that was a big, big Indian camp. There was teepees all over that place. And they would get big dinners and we'd, we went over there to different stomp dances, you know, and a big time, big [indecipherable]. And we'd go over there and--it was just [indecipherable] fact, when the dinner got ready, the 00:59:00whites eat first and then the Indians would eat, and then the colored people eat.

BB: But everybody was welcomed?

DB: Everybody was welcome, yeah, everybody was welcome, but that was--and you'd tie a horse up out there--well, first [indecipherable], but used to be one at Gypsy? Remember that, when I was talkin' to you about it over there? I used to go there, to tie a horse up out there somewhere. Next morning he wouldn't be there, all you had to do was go down to the barn down there and he'd be in there in the stall area, eatin' hay. They'd take 'em down there and unsaddle 'em. First time they done that, man, we was [indecipherable], we just knowed our horses had been stoled, you know?

BB: You worked in the oil--when did--you worked in the oil fields, when did you start working in the oil fields?

DB: Nineteen seventeen.

BB: And did you--

DB: At Shamrock, the hill camp, Shamrock.

BB: Was it for Tibbens (ph)?

DB: No, it was for the, it was for a private Frenchman that was tearing down oil 01:00:00rigs, buying oil rigs and tearin' 'em down, and then rebuild 'em. They'd--see, they'd rebuild 'em. They'd tear them, make them rigs out of wood, the drilling rigs. Then that would be tore down and them little iron rigs, you know, to pull rod and tubing, oh you saw them all over the country, [indecipherable] come later. And I was sittin' in on top of that thing, in grandpa's cornfield, and he come down there and he said, What in the hell are you doin' up there? Well that scared the dickens out of me, I knowed I was just blowed up. And I got down and he wanted to know where I lived. And I told him, and, he said what I was doin' up there? And I--no, he said, now, You want a job? And, How old are you? And I said I was nineteen. And so he said, Well I can't hire you at that--at that age. And--or I would've been ninetween in a little bit. But anyhow, that's what they 01:01:00[inaudible], so he said, You got anybody up here? And I told him my grandfather lives up there, and he said, Let's go talk to him. Well, he asked him about it and he said, No, I was buildin' rigs, said, Tearin' down that rig. He said, I want him to tear down that rig, so I went to tear the rig down, and I want him to pull the nails and stack the lumber, that's what he told grandpa. So it was alright. That was my first oilfield.

BB: When did you start to work for Tibbens (ph)?

DB: Nineteen twenty-six.

BB: What did you do working for Tibbens (ph)?

DB: Well, you know, it was all rigs then, there wasn't no jack--

[tape ends, beginning of second tape]

DB: --nine, nineteen-nine, on Christmas Eve dad and Wayne and me went to town. And dad was gonna get Christmas, you know, presents for the kids, which was never very much, you know that. But anyhow, got up there and we always had a dime to go to the show, and that was it. Well, first time we met him, You boys 01:02:00(indecipherable) had any money? He knew we didn't any money because we spent it when we went to the show. And (indecipherable) so he give us a quarter. We could not understand that. We met him three different times, and it was the same thing: You boys out of money? Yessir. Give us a quarter apiece. When dark come, why he just took off for home. Well, we didn't know it was gettin' darker than a (indecipherable), see?

BB: (chuckling)

DB: When dark come, well he took off and left us there.

BB: How old were you?

DB: Well, I was eleven and Wayne was nine. Waye--I was--yeah. I was eleven. That was ninetween-nine, I was eleven year old.

BB: And you were six miles from home?

DB: Yeah! And so we didn't know what the heck to do, we was afraid to go home. So Aunt Pearl, (indecipherable) girl, lived--she lived over there in the northeast part of town, where (indecipherable) town is now, in that district 01:03:00over there. And we decided we'd go there and spend the night with her and then walk home next morning. Well, we went by the Baptist Church and they was giving away candy. Christmas tree-had a Christmas tree and there was Christmas lights. Christmas Eve, now. And we went in there and sat down there and got us a bag of candy apiece and then took off for--took off up there. Well, they wasn't at home. And so we (indecipherable) the window up and crawled in there and went and got in bed and her and her husband come in, and we was in their bed. And she saw us, boy, she took the cover off of us and gave out a yell and you talk about coming out of it, we did, you know. So she had us get in another bed so they could have their bed. And we got, took off for home. And then way after 01:04:00(indecipherable), the old man that we lived--or leased off of, he was an old Indian fighter, and he was a mean sucker. So them days, when you got your corn gathered for your--well, if it was betweenst that and your cotton, you know, and then turn your stock into this cornfield so the grazing'd save you feed. Well he told dad he couldn't do it. And dad told him, you know, dad kind of went to town and got him one of those .22 six shooters (laughing). And I looked down there and that old man sat there, back to a tree with a shotgun, wherever he was gonna start putting this fence. So, dad, he slipped around down there and he kept lookin' at him, and finally he convinced his self that that old man was asleep, sittin' there leanin' up in that tree. So he slipped up there with a six shooter and took the gun away from the old man. Then the old man had to--he had one of 01:05:00those spells, he just couldn't do anything anymore. Just, I don't--what, what made him do it, but anyhow. And after he got over his mad spell, why, he said, Oh John, let's get this fence fixed. He come out there and worked right in in helping us fix the fence, you know. Then his son sold the gun after that. Then he didn't have it no time more. So, but, his oldest son--sold it.

BB: Did you have Christmas trees?

DB: Yeah. Oh, we went out to cut 'em.

BB: Yeah.

DB: Yeah.

BB: What--how did you, how were they decorated?

DB: Oh, we'd pop popcorn and we'd make strings, big long strings of popcorn on threads, you know. And we'd go to the woods and get them little red berries and then we'd go put (indecipherable) in the bottoms and there was a little bunch 01:06:00of--there was a little flower, bunch of flowers come up and they'd have the two little red--red crocus--that's what (indecipherable) called 'em. And then there was a winter something, they called 'em. That's when they bloomed was in winter. Of course, it would freeze after the--there was a hard freeze, you know, and we found some of them. Stuff like that, that was the only thing we had. Never thought about buying anything.

