Odessa True Talkington [McAmis] Moreover, I want you
to talk about some of
your times when you were growing up.
Dora Geneva Clement [Talkington] My father always
wanted to go to Texas.
He just had to go to Texas.
He sold his little Ozark farm
and parked up the wagon to go to Texas.
He and mother had to go to town to get the money for
the farm because he didn't have in the banks.
When he got the money, he gave it
to mother and she stuck it down in
a high home and it stuck in.
When they started (inaudible)
they got to a little path going
down the hill and she said,
"You let me out here and I'll go down get my (inaudible)
I come up the other path on the other side of
the hill where she went down,
gathered up her clothes and folded them in.
Start up the hill and she had fathers
screaming and heard a gun shot.
She ran up the hill and
father was standing by the wagon,
he said, "Lizzie, I'm shot."
She saw two men running off in a forest,
but she didn't know who they were.
They had gotten close to
my great grandmother's house and she had kept
my older sister that day
so mother and father could go to town.
She heard the shot and heard
the screams and came running.
For sister, she was mad about
having to stay with grandmother that
day and she just crawled in.
Grandmother came and put her down on the ground
and she had another good dad up into the wagon.
They didn't have to drive
the team because they knew the way
to the old (inaudible).
Odessa True Talkington [McAmis] (inaudible)
Dora Geneva Clement [Talkington] There.
(inaudible) was attracted to the mountain neighbors.
They said a man for the sheriff and one for the doctor.
The sheriff got up a path and
went through all the path and they couldn't find anybody.
But in the clamp of bushes
that my father had been patching when he was shot,
they'd found (inaudible) he's been there all day.
They'd eaten their meals
and fizzled and been there a good while.
They were waiting for father to come by,
they knew they're going to get the money.
The doctor came and he said that
the bullet had gone so close to
my father's heart that he couldn't do anything about it.
It was the day before surgery
so my father just had to stay in bed.
Heard he just gave up the thought of going to Texas.
After he got up, walk around a little,
he bought another farm.
It was just a joy to have
a log house with white pine floors.
My mother was so proud of
those white pine floor she didn't know what to do.
She was proud of her pie plant out in
the corner of the yard.
I think it must have been a rhubarb, I don't know.
Every fall she put leaves and fertilizer on it,
the next day it put up
sprouts and she cut them off and make pies.
My mother's sister was in an academy over
in Arkansas and came down for her to graduate.
They had gotten a wagon and went across
countries to see her graduate and to
bring her (inaudible) sweetheart professor home.
My mother had made everything ready
for my aunt and her sweetheart.
My father went out in the woods and cut down
a great big tree for
a backlog in the factory in the living room.
It is so big that he had to put
a chain around it and have
a harsh to put it up to kitchen door.
He took the chain off
around to the front door and carried
it to the house and put down the log again (inaudible).
He pulled it through
the house across mother's white fine floors.
Some of the neighbors helped to
lift the log onto the back of
the fireplace for that log all withered.
When they got aunt (inaudible) and
her (background) sweetheart home,
while the log was
burning good and the living room was warm.
But father still wanted to go to Texas,
and so he sold that farm.
My sister by this time was
about 16 years old and I was about four.
He took a notice to go Texas.
They loaded the wagon again.
They put the old grandfather clock down on
the bottom of the wagon and put
it in some (inaudible) tissues
that mother couldn't part with,
and to put a feather bed on top of
it and put me on top of the feather bed.
They tied all (inaudible) the cow
to the back of the wagon
so that I can have milk to drink.
Whenever I get hungry and cry,
my father would stop the wagon and go milk
(inaudible) and give the milk to me to drink.
One night I saw,
through the little opening in the wagon sheet,
the moon up in the sky and I thought it was so pretty,
I just had to have it.
I went to cry and father stopped the wagon,
came back to milk the cow.
He asked me what I want and I said,
"I want that pretty ball up in the sky."
He said, "Well, you can't have it.
Look I'm standing on
my tiptoes and I'm reaching out my hand and I can't.
That's the moon and I can get it for you.
You can't have the moon.
Whenever you're hungry and cry out,
I'll milk the cow for you,
but I can't get the moon for you."
We got on down to the Indian territory
and camped there for a while.
One night mother said,
"The Indians are getting our horses, our mules."
He got up went out and he came back he said,
"Let's just lie down and go to sleep.
There are no Indians out
there and the mules are right where I left them."
But the next morning there was an
Indian there and he said he was a chief.
He asked if father if he was Indian, father said, "No.
