Description:
Freda Watson talks about her life growing up in rural Oklahoma.
Transcript:
Interviewer: Now, I need to ask you to tell me your name, your date of birth, and what mine and your relationship is.
Freda Watson: Well, my name is Freda Taylor Ward Watson. I was born 10th of April, 1908 on a farm between Edmond and Jones, which is covered now with Arcadia Lake.
Interviewer: And you grew up on that farm?
Freda: The first three years of my life, and then we moved just northwest of Jones. The first time I remember is on Highwest Road, northwest of Jones.
Interviewer: Okay, is that your earliest memory you think?
Freda: Yes.
Interviewer: Of the house there?
Freda: Yes.
Interviewer: And was it a farm?
Freda: It was a farm.
Interviewer: And what did your dad do?
Freda: He was a farmer.
Interviewer: And he would raise cows? That was what he would do?
Freda: Well, he had cows, not the beef cows like they got now, but just general farming.
Interviewer: Okay, he raised things like gardening stuff?
Interviewer: My mother raised the garden. My mother fed us from the garden and from the chickens and from the green that she sold.
Interviewer: So you did have several cows that you milked?
Freda: We had milk cows, not a great number but that was my mother’s business not my dad’s.
Interviewer: Oh okay. I think usually of the milk in being the dad’s part of the business but not necessarily I guess the moms at one time had to do that sort of thing too.
Freda: Yes, my mother had to raise the garden and she raised the chickens and she fed us from that.
Interviewer: Were your parents raised here in Oklahoma?
Freda: No, they came from Missouri about 1901. About as I can remember, the first year they were here, they settled somewhere southwest of Oklahoma City. I don’t know just where ,but then approximately 1903, they moved just west of Jones because my sister was born there in 1903. They called that the Old Blackjack Place because it’s just rolled up. I think they nearly starved to death there. I don’t know how long they stayed there but I moved from there to a farm between Jones and Edmond and that was the place where I was born.
Interviewer: How many brothers and sisters do you have?
Freda: I have three brothers and four sisters.
Interviewer: And are they all gone now?
Freda: Yes, they are all gone.
Interviewer: Are you the last of the bunch?
Freda: I am the last of the bunch, when they saw me they quit.
Interviewer: You were the youngest of that whole family?
Freda: I am the youngest of my family.
Interviewer: Alright, do you remember any of the stories about your grandparents and where they came from?
Freda: Very little, they’re in Missouri, but I never knew much about my grandparents. Of course, by the time I came along, my grandparents were gone. I never knew them.
Interviewer: Well, being the youngest, I suppose that would be true, that your grandparents would be gone, unless they were awfully young.
Freda: My oldest brother was approximately 19 years old when he died, so you see, there’s quite a spread. There was a two years difference between the brothers and sisters. The oldest, six, and then 4 and a half between that sister, the one next to me, and then 4 and a half between me and that sister. So you see, that left me kind of the baby of the family.
Interviewer: Did you ever get in trouble when you were a kid?
Freda: Of course not.
Interviewer: You were a good-
Freda: I was a good little girl.
Interviewer: You remember the very worst thing you ever did?
Freda: Too many to remember.
Interviewer: Alright, what were the winters like when you were growing up?
Freda: They were very cold.
Interviewer: More so than now?
Freda: I think the weather was cold because the river froze over and the kids skated over the river. At that time I remember, and I don’t believe, that the river freezes over enough to skate on it.
Interviewer: I don’t think it would either and you went to school at Jones?
Freda: My school was a 7C, one room school. It was at the corner of Anderson and Hefner. There were about 40 students in that one room and I started when I was five. Since there were so many in school, my mother offered to take me out and the teacher said, “No, take some older books out if you have to because she’s doing well.”
Interviewer: Good.
Freda: But it was sad that the big desk, the long desk, we carried our water from the house across the road. We drank from a bucket that had a dipper in it and we left the dipper in it. When we left, the dipper would pour back into the bucket. We were conserving water.
