The name Lee was important to the Chapman family. Talford's father was about nine years old when General Lee was leading the confederacy, and a cousin of Robert E. Lee, so there had been Lees in the family all these years.Sidney Lee Chapman--Edward Lee Evans "Eddie", your father's cousin and now Richard Lee Chapman.
It was a war that had to be won by the North to keep our country one nation, not to stop slavery. Putting a stop to slavery came second.
My earliest memory is of a large two-story white farmhouse and a collie dog for me to play with. I remember an old Indian woman making hominy in a large pot that was used to boil white clothes in on wash days. After the corn had been soaked in lye to take the skin off each grain of corn, it was very good, and I ate a lot of it.
In those days you pumped or drew water from a well, three tubs full and a boiling pot. When you washed clothes, you would rub them on a wash board and put the white things in the boiling pot, most things were white. The hard part was wringing the towels and sheets through all the rinse water.
We moved off the farm when I was about five. Tulsa must have been the only city in Oklahoma that had kindergarten that long ago. I don't remember much but two things that happened in school that year. We made cranberry sauce at Christmas, and I was exposed to prejudice. There was a large family living behind us. One child was in kindergarten with me. One morning her hands were almost frozen when she got to school. I felt sorry for her and asked my mother if I could give her a pair of my mittens. “Of course,” my mother said yes. I took the mittens over to the child's mother. She said, “No, we are not taking anything from a German.”
World War I had started. Dad's mother had come from Germany and died when he was twelve. He was 33 years old at this time. He never spoke a word of German. I wonder now how that ignorant woman knew I was one-quarter German. She made no impact on me. I just felt sorry for her child.
You may find it hard to believe, but women knitted socks and sweaters for our Army and rolled bandages by hand. Everyone did their part to help win the war that was supposed to end all wars. How naive and innocent we were. I wanted to knit, so mother told me I could knit a wash rag. It was about thirty inches long when the war was over.
Tulsa was a wonderful place to live. There was lots of money and people were buying cars and going to the many theaters with Vaudeville every night. We always went out on Saturday night. I remember seeing Will Rogers with his rope on stage. Mother's family lived near the Roger's place when she was growing up and because they worked so hard, they didn't think Will would ever amount to anything. He didn't work and had been expelled from school one time. On one report card he had fair grades and fifty demerits. We have never had a more loved man in this nation. He was known as a performer in Vaudeville, the Ziegfeld Follies, silent and talking pictures and radio, a newspaper columnist, and lectured all over the world. He was loved by Presidents and Kings alike. When he was killed in an airplane crash, a smile truly disappeared from the lips of America. Too bad everyone isn't so no account.
Dad was running his ice wagons. He worked one, and two men ran the others. Each man had a route he ran each day. The customers had a square card they put in the window, so the ice man would know how much ice they wanted. The wagons were heavy wood with sides and top to keep the sun off the ice.
Ice came in 300-pound blocks and the men carried an ice pick in a holster on his leg, with a thick leather covering on his back. Children would follow them down the street and get the little chips of ice that broke off when the ice was chipped. The blocks were chipped in 12.5 pounds, 25 pounds, 50 pounds, and 75 pounds. A good man could cut it almost to the pound.
I never saw my father angry. I know one story about him that explains his answer if he was pushed too far. Some women would put food and milk around the ice. The men would take the food out and put it back after placing the ice. Women that were considerate would do that when they heard the wagon coming. One morning Dad was late and a woman who lived in an upstairs apartment came in just as he had put all the food back in the box. She made him take the ice out on the porch and weigh it. It weighed more than 25 pounds, so he took his ice pick out and chipped it off until she had 25 pounds. It was a good time for me.
When I was eight, my mother had surgery. In those days there was no antibiotic or insurance. Surgeons were just learning then. They probably did more harm than good. The neighbors kept me, and Dad stayed at the hospital for days. One night he came home to clean up and his feet were so swollen he couldn't get his shoes off. At last Mother came home after two months. With all the expense and Dad staying at the hospital, we lost our home. There was a new addition on the north side of Tulsa, so Dad built a new home and started over.
