Description:
Brother and Sister Elijah Viewins and Frances Terry talk about growing up in Bakersfield, California.
Transcript:
Elijah Viewins: My name is Elijah Viewins. This is my sister who was born Frances Viewins. She is now Frances Terry. We are a fifth generation descendant of Peterson Edwards. Our grandmother was Mary Kelly, married to a Marshall Kelly. Mary was born Mary Edwards to Patrick Edwards who was the son of Peterson Edwards. Grandma was born in Mississippi. It is my understanding that Peterson Edwards, her grandfather, was born in Tennessee and moved to Mississippi. From there, he had all those kids, those different branches of the family. Somehow or another they all stuck together. In the 20s, most of them moved to Oklahoma. From Oklahoma, there is a branch in Canada. Some of them were with Marcus Garvey on a back to Africa and got stuck down in Mexico. They ended up back in Bakersfield in the 30s or the 40s. I was born in Clearview, Oklahoma in 1941. I ended up in Bakersfield on January 1, 1945. I remember all the snow from Oklahoma to Bakersfield. I didn't see snow for a long time after that. Basically, I grew up in Bakersfield. I did four years in the Navy. I returned to Bakersfield and have been there ever since. I have been married twice. I have three daughters from my first wife who was Sandra Hair. My oldest daughter is named Tashika. My middle daughter is Latandra. My youngest daughter is Kia. Out of those three daughters I have six grandchildren. Anything else you want to know?
Frances Terry: I am Frances Terry. I am Eli’s sister. We have another brother named Pico which is deceased. Our motherś name was Annie Mae Kelly. I have three kids. My daughter, which is the oldest one, is Bridget. She lives in Los Angeles, California, and she has three kids - Desherree, Dezeric and Kristin. I have a son Michael who lives here in Oklahoma. He has two kids - Michael and Mikael. My youngest son is named Troy. He has three kids - one named Caleb, one is named Kiki, and one named Troy. I remember very little moving to California. The only thing I really remember about going to California is that our younger brother lost his shoe in the snow, and we got out of the car. When I was growing up, I remember those trips we would have to take from Bakersfield to Fowler to go stay with Grandmamma during the summer. And all the grape fields across the street in Fowler, California. We made many trips back and forth during the summer from Bakersfield to Fowler on the caboose on the train. In those days, they made stops at every one of the little towns in between Bakersfield, and we would meet on the caboose.
Interviewer: Tell us some more about those trips to your grandmotherś.
EV: We got to ride the train free, because our stepfather worked for the railroad. We were always under 12.
FT: Another thing … one summer I was there, I was a teenager. I think this was the last summer I was there. Our motherś youngest sister had a baby named Juliette. I didn't want to babysit so I said I was going to cut grapes. I went across the street to cut grapes, and I saw snakes through cutting grapes. I had to go back home and babysit.
EV: We spent a lot of summers in Fowler, California. It was fun. We cut grapes. Made good money. It was good. We also made trips there for Motherś Day and Thanksgiving. I remember Momma and them had a 1948 Hudson, and we used to burn that gas getting up there.
FT: I remember where Grandmamma stayed at there was a blackberry field across the street and a strawberry field. The rest of it was grapes. People in Oklahoma talk about good fruit. They haven't had no good fruit. We have a Aunt Zelma Brown that stayed in Fresno. She stayed right across the street from a packing house. The fruit that was ripe and ready to eat that they couldn't ship. They just dumped it out, and you could go get all you wanted. The most thing I hate about the summer was the canning of the jelly. It would be hot. Back then, they didn’t have central air and heat. They had coolers. You had to wash the jars. It was too hot to do that. EW: Also Grandpa raised hogs there in Fowler. We played our little pick up baseball games right down by the hog pen. Now as I drive through there, the freeway covers the hog pen and our baseball field as kids. We met a lot of people there. We had Thanksgiving dinner with Aunt Zelma whose son eventually became the mayor of Houston. He is in our family. He should be here today.