I'm not Indian." He said,
"Well I think you are."
He said, "I'll take you up to
the headquarters and swear that you're
an Indian and you can get much land
for you and your squad (inaudible)."
But father said, "I'm not an Indian."
The chief said, "If I give
you (inaudible), I'll tell them you are."
But father didn't go.
Years later, a lot of (inaudible)
came in on that very land that he could have had.
Well let's see,
we got on down to Texas,
father still had his money and he wanted to buy farm.
He rendered it fresh because you're
going to be sure he got the right place.
Father put me to sleep on a paradigm on the front porch
and I woke up and there was
a negro woman standing over me.
She scared me to death.
I never had seen a negro.
I didn't like to think about a black woman.
I just screamed and scalded.
Mother came running. She said,
"What's the matter, Dora?"
I said, "That black woman."
She said, "Well, that's just Maddie.
She's here to help me do the work.
She's not going to hurt you."
Maddie stayed on and helped mother
with the work and get the hash straightened up.
When I wouldn't mind Maddie,
she would tell me that there was
a hole back of the smoke house.
That the devil had a hole back of the smoke house
and if I didn't
behave that he'll stash me down into that hole.
It was a long time
before I could walk right behind the smoke house,
close to running a hole there.
I got a teacher's license
and she came to Texas to live with us.
She looked out through the window at breakfast and said,
"Oh, Lizzie, what a big peach arches you got."
Father said, "No, it's mesquite trees,
Bill, not peaches."
We had to use the mesquite trees for firewood.
They had too much stoves in it that they'd burn
the stoves out and had to keep on buying stoves.
Father planted cotton all over the place.
He'd have to hire men to come in and help.
Then that followed was to pick and I'd go down with
the pickers and I'd get about £50 a day.
Whenever I got 200 my father would pay me £400.
That would take me two or three days to get my £100.
My father still had his heart troubles.
This bullet was still there and his heart was bad.
But he was determined to make a living for his family,
so he'd get out and plow when we were unable to
and finally he bought
him a riding cultivator and that was better.
He didn't have to work so much.
He rode the riding cultivator
and cultivated all over the land.
They'd harvest all over the place for a red (inaudible).
He later would have just 50 acres
to cultivate because that was just as much as he'd do.
He had hunted rabbits over time
and my father had to
hire somebody to cut the weeds out of his cotton.
He didn't rent to him the next year. Let's see.
He bought 320 acres.
The first year he was there he made
a good crop and got a good price for it.
All he thought he was just going to get rich,
but of course he never get to make
another good crop for the good price.
We had a pretty hard time,
but he built us a story half house up on the hill.
Never could find any water.
We had to come out and look for water.
He brought along little switch and he said
that if the switch bowed over,
that they'd be water down there.
But the switch never did bow over enough,
so we never did get any water.
We had to put in a cistern.
There was a well a way down in the field
that we could go and get cool water in the summer.
You just put on (inaudible) and pour it on the ground,
the ground would turn white.
(background) One time the neighbors came running to
tell father that a great big ball of
fire had fallen out of the sky,
had fallen down on his farm.
Father went down and there
sure there was a great big hole.
He gets them in to dig and dig,
he thought it was a meteor,
which it was, but they never could find it,
never could get down to it.
I think it went over to China.
I don't know why it went there. One day I could get it.
We had two big fine mules.
They were just the apple to my father's eyes,
they were Jack and Vick.
Jack was a handsome mule.
He was long and high and black and shiny.
Father would cut in on
his black hair just shine in the sun.
Vick was not so high and not so long,
but she was a willing worker.
She had brown fuzzy hair.
Father do everything to get the fuzz out of her hair,
it wouldn't come out.
When sister and I started college he had to sell
his mules to get money for us to go to college.
It just broke all our hearts.
All the family stood out in the yard and cried when
the buyer came and took the mules off.
One of the mule named Gian and it
had drawn the wagon from Missouri down to Texas for us.
One day on a cold morning we ware standing around
the kitchen store trying
to get warm while mother cooked breakfast.
Father came in with a dove of peace and he said,
"Lizzie, Gian is dead."
Mother said, "Oh, you, not Gian."
He said, "Yes, Gian."
Well, we'd head to the barn to see poor old Gian
lying down on her side in herself. She was dead.
Father got the middle of
the place together and got to get her up in the wagon.
They took her down the hill,
they crossed the bottom land
and dug a grave for her back there.
They put old Gian in
the grave and father walked around the grave and said,
"Well, Gian, you fought a good fight,
you kept the faith,
and now you're ready
to receive the crown at the right day."
