Description:
Transcription of Interview with Lottie Shepherd
Interviewee: Lottie Shepherd
Interviewer: Unknown (never gives his name)
Date of the interview: 2/11/1965
Place of the interview: Parlor of the Shepherd Home, Northwest 23rd
Date of transcription: 8/8/2011 – 9/4/2011
IR: [Laughing] Well, we’ll discuss that too. I wanna put that on here too, because it’s a nice, interesting little story, a sidelight of your trip. ‘Cause all this is, just is conversation. It’s Miss Lottie Shepherd, isn’t it?
LS: Yes.
IR: Miss Lottie Shepherd. And this home in which we are now sitting on this, the second day—or the eleventh day of February of 1965. How long have you lived in this home?
LS: 75 years.
IR: For Heaven’s sakes! Is this the only place you’ve ever lived?
LS: Uh-huh, this is the only place I’ve ever lived.
IR: Right on this spot, huh?
LS: Right on this spot. Of course, this part, this part of the house was built in 1904, then the other house was started in 1909 [or maybe ’99?]
IR: Uh huh, and we’re sitting right here in the front parlor of the Shepherd home on Northwest 23rd, and I should judge by comparison that it looked a great deal different—quite a bit different—in those days, 75 years ago than it does now. You’re surrounded with, you might say, not only residential area, but just a real complex of business area with Shepherd Mall and Sears on the other side.
LS: Yeah, and it used to be that 23rd Street wasn’t opened up [to?] another good road, like they made [K?] Street and 10th…16th Street, because the house over here [was?] University ground and they’d never opened that road through there, only just [to draw?], you could hardly get through. And so if anybody—we, we could see there was no houses, nothing there to break your vision. And you could see a half a mile way up the road. And if anyb…you’d see any car up there, no, a buggy [driving ?] and horses, we knew they’s coming here—there’s no other place to go.
IR: [Laughing] Let’s go back and see how…or what you can recall, Miss Lottie, from some of those days, if you don’t mind. Now your family came here and settled here on this spot?
LS: Yeah.
IR: Your mother…
LS: My father […] and run. He ran from it, from Purcell.
IR: From Purcell, and got this piece of property here.
LS: He got this here. And he didn’t file on it ‘til the last two or three days when the time had run out for filing because he said the land looked so poor it wasn’t worth filing on it.
IR: You recall approximately how much land there was in this area that you were…?
LS: Oh, a hundred and sixty.
IR: A section, huh?
LS: Yeah.
IR: A hundred and sixty acres?
LS: Right, the fourth of a section.
[Background voice saying “Fourth of a section, fourth of a section.”]
IR: Fourth of a section, that’s correct.
LS: All claims were there.
IR: All claims were…
LS: Hundred and sixty. Each person was [??] getting a hundred and sixty without something…a river would run along [??] and cut off some, you know, then you’d just have on one side about [??]. That’s the way it was.
IR: And then, you were born here, then?
LS: Oh no, I was born in Kansas.
IR: You were born in Kansas. Well, this is…All of this information we want to get here on this tape because it’s part of the Living Library at Oklahoma Christian College and it’ll be kept from time on in, time immemorial, so to speak, and used as the basis of research and study by students and people who are writing histories and studying history of Oklahoma City particularly and Oklahoma in general.
[Unintelligible background voice.]
IR: Beg pardon?
[Unintelligible background voice.]
IR: All the children were born in Kansas, then?
LS: Yes, in Kansas.
IR: This must have been quite a wilderness, as you mentioned.
LS: There wasn’t a thing on [??] everything around us was nothing but raw prairie. And, of course, north of us was the contested place—nobody lived there, and south of us, they…people lived on the claims that were there. But Ed Pearson who had [??] some claims would live on it, the one would take the claim [??] what they called the ones that “jumped” the claims, sometimes somebody would come and contest them, you know. And that’s where they got so much about their fights on, you know.
IR: Did you ever have any trouble over this property?
LS: Well, yes, we did. There was a man contested it, but we didn’t have much trouble, because at that time my father was a cattleman and he was shipping cattle from Winfield, Kansas, and he had his checkbook where he’d checked out every day, you know, where he was. He could just choose and so he threw it into the United States court and his trial was the first trial that was thrown into the United States court and, of course, the man, they sent him up to the…to Leavenworth for trying it.
IR: Which proved [??]
