Oral history interview with Norene Durant

Milligan:All right, so I'm going to start with a brief introduction. My name is 1:00Sarah Milligan. I'm with the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program at Oklahoma State University in the Library. I'm here today. It is, oh, my gosh, is it March 5--2020. This is the first interview I've done in 2020. I'm here talking with Norene Durant (it's Norene Chisholm Durant) about her experience at Chilocco Indian Agricultural School. So that's as formal as this gets. Okay, so can you just tell me a little bit about yourself, like where'd you grow up, a little bit about your family, and help us get to know you a little bit better?

Durant:I grew up in a small town, Sperry. It's just north of Tulsa. I was about a mile from the school. We had some good schools and good teachers. We had good people there, too. Well, sometimes we had a school bus run, but if we didn't get up in time to go to catch the bus, we had to walk or run to school. Most of the time I had to run to get there on time. (Laughs)

Milligan:So that was when you were in elementary school--

Durant:Yes.

Milligan:--and it was about a mile from where your house was, right? How long did you go there, from kindergarten until a certain time?

Durant:They called it primary then. That's what they call kindergarten now. I went there through elementary. Back then, seventh and eighth grade was junior high, so after then is when I went to Chilocco.

Milligan:Oh, okay, so you went to the same school from the whole time before 2:00that through the eighth grade?

Durant:I did. I did.

Milligan:So how was Sperry growing up in?

Durant:Well, you know, this goes in detail. Seems like most of the kids there got to go to skating rinks and dress real nice and probably ate nice, but some of the Indian children wasn't that lucky. The ones that dressed up, we lived in the country where there was oil wells. A lot of the men worked at pump houses. They had a lot more money, but it seemed like the Indian people didn't get to do that. We were pretty poor, but we had land. My mother had her land [allotment].

Milligan:The allotment?

Durant:[Yes.] It was close to the highway. It was easy to get to. Many times, we 3:00went down the highway to the school on [pavement].

Milligan:Oh, yeah. So you lived on your mother's original allotment?

Durant:Yes.

Milligan:From what tribal affiliation did your mom have then?

Durant:Well, it was Delaware and Shawnee. Then they put us on Cherokee, Cherokee Nation, Cherokee [Dawes] roll. Anyway, my mother was Shawnee and Delaware.

Milligan:Okay. What about your father?

Durant:He was Creek [and Cherokee].

Milligan:Okay. So what do you consider your tribal affiliation, then?

Durant:Well, we had to have something, so we said Cherokee and Creek. That was what we went on. That's what was on our government papers from Muskogee.

Milligan:Okay, so that was more your enrollment, but you also--. I forgot to mention at the beginning of this recording that Norene's daughter Linda is also with us. If there's questions that we have to ask and we're asking, that's who we're talking to.

Linda Durant:I didn't know whether I should say anything or not.

Milligan:Linda, you're also completely able to poke in there and say, "Hey, Mom, don't you remember this?"

L. Durant:Okay, thanks.

Milligan:That's totally fine, but I was just thinking about it because I know that's a complicated question about tribal affiliation versus where you're actually enrolled, right?

Durant:It is, because so many of the kids at Chilocco were from around Tahlequah in the Cherokee Country, but I was not in that area. Many times, they'd wonder who was I kin to. Some of the employees asked who was I kin to that was back in--. Well, at the time, I didn't know anybody that was Cherokee where I was 5:00from and who I was kin to, so it was really confusing. Toward the last, eleventh and twelfth grade, I'd just put down "Creek." This was after my mother had passed away, and my dad was still alive, so I just started using Creek.

Milligan:Okay.

L. Durant:You showed me that paper that you had to show the school. That's the one that has your birthdate on it. You said it showed your father's roll number, and you had to show that to get into school.

Milligan:Oh, into Chilocco?

L. Durant:No, into grade school.

Durant:Well, they had agents. We had an agent in Tulsa. Then at that time--.

L. Durant:This was before the agent.

Milligan:The school you went to in Sperry, was it a public school?

Durant:Yeah, it was public school.

Milligan:Okay, so it wasn't an Indian school.

Durant:No.

L. Durant:No, but she had to show this paper that showed her father's roll 6:00number and that he was the parent of her. Her birthdate is March 15 on that paper, and then later on in life when she got her birth certificate, it actually listed March 20.

Milligan:Oh, okay.

L. Durant:So we have her birthdate and her government birthday. (Laughter)

Milligan:You have two birthdays. I hope you celebrate them both.

Durant:Yeah, I can do either one.

Milligan:Or both.

Durant:Which one is--.

Milligan:Well, let's maybe go back to your time in Sperry a little bit. You talked a little bit, sort of, about the different class and just sort of relationships in the community, that there was a lot of oil industry going on.

Durant:Oh, yes, there was lots of oil wells in that area. In my time, they were already dug. It was not any fracking that I know of. I was born in 1928. The 7:00'20s wasn't so hot, but the worst was in the '30s when we had the Dust Bowl, and we didn't have a rain for a long time, and everything was dry. The only thing that my dad could raise was black-eyed peas and peanuts, but we did have that. Didn't have to take too much water for the black-eyed peas and the peanuts.

Milligan:So was your dad a farmer or something else?

Durant:Well, I guess everybody had to do that. They had to be--. He was just a farmer.

L. Durant:She actually talks more about her mother than her father.

Milligan:I was going to ask. Do you want to tell a little bit about your parents in general? Do you have siblings?

Durant:Oh, yes, there were five of us. I was the middle one, two older and two younger. --

L. Durant:Her mother's property had oil wells on it.

Milligan:Your mom's allotment property, your family property?

Durant:Yeah, the Texas Company [Texaco] had--. I was too young to know what was 9:00going on there, but they did pull those wells out probably in the '30s. I don't know why they did it because other people's wells kept going. The people that lived around us, a lot of their wells kept going. We never did know why they pulled my mother's [wells] out.

Milligan:Oh, yeah. Did she have mineral rights to her land? Do you know?

Durant:No, I don't know, but she did get a pension, though, until she died. It had to come through the Indian office in Muskogee. They'd send it to her. They was in control of what we had.

Milligan:Oh, yeah. So maybe talk a little bit about your mom. What did she do when you were growing up?

Durant:Took care of five kids, cooked. She was really the gardener. She made a nice garden, and she grew sweet potatoes and sweet corn, Indian corn, 10:00purple-looking corn. She used to grow that stuff. Of course, my dad did the corn fields and the cotton fields and whatever. My mother rented some of the land that we couldn't work ourselves. We would rent some of these acreage with cotton and sometimes corn. I remember those cotton fields that we would go help pick cotton to earn some money. It was usually hot in September when we was picking cotton.

Milligan:Was that you and all your siblings?

Durant:Yeah. Sometimes we'd try to lay in the shade of the cotton bushes. (Laughs) It would be hot. We'd get under the bushes where the shade was.

Milligan:You said you--. If there are things that you think about that you want to talk about from when you were younger, at any time you can always come back to that. You said you were in Sperry until the eighth grade when you ended up in Chilocco. Can you tell me about how you ended up going to Chilocco?

Durant:Well, my mother passed away in 1945. My older brother was in the Navy at that time. My dad drank quite a bit at that particular time. Seems like every time he earned any money, he'd drink instead of bringing food home. My mother [told] him he had to bring some food home.

L. Durant:Tell her your mother didn't speak English.

Durant:Oh, well, my mother didn't speak English. She spoke Shawnee.

