Oral history interview with Judy Haumpy

Little Thunder: My name is Julie Pearson-Little Thunder. Today is Monday, January 29, 2018, and I'm interviewing a former Chilocco student, Judy Haumpy, for the Chilocco interview series, sponsored by Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at Oklahoma State University. Judy, you're Muscogee Creek and Absentee Shawnee. You worked for Creek Nation under a number of administrations in self-governance and social services. You have a bachelor's degree from Baker University, a master's from the University of Oklahoma, and you attended school at Chilocco from 1962 to '64.

Haumpy: That's right.

Little Thunder: We'll be talking about your experiences there and how they might have helped shape your professional and personal life in the years since. Where were you born, and where did you grow up?

Haumpy: I was born in Pawnee, IHS [Indian Health Service] hospital. Lived on the 1:00Sac and Fox reservation (my stepfather was Sac and Fox) and lived there some time. Then we moved to Shawnee, and I went to school in Shawnee Public Schools.

Little Thunder: What did your mother and father do for a living?

Haumpy: My mother was a housewife. Yeah, she was a housewife. She became a widower, so she became a single parent. My mom's motivation to me was always, "Get an education, Judy. You get an education. No one can take that away from you." So that kind of stuck in the back of my mind.

Little Thunder: How about your relationship with your grandparents on either side?

Haumpy: They were already passed when I was growing up, so I didn't know either side. My mother had five stepbrother and -sisters, so I knew of her stepsiblings.

Little Thunder: So would you say your exposure to Muscogee language and culture and Absentee Shawnee were kind of equal, or was one side more pronounced than the other?

Haumpy: The Muscogee side was more pronounced, and I think that's because after I had grown and went to school in Lawrence, and living in the Tulsa area, Sapulpa area, I knew more about the Creek side even though I'm more Absentee Shawnee than I am Creek. I'm enrolled in Creek since I'm on the Eastern side.

Little Thunder: So you were going to public school in Shawnee for a number of years. How did you end up attending Chilocco?

Haumpy: My mother passed away, single parent passed away in February, so my brother, (I had a older brother) I lived with him in Shawnee. It became very difficult to go to public schools. Public schools, you know, have a merit of people from different economic backgrounds. I didn't have resources to continue that. The case worker came out. The BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] case worker came out and asked me if I would be more comfortable going to a boarding school. I said, "I think I probably would be," because being in a boarding school 4:00environment, you're with other kids your own age. You're with other kids that are like you, whether they come from single parent or no parent, like me, became an orphan. I felt like I would have more in common in boarding school than I would, stayed there in public school. Plus the fact that the challenge of being in a public school, if you don't have resources, you kind of fall through the cracks. That was kind of my impetus for going to boarding school.

Little Thunder: Okay. And had you had relatives who'd attended Chilocco before you, or did you have any family when you were there?

Haumpy: Yes, my mom's biological sister had attended Chilocco. Then I had, well, 5:00my brother had attended Pawnee [Indian School], and they used to refer to that as Gravy U. (Laughs) Then my other cousin, male cousin, he went to Fort Sill. His sister went to Concho [Boarding School]. I had a younger sister. She's now gone, but she went to Sequoyah [Boarding School] after I had went to Chilocco. So we kind of hit all the schools.

Little Thunder: You've covered all the bases.

Haumpy: Right.

Little Thunder: Just backing up for a minute, when your mom was alive, of course she was still a single parent, struggling, and those economic issues were probably present in school. Did you find the public school environment to be fairly supportive other than that, or were your teachers--.

Haumpy: No, my teachers were, I guess you could say they were kind of oblivious 6:00to personal needs of all the students. I always remember in English class, when we're all looking toward the front of the room, she had a clock on the wall, and it said, "Time is passing. Are you?" (Laughs) I always remember that from English class. "Are you?"

Little Thunder: What a grim thing to have up on a classroom wall for young kids. (Laughter) So once you got to Chilocco, how did you get up there?

Haumpy: This is interesting, very interesting. I was a sophomore in high school. I had never been outside of Shawnee. A BIA caseworker got me a ticket, and I 7:00traveled with no Social Security. I had no CDIB [Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood]. I had no driver's license. I had nothing to identify me. She told the bus driver that I was to go to Chilocco, and would he make sure that I made the right connections at the bus station. He said yes, that he would take me under his wing, so I sat across from him. I had no concept of going north or south or east or west. I'd never been to Chilocco in my life. I didn't know if I would know anybody there. We left in the afternoon, and we stopped at every little town there was. Well, he finally got to Ponca City probably about, oh, about 8:00nine o'clock that night, and that was my really first confrontation with discrimination. The bus driver announced that we were going to take a thirty-minute break, get a drink, get a sandwich, whatever. I got off the bus with everybody else, and the bus driver had went into the café, which joined the bus station.