Interviewer: Tell us what your schooling was like.
EW: School … I remember starting off in first grade. I went to school when I was in first grade at a school called Lincoln. School was pretty basic. I remember in 1952 we had a big earthquake in Bakersfield just before school started. It tore down about half the schools. We did not get back to school until it was late October. They put us on double session, because the few schools they had they were doubling up. I remember that long, hot summer. We would go down by the river and have a lot of fun. We would come back and go to school at 1:00 and get out at 4:00. It was quite some time, then they would build the schools. We went to Potomac, back to Lincoln, back to Potomac, back to Lincoln. Then in the 8th-7th grade, we moved to what was called or what was referred to at that time as the ¨other side of town”in Bakersfield, California which at that time was 99 Highway which now is Union Avenue since the freeway came in. We moved to the other side of town, and I went to Emerson Junior High. It was basically kind of a culture shock for me, because I was not used to that many white people. The thing that broke me about that school was that I was in a class of about 200-300 kids, and I think there were only 5 black kids in that class. It was good. It was fun. I moved from there I went to Bakersfield High. It is a pretty famous high school. I think we still have the record for the number of wins in football which was the school that Frank Gifford went to. Everyone knows about him. I graduated in 1960. That was a big class of about 888 classmates. Now Bakersfield is growing so fast that they build a high school every year and keep the high schools population down. They try not to get over 3,000 kids in a high school. When I was in high school, we had 6,000 kids our freshman year. It was quite an experience. After high school, I spent a year at Bakersfield Junior College. I decided that I was broke and decided that it was hard to get a job so I joined the U.S. Navy. I went to the Navy to see the world. I ended up as a Corpsman. I went to Corpsman School in San Diego. I spent a year in San Diego. I put in my dream sheet and ended up about 80 miles from home. I was a Corpsman at Lamore Naval Air Station. It had just opened up. I was home so much and so much on the weekends that people didn’t even believe that I was in the Navy. Vietnam struck, and guys were getting shipped out. I was there in the hospital pulling their records. I would wait for them to call my name. My name was never called. On June 21, 1965, I was discharged from the Navy. I went to work at Kern Medical Center for approximately two years. I transferred to the oil fields with Chevron Oil in 1967. I worked 32 years and retired in 1998. They gave me a beautiful package and sent me on my way. I have been retired ever since. Now my basic job is watching grandkids. We travel. We left home on this trip here on July 1st. We got the train and went to Lafayette, Louisiana. From Lafayette, we went to New Orleans to the Essence Festival. We went back to Lafayette, and I got with my wife’s friend. We went to Texarkana, Texas to visit her uncle. We came here to Oklahoma City, and we have been here for about a week now. We have spent some time with my sister. We came here for the family reunion. Now we are going to reverse that trip and go home, except I won’t go back to New Orleans on the way back home.
FT: My schooling wasn’t very well. I liked school until I was in the sixth grade. I went through the same thing he went through with the earthquake. I had to go to McKinley, because I was a year under him and in California they had 7th and 8th grade. I didn’t like losing all my friends on the other side of town and coming to the other side of town, but eventually they all caught up with me when we went to Bakersfield High School. I spent 2 ½ years without my friends. I went to school, left there, moved to L.A. I stayed from 1962 to 1986. I worked at IHOP for 19 years. I moved here, sat down for 9 years, then I worked for the Oklahoma Public Schools for 11 years and I just retired on May 23rd. Now I am here at the family reunion. I am looking forward to going to Nashville in 2 years and hoping I never come back to Oklahoma City again because I like to travel.
EW: There is a rumor that you are moving back to Bakersfield.
FT: I want to. If I can sell my house for enough money to pay cash for a house, then I will move back to Bakersfield. I have to go back to work if I move back to Bakersfield, because I have to pay a house loan. Thank you, and have a nice day. I am through.