Description:
Arcille Doakes - Richardson talks about growing up in rural Oklahoma.
Transcript:
Interviewee: Arcille Doakes-Richardson
Interviewer: Sandy Richards
Date of Interview: 11/13/07
Sandy Richards: I have with me today a young lady that I’m very, very excited about talkin’ to, and she’s givin’ me that look! And the reason that I’m interviewing her today is because she and her family comprise a very special part of Oklahoma history and I wanted to be sure and get her story on record. And uh, though this is not specifically geared to my fairgrounds project, I just thought that it would be exciting to sit down and talk with you. And I want you to tell me what your full name is?
Arcille Doakes-Richardson: I can’t leave out just one? [laughter]
SR: Whichever you wish to leave out. I gotta have the main one and the last one.
ADR: Okay. Arcille. A-R-C-I-L-L-E. Uh, my maiden name is Doakes.
SR: Mm-hmm.
ADR: D-O-A-K-E-S. I’m well known around Tulsa because I was living there so long and married so long there to my late husband who’s—
SR: Okay, and what was his name?
ADR: Brown.
SR: What was his full name?
ADR: Oh, let’s see. What was his full name. Booker Phillips [spelling?] Brown.
SR: Booker Phillips [spelling?] Brown. And he was your late husband?
ADR: Yeah.
SR: But, um, not too long ago, you recently remarried.
ADR: Sure did.
SR: And what is your last name now?
ADR: After 20 years—
SR: Mm-hmm.
ADR: --of livin’ alone except for ‘til my mother died—
SR: Mm-hmm.
ADR: --I met this wonderful man and we had, uh, telephone hospital courtship.
SR: Telephone hospital courtship. Well, that’s a, that’s an unusual one. [laughter]
ADR: Well, uh—
SR: And, and, when, when was it that you met him? How long ago? Approximately? Four?
ADR: Approximately, four years?
SR: Um-hmm.
ADR: Approximately four years ago.
[Unidentified male [presumably George Melvin Richardson]: Yeah, four years.
ADR: Will be five years in July.
SR: Will be five years in July. Okay, and what is his name, your new husband?
ADR: Uhh, his name is…I call him Melvin.
SR: You call him Melvin?
ADR: Um-hmm.
SR: Okay. And, but his full name is? George Melvin?
ADR: George Melvin Richardson.
SR: Richardson. George Melvin Richardson. Okay. And he’s your new husband of almost five years, that’s so exciting. Tell me, what is your birthdate, Miss Arcille?
ADR: October 3rd, 1917.
SR: October 3, 1917. Amazing. You, you are just absolutely beautiful.
ADR: Thank you.
SR: And radiant. At, at a sparkling 90 years. [laughter] Absolutely wonderful. I’m, I’m so, I’m so blessed to be here sittin’ talkin’ with you today. Okay, now what, where were you born?
ADR: I was born in Wagoner County, Oklahoma.
SR: Mm-mm.
ADR: Uh, the, the settlement there, rural, about five miles north of Muskogee. It’s called Wybark. W-Y-B-A-R-K.
SR: Uh-hmm.
ADR: And I was—
SR: Wybark, Oklahoma.
ADR: Wybark—
SR: And where was Wybark located?
ADR: Wybark was located, uh, out of Muskogee across the Arkansas about one mile.
SR: Across the Arkansas River?
ADR: Uh-huh.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: It’s only about five miles from Muskogee.
SR: Okay. From Muskogee?
ADR: Uh-huh.
SR: Oklahoma.
ADR: Yes.
SR: Okay. Now—
ADR: But I was born on the Wagoner side [unintelligible] Muskogee County is on this side, Wagoner County’s on this side.
SR: Okay.
ADR: I was born on the Wagoner—
SR: On the Wagoner side of the road. Okay, okay. On the Wagoner County side of the road.
ADR: Um-hmm.
SR: Okay. Now, um, the, the name of your parents?
ADR: Lilly Gray [spelling?] Doakes—
SR: Mm-hmm.
ADR: --was my mother. And Kaiser [spelling?] Doakes was my father.
SR: Lilly May.
ADR: Lilly Gray.
SR: Lilly Gray. Is her maiden name. Lilly Gray Doakes. And she was married to…Kaiser.
ADR: Kaiser.
SR & ADR [simultaneously]: Doakes.
SR: Do you have any information on who your mother’s parents were? Do you know who they were?
ADR: Only what she told me.
SR: And what did she say.
ADR: Uh, they were…uh…let me see, what were they?
SR: Were they born in Oklahoma?
ADR: Yes, uh…they were more Creek--
SR: Indian?
ADR: --and white, with enough black that they identified black.
SR: They identified as black, that so they were white, their, their ethnic background was white, was Caucasian, Creek Indian, and, and black.
ADR: Mm-hmm.
SR: Okay. And they had enough black in them to be identified as black people.
ADR: Yes, they, they identified black. My mother didn’t look black, but she was black.
SR: What did she look like?
ADR: [unintelligible] me to put that in there.
SR: Okay. Um, but she was very, very fair complexioned—
ADR: Very fair. Uh-huh. She had, she, she was ordered off the, you know how we, we were “blacks sit here”--
SR: Segregation? Um-hmm.
ADR: She was ordered out of the white coach. To the, out of the black coach to go to the white coach.
SR: Okay.
ADR: She wouldn’t move, she said “No, I’m black.”
SR: Okay. So she, she uh, embraced her, uh—
ADR: Well, she married my daddy. [laughter]
SR: Okay. And your daddy, okay, and, and, um…do you have, do you have, do you know her parents?
ADR: No, I didn’t know my grandparents.
SR: Okay. And then, uh, and, and, where was she born? Your mom? Do you remember?