LS: Yes, of course he didn’t [??]…It’s hard for a person that hasn’t got no [rights??] he had sitting down, you know…
IR: The records…
LS: Yeah, the records of it. Otherwise, they’d have just left him a-fighting and some of them would lose their claims and they were the rightful owner, because they couldn’t prove it.
IR: I bet you had a time back in those days, didn’t you?
LS: [Laughing]
IR: You came here in when?
LS: In…I came here in nin…in eighty-nine…in ninety.
IR: In ninety…
LS: [???] I came here in the fall.
IR: Mm-hmm. And you were how old at that time? When you came here from Kansas?
LS: I guess I was fourteen. I’m ninety-one now.
IR: Ninety-one now? You were about fourteen then and you’re…the land was taken on the run in 1889, and you moved here from where in Kansas?
LS: In…we…it was after New Year’s that we [interviewer coughing, unintelligible] after New Year’s [???] In the winter light and…so that would make it in…in ninety.
IR: Right, yes ma’am.
LS: See, this was the last day in the…
IR: Then, did you live in a tent here before the house was built?
LS: No, my father had made what he called…they called a dugout. Most everybody lived in them. You would dig into the ground a little bit, you know, and then you’d put a house on top of that with a roof, you know. And windows and doors into it where you’d go down like you were into a cave. [??] until they got the house done.
IR: Why did they do that? Just for protection, or what?
LS: Oh, it was…no, they fixed it that way because it was cheaper. [??] they could do it, don’t you know? And a lot of them built ‘em the sod houses. They plowed prairie grass up and it was, they, it was thick. At certain places there would be enough, well you know sometimes grass grows better other places. And then they would take the sod…the sod’s about a foot square and then just put it up in walls like you’d put your brick up. And put a roof on.
IR: How many in the Shepherd family when you moved here?
LS: We were eight children.
IR: And after you did move here, what did your father do? Still stay in the cattle business?
LS: Yes, he was still in the cattle business.
IR: And then was this property used for raising cattle and so forth?
LS: Yes, but as a rule he would…bought cattle and shipped them to Kansas City.
IR: Mm-hmm. Well, what did this ground look like?
LS: Do what?
IR: What did this ground here look like? It’s…
LS: It was just a big piece of raw prairie. It looks like…if the people wonder what it looks like, drive into western Kansas on some of those prairies. Or out here in Texas or some…New Mexico and see some of the ground. [That??] nobody lives there and it’s just prairie ground. That’s all there was to it.
IR: You mentioned something earlier that it was burned at various times, once a year or so forth…since it was Indian ground previously…
LS: The Indians?
IR: It was Indian territory before?
LS: Oh yeah!
IR: And what did they do to the grass?
LS: They’d burn it. The fire would come over, and in the spring if you burned the old grass off, then the new grass comes quicker, and then they had the crops—the grass—for their cattle to eat. You see, they didn’t feed them in the wintertime, enough, the cattle would get awfully poor, and they had to have grass early for ‘em, so they would burn it off to make it that way. And that’s what made the burnt grass on this place…it just burned clear off ‘til nothing but burnt grass.
IR: What was the next, well, you might say your next-door neighbor? Who was your neighbor in those days? I mean, who was your closest neighbor?
LS: Well…
IR: Do you recall?
LS: On the, right west of us the Joneses (?) on the west, my father’s brother took that place.
IR: Yeah, which would be just beyond…
LS: He lived over there.
IR: Beyond Willow, huh?
LS: Uh-huh, on the other side of Willow. And the man that had this place up here, he was Westbrook. He was a bachelor from some...back east someplace.
IR: That’s east of you.
LS: That was east of us.
IR: Which would be…
LS: And he lived on clear up the other end of the…so that would, uh, of his pond, and these ponds, you see, are half a mile square. And that would make it three-quarters of a mile from here.
IR: It sure would. [Laughing] I think you have a splendid memory about the, about your life here in Oklahoma City. Was it rather rugged for the family, for the girls particularly?
LS: Oh yes, of course. The trouble…My father liked nice stock. He always had purebreds—cattle and horses and everything else. And he had a beautiful pair of mares down here. [Laughing] ??? our horses, and they were Hambletonians, lovely ones. And, but of course we had to seek [or stake?] ‘em out, you know, there was no fences or anything. And they stole ‘em. There were the thieves around in here.