He walked around the grave and cried.
He'd explained when the flowers came in why they had in
the past you would
go out and get flowers and take them down,
put them on Gian's grave.
Father had a hard time replacing her.
He was right at plowing time.
He didn't have any money and he just had
a hard time getting some mules to do the spring plowing.
He got some that weren't any good
and Jack and Vick were gone.
We had a hard time that year getting the plowing
done because her death bed hardly kept off her hiding.
We had little room at the end of the kitchen in
a new house he built for us.
He built us a storied half house
up on the hill, painted white.
It was of a hired men's room.
We had a herd named Caitlin.
Every time he'd do anything,
no one could tell that he's at the offices.
He was running from the law, I reckon.
The room had never been finished inside,
so the nails from
the weather boarding outside
was sticking out in the room.
He had a nightmare and kicked his heel
on a nail and always you had some scrolling in.
We had what we call pray
projects out there in the country.
The boys would take a wagon,
go around the country and gather up the girls
and take them to the place
where we're going to have the project.
Now all the parents would go and they sit in chairs
around the yard fence and watch us play games.
The neighbor women would bring lemons and
make lemonade and bring their homemade cakes to feed us.
We'd play, we're marching around
the letter for we have gained the day
and go in and out the windows for we have gained the day.
When we went through the windows and
got inside this circle where
we'd go and stand in front of
the person we liked the best.
We roll out our arms and they don't let ever see.
Our measure of our love to
show you for we have gained the day.
We'd kneel and say,
"I kneel because we have gained the day."
Go for the facial lover for you have gained the day.
Then we played first couple of Lula my darling.
"Catch me if you can Lula, Lula.
Catch me if you can Lula, Lula."
We'd have to start all over,
"First couple of Dan,
Lula, Lula, my darling.
Catch me if you can, Lula, Lula.
Swing on the right Lula, Lula.
Swing on the left Lula, Lula.
Catch me if you can, Lula, Lula."
Let me see.
Oh, yes.
The Farmer in the Dale would all get on the settlers,
walk around and singing the Farmer in the Dale,
the Farmer in the Dale.
Will it be a farmer out there in the middle of
the circling and we'd say
the farmer choose a wife and he go choose a girl.
Then we say the farmers right,
choose child, she chooses another one.
Then the child choose a dog,
and then we have to start all over again.
By that time they grabbed the lemonade
made and the cake cut they'd bring it around for us.
Oh yes, we always had a 4th of July celebration,
we were very patriotic.
We had the 4th of July celebration
in the same place every year.
They built a great big dance floor at the right sunshine.
Political candidates would come and make speeches to us.
On 4th of July,
they cook two or three days to get
a big dinner for us to get the 4th of July picnic,
and shared cakes and pies, homemade bread,
and everything that she'd cook,
and out on the dance floor where there was
a man we would call Matt.
He and his sister and
brother-in-law had come over from Alabama
and the baby tracker land, Roth aversion.
That was a nice,
oh, he was handsome.
He dated my sister several
times and we were all thrilled to death.
Then he took a bale of cotton to
the cotton gin and cut it on, called the machine.
The iron pulled off and
he bled to death on the gin floor.
My sister took it pretty hard.
Oh, yes that day,
the 4th of July,
there was a visiting girl then she had on a red dress.
We felt that a red dress was a sign of immorality.
She just danced Matt to death out in the sunshine.
He tried to stop her, tried to get her to sit down.
No, she had to dance.
She had to dance and he'd look around, (inaudible),
the men standing around,
they wouldn't come heavy that tall.
He just sat down let her dance
by herself and mother got there.
If food blocks either way and put it down and
she spread out her red and white checked,
tablecloth on the ground,
we all sat around.
She put all that big dinner outfit,
she'd been cooking for
two to three days and later found it
behind the sea where
foreigners had been in the country very long.
They'd had their first crop of English peas.
They'd cooked the English peas and
some grabber potatoes, little new potatoes.
Put a minute strip back and lay the lid down on.
(inaudible) you could come back,
they'd crash off the lid and tell him
to look at their English Peas and Irish potatoes.
I thought they were often attack it.
I turned my back on and wouldn't look at them.
Years later those folks became very wealthy.
They just bought up all the land (inaudible) they
brought over people from their homeland,
they were just a foreign community up there.
Those folks at the picnic ground
that day they got to where
they'd ride around big fine cars
and they built a big fine house.
They were somebody.
I didn't look down on some of the owners so much anymore.