ADR: Uh…as far as I can, can recall, she was born somewh-, somewhere bet-, in that area.
SR: Area where you were?
ADR: Um-hmm.
SR: Okay. And what about your father? Do you know the names of your father’s parents?
ADR: George and Amanda Doakes.
SR: Okay.
ADR: They are from Kansas.
SR: And they’re from Kansas.
ADR: Mm-hmm.
SR: Alright. Now, do you have siblings? You have brothers and sisters?
ADR: I did have.
SR: You did have.
ADR: I had two brothers, they’re both gone.
SR: Okay.
ADR: [unintelligible] I should say.
SR: They’re passed away. Mm-hmm. Alright, now we wanna talk a little bit, I want you to relax now, we’re gonna talk a little bit about your growing up in Wagoner County and Okmulgee. Muskogee? Okmulgee.
ADR: Ok- well, I lived all three places—
SR: Oh, okay.
ADR: --but my main, my connection with Muskogee was that I was only five miles from there. I, I even went to grade school primarily in Muskogee County because the school was right there; the Wagoner County school that I was supposed to be in was way on the hill, up the hill—
SR: Oh, it was farther away? So, you went to the nearest school?
ADR: And I went to the nearest school and nobody ever told on me, I got to finish the eighth grade there.
SR: Oh, so you went from the-- did they have kindergarten? Or first grade? Or what was it like?
ADR: My mother, father moved to Kansas City when I was eighteen months old.
SR: Okay.
ADR: And stayed there…until my father came back to farm.
SR: In Oklahoma?
ADR: In Oklahoma.
SR: Mm-mmm.
ADR: When I…and I, and my mother sent me and my two brothers to my father on the farm.
SR: On the farm. In Oklahoma.
ADR: When I was nine.
SR: When you were nine years old.
ADR: I started to school in Kansas City.
SR: Okay. And so you went from…so you, you completed up through the eighth grade. Do you remember the name of the school?
ADR: It was just Wybark Elementary School.
SR: Just Wybark Elementary School. And elementary went up through the eighth grade at that time?
ADR: I finished the eighth grade, then I went to Muskogee to Manual Training High School.
SR: Manual Training. I remember Manual Training. Because, Manual Training was one of the rival high schools that Douglass High School—
ADR: Played football.
SR: Played football. Did they then, when you were in school?
ADR: Uh-uh.
SR: They did!
ADR: Yeah!
SR: Oh, that’s remarkable!
ADR: We won the [unintelligible].
SR: I know! And Oklahoma always wanted to kick—[laughter]
ADR: Yeah [unintelligible].
SR: Oh, my goodness! I, I, I didn’t—
ADR: Not only that, my daughter did too.
SR: Okay. I, I never thought about, yes Douglass was in existence at that time, I knew that the school was established, but for it to be…for them to be, playing football, I hadn’t really thought about the whole curriculum, but yes they did.
ADR: I met my late husband in Douglass High School. We were at a teachers’ association meeting—
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: --and he sent me a note [unintelligible] to get acquainted with me.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: We took it from there and married.
SR: And you met him at—
ADR: Douglass.
SR: At a meeting at Douglass [in unison with ADR] High School. In Oklahoma City?
ADR: Oklahoma City.
SR: That’s wonderful.
ADR: I came to the teachers’ association.
SR: Uh-huh, you came to a teachers’ association meeting—
ADR: I was teaching that time, I taught about two years—
SR: Uh-huh. Now, so after Manual, um Training—
ADR: After I finished high school.
SR: After you finished high school, then you went where?
ADR: Langston.
SR: Went to Langston.
ADR: Um-hmm.
SR: And what was your, what, what, what inspired you to go to Langston, it was the thing to do?
ADR: My mother went to Langston.
SR: Your mother went to Langston.
ADR: Um-hmm. When she was, uh, a girl and she was there under the first president. Page.
SR: She was under the first—Inman Page?
ADR: Um-hmm.
SR: Oh, okay! So she was—
ADR: Ms. Brough. [spelling?]
SR: Ms. Brough? [spelling?] Was she at, what did she teach? Did she teach?
ADR: Ms. Brough? [spelling?]
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: She must have, she was at Langston, I think she was kinda in charge of things—
SR: Okay.
ADR: I just get this straight from my mother.
SR: Okay, ‘cause there was, I’ve heard that name, I’ve heard that name before.
ADR: Um-hmm. Yeah, she’s known around here in Oklahoma City.
SR: Ms. Brough [spelling?] Yes, I’ve heard that name before. And so your mother went to Langston, did she graduate?
ADR: No.
SR: Okay. So she, then she went to Langston and then she chose to raise you—raise her family.
ADR: She preferred working in a garden and she just didn’t want to go to school, ‘cause she had plenty of opportunities.
SR: Tell me this, and this is kind of a, oh, I don’t know what to call this kind of a question, but what, what’s the, the favorite thing that you remember about your mom, about your mother? When you think about your mother, you think about what?
ADR: There’s so many things I can think about mom. Uh…I tell you what makes this difficult.
SR: Okay.
ADR: I don’t know whether you want [unintelligible] recordin’ that. My mother and father--
SR: Go ahead, just talk to me.
ADR: My, my mother and father separated when I was nine years old.
SR: Ohhh.
ADR: And he sent her a small amount of money every month, but it was not enough to take care of us on the, uh, the way she thought we should be cared for—
SR: Mm-hmm.
ADR: --so she bundled us all up and sent the three of us, my two brothers and myself—
SR: I see.
ADR: --uh, bundled us up and sent us to him on the farm in Wybark.
SR: Okay.
ADR: And that’s where I grew up from the time I was nine years old until I was, uh, twenty-one.
SR: Until you were twenty-one. Okay.
