Description:
Carolyn Waterman talks with her daughter about their family history, early Bethany history, and their family's involvement with Bethany Nazarene College (now Southern Nazarene University).
Transcript:
Interviewee: Carolyn Waterman
Interviewer: Female Interviewer, Carolyn’s daughter, name unknown
Interview Date: 8/2/2007
Interview Location: Ron. J. Norick Downtown Library
File Name: Carolyn Waterman 8-2-07
FI: Please tell me your name.
Carolyn Waterman: I’m Carolyn Waterman.
FI: Your birthdate?
CW: November 23, 1939.
FI: Our relationship?
CW: You’re my daughter.
FI: Where are we?
CW: We’re in the Downtown Library of Oklahoma City.
FI: So where were you born?
CW: I was born in Salina, Ohio.
FI: Where did you grow up?
CW: I grew up many places. My father was a minister. I lived for three years in Salina and then World War II came and he joined the Army as a chaplain, so we moved. My mother went with him as long as he was in the States. After the war was over, he took a pastorship in Chicago and we lived there four years. Then he got another church in San Francisco and we lived there four years. For high school, I lived in Hutchinson, Kansas. Then, [both laugh] he took a church in Washington, D.C. and we moved there. By that time, I was in college.
FI: How’d you end up back in Oklahoma?
CW: [laughs]
FI: How does anybody end up back in Oklahoma?
CW: I went to college in Boston, and then worked in Washington for a little bit, and then taught for a year in Idaho, which is weird but I did. An aunt and uncle invited me to visit in Southern California –
FI: Uncle Paul and Aunt Marion?
CW: Yes, Uncle Paul and Aunt Marion. My mother’s baby brother. I got a teaching job there, and that’s when I met my husband.
FI: My father.
CW: Mm-hmm. He went to get his doctorate at the University of Tulsa, and through that situation got a university job at the University of Central Oklahoma, so we moved back here.
FI: It was Central State then, right?
CW: It was Central State. 1972. It was Central State College, became Central State University, and now University of Central Oklahoma. So we’ve been here since 1972.
(Transcriber’s Note: The current University of Central Oklahoma was formerly known as Central State University from 1971-1991, and Central State College from 1939-1970. In its early years, it was known as Territorial Normal School of Oklahoma and Central State Normal School.)
FI: You were living in Bethany.
CW: Mm-hmm.
FI: Speaking of Bethany, we have long-standing roots, I guess you can say in that crazy little town. Why don’t you tell me a bit about that?
CW: Yes, we do. It goes back to 1920. [laughs] My mother was one of six children.
FI: What was her name?
CW: She was Gertrude Chapman. The six children were Lois, Grace, Harold, Brilhart, my mother Gertrude, and baby Paul.
FI: Your grandparents’ names –
CW: - Were James B. Chapman and Maude Fredrick Chapman. They were living at the time, in what was Penial, Texas, and is now Greenville, Texas. He was president of a small college at that time, and then he moved to Bethany in 1920 to pastor what was Bethany First Church of the Nazarene.
FI: Big, fat church.
CW: Big, fat church. It wasn’t a big, fat church then.
FI: Little, tiny church.
CW: They took, I remember this, they moved from Greenville, Texas on Christmas Eve and they all took the train. There was a darling little train station there in Greenville, Texas, to Atoka. (Transcriber’s Note: Atoka is a town in southeastern Oklahoma.) These two people and these six children, and they transferred at Atoka and got in at the Union Depot right at Downtown, Oklahoma City.
FI: That’s across from the Renaissance or something now, I think. (Transcriber’s Note: The Renaissance is a large upscale hotel in Downtown, Oklahoma City.)
CW: The eight of them, I think someone met them. Someone from the college came out and met them. It was snowing, and they’d been from Texas. Snow was a very new experience for them. They settled in a house on what is now College Avenue.
FI: Over by where I live now, right?
CW: Uh-huh. North of what was Route 66. Well, it wasn’t even named Route 66.
