Every Life Is a Part of History

 

“If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree.”  Michael Crichton

In 1978 principal, Phil DeBerry, handed to me, the newly hired library media specialist, three worn P.T.A. scrapbooks and said to keep them. Reading those faded pages gave me a sense of belonging in a town that was rapidly growing. I noticed immediately that nearly everything was proudly drawn, handwritten, or carefully typed. I began to wonder even then who those talented caring people were.

Architect rendering of blonde brick building 1959-1986. 

One Sunday when several teachers and our children were in the building the tornado sirens screamed. We carefully lifted those old cellar doors in the floor and climbed down into dirt hallway filled with pipes. However, I grabbed those three books and took them with me. I knew those pages had stories to tell.

Sitting underground that day I began to tell the only story I knew about
Jefferson—that the students reported how the building would sway when the tornadic winds blew across the prairie. Suddenly, that basement was not as scary. We realized that it was the stories that connected all of us.

Letty Watt, Trae Carson, Daniel Hargrave, ?
James Smith

What began in 1978 reached closure in December 2025. Yes, there were a few distractions. Thanks to principal Lynne Miller construction began in 1983 to modernize and connect all buildings together. For the first time since 1958 the original bell was part of the school again. A place that allowed us to ring the bell for celebrations, but not for a clock or call to school.

In the spring of 1984 Jefferson Elementary celebrated its 90^th birthday. Without the Internet I found few resources that shared our history. Thanks to the P.T.A. books and John Womack’s History of Norman, we could share our beginnings with why and how Eastside became the landsite school.

By 1990’s with principal Kathy Taber we looked ahead to 1994 and realized that we were sitting on a golden piece of history that needed to be to recorded and shared. Our first spiral bound booklet of personal stories sold out. Norman history came to life with the production of our play “Jefferson