VANOSS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 

We would like to thank Mr. and Mrs. Waters for sharing their knowledge about Vanoss with us.  We thank our families and other teachers for taking an active part in helping us locate guest speakers and historic photographs.  We are also especially grateful to Kari Medcalf for making a transcript of our videotaped interview with the Mr. and Mrs. Waters.  This project helped make history come to life for us and helped us better understand how we are tied to the past.
 

Vanoss 3^rd Graders

1999-2000

Introduction

VANOSS MEMORIES

The following introduction was written my Estaline Waters.

“My husband, H.L,. and I often try to recall the Vanoss of our early childhood.“
“Vanoss was on a hill.  The main street ran north and south, and it seems that is was always either dusty or muddy!  In the middle of the street in the very center of town were two water wells, about a half-block apart.  The wells had buckets and ropes.  They were “Down Town Vanoss’ ” water supply.

“The west side of the main block included from north to south; the Bank (J.I. McCauley, President), the W.J. Standridge Dry Goods Store, the Buck’s General Store, the White’s General Store.  These stores had some walls in common.  After a gap, Bunk Garland’s Garage.  On the next hill south, Doctor Sturdevant had a practice in his home, and about one-quarter mile south the (Templeman’s) Baptist Church was situated.

“On the east side of the street were found Hunt and Sons, J.E. Kinsey’s Groceries, Berger’s Drug Store (which included the Post Office),  Walker’s Drug Store, and after a gap, a Blacksmith Shop and a Grist Mill operated by McKinleys.

“Immediately West of the Bank and facing north was Carey Lombard-Young and Company Lumberyard operated by J.J. Shaw.

“Across the street north of the bank was Joe Zumbro’s Barbershop.

“North down the hill was the Santa Fe Depot and Stockyards.  The Depot agent’s name was Lowrance.  One block east of the Depot on the south side of the street was a Cotton Gin owned and operated by the Choctaw Cotton and Oil Company (S.C. Boswell).  Crawford W. Martin was manager for a long time.”

                                         Estaline Waters

  July 24, 1999

Mrs. Estaline Waters explains to a class of third-grade students…

 “A few years back Vanoss School’s gifted and talented classes published a booklet entitled "A School Without a Town."  But when we were young, Vanoss was a rip-roaring town--a big town!  Vanoss had everything. It was a railroad town. 

“Do you study history?  Do you know what history is? Well, this is Oklahoma history we're talking about.  Have you ever read stories about railroad towns, and railroads, and how they made the United States great?  You know how transportation is important to you, right?  Well, railroads were terribly important 80 or 90 years ago. That long ago is history to you, but it's my life; it's not just history to me.

There used to be the old Sante Fe railroad track.  You could ride the train to Ada, Stratford, and Byars.  Then the Sante Fe Railroad moved their station to Ada.  That's when Vanoss, like many other big towns, grew small.   Some towns died, and their residents had to move to bigger towns.  For example, Center used to be one of the biggest towns in Pontotoc County along with Vanoss.  Ada used to be smaller than Center is now.

“Mr. Waters drew a sketch of the town.  He drew the stores and where they were.  Kinsey was one of the stores here at Vanoss.  J.E. Kinsey is the grandfather of Jim Dicus who owns all the Dicus stores in Ada.  McCauley's Store and Vanoss Trading Company were here. Even your teacher may be surprised by how many stores we had in Vanoss.  We even had a bank. 

“In about 1925-26, the garage burnt down along with most of the rest of the town.  But, the barbershop did not burn down.  It was across the street, and eventually was moved over by the school’s gym. 

“The water system for the whole town of Vanoss was two wells on Main Street--right in the middle of Main Street where the two circles are on the map.  The wells had ropes and buckets.  Have you ever seen somebody get water out of a well?  Have you ever done it?  They'd tell us, "Don't drop the ropes!"  How would you like to get water that way to take a bath?  You'd have to go and pull the water out of the well.  Have you done it?  No? …but you'd like to?  Well, we had to! 

“Everybody on Main Street got their water from the same place.  We're talking about a lot of stores.  We had no inside facilities; we had outhouses.  One trick to play on Halloween was to turn those out-houses over in the middle of town. 

“We didn’t have a mail carrier deliver mail to our house.  We had to go to the post office.  How many of you have been to a post office before and seen the boxes they have?  Well, ours were kind of old-fashion looking, but they were much the same as they are today.

“Entertainment didn’t cost much.  We listened to the radio a lot. We didn’t have coke machines back then. We had to get our ice from an ice block, so if we wanted a coke we had to go to the drugstore and get one out of a soda fountain.  Our drugstore fountain had grape juice and orange juice, too. 

     “You could get 6 burgers for 25 cents, gas cost 13 cents a gallon, candy bars sold for 5 cents each, and a good pair of shoes cost $1.38. Cars were priced from $1,000-$5000.  Nobody had much money then, so that was a lot of money to us.  We had to work hard for our money, and we understood why adults taught us to get an education so we could grow up and take care of ourselves.

“Many years ago, we had one-room school houses.  Everyone’s father wanted a school, so they worked together and built one.  Every school was four miles apart, so nobody ever had to walk over two miles to get to school. Later, everybody’s parents got worried that their children weren’t getting a good enough education.  All the parents got together and united all those one-room schoolhouses.  Money from our school and surrounding schools, plus a lot of donated money was put together and the community built Vanoss Public School right where it is now.  Local folks helped build the red brick school building, and hired two people to teach.  

“At one time it was the biggest consolidated school in the state.  There were transfers from all over the surrounding area. And the old well house that is in the school’s courtyard was one of the original well locations.  It was built by the WPA program in 1936.

