Description:
Glenice McCauley talks about growing up in northeast Oklahoma City.
Transcript:
Interviewee: Glenice McCauley
Interviewer: Unknown Female
Interview Date: 10/3/2007
Interview Location: UnknownTranscription Date: Monday, 6/15/2020 – Wednesday 6/17/2020
Transcriber’s Note: Transcription reflects the speech and grammar of the people talking. Readers may also find it helpful to have a map of the area being talked about available for viewing.
Unknown Female Interviewer: Today this is a brand new experience for me because I’ve never interviewed anyone, out of all the interviews I’ve been doing, from my family. You’re going to be my first one today. Today I’m talking with one of my favorite cousins in the whole world, and I affectionately call her “Butch.” She’s going to tell me her full name.
Glenice McCauley: Glenice Doretha Hill Ellis McCauley.
UFI: Okay, Glenice Doretha Hill Ellis McCauley. Lot of names for such a tall person!
GM: Oh, yes.
UFI: I said I affectionately call you “Butch.” How did you get the name “Butch?” Do you remember?
GM: Oh, yes. I have been told the story of how I got my nickname from my parents. My uncle had been overseas and he hadn’t seen me. His name was Ernie Salisbury. We called him Uncle Brut.
UFI: He was your mother’s –
GM: - Brother. He had came home on leave and by me being so small, he just thought I couldn’t walk. He was sitting out in the yard upon the porch there and the kids was out in the yard. Of course, I was one of them. Everybody was climbing the tree. He had went in the house and when he came back, I was in the tree. He went back and started hollering for my mama that someone had hid me up in the tree and they need to get me down. He was too scared to even mess with me because he thought I was too frail. My grandmother came out and said, “Leave that little old woman alone. She’ll be down in a minute.” My uncle was still kind of, oh you know –
UFI: Shook up.
GM: Yeah, ‘cause he didn’t believe she knew what she was talking about. I guess he didn’t think my grandmother understood. ‘Bout that time, my mother come out and he was telling her and she said, “She come down when she gets ready.” About that time, they say that I turned around and looked at the other kids and smile, and then pretty soon I got tired and I came down out of the tree. My uncle, he like to passed out ‘cause he couldn’t believe somebody that small was doing what I was doing. He said, “From now on I’m calling her Butch. She ain’t nothin’ but a dadgum tomboy!” He was just kind of flabbergasted, you know. He’s saying, “Yeah, I got the right name for her.” After he’d seen some of the stuff – “She ain’t nothin’ but a little tomboy!” I think it took him a while to get over the point but he felt had the right name and it took and everybody called me Butch from them on.
UFI: That’s all I knew for decades before I knew your real name. What was your birthday?
GM: I was born December 25, 1943, which I’m a Christmas baby.
UFI: And you were born in?
GM: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
UFI: Were you at the university hospital?
GM: University Hospital, yes. (Transcriber’s Note: This is possibly OU Medical Center, formerly known as Presbyterian Hospital.)
UFI: Okay. Well, the purpose of our little chat today is to talk about growing up in what we used to call the Fairgrounds and we’re now calling the Old Fairgrounds. Back then it was the Fairgrounds. Where did you grow up in the Fairgrounds?
GM: 604 Wisconsin. (Transcriber’s Note: This is later spoken as 604 North Wisconsin. Current maps list the street name as North Wisconsin.)
UFI: It just amazes me that everybody remembers the addresses. They remember those addresses right off the top of their head. 604 Wisconsin. Northeast 6th and Wisconsin.
GM: 604 North Wisconsin, and the telephone number back then, ours was 25947. [laughs].
UFI: What was the prefix?
GM: Wasn’t any prefix. It was just five numbers.
UFI: 25947? Wow. You all must have had a telephone early in the telephone issuing business.
GM: Well, I remember that phone number. I remember the times 60561 and I remember the Burnses, the neighbors that live across the street. Theirs was 64084. Them’s the only three I can really remember.
UFI: And they were families that lived around where you were?
GM: Everybody in the Fairgrounds at that time, and I think all over the state of Oklahoma, had five-digit telephone numbers.
UFI: When I was a teenager we didn’t get a telephone until I was in high school and the phone number started with Regency. R-E. And then the rest of the digits.
GM: Then they had Central. It depends on what area you lived in, that’s what it was. They had some Garfields -
UFI: Garfields. 4-2-4.
GM: But back in the early years, everybody couldn’t afford telephones, and they had party lines too. That was funniest thing. You could hear what you’re neighbor was saying, if they were talking about you you’d know it.