This special 4th of July,
the Kennedy's didn't come for us to listen to it,
so it began to rain and father said,
''I guess you might as well go home."
The boys already had on
their new seersucker suits
and they ran to get out of the rain,
because else their seersuckers drew up
on them why they just would look awful.
We girls ran to get our new hats out of the rain.
We palled in the wagon and all the neighbors
down and we got in (inaudible) singing.
My father never did sing,
but he started at that day he sang.
"God of our fathers, known of old.
Lord of our far-flung battle line,
in whose hand he holds dominion over palm and pine.
Lord God be with us yet lest we forget, lest we forget."
And then we started Downtown.
"Yankee Doodle fossil, Yankee Doodle, Dandy.
Yankee Doodle went to town and rode a little pony.
Stark is better than his captain, call it macaroni."
But we were seven as we didn't
want to sing the Yankee song.
So he sang Dixie Land way
down south in Dixie where I was born on,
way down on the frosting mourn look away Dixie Land.
In Dixie Land,
I take my standard live and die for Dixie.
Hooray, hooray.
We had to get home on time to milk the cows,
feed the hogs, and
gather up the eggs and everything like that.
We got all that done,
the got out to bottom chairs and sat in
a row there between the smoke house and the farm house.
It was my father first and then my mother,
then my aunt Beth,
then my sister,
then me, (inaudible)
was two twin little boys
that belonged to the nigger family on the placement.
They had come to help their white folks
finished celebrating the 4th of July.
Father said cut the (inaudible) for those boys.
They got out there, white bones
and around them above the edge
and did our sources things
with their feet (inaudible) the pigeon ring.
They were about to play data.
Mother went past and brought out
a big chopped up cake to give them.
They went home feeling like they were paid.
I kept looking across the theater to see
if neighbor boy was coming over but he never did.
My aunt Beth broke up with her professor sweetheart,
met a farmer,
down the farm next to her father's
and he had four grown sons
and we thought she'd been very silly to give
up the schoolroom to
cook and wash scrub, fall that bunch.
But her she thought was all right.
Father and mother gave her a big wedding dinner,
they put out long tables across the backyard,
and the neighbor (inaudible)
rather cook a great dinner for Ms. Bell.
She taught nearly every country school ready for around
nobody knew it,
and so the neighbors with them brought in food,
and there was just a big long table and everybody came.
All the neighborhood came and we
put up a bed in the parlor for
the bridegroom to sleep on that night,
and that the time
we all wanted to go to bed
but it was just a terrible noise broke out.
It was a chivalry.
The neighbors had cupboard tin pans and horns and bears.
They were just making all the noise they
could to chivalry (inaudible).
Mother brought out the rest of the cake
and set it to them to get up to go home.
Next day, aunt and her new husband,
they walk down the highway to
hurry home that she
had built with her school teaching money.
She had too much pride to live in their low house in
which he and his sons had been living.
She built her a nice modern (inaudible) house.
Let me see.
I had rheumatic fever one summer.
The doctor said I couldn't eat anything but
turnip greens or just any kind
of greens three times a day.
My mother had been
home so long and she wanted to go to town with father.
She asked if I will manage to cross
the big road if she let me stay with her all day.
So I had to stay all day with Ms. Bueller
and her little brother was a friend of mine we
were about the same age and he come to
my house to play any
over normally tags and things like that.
He came in from the field
and Ms. Bueller had cocktails,
and greens for dinner.
He said, well, Bueller couldn't have
something else for dinner when we had company in.
She said no, the doctor
said she had to have turnip greens
and she cooked some cornbread nag,
lead cut cornbread and butter and turnip beans
for dinner and Johnny said,
"Bueller didn't have any dessert?"
She said no Dorah can't have dessert.
She got to eat turnip greens and so I.
All the kitchen was so hot weighed kitchen
and I turned to have Ms. Bueller.
I just changed that paddle up and down,
I just got so tied.
Finally, the verdict came and she took it up,
put in little bucket lowered
it down the well so it would get
cold and she got out some cold butter for dinner.
After dinner, she took me up to
the living room and showed me
the family album of pictures of
her folks clear back to Adam, I reckon.
Sanzanian had long beard and long gray hair.
If she was a nice way to entertain a 12-year-old girl.
I was led to see father and mother coming up with
a wagon and I had to lay here to wait that whole album.
Johnny was so embarrassed about
the turnip greens and he quit coming over to see
me and play with me and that just hurt me so bad.
