Carole Ellis

Interviewer: Georgia Smith

Interviewee: Carole Ellis

Other Persons:

Date of Interview: November 12, 2020

Location: Bristow, Creek County Oklahoma

Transcriber: Abby Thompson

Organization: Bristow Historical Society, Inc.

Original Cassette Tape Location: OHP-2020-09 at 00:00 to 64:15

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.

GS: This is Georgia Smith with the Bristow Historical Society in Bristow Oklahoma, and this interview is part of the Historical Societies ongoing oral history project. The date is November the 12th, 2020 and I am sitting here with Carole Ellis at the museum depot who is going to tell me a little bit about her history in the Bristow area. Now, could you give me your full name Carole?

CE: Hi Georgia

GS: Hey

CE: My full name for the Bristow area is Carole Greer Ellis.

GS: Okay, what was your name at birth?

CE: Carole Lynn Greer

GS: Okay, and where were you born?

CE: I was born in Baltimore, Maryland

GS: Were you born in a hospital?

CE: Yes, I was

GS: Okay, and what was the date of your birth?

CE: February 26, 1945.

GS: Okay, right in the war almost, at the end of the war. What were your parents' names, and we'll start with your mother first and her maiden name?

CE: My mother was from Baltimore, Dorothy Elizabeth Rigel (ph), my father from Bristow, Merle Leroy Greer.

GS: Where were your parents married?

CE: I have no idea, my father was in the navy and he was stationed in Maryland at the time when he met my mother, and they were married in Baltimore.

GS: Okay, you know when they were married?

CE: About a year or so before I was born.

GS: Okay, 43' or 44'

CE: Yes

GS: Okay, what brought them to Oklahoma? Probably that he was from here.

CE: My father's family was here from before statehood, his mother was born in a sod house in creek county and her dad, Edward Wyatt, created one of the first 00:02:00rural schools in creek county.

GS: Oh awesome! I find out so much I didn't know. How many children did your parents have?

CE: Two

GS: Okay and what were their names, or are their names?

CE: Well myself and my sister Gale Lease Lawson (ph)

GS: What did your father do for a living?

CE: My father worked for the post office.

GS: Okay, most of his life?

CE: Yes, he did, he retired from the post office and so did his father.

GS: Oh, what did your mother do?

CE: My mother was a dental assistant, and did dental education in Bristow schools

GS: I remember your mother and the kids would always come home and say "The tooth lady came to see us today"

CE: That's right, and of course she was involved in starting the historical society.

GS: Yes, yes she was. What is your-- are you married?

CE: No

GS: Okay, have you been married?

CE: Yes, I have

GS: What was your spouse's name?

CE: Jerry

GS: Jerry--

CE: Ellis

GS: Ellis, okay. And what date was that, that you got married?

CE: Oh gosh, it's been so long ago. I don't really remember.

GS: Okay, did you divorce?

CE: Yes, we did

GS: Or was he-- Okay. Did you have any children?

CE: No

GS: Alright. Tell me about what your life was like at home when you were a young child.

CE: Well, when I was a young child, I still have some childhood friends that are still here, Sherry Hill (ph), Sly man lived across the street, Claudia Parish--Parish family lived across the street, we lived near the football field. We played a lot on the football field after football games, we walked to Edison 00:04:00elementary school, growing up here my life was in nature a lot, you know, we walked around the town, went to the schools here, had close friends and their parents were friends with my parents. We were all involved in the churches and the schools and the swimming pool in the summer, and riding horses in fields, being out in nature. And art, always doing art of some kind.

GS: Sounds like a delightful childhood. What kind of house did you grow up in?

CE: First we were in something called veterans apartments, which I think were near the football field where I think people were returning from the war. Now my father was in World War II, and the Korean conflict he was called back, I remember that time because my mom was really sad and he left us before we were 00:05:00home. And then they started building a new housing edition on South Cedar street, and we watched a house being built there and moved there.

GS: Okay, what are some of your favorite toys as a child?

CE: My crayons

GS: I knew you were gonna say that. Carole is quite the artist. What kind of role did your mother play in the home?

CE: Well mother was--she baked a lot of things, she made the house look beautiful, but she was also a working woman.

GS: And how was your laundry done?

CE: In a washing machine, but I do remember going over to my grandmother Greer's house and seeing a big sink in the basement and there was an old washing machine 00:06:00that had a wringer, you know those wringer things

GS: Yes, but yours did not have a wringer

CE: No it didn't

GS: Okay, what kind of cooking stove?

CE: Gas

GS: Gas cooking stove. What were some of your normal daily meals?

CE: Cheerios in the morning, lunch at the elementary schools where the cooks made the best food whether there was Edison Elementary or when we moved across town to Washington Elementary, and those wonderful cinnamon rolls that they cooked in the morning and you smelled them in the school while you were doing your morning classes. And then while it's close to thanksgiving time now so we would've gone to my grandmother's house and there would've been a big turkey and lots of homemade dressing and pies cooling on the back porch and homemade rolls, 00:07:00lots of them because the family was big. My father had five brothers and sisters and everyone came to grandmother's house with my cousins. And the big dining room table was laid out and then the kids tables were in the kitchen and in the summer time, homemade ice cream, and the freezers in the--the ice cream makers in the back yard where the kids sat on a palate while the adults churned the ice cream

GS: Did they sit on top of the ice cream freezer?

