University of Central Oklahoma Oral History Project
Archives and Special Collections
100 North University Drive
Edmond, OK 73034
Interviewee:
Henryetta Ellis Chaney, Lloyd Ellis and Joyce Ellis
Interviewer:
Date:
Location of Interview:
Mary Bond
October 3, 1994
Evans Hall, Room 103, UCO Campus, Edmond, OK.
Transcribed by:
Edited by:
Jennifer McCullough and Lindsey Johnston
Lindsey Johnston
MB:
HC:
LE:
JE:
Mary Bond
Henryetta Chaney
Lloyd Ellis
Joyce Ellis
MB: It is a beautiful day, October 3, 1994. This is Mary Bond, the archivist with the university
libraries of the University of Central Oklahoma. I am visiting with three special guests here
today, Henryetta Ellis Chaney, and her brother Lloyd Ellis, and Lloyd's wife Joyce. All of you
live in Oklahoma City now?
LE: Yes.
MB: Henryetta, it is so good to meet you today. I would like for you tell me who your parents
were, their names, where they were born and raised; something about your mother’s occupation,
your father’s occupation.
HC: My mother came to Edmond as a young girl. She had just graduated from high school. She
came from Kentucky, the hills of Kentucky, Mayslick, Kentucky. She came here because her
brother-in-law, whose name was Blake, Mat Blake, taught at the Normal School. She came to
take care of their two children and also to attend college. It was very difficult for her because
she didn’t have a very good background for college. She also had work to do in the home, as a
nanny, taking care of these two girls. She had one professor who was especially important to
her, B.F. Nihart. He has a window here dedicated to him. He helped her by giving her
confidence. Telling her that she was capable of achieving what she had set out to do. He was a
great help to her. While she was here, she met my father but they were not married until
sometime later.
MB: What was your mother’s name?
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HC: Her name was Frankie D. Myall, M-y-a-l-l.
MB: And your father?
HC: My father was Henry Ellis. He came to Oklahoma when he was six months old that was in
1889. He was born in 1889. He came from Gilman, Illinois.
MB: He came in no, he was born in 1889?
HC: And was six months old when he came here.
JE: On the train, right after the run they had a homestead.
HE: Yes, they came right after the run.
MB: Who is this that made the run? Do you want to tell about that or does Lloyd want to tell?
HC: No one in our family made the run. They came after the run and homesteaded this farm at
Wheatland, Oklahoma which we still own. It’s still in our family.
MB: Lloyd, can you tell a little bit more about that, about the name of family that did come?
This your grandparents that came?
LE: Yes. My grandfather’s name was Alexander E. Ellis. He was born in Elysburg, New York
and moved later to Gillman, Illinois, were he farmed. In 1889 he came to Oklahoma by himself
and bought a claim to a farm in Oklahoma County near Wheatland and then he sent for his
family. They arrived six months later here in Oklahoma. On this farm they raised fruit, mainly
apples and peaches. They had probably had raised the same items up in Illinois and even in
Elysburg before coming to Oklahoma. Alexander also owned property in downtown Oklahoma
City right were the Civic Center is located now. They even built a building, an Ellis building
that was a four story building that was demolished to make way for some of the recent so called
improvements downtown.
MB: What was this Ellis building for? What was its purpose?
LE: It was an office building.
HC: Later known as the Lawyers building.
LE: Yes. My father went to school in Oklahoma City. He went to Emerson Grade School and
also Oklahoma High School which was later called Central High School. After that, he went to
Epworth University and also the Edmond Normal School here, where he met my mother. In fact,
we have a picture showing the exact place where they met, which was right here in front of
Evans Hall.
HC: It wasn’t either. It was before this was built. It was by the bell tower. It was before this
was built.
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LE: It was to the east, excuse me to the south of the bell tower.
MB: Do you know when they met, what year they met?
LE: My parents Frankie D. Myall and Henry Lloyd Ellis met on the Edmond Normal campus
just south of the North Tower in 1906. My mother had come here from Kentucky in 1901 and
was going to school and was taking care of children for Professor Blake, who was married to my
mother's sister, Julia Blake. My mother continued school here at Edmond and graduated in
1909. She married my father in 1917.
MB: Their courtship must have been by mail sometimes, was it?