Little Thunder: Now, is this in Newkirk?

Haumpy: No, in Ponca City.

Little Thunder: In Ponca City, I'm sorry.

Haumpy: So I got out and followed the crowd. I went in, and I sit down at the counter. I was looking at the menu, and this big, tall, white man came over. He said, "We don't serve Indians in here," and I went, "Oh! Okay." The bus driver said, "No, no, she's with me. I'm watching over her. She's with me." He said, 9:00"Well, what do you want?" I said, "Nothing from you, thank you." I thanked the bus driver, and I got up. I went out into the bus station and got me a soft drink and a bag of chips. Yeah, that was my first real encounter with someone telling me that they didn't serve Indians. It was October, and the winds would be out of the north. It was very cold, and there was no lights at Chilocco at the entrance. There was nothing there to tell you where you were at. The bus stopped, and the bus driver said, "Well, young lady, here is Chilocco. They've 10:00been notified, and they're supposed to send someone to meet you." I'm going, "Okay." I'm looking outside of the bus, and it's pitch dark, you know. There's nothing out there. I don't see a light at all. Right behind me is railroad tracks, and we're going north.

He gets out and opens up to take my little piece of luggage I had with all my worldly possessions in it, and he puts it out. I get out of the bus, and he goes, "Oh, looks like someone's coming down the drive. I see car lights." I thought, "Oh, boy, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you." He said, "I'll wait with you, and we'll make sure it's someone to meet you." They pulled out. They came, and they pulled up behind the bus. He said, "Yeah, I think this is the people that's going to take you to the campus." I thanked him, and sure 11:00enough, there was two female matrons that came up. I thanked him, and the bus went on. I got in the car, and they asked me my name and everything. Then we started down that long arch, which is scary at nighttime, and with the wind blowing. (Laughter) Here's these big cedar trees just blowing, and I'm thinking, "Oh, my God, this sounds like something out of a horror movie."

The closer we get to campus, I began to see lights off of facilities and off the infirmary and off of the oval. Then I see all the buildings. That was scary enough, but I go in. By the time I get there, you know, they had bed check and lights out at ten o'clock, so when I got there, lights are out. Everybody's in 12:00bed, and I'm like, "Where is everybody?" Then the matron says, "We have your room assignment, and you can unpack in the morning. We'll put your luggage away downstairs in the luggage room." Okay, so, they've given me my sheets, my blanket, and my pillow and everything. Here I am. I'm on the top bunk and never slept on bunkbeds in my life, and I'm trying to make my bed in the middle of the night with these three other women sleeping. I'm thinking, "I'm going to wake these ladies up, moving around here." That was my introduction, going to school there. I'm not used to bells and whistles. They woke us up at six o'clock with this huge bell, and the lights come on. Everybody gets up, takes a shower, brush 13:00their teeth, go back to the room, get dressed.

Then you line up downstairs to go to chow hall. Everyone's coming down, and I'm like, "I don't know anybody." I spoke briefly with my roommates, and they were there. We go in. The girls went in on a separate side of the chow hall, and the guys entered a separate entrance on the other side of the building. We had to walk down the middle of it, so I'm trying to take this all in and observe as to what their protocol is here. We get our trays, big, silver trays, and we go through the chow line. I was not a coffee drinker, but that morning I drank coffee. Went through the line and ate breakfast. After breakfast, got rid of the 14:00tray and went back out the same way, went back to the dorm. My roommate said, "We have to sweep our floors. We have to empty the trash." We didn't have plastic liners, so we had to use newspapers to line our trash can. I learned that process of folding and making sure that we had the trash can taken care of.

My roommate, we pulled the bunk away, and she showed me how to make my bed, tuck the corners in, do the little hospital square, you know. We put my clothes away. By then, it's time to go to class, so we go over to the school building. I go to the principal's office. When I was in public school, I was taking business 15:00finance. Well, when I got to Chilocco, that was only offered at the junior level. I'm classified as a sophomore, but I have to take two classes at the junior level because that's what I was transferred in with. Like I said, I didn't know anybody. Getting in a room with nothing but Indians was relaxing but somewhat embarrassing, too, because if you made a mistake, they would go, "Ooohh." (Laughs) That was embarrassing. I would laugh, and I would go, "Oh, embarrassing," not realizing that was what they used to say, too, you know, in the classroom. "Oh, embarrassing." That was my introduction to going to Chilocco.

Little Thunder: Now, the principal was--.

Haumpy: The principal was Mr. [Miles] Bollinger.

Little Thunder: And when you went to see him, you sort of got your classes straightened out.