It was there that I saw the burning of Greenwood. They had a TV documentary two years ago and it was just like I remember only they didn't show the black people we could see from our house going to the hills to hide. Neither did they show how they picked blacks up in trucks and put them in lumber yards. Lumber yards had tall wooden fences and the black people couldn't get out. Tulsa was a rich city, and the blacks had their own city in Tulsa. Many were rich. During the depression, when Will Rogers was entertaining all over the country to raise money to help feed the poor, he said, "Tulsa would give more poor than Oklahoma City would give rich." The picture-show I saw showed things we heard but did not see. White people went into black homes and took furniture or anything else they wanted. We could even see a cannon on top of a hill, aimed at Greenwood. Finally, they burned it. All this because a white girl said a black man assaulted her. It lasted about a week. When it was all over, she said maybe he didn't. The first time I was really angry with your grandfather, they had a Negro man in jail here in Chickasha. A mob formed to take him out, I guess to hang him, and Talford went. I don't think I spoke to him for a week after I told him what I thought.
There were many towns that a Negro couldn't stay in overnight. Our government is rebuilding Greenwood. I don't see how that helps something that happened sixty-five years ago.
After Mother's stay in the hospital, she was never the same. She was never satisfied and would want to move. Dad tried to keep her happy, but it was impossible. I went to thirteen schools in Tulsa. I never finished the school year in the same school I started in until the eighth grade. I stayed with Mother's sister that year. I said someplace in the book that I was an average student but thinking about it now, I must have been much better because I never failed.
We moved to Sperry, a small town north of Tulsa. We lived there one year but I went to two schools. It was about six miles to both schools, so I rode horseback. The first one I went to was in the Osage mountains. I had to open a lot of gates. The trail went through pastureland with hundreds of acres. One day a child told me she had some kittens, and she would give me one. I went home with her, and we put the cat in a sack and hung it on the saddle horn. I guess I was paying more attention to the kitten than the trail and I was lost. It was getting dark, and I had no idea where I was. I did know a horse most always could find its way home, so I let the horse go his own way. We didn't get home but he took me back to school. The teachers lived at the school back then. There were no phones, and it was dark, so she gave me supper and we went to bed. About two o'clock Father and some men with lanterns came to the school. They had been looking all over the mountains for me. I was sent to a new school soon after that. It was just as far but I crossed a plain and not much chance of getting lost. I loved that ride. There isn't anything as lovely as a meadowlark's song, "Bob of link," early in the morning. I did have to cross Bird Creek before I came to an open space. If they had a hard rain in the mountains, Daddy would come to school and ride home with me. Bird Creek would overflow, and he was afraid to let me swim my horse across alone.
That was the year I learned the joy of reading. The only people near us were a family of Osage Indians who lived about a mile away. They had a library, and I was welcome to any books I wanted. I always read on the way home from school. The horse was glad to be going home after being in a stable all day and I could turn him loose and he would take me home. I could read all the way home.
That summer we moved to a farm ten miles from Collinsville and I went to a Mennonite school. My teacher was a Mennonite but one who had been educated to teach groups of children. As a rule, they don't believe in much schooling. She would have to teach the small children English. I believe they spoke German at home. She was young and a lovely person. I loved her very much.
There was no entertainment so the neighbors would take turns and have a square dance about once a month. Our house was about half a mile from the main highway. One-night strangers began to drop in. I guess they could hear the music from the highway. One man who came was drunk so Mother took him by the coat collar and waltzed him to the barn then locked him in the corn crib. I don't know when they let him out. He was gone when I got up. We never had alcohol of any kind, and everyone had a wonderful time. We had one neighbor who became important to me. They had no children, so they kept me a lot. I spent three summers with them and went to see them when Bill was nine months old and stayed a week.