LE: Yes, for a period of time he went to school in Seattle and completed a degree in business.
MB: I noticed that there is a date in here for a class of 1912 from that business college there in
Seattle.
LE: Yes, that sounds about right. Then I think later he went here to Edmond Normal School and
he also went to Epworth University, which is now OCU.
HC: He played on the football team.
MB: He played on the football team?
LE: Yes, on Epworth's football team.
MB: But, during this time, Frankie was teaching was she not?
LE: After 1909, she was teaching, yes.
MB: Henryetta, are you able to give us some idea of when she taught, and were she taught?
HC: Yes. I believe she started teaching at Wheatland and then she taught at Okemah, and then
Oklahoma City. When she was at Oklahoma City she taught at Putnam Heights and also at
Shields Heights and at Willard Grade School. When I was in the first grade, she took me to
school and visited with the Principle, Mr., Jennings, and told him that she had formally taught in
Oklahoma City and for some reason the teacher did not appear. So, Mr. Jennings said,”I don't
know why the teacher isn't here, but would you just take the class and I will find out something
about it,” and she did. The teacher didn’t arrive that day. At the end of the day he came back
and said, “Well the job’s yours.” She said, “I wasn't looking for job.” He said, “I called over at
the Board of Education and they knew you and they said just to keep you.” So the teacher, Mrs.
Jarbo, had surgery and was out for two months and mother taught for those two months. She got
back into it and enjoyed it so much that she continued for the remainder of that year substituting
at Oklahoma City Schools and then Lloyd was on the way. And at that time, when a woman was
pregnant she didn't teach and so she had to retire again and that was her last teaching experience.
I did have my mother as a teacher for two months at Lincoln Elementary School in Oklahoma
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City.
MB: Do you remember her ever sharing stories about before you were born about her teaching
here at school? For example, like the photograph of her being at West Public School, Edmond.
Did she ever talk about that at all to you? About her student early teaching days? Or early
teaching days?
HC: Well, she talked a lot about her early teaching days. I don't remember that school
specifically. She taught first grade. She was particularly interested in teaching children to read
and she taught every child could learn. She just didn't give up. I have an article here that tells a
little bit about her early teaching experience. One year she had sixty-five in her room, her class.
She said that was unusual. The next year they hired another first grade teacher and her classes
were smaller. Her proudest memory is of a class that read twenty one books during the school
year and were invited to read before a teachers meeting of 400 teachers. She looked ahead and
saw the word ‘Springfield’ was coming up and she was so proud that this child could sound it
out because of the phonics she had taught and could recognize the word ‘Springfield’ even
though he’d never seen it before.
LE: Her salary was also quit interesting. At Putnam Heights she got $85 dollars a month and she
started out in a country school where she made $55 dollars a month.
JE: I found my mother-in-law, Frankie D., a most interesting lady. She was always vitally alive
and interested in things. During World War II, I didn't know her then, she was a block warden
and she was very proud of that and worked with the Red Cross. She belonged to the
Jeffersonians, which was a Democratic Club. She was very interested in politics and took a great
interest and always voted and was very proud she didn't miss that. She had a very efficient way
of handling things. When we married, she was running a large apartment house she owned and a
160 acre farm. She just was doing all kinds of church work and wonderful things that she did.
One memory I have, she’s quiet small and tiny looking but strong. One time we were out at the
farm and she had this great big bull she was using for breeding purposes, she went over there and
yanked that thing by the ring in its nose and pulled that thing all over the farm. I was just
standing there amazed because it scared me to death. That thing was huge and it could have
stepped on her and squashed her. But she had a wonderful spirit of challenging things. She used
to talk about her students a lot. How she had this wonderful feeling that she could teach anyone.
And indeed she had her niece, Coreen Myall, who was the granddaughter of professor Nihart.
Coreen couldn't learn. She just really was a fat jolly kid that just wouldn't sit still and hush up.
So one day Aunt Frankie took her out in the hall and gave her a good swat and told her that she
could learn and to go in there and behave, she was going to learn. And Coreen used to talk about
that and told me about it. She says, “Oh, I did.” She said, “Aunt Frank was right.” She said, “I
just needed someone to get me under control, and she did.”