Milligan:Is that what she grew up speaking in the house?

Durant:Yeah, she was from a Shawnee family.

Milligan:Did you speak Shawnee with her?

Durant:No. (Laughter) I'm surprised that we did as well as we did in school. My dad, though, had a better education. He went to some of the Indian missions back then. A lot of people thought he was pretty well educated. They'd bring letters over to him to read and explain to them. My mother was full-blood. She didn't learn to speak English.

L. Durant:And you helped her with--you were assisting your mother with her banking, etc.

Durant:Sometimes she'd get a check. She always got the oil royalty from the 13:00Texas Company, and I know she always had to go to Tulsa to get them cashed. I'd go with her and help her do that.

Milligan:How old were you when you did that--

Durant:I probably was ten, eleven, or something like that.

Milligan:Yeah, so you'd been in school long enough to read and write--

Durant:Oh, yeah.

Milligan:--English and all that.

Durant:If you don't get it in elementary, you don't get it.

Milligan:You mentioned that your dad went to some Indian mission schools. Do you know which ones he went to?

Durant:He went to Shawnee Mission, and he went over to Eufaula. They had a mission at Eufaula.

L. Durant:But he grew up where?

Durant:He grew up around Shawnee, [Oklahoma].

L. Durant:He grew up around Shawnee?

Durant:Yes.

Milligan:So your mom died in 1945, and then your dad wasn't necessarily taking care of you, that he needed to be.

Durant:No, he was out drinking the night she passed away. She [died] in Claremore Indian Hospital. Back then--we didn't have running water or electricity, of course, but she had these big, round tubs that you washed your clothes in. She was taking it out the back door, and I don't know if she slipped or something. Anyway, she fell over on that tub, and it bruised her right in her 15:00chest. She never went to the doctor or hospital or anything, and it turned into cancer. She probably suffered with that at least nine months. Then she finally passed away at Claremore. Back then, there was [no] doctors; they were at the war zones. We just didn't have transportation. Anyway, my aunt came and stayed with us at the last, and she called and had an ambulance come out from Tulsa. It came out to the house, oh, about ten [o'clock]. It was dark, something I always remember about the last we saw her at home because they took her off at night in an ambulance. My Aunt May told us, "Well, you kids can come up tomorrow and see 16:00her." She didn't want us to go right then. We thought we could go and visit. [Aunt May] went with my mother whenever she went to the hospital. Actually, I didn't say that earlier, but in 1943 is when I got to go [to Chilocco, I made my own application.] I'd babysit the agent's two little kids that summer before I went.

Milligan:The BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] agent?

Durant:Yes. He was real good, and she was, too. I think she was really from New Mexico, but, anyway, they were both Indian.

L. Durant:Did [the Indian agent] live in Sperry?

Durant:No, in Tulsa. I mean, he had an office up in one of them big buildings in Tulsa.

Milligan:So how did you start doing that?

Durant:I did that just through the summer. I got to go [to Chilocco] in 1943.

L. Durant:You're missing the key part. You shared with me how your mother recommended that you guys go to school and get an education.

Durant:Well, yeah, she said that whenever we talked to her when she knew she wasn't going to be there very long. I'd already been to Chilocco one year, so she encouraged. My older sister did not finish high school. She just went through eighth grade, so she didn't want me to stop like my sister did. I made 18:00my own way.

Milligan:How did you hear about Chilocco?

Durant:One of my cousins, my first cousin lived just a little way from us. She went [to Chilocco] in the '30s, but she recommended it. There was a few other people around that mentioned it.

L. Durant:Then so your mother learned about it? Did the Indian agent come around to your house?

Durant:[No.] They always kept in touch with the Indians that they were in charge of. He's one of the Tigers. There were a lot of Tigers back then. He was one of the Tigers.

L. Durant:So he was an Indian Indian agent.

Durant:He was Creek.

L. Durant:Okay. Well, not all Indian agents were Indians.

Durant:Well, back then we had some.

L. Durant:Share with her what your mother's feelings were about--

Durant:She's supposed to be asking the questions.

L. Durant:--changing the--. But I know a few questions that'll help her.

Milligan:So you were going to tell me you had heard about Chilocco because you had cousins and other people you knew who'd gone there. It sounds like your mother really wanted her kids to have an education if they were willing.

Durant:Because she said that's the only way it's going to be now. She come from 20:00Delaware on the East Coast, and she knew that the white people were encroaching on the Indians for several years. Her people, her folks, her parents came through the wilderness from the East Coast. She knew that the white way was going to have to be the way in the future.

Milligan:Yeah, so was she born somewhere other than--.

Durant:No.

Milligan:She was born in Sperry?

Durant:Yeah. Sperry wasn't even there, probably, when she was there. Her family all lived in that area.

Milligan:But it sounds like her parents came from the east. Was it her parents that came from the East Coast?

Durant:Oh, yeah. Yeah, her grandparents and her parents, too. Actually, they settled up in Kansas. [The government] was building railroads in Kansas at the time the tribes were in Kansas. They had to move them down to Oklahoma. They 21:00bought into the Cherokee Nation, so that's how we ended up on the Cherokee roll. We got a card. I have a card in my purse that's Cherokee.

Milligan:It's got your Cherokee tribal roll. Okay, so you were thinking education, and Chilocco was a bug because of that. It sounds like I'm hearing two things: You had a relationship with a BIA officer and his family, and you decided independently, it sounds like, to put in an application to apply to go to Chilocco.

Durant:I had to, yeah. Of course, my mother couldn't do that, but Dad, I don't know. He wasn't too big on me going to school much that I could think of.

Milligan:Did he try and keep you from not going to school?

Durant:No, I don't remember that he ever paid that much attention really.

Milligan:Let me ask you something because I'm not clear on this point. I know 22:00you first went to Chilocco. Was that before your mother was sick?

Durant:Yeah, one year before, and then when she got ill, I stayed home that year. Then later, that's when she passed away. It was in September, so I was a little late getting back to school. I didn't have no money to go back anyway, but my neighbor across the highway from us gave me the money to catch a bus and go back to school.

Milligan:Okay. So let me see if I understand this. You went to school for the first time in 1943 to Chilocco and went in as, what would be now, like, a freshman in high school. Is that right?

Durant:Yeah.

Milligan:Okay, and then it sounds like in 1944 you took off to come home and take care of your mom?

Durant:Yeah, '44, '45.

Milligan:And then after '45, went back after the start of the semester.

Durant:In tenth grade then. I was in tenth grade. [World War II was over by that time.]

Milligan:Okay, yeah. So you went back in '45. You just had that year in between. So help me. Back when you first went to Chilocco, do you remember, how did you get to campus? Do you remember the first time you went to campus?

Durant:Oh, yeah. Well, the government sent us. The first time you go, they send you a free ticket. The bus picked me up in Sperry. There was other kids going to school. This was kind of late in August. Everybody was going about the same time, so there were several on that bus. They took us right to the campus. Second time you went back, you were on your own. You go back, you're on your own.

Milligan:If you leave and then come back, you're on your own to get back.

Durant:Yeah, so my neighbor paid for my bus ticket back to school.

Milligan:On the second one. When you took the bus the first time, did they drop you off in front of the arch, or did they take you up in the middle of campus?

Durant:Oh, we went up to the buildings. We had our luggage, you know. We couldn't lug our luggage--. There was one good thing about it, some of the guys on the campus could drive. They had government cars on the campus. There was a railroad went down through Newkirk and toward Ark City. They used to call it the Doodlebug. It was a short train from Hominy. The Doodlebug train [stop was across from the Chilocco entrance and someone would call] the campus [then someone would] come get us, the second time. The first time, [the bus] took us 25:00right up to the campus.