UFI: You could pick up the phone.
GM: You could pick up the phone and somebody else’d be on the phone and they’d say well, here’s old nosey somebody wanna talk. It was a lot of fun back then. On top of that where we lived, on Wisconsin, it wasn’t really straight. It wasn’t a paved street.
UFI: On 6th and Wisconsin it wasn’t paved?
GM: No, Wisconsin wasn’t paved. 6th Street wasn’t. I remember the street cars. What they had, it was kind of like asphalt-like, but it wasn’t sealed like it’s sealed today. That’s kind of the way it was. They didn’t have streetlights. I remember when the gas company come along and put in a gas line. They had little old black smut buckets they would put on the end of the hole where we’d know about it. Walking home, we’d be walking down the street in what we’d call sidewalks. There wasn’t any of them either.
UFI: At the time you were coming up down there.
GM: Right. We’d go way out there because we used to love look up at the Brown Bomber.
UFI: What was the Brown Bomber?
GM: The Brown Bomber – we lived exactly – we was like the third house before you get to the Brown Bomber.
UFI: Was the Brown Bomber on 6th Street?
GM: No, it was on Wisconsin right in the middle between 6th and 5th Streets.
UFI: Did it move? Did they relocate Brown Bomber somewhere?
GM: They but it was in later years.
UFI: Later, okay. [UFI and GM talking over each other]
GM: They did not break the Brown Bomber down until the urban renewal bought them out. The Brown Bomber was still there.
UFI: What was the Brown Bomber? We’re just talking about it.
GM: It was a beer joint. And on top of that, by them selling ‘tato chips and candy and gum, kids could go in there. Pickles. They’d come in and let them buy and they’d go out. Everybody at the Brown Bomber – we’s on a first-name basis with them because everybody knew Butch. [both laugh] They knew the little Huntsberry girl and they saw the little Huntsberry and I knew how to get what I wanted because I was taught I’d better go get what I wanted and get out of there. We’d see a lot of fights and it was a lot of fun. There was a lot happening down there.
UFI: What other businesses were around there? The Brown Bomber was on Wisconsin, and then on 6th Street –
GM: On 6th and Wisconsin, we called Miss Bower’s Pool Hall. She had a pool hall around there on 6th Street, and then further down 6th Street on the next corner, which is 6th and Nebraska, Miss Cora was down there.
UFI: And what was Miss Cora’s place?
GM: Miss Cora had a joint too.
UFI: 6th Street was kind of like a string of different –
GM: The further on down the street was a string of pool halls, shoeshine stops, another beer joint. It was just a variety on one side. Just a variety.
UFI: And there was like this common porch that ran across there.
GM: That’s what it was.
UFI: They were all storefront places.
GM: Yes, that’s what it was. They would sit out there, especially when there was no business inside. They would sit out there and talk and communicate. Across the street from there was 6th and Rhode Island, and then [UFI and GM talking over each other].
GM: Then they had a Sons Grocery Store across the street from all of the joints on the -
UFI: It was on the corner of –
GM: On the north side of the street.
UFI: On the corner of 6th and Rhode Island. What do you remember about Sons Grocery Store?
GM: We’d stop there sometime to pick up something for school. You know, going to school snacks. Then we’d come back and we’d stop at one and then, see the stores... we didn’t have no grocery stores on 6th Street. Sons was on 5th Street. They had some on 5th Street too. They’d just kinda criss cross. Back then in the early part of the years, I remember the had Sons. After they had Sons they had what they call Allen.
UFI: Allen’s Grocery Store and that was right across the street from Church of the Living God.
GM: Right. That’s where that was.
UFI: Who used to be at Church of the Living God?
GM: The Hill family, of course.
UFI: The Hill family. Your daddy was what? What was his occupation?
GM: My dad was what they call a jack of all trades. He was a builder. He was a mechanic. There was nothing that my dad couldn’t do. Nothing, and that’s how I learned to do a lot of stuff.
[UFI and GM talking over each other]
GM: It wasn’t anything my dad could not do. He would do it all. If he didn’t know how, you didn’t know it ‘cause he did it.
UFI: He would still do it. What was his name? What is his name ‘cause he’s still with us today?
GM: His name is Robert Ray Hill Senior, and I am his oldest daughter. Thank you.
UFI: What do we call Robert?
GM: Bud.
UFI: We call him Uncle Bud. You talked about all of the different things he could do as a craftsman. What was the occupation of his heart?
GM: Church. He loved talking about the Bible and preaching about the Bible.
UFI: He was an evangelist.
