Description:
Juanita Dawson discusses her parents, her life growing up in Bethany, her educational experiences, her husband's career as a city manager, and more.
Transcript:
Interviewer: Buddy Johnson
Interviewee: Juanita McCroy Dawson
Interview Date: June 29, 2009
Interview Location: Southern Plaza, BethanyNote: There is some persistent background noise in the interview, possibly some type of landscaping equipment.
Buddy Johnson: Today is June 29, 2009. My name is Buddy Johnson and I’m here to interview Juanita McCroy Dawson. We’re at Southern Plaza in Bethany, Oklahoma. We’re going to record some of Juanita’s memories for the Bethany Centennial. Juanita, can you tell me when and where you were born?
Juanita McCroy Dawson: I was born on 36th Street, just west of – at that time, we called it West Avenue, but it’s now called Rockwell. Our apartments where I was born was called Bryan Hill, and we had our family home there. I’m from a large family, and actually, I was born across the street, but when I was about five years old, my dad had a big house built with seven bedrooms and one bathroom. I lived there until I married.
BJ: Okay, so you were born a Bryan, then?
JMD: Yes.
BJ: Who were your parents?
JMD: H.D. and Nelly Bryan.
BJ: How did they come to live on that farm? Did they come by land run?
JMD: No. They lived in a little mountain town in Arkansas called Marshall. It’s in Searcy County. My parents were very religious and I’m sure that that’s what most of the people were at that time. They attended a – I don’t know if it was a community meeting or a revival meeting, and they were told there was a town where you couldn’t buy cigarettes, and you couldn’t buy liquor. They also had a school for children, an academy they called it, at the college. He knew one day his children would be wanting to go to college, so over a period of time sold everything he had and moved to this strange land. I was born here.
BJ: Okay, so he was able to get enough together – were they poor in Arkansas?
JMD: I think they were mediocre. However, they came here in 1919 in a covered wagon.
BJ: Wow.
JMD: They loved this community. Of course, there was only one church. They - I guess you’d call it sponsored the school.
BJ: What kind of a farm did they have? What was the farm like that you grew up on?
JMD: It really wasn’t a farm. It was 30 acres, but my dad rented farmland. Of course, it was the Depression years. I’m sure he did everything he could to raise his family. They weren’t alone. That’s the way everyone was at that time. There was no money, but we always had plenty of food and something to wear. We loved the town. My parents loved the town and the atmosphere, so I think they were always glad they moved.
BJ: Did you live in the farmhouse? The farmhouse was there on the hill or in that area, right?
JMD: Yes. I was born across the street in a farmhouse, but it wasn’t large enough for our family so my dad built this large home. It was on the hill. It was called Bryan Hill.
BJ: What was the hill like? Now it’s covered with apartments and there’s the city all around and trees. Could you see pretty far from up there?
JMD: It was beautiful, with lots of oak trees and redbuds typical of Oklahoma towns. Some of the trees were very large and a lot of them they called Black Jacks. They had to remove a lot of trees so that my dad could farm. He had a big peach orchard and he raised a lot of sweet potatoes, and then he had corn fields. I was too young to remember. I do remember the peach orchard.
BJ: You never really hear much about sweet potatoes grown in Oklahoma. That’s kind of interesting.
JMD: He had what you call hot beds. He raised – they call them slips. He had furnaces built. Goodness. I haven’t thought of this in a long time. He had furnaces built where he planted them early, laid the potatoes in soil, and had big tanks under the soil. He planted these sweet potatoes, and of course they send out shoots everywhere and he sold them to the farmers and the people all around. They raised what they called Red Puerto Rico potatoes and they were beautiful. We had a big basement with bins underneath. I don’t remember this, but I’m sure he sold those all winter.
BJ: That’s pretty interesting. I’ve never heard of that. That’s pretty industrious, too, to create these furnaces and things like that. That’s really cool.
JMD: I think he was quite successful with it.
BJ: Did you do a lot of work on the farm yourself? Did you have to milk cows?