CE: Yes, you sat on top of the quilt of the ice cream--on top of the ice cream freezer.

GS: Do you have any of the family recipes from your childhood that you still make?

CE: No I don't, but my grandmother made incredible mashed potatoes, which I tried to do myself with lots of butter. You have to have lots of butter in mashed potatoes

GS: Oh yeah, that makes them much better. Where did you--where did your family shop for groceries?

CE: Well, at the time I grew up main street had a lot of stores, among it were some small grocery stores on main street itself. And so I remember going to that store. Also at that time, grocery stores delivered sometimes. It's funny now with the pandemic that we're actually reverting back to the older ways of having groceries delivered to your house.

GS: This is true

CE: I think--I think Safeway was here then.

GS: What were your daily chores?

CE: Summer, mowing the lawn. Laundry when my mother was working and washing and drying the dishes, and washing the car in the summertime with my sister.

GS: Oh, I always thought that was fun. Did your family ever employ any household help?

CE: No.

GS: What type of clothes did you wear?

CE: My mother was always very good about keeping us up with the latest things, so it was nice.

GS: So probably store bought clothes

CE: Yes

GS: And you already told me who some of your childhood friends were, what about some of your childhood games that you played?

CE: Well the Newton's were big friends too, Peggy and Billy Newton. Games, monopoly, I wasn't a big game person, I was more of being an outdoor person

GS: Well maybe outdoor games

CE: Well, hide-and-seek in the summertime till it got dark then the neighborhood kids had to go inside, swimming of course in the summertime learning how to swim, and walking, going to day camp, day camp was just--first day camp for Bristow schools was started when I was growing up and we all went to day camp.

GS: Was that at the--was the swimming pool called the Silver Plunge back then?

CE: It was, and the day camp was in what were the--the city has the buildings now but those buildings--

GS: Were the camp

CE: Where they used to have the county fair and county buildings.

GS: What was your daily life like? Just to--a day in the life of Carol Ellis when you were a child, Carol Greer?

CE: Well of course on Saturday when we got TV finally, you would watch some of your favorite shows like Zorro or go over to the neighbor's house and watch Winky Dink, which had a Wink--Sherrin had a Winky Dink set which was something you bought from the TV people and you put this little screen up on your TV and Winky Dink would have adventures and you would have a little pencil that you would draw little bridges or--

GS: Oh how fun

CE: You would interact with the story

GS: And that was right up your ally.

CE: Well that was fun

GS: Yes, I'm sure you enjoyed that. Okay you just mentioned television, do you remember the first television you got?

CE: I do, because it was a family decision. We had to decide whether we wanted to spend money on getting bicycles or television.

GS: And television won out

CE: It did

GS: Did you have radio before that?

CE: Yes

GS: And did you all listen to it in the evenings much?

CE: All the time

GS: All the time, yeah. Okay we're gonna switch to your grandparent's now

CE: Okay

GS: Do you remember hearing your grandparents describe their lives before--let me back up, what were your grandparent's names?

CE: I was a very fortunate child that I knew both sets of my grandparents and my great grandparents

GS: That is, I don't get many of those on the interviews

CE: So my fathers parents were Earnest Greer (ph) and Willa Wyatt Greer (ph), and my--they, daddies father was from Mounds and of course my grandmother was born here in Creek county. My mother's parents were Dorothy Elizabeth Troxel (ph), she was born in Maryland, and Thomas Charleston Brigle (ph), my mother's father, and he also was born in Maryland.

GS: Okay

CE: Then my--I knew my great grandparents Brigle and my great grandparents Giden, all in Maryland. And then I knew my great grandmother Wyatt (ph) who was my grandmother Greers mom, and her sisters and all her sisters, she had three, lived to be older than 95 years old.

GS: Wow

CE: And my grandmother lived to be 100, and all of them had their wits about them

GS: That is wonderful

CE: That's true.

GS: Do you remember who the oldest person in your family was when you were a child?

CE: My great grandmothers

GS: And--

CE: Great--grandfather.

GS: Okay, do you remember anything specifically them saying about life or anything?

CE: I remember what they did

GS: Ok

CE: My great grandmother Giden and they had this wonderful two story house and they held us outside of Maryland and whenever we would visit in the summer times, the house number one was quiet. The only sound in the house was the ticking of the clock in the living room

GS: Wow, mhm.

CE: And the--there was a water pump on the back porch and a beautiful stream near the side of the house and she raised beautiful lilac bushes and flowers and she had banty chickens, so when we would visit for vacation time, she would cook--she was a great cook, and the thing I remember most was she would make pancakes after the dinner after we arrived and then she would put chicken gravy on the pancakes in the morning.

