In order to go back to school anywhere, it was necessary to make some money so I tried it.  While delivering vegetables in Muskogee, we heard that the Pattersons, who headed the largest, if not the only bank there, wanted someone to live-in and help with the work.  The pay sounded good so I went over to try it out.  To my disgust they gave me sleeping quarters in the basement.  The Dingus family had returned to Taft so I had to stay a few days.  When they came back to make another delivery, I told them what I thought about the place.  They talked with Mrs. Patterson and her daughter, then they gave me a room upstairs.  Because I was born and raised in an all Negro community like your Boley, I just could not stomach remaining there though the pay was very good.

After returning to Taft, I rested for a few days, then decided to go to Tulsa.  I think the distance was about fifty-six miles.  I rode the Midland Valley train over there.  The conductor yelled out "Tulsey!".
This was my very first impression  of  the place where my husband used to say "I budded out," because I really spent most of my young years there--the kind that I hope that I never forget.

The Dingus family had left Kiowaliga, Alabama, to go to Taft where they were to take over the D.B.&O. School.  The day that I left Taft to go to Tulsa to look for work there was a young woman who had been at the school for some time, and she was returning home.  Since I did not know anybody in Tulsa, Mr Dingus had asked her if she would help me find a place to live.  That was no problem.  When her family met her at the train they readily suggested that I go home with them.  They lived out in what was then called the Addition.  The young lady`s name was Viola Tilley.  She lived with her mother, Mrs Tilley and her sister Eva and Joe Henderson, her brother-in-law.  The section was mud hole when it rained and to me it seemed to rain all the time.  On the other hand, when dry it was dust holes.

Whatever street or road the Simon Berry`s lived on out on Hartford they lived just a short distance down.  Also in this wonderful family was a young child (Delmus Tilley) and a sister of Viola`s, Rebecca (Ayers)--I believe that that is the correct spelling.  Anyway, Rebecca and her husband operated a small eating place at or near the Williams Theatre.  W. D. can correct me on that.  The theatre belonged to his parents until they became disabled.

Soon after getting there I began to go to the place called the employment office.  I was sent out a few times to do day work.  I knew nothing about that kind of work.  I later decided that sitting around a place like that was not for me.  It was a kinder hole in the walls and as I now think of it, because it was just around the corner from the old Vandiver`s Store, it could have been a part of that building.

I do remember that it was from that store the like that caused our section of Tulsa to be destroyed by barbarians.  Before the riot, I worked a few days for the Dr Stringer family on Osage Hill.  Willie Guiton or Guice got me the job--she later became the wife of one of the deacons of First Baptist Church, William Williams.  They lived just off Greenwood on Jasper Street, I believe.  He passed many years before she did.  I always visited here whenever I returned to Tulsa.  From the Springers` I heard about the Beards.  Mr Anthony Beard was president of Tidal Oil Company.  They lived on the south side, Euclid Street, I believe.  They wanted and needed a cook.  I looked them up and in doing so found a friend, or I should say some friends.  The whole Beard family were the kind of folks one could trust and love.   They proved that in every sense of the word.  I will relate my reasons later.

The other friend  I found was the mother of our wonder, Leola Johnson Lavasser and brother,  Clifford.  The children were very small then--the Beards had been very poor people.  They had lived in Indiana and often told of in order to make ends meet they often gathered culled apples after the big owners had finished their gatherings.  They were good Methodist Christians, great people to work for, live with, and to know.  At holiday times he always saw to it that whatever the occasion, flowers for it were placed at the altar and other places where flowers were wanted.  Easter, Mother`s Day, and Christmas were his very special times.

This is the incident that I promised to tell about:  The morning after the riot --the big army trucks came out and were going up and down the streets gathering up all the Negroes to take them to the fairgrounds on the order of the N. Gitia.  The Beards said "no" to the demands and refused to let them take me.  They knew that my sister worked for the W A Vandivers, and the called and  advised them of their decision relative to me; so the Vandivers did likewise for my sister.  My sister was so set up the Beards had to go and bring her to stay with me.  Later, they asked if I had any friends who had been taken to the fairgrounds, whose release I would like.  Naturally, I did.    They suggested that  who ever they were we would get them and let them live in my quarters.  My sister and I were given rooms in the house.

Naturally my first thought was about the Tilley family--my first hosts.  We went out and brought  them to live with us, which made them feel like free human beings again.  We went out to see the folks a time or two.  I need not say  just the thoughts of all this just makes me boil, inside.  It was a long time before my sister and I went downtown even after they had allowed all the folks to leave the fairground.  The first time that we down to Greenwood we were met by guards who said that they would have to put tags on us.  I resented this in no small terms.  They said either be tagged or go back where you came from.  We wanted to get to the First Baptist Church up on the hill, so we gave in.

Such destruction was too much too see.  Frank Smith, a church deacon was a friend of my sister`s. We also knew Mrs Lola Chapman, who worked in Vandiver`s store.  Before the riot the Beards had planned to go to Denver and other western cities, but afterwards they changed their plans, because I had already promised to go to Bela Vista, Arkansas, a summer resort with the Brownlees until time to go back to school.
 
Mr W A Brownlee was vice president of Exchange National Bank.  Before I left for school, I had heard what a time the citizens were having trying to get loans to rebuild.  Later I heard that the Woodmen of Hot Springs, Arkansas, came to the rescue.  How wonderful.  In spite of handicaps, Tulsains overcame.  When I returned from school, I found beautiful buildings under construction; how happy that made me.  I again went with the Brownlees to Arkansas for the summer.  I always have a telephone visit with their daughter, Mrs Mary Francis Gotwalis, whenever I visit Tulsa.

By the time that I was ready to return to Kansas State College to further my studies, I also began to look around to see if there were openings in my chosen field.  They seemed to be few and far between, so I began to think and look in other fields.  I had worked in the library many times and that work also was to my liking.  I took a deep interest in the study and that was a blessing, because after returning to Oklahoma there was and opening for a librarian at the Greenwood Branch.  I was asked to come for an interview.  I was accepted and spent nine very pleasant years there serving the Community.

There were some bad times but mostly good times.  One thing the community never knew about: the library board would not permit us to own any books by W. E. B.. DuBois, or subscribe to the Chicago Defender.  The reason given was that they were radical, and prompted riots  Oh! how I wish that those old `you know whats` could see us now.  They thought that the greatest books were UP FROM SLAVERY  and Moton`s WHAT THE NEGRO THINKS.

AS I THINK OF TULSA IN THE TWENTIES TO THE SIXTIES

In the twenties off Greenwood and Archer, I think of the jabbering Mexicans who lived back of the old farm Dunbar School, all the grass land out where I bought a lot on.  Henderson and  Mary Randall lived only a few houses down from where I would have built if I had remained there.  Mr. Tom Gentry was a salesman.  Later I can see the struggling to get the hospital on Hartford, I believe.
The raising of money to buy the lot for the YMCA across from the library.  There are far too many memories to put on paper.

To all of our way of thinking  the acts of  the 1921 was barbarity in the name of progress; to me this act of destroying a whole beautiful island of beautiful homes and businesses of a proud people accounts to the same thing.  My hear bleeds each time I come back to Tulsa and see only rubbish where once proud people established what they thought and hoped to be a contribution and tribute to the making of a great city. . .Let us be thankful though sorrowful that so many of those who gave their blood, sweat and tears are not here to see a second destruction over which they have no control.  They say it is in the name of progress.  I pity the minds who hold such to be true.