When I was in the rest home at Pitt or Mississippi,
I had a nurse who was a Choctaw Indian.
She said her grandfather was a captain of
the Indian chief and she had
his captain's ring and I kept after
to bring it and let me see it and finally she did.
It was made out of
silver on the top where we have said so
our range.There is a head
of an Indian chief made in gold.
It was right interesting.
She said when the government took Indians
out of Mississippi without her father wouldn't go.
He just stayed hidden out and he kept her with him,
he sent her to the school and nothing was said about
it because her grandfather was gone.
Her grandfather's name was Stream, she said.
[Odessa True Talkington McAmis] We meet the same things in life,
just to mean it.
[Dora Geneva Clement Talkington] He didn't look much like an Indian.
Much she said her son was pure Indian.
Her name was Leah.
Her grandfather's name was Freeman.
I go back to my earlier days now.
I went to the little country school.
We played games out on the ground.
When we played with chickmate,
chickmate crania co went to the well to wash his toe.
When he got back it turned back the chicken was gone.
What time is it? It's one o'clock
and then we'd start out to running.
I don't know what you're doing.
For me it was trying to find a little workout chicken,
I don't know that we never did find it.
Then there is every country
is down the creek and the big boys would go down and
pick up the biggest popcorns and they'd bring them up to
the schoolhouse steps and crack command them.
Pick out, tried their best to pick out.
When I was in my teens,
Teddy Roosevelt was running
for president and he came to Waco
and they put up a little platform add on this square,
put a rope parameters around it and he said that people
mustn't go inside that rope and get too close to him.
He'd been on motivated.
They began around, hunch over and African.
He had the biggest smile.
It just spread from the air,
the air and light hair and blue eyes and
the light mustache all over his face.
He had a daughter named Alice,
she bore a special kind of blue that she liked,
so all those girls had to have Alice blue dresses.
Well, nobody hate Roosevelt he was safer found in
another platform that Zona person divers on.
I think he got elected.
Every day she earned a medal.
They came in on television.
[Odessa True Talkington McAmis] Was it right and wrong?
[Dora Geneva Clement Talkington] I don't know what to tell.
[Odessa True Talkington McAmis] Why? I thought you stayed with the old man?
Dora Geneva Clement [Talkington] That's all I
knew about him.
Guru, my father's said,
I'd have to go to college.
I told my boyfriend across
the field father said"
I had to go to college" and he said,
''Oh I hate to see you go.''
Said, '' Me I guess I won't ever do nothing
but go to town and learn to trade,
buy some rent property.
They said you'll do fine in college.
I went to college
and mother kept borders across the farm wouldn't
support us in town and
she kept borders to help us get on to
school and she got terribly sick one summer.
Sister and I had to do all the work and wait on her.
I wore some shoes that were uncomfortable and
they just ruined my feet I still got bunions from it.
(inaudible) borders thing.
When she got so sick.
I knew there has been take care of
the boys and her too, (inaudible).
Yeah I think it is
the summertime when the borders were all gone
and then we decided its just too hard on
mother to keep borders and
so we moved to a little house where the rent run so much
and my father got sick and died.
Mother went through the house
screaming with her hands on.
I do anymore for you,
Kate.She couldn't do anymore
for you but she
could do something more with the other girls.
She took in and
then did everything she could to get us through college.
I met a young preacher,
then fell in love with him.
He came all array list the afternoon he
came out in the kitchen making pie to Dr.
Reader. So when things are made
a pact and somebody knocked at the door and I
went with Dawn my hands and an apron.
There's judge, many would just say is
your maidens praise was tall
and well proportioned and he had on his cadets suit
a bluish gray and
had navy blue braid around
the neck and down the front and around
the hips and around the sleeve caption.
He was so handsome,
I just thought I'd never had seen in Nevada so handsome.
He said wherever you come in,
turn the doubt the right product
for the house and
Turner rather large hall into a place for company to sit.
Would put our country paraphrase in there,
far as bookcase and a piano.
So this guests came in and said
on one of those straight chairs,
here, n is fair across
the piano keys and said, Do you play?
I said no, my father gave me
a lot lessons but I don't play.
You said you gotten my bookcase now said yes,
as my father isn't that big book
because my father is he always read big hard books
and that we must Cortex's
conquest to Mexico and even overlooked at it.
After while the range stopped and he
laughed and he said,
I came to know
each other meeting at the college parish Friday night?
I said I heard,
bad news it but I came dashing.
If I might ask coaches over there and I said,
oh, yes, I love to go in.
