McGee, Pearl Johnson
Born: 1912
Date Interviewed: February 23, 2003
Interviewer: Lisa Marie McGee Everett (Mrs. McGee’s granddaughter)
Q: What’s your name?
A: Pearl McGee.
Q: What year were you born?
A: 1912.
Q: And where did you live?
A: Marlow, Oklahoma.
Q: Did you live on a homestead?
A: I lived in a house in town.
Q: Do you know when your parents came to Oklahoma?
A: Not exactly.
Q: Do you know if they were born here?
A: No, they weren’t.
Q: Where were they born?
A: My daddy was born in Texas, I believe, and my mother was born in Arkansas.
Q: Do you think they came here during the land run?
A: No.
Q: Did they come after?
A: Yes.
Q: What can you tell us about growing up? Where did you go to school?
A: I went to school at the same school until I finished the eighth grade, from the first to the eight grades. I went to school when I lived with my aunt in Marlow for three years. Then when we lived in town I went to school there . Then after that my daddy moved to Central High and I went to school the last part of the eighth year at Central High. Then I graduated from Central High in 1934.
Q: So when you graduated, you went until the twelfth grade, right?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you have a job growing up or did you just help around the house?
A: I just worked around the house.
Q: What was it like for you growing up?
A: Well, we had a good time. My daddy was a farmer. We thought we had everything that everybody else had. But we had play parties and things for entertainment. We didn’t go to the picture show very much. I didn’t like them.
Q: Why was that?
A: I was too slow to keep up with them.
Q: Were they silent movies then still?
A: They were at the start but they got to where they had lots of other kind of movies.
Q: What do remember about the dust bowl? Do you remember that?
A: Well, yes, that was, we was of age in the dust bowl, but we wouldn’t as bad off as they were back further west. About 200 or 300 miles more, it was really worse there. Yeah, we could do our laundry and hang it on the line and let it dry out and it wouldn’t get dirt on it much. Lots of people went west for their health and just plain curiosity.
Q: What about, do you remember the Depression? Did it affect your family?
A: Well, we just had hard times just like everybody else. We didn’t have much money.
Q: So that was kind of normal for you?
A: Yeah. But my daddy had milk cows. We milked cows. We had the calves to sell. We used to butcher a calf a year. There was seven of us in the family.
Q: So there were five brothers and sisters?
A: Five brothers and sisters and mama and daddy. I had three brothers and four sisters.
Q: What would you say is the most memorable time during your childhood? Good or bad?
A: Well, I believe it was good. It may have looked like we was living hard, but we was happy. And I think as long as you’re happy, that’s what counts you know. We had momma and daddy and boys and girls. We all loved school.
Q: Did you ever want to go to college or any thing like that?
A: I never had any idea of that cause I knew I couldn’t afford it, and I was fixing to get married anyway and I didn’t want to go to college.
Q: How did you meet Grandpa?
A: I think that he picked us up going home from a basketball game one night and took us home.
Q: How much older was he than you?
A: Eight years.
Q: What did he do for a job?
A: Just a farmer and helped his daddy. Mostly helped his daddy. He was thirty-one and his daddy wasn’t able to do anything.
Q: Were you worried about him being drafted or anything?
A: No, this happened after the war quit. 1934 was when we got married.
Q: So the year you graduated high school you got married?
A: Yeah.
Q: How long were you married?
A: Till he died, when he was 81.
Q: But do you know how many years that was?
A: No.
Q: So you were married in 1934 and he died in 1983?
A: Yeah, that’s how long I was married.
Q: Now, when we talked about the war, you said it was over by ‘34?
A: Well, yes. My oldest brother was going to have to go in the next time they called them up, but they never had to call him. He was about a year older than Melvin.
Q: How many kids did you have?
A: Seven.
Q: Describe what your life was like during the early married years?