GM: He was very highly in that. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t tell you about the Bible and tell you where to go find it in the Bible. All you had to do was ask.
UFI: Or not ask. He’ll still tell you.
GM: You’ll hear what he said because he believed in having the last word.
UFI: I want to go back. You mentioned the streetcar. I never knew that streetcars were this far on the east side in the Fairgrounds area. Do you remember where it ran? Did you ever ride it?
GM: Yes, I did. I just can’t – I know it come through 8th and Eastern and I don’t know where it made its turn at. I don’t know whether it went on to 10th or whatever. I remember it going all the way back to 4th and where it went from there, I don’t know because when I rode it I was a lot smaller. We just rode it a certain distance and got off. The bus – we would ride the bus all the way Downtown because the bus always did go down 6th Street.
UFI: You talked about Miss Cora and Miss Bower and Allen’s Grocery Store. Do you remember the names of some of the other business owners? If you could remember what their names were and where they put their places of business?
GM: We had a Sellers grocery store.
UFI: Where was it?
GM: Sellers grocery store started out on 5th and Nebraska. We had one store on 5th and Nebraska and another one on Nebraska, but the one on Nebraska didn’t come until later. Then Sellers moved from there to across the street on 5th Street between Nebraska and Missouri. Then we had a Collins store. Mr. Collins. He was a high dollar grocery. He would have stuff when all the other stores closed. You would go to his store to get stuff. Then they had another grocery store here [paper rustling, possibly a map] in the little bitty Fairgrounds here. We had a [paper rustling] Dunn Grocery Store. His name was Don and we called him Dunn for the longest time. This is Mr. Jones’ store. He was on 5th, no, he was on 6th and Nebraska also.
UFI: Were all of those stores existing at the same time?
GM: They just all – no, because Sellers was there. Sellers and Collins was there first, and this is what I remember. Sellers and Collins. I mostly went to Sellers because Sellers would always tell my grandmother don’t worry about me because nobody would never cheat me because I could count money better than he could. I’d turn around and tell him how much change I was supposed to get back. That was Sellers. Then we had what they call Sonny Norwood’s but that was later in years. Sonny’s came later.
UFI: In the ‘50s.
GM: Right then it was like Sellers, Collins, and Honest John. That was the name of it. Honest John. They closed it early.
UFI: Did you ever work at any of those?
GM: Collins. I was a teenager then, when I worked at Collins and I worked there – I want to say about three years.
UFI: As a grocery clerk?
GM: As a clerk and I cut meat. If somebody come in and wanted so many pounds or so many slices or whatever, or they wanted thick or thin or whatever, I could cut whatever size they wanted.
UFI: Did Mrs. Ellis teach you how to do that?
GM: Collins did. He taught me how to cut the meat and I had to stand on something to weigh it, so I had a stepstool where I could get up there and weigh whatever I had to. Everything else, cookies and so forth (unintelligible). I dragged that ladder around. I got good at what I did. I worked there just about two, two and a half years.
UFI: And you were a teenager so you were in high school by that time?
GM: Um…[pauses]. I was a teenager. Kinda like maybe 15. I grew up real fast.
UFI: No kidding. I’m so surprised. That area of the Fairgrounds, that was where you lived first. Did you live in any other part of the Fairgrounds area?
GM: I used to stay directly across the street from the Brown Bomber. When my brothers was born, we stayed in Miss Osborne’s apartments.
UFI: Was she Black? Did you ever see her?
GM: She’s Black. She stayed right next door.
UFI: I’m going to look up her name and get her full name.
GM: Her daughter's name was Dorothy Osbourne and she had a son named Chauncy. I can’t remember the other one’s name, but I remember Dorothy real good.
UFI: Where were her apartments?
GM: Her house was here, and then she had –
UFI: But what street was that?
GM: This was on Wisconsin.
UFI: Still on Wisconsin. Was this on 3rd?
GM: No, it was on Wisconsin in the 600 block because we stayed directly across the street from the Brown Bomber.
UFI: What about the time you all lived back down on 3rd Street?
GM: We lived on 3rd and Rhode Island. That was later years but they had an apartment complex. That was after 3rd but before – we lived in what they call Amos Byers apartments.
UFI: Do you know how they’re spelled?
[GM and UFI talking over each other trying to clarify the apartment name]
UFI: Amos Byers Apartments?
