Description:
Joyce Lynn talks about her childhood growing up in Oklahoma City and Bartlesville.
Transcript:
Interviewee: Joyce Lynn
Interviewer: Ruby Soutiere, Joyce Lynn’s daughter
Interview Date: 10/13/2007
Interview Location: Edmond Library
Ruby Soutiere: Hi, my name is Ruby Soutiere and we’re here at the Edmond Library today and I want to talk to my mother. Her name is Joyce Lynn and I just want to ask her some questions to get some fun information from her. Mom, tell me, where were you born?
Joy Lynn: I was born here in Oklahoma City at Saint Anthony’s Hospital.
RS: Where did you grow up?
JL: I grew up here, mostly. I moved to Bartlesville a little later, but I started out my life here in Oklahoma City as a toddler and everything.
RS: You lived several places in Oklahoma City. What’s the first one you remember?
JL: The first one I remember was at 1400 East 20th. It was fairly close to the Capitol building, and it isn’t anymore, according to what we looked at. We enjoyed living there. My sister and I liked to sit out on the curb and wave at people. I’m not sure Mom was that anxious for us to be doing that, but we did it. The thing that worried me about being there was that I was so afraid they were going to build or drill an oil well there close to our yard. I remember thinking oh no. I didn’t realize that oil was valuable or anything. I just thought that was really ugly and I didn’t want that to happen.
RS: They had one at the state Capitol and that house was pretty close.
JL: Yes. It was close to the state Capitol. After that, we moved to 704 Eubanks, and I lived there for I guess the rest of my time in Oklahoma City.
RS: Is this where you had the little boyfriend that you were telling me about?
JL: Yes. When I first started – well, when I first started to school, I started at Culbertson, but this was in the Edgemere elementary school district. We lived in a house and it didn’t have an alley. They were back to back with a fence between them. This little boy, for some reason, had a crush on me and he decided that he wanted to marry me, but he gave me a box of peanuts. They were raw peanuts, and he had a little note in there and it said, “Will you mary [marry], spelled M-A-R-Y, me?” We kind of got a bang out of that. That was my little boyfriend.
RS: You said that he showed you a house that he was going to buy for you.
JL: Oh yes. When we would walk home from school, he showed me a place. He knew I liked those kind of Spanish-style, and he picked out one of those and said that’s where we would live. We were pretty young. It didn’t last long.
RS: After that, is that when you moved to Bartlesville?
JL: It was after that that I moved to Bartlesville. We lived at 704 for quite a while, but yes. We moved to Bartlesville. My dad worked here for Capitol Federal Savings and Loan, and then he got a new job and he was going to be manager of People’s Savings and Loan in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, so that’s where we were. We ended up there and I graduated there.
RS: Okay. You want to tell me a little bit more about your parents, like their names?
JL: My dad’s name was James Melvin. I understand he was first named Melvin James but he changed it. Back then, they didn’t have birth certificates and they had to send in for them, and he had changed his name. My mother’s name was Ruby Lee, and she was a Bean. Originally, she was Ruby Lillian Bean.
RS: So she also changed her name.
JL: Yes. She changed her name too.
RS: Do you have any interesting or funny stories about them that you’d like to share?
JL: They were pretty interesting people in a lot of ways. My dad, you would think he was very, very particular, but he did some funny things too. He had a little victory garden. He loved to garden and everything. He was a busy, outdoor guy, but one of the things he did was he gardened with his suit still on. That’s a little unusual. My mother, like I said, worked at John A. Brown and she used to bring us in town sometimes. It wasn’t when she was working, but she would take us to Carnegie Library when we were little. As she went shopping, we would have a lot of fun in Carnegie Library because they had those little – I don’t know what they’re called – those little things that you put the picture in and then you pull it up and down.
RS: And it makes it look kind of 3D?
JL: Yes. We thought that was wonderful. We could entertain ourselves forever.
RS: Just looking at that. That’s really neat. What were your grandparents like?
JL: Oh, my grandparents were really, really special. We were their only grandchildren, so they thought we were pretty special too. Anyway, they used to come over every evening to see us for a little bit, so we were pretty well spoiled. My grandmother was a wonderful, wonderful storyteller. She would tell stories and they would build up and be so much fun. My grandfather was a tease. I can’t remember now the expressions he had, but he was a lot of fun. They were just part of the family, and when we were old enough, we used to ride our bicycles over to their home. They lived right across the street from Wilson Elementary School, and sometimes we could go in the schoolyard and swing and stuff. They had a swing on their front porch, and I can remember we would get on each end and make it look like a train. We’d go back and forth that way.
RS: These were your mother’s parents?
JL: These were my mother’s parents. I didn’t know my dad’s parents very well. They lived on a farm in Jester, Oklahoma. Actually, his mother died when he was two years old, and he had a stepmother. We were around them a little bit, but not a whole lot.