Interviewer: Yes.
Freda: But I went the first year of school was out. We had an eighth month school. School’s out the day after I had finished a year of school at that time.
Interviewer: They didn’t call it kindergarten when you-
Freda: No, they didn’t call it kindergarten.
Interviewer: That was first grade?
Freda: A reader boy and I just read to see who could read the farthest that day, but I didn’t read before I started school. I learned to read by reading the funny paper.
Interviewer: That’s wonderful.
Freda: We always had reading material at home. We had a Sunday paper and I kept a funny paper for one week and the next, it was worn out reading it.
Interviewer: That’s great. Did you enjoy reading at school?
Freda: Yes I did.
Interviewer: And how many years did you go to school?
Freda: I think I finally, maybe I was 50 when I got my master’s from OU. That’s when I quit, but I quit going to school when I retired when I was 60.
Interviewer: You retired when you were 60?
Freda: I retired when I was 60.
Interviewer: Where did you teach?
Freda: I retired from Choctaw, my last 24 years I retired from Choctaw.
Interviewer: And what did you teach?
Freda: My specialty was penmanship and spelling. It was fashionable that we had taught those kids to write.
Interviewer: You also told me once that you taught knitting.
Freda: That was after I retired. That was at the St. Luke’s Church in Oklahoma City.
Interviewer: And did you have senior citizens that you taught?
Freda: Yes.
Interviewer: That you taught knitting?
Freda: That was a senior citizen’s group and I had a man in the class that did the best knitting out of anyone in the class. He had broken his leg and he needed something to do while he recuperated.
Interviewer: So you taught him to knit and he had something to do.
Freda: He had something to do.
Interviewer: Was there any special teacher that you liked the best when you were in school as a youngster?
Freda: Not especially, I was quite fond of Mrs. Baldwin, who was my 6th to 7th grade teacher, Miss Jones, who is my third grade teacher, and I think I like most of my teachers.
Interviewer: When you were in that one room school, did you just have one teacher?
Freda: Yes, I just had one teacher. My first teacher was Mr. Hailer, Grover Hailer.
Interviewer: How many years did you go to that one room school?
Freda: I went to that one room school until the middle of the third grade when we moved into the Jones district.
Interviewer: Okay, when did you start teaching, how old were you when you started teaching?
Freda: I was 18, I had a two year state certificate.
Interviewer: That’s great, were you a happy child?
Freda: I think so, my parents were both gone by the time I was 16, so really I just grew up. My oldest brother was more or less my dad and I had a very special sister-in-law and my sisters all looked after me. I was well taken care of.
Interviewer: That’s good. Now, what about your marriage? When did you marry and who did you marry and when?
Freda: When I was 20, I married Ray Ward in Harrah. He died in 1964 and then I lived alone 10 years and then I married Thomas Watson. We had 27 years together. I had two good men, some women are not fortunate enough to have one good man but I had two.
Interviewer: Well, I think they probably had a good wife was what made them good, don’t you think?
Freda: Well I don’t know.
Interviewer: How did you meet your first husband?
Freda: At the Baptist church.
Interviewer: What was the occasion that you met him?
Freda: I had just gone to church and he was attending there.
Interviewer: Alright, and what kind of a living did he do?
Freda: He was working for Oklahoma Gas and Electric. Later, he became a dairy farmer. He ran a farm and he sold dairy herd and he raised beef cattle until his death.
Interviewer: Your second husband, what did he do?
Freda: He retired from Tinker Field.
Interviewer: How long did he work at Tinker?
Freda: I have no idea.
Interviewer: Tell me about your teaching years?
Freda: Well, I started teaching in a one room school northwest of Jones. It was a separate school because of the more black children in the district than white because they had the district school. I taught there the first year. The next year, that school was moved into Jones and I was hired at Jones. I taught there until I decided that going to school in the summer, I was not finishing my degree very quickly so I took out a year and a half and I went to school. Finished my master’s degree, then I taught at State Center, which was a consolidated school and is now part of the Jones school district. Then later, I went to Choctaw and finished the last 24 years teaching in Choctaw.