GS: Oh my goodness

CE: And that was very delicious. And my great grandfather Giden had lost his arm shooting off fireworks

GS: Ohh

CE: Just below the elbow, but he never let it interfere with how active he was in driving the car, or whatever he did. And he had a really wonderful 00:15:00personality, he would sit down on this old screen covered porch with us as grandchildren and we'd sit in these wonderful wicker rocking chairs and watch the trains go by.

GS: What delightful memories I love those.

CE: All my grandmothers were good cooks.

GS: Ah, I think most grandmothers back then were good cooks

CE: They were very good cooks

GS: Where did you first attend school? We're gonna jump now to.

CE: I first attended school here in Bristow and I went to Catholic kindergarten. The catholic school had a kindergarten

GS: Yes

CE: And I went to kindergarten there.

GS: Okay

CE: Then Edison elementary, Washington elementary, Bristow Junior high school, Bristow high school graduated.

GS: What year did you graduate?

CE: 1963' then Oklahoma State University, graduated in English, started my masters in English and OSU, stopped that when I decided I didn't think I knew enough to write a dissertation, and then I started working in the libraries in Oklahoma City, then I went to the university of Oklahoma and got my masters in 00:16:00Library Science. Completed that, then went to work at the state department of the libraries in Oklahoma City, and did public relations, and then I went to New York city and worked in Publishing and public relations and at that time, that's when I got involved in the art schools in New York City, even though as a child I'd always done art and when actually I was here in Bristow, growing up there was an art teacher named Peadee Smith (ph) and Peedea gave art lessons in her house and a lot of us kids took art lessons with her. And then Gladys Holcombe (ph) was the art teacher in elementary school at Washington, and so she was very influential both Gladys and Peadee.

GS: Did they, back then, switch like 6 months at Washington and 6 months at Edison?

CE: Oh no

GS: Like they do today?

CE: Not at all, m-m. No you went there all the time, it was a neighborhood school.

GS: Okay

CE: You know; this was a small town. You walked to school, wherever you lived on which side of town doesn't matter whether you went to Edison or Washington, and you walked to school. And it was not kindergarten, but first grade through sixth grade.

GS: Were you a member of any clubs or organizations or sports?

CE: Yes

GS: In high school?

CE: In high school. Pep club, speech and debate, future teachers of America, Latin club because we studied Latin, two years of Latin, and I was involved in everything.

GS: That's wonderful, that's what kids need to do. Was the high school used for any other community purpose back then that you remember?

CE: No

GS: Did you take a sack lunch or did you eat in the cafeteria?

CE: There was no cafeteria in the high school

GS: Okay

CE: And there was no cafeteria in the junior high school

GS: Just the elementary?

CE: Just the elementary schools, so junior high I remember I'm not sure quite what we did there. We'd walk home, I mean it was nothing to walk home, or we would take our lunches, they had lunch rooms where you--people who brought their lunch ate their lunch. And then whenever we were in high school we came down town and went to the cafes.

GS: Do you remember anything in particular about the classroom, or were teachers strict back then? Easy going?

CE: We had incredible, incredibly educated teachers. If you look in our 00:19:00yearbook, over half our teachers had master's degrees at the time in their field

GS: That's wonderful

CE: We had a library in all the schools with librarians. There was natural light in the classroom, the windows opened and stairways, you go up and down beautiful marble staircases in high school. Our teachers had command of what they taught and were legendary. I mean my father had teachers I had and my sister had those same teachers. Those teachers were here for twenty, thirty, forty years. You know, educating all of us. I remember Mrs. Fosters English classes, legendary, 00:20:00loving learning how to diagram census and having to watch Shakespeare on TV as part of our assignment for a week once those programs happened, and I really missed having art classes after elementary school, they didn't think art was important.

GS: They didn't offer it as an elective back then?

CE: Nothing, nothing at all.

GS: That's a shame.

CE: So I started writing more and yeah I longed for it, I missed it a lot.

GS: I'm sure you did, I'm sure. Okay we're gonna switch to church life. You mentioned that you all went to the churches; did you attend a certain church as a child?

CE: We went to the First Baptist church

GS: And is it the same building that is now at sixth and chestnut?

CE: Yes, it is

GS: Can you describe any of the services?

CE: I think the services as a young kid you don't remember

GS: No

CE: I think you remember, I remember the beautiful stained glass windows, having little pencils in the pews so I would draw pictures on the bulletins, I remember 00:21:00the wonderful choir music from the youth choirs and the adult choirs, I remember the wonderful dinners in the church basement, I remember the Sunday school teachers who might have you over to their house, who would be especially nurturing, I remember wonderful socials in the summer where you'd have delicious cakes that everybody made and homemade ice cream. So that's what I remember about churches.

GS: Were your parents involved in the church?

CE: Yup, my parents were involved in everything

GS: Did your mom sing in the choir?

CE: No

GS: Okay, or your dad?

CE: No

GS: Okay, what were the weddings like back then?