JMD: I had four brothers and they did most of that kind of work. I had to work in the garden, and I remember pulling sweet potato slips and putting them in a bundle of a hundred or whatever. People would come to buy them, and I remember he had beautiful peaches. They were called Redbird Cling. He sold bushels and bushels of peaches out of that little orchard.
BJ: I guess 36th here is just a few blocks south of the main street. Did you walk into the city all the time or did you kind of stay – ?
JMD: We came into town. Bethany was our town. We walked. I went to Putnam City Schools for eight years, and then my dad decided that – or I think we decided we’d like to go to Bethany Schools because we went to church there and most of our friends were there. I went to Bethany Schools the last four years.
BJ: How did you get to Putnam City Schools?
JMD: There was a school bus. We rode the school bus. There were lots of old timers’ kids on the bus. I remember some of them. The McFarlands were friends of ours. Chuck and Blaine – we called him Bob – rode the bus with us. I think there were some of the Garrison boys. It’s hard to recall.
BJ: Were the streets paved yet?
JMD: Oh my goodness. No. The streets were mud when it was rainy and dust when it was dry. Anyhow, I think I gave you some material that would tell about that.
BJ: Okay. Do you remember the tornado at all or people talking about that?
JMD: Oh, yes. I remember it. I was, I think, probably – let’s see. It was in 1930, so I was probably seven or eight years old. I was in a room at Putnam City grade school, and I remember the teacher – it suddenly became dark, and our teacher let us go to the window. Of course, we didn’t know any better. I can remember putting my hands up to make a place to look through, trying to see out that glass and I couldn’t see one thing. It was black. On our way home from school on the school bus, it was late, and I remember the bus having to re-route because of debris. My mother was up on the hill. She ran to the upstairs bedrooms and looked out, and she said she could see halves of houses in the air.
BJ: Wow. So she saw the tornado hitting the town.
JMD: She saw the tornado. We lived a little west of town.
BJ: So then it didn’t go right through your area?
JMD: No. It went through the area but not the devastating part of it.
BJ: Do you remember being afraid?
JMD: No. I wasn’t afraid because I didn’t know what it was. I was a little kid in second or third grade.
BJ: Were the effects lasting at all? You probably don’t realize that when you’re a kid. Were people –
JMD: I turned in to Carlita a history of the tornado, and it was written by Delbert Gish, who was at that time a student at the college. It’s very beautifully written, so you have a record of that.
BJ: What do you remember about when you were young? What sort of activities did you do with your friends? Did you run around all day in the summer or did you go to the lake?
JMD: We didn’t have much entertainment. We made our own entertainment. Really, we just played typical things that the kids played. I remember that we had lots of trees on Bryan Hill and we played tag a lot, and you had to be on a tree before they’d tag you. It wasn’t so much of a job because there were so many trees. It wasn’t a challenge to catch someone. We just did the typical things that kids do.
BJ: What was high school like at Bethany High School? Was it pretty typical, do you think, or were there things that were different?
JMD: I think it was quite typical of the high schools. I transferred into Bethany. You could find someone that wanted to go to Putnam that lived in the Bethany district and vice versa. We transferred. Of course, I really grew up at that high school in class. We graduated in ’41.
BJ: Most of your friends lived in Bethany anyway, and so it was a natural fit for you. Do you remember any teachers that stood out for you or anything like that?
JMD: My husband writes of that in one of his papers that I’ve given. He remembers all of his grade school teachers and they were outstanding, devoted teacher. Elroy Taylor was the school superintendent. Rex Wiseman was the principal. We had wonderful teachers, and it was just a great atmosphere. No problems with drugs and so forth.
BJ: What do you remember about Main Street in Bethany? Did you visit a lot of the stores there?
JMD: When our parents thought we had time, they would let us walk to Bethany. Every place was safe. We didn’t even lock our doors and left the keys in the car. We walked to downtown Bethany. There were two or three or four grocery stores, and a Mrs. Seaton. I doubt if anyone in town remembers her, but she had a little dime store. She was a real character. We loved her. She had penny candy and things like that in this little store. We didn’t know what a TG&Y or an Anthony’s was. We didn’t have that. There was a little dry goods store. There was a small business district across the street from the college, and they had vacant lots on Main Street that didn’t even have buildings on it.