BB: Did you exchange gifts?

DB: Yeah.

BB: Did you make your gifts, were they--

DB: Well, yeah, but they--dad, mom, they made 'em, you know. Most of 'em was socks, dresses, stuff like that. And maybe, when dad'd get two little sacks of candy, we'd get sticks of candy, a candy apiece, you know. And they'd get their sacks of them, these little--nickel apiece, two sacks of nickel--course 01:07:00(indecipherable) candy sacks. And that's about the only gifts they exchanged.

BB: What did you use for overshoes in the winter? Did you buy oversh--

DB: Flour sacks wrapped around your feet.

BB: How'd you keep 'em on your feet?

DB: Tied 'em on there with baling wire. Yeah.

BB: That was all the overshoes you had?

DB: That was all the shoes I ever had. We had--a little later, we had rubber boots. You could get around wet with 'em but you better not start nowhere in snow or something, I mean, your feet would nearly freeze off and then (indecipherable). But--see, when it snows, that sack's tied around (indecipherable) (laughing).

BB: I forgot to ask you, where did you take your cotton to be baled?

DB: The Abraham gin here in Bristow.

BB: Here in Bristow? Do you remember how much you got for it?

DB: Well, the first year we got two cents a pound in the (indecipherable). Like I said, it stayed out there all--after all that rain, so it was sprouting when we hauled it to town. But we still got two cents--

BB: How long did it take you to make that trip?

DB: Well you'd start early of a morning. And lots of times you would--later have to cotton gin's got to--see we had seven gins here at one time. And then you'd get in here first thing you're right on Main Street and block up there (indecipherable) wagons he saw on Main Street. Each gin was owned by different people. They both had their--all had their cotton buyers. Well you'd go up there and just park. Here'd come a cotton buyer. He'd dig down in there and he'd see 01:09:00what kind of cotton you had and they'd give you a bid on it. You'd sit there all day 'til they quit bidding on it, and then you had to unload that stuff by hand. And, so lots of times you'd leave where it's three or four o'clock in the morning and get in nine, ten o'clock at night. Just--just how all waitin' up here 'til they sold it, then down at the gin, you had to wait there and they'd be lined up, you know, down there.

BB: And you sold it to the highest bidder?

DB: Yeah, sold it to the highest bidder. And it'd be long line lined up down at the gin. I know dad got so (indecipherable) mad one time, I went with him to take in a load of cotton and we waited, got in line, and so that--there was five or six wagons in line. Like I said, you had to unload it by hand, you know, throw it in them windows. Well I got hungry. Dad didn't come back. And I got hungry and so I drove my team out to the side and went in there and he come back. Well, it hadn't been unloaded and there it was. So it was still in line, 01:10:00you know. He didn't like that much, either.

[break in tape]

DB: 'Course, it was pretty tasteful if it wasn't for the drunks.

BB: What year was this, Dillard?

DB: That was, oh, nine, ten, eleven, along there. And they had--the little jail they had on the east side of the railroad track up there, was an eight-by-ten little cement building. And it had one door in it. Didn't have a window, just had a door that had bars in it. And I never know'd 'em to send nobody to jail in Sapulpa, you know--that's where the murderers and stuff was. It was just drunks and stuff like that. And so they'd put 'em in there to sober 'em up and then they had to work their time out on the street. And that's the way they used to (indecipherable) all the streets (indecipherable).

BB: Were all the streets dirt at that time?

DB: Yeah, they was all dirt. Yeah, they were still all dirt when I left here and went to the service--I mean, went to work for (indecipherable). And when I come back from Germany, why, here was all these big flat-topped buildings and all the streets all bricked--I come almost gettin' back on that train, I thought I was on the wrong--the wrong town.

BB: Do you remember when they were board sidewalks?

DB: Oh, yeah, there was board sidewalks up until they--up until sixteen, seventeen. There was still board sidewalks then. And how--the stores, they was all separate. They didn't build off of the other store, just had one wall between 'em. No, well you could just run down between any of the stores.

BB: They weren't connected.

DB: No. I remember one time, daddy was working at Shamrock, that's before I went up there. On Saturday he'd always bring a quart of Four Rose Whiskey with him. Me and Jay Dykes (ph) and Artie Dykes (ph) and Wes Bay (ph)--that'd be the, make 01:12:00the four of us.

BB: Uh-huh.

DB: And we'd buy--we bought ice cream, we'd spike it with that whiskey.

BB: (laughing) I've never heard of that.

DB: We vomited all over that town--

BB: (laughing)

DB: Old Bill Chrishower (ph) was the Sheriff and I was the only one that had a coat on. Well, when we come out of there I had to have that in my hip pocket, see? And you know, the coats were spread back then? And old Bill hollered at me. Man, I took off down between one of them (indecipherable) buildings, just as I got to the corner up there, he got to the other corner up there, and he hollered and said, Should I getcha? You know, he said, Cover up that damn bottle you got in your pocket! Me and--one time, old Artie, he was just about to finish up a bottle, and threw it. We was--threw it down in the toilet. The toilets back 01:13:00then--we'd go in there and drink.

BB: Outdoor toilets?

DB: Yeah. And so he just started to take the direction of (indecipherable). One of 'em said, Here comes the law. Man he just dropped that right down in that hole, you know. (laughter) He sure trusted whoever--I (indecipherable).

BB: I wouldn't think so.

DB: Ah, boy.

BB: Do you remember the different stores that there were? The type--

DB: Well, we had a mercantile just across the tracks, so. Across the tracks--and then it was about two or three blocks before there was anything else. That was way off down there by the sale. And then Sam Abraham--well, Joe first had the--had the first little--well there was then Joe, he at that time, he was 01:14:00going around all across the town and, you know, you ever saw--maybe you got one--them big old red handkerchiefs, you remember--they used to be that big square? Well, he started, when he come to this country, he started around over stuff all over town, all over the country, walking. And he had them on a stick and he'd have 'em--he'd tie that together, see, in a nice (indecipherable) there and carry it on his shoulder. And his--

BB: What was he selling?