FI: 39th Expressway.
CW: Uh-huh. They lived in Bethany for a couple of years and participated in the life of Oklahoma City with six kids.
FI: That was back when there were trolleys, right?
CW: There was a trolley stop right in front of the administration building. What was the name of the administration building? It was then Bethany Penial College.
(Transcriber’s Note: Bethany Penial College is the current Southern Nazarene University.)
FI: Was it in the same place as it is now?
CW: Yes, it is.
FI: Was that Brazee?
CW: I think the administration building was McConnell at that time, which has now been torn down. The trolley ran all the way 39th, east and west. In fact, it went out to Yukon. You caught the Interurban somewhere because their dentist was a man named Sanger in Yukon, and they would take the Interurban out to Yukon for the dentist. They’d take the trolley on 39th Street, and my aunt Grace, who was going to what was called Normal School at that time –
FI: Teaching school.
CW: Yes, teaching school in Edmond. She would take the trolley to the transfer point and then take the Interurban up to Central State for her teaching training.
FI: At the Territorial Normal School up there. Old North.
CW: Old North. That’s where she went.
FI: We have a long history at that school.
CW: Yes. So she want to the university there. My aunt Lois went to OCU, so she took the trolley to Classen and transferred and went to OCU. She was studying the violin and studying music, and my Uncle Harold took piano lessons there at OCU. My mother was often told this story – my aunt Lois was college age. Uncle Harold was younger and he was not, and when she would play violin solos and recitals, she didn’t want anybody to accompany her but her brother Harold. He was still wearing short pants, so here was this little guy sitting on this piano bench accompanying her. (Transcriber’s Note: At this time, young boys wore shorts no matter what the weather. Longer pants were considered to be grown-up attire.) Nobody else could play like Uncle Harold. When she gave her recitals, her younger brother accompanied her at OCU. The Interurban got them everywhere. People didn’t have cars. My mother remembers taking the trolley to OCU to hear Natch Katerusky(?) give a recital at OCU way back in the ‘20s. Oklahoma City was a stop for a number of the artists that would come through.
FI: Really? That’s a surprise.
CW: Uh-huh. Yeah. The family lived there for a couple of years before they moved to Kansas City.
FI: What about the college? How important was our family? I know it was already begun -
CW: It was already begun.
FI: J.B. Chapman had a big influence on the formation.
CW: He did. Bethany Nazarene College, which is now Southern Nazarene University, was formed from several other colleges. Grandfather was president of a couple of those. There was a small college in Vilonia, Arkansas that he was president of, and that’s where Uncle Harold was born. There was Penial Holiness University in Greenville, Texas that he was president of, and that’s where Uncle Brilhart and my mother and Uncle Paul were born. Three of them were born there in Texas. That’s where he was when he came north to Bethany to be pastor of the church. Bethany Church of the Nazarene was the biggest Nazarene church in the denomination at that time. He was also made editor of the denominational paper called “The Herald of Holiness.”
FI: It still is.
CW: It’s called “Holiness Today” now.
FI: Oh. Well, I guess I haven’t looked at a copy in a few years.
CW: He was made editor of that, so while he was Bethany, he would travel to Kansas City. He would take the train a number of times for the editorial and pastor the church here at the same time. He was influential, I guess, in bringing those other two colleges, so instead of having little colleges all over in various places, they combined. The Oklahoma location was more central, and they had this wonderful piece of property out in Bethany, west of Oklahoma City, that I guess had been given to them or they bought. It was doable. He was also the one, of all the people back in that day, that said, “I don’t want to have Bible colleges. I want to have four-year liberal arts universities, with science, English, math, music, the whole thing, so that we will have liberally educated people, not just Bible people.” The Nazarene church started with liberal arts colleges as opposed to Bible colleges, which many other smaller denominations did. My grandfather was very foresighted. He the one who said yes, we’re going to have labs. We’re going to have the whole thing.
FI: They used to have a heck of a nursing program from what I remember.
