Warm Winter Wonderings and Wishes

From our house to your house---2025

 

During this entire year, my head has been bundled in stories from yesteryear. True, heartfelt, honest stories from adults reflecting on their childhood years attending Jefferson Elementary school in Norman. I could not ask for a better way to spend the year. I cannot wait for you to read the book and feel what I have been honored to feel with the lives of those who shared their personal stories. Finished copies arrived at Jefferson December 16. We sold thirty books in two days. In 2026 the book will be available at Jefferson, online, or contact me. (This story is on my blog The Picture That Told Three Stories.)

 

However, this bundled jumbled mind of mine encountered a few hitches and glitches along the way:

 * My Monday housecleaning chores nearly ceased. We bought a robot vacuum to help the cause.

  *Spring weather filled with rain gave our trees and plants a super-boost for growing and producing. The rain also kept me inside writing instead of playing golf. 

  *Last winter one set of pipes froze causing a messy flood in two rooms. With help we sucked up the water, dried the pads and carpet and a month later moved the furniture back. No company that month.

  *Jack is healthier now than last year thanks to a “Pacemaker.” My back is old and crooked, but I am still standing erect and plan to keep walking, gardening, and playing golf until my legs do not work.

  *Summer arrived gloriously. Jack and Murphy took long walks each morning. Murphy spent hours keeping the squirrels out of the back yard and keeping us safe. Volunteers helped collect, sort, and organize 130 years of school history.

  *Jack and I spent two weeks traveling this fall. One week in NYC with our son Matt, where we feed our souls on art and history, walked until our shoes wore out, and filled our stomachs with divine foods, from a yacht on the Hudson to the 60^th floor restaurant overlooking the financial district. Five days in WDC the second week of the shutdown, the weather was warm and sunny. The memorials humbled us and brought tears to our hearts. We recalled our dad’s battles in the Pacific and classmates who lost their lives in Vietnam. We felt blessed to live in America.

  *There were more beautiful days for walking Murphy, digging in the garden, and playing golf than we could count. Still, I collected stories and wrote them week after week. Murphy stayed with me when it was too hot to be outside. Our team of volunteers completed a half-dozen scrapbooks of our school history while I typed. Then they found time to help me edit.

 

  *Our grandson Isaac, attends ISU, so we added ISU football to our weekends along with OU games and texted family back and forth with thoughts about our teams. Mike and Ann live in Dodgeville, Wisconsin.

  *This fall our hot water tank gave out and we bought ourselves a new hot water tank that came with a red ribbon for a Christmas gift. However, two days later that we discovered the tank had leaked into our house. Once again, with neighborly help, we moved heavy dining room furniture and pulled up carpet. Fall weather gave us warm days with doors open for drying. We restored our dining room with new padding, then moved furniture back in place days before Thanksgiving.

  *Along with our daughter, Katy, we celebrated our birthdays with fresh seafood at Sedalia's in OKC on December 26.

  *My personal blog "Literally Letty" fell from the top spot in weekly writing to "If and when time allows."  

Our "Christmas Corner" 2025.

 
On December 24, 26, and 27 I played golf. It was 80 degrees and there was no book to write. No Christmas tree nor gifts under it graced our home this year. Instead, we spent our time rejoicing in our lives, our family, and our friends.

I thank you all who have faithfully read my stories. Warm Winter Wishes to each of you for a New Year filled with joy, good health, and adventures.

 

The Picture That Told Three Stories

"Jefferson History Then and Now"

The Picture That Told Three Stories 

by Patrick L. Johnson, Roscoe Thompson, and Nellie Beavers Childs, collected by Letty Watt    

In the spring of 2025 I posted this picture on the "History of Norman" Facebook page. This is one of the responses I received from a man who found his father in the photo. The man, Patrick L. Johnson shares this story of his father Pop Johnson.

 

In this 1908 classroom photo from Eastside school, I think the youngster in the second row from bottom, 3rd from the right, is my Pop, JA “Red” Johnson born in Norman in October 1901. *The arrow points to Roscoe Thompsons another story from the photograph. 

Pop's father died in 1904 when Pop was three and younger brother was an infant. In order to feed her family, my grandmother took in washing and cleaning houses. My Pop only made it through the 3rd grade when he quit and took odd jobs to help his mom support the family. 

He worked in the oil fields as an adult, raised four kids through the depression doing whatever he could to make a buck. Sometime in the mid 40’s, he got a full-time job with the Oklahoma National Guard. He was injured in 1949 while training at the North Base Naval firing range when the infamous tornado ripped through that area. He was sent to Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio TX, where they implanted a metal plate on the left side of his head to compensate for the skull that had been crushed.