Interviewer: Did you like teaching?
Freda: I enjoyed it very much.
Interviewer: And the children, did you like the children?
Freda: Most of them, we had a few rotten apples of course.
Interviewer: Always. Do you have any favorite stories about the school years that you would like to tell me?
Freda: Oh, I couldn’t pick out any. I have some good years, I had some good people I worked with, I had good superintendents, I had good principals, I had good co-workers. It was all just, I enjoyed it.
Interviewer: Are you named after any relatives?
Freda: Not that I know of.
Interviewer: They just chose your name?
Freda: I just chose my name.
Interviewer: Sometimes, we’re named after a favorite aunt or something like that, do you remember any of the songs you used to sing when you were growing up?
Freda: I didn’t sing.
Interviewer: You didn’t sing?
Freda: I didn’t sing at all. My older brothers and sisters all sang and I croaked. They made fun of me so I just quit.
Interviewer: You just decided that you didn’t want to be made fun of?
Freda: I didn’t sing.
Interviewer: Did you have a nickname when you were growing up?
Freda: Fat Freda.
Interviewer: Were you?
Freda: Well, I don’t know what that was. The big boys at school gave me that nickname that first year I went to school because I think I was as wide as I was tall.
Interviewer: Just a chubby little girl?
Freda: Yes, but all the big boys called me Fat Freda.
Interviewer: When did you decide that you wanted to be a teacher?
Freda: Well, I didn’t decide it, I finished high school. My brother was looking after me. At that time, I wanted to go into nurse’s training, he wanted me to go into business training. I didn’t want that so I said, “Well, let’s compromise and go over to Edmond and school for a year to decide what to do.” So I became a teacher.
Interviewer: And I know you were a good one. Are there some stories about your life that you can tell me, just talk to me about your life as growing up and working in and around Jones. Tell me about your church and that sort of thing.
Freda: I remember our old Methodist church with the kerosene lights on the wall. That’s not in brackets, that was a light. There was one room and there was a big curtain, lead curtain, that was pulled wire to divide it into classrooms. There was a big potbellied stove out in the middle that when they would stoke it with coal occasionally, it would kind of blow up and scare us all to death. We thought the end of the world had come right there, so that’s some of my earliest memories and of the old Christmas tree in that church. In the programs, we all helped, too much detail.
Interviewer: I know, what is the church, where is it now? There in Jones or was it a country church?
Freda: No, it was there.
Interviewer: Right where it is in that corner?
Freda: Yes, and on that corner, we lived in a house just on out of Jones on what is now Fourth Street and we walked down the lien at the back of our farm to go to church. Not the long distance through town.
Interviewer: So you attended that church there in Jones all your life?
Freda: Yes, I’d say that.
Interviewer: That’s wonderful to be able to say that, you have good friends there, don’t you?
Freda: Yes I do. I have so many that have gone on from there.
Interviewer: You have a lot of relatives that have gone on from that church, don’t you?
Freda: Yes.
Interviewer: You don’t have any children of your own, did you?
Freda: No.
Interviewer: But you had children that you taught and they became yours, did you?
Freda: I had nieces and nephews too.
Interviewer: And they became your children.
Freda: Yes.
Interviewer: Tell me one thing that you have learned about life.
Freda: It’s worth living.
Interviewer: It’s been good to you, very good to you. What were the most important things in your life?
Freda: I can’t say that there is a most important.
Interviewer: Every day was good.
Freda: Yes, it’s all been good. I’ve had bad times, but it’s been good.
Interviewer: That’s good, there’s so many people that don’t feel that way about life and now I think the next question I’m supposed to ask is how did you get to be 100 years old?
Freda: By living.
Interviewer: Every day.
Freda: I don’t know, I’ve been asked that and I efficiently said eating cornbread and beans.