GM: Yes. You went up a hill and when you went up the hill then it flats out and there was a whole bunch of little apartments back there. [UFI and GM talking over each other] This was between Wisconsin and Nebraska. That’s where these apartments was, and this was in the 500 block. The reason I say 500 block is because it was across 4th on the south side of the street. There’s a whole bunch of little apartments. My mother stayed in one and my auntie stayed in one. I can’t remember all but there was a lot of people staying back there in them apartments. They stayed for I don’t know how long. They finally disappeared. Across the street there was a lot of duplexes on that other side of the street, and that was between Wisconsin and Nebraska. Them was mostly apartments and the rest of them was mostly houses that people lived in. Right on the corner, we had a cleaners. They had a cleaners right on the corner of 5th and Wisconsin. There was a lot of people that stayed in the houses. They were real close together and you could holler from 4th street and probably could hear them all the way to 7th Street. That’s just how it was when they started building up because before, there was just certain people and you knew everybody on one block. A lot of times you didn’t know the ones in the 500 block because when they moved, they moved another way. We used to go to church on 4th Street, which we went to church at New Hope Mission. That’s where our church was. That’s how we knew when people moved down there because when we’d go straight down Wisconsin, we’d see somebody else moved down there on the other side. We called 4th Street the other side.
UFI: The other side?
GM: Yes, because when we got to 4th Street, there used to be a whole bunch of nothing down there. Then that started building up for different people. It’s another set of Hills moved in down there. They wanted to get with us and be some kin and I said, “No, honey. We come from a certain set and that’s it. We ain’t no kin to them.” It got to be the Muckers.
UFI: Raymond Mucker. I went to school with him.
GM: I went to school with his sister, but I was speaking of his grandparents. Then the Stones, the Hills, the Muckers. [door slams] That was 4th Street across the street, just likes Amos Byers was across the street. Amos Byers and then across the street down there on Wisconsin, them was the only little circlets right then. And then they had – the building is still there. The Skyline –
UFI: Was it called the Skyline Club?
GM: It’s been called everything. The Green Door – I can give you them all.
UFI: The Flamingo?
GM: It’s been a lot of names.
UFI: What other names can you remember?
GM: It was The Skyline, The Flamingo, The Green Door, [pauses].
UFI: Was it ever called The Top Hat?
GM: No. The Top Hat was (unintelligible). Do you remember – no, that’s too far from me. I said Green Door didn’t I? It was the Skyline, the Flamingo, the Green Door, [pauses].
UFI: Did you ever go there?
GM: I went there when I think it was The Skyline. I can’t remember what years was what because they changed names, but yes, I went down there to see James Brown and seen Tina Turner. That’s where all of the real famous peoples used to come. This is before they opened up the Civic Center for Downtown. But anything like Sam Cooke... anybody that was anybody that came to Oklahoma, that’s where they would be at. I’d pay as little as $2 to see them. That was in my day when I could out, where now you have to pay $50-something to go see them. Used to see them for little or nothing.
UFI: I want you to tell me about – you talked with me about the Fairgrounds being in a certain area that’s different from some other people’s memories of where the Fairgrounds were, but they were talking later on. You remember the Fair as having been where?
GM: The fair was exactly across Eastern. There’s a big oil well sitting on one side. The Fairgrounds is exactly where Douglass is now. When you pull up in that drive to go to Douglass now, the oil well is sitting here. Well, was. The oil well was sitting on the side when you turn on the south side of the street. That’s where the oil well was. The Fair started on the other side. The other side is where you cross the street on the other side. That’s where the Fairgrounds started at and they right today is still there. That’s the landmark. For anybody, that is the landmark, is that drive.
UFI: The drive that goes in?
GM: The drive that goes into Douglass now.
UFI: And the fair started down on?
GM: Right here.
UFI: That’s 8th Street.
GM: No, it’s not 8th Street.
UFI: 9th?
GM: No. No, no. See, we’re still talking about 6th Street. Right now I’m still in this angle between 5th and 6th Street.
UFI: Oh, okay, so the entrance – so the oil well that’s there now – there’s still some kind of oil well something there now.
GM: No ‘cause there’s a golf club there.
UFI: The oil well used to be down in there?
GM: It used to be a real tall one ‘cause –
UFI: So that’s where you’re saying the Fair started?
GM: - was too small. A boy got killed over there. You were too young. You were born but you was just too young to know about this. Where you turn into Douglass now – what do they call it? Fredrick Douglass Row?
UFI: Fredrick Douglass Boulevard.
GM: Okay. Well that’s where the Fair was. It’s on your left side. That’s where the Fair starts at. The Fair started there and went from there all the way to might as well say 10th Street. Then the Fair was from Martin, Eastern, all the way back to where the golf course sits back there.