CE: Well everyone went to Harvests (ph) Jewelry Store to register what kind of china and silverware pottery they wanted

GS: Uh-huh

CE: There were big wedding dressed and bridesmaids and grooms and--I think much too much was made of getting married after women got out of school or college, although at the same time they were beginning to gear us as women for professions, that wasn't the overall message of the society at the time. That's when it was really beginning to change.

GS: Yes, the turbulent sixties. What was medical care like when you were a child?

CE: My mother was diligent about taking us to the doctor to get, you know, a 00:23:00vaccinations or whenever we needed to go then my mother was always very medically inclined.

GS: Do you remember any of the doctors or your family doctor?

CE: Sure, my family doctor was Dr. C. T. Kent

GS: Okay

CE: And I remember his whole family, yes I remember him very well. I also remember, yeah I remember him very well and his family.

GS: Did they make house calls or did you need to go to the office?

CE: I also remember Doctor King, my great grandmother Wyatt's doctor

GS: Yes

CE: Dr. King made house calls

GS: Okay

CE: And Dr. King made all kinds of house calls in the country and everything. In fact, I remember one time, I think it was [Indecipherable] someone would set, you know Doctor King was that kind of country doctor that you went out to see the patients no matter what, no matter what kind of weather or what--and he 00:24:00would always use one of the water towers as a guide to getting him back home.

GS: Oh my goodness

CE: You know the water towers weren't always here

GS: No

CE: I don't know the history of them, but they weren't always

GS: No

CE: But I remember that story. Another great thing about living in a small town or any place were you are for a while, even if you leave then come back, which I did and gone for a long time, you learn stories that tied other stories ten years ago, twenty years ago, and it's always an interweaving of the stories that we tell, which is really the great thing about having oral history

GS: It is a wonderful thing about it, and I can see that in these interviews interweaving and looping, I love it. Did we have a hospital in Bristow back then?

CE: I remember the old hospital which was behind where the homestead clinic is today, was on 8th street, the Siscler (ph), I think it was Siscler I think that 00:25:00was the name of it. I remember Kay James was born there cause my mom went to be with Laban (ph), my mother and Laban were good friends, I remember going to the doctor there and sitting in the waiting room there, and then of course the new hospital was born. And the new doctors building was built, which is where--Doctor Kent's office is where the creek county health department is now.

GS: Okay. Do you ever remember being hospitalized as a child?

CE: When I was a senior in high school, that summer I started getting terrible pains in my belly, and then I would just double over almost, and they couldn't--doctor Kent couldn't find out what it was so my mother took me to Doctor King, the old doctor that my great grandmother had, and he was in an 00:26:00office upstairs on main street. I remember walking up the old stairs and he started thumping on my belly 'cause older doctors would thump on your body and they would look at your fingernails, they would examine your body carefully. And he would make an X where I said 'ouch' or something, and then he connected them. He did this with an old fountain pen.

GS: Wow

CE: And then about a week later, Saint Francis hospital had just been built, and he told my mom, my parents that he was sending me to a young surgeon and the young surgeon decided I needed to have surgery and they did surgery when I was--a week after I was football queen

GS: Ohh

CE: In high school. And at the time you were there almost two weeks

GS: Oh my goodness, did they find out what it was?

CE: Yes, appendicitis and a few other things

GS: Well it's wonderful they got it before that appendix burst

CE: It is

GS: My goodness. Do you remember any of the businesses downtown? You've mentioned some grocery store, there were several, do you remember any others?

CE: Okay, I'll start on the west side. Beginning at Edison elementary school, there was a MedalGold (ph) place that was in where Oscars lunch place used to be

GS: At ninth and main

CE: Bushes Café, where Mrs. Bushkin (ph) made great homemade everything, there was a locker where people who butchered their cattle or brought their chicken frosted--chickens and their cows

GS: Just south of the last--Bushes

CE: Bushes

GS: Just south of Busches

CE: No, no. Yeah, south. Then there was Strongs, and then there was the Stanford Clothing shop, and then let's see, there was a Ford Hardware store on the corner, and then there was--and then I remember Woolworth (ph), ton of fun, Patens (ph) next to Woolworth, more fun for kids since it had toys and everything in there

GS: Between seventh and eighth street

CE: Right, and then the banks. American National bank, and then the small grocery store was kind of between sixth and seventh, between right up here near sixth street

GS: Sixth and seventh then probably

CE: And then Shamus's

GS: Yes

CE: And let's see, oh Redbird, the shoe store

GS: Yes, yes

CE: I mean that was between sixth and--

GS: I think

CE: Fifth

GS: Fifth, yes

CE: Okay; no, sixth and seventh

GS: Okay

CE: Yeah, okay. And then let's see, Tropes Service Station (ph) which was out on the highway, so--Oh Harvest (ph) Jewelry was on the west side, Silvers was on the east side, Kemps drug store on the east side, the movie theaters on the east side, the Princes Theater and the Walmer (ph), The Hamburger King at the end of the corner

GS: Did you ever eat there?

CE: No, that was an adult place.