Interviewer: But you lived a good life? Freda: I tried to, I grew up with good food. My mother fed us as well. I don’t know.
Interviewer: What happened that your mom passed away at such an early age?
Freda: We really don’t know. There was a growth at the outlet of her stomach and when they operated her, she died as a result of the operation. The doctors told my brother they were uncertain whether it was cancer or a healed-over ulcer, but that was in 1924 so they learned so much since then.
Interviewer: Yes, you’ve seen a lot of changes.
Freda: Yes.
Interviewer: And I have noticed that you said something about a car in that paper that you gave me, tell me about that first car.
Freda: Oh that first car? There was a Ford agency in Spencer and one had to order the car several months ahead to get delivery on it. I was eight years old when our daily ordered their first model T Ford. We did several months when I came home from school, the day the car had come, they were over at my sister’s. I could’ve walked a mile and a half across the field from my home to get to the car. Then a year, about 1918, they became prosperous enough to buy another dear Ford. My brothers took their girlfriends to Oklahoma City on Sunday afternoon to a movie. Of course at the time, it’s kind of known to go to a movie on Sunday. When they came out of the movie, the car was gone. They had to bring the girls home on the midnight train, never saw hair of that car again. It was just gone.
Interviewer: They never found it?
Freda: They never found it, but the first car that I rode in was a neighbor’s. I was maybe six years old and I got to ride in his car, that was grand.
Interviewer: Was it a model T too?
Freda: No, it was a Studebaker.
Interviewer: Studebaker?
Freda: A Studebaker.
Interviewer: They quit making those now. Tell me about the tractor.
Freda: The first tractor the boys locked was a Hider. It was a German made tractor I think and they also bought a case thrashing machine, a separator, a green separator. Later, they bought a larger coal powered case tractor, but they farmed several acres of land. My three brothers were still at home.
Interviewer: They raised grain, what kind of grain did they raise, wheat?
Freda: Well, they raised wheat, oats, corn.
Interviewer: We used to have something, I think they called it high gear.
Freda: High gear, that was a kind of chafer corn. They raised that occasionally. It was a bean crop.
Interviewer: Right, what about World War I?
Freda: My brother was in the 90th Arial quadrant in World War I. He was stationed in France about 18 months, he was in about two years. He became an airplane mechanic.
Interviewer: You just have the one brother?
Freda: That served. The other brother joined, went into service, but the armistice was signed before he was sent overseas.
Interviewer: Tell me a little bit about your brothers and sisters and where they live and the children that they had.
Freda: My oldest brother, George, of course he farmed. He loved the land. He said they’re not making any more of it.
Interviewer: That’s right.
Freda: But he loved the land. After my mother’s death, he sold the farm and he went into business in Ralph, Oklahoma. The Ford business, he sold Fords in a garage. Later, he sold that and had a grocery, but he wasn’t happy in any of them. He got back in Oklahoma City and off read parking lots, but he bought a farm near Jones there, still operating his business and finally retired to the farm. He married Miss Freid. A few months after I married, he always said he couldn’t get married until he got rid of me. They had two daughters, Mary Lou and Betty Jane. My sister, Pearl, met a farmer, Fred Harmon. They were very successful, the farm, and after Fred died, she and her sons still operated the farm until Arcadia Lake took it. The son was blind, but he could tell you more about the farming both sided then. She had two girls, Virginia and Winfred, and the one boy. Ethel married a farmer, Joe Habbon. He was a successful farmer who lived near Jones. They had three children, Clyde, Grace and Ruth. After Joe quit farming, he turned the farm over to his son Clyde and retired and lived in Jones. Next was Luanne and I told you about him going into service, spending two years in France. Elmer lived in Jones, he was a farmer but he also had another business. At one time, he was interested in the Ford agency in Jones. Another time, a grocery store in Jones, but all the while, he still stayed on the farm. One interesting business that he had was a bill in Jones. They did custom grinding for the farmers to ground the corn into meal. His main entrance was farming and dairy. They had three children, Caroline Marion, Barbara, and Bill. He later turned the farm over to Bill and retired. Audrey married Malcolm McCline. She took a business course and after her babies were older, she worked at the Alexander Drug in Oklahoma City. She married Malcolm McCline. They had two children Claren Melba and Alma. Edith, after she finished what was offered the way after high school in Jones, she went to Oklahoma City and Central High School for two years. Graduation from Central High School, she received a two year state certificate and taught school in Harrah. There, she married Harold Clark, they had two children but unfortunately Edith had cancer and died in 1945. There was little known of course about cancer back then. One of the treatments they used was shots of cobra venom. Then there was little Freda that was left. Through grade school, high school, Central State College, I got a degree there in ‘36. All the time I was teaching, I’m going to school. I decided that I needed to work on my master’s. At that time, Central State didn’t offer the master’s program so I went to Norman in summers Saturday and got my master’s and was teaching all the while.