That arranged after he left now,
what her into the kitchen,
I was scared to death.
I never had been allowed to date
boys and they continue adding hot.
Mother was going to say and I said
whether that was Reverend Thomas
wrote and talking to him.
He came to ask me to go to
know each other meeting at
their college parish Friday night.
I totally manual and are you shaking all over?
She said wrong door IU and
moved to tie be different than what around the country.
It'd be alright for you to go know each other meeting,
and I said what allow air?
He said, I don't know.
I said directly my summer alone to do and she said
little conduit woman that she was she didn't know anymore
about what to wear to get to know each other,
meaning that I did get out,
got out my summer loan and how
Russia and put just a little bit of
starch and I didn't mourn.
Make your logo and done
up as neat as possible and watch it very carefully.
I had to eat on the cookie dough.
Just took forever to get the thing.
Then I wash my shimmy.
Shimmy was a predecessor of
the motor slips and a washboard, the homemade drawers.
They had a band
around the waist and there was a button that money into
the band and I'm buttonhole at the other end of
the legs errors tending them a mother had made.
Then I didn't had one parish user,
a hard stop at borders,
the church out in the country,
but they wouldn't be
the right thing for I get to know
each other meeting at the college,
but I got a mountain,
I polished and paste polish with a brush, dab it on,
and then I got on Publish and then when I've done that,
I've put on another color version post again.
I kept on jelly shoes,
shiny as much as they had in this door (crosstalk).
Black, white and I
put the shoes on day Florida but dress.
I knew it didn't look right,
so my veil came in.
That was Wednesday when Reverend talking to gain,
and I put in three as you get more close reading.
Bell came in that afternoon with a pretty ready-made desk
for me it was cream color, critical flaw.
It just fit admin Sheldon scald
and dashed and hugged her and just drink.
I knew where did they get the knowledge of the median?
how do you do in their closet long lesson?
Rather than talking to and had a nickel plated clock,
he'd got it God made with
Q pounds from our books are buckles, coffee.
He showed it to me is a good watch.
It just kept good time and he should be here
quarter to seven by my coffee watch Friday night.
(background) They should have
be here Colleges didn't buy
my coffee, watch Friday night and I should be ready.
Friday after dinner, jogging on my hair,
combed it down from the crown of the head to over
my head and then I put on her eye color red.
It was shaped like a big note
and I pull it down as far as my ears,
none other than pull the hair bulb
British characters I couldn't find.
I got all the hair up and red didn't show it.
Then I started on my face.
We didn't have phase boundary.
We had chunk of [Canaan] cone-shaped,
blocks and there's all little piece of velvet in there.
I rubbed it very tenderly on my face
because compression was dark and if I got too much white,
paranoid, I look like a crown
is putting a lot of time getting the show,
eat it on my face.
Then I put on my dress and my shit in.
Pretty new dressing.
Crutches have an hour reading,
and they rather talk to her is out there the first steps
to hit his art book or watch out looking at now the Dory.
He said oh my you look so nice and he
had on a little rack summer suit
that he cleaned in person.
He had a soft failed hat
that had a low around crown and a big wide Raymond.
He need the kind of thing too,
where Zoe Here's hold it
down by side so I wouldn't see it.
He put in about as much tabloid hairs I don't
mind.He combed it from the crown of his head to
the front and when he's for a comb
that long hair overage being made what he called a roach.
For what size is it really coming through?
(crosstalk) No, it was sharp.
(inaudible)
Well, they comb
their hair from the crown
of his head because as far as you
know that made a little
(inaudible) He roll it around his finger.
He does it exactly right.
It was becoming (inaudible)
I thought he looked so nicely.
Held his low,
crazy head down by his side so I wouldn't see it.
I had to wear my high jab shoes.
Mother was just doing
a saving everyday because she could to get
me through school and I just wouldn't ask for slippers.
We got there and the (inaudible) was already full
of other students come
to the get to know each other medium.
There were just two seats left and we
walked in and sat side-by-side.
Then there's eight egotistic fellow
(inaudible) upon himself, hosting.
Here's play Simon says wig wagon.
(inaudible) got assembled,
and he took a cane
and sat down and knocked it down the floors.
He coughed and said,
"You can't do much if you can't do this."
It's actually down to the next
(inaudible) tapping down the floor and said,
"You can't do much if you can't do
this," but he forgot his coughing.
The host said that's wrong,
and so we had to take that all around, the whole bunch,
and then he had us play.
When you're up, you're up and
when you're down, you're down.
We'd have to hop up and stand up straight
and sit down when we were down.
