Description:
Horace Stevenson talks about his life growing up in the Fairgrounds area of northeast Oklahoma City, and about his career in the restaurant business.
Transcript:
Interviewee: Horace Stevenson
Interviewer: Female Interviewer, Melba Holt has been interviewing several people connected to the OKC Fairgrounds
Interview Date: 11/20/2008
Interview Location:
File Name: Horace Stevenson 11-20-08 Master.wav
Transcribed By: Katie Widmann
Proofed By: Alex Hinton
Female Interviewer: Today, it’s my pleasure to have finally caught up with this particular individual, to have him sit down for just a few minutes out of his busy schedule to talk with me about his experiences of growing up in the Fairgrounds, in the old Fairgrounds. I’m going to ask him for his complete name, his date of birth, and where he was born. Your name, please?
Horace Stevenson: Horace Stevenson Senior. I was born in Elmore City, Oklahoma May 3, 1939.
FI: Who are your parents, Horace?
HS: Mr. and Mrs. Albert Stevenson. A-L-B-E-R-T.
FI: Your mom’s name?
HS: Lydia Belle Stevenson.
FI: Belle was her maiden name?
HS: Belle was her middle name.
FI: Okay. What was her maiden name?
HS: Alexander.
FI: So, her name –
HS: Lydia Belle Alexander.
FI: Lydia Belle. Very pretty. Do you recall when you all first moved to Oklahoma City? Were you old enough to recall that?
HS: Absolutely.
FI: Tell me what you remember about that experience.
HS: [clears throat] We moved to Oklahoma City in 1942, and we lived with a relative on 3rd Street.
FI: Northeast 3rd?
HS: Northeast 3rd.
FI: What part of Northeast 3rd?
HS: It was the 600 block of Northeast 3rd, right on the corner. His name was Hilliot.
FI: Okay, so if it was the 600 block of Northeast 3rd, it would have been –
HS: Oh, I said 600. I mean – I’m thinking of my address later. It would have actually been the 1800 block, almost three blocks from Eastern.
FI: Okay, so that would make it the initial move to Oklahoma City in what we call the Fairgrounds area proper.
HS: Right.
FI: I was going to say when we were talking about it earlier, you talked to different people and different people have their idea of what was called the Old Fairgrounds. But those of us that lived in the Old Fairgrounds know where that area was, what it encompassed. We know where the imaginary boundaries were for that. When I think of the Old Fairgrounds, I’m thinking of as far back actually as 2nd Street, somewhere off of Eastern, today’s Martin Luther King Boulevard. There were families who lived back there. I didn’t know it at the time. From Northeast 2nd going up to Northeast 7th Street and then from – I’m talking about the residential part – from Eastern to Lottie, stopping at Lottie because beyond Lottie was economically a different strata, socially speaking. Beyond 7th Street going north was a different strata, so to speak. Those are my boundaries that I have always felt that they were.
HS: Those have always been the boundaries.
FI: Back to your parents and your first time moving to Oklahoma City. You said that you do remember that experience. How old were you at the time?
HS: Two years old, between two and three.
FI: Something like that but old enough to have some memories.
HS: Old enough to have memories and it’s amazing. My memories go way back, and I can remember playing and where we slept. Mr. Sutton had a grocery store on 4th Street. He was a gentleman that was kind of a police guard-like, kind of across from the school.
FI: The school crossing guard.
HS: The school crossing guard who would always bring donuts and those kind of things to us in the mornings. I remember all those things.
FI: Do you remember what the cross street was where you were down on 3rd? Do you remember what the name of the street was?
HS: The cross street would have been Bath. The Suttons were there. They had a grocery store right there. Ross Cleaners was right there on 4th Street, and the cross street was Bath.
FI: Mr. Sutton’s store, however, was on the corner of Northeast 4th off of like Fonshill or Kate. It was one of those streets like that. Kate was the street going west and then Bath was the other street going east. Bath cut off at 4th Street. There was no Bath on the other side of 4th Street. I’m getting exactly where – I have a picture in my mind now – exactly where you all moved to. You said you stayed with your - ?
HS: A relative of my mother’s, and we stayed with them probably six or seven months. Our first move, our first house, was at 628 North Kelham.
FI: 628 North Kelham.
HS: That’s right. 628 North Kelham. We lived next door to Allen’s Grocery. Mr. Allen, he had a lot of property on the east side, several rent houses on Kelham Street in that 600 block, plus a grocery store. We lived there for eight years.
FI: Eight years, so that’s – you were about 11 or so when you all did eventually move away?
HS: Yes. Right.
FI: What was across the street on the opposite side from where you lived?
HS: Across the street, the first house on the corner was Mr. and Mrs. Scales. Mr. Scales was a policeman, and next door to the Scales was a church.
FI: What was the name of the church?
[both together]: Church of the Living God.
FI: I actually grew up in that church.
HS: We went to that church also.
FI: Do you remember who the pastor was at that time?
HS: I can’t remember the pastor but I remember Sister Tyree. She was a traveling evangelist who came every summer. The whole city was excited when she’d come because she was a great preacher. I do remember Mr. Jackson was a member of the church. He was an elderly guy who would open the church up on Sunday morning. Sherman Cox – he was a member there.