CW: Mm-hmm. He was influential in the establishment of just the idea of colleges in the denomination.
FI: Excellent. Now, your father was also – wasn’t he also president or, no, he was general superintendent.
CW: No. Grandfather was general superintendent. My father was a district superintendent, but he was from another part of the country.
FI: Yes. [laughs] Most definitely. Now, you lived in Oklahoma for a year at a very early point in your life, didn’t you? What was that all about?
CW: Yes, I did. It was during World War II. My father was a chaplain in the Army Air Corps, which later became separated out after World War II as the Air Force, but at that time it was under the Army. He had been stationed several places – Florida, Mississippi –
FI: Grandma hated Mississippi.
CW: Well, who would like it? And then Michigan, which was home to my grandfather Chapman. My mother had lived there, and we went back to Michigan and we were thrilled to be back in Michigan. Then the government closed the base, Kellogg Field in Battle Creek. Daddy had been base chaplain there. They closed it, and he was sent down here and he was at Will Rogers. The last 18 months of the war, we were here in Oklahoma City.
FI: Where did you go to school?
CW: When we first moved here, we lived at 22nd and Flynn, which is just south of Shepherd Mall.
FI: Right by where I work now.
CW: Right by where you work, yeah. Just south of Shepherd Mall in a duplex. I remember that duplex well because there was – we rented it, of course – because there was a closet in the duplex that was locked that we could not open.
FI: [whispering] What’s in the closet?
CW: We never knew. While we lived there, I went to Grover Cleveland Elementary School.
FI: With the red door.
CW: With the red door, for kindergarten. Daddy was the Protestant chaplain at the Protestant chapel out at Will Rogers. We were out at Will Rogers Base a lot. They had a wonderful enlisted men’s club where the WACs (Transcriber’s Note: Women’s Army Corps) would take care of my sister and me. They had a wonderful PX (Transcriber’s Note: PX stands for Post Exchange, a retail store for military personnel and their families) and they’d play the jukebox and everybody would dance the jitterbug and it was so exciting.
FI: Is that where the picture of Santa with you and Judy on the plane is?
CW: No, that’s Kellogg. That wasn’t Judy. That was one of the other officer’s children.
FI: I always thought that was you and Judy. Judy is her sister. I’m sorry – Judith is her sister.
CW: That was in the Air Force and Santa came in on a plane. When you’re in the Air Force, he doesn’t come in on a sleigh. He comes in on a plane. I got to go because I was the base chaplain’s daughter. I had a lot of perks.
FI: I love that picture. That’s a good picture. That’s a pretty good deal.
CW: Actually here, Daddy was the Protestant chaplain. We had a lot of perks. [laughs] Life was pretty good for chaplains’ kids.
FI: Back to the Southern Nazarene University, Bethany Nazarene. I believe you –
CW: Don’t you want me to tell you a little bit more about being back when I was five years old?
FI: Then go ahead. Absolutely.
CW: [laughs] I went to kindergarten at Grover Cleveland, and I was there in April of 1945 on the day Franklin Roosevelt died. The word came to everybody that the President had died while I was there in kindergarten. My teacher cried and I remember that very clearly. It was quite an emotional time. Because, of course, Franklin Roosevelt was one of the reasons that Oklahoma had come out of the Depression and was doing so well by that time.
FI: You were here post-Dust Bowl.
CW: We were post-Dust Bowl, right. There were aircraft factories and –
FI: Was it pretty thriving?
CW: It was a thriving place at that time. Everybody liked to be my father’s friend and have him take them to the Officers’ Club at Will Rogers. You’re too young to know but meat was highly rationed during World War II. You had to get these little coupons and stickers to buy meat. Certain kinds you couldn’t buy, but steaks were served at the Officers’ Club at Will Rogers and Tinker, and I think like Cattleman’s and maybe Glenn’s and that was about it. So everybody loved to have my father take them to the Officers’ Club at Will Rogers.