DB: Cooking--stuff for the kitchen.

BB: Oh, uh-huh.

DB: Just stuff-that's all. Just had cooking, cooking stuff. But in a year, went from there to a horse, and of course from that to a buggy, and then to a car. But then there was a little confectionary on the east side there--that's where the guy, that's where I got the first good chewing tobacco. I was eleven then. Dad was working out there on the tank farm with a team of horses. We had a 01:15:00little team of mares and they built them big pits around them tanks, you know, to keep the oil from leaking out--to hold the oil? Well them big horses--the dykes just about that wide on the top, you know, them big horses tired down and the others, they could walk along there. And so my lip then--nineteen ten, eleven twelve, oh, later part of eleven and the first part of twelve--what right there would have a big knot and it come up right there and break, and it'd go from there to the corner of my mouth and just turn wrong side out. And they'd get so bad sometimes and dad wouldn't even let me go to school. And I'd go out and plow all that off with salve on that lip and a piece of cloth over it, and holding that cloth on there with my upper lip, see? Well, dad come home once after he left and went to work up there and I'd finished up farming. He come 01:16:00home on Saturday night--'course he did every Saturday night, of course, he'd stay all night--and he said, Well, dad you get 'er finished? And I said, Yeah. And he said, Well I talked to the boss, said, said You can drive the team and I can work (indecipherable) and I'm ready to get you some crew clothes. So we went up there the next morning--well that night though, Sunday night, Sunday evening, dad called Doc King and he come down there to the office, and he was the one that drew this salve and stuff got for my lip. So he looked at that lip and he said My! Well after he looked at it and turned me loose--and I went on down and rounded up with some of the kids I knew that I was playing with, you know, here in town, so with them--so he asked dad, said if I chewed tobacco. Or used tobacco. Dad said, well, he said, probably like any other boy, why, he was (indecipherable) and stuff like that, said, I don't know, I never saw him. He said, Well, he said, I hate to put any kid on tobacco, but he said, Nicotine is 01:17:00the only thing in the world I know that'll cure that mouth. Said, He's got some kind of a blood disease. He said we've never found out what that (indecipherable) you know, medicine. But he said--

BB: Who was the doctor?

DB: King.

BB: Oh.

DB: Doc King. And so he, he cut that--he got a pound, went in and got a pound of Beech-Nut plug, that's what he used. He cut half into it and give me half of it. Well, I thought he was pulling my leg, you know, and I said, I don't use that stuff. And when he told me what King said, well, of course, first time or two I was so sick I couldn't hardly do nothing but vomit and, well I finally got used to it. He said I'd taken too big a chew. So I guess I started off with--I know I wound up taking too big a chew, my whole jaw's full and here--but anyhow, when that half pound of tobacco was gone I had one little spot right there and I went 01:18:00and got a--he got another (indecipherable) for it, they had them dime squares about like that and they was marked off and then you'd cut one of 'em (indecipherable), looks like a, oh a, well it's just a big handle and you put--lay the tobacco down there and there was a (indecipherable) and this knife, just put it right down and it cuts it and leave the wrapper on it too, didn't cut that stuff--

BB: It wasn't wrapped or anything.

DB: Huh?

BB: The tobacco--

DB: No, no, no, it was just (indecipherable) laying over there. And so that--(indecipherable), I still didn't care about chewing tobacco. And so I found out dad, when he come--it went about middle of school and started getting 01:19:00sore again. It got sore again. And somebody told me--I don't know whether the doctor told dad or dad told me or not, but he said, If you'd rather, when it gets that down, we could roll him some cigarettes then there'd be enough (indecipherable) in the cigarettes to hold it down for a while, and said, What's next. I never could chew tobacco in the house, I couldn't spit and hit a tub, I'm telling you, it was all over the floor. I don't think I ever chewed tobacco and taken--standing in the door, maybe, talking to (indecipherable) you know, when I was working, before when I left, because (indecipherable) got back home, you know, but--

BB: Did you ever smoke, Dillard?

DB: Yeah, I was smoking cigarettes then. I smoked for around, 'til nineteen seventy-two. 'Til--

BB: That's quite a while, wasn't it?

DB: Yeah, and I chewed all the time, too, you know. And--oh, but I worked so much by myself, and you wouldn't--[indecipherable]--but, if you'd get out with a cigarette, or just chew tobacco, [indecipherable] good drink or a good warm kind of water and take you a smoke then take you another drink, well you could go back and work a long time. It was company! Really company. Then after we moved up yonder, I was going day and night when [indecipherable] and I was--I kept a pipe in my mouth. Edna said I just smoked once a day, and that was from morning 'til night.

BB: [chuckling] Is there anything in particular that you attribute your good health to, and your--

DB: I did everything that I wanted and anything I wanted and I've never had a nothing in the world to hurt me, and I've never been a--even when I was, weighed 01:21:00184 pound, you know, when I come back from service, and never had nothing to bother me. And when I was at work in the oilfield, I ate eight eggs nearly every day. And I'd eat one for breakfast and I took sandwiches and then I ate 'em when I come home. And I never, never had nothing to--the only thing that ever bothered me in the least bit--chili. [Indecipherable] if I eat chili, then I'll belch. And that's how, that's with chili. And just a time or two and it's over, you know. But that's the only thing, I never--

BB: Have you ever had any surgery?

DB: Yeah, I had prostate gland trouble. They opened me up from the navel down as far as they could go without cutting things off, you know. [laughing]

UM: [laughing]

BB: [laughing] When was this? What year was it? How old were you when this happened?

DB: Oh, that was when you lived at Wellington. You guys was down there one time and that's the first time that they ever stopped up. And I wouldn't tell you.

UM: [Inaudible.]

DB: When?

UM: About 1965.