FI: Sherman Senior.
HS: Yes. Right. Next to the church was Mr. Dunn. Mr. Aaron Dunn lived on the south side of the church.
FI: The area that you lived in, that stretch of Kelham between 5th and 6th Streets, except for on the corners, in between there was largely residential. There were not people working out of their homes. That’s what I remember. What about you?
HS: Well, I remember halfway down the block on the east side, June – I can’t remember June’s last name – but June’s uncle had a garage, a mechanic. He was a mechanic and he had a garage in the back of his house.
FI: All right, so there was a little bit of entrepreneurship going on in that section. There were some sections of the neighborhood that were basically residential. The more I talk to people, there always seemed to be at least one little home business going on there.
HS: Kelham had one small business, the mechanic. On the corner – well, there was a duplex on the corner, but on Rhode Island, the next street over, we had three or four little businesses. Then, down on 5th Street between Kelham and Rhode Island, you had Mr. Sparks, who had a little confectionary stand with popsicles and snow cones and hot dogs. That kind of thing, cookies...
FI: Were you allowed to go up on 4th Street? You know, kids had a lot of roaming freedom back then. Some of them did. I didn’t, but some of them did.
HS: We were allowed to go to 4th Street, and we used to go a lot of places. We used to go down in the Fairgrounds where the fair was every year. During that time, they had a lot of horse stables down there. We used to go down there and run the horses. [laughs]
FI: When you say “we,” who’s we?
HS: My brother, Alvin Scott, Paul Scott, my brother Altus. We’d go down there and the horses would be out and we’d run them, and we’d sneak out through the fence on the south side of the Fairgrounds, which was over by 4th and Martin Luther King. We would come out right down there.
FI: I know you to be an entrepreneur. I know that you are very much a businessman and you started several businesses in the Oklahoma City area. Where did you gain that acumen from?
HS: I think my dad always wanted to be in business and he was in two or three different kinds of businesses. At one time we had a grocery store at 4th and Kelham right on the corner. Later, Mr. Brooks had a store there.
FI: The Silver Star Sundry. Ice cream sundry.
HS: We had a grocery store before he was there, my dad and my mother. I can remember Oxidol and that kind of soap. You couldn’t get it back those days, but when it would come out, when we’d get a delivery of Oxidol, my mother would tell us to go down the street and tell certain people the Oxidol is here. He did a little of that, and he also tried to work on cars also.
FI: At the house?
HS: Kind of at the house. As a matter of fact, he worked at the house some, and then he had a little shop over on 7th Street later where he worked on cars.
FI: 7th and what?
HS: About 7th and Jordan. If you remember where the Ice Dock used to be, my dad (unintelligible). His main job was at the Ice Dock. He made ice, and he also ran – next door to the Ice Dock was a coal business where they sold chunks of coal, and he worked there. My dad used to run that. His main job after he learned how to pull ice – that’s what they called it, pulling ice. It was actually making ice but they called it pulling ice. He learned how to make ice and so that was his summer-type job. In the summer he made ice and in the winter he did other things. He was also an ice salesman. Back then, they had – I can’t remember the other gentleman’s name, but he used to sell ice. He had a wagon and a horse.
FI: Like you see in the movies with the ice on the –
HS: Right. He’d come and get two or three of the 300-pound blocks, and they had covers they’d put on each side of the wagon. He’d go down the street selling ice. My dad was an ice salesman also, but he drove a little pickup. He’d make the ice. He’d sell it. He’d go to people’s house and they’d put out a – it was 12 ½ pounds, 25 pounds, and 50 pounds. That’s about as much as home refrigerator would hold or a cooler would hold. You would put a sign out in your window or on your door if you wanted 12, 50 -
FI: And that sign would say how much you wanted.
HS: That sign would say 12, 50, or 25, and the ice man would drive by and he’d see it.
FI: [laughing] The ice man cometh.
HS: [laughing] The ice man cometh. I remember all of those days. We rode the truck with him sometimes.
FI: What did your mom do? Did she have a –
HS: She was a domestic worker.
FI: Back in that day they called it day work.
HS: Day work. Mm-hmm. She did that, and then at times when she was not doing that, she was just a regular housewife.
FI: Tell me about your brothers and sisters? How many brothers and sisters? Tell me what their names are.
HS: My brother was the oldest – Altus.
FI: I remember Altus.
HS: Then I was second. Berna Mae – she was third. In 1949 I had a sister named Ethel Mae. She was born in ‘49. The most of us – Altus, myself, and Berna Mae – we were the oldest. The first group of kids, so we were known as the family. [laughs]
FI: Give me those names again, just the names.
HS: Altus Stevenson, Berna Mae, Ethel Mae, and then in 1952 I had a sister named Shirley Ann that was born.
FI: You guys all went to what elementary school?
HS: Dunbar.
FI: Of course. That was the Fairgrounds elementary school.
HS: That was the Fairgrounds elementary school. As a matter of fact, Ms. Ealey, I don’t know if you remember Ms. Ealey, Ms. Ealey taught my dad in Elmore City.