A: Melvin was a farmer, we done like farmers done. The first old house we lived in, there was three rooms like these, and back behind that there was another house with three rooms sitting beside that one. We had six rooms there but we didn’t use the others, because they weren’t fixed up. We fixed that one up when we got married and moved there. We had that one three room house there for a couple of years. We moved down on the Indian lease, but I forgot the year.
Q: What made you decide to lease the Indian land?
A: He had some brothers and sisters married living off down there. They had a lease and we wanted one. We got one and moved off down there. I can’t remember how long we stayed there.
Q: So how many of the kids were born on Indian land?
A: I think just Ernest and Clyde, maybe. Then we got a school lease. I don’t know how many years we lived on that school lease.
Q: So then you had a school lease?
A: We had a school lease. I don’t know how many years we lived on that school lease.
Q: At least till the late 70’s, right?
A: Yeah, cause Clyde was born there and Helen was born there. Well, all seven of my kids were born in Central High district. They’ve done away with that school district now. Yeah, haven’t even got Central High on the map.
Q: Do you remember when you got electricity?
A: Yes.
Q: What year was that?
A: That was the day my daddy died, either that or the day he was buried. He was buried in – I’ll have to go look at the records and see.
Q: So, was it in the ‘50s or ‘60s?
A: Well, I would have to . . . Only person I know is Bill that would know the date and all.
Q: So basically growing up and raising your family, you guys stayed right there, right around Marlow?
A: Yeah.
Q: How about the indoor plumbing? Do you remember when you got that?
A: No, but seems like you would remember that!
Q: Well, it was after the war, right [meaning World War II]?
A: Well, I think so.
Q: But you had electricity before [the 1960s], right?
A: Oh yeah. I kind of believe we may have had electricity before [one of my sons] left home. I’m not sure about that. He would know.
Q: I think he said he left about 1961, is that right?
A: Yeah, sounds like that about right.
Q: [Your husband got a job - ] he was a janitor?
A: Yeah, he went down to Duncan. He had two jobs because he had to. He worked the farm and he had the janitor job. He just lacked one year having a full school term year, twelve years.
Q: What did ya’ll use for transportation?
A: I think he had a pickup. We had a car though.
Q: What did you use growing up for transportation?
A: Ernie’s car. Ernie had an old Chevrolet pickup and we drove it.
Q: While he was in the service?
A: No, while he lived at home. Where we went he went too or he went without us. Melvin had a wreck. There was a basketball game that night, one at Lawton and one at Duncan and this car came over the line, Melvin was at about Pumpkin Center and a car run into him and tore his car up. We didn’t have a car after that. Ernest got him a car, and we just used his car.
Q: Well, do you remember during the ‘60’s, ya’ll didn’t have black people living there, but do you remember all the fussing about it?
A: No, I don’t remember that.
Q: So that didn’t affect you guys?
A: It didn’t bother us any. No, we didn’t have any blacks. Seem like one black couple lived there, but I don’t remember..
Q: How about the Indians being around?
A: No.
Q: Did you see much of that?
A: No, we didn’t. If there was any Indians then some of them were in some other towns. We didn’t have any.
Q: What was the first biggest trip you remember taking leaving Marlow?
A: Probably the one we took to Oklahoma City after Melvin died. We owned the house there in Marlow, and the year after he died, I couldn’t live there year [crying], so Linda moved me to her house and I lived there till I moved over to Jimmy’s.
Q: What would you say is the hardest thing you can remember in your life?
A: Well, losing your family. [Crying] losing my home after my husband died. And see Jesse buried. That was one of the saddest thing I was ever at. I don’t know what happened that morning, but something happened to him. He had a heart attack or something, but he wasn’t going to have to live as long as he thought he would in torment. [crying]
Q: He had a car wreck?
A: Yeah, he had patches all over the side of his face after he had that car wreck.
Q: So that was the saddest thing you can remember?
A: That was the saddest funeral I ever went to.
Q: I know you’ve been a few places because we went to Oregon one year, but...
