Oral history interview with Nancy Elliott and Ramona McCready

Milligan: This is Sarah Milligan with the Oklahoma State University Library [Oklahoma] Oral History Research Program. I'm here at the Chilocco reunion on the Chilocco campus. Today's date is June 1, 2018. -- I'm here with Nancy Elliott and Ramona McCreary. Did I say both of those names correctly?

McCready: McCready.

Milligan: McCready, okay. I knew I should have asked you about your last name, too, pronunciation. -- Ramona McCready and Nancy Elliott, and we're talking about their time at Chilocco as students. Now we're just free to talk. I'd like to start with just a little bit of background information from either one of you, so a little bit about maybe where you're from or anything you want to talk about your family or anything like that. Just sort of set up a little bit before you ended up coming to Chilocco, so you all can either vie for the chance to go first or--.

Elliott: Okay, how we came to be there?

Milligan: Yeah, just a little bit about--yeah, if there's anything you want to talk about. Like are you from Oklahoma, are you from other places, those sorts of things.

Elliott: I am from near Tahlequah, Oklahoma. I'm Cherokee Indian. My mother was full-blood Cherokee. She died when she was twenty-three and I was two. She left my two brothers and me. I went to live with my father's family, the white side. (Laughs) I'm so grateful that they were there for me. I knew a family. I lived with my grandfather and uncle and my aunt. My father was working in Tulsa. He would come down once a month. We moved to Tulsa--we lived on a farm. We moved to 2:00Tulsa when I was about eight. I was put in public school there. My aunt was going to University of Tulsa to get a teaching degree. When she received that, she accepted a job in New Mexico, so my father was left with three children. She had raised my little brother, and he went to New Mexico with her. My grandfather stayed to live with us, but there was a time when he couldn't help, either.

The solution was to send me to a government Indian school. I went to Seneca Indian School up at Wyandotte [Oklahoma] and went there from grades four--. I was there in fourth grade, went home for the fifth grade, and then returned at midterm in sixth grade and graduated from there after ninth grade. My brother 3:00had attended Chilocco, and he still had one year to go. Actually, he had two years. He graduated in '56, so I had one year here with him. Then that was it. By the time I was here a year, it was home. It was home. The home I had left was wonderful, full of love and support and all. I grew to love the Indian school. Seneca was wonderful. We learned so much. I think that was one thing. We had the support of all the teachers, the--matrons.

I feel like I just flourished here. I had never known up to that time when I 4:00went away to Seneca. Living with fifty girls in a dorm, we were so close. I had so many sisters there. A lot of them came to Chilocco the same time I did. I'm thankful to Chilocco. -- One thing I tell my children is I wish they had had a chance to come. I truly do. I think that it matured us, that we learned responsibility and purpose, and when we left here, we could get a job from what we learned here. I was pre-college. They helped me in every way they could, so I 5:00went to Oklahoma State.

Milligan: What were some of the differences between Seneca and coming to Chilocco?

Elliott: Basically the same, the same system. Get up in the morning and clean your room, go to the kitchen at five o'clock in the morning and help with breakfast, same thing we had here. We had experience in all aspects. It was the same there.

Milligan: What about you, Ramona? You want to talk about how you ended up here?

McCready: Yes. My background was quite different. I am the youngest of eight. When I was about three years old, my mother had tuberculosis, and my dad had the 6:00responsibility of taking care of us. He and my mother were ultimately divorced, and it was just difficult for him to take of us. I have an uncle and an aunt who began a search for a place. They were very good to us and took care of us like surrogate parents, but there were a couple of schools that were government schools: Jones Academy and Wheelock [Academy]. They thought first of putting us--. They did not want to separate us. I'm so happy that they didn't want to because that has--. We then went to Goodland [Academy] Indian orphanage. It was an orphanage then. It was a Presbyterian orphanage at Hugo, Oklahoma. It's in 7:00Choctaw Nation in southeastern Oklahoma.

I'm half Choctaw; my mother was full-blood. She says, "full-blood and a little bit running over." She was so honored and proud her Indian heritage. They took the ones who were old enough to be in school to Goodland. I was only three years old, so I spent an entire year apart from my siblings, staying with a grandparent. I loved her dearly. She loved me very much, and it was a good time in my life. Oh, I just missed my siblings so much. I was told that I cried for a year. I was so lonely. When I turned four, my uncle and aunt were taking us back to school. They tell my oldest brother, and my sister says, "Okay, take her in 8:00with you. We think you probably can make more of a difference in getting her in." I wanted desperately to be with them and go to school there because my age was--. Hardly an acceptable thing for me that--. My sister goes in. My brother went to the superintendent and said, "We want to get her into school." They said, "Why?" My brother said, "Because she cries all the time."