UFI: That’s where Douglass Center is now.
GM: Yes. That’s where it stopped because back there was a viaduct, a little river... You didn’t mess with it. That was the back of the Fair and he had all of that closed in. That’s the way it did, was like in my box area.
UFI: Do you remember the fair coming to town and all that? Did you get a chance to go very often?
GM: Oh, honey yes. We sit over there because we lived directly across the street from the fair on Eastern. Eastern was the main highway through Oklahoma City and that’s where we lived. It was like five little houses there and we lived in the very end one. There was a vacant lot and then we’d take a shortcut to my grandmother’s house by the Brown Bomber.
UFI: That Brown Bomber was all over your little area wasn’t it?
GM: The Brown Bomber was bumpin’! What we would do is park cars. We’d go, “Park right here.” 50 cents for parking cars. They’d park them and they’d pay us and I was good with the money. We’d be getting paid for parking all these cars up here from the fair in different parks. Everybody’d try to get our park because ours was the closest to the main entrance and they wouldn’t have so far to walk to pay. That was really the only way in there and that was up here.
UFI: And that’s where the vacant lot was?
GM: That’s where the vacant lot was.
UFI: Okay, so you decided we’ll park cars. Did you set up your own little business?
GM: We had our own little dibs because nobody really knew who owned that piece of property. It was just a big vacant lot.
UFI: Free enterprise.
GM: I guess. The guy, it was right along Threatt’s.
[GM and UFI talking over each other]
GM: There’s the Brown Bomber. They had a Brown Bomber there and then they had an upholstery building there.
UFI: Threatt’s Upholstery. I remember seeing that.
GM: It was right behind the Brown Bomber. You could park cars all through there and the guy that did the other deal, he’d be on one part of it and we’d be on the other. Girl, we made some money. We loved the fair coming and hated when it left. They wouldn’t let nobody go where we wanted to go, which was in the Fairgrounds. But you couldn’t go over there until 10 days after the fair was gone because the police and the city and everyone else would be there (unintelligible). They finding all of the money and the goodies. They would take it all because they were the ones who went over there first and whatever the fair left -
UFI: So there’d be money left in the ground?
GM: Ooooh, honey. Yes. Money, stuffed animals –
UFI: Oh, just debris? Stuff, whatever? Their discards? Stuff they forgot?
GM: Stuff they really done forgot because they’d be in such a hurry taking this stuff down, stuff that you would find. There was a Ye Olde Mill that stayed over there.
UFI: What kind of mill?
GM: It was kinda like a dark house you would go in at the fair and they’d call it the Ye Olde Mill. It was the boats. The lovebirds went in there and they had different pictures. Some of them would scare you if you was scared. Most of the time they’d go in because it was dark. That’s why they went.
UFI: Oh, they go kiss.
GM: Yeah, well, you know. [thud] It was fun going in there. That stayed year after year. They never left.
UFI: So where was it located ‘cause I’m seeing the old 4H building or something like that and Douglass’s grounds.
GM: As far as I was sitting up here trying to mastermind all of this and this was years and years ago, ‘cause when I went over there and seen Douglass School, I asked, “Where was Ye Olde Mill at?” I was kind of really, really thinking. I think the Ye Olde Mill they did the football stadium, a concrete stadium. They put that up under the ground because I don’t know how much water was on this boat in the Ye Olde Mill. But after this they had put something over it where the water would be if they couldn’t drain it out or whatever. They had to make it real flush. So I would say that’s where the football stadium is. Not now, but where it was, where the old Douglass stadium was. That’s where the Ye Olde Mille was.
UFI: Do you remember them building it and tearing it down?
GM: We watched it.
UFI: Were there jobs for – like an opportunity for the men and women to get jobs?
GM: They’d just get jobs during the fair just like they do now. I’m still trying to figure out what did they really do? I’m trying to think what did they really do? I guess they had a lot of outdoor bathrooms over there and what indoors they had had to be – they had to be portable because when the fair left there was nothing.
UFI: So, they must have had portable –
GM: They had to have portable outlets for the people.
UFI: More than likely the Black people were the ones cleaning up those places, because I know they used to be – it would be like a building kind of thing and there would be attendants.
GM: I think this is still kind of like that now and they have a bigger variety of people willing to make money. This is more up to date because I have seen all different nationalities working, cleaning up the bathrooms and I don’t know how they clean that horse crap. [both laugh] I guess there’s everything for the almighty dollar. It’s honest work so I can’t say anything about that because, like I said, it’s honest work.
