Christmas memories told in poem
Christmas is over, the presents unwrapped, the dinner eaten, the ballgames watched and this year’s Christmas memories made.
Newspapers used to have the luxury of space and often would publish poetry written by its readers.
This poem by Hazel Fletcher was published in The Oklahoman on Dec. 28, 1970.
She titled it “The Aftermath,” and it seems appropriate for the holidays.
“‘Twas the day after Christmas and you’d never guess / Where once there was order, there’s now such a mess.
“The pieces are scattered throughout the house, / There’s not even room for a little bitty mouse.
“Boxes and ribbons and much colorful paper, / The poor Christmas tree and the burned out taper.
“A hammer has hammered the lesser of toys, / The walking doll’s crippled by the rougher of boys.
“The truce is now over — children fight as before, / There’s a let-down feeling — can’t take any more.
“But regardless of the trouble, anxieties and din / We’d open our hearts and do it again.
“So memories are stored with memories from the past, / And love for them all will ever last.”
Hazel Fletcher of Purcell, now Hazel Nicholas of Marietta, had her poems published in The Oklahoman at least 12 times.
My memory of Christmas 2011 will be of the “wonky” Christmas tree.
My aunt Grace Helms, 88 years young, decided to decorate her 7-foot tree a row at a time, adding lights and decorations as she went.
It had 12 rows, but somehow rows 10, 11 and 12 were left on the back porch. When the top was added to the unstable wobbling tree, now only about 5 feet tall, it made for a “wonky tree.”
A new pre-lit tree was acquired, decorated and stands beautifully in the corner while the old one, with lights, decorations and tinsel, was delivered to a new family who had no tree, just in time for Christmas.
I hope this Christmas has given you wonderful memories to add to ones already made.
Santa draws a crowd in 1930
Imagine an event that would bring out nearly half the population of Oklahoma City.
Eighty one years ago, Oklahoma City enjoyed a Christmas parade that was attended by between 65,000 and 100,000 people.
The 1930 federal U.S. Census estimated the city’s population at 185,389.
This description, from the Oklahoma City Times, Dec. 5, 1930, sets the scene:
“Santa Claus was in town, and so was everybody else Friday afternoon to watch the gorgeous spectacle move south on Broadway. Cheers and shouts went up from the throngs on the sidewalks, and many a tiny child in the custody of his mother, waved a happy ‘Hello Santa’ as the parade passed.”
And from The Oklahoman, Dec. 6, 1930, it was reported: “Lindbergh day, Al Smith day, (Gov.) Walton inaugural day, all were eclipsed by the throng, which gathered to attest that Old Santa is Oklahoma City’s greatest hero.”
“What he had to offer in the way of a spectacle was by no mean’s disappointing.”
School was let out so the children could attend, and work came to nearly a standstill as state employees came from the Capitol, office workers watched from windows and even the federal court recessed so the jury could watch.
At a mile and a half long and starting at 10th and Broadway and winding through the downtown shopping district, the parade took more than an hour to pass.
WKY Radio was stationed atop The Oklahoman building at Fourth and Broadway describing the passing displays.
The parade numbered nearly 60 units, including floats, seven bands, three calliopes, city officials and, of course, Santa Claus.
Santa had come to town and brought with him his sleigh and 10 live reindeer.
As we all know, Santa usually travels with eight tiny reindeer, except when Rudolph joins the team.
In 1930, it was still nine years away before he would need Rudolph and his shiny nose, so Santa must have brought the two extra reindeer to help pull the sleigh along the streets.
Times have changed, but Oklahoma Citians now flock to the Holiday River Parade and enjoy the events of Downtown in December.
The Christmas lights are on at Automobile Alley, a part of Broadway that hosted the parade in 1930.
While downtown is nearly impassable with all the street closings because of reconstruction and repair, the Bricktown area offers the city Christmas tree, lights along the canal and snow tubing at the RedHawks Field at Bricktown. And, the newly renovated Myriad Gardens is decked out in style with lots of lights, ice skating and Santa, too.
So, visit downtown if you can. If not, close your eyes and picture the sight of Santa and his reindeer making their way downtown with excited children and delighted adults crowded along the streets.
Merry Christmas!
City’s 100-year-old Hadden Hall now features new apartments
Hadden Hall recently underwent renovation to become downtown apartments, but the 100-year-old structure started life as an apartment hotel.
The three-story brick building at 215 NW 10 provided apartments for city visitors who wanted something homier than a hotel.
A new sign on the building recognizes Hadden Hall’s inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places and notes it is a circa 1910 building.