Interviewer: What was the main thing that you studied when you were getting your master’s degree?
Freda: Well, just general education and free subjects. My major was History and English.
Interviewer: And you taught all of that time while you were going to school?
Freda: I taught the winter that school in the summer.
Interviewer: You kept that education going until you retired?
Freda: Yes ma’am, I went to summer school workshops even after I had my degree.
Interviewer: That’s a good thing, tell me about your knitting, what you’re doing now with your knitting.
Freda: Very little, my hands are too stiff.
Interviewer: But you told me that you are beginning to soften them up.
Freda: Yes, after I retried, I received a call from the St. Luke’s School of Continuing Education, which was a senior citizen service that they had there, asked if I would teach a knitting class. I said, “Oh I’m not a knitting instructor, I just knit.” They said, “Well, that’s what we want.” So I went in and learned in class until I met Tom and he wanted to go south in the winter so I had to give that up.
Interviewer: Where did you go in the winter time after you married Tom?
Freda: Westlake, Texas. That was between McAllen and Harlington and in the Rio Grande Valley, about a mile and a half from the Mexican border. There were lovely winters, we lived in a small trailer, but it had more room. He had built a storage room in the back trailer that we would open when we leaved.
Interviewer: Was he good with remodeling and building stuff like that?
Freda: Yes, he was pretty handy with that.
Interviewer: And you like doing those things in the winter time, to go down there and spend time down there?
Freda: Oh, yes. I enjoyed very much, we had a shuffleboard, we had games, we had all sorts of everything.
Interviewer: And did you fish?
Freda: Not down there, he’d fish when we were home and go to Texoma. He would take the trailer and go down there for a few days.
Interviewer: Did you have a pick-up that you pulled your trailer with?
Freda: Yes.
Interviewer: To take it to those different places and you would go down to Texoma and park. Did you like to fish too?
Freda: No, I liked to eat the fish. He would catch them and clean them. I would cook them and eat them.
Interviewer: What did you do while he was fishing?
Freda: I read, knitted, I could entertain myself. I was never bored with all the company.
Interviewer: Someone told me a while back it’s a good day when you can be comfortable in your own skin and I think you’ve been comfortable just being Freda, don’t you?
Freda: Yes, I have had this old skin for a while.
Interviewer: For a few days, tell me about your parents and how did they meet, do you know?
Freda: I don’t know.
Interviewer: They just maybe went to school together or something like that.
Freda: I just don’t know. I knew such a little bit. I know they came from Missouri and we had visited back, their home place some, but I was 10 years old so it didn’t mean anything to me.
Interviewer: And they passed away at such a young age too.
Freda: Yes, I was 12 when my father died and 16 when my mother died.
Interviewer: And your mother didn’t marry again?
Freda: No.
Interviewer: People didn’t do that a lot back in those days. A lot of times, they would stay single for a long time. Tell me about that old school house that you went to school in. Tell me about it, you said it was a one room school. Did you have a potbellied stove there?
Freda: Yes.