UFI: I know that area we’re talking about was kind of your stomping grounds. What about that area up by East Side Theater and Dunbar Elementary School? Where did you go to elementary school?
GM: I went to Dunbar and my little stomping ground was still the East Side Theater. That’s where my first husband worked, at the East Side Theater.
UFI: Oh really? Who was your first husband?
GM: Theodore Ellis.
UFI: Theodore Ellis. You met him at East Side?
GM: I met him at school, naturally. [laughs] I met him at F.D. Moon.
UFI: F.D. Moon Junior High School. Wow. Okay. Do you remember any of the other businesses that were by East Side? We know Uncle Buck had the garage.
GM: It has changed so much but it was on the east side of Uncle Buck and they had some kind of little restaurant in there. I don’t remember who owned it or anything. I’m trying to think what else was in there. Some kind of little glass shop. I won’t say it was antique but it was some kind of little glass shop.
UFI: Probably some kind of little variety store. Seems like that’s what it said. It said, “Gift and Variety Shop.”
[UFI and GM talking over each other]
GM: I knew they had a lot of little stuff. I call them trinkets. I say whatnots and little stuff like that. I say trinkets because they have people’s crochet and stuff.
UFI: Crafts and things. [pause] Bill’s Cleaners.
GM: They had Bill’s Cleaners up there too. Then they had up there behind where the church is –
UFI: Where? 6th and Kelham?
GM: No, not 6th. New Hope, right behind there. They had Bill’s place on 6th and Lottie. I think it’s still a beer joint there.
UFI: There’s nothing there.
GM: There’s nothing there? It’s empty now?
UFI: Virtually. They stayed a long time.
GM: That was Bill’s. I used to work there later in years. It was always a joint up there. Then they had Griffin’s across from Dunbar School. I went to school with his daughter Carol.
UFI: He had children?
GM: He had three. I went to school with Carol. They had another grocery story over there on 5th Street. It was Jones’ Groceries. And Miss Iola. I thought she was the most prettiest Black woman I ever saw in my life. She worked at Jones’ store. She made that cash register talk. We used to go in there and we had an account there.
UFI: What’s an account?
GM: It’s where you get groceries on credit. We had it there. I would go up there and practically every day we’d go get a pickle or something walking home from school. Then they had a snow cone place up there and that was on Fonshill. I can’t even think of that man’s name. They said go on up there and get one of those old ugly man’s snow cones and I don’t know what y’all see in them nasty old snow cones. To me, they were good snow cones. You know, kids want those sweet and we would bypass Griffin’s store to get to the ice cream, you know we’d rather have that. I think his name was Buford, Mr. Buford, and he had a whole bunch of kids. They got theirs free. Of course, he’s their daddy. That’s why everybody wanted to be buddy to the kids. They wasn’t crazy. [UFI laughs] I didn’t try to be buddy. I always had my money ‘cause Uncle Buck would give me some money. I always had money to get mine. I can’t think of any more. On 4th and Kelham, they had a drugstore, and I don’t remember that drugstore.
UFI: Silver Star.
GM: Silver Star. I knew somebody would remember the name of that drugstore. That’s where we went and got the biggest part of our prescriptions and so forth because down on 2nd Street was a long ways. Mr. Silver Star –
UFI: That man was called Mr. Brooks. Mr. and Mrs. Brooks.
GM: That’s his name. Yeah, and then they had that little grocery store across the street. Hodges’ Grocery Store.
UFI: That’s where Mama worked.
GM: Yes. The other part of 3rd Street you were talking about – I don’t know whether them apartments had names or not. Like I said, we lived down there on 3rd and Rhode Island and it was all the way down to the dead end down there.
UFI: Back behind that was industrial something. Oil or something.
GM: [coughs] What is it where they put cans?
UFI: Recycling?
GM: [coughs] Yes, back down off in there, and this one store with an S. That silly thing is still here.
UFI: It’s still there now?
GM: Yeah, it’s still there.
UFI: Down on 4th off the viaduct.
GM: It’s on Reno. I didn’t know the buildings were still there. Even when they redid the street, Reno, they’re still there.
UFI: We’ll go by there. I want you to show it to me one of these days. I wanted to ask you about – you kind of skipped over the school thing. Tell me about your going to Moon Junior High School.
GM: When I went to Moon, I went to 7th, 8th and 9th. Of course, I’ve always been rowdy. Loud. I didn’t really what you call ditch school, but I was kinda –
UFI: In and out?