GS: Oh okay

CE: We ate at the Dairy Queen that first came near the railroad tracks and you got your first ice cream cone with the chocolate on top

GS: Oh yes

CE: Oh and then there was the Ice House

GS: Yes

CE: Across the railroad tracks, so that's what I remember

GS: Okay, that's pretty good. As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

CE: I only knew what I liked to do, I didn't have an idea of like "I want to be this". I know I loved to do art all the time, and I loved to write and I loved to be outside. In high school I thought about being a teacher, but I was really loving writing and debating and being in plays, they had--the speech teacher had to really rope me into debating. But once I did learn to do it, I liked it and I love plays, doing theater. And dance, oh yeah I forgot that part. When we were in the first and second grade, Wanda Newton had a dance studio in her house

GS: I did not know that

CE: With a bar and the mirrors and everything, so all--a lot, every little girl in my group of girls, we took ballet in town for several years. And we continued to dance our whole lives with Wanda, kind of like Jennifer is now. When we got 00:31:00older in high school, the future teachers we would put on dance skits and Wanda would choreograph them and we would have male dance partners. So we were dancing all that time too.

GS: Oh that's wonderful. How did you decide, well let me back up. What did after you became an adult, what were some of the jobs that you had?

CE: When I was at Oklahoma State University when I was studying my masters, I was a teaching assistant, I taught freshman English for several years there. And then I went to Oklahoma City and I got a job being a public relations officer 00:32:00for the state department of [Indecipherable]

GS: Now you've mentioned your love of art, how did you interweave art into your lifestyle?

CE: Well at different times it came out. I think I didn't really realize how missing it was in my life until I went to New York city after I left the department of libraries in Oklahoma City, I went to live in New York City and worked for a publishing company, children's book publishing on 5th avenue.

GS: Okay

CE: I see it's red

GS: It's still doing good

CE: Okay, and so I was taking care of my neighbors plants and I came upon this book called The Natural Way to Draw, and it's a classic still that's used by the art students and I began drawing again [Indecipherable] things in that book, and 00:33:00then I met this artist in Central Park from Spain, a painter from Spain, and he--I really loved his paintings, the first time I was really in an artist's studio, all these beautiful paintings he was doing and everything, and I wanted him to teach me how to paint. Also when I was studying here with Pete, when the first time I ever touched oil paint or paint I loved it, loved how it smelled, loved mixing it up, I loved everything; brushes. So in New York, he said "I'm not gonna teach you how to paint until you have to learn the basics, the language of drawing, you have to go study anatomy and life drawing. If you can 00:34:00do that for a year, then you can come back and we'll start painting". So I went off to the National Academy and started studying anatomy and life drawing and it was very hard because I was in my 30s and my drawings looked like I was 5 years old. But after I was there, then I'm like "How am I gonna remember these big long names and skeleton and these people are drawing these beautiful figures and what am I doing?". But after about a month, I started getting this very strong feeling that I was longing to know this, and then the final day of that summer class, we went and I said "You just got to do your best at your drawing" and all of a sudden, this figure popped up on my page and I'm like--and then another one and then another one and I'm like "Where did this come from? Did I make this?" and that's when I got this real strong sense that art was something that I missed in my life a long time and I had studied English, my native language, for over twenty years and that I needed to study art for at least ten years to get myself a basic vocabulary of art and that's when I really got the strong sense 00:35:00of truly being an artist and what it meant to feel that.

GS: Now I know that you've used your artistic talents in the memorial of the Oklahoma City bombing, how did the Oklahoma City Bombing of the Mura building affect you personally?

CE: I think that's two different questions so I'm gonna start the art part first

GS: Okay

CE: You know; art is very underrated in the study of--in the curriculum of schools. There's fine art and there's commercial art. Commercial art is whenever you can just get assignments for clients and it's a business and you make money and you have techniques and you can do what they want, like building a kitchen 00:36:00cabinet. Fine art you never know what your future's gonna be. You never know that it's gonna be based on money or how you're gonna survive. You train yourself in the basics of drawing and painting and anatomy and ceramics and sculpture and art history, and you nurture yourself and you become the kind of artist you're going to become, you don't have a name for it at the time. I gravitated to like a journalistic fine artist because I grew up in a lot of life here in Oklahoma and went to a lot of things in life. I loved to draw live events, I love to paint what I--live things, or if I remember something from something that's happened in my life, it might stay with me so long that I need 00:37:00to express it artistically somehow. So when the Oklahoma City bombing happened--

GS: And what year was that?

CE: The Oklahoma City Bombing happened on April 19th, 1995. I was in New York City at the time, I'd been living in New York since 1974.

GS: What took you to Oklahoma City?

CE: Not Oklahoma City

GS: Or not Oklahoma City, New York City, sorry.

CE: Well I had been living in Oklahoma City before I went to New York City

GS: Okay

CE: What took me to New York city, my life took me and youthfulness took me. There's no rhyme or reason, my life needed to change and I'd been on this national public relations committee, I'd been a very young judge, I had put together public relations campaign for the Oklahoma Department of Libraries, and it won a national award, and part of winning a national award from the American 00:38:00Library Association was ten judges who'd won those awards for that year were brought to New York City in the summer for one week to judge all the public relations efforts of the American Library Association.