He recuperated over the next several months and eventually went back to work with the NG.  Pop went with the Division when it was activated and sent to Fort Polk LA (1950?) in preparation for deployment to Korea.  However, he was forcefully medically discharged before his unit deployed and later worked at Central State Hospital. He had a massive stroke in 1963 complicated by the head injury but again recuperated and lived out his last few years here in Norman with my mom, passing in 1971.

Thank you for sharing this photo on the History of Norman site and giving me the chance to tell my "Pop's" story.  Sincerely, Patrick L. Johnson

This picture tells the story of:

Nellie Beavers Childs: Their Friendship Endured

Roscoe Thompson from Thompson Moving and Storage: The Story of Roscoe Thompson

 

Reflections on Our Past

 Reflections....on Our Past  

written for the Norman Transcript by Frances Barker Maynard, edited by Letty Stapp Watt

1900's Norman, Oklahoma

My father, Bland C. Barker, came to Norman in 1902 and started the Barker Lumber Company. It was just east of Cleveland County Courthouse, on the land which is now the Security National Bank drive-in, between East Comanche and Eufaula on South Peters Street.

He had a team of horses and a large "dray" to deliver lumber around the town and in the country--all roads were dirt (and MUD after any amount of rain). Two men were hired to help in the lumber yard, in delivering lumber, and to do some building.

My mother, Lucy McKittrick, was a school teacher at Jefferson School.

Eastside School grades 1-12 built in 1894. In 1909 when the new Norman High School opened on the corner of E. Gray and Ponca (facing the south) they renamed Eastside to be Jefferson school grades 1-8. This building burned mysteriously in 1914. The new building opened 1916. 

One fall, the Norman Chamber of Commerce held a contest. The young girls of the community were to represent the different business--literally. Mother was assigned the Barker Lumber Company. 

She didn't know Mr. Barker, and he didn't know Miss McKittrick. So, it was with some misgivings, that Mother went down to the lumber yard to see if there was something she could use in making a costume.

Daddy was very helpful. He brought out tar paper and bangles, strips of color charts, and different shapes and sizes of wood blocks.

Mother took these home, and fashioned a beautiful and very unique costume. On the bottom of the long black dress, she made a flared border from the tar paper, and decorated it with the bangles. Around the collar and down the front of the waist, she sewed the strips of color charts. She also used these strips to make a tiara to wear on her hair. She made a belt, using the wood blocks, to wear around her waist.

The night of the contest, my mother, according to my father, was radiant--with her brown eyes and black hair, and her beautiful costume. She carried a stand-up placard with read, "Barker Lumber Company." 

She was the Winner!

Needless, to say, about a year later, Mother and Daddy were married, but not until Bland C. Barker attended the World Series and Fair in St. Louis in 1904. 

Six children were born to the union: Hermione, Clarence, Frances, Norman, Forrest and Jack. 

***

The reflection closes with the children's names but continues with a little research. The saddest story is that Lucy's son, Norman fought in WWII and is listed as MIA. 

Frances' mother, Lucy McKittrick, was hired to teach at Eastside school in June 1902. The Norman Transcript 1902.2.6 published those receiving teacher certificates. 

I do not know how long Lucy continued to teach at Jefferson. Her daughter, Frances Barker, attended many social events in Norman and Oklahoma City where she played the piano and sang for the audiences. She was a highly talented musician. Frances graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1940 with a degree in music.

In the 1980's Terri Street was hired to teach music at Jefferson Elementary. Terri went on to become a media specialist/librarian for the Norman Public Schools until retirement. She and I remain great friends from our teaching years at Jefferson.

When I saw the last name Maynard, I remembered that Terri had relatives with that last name. One phone call later and we realized that Terri was related to that lovely radiant Lucy McKittrick who began teaching on the same landsite nearly 80 years before.

Terri writes: Frances Alice Barker of Norman married my Granddaddy's older brother, Louis Jackson Maynard. They lived in Norman for many years where she later taught school. Louis, the historian and professor taught at OU and wrote several books on our state's history. They raised two adopted children, and bought a rural property at Wetumka, Ok after Louis retired. They both lived long and happy lives and I remember them well. He loved to write and tell stories, and she loved to sing, play music, and make others laugh. 

It's a small world, isn't it?

We are the Jefferson Dragons. We symbolize "Power, Wisdom, and Chaos." Right now, we are sorting through the chaos and laughing...laughing and loving every moment of the research expedition into our history. 

Letty Watt, Jefferson Historian