IR: I can imagine it was pretty rugged, wasn’t it?
LS: Oh yes, it was, and of course the people, the really trouble was the people that came from the East, and they had read about the Indians and about this Western country, and that’s what they expected to find—they were just scared to death of the Indians. They didn’t understand the Indians were civilized. [Laughing.] There wasn’t such a thing as ‘em on the war path anymore, you know, that was all over. And Ft. [Till??] is where the government had the post, you know. Yeah, and out here, let’s see, it’s about four miles, I guess, ea..west of here, [??] not too far. They had a grove. They kept the timber. It was timber, all timber, heavy timber, and they…Oh! It must have been two miles square, if not more! And they had used that timber to cut for the posts up at Gal Rino[???], Ft. Reno, it was then, and Ft. Till [??], [???] back this right on the other side, you know, of…
IR: Of Ft. Reno?
LS: Mm-hmm. And, so one night, they had the…the Bohemians settled here, a whole lot, from the Old World. They’d come over and take out their first papers, and then they could come on and take a claim before they ever were American citizens! And they were so many coming here. And they’d settled out in there. And they had what they called a shivaree, you know what that is?
IR: Mm-hmm, yes ma’am.
LS: When they…they had a wedding and shot off the guns and pounded the pans and everything. And the people around there thought it was an Indian that had broke out…
IR: For Heaven’s sakes.
LS: And so they notified everybody in this district, all [??? to include??] Oklahoma City. That was the third year after the opening, I think it was the third. They went to town and there was one house up on Fourth Street that was a two-story house, a good…it was the largest of the houses in town. And they made that a fort. And all the men got there with their pistols and their guns, and their…the bag…the oh, how they say it? Ammunition….
IR: Hardware store?
LS: Hardware store. There wasn’t a round of ammunition in the town yet to be got. They bought everything else. They all were…people come in in their wagons, they just jumped and came any way they was, some of ‘em was half-dressed and stuff…Anyway, wrapped up and came to town, and went to the fort. The Indians were after ‘em. And then the next morning, why, they found out, you know, that there wasn’t anything to it.
IR: [Laughing] Sort of a false alarm, huh?
LS: Yes, and they went there by the hundreds – a whole town was in arms up there!
IR: Well, it’s a wonder something didn’t happen anyway.
LS: Well, yes, they should have had something to scare ‘em a little more.
IR: Well, those are interesting stories, those items like that, Miss Lottie. Not too many people have had an opportunity to recall all of those things that have happened. I imagine there are many interesting incidents.
LS: [???] Yeah, the oldest time [???] in town and around and th…We didn’t go, because they came and told my uncle over here…for him to come on and get us and take us to town quick. And he just laughed and Papa laughed, he said, “Why couldn’t those Indians [???] such a thing.” My father’d had an Indian trading post in Kansas in the olden days, and he knew all about Indians.
IR: How long did your father live?
LS: He died in 1912.
IR: 1912. And your mother?
LS: My mother died in 1913—they died six months apart.
IR: And then you girls…were there any brothers?
LS: Yes, my young…Clyde Shepherd.
IR: Clyde, yes?
LS: That was my brother.
IR: And the other girls?
LS: Yes. Lord, I had an older brother, but he wasn’t here most of the time.
IR: Is he still alive?
LS: No [??], he got a [claim??] up with my parents and [??] up there.
IR: And how about the rest of the girls, your sisters?
LS: I have one sister left.
IR: Yes. And it seems the ladies outlived the men in the Shepherd family then, huh?
LS: Yeah. [Laughing.] Not many of us left.
IR: Just the two of you?
LS: Just the two of us.
IR: You…your brother, following your father, they’ve always kept this property, haven’t they?
LS: Yeah.
IR: It has never been like other areas and other sections, that have been cut up and sold off at various times. Didn’t you keep the whole area?
LS: We never even got a deed to it ‘til oh…19- and…maybe it was 14 or 15…we got a deed. We never had a deed at all, had just the papers. What is it called?
IR: The abstract?
LS: No, not the abstract. It was just a little piece of paper…[unintelligible]
IR: Just a small deed?
LS: …that says I, Grover Cleveland, give this land to George Shepherd for…
IR: Oh, yes.
LS: …For him and his heirs forever. And we just kept it that way because that was stronger than a dozen deeds.
IR: Yes it was, with the presidential signature on it. What else do you recall, Miss Lottie, about some of those days?