Interviewer: And was it in the middle of the room?
Freda: In the middle of the room, but I really don't remember a great deal. I went there until I was in the middle of third grade, but I just don’t remember too much about it. I know we played games. We played Annie Over, threw the ball over the schoolhouse, and we played Black Man. You know, run through games. The kids just all played together, the big kids kind of looked at the little kids.
Interviewer: What is Black Man that you played?
Freda: You would have two sides and there will be someone in the center that you were trying to run through without them touching you. Just all of those games and of course, we didn’t have the fancy dolls that the kids have now. We made dolls out of corn cobs and I remember a doll that was on the Christmas tree at the Methodist church in Jones when I was about 5, 6 years old. What is a treasure of my life and the neighbors made me a ragdoll, but we didn’t have the toys that the kids had. We made mud pies.
Interviewer: What did you use to put the mud in for the pies?
Freda: Jar lids, maybe anything we can get. We were taking pieces of dishes, broken dishes, to use for our dishes. We entertained ourselves and then we had chores to do. We would have to pick up chips for our mother to start the fire for the stove. We would pick up the corn cobs after the horses that the hogs had eaten and burn them at the stove. We didn’t have the bathrooms of course, we had a round number two wash tub and then we had a little outhouse that we ran to.
Interviewer: You had a bathtub that you put in the house and fill up with warm water?
Freda: Yes.
Interviewer: And did you put that in the kitchen too?
Freda: It would be by the kitchen stove a lot of times, wash the little one first and then all of the kids to save bathwater.
Interviewer: That’s kind of thick at the end, didn’t it? You were talking about that water bucket in the dipper a while ago. Tell me about it, was it a metal bucket or was it a wooden bucket?
Freda: As well as I can remember, it was a metal bucket, a galvanized bucket, but it was quite a treat to get to go across the road to get the bucket of water from the neighbor’s pump.
Interviewer: They had a pump?
Freda: Oh, they had a pump. We would go get a bucket of water. I could remember that so well. If there was any water left in the dipper, it would go back into the bucket.
Interviewer: Right back into the bucket and what about the dipper? What was it like, was it a metal dipper?
Freda: As well as I remember, it was a metal dipper with a wooden handle.
Interviewer: Okay, now you would think that it’s just terrible to pour that water back.
Freda: Oh, yes.
Interviewer: But we didn’t die of consumption or whatever because we would pour that water back into the bucket, didn’t we?
Freda: No, we didn’t.
Interviewer: Well, tell me about the stove that your mom cooked on or that you cooked on.
Freda: My mother had a majestic range. The first one that I remember that she was quite proud of, it had a waterfront. There was a front patio built at the front that heated water and then there was a reservoir on the back that kept water hot. It was a metal stove, it was a big stove, had lids on it that you could remove if you wanted it hotter, but she had a very nice stove. Then, she had a kerosene cookstove that she used.
Interviewer: The first one was a wood-burning stove?
Freda: Wood-burning, wood chips of that sort.
Interviewer: I have not thought about or heard about anyone mention the corn cobs before, that they would burn the corn cobs.
Freda: Yes, that was one of our main sources of fuel, the corn cobs. They were especially nice out of the horse troft because they were clean from the pigpen. Maybe they had mud on it, but we had to pick up cobs.
Interviewer: That’s interesting that you would use the leftover corn cobs for the fire.
Freda: Yes, they made a good hot fire, got the oven hot for biscuits.
Interviewer: And the kerosene stove?
Freda: I think the first kerosene stove she had was when I was about eight years old. It had a tag on the side that held the kerosene and it had wicks in the burners. It had to keep those wicks clean.
Interviewer: It was smoke at the bottom of the pan if you didn’t keep those wicks clean.
Freda: Yes.
Interviewer: You were talking earlier about the kerosene lamps or the coal oil lamps that were on the walls in the church. One thing that I remember was how we had to clean those globes. Do you remember cleaning the globes?