DB: About '65. Well, anyhow I, I wouldn't tell [indecipherable]. Boy, I was just a'dyin' nearly then. Just wanted to go to the toilet there all the time, you'd go and not a drop. And so when they left I called Chapman and told him, and he told me I needed to hospital. And I did, gave me a catheter. Well, I got along pretty good after that for a little bit, and then it hit again. That time, well, I wore the catheter for a week and it was a little one, that tube was too dang little, and [indecipherable] leak, and then that turned to crystallize, and that 01:23:00was eatin' me up. And I called to 'em, I said, That durned stuff's eatin' me up, with that little tube in there leakin' down in there. So I asked 'em, they said, Well you know how to take it out, don't you? And I said, Yeah. Well, okay. And anyhow, the next time it hit it was so thick, he said, I'm not gonna take no chances on it. Said, I'm going to Tulsa. Sent me up there, went Sunday evening and the intern come in there before I went to bed, take my fever and stuff from the nurse. And I was having fits. And the nurse said, Well you're not touching him, and she went back and got a doctor. And he come back and he had--he had to drill that catheter in there, then, that pus was so heavy that it just--drilled in--

BB: It wasn't malignant or anything.

DB: No, it wasn't. He finally got through and he told me, he said, Baker, I wouldn't touch that with a ten-foot pole with a knife. He said, I just wouldn't. 01:24:00And I laid there 'til the next Monday morning. Around '65,'67, somewhere around there.

BB: Did you ever have any serious illnesses other than that?

DB: Pneumonia. Well, when I was eleven--when I was nine I had pneumonia. And then that fall I had pneumonia, a pneumonia fever, and started school and had to go back. And that's when I started turning gray. My hair was just black as the dickens and when I was four or five year old it had curls hanging way down here, you know, two in front and three behind.

BB: You--

DB: Mama wouldn't stand the curls, she--

BB: She wouldn't cut your hair, and you were four or five years old?

DB: Yeah! They were never been cut!

BB: Did she ever put dresses on you?

DB: 'Til I was four year old, yeah.

BB: Yeah.

DB: That's the [indecipherable]. I wore dresses 'til I was four year old. And when--[indecipherable] they'd make fun of 'em, about my hair one time. And I did have pretty hair!

BB: And it came down past your shoulders.

DB: Yeah! It hung way down here, you know.

BB: Black and curly.

DB: And mom and dad rode right in one evening, they'd been down to Indian Springs, went home and they was gonna chop a little piece of cotton over there, finish up cotton or something. And of course, I wasn't big enough then to, you know, go and work the field. And boy when they got out, I got them scissors and I got a hold in there, I chopped it off just as fast and hard as I could up there. And this side the same way, you know. We couldn't get the--

BB: So you--

DB: I thought mama was gonna have a fit when she come in there.

BB: [chuckling]

DB: Lordy, lordy.

BB: So you got rid of your long hair, right?

DB: Yeah. That's right. I sure did.

[break in recording]

DB: They say they--all the murderin' all that time was--I was, we's crossing the railroad track one time, I heard a shot. And Webb--Harrison Webb had shot one of--hmm. Fugate (ph). He shot the Fugate (ph) boy. They got in a fight, and this 01:26:00Fugate (ph) boy was coming at him with a brick. And he shot him, up there by where--oh, I'd say where that Western store is there, oh, where over--can't think of [indecipherable]. But anyhow--the boot store up there.

BB: Red Bird.

DB: Huh?

BB: Where Red Bird is?

DB: Yeah! Red Bird. And it was right in along about there.

BB: And that was the only murder in Bristow?

DB: That's the only murder that was--and then it was about, since 19-5, that'd be about nine, eight or nine years.

BB: Uh-huh (agreeing).

DB: And that was the only murder that was committed in Bristow.

[break in recording]

DB: And he got five year in the pen for it.

[break in recording]

DB: And he would hide that whiskey all over town.

BB: Now this was your whiskey peddler.

DB: Yeah! Yeah, he lived right up here. And [indecipherable] Tom liked to have a 01:27:00pint of whiskey. Now you go right up here and look in the such-and-such board, under a rock, it'd be there. And he was, okay, I'll do it. And the depot, in the men's room there was loose board under there. And you'd go up there. And if it was gone or it leaked or anything, go tell him, I mean he'd clean it up. Bill Baker's, he had a blacksmith shop down here, [indecipherable] stuff up there. He's sitting on his--one of those one-wheel planters? Tom come by and he told him, he called out and said, Tom, said, We're about ready to go. Said, I'd like to have a half pint of alcohol. Tom said, Okay, Mr. Bill! He said, When I get goin', just lift that lid there and reach down into there--and he sat right over it all the time, you know.

BB: [laughing]

UM: [laughing]

DB: But yeah, they called him Tom Abraham because he worked for Tom--or Abraham. They called him Tom Abraham. And they'd arrest him and take him to Sapulpa and we'd all--bunch of us'd be out at the depot, you know, he'd say, Don't worry, 01:28:00boys! He said, I'll be back quick as hare, and sure enough he'd come back here. And I don't know whether he paid fines or what, but he always come back here. They never left that guy in Sapulpa.

UM: Hmm.

[break in recording]

BB: [narrating] Dillard was the oldest of the nine children of John H. and Cordelia Overstreet Baker. Both parents were born and raised at Alma, Arkansas. They moved to Indian Territory in 1907 and settled near Mills Chapel. John H. was a farmer. Dillard's father, John H., died in 1965 at the age of 86, and his mother died in 1967 at the age of 87. They had been married sixty-eight years. In 1988, at the age of 90, Dillard was the oldest walker to participate in the weekend Crop Walk (ph) in Bristow. Each year he enters the Wildflower Run/Walk, always finishing the race. At the monthly Senior Citizen's Luncheons--well in 01:29:00April of 1991, Dillard was named Senior Citizen of the Month. And at the monthly luncheons he washes dishes, clears tables, and gets things back in order. Assisting with commodities, Doc helps unload boxes because they are too heavy for the women to lift and there just aren't enough men around to do it, he says. As commodities are delivered he sees that each person is helped when they leave. Senior citizens coordinator Dana Bridgeford said Dillard has an infectious, positive attitude which spreads among the seniors here at the center. At the--today, at the age of 94, he is still a young man with white hair, dancing blue eyes, standing straight and trim, with a sharp mind recalling wonderful stories, belting forth a hearty laugh for shooting a broad smile with a twinkle in his eye and giving a friendly wave of his hand as he briskly walks two to six 01:30:00miles in and around the city of Bristow each day, depending on the weather and circumstances. While walking each day, he says his goal is to visit shut-ins, the elderly, and whoever needs someone to listen. He said, I have the time to listen, and it does people good to talk to others. My life work is to do somebody some good. And he said, I'm just an old country boy and the greatest place I can be is outside.