Mother wanted to move to town so, again, I was moved. Every time we moved to a new house it was first fumigated with formaldehyde candles then scrubbed down with lye soap before it was repapered. Mary people had bedbugs. I never saw one. No bug had a chance with my mother. School in Collinsville wasn't so bad. I had children to play with. A church near us was having a meeting and some of the children asked me to go with them. That was the night I excepted Christ as my Savior. I have never had any doubts about my salvation, but I am disillusioned with what the church has become. Soon after that I was again staying at the Woodies. I don't remember why but on Sundays while the Woodies were milking, I would read my Bible and have a service by myself.
That fall it was decided for me to stay with one of my aunts. I was in the eighth grade, and you had to pass county examinations. A man from Tulsa would come to give the tests. I don't know why unless in small towns they may not have had good teachers. I enjoyed that school year. I had four cousins and I loved all of them. Gene was six and Richard, eight, and very cute. Everyone had to help with the work. My main job was making lunches. The three hired men had breakfast at six o’clock, so I made three large lunches and five school lunches. Dolise and I helped Grandmother with the dishes. Uncle Carl got up when the school bus left, had his breakfast, and went to his office in the courthouse in Tulsa.
When school was out, I came to Chickasha by train. Dad had been working here about a year. From the train window I saw red soil for the first time. It starts around Chandler and goes all the way across Oklahoma. The soil around Tulsa is called Black gumbo. It is awful when it rains. My Grandmother's back yard was hard packed, and she kept it swept just like the porch. It was hard as concrete.
I disliked everything about Chickasha. It was a small town, most of it on the north side. Of course, it wasn't run down like it is now but a small town. The college was in the country then. There were no houses near it. The city had street cars that ran every hour so the girls could get to town.
We moved to the corner house north of where I am now in 1935. It was a new house and we paid $12.50 a month rent. The depression was very bad by that time. Men were working for a $1.00 a day if they could find a job. Your Grandfather started working for the Armour Company in 1932, the year Lawana was born. He managed a produce for them and was paid $27.50 a week. By this time, he had a truck so he could earn extra money by taking produce to Enid. He paid for the truck hauling watermelons to Oklahoma City. The first trip about killed him and he wished melons grew with handles. He learned very quickly not to pick one up until someone was standing there waiting to take it. He always opened at seven o'clock and on Saturday would work until all the dealers had come in, and the produce loaded on trucks. They would leave about three o’clock on Sunday morning. He would get home about five o'clock Sunday afternoon. We had a young woman who stayed with us. She was company for me, and we could go to ball games, fairs, or special things that came to town and have a bit of time alone. I think that is very important for married people. I can remember seven producers and Talford would buy more cream and eggs than any of them. He was kept on Armors payroll eight years after we got the store. It was long enough for us to learn what we were doing. There's a lot more to learn than just putting stock on the shelf and selling it.
Having the store worked out well for us because the cream business as we knew it was dying. The big cream companies tried to keep Oleo off the market and did for a long time. When Oleo first came on the market it looked like lard. It had a small package of yellow color that you had to mix in to make it look like butter. For a long time, the cream companies kept colored oleo off the market. We had to buy a $50.00 license every year just to sell colored Oleo.
We had people tell us they didn't think we could last a year in the store. Safeway was across the street and half a block north was Humpty. There were four stores besides us on Choctaw Avenue. We were finally the only store left in that part of town. Being a small place, it worked us to death just keeping it stocked.
You will remember when we retired and how we enjoyed the trailer. Talford was afraid he wouldn't be happy not working but I never saw anyone enjoy retirement as much as he did. We made many friends in the trailer club, people I enjoyed for seven years after he was gone. That was how long I went to Colorado by myself.
Your Grandfather was reared in a Baptist home and cards and about anything else was sin. I don't remember even hearing the word sin until I was twelve or thirteen. Of course, there were things you didn't do. When Dad had hired men, there was nothing to do at night so they would play cards with Mother and Dad. I always made a partner for someone and could hold my own. Christian people can be funny in their interpretation of what is right and what is wrong. It usually boils down to what I like to do is alright but what you like to do is sin. Talford and his friends had singing games that were like our square dances. The only thing different was we had music. His parents and their friends didn't know the difference so singing games was alright.