GS: And you fell in love with it.

CE: And not that way, no.

GS: No? No?

CE: That was a very nurturing experience, but something about the city itself drew me there in a time in my life when I needed a change in my life and that's what I did.

GS: Very good! Okay so you were in Oklahoma--I keep saying that, you were in New York City when the Murrah building was bombed

CE: Yes, I was and a friend of mine, I'd gone to my local diner where I had breakfast in the mornings, and someone at the counter mentioned to me "Carole, a 00:39:00bomb went off in Oklahoma City at a federal building, what happened?". Well I didn't listen to television all the time or the news either. When I was in New York city, studying art and being part of the life, that was a lot of what I did. And so I said "I don't know". So when I got home, I said "Well maybe the FAA", that's the only federal building I knew of, I remembered and then I went home and a friend of mine called me, a friend of mine who's a classical pianist and told me about the bombing and what had happened and that children were killed and he was very affected by it, and kids started playing music that composers had written for their children, piano composers. And it affected me, learning this. And well I couldn't get through to Oklahoma on the phone

GS: I'm sure

CE: For over 24 hours, I couldn't call my parents or anything. So I just started writing. I just started writing. And I wrote for 24 hours, I mean off and on, the next morning I went to the diner again, I had known then what happened. Then I walked home and that--when I walked home after all that 24 hours of writing, that's when I sat down and wrote the poem, the 19th of--no it's called the 20th of April 1995, cause it's about the Oklahoma City Bombing, but I wrote it the next day. And wrote it almost in its entirety, straight out. And just--and it was as I wanted it to be and then there was kind of like, you know I did those 00:41:00drawings and they popped up on my page from that cabinet. The poem was similar, they often talk about--often times an artist feels like they're a vehicle, you know, for something to come forth from you, and sometimes those things happen and it's very special. And then--then I started, I'd taken the Oklahoma Flag with a small Oklahoma flag, I always thought the Oklahoma Flag was so beautiful. I had it on my wall in my apartment all the time I was there, and then I decided to make a series of drawings with the Oklahoma Flag to go along with the poem I'd written. So I took the Oklahoma flag and I rolled up an American flag I have on one of those wooden sticks and I stapled the Oklahoma flag to it and I 00:42:00carried it first to central part and I sat it down some few places trying to saw it. It didn't seem quite right, but there was this shared knowledge of what had happened in Oklahoma City and kind of a quiet in the city, and people would see the Oklahoma flag walking by and they'd stop. They didn't know, and they'd start talking about the bombing or something. And so I ended up rolling, taking the flag and finding the place in the tulip beds of fifth avenue, nope, yup, the tulip beds of fifth avenue. Is it fifth avenue? I'm not sure, square the streets, the streets are on both sides and the tulip beds go down the middle. And so I started doing a series of drawings of the flag in the tulip beds, and it was April, I continued to draw the flag for almost a year. That's when I started working at the Oklahoma City Bombing and I called it the Oklahoma City Project because in studying, I'm more of a project person too. Like when John 00:43:00Lennon died, I was at Parsons at the time. I first started off with sketches at the Dakota building that night after he was killed. Then I went into Central Park for the memorial service and did a great big charcoal drawing of the crowd. Then I took the feeling of that crowd into making sculpture in the studio at Parsons; clay sculpture, steel sculpture, doing interviews. I knew that I wanted a final project and it took a year before the final project came, which was a 00:44:00painting. Usually when I do a final project, it's kind of like when I wrote that poem. You know, I've written pretty hard for twenty-four hours, couldn't get what I wanted. Then the next morning I went for a walk and got away from it and came back and wrote the poem, same thing with the John Lennon project, I'd been working a year on different mediums and ways with John Lennon, I did John Lennon and the thing is, it stays with you, it doesn't leave.

GS: Right

CE: Okay, and so I knew "Okay I wanna do a final painting" so I put everything away and one day I put all the work away for a couple of days to sort of ruminate and then I made this painting of my three muses walking around with a hole in them. Not gory, but and then on a peace symbol that was on the ground 00:45:00and sort of colors in the sky like a Van Gogh painting.

GS: Yes

CE: And that was the final, that was the final work. And so then you know it's done, so that's what fine art is like. You can't predict it, you just have to be trained in it and trust yourself to know certain things, not give up.

GS: So how did your talent there get applied and how did you become even more involved in the Murrah building bombing memorial?

CE: Oh well that went on for years, and the way it went on was I continued to do the drawings, entered the design contest, came back to Oklahoma a number of 00:46:00times to visit the site for the design contest and whenever I'd come home and visit my family, I would go there because it was still inside working on it and there were different parts of it, it was pretty big. And then I went to the--took me a while before I could go the memorial itself, but I went to the dedication, I think I moved back to Oklahoma at the time just had moved back to Oklahoma. And I was always able to get it--I knew how to get press passes, so as an artist it's interesting--it's good to get a press pass if you can. You know, I did that often times with the Woody Guthrie thing, so I went to the dedication 00:47:00and sat with the CNN film crew under the bleachers and then when they had the first Oklahoma City memorial marathon, I went there I think when Rena was running in that. And local people from Bristow were running in it, Chris may have been one of them too, Chris Watt. And so it's sort of--tried to take it to different places at different times, and it would get a certain way then stop, so I have all this material, huge [Indecipherable] material, and it just kind of came to a standstill after that.