A: Yeah, and I went to some town in, not in Oregon, but the one before this one out here.
Q: You went to Colorado?
A: Colorado, yeah I went several different places.
Q: So why would you say that you always come back home?
A: Well, it’s home. It was just home.
Q: That’s home? You never wanted to live anywhere else?
A: No.
Q: So if you could change one thing, what would you probably change?
A: The year that Melvin had his bad health and was in the nursing home all the time. He was in there for years. Six years.
Q: Well, [what were] some funny things that happened? Even as a kid growing up?
A: Well, see I had a stroke and that affected me for two years. I don’t guess I knew anything at Linda’s – I forgot everything I ever knew.
Q: Well, you said you didn’t like the show [movies]. Tell me about the first time you went to the show.
A: Florence liked Roy McGhee, so he had a friend that lived a quarter of a mile up the road and his name was George Johnson. Anytime I’d go with George, Florence would get to go with Roy. The only reason Roy wanted me to go was so Florence could go with him. He was from a big family and Roy was too so we had quite a bit of fun. Roy had an old T Model Ford.
Q: Did any of your siblings go to college?
A: Linda may have. I don’t remember about the others. Jesse’s first husband got killed in the war.
Q: And he killed in the Korean War?
A: Yes. The Korean war, just barely, he didn’t last but about three months. He just kind of got over there and got killed when he first got over there. He wasn’t gone six months I know. Then she married his buddy that lived there in the community with him, after she buried him. They got married and he lived a long time.
Q: What do you remember about prices? What did things cost, like bread, or did you make most of your bread?
A: No, we didn’t. Oh, we probably made a lot of it too, hot rolls and stuff. Bread was three loaves for a quarter.
Q: And that was about the ‘30s or ‘40s?
A: The ‘40s.
Q: Did you guys buy gas, gasoline?
A: $5.00 a gallon.
Q: $5.00 a gallon?
A: No, for two gallons, no, for five gallons.
Q: So it was a dollar a gallon? Wow.
A: Just about.
Q: But could you go pretty far on your gas?
A: Yeah, we did pretty good. We’d do all of our chasing around, but we didn’t do a big lot of chasing around, just to town and back.
Q: What about when you got the TV? You got one of those big console TV?
A: No, we didn’t get a great big one, I don’t think we did.
Q: What do you remember watching a lot?
A: We liked to watch those programs that come on at night. Like Lawrence Welk, and well, some of the main ones that used to come on. Seems like there was a Brady Bunch that was on to,
Q: And you didn’t work at all?
A: Oh, yes, I did.
Q: What did you do?
A: I was a dishwasher. I washed dishes, for, gosh, I don’t know how many years.
Q: Was it in a restaurant?
A: Yes. Taylor’s Café, a long time ago. I washed dishes there for twenty years.
Q: Twenty years?
A: Yeah. They tried to get me to take the cooking job, but I didn’t want it. He said I’ll pay you the rest as the others, but I said no.
Q: What did you get paid?
A: $25.00 a week, whether you earned it or not! Then they’d hold out income tax!
Q: What did you think when you got older and realized that wasn’t very much money?
A: Well, I knew it wasn’t, but I didn’t have any better sense. Yeah, I could have bought stuff in bulk and I could of had that cooking job if I’d wanted it, but I didn’t want it. I guess most exciting thing I done was I was talking to somebody and we was supposed to be washing dishes and I pointed my finger and got it caught in the fan!
Q: Let’s go back to when you said Bobby Gene was born. You said he was the second one, so he would have been born in 1936? What happened to him?
A: Well, he died. There was a flu epidemic that summer and he died from that.
Q: From the flu?
A: Yeah. Really he died rather died from having surgery because they operated on his appendicitis. We really should of tried too sued the doctor, but we didn’t.
Q: How old was he when he died?
A: Three.
Q: He had caught the flu and then they went in and took his appendix out?
A: No. He was in the hospital for that and they just decided. I don’t know why they done it. Dr. Tally did the surgery.