[break in recording]

DB: And then--

BB: What was roustabouting?

DB: That was pulling rods and tubing and layin' pipe, doin' all kinds of manual labor. And, well that--it all come under roustabouting, you know. Doin' anything 01:31:00that was supposed to be done in the oilfield, the manual labor. And, so then I repaired rigs and I pumped and I was--had that foreman's job at Sapulpa up there, you know, in the thirties--yeah, thirties. And that was just--well, and then of course then was I had a job there for a long time, they building--drillin' a new well and we'd march out and go over there and work it for two or three days, test it, see how much it was makin' and grind the oil out, see what type of oil it was, stuff like that.

BB: When did you move--where all did you live while you was working for Tibbens?

DB: Well, I moved--I moved and I lived in four houses on the old 01:32:00[indecipherable], you know where it is, out south of town. And then I moved over there on the Lucas pumping job.

BB: Where was the Lucas located?

DB: That was six miles south and a half mile west and a half mile south again. Right straight, you turned in right in front of where your grandmother lived over there.

BB: Grandma Foster.

DB: Yeah. And you went south there, you know. Had a big tower over there. And I lived over there. And then I went back to the Tibbens in another house on the west side, and then I was moved from there to a house on the--I mean, out on the east side. And by that time I was repairman. And we'd be called out all hours of the night. If a belt broke on one of the wells, why you had to fix it. And the foreman wanted me to be a lot closer to him, see, he lived there in that old 01:33:00[indecipherable] house they had there, rooming house.

BB: Do you remember the Depression?

DB: Yeah! Let's start there. I lived in Sapulpa when that was--

BB: How did it affect you and your family?

DB: It didn't affect us too much. We, we had--we didn't have no money, wasn't making no money anyhow, $135 a month. But we always had plenty to eat and we always had clothes and, you know, to get gas we used drip gasoline in our cars and I was pumping, so I used the same kind of oil in my car that they used in their engines, so that--we got by thataway. We had our meat, lard, eggs, fruit, canned stuff, chickens, and ducks. And all we had to buy was just the staple 01:34:00goods--flour, and of course we bought meal, then, by then. Bought flour and meal and coffee and stuff like that. My bill--my grocery bill for the four months was $22.80. In the four months I made $20.

BB: That's pretty good. [chuckling]

DB: Yeah! [Indecipherable.] Thing of it was, you had to stay at--you had to spend twelve hours at home. The morning you had to go around and--all your wells. And you had to go up there on the hill there and you could look over the whole [indecipherable] go up there where [indecipherable] lived, you know, and see the whole lease. And noon--and then at six o'clock in the evening you had to make you round [indecipherable]. And all of that, why, I got five dollars a month.

BB: Hmm. Do you remember the dust days in Oklahoma?

DB: Well--

BB: Was there much dust in this area?

DB: Yeah, no, not that I, no--there was a lot of dust, but what I mean, it didn't ruin nothing, it didn't ruin everything. But it was dry, but then there wasn't--there was--we couldn't have been counted in the dust bowl because the dust bowl was further west of us.

BB: Did you know--had you ever heard of Earl, or did you know Earl Halliburton? Back then?

DB: No, I just heard of him. That was all.

BB: Did you ever cowboy?

DB: Cowboy'd all the way from Arkansas to Bristow. I drove twelve head of cattle at seven year old. I drove twelve head of cattle on a mule--this, one of these guys was a horse trader. Every time we'd come to our--of a night, why, I was riding a different horse the next day. And mules--one time, driving a buggy with an old gray horse to it, and then one time a great big old gray horse and his 01:36:00back was just like as swaybacked, you know, but that's the guy that I made the money off of. Big saddle on him, looked oh, he's great. Pull that saddle off from there and he was [indecipherable] just like that, you know.

BB: [chuckling]

DB: Man, then they gave me money to swap back with him!

BB: Did you ever know anyone who rode the Chisholm Trail? Or any well-known cowboys?

DB: No, I sure didn't.

BB: Okay.

[break in recording]

DB: Let's see, got married in '22 and that was that winter of '22. Why, we moved to Pryor. 'Course we went through Claremore and it was probably twenty miles east of Claremore. And so we had two wagons and I drove, of course, the cattle 01:37:00through there and Edna drove a young team of mules, just had been broke, all the way from here plum down there, through Tulsa, you know--

BB: Now, tell us the route through Tulsa.

DB: Oh, we went right straight up where it is now. Right straight up and across the 11th street bridge. That was the only one that was there. Wasn't any more bridge across the Arkansas then. And eleventh street went right straight on north.

BB: Was it a dirt road?

DB: Dirt? Oh yeah, everything was dirt roads up there then. I guess maybe some of the main streets, I don't know what happened up in the main part of town, but I mean that was--yeah, it was, it was dirt roads. And then we went--when we got to reach the side of town, on the north side--well it would probably be the east side, then we went north about, oh I don't know--several blocks and then straight into Claremore. And then you went straight in to--to--what's it called, 01:38:00I said--

UM: Pryor.

DB: Pryor, yeah. From there. And come a snowfall, we was going, and we spread our tarp over some limbs and Edna and [indecipherable] and I slept in one bed, moved a mattress down there and all three of us slept in the bed that night. And so they had no trouble, just no trouble at all, there was cattle going right down eleventh street there.

BB: Eleventh street in Tulsa.

DB: Yeah. Yeah. And then, got up there and, well I come back to Bristow then and I was gonna farm. I bought a team of mules and--

BB: How much did you have to pay for 'em?