GM: Yeah, in and out. When I went to school, my mother did not like for me to wear tight clothes. [UFI laughs] I had this little girlfriend and what we would do – she would bring me one of her real tight dresses over to my house. I used to tell her I look better in her dress or skirt than she did. What we would do is we would leave my house and where I would go, I lived on Euclid and Kelham. There was a nice little house, kind of slanted from my house and it had a whole bunch of hedges around. We’d go over there behind the hedges and we’d switch clothes. When we’d come out of the bushes, we’d be looking to make sure we was alright and we walked on to school. We did this here for a long time and then in the evening we’d follow the same pattern. (unintelligible) let nothin’ come back home ‘cause I’d get a whuppin’. So the girl would change. I don’t know why but she never did tell me. She already knew what mine was. This is how we caught our boyfriends.
UFI: Switching clothes.
GM: Yes, honey, ‘cause everybody else showing what they had. [UFI laughs]. So, we was showing what we had too. So, like I said I was a little rowdy. [UFI coughs] Everybody knew when Glenice was in the house because she wasn’t a quiet person. Plus, she fought. I didn’t fight as much in junior high as I did in grade school. I fought I lot.
UFI: Was it because you was small?
GM: Yes.
UFI: You had to stand your ground.
GM: Yes, and I got the biggest girl at Dunbar, the biggest one. [UFI laughs] She was well-developed and I just jumped on and tore all the clothes off her. Of course, I got in a lot of trouble, but I had to get her off of me and that was the way. She was so busy hiding. That’s how I got her off of me. After then, I had a lot of friends and nobody messed with me ‘cause I had a lot of friends after that. My reputation took me on to middle school and when I got to F.D. Moon, and when I got to F.D. Moon, you know how it takes a couple to tell you whatever, that’s when Central and all of the other kids start. That’s when they start putting schools together.
UFI: Beginning to integrate.
GM: Yes. They was just trying to get Central High School integrated. Other kids too, because F.D. Moon just wouldn’t quite fit all of them. You had kids like from Sandtown, West Town, all the other areas.
UFI: All the other areas where Black people lived.
GM: Right. It was kind of real hard to do that. They were coming in to F.D. Moon, and this is where we met a lot of other kids. On top of that, they also had back out here on 63rd, they had the Harrison addition. They had to open up schools out there too, ‘cause they was coming in.
UFI: That was kind of considered out in the country though, wasn’t it?
GM: Yes. They only had schools to certain deal and they had to do something.
UFI: They couldn’t put everybody in F.D. Moon and Central.
GM: Right. They had to do something, but see by us being kids we didn’t know what was going on. We just thought, “What they’s bringin’ them over here for like that?” Anyhow, what we did, we communicated and finally I was so glad ‘cause Mr. Bailey – the head over there – [UFI and GM talking over each other] - they owned café across the street from F.D. Moon. You really wasn’t supposed to go off campus to eat, off the school grounds. Well, they didn’t have a great big choice ‘cause the kitchens couldn’t keep up with all of them kids. Some of them’d be over there at Mr. Bailey’s. Some of them’d be over there at Miss Butler’s and her hot dog barbecue place over there. They’d be over there eating. Then some of the kids that had stayed there, they would sneak them stuff back. I was always one of the little bold ones. I’d go. I just had that reputation I felt I just had to keep up in school. Like I said, I got in a lot of trouble. Then when we went on to Douglass –
UFI: That would have been new Douglass? You went to new Douglass?
GM: That would have been the new Douglass. I think I started getting more involved a little bit.
UFI: More involved in school things?
GM: Yes.
UFI: What kinds of things did you do?
GM: I was in the pepettes.
UFI: The what now?
GM: The pepettes.
UFI: Oh, the pep club.
GM: Yes. They had two different ones. Practically everything they had was two. Instead of just one they had two of them. Of course, I still had my boyfriend. Same one. Still had him. We’d go to the games and when we’d go to the games, after we went and practiced on the field I always took a blanket ‘cause them little short skirts got pretty cold-like. You’d go out there and shake a little bit, and then we’d come back up there and we’d finish the games. They would have different proms and different things they would have with proms and stuff for us, and I would participate in that. [UFI coughs] I never did like cosmetology. I never did get off into that. I got -
UFI: Your favorite classes were?
GM: Six Fs.
UFI: In cosmetology?
GM: I didn’t never go to cosmetology. It was health. I couldn’t understand why she gave me six Fs. It’s just because I wouldn’t swim. I did her other work. But I got six Fs there and I got six Fs in biology because I didn’t like Mr. Diggs. He asked me where was my crumbsnatcher and I told him the same place his was. [UFI laughs]
UFI: Girl, you had it going on didn’t you?