Haumpy: Yeah, he helped me with the classes that I needed to take. He asked me, he said, "Are you interested in a vocation or for college?" I said, "I really think that I need to take a vocation to learn a skill." He said, "Well, what would you like to take?" I said, "I'm really interested in dental assisting or nursing." He said, "We'll look at your grades, and we'll make an evaluation on that." I said, "Okay." I felt very fortunate but somewhat disappointed because whenever they came back and reevaluated me, they told me that I was college material, that I'd be better off going to college, but back then, you didn't 17:00have a lot of students going to college. The kids that went to college were the Chilocco employees', their children. I thought, "I don't have the money--an opportunity to go to college. I would much prefer a vocation," but that wasn't the direction they put me in.

Little Thunder: Wow. They wouldn't even let you experiment with some.

Haumpy: Yeah, right. That was a disappointment there, but I regrouped. I regrouped and took it at a different direction.

Little Thunder: What were some of your favorite classes there?

Haumpy: Favorite. Of all things, I liked English class, and I think it was 18:00because of the teacher. I liked my English class. I liked my Spanish class. I liked that, and I think those are probably two of the classes that I liked.

Little Thunder: What did you think about the chow?

Haumpy: Oh, my, that was different. That was different. On some afternoons--we always had fish on Friday. Even though we weren't Catholic, fish on Friday. I learned to eat fish on Friday, and here I am now, retired and still eat fish on Friday. (Laughs) It's a carryover. Both of my kids are Catholic, and I'm not. I tell them, "I'm eating fish for my children." (Laughter) I'm picking up where they left off. Chow, you know, was okay. I can't complain about it. It was all 19:00right. I did have to work in the kitchen as part of my detail.

Little Thunder: I was wondering.

Haumpy: Yeah. Part of my detail was that I had to work in the kitchen. Keep in mind that I'm, like, five foot tall. I hardly hit a hundred pounds. My task was to climb on a ladder and make coffee for everyone. (Laughs) So here I'd go up the ladder, and I'd carry this big tin of coffee. The urns were huge, and I would have to stand at the top and pour the coffee in. It was bigger than I was. That was my job every morning, to make coffee for everybody. That's why I learned how to drink coffee. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: What kinds of friends did you make?

Haumpy: Well, my first friends were my roommates. I did recognize a girl 20:00from--she was a Kickapoo from McLoud, but she was in a different dormitory than I was. I was in Home Three, and she was in Home Five, which was considered the big, girls' dormitory with junior, senior, and postgraduate. My roommates were hilarious. My roommate was Creek from Henryetta, and her and I are still friends. She lives in Glenpool. My other roommate was Cheyenne Arapaho, and I ran into her one weekend at the bingo hall in El Reno, of all places. (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Here recently, within--.

Haumpy: Yeah, we ran into each other. I looked at her, and she looked at me, and we just kind of recognized one another. My other classmate was from Topeka, and 21:00she was Prairie Band Potawatomi. I see her every now and then when I go up to Kansas. Of the three roommates, probably Mary Jane and I--Mary Jane's sister worked for the tribes. We would pass messages through Freda, her sister.

Little Thunder: Neat. What did you do for fun with your friends?

Haumpy: Oh, right off the bat, I had been in the pep club in public schools, so when they said, "We have a pep squad, and you're invited to participate," I went 22:00down the hall, and I went for cheerleading. I tried out, and I won. Won the position on the cheerleading squad. I did cheerleading from four to five every afternoon. Then they said, "We also have a marching drill team, an all-girl marching drill team." I was like, "Oh, yeah, I'll try that out, too." I tried out, and I made the drill team. Back then, we had to wear the little white, furry tams with beige oversize T-shirt with the big red C on it, with the little, red, satin skirt and white marching boots with a white tassel. We marched at Arkalalah, [Kansas]. We marched in the fair at Oklahoma City, as well as Tulsa. The drill team was from seven to eight every morning, so when I got 23:00through with my detail, then I was--. I had kind of transformed into those two different activity groups. That, and we had on weekends what they called Flaming Arrow, FA, so that was great. We had a little three-piece band; we thought it was great.

Little Thunder: Oh, that's fun. (Laughs)

Haumpy: We would go to the girls' gym for our dances, and they called dating "escorting." I didn't date for the first months that I was there. Didn't realize how many Creeks there were at Chilocco. A lot of the girls (I figured this out 24:00later in life) were very insecure, and they would enter relationships with boys. If the boy looked at another girl, look out, because their security was threatened. I think that was my first bullying lesson. I had befriended, in math class, a Navajo boy. He was having difficulty with problems. He asked me if I would help him, and I said, "Sure." I sat down and helped him with that, and he thought I was his best friend. He in turn told his girlfriend that I helped him and that he really liked me because I was able to help him. I've always been a 25:00friendly person. I've never met a stranger, always laughing and smiling and "hello." Well, I had a roommate back then. She was from Idaho, and she was a big, strong girl. Nobody messed with her, and she was my roommate.