HC: She had been in kindergarten for two years. She thought school was fun and games and
that's one reason she didn't learn.
MB: You mention Nihart. Can you tell on the tape the connection with the Nihart family and the
Myall family?
JE: Professor Nihart I had not met. Lloyd had some wonderful stories about him when he was a
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little boy. Lloyd was the usual wild little boy and was noisy. They had had him quiet late in life.
Frankie had Lloyd when she was forty two years old and back in that time that was getting up in
years to have children. He had an enormous amount of energy and spizz for a little boy. I think
all the relatives dreaded it when he came. I know cousin, Coreen mentioned that. But, professor
Nihart would take Lloyd aside and they would talk. Lloyd, some of his best memories are with
professor Nihart.
MB: Give me the connection here between the Nihart and the Myall family.
LE: Alright, Professor Nihart's daughter's name was Myrtle. Myrtle married my uncle who was
James, Myall, my mother's brother. Coreen was their daughter, the one that my mother had
worked with in school. Coreen later became a school teacher herself.
MB: What are your recollections of professor Nihart?
LE: He was a little short German man with a round face; a very kind person who was very
interested in people. He spent many hours reading the Reader's Digest, one of his favorite
magazines. But, he also was very kind to me when I was a young child of seven or eight. He
would have to entertain me while the rest of the family was preparing the Thanksgiving meals
and so forth. But I had many warm thoughts about this kindly gentleman that I was very
impressed with. At that time he was probably in his eighties, I'm sure.
MB: Now, he was in the early days, I’m talking about early, early 1900's, like 1901,1902 he was
here at the Normal School and director of the training school.
LE: I can give you a little detail of his life out of the Epworth annual here that I brought with
me.
MB: This is so good to share your memories of him. What he looked like and how you
interacted with him. You enjoyed him as a child so he seemed to relate to children?
HC: Oh, yes.
MB: Yes, very much so. I'm reading here from the Epworth annual of 1911. It says Benjamin F.
Nihart an A.B. and B.S degree. He was the professor of psychology. He graduated from
Valparaiso Indian University in 1889. He was the superintendent of schools in Atchison,
Manhattan, Herrington and Council Grove, Kansas from 1880 to 1897. He was superintendent
of the Oklahoma City school system in [18]97 to 1900. He was professor of psychology as
Central State Normal School, Edmond in 1900 to 1908. He was dean of Teacher’s College at
Epworth University in 1908. He was the conductor of fifty institutes in Oklahoma and Kansas.
JE: This is to say that Alexander Ellis was the first postmaster of Wheatland, Oklahoma, and
indeed, named the town. He wanted to name it Ellisburg, but they wouldn’t let him. There were
too many Ellis names all over the country, so he had as his third choice, I think, Wheatland. So
they used the name Wheatland. He also had a business, wetting down the streets in, was it
Shawnee Lloyd?
LE: Yes.
5
JE: Shawnee. He had that business. That sounds sort of strange to us now, but those were all
dirt roads and dirt main streets and so having the concession then was quite a thing. He had
teams of horses and a large family and they’d go over there and water the streets. They had a
contract for that and I thought that was interesting.
LE: Alright. The Ellis family settled on a farm in 1889 in Oklahoma County. That farm is
located at the intersection of southwest 74th and County Line Road. The legal description is
section 30, range 11, township 4, southwest quarter, which comprised 160 acres.
JE: Another interesting thing about that farm is during the depression years when everybody’s
incomes were dropping, they lost the farm. The Ellis family lost it. Frankie D. and Henry
bought it off the sheriff’s auction block and so the farm has remained in our family ever since. I
thought that was very far reaching and a long range thinking to do because that was not a time of
great money then. That farm has remained always in the Ellis family, thanks to Frankie’s
endeavors.
HC: They were not married at that time. My mother was a few years older than my father and
she was teaching and had an income. My father borrowed the money from her.
LE: I believe it was $400.
JE: We got all the papers over there on that.
HC: So in that way, they saved the farm.