ADR: And then I married.
SR: And then you married.
ADR: But I had been to college.
SR: You’d been to college. So, did you grad—and you graduated.
ADR: From Langston.
SR: From Langston. And your major was?
ADR: Biology.
SR: Was biology? Alright. Okay now, I want to go back and talk about some of those farming days because you have, you’ve kind of told me a little bit about, uh, about your father. So, tell me a little bit about him?
ADR: My father—
SR: What was his occupation and--?
ADR: He was a farmer, of course, but before that, we lived in. See, they took me to Kansas City when I was about eighteen months old.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: And he worked for the Santa Fe Railroad.
SR: So, he worked for the railroad.
ADR: And then, his father, my grandfather, George Doakes—
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: --influenced him, and got him to move back to the farm, ‘cause he said we could make a lot of money. Well, that year he did.
SR: That year he did make a lot of money?
ADR: But not long after that, the Depression hit, and he didn’t make much.
SR: Okay. Now, when he went back to the farm, what kind of farm are we talking about?
ADR: Potato.
SR: It was a potato farm.
ADR: The red potato.
SR: Little red, red, new potatoes.
ADR: That, my, he farmed, he grew all kinds of things—
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: --but that was his main crop.
SR: The main crop was—
ADR: And he, the, the Katy built a spur around the farm, and the, the—
SR: The Katy being the railroad line?
ADR: Uh-huh.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: And the freight cars would [unintelligible], we had a [unintelligible] here and we would farm first with a team of mules, and a, a wagon would carry them down here and the people would sort them—
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: --load them, freight car, and then the engine would come around, pull it out on the [unintelligible] and send ‘em to Kansas City and St. Louis and Chicago.
SR: So, oh yeah, I can see where that could be, that would be very profitable.
ADR: Uh-huh.
SR: It was a, was a big business then for your father.
ADR: Grandfather.
SR: For, for your grandfather.
ADR: Well, he, he was there too, my father was there, but he also worked at Taft.
SR: At the training school? Was it boys training school, Taft?
ADR: No. And everything there, because he was a farmer.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: And he wasn’t connected to anyone except farming.
SR: Okay so, and. BP and O.
ADR: DB and O.
SR: DB and O. Which was what?
ADR: What’s DB and O? DB and O? Deaf, B blind—
SR: Ohhh, okay, okay, okay. Deaf, blind and orphaned. And it was children who were in that category. Deaf, blind and orphaned.
ADR: Yes, but some of ‘em were pretty old children.
SR: Uh-huh. That, that, they had nowhere else to go.
ADR: Yes.
SR: And so they stayed there—
ADR: A state institution.
SR: A state institution. And they just stayed there, there in Taft.
ADR: Don’t you know about it?
SR: I remember, I remember, I thought, when I came up, I thought Taft was a boys training, training school. I think that was what it turned into eventually.
ADR: Well they had, they had that department there.
SR: Oh, as a part of the whole—
ADR: And my father, uh, started working there.
SR: Okay.
ADR: He farmed and worked there.
SR: Okay. Now you, now your grandfather’s farm, what kind of—we know it was a potato farm. What, couple of acres? A few acres? How many acres?
ADR: Oh…about sixty.
SR: About sixty acres of—
ADR: Uh-huh.
SR: --of land that he, that he farmed. And what’d you, you told me something about him, about people working for him, they would—
ADR: Uh-huh. They came in from Muskogee and Tulsa and all around. To harvest the potatoes.
SR: To harvest the potatoes. How often? Couple of times a year or what?
ADR: Well, the first, the harvest start about the middle of June, July, and it would last about—now he wasn’t the only potato farmer in the, in the area.
SR: Okay.
ADR: And for a long time, I didn’t know—blacks were working there too.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: But the majority of that land, and I don’t [unintelligible] say this belonged to white—but the, our sixty acres belonged to my grandfather.
SR: Okay. He owned his land.
ADR: He owned his land.
SR: And then—
ADR: And I thought the other people [unintelligible] too.
SR: Okay. Okay.
ADR: Because they were farmers, but they were tenant farmers.
SR: They were, uh-huh, tenant farmers.
ADR: Uh-huh.
SR: Uh, and so they paid your grandfather, did they pay him a certain amount of money?
ADR: They paid who owned the land.
SR: Who owned the land.
ADR: He, my grandfather didn’t own all that land—
SR: All of it, but there were some tenant farmers working on your, your grandfather’s land?
ADR: Uh, the kinda people that worked on the land were the people who worked his land.
SR: Mm-hmm. Okay.
ADR: Not any particular…he paid them.
SR: Um-hmm. Okay.
ADR: To help him—
SR: To work his land for him. Uh-huh. And with him.
ADR: And with him.
SR: Okay. Okay.
ADR: And we used horses, mules and wagon for a while. I can’t tell you exactly when we started using trucks.
SR: Okay. Eventually…so he was in business long enough to, uh, evolve from using the animals to using trucks.
ADR: Uh-huh.
SR: To complete his farming tasks. And I suppose equipment?
ADR: Yes, he had tractors.
SR: Okay.
ADR: See, first he had animals pulling the ploughs—
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: --to dig up, to dig the potatoes up.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: And, and then he hired the people and the, like, this is the field, would section it off, you pick from here to here, then you go over here, the, the, the ploughs would come back this way and you’ll go over there and pick that until all this land in between—
SR: --was completely picked.
ADR: Uh-huh.
SR: Okay.
ADR: And, first wagon and team was coming through there, then we mechanized, and we had tractors, and, and, and trucks.
SR: Okay. Um, you know a lot about the farming. Did you have the occasion to actually work on the farm? Did you do any work?
ADR: I’d go out there.
SR: So you saw it, you knew what was going on.