I had went to the shower at nighttime and was going back to my room, and this boy's girlfriend and one of her roommates grabbed me from the hallway, threw me into their room. The other girl pushed the bunkbed up against the door. Little did they know, I had an older brother, and when they were short of a boxing 26:00partner, because they did kickboxing, I was to make the fourth or sixth partner. I knew about boxing and guard-up, and I knew about kicking off-guard. The other girl didn't know that. The first thing she started doing was grabbing my hair, and I was like, "Oh, no, don't pull on my hair." She was taking a beating. About that time, someone had ran and told my roommate that they saw them take me into the room. My roommate Carol comes charging down, hits the door because she was like a linebacker. I mean, her calves were huge. She hit the door, the door moved, and she came inside. By then, I had a chokehold on the girl, and she was going, "Judy, Judy, no, let her go. Let her go. We got to get out of here." It 27:00was all over, my befriending and helping this young man with his math problem.

Someone had ran and told a matron that there was a fight upstairs and that they thought that I was involved. They were like, "What?" When Carol took me back to the room, she said, "Lay on the bed. I'll put a blanket over you. Pretend you're asleep." I laid there, and sure enough, the door opened. They said, "Is Judy in here?" Carol goes, "She's right there." She goes, "Is she all right?" Carol goes, "Yeah, she's all right." She left, and Carol came over. She said, "She's left." Carol asked me what happened, and I told her. The next morning, going to chow, we go in that door. The whole campus knows that I was in a fight. We're 28:00walking down this aisle. Guys are sitting on one side, and the girls are sitting on the other. The young girl, other classmate, her and her friend were up in front of us. She had a black eye, and her cheeks were all bruised. When I come walking up there, the boys started hollering, "Cassius Clay! Cassius Clay!" I'm like, "Oh, my God, how embarrassing! How embarrassing!" My roommates, "It's okay." I just turned my back to them because I didn't want to look at them. (Laughter) That was my first, probably--.

Little Thunder: Great. I'm sure you didn't have to have any more.

Haumpy: I didn't have any more bullying after that. Everybody pretty much left 29:00me alone, left me alone.

Little Thunder: How often--did you go home to see your brother occasionally or during break period?

Haumpy: That first year, I got there in October, so in December I had left and went to visit my brother in Shawnee then, and then went back to school. Summer's coming around. I'm a sophomore. I know that I don't want to go back and live with aunts and uncles because they have large families. I went to the guidance counselor, and I told her, I said, "I'd like to work during the summer if I could find a summer job." In the meantime, having no parents, having no one to financially assist me, I went to the matron and told her, I said, "I can 30:00babysit. I know how to iron, and I would like to go on job detail on the weekends to make extra money." She got me a babysitting job. They happened to live in the employees' apartments right across from the dormitory, down the street of the dormitory, so I babysat for extra money to make, you know, for my personal needs. I knew that I had to work because I needed clothes. She said, "We'll see what we can find for you." Coming to the end of the semester, she called me to her office. She said, "We've got a position for you. There's other 31:00girls that are going to the same area. You'll be leaving the last day of school, so have your clothes packed. We'll be sending you to the job."

I'm thinking in town. Well, a week before, she called me to her office again and said, "Your job is in Kansas City." I said, "Kansas City?" She goes, "Yes, you and--." I think there was nine other girls, two from Oklahoma. I made the third from Oklahoma. The rest were from Idaho, which I knew those girls, and Navajo girls. The day when Chilocco had students from Navajo Nation, Yakama Nation, 32:00Idaho, they would send school buses, chartered buses, to pick everybody up. It was just like busloads, and all the kids were getting on buses. Kind of reminded me of Hogwarts in Harry Potter with everybody getting on to your destination. "Goodbye, sign my annual." When I see Harry Potter, I always think about Chilocco. (Laughter) But what a comparison, huh? Chilocco had a volleyball team, and they wouldn't take a big bus because we didn't have short buses back then. We had an old limo bus that they converted over, and we referred to that as the hot dog. I don't know who was all going on this venture. The bus is all loaded, 33:00and they start leaving.

I looked around, and there's some girls talking. Again, I don't know who they--the Navajo girls kind of stuck to themselves. The other two Oklahoma girls, one was a postgraduate and the other was a senior. I looked around. I walked over, and I said, "Are you guys taking the bus back home? Are you waiting for family?" They said, "No, we're taking jobs, and we're going to Kansas City." I said, "Oh, I am too." "Oh, well good." We all got the same commonality. Here comes the hot dog bus to pick us up. I said, "Are we going into Ark City?" They 34:00said, "No, I think they're sending us to Kansas City." I said, "To Kansas City?" They said, "Yeah, we're taking a train." I'd never ridden a train in my life. They take us by car to Ark City. We all get on the train, and we ride the train to Kansas City train station. When we get there, here's these white families, and they have our names on placards. We're going to be divided up. I told Wilma, who was from Idaho, (I knew her) and Evelyn Buck, who was from [inaudible], (she's Creek) and Davis, (she was Choctaw).