Then when we entered (inaudible) it was uncomfortable.
I kept looking for him to bring out
a donkey for us to pin the tail on,
but he never did.
Reverend talking to the (inaudible) all the games
we played when it come to parties.
Then we had to stand up and tell our names,
that was the way we would get to know each other.
I was at the end and they told me,
I said I'm Dora Clement and I'm a senior at academy.
Reverend ask us to (inaudible) He said,
I'm Reverend Thomas Walden Talkington.
I am a senior at academy.
Then had to go around to everybody.
I look under the chair at the seat of the other girls
and everybody had on pretty slippers,
some had patent leather slippers
with a strap across the front.
Others had duck slippers
with wide string to tie both at the top.
I just took my big old black shoes
back further under my chair.
Then somebody went to the piano and played,
Goodnight ladies, we hate to see you going.
It didn't mean much to Tom and me,
but some (inaudible) and they got up and left,
and they went by,
shook hands with several party host
and told them they'd had a good time.
Then Tom and I decided we better go too.
We went by, shook his hand and said,
"Well, it's a nice party."
We hadn't had a good time,
so we didn't say that.
(laughing) We got out in the moonlight,
it was harbors boom now.
We walked and talked and he told me all about his life.
He'd been born of in
(inaudible) I don't know what county,
way up in the northeast corner of Texas.
As you were born in (inaudible)
I believe it is Collins county.
His father had a good job with a company
that sold cotton jeans.
He knew how to sell them.
A fellow came in and bought a jean.
He go home with him and he put the jeans up
and keep it running too.
I guess he got a pretty good salary.
But rather talking to him,
she has had to go live close to
her twin sister, Aurelia.
Her father told him to keep
his (inaudible) Her name (inaudible)
He moved to Sulfur Springs and got a job in a store.
Who was a (inaudible) Got
its own hand that they hadn't been able to selling.
He found out he put a nail in a certain spot
and hit it with a hammer that the goblet wouldn't break.
He tried down with a lot of customers
in their store and he sold out all the goblets.
Brother Tom was still running, happy about it.
She wanted to be closer to her twin sister,
so father told him to went down (inaudible)
saw the farm next to the farm that Aurelia lived on,
and the twins could
walk walk and see each other when they wanted to.
Mother talking about satisfied
that make their living often hard down.
Father Tom been working in
the (inaudible) farm and he had a hernia.
It was awfully hard on him.
Walton went out to have him plow.
That was Reverend Thomas Walden Talkington.
He decided he wanted to preach,
and he told his father
and mother that and they did not encourage him at all.
Father Talkington was a son of a Presbyterian preacher.
Mother Talkington was a Baptist preacher.
They remember the hardships they had and
they didn't want their son to get into it.
He didn't get into it.
(inaudible) lay next to my apartment on the South.
There's my old maid Aunt, a school teacher.
I do not know why he did it but
(inaudible) next to our fence.
Play out of reason for any convenience.
He got the missing corn down
there so he went one night to the forest,
Catherine awaited, and along came a nigger sticking
his head in the cornfield and
Uncle Vito hit him over the head
with his (inaudible) and broke it.
He just cursed. Uncle Vito
could be all the sailors cursing him.
The nigger, screamed and we heard him clear at our house.
Uncle Vito just said some awful things.
After that we had our church,
had a projected medium under
our (inaudible) and uncle Vito went down to the altar,
shook hands with the preacher.
I don't know where he is going,
I thought he is going down for prayer,
but he is already doing what.
I didn't took a notion that he is
converted and should rushing down the aisle,
sitting on the back, then clapped her hands
together and screaming top of the head
and over and hear him screaming again.
They called it shouting.
(inaudible) was so great that
her wicked brother-in-law Vito and say that
she went down the aisle
and sat her on the back some more,
set her hands together and screamed.
It was quite an excitement.
Odessa True Talkington [McAmis] (inaudible)
[Dora Geneva Clement Talkington] Everybody in the whole neighborhood
had a terrible racket.
But then there wasn't anymore corn stolen,
and Uncle Vito made
a very good member of the church after.
I didn't know they had shattered over and show him.
[Odessa True Talkington McAmis] Is that all you're going to
talk about? Are you going to talk about same Roosevelt?
[Dora Geneva Clement Talkington] When Teddy Roosevelt
was running for president,
he came to Waco to speak and they put up
a platform down on this platform
and put a big rope around it.
They told the crowd that they mustn't get
down that rope toward him.