Freda: Yes, we had to clean the globes. We would use the paper and we also had small hands to reach over there and shine the globes so that was one of the kids’ jobs because we had smaller hands.
Interviewer: And you had to keep those very clean, didn’t let those get smoked.
Freda: We had to eventually, our family got a gasoline lamp filled with gasoline. We would pump it up with air and the gasoline light had metals on it. After the metals burned, you touch them, they would burn and the light was no good then. So you have to be very careful with the gasoline light.
Interviewer: Those metals were very fragile.
Freda: Oh, yes. They were very fragile.
Interviewer: And I remember them being pretty expensive. They wouldn’t be now so much, we wouldn’t think they were so expensive but they were probably pretty expensive according to how much money you made. You had to be very careful with them.
Freda: Very careful, you were careful with everything really.
Interviewer: Because things had to last.
Freda: And I remember going to the state fair, when the state fair was over on the east side of Oklahoma City and East 10th. My father would load us all up to the lumber wagon, if you know what a lumber wagon is, take us to the fair. We would take basket lunch and the neighbors would all spend basket lunch together. I had a quarter to spend at the fair and I could have a high old time. I could ride the merry-go-round, I could have an ice cream cone, I could have a hamburger, but I just had a good time on that quarter.
Interviewer: For just a quarter. When your family put this lunch together, what kinds of things did they fix for this lunch basket?
Freda: Potato salad, fried chicken, all the best food, all the best food.
Interviewer: And you just took it in a basket?
Freda: Yes, and I remember my first driver’s license, I bought it at the state fair and I think I paid 50 cents for it if I remember right. I didn’t have to take a driver’s test, I haven’t yet taken a driver’s test, but I’m licensed to drive until I’m 102.
Interviewer: Two more years and you’ve never taken a driver’s test.
Freda: I’ve never taken a driver’s test.
Interviewer: Not a written test or a driving test, either one?
Freda: No.
Interviewer: How old were you when you got your first driver’s license?
Freda: I know it was after I was married. I don’t remember, we just got a driver’s license at the state fair.
Interviewer: And didn’t have to take a test?
Freda: Didn’t have to take a test. I think it was 50 cents we paid for.
Interviewer: It’s a bit more than that now.
Freda: Yes, well of course it was free for me.
Interviewer: That’s what they tell me, how you turn a certain age, they become free. That’s good.
Freda: I remember driving on an old Ford T-boggle and it had the steering wheel come off in my hands. I ran into a fence.
Interviewer: You’re just driving along and the steering wheel comes off in your hands?
Freda: And another funny thing that came boat the car, that first car that we had, my sister Ethel was married and lived over on the other farm with my brother-in-law. They all farmed together. They needed some repair for a tractor or something. Well, they didn’t want to quit work to go into Jones to get it so they told Ethel to just put her in the car and start her and go back to my place to pick up my sister, Audrey, who could drive. She could steer to get over there and she could drive to Jones for her. While we were waiting for her to come by, here she came by, had three kids in the car with her, zoomed down past. They came back in a little bit walking. She had forgotten how to stop the car. My nephew was about five years old, he finally turned the switch key off and got the car stopped to pick my sister up, who could drive on.
Interviewer: That’s a good story. Did you have to crank it?
Freda: Had to crank it. When I started teaching, my brother was still in the Ford business and he gave me an old Ford coupe that I drove to school. Fortunately, it had a starter on it.
Interviewer: One that you had to push with your foot?
Freda: If I remember right, yes. There is a button on the floor that-
Interviewer: You pushed with your foot.
Freda: But of course, it was an older car then, but that was 1926. That was a fancy little coupe.
Interviewer: Sounds like it, what color was it?
Freda: Black.
Interviewer: Were they all black?
Freda: Most of the coupes were black.
Interviewer: They were all black back then. I guess they had a lot of black paint back then.
Freda: I don’t know.
Interviewer: What kind of car did you have after the coupe?