RS: But your mother’s father, what was his name?
JL: His name was Dresden Palmer Bean, and we called him Gran Gran.
RS: I just love that name, Dresden. Wasn’t he like the seventh son of a seventh son?
JL: Exactly. He was the tenth child, but he was the seventh son of the seventh son, and he was named for Dresden, Germany, but why I don’t know. That’s where the name came from.
RS: Didn’t he like to tease you all about onion ice cream or something?
JL: Yes, yes, yes. One time, Dad even fixed him some onion ice cream because he always said something about wanting onion ice cream. He chopped up a little onion one time and sort of surprised him. He was a little amazed when he got some.
RS: Did he eat it?
JL: No, I don’t think so. If he did, he took the onions out, I’m sure.
RS: Did you ever get into any kind of trouble as a child?
JL: I probably got in lots and lots of trouble. I had an older sister who was just a year and twenty days to the day older than I was. If she got in trouble, I would get in trouble. We kind of followed each other. She didn’t like me always following her around, but I knew what I could get by with by watching her and what she got by with. When I was really small, kindergarten was at Culbertson School. I went to Edgemere, and then I ended up at Harding Junior High and was there for two years before we moved to Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
RS: Is there something that happened at school that you would [clears throat] say is perhaps one of the worst things you ever did?
JL: When I was a little girl, it was close to Christmas. I don’t know why I was such a schemer, but anyway, it was close to Christmas and they brought the lost and found articles around. There was a little doll there. It wasn’t really what you’d expect as far as dolls these days, but it was really small, probably about three or four inches tall. It was made like they made the little dolls then. It wasn’t so much, but I just fell in love with it when they brought the lost and found around. Nobody claimed it, so I did. I claimed it as my doll, and then when I got home, being sneaky as I was at the time, I even told my mom that Santa Claus had given it to me so she didn’t ever know until I was older that this had happened.
RS: Did you tell her when you were older?
JL: Yeah. I finally told her about it, but it wasn’t such a big deal then, I guess.
RS: Do you have any favorite stories from your childhood, anything about you and your sister, anything you all did?
JL: I know one thing. She really didn’t like to have me around sometimes, and I was always right there. My mother dressed us as twins and that probably was something she didn’t really like too well. She was a good leader and my friends loved her. She was just an entertainer and everything.
RS: And you guys sometimes had to take turns washing – one had to wash the dishes and one had to dry the dishes?
JL: Oh, yes. She always wanted to wash because she was quicker. When I washed, it was slow for her. She would always be wanting to wash the dishes, but of course, I always took my turn.
RS: Washing?
JL: Uh-huh [meaning yes]. She was a very good one to follow, though, because like I said, if she stayed out past our regular time that we were supposed to be in, then I could do it too because she didn’t get in trouble. Things like that. She was the leader and I was definitely the follower.
RS: Okay. When you were a child, what did you think your life would be like when you were older?
JL: Actually, I guess when I was really young I thought I was going to get married because of this little boy, but later I decided that I wasn’t going to get married and I was going to raise parakeets. When I was a child, actually I used to play a game by myself and I would get these big bars of soap, that P&G soap, and I had spools, and I would play school all the time. I can remember, though, that that wasn’t my plan, to be a teacher.
RS: But you played school when you were a child.
JL: Yes, I did, and when Ruthie would join the party, it never was a much fun. She kind of ruined it.
RS: But there was a different game that you liked to play with her that involved hollyhocks.
JL: Oh. Yes. When we lived at 704 Eubanks, we had a really pretty hollyhock plant right there by the front door. We played with them. We made skirts. These were for our dolls. We made skirts out of the bloom of the hollyhock. Then we’d stick a little pin or something up there and we’d use the buds for the heads, and those were our people. We had a lot of fun doing that.
RS: Sounds like fun. What is your favorite memory of me?
JL: [chuckles] Oh dear. I do know one thing. Ruby, you were always an entertainer. The other kids wanted to be your playmate all the time, but the one that I remember most is the one with you and Kent because when we’d travel, you would keep Kent so entertained. I don’t know exactly what it was, but I think your hand was a spider or something, and he would get really excited and kind of brush it off and all that. Pretty soon, you would have him slap it, and then you’d say it was dead, and he’d say, “Oh, pre-tink it didn’t happen! Pre-tink it didn’t happen!” [RS laughs]
RS: What were my siblings like?
JL: They were a lot of fun too, but they did look up to you. Jim liked to play with you. He wanted to play. He had his own games and played cars with you. Amy liked to play really well with you, and she liked these games where she had horses and they were kind of wild animals. Kent, like I said, he played all kinds of things with you, and you were so kind and so good to him. I remember when I would get a little bit disgusted with him in the kitchen and slap his hands, and you would just worry so much about him. One thing about Kent is when I would get on the phone there when we lived in Bartlesville – no, I can’t remember where it was. Anyway, wherever we were, I would get on the phone and it was where I couldn’t see him, and then he would dash off to the bathroom and wash things in the stool.