FI: Oh, so then she at one point in time moved to Oklahoma City.
HS: Her husband was a plumber, so she moved to Oklahoma City and became a teacher. She was my second-grade teacher.
FI: Did they live in the Fairgrounds area?
HS: They lived on 7th Street across the street from Dunbar.
FI: So they were pretty close to the Sanfords.
HS: The Sanfords lived on 7th and Bath, and they lived west, like on 7th and Kate on the corner.
FI: We find that the professionals – we would have called them professionals then – actually lived in the area. There was very little separation between those that were laborers and manual laborers, or day workers. We were all kind of in there together.
HS: Right. We had a lawyer, Mr. Bruce, who was a lawyer, who lived on 7th and I think Wisconsin, almost to Eastern.
FI: It was whatever street Fairview was on.
HS: That was 7th Street. They lived farther down on the corner going east about two or three blocks.
FI: Do you know where the business was?
HS: The business was across the street from the church.
FI: From Fairview.
HS: It was a little shopping center there and he had a law office in that. There was a little restaurant in there.
FI: Appliances. They sold appliances and they sold furniture. It was all in that little complex. Isn’t that remarkable? Didn’t have to step outside of the neighborhood for some of the basic needs, the basic things that you needed.
HS: Some of the things, they would have salespeople driving through the community. I’m trying to think. L.B. Price. I remember that name. L.B. Price was a company that sold sheets, pillowcases, any home needs.
FI: They would come to your home?
HS: They would come to your home and take all orders. I can remember my mother – “Here comes L.B. Price.” They would come to your house and take orders, which would be similar to a catalog type order.
FI: And then they’d bring it back when it came in?
HS: They’d bring it back when it came in. It wasn’t but a few hours.
FI: Were you going to Dunbar from the first grade or kindergarten or whenever they started all the way through the –
HS: I went to Dunbar from the – well, I didn’t go to kindergarten. I went to first grade. My first-grade class at Dunbar, 22 of us went all the way from the first to high school together.
FI: You won’t see that happening today.
HS: No, you won’t see that happening today. Twenty-two of us went from first grade all the way through Douglass High School.
FI: Tell me some of the names of those folks.
HS: Alfonso Whitby, Martha Warren, DeeDee Halstead, Eddie Belt, Eugene Smith, Abby Jean Lillerton, [pauses], JC Heel.
FI: Zabriel?
HS: No, Zabriel was not. He was older than I. Well, he was about a year older, but he was in Ms. Smith’s class. Different class, but all the same school.
FI: Did you play sports?
HS: No, I didn’t play any sports. We’d play sandlot ball and those kinds of things, but no, I never played any sports.
FI: There was an actual elementary school competition going on.
HS: It was an elementary competition going on during recess. Sandlot football, that kind of thing. We played a lot of that. Most sports, I guess when I got old enough to play sports, we were in high school or junior high school. I started working in junior high school.
FI: Where?
HS: At Sussey’s Restaurant.
FI: Sussey’s? Was it downtown then?
HS: No, Sussey’s was on 23rd across the street from the Capitol, 23rd and Lincoln.
FI: Oh, 23rd and Lincoln. I remember Jack Sussey’s. It was an Italian restaurant. How’d you get that job?
HS: My brother worked there first, and then they needed someone else and he said he had a brother. The first night, I worked at the Jamboree Club, which was next door to Sussey’s. Jake Sussey – I mean Jake Samera – owned the building that Sussey’s was in and they became partners in an Italian restaurant. Then he owned the Jamboree club, which was next door. Then he owned the Brown Derby, which was farther out on 23rd across Bryant.
FI: It was on the northeast side.
HS: Yeah. So my brother recommended me, so they called me and I went to work. My first night was at the Jamboree Club. A guy named Mike Samera hired me, and then the next night I moved over to Sussey’s and stayed there through high school. I worked from 7th grade through high school.
FI: You had various jobs there.
HS: Well, we learned various jobs. We started out as a dishwasher for 40 cents an hour. You would learn salads and pizza and you’d learn to do all the things. Over the next several years, I learned how to do it all.
FI: When you lived on Kelham, and you moved –
HS: We had moved. This was after we had moved. We moved from Kelham to 415 4th Street. That’s just before you get to Gary in the curve. Mr. Richardson had an apartment complex right there, and we rented one of the apartments there. By that time, we were in high school. We’d walk from there down to Douglass.
FI: Did you know that Mr. Richardson and Mr. Sanford were the owners of several of the business establishments on Bath? [clears throat and coughs]
HS: The Sanfords had the theater. They built the theater, the East Side Theater.
FI: He and Mr. Richardson.
HS: Okay. He was a partner. Miss Ophelia ran the Shell. That was Mrs. Sanford’s sister.
FI: Camilia V and Ophelia?
HS: Yeah, Camilia Ophelia.
FI: I want to go to an area – one of the interviewees that I had – Eloise Carbajal–
HS: Eloise stayed on 6th and Jordan. No, 6th and Rhode Island.