ADR: And, and, and I insisted on having a section of my own, once or twice. But I didn’t insist long. [laughter]
SR: Why not, ‘cause it involved some work? I mean, labor out there.
ADR: It was labor, but not only did I have that to do, uh, my mother wasn’t with me and I had to do the housework.
SR: Okay.
ADR: And, uh, help take care of my two brothers.
SR: Okay, and they were younger than you?
ADR: Uh-huh.
SR: Okay.
ADR: I was four years older than one, and six years older than—
SR: Ohhhh, so you were the big sister.
ADR: I was the big sister.
SR: Yeah, yeah.
ADR: And my father never remarried.
SR: Oh, I’ll say. Okay, and so then, when you decided to…did your father say, uh, Arcille, you’re gonna go to college, or—
ADR: He talked education all the time.
SR: Okay.
ADR: And, uh, when time came for me to go, and then I had, I stayed in Muskogee with a family and went to Manual Training High School.
SR: Do you remember the name of the family you stayed with?
ADR: Yeah, the Masons. They were potato farmers too, but they were in…their farm was in [unintelligible].
SR: Okay, another little section.
ADR: Uh-huh.
SR: Now, that area that you talked about called Waybark--
ADR: Wy-.
SR: Wy- Wybark.
ADR: Uh-hmm.
SR: Um, you said it was a black community, a little black settlement.
ADR: At that time.
SR: At that time. And, and, does Wybark still exist today?
ADR: Yes, it does. Uh, my husband and I drove in that area, I couldn’t hardly [unintelligible] it had changed so—but the sign is still up there, the sign of Wybark is still there, isn’t it?
GMR: Yes, Wybark.
ADR: Uh-huh.
SR: Uh-huh. Okay, and the community, is it still a farming community? What do they do? What—
ADR: I guess they still farm.
SR: Houses there? They built it up? Or—
ADR: None of the…we had, [counting] 1, 2, 3 houses and a big barn on our farm.
SR: Um-hmm.
ADR: None of that’s there.
SR: Okay.
ADR: I still own the farm.
SR: Oh, you still own the land?!
ADR: Uh-huh.
SR: Oh.
ADR: But I’m gonna sell it.
SR: Okay, and so are there, is there a community around—
ADR: Yeah, it’s all white.
SR: It’s all white now.
ADR: It was the time I was there it was predominantly black.
SR: Uh-huh. Did, did Indians ever work the land?
ADR: We had Indians coming in workin’ for us but they didn’t own the land.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: Uh, white people owned that land.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: But I didn’t know that because black people were workin’ it.
SR: They were there, you thought everybody owned like, like your grandfather.
ADR: My grandfather.
SR: So, so, was your, your childhood, would you say it was one of privilege? You know what I’m sayin’? You all were not—what they call like, poor dirt farmers.
ADR: We weren’t tenant farmers.
SR: Uh-huh, you weren’t tenant farmers, okay.
ADR: But, we worked our farmland, and then we leased more farmland.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: So, we had a much bigger operation by the leasing…if we had just farmed ours, we would’ve been farming about sixty acres.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: But he was farming almost from the Arkansas, almost to the, uh, the Verdigris. That’s an awful lot of land.
SR: Now what is the Verdigris? Is that a river too?
ADR: The Arkansas comes this way, the Verdigris comes round that, that way. It’s a river. It’s not big like the—
SR: Not like the Arkansas.
ADR: No, it’s not as large as the Arkansas. But it’s a pretty good [unintelligible].
SR: So, actually, actually, your, your grandfather farmed sixty acres. But owned more land.
ADR: He, he farmed sixty acres, he owned about that much in one time.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: And he farmed much more than that.
SR: Okay.
ADR: Is that—
SR: Kind of. Okay now, what now—
ADR: See, he could lease land.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: He could own some. See—
SR: So, if he leased it, he leased it from someone else.
ADR: Yeah!
SR: Oh, I see. Okay, I’m gettin’ it. I’m gettin’ it. Okay.
ADR: See, I still own that farm.
SR: Okay, you still own the home.
ADR: That farm.
SR: The home farmland.
ADR: Yes. Land is all it is, but the barn’s are gone, the house gone. It’s farmland. And it’s leased to a white fella that wants to buy it.
SR: Okay, okay. Now, um, what was it they called your grand—your grandpa?
ADR: Potato King.
SR: They called him the Potato King. ‘Cause he was, he was, so he, so big in the business. He distributed—
ADR: Yes, and the people out from Muskogee and far as Tulsa, and uh, uh even Oklahoma City. My husband’s brother came there and worked.
SR: And worked.
ADR: And he remembered me like that.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: I’m talkin’ about Rick now.
GMR: Right.
ADR: I’m talking about Rick remembering me from the time I was in Wybark.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: I told her that people came from everywhere around to harvest the potatoes and that, uh, that’s how I knew Rick.
GMR: Okay.
ADR: I was tellin’ her--
SR: Uh-huh, uh-huh. Uh-huh, one of his, one of Mr. Richardson’s brothers.
ADR: But that time I didn’t know him, I didn’t know Rick.
SR: Okay, now let, now let’s, let’s fast-forward to Langston University. What was it like on the campus? It was, it was Oklahoma’s, I guess perhaps still is, Oklahoma’s only historically black, historical black college campus. And it was, that was in its beginning because if your mother went, under the first president, who was Inman Page, then this was Langston’s baby years. Langston was just—
ADR: Well, my momma wasn’t exactly a baby.
SR: But I mean the school itself was just—
ADR: Do you know when Langston was first organ—
SR: Oh, I can get that information.
ADR: Okay.
SR: I can get that.
ADR: Okay.
SR: I can get that information.
ADR: Alright.