Freda: I can’t tell you that. I don’t know really what came after that. I think my nieces and nephew drove into Jones for school and my husband Ray had a new car when we were married, but we had different cars through the years.
Interviewer: So you’ve been driving for about 80 years, haven’t you?
Freda: Well, I started driving when I was 16. I guess my brother had gone into the Ford business in Ralph, Oklahoma and if he needed a repair from Oklahoma City, he would send me to Oklahoma City to get it at that time.
Interviewer: And did he teach you to drive, your older brother? Did he teach you?
Freda: I really don’t know who taught me or whether I just learned.
Interviewer: You just learned on your own? Freda: I don’t know, it’s been too long ago.
Interviewer: Too many memories ago.
Freda: Too many.
Interviewer: Has your life been a lot different than you thought it would be as you were growing up?
Freda: I don’t know what I thought it would be. I just took it as it came.
Interviewer: Every day, as it came.
Freda: As it came.
Interviewer: Every day, are you proud with your life?
Freda: I can’t say I’m proud, I’m satisfied.
Interviewer: That’s even better to be satisfied with your life, you’ve done a lot with your life.
Freda: I’m ready to go on when my time comes.
Interviewer: Do you think we are probably about done?
Freda: I think I’ve about shot my wad.
Interviewer: That means you’ve shot that shotgun, doesn’t it?
Freda: Have I given you anything-
Interviewer: Of value? You certainly have. You’ve given us more than most people have to give with a story like this. I know that there are people that are interested in your life and will be glad to hear your story. You told me that you weren’t really satisfied with the interview that they did on your birthday. I hope you will be more satisfied with this one.
Freda: There was one very interesting thing. To my brothers and sisters of course, at that time we were in high school just like we have now, when you would finish the eighth grade and graduate. They went to short courses in Edmond and we’re really pretty well educated, more so by today’s standards. My
brother Louanne, after he got out of service, he decided that he wanted to go back to school. He was interesting, mechanically inclined, and he went to the University of Minnesota. He had this mechanical engineering program that he could find, but they agreed to admit him without a high school diploma the first year. If he made it, they would enroll him as a regular student. He stayed there and worked in the garage and completed his bachelor’s degree and he came back and was pretty well known in Oklahoma City to fix your air conditioner. He didn’t like the air conditioning for the First National Bank building and a lot of those big buildings in Oklahoma City, without a high school diploma.
Interviewer: And if you don’t have that piece of paper that says that you graduated from college, a lot of times you can’t get a job unless you go to school further.
Freda: And my oldest brother, George, of course after high school, all he had was Hills Business College and the short courses from Central State, but I tell you he had put almost lawyers to shame in college.
Interviewer: But your classes, you went every summer?
Freda: Not every summer, but occasionally I would go because there were things that I wanted.
Interviewer: You needed to, you felt like you needed to continue education.
Freda: Yes.
Interviewer: Continuing education is something that is more prevalent now. I think then, when you were going to school, you were ahead of your time, weren’t you? I noticed that you wrote in here that your brothers had gone to different classes, the short courses draughton?
Freda: Drawns.
Interviewer: Drawns, okay. There’s lots of the classes that they gave years ago that they don’t so much anymore, like the classes that they could take for the heat and air and that sort of thing, that they gave those classes.
Freda: At business school, it was strictly I don’t know.
Interviewer: But he took those kinds of classes in order to be a heating and air-conditioning man?
Freda: No.
Interviewer: No?
Freda: That was it in his mind, it was just general.
Interviewer: Just general education? Well like you said, with those classes that you took, they were just kind of general education too. But then you majored in certain things too. A lot of times, we will get into a different line of work-
Freda: I worked out a teaching field and high school history and english, but I never had the desire to teach in high school. I taught junior high.
Interviewer: You taught junior high. You told once that your superintendent or principal asked you to stay for the spelling and penmanship. Where was it that you taught at the most?
Freda: Choctaw.
Interviewer: At Choctaw, okay. I think we need you back there.