LS: Well…
IR: Despite all of the activity and some of the, uh, raucous people that were around, this has always been a rather religious town, hasn’t it?
LS: Yes! The first morning, the first Sunday after the opening, some of the people, now Mr. A.C. Scott—he came from Kansas. He was a very intelligent man who was a musician. And, oh, he was a…dressy-like…and he was what you’d call an aristocrat. And he and two or three of the other, some of the men—one of ‘em was a Presbyterian minister by the name of [Minter or Miller??] and they got in the middle of Main and Broadway. They had a well there. They dug a well for the [??] Depot—[??] the Santa Fe. You see, the Santa Fe had come through here before the opening, several years before that, they’d gone to Purcell. And there was a well of water there. And near that well of water was where they’d made their [??] and stood up on some boxes and had a service. The first service after the opening…
IR: The first Sunday after the run?
LS: And that was the first service that was ever here. Then Mr….Rev. Murray of the Methodist church was there also, Rev. Murray. And I don’t know from the others. I know of those two, I don’t know whether there was any more or not.
IR: Well, [??] as we mentioned earlier and not only in conversation with you but with some other people, they’ve always felt that this town has grown and multiplied with its churches…
LS: Oh, they have. About the first thing they ever built in town was churches. They weren’t the fancy churches they were just—the boards, you know. And…Now the Presbyterians, theirs was just one great big room at the south side where the [??] was. There was a door and two little rooms like where they kept their books and all, and that’s all there was to there. And that’s what they had for years!
IR: Well, nothing was too fancy for years, was it?
LS: No, they wasn’t. Things couldn’t be fancy in the first days [??]. You’d get a room to have services in, why they were lucky to get that much. I tell you, the first year of the opening, the people that came here—most of them—had some money. And then they spent it by the time they got their homes built and their fences fenced—they had to fence their land—and in town they had to build the houses and start the business. They’d spent all the money. Then, the second and third years was awful hard years here because there wasn’t anybody had any. They’d spent it all, you know. They’d come here with it, then they didn’t have any more, and there wasn’t any way to make any. If you’re in a town with a lot of people, but people that have money, and you come in without any, you can get some. But if they don’t have any, then there’s no way to have any. [Laughing.]
IR: [Laughing.] You recall your school days here? [???]
LS: Yes, they still had…they started schools the second year, right away after the opening that winter. They opened in the spring. And they had [???] it was private schools, I think. I don’t think they got the public school yet. But they did, they started the school up. You see, it was an awful good crowd that came, that settled Oklahoma. It wasn’t just the farmers and the working people, it was the rich—a lot of them, and ,oh…
IR: At least they had money.
LS: From the eastern states, you know. They all came here from the east, and, of course, a lot of them came from the old because it was so new and everything—something to come to. And so the [??] the first three or four years after the opening of this country it was better for churches and schools and things like that than it was afterwards for awhile. Because those people got disgusted with it, they got tired of living like that, so they sold out and went back east. And then the other people came here—the more, the working people. It was an altogether different crowd after a few years.
IR: Well your people and your family, apparently, thought they wanted to stay here, didn’t they?
LS: Oh, yes. My father said he was going to stay here. He was here, he was one [who?] had an Indian trading post in the southeast part of Kansas, the first one that was ever there.
IR: That’s amazing.
LS: And he had to bring his goods all by wagon from Leavenworth, Kansas, way up, you know, two to three hundred miles…
IR: Oh, for Heaven’s sake!
LS: But it was all Indians that he had. Now there’s some white people, of course, lived…all of us did live around.
IR: Do you recall where you went to school, Miss Lottie, here? Do you recall your schools here?
LS: Well, yes. They had very good schools here to begin with.
IR: I mean, the school that you went to.
LS: Oh, yes, it was just…I was down there so much I mo-…I wasn’t there but, well, most of my school was up in Winfield, Kansas, and of course, they have good schools there.
IR: [Laughing.] They were settled quite early, weren’t they?
LS: Oh yes, that was an early place.
IR: Who were some of your acquaintances here that you recall meeting and getting acquainted with after you moved? I don’t imagine too many of ‘em are still around.