The circa 1910 was used probably because the applicants had no better luck than I did finding an exact date for when construction got started on the building.
The earliest listing I found was in The Oklahoman’s classified advertisements on Dec. 6, 1911:
“FOR RENT — Nicely furnished rooms with private bath, at Hadden Hall.”
Further research found notices from newlyweds in the newspaper’s society columns that they would be “at home” at Hadden Hall.
The research also introduced me to a remarkable woman who may have been the building’s longest resident, Miss Helen Ferris of Apartment 106.
Ferris, an English teacher from Illinois, joined the faculty of Central High School when it opened in 1910 and probably moved into Hadden Hall in 1912. The city directory for 1911-12 lists Ferris at 215 W 10th.
She was the first woman to be named vice principal of the high school in 1918, but continued to teach a fine literature class.
Ferris was respected and loved by the thousands of students she taught — her former students nominated her for Oklahoma City’s Most Useful Citizen of 1936, and she was selected for the honor.
In 1937, Edith Johnson, columnist for The Oklahoman, wrote of her: “Miss Ferris is not only one of the greatest women of Oklahoma City but one of the greatest women of this state. Nor does her greatness as a woman, as a teacher, as a friend and as a counselor depend upon either an era or an event. At any time or in any circumstance the contribution of Miss Ferris has made to the people of this city and state would be a priceless gift to humanity. Inspired teaching is the need of every generation, and inspired guidance likewise.
“She will live in the lives of her pupils who are what they are in no small measure because of what Miss Ferris taught them, because of the influence she had on their minds and their hearts, the direction she gave to their ambitions, the principles which they have followed in all accomplishment.
“Although Miss Ferris, together with so many women of her profession, has no children of her own body and blood, she is a mother to unnumbered sons and daughters.”
Ferris retired as vice principal in 1940, and in 1941 retired as an English teacher.
From 1941 until her death in 1951, she rarely left her apartment because of a medical condition, but with nearly 3,000 former students a year visiting her, and with her books, needlework, telephone and letters, she was never lonely.
She had another first — her funeral was the first one held in Central’s auditorium.
If you should pass Central High School or Hadden Hall, remember Helen Ferris and the teachers who have meant much to you.
Dinosaur bones discovered in 1917
Dinosaurs living at Sheridan and Robinson! That’s what a story said in The Oklahoman on Sept. 23, 1917.
“Hundreds of thousands of years ago Oklahoma had a semitropical climate. Back in those gladsome old days there were no men nor women; the inhabitants of what is now one of the greatest states in the union belonged to the reptilian family. Probably where the Colcord building now stands was the abiding place of Mr. and Mrs. Dinosaur and their interesting brood.
“Interest in the state’s earliest residents was aroused the other day when the leg bone of a prehistoric animal was dug up at the new waterworks site.”
The bone was found “imbedded in solid rock 25 feet under the river bed.”
L. Howell Lewis, a local scientist, upon examining the bone, determined it was 17 inches long, and the vertebra where it was attached was 4 inches wide. His conclusion: “These fossils once belonged to the bony structure of a great carnivorous dinosaur known as the allisoraus.”
He also concluded that this particular “allisoraus,” which is now spelled allosaurus, weighed about 20,000 pounds and was 30 feet long.
While searching for more evidence of dinosaurs in the city, an earlier item from The Oklahoman on March 7, 1917, reported these finds:
“While the contributions to science brought to light in the work at the new waterworks project have so far not startled the world, the foundation for a small museum has been laid.
“In a test hole 19 feet deep in the sand, workmen last week unearthed the sacrum bone of a buffalo. Trees which were uprooted above the spot were estimated to be over 100 years old, so the bone must have been buried under the sand layers for several centuries.
“The skull of a man was found at another spot buried several feet deep in red shale. The type was that of a primitive species. At another place a knife three feet long of crude workmanship was dug up. All the finds are being kept by John R. Boardman.”
What happened to the bones and knife, I do not know, but the waterworks plant, now known as Lake Overholser Dam, is nearing its century mark and is still a part of Oklahoma City’s water supply.
‘Musketeers of Aviation’ once performed stunts, formations
The Three Musketeers of the Air took flight 83 years ago in Los Angeles.
The Army Air Corps’ precision flying team began in late 1927, composed of Lt. J.J. Williams of Utah, Lt. William Lewers Cornelius of Antlers, and Lt. Irvin A. “Bert” Woodring of Enid. The three young aviators were at the top of their game, performing stunts and battle formations for the national air races.