FI: She told me something about there having been a skating rink.
HS: Yeah, there was a skating rink next to the ice docks on 7th Street. Yeah.
FI: Is this where your brother was injured?
HS: No, he was injured at the ice dock. The skating rink was next door.
FI: What happened? Does anybody really know?
HS: Oh yeah. We were small and we were learning to make ice just like my dad.
FI: Following in your father’s footsteps.
HS: Yeah. He made a mistake. He pushed the ice into where they saw the grooves, and he hit the button for it to go up at the same time. When he hit the button, his hand was still in there and it went up and it cut his hand off, just like that.
FI: Were you present when it happened?
HS: Yeah, I was there. He just ran out and said, “I just cut my hand off!”
FI: He was traumatized.
HS: Yeah.
FI: Were your parents able to take him to a hospital? Where did they take him?
HS: Oh yeah. I can’t remember, but probably Saint Anthony. Probably. The guy that owned the ice dock took him. He was there. It was three of us there – myself, my brother, and the guy who owned the ice dock. His name was French. He took him, I would imagine, to Saint Anthony. I’m not sure. I can remember visiting him in the hospital, and I’m thinking it was Saint Anthony.
FI: You were working all the way up through high school. Did you participate in any school activities?
HS: In grade school, I started at the – when Mr. Sanford passed away, he was president of Langston. When he passed away, his wife was my teacher. She took three or four months off, and while she was off, I joined the band. When she came back, she didn’t want me to be in the band, so she took me out of the band. I was in the band for a learning process, just a short time, about ninety days. I didn’t play any sports. I didn’t participate in band or anything like that, and I guess in high school, we always would go to games.
FI: In high school you would have gone to where?
HS: Douglass High School.
FI: Where was it located at that time?
HS: 6th and High, 5th and High. Right in that area.
FI: It was a grand building.
HS: Grand building, and I can remember probably the year that we had over 1600 students there. When you changed classes, the halls were just packed. You couldn’t get by people.
FI: It was the only high school that we had. Everybody was there.
HS: The only high school, yes. Everybody was there. Everybody.
FI: It was fantastic.
HS: Fantastic, and it was just a lot of – I remember when I was in grade school, Douglass used to practice in the streets in the neighborhood. They would leave Douglass and go down 6th Street, and they’d go probably to Rhode Island and Bath. Then they’d go over to 5th Street and go back to the school, and the neighbors would be standing out –
FI: Just like it was a parade.
HS: Just like it was a parade. They’d be practicing. I can remember almost three hundred in the band. I could be wrong.
FI: It had to be.
HS: I remember one year, to take the band and the football players on trips it took six buses, six passenger buses the year that we joined the mid-state conference. We’d go to Shawnee and Enid and places like that. We’d take at least six buses. Huge band.
FI: So, you joined the band in high school?
HS: No, I didn’t.
FI: You were just going.
HS: We made all of the – well, we didn’t make all of them but we would drive to all of the events if it was in Shawnee or somewhere. We’d get behind the buses and follow the buses to whatever city they were going to. We didn’t know where we were going.
FI: It didn’t matter.
HS: It didn’t matter. We’d follow the bus because we were driving, and just had fun.
FI: Tell me about some of your fondest – is there a fond memory that you have going to Dunbar Elementary School?
HS: One thing that stands out is the day that Franklin Roosevelt died. We were coming from school – no, I didn’t go to school that day. My brother was coming from school and it had to be something like three-something in the afternoon, close to four-o-clock. My mother said President Roosevelt just died. I guess she heard on the radio or something. The weather – there just came a huge cloud. It was almost 4:00 and just dark. That’s one of the things I remember, the day that he died.
FI: That’s remarkable.
HS: Yeah.
FI: What about high school? There was no junior high, was there?
HS: Well, it was all in one building at Douglass High School.
FI: Uh-huh, junior high and high school was all together like from grade six – actually, seven through twelve because six was still at the elementary school.
HS: Right. Six was still at elementary. They used to do it – I’m not sure exactly how they did it, but it seems like at Dunbar, it seems like some of the kids would spend half a year at Dunbar in the sixth grade, and then they would go to Douglass. It seems like the year Altus and Zabriel and that group were supposed to go to Douglass, they stopped it. That’s the reason we kind of caught up with them. That was -- the junior high and the high school was all together. Seventh grade at Douglass High School – the first homeroom teacher was Paia Miller.
FI: Oh, Mr. Miller. He was an actual teacher? I thought he only did sports.
HS: He did sports, but he taught athletics and was a homeroom teacher. He taught gym. He was our first homeroom teacher at Douglass.
FI: Boy, he was so popular on the east side, especially within the school athletic programs. Even today, the magnificent rebuilding of Douglass High School, the stadium carries his name. Not Paia Miller, but Moses. Moses Miller.
HS: Quite a guy. He would test you, your strength, by giving you a lick.
FI: Like a punch?
HS: No, a rubber hose.
FI: Oh my God! Okay.
HS: The thing was this is what you’re gonna get if you cut up, and everybody had to come by. He’d line you up and this man could hit. He said if you don’t rub after he hit you, something’s wrong. He would – the girls, the boys, all of them. He’d line them up and give them that lick.