BJ: There was still room to expand out.
JMD: Yeah, and it expanded.
BJ: What do you remember about the Putnam City area? You went to school along there, along 39th. Was that built up at all or was that just the school there?
JMD: There was a school and some residents all around the school. My close girlfriend – I remember staying all night with her and she lived across the street from the Putnam City school. When I attended, we had a semi-circle school, and we went from the first to the sixth grade. Then we went into junior high and there was a two or three-story building. It’s long since been torn down. I remember going to school there and I remember being involved. We knew who was running for president and the kids would debate on that. We had all the wisdom in the world.
BJ: Well, sure. We always know everything when we’re kids. Your family was Nazarene, and that was part of the reason to come. Did you think of it as a Nazarene town?
JMD: Yes, I think we did, and there were a lot of people. Some of our closest friends were not Nazarene. I never thought of it as exclusive at all, but it was just a good school with wonderful faculty and dedicated people.
BJ: Did you go to SNU? Bethany Penial College, was it then?
JMD: It was Bethany Penial when I went.
BJ: Did you go to college there too?
JMD: Yes, I did.
BJ: What was your major?
JMD: I didn’t graduate. I got married. We had the war, and my husband and I went to school a year before the war, and then we went back after the war.
BJ: How did you meet Mr. McCroy? Is it Harry?
JMD: Harry, yes.
BJ: How did you meet him? Did you grow up with him? Did he grow up here too?
JMD: It’s so strange. He moved here when he was in the second grade. His dad was asked to be pastor of the church. There was only one church in town. Not that the others were excluded, but there weren’t very many people. Anyhow, he was the pastor’s son, and I didn’t really know him because in Sunday School, we were separated by boys and girls. Boys were together and girls were together. I wasn’t really interested in boys at that age, I guess. I didn’t really know him until the summer of eighth grade, and we had what they call daily vacation Bible school, and we went there. Doctor Floyd introduced my husband and me. Fred Floyd.
BJ: He was a history professor at the college.
JMD: Yes.
BJ: Was he matchmaking or did he think you two would get along?
JMD: Harry didn’t know me and he saw me across campus and he asked Dr. Floyd, “Who is that girl with the long black hair?” He said, “I’m surprised you don’t know her.” Anyhow, he introduced us. That’s how it started. Eighth grade.
BJ: Neat. Did you date the whole time through high school?
JMD: We weren’t allowed to date but we managed to be together. We were together all through high school up until the war. Then everything was torn up.
BJ: Did he go away to the war?
JMD: Yes. He went to the South Pacific. He was in for three years in the infantry.
BJ: And you all were married by this time?
JMD: Yes. We were married then.
BJ: What was that like, being in Bethany during the war? Was it pretty typical of the war experience elsewhere?
JMD: I think probably it was. I went to school some and continued with my education. There was a Frank’s Variety Store. There weren’t very many jobs, and my parents advised me not to travel all the way to Oklahoma City to work on the streetcar.
BJ: You could have worked in the bomber plant or whatever.
JMD: Oh, yeah, I could have. I just worked local, little local jobs while he was gone.
BJ: Did you stay with them while he was gone?
JMD: I stayed with my parents up on Bryan Hill.
BJ: Was it not proper for women to live alone at that time?
JMD: I think that there were people who did live alone, but I never wanted to live alone, especially which my parents still here. I had a couple of sisters still at home.
BJ: When he came back – I guess you wrote letters and things like that.
JMD: Oh yeah. Every day we wrote each other.
BJ: I’m sure it worried you quite a bit.
JMD: It was a scary time.
BJ: When he came back, did you stay in Bethany?
JMD: We stayed in Bethany, and he went on to finish his college education, his pre-law work, and then he went to Oklahoma City College of Law (Note: She likely means Oklahoma City University) and continued to work. I had graduated from there.
BJ: You all lived in Bethany, then, or did you live in the city at that time?
JMD: We lived in Bethany the whole time.
BJ: He became an attorney here in town?