DB: Oh, I paid $120 for the team. And dad had an old hack he didn't think could 01:39:00stay together, that I got up there with, and he was [indecipherable] to use it, and I drove that thing--got in it and drove that mule from here to Pryor. I made it in two days. And of course I used--I parked most of the night both nights, but what I mean, I just stopped one night from the time I left here 'til I got in. And I never will forget that, I stopped at--well I don't know where it's named. I stopped in Bristow and got a pint of whiskey, 'cause it was pretty chilly. And so [indecipherable]. Wanted to know what in the so-and-so I was doing out at four o'clock in the morning. And I went out there, and I told him I wanted some whiskey. And so he got up and opened the door and just went back to bed and said it's over there in that sack. Said, Get you a bottle and get the 01:40:00hell out of here, I want to go to sleep! And he wouldn't let me pay for it. Well, the next morning I got up and where I'd put the hay--I slept on the ground, you know, in the hay. And there was a sleeve, a black overcoat sleeve, just enough that I could see it out from under the hay? And man, I mean, it was a brand new overcoat. A heavy one, layin' there that somebody'd put that hay down and slept on and just left that hay there, you know. And then forgot their coat. And I was glad to see that coat. I picked up a guy, and he hadn't had no breakfast. And I'd eat breakfast before I left there. But I asked him, and he didn't have no--just a little jacket on, and it was, like I said, it was chilly and I had on this overcoat I'd found. And I asked him, I told him, I said, I got some whiskey, you want a drink? Oh boy, yeah. He took a drink of it and then after a while, he said, Can I have another drink of that? And I said, Yeah. 01:41:00Well, we got to Claremore and we went by a restaurant there and I told him, I said, Now, let's go in and get some breakfast. 'Cause it was getting up, oh, pretty close to noon. No, he said, you ain't buying me no breakfast, he said, Boy that whiskey made me all right, he said, I'll get home now. [laughing] So he--he wouldn't let me buy him that meal.

But it--then, to match that, I was coming from Pry--from Claremore one time, I mean Pryor one time, in an old car, and between--we got there at Claremore, getting gas, and a guy stepped up and he says, Where you going? And I said, Bristow. And he said, Going through Tulsa? And I said, Yeah. Well, it was two hours before the bus was coming in. It was hot, boy. And we started out. He passed me--I mean the bus passed us about halfway between Pryor--Claremore and 01:42:00Bri--and Tulsa. We'd had 'em one flat after another and a'havin' to wait 'til it cooled off 'fore we could put a patch on it, and so, we--

BB: What type of car was it?

DB: Had an old Chevrolet. And old solid--I mean wooden wheel spokes on it, you know, then--

BB: Wooden spokes on the wheel?

DB: Yeah. [indecipherable] And so I told him, I come out and told him, I said, Catch that thing, boy, and go on in. Nooo, he said, I started with you, I'm gonna stay with you. And he did. We didn't get to Tulsa just at dark. We was from just around noon sometime until dark, getting from Claremore to Tulsa. And--

BB: Because of flats.

DB: Yeah, on account of flats, yeah.

BB: Do you remember how many you had?

DB: No, I know that when the boys pulled it off, R.D. Dykes (ph) and Wes 01:43:00Christian (ph), they drove to town and back and so they had two flats on there, and they were [indecipherable] talking machine needles. They couldn't find out what it was doing, see. And so, and there was twenty-five patches on that tube. Little patches on there. And then--that was what they put on there, see. So it must have twenty-three or twenty--twenty-two or twenty-three, something like that on there.

BB: I meant to ask you while ago, Dillard, you made your own sorghum when you were a kid--

DB: Oh, yeah.

BB: Can you tell me how you made it?

DB: Well--

BB: A lot of people don't know, you know.

DB: You stripped the cane--you have to--

BB: You raised sugar cane.

DB: Yeah. And that was that yellow ribbon, that's what made the best, clearest sorghum. And so you'd strip that thing--stuff--and you'd take the leaves and put 01:44:00'em together, a bunch of 'em, and hang 'em, climb with one leaf and hang 'em on the ear of corn. I mean on the--lay it on the ground by the [indecipherable]. And then you went down, you cut the tops out of 'em. Then you cut the stalk--it was just a stick. Just a sugar cane stick, that's all it was there. Then you rode it in, take 'em by the wagonloads to the mill, which was an old press pulled by horse and mule, and they took one guy--they'd pile 'em up out there. Pile it up. And they took so much sorghum for making 'em. It didn't cost you no money, it was just kind of a barter system all the way through back in there. And so then they took--the guy finished his sorghum, I would have to carry the cane to the guy that was putting it in the press. He had--he sat on a block of 01:45:00wood there with the press and he would put that cane through there one stalk at a time. Well that juice would come out and run down there and go in a bucket. And then it took another one to carry that bucket away. And of course you had two, you know, he'd set one down and take that--take it away. The guys was making a sorghum. They had 'em in the sorghum pan and he had--that had doors to it--I mean, well, just what they called 'em--but anyhow this solid piece would run across over to here and then there was a little door where you pulled that down, and when you started in this last, the first one there, they'd cook so long there. You had a strainer, guy with strainers on each side, and they was straining that stuff off all the time as they went down and that took so long there, they'd let it in to the next one, and it took so long. And then he'd 01:46:00strain that. And then he'd let it down and they had four of them compartments.

BB: Didn't it have a foam on it that you skimmed off?

DB: Yeah. And we had to take that sugar cane, get one of them stalks, you know, and peel it? And boy, it was just sweet, you know. And then we'd stir it around in them, that foam that they had in that can, whatever, in there, and lick that off. Boy!

BB: [laughing]

DB: That was really something. But we used to use about, around thirty to forty gallons a year.

BB: A year.

DB: Jim Dowdy's folks, he had the four kids, they never bought no sugar. No, they used sorghum for everything. Put in their coffee and cakes, everything they made was made with--sweetened with sorghum. And they used--they used a fifty-two gallon barrel of it every year. From one making to another.

BB: Hmm.