SR: Okay—
ADR: But she was there, my mother was there under Dr. Page.
SR: Under Dr. Page.
ADR: I don’t know whether he was a doctor or not. [laughs]
SR: Yeah, because—
ADR: He was the president of Langston.
SR: Because, because sometimes the, the college presidents got positions because they were politically active.
ADR: Yeah, we were talking about—
SR: Somebody knew, they knew somebody so they could be appointed to—
ADR: Exactly.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: That’s the way it was.
SR: To the chair, uh-huh.
ADR: But my mother, uh, was there under Page and he was the first president.
SR: Well, I, I, I—
ADR: And Ms. Brough.
SR: Well it’s just recently that, that, um, I realized that, that Inman Page was, was more than just a local figurehead here in Oklahoma City. Because we had, we had Inman Page Elementary School—
ADR: Um-hmm.
SR: --we had the YWCA down on Second and Stiles I think it was, that was, was named Inman Page YWCA. And we also had, have, uh, Page Elementary School. Did I say that already? Page Elementary School? We had Page Stadium.
ADR: Um-hmm, um-hmm.
SR: And we had the Page YWCA [unintelligible] named after him. I, I but I thought he was just a local figurehead, but he was also—
ADR: He was president of Langston
SR: --president of Langston.
ADR: Uh-huh.
SR: Okay.
ADR: My mother was there, and her sister Ruth was there and uh, my mother, uh, I don’t think she was in the college because they had an elementary sch-, they had a—
SR: A high school.
ADR: A high school.
SR: On campus. At Langston.
ADR: That’s what she said.
SR: And it was there—they did because I met someone who was a student there.
ADR: Um-hmm.
SR: And he was a student there. He and his brothers were students there.
ADR: [chuckles]
SR: In, in the high school. At Langston.
ADR: He told me about that.
SR: Okay now, now…they had to go, they went to that high school at Langston because if, in some of the cities that they lived in, there was no black high school. It was still during the time of segregation, so if they wanted to—
ADR: Oh wow, way before that!
SR: Yes. And so, in order for them to be able to get a higher education beyond the eighth grade level, they would have to go somewhere where there was a black high school, and Langston Elementary—Langston Okla-, Langston University had a high school for black people.
ADR: Um-hmm.
SR: Where they could go and get their, uh, high school, uh, uh certificates, where they could graduate high school.
ADR: I, I’m not sure what my mother did, I don’t know whether she ever graduated or not, but she went there.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: And her sister Ruth was there.
SR: Uh-huh. Well, a lot of, a lot of young black people went to Langston, but they weren’t in the college but they were in the high school.
ADR: In the elem-, the high school, the elementary school.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: Mama read and she could write very well, but she wasn’t highly educated, but she was an intelligent woman, you know some people. Dang, she was like that. She read a lot and so forth. But she couldn’t be confined very much, she liked to be out, gardening and carrying on.
SR: Uh-huh. She liked to just—be doing something manually with her hands. Uh-huh. Well that’s excellent. Now, I want you to tell me a little bit about, about your, uh, you told me that you, that you taught a couple of years. And then after that, what did you do?
ADR: Got married.
SR: Okay, got married. And?
ADR: Had my daughter.
SR: Okay. Tell me, tell me the name, the name. You have one daughter? Okay, tell me her name. Her full name--
ADR: Lillian Cecille, uh, Mitchell now.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: Uh.
SR: And where was, where was Lillian born?
ADR: Lillian was born in Tulsa. No she wasn’t, she was born in Okmulgee, wasn’t she? [laughs]
SR: Okay, okay.
ADR: I lived in Tulsa a long time but I moved from Okmulgee to Tulsa. I, my, my late husband—
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: --was from Okmulgee. And I met him at the teachers’ association.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: I told you that—
SR: Yes, uh-huh, uh-huh.
ADR: Well, we were, after thirty years I divorced him.
SR: Ohh!
ADR: And he’s helpless poor soul, but I didn’t abandon him.
SR: Um-mm.
ADR: Took care of him. And everybody gave me a lot of credit for that, but I didn’t think I was doing anything but the right thing.
SR: Uh-huh. Stay with him through his illness. To help care for him.
ADR: I cared for him until he…I saw to it that he was cared for—
SR: Was taken care of—
ADR: --I was workin’.
SR: Twenty-two years. Um, and about the, about the welfare system…was this is Muskogee?
ADR: No, it was in…the welfare system, uh, was all over the state.
SR:Uh-huh.
ADR: But I worked in, uh, Okmulgee County, that’s where I—
SR: Okmulgee.
ADR: I was the first black person they hired.
SR: As a social worker?
ADR: As a, as a, they call ‘em case workers.
SR: Case workers back then.
ADR: I didn’t know what a case worker was.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: [laughs] But I stayed there and I learned.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: And I, I worked there, uh, as long as I lived there. And my husband, who was working in the high school there, he was, he taught history.
SR: He was a history teacher.
ADR: His emphasis was on black history.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: And—
SR: And he taught where?
ADR: In Okmulgee.
SR: In Okmulgee?
ADR: Mm-hmm.
SR: Okay.
ADR: At the—I just got to tell you this but I’m jumpin’ a little ahead—
SR: That’s okay.
ADR: Uh, both of the men in my life that has meant anything to me were from Okmulgee.
SR: Mm-hmm. [laughter] Okay.
ADR: Both of them were, uh, from Okmulgee and I didn’t like the town but I said I ought’a appreciate that town—
SR: Because it gave you two good husbands.
ADR: --two good men. [laughter]
SR: Well, that’s wonderful. That’s excellent. So, uh, after retiring from social work, did you still live in, in the Okmulgee area?
ADR: No, uh my, uh, late husband and I moved to Tulsa with our, uh, two or three year old daughter at that time.