With backgrounds so far apart, we had a lot of things to work out. It took me about two years before I had had enough. Talford's Mother never drove, never wrote a check, and had no say in anything pertaining to their life. This wasn't unusual in her lifetime, and it was what Talford and his two brothers expected. Not one of their wives let them get away with it. I remember most of the adjusting as funny now but at the time it was dead serious.
I visited with Lawana their first summer in Chicago. They took me to a stage show and it reminded me of shows I saw in Tulsa. I talked a bit about that time in my life. Casey said, "That's the first time I ever heard you talk about your life." There was a reason. I have never known a person who had a bad time when they were growing up talk about it. It is always the spoiled ones who cry.
My Mother had diphtheria when she was twelve and it left her blind for a year. As a young woman she had a very hard time in the hospital. There was no medicine or antibiotic to keep your temperature down. I really don't know what happened, but she was never the same. Dad kept trying until about two years after I married. He went to work one morning and just never went home again. I never blamed him. No man ever endured more. One of the really bad times happened in Sperry. Dad never said a word. He just put Mother to bed and took me on his lap. I know now that was the beginning of his giving up.
Mother did pretty well by herself. She was a wonderful seamstress and nurse. She worked at the capital in Oklahoma City for a long time, writing histories of mansions in Oklahoma. Then she made birth certificates. My birth certificate is one of the first ones she made. She left the initials out and had to make another one, so it is stapled to the back of the first one. Just thinking about it now, I bet I'm the only person living whose mother made their certificate. When Mother came to see us later, she had my certificate for me. Talford thought it was the craziest thing he ever heard of. A few years later he had to have one made. We could not realize how important they would become, that we would be known by a number.
In a few years, Dad remarried and had a son about two years older than Lawana. I never saw them more than six times until John was grown. Mother would have hated me, and Dad understood. He still loved my mother and wanted the best for her. Dad died in a car wreck, and I went to the city on a Saturday morning to make the arrangements. John must have been about nineteen years old, so I looked him up and took him with me. Later, I had a picture of Dad taken off his wedding picture, so John would have a picture of Dad when he was a young man. John came to see us a few times before he was married.
Mother died in her sleep a week before Ricky was born. Talford went to Tulsa alone and took care of those arrangements. Of course, I had an uncle and three aunts there to help him. I have often wondered what I would have done if they had not died suddenly.
During all the years, we worked in the church. Talford with young married people and later men's classes. I first worked with the Primary department, Intermediates, young people, young married women, then 45 to 55 year old women.
I was at the college to see a play five years ago and during intermission a man, about forty, came over and asked if I remembered a little curly haired boy. Of course, I didn't know him until he told me his name. He caused more trouble than all the rest of the sixty Primary children. He must have remembered me because I had to get after him so much. He did seem glad to see me. I think I loved the Intermediates best and I had as much fun as they did. I learned more working with the young people and young married people because I studied more. My study time started when everyone was in bed, about 10:30 until midnight every night. I never went before my class unprepared. I worked as W.M.U. president three years. During one of those years, the Southern Baptist Convention met in Oklahoma City and about a dozen of our women went. Talford's Father had a preacher cousin from Mississippi, and he felt sure that he would be coming to Oklahoma City, so I was to look for him. That didn't make me happy. There were thousands of people, and I was to look for a man I never heard of. I told my friend, during one of the meetings, I better try because Mr. Chapman would ask me the first time he saw me, if I saw his cousin. At the Convention, each state puts up a booth with their name on top. I stopped at the first one I came to and said "I'm looking for a Dr. Jess Franks. Can you tell me where the Mississippi booth is?" She turned to a man she had just waited on and said, "Aren't you Dr. Franks?" He had just paid her for some books with a check. Why I told her who I was looking for I'll never know. He was a wonderful person and president of the Baptist World Convention. He took me to dinner that night and I had a great time. He bought a book for me to bring back home to Bill, signed with his name and Philippians 4:13. If he was alive today, I could tell him that Bill had achieved the impossible and I'm very proud of him.