FI: So Cattleman’s was around back then?
CW: It was around then and so was Glenn’s over on 10th.
FI: Oh, Glenn’s Hickory. It’s closed now but I remember going there when I was little. Remember on New Year’s Eve with that little waitress that we swore was on drugs ‘cause she kept forgetting us?
CW and FI together: And it closed shortly after.
FI: It was her fault.
CW: We would go out – we would have a lot of company and we would take them out to the Officers’ Club at Will Rogers.
FI: Did you mention there being a meat shortage in Oklahoma?
CW: I know it. Also, Will Rogers had stockades where there were German prisoners of war.
FI: Really?
CW: Mm-hmm. A lot of people didn’t know that, and I’ll tell you about when we moved back and I told some people that. They thought I was lying. Being the chaplain, my father visited with the prisoners of war and he knew them. A lot of them were Lutherans, and so he ministered to them. They did our laundry.
FI: You had your laundry done by German POWs?
CW: Mm-hmm. We had sheets that we had for a long time that had been mended by the German POWs and I mean you never saw such –
FI: Sewing precision, yeah.
CW: Yeah, German precision. At the end of the war, they had to be sent back to Germany. Many of them wanted to stay, and many of them did come back. There are a lot of Germans in Oklahoma. But a lot of them didn’t want to back, and then of course they tore the stockades down.
FI: They kept them in stockades?
CW: Well, barracks.
FI: Hardly a concentration camp.
CW: No, it wasn’t. They were treated very well. They were treated better here than they knew they would be when they got back to Germany. Then my father thought he was going to be sent overseas. He was going to go to the South Pacific, so since he was going to be sent overseas, he decided to buy a house. He bought a little four-room house out in Bethany on North Redmond –
FI: Oh my gosh!
CW: In the 300 block. Then, they numbered from the highway so it was 300 block.
FI: So that’s right where I live. I did not know that.
CW: It was a darling little house on Redmond. There was no public kindergarten in Bethany so I went to a private kindergarten on Mrs. Preville Beaver’s back porch.
FI: The Beaver family has taught us well, haven’t they?
CW: March 1946 we moved to Chicago. But my father never got sent overseas. He was in Sioux Falls, South Dakota on VJ Day. (Transcriber’s Note: This is Victory over Japan Day, or August 15, 1945, when Japan surrendered, thus de facto ending World War II.) Then he came back and they had to dissolve the base and everything. One of the chapels from Will Rogers, one of the old chapels, is May Avenue Methodist Church, just north of 30th on May Avenue.
FI: Over by Northwest Classen.
CW: Yeah. They took one of the chapels and made that into the Methodist church.
FI: That’s right around the corner from where you live. Cleveland, Taft, right across the way.
CW: My mother loved to take the streetcar when we moved here during World War II. She took the streetcar Downtown and she said Downtown Oklahoma City was a wonderful place. There was Halliburton’s. There was John A. Brown. There was Harbor Longmire. There was the Criterion and all these wonderful theaters, and the streetcar when right down Classen Boulevard right to the Downtown. You could get off and you could go shopping everywhere. There were wonderful places to eat and wonderful stores. They decorated at Christmas, and her favorite store was John A. Brown. There was, in John A. Brown, it was divided into departments. A real department store. There was a blouse department, and the blouses sold in that department were handmade by a wonderful seamstress. No two blouses were alike. My mother had blouses that she had bought at John A. Brown for years afterwards, and they were gorgeous. The materials were elegant and lovely, and they had a fantastic millinery department. She had hats that she bought at John A. Brown that she wore for years.
FI: We have a hat box from John A. Brown somewhere, don’t we?
CW: Somewhere. At that time, toys just came out at Christmas. You didn’t have Walmart. You didn’t have Target. The big department stores would have Toyland, which would open the day after Thanksgiving.
FI: Like in A Christmas Story?