SR: Um-hmm, um-hmm.
ADR: And, uh, he worked in the school system at Washington High School.
SR: Yes, Booker T. Washington.
ADR: Booker T. Washington. He was the dean of boys there. And—
SR: Ohhh!
ADR: Uh-huh. And later, he was principal of the Dunbar Elementary School, which was one of the largest schools in Tulsa.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: I wor—I was the first black person that Okmulgee hired as, quote, “case worker.”
SR: Okay. Um-hmm.
ADR: And I stayed on that job until we moved to Tulsa. I was off for a little while, but I applied and I got on in Tulsa.
SR: With the Department—
ADR: Department of Public Welfare. That’s what they called it. I worked, uh, I worked in that Department counting Okmulgee and Tulsa, uh, twenty-two years.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: And my daughter grew up in Tulsa.
SR: In Tulsa, okay.
ADR: And she finished Booker T. Washington--
SR: Oh, okay.
ADR: --High School.
SR: And where did, where did she go, where did Lillian go to college?
ADR: To school?
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: Tennessee State.
SR: Tennessee State. And what is her major?
ADR: Uh, drama and education.
SR: Okay, and she’s teaching now?
ADR: No.
SR: What is she doing?
ADR: She’s retired.
SR: Oh, she’s retired now.
ADR: She did, she did thirty years in—
SR: She would be retired.
ADR: Uh-huh. She did thirty years in the Ok—in the California school system. She was a counselor. Her major was education counseling.
SR: Um-mmm.
ADR: She didn’t teach.
SR: Oh, okay. She was a counselor.
ADR: A counselor.
SR: Okay, now um, now we’re gonna, movin’ forward now that, uh, where, where you retired from both of the systems and did you, were you living in Tulsa?
ADR: When I retired, I was living…in Tulsa. Let me see. [asking George] Had I retired when I came—I had retired before I met you, hadn’t I?
GMR: What?
ADR: I retired before I met you, didn’t I? I retired—
SR: Was she retired already, she was retired, she was retired before she met you?
GMR: Yes, I—
SR: She was retired—
GMR: Thirty years. [laughter]
SR: She was retired a long time before she met you!
ADR: No I wasn’t, he can’t hear.
SR: Okay, okay, not quite, not quite that long. Alright, okay, so I want to know when did you meet this handsome man?
ADR: This one?
SR: This one! [laughs]
ADR: Well, I knew his brother.
SR: Okay.
ADR: His brother used to, was one of the fellows, kids come down and work on our farm.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: And that’s where he met me. And he said I was a lil’ ol’ girl runnin’ around in the farm, barefoot.
SR: [laughs]
ADR: I said [unintelligible] I don’t either, my father wouldn’t let me go barefoot. [laughs]
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: But just the same, uh, he would tell, uh, his brother that he would throw the potato sacks up on the fiel-up on the trucks. [laughs]
SR: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
ADR: He was tellin’ me he was lyin’, he couldn’t throw those—
SR: He couldn’t lift, he couldn’t lift the potatoes, let alone throw ‘em. So, so when did you meet George? When did you meet Melvin? You call him Melvin.
ADR: Uh…I met him only about four and a half years ago.
SR: Um-hmm, and where was this?
ADR: His brother Rick, who has passed away now, brought him by my house and he w-he came because he was living in Tulsa this time [unintelligible] Tulsa and he still teased me about runnin’ around in the fields barefoot. [laughs]
SR: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
ADR: And I said, and I would say, you [unintelligible] I didn’t go back there. [laughs] So I knew him and uh, because he knew me as a farm kid, out on my grandfather’s, father’s farm, and then he knew me again in Tulsa.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: And, uh—
SR: So he bought, he bought Melvin over to--
ADR: He brought Melvin over to see me. He said [unintelligible] I’m goin’ by and see Arcille.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: That’s where I met him.
SR: And then, how long was it before you guys became engaged or…?
ADR: Well, um, I didn’t pay him any attention. [SR laughs] I, because Rick and I knew each other—
SR: You all were friends, uh-huh.
ADR: Friends, and uh, Rick was still teasin’ me by bein’ country, and being on the [unintelligible] big boys tease kids, well now I’m grown and he’s grown—
SR: Still teasin’.
ADR: Still teasin’, so I didn’t say very much to him. So, my husb-I was living, I divorced my husband so when he passed on and—
SR: His wife had passed?
ADR: Huh?
SR: Melvin’s wife had passed?
ADR: Yeah. At that time. And uh, I knew her briefly.
SR: Oh.
ADR: But that was at Langston.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: For teachers’ association.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: Because when he showed me her—he had a lovely picture of her that he carries, and he showed ‘em to me and I said, “I know her”, but—
SR: You paths did cross—
ADR: Yes. That’s a good way to put it.
SR: --at Langston.
ADR: And uh, he came to my house with his brother…Euricka [spelling?]. That was his name.
SR: That’s what you called, that’s who you called Rick. Euricka.
ADR: Euricka. And, I sat there and talked and talked and talked with Rick, ‘cause we could cut up and talk about Wybark and talk about Muskogee, talk about Langston, so forth.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: He was talkin’ but I wasn’t payin’ him any attention.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: One day—now I’m livin’ alone, my mother has passed. She lived with me and I took care of her, I took care of my divorced husband. I divorced him but I didn’t abandon him.
SR: Yes.
ADR: I’m so thankful—
SR: Yes.
ADR: --that I handled my—
SR: It makes your heart clear—
ADR: Yes. And uh, I took care of my mother and uh, she died. And then I was there alone.
SR: Okay.
ADR: Almost twenty years.
SR: Almost twenty years. Uh-huh.