GM: So of course I got kicked out of school but Mr. Jeffs was so sweet.
UFI: Mr. Jeffs. He was the principal at that time.
GM: He kept me from getting expelled.
UFI: He was so mild. He was so calm.
GM: Mr. Jenkins was forever taking me - If he hadda been a teacher he’d think he could have pulled me by my ear all the way, he woulda. He know he couldn’t but he sure would make me go. He made sure I got there too. But Mr. Jeffs was always on my side. He’d say, “Here, you’re just going to have to stop.” I said, “Well, I’ll try.” He was my lifesaver.
UFI: Tell me this. I have a memory of our going to a Y teen dance. I think I was about 12 years old and Mama let you take me to a Y teen dance and it was at the old YMCA down on 2nd and Stiles. YMCA? One of the Ys down on 2nd and Stiles. I remember you showing me how to dance, teaching me how to dance back then.
GM: What dance was that back then?
UFI: I think it was called the shake, ‘cause you shake.
GM: Ahhhhh, you stand on that one leg? Oh yes, yes, yes, yes. I thought I was good at that.
UFI: You were very good. I’ll tell you. Very, very good.
GM: Especially if you had a little somethin’ to shake, it was real good. Yes.
UFI: I want to kinda begin to wrap up. Did you graduate from high school?
GM: No. I tell you I was fast. I got married in the 10th. When I got married, right after then, my husband told me I three things I couldn’t be. I couldn’t be a wife, a mother, and go to school. So, I didn’t go back to school, so I stayed out of school until ‘64.
UFI: And then what happened in ’64?
GM: In ’64, I was living in Kansas and my mother called me and told me they had manpower here and they were paying you to go back to school and get your diploma. She said, “I know you probably ain’t but I thought I’d let you know anyway.” And I said to Lester, if I have to leave him I’m coming back ‘cause I’m determined to get my diploma. So I came back to Oklahoma City and I went to Central. When I went to Central, I finished school, got my diploma, and walked across the stage. Everything was just like regular school. I walked across the stage and when I was walking across the stage, I heard a voice say, “That’s my mama!” That was my son. He was going on five years old. My son’s name is Darry Lynn Ellis.
UFI: And he said, “That’s my mama.”
GM: Yes, he’s lettin’ everybody know that his mama going across the stage. Everybody just laughed and clapped and everything.
UFI: Isn’t that wonderful?
GM: That’s just about the size of –
UFI: You went on to be employed with –
GM: After I left there, I was kind of like my dad. A jack of all trades. I worked at Capitol Roofing Company. I went up on buildings and they showed me how they escalate for roofing and I used to be on the two-way radio, call out the dispatcher. I have had several jobs. I worked at American Airlines as an inspector. In fact, I had became chief inspector.
UFI: Of what?
GM: American Airlines.
UFI: You were inspecting the planes?
GM: Airplane parts, the engine and the airframes. That’s what I worked.
UFI: How did you make it to OG&E?
GM: My supervisor – I can tell it now – my supervisor that got me the job at Oklahoma Natural, her husband was a supervisor. They needed some good workers and she didn’t know how long she was going to stay there and she didn’t know what was gonna happen. She recommended me for a very good candidate to work for ONG. She told him that I would work. She called me “worm” because I couldn’t stay still.
UFI: That was Oklahoma Natural Gas.
GM: Yeah. ONG is Oklahoma Natural Gas and she told him she’s a good worker but you have to stay on her because she thinks she’s taking something from somebody. You gonna have to make her know this is for her and for her only. So, this is what I did.
UFI: How long did you stay at ONG?
GM: I was at ONG for 31 and a half years.
UFI: I guess that little rowdy girl kinda calmed down a little, didn’t she?
GM: No, I didn’t. [UFI laughs] When I found out I didn’t have to change my way, I fit right in. Because all the guys, they was trying to run me away. They said I was taking food out of there. I told them I didn’t believe in welfare. I believed in workfare. You might as well know me and we learn each other ‘cause I ain’t goin’ nowhere. Didn’t go nowhere either, until the doctor –
UFI: Well cousin, I tell you what, it’s just been a most enlightening interview for me out of all the years that I’ve known you, and I’ve known you all of my life. I’ve learned something new here today and I want you to know that I’m so proud of you. You’re a trailblazer. You’re a fast trailblazer, but you’re a trailblazer. I’m proud to be your cousin.
GM: I’m proud to have you as a cousin and I appreciate you very much for letting me do this.
UFI: I love you, baby.
GM: I love you too.
End of interview