They said, "Oh, we don't need someone who cries. What do you mean, she cries?" "Oh no, no, no, she cries for us. When she's here, she won't cry anymore." Anyway, they did allow me to stay there, and it was a school--. There were two hundred kids there. We had three dorms, girls, boys, split. It was a wonderful 9:00environment. Actually, the school was set up in such a way that it was near a public school. The public school was on the same campus as the housing and residential part but run independently. The public school of course was state-run, and the other was run by the Presbyterian Senate of Oklahoma. They supported us wholly. It was a very, very spiritual environment, as you can expect that it might be. I felt that I became very grounded in my Christian faith. It was run just like I guess any faith-based school might be.

We were expected to go to Sunday school and church and our evening devotion, and 10:00always prayer before meals, so it was very Christ-oriented. It was a good experience for me. I knew I accepted Jesus as my savior, and Christ has been my guiding light all my life. Not only did they provide an education for us, they, I feel, showed us the way of Christ and showed us the light there. That, to me, was very, very important. I stayed there with my two brothers that were remaining. The others had since graduated. When we were in eighth grade, one brother was kept back, not when he was in eighth grade but earlier in our time. He was kept behind to stay with me. There was no child left behind. They weren't going to leave me behind, so they kept him. They held him back a grade to stay 11:00with me.

Milligan: Oh, gosh. Did you know that was going on?

McCready: No, I did not. I didn't know exactly that was happening. He was so thrilled he was going to move up with my other brother who had failed. He was in seventh grade, and it was, "Oh, no, buddy, you come back here." He never made any reference at all to say, "You made me stay back a year!" There was never any grievance over that at all. Then it was apparent that we were going to be coming to Chilocco. We liked that because even though it was a twelve-year school at Goodland, it still was a good time for us to be coming to Chilocco. There was really so much more to offer, but I'm telling you, it was really a cultural shock for me. At that time, I was only twelve years old in the ninth grade. I'm 12:00in these big dorms, whereas it had been a very sheltered environment with two hundred kids. Then we come to where there's a thousand kids. In my first year, I just stayed in my dorm all year long just about. I was so much of a recluse.

Milligan: What year did you come here?

McCready: In '54. I was here '54 through '58. That year was almost a non-existent year for me. I just slept, and stayed in my dorm, and ate, and went to class, and hardly studied at all. I did have my two brothers who were here that are older than I am, wo we were here. When I went to the sophomore year, 13:00the tenth grade, I had a tremendous sociology/psychology instructor, Dee Gregory. I attribute so much to him for where I am in my life journey.

Milligan: What did he do for you?

McCready: He gave me advice about college, and he would just give me a lot of positive input and inspiration. He gave me some direction that I hoped that I could--. I reached some goals that I never really expected to. Being very young, I did not even think of my future years. By that time, then I'm thirteen. I 14:00wasn't thinking in terms of what my future was going to be. He told me--he had written something in my yearbook. He said, "I remember when Miss [Kay]Ahrnken," who was our English teacher, "asked--." He asked her what she knew about Ramona Williams and her two siblings. Said, "I know that they came from a Presbyterian children's home in Choctaw Nation." Miss Ahrnken said, "I don't know a lot about them. I know they came from this background, but I do know that her eyes dance like she is full of mischief." (Laughs) Granted, I was not. I just wasn't.

I don't know. There were various things that--and there were words of 15:00encouragement. He was a great teacher for everyone. He was. I remember we went on a field trip to Winfield, and there was a state mental institution there. We had a tour, a field trip there. It was rather interesting. Not rather, it was very interesting. It was nice to have had that as part of our schooling, training. However, I joked with him years later. I said, "Mr. Gregory, while we were touring the mental institutions, did it ever occur to you that people were driving around our oval and our campus and looking at us, too, just as we did other people?" This is true. It wasn't uncommon to have people drive around. They would be looking at us, and we would be looking like we were in a zoo or 16:00something. (Laughs) We always knew when there were visitors on campus like that, just driving by very slowly.

Milligan: Is that just because they knew about Chilocco and they wanted to see what was going on here?

McCready: My theory has always been that when you drive by the highway and you see this long, this mile, tree-lined drive, they had to have been curious, and this beautiful archway, "Chilocco Indian Agricultural School." You have to wonder what is at the end of that tree-lined drive, so you drive down here. It's a beautiful campus. My grandchildren came, and even with the disrepair in the school's structures and everything, they were so impressed with the physical nature and the environment and everything. She says, "Oh, I could have lived 17:00here." I wish that I could convey to her and my grandchildren what a wonderful experience it was and the comradery. Consider that we're here nine months out of the year with all of these kids. It was just a very communal environment. We were like brothers and sisters. We were, and we were of the heart. Nancy and I became friends when we were sophomores.

Milligan: So when you were thirteen. Nancy, how old were you at that--were you in the same age group? That seems very young.

Elliott: Yeah. I graduated at seventeen, and she did at sixteen.

Milligan: Okay, so within a year. Did you begin the same year? Did you begin in '56?

Elliott: No, I went there from tenth to twelfth, and she was there ninth to twelfth.

Milligan: I see. So you started in 1956 then?

Elliott: Yeah, fall of '55.