I said, "Let's trade phone numbers of the people that we're staying with so we can be in contact." Some went to Overland Park. Some went to a suburb of Kansas 35:00City. I was right there in Kansas City, and so was the other two girls. The girl from Idaho was in Kansas City. No, she was in Overland Park. The other, she was in Kansas City. Our days off was on Mondays. Anyway, the people picked us all up, and, "We'll be in touch." We all went to the respective cars. The family that I was assigned to, she was a schoolteacher, and he was an attorney. She was off for the summer, and they had a little boy and a little girl. The little girl 36:00was probably four, five, and the little boy was still in diapers and wasn't walking around yet. I became a full-time nanny, 24/7. Fortunate for me, I had my own bedroom, and it was over the garage. They had fixed it up for me, and my bathroom was just right downstairs. Right off the kitchen was my shower bathroom. They were upstairs on the south side of the building, and they had the little girl's bedroom and the boy's nursery and then their bedroom.

I didn't have to do housekeeping like the other girls did because they had a 37:00cook that did the cooking, and then they had--. I always remember his name was Lionel, but he did all of the heavy work around the house. Every now and then, I would have to vacuum because she wouldn't be able to do it. I would vacuum, or I would dust. My skills from detail at Chilocco, if I forgot to empty the trash, or my roommate, we all got points. I knew how to dust and how to vacuum. I didn't have to do all that. The other girls, poor things, they had to do housework, as well as babysit. The way they paid us is that they would send half of our salary back to school and put in the bank, and I would keep the other half, cash. I began to put my clothes in layaway in order to have. We would meet 38:00on Monday. I would go down to the bus stop, catch a bus, and go downtown. We would meet, and we would shop and have lunch. Then we'd go back to our respective employers.

Little Thunder: That was kind of your day off, was Monday.

Haumpy: That was my day off. My employer got tickets for me and my friend to see Showboat at Swope Park. That was something we'd never experienced. They took us there, and then they came back and picked us up. That was interesting. While I was there, I had a filling that had came out, so my employer, Tommy, "Well, 39:00we'll get you an appointment at the dental school." I got an appointment and took my little bus ride to the dental school. Here's all these dentists lined up, and I'm going, "Oh, my god, what have I gotten myself into?" (Laughter) It turned out that the dentist that filled my cavity was from Bartlesville. I'm like, "Oklahoma! Yeah!" His father was a dentist and had a practice in Bartlesville and, again, struck conversation.

I must have looked older than I was. He had asked me what I was doing. I told him that I was there for the summer and I was a nanny for this family and taking 40:00care of their children. He called me. He got my number, and he called me. I'm like, "What's going on? This guy is older than me, and I really don't need to be talking to someone that's older than me." My mom had always told me, "You never go with anybody but your own race. You stick with your own people. That way, you don't have to explain to them why you eat the foods you do and why you have the customs." So already he's taboo. He continues to call, and I'm like, "Oh, my." I tell my employer what had happened, and she said, "I'll take care of that for you." She tells him that I'm not wanting to enter a relationship with him, I'm underage, and I don't really need to do that. That stopped calls, and I was 41:00like, "Yes." (Laughter)

Little Thunder: Wow.

Haumpy: They had a '62 white convertible Chevy. Oh, and another thing: working with the family, wasn't allowed to go out the front door. There was a park right across the street, but I'm not allowed to take the kids to the park. They have their own gym stuff in the backyard. If we went anyplace, we exited out of the kitchen utility door into the garage, and then we back up.

Little Thunder: What was the reason for that?

Haumpy: I'll explain it to you. She asked me if I would be interested in getting my driver's license. Well, driving a convertible, a white convertible, and then 42:00looking at the traffic in Kansas City, I don't think so. (Laughter) I think you want to value your car. I knew how to drive, yeah, but I just didn't want to take on the added responsibility. I had some common sense. I stayed there all summer, doing that routine. I was building up my wardrobe and bought me new luggage, building that up, and had money in my pocket. The last week that I was to return back to Chilocco, I went to her and told her, I said, "I am wanting to go back to Oklahoma. I want to go see my cousins." They were older than me. They were married and had families, and I wanted to go visit with them before I go 43:00back to Chilocco. She said, "You can't do that." I said, "What?" She said, "No, you have to stay here." I said, "No, I don't." She said, "Well, I don't think they'll think very highly of you, quitting your job early." I said, "Well, you know what? We can make a concession, if you want to do that."