LS: No, they’re not. There’s some still alive. With the eighty-niners, you see once in awhile, some of the old crowd. But there’s not so many. They…now all the old crowd out in through here, I don’t think there’s any of ‘em. Of course, they were…The settlers here: the McNeils and the Neils and all of ‘em were the settlers back in…You know, after I guess it was the third winter after the opening, we had what they called a literary. You know what that means in the country, a literary? Where they go, they have a meeting, have a meeting and then they have different people—they’ll have music, and recitations, and talks, and that’s all there is to it, you know. And that was the only thing that we had for a little while for entertainment. You’d go to different people’s houses, other people would have one room, you know, maybe they’d have [parts of it??] cut off and something else and they’d move that out and then we’d go into that room. And the crowd, all the people around here, and some from town, would come, and…Well, it was the only recreation we had about that time.
IR: That’s about right. There wasn’t anything else to do.
LS: Nothing else to do. And you got acquainted with all our neighbors that way.
IR: You remember some of your girl friends? Some of their names?
LS: Well, I don’t believe I’ve got a girl friend alive yet. I think they’re all gone.
IR: [Laughing.] You outlived them all.
LS: Now[ Mildred ???], Ida McNeill, they lived out—two to three miles—out west of here. She was [???] two years ago and she was my special friend. Ida [???] I don’t know any of ‘em anymore ‘round here that I knew when I [??] Doesn’t seem real but it is.
IR: [Laughing] The…When did your brother pass away? Clyde? When did Clyde pass away?
LS: In ’52. He had…had the heart disease. I guess they [???] with his heart. He wasn’t sick at all, he simply…just went. He had a…well, he’d had a pretty hard life of it all. I tell you, it was my father – It was[??] my father and mother they, they were…one of ‘em was, Mother was 64 and Father was 65, I think, when they died. And they weren’t old, you see, they shouldn’t have died, they should have stayed. No, it wasn’t right for them to go. I didn’t know my mother was a-goin’, she just had what they call the flu nowadays, and she just went one night and I didn’t know it. And my father wasn’t very well and he just, well…after mother died, why, he went. It was just six months before he died. He was tired and worn out. That’s all.
IR: He was a pretty hard worker, wasn’t he?
LS: Yes, he was. And people in the early days worked harder than they do now.
IR: They had to, didn’t they, Miss Shepherd?
LS: They had to or go hungry, one or the other. It was…you see, there wasn’t anything! You didn’t have a thing!
IR: Didn’t you have to raise your own crops right here? Your own food?
LS: Right here. See, my father, when they moved, they came down here. And then after Christmas, from Kansas, and he by the carload [brought stuff??] down. He brought cows and horses and hogs and chickens and things like that to have. But she didn’t do just right, he liked good stock, so he brought thoroughbreds of everything down. If he’d have brought old stock they would have got along better. [Laughing.] These thoroughbred people are…the people are even thoroughbred half the time and have a harder time in new country than other people do.
IR: It’s difficult.
LS: Uh-huh.
IR: Well it’s quite a change around here now than from your days.
LS: Oh! It’s altogether different, everything. Well, it’s a town now, you see. We don’t have country anymore.
IR: Very little of it.
LS: No. And the other thing is even the people that have their farms, they generally work in town or see about it in town and all.
IR: Do you recall when they started the university down here? That probably was—The Oklahoma City University.
LS: That was started out at the [???]. It was a Methodist college…
IR: Right.
LS: And it wasn’t here, it was down on…well, I…It was on 16th Str…17th…You know where the old weather bureau was?
IR: Yes ma’am.
LS: It was there near the old weather bureau. They started that in the…it started there. And afterwards, about…they just had a few lots there, nothing of any…I think they put it into a school, if I’m not mistaken afterwards, the building that was there. And then they bought all this land here. Now Mr. Klessen was the head of that.
IR: Mm-hmm, he was.
LS: Uh-huh. Anthony…Anthon…Anthony Klessen.
IR: Antone(?) Klessen.
LS: Yes, he…I liked Mr. Klessen. He was a very nice man and he worked awfully hard. Course he, in the early days, he was in Edmond. And Edmond was a town way off up north. It’s moved down [??] Oklahoma City now.
IR: [Laughing] It’s a little closer, it seems, isn’t it?
LS: Oh, why, well it is [with automobiles?] you might say, almost. But Oklahoma, the College had a pretty hard time right at first, getting started. But they were awfully proud of it; it was one of the things the town was proud of when they started. It was…well, I forget what they called it then. It wasn’t, no, it wasn’t Oklahoma City, it wasn’t Wesley…I forget [???] They had a Methodist name for it.