FI: His purpose being?
HS: His purpose being this is what’s going to happen to you if you get out of line. Very few got out of line.
FI: They didn’t mess with Mr. Miller.
HS: Or Mr. Hendricks. He was shop teacher and he had a rubber hose with a green and a red hose. He would take the – where you do welding, the welding hose had two hoses, a red and a green. That’s what he used for his rubber tube. He would have you to face him and bend over, and he would hit you this way. You didn’t want that.
FI: Oh my goodness. Today’s children – today in the school system, you can’t even –
HS: Get close to them.
FI: Not only that, you can barely even correct them or verbally reprimand them without fearing consequences, negative consequences, as a teacher. This is just an aside. What do you think about corporal punishment? Well, I wouldn’t call it corporal punishment. What do you think about that kind of discipline having been used in school and not there now?
HS: I think [pauses]. I think we the people, the citizens, missed the ball when we let them take that away from the school and when we let them take that away from home. You’ve got to able to discipline some kind of way. Kids today have no fear of anything, so why be obedient?
FI: They have no boundaries.
HS: They have no boundaries, and it would keep us in check. We turned out pretty good, you know?
FI: Let me ask you this. Did you discipline your children in the same way that your parents disciplined you?
HS: No, I didn’t.
FI: Why not?
HS: Well, I guess I was working all the time so that’s my excuse. I left that to my wife.
FI: What’s your wife’s name?
HS: Jean.
FI: What’s her maiden name?
HS: Thompkins. Jean Thompkins. This last year we celebrated our fiftieth wedding anniversary.
FI: Great! That’s fantastic!
HS: My dad – whew. My dad was a disciplinarian. We would visit people. If we went out of town to his folks or my mother’s folks or anybody’s house or anywhere any grown people were around, he gave us a look. The look means get in line. Cut it out.
FI: The power of the look.
HS: Cut it out. Get in line. If he had to look again, it was a different look, you know? You’re on the edge. If he looked a third time, when we got home it was all over with.
FI: You were going to get it.
HS: You were going to get it. And you got it. I can remember –
FI: No empty threats.
HS: No, no empty threats. I can remember a time, the worst – I guess I’d call it a whooping, but it wasn’t a whooping. It was probably a beating. I can remember the worst that my brother got. Mr. Sparks used to – he had a confectionary and he used to sell popsicles. The deal was you buy fifteen popsicles and you get your sixteenth free. The free one has to come the next day, so you had a popsicle the next day. We would take the popsicle sticks and we would make little fans with them.
FI: I remember that.
HS: One day, my brother got his fifteenth. He ate the fifteenth, so we planned and said I think I want to get my sixteenth. I said, “That’s tomorrow. You can’t get it today.” He said, “No, no, no. I bought my fifteenth, I want my sixteenth.” We go down to Mr. Sparks and my brother gets on the counter and says, “Mr. Sparks, I want my free popsicle.” He said, “Altus, you know it’s tomorrow. You get it tomorrow.” “No, I want it today.” Mr. Sparks told him, “You can’t get it today. It’s tomorrow.” Then he throws him out. My dad is the ice man. My dad came by with the ice, delivering the ice, and Mr. Sparks tells my dad, “That oldest boy of yours was in here today and he got out of line. I had to throw him out of here.” No more said.
FI: That was enough.
HS: That was sufficient. That night when my dad got home, we were in bed. It had to be at least three inches round, the switch that he found.
FI: Oh my God. That was a baby tree.
HS: That was a baby tree. [both chuckle] He come in there and went to work, and I got out of the way. He was giving it to Altus. While he was doing that, he was talking to him.
FI: He got the lecture.
HS: He got the lecture with the whooping. He said, “I don’t want to ever hear you going down there and messing with Mr. Sparks.” That kind of thing. That was the worst I’ve ever seen. My dad – one thing about it, when we left home or when we would go out wherever we were going, to the movie or wherever, he would ask us, “Do you have any money?” We said no. He would always give us 25 or 50 cents. He said, “I don’t want you to ask nobody for nothing. I don’t want you to steal nothing. If you wind up in trouble, I can’t come get you. If you’re in trouble, you’re on your own. I can’t come get you.” So, I took it to mind that if anything ever happened to me, he couldn’t come get me, so I stayed straight. [laughs]
FI: Amen.
HS: That was his thing. He didn’t want us in the street without any money. We’d have to have 25 or 50 cents, and he said, “I don’t want you to ask nobody for anything. I don’t want you to steal nothing. If I hear you’re stealing something, you’re in big trouble.”
FI: Setting those boundaries, putting them in place, actually preparing you for certain things in your adulthood. Let’s go to your adulthood.
HS: Oh Lord.
FI: [coughs] When I first became acquainted with you, you were the owner of Horace’s Supper Club. I think that was my first time having contact with you. Did you own any businesses before that?
HS: Yeah, I did. I think I had worked at Sussey’s a long time. I worked all the way through high school, and then I worked after high school. I graduated in ’57, and then in ’58 I started working at Sportsman’s Country Club.