She said, "I will let you go, and you go back to Oklahoma, but you come back here. Then we'll send you back to school. Before we do that, I would like to know if you would be interested in staying with us, and we would send you to school from here. We would send you to high school here in Kansas." I'm thinking, "No, because you want me as a sitter 24/7, and I want to be with my friends. I want to do my cheerleading. I want to do my thing." She said, "In 44:00fact, Kathy is so attached to you," (that was the little girl's name) "that you could take her if you wanted to." Excuse me? Who is going to allow a high school sitter, take your child to Oklahoma just to ensure that I'm going to come back? I said, "No, I can't do that because I'm going to be staying with relatives and they may not have room for me. I don't think I could take care of her." She got upset with me, but I knew that I needed a vacation. Again, I'm on the bus, and I go to Shawnee. During the time that I'm with them, she knew that I had learned how to fix hair because we fixed each other's hair. Here I am on Friday and 45:00Saturday; I am fixing her hair. I'm backcombing her hair and spraying it, styling her hair for her.

Little Thunder: This is the mother?

Haumpy: This is the mother of the children, the schoolteacher. In the meantime, the husband knew that I learned how to type, so when the kids were sleeping, I'm in there typing for him. Okay. They began to leave on the weekend. They would be gone on Saturday, all day Saturday, Saturday night. Sunday morning, mid-morning, say about ten thirty, eleven, his parents sent over a limo for me and the two kids, yeah. We would go out and get in the limo, and they would take us, me and the two kids, to the grandparents' house. The grandparents had an oval driveway. 46:00When you got out, double doors. When you went in, staircases on both sides, and it was, like, a three-story, brick home. When you went in, off to the left was a big formal dining area. Then right behind it was a big patio area, and it was encased in glass.

Right outside of it was a pool. They said, "Oh, we're going to have lunch. Come and join us." I was like, "No, I'm really comfortable eating outdoors." They said, "Okay, if that's what you want to do." I would go in the kitchen and visit with the cook. I was comfortable with the black cook. Her and I would sit and 47:00talk and laugh, and I would eat my brunch with her. Then they would take us back in the afternoon, and then they would come in later. I began typing and, so I listened to conversations. I guess you could say it was eavesdropping, but I listened to the conversations that the grandfather had and listened to the conversation that my employer had with his wife. It turned out, when I was leaving, turned out that my employer was an attorney, and he was in practice with his father, and they were the attorneys for the Kansas City mafia.

Little Thunder: My goodness.

Haumpy: That's why we went out the garage. We never went out the front door. We stayed behind a privacy fence in the backyard.

Little Thunder: Wow.

Haumpy: Yes.

Little Thunder: You were so smart to take your little vacation.

Haumpy: Yeah. She told me that she was going to report me. I said, "Well, you do what you need to do, and I'll do what I need to do." When I went back to school, I knew I was going to have to go and talk to her, our guidance counselor. Sure enough, we went, and she was giving me the third degree. I let her talk, out of respect, and then I told her, I said, "Now, I don't know why, but you jeopardized my life, too, because I went to work for an attorney and a 49:00schoolteacher. Him and his father were in practice with the Kansas City mafia, and that's why I wasn't able to go out the front door and the kids were not allowed outside." She goes, "I didn't know that." I said, "Well, maybe, screen next time." That was it. So now I'm back to school, and I've got money in the bank. They asked me if I would be interested in work study, extra money, besides the babysitting, and I was like, "Oh, yeah." I got to go work in the bank. I got to sit up there at the teller window and pull accounts and make transfers. I got to do that. I began to know who the rich boys were, (Laughter) who the rich 50:00girls were, to pinpoint them.

Little Thunder: You can pick your--. (Laughs)

Haumpy: Yeah. Chilocco taught me survival skills, taught me to be independent and to think for myself.

Little Thunder: I must say, you had that independence early, though. It did help to strengthen that.

Haumpy: Yeah, it supported it.

Little Thunder: Those are wonderful sharings on Chilocco. Thank you for that. You end up with these two degrees, the bachelor's degree first, but you end up really working at Creek Nation for, was it twenty years you told me--

Haumpy: Yes.

Little Thunder: --under several administrations.

Haumpy: Yeah, under--let's see. I went to work in '82 under Cox administration. I got hired for that because in college I had taken nutrition education, and 51:00they had just started their food distribution program. They needed a nutrition ed specialist, and I was the only one that had it on the transcript. Claude Cox called me in and said, "We're going to hire you. We want to hire you because of your credentials." I said, "Oh, okay." I got hired into food distribution, and I was in charge of nutrition recipes for the people, in showing them how they could convert the high sodium diet into low sodium for blood pressure. I got to looking at it because a lot of our people are Creek-speaking people and they can 52:00read the language. I thought, "You know what? This is going to be a challenge." What I did was, I did a bilingual poster that listed our food. One side was Creek, and the other was English. No tribe had ever done that.