IR: We’re proud of a lot of our schools these days now, aren’t we? Because there are so many of them and they’re growing so rapidly.
LS: Oh, they are.
IR: We have to have them…
LS: Yeah…
IR: …to take care of the population.
LS: I know we do. The…Edmond got the teachers’ school and Norman got the University. And the reason why they got those and Oklahoma City never got nothing—in the early days of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma City asked for the capital and they didn’t give it to ‘em. They couldn’t get it. And they never gave her a school, they never gave Oklahoma City a thing. We never had any of those options[?].
IR: Why was that, I wonder?
LS: Well, because Oklahoma City wasn’t the capital. Oh, why didn’t they? I don’t know why they didn’t. I guess they was up in Washington, some of the people that had the pull, you know, was the ones who wanted it that way. And then afterwards, of course, Oklahoma City got ‘em…went and stole it back at night, you know. [Laughing.]
IR: [Laughing.] That’s quite a story, that..
LS: That is a story [???]. That was the story, I tell you.
IR: And there are many variations on that story.
LS: Yes, I know. Now I know they got some [???] that say they didn’t steal it, that they had a right to go into it [???] that they just went and stole it back. [???] off and steal their horses. [Laughing.]
IR: [Laughing.]
LS: But it should have been hers to begin with.
IR: That’s…Well, now that you’ve seen and had a real splendid life here—right in this one spot here on 23rd Street—you and your, well, your sisters, you’ve been doing quite a bit of traveling, haven’t you, in the last few years? [???]
LS: Yeah. My sister and I. She had a stroke over in [???]…
IR: This…this year?
LS: Oh, no. It’s been five, in…five years ago. Six years ago. But she was there and…she had taught at the university for twenty years.
IR: Oh, she did?
LS: Uh-huh, down in Norman. And then I had the sister that is…was the artist, you know. And she, of course, was in Europe for a long time. The…none of us stayed here too much. [Laughing.]
IR: You were on the go pretty much. Where did you go to school? Did you go to college?
LS: No, I never went to college. I was just in high school.
IR: Mm-hmm. Did your sister go to college?
LS: Yes. Oh yes.
IR: And the…But you did enjoy the advantages of traveling quite a bit?
LS: Oh, yes. We’ve been having…yes, and all of my sisters enjoy the traveling, too. Very much. She likes to travel, but [????] home. We’ve gone around the Earth so much.
IR: You’ve been all around the world, huh?
LS: We went around the world one year, and the next year we went to New Zealand and Australia and [Tahiti???], Fiji Island.
IR: How did you like it?
LS: I liked Fiji Island! [???] over there.
IR: What do you like about it?
LS: Well, I tell you, we went up to the head-hunters. Yes, the regular like they used to talk about, you know.
IR: Yes?
LS: They were, it was…the Chief’s house. They have a little village there. And we went way up the river, had to go in a boat, to their home where they lived. And they talk English—speak English—all of ‘em speak English now. And they talked English, and they were the nicest men, they were just as nice as the Americans [??]. They didn’t wear barely any clothes, but none of ‘em did [laughing]. But they were, and they acted and treated us just lovely. And fifty years ago they were cannibals.
IR: Right. How long ago was this, that you were over there?
LS: That was, hmm…let’s see, it must have been two years now since we’ve left.
IR: Well, you just returned a few weeks ago from a trip to Europe, didn’t you?
LS: Yeah, we just came back this fall. We went to four… we went to seven different countries over in Europe.
IR: How was it this time? Did you enjoy it?
LS: Oh, yes. It was very nice. And it was…we…almost every place was all right, only [???] and France and Spain, they just don’t cook [???]. They don’t [???]. They have plenty of food, but it ain’t our kind of food. We can’t, we couldn’t eat it. We were just kinda starved out [unintelligible…]. And southern Spain is just two to three years, hundred years, behind the times. You wouldn’t hardly believe it, this [??], and we drive a car, we were over in [???]. Now that’s in the east part. And we went clear over into the west part when we joined Portugal, we drove across the whole thing. I wanted to see how the people lived and what they were like. And you can’t tell anything without the drive. And that’s the way they live and it’s just like the [???] in Old Mexico, it’s just like outside of Mexico City where those poor people live in there, it’s just like that. They have orchards, great orchards of oranges and olives. Olive orchards in through there. And the rich people own it, but I guess they don’t live there. I never saw ‘em. Some of ‘em have a castle someplace way off. You see, we didn’t go to any of their castles, we could see them from the road, some of ‘em. And then it’s the poor people that do all the work. That’s the trouble, like they do in Mexico, you know.
