Black and White Wednesday

Linking with Teri again on this Wednesday to share more black and white photos!

After moving from Arkansas to Oklahoma seeking a better way of life, that is, making a living, my parents lived in several different rentals before finally owning their own home. While the rentals were pretty undesirable in comparison to the expectations of newly marrieds these days, at least they were better than a shack in the hills with no facilities, and very hard way of eking out a living.

First stop was a basement apartment in West Tulsa. Mother was pregnant with my sister and she says she was sick the whole time. She had also suffered through her pregnancy with me, but the suffering didn't seem to have much effect on us babies because we were all a hefty size. (Her love for cheeseburgers during that time with me was something I inherited!!)

They moved to a little three room house and then a duplex which is where these pics were taken. We had a neighbor named Bessie who greeted us girls with a cheery "Good morning, morning glory!" but also sometimes was somewhat mean to us. I'm not sure Mom ever really elaborated on that to us too much. 

I have very few memories of this place except to recall our landlords, the Smiths, a kind old couple and that their small home smelled like toast and jelly! I remember a little store on the corner where we would go and the people there would set me on the counter to polish my toenails. One important thing my parents learned here was that you lock your doors at night. Mama told us about a night when she got up to go to the bathroom and saw a man standing in the hall. I guess because she was half asleep, she thought it was Daddy, but when she realized it was a stranger in the house, she screamed and the man took off!

You can see from the above pics the type of neighborhood.

At least my sister had a horse and I had my first car!!

I can remember in this house having a big standing radio and watching my mother iron while she listened to her soaps and we got to listen to Howdy Doody and Clarabelle. I also remember seeing her put up wallpaper! Weird memories, but she really slathered that paste on the back of the paper! Haha! Bless her heart! At one of the little houses, my memory was of a neighbor who spent a lot of time in the yard gardening and wearing a straw hat with little cherries on it. I remember hearing the noon whistle blow and knowing my Daddy would be stopping to eat his lunch.

When we moved to Sand Springs, we lived in three rooms in the back of a house owned by the landlords, Mr. and Mrs. Debolt, who lived in the front of the house we knew as the "white house." It was fun to visit this sweet older couple as she had a pump organ which she let us play. You could get a real workout on that pump organ. And he, being a carpenter, had lots of wooden scraps and blocks for us to play with.

Memories here are sweet. Both my sister and I started school during the period of time we lived in these houses.

My sister and me in front of the white house

With Daddy in back of the white house

(desperately in need of paint!)

The lot next door was vacant, but during the time we lived there, Mr. Debolt built a house for him and his wife to move into. It was known as the "yellow house." 

You can see the vacant lot behind us.

And here behind us is the newly built yellow house!

Mr. Debolt posing with us.

Mr. and Mrs. Debolt were very kind to my parents and us. So I really don't know what possessed me one day to spit on him! His reaction to that awful deed was to slap me and then tell my parents what I had done and also that he hit me. I don't remember getting a spanking for that, but I do believe I deserved one.

When the Debolts moved into the new yellow house, we moved up front in the white house! It had a cellar which had a very dirty, mildew smell. This house also had a swamp cooler which meant there was some relief from the awful heat! Oh yes, we were "moving ahead!"

Daddy's brother, Sanford, and family moved into the three rooms in back. LOL - a whole lot of shifting going on. While we lived in this house, two of Daddy's brothers and my mother's brothers would come visit and while there, would have to sleep in their car because there was "no room for them in the inn!" They came from Arkansas also looking for a better way to make a living, but all moved back to Arkansas and went on to be successful there. (Daddy's youngest brother Charles actually married the young lady who lived across the street from us there.)

Daddy built a really big and sturdy swing for us which everybody loved! You could swing much higher in it than we could in the tire swing hanging on the tree. We played Red Rover, Red Rover, Drop the Handkerchief, Hide and Seek … birthday parties, made mud pies, played Superman and jumped off the tree stump, watched the Mouseketeers on our little TV, made clover leaf necklaces … Mama cooking in the little kitchen, Granny giving us her piano and watching it being moved to the white house, Saturday nights at our neighbor Hawk Mason's house for the men to watch boxing on their TV and us kids to play with his daughter June. (Funny the kind of things you remember … I remember being fascinated with beer commercials and how they would pour the beer and it would be all foaming over the top of the glass. Beer was something that was foreign to us as my parents never drank. The song that was played, From the land of sky blue waters!!) And who could ever forget all the Kool-Aid we drank? Mama froze it in ice trays to make popsicles for us.

Mama took care of June often and I'm not sure if her mother worked or what the situation was there. Mother made us little outfits to wear … (I also remember June's bangs were always in her eyes and it really bugged Mom, so she cut her hair and then worried about what June's mother's would think.) 

June and me

The street where we lived!

Neighborhood kids

While living in the white and yellow houses on this street, we attended a Pentecostal church which met down the street from us in a little white clapboard building. We would go to Sunday School and hear the Bible stories and receive a little card with the Bible story on one side and a picture of it on the other side. Wish I had saved those little cards. 

There was a neighborhood grocery store and the whole family would go on Saturday to buy groceries because Mom could not drive and so Daddy took all of us. During the week when he was at work, Mom would take my sister and I and walk to the streetcar stop, which was a good ways away and we would ride it to downtown. She would shop, usually at Kress, buy us some kind of something special and then we would eat at the counter in the basement. Whatever we bought was special to us and when Daddy came home we would run to the door to show off our prize!

Other people in our lives I remember during these years between 1954 - 1958 were the Boggs family and my Aunt Della. Sonny Boggs worked with my Dad and had two daughters, Monita and Barbara Jo and son, Leroy.

The Boggs family

Their mom, Essie, was so sweet and made great peanut butter cookies. She also made little rompers for my sister and me to swim/wade in. We spent a lot of time with them and it was always a treat for us. We had good times at their house, had picnics with them and played at Lake Spavinaw. 

Another favorite place was my Aunt Della's yard. It was like a playground as she kept children and so she had swings, teeter-totter, slides and horses. 

Homemade ice cream at Aunt Della's

When I was in second grade, the Debolts built another home and moved across town leaving us to move into the yellow house. We lived there until 1957 at which time Dad and Mom decided to buy a home and we moved across town where we started a new school. My mother was expecting another child which we were thrilled about and he was born several months after we moved. The house they bought wasn't any bigger than the yellow rent house, but at least it was in a better part of town and would then lead to a home they would later build. There were mostly always happy times in our new little house, meeting new friends and welcoming our baby brother Phil.

This picture shows a few things you don't see much anymore. My little brother with his first toy gun! (He has never had a thing for guns since he was a little boy!) That blonde end table with the black telephone on it! It was our first phone and we were on a party line for a long time.  We kids used it mostly for calling Time or to hear recordings of blurbs from movies that we never got to see! I can't tell how many times we heard Doris Day screaming on Midnight Lace! Gifts wrapped in thin tissue paper … the Christmas tree decorated with icicles and a few cards … the old flowered rug … and the round picture on the wall was of Oral Roberts first headquarters in Tulsa. Our good old family friend Viola worked there as a pray-er in the Prayer Rooms.