CW: Yeah, or maybe the first of November. What she did was she would go down the first day that the toy department opened and she would choose a doll, a doll for my sister, and a doll for me. She would search out all the dolls and she would put one on layaway for each one of us. I still have the doll I got Christmas of 1945.
FI: That does not surprise me.
CW: It’s Sally.
FI: Sally! That was my doll!
CW: Sally, Baby Bright Eyes. She was the Baby Bright Eyes at F&B Baby Bright Eyes. I still had Judy’s doll that she got that year. Judy has it. I’ve had mine all restored and taken care of.
FI: Sally is beautiful. I slept with Sally for years.
CW: Sally is wonderful.
FI: She is. She’s my girl.
CW: I’ve carried her with me for over 60 years.
FI: Sally’s an Okie.
CW: That wonderful, wonderful doll. My mother loved John A. Brown. Then we moved back in 1972. She came to visit us and she brought with her her charge card from the ‘40s to John A. Brown, and she took it to the store and it was still valid. That’s the kind of a store John A. Brown was.
FI: That’s funny. That is very funny.
CW: Our lives kind of entwined in Oklahoma City even though I’ve lived in a lot of other places.
FI: We don’t have anybody here that we would consider native Oklahoman.
CW: But my grandfather Chapman’s sisters lived out in Spencer. There are a whole lot of Chapmans buried in Spencer. His relatives are buried in the cemetery in Spencer. I went out one day to the cemetery. Uncle Paul told me, because he had traced them all down. Grandfather’s sisters are buried there, his father, his mother, and bunch of others are all buried there. They came here from Illinois. My grandmother Chapman died as Wesley Hospital from pneumonia in February of 1940. (Transcriber’s Note: Wesley Hospital closed in 1964 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.) They were visiting here, and she’s buried in Bethany.
FI: In the Bethany Cemetery?
CW: In the Bethany Cemetery, yes.
FI: There we go (unintelligible).
CW: Uh-huh. So yeah, the ties here are much deeper and longer than people realize.
FI: That’s interesting. Okay, now let’s go to 1972. We moved here. I’m two –
CW: You were 17 months when we moved here.
FI: Steve’s about four.
CW: He was three and a half and you were one and a half.
FI: I still have the picture of us that Marilyn Green took.
CW: When we left California.
FI: There are pictures with Dad that look like movie stars. We moved here, and then Dad started working at UCO, Central State at the time. You stayed home with me for a couple of years but then you started up at what was then Bethany Nazarene College.
CW: Right, working on my Master’s degree.
FI: And I went to the same school that now is going to the school for children, which was Dr. Joy Beamer –
Both: The daughter of the woman who taught me/you (CW) kindergarten.
FI: Which is really, really funny. Tell me about that. What happened?
CW: We needed to leave where we lived in California for Steve’s health.
FI: Steve is my older brother.
CW: Steve is the older brother. The smog was so bad he could not play outside. We asked the doctor what to do and the doctor said to get him out. Most people moved from –
FI: You were in Upland?
CW: Upland to San Diego, but my husband had been working on his Ph.D. at the University of Tulsa. He would come back in the summertime for six weeks and go to school, and through there he met the brother of the head of the Special Education department at Central State. They needed somebody in the summer of 1972, and Darwin had been a school psychologist in California and had worked with a lot of special education kids testing –
FI: He did a lot of that, almost eight years at that point, ‘cause that’s what he was doing when you guys met in ’66, right?
CW: Mm-hmm. He was a school psychologist and he had tested more special ed kids with more different problems than you even could imagine.
FI: And the training out there that he told me about was insane.
CW: The training was fabulous from UCLA and Cal State. Bob van Osdol was in the department where he was doing his work at Tulsa, and his brother was Bill van Osdol, who was the head of the special ed department at Central State. Bill was looking for someone to fill this full time position and he said he didn’t know who to do it. Bob said I’ve got a great person for you, so he called us one day in July and asked Darwin to apply for this teaching job. He sent his application in, and they said, “Can you fly back for an interview?” He flew back for an interview July 23. He started school August 19.