LE: After my grandfather Alexander Ellis died in 1904, the older son in the family conducted
the family business and it gradually went downhill to the point that the farm was sold at a
sheriff’s sale on the court house steps in Oklahoma County. My mother, before she married my
father, put up $400 to allow my father to repurchase the farm at the sheriff’s sale. This purchase
was carried out by a lawyer for my father. This took place while they were on their honeymoon.
They were married in 1917. The farm was bought back in my father’s name just prior to the
marriage in 1917.
MB: Do any of you remember that time?
HC: It was my feeling that when the Ellis family built the building, the four story building, that
was in 2nd Street in Oklahoma City, that they overextended themselves. The rent was not
coming in like they had hoped it would. That was the reason that they lost the farm.
MB: What was the name of the building?
LE: This was the Ellis building, it was four story building located in the 200 block on what used
to be northwest 2nd Street in downtown Oklahoma City. I believe it’s Kerr Avenue now. Later,
the Ellis building became the Lawyer’s Building, but it still had a marker at the top of the fourth
story with the name Ellis printed in a large concrete block.
MB: Is the building still there?
6
LE: No. The building was demolished, probably in urban renewal.
MB: About what time frame, 1960s? 1970s?
LE: Yes, probably 1960. The building was built after my Grandfather Alexander died. He died
in 1904, so I would guess the building was built about 1906. Wheatland was established
probably about 1889 as a separate town, it was named by my Grandfather Alexander Ellis. He
was the first postmaster there. This town continued until it was incorporated in to Oklahoma
City, probably back in 1960 or thereabouts. Wheatland still exists as a street that’s two or three
blocks long, it’s named Ellis Street. Back at least in the [19]30s it had a bank and general stores
and so forth and several churches.
HC: When my father graduated from Business College in Seattle, he came back to Oklahoma
and jobs were very difficult to find. He went to work as a teller in a bank and it paid so poorly
that he decided to start working for the railroad. He worked for the Frisco Railroad as a
conductor. He had two brothers who also worked for the railroad. One was an engineer for the
Frisco. The other one worked for the Katy Railroad. For the remainder of his life, he worked for
the Frisco Railroad.
LE: He worked for the railroad approximately twenty six years before he died. In fact, he was
on the railroad at the time of his death. He had a stroke and died while on his way to St. Louis to
a hospital. His regular run when he was working was from Oklahoma City to Tulsa and that
took him through the town of Jones and he had a picture which depicts probably the personnel
working at Jones. I’m sure a friend must have given him this picture because he did travel
through this town of Jones so often.
MB: Henryetta, can you establish a little better for me to help me understand? After your
mother quit teaching, she got married. She did teach after you were born though. You talked
about that a little bit. Help me to understand better where you lived when you were small and
then as your mother became an older person where she lived and about the farm situation.
HC: We never actually lived on the farm but it was always a very important part of our lives.
We rented the farm and we had a person who was a sharecropper who… Of course, we were
always there at harvest time and mother always had a garden at the farm and she even had
livestock. At the same time, we lived in Oklahoma City. Mother was an excellent business
woman. She handled all the business for our family and was a very capable person. She
managed the apartment where we lived; had rental property. As I said, she took care of the
business and was very efficient. She was ahead of her time I guess is what I’m really trying to
say.
MB: You lived in a home?
HC: We lived in the apartment. I was born on the east side of Oklahoma City at 811 east 5th
Street. Then, when I was in the first grade, we moved to this apartment which was 816 and ½
north Walnut. We lived there for a number of years, I think it was about 1943 we moved to the
Edgemere Park area in Oklahoma City. 216 northwest 34th Street and we lived there until my
mother passed away.
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MB: When did she pass away?
LE: 1963.
HC: 1963, right. My father died in 1943 and she died in 1963.
MB: Tell us about the depression of 1929 or following that and going into the [19]30s and the
Dust Bowl days. What do you remember about those days? How was economics for the Ellis
family?
HC: Well, it was difficult for the Ellis family just as it was for many families. However, I think
we fared very well. My father did have to go to a small town in Oklahoma, Depew, Oklahoma,
and he worked on a spur of railroad that went from Depew to Shamrock.
LE: Drumright.
HC: Drumright. So we spent one summer in Depew.
JE: Rented a house.
HD: Yes, we rented a house there and lived there. He had to work outside of Oklahoma City
during this time. We stayed for the summer because we were out of school and could do that.