Little Thunder: I was going to say, that was probably brand new at the time.

Haumpy: Yeah, no tribe had ever done that. When we would go to meetings, they would recognize the Creek Nation for doing the bilingual food poster. I was in that position for probably nine months. Little did I know that I had a manager that never looked at his financial--and we got in debt because anytime you get dented food or food that's damaged you make a report and turn it in, and you get credit. He never did that. We ended up owing bookoos of money. The only way to 53:00pay them was to take my position out, so they took my position out in order to take care of that obligation. They moved me to Social Services as an intake counselor. I went to Social Services, and I did intake. My first day on the job, I was told, "You're in charge of school clothing." I'm like, "Oh, my gosh, what do I do?" Well, the council just approved it, so you pretty much make up your own form and whatever, so here I go again, thinking on my own.

Little Thunder: Sort of creating your own--

Haumpy: Yeah, creating our own form.

Little Thunder: --form from scratch.

Haumpy: Yeah. They say, "There's people out there waiting for you." I was like, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. This ain't going to go." Anyway, that's where I 54:00started. I began doing intake and then branched over into Indian Child Welfare and became acting supervisor for them for a while, then got put back into Social Services. Over the years, I would be acting. Finally, they said, "You'll never get to be the manager of Social Services until you have a [master's] degree." "Oh, really?" "Yeah." "Okay," so I thought, "Hmm, do I want to limit myself just to social work, or do I want to do different phases of it?" I applied, and I'm working forty hours a week. I applied for admission to graduate school at OU.

Little Thunder: And you had kids at that point, right? You had your family?

Haumpy: Oh, yeah, I had already had my family. My son was living here in Tulsa, and he had a child. My daughter was out of school, and she was at Miami, [Northeastern Oklahoma] A&M, going to school. I'm pretty much down to free time.

Little Thunder: Working forty hours a week. (Laughs)

Haumpy: Yeah, working forty hours a week. I got admitted, and it just so happened that they transferred me from the main complex to Okemah. Every day I would put a sign-in sheet. I would have maybe two people, three people a day. Hey, I've been given lemons; I'm going to make lemonade. I can study while I'm sitting here. I started that in August with my degree. I had already--well, 56:00after I graduated from Baker University with a bachelor's in biology in '76, I applied for admission to KU in '77 in the health program, and I got accepted. I earned twenty-six hours toward my master's at KU.

Little Thunder: Okay, because you had mentioned Lawrence.

Haumpy: Yeah, but I had problems that I had to move back to Oklahoma with my kids. I moved back to Oklahoma, but they did accept some of my credits at OU.

Little Thunder: Now, I just meant to ask quickly, did you meet your husband at Chilocco or elsewhere?

Haumpy: No, I met my husband here in Sapulpa.

Little Thunder: Here in Sapulpa, okay. Well--you were being wise at the time, 57:00thinking, "I need this kind of vocational training," and all these paths eventually led you to not just education but higher education, and then the work with Creek Nation that you've done.

Haumpy: After I graduated from high school, (I graduated from Kellyville [Oklahoma]), then I married. Then we moved to Denver. We lived there for two years: one year in Denver and one year in Aurora. Then we moved back home, and I had a boy and a girl, two years apart. I'm sitting outside in the yard, watching them play on the swing set. Dinner's in the kitchen, getting ready to be put on 58:00the table, and I'm thinking, "What happens if he doesn't come home, either by accident or he decides that he doesn't want to be financially strapped with a wife and two kids? What happens to me? Do I go on welfare because I don't have a background to support me? I need to get an education. It's going to cost money," so I began to put the wheels in motion. Why not go to Haskell [Indian Nations University]? It's free. --

Little Thunder: So you were mentioning that you decided to look at Haskell.

Haumpy: Yeah, went to Haskell, free education. We decided that we were getting out of debt. We planned for a year. Then we moved and relocated to Lawrence, and 59:00I did what I wanted to do a long time ago: I took dental assisting. I took dental assisting--

Little Thunder: Wow!

Haumpy: --got a certificate, and I worked for IHS in the summer. I had finished the certificate program for a year, and I thought, "You know what? I'm here. Why don't I go ahead and finish college?" So I went for another year of academia and got my associate's degree. I thought, "Well, you know, I'm this close again," so then I transferred down to Baker, commuted for two years, and received my degree in biology because I planned on teaching. Got my degree in biology, and then 60:00that summer I thought, "You know, still here. I might as well go ahead and apply for my master's at KU." I applied there and got admitted and earned twenty-six hours. Then I had to come back to Oklahoma, and that's when I went to work for the tribe. I worked under Claude Cox's administration, and then under Perry Beaver and Bill Fife, and then a small portion of A. D. Ellis', and then just recently with James Lloyd. James and I knew each other when Claude Cox was here because James worked for him, too. Over all those years--.