Milligan:You got a chartered bus, huh?

Durant:Yes.

Milligan:Do you remember what you felt like, or do you remember your reaction when you went to campus the first time?

Durant:Oh, yeah. It was so different. It's hard to explain. Of course, I kind of grew up around Tulsa, too, so I thought I knew a little bit about the larger buildings, nothing like they are now. I thought it was more like a college, you know, with all the big buildings. We had a beautiful campus. Have you ever been there? Yeah, it was beautiful when I first went there. I guess we worked our way, in a way, because there was always some of the guys had to keep the campus cut down and the flower beds made up nice, trimmed trees. They learned to do 26:00that, too. The boys got more advantages than [we] ladies did, us girls. (Laughs)

Milligan:Tell me a little bit about that. Like, what do you think their advantages were compared to what the girls were doing?

Durant:The boys?

Milligan:Yes.

Durant:Well, they had different trades. They had printing, and they had the power plant operation that has electricity. They had auto mechanics and learned to--. They had shoe cobblers, and then they made horse collars and things with leather. Of course, I guess some of the people worked the yards.

Milligan:Did they have plots that they could work on their own? Did they have like agricultural plots, like their own space they could grow things, the boys? I can't remember at that time.

Durant:Well, the agriculture, they'd plant big. They didn't have a spot; they 27:00had fields.

Milligan:So they were working general school, towards the general--.

Durant:Oh, yeah, the agriculture, that was agriculture school.

Milligan:So that's what the boys got to do. So how was that different and why was than an advantage to what the girls got to do?

Durant:Well, we had to act like ladies. (Laughs) We couldn't do just anything. We had to wear dresses all the time. Oh, we got to learn how to sew. We had to learn how to cook. We had to take care of little kids at the nursery school, learn how to take care of little babies and kids. During the war, we did work the poultry. See, that school, we got our own eggs and chickens there. The boys, of course, planted lots of things. They worked the fields and had to grow them and pick them the next spring. They had to go through all that, but then they 28:00had the cows and horses. They really had a lot more to do than we did.

Milligan:Do you feel that way because they were more busy, or because the skills that they were learning were applicable in different ways, like they could use them different in life?

Durant:Yeah. The boys worked bakery, too. Women didn't get to do the kitchen and the bakery. The guys did it. There was several guys [who] after they graduated worked bakeries. They had jobs. Some of them worked in kitchens. We had big pots of stuff, the big pots that they cooked in. If you happened to go through the kitchen in the evenings, those guys would set these frozen eggs out. It looked 29:00like a big hunk of cheese. We didn't get fried eggs. We got scrambled eggs, so they set that out at night. By morning, I guess they cooked those scrambled eggs. During the war, our potato--. This is years after, when I was about in the twelfth grade, eleventh or so. Our potato peeler broke down. It was still during the war, and you couldn't get repair parts or anything, anybody to come repair them. Some of us older girls at five o'clock in the morning had to go over and peel potatoes for the whole school [for that day].

Milligan:Oh, my goodness. So you did have one of those that sort of electronically peeled the potatoes, and it broke?

Durant:Yeah, some part to it broke, and they couldn't get it fixed. All the time I was there they didn't. I hope they did later. It took a while to get things 30:00back where you can get things fixed or get parts for anything.

Milligan:Did girls work in the kitchen besides that?

Durant:No, we worked the dining room. We had to keep the tables clean after the meals, and we had to sweep the floor. We'd put the chairs up on the table, and we had to sweep really good. Then after you sweep, you put them back down. Then during the mealtime, the guys from the kitchen bring these hot pans [of] food out, like the cafeteria, and then we had to serve the food. You'd give a spoonful here and a spoon there, you know. You didn't get to go back for seconds. We had to do that. Then we had to clean up all the mess afterwards. Then we had big dishwashers where we'd wash the silverware. Well, we had to put 31:00those things away. So, like I say, it was work, but I guess we were learning how to work at that time because we didn't have anything like that at home. We didn't hardly have any water to wash our dishes, or fire to heat up the water. You learned lots so when you go out in the world, whatever you do, you kind of know a little bit about it.

L. Durant:Did you get to eat the leftover food?

Durant:Leftover? No, I don't think. We might, cookies from the bakery or something.

L. Durant:And what about the coffee?

Durant:Oh, well, that came after the veterans came. We didn't ever get to drink coffee until the veterans came, and then they provided coffee for them. If you worked in the kitchen or the dining room, after the breakfast time if there's 32:00any left in the big coffee pots, we could drink it. We did. (Laughter)

Milligan:Was the coffee just for the veterans then?

Durant:Yeah, it was, during the mealtime. The rest of us couldn't drink the coffee.

Milligan:Interesting.

Durant:If we worked in there, we'd go help ourselves to what's left in the pot. (Laughter)

Milligan:Finish that off. So I want to get back a little bit. When you were young and you first came to campus, do you remember being assigned to your dorm? Did you have roommates?

Durant:Oh, yeah, I had eight.

Milligan:So what home were you assigned to?

Durant:Home Three. Home Three was the young ones. Our basement--we had to go down the stairs to go to the restroom, and we had to take our showers down in the basement. Sometimes it wasn't very warm. It was cold. We had to clean the 33:00pots, too, the toilet pots, I guess you call it. Anyway, we had details, but we didn't have to do it all the time. We were assigned a certain time, like six weeks doing this and doing that. We had to clean the toilets. Like I say, we had to keep our own buildings clean. Everybody had details. Some of the smart, popular ones got to be room matrons or to help the room matrons. They helped to keep us in order. We had to get on our details, or we'd get in trouble.

Milligan:So it sounds like you were rooming, you were in one of the rooms with seven other girls, so you all were in bunkbeds. Is that right?

Durant:Yes.

Milligan:Were you in bunkbeds, or everybody had their own twin bed?

Durant:We all had our own beds.

Milligan:Do you remember meeting the other girls for the first time? Did any of 34:00them know each other? Did you know any of them?

Durant:They might've known one another, but they didn't know me, and I didn't know them.

Milligan:How did you feel about that?

Durant:Well, I don't know. I adjust pretty good, except some of the group leaders, they made sure we'd get up early in the morning. That used to get me because they would throw the covers off of you, and it would be cold up there on the third floor of that dorm. The dorm was never really warm. They'd throw the blankets back off of you so you'd get up or wake up. That kind of aggravated me. (Laughs) I was a morning sleeper anyway.

L. Durant:Still is.

Milligan:I was about to say, sounds like from everything I've learned about you, you still are. (Laughter)

Durant:That's when we first got there. Eventually, we were assigned to rooms and 35:00different roommates. I guess they figured out who would be the best for our roommates.

Milligan:Was that the same year, the first year? Then you all got moved around later on?

Durant:Yeah. We just had one roommate then.

Milligan:So it was two in a room.

Durant:Across from the matron, there was one big room. The little ones, I don't know why it seemed like there was little kids. Had a room full of little kids across the hall from our matron.

Milligan:What age were the little ones you're talking about at that point?

Durant:Well, before I went up there, they had seventh and eighth graders. By the time I got there in ninth grade, there were some leftover seventh graders. They were younger than us, and they were smaller. They were a mess. They were a mess. They was always going upstairs sleeping with somebody else, and we wasn't 36:00supposed to do that. We were supposed to stay in our room and go to sleep at nine o'clock every night. Anyway, those kids were a mess, all those little ones, and they had a bunch of them in that dorm.