Q: When we were talking earlier about modern utilities and stuff, what was it like not having any electricity?
A: Well, everyone didn’t have it so you didn’t notice. We didn’t have much stuff. I can’t remember when we got our first refrigerator or anything.
Q: What did you do with your food before you got an electric refrigerator?
A:. We just cooked it up for a meal at a time or just for the day or so.
Q: Did you go to the store a lot more?
A: No, we just bought stuff we could just cook up then. We made cream on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Q: So you sold cream on?
A: Yeah. Tuesdays and Saturdays.
Q: So how much do you think you made off of selling cream?
A: Well, we made a living at it. Yeah, we did. Melvin’s mother had five cows, and she milked two of ours and we milked some of hers. Hers wasn’t as good milkers as ours.
Q: What was your average week like? What did you do from the beginning of the week to the end of the week?
A: Just about the same thing every day. I went to work and I’d clean the house and take my washing to do. Sometimes I’d take his mother and she’d do hers. Sometimes I did hers because she didn’t have very much. I never did wash on the board very much. I never was very crazy about doing that.
Q: So you washed by those wringer washing machines?
A: Yeah. The wringer types.
Q: You had to go to town to do that?
A: Oh yeah.
Q: You cleaned the house?
A: Yeah. You’d then do it over again. You’d wash the milk buckets and put them up. I’d wash the cream separator and put it up.
Q: You did a lot of canning didn’t you?
A: Oh, yeah. One summer I canned fifty-four quarts of green beans.
Q: And so you grew a garden too?
A: Yeah. We had chickens and eggs. When we got married, Melvin’s mother gave me twelve laying hens and a rooster.
Q: That was your wedding gift?
A: In the spring, we bought twenty-five.
Q: What kind of meals did you have? What did you have for breakfast?
A: Bacon and eggs, bowl of cereal, or oatmeal, milk.
Q: Did you have big meals?
A: No. If we got a hamburger, we thought that was big deal the whole family. Now, I don’t even like hamburgers.
Q: What was your most memorable moment with your children?
A: Oh he [their father] did anything in the world with them. Play with them.
Q: Did you ever think he was too rough, as far as punishment?
A: No. No, I don’t.
Q: You said that economic problems didn’t bother and you didn’t see any racial problems because you didn’t have any?
A: No.
Q: What do you remember about the most outstanding thing about your parents?
A: Well, they were a real good Christian family, that’s about all I know. They treated all of us kids alike, I thought.
Q: Was that strange for you for [your sister] Ruth to marry a Mexican man? Did that bother you?
A: No, he was a soldier boy, He was just as tough as meat. She started going with him over in Lawton and she just kept going with him. Next thing, you know they were married. She ran off from home. She got pregnant. My brother went somewhere and brought her back and kept her there in Lawton. That’s as much as I know. .She’s married to this Mexican man and he’s a nice looking man, and polite, and a good provider for his family. They have two kids. When your kids get out into the world, you never know what’s going to happen.
Q: Was that scary for you when your first child left home?
A: No, he started out, he was going to go out there east of Marlow to go to work. He said, Mama I can go to work at the oil field if can get me a pair of steel toed shoes. So I went to the store and bought him a pair of steel toed shoes. First thing you know, he was out working. And he just kept going. Why next thing you know, him and Sharon Kay were going to together.
Q: So how about when [my] dad went into the military, did it worry you that he might not come back?
A: There was nothing, I could do about it.
Q: What did you think when he brought home a new wife?
A: I hadn’t met her. .She took lots of responsibility coming out here not knowing anybody. Come out to introduce yourself. That’s way you have to struck it if that the way you want to go.
Q: Do you think she had a lot different values that what you did?
A: No, I think she had more nerve. Got a lot of nerve like that.
Q: Did you like having the TV better or the radio?
A: Well, I don’t I like the TV cause you can see things flash by once and a while. But, I don’t care if the TV or radio either one is playing. Some of those programs I usually watch.