Father put us all in the wagon,
and we went to town to see Teddy Roosevelt.
He was a short,
heavy-set man, light hair
and blue eyes, and white mustache.
He'd run great just to get
a mustache and he just grinned and grinned.
I don't remember anything he said,
but it was quite a sight to see
a fellow who was going to be president.
He was back from his big hunt in Africa.
I don't know how many animals he said he killed,
but a lot of them.
He'd already been up
San Juan Hill with his Rough Riders.
That was the only president that I ever
saw off the television.
He had a daughter Alison,
she loves a certain kind of blue cloth
and all of us girls had to have Alison blue dresses.
I think he got elected and made
a very good president as far as I remember.
(background) We moved to town
for assisting me to go to school
and my father had
to go back every once in a while to see about farm,
and one day where he's told
that they were harsh begging.
He and I started out to
the farm but got right in front of
the girls' dormitory on
the campus node, Beck's (inaudible).
We couldn't make good to save our lives.
My father said, "Well, Beck's not
going to do this to me anymore."
So he went to
town and got him a very colored black snickers,
a whip that was very
limber and he could throw it away out and it would
come back, shot back.
The next time when Beck's walked,
she walked in the very same place.
The boarding girls were all out on the campus
and father threw out
his whip and it came back
and hit on Beck on the abdomen,
and she saw something hit her.
She took out down the street
just as fast as she could go.
They got to the step to the campus and
the boys versus girls and they were going
down 5th Street to
the Calvin Hall where they were boarded.
There I sat in a one-horse,
buggy behind an old music run away.
I knew about all the boys now.
Well, I never did have a chance to be
queen of the campus and I know now that chance is gone.
Oh, Beck was running away.
We got out in the country and
went through Thompson's pastures.
She jumped to a ditch
trying to get to a bunch of meals there the pasture.
It tickled me to death.
I just laughed and laughed and
my father just sat back on the reins,
yelling, "Oh, Beck."
But Beck kept going and I kept laughing.
Finally, he got to stop me and said,
"Dora, why did you laugh?
Don't you know we could both have been killed?"
I said, "No, I didn't know if she had jumped a ditch
and buggy over after."
I don't know why it didn't turn over.
But we gathered up and got her
back over the ditching and got home all right.
Well, I told her that story.
I had rheumatic fever one summer,
my knees swelled till they
were about twice their usual size.
The doctor made me aware well unions should all do
the Texas summer and (inaudible) turnip greens.
Mother wanted to go to town one day and she asked
Ms. Bueller across the big road
if she let me stay all day with her,
and let her go to town.
Ms. Bueller said, "Well, of course.
They took my bag and
the wagon to say, we're going to town,
and Ms. Bueller took me down to the hot kitchen.
She already had the turnip greens on the board.
Her little brother was a playmate of mine, Johnny.
Johnny came in from the field and he said,
"Bueller, what are we going to have for dinner?"
She said, "Turnip greens," and he said, "My goodness,
can't we have something else when we've got company?"
She said, "No. The doctor
said Dora got to eat turnip greens."
He said, "Are we going to have dessert?"
She said, "No, she got to eat turnip greens."
She did make some cornbread though and got
some buttermilk cornbread and I had
cornbread and butter and drunk buttermilk.
After dinner was over,
she took me up to the front room and got out
the whole family album,
told me about her ancestors back to Adam.
All gray hair of the fellers with long beards,
and it was big entertainment for a 12-year-old girl.
When our parents came driving up to the gate,
I ran out to meet them out.
It was great to see them.
My father would take me once a week to four miles to
see the country doctor and he'd pull
off the dead skin on our knees
and put on some more iodine
directly trying to make this
swelling lower by putting
up some more skin, I don't know.
Anyway, I had the most awful time that summer.
When the whole war union shooting got just too hot,
I'd go out in the front yard and sit on a stone.
The wave hit me there from
every direction and I'd get cooler finally.
Johnny was so embarrassed about
the turnip greens when his best girl had come to see him,
that he didn't come to play with me for a long time.
Johnny left home when he was about 15
and stayed where he is,
so when he came back and showed our house,
my father had company out in the front yard.
So while me and Johnny walked around them,
telling all these stories and cursing.
My father came in the house and said,
"Dora, I don't want you to have
any more to do with Johnny.
He is not the same boy he was.
He tells bad stories and he curses.
Now, I don't want my daughter
playing with a boy like that."
I took it mighty harder.
I had to give up my old playmate, Johnny.
But he never did come to see me anymore,
and so that was that.
That's all Odessa.