IR: The old master and serf idea…
LS: Yes, that’s it. Exactly. That’s just like they’re living, like they used to.
IR: How’d you like France?
LS: France is not nice like it used to be before the war. They…Now some of the places there [now like?] out where the Louis XIV has his home…there were houses there, they were all beautiful. It’s castles like they are, you know. They had the loveliest paintings and oh, the mirrors! They had one neat Room of Mirrors and like that…I saw it years ago before the war, and now there isn’t a thing in it! They haven’t got…it’s been stripped and during the war they sold everything. That’s at Versailles.
IR: Versailles, yes.
LS: You know, that’s out, that’s about twelve miles—isn’t it? Something like that?
IR: Outside of...
LS: Out from Paris.
IR: Paris, yes.
LS: And there wasn’t a thing there now! There wasn’t one piece of furniture, there wasn’t a picture anyplace, there wasn’t a thing. Everything is gone. [???]
IR: How’d you like Sweden?
LS: Huh?
IR: How’d you like Sweden?
LS: I liked Sweden! I liked it very much, and the people are just lovely there. And they have the best food!
IR: [Laughing] Excellent food, isn’t it?
LS: Oh, it was excellent! [Laughing]
IR: Good! That’s fine! But it’s still nice to get back here, isn’t it?
LS: Oklahoma’s the best place in the whole world. I really would, if I had to choose any place in the world I wanted to live, I’d live right here.
IR: Uh-huh. Well you sure have, you’ve stayed here long enough!
LS: [??] right here.
IR: Uh-huh. By golly, right here. Nothing…Is Sears over here to the east of us? Was that part of your property?
LS: Oh yes!
IR: Yes. Well, that was the first piece in town that was sold off of it, right?
LS: Off of it…No, we sold the…
IR: Oh, the northern part of the home [unintelligible – talking at the same time]…
LS: Off of here there was a navy [???] north, the northeast eighty—it was cut in, you know, then we had all 23rd Street where [Sears?] are, but we sold that what they call [???]. North and south and east…[???talking to self] [laughing] I forgot the man they sold to.
IR: Well, and you, when this was, when you sold the major portion of the property—now which is Shepherd’s Mall—you stayed right here and watched all of that going on. You must have had a time during all that construction work!
LS: Oh, yes, I liked it! It was interesting—you wouldn’t want to go in the place, all you had to do was look out the window and see all the excitement you needed!
IR: [Laughing] Well, that was a long…about two years in construction, wasn’t it?
LS: Yes, it was. It was a long time. [???] we sold ‘em about eighty.
IR: Well all that remains is all this right here that we’re sitting on, right?
LS: Uh-huh. This is all that I have. I mean, when I’m gone, [???] will be prepared to have it.
IR: It goes to the…
LS: It goes to the [???], to the [???].
IR: [???]
LS: Because they took all of it and it, I, we haven’t any descendants at all. My sister [???] has been married and I have a niece and a nephew and that’s all.
IR: So…
LS: There’s no [???] we wanted to stay here as long as we lived.
IR: That’s a lifetime lease.
LS: Yeah.
IR: It sure has been an interesting life for you here, though, hasn’t it?
LS: Well, you’ve seen a lot. This town has grown…it’s got so big now I don’t know it anymore hardly. I used to know, oh, at first anybody and then [???] you knew ‘em. Or you knew who they were and all about ‘em. Maybe you knew their fathers and mothers, but… [laughing] And now I don’t know anybody. Not that many…
IR: The…What do you think’s gonna happen to this town? Do you think it’s gonna go ahead as it has been, really pushing ahead?
LS: Yes, I’m so glad that we have got everything. And the town is so big that that you get…if you want to go ridin’, all you’ve got to do is just ride in town.
IR: That’s about right. It’s the largest city in area in the country, as a matter of fact…
LS: Yes.