Milligan: Oh, fall of '55. I see. So you all got to know each other then. How did you all meet, do you remember getting to know each other?

McCready: Oh, yeah! (Laughter) My first chance meeting with Nancy was when we were sophomores. For some reason--I'm not sure how they went about, how the supervisor went about selecting roommates. It was random, I guess, I don't know. Maybe they had a method. I was in a sort of a ward-like room. There were five older girls, I always thought very worldly. Of course, everybody to me was worldly because I was the youngest. We had assemblies; we had movies; we had various things that we could attend. It was probably movies and some entertainment, and my roommate says, "Let's just all stay home and listen to 19:00music." "Okay. Where are we going to get a record player?" "I don't know. Who has one?" "Nancy Tyner has one. Who's going to ask her to borrow it?" "Ramona, you ask her." "All right." I go ask her if I can borrow her record player, and she says, "I'm sorry. I don't lend it to anyone." (Laughter)

Anyway, I go back and says, "All right, I failed. Anybody else want to go try?" They weren't about to. That's always been my story. You don't have a part in that one. (Laughter) Then along comes baseball season, and we had a TV about 20:00this size in the lobby. The lobby was very, very nice. It was nice, clean, spacious, so we would hurry home from lunch during the World Series. As luck would have it, she liked the Dodgers, and I liked the Yankees. Here we were at odds again. (Laughter) Before it was all over, we decided since we had a common interest that we could be friends when we came back the next year, when we came back our junior year, and so it was. We have had a wonderful, lifelong experience, friendship, sisters of the heart, anything you can think of. That's the kind of relationship we have.

Elliott: Yeah, Jerry asked me out there, "Where's Ramona? At the other end of 21:00the umbilical cord." When you see one of us, they always say, "Where's the other one?"

McCready: We're always asked, "Where's Nancy? Where's Ramona?" Not far behind.

Elliott: We're not supposed to be by ourselves, I guess.

Milligan: Was it like that in school then from sophomore year on?

Elliott: Oh, yes, immediately. Beginning of junior year we were inseparable.

McCready: In home economics we made little blue and white checked pinafores, and we wore those to the FFA or something, some kind of a 4-H dance or something or other. There we were, in our little checked pinafores. We loved it!

Elliott: I was probably sixteen years old. Looked like Judy Garland. (Laughter)

McCready: We look at pictures in our yearbook. It was customary for us to borrow clothing because nobody ever had very much. In some of the pictures I see her in 22:00one outfit, and then in the next picture I see me in the same one.

Elliott: Same yearbook. (Laughter) One yearbook, I had that little furry collar. There were three or four of us in the same one in the yearbook. That's the way it was.

McCready: It was just a bond that was formed not because it's anything you made happen. It happened because of our environment. It was such a wonderful experience being here, as far as I'm concerned, because we were taught to be so responsible. We had to be. We learned to be self-sufficient and responsible. Those have been lifetime values.

Elliott: Respect authority, I think was one of the big things.

McCready: Yeah, a regard for mankind, generally.

Elliott: We kept our Indian humor. It was fun, the times we were together.

Milligan: Do you have an example of how you kept your Indian humor?

Elliott: We were talking about that last night, weren't we? It's just different from other cultures. I've always said the funniest stories you can tell is something dumb that you did, and you can laugh right along with everybody. It's not like something you would hide. If it's funny, you're going to tell it. That's one thing I admire about them. They find humor in everything, but they don't necessarily show it outside of the group when they're together. It's fun to be with a bunch of Indians.

McCready: We're not at all afraid to tell stories on ourselves. It's just self-deprecating humor that we all share. It is rampant with all of us, but then 24:00some of that was exacted to us by the guys. Do you remember the--we would do raspberries, and some of them were so good you could hear them from one end of the campus all the way to the other. I wasn't so shabby at it myself. I thought it was an art, so I practiced it quite diligently.

Elliott: I wasn't enrolled in that course. (Laughter)

McCready: I know, but you were a part of it!

Milligan: Is this stealth or something? You'd sneak up on somebody? Describe this to me.

Elliott: No.

McCready: The raspberries? You just make these sounds like (makes sound).

Elliott: No, worse.

McCready: When we would walk, we had guys that would be invisible. We would be walking, and they'd go (makes flatulence sound).

Elliott: Every step. Every step. (Laughs)

McCready: Really loud.

Elliott: We'd grab each other. "What are we going to do?" "Run!" -- We never 25:00knew what it was.

McCready: We suspected. I look back at that, and--.

Elliott: I think there were two or three of them.

McCready: Probably everybody took turns doing it, all the guys.

Elliott: The other thing was, we were always alone. I don't know why. I guess we were always late. (Laughs) -- Going to class late.

Milligan: So that happened more than once?

McCready: Oh, always.

Elliott: Every day--

McCready: Anytime you were out.

Elliott: --for the year.