On Sept. 11, 1928, Williams crashed while performing an inverted formation.
The races were to continue through Sept. 16. Famed aviator Col. Charles A. Lindbergh, who flew across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927 and had flown with the pilots of the Musketeers, filled in, so as not to disappoint the crowds.
On Sept. 25, 1928, while flying in a battle formation known as the Lufbery Circle with a new member, pilot Lt. Roger Williams, Cornelius, known as “Wick,” crashed when their planes collided. Both planes fell to the ground.
As Woodring was accompanying Cornelius’ remains to his hometown of Antlers and then on to the Fort Smith National Cemetery, he was interviewed by The Oklahoman.
He described the crash for the Sept. 26, 1927, edition:
“The planes dropped together like bullets, and Wick didn’t have a chance to jump from the wreckage. We found him lying the length of his parachute strings from his ship. The other end of the parachute was caught in the plane.
“Roger Williams escaped death by a narrow margin. We thought he was gone, too. He fell and his parachute didn’t open. They were 1,200 feet up. Just before Williams’ feet touched the ground his parachute opened: another second and it would have been too late. As it was he was deeply bruised and received a number of deep cuts.”
This was the end of The Three Musketeers, but Woodring continued to fly as an early-day test pilot.
On Saturday, Jan. 21, 1933, The Oklahoman reported:
“Dayton, Ohio — Death reached into the air lanes Friday for Lieut. Irvin A. Woodring — and thus passed the last of the army’s ‘three musketeers of aviation.’
“Like his fellow musketeers, Lieutenant Woodring died in harness trying to advance the standards of army aviation. He fell 2,000 feet from the sky near Wright field.
“The daring flier’s experimental attack-type ship flew to bits and his body was thrown clear. Apparently he had no chance to use his parachute, the device that twice before had saved his life, as it was found unopened.”
Enid, hometown of Woodring, on May 30, 1933, would name its airport for the pilot.
The Sept. 26 story ended with this paragraph:
“Flights by the “three musketeers” and by the “three sea hawks” naval aviators, were the points of highest interest at the aviation maneuvers. These trios vied with each other in bring gasps of admiration and wonderment from the thousands who gathered at the flying fields to witness their hazardous performances.”
While the Three Musketeers were no more, the Army Air Corps and then its successor the U.S. Air Force, continued to fly precision teams. So, when you look up in the air to see the Air Force’s Thunderbirds or the Navy’s Blue Angels fly in their amazing formations, think of the Three Musketeers and the two Oklahoma pilots who were there at the beginning.
Emerson School has endured for 100 years
Summer can’t be over!
It’s still too hot and August has just begun.
When I was growing up, back to school always meant summer was over and cooler temperatures were soon to come.
School didn’t start until after Labor Day (and Oklahoma City is starting Monday).
I don’t remember it ever being too hot to learn or play at recess and I know we didn’t have air conditioning at my school, Traub Elementary School in Midwest City.
Now most mornings, I pass Emerson School on the corner of NW 7th and Walker.
I love to see the old school. It looks just like what a school should look like.
Emerson School at 714 NW 7th. - Oklahoman Archive Photo
One built to last the ages, while educating students and preparing them for the world.
I love the stone lion holding a tablet on the roof. It looks like he’s watching over his students while keeping an eye on Oklahoma City.
There has been an Emerson School on this corner since 1895. The building has changed.
The first one burned and in 1907 brick building was built. It has been extensively remodeled over the years and little, if any remains of the original buildings.
The students have changed too, from elementary to high school students, but the location and mission to teach has remained the same.
1905 photograph looking towards downtown Oklahoma City, taken from Emerson School roof. - Oklahoman Archive Photo
In 1905, Emerson was one of the highest points in Oklahoma City (it sits on a hill and is three stories high). An unknown photographer turned his camera southeast towards downtown and took a picture of history.
It shows mostly houses, a downtown business district of buildings that look to be no higher than five or six stories, churches and industrial buildings with smoke stacks sharing their dark smoke.
In 1997, one hundred and one years later, Oklahoman photographer Jim Argo, took a photo from the roof of Emerson looking south towards downtown.
Looking southeast towards downtown, this photograph was taken in 1997 from the roof of Emerson school. - Oklahoman Archive Photo
Side by side they show the progress of Oklahoma City over the years and now with the ongoing construction of the Devon Tower, downtown’s skyline is changing once again.
Emerson, named for poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, has been there all these years sitting on its hill, preparing students to go out into the world and we hope it will continue for another hundred years.
Imagine what the skyline might look like then!
Gypsy’s grave found at Fairlawn Cemetery
MOURN THE LOSS OF GYPSY QUEEN NOMAD, HEAD OF BAND HERE, IS BURIED IN FAIRLAWN CEMETERY.”
The original newspaper article about the gypsy's death.
It was just a small item on Page 5 of The Oklahoman, on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 1908, with a headline almost as big as the story.
Ellen Young, 69, was camping in Colcord Park near the river with her “band of nomadic Egyptians” when she died in a tent Friday, Jan. 31, 1908. Her funeral services were conducted the following Monday by the Rev. T.H. Harper of Pilgrim Congregational Church, and she was buried at Fairlawn. Fifty grief-stricken Gypsies attended her service.
The Oklahoman’s story read: “Mrs. Young had spent all her life travelling in covered wagons through Europe and America, telling fortunes, creating rugs, painting pictures, doing what she could to secure a living from a nomadic wandering life. Unlike her countrymen, she became a Christian, and she is of the strain of family which includes the renowned Congregational preacher, “Gypsy,” Smith, one of the greatest preachers of England.”
Can you imagine how cold it was living in a tent in January in Oklahoma?
From my research, I learned Gypsies more likely came from India, than Egypt, and many more of them were, and are, of the Christian faith than most people think.
Also, Rodney “Gypsy” Smith, born in 1860 in England and raised in a gypsy wagon, never attended school and was converted at the age of 16. He started preaching at 17, and during his evangelistic career that ended in 1947 with his death, he was as widely traveled and admired as Billy Graham is today.
Colcord Park, later renamed Delmar Gardens, was owned by Charles Colcord and consisted of 160 acres near Reno Avenue and Western close to the North Canadian River. Baseball was played in that area until the flood of 1923.
A trip to Fairlawn Cemetery and a check of the records located Young’s resting place, 103 years after her death.
Emma's grave marker showing the wrong date. - Photo by Mary Phillips, The Oklahoman
The original entry in the cemetery ledger read Mrs. Emma Young (gypsy) camped near the ballpark, died Jan. 31 and was buried Feb. 3, 1908. The ledger also disclosed the location of her burial place in the cemetery and the funeral home handling the arrangements. Her first name was different, but the rest of the facts fit the newspaper’s story.
Turns out, her final resting place is just a few steps north of the cemetery office.
The last curious fact about Ellen/Emma is that her grave stone bears the wrong year for her death.
Gypsy’s grave found at Fairlawn
“MOURN THE LOSS OF GYPSY QUEEN NOMAD, HEAD OF BAND HERE, IS BURIED IN FAIRLAWN CEMETERY.”
It was just a small item on Page 5 of The Oklahoman, on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 1908, with a headline almost as big as the story.
Ellen Young, 69, was camping in Colcord Park near the river with her “band of nomadic Egyptians” when she died in a tent Friday, Jan. 31, 1908. Her funeral services were conducted the following Monday by the Rev. T.H. Harper of Pilgrim Congregational Church, and she was buried at Fairlawn. Fifty grief-stricken Gypsies attended her service.
The Oklahoman’s story read: “Mrs. Young had spent all her life travelling in covered wagons through Europe and America, telling fortunes, creating rugs, painting pictures, doing what she could to secure a living from a nomadic wandering life. Unlike her countrymen, she became a Christian, and she is of the strain of family which includes the renowned Congregational preacher, “Gypsy,” Smith, one of the greatest preachers of England.”
Can you imagine how cold it was living in a tent in January in Oklahoma?
From my research, I learned Gypsies more likely came from India, than Egypt, and many more of them were, and are, of the Christian faith than most people think.
Also, Rodney “Gypsy” Smith, born in 1860 in England and raised in a gypsy wagon, never attended school and was converted at the age of 16. He started preaching at 17, and during his evangelistic career that ended in 1947 with his death, he was as widely traveled and admired as Billy Graham is today.
Colcord Park, later renamed Delmar Gardens, was owned by Charles Colcord and consisted of 160 acres near Reno Avenue and Western close to the North Canadian River. Baseball was played in that area until the flood of 1923.
A trip to Fairlawn Cemetery and a check of the records located Young’s resting place, 103 years after her death.
The original entry in the cemetery ledger read Mrs. Emma Young (gypsy) camped near the ballpark, died Jan. 31 and was buried Feb. 3, 1908. The ledger also disclosed the location of her burial place in the cemetery and the funeral home handling the arrangements. Her first name was different, but the rest of the facts fit the newspaper’s story.
Turns out, her final resting place is just a few steps north of the cemetery office.
The last curious fact about Ellen/Emma is that her grave stone bears the wrong year for her death.
It reads:
Emma Young
born October 31, 1839
died January 31, 1907
So, after 69 years of wandering, a gypsy queen has spent over a century resting in peace in Fairlawn Cemetery.
Imagine that!
Birthday house gets hot gift
It’s not often a house sends an invitation to come and celebrate a milestone in its life, but The Archivist received one recently.
The house located at 415 NW 21 recently celebrated its 90th birthday. Photo by Jim Beckel, The Oklahoman
The house, residing at 415 NW 21, recently celebrated its 90th birthday, and owner and loving caretaker Linda Adams threw a birthday party. And as a special gift, she burned the mortgage.
Linda Adams stands in front of her home on NW 21 in Heritage Hills holding a copy of the mortgage in advance of a party she hosted recently to celebrate the home being fully paid off. Photo by Jim Beckel, The Oklahoman
The house, built in 1921, not surprisingly, comes with a bit of history.
Built by famed early day builder Dr. G.A. Nichols, who helped develop Heritage Hills, Nichols Hills and Nicoma Park, the house was a gift to his daughter on the event of her marriage. The deed read, “For the sum of one dollar and love and affection… ,” and with that, Nichols presented the house to Keene C. and Mary Elizabeth (Nichols) Burwell.
As most houses do, it has changed hands several times in its 90 years.
The longest owner was J. Henry Johnson, an early day insurance agent and rose grower.
Many prize-winning roses came from the gardens of the home, so much so for many years the Rose Society presented the “J. Henry Johnson perpetual award.”
In June 1943, 150 members of the Rose Society were expected to visit the Johnson rose gardens, according to a story in The Oklahoman Archives.
Unfortunately the rose gardens have not survived, but a lovely and inviting backyard have taken their place.
The house was also visited by thousands of people in 1994 as one of the stops on the annual Heritage Hills House Tour.
The mortgage burning is a major event to celebrate in the house’s history and especially for the owner.
National Register of Historic Places plaque on house at 415 NW 21 indicating it was built in 1921. Photo by Jim Beckel, The Oklahoman
A search of The Oklahoman Archives and the Internet for “mortgage burning celebrations” did not find many events. Most of the stories were for churches and organizations celebrating freedom from debt.
It has never been easy for most homeowners to reach payoff and become debt-free and is even harder now days.
Several of the home’s neighbors can claim 90 years, too, as Nichols was building houses on NW 21 and NW 22. So, should you happen to be in the neighborhood, give a tip of your hat to the birthday house and wish it well as it marches on debt-free to its centennial and beyond.
Newspaper man pens “Sooner Stanzas”
I’m sure there are still readers who remember “Sooner Stanzas,” the rhymes written by the late Oklahoman and Times editor Emery Winn.
He began his career with The Oklahoman in 1947 and soon after began the “Sooner Stanzas.” For 25 years, he worked as an editor, being described, at his retirement as copy desk editor for the Oklahoma City Times in 1971, as “poet laureate of the hill and one of the finest desk men in the annals of American journalism.”
The Oklahoma Publishing Company’s company magazine, “Cuff Stuff, ” for February 1971 said:
“Emery Winn would probably be the last person to entitle himself a “poet.” If asked he would say rather a journalistic jingler, versifier, or rhymer. But the fact remains that Winn has a knack for appealing to all of us with his rhymes. He is uncanny in his choice of subject– it is always just exactly what readers were thinking about. For over 14 years, and in some 4,000 stanzas, Winn delighted readers with his “rhyme in writing,” and many wrote to say ”That’s just what I say.”
Here is one of his rhymes from The Oklahoman for May 23, 1949, as it appeared in the newspaper. It seems appropriate for today.
Now April is the proper time . . . When showers are to fall . . . While May’s supposed to be sublime . . . With flowers, sun and all . . . But something seems to be awry . . . And May has gone to pot . . . We’re threatened with a stormy sky . . . More often than we’re not . . . We do not have a gentle rain . . . When rain comes our due . . . But what we have clogs ev’ry drain . . . And floods the country too . . . And then if rain is not enough . . . To saddle us with woes . . . We have high winds and other stuff . . . And these tornadic blows . . . Keep each of us in mortal fear . . . That we’ll be blown away . . . Or that our homes will disappear . . . And all our livestock stray . . . So let us pin our hopes on June . . . Perhaps it will behave . . . If not I know that very soon . . . My home will be a cave.
EMERY WINN
– Mary Phillips