When school started we moved back to Oklahoma City.
LE: This move to Depew was temporary and the reason for it was that there just weren’t enough
jobs on the railroad for him to stay in Oklahoma City. The Dust Bowl was quite active at this
time. It wasn’t so rough in Oklahoma City, except for the fact that these large red clouds of dust
would pour into the city periodically. It would be so dense that car lights, cars would turn on
their lights during the daytime; you could just see a yellow glow coming from the headlights.
The storms lasted usually every spring and fall on up till about 1950. They were really finally
reversed by the Soil Conservation Programs that stabilized the soil, stopped the plowing of land
that was converted into wheat. One of the big problems, probably that stemmed from World
War I, after World War I Europe needed to be fed and the price of wheat was quite high. All the
farmers began plowing up land that should have never been plowed to plant wheat. Then the
drought followed all this plowing of marginal lands. All these marginal lands began to dry out
and then blow and created the Dust Bowl. It really get rid of the Dust Bowl until these lands
were back in grass again, to keep them from blowing. This took a period of probably ten or so
years before the land was back in proper shape, and that stopped the Dust Bowl.
JE: I just recall too, that Lloyd and I were married in 1949. In the early [19]50s, Frankie D. was
honored with some other farmers for her role in the soil bank. Our farm had been terraced
properly. The government had helped build a dam and it had really progressed beautifully from
the state that it had been in. We still have most of the original terraces there. She and a bunch of
other farmers in the state were honored over at, what town was that?
LE: Jones.
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JE: Jones. We were very proud of her. That was quite a thing because I was born in 1929 and
when the Dust Bowls really started up really good was probably in 1936. I can remember, it
wouldn’t sound like to a child today that has so many, many things, but at Christmas I had gotten
a big bowl of bubble bath in a pretty little container. I was so proud and I had frugally hung on
to that. I would treat myself to a bubble bath periodically. One day I’d been out playing and I
was all sweaty and hot. You can’t imagine how hot it was in [19]36, that was one of the hottest
years on record. We had no fans, no air conditioning, and just the windows open. I had this
bubble bath all ready to step into, all undressed. Had my toe in it and my mother came
screaming in the door and said, “Get out of there quick and come, dust storm is on its way.” I
can remember we ran as fast as we could and locked all the windows and I looked out and in the
north was coming a maroon colored cloud clear across the horizon as far as we could see. I
remember how terrified we were because it was black. It came very, very fast. Mother wisely
wet sheets and wrung them out and we laid on the floor. Even with our doors and windows
locked as tight as we could get and we put towels around the windows. It was a fairly new
house. There was so much dust in that room we couldn’t see across the room. At noonday it
was as black as midnight in there. It was very frightening to me as a little girl of seven. I
remember that so well because, later on, I used to love to climb trees and I was hanging upside
down out of a tree one day, which was my usual thing. I looked and a horrible looking old car
was going up 36th Street a block from us and it was an awful looking thing. I ran and got my
mother, I said, “Look at that terrible looking old car.” It was Willy Okies headed out for
California. There was a whole car load of them with everything they owned, their old springs
and mattresses on top. I remember that so well because there was a whole line of them and
didn’t see how they didn’t get down a block down the street much less to California. I
remember, I cried because I felt so bad for them, they looked so pitiful and they looked so tired
and so hopeless. When I was a little girl, ten, John Steinbeck’s books the “Grapes of Wrath”
came out and our family was taking a trip to Cleveland, Ohio. I remember we had a brand new
Chevrolet and new clothes and we just felt so good on this trip. Everybody would see our
license tag and tell us to get the hell back to Oklahoma, you damned Okies. I was just a little girl
and it hurt me so bad and I hated John Steinbeck to this day. I never liked his book because that
was so destructive to Oklahomans and their pride. I felt so bad for the people that he referred to
as looking like bugs crawling around and there were these…
[Tape 1 Side 1 Ends]
Tape 1 Side 2
JE:…Ellis my parents were Walter Evans and Elsie Evans. I lived at 616 N. Eubanks and the
street I was referring to 36th street was NW 36th. Highway 66 that ran from Chicago to California
was on street 39th street so these people were three blocks off and probably lost but they were
trying to get back on Highway 66 I’m quite sure.