McCready: I look back at that now as having--they had enough confidence in our friendship and our relationship so that they knew we would not be angry or upset. It could affect some people in a very negative way; we just laughed about it. If we hadn't laughed at it, darn it, they probably would have stopped doing 26:00it, but we would get tickled just like we do now. "Let's stop," and they'd stop. We'd take a step, (makes sound). We'd say, "Let's get out of here. Surely they'll--." We'd run. They'd speed it up.

Elliott: Right in time, every step we took.

McCready: I don't know if anybody else has been in that position that a bunch of guys would do that. I think it's unique to Chilocco, actually. I think it is.

Elliott: I think we're somehow less sophisticated, less mature in a lot of ways. You were the youngest, and I was close to the youngest. I think there was kind of a thing with these guys that we were little sisters. They were just playing, but it was funny.

McCready: Then they'd put a pair of lingerie on the sidewalk when they knew we were coming in. They had some underwear. They were just some old cotton panties, nothing too suggestive, laid them on the sidewalk because we were late coming to class. It was in the administration building, and one classroom was a little lower, eye level. They could see out the window.

Elliott: To watch the sidewalk and us.

Milligan: To see what you would do.

McCready: Yeah, and I know they'd say, "Watch Nancy and Mona when they come in here." We were walking and talking, and we looked down and said, "Eww!" We jumped across the sidewalk, both of us.

Elliott: Show's over! And we'd see their faces down there.

McCready: They were all laughing. Just goofy things that you can't even imagine that would go on like that and made for a lot of cohesiveness and warm feelings. 28:00That's why it is so exciting to come back. You hear the same stories, and they're as funny as they were the first time they ever happened.

Elliott: Oh, my gosh, we've heard them all and laugh the same way every time. It's great. Even now when we get together, you'll see a difference, I think, in the way we are, how we are in public. Get a bunch of us in a room, that is fun.

Milligan: Do you all come back to the reunions often? Is that something you try to do annually or--.

Elliott: We have been coming back for, I'd say, twenty-five years.

McCready: Yes, it's on our calendar. Unless we can't work around it for any reason, we are here.

Elliott: We've missed one or two times.

Milligan: Inevitably.

Elliott: Oh, yeah. Even my husband--I said to him, "You want to go along?" He said, "Oh, no." One of our classmates, Charlie McDonald, would invite us--. He invited us twice. He lives in Grand Isle, Louisiana. He invited our class to go down. I asked my husband, "Why don't you go with us?" He had never gone to one of the reunions here because Bill [McCready: ] had come and told him what went on. (Laughter)

Milligan: So your husband warned him off?

McCready: Yeah. (Laughs)

Elliott: Yeah, Bill didn't come back for a long time. My husband said, "No, I won't. If I went, I don't really know anybody. I would cramp your style." That 30:00was one of my sayings. I really appreciated that because it's true. I wouldn't be able to be in there laughing and carrying on, although he enjoyed it when we were down there at Charlie's. I would be more concerned about, "Is he lonely? Do I need to go over there?" I appreciated that very much. Bill learned after one time that that was a good idea.

McCready: He said he felt like Custer. (Laughter) I said, "Good! He can stay home."

Elliott: But we told some of those crazy stories down there at Grand Isle. Oh, my gosh. I looked over at Bill one time. He was crying he was laughing so hard. That was a time when we were telling stories about ourselves, things that we did. I remember that story. It's very special. It really is.

Milligan: What are some of the things that you all did? For example, did you do vocational training? What was your work duty and things like that? Did you have assigned spaces on campus?

Elliott: Oh, yes, from the time we woke up. Each of us was assigned our--. I can't remember whether we were allowed to choose several vocations, probably several vocations. There was just about anything that you would want. We have a song that we wrote and sang at our fiftieth reunion, and it was written to the music of "Moments to Remember," which was our class song. We talked about, 32:00(how'd that thing go?) "We ran Chilocco. We ran Chilocco." The boys milked the cows; we did this; and all the things we had to do. They run the power plant. They did the farming. They did the baking. We cooked. We did everything. They would move you around, (you had your chores) move you from kitchen for six weeks, and then they would move you to laundry. She knows about the laundry.

McCready: Oh, yes.

Elliott: She got it all the time. Different areas of the campus, and you would work for six weeks, usually before class. Wasn't it?

McCready: Some, depending on where you were assigned. Some of it could've been done before.

Elliott: And then go to school. They had cosmetology, restaurant management, all 33:00sorts of things. For a bunch of Indians kids then, we were good. You hear the kids talk about what they did when they got out. They had jobs waiting in 1958.

Milligan: What did you all participate in, specifically? Do you remember? I guess you did college prep, both of you?

Elliott: Both of us, yeah.

McCready: I went to Northeastern State at Tahlequah. Met my husband, the love of my life, there, the one that felt like Custer. He's a one-dropper. He's that much Cherokee. (Gestures) My sister calls them "one drop Indians." That would be him. We graduated one day and were married the next. In fact, May 26 was our fifty-sixth-year anniversary.

Elliott: That's right, yeah.