FI: [laughs]
CW: In between July 23 and August 19, we packed up and moved to Oklahoma.
FI: Where was the first place we ate when we got here?
CW: Braum’s.
[both laugh]
FI: Sorry. I had to throw that one in there. It’s an Oklahoma tradition.
CW: Yeah, so we moved here very, very quickly. Didn’t even have a chance to get our house sold out there, so we sold it after we’d moved here. We drove across the country in a car. I drove the car with Paula and the little dog, and my husband drove the big 23-foot truck with Steve and we came across the country. It was the reverse migration of the Okies.
[both laugh]
CW: We settled here and he immediately went to work teaching. Steve went to nursery school, and I stayed home for several years before I started working on my Master’s at Bethany Nazarene.
FI: Had you visited here in the meantime from the last time you’d been?
CW: No. I had not been, so it was a big change. I had never been back since I left in 1946. No, I take that back. I lied. I had come down here twice on high school visiting days to Bethany Nazarene College from Hutchinson, Kansas, but that was it.
FI: We’re talking ten, twelve –
CW: It was a long time. That was just going to the college and visiting classes and nothing to do with the city.
FI: What did you think? How had it changed?
CW: Well, you know I left when I was six. It had built up quite a bit. It was a much bigger city, and Bethany when I left was separated from Oklahoma City. Immediately after World War II, May was really far west in Oklahoma City when we left.
FI: Now it’s the central –
CW: Right. It was just farms and territory. By the time we come in ’72, it was all solid. It was a part of Oklahoma City. All the areas that were what we called forests at that time were built up with houses, and that started in the ‘50s. In the ‘60s it really gained speed, so by the time we moved here in ’72 it was built in where nothing had been.
FI: Did you find the church had changed?
CW: I was a little kid. I don’t remember much.
FI: I guess you were doing the Protestant chaplain thing. Were you heavily involved in the Nazarene life while you were here with your dad?
CW: No. We went to chapel services, and then sometimes on Sunday night we’d go to service at Bethany First Church of Oklahoma City. They’d have what they’d call “Singspirations,” where people would come and they’d just be singing for a couple of hours.
FI: What they now call “Praise and Worship,” right?
CW: Uh-huh. We were the chaplain’s kids when we lived here. It was very different. We went to church at the Protestant chapel.
FI: When did you start teaching at BNC? Was that ’74?
CW: ’76. I started back to graduate school in ’74, and taught as a teaching assistant, went to school and got my Master’s in ’76, and then started teaching fall of ’76.
FI: What did you teach?
CW: At that time, I taught speech and communication. I started directing plays.
FI: Did they have a theater department when you started?
CW: It was all part of the speech department. It wasn’t a separate theater department.
FI: I remember when you did the plays they were amazing. They were fun and that was a fun thing to grow up in.
CW: They were fun. I did that for thirteen years, directing plays and spent my life up there in Harrick Auditorium. Many, many nights. Paula, my interviewer, would go with me all the time. It was fun.
FI: Those people were like family.
CW: They were. I had taught high school before. I taught high school three years. I taught a year of junior high. I taught a semester of kindergarten, and then once I started teaching college I knew this was the thing for me. This was great. I loved it.
FI: How long did you teach?
CW: I taught from 1976 to January of 2006, and I still do part-time and adjunct teaching doing just what I want to do now. I taught in the speech department until 1990, and then I said I’m not doing anymore plays. You just get worn out, so I went to the English department. That was great, going to the English department, and then in 1998 started doing study trips. We took our first study trip of 36 people back to Boston to study New England Literature. For about nine years I directed study trips to various interesting places, and I enjoyed that a lot.
FI: I bet. Some of the kids that had never been out of the state got to get out.
CW: They did. We got to ride public transportation. We talked about it and it used to be here, but that’s really a wonderful thing.
FI: I can’t even fathom that.
CW: We went to Boston. We went to England. We went to France, and then this last January to Italy.
FI: Do you consider yourself an Oklahoman?