MB: That was the car you saw.
JE: Both cars that I saw going with the Okies in it,
JE: We were married in 1949 in Oklahoma City. My father and mother came to Oklahoma City
right after WWI in 1919. My father had a Payton Wallpaper business that he opened on Grand
Avenue which later became the Grand Avenue Paint and Wallpaper store. He was the one who
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began it. He worked very long hours and very hard all during the depression. But, we always had
a good living we weren’t wealthy but be lived well. He had a marvelous spirit in that he felt so
desperately sorry for the painters that came in there. One day a man came in crying that he had
no money and he two girls and a wife at home and he couldn’t even take food to them. So my
father would give money to those people. I remember this man finally opened a restaurant in the
oil boom days on the east side. He and his wife became very successful, this was one of the
painters that my father had given money to so he could survive during these terrible times
because we had no social security then or no unemployment compensation nothing that they
could fall onto. He would have us over for steak dinners at this restaurant. I remember I thought
it was so wonderful he gave me a great big sack of slugs and I could play all the jut boxes and all
the pinball machines because it was over in the oil field area where they had made a lot of
money. To this dying day he remembered my father with such high esteem as being the man who
saved his life.
MB: Okay now the oil boom that was near the city?
JE: I’m talking about the oil boom in northeast Oklahoma City which was in 19…
LE: 1928
JE: 1928 but was going full tilt in the [19]30s
LE: Yes
JE: And this would be probably in the mid-30s.
LE: I believe the Dust Bowl really began around 1932 and probably continued pretty actively up
to 1938 or even 1940. All the blowing dust occurred in Oklahoma more or less in the western
part, western half of the state where we have sand blowing across roads and covering up fence
posts and practically obliterating the roads. We didn’t have that in the Oklahoma City area but
we did have all the contaminated air from the Dust Bowl. We had the terrific red clouds the dust
storms that caused choking of your breath. As I indicated previously cars driving through the city
would have to turn their lights on in the day times. Those lights would glow just yellow through
the clouds of dust. The dust would sift in right around the windows and around the doors. You
were in for a full house cleaning each time one of these dust storms would occur. But we didn’t
have the sand piling up in the Oklahoma City area or even in the eastern part of the state like
they did out in the western part of the state.
MB: Henryetta do you recall any of the details at all about how it affected you health wise or
cleaning wise?
HC: Not any more than what they have already told you.
MB: One of the postal cards in the Ellis Myall Nihart Collection has an address on it, the name
of the person is going to but it has no street address or anything can you tell me about that?
JE: When we grew up a lot of our letters came addressed just to the city because we lived in
Oklahoma City. So we got a lot of mail that way, Henryetta and Lloyd and I can all remember
10
that. The city of course wasn’t the size it is now and the postal department didn’t work the same
but they would look it up and find what the street number was and put it on there.
MB: You could mail anything from anywhere in the state and if it said city it would come to
Oklahoma City.
JE: …city they get it, uh huh.
HC: Sure did.
JE: Mail coming this way probably came during the [19]30s and certainly no later because the
city began to grow and become more cosmopolitan every time. But back when we were little
kids a lot of our mail came just addressed to the city. It would have a street address on it but if it
didn’t it would usually get there.
MB: We are looking at the photo album now and you’re seeing a photograph with three people
in it. Where’s this taken at and about when?
LE: This was in Oklahoma City at the downtown train station. It consisted of my grandmother,
Martha Ellis, my mother, Frankie, and my dad Henry. My father was preparing to leave for
WWI. This would have been about 1917.
MB: Tell me more about him, how long was he in the service?
LE: Father was in the service probably only about 12 months. He went through training at Fort
Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis. He was in the engineer corp. He was placed in a group where
they were all railroad men. They were preparing to go to France and when they got to France
they were going to operate the trains in France. But the war ended before he was sent overseas.
He never did leave the U.S. One reason that he didn’t get in the Army until later was that he
contract typhoid fever while working out at our farm during the harvest. The story is rather than
get water out of the wells that there was a young man that was taking water to the field hands
and he got the water out of one of the local ponds rather than out of the wells. Several people
contracted malaria due to this impure water. But it may have saved his life since he was ill and
wasn’t available to answer the first call to the Army and didn’t go into till later. So that could
have saved his life.