FI: Where was that located?
HS: 39th and Portland. It’s there today. I started there as a waiter working with a guy named Bob Turner. A couple of years later, I became the head waiter. I did that for three or four years, and then I went back in the early ‘60s to Sussey’s to work. I was some kind of kitchen manager or something. I worked there until 1966. That’s when the place burned down.
FI: I remember that. It was my graduation year.
HS: Yeah, it burned down in ’66, and then I did a couple of other things. I worked at Unit Parts, and then I went to work for – well I was always involved in golf since ’52 or ’53, and we had big tournament come to Oklahoma City in ’68. It was called Central State Golf Association Tournament. It’s an all-Black tournament. We were expecting 300 or 400 people.
FI: Where was the tournament going to be?
HS: At Lincoln Park. Prentice Gautt worked there. He was on the Park Commission.
FI: He was a Douglass High School graduate.
HS: He was a Douglass High School graduate and he went to OU. He was the first Black athlete to play at OU. He was on the Park Commission and when we were making arrangements for this tournament, I asked how many people and he said about 300. I said, “Oh my God! 300? Oh no. We can’t have no 300. That’s too many.” This tournament was a family affair. It started on Sunday with a picnic and then they practiced golf on Monday and Tuesday. The competition was Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And then we’d go somewhere else for the rest for the weekend before another tournament. Finally, it passed and they agreed that we could play at Lincoln in 19 – it had to be 1966 or ’67. Right in there. S Schlitt’s Brewery was one of the major sponsors. I worked on the tournament for a whole year, and I was working for a local bottling company. The guy that was my boss understood that I had told him this tournament is coming up in a year, so I need to be off whenever the tournament comes up. He agreed to that. The tournament comes up, and I said I need to be off next week because of the tournament. He said, no you can’t be off next week. I said we’ve been talking about it for a year and you promised me I could take off. He said if you take off you don’t have a job when you come back.
FI: And this is when you were working at?
HS: It was a local bottling company. I don’t want to call it by its name because he’s still living. A local bottling company.
FI: Was he a Black man?
HS: No. Anyway, I said I don’t have a job because I’ve made commitments and people expected me to do this thing. We had the tournament and Schlitt’s was a sponsor, and so some kind of way, they had two Black reps from Saint Louis down working for Schlitt’s. They heard that I no longer had a job, so they – after the tournament they had me an interview with Schlitt’s. After the tournament, I went to work for Schlitt’s Beer.
FI: Did they have a local –
HS: They had a local distributor, so I went to work for a local distributor.
FI: Doing what?
HS: I was a route driver, selling beer on a route. I had the whole east side route from Walnut Street all the way to Green Pastures.
FI: That’s huge.
HS: Huge, huge, huge. I worked there 12 months and I was the top salesman for 10 months. During that time, after that I said I wanted to do something else.
FI: Was the money good?
HS: The money was good. I think back then I was making about $125 a week. That was in 1967 or something like that.
FI: That’s very good.
HS: Yes, the money was pretty good. It would depend on how many cases you’d sell off, and I was selling them off. A lady named Georgia who used to work at the Offbeat had a restaurant on 36th and Kelley in the shopping center.
FI: What was her name?
HS: Georgia. She worked at the Offbeat for years. Anyway, she had a restaurant that she was trying to sell. It seated about 25 people. I had an idea that I wanted to go in there and open a little soul food restaurant, so I went to the SBA.
FI: Which is?
HS: Small Business Administration. I think she wanted $6800 for it or something like that, but I bought it for $6600, all the equipment and stuff. They approved the loan, and the guy told me when he gave me the money that I wouldn’t make it. I said that was kind of weird – he’s giving me the money and then telling me I won’t make it. $2,000 of the money was for operating expenses. So, I said give me $1,000 and I’ll leave $1,000 here. He said okay. I opened it up and it became an instant success. We served 3 meats, 3 vegetables, a dessert, and tea. My first menu price was $1.08 for a meal. On Wednesday, we would have soul food day – the chitlins, the greens, the yams, the cornbread.
FI: Really down home.
HS: I stayed there a year.
FI: What was the name of it?
HS: Horace’s Grill. It was kinda like a little Cheers thing.
FI: Everybody knew your name, and everybody knew everybody.
HS: Yeah. Everybody knew everybody. We would pack it every day. After a year, the restaurant around the corner, which was Sherry’s Cafeteria, a white establishment, that’s where I had the club.
FI: Okay, so your first restaurant was –
HS: On the other end of the shopping center on the Kelley end. It’s made in an L. I was on the Kelley end.
FI: Okay, so Sherry’s was on the east end.
HS: Right. On the east end – the white end. I went back and he wanted like $25,000 for it.
FI: They were closing?
HS: They were closing, and he had several restaurants and he was to the point he was retiring or downsizing, and eventually he got out of the business. I went to SBA and I told them what my plans were and put a little paperwork together. The guy that had loaned me the money – I still had not gone back and gotten the $1,000 because I didn’t need it – said, “You proved me wrong. I’m going to have to try to help you.” It took a while to get the money, quite a while. It even took a call from President Nixon’s office to get the money.