JMD: Yes, he did. Bethany had a mayor-council form of government, and they voted to have the city manager form a government. When they voted this in, they asked my husband if he would consider it. Several people called on him and asked him to.
BJ: We know the story about his career. You wrote that and other people have written that, but what can you tell us about what it was like from your perspective? What was it like in Bethany at that time? He was sort of responsible for the growth and expansion of the city, or at least during his time as the city manager. Do you remember the library being built or anything?
JMD: No. I wish I did. I know that he was always wanting a library. We just had a little nook in what we called the municipal building. That was the high school auditorium. We had a very small library, and I remember him talking about how we needed a library. I can’t recall what happened and I don’t know who would know.
BJ: Where was the city hall and everything? Was in the same basic location as it is now?
JMD: When he became city manager, he had an office there where Cory, Duane Cory’s insurance – there was this little city hall. Then they moved over to the old bank building, which is now Jack Petty’s. They were there for quite awhile, and then later, the city hall was built after my husband left.
Unknown male: Tell them about how he kept from diverting the highway.
JMD: I think he has all of that written down. He had three big battles when he was city manager. Of course, we had no drainage, no paving, none. Not one bit of paving except Main Street, Highway 66. He set out to get rid of the mud. He was able to get paving in all of Bethany.
BJ: Did he represent a group or was this his ambition and his drive?
JMD: He loved Bethany, and we were so needy as a town. I think they were crying for leadership, someone that could really devote the time. With the mayor-council, it’s all volunteer. He loved his work as city manager.
BJ: What was that like for you? Did you get tired of that sometimes?
JMD: Well, yeah. He was gone all the time. There was a meeting every night, sometimes two or three.
BJ: Where did you all live after he’d gotten out of law school and gotten on his feet?
JMD: We lived at 4704 North Penial. That’s just north of the campus by two or three blocks. We lived there until I moved a year ago.
BJ: Wow. The whole time. That’s a pretty good time to live there. That’s neat. You raised your family there?
JMD: Yes. We lived there about fifty-five or fifty-six years in that one house.
BJ: That’s great. Did the neighborhood pretty well stay the same the whole time?
JMD: Well, there were homes built and it grew just like any little town.
BJ: How did you feel about Bethany after the expansion? It went out to 63rd, I think. Originally it only went to 50th and then it went up to 63rd. It went down a lot further south. You lived on the edge of town when you were a child, and now all of a sudden –
JMD: Yes, that’s correct. It wasn’t in town at all. It was outside of town.
BJ: How did you feel about that when all that expansion came? Do you think Bethany changed?
JMD: I’m sure change would be inevitable in the situation we were in. I felt like it improved. We didn’t have a good sanitation system. We had no garbage collection. We had mail delivery, if you can imagine it, twice a day. There was morning and afternoon mail delivery. There was a north route and a south route, and my husband had the north route. He was the first postman in Bethany.
BJ: Really? I didn’t know that.
JMD: That was work he did when he was going to school
BJ: It was some time before – I don’t think they even had a post office originally, right?
JMD: No, as far as I can remember, we always had a post office.
BJ: Oh, okay. That’s pretty cool, that he was the first postmaster. Postman. Oh, I get it, because before you had to come in. He was the deliverer. I got you.
JMD: Right, the boxes in city hall, and a key and all. We picked up our mail every day, or tried to. My parents – when I was a child, we lived on a rural route and there was a postman.
BJ: He would bring it by in the truck or whatever.
JMD: Uh-huh. [meaning yes]
BJ: Okay. Did you – going back some, then, to when you were growing up, did Bethany have everything that you needed? Did you go into the city very much?
JMD: We went into the city. We had an Inter-Urban. It stopped in downtown Bethany at stop fourteen, which was Rockwell, and then stop 16 was Council, and it went on to El Reno. If we went to Oklahoma City, we went on the Inter-Urban. It was quite a ride.
BJ: How long did it take? Was it a long ride?
JMD: They stopped a lot, but it started early in the morning and it went all day.
BJ: I guess you could have ridden that to school if you hadn’t had a bus.