Q: What about when you listened to the President on the radio?
A: I’m too slow, I can’t keep up with that. If I could keep up with it I’d like it. I have to hear it plainer that they give it, but of course they couldn’t.
Q: How about President Kennedy getting shot? Did you even vote much back then?
A: Not like we do now.
Q: But there wasn’t much desire then for you to vote?
A: No. I guess we went to the Presidential election and voted.
Q: Do you remember Pearl Harbor?
A: I just remember it happened, but I don’t remember much about it.
Q: It didn’t affect you guys much because it was a whole another world away?
A: Yea. Kind of like what’s happening now. These other places has got it and it affects different people. I guess we will always be in engaged in some kind of a war.
Q: How do you feel about that?
A: Well, I don’t know. I guess it’s all right if they want to do but I wouldn’t do it.
Q: Can you think of another memory that sticks out in your mind somewhere?
A: Not that I can think of right now.
Q: Tell us about your phone and how your life changed from when you first got one?
A: We had a phone for quite a while. We got one petty soon after they got the phone line. Son B early >60’s, one of those party lines. There were not enough people to have your own line.
Mrs. McGee’s son, Ernest, joined the interview.
Q: Tell us about your phone and what it was like when you first got one?
Ernest: We got the phone in the early 60s. We were on one or those party lines. Finally, they got a line of their own.
Q: How was it having other people share a [telephone] line with you?
McGee: It wasn’t bad. We didn’t have any busybodies on our line.
Ernest: They didn’t use it to tell all their business over, if they needed to use it to tell somebody something, they got it done and got off it. They didn’t talk two or three hours at a time on it.
McGee: I know some people who stayed on the telephone all the time.
Q: Did you always have indoor plumbing?
Ernest: No, we had an outhouse. We got that in the ‘60’s, about ‘63.
Q: That’s when you got indoor plumbing?
Ernest: They built a room on the house and got indoor plumbing. We had water in the house, but we didn’t have hot water, just cold water. But when we got indoor plumbing, we got a water heater, bathtub, and all that and we didn’t have to use the No. 2 washtub.
Q: How was it growing up back then?
Ernest: Turned fire off at night, and get up and build a fire or light stove early in them morning, and put the water bucket on stove to thaw it out so you could make coffee. Go out and milk four or five cows every morning, feed the chickens and hogs, separate the milk and hurry up and get ready for school.
Q: How early did you get up in the morning?
Ernest: We were up by five o’clock in the morning.
Q: How long was school?
Ernest: Caught the bus at eight o’clock and got home about four o’clock.
Q: What did you do after you got home from school?
Ernest Chores, did all the chores. Milked the cow, separated the milk, and gather eggs. We had all colors of chickens, and ducks, and guineas. We had a collie dog that liked to go rabbit hunting, and for a body guard she took a sheep and a pig with her. The dog would take off after a rabbit, and the sheep ran after the dog, and the pig ran after the sheep. The sheep and the pig didn’t know what they were running after. The didn’t know but what they were dogs. They were just big old pets.
Q: Did you have a lot of animals?
Ernest: Bunches of cows, hogs, one sheep, and one pet pig.
McGee: One year we had more pigs than I ever saw.
Q: Did you and your siblings get along when you were little?
Ernest: We did or we got our backside whipped.
Q: Is there any stories you have to tell? Any kind that you want to tell. Funny, sad, happy, whatever.
McGee: We’ve always been happy, and we had some mishaps along the way.
Ernest: A lot of cold mornings down at the milk barn and a lot of hot mornings, too. You got milk cows , you have to milk them twice a day, seven days a week.
McGee: Yeah, one of Melvin’s brothers wanted to help us milk, so someone gave him a bucket and he started milking. The old cow stood a little a bit, and tried to turn in the stall, and he said, I’ll be darned, you done everything else and now you’ve lay down! She was so tired she laid down.