GS: And you've been good enough to share that material with us here at the museum. We were going to do a display of a lot of your material and the communities reaction to the Oklahoma City Bombing this last April on the 20th 00:48:00anniversary but COVID stopped that. Tell me about the--

CE: It did--

GS: And I beg your pardon because I don't remember if it was a television thing, but tell me about that when you had the beautiful dress.

CE: Oh the dress, the blue dress. Okay, well first every year at the anniversary of the bombing, I'm very aware of it so I will always do something just like the initiative for bringing it to you guys at the 20th anniversary was because of that normally when I do that. That time of year is I'm always getting back involved with it. Well after I'd been working on the project a year, after--

GS: And I need to make a correction, that was the 25th anniversary

CE: Okay, that's right

GS: I said 20th but it was the 25th

CE: It was, so--thanks for catching that Georgia. After I'd been working on the project for a year, I had all this drawing and work and [Indecipherable] and stuff and I said, alright, I was talking to a friend I said "I have all this work for you, I'm not sure what to do with it" and they said "Do you know anybody who has--is in television?" well actually because of the first Bristow all school reunion, I had met this man named Jimmy Baker who had graduated from Bristow High School right out here on near the bricks at the historical society, and I had met him and helped him find brick for his family, and we got into a conversation and he was a producer for ABC from Los Angela's back here in Bristow to do the All School reunion, so I remembered him because he asked me to keep in touch with him. So I called him up and said "I have this material that 00:50:00I've written and drawn about the Oklahoma City Bombing, what do you suggest? Someone said if you know someone in television, talk to them about it" so I talked to him about it, and he said "Send me everything", so I sent him--sent it to him a lot of it. And he called me shortly thereafter and said "Can you speak in front of an audience?" and I said yes and he said "Can you memorize your poem?" And I said yes--

GS: It was probably already memorized

CE: [Indecipherable] I remember my old speech days at Bristow High School, so I can train to do those things. And so he said "Well I want you to be an ambassador for New York and come back to the Oklahoma Hall of Fame ceremony in November of 1995", November the magic month here we are. "And I want you and a guy from New York is gonna be honored [Indecipherable] and he'll be coming too" 00:51:00so that's how I got there, I was--he invited me to come in November of 1995 to present the poem and it was gonna be televised on [Indecipherable] it was, it was filmed. And there was a large audience, my parents were invited, it was a huge affair, the Oklahoma Hall of Fame ceremony is a big deal every year in Oklahoma. That and that--so a friend of mine in New York City who knew how to find beautiful dresses at in great places, she graduated from the fashion institute in New York, she found that dress.

GS: Oh it was a beautiful dress

CE: It's a beautiful dress. And so I brought the dress, carried it on the plane, it was a [Indecipherable] plane. So when the [Indecipherable] crew learned what I was doing because there were, they were very touched by it all because one of 00:52:00those [Indecipherable] planes, something happened to it off the coast of New York before Oklahoma City, and so you know I had an all-expenses paid trip, a beautiful hotel--

GS: Wow

CE: My sister sent beautiful flowers in my room, you know you go to the Oklahoma--we had rehearsals in the Oklahoma City auditorium, I had a dressing room with a big star on my door, I had an assistant, and we rehearsed. It was a big show and then I always remember my mom got me the--she got these blue rings to match and you know, Trace Kelly (ph) and Polly were there, people were in tuxes and everything. I remember right before it was time to go out on stage, I always think this is interesting with acting, you remember your lines, you 00:53:00remember your lines [Indecipherable] ready to go on the day and you get real nervous. I remember I looked at Jimmy when we were standing on stage, the stage lights were on and the ceremony was rolling, and I looked at him and said "I don't know if I remember". He looked straight me straight in the eyes and said "Yes you do, you'll do just fine" and he pushed me right out there. In that beautiful blue dress. So that's--

GS: Well I've seen your picture, you looked beautiful in that dress.

CE: So that's where it came from

GS: You did; alright we're going to switch now. I don't think--I think I know the answer to this one, but we're gonna throw it out there anyway. Were your parents involved in politics?

CE: You know, that's a loaded question right now. My parents both voted, they 00:54:00were both registered republicans though my mother would vote more independently than my father. But we were up in, you know, it's better to ask that question about civics I think. You grew up to be a citizen of your community, citizen of your country. You could have great arguments with someone on the other side of the fence, and you didn't mud sling.

GS: You still respected them

CE: You did, and you actually learned that way.

GS: Yeah

CE: Because you learned to absorbed someone's else's point of view or see their side of things without becoming defensive and stonewalling yourself.