DB: But you can't buy it now. Now, then, they can't get help. They take the seed 01:47:00of it, but the leaves are left on. They can't, they can't get nobody to work for what they can afford to pay, see. That's what's called strip it with a paddle. Them leaves a'hanging down there, and you just--that paddle, you just give it that right down one on each side, you know. And that'll cut them leaves off. And so that--

BB: I know when you were eating the--sucking the sugar out of that cane, you could cut your lips real bad.

DB: [Indecipherable.] You sure could! Well, I'll tell you! And if you left a little--a little piece of that outside on there, you know, that'd just cut the dickens out of you! It sure would! Yeah. But there's nothing like it. And it was healthy--I mean, the iron is in that stuff, you know, and this--oh, it was really healthy.

BB: Well, what's the outstanding memory you have of Grandpa Baker?

DB: What grandpa? Dad's dad?

BB: Well, yeah, dad--your dad's dad, uh-huh.

DB: Well, I never was around him a whole lot. He--he moved down here in 19 and 3. And he was the one that moved--I was talking about him living in that log house?

BB: Mmm-hmm.

DB: And so that's where we, where we stayed that first winter when we come [indecipherable] that I was talking about.

BB: And see, he was born April the 16th 1852 in Tennessee, wasn't he?

DB: Yeah. Right. And that--as far as--that's all I know. Is when he was born, there. And I never did know him before I come to Oklahoma.

BB: Yeah, he died January the 17th 1937 in Shamrock.

DB: Right.

BB: And then your grandmother's name was Julia Ann Creekmore.

DB: Right.

BB: She was born October the 12th 1859 in Whitley County, Kentucky.

DB: Right. No! She was born in Shamrock! I mean, died in Shamrock.

BB: I mean born in Kentucky.

DB: Yeah, born, yeah. I was--yeah.

BB: Yeah. Do you have any outstanding memory about her?

DB: Oh, yeah, she was a great old grandma, I'll tell you. She--she never went to school a whole lot. She had all them boys and then all the mens' clothes was that heavy, oh what is it? It wasn't outing (ph), it was twill kind of stuff, you know?

BB: Ducking?

DB: The mens' clothes. Trousers was made out of. And that's what she used to make quilt tops and bottoms for. And put that cotton in there and sometimes she had--then she'd put another one of them in between. She'd put three of them together, see, and then sew 'em together. It'd weigh about twelve pounds. And 01:50:00you couldn't hardly turn over under 'em. And but anyhow, she always loved to--chewing tobacco. And so grandpa, if he ever knew it, she didn't know it. She kept it in a bucket hanging over her stove, a little bucket up there. And I used to go, she'd run out when he wasn't around, well I'd run over to the store and get her--her chewing tobacco for her, you know. And I--I just--after I moved, after I moved to Shamrock in 19 and--1915, yeah 1915, yeah. Well, I wasn't around her too much because went to school in the winter and there was farming in here, you know, and--but after I went to work up there at Shamrock, why I was 01:51:00up there in about three mile of 'em there, they lived in town then. And so I was down there a lot. And she was just a swell old gal.

BB: And your dad, John H. Baker, was one of fourteen children, right?

DB: Yeah. And six--six that died that's not on record, got no record for it.

BB: Let's see, how many brothers and sisters did you have?

DB: I had seven bro--six brothers and two sisters.

BB: Okay, and you lost your wife when, Dillard?

DB: Twenty-fourth of May 1990.

BB: Nineteen-ninety. And how have you been spending your time since then?

DB: Well, I've been looking after old people, shut-ins, sick people. Goin' to 01:52:00the hospital, I made three trips to the hospital.

BB: Don't you go to the hospital about every day?

DB: Well, no, I don't have time to go every day. The only way I can do that is to go to the nursing home is to make the circle and come and go to the nursing home as I leave the hospital, you know. And now, if there's somebody out there I know, why, I go every day. But if there's somebody out there that I don't know, if I don't know any of 'em, I try to make it three times a week and then there's always some new people there. And nine times out of ten, you'll run into some friend that's out there in the beds, you know, sickly. That's why I like to go out there because I hate to get the paper the next day after some of my friends has been in the hospital for a week and goin' home, not knowin' nothin' about it, you know. And then these people here, these women, about ninety-six percent of the people I visit is women. And some of 'em, they got high closets, like in 01:53:00these places here, they come in with their groceries and stuff, they put 'em on their high shelves, none of 'em can reach 'em. And half of them is not allowed to raise their hands over their heads because on account of heart and different things that's wrong with 'em, so I go in and I put their groceries down where they can get 'em and if they don't feel good I wash their dishes and I scrub their floors, I rake the yards, I--

BB: Are any of them older than you, Dillard?

DB: Huh?

BB: Are any of them older than you?

DB: Naw!

BB: [laughing]

DB: Naw, now they drop down in the eighties from where I'm at.

BB: [laughing]

DB: Oh, Doc Chapman--I mean, not Doc Chapman--Kelly.

BB: At the bank?

DB: Yeah, he introduces me as 'the guy that takes care of the old people.'

BB: [laughing]

DB: But I love it. That's--it's true. The only thing about it--just like one morning here, I got a call at six o'clock from west eighth. And I beat it up there. Well, that day I got to the--Bell's (ph) restaurant ten minutes after twelve for breakfast. And I asked 'em, I said to her, I said, Can you fix me a breakfast? She said, I sure will. Said, Did you have breakfast? I said, No. So she just fixed me up--

BB: What do you, what is your av--average, what do you usually eat for breakfast, Dillard?

DB: Well, my average breakfast [laughing] if you've got room enough to put it down [laughing]--my average breakfast is two or three slices of toast, or three to four small biscuits. Two eggs, that they're medium. One of the big eggs and 01:55:00two slices of bacon--beef bacon--and a bowl of oats and [indecipherable] and a glass of milk, cup of coffee with raisins in my oats. And that's about what I nibble on for breakfast.

BB: [laughing]

DB: And I've been doing that for years, I mean. [Indecipherable] and Dr. Chapmans would say, Stay in there, whatever you're doin', keep doing it.