Little Thunder: You mentioned you kept in touch with your friend from Henryetta 61:00and a few other Chilocco students, former students. Do you attend the reunions at Chilocco?

Haumpy: I didn't go last year, but, yeah, whenever they're close by or--. My girlfriends, friends, from Washington State flew down for one reunion. They flew down, two of them, and my girlfriend from here who went to Chilocco. They flew in to Tulsa. Then we went ahead and drove down to Oklahoma City at the hotel and spent our time at the hotel. Chilocco had chartered some buses and took us back to campus. We were on the bus, and--they say, "We're going to drive around the 62:00oval, and then we're going to come back and park. You're free to take pictures and walk around. We just don't want you going into the buildings. Marge goes, "Excuse me. Excuse me." He goes, "Yes?" She goes, "Will you have golf carts for us to ride in?" He goes, "No. We talked about this with the board of directors, and they said that you all could do what you did when you were students here," and that would be walking around campus.

Marge goes, "That's been twenty years ago!" (Laughter) Everyone just laughed. It's so good to see a lot of--. My daughter laughs at me because there's a movie called A League of Their Own, you know, where she's older now and she's going 63:00back and seeing all of these girls. My daughter says, "Mom, that reminds me of you going back to Chilocco to meet all your old friends," you know, from drill team. We look at one another and say, "Weren't you in drill team?" They go, "Yeah, we were!" I think that that weekend, we had never laughed so much and stayed up late, sharing fun times and talking about the kids that we went to school with. It was just old home week for us, us four ladies, and we just really enjoyed it. We are up in age now. Everybody has their own health problems, all three of my girlfriends, and so I try to get there as much as I can.

Little Thunder: What else would you like people to know or remember about this 64:00school that we might not have touched on?

Haumpy: Well, I hear so much negativity about boarding schools, about punishment, and--. That occurred before my time. I remember one incident. We had one dorm matron, and she had been a sergeant in the Army. She had no sensitivity to women, young women, and I couldn't figure out why they would put her in charge of us because she didn't--. All we were to her were people to boss around. I don't know what their thinking was, but this was before you had human resources. She was very cruel, speaking to people, didn't take their feelings 65:00into consideration, and she was very insensitive. When I was working at Creek Nation back in probably '83, '84, one of my classmates from Chilocco came up to the complex. Her and I were talking, and she goes, "Do you remember Mrs. So-and-so?" I go, "Yeah." She said, "Remember how mean she was?" I said, "I know. Embarrassing."

We were talking, and she said, "Would you believe she's in the nursing home in Henryetta now?" I said, "Nursing home? Oh, I need to go down there and just shake her around." (Laughter) We laughed, but she was. She was very insensitive, but the other matrons were very sensitive to us. I think that it would have been 66:00helpful to have guidance counselors that were knowledgeable about the needs, knowledgeable about the isolation. In our dorm, we had kids as young as six and seven years old, plucked from their families. You know, you're isolated. We at least got to go to movies on the weekends. My roommates and I kind of picked out one little girl, and we befriended her.

She would come down to the room, and she'd say, "Are you going on a date tonight?" I would say, "No, I'm going to the movie." "You're not going with a boy?" I said, "No, I don't have to go with a boy. Go with my girlfriends." I said, "What are you going to do?" She said, "We stay here." I said, "What do you do when you stay in?" She goes, "Don't say anything," and I said, "I'm not going 67:00to say anything. What do you do?" The young girls were on the top floor. Their excitement was, they had the big, industrial floor buffers. The girls would sit on the floor buffers, cross their legs and hold on, and they would buff them across. Ride that buffer all evening, take turns. That was their entertainment.

Little Thunder: Bless their hearts.

Haumpy: I think that--boarding schools should have been more sensitized to the needs of the students rather than viewing us as cattle to be pushed here. We woke up to a bell. Then if you went on campus, if boy and girl was standing too close, it was called PDA, public display of affection. You would hear this 68:00whistle, and everybody would turn around and say, "Who's standing close?" When the socializing evening was over on the oval, blew another whistle. The matrons walked around with whistles. The boys had their own section, and we had our own side. Like I said, I thought sensitivity on the employees' part would have been great.

Little Thunder: Right. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Judy.

Haumpy: Well, you're welcome. You're welcome. I have good memories. I don't have too many bad memories. I really don't. I had enjoyed myself, going to boarding school. I did. I did. I enjoyed it. Met a lot of good people. Still see some 69:00today that are around, and a lot of them, like I said, were Creeks that were from here and came back to work here. We were like, "Oh, my God, I didn't know you were here!" Some were on council, so, yeah.

Little Thunder: Still a community.

Haumpy: Yeah, that I've made a lot of good friends. For me, it was a good experience.

------- End of interview -------