JMD: No, it was right in the center of town and we lived –
BJ: Oh, okay. That’s true. You were still three long blocks away from –
JMD: At least three, probably five.
BJ: How often did you go into Oklahoma City? Was it frequently or was it a treat to go?
JMD: Not really often, and it was a treat.
BJ: What did you do there? Would you go with your family?
JMD: Uh-huh. [meaning yes]
BJ: What kind of things did you do in town?
JMD: We just shopped. We went there to shop.
BJ: For clothing and stuff like that?
JMD: School clothes, things like that.
BJ: I guess you didn’t go to the movies, then? Some Nazarenes weren’t allowed to go.
JMD: That’s right.
BJ: Do you remember any – you may not have encountered this, but I always have to ask if there were any sort of bad elements in town? Do you remember bootleggers or any kind of troublemakers or anything like that?
JMD: There was a story about a bootlegger in town. I don’t really remember it, but he was crippled and a very nice-looking man, but they said he got the wrong kind of whiskey and it impaired him.
BJ: Oh, that was Jake Leg, right? Is that what they called it? Jake Leg Disease or something?
JMD: Yeah. That’s the only person I knew that drank at all.
BJ: There were the laws against the sale of it, and probably most people didn’t want it anyway.
JMD: That’s right.
BJ: Do you remember any – there were some famous people like Ali Reynolds, the baseball player. Did you know that family at all?
JMD: My husband was a really good friend of Ali’s. They lived about a block apart, and he said, “I can remember playing ball with him. I tried to stay away and he’d knock us all down.”
BJ: With his strong pitches?
JMD: Yeah.
BJ: That’s pretty neat. I can imagine what they would be like, playing baseball with a guy who goes on to the Yankees and all that kind of stuff. That’s pretty neat. Did Ali visit Harry very much? Did they stay friends?
JMD: He was older than Harry, and Harry just idolized him. You know little boys. His parents – I knew his parents. His father was an Indian, Ali Reynolds’ dad. They’re very wonderful people.
BJ: Were there a lot of other Indians in town or was that unusual? Were there other ethnic groups?
JMD: I had a friend who was an Indian, but no, I think we were mostly just like I was. I felt like that.
BJ: Do you remember – the other notable person would be Shannon Lucid. Do you remember the Wells family at all? She’s a lot younger than you but I didn’t know if the family was around.
JMD: Shannon was – they lived across the street from my brother. I really didn’t know them well.
BJ: What kind of things were you – we’ll go back to the later ‘50s and ‘60s during the expansion. What kind of things did you do? Were you – you stayed home with children and all that, but did you do other activities around?
JMD: No. I don’t remember. I don’t remember playing ball, and of course we couldn’t ride bikes or skate. There was no place to skate, no place to ride a bike.
BJ: Well, there was no paving, so yeah.
JMD: The sand was so deep you cannot imagine. We had dust storms and it would pile up on the windowsills an inch. There’d be times you could hardly see out the windows.
BJ: For the darkness from the dust?
JMD: From the dust, yes.
BJ: Did you ever go to Overholser very much?
JMD: Oh, yeah, that was our big thing. In high school we’d walk to the lake. We always walked. There would be probably ten or twelve of us on a Saturday.
BJ: You’d all go together as a group?
JMD: We’d all go together.
BJ: Did you boat? What kind of things did you do?
JMD: Oh, no. We just walked across the dam. I don’t know. It was very exciting.
BJ: I’ve walked across that several times and I think it’s still pretty cool. Okay. Do you remember – I’ve seen pictures around the time of the ‘30s that the lake was pretty dry then. Do you remember seeing that at all?
JMD: No, I really don’t.
BJ: I guess that it was dry all around. What kind of – I was going to ask you about Christmas, but you said you’d written about that.
JMD: My husband wrote about that and you have it.
BJ: I’m pretty close to the end of my questions. Is there anything that I didn’t talk about that you –
JMD: No. I talked more than I ever thought I would.
BJ: Okay. We appreciate you sharing your memories with us and taking the time to come and talk to us.
End of interview.