FI: Why?
HS: Well, you know, just slow.
FI: Too slow.
HS: Yeah, and then $25,000 is a lot of money.
FI: Especially in that day.
HS: Anyway, when we did get the money eventually, and I had about $5,000 operating money. When we bought it, we bought the cafeteria. It was 98% white customer base. Employees were about 100% white. I don’t think there were any Black employees there at the time. Over the months, it started turning. The population or the customer base started changing. I had no reason for a huge cafeteria. I had put a small club on the other side, so I flipped it and put the club on the big side, on the larger side, and then put a small restaurant on the west side. Operated with that for about five years. The Mix and Squeeze came, and when the Mix and Squeeze came, everybody was doing most of their entertainment at home. People started cutting back just like they’re cutting back today. Economic times. I said I just couldn’t stay there until they cut the lights off. I don’t want to embarrass myself.
FI: As they say, things were changing economically.
HS: Yeah. I couldn’t stay there until they cut the lights off, so I just closed up and went to work. I went and found me a job. What happened with that experience, it gave me an opportunity to learn the front end and the back end, so when I went looking for a job, I went looking for a manager’s job. It was different. I went to Greyhound Food Management.
FI: What?
HS: Greyhound Food Management. Like the Greyhound Bus. Buses is not their business. Food is their number one business. They’re on college campuses, hospitals, all over the country.
FI: I didn’t know that.
HS: Yeah. I went to – well my first job, was downtown at the bus station for my training. Then I went to my first job.
FI: This is where you can actually get real food at the bus station?
HS: Yeah. My first job was at Missouri Southern in Joplin, Missouri as the Assistant Food Director. I stayed there – matter of fact, I worked for them about eight months and a friend of mine, Wilbert Walker, was on the President’s staff at OU. He called me and said they had a position open at OU managing one of the cafeterias. Would you like to come down and do an interview? I said yes, so I went down and did an interview at OU and I managed the Commons cafeteria for four years.
FI: On campus?
HS: Yeah, that’s on the south campus where Continuing Education is, in that area. The President’s Dining Room is there. I stayed there four years, and could have stayed, could have still been there, but I just got bored. Nothing to do. It wasn’t a challenge. I didn’t know anyone that worked for McDonald’s but I was looking for something else to do, and I talked to several people and several companies. I went by and talked to a guy at McDonald’s one day. He said McDonald’s was great.
FI: Approximately what timeframe was this?
HS: 1977. I went to work at OU in ’74 and stayed there until ’77. He said it’s a good deal at McDonald’s now.
FI: And they were seeking minority-
HS: Actually, what they were doing is they were seeking older people in management. For example, a guy who was out of the Army or service, spent some time in the service. He could come in and get McDonald’s just like that because he was older and he had some discipline. I had a lot of food background, and I went in, did an interview, and they hired me.
FI: What did they hire you to do?
HS: I was a manager trainee. The salary, for that time, was good. They hired me in more than the store manager was making because of my experience and my age. I was thirty-eight years old. I went to McDonald’s with two goals in mind. They had a plan where you could stay ten years and become an owner-operator. I was going to do that, or I was going to stay twenty years and retire. I would have been fifty-eight years old. McDonald’s paid for performance. If you got in there and you worked hard, I think my first year I got about an eighteen percent raise. They paid for performance.
FI: When you say ‘paid for performance,’ you mean what?
HS: Productivity. They allowed you to be a performer. They had outstanding, excellent, good, fair, but you had to be at least good. If you wanted to spend a lot of time at home with your family, you could do an average job, but if you really wanted to get in there and learn everything, you could spend more time and become an excellent employee.
FI: There’s so much to learn behind that counter.
HS: Yeah, so much. My goal when I went to work was to become an owner in ten years. I wanted to be a manager in eighteen months. I wanted to be a supervisor in twenty-four months, and then I wanted to be an owner in ten years. What they did was when I went to work, I missed all my goals by about six months. Every one of them.
FI: But they were accomplished?
HS: Oh yeah. I became a manager in twenty-four months. In thirty months, I wanted to be a supervisor. I became a supervisor in thirty-six months. I wanted to be an owner in ten years. I made it ten years and seven months.
FO: So seventeen months into it - I mean ten years and seven months into your working for McDonald’s, you owned a McDonald’s.
HS: Well, I became an owner, a franchisee. What happened was the policy was that if you get 100% profit share, you had to work ten years and six months. I could have went out at ten years, but I would have left 20% on the table. To get 100%, the guy that chose me to become an owner-operator told me to work six more months and get 100%. No use leaving 20% of your profit share with the company, so I waited ten years and six months.
FI: I want you to tell me about the opening of your first McDonald’s.
HS: The first restaurant that I owned was at 6700 North May. What they did during the six-month grace period I was waiting on my 100% was they sent me to the store as a manager. My goal was to get everything fixed, make sure it’s in tip-top shape when they turn it over to me. That was my goal. I’ve always believed in the restaurant, and any kind of business, that if you start early, you’ve got a pretty good chance of being good all day. I’m an early riser. My first five years I was always in the store at 5:00 AM. I believed that if we started right, we were going to stay right. That was just part of my training. We were there almost three years, and an opportunity came to go to Tulsa and buy a couple of stores in Tulsa, so I took it.