GS: Right, right. What are your memories of World War II?

CE: I wasn't born.

GS: That's true, you were just born at the end of it. You said your father served in World War II?

CE: He did

GS: Do you have--what branch did he serve in?

CE: My father was in the navy

GS: Okay, was he on one of the carriers?

CE: Daddy was on the Princeton

GS: The Princeton, I forgot to turn off that telephone, let me do that real quick.

CE: He was on an aircraft carrier.

GS: The aircraft carrier, Princeton.

CE: Right

GS: Okay, let me just turn this off so we don't have that again. Okay, and did he--how long did he serve in the navy?

CE: Again I don't know; I think he went in I think two or three years

GS: Okay, and you mentioned that he went to Korea then?

CE: Yes, he was called back into Korea.

GS: So he had gotten out of the service but then was called back in

CE: He was

GS: Okay, do you know what he did in the Korean war?

CE: No

GS: Okay. What was that like for you with your father gone off to war as a child?

CE: It was scary because you're a young child with an older sister and you don't know, you see your mom being very very sad and your dad leaving, and then you--then we went to live with my mother's parents in Texas, they moved to Texas because my grandfather Brigo worked for Martin Marietta (ph) and we lived with them for a while then we came back to Bristow.

GS: We're gonna switch to lifetime changes. Looking back over all the years, what would you consider to be the most important inventions? Doesn't have to be just one, it can be several during your lifetime.

CE: I remember my grandmother Greer (ph) who lived a good hundred was asked this question, and she said seeing the rover land on mars.

GS: Oh my goodness

CE: Or if it was mars, or the moon, one of them. Whichever. I would have to say that too, man landing on the moon, television, let's see, oh forty-five records.

(Laughing)

GS: Those were wonderful. How is the world different now than when you were a child?

CE: It's a much more defensive world, a more splintered world. I find that quite sad even in this local community. I think this last election has really shown 00:58:00that to each group, and this whole--the last four years, but it was building up to that I think. I think when you believe your own beliefs so strongly that you become angry at other people, I think it builds walls, and there's something about having fences not walls. Fences that you can see through or land that you can see through. You don't have to go along with someone else, but you can be like that--civil to one another.

GS: Right

CE: And nurture your community as a whole so that children, especially so that children don't see such a divided world and see the value of [Indecipherable] 00:59:00your ideas and your philosophies to create a better community for everyone.

GS: I love that, I love that. As you see it, what are the biggest problems that face our nation, and how do you think they could be solved?

CE: One of the biggest problems now is to think that whatever channel or little google thing we bring up--I'm not looking at this--

GS: No I'm just making sure everything's still going well

CE: Whatever social media channel or television channel or place we go to get 01:00:00our opinions, if that causes us to freeze up and hate other people, I think there's something quite wrong with that. That's very detrimental to the whole human being--the value that human beings have for nurturing one another, so that human beings grow and survive in a healthy way.

GS: What do you think we could do to solve that?

CE: I think we each have to take a step back and look at ourselves and see how are we doing that and how are we contributing to that, and to watch ourselves when we get caught up, because we all get caught up. We can step back, but we so easily get caught up again, I do.

GS: Right

CE: And so I have certain things I do every day or every couple of days that 01:01:00sort of I say keep your feet on the ground to help me do that with my own self.

GS: That's good. Is there anything else that you'd like to tell me today?

CE: I'm very glad that everyone at the historical society worked so hard to get the grants in the first place, and to continue to find more grants to fund the oral history project, and for everyone who's worked on it during the COVID time. And that I'm just really grateful for everybody's efforts to add this wonderful element of oral history to our town.

GS: Thank you very much. You've mentioned COVID, how has COVID affected you this year?

CE: Dramatically, I'm not able to give tours at the Gilcrease museum, I'm not able to come here to the historical society and volunteer and sit in the board meetings, I'm not able to go among the people that I'm normally with and sit with them, not everybody wears a mask all the time, especially in our town and it's kind of scary. My sister is in late stage cancer, and it affects whether or not I can go see her or not.

GS: I understand

CE: I'm in the older category of people, so I have to remember that and wear my mask and social distance and wash my hands all the time, and the hardest thing is not being able to see my sister when she was in rehab and not being able to visit people that need you in hospital and rehabs when they're your family and 01:03:00you can't go and nurture them. Not being able to hug people physically when everybody needs to be touched and feel love by hugging or at least seeing our families whenever we want to. Like even now, coming into the office here was emotional. I didn't need to be emotional, but it was emotional because I'm able to sit here with you and have a conversation like we did before March--

GS: COVID

CE: Of 2020

GS: And I have found that to be the case with several people I've interviewed. They have been so thankful for the companionship of someone else to talk to. It's a sad time we're going through. Well Carole, thank you so much for this

CE: Thank you Georgia, this was a pleasure

GS: I have learned so much and we appreciate you and everything you've done in our community so very much.

CE: Well I appreciate you too and all that you all are doing to keep this going

GS: Thank you Carole

CE: Alright

GS: Alright then.