RS: Oh no! That’s pretty funny. You know, sometimes when I first moved to Oklahoma City, you would tell me about places that you used to go to and ask me if they were still here. One of them, I think, was called the Toddle House. What was that?
JL: The Toddle House was kind of like the restaurants of today, like maybe Dairy Queen or something on that order. We loved to go there. It was a hamburger place, and we would love to go to the Toddle House and pick up food. Ruthie was there one time and she went in with Daddy. They kept bringing her a drink while he was waiting for the hamburger, and she’d drink it and they’d bring her another drink and she’d drink it, and finally she said, “I just can’t drink anymore.”
RS: [laughs] So she thought she had to drink it because they were bringing it to her.
JL: That’s right.
RS: Is there anything else that you’d like to tell me about?
JL: I’ll tell you just a little bit about my schooling, just to tell you that I went to Culbertson in kindergarten, and Edgemere. I think I’ve already told you this. Anyway, then Harding, and then I moved to Bartlesville and of course, that was a completely different thing. I was very disappointed when I got to Bartlesville because the school there, for junior high, was seventh, eighth, nineth, and tenth. We moved there was in the ninth grade. If I’d been in Oklahoma City, I would have graduated from junior high at the end of the year, but instead, my sister got to graduate twice because she got to graduate from ninth in Oklahoma City and then from tenth in Bartlesville, and I had to wait a year. They were dividing the schools that way because at that time, they had eleventh and twelfth grades, and two years of junior college at the high school. That was the way it was.
RS: Whenever you were a child, you had a pet, didn’t you? Did you get him when you were in Oklahoma City?
JL: Yes, and I was nine years old before my dad would let me have a pet. This was our favorite little guy. His name was Tippy, and he was part fox terrier. I remember that whenever I’d have troubles at school, I would come home and tell him all my troubles, and he just seemed so sympathetic. One time, there was this man and he was working on our roof. He had his ladder up there, and Tippy was down at the bottom of the ladder looking up and him, and he said, “Come on up!” The shocking thing was that Tippy did climb up to the roof, but the thing was he couldn’t get back down. Somebody had to carry him down because he couldn’t quite go down that way. There was this meter man that came in our yard that Ruthie and I remember more about because we were there by ourselves. Tippy went out there, and I don’t know if he bit him on the shoe or what he did, but boy he told us he was going to do something to our dog, and I remember how scared we were that he really was. Tippy was special. We thought he was great. I’m glad we got him.
RS: One time you guys had some other temporary pets, didn’t you? Didn’t you get some Easter pets?
JL: Oh, some Easter chickens. Yeah. Each one got three chickens, I think it was. My favorite was the green one and her favorite was the blue one. Anyway, when we got ready to go to Bartlesville, we couldn’t take the chickens with us, so we took them out to my Aunt Lena, Aunt Lena Mager, out in Bush Hills, and gave her the chickens. Oh yes. We loved our little chickens.
RS: That reminds me of something else you used to tell me. Wasn’t there a streetcar or something that you would ride out to your aunt’s?
JL: I think it was the Inter-Urban. We would go way out. She lived in Bush Hills, and we could just go almost as far as we needed to on that Inter-Urban. We thought that was the treat of treats. They had a swimming pool that we really thought was special because that was unusual then, to have a swimming pool.
RS: You have four children and five grandchildren. Is there any last stories or things that you would like to tell them or have saved?
JL: I’ve really enjoyed my grandchildren. The ones in Bartlesville I don’t see so often, but my grandson, the oldest of all the grandchildren, he graduated from the school I graduated from in Bartlesville called – at the time I graduated it was called College High, but now I think they just call it Bartlesville High School. Now he’s going to the college where I went to school for two years and graduated from. It’s Oklahoma State now, but when I was there it was Oklahoma A&M, and we were the Aggies. I don’t guess they want to be called the Aggies.
RS: No. They’re the Cowboys.
JL: That’s right. That was – well, I went two years in Oklahoma City University, and then went to Oklahoma State University. I just think it’s really great that he’s going to the same school that I did. My other grandchildren, my two in Houston, I get to see every once in a while. They’re just – wow. These kids just grow up so fast.
RS: They do grow up really fast. When you were talking about going to OCU, it made me think of one more story that you used to tell us sometimes. I don’t know if it happened when you were at OCU or not, but you said that your grandmother learned to drive as an adult, and there were always some kind of interesting experiences when you rode with her in the car.
JL: I don’t think she stayed a driver very long, but yeah, she was pretty – she was a scary driver. I think probably the scariest driver I ever rode with. She didn’t do it for long, though.
RS: Is there anything else you want to say?
JL: No, I think that will be about it.
RS: Okay. Thanks, Mom.
End of interview.