Nothing hurts a parent more than having bad things happen to their children. When Bill wrote me that he was losing his eyesight, I saw a number of ophthalmologists in Oklahoma City. I couldn't believe there was nothing they could do. I never told Bill it was breaking my heart. I may have left the impression I didn't know how he was hurting. But I knew.
I think I had reached the point of asking "Why my children?" We had gone through so much when Lawana was thirteen. Infection had gotten into the bone of her feet and, at that time, doctors would remove the bone. It was the only way to keep the infection from going to all the bones. We had her in the Bone and Joint Hospital in Oklahoma City. Two doctors wanted to take her feet off. But Dr. Margold wanted to try penicillin. They had just discovered the wonder drugs and all we could do was wait, hope, and pray. I cried a lot of tears about that time and we were so thankful we had found the right doctor.
When Ricky was born, my health was so bad, if we had known we would have been scared to death. He was born with a lot of problems, allergies, and a bad stomach that he got from both of us. We did not know I had a goiter and that my stomach had closed up. I was sick the whole nine months.
The thing that hurt us the most was when we were told our grandchild had MD but we could not know how bad it can be, just that there was not a cure. I was in the hospital, and I had been asking about Adam's test every day. The morning I was told Adam had MD, I cried all day. The nurses were afraid to even ask me what was wrong. They sent for Dr. Sam. He was angry and said, "Did they call and tell you that?" I explained I had been asking every day so he just came over and put his arms around me and held me. Then he left without a word.
Here we are back to what hurts your children hurts you. And children can sure hurt their parents. I try to remember that we are God's children and I'm sure I hurt Him many times.
I said women have more stress than when I was young. We matured in a different way. The work we did as chores was what we needed to survive. I helped Mother dry corn, apples, and peaches for the winter. When it turned cold, it was time to butcher. A hog was killed and put in hot water so it could be scraped. Part of the meat was packed in salt, some cured with sugar and smoked in the smoke house. We knew how to raise chickens so we had our own eggs and chickens to eat anytime. If we wanted fried chicken for dinner, we went to the chicken yard and caught the chicken, killed it, put it in boiling water so we could take the feathers off, then cut it up. At last, it was ready to fry. A young woman today could not have survived in our world, anymore than we could in her world.
I wish you had asked for this book before Talford died. Some of the things that happened are so funny and stupid, I would not tell them unless he was here to defend himself. One day he came home for dinner, and I hadn't put on hose yet. Bill was about a year old, and I was busy with dinner. He had a real fit, yelled, like I was nude. It took just a short time to get him over that kind of thinking.
The assistant manager with Armour Company liked to come to our house when he was in Chickasha. We would have dinner and go to the show most of the time. He was what we called a ladies’ man. He had an eye on women other than his wife. Talford always had one woman working in the cream station. It didn't seem to make any difference how homely they were, just so they could do the work. He had one woman two years that sure wasn't pretty. When she left, he hired the most unattractive woman I ever saw. Mr. Rutt couldn't understand it and asked Talford if I hired his help. Talford sure got a laugh out of that.
I think I've had a good life. I'm proud of my children. And we had a lot of fun. I used to give a lot of parties, Bridge, Forty-Two, and just church parties that were lots of fun. The Odd Fellows Lodge asked me to plan a party for them, about thirty people, and I said yes. They decided to ask the police department, so I changed plans. They kept on until I had more than a hundred people. You sure can't entertain that many people like you can thirty. We all had a good time, but it was work for me. I'm mad just thinking about it and everyone is dead but Leonard Key. I think I'll tell him off the next time I see him.
I have seen many wonderful things so far. We couldn't believe radio, let alone inventions that followed. There used to be a saying if something seemed impossible "You can no more do that than you can fly to the moon." It isn't so now.
I have thought so much about President Roosevelt the last few years. He is responsible for the banks carrying insurance. Had he not made that law, people would have lost everything just like they did during the Great Depression.
Thanks for asking me to do the book. It made me remember many things I had forgotten. I now understand things that happened when I was a child. All in all, it's been a happy life with good and bad. But mostly good. It still is.