 “After consolidation, schools were much further apart.  It became impossible for all students to walk to school.  Some kids used to ride horses to school.  They just tied them up out back.  But we had to get to get an education.  So my father and other fathers like him got together, and they built and drove school wagons that were drawn by horses and mules.  The school wagons had to go a long way on some terrible roads, but they did it.  That shows that when everybody works together, big problems can mastered.

“ Later motorized buses were added.  When I was in school, the school buses were different colors, but now they are all yellow by law. There were only four Vanoss buses, and my daddy drove one of them.  One was a wagon bus.  The four buses made two rounds a day. 

“Mr. Waters and I both went to school at Vanoss from 1^st grade through 12^th grade in the same classroom.  I've known him ever since he was four years old, and he's older than eighty now.  That's as old as your mother, your teacher, and you, too!

“Could you write your name on the board the very first day you went to school?  I could.  My name is Estaline, E-s-t-a-l-i-n-e.  That's pretty long, isn't it?  On our first day, the teacher had a row of little bitty chairs.  They are painted a nice pretty red.  We could sit in a red chair only if we could write our name on the board.  My husband’s first name is H.L.  He wrote his name and got to sit in a pretty red chair. I got up and wrote my name on the board.  It looked really pretty because I had been practicing on it for a long time. 

“The teacher said, “That’s spelled wrong.”  I never got to sit in the little red chair.  My name wasn’t really spelled wrong; it was just such a terrible name, that it looked wrong.  I like my name a lot, now.  It is unique.  But right then, I was so upset that I hated my name. 

     “Have you ever hated your name?  Yes?  Well, you’ll learn to appreciate it more later, because it’s yours and no one else has it.

“We had lots of things to do.  We were never bored.  The seniors often put on programs and of course the grade school would put on music programs.  The entertainment was not only for the school but for the public, also.

“Our playground was a sidewalk. We played hopscotch or jacks.  We had seesaws, and giant stride swings.  We also had track meets.  Our basketball court was outside.  We didn't have a gym. 

     “We brought our lunches.  During the Great Depression, we didn't have much money, so we would gladly share our lunches.  We had an hour for lunch.  Sometimes kids went down to the Sandy Creek and swim for 45 minutes and ate their lunches on the way back to school.

“Our school studies kept us busy.  I remember that we had 12 subjects in 7^th grade, and we had study hall for doing homework. Do you know what kerosene lamps are?  You know, the lamps you light up when the electricity goes out.  Well, that's all we had for everyday lamps.  We studied by that.  Once in a while, as we got older, we got Aladdin lamps, the ones with a mantle.  And fishing lamps, those were the good, very best lamps.  They were pretty; they had pretty globes on them. You may have one of those pretty fishing lamps at home.

     “Your grandma may have one.  How many of you have seen one?  You ask how we studied by a kerosene lamp?  Not easily, but we could do it, because it was all that we had.

 “You have to learn math. It helps you with everyday life. There’s a funny story about Mr. Waters when he was on the Jr. High basketball team. His team was going to meet at Burger's Store.  The teacher said, "Be there at a quarter after six."  He lived out of town, and he thought a "quarter" after six meant “twenty-five” minutes after six.  When he got there at 6:25, the bus had already left.  He learned the hard way, but he never forgot it.   Do you know when a quarter after six is?  Yes, fifteen minutes after six.

“There were a lot of sports at Vanoss--baseball, basketball, and track.  Girls played baseball, too, but we had to wear dresses.  I had no glove, so I had to catch without a glove.  It hurt, but when you are part of a team, you have to do your best-- no matter what.

“Vanoss’ basketball court was moved inside when the first gymnasium was built by the FFA boys in the 1930’s. It was about four feet below ground level.  You had to go down steps to get to the gym.  H.L. and his coach put the wood floor in between H.L.’s junior and senior year at Vanoss.  When they built the cafeteria that is used today, the builders hit the floor of that old gym. I played a lot of basketball before we had gyms with wooden floors.  I fell on our outside concrete floor playing basketball and I still have a scar from it.  Concrete is hard to play on. I'm 84, so that would have been 68 years ago. 

“People around here grew mostly cotton, that's the reason for the Vanoss cotton gin where my daddy worked. We would get out of school to gather crops.  We were out of school in June, back in school for July and August, then out of school for six weeks to the pick cotton. 

     “We seldom got to play with our friends during the school breaks because they would have to work too.  The last day of school was the saddest day because we knew we would miss seeing our friends.  But, we had no choice about working.  If you wanted to eat, you had to work.

“After I graduated, I came back to Vanoss and got my very first teaching job.  I am a mathematics teacher, and I taught for 28 years.  During my first year, I taught ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth grade here at Vanoss School.  In my second year, I taught sixth grade.

“My mother-in-law joined the army and was a nurse of the WW II  soldiers shipped overseas.  When she passed away, the American Legion gave my husband a flag.  He donated it to Vanoss.  It still hangs here in the high school gym.”

Mr. H.L. Waters concludes the interview with this message to the students—

     “Possibilities are wide open.  If you don't get anything else out of our interview, remember this: Everything is competitive--everything!  Do you want the better life? The pretty girl?  The good jobs?  Then you need a good education. 

“If you are in business, you are going to have to compete with the guy down the road.  You have got to learn to compete.  School is where you get an education so you can grow up and take care of yourself." 

LINDA MARKS' THIRD GRADE CLASS

VANOSS ELEMENTARY

1999-2000

LOGAN A., JASON B., STEFANI B., JOSHUA C., HALEY F., THAD G., NIKKI H., KELCIE H., JESSICA H., TYLER J., MASON L., COLLIN L., TYLER M., JESSICA S., MEGAN S., KORTNEY T., CHAD T., ADAM V., ROY W., TERRI W., CALEB B.