HC: You said malaria but you meant to say he had typhoid.
LE: Okay yes, it probably was typhoid fever rather than malaria.
HC: He almost died with typhoid fever. He lost all of his hair. It was just touch and go for a long
time. He was ill for about six months. The next page shows my mother and in my father’s
railroad uniforms she dressed up in his clothing and sent the pictures to him to cheer him up and
tell him that was his replacement.
[inaudible comments as they look at photo album]
MB: She’s out of school, where is she? If this is when he’s in the service? Unless she came back
11
and got him.
LE: No, she would have been out…that would have been around 1918 when he was in WW I.
MB: Okay now we used to have cannaban’s on the campus but I can’t see what’s in the
background
HC: I can’t either.
JE: Isn’t Rellie in there?
HC: Well, I wondered about that.
JE: It’s your grandma
HC: My grandmother and Aunt Rellim
JE: Yes and flag pole in the back and there’s a building in the back there. I think that’s your dad
and Rellie and your grandma and that’s your mother on the end down here. I Can’t tell.
MB: That might be on a farm somewhere.
JE: It looks like a park.
[all talking over each other as they look at photo album]
MB: Lloyd do remember some places in the city that would have been parks that there would
have been sort of like a big bath house?
HC: Did Belle Isle Lake have one?
JE: You know where people used to go swimming was out at northeast lake where the
swimming was. I can remember when I was a little girl going out there all the time and went
swimming. One time there was a baby elephant and mother wouldn’t let us go back .
MB: Was there a bath?
JE: Oh yeah there was a bath house and everything.
MB: That had big steps that go up?
JE: Uh, I don’t remember any steps but…
LE: A sandstone and red …
JE: A sandstone building.
LE: …brick bath house out there at Northeast Lake.
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MB: Maybe but I’m not sure where there at…
JE: Northeast Lake
[more talking over each other while looking at photo album]
JE: Belle Isle was very popular
MB: and Belle Isle and Wheeler Park.
HC: Yeah, they went to Wheeler Park.
MB: Where was that at?
LE: Down on the North Canadian River.
MB: Where was Wheeler Part at and then another park or zoo that you’re talking about?
LE: Alright, Wheeler Park was located on the North Canadian River probably near Walker. I
understand that it flooded one time. They did have animals down there at one time is was a zoo.
They had to get the animals out of there. That’s why they relocated them to the zoo on the
northeast part of Oklahoma City.
MB: You think they moved them from there?
LE: Yes, on the North Canadian River near Walker.
JE: Then you need to tell about Belle Isle. We used to go to Belle Isle and go rowing and have
parties at that big pavilion…
LE: Yeah there was a pavilion
JE: …and dancing, had band and all kinds of activities. An interesting side light after my folks
came mother used to tell something that just blows your mind. They used to dress all up, they’d
wear their hats and their gloves and all their best cloths to go to Belle Isle or go to Wheeler Park
or go to any of these places. They did not go casually.
LE: And the fair.
JE: And the fair they bought new cloths every year for that. That included hats and gloves and
lovely shoes. One year when my sister was a little girl my dad bought her a brand new maroon
velvet outfit with a white lace collar. They were going through where they keep the sheep and
the sheep sneezed and blew stuff all down the front of this brand new dress and ruined it, they
couldn’t even have it cleaned.
MB: What was the time frame are you talking about?
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JE: I’m talking about my sister was probably, this is probably about 1927. Oh my word daddy
was so upset that sheep ruined the dress. But they did they dressed up and they would ride the
street car out to the zoo or out to Wheeler Park because they didn’t all own cars then. After WW
I Very few people had cars. I can remember my dad worked for a paint and wallpaper store and
they asked him if he could drive and he said, “Sure he could drive,” and he had never driven in
his life. But he figured he could and so he had this truck that had no brakes on it. The way you
stopped it you just rolled it into the curb. He and mother used to take rides in this old truck in the
evening. Oh she thought that was wonderful she had never ridden in a truck before.
MB: Where was this bath house or…?