CW: I probably am as much as anything, although people don’t think of me that way. They think I’m an Easterner, and my father is a New Englander. When I talk about going home, it’s going home to New England. My mother lived here the last five years of her life. She had lived here before in the ‘20s and in the ‘40s, so my roots are really deep here. Both my kids are Okies.
FI: I know. Don’t tell Dad. He’s a Southern Californian. He still not quite over that 1930s thing.
CW: No, he’s not. He still thinks Grapes of Wrath –
FI: I know. I know. I know. I know. It’s funny because people think I’m from somewhere else as well, but I totally consider myself an Okie because I say “fixin’ to” and “y’all” and I use the verb “tomp.” I’m definitely an Okie, and when I go different places, I miss Oklahoma. It took me a long time to realize that.
CW: What do you miss about it when you go other places?
FI: I miss how nice the people are here. I miss having conversations with random strangers about intimate subjects. [laughs] That’s what Okies do. I’ve lived in London and I’ve lived in Portland, and I’ve spent a lot of time in southern California. I’ve just got to tell you, people just aren’t as nice as they are here. The pace of life is just a little bit mellower. Everything’s got its drawbacks, but whenever I think of going home now, it’s Oklahoma because that’s where you and Daddy are and that’s where I grew up. I miss Sonic. [CW laughs]
CW: And Braums.
FI: And Braums, and this is the birthplace of the chili cheese onion burger. I don’t know what I would do without those.
CW: When my sister comes back here from California, she has to have beef because the beef in California is so bad. I like it when I fly back in because I can see cows.
FI: I know. I like that. I don’t know what it is. I fought being an Oklahoman for forever, and now it’s just a good place to be. It really is. I think the people are just nice.
CW: I have two aunts who were. Aunt Grace was born in what was Indian Territory.
FI: Aunt Grace was born in Indian Territory? When was that?
CW: The year before we became a state. 1906. She was born in 1906, and then another aunt was born in Oklahoma Territory before it became a state.
FI: Was that Lois?
CW: Yes, Lois. Aunt Grace used to say she wasn’t born in the United States. She was born in Indian Territory. The roots really are deeper than people have any idea.
FI: Well, I’ve learned a lot.
[both laugh]
CW: Good.
FI: I learned a lot more than I knew. I love Uncle Harold in the short pants accompanying Aunt Lois on the violin. I like to picture that one. We had our graduation for the school where I teach. We had our graduation for our seniors this year at the chapel at OCU. I was standing there with a couple of my fellow teachers in our robes looking all professional and grown up when I’m actually not. I remembered vividly you and Daddy taking Steve and me to a Halloween concert there, ‘cause the art teacher John said, “Oh I love to hear those organs,” and I had one of the OOOOOOO flashbacks to hearing that organ with some guy dressed up all creepy and everything. I was like, “Oh man.” I remember that so well.
CW: I think one of the things that many people don’t realize about Oklahoma is that from the very beginning, culture was important.
FI: We have an amazing symphony.
CW: We have an amazing symphony. There’s always been music.
FI: Bluegrass, the Opry, and there’s always – Oklahomans love music.
CW: Classical music. Violin. Look at how many opportunities there are to take music lessons, how many good music schools there are in the Oklahoma City area.
FI: Absolutely. OCU is excellent.
CW: Uh-huh, and always, when my parents were here – my mother was here in the ‘20s – there was music. Pat Oresky came through. Other people came through. The people that founded Oklahoma City paid the money to bring these people here. That mushroomed and grew and there has always been musicians in Oklahoma City.
FI: Was that oil money back in the day that people came from elsewhere?
CW: Probably so, but they used it well.
FI: Oh yeah. We still have one of the most amazing symphonies in the country.
CW: Yes, we have.
FI: (unintelligible) Heart and Soul. Absolutely. Anything else you want to share?