McCready: And yours is--.

Elliott: Two days from now, the third.

McCready: Our lives have been intertwined. Nancy has a daughter named after me and another daughter named after me. I had a son, and I didn't want to name him Nancy, so I birthed him on her birthday.

Elliott: She did. She called and said, "We had a son, but I can't name him Nancy. I did the next best thing and had him on your birthday." (Laughter)

McCready: That was before the days of planning with the dates. It just happened.

Milligan: Were you all geographically located close together after you graduated Chilocco?

McCready: Never.

Elliott: No, never, were we?

McCready: We were from Oklahoma to Illinois, then from Missouri to Venezuela, and whatever distant parts of the country she went to and traveled to with her 35:00husband and family. You just make it a point to keep close ties. You do. We don't like change or do change or anything. I've lived in Seneca [Missouri] for forty-eight years. As soon as I got out of school, we went there to live. I have one son. We still just have one son, so we don't like change. (Laughter) Have the same husband, same son, same friends. This was sort of a teaching institution, a learning institution. What I liked so much about it was that the young people then could go out the next day, fill out an application for a job, and get a job. It doesn't happen like that now. It just doesn't. There's many 36:00kids that didn't have the opportunity that we had, that they can work. That was another thing Mr. Gregory did for me. I had been placed in the home economics curriculum, but he said, "When you come back to school, you really need to be in the college prep curriculum. You might see about getting that changed, and that's what I would recommend for you." I did exactly that, and I would not otherwise have probably even pursued college had he not done that.

Milligan: Who put you in the home economics track. Do you remember that?

McCready: I think we were probably selected maybe by various instructors, maybe advisors is what I'm thinking. They would see us day in and day out, and 37:00probably felt that these were the things that would best be a fit for us, these particular areas. As far as we knowing, I don't even think that was anything that we were so concerned about. I would have gone right ahead and been in home economics. Now I'd probably be a head chef in the Hilton or somewhere in New York City. (Laughs)

Milligan: I'm sure you would have done something equally exciting.

Elliott: You would have done what you were expected to do: take your courses and excel in them.

McCready: Right, and do the best you can. Anyway, with the change, I went to Tahlequah, and there were opportunities. Actually, I stayed at Sequoyah, another Bureau of Indian Affairs school, for my room and board and went to Tahlequah and 38:00stayed there for a year, and then finished the rest of my schooling there. I did not live on campus there, but that was a nice arrangement. It was a good arrangement because it made us aware of the fact that we could get an education. It wasn't difficult. We just had to make the effort to get through school. That was another benefit of the Bureau of Indian Affairs schools.

Milligan: So was that common to have students stay at, for example, Sequoyah and go to school at Northeastern?

McCready: Yes.

Elliott: There were several of them there.

McCready: I have another lifelong friend who was with me. We were roommates at Northeastern, and she's an accountant and had a very good life. We loved it. We rode an Army-issue bus that was so old, and it was gray. We had to go in at 39:00eight o'clock, and we were back home at four, regardless of how many classes you had. We called it "the old gray ghost." Get on the old gray ghost and go into town. It was a means of getting an education. It worked for us.

Milligan: It seems like if you graduated from Chilocco at sixteen, you were still very young when you went to college, too.

McCready: Right. Twenty when I graduated.

Milligan: Was there any--you would've still been a minor at that point. Did you have people--maybe I'm looking for a stronger word than "mentor," but were there still people who were sort of making sure that you were thriving?

McCready: No. It was like any other college environment, I guess. I think with the guidance, with the schooling and training, I think it offered a sense of 40:00maturing. You matured much more quickly out of necessity. You became self-sufficient, regardless of the age. You knew that you had to grow up, so to speak. You were going to have to make decisions for yourself. It was very important that we learn these things. They were very ingrained on a day-to-day basis that they were a part of our livelihood, a part of our life, a part of our future. It was like we didn't have an option. There were no options. This is what you had to do, and it was a mindset. We knew, and we didn't challenge it. There was no need to because it was a good life.

Milligan: It sounds like you did have some good leadership here.

Elliott: Oh, yes.

McCready: Very good. I was always of the opinion that the people who were in the Bureau of Indian Affairs service for the most part were here because they wanted to be, not because they had to be. I think they love the work; they love the opportunity to work with their own people. Mr. Gregory was--it never occurred to me that he had a life outside of here. I don't even know what tribe Indian he was. He was Indian. I'm thinking Cherokee. Do you know?

Elliott: No.

McCready: Wasn't really much older than we were. He probably graduated from school at twenty-four or twenty-five, and here he was teaching these kids. So 42:00good. Oh, my, his heart was in it, and he was just one of so many who were here.

Elliott: Mr. [Jack] McCarty.

McCready: Absolutely.

Elliott: He was--what was he?

McCready: He was the principal, and I think Mr. [Leon] Wall was superintendent.

Elliott: Right. He was one that really watched over us for some reason. He would call us into his office and say, "I want to talk to you girls." (Laughs)

Milligan: To both of you together?