BB: It sure hasn't made you gain any weight.

DB: That's--no! No, they tell me about the [indecipherable] effect. I'm not worried about no fat.

BB: [laughing] Let's see--and your real active in the Christian Advent--Advent Christian Church.

DB: Yeah, I'm an elder out there, also a lifetime deacon.

BB: And you sing in the choir, don't you?

DB: Yeah. I sing solos.

BB: Yeah. That's great. And you walk every place you go, don't you?

DB: Yeah. And anyway within three mile, that is, if I go anywhere within three 01:56:00mile I, I don't take no rides. And when I take my six-mile walks I don't--it's not a six-mile walk if I ride any of it, see. So I don't--the only time I'll ride is maybe if I've been out workin', comin' home, and somebody'll stop, You want a ride? Or I'll go to the grocery store and have maybe a bunch of groceries, carryin' 'em home. While, they'll stop and I'll ride on occasions like that, but when I'm out for a walk, I--I just don't ride, that's all.

BB: You've been traveling quite a bit the last few years, haven't you?

DB: Yeah, yeah, I've took a little ten day trip out to Michigan. And--

BB: Didn't you fly someplace in an airplane out there?

DB: That's out there, yeah. And then I went up again this winter when I went out there. There was about a three--three-inch snow one night there in 01:57:00Wiscon--Minnesota, and Betty's husband is in the airplane business and--he's got five of 'em. So he--up that morning and he said, Well, Dillard, said, This would be a good day for us to go out and go up and see what we can see. We went over there and he pulled out one of them danged little old airplanes, one-engine. So we got in there and he stepped on--turned the key on to start it and the back was just dead as the dickens. Well, I thought they'd run off for breakfast, see, and he called up there and they come down and filled him up with gas, charged that back end, and we took off. I--he was--us--I'd got out and he did too, of course, and he said, Well, let's go, and I thought, I don't get in that thing, I want to get in that thing or not and go up with a dead battery, and he went [indecipherable] and he said, Battery don't have nothing to do with this thing runnin', said, All that does is start it!

BB: [laughing]

DB: So, we was up about three hours and it'd snowed, saw snow. And, so we're 01:58:00coming--it's up there, he said you could see three snows--three states from 3,500 feet where we were at. And got down and he said, Well you can tell 'em that you saw eleven thousand square miles of snow today. And I--that's all we saw was snow. We didn't see a bare foot of ground nowhere. And then one day we got in that thing and went 170 miles for dinner! That--we was all [indecipherable] way out there on the prairie and all it was out there was just a big old restaurant. And of course there was an airfield oh, half a quarter or something up back of there. Just that restaurant sittin' out there by itself. They had parking places like you mark 'em off for cars, you know, and I mean they pulled in there and parked in there. We got ready to go back, you have to--need a kicker to kick him off it would take off. [laughing]

BB: [laughing] I forgot to mention this, but didn't you play baseball when you were young, Dillard?

DB: About fifteen year. Well, I played longer than that. I started in at twelve and I played 'til--well I quit playing when, when--oh, I played up 'til forty-something, I don't know, in the forties.

BB: What would--you had--there was nine in your family. You had, there was nine of you children--

DB: Nine of us kids, yeah.

BB: Yeah. What were their names?

DB: Well, there was Dillard--

BB: Your name is Dillard Roy, right?

DB: Right. And Bessie, Marie--Bessie--

BB: Gertrude.

DB: Gertrude, yeah. And Marie, and then Marie, Oval (ph). I don't remember what 02:00:00Marie's--if she had a middle name or not.

BB: Ophelia.

DB: Ophelia, right. And then there was Oval (ph). And his name was Oval Lee. I don't--Oval, yeah Lee. He didn't have--there was Wayne come next in. Wayne come next to me, there, you know. I've left him out, didn't I?

BB: Mmm-hmm. (agreeing)

DB: He was, well his other--Wayne L. Wayne L. He didn't have a middle name. And when he went to the service he had to have a middle name. And so he gave them Lee. He forgot about Oval (ph), Oval's name of being Lee, so we had two Lees. Two brothers that's named Lee. And so that--and then there's Clyde. And I don't 02:01:00know his middle name.

BB: Alexander.

DB: Yeah, Clyde Alexander. I never could remember Alexander. That--don't hear it often enough.

BB: Let's see, and you are the first one, two, three-the first five of you were born in Arkansas.

DB: Arkansas, yeah. The rest of us in Oklahoma, Creek County.

BB: Then there was Virgil, Argil, and Basil.

DB: Yeah.

BB: All born in Bristow.

DB: Mmm-hmm.

BB: Okay. Okay is there anything else that you'd like to--a story or anything that you'd like to add to give people a picture of the early days of Oklahoma, or your early childhood?

DB: Well, about the only thing I know is first, about the state, they was--this 02:02:00part of the country was all prairie. There was the biggest old trees, you see, around the creeks and stuff was all trees. And well, Bristow, they had a few just a tree there, and you know, Oh this tree has been set out in there. And all this scrub oak there that you see between here and Shamrock, I remember, that was solid prairie when we come out here. It's just scrub oak, you know, ever since then. And, well we had an old bridge out south of town and we had a big Indian camp just a mile south of town out there, just back on the other side of Deep Fork? There was teepees all over that place out there. And--

BB: Were ya'll afraid of the Indians?

DB: Nah. We was raised with 'em, see. And there was [indecipherable], I was raised with 'em. And, well, Dad and I was comin' to town one day and we crossed the creek down below where the bridge is now, forded it, and they'd had a big to-do up there the night--well, it was the end of a big stomp dance deal. And 02:03:00there was an Indian layin' there and a hog eatin' on his face.

BB: Oh, gosh.

DB: And Dad went up there and told 'em about it. 'Course they didn't know about it. And he went up there and told 'em about it, and told 'em, said, he was going in, if they didn't agree to do something, you know, go down and get him, he was going to send the law out there. And they said they'd sure get him. Well, when we come back by there, he was gone.

[end of recording]