FI: That would have been in the –
HS: 1990.
FI: Okay. Ten years now.
HS: Well, ’91, really. I went to Tulsa with the idea that I would stay in Tulsa ten years, and then I would retire.
FI: What happened?
HS: I went to Tulsa and bought a couple of restaurants and then bought another, and then when I got ready to retire, or sell out— I sold out in ’99. McDonald’s had program – well, they didn’t have a program but the minority operators at McDonald’s was pushing for parity with the number of stores and cash flows. We wanted the same as the majority. At that time, they couldn’t afford to lose a minority operator at McDonald’s.
FI: Because of federal guidelines?
HS: No, no, no, because we were pushing for parity, meaning we wanted the same percentage of stores that the operators had, the majority operators, the white operators. If the population is 8.5% nationally, we wanted 8.5% of the stores. That was the goal.
FI: Equal sharing.
HS: Right, and equal number and percentage of stores with the same cash flow and all those things. A friend of mine said, “Why don’t you just buy one store in Oklahoma City and just hang on?” That’s what I did. I bought a store and decided just to stay around.
FI: This was the one on 67th and May?
HS: No, that was the first one. When I came back to the city, I bought one at 59th and South Penn.
FI: So, you didn’t own one on the east side, the one down there by the casino?
HS: No. I’ve never owned a store on the east side. All my stores now was on the south side. I bought the store at 59th and South Penn and still decided maybe I was going to retire. But then I got my daughter involved; I’ve got three of my kids involved now. My goal at this point is just to hang around and get a check. [The interviewer laughs] We’ve got three great stores. We’re rebuilding a store right now. We tore it down – the first one I bought. We tore it down and we’re going to open a brand-new store.
FI: What is its location?
HS: 59th and South Penn. 6012 South Penn. This will be the newest - [pause] it’s the newest store in Oklahoma City as far as the new McDonald’s presentation.
FI: The style of it and all of that?
HS: Yes, the style of it. All the bells, all the whistles. We are going to open it probably December 2nd.
FI: So, McDonald’s was really a steppingstone to the rest of your life for you.
HS: Yes, absolutely. When I went to work for McDonald’s, when I first became an operator, I said, “What I want to do is I have four kids and I want to leave each of them X amount of dollars.” Now that has changed. The dollars are more.
FI: It takes more dollars.
HS: It takes more dollars, but I can leave more dollars. My goal now is to – I don’t think I’ll ever sell them or anything. I’ll just give it to them. When my time is up, it doesn’t take much for me now, but if I can live like I’m living, comfortably, and I can travel and play golf like I do, as long as they give me a check then I’ll do that. When my time is up, hopefully we’ve got all the paperwork right so they can just move in and take over.
FI: That’s excellent planning. There’s nothing like having a plan for the future. We’re getting ready to wrap this up in just a few minutes. I want to ask you about – well, I think through your conversation you probably have a pretty good idea of some of the things that you learned in the process of coming from the Fairgrounds up to where you are today. Are there some strong ethics or -?
HS: Well, I kind of like to live my life by being respectful to people, understanding people, like I treat my employees now. I understand when they go to the grocery store, they pay the same for a loaf of bread as I do. They pay the same for gas as I do. It just so happens that I’m on this side and they’re on that side, and I understand they need help. I treat them all with respect. My whole life is that I’ve tried to treat people with respect, and you try not to have any enemies, but you’ve got some somewhere anyway. I think one of the things that sticks with me most is when I was a head waiter at Sportsman’s Club. We had six people that worked there and all the extra help we would hire in. I would have to call them to come in. I called a young lady one day and I asked her if she would like to come to work. She said, “Horace, I don’t think I can work out there anymore with some of the things that you all have said about me.” That hurt me because I had not said anything. Maybe something was said through the grapevine. Maybe somebody had said something, but she took it as I was part of that conversation, and I was not. How to tell her that I’m not? It bothers me for a person to think I had said something about them, and I hadn’t. My whole thing is to just try to treat people with respect and understand people and have fun and all those things.
FI: Horace, even today you are, even today as we are speaking, well-known throughout not only the east side community but all areas of this city because you have been a strong leader economically, socially, and also in some of the sponsorships that you have done for our community. A lot of it has been through golf, a game that you love. I want to say to you that, for one thing, I’m so pleased that you are still standing. Because you know back in the day when you were talking about that first club and grill and that kind of thing, there were a lot of us that were optimistic and striving for a difference, socially speaking. A large number of those are not around today. I’m so delighted to be able to get your story while you’re still here. I think it’s an absolute pleasure. You were a man who, when you saw opportunities, doors that were open for you, you stepped right in and took advantage of those opportunities. I think you set a great example for people and for young people. It’s just a pleasure to have talked with you today.
HS: I appreciate it. Thank you. I enjoyed it.
End of interview.