JE: The bath house as I remember when I was a little girl we used to swim out at the zoo where
Northeast Lake is. We went out there all the time because it was a very inexpensive place to go.
They had a bath house there where you could change your cloths put on your suit and you could
go swim. We did that all time until one time we were out there and there were babies elephants
out there where we were going to go swimming. Mother wouldn’t let us go back so that ended
our swimming. Northeast Lake, everybody used to go there.
MB: Northeast Lake where the zoo is know not…?
JE: Where the zoo is and the zoo was there then. They had moved it from Wheeler Park. So it
was there and it is still there. It was fun.
MB: Ilene’s husband was a cartoonist for the big newspaper there in Atlanta. We’re looking at
page nine of the album.
HC: These pictures are taken in Atlanta, Georgia, Stone Mountain. My mother is seated in the
picture to the left, the bottom picture to the left. My father is standing in the picture to the right,
the bottom pictures to the right.
JE: Who is that your dad?
MB: Page ten first photo, at least, probably still a part of Atlanta trip. Then we see what looks
like military equipment or people so we don’t know whether that’s still part of the Atlanta trip or
perhaps Fort Sill. Did your father go to Fort Sill for any reason?
LE: Well, I mentioned that his run went from Oklahoma City to Tulsa. It also went west from
Oklahoma City to Shamrock, Texas and that would take it through Lawton, Fort Sill at Lawton.
MB: So may be connected with his work and he would go sightseeing there?
LE: Yes, possibly yes.
MB: Alright we’re on page eleven of the album.
HC: The picture at the top on the right is a picture of mother’s sister and her husband and her
four children. Her name is Lyde Wallingford
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MB: How do you spell the first name.
HD: L-y-d-e
MB: And the last name?
HC: Wallingford, W-a-l-l-i-n-g-f-o-r-d, and her husband is Charlie Wallingford. The picture in
the center is my mother and those other around her are friends, girlhood friends. My mother
picture is her graduation picture from Edmond Normal School. The material is taffeta and it was
an apricot color.
MB: In the photographs of Frankie’s class that she taught in Edmond it has room two but the
family believes that is literally the room two and that she actually taught first graders.
LE: Fort Benjamin Harrison where my father was stationed during WW I in Indianapolis and the
second picture above the second postcard above is camp Pike at Little Rock Arkansas which was
another camp where he was stationed during WW I.
MB: We are on page twelve of the album.
LE: Alright, the small picture on the right at the bottom is of my Uncle Elmo Ellis’ fruit farm in
California. It shows elephants going by. There was a circus parade going by his farm at the time.
Elmo Ellis moved from Oklahoma City to California during the [19]30s. This picture depicts his
fruit farm out there in California.
MB: So what happened before he left here?
LE: Alright, Elmo Ellis was the one who was managing the family business at the time they
went broke and lost the farm at Wheatland.
HC: The first picture on page thirteen is Frankie Myall and friends. The picture at the top is
Putman Heights School. Her class room is marked with an X. The picture at the bottom is a
picture of Frankie and her students. Page seventeen is a picture of Frankie and other friends as
they were going through Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.
LE: All these pictures in uniform are of my dad and friends during WW I. They could either be
at Camp Pike in Arkansas or Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis. We can’t identify the
friends but my dad is in each picture.
MB: Would you repeat where that was at in the last one?
LE: Alright, these pictures could be either of two places Camp Pike in Little Rock, Arkansas or
Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis.
HC: That’s George Curtis at Halloween and Clara and George and mother and this is my
grandmother and grandfather and there’s somebody there I don’t know.
MB: Page twenty just keep recording while you’re talking.
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MB: Where’s that one Henryetta?
HC: On page 25 the picture on the right at the bottom is a picture of Professor B.F. Nihart and
some of his students. Frankie Ellis got them together for a reunion.
MB: A class reunion okay.
HC: The picture on the left was taken at our home at 811 East 5th. This is a group of our family.
MB: Page 29 of the album.
HC: On the right is a picture of Professor B.F. Nihart’s two granddaughters Coreen Shaconus,
TSA
JE: She wasn’t marries then she was just Coreen Myall
HC: Uh huh, Coreen Myall Shacanus and Marjorie Myall.
[Tape Ends]
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