ADR: And uh, so Rick came and brought his brother by, and Rick and I could cut up a lot but he didn’t, he taught, but we, I didn’t really—
SR: Didn’t connect, uh-huh.
ADR: One day I was home alone, kinda straightening up the house, doing things. ‘Cause I had a private practice, see I worked for the Department of, then I worked for, uh, the mental health, in mental health.
SR: Okay.
ADR: And uh, by the time, about ’85 or ’84, maybe even earlier, I decided I’d been workin’ all my life.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: I had put in forty-four straight years, then I had a private practice.
SR: I see.
ADR: And uh, I decided to give that up.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: So, uh, I was at the point of closing out my practice.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: Well now, by this time, brother Rick, my friend Rick, had brought his brother by. He said, let’s see if, let’s go see Arcille. Now, he met a friend of ours, a mutual friend of ours that he knew and I knew and I had been in school with him at Langston and he had been in school with him at Langston.
SR: A lot of people went to Langston, that was, that was like THE, the central place to go.
ADR: You know what, I tell people this, you get a good education at Langston. I’ve stood my ground everywhere I’ve gone.
SR: Absolutely.
ADR: And our, our teachers, uh would get an education in the South then they’d go to the Big Tens and Big Eights in the north, so our teachers were well prepared.
SR: Well, again Langston, just like, just like the other black institutions that I’ve talked to people about, from elementary all the way up to college, uh Langston was, still had that measure of excellence—
ADR: Uh-huh.
SR: --that was required of everyone that passed through those doors. And so, it’s not surprising that the kids that came out of Langston would go on to higher things, because they were prepared. To handle everything.
ADR: And you know, if you look, if you look at our, our staff, those teachers primarily would finish college in the South.
SR: Finish in the South.
ADR: They’d go east and north for higher education, everyone of ‘em had a master’s degree or a doctorate degree, they was such good teachers.
SR: Yes.
ADR: I didn’t have any bad teachers.
SR: Just excellent teachers. Excellent. It was, it was required—
ADR: Right.
SR: It was required.
ADR: And, uh, I had a friend, a friend of mine told me that she was going to school at University of Colorado and she said, “Oh, you’re from Oklahoma! Yeah. Well, what about that little school at Langston.” She said I graduated from there. She says, oh really.
SR: Mm-hmm. So your, your, the education that you got from Langston--
ADR: Stood me—
SR: --it’s carried you through all of your—
ADR: OU. I got a master’s degree from OU.
SR: From OU. In what?
ADR: I attended Colorado.
SR: In what, what did you get, the master’s degree in OU you got from? What were you--?
ADR: School of Social Work.
SR: School of Social Work. Okay, so education was a high priority?
ADR: Uh-huh. My father talked education all the time. I never did see where he was so far.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: But he was well-read.
SR: Uh-huh. Well, it makes a difference even when you could read because there were many back in that day who couldn’t read or write.
ADR: He, he, he [unintelligible] so tired of Roman history. [laughs] I knew more about Caesar [laughs].
SR: Greek, Greek history.
ADR: Greek and Roman history.
SR: That’s remarkable. That’s just remarkable. I’m still amazed at, uh, the level of knowledge that, quote-unquote, the uneducated were able to acquire.
ADR: They did.
SR: Even back in that day and time.
ADR: He taught history and, uh, lower math and I never did find out whether he actually finished high school.
SR: Where he actually finished high school. He may have gone as far as the eighth grade. The eighth grade used to be—
ADR: He was from Kansas. And uh, I never did find out [unintelligible] he kept me in school.
SR: Yes. [ADR laughs] And he stressed the importance—
ADR: Stressed the importance.
SR: Well, that’s excellent. Well Miss Arcille, is there anything else that you want to share with me before you go? You want, was there something you wanted to make sure that we covered today. Did we cover everything you wanted to cover today?
ADR: Well, I uh, we moved to Tulsa, my husband was a principal up there, big elementary school, I told you that.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: And my daughter finished high school there.
SR: Yes.
ADR: And she went on to Tennessee State. And got her degree there. And she became, uh, the counselor in the California system.
SR: California school system. Is she still in California?
ADR: Yes, she’s retired.
SR: She’s retired. Okay, now I wanna, want you to tell me a little something about, uh, your thoughts on growing up black.
ADR: I wanna tell you a little bit something, more about my husband.
SR: Okay. About Mr. Brown?
ADR: Well, Mr. Brown—
SR: That, that, that husband—
ADR: This husband.
SR: Okay, about Mr. Richardson, okay.
ADR: He met me only one time see, when his brother brought—
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: --and uh, I was just in the house, thinkin’ about movin’ to California because my daughter—
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: --moved there. And uh, I had two, I had great-grandchildren and I wanted to be with them.
SR: Mm-hmm.
ADR: I was gonna sell the house and move. And the doorbell rang and there stood this—
SR: Handsome man.
ADR: With the nicest hat on. [SR laughs] Talkin’ ‘bout ‘ya, sweetie. [GMR laughs]
SR: And the nicest hat on. Uh-huh.
ADR: And…he didn’t call—
SR: --or anything, he just showed up on your doorstep.
ADR: Up on my doorstep. [SR laughs]
SR: And?
ADR: Well, he set over there, and I set over here and finally he said, come over here and sit by me. [SR laughs] Tellin’ [unintelligible] And he took my hand, and he looked at my hand and I said, what’s wrong with my hand? [SR laughs]
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: But, what had happened is that we had a mutual friend, on the east, had moved to the East Coast, he and his wife had been my friends at Langston and Wendell had been his friend at Langston.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: See, he’s from Langston too.
SR: Uh-huh. Right, he’d gone to Langston.
ADR: And he’s the one, he didn’t just show up at—Wendell said, I’m [unintelligible] Arcille’s in Tulsa.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: And uh, he gave him my address.