Elliott: Yes! Whatever we got in trouble for--.

McCready: He would call us. "I've heard," this or that. "I think you really need to apply yourselves and consider the consequences of what you do." It was mischief. It was crazy mischief, and we got put up to it by a lot of people.

Milligan: What kind of mischief? I know the pranks people pulled on you.

Elliott: I remember one time. I don't know where we were out on campus. Big olʽ bone like that, remember that? Big olʽ bone about that long, probably a leg bone or something. We were looking at it. "Let's go put it by Ms. Robinson's door." (Laughter) She was our--.

McCready: Dorm matron.

Elliott: Yeah. There was a big trash basket by her door, and we stuck that bone in there. You don't remember that?

McCready: Vaguely. It might've been with somebody else.

Elliott: No! That's probably something he called us in the office and mentioned to us. We couldn't wait to see where that bone would be in the morning. It 44:00wasn't in the basket, but she'd laid it somewhere. -- That night it went back in the basket. Just stupid things. We didn't do anything bad. We really didn't.

McCready: Peanut butter fights at night after the lights were out.

Milligan: How does that work?

Elliott: You want us to show you? (Laughs)

Milligan: Maybe not personally. (Laughter)

Elliott: We used to get the food in the--

McCready: The commodities.

Elliott: --yeah, commodities. You'd get a can of peanut butter, you know, five pounds of butter type stuff. I don't even know how we--. We may have swiped it, but we had one.

McCready: It was one of Linda Levi's commodities. She got commodities and brought them; she was my roommate.

Elliott: Okay, so we took her peanut butter. We had another roommate. She had 45:00been my friend from--I probably met her in fourth grade. We were very good friends when we were at Seneca. We were friends, the three of us, at that point, and we roomed together.

McCready: "Let's get Laverne with the peanut butter when she comes in!" This was after the lights were already out, and we were supposed to be quiet and in bed.

Elliott: We were in there with the peanut butter. "Wait until she walks in!" She opened the door, walked in. -- She grabbed some, and it was on us. (Laughs)

McCready: We were just attacking each other. -- (Laughter)

Milligan: You had to have gotten caught from that?

McCready: Not that time. We were way at the end of the hall, and we were very quiet with our mischief in that way. Then we had these big utility sinks, so we 46:00went in what we called the mop room. We were in there washing our hair, getting all the peanut butter off.

Milligan: That's what I was wondering, how you got cleaned up.

Elliott: When it was lights out, it was lights out. There was a master switch. We were in the dark then.

McCready: We would put rice in our roommates' beds and other beds, short-sheet them, just things like that. If people wanted things done, they would say, "Go get Nancy and Mona! They'll do it!"

Elliott: We would. Good old days.

Milligan: No wonder everyone in your class still looks around to see where you're at, looks behind their shoulder.

McCready: Here they come!

Elliott: Watch your back! (Laughter) It was fun. It really was. We still travel together. We've been many, many places, foreign countries. Independent, we're in 47:00our car, and we're gone. Don't know where we're going to be tonight or anything. It's so much fun. It is.

McCready: I know--lots of fun. We have a great time.

Milligan: Nancy, I'm curious what you did after graduation. I haven't heard that piece of it yet.

Elliott: I got married. We went up to University of Illinois where he was--.

Milligan: Did you get married after Chilocco?

Elliott: After my junior year in college at Oklahoma State. We went to Illinois. He graduated a couple of years before me. He got a teaching assistant job at the University of Illinois in accounting and finance, so we went up for that. Then 48:00when I went back to Oklahoma--I think he came for the summer he worked on his master's. Then he finished his master's, went back up there, and he got his doctorate and became a professor there. Then he was asked--University of Houston, I think, had contacted the University of Illinois and asked if they would be interested in working with a government contract, USAID contract, to develop a business school in Ecuador. They said yes, and they asked my husband to head our part of that there. We went there, and we were there two years: one 49:00year on the coast and one year in Quito in the mountains. Back to the States; we were there probably a couple of years. My husband made contacts in Ecuador with some other people who were going to go to the Dominican Republic. -- It was after the overthrow of Trujillo. They asked if they could send him down there, and we went to Santo Domingo.

We were there a year. By that time, I had had two daughters. I actually have a son who was born down there; he could have a Dominican passport. In fact, we had to give him a Venezuelan--I keep saying Venezuelan. My husband's Venezuelan. We 50:00had to apply for a Dominican passport, which he still has, in order for him to leave the country. He was about eight months old when we left there. Back to University. Then we were sent to Tunisia for the same thing, to work with the University of Tunisia to set up--. Then we went back home, and then someone, one of his buddies, said, "Why don't you take leave and come down here to work in Venezuela?" So we went down there for three or four years, and he worked with the hydroelectric company (it was government owned and operated) to build dams and things like that. He was the financial part of it. We went back to Illinois. He decided that college life wasn't for him, and he resigned. Another college 51:00friend of his and mine had gotten a job with OPEC. He asked my husband if he wanted to come down and be a part of the OPEC delegation, so he did that. It's been exciting. That's what I did after graduation.

Milligan: Criss-crossed the globe.

Elliott: Pretty much, yeah.

Milligan: That is really interesting because both of you all have done, you've done interesting things and you've been involved, obviously. Like you said, you've had different life stations, but you still keep in close contact. That's obvious. I hear a lot of people say that they meet other Chilocco alumni all over the place. Do you all find that true? Do you run into people who've gone to Chilocco, or make that connection with anyone when you're away from campus?

Elliott: I haven't.

McCready: I have a little cloth bag that was given when we went to Albuquerque when we had the meeting there. It was kind of special, and I carry it. Here I am, carrying this little bag from a wrestling tournament in Carl Junction, north of Joplin. I carried it, and he said, "Chilocco?" I said, "Yes, do you know Chilocco?" He said, "Oh, yes!" He had a good friend who was a teacher there. So that's not uncommon.

Elliott: That, you hear around here.

McCready: It's always interesting because when you meet someone from Chilocco, it's an instant bond. It's just like a magnet. You want to know, "How are you involved? Who do you know? What did you do?" It's a magnet that draws you right 53:00together. It's like there's something exciting and energy charged. "I've got to know this person." It's a good feeling.

Elliott: That's true even in Indian, Native American--. You get interested, except like the people on the ship.

Milligan: What happened?

Elliott: We took a cruise, and we were seated at a table. It was one of the special restaurants onboard the ship. You would get put at whatever seats were available, so they put us at a table with a couple. We sat down. "Oh, good evening. I'm so-and-so, and this is my husband. We're attorneys. We graduated from Harvard, and we're working in Boston," or wherever it is. Gave us a whole 54:00life story. It was funny because we'd take a bite, then, "Mmm-hmm." She was so proud and everything. She said, "You two are friends?" We said, "Yeah, we've been friends for years." "How did you meet?" We usually say "since childhood," which is true. "Oh, where did you meet?" "We met in school."

McCready: The interrogation.

Elliott: Yeah, the interrogation began. "It was a boarding school." "Oh, where was it?" "It was in Oklahoma." Then it came out it was not your ordinary boarding school. "Oh, you're Native Americans," this sort of stuff. Eventually, it came down to, she wanted to know what tribe and all of this stuff. Then she 55:00said, "Tell me, what did you do on the reservation?" This one (I don't know how she did it) didn't skip a beat. Said, "I was a go-go dancer." I said I was a blackjack dealer. The woman said, "Oh, I guess that wasn't very politically correct, was it?" We said no, and that was the end of the table conversation for us. They were embarrassed. What ignorance! We're just like everybody else, just fortunate enough to have the experiences we had here.

Milligan: That is, right? That is indicative.

Elliott: We don't have to be like them. We don't have to go to Harvard. We learned it all at Chilocco. (Laughs)

McCready: That's right. "Well, we went to this here school and--. (Laughter)

Milligan: Actually that leads me to one of the questions I think it's important to ask. What do you want people outside of Chilocco to know? What do you think that the legacy of this campus, but also the community, really is? People who are not familiar with it at all, what do you think is important for them to understand?

Elliott: For many of us, it was a haven. You hear the kids talk about the conditions they lived in and everything. A lot were very poor, living in outside areas where it was easy to get to school and things like that. It was life-saving, I think, in a lot of ways. The first year at Oklahoma State, the 57:00kids learned, there in the dorm, that I went to Chilocco. Sometime during that year, one of the girls in the dorm said, "Our sociology professor told us that Chilocco was a juvenile delinquency place," reform school, a reform school for Indians. I said, "That's not true." She said, "Well, that's what he told us." So we've asked the guys. I think they did send a few kids (remember? I think Charlie was saying that) for disciplinary reasons, which could have worked out 58:00very well if they could have fit in and been part of the rest of us, but you have that in a public school. Anyway, I would just like them to know that it was like any other high school, only better. There was so much--it was family. I know people can't understand that. It was so special. We talk about it all the time. There are a lot of successful classmates from our class right around there.

McCready: Krispy Kreme.

Elliott: Yeah--the Krispy Kreme guy [Mike Harding]. There's been a lot of success. A lot of them wouldn't have known it had it not been for being here. 59:00The friendships that were formed here still exist sixty years after we were in class together. When people hear that, they say to me, "I've never heard of such a thing, that you're still together." It's exactly like we were sixty years ago. That's something very few people got to ever experience.

McCready: I think that people need to be aware that the government boarding schools were a result of many of the treaties with the Indian tribes. They were very honorable, extremely intelligent. Only because they did not speak English were they able to be duped. They had enough knowledge, enough--. It was a challenge for the tribes who were moved, but they wanted education. It was very 60:00important, not just in the last hundred years. Prior to that, education was such a vital part of their existence. They could see into the future and knew that this is how our tribes are going to survive, how the Indian tribes are going to survive. As a result, it became important that the government established (and that was part of the treaties) the educational systems. I would like for people to know that this wasn't something that was just a handout to us, that it was something that was provided for us, and that we took advantage of what was there. We utilized it.

We have become successful as a result of our forefathers, of our ancestors 61:00having the foresight to have this in place for us. That just means so much to me. I will say, too, that a good part of my life, about twenty-five years of my life have been spent helping other kids. I've served on the board of trustees of Missouri Baptist Children's Home for--I've worked with the children's home project for about forty years. I've been on the board and traveled faithfully every three months from Joplin to St. Louis for all of this, rarely missing a meeting to be on the board for the Baptist Children's Homes. It was something I felt led to do. I felt that I was convicted by the Holy Spirit. "Hey, do something instead of being so isolated in your own home, so preoccupied with 62:00what you're doing here. There are other people who need what you've had." So as a result, I've done that. I've done a lot of community service with kids. My husband and I both have. He went to the University of Missouri School of Dentistry and then specialized in periodontal surgery. His, I guess, place in life and his training and everything has allowed me the flexibility.

I worked in his office for all of these years doing insurance, so that's something we never had to worry about, one aspect about it. In the interim, I did a lot of community service work. I never thought that there would be anything other than our mission statement which was, "Serving God by helping 63:00children, youth, and their families in crisis, helping them to make a lasting difference." That's what Chilocco did for me. It made a lasting difference in my life, and two years ago, I had just the greatest honor imaginable. I was inducted into the Hall of Fame for Chilocco. Then last year, a real plus, (I was probably as excited about Reggie [Williams] being inducted), the brother that was held back in school, he was inducted. He had a lot of community service, so much that I did not even know about, in Idabel which is in Choctaw Nation, southeastern Oklahoma, and he spent a huge part of his life serving the community. He was inducted last year, and I was extremely excited and thankful 64:00and honored. They said it was the first brother-sister. They've had mother-daughter, father-daughter, sister-sister, but we were the first brother-sister to be inducted. It's all special, but that was just kind of a unique thing.

Milligan: It's nice to have that recognition, that they're paying attention enough, as well, whoever decides to be on the board, I guess. That's sort of what it comes down to. Is there anything else you all want to add that I didn't ask you about that you think you just want people to know about or that you want to share?

Elliott: I went to Washington, DC, soon after the [Smithsonian] Museum of the American Indian was created. Have you been there?

McCready: No.

Elliott: My husband was with me. He came here with me one time for something. He wasn't part of the thing, but he was on campus with me. We were down in Stillwater. He was always impressed with how I turned out. (Laughter) He used to say, (I say it too), "How do you take this kid from who-knows-where and give them the ambition and the common sense and drive to be what they want to be?" Anyway, I went into that museum, and he was with me. There was a guided tour 66:00that they were taking through to see all these exhibits of Indians and everything. There was actually, toward the end of this tour, one big board about Native American boarding schools. Have you been there?

Milligan: Yes, I have, but I have not been deep enough to see--.

McCready: It could have been something that wasn't there permanently because there's so many things that turn over in there.

Milligan: It's a gorgeous building.

McCready: She was telling about these boarding schools and everything, and she said that they were used to house incorrigible Indian youth and all of this stuff, and that they weren't treated kindly or anything, that they were houses of horror, basically. I said, "Excuse me! I beg to disagree. I went to one of 67:00those schools. I went to Chilocco. You have your information completely wrong because I can tell you what I knew." My husband's looking at me like--.

McCready: "You go, girl!" (Laughter)

Elliott: It really upset me because here I'm thinking people walk through from everywhere and they hear this. I thought that was a great misjustice. This was something she read or someone said to her. She didn't know real--research into what they really were. I hope you've learned something.

Milligan: Oh, an incredible amount.

Elliott: Good. That was one thing I would like people to know, that it wasn't 68:00that way, not for us.

McCready: I think there was a certain learning from each other. We were from all different backgrounds. We had so much to give, and we had so much to learn. If you open up your life and your mindset, your heart, your eyes, your ears and all, if you just open up, there's so much to learn. There's many things from so many kids that we were with. It does something to mold who you are. It really has been said with our friendship. I've learned because of our friendship, from her and through her and through her life. You grow, and it makes it so much 69:00easier to assimilate in so many different environments. It just makes for a better way of life.

Milligan: You all shared really interesting information! (Laughter)

Elliott: What did you like best?

McCready: The raspberries! (Laughter)

Milligan: Yeah, I was going to say, the parts where you all laughed the entire way through when you told the--. Well, if there's nothing else you all want to share at this point, I can go ahead and end it, although I'm happy to--.

Elliott: Thank you very much.

McCready: We appreciate your time and your input and your interest in knowing the real facts.

Elliott: We talk about these things all the time. When we get together with our friends, all this comes up. It's interesting.

Milligan: I'm grateful for your time, too. It's important to get so many different perspectives, too.

Elliott: Appreciate it.

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