CW: I’m glad I live north of the Red River because we get four seasons. This was one of the things, my husband being a southern Californian, did not want to ever move to where he had long, dark winters. The whole time I lived in California, I would become quite depressed in October [FI laughs] because in October out there, it’s a hot, smoggy, steamy month.
FI: Not the beautiful, crispy, wonderful thing we have here.
CW: He would say, “What’s wrong with you?” I said, “There should be clear blue skies. The leaves should be turning. It should be cool.” Oklahoma has four seasons, and none of them – well, summer can get a bit extreme but you make it through that. The others are really pretty nice. I get the four seasons and he gets the not-too-drastic winter. It’s a good location. I don’t know why more people don’t live here. You know that Oklahoma has more clear flying days than any other state, which is why during World War II the federal government had Altus, Will Rogers, Tinker, Fort Sill, and the one in Enid –
FI: Vance.
CW: Vance. We had four air bases in one little state because of the clear flying days. (Transcriber’s Note: Fort Sill is an Army post. The other four places mentioned were Army Air Corps/Air Force bases.)
FI: I think Oklahoma has gotten a bad rep with a lot of people.
CW: I do too.
FI: I actually remember running into someone – I was in Hawaii – at 20 years old, so that was 1991. I had a t-shirt that a friend of mine had gotten me from the Red Dog on 10th. It was back when those Hard Rock Café t-shirts were really huge. This one said “Red Dog Café” on it. We’re sitting in a restaurant in Waikiki and this guy leans over to me and goes, “How do you know about the Red Dog?” I said, “Excuse me?” He goes, “We were stationed here and we miss Oklahoma.” They were in the FAA and they’d been stationed in Oklahoma, and they missed it. They were like, the people are so nice and it’s so easy to get around and it’s cheap and da da da da da. He’s like, “We’re stationed here and we hate it.” Of course, I’m thinking are you high? What is wrong with you? This is Hawaii. This is where I want to be. I’ll trade you. They were probably about my age that I am now and they missed it for the same reasons when I go away. I miss it. It’s a nice place to be for the most part. Every place has its drawbacks, but it’s gotten so much better. Who was I talking about with this the other day? The Internet has really evened things out and evened the playing field as far as Oklahomans’ ability to not be smack dab in the middle of the country and completely isolated from what’s going on. I remember when Bricktown, in high school, was just a bunch of buildings. I actually worked at one of the first bars that opened down there, which was Bricktown Harley’s, which was the Harley bar for rich guys. It was one of the first ones pre-canal and everything. It was a ghost town.
CW: I was just down there yesterday and it was magnificent.
FI: It’s crazy.
CW: No state has a better state song. Out of fifty state songs –
FI: Oh God. I had to sing that every morning in elementary school.
CW: I know, but still. It’s the best.
FI: Anything that starts out with “Ohhhh” –
CW: No one else has one written by Rogers and Hammerstein.
FI: That is true.
CW: [laughs] You can’t beat that.
FI: We appropriated the Rogers and Hammerstein. Not too shabby. I still can’t stand that musical, though. Oh my God. It makes me crazy.
CW: Green grow the lilacs.
FI: I don’t know. I think –
CW: I know that our son who lives in Texas would much rather be living here.
FI: Steve would rather live here?
CW: Mm-hmm. He likes the climate better.
FI: Oh, it’s too hot down there. Anytime I go down there it’s twenty degrees hotter.
CW: He likes the climate better. He likes a lot of things about it better, but so far the opportunities are –
FI: He married him a Texan.
CW: He did. He married a Texan.
[both laugh]
FI: I don’t know what else, Mama. You think that’s good?
CW: I think that’s about it. That’s brought us up to date. You’re going to be here. You’re not going anywhere.
FI: I’m not going anywhere. I happened to fall in love with somebody who’s many generations deep in Oklahoma and he’s got no plans of leaving, so we’ll see what happens. [whispering] I think I’ll stay.
CW: Okay.
FI: All-righty.
CW: Bye. Thank you.
Both: Bye, y’all.
[both laugh]
End of interview.