SR: Okay, so, so couple little things working in the—works.
ADR: Yeah. And uh, that’s how he knew to come to my house. His brother—
SR: And had your, had his brother bring, bring him, so, that was, okay. His way in.
ADR: Rick said, let’s go see Arcille, so he came by.
SR: Okay.
ADR: The next time I saw him, he was by himself and I opened the door and there he was. Well right after that—oh, and we talked, we talked about Wendell, and gave Wendell credit for getting us, we still do that. For introducing us. Long distance, he’s on the East Coast and uh, I got sick and I was in the hospital about ten days, and he came to see me. And he talked the hospital staff, you don’t need to put this in there, into lettin’ him stay with me.
SR: Uh-huh. To be by your side.
ADR: Now these are the things in—
SR: To be by your side.
ADR: Uh-huh, to be there.
SR: Well that’s so sweet!
ADR: And he—I thought so! [laughter] And he uh, he argued until he got in there.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: He stayed with me.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: And I was in the hospital ten days.
SR: And you weren’t alone.
ADR: No, I wasn’t alone.
SR: That’s wonderful, that’s wonderful.
ADR: And then, uh, we talked on the telephone, we had a telephone courtship. We didn’t—we had a hospital telephone courtship.
SR: Uh-huh. Because he still lived in, ‘cause he lived in Oklahoma City?
ADR: Uh-huh, and I was in Tulsa. And uh, uh, Rick I had known him. Rick was at Langston when I was there too. I saw Rick, I didn’t see him. He was there too.
SR: And so after you came out of the hospital, then--?
ADR: I came out of the hospital, he came to see me and we talked. We talked primarily on the telephone, I didn’t see him ‘bout four or five times before we got married.
SR: Did he, did he pop the question by phone or?
ADR: Um-hmm.
SR: He asked you over the phone?
ADR: He never told me he loved me.
SR: Okay.
ADR: I never told him I loved him.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: But we talked every night. Nine o’clock. Even got kinda irritated ‘cause one time I couldn’t talk with him, I was doin’ my taxes. [laughter] [talking to GMR] I’m tellin’ on—
GMR: Okay. [laughter]
SR: Okay!
ADR: And he got kinda—
SR: Yeah, like, where were you!
ADR: Yeah. [laughter] He knew nine o’clock was our hour.
SR: Was your talkin’ time! [laughter] I love that! That’s a beautiful love story. [laughter]
ADR: Why would I be workin’ on taxes anything else in there.
SR: What’s more important than I am, right? [laughter]
ADR: So, one day in that telephone conversation, he said, you oughta be, we oughta be engaged. He didn’t ask me to marry him.
SR: Just, we oughta be engaged.
ADR: He never told me he loved me. I never told him that, we just yakked and yakked and yakked ‘cause we were both—we knew the same people. A lot of the same people.
SR: Oh yes, had very much in common actually.
ADR: And uh, he said, you know we oughta be engaged. I said, that calls for rings.
SR: Okay. [laughter] And he said?
ADR: He said, okay, I’ll be there tomorrow. [laughter]
SR: And did he come?
ADR: He was there.
SR: With the rings?
ADR: Nope. He took me, and I selected the rings.
SR: He took you to select the rings. And it’s beautiful, and it’s HUGE. [laughs]
ADR: I tried to be reasonable. [laughter] He told me, I could get what I wanted.
SR: Get what you want.
ADR: And I saw some up this way and on down that way and I kinda stopped in the middle and I said, I’m not gonna [unintelligible] I’ll try to be fair.
SR: You’ll try to be fair. Be nice about it.
ADR: Yeah, don’t be greedy.
SR: Uh-huh, and it’s beautiful. Of course it’s beautiful.
ADR: That’s what I got.
SR: That’s wonderful.
ADR: And, so, we were going to marry and not tell anybody. Go way out in the country someplace. We did go by and talk to my minister. We went to church and just walked down the aisle and he married us. We weren’t gonna have any wedding. The church was full. [laughter] They didn’t come there to come to our wedding.
SR: But you all just decided to get married? On that day.
ADR: Only person we told was the minister.
SR: Okay. And that was enough.
ADR: After the sermon, he said we’re having a wedding and if you’d like to stay, everybody stayed.
SR: Of course!
ADR: They all knew me because it was my church!
SR: Of course!
ADR: And we married there and, see, after we married is when I, when I went to hospital again. And he, we went through that, and our marriage has been almost ideal. Too bad, I had to divorce my first husband but I didn’t—I had asked God to think about the fact that I didn’t abandon him.
SR: Uh-huh.
ADR: I took care of him. You don’t need to put that in there.
SR: Okay, okay.
ADR: Just say I was married.
SR: That’s alright, that’s alright.
ADR: And uh, I have to think about my daughter and how she’s doing. Okay, I’ll shut up.
SR: That’s he was giving me the signal. Our time is signal. No, but that’s wonderful. I want to thank you for coming in and talking with me. I just, uh, appreciate you taking the time to do that because I think about, I look at your precious ninety years that you are and it just touches my heart. Because you have so much energy and vitality I mean, it’s beyond words for me.
ADR: My mother [unintelligible]
SR: And your mother was 102 and you cared for her until her home-going. And that’s a wonderful blessing, isn’t it?
ADR: It sure is.
SR: To be able to be with her, to see her through. That’s wonderful. Well, Miss Arcille and yes I have to put the handle on [laughter]
ADR: What’s your name?
SR: I’m Sandra.
ADR: Miss Sandra.
SR: You put the handle back and gave the handle back to me, didn’t you? Thank you so much for taking the time to come out and talk with me. I’m gonna be contacting you and Mr. Richardson a little later on because I--