IR: In square mile coverage. Well we appreciate it, Miss Lottie, very much this conversation with you because…
LS: Well…[laughing]
IR: We think it’s important—and the College does, that is—the people’s voices who have been here for some time and helped establish this city and contribute as much as they have to it in their own way. Should be a living record library that will go on and on and on forever for everyone—students to research it, and historians, everyone to listen and be…Well, they can learn, we all can learn each day.
LS: Well, it is…The early days were so different from what it is now. People can’t hardly understand how different it was. But of course now like you said, why the schools—they built schoolhouses two miles apart, you know. The whole state did…
IR: How many miles apart?
LS: Two…two miles apart.
IR: The school buildings?
LS: Yeah.
IR: You remember why, was there a particular reason for that?
LS: The government did it…
IR: Oh, the government did it.
LS: The government did it, uh-huh. The government laid off where each schoolhouse was to be put.
IR: Oh, I see, mm-hmm.
LS: And they had to build the schoolhouses where they were told to build them.
IR: Well, it’s sure been interesting, hasn’t it? You seem to have enjoyed it […], you still do!
LS: Well, yes. There’s new things all the time now.
IR: Sure. Got any more trips coming up?
LS: Oh, my sister says there is and I say there’s not. I want to stay in Oklahoma a while. She wants to go to South America. [Laughing]
IR: It’s pretty down there they say. [???] delightful.
LS: We’ve never been.
IR: You haven’t?
LS: No.
IR: Well, I bet you’ll go shortly then.
LS: I imagine we’ll go sometime.
IR: Well, sure, and when you do, when you return, we’d like to come back and visit with you again and get your reaction.
LS: Tell you what it’s like.
IR: Tell us what it’s like and compare it with our good…God’s country here in Oklahoma. [Laughing]
LS: [Laughing] Well, it’s a new country, a lot of it, you see. It would be more like Oklahoma was in the early days. I imagine…I don’t know, I may be wrong, because the old civilization was there, you know, a thousand years ago.
IR: Well, whatever it is, you’ll find it interesting, I’m sure.
LS: I know we will. [Laughing]
IR: Thank you.
LS: [???] welcome. [Long break.] And it was in 1920.
IR: What’s that, Miss Lottie?
LS: We [???] started the Garden Flower Club. There was a woman from Kansas City that was the president of the Kansas City Garden Club, moved here. Mrs. Hook(?), we called her Mother Hook. And she started with the, oh, I think there was only four members the first day. And then, we got up in the, then afterwards, why, we all kept going and we had …and now, that one garden club of the first two or three years, you know, it was a regular club. And we had it, we thought we were awfully smart, so we went to the capital and had it, what do you call it?
IR: Chartered?
LS: Chartered! We had a charter and the name and all and we were the start of the garden clubs in the state. And then after, and we started two or three other clubs in here around and then Tulsa started her a garden club. And then in the year afterwards, why [??] altogether, the state. But there’s one woman, a Mrs….oh, I could’t tell you her name…I [??] forget it, but she and I are the only ones left of the first club.
IR: For Heaven’s sakes!
LS: And then we gave the charter and…to the people…garden house out here around the park[??], you know. [??] They have it framed out there. And, of course, our charter was to start all the other…every garden club would have to come from ours. [???] [Laughing]. But we did start a lot; the garden clubs are some[thing?] important in Oklahoma now.
IR: Yes ma’am. What else did you get into in those days?
LS: ??
IR: What else did you participate in, do you recall?
LS: Oh, we started the Art League!
IR: The what?
LS: The Art League.
IR: The Art League.
LS: The Art League. It’s an organization here for artists in this town. Where they…all...the people, well, not the people – belong to, it was one of the main clubs of the time. Not the Art Center…
IR: …no, the other…
LS: …Because that came a long time…Now Sister [??Or Mister??] Miller and Mrs. Chartell started the Art League.
IR: When was that, do you recall?
LS: Ninet…uh, it was just after we’d come home, I think it must’ve been in the winter of 1910, if I’m not mistaken. I know, we came home, my sister was in Europe, you know. And I’d been over there the last year with her. And we’d come home in the fall of 1910. It might have been the…It might have been 1911 when we started it. I don’t know when it was. But that was one of the main clubs of the time.
IR: That’s right, that’s right. Well you were still very active, despite the fact that you were gone a lot.
LS : Well, oh yes, I liked Oklahoma […]. I think that’s about all I know. [Laughing.]
IR: [Laughing.] It’s been a wonderful contribution and we certainly thank you very much.