Milligan:Why do you think that they were (I don't know how to even categorize it) maybe not mischievous. Why do you think that they were more of a mess than the bigger kids?

Durant:It was like trying to keep a room full of little mice, I guess. (Laughter) After they'd turn out the lights and they think the matron's asleep or something in there, they wouldn't stay in their rooms.

Milligan:Did they get caught very often?

Durant:Sure, yeah, they did. The tattletales would find out about it, the girls that take care, see after our rooms. They had so many girls on each room. We were kind of responsible. The first year, we had two trainees, two girls that 37:00were older. They were training to--

Milligan:Be matrons?

Durant:--be matrons, I guess, or in charge. Yeah, they were there, too.

Milligan:So do you remember your matron from that time when you first got there?

Durant:Oh, yeah.

Milligan:Do you remember who it was?

Durant:Yeah, it was Ms. [Carrie] Robinson.

Milligan:Ms. Robinson was your matron?

Durant:Yes, I saw her, and I thought, "My gosh, she was smiling!" I couldn't believe she was smiling. (Laughter)

Milligan:I'll put that in context. We were watching the Oklahoma Historical Society. Someone had donated, like, a home movie from 1947 of one of the school's picnics. Norene saw her old matron and was really shocked that she had a big smile on her face. I think it took you a second to recognize her because you weren't used to seeing her [smile].

Durant:Yeah, she looked like she had something on her head.

Milligan:Yeah, it was a funny hat. Well, so that's sort of my question because I 38:00don't know how it was. You've talked a little bit about how it was to move from your house in Sperry that you grew up in to the campus of Chilocco. You know, it was bigger, but also there was more modern things. But moving from a house where, you know, you have a mom that's just giving you attention and your siblings, to moving to a place which you're in a massive building with a lot of other girls and you have one matron for that building and, you know, sort of different. People were helping her, but do you remember how you felt about that? Was that comfortable for you? Was it an adjustment?

Durant:[It was an adjustment, but] I expected a lot of that. I've heard about what it's like. See, when my cousin went there in the early '30s, I think, they 39:00had military type people there. When we were there, it was not different, but we didn't have to march around, but we had to stay on the sidewalk and not get on the grass.

Milligan:I have heard that so much.

Durant:Yeah, and those group leaders would yell at us if they [saw] us step off in the grass. (Laughs) They thought they were the boss, I guess. They were helping their matron. Yeah, we couldn't walk on the grass.

Milligan:Yeah, that's funny. So many people remember that part of it.

Durant:Really?

Milligan:Yeah, yeah.

Durant:Oh, my.

Milligan:Yeah, and it's funny. You know, when a lot of people go back for the reunion on the campus, they still have a hard time getting off the grass. Either that or it's gleeful to get off onto the grass.

Durant:Oh, yeah.

Milligan:Well, that helps me. They had described to you what to expect, so you 40:00were sort of mentally prepared on what you were walking into. Do you remember if it was an easy transition for you, or were there things that you liked and didn't like?

Durant:Well, it was fairly easy. I enjoyed it. There was several young folks like us, too, you know, so we got along pretty good, except they was always yelling at you if you got off the sidewalk. (Laughter) Mornings, well, we had to go to breakfast or else. Some of the girls would slip out the back door so they wouldn't have to go to breakfast. Well, I liked to have breakfast. You're working, and we had to walk everywhere or run if you was late. That campus is a pretty good size, so you'd rather eat.

Milligan:That makes sense.

Durant:I didn't have no trouble having some food. I ate whatever they had.

Milligan:Do you remember any teachers or classes that you had, any that sort of 41:00stick out to you?

Durant:Well, in the ninth grade, (it was in '43) I had this English teacher. He was a Cherokee. I think when I went back for tenth grade, there was another guy, Mr. Thorn. He was a Cherokee. You kind of relate if you saw that they were Indian, too. The lady at the laundry, she was a Potawatomi. She was light colored. She was really a nice person. We had to iron our shirts. They'd take them right out of the extractor, and we had to iron them dry. We had to show them to her before she'd let us do another one. They'd come off the big 42:00machines, and we folded sheets and folded towels. Well, of course, at home we didn't do that. My mother took care of all that, I guess, but we had to learn a lot of that.

Milligan:Yeah. So I'm curious just because of something you just said. Did you feel more comfortable with the teachers and the people who worked there that were Native American?

Durant:Well, I guess so. I was kind of used to the white people, too, at Sperry. There wasn't too many Indians who went to school there, but it didn't bother me any. I might have felt a little more comfortable, a little easier with the Indians. Our matrons weren't Indian. They were white people.

Milligan:Why do you think that that is?

Durant:What?

Milligan:Did you give much thought to, like, why were there--because it seems like you mentioned three people who were Indian.

Durant:They was in the education building. We had regular education subjects like English and math and science and all those. We had a music teacher, too. We had a music teacher at Sperry. I learned a lot of my basic music at Sperry because we had a music teacher there.

Milligan:Were you encouraged to sort of talk about, like, Indian cultural topics, or were you encouraged to (I'm trying to think) sort of talk about things you'd done at home? I mean, was there encouragement to sort of embrace 44:00your Indian heritage or--.

Durant:Well, everybody went to school there. If you wasn't Indian, you didn't go there, so you had a lot of Indian children your age and older and some younger.

Milligan:So you all talked quite a bit about where you were from with each other?

Durant:No, we did not. I didn't know what a lot of tribes some of them were. I never did know, but you could see after a while most of the Cherokee kids sort of favored one another. Then the Creek kids would--I found out a lot of those Creek kids, they went to church. Some of them's dads was preachers. I didn't know too much about the Creek side of the family. I found out that some of them were a lot smarter than I was. I guess that's why they was very smart. I was dumb.

Milligan:I bet that wasn't true.

Durant:Wasn't my fault.

Milligan:I bet that wasn't true.

Durant:Oh, well.

Milligan:Are you saying that you think they had more education before than you?

Durant:Some of them did. Some of them were less.

Milligan:Yeah. So that's a good question because you mentioned church. Was there a lot of people who went to church that were on campus there?

Durant:I don't know. They had Catholics. The Catholics had a separate church. They went at different times.

Milligan:There on campus.

Durant:Yeah, and Ms. Robinson was a Catholic. She took those Catholic kids under her wing. Then a Baptist preacher out of Ark City came out there for the rest of us. Sometimes it would be several [of us]. Then some Sundays, everybody was lazy. I think it might've been after we had our dances Saturday nights. (Laughs) 46:00If nobody came down to go to church, our matron used to get angry at us, and she'd make everybody go. She'd call everybody out of the halls and their room and make everybody go to church. (Laughs) Oh, goodness. She was going to be the boss or else.

Milligan:Did you grow up going to church?

Durant:No! No, my mother didn't go to church. She couldn't read the Bible if she had one.

Milligan:So how did you feel about being sort of made to go to church while you were at Chilocco?

Durant:Well, I just went along with the rest of the group. I didn't know anything about it for a long time.

Milligan:What are some of the things that you all did for entertainment? You mentioned dances. What else did you all do?

Durant:Well, one Saturday night--then the next weekend, we had movies at a school building, the auditorium. They had movies. Back then, they were pretty 47:00up-to-date movies we had. Yeah, we did things like that on Saturdays. Then we had the Flaming Arrow. It was a place, and it was in the girls' gym. We had a nickelodeon there. We had music. You could play music. Then on the end, they had a little store there, I guess a store, where you could buy pop or peanuts or chips or whatever to munch on. Usually, you could go there after we eat our evening meal. We could be over there. I can't remember whether it was one hour or two hours, but we could socialize with the other kids and get together at this Flaming Arrow.

Milligan:You mentioned being able to buy snacks and stuff. Were you able to earn 48:00money at school?

Durant:Sometimes we did.

Milligan:Doing what sort of things?

Durant:Well, I worked in different employees' homes. I used to work in Mrs. [Betty] Hollowell's house. I was a senior then. Then I did some ironing for Mrs. Correll. She was the postmaster then. I did some ironing for her and some house cleaning. They paid you, you know, three dollars a week. Back then, that was pretty good. I could buy a lot of pop for three dollars then.

Milligan:Yeah, and that was your superintendent's wife, correct?

Durant:Yeah. Then Mrs. Hollowell was a home ec teacher, I think, and then she was in charge of the poultry. You know, the guy that was supposed to be in 49:00charge of the poultry had to go to the service during the war, so Mrs. Holloway--. I can't think where else she worked. Probably in the home ec building. We had several home ec teachers. She probably was there.

Milligan:Do you remember how you felt about L. E. Correll as a superintendent? Did you have much interaction with him?

Durant:Well, yeah, he was out and [about]. He didn't stay to himself. He was pretty nice. You know, my husband and I went by to see him years after we were out of school. We went by Ark City to see them. We visited them. The last year I was up there, he couldn't hardly talk. He had a little pad. He'd hand you a pencil and the pad. He'd write this down. I don't know. He was just getting old, 50:00so he had a little tablet to write on. Yeah, he was really a nice person. He was up there for years and years, probably at least thirty years. We had a lot of other superintendents that didn't last that long.

Milligan:I'd heard he got to know the students, was known for getting to know the students on a personal level. It seems like you felt like he came and talked to you all and got to know you.

Durant:Mr. Correll?

Milligan:Yeah.

Durant:Yeah, he did. He was out to the picnic ground. He didn't stay home. He was out there with the rest of us. One time, (I was an errand girl a lot) I went into the main office. I was sneaking in there real quiet. I looked in his office 51:00and said, "Are you busy?" He said, "I try to stay busy." (Laughter) I always remember I was real quiet. I was a little bit bashful. I guess I had to go in for some reason or another. I don't remember now.

Milligan:That's funny.

Durant:"Are you busy?" "I try to stay busy." (Laughs)

Milligan:That's funny. Well, so I wanted to ask you about two things. One, what it was like taking that year off. So do you remember how you felt when you found out you had to go home to take care of your mom and you weren't going to be able to go back?

Durant:Well, I finished the ninth grade, and I went home. You go home for the summer. That's when she did the wash.

Milligan:Oh, she had her accident.

Durant:Yeah, and then she didn't feel too good. I remember Christmastime. 52:00Somehow or other she cut her hand, and it bled and bled. I remember that. Of course, then, you didn't go off looking for a doctor or a hospital or something. You just had to deal with it. She already had that bruise on her. That bruise was there for a while. It was not taken care of. Then later in the spring, she couldn't use her arm. It did something to her arm, so she was always holding that arm up. Anyway, I didn't go. My older sister, she was good for nothing. She couldn't do anything. She was married, and if she came out to help with Mother, she always fell asleep at night. She couldn't spend the night. She always fell asleep. Right at the last, somebody would sit up with her. Her husband would sit 53:00up sometimes.

Milligan:How much older is your sister than you?

Durant:Six years.

Milligan:Six years?

Durant:Yes.

Milligan:So you went home during the summer after your ninth-grade year. Then you decided to stay home and help your mom, or it was decided that you'd stay home and help your mom. Did you have any other siblings living at home at that time?

Durant:Yeah, I had a younger sister and a younger brother.

Milligan:That were both at home? How old were they in comparison to you? Do you remember?

Durant:Let's see--three and four years old. They were real close. Three and four years.

Milligan:They were--

Durant:Younger.

Milligan:--little.

Durant:Yeah.

Milligan:Yeah. So did you help take care of them, then, that year?

Durant:Probably. You know, we had peach trees, and we had lots of peaches when 54:00my mother was sick. I ended up canning a lot of those peaches. You can can peaches real easy and keep them. It's kind of like beans and other things. Green beans, you had to use a processor. Well, we didn't have one of those canning processors, but you can can fruit. We had berries. One thing about it, we did have some things on our farm, our land. We had berries, and we had plums, and we had peaches, besides our garden. It made good gardens in that area.

Milligan:So you stayed home with your mom that year, and then your mom passed away in September. Were you excited to go back to Chilocco? Did you think about doing anything else?

Durant:No. (Laughs)

Milligan:No?

Durant:I didn't know what I could do. I didn't have no money, no car. -- Well, 55:00that year my mother passed away, and my younger sister went to Chilocco [in 1945]. She was up there before I was.

Milligan:I was going to ask you.

Durant:She went on up there in August, and then I didn't go until almost the first of October.

Milligan:So your younger sister started Chilocco in her ninth-grade year in August when you came back to start your sophomore in September--

Durant:Yes.

Milligan:--so you were there together. Okay.

Durant:Yeah, we wasn't in the same building. She was in Home Four, and I was in Home Five.

Milligan:Did she go because of you?

Durant:Well, we were so poor we didn't have nothing to eat. We didn't have anything. You think my daddy would do the laundry? Well, just about half a mile, 56:00there was a house. This lady had a laundry house in the back of their house where people didn't have machines then, so that laundry was busy. That's where I took a lot of the laundry, up there. You know, one time I worked there for a little bit. She gave me ten dollars a week for taking care of the--. What you had to do, when somebody got through with the washing machines, you wash them out, and you wash the tub, and then put fresh water in there. Back then, people used starch. We had to make starch for the different people that wanted starch. I worked at that laundry for a little while. I took our own home laundry over there. My mother couldn't do no more then, and then my dad sure didn't do anything. My sister, she was old enough to go to Chilocco, but my little brother 57:00wasn't. Well, he went to Sperry school, but I don't know how he ever made it. I think the neighbors and his friends helped him a lot. At least it was within walking distance at the school. We had a bus that went by there if you'd get out there and catch the school bus. You could ride into town. It did go around. We lived closer to town. That bus would go south and west and back. It went clear around. If you can catch it, you had time to.

Milligan:My question, too, about your sister is did she choose to go to Chilocco because she had heard about it from you?

Durant:Oh, yeah.

Milligan:There was other places she probably could've applied to go through the 58:00BIA office.

Durant:Yeah, she probably could. I always wondered. Back then, you don't know. You don't have nobody speaking for you unless the Indian agent did. If you have to talk to him, you can talk to him or tell him what you need or something. No, I wish he had gone to an Indian school because I don't think he fit in. You know what? He was smart. Both my brothers were smart, and they could write. Their handwriting was really good. He joined the Navy when he was probably at least seventeen, I imagine.

Milligan:Your younger brother, like your older brother did?

Durant:Yeah, he went in the Navy. He was in the Navy for eighteen years.

Milligan:Both of your brothers went into the Navy?

Durant:Yes.

Milligan:So this was my other question for you. You've mentioned this a little bit, but I'd like to hear more about being in Chilocco when the war, World War II, disrupted--. There was a lot of students who left campus and went and served 59:00time in the military during the war and then came back. Some of them came back.

Durant:Yeah.

Milligan:Can you talk to me a little bit about, you know, how that felt to be a student at that time when they were leaving and coming back? Did that change things?

Durant:Well, it didn't for me.

Milligan:Well, when you first went, I think there was--. Let me see. You went in '43, so there were probably already a lot of students who had been drafted, right?

Durant:[Yes there] were. [Chilocco had a National Guard unit.]

Milligan:But when you came back in '45 and were there in '46 and '47, were some of those students starting to come back to campus?

Durant:Well, I guess they were. Yeah, I think Albert came back in the spring, and I think--. My brother-in-law went to Chilocco, too. Anyway, they came back 60:00in the spring of '46. Then they came on up to Chilocco that fall. They came back in the spring of '47. They had them all in a different building than the younger boys. [As older students, the veterans were assigned to Home 6.]

Milligan:So they were sometimes in their early twenties by that point, some of the guys that had been drafted and came back?

Durant:[Yes].

Milligan:I'm curious. Did that change the way that campus felt any? Did that change things for you day to day, to have sort of this new population come to campus?

Durant:No, not for me. I think some of the girls really fell for some of those guys, but I didn't. Nobody paid any attention to me.

Milligan:Well, you married somebody.

Durant:Well, that was a while. (Laughter) That was a while afterward. He showed that he cared about me, but he was not the lovey-dovey person like some [that 61:00are] always kissing your hand or holding to you or something. Whenever we had basketball games or something, he'd always come up and sit by me. My girlfriends, we'd go together from the dorm over to the boys' gym. He always comes up there and sits whenever he got--. He always showed that he cared about me. Then there were different ones that kept teasing me about him. There was other guys, too. There was one guy, he liked to dance. One of them had one [bad] eye. The girls would tease me. "Which eye do you think he's looking out of," or something because he had something wrong with one eye. They would tease me. 62:00Everybody's always teasing me about somebody.

Milligan:So what would a typical date look like in Chilocco?

Durant:A date?

Milligan:Yeah, how did you go out with boys because, you know, you talked about going to dances and girls falling for these guys coming back. How'd you date?

Durant:Well, we just went. All the girls would go, and then everybody just went on their own whenever they wanted to. Then they got together at the gym.

Milligan:For the dance.

Durant:Yeah.

Milligan:But what if a guy wanted to have some alone time with you, like go out and get to know you a little bit better? What would you do?

Durant:Well, we had the Flaming Arrow, so we got together every evening, and on Sunday evenings, we got to stay a little longer at the Flaming Arrow. You could just sit around and just hang out and dance or whatever.

Milligan:Your daughter just showed me a picture of your husband..

Durant:Well, that's my brother-in-law, that other one. He married my younger sister.

Milligan:Oh, they're right next to each other, yeah.

Durant:My younger sister did not finish [high school].

L. Durant:He introduced them.

Milligan:Is that the 1947 yearbook?

L. Durant:Yes. My uncle introduced them. --

Milligan:All right, so we are back from a short break, so I'm just going to recap a little bit. So we've talked a little bit just about your general Chilocco experience and then coming back, being on campus with your sister for [your] second [year]. I want to talk a little bit about you actually meeting your future husband because you referenced that a few minutes ago, and just, you know, other little things about your experience there and a little bit about what you've done since. Maybe let's start with meeting your husband. So it sounds like he was at war, right, so he was active during World War II. What 64:00part of the military was he in?

Durant:Army.

Milligan:So he was in the Army.

Durant:Yeah, he was in Europe.

Milligan:And he was in Chilocco before he [got drafted].

Durant:I didn't know him, but I used to hear people speak about him.

Milligan:Okay.

Durant:I didn't know him at that time.

Milligan:Was he part of the National Guard unit there on campus?

Durant:No, he wasn't. He was drafted.

Milligan:Okay. So you had heard about him. So he was part of the group that came back in the spring of 1947.

Durant:Yes.

Milligan:So how did you get to know him?

Durant:Well, you probably have heard this. We got to go to Arkansas City once a month. I didn't have any money. My sister said, "Well, go ahead and go, and Walter will buy us our lunch." I went on ahead with no money at all. We went on a bus that [took] us up there. We met at this particular café that's there. 65:00Don't remember the name of it now. Anyway, at this café, we met them. Albert and Walter was both sitting there, drinking their beer in this restaurant. We went and found them where they was at. That's how I first--. I've seen him on campus, but I didn't ever have this personal--. Anyway, that's where we met, [in Ark City].

Milligan:So who was Walter?

Durant:My brother-in-law.

Milligan:So he was your sister's boyfriend at that time, right?

Durant:Yeah.

Milligan:And then he was friends--

Durant:With Albert.

Milligan:--with Albert.

Durant:Yeah. Walter was in the Navy, but Albert was in the Army. They were in the same home, so they all kind of got acquainted with one another.

Milligan:So that's where you met him. So how did you start dating him--

Durant:Oh, well--.

Milligan:--other than him sitting next to you at the basketball games.

Durant:Well, he always thought he had to take me to all the parties.

Milligan:Did he ask you?

Durant:No! Sometimes he didn't. He'd just show up. He'd just show up. (Laughs)

Milligan:What if you had another date? What if you had another date planned?

Durant:Well, I did a time or two. (Laughs) I did at our graduation. I was supposed to be with this other guy that asked me, and then Albert--. No, this was his year.

Milligan:For his graduation?

Durant:Yeah. He came and got me. It probably was the prom. I came down the stairs, and there was Albert. I already told this other guy. His name was Gilbert. He was supposed to take me out. "Oh, my gosh, there's Albert." Albert, he thinks he owns me by that time. (Laughs)

Milligan:So what did you do?

Durant:I went with Albert.

Milligan:Poor Gilbert. What'd you tell him?

Durant:Well, I never did see him. (Laughs) I don't know whether he showed up 67:00later or not. Some of the kids did that. There used to be a word that you called that, when you'd go with somebody else. Anyway, that's what happened there. -- Oh, yeah, when I was graduating, Albert didn't come up. I really wanted him to come see me graduate, but he couldn't afford it. He was in Dallas, and he didn't have much money, so he didn't get to come. Anyway, this other guy was supposed to take me to the prom and senior activities. -- Albert's brother showed up. They had finished--I think his brother finished in '46. They got on campus. Well, John thought he was going to take me, and he did.

Milligan:Is that Albert's brother?

Durant:No. Albert's brother's name was Calvin. They called him Buck. Anyway, they came on campus so John ended up taking me to the prom that time. I couldn't stand to see the other guy after that. I was afraid I'd have to say something, or he'd say something, so I just ignored him.

Milligan:That's a small group of people.

Durant:The thing is, he had not been my friend. I think he must have been in the service. He wasn't back on campus very long. Anyway, I felt bad about some of them.

Milligan:So after Albert graduated, were you all trying to still see each other? Were you talking? Were you sending letters?

Durant:Well, yeah. He wasn't much of a writer. He couldn't even spell Tulsa half 69:00the time. He put "Tulas." He went to country school, and they did not teach them very good in these little country schools. He couldn't spell too good. Neither did Buck. I used to see Buck's letters that he used to write to the girls when he was in the service. You couldn't hardly--. We'd say, "Hey, what's this look like?" We'd try to figure out what his letters were like. His writing was so bad. Well, Albert's wasn't much better. He always had an odd way of letting me know that he cared about me. He went home and stayed there for one summer. He helped his brother-in-law put in a field of corn there or something. Anyway, he came to Dallas because he knew a good guy from McAlester. I think he was on his 70:00way to California because he said the brother lived out there. He was going to go out there where Joe was at, but then he stayed here and went to electrical school. He had to get that through the GI education thing.

Milligan:Yeah, the GI Bill?

Durant:Yeah, so he went to electrical school. When I graduated, I went home with my younger sister. She and Walter had married, so I went home with her. I didn't have but three dollars when I finished the twelfth grade, and that's from working in one of the homes for three dollars that week.

Milligan:Oh, gosh.

Durant:I went to Tulsa, and for a while, I worked in a drug store. I worked there before. They hired me back, so I worked in a drug store. My older sister 71:00wanted me to come and help her pay the rent where she was renting at. What is that?

L. Durant:Showing her Dad.

Durant:Oh. That's not a good picture of me. There are some better ones. I forgot what I was saying.

Milligan:So you went back with a friend? Your sister was living in Tulsa.

Durant:She wanted me to come down and help her pay the rent, and she was going to give me a place to live. In the meantime, my dad had sold my mother's land, which we should've gotten, but we didn't. There was no will or anything back then. He got half of everything, and the other half we had to divide up five ways. We didn't get very much. I put mine in a bank there in Tulsa. I think it was a little over a hundred dollars. I thought it was a lot of money. I put it in the bank, and I just lived on what I worked.

Then one of my girlfriends from Chilocco, she and I roomed together. A long time ago, we had rooming houses. You'd just rent rooms. Anyway, she was upstairs, so when her girlfriend got married, she moved downstairs with me. We shared the rent there. Then we went to the corner store. We had kitchen privileges. We went to the little corner store and bought some stuff to eat. At school, we didn't get to have--. I liked fried eggs with potatoes and all that good stuff, so that's what we'd do. We'd have breakfast on weekends.

She worked at Kress (department store), and I got a job at the phone company. That lady at the store told me, she said, "Why don't you put an application in 73:00at the phone company?" I didn't even know, you know, they were hiring or anything, so that puts a bug in my ear to go over there. That's what I did. I had to take a spelling test, and I passed all of the spelling except Pittsburgh. There's different ways you spell Pittsburgh, so she let me by on that one because it was different ways to spell Pittsburgh. I made all of them. I was a good speller. I learned that at Sperry.

Milligan:Were the things that you learned at Chilocco helpful for you after you left?

Durant:Oh, sure, basic education. We got that basic in elementary school, our math and spelling and reading and all that stuff. We did all that.

Milligan:Your basic, but then when you went to Chilocco--. You talked about some of the skills that you had to learn.

Durant:Well, we still had math and English, science, biology. We had biology, and then we had music. We had a gymnasium, and we did things in gym.

L. Durant:You got to work in different departments. You had that photo of you working in the health department.

Durant:Where?

L. Durant:In Chilocco. You got to go to the different departments.

Durant:Oh, yeah. Well, yeah. I worked at dining. I worked every place. In four years, you work everywhere there. I worked in the dining room two or three times. I worked at the hospital. I worked in the laundry.

L. Durant:Daycare, superintendent's office.

Durant:Errand girl, I was an errand girl. Then my senior year, I worked two semesters in the principal's office in the education department.

Milligan:Oh, yeah. Well, I think from what I understand, after your mom died, you stayed summers over at Chilocco.

Durant:No. This was just the first summer after my mother passed away because I 75:00was late going to school. I didn't get to school until about the first of October.

Milligan:Right.

Durant:Instead of not passing, they let me make it up, so that's where I learned to can. We froze vegetables. You had to steam them and then cool them and then pack them. Then we cut up chickens, and we froze chickens for the freezer. I mean, you learn from these. It's not book learning, but you learn a lot of things.

Milligan:Right. So instead of having to retake the year, they just let you stay longer.

Durant:Yeah, the summer.

Milligan:So the next year, did you go to Tulsa during the summer then? Let me see. That would've been--.

Durant:No, I went back to school.

Milligan:Between sophomore and junior, you stayed during the summer at Chilocco. Between junior and senior year, did you stay at Chilocco, too, or did you go somewhere else?

Durant:No, I went to Tulsa.

Milligan:You went to Tulsa.

Durant:Yeah, I worked at the drug store there in downtown Tulsa.

Milligan:Okay, and then after you graduated, you went back to work there for a 76:00little while.

Durant:Yes.

Milligan:Okay. That's what you were saying. Got it.

Durant:You go back where you're familiar with, and then that's when I ended up at the phone company. --

Milligan:So in between, you were living with your sister for a little while.

Durant:Oh, no, not very long. She didn't like the place. It was too much or something, so she moved out, and I stayed put. This is when Virgie, my friend Virgie, moved downstairs with me. She and I roomed together, and we shared the rent. We went to Cain's [Dance] Academy a lot. We went to the dances. We had dances on Thursday night and Saturday night back then, and we'd always go eat together. Whenever it was her payday, she'd pay for the food, and if it was my payday, I'd pay for the food. One time, we was eating in this particular place, and I had lima beans and ham, I think it is. I don't know what happened, but I 77:00was cutting up the ham and my beans, and my fork and knife slipped, and beans went everywhere. Oh, my gosh. I couldn't believe I was in this restaurant and these big ol' lima beans--. (Laughs) Oh, my gosh, I couldn't believe I did that. They had to clean up after me. I just wonder if Virgie remembers it.

L. Durant:The first time you went back the summer your mother wasn't at home, can you talk about that?

Durant:Talk about what?

L. Durant:The first time you went back home in the summer after your mother passed.

Durant:Oh, after I'd been at school a while?

L. Durant:Well, I know you mentioned the first Christmas that she wasn't there.

Durant:Christmas, oh.

L. Durant:That was not a--.

Durant:Oh, it was sad. It just seemed like nobody did anything. Nobody had anything.

L. Durant:You went to Aunt Minnie's?

Durant:No, she never did pay any attention to us.

L. Durant:That's too bad.

Milligan:So that was just a few months after you came back to school after your mom died. You came back in October. You went back home for Christmas?

Durant:Christmas, yeah.

Milligan:Did your sister and you both go?

Durant:Yes. I think so. I don't remember, but I remember me and my youngest brother went out to Amarillo. My older brother was in Amarillo. He was working there. After he got back from the Navy, he went out there. He had married before he went in the Navy, and they had one little boy. Anyway, we got the bus and went out there to Amarillo and stayed with him for a while during that summer. I always remember he had some kind of a car, but it wasn't air-conditioned. We come back to Tulsa, and I mean it was hot. (Laugh). Yeah, that spring after he 79:00came home, he come up to Chilocco to get us. He had that--I don't even know what kind of a Chevy it was, but it was an old Chevrolet. Some kind of car, but it wasn't air-conditioned. He was driving about fifty miles an hour. Back then, I thought it was really fast. I wasn't used to riding in a car. (Laughs)

L. Durant:You were holding onto your hat.

Durant:We looked at one another, and I thought, "Oh, my gosh, he's driving fast. Something happened to him while he was in the Navy." (Laughter) I blamed it on the Navy.

L. Durant:I don't think he drove slow after that.

Durant:That was along about February that he let us go home to visit with him, when he finally come--but, you know, the war was over. Well, it was over when Mom was in the hospital in August. Then it was over in September. Anyway, he 80:00didn't get to come home until the next spring. I asked him, I said, "How come you didn't get to come home when the other guys did? What was you doing at that time?" He said, "We were--." What's the word? They were--taking people out of Japan.

Milligan:Evacuating?

Durant:Yeah, evacuating. That's what that ship was doing. There were so many ships during the war, they all couldn't come into the shipyards, so they had to take turnabout, anyway, to come in. That's what he was doing, evacuating people from Japan. He finally got to come home the following February, so they let us go home for a few days to visit with him.

Milligan:Oh, that was good. So we're almost out of time, but I wanted to just close this last little bit because you talked a little bit about Albert moving 81:00to Dallas and you moving to Tulsa. At some point, you changed that up a little bit because you married and had children.

Durant:Well, yeah. He used to come see me when I was in Tulsa when he was able. He rented a room in a house, too. This lady that owned it, she was an older lady. She didn't drive, but she had a nice car. He used to drive her around in her car. She had a nice little Dodge, I think it was. Sometimes he went home to McAlester to visit, and she didn't mind him using her car because when she wanted to go anyplace, he would take her. Anyway, he came to see me. One time, I guess, he came on to Tulsa instead of staying in McAlester. He just came on to 82:00Tulsa. (Laughs) Anyway, that was another weekend. After that--.

L. Durant:That was only about a year, though, wasn't it, that you had a distant relationship?

Durant:A year?

L. Durant:It was a year.

Durant:Oh, we'd just call one another up every once in a while. I worked for the phone company. I had my own phone.

L. Durant:Oh, you got to make a few personal calls.

Durant:Oh, yeah.

L. Durant:Okay.

Durant:Yeah, we did.

L. Durant:And he had a phone? Was there a phone in Big Mama's house?

Durant:I guess he used Big Mama's. I don't remember, wherever it was. We had payphones back then. You could call anybody if you had the money. You can call from anyplace.

Milligan:So how did he lure you down to Texas, because I'm assuming he did, considering that's where you live now?

Durant:Well, yeah. I think I came to Texas in March on my birthday, my twenty-first birthday. After then, we decided to get married, so I went back 83:00home. I had to think about that for a while because I had another boyfriend on the line. (Laughter) You remember James? James Edwards?

L. Durant:I thought he was already over.

Durant:I had to write James and let him know we were going to get married.

L. Durant:Oh, that's right. The "Dear John" letter.

Durant:James was in the Navy. He used to send me gifts, I don't know how come. Every birthday, he'd send me some kind of a card, greeting card.

L. Durant:So she had to send a "Dear John" letter.

Durant:Yeah, I had to send him a "Dear John." I always heard of "Dear John" letters, but I had to write that one. Here's the thing. James and Albert were at Chilocco at the same time, and they both worked at the power plant. James used 84:00to holler out the window at me, and he was teasing me about Albert. Then later on, I saw James in Tulsa, and he decided he liked me.

L. Durant:But you got married in May, so you had just a March-to-May courtship. You got married in May, the first part of May, in 1949.

Milligan:So you came home--.

Durant:Well, I had to go back to work, and he did, too, I guess.

Milligan:So you came back from Dallas, decided you were going to write James a letter and tell him you're getting married, and then two months later went down and got married.

Durant:He came up there.

L. Durant:To Tulsa.

Durant:He came to Tulsa.

Milligan:Oh, he came to Tulsa.

L. Durant:Got married in Tulsa.

Durant:Yeah, we got married in Tulsa. Well, he had managed to get a car, a '48 Chevrolet. He had a down payment on it when he came to get me. All I had, I put in the trunk of the car. His sister and Clifford were out in West Texas somewhere towards the panhandle. Borger. Borger, Texas. Anyway, we went out there to see them, and then we came all the way back to Dallas.

L. Durant:And who was it that was at your wedding? There was somebody that--.

Durant:Wilma's mother, Ms. Daniels.

Milligan:Well, I hate at this point to have to wrap it up, but we've got to let them go. So was it an overall good experience for you, or were there things that 86:0085:00you wished were different?

Durant:Oh, I don't have any different.

Milligan:All right.

L. Durant:Well, your mother might not have died.

Milligan:Well, that.

Durant:It's just what we had at home could never compare with all we received at Chilocco, besides physical things and an education. The thing is, you learned how to be with people, how to get along with people, and you have to forgive. If they don't forgive you, okay. Don't worry about it. (Laughs)

Milligan:All right. I really appreciate your time today, and this has been really interesting.

Durant:Thank you.

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

Mrs. Durant: provided the following written comments to supplement her interview.

Durant:Home life: urban life. Small town near Tulsa, [Oklahoma]. Elementary public school/and [through] the eighth grade. Was in the spelling bee. Had little to eat and not much clothing. Had no water or electricity. My father made a dug well for water.

W[orld] War broke out, so life was worse. My older bro[ther] went into the Navy in 1944.

My mother died while my bro[ther] was on a ship in the Pacific. Mother ended up with cancer, [due] to falling on a washtub. She passed on Sept[ember] 15, 1945. My father was not much on raising my younger sister and me.

1945: Thank God, I was accepted to Chilocco. My younger sister (1946) came up to Chilocco later.

This was a very different experience for me. My first day, I was assigned to a dormitory with about eight girls, on the third floor of Home 3. We had student group leaders for each floor. They were suppose[d] to be helping our house matron. Each day we had to arise, get dressed, make up our beds before breakfast. Each one was assigned a detail, then go to classes by eight o'clock. We went to classes until eleven thirty, lunch, and then to our vocation classes by one p.m. until three thirty p.m.

Vocation classes, we called work. We either went to the laundry to iron shirts or fold sheets and towels. Mrs. G. was a really nice lady, or some of us would work in the large dining room and always plenty to do there. Some of us helped the nurse at the clinic. (Luckily, I got to be an errand girl. That was doing an easy job but did have lots of walking. I liked being errand girl. I got to explore the campus which was like going to different shops where the guys learn to paint, carpentry, auto mechanics, printing, power house operations, and even to the main office. (Sept[ember] -- Mr. Correll, Mr. Correll was a real nice guy.

There was always different activit[ies] going on. [Saturday nights] we either had dances in boys' gym, or movies the next Saturday. We had [two] picnics, one in the fall and one in spring. We girls could wear slacks on picnic days (no jeans).

Also had church every Sunday. Some Sundays no one came down to church, so the mean matron made everyone go. We had to be decent dressed. My first encounter with religion. My parents did not go to church. We were raised in the Indian way. My mother did not speak English.

After the war was over, some veterans came back to Chilocco to finish their education and to receive their vocation certificates. One summer I stayed at Chilocco to make up for being late to school the previous school year. My mother passed (died) the Sept[ember] before, which made me a month late for school. That summer we learned how to freeze vegetables, and we learned to prepare chickens for the freezer. That means we learned how to cut them up.

We had a social place they called the Flaming Arrow and was equipped with a nickelodeon and a small snack store, which offered soda drinks, candy, and different sorts of chips. We could dance, or just a place to hang out with friends in the evening after supper. We only had an hour on school days, but we could stay longer on Sunday evenings.

While I was at Chilocco, the government brought several Navajo children to attend school there. The ages or grades were from elementary [through] junior [high] grades. The Navajo program came with their instructors and sponsors. They had a separate school building. Miss Barbor matron in Home 5, had been an [employee] in Arizona previous years before.

What we had at home could never compare with all we received at Chilocco, nice clean beds, three meals a day, very good employees, and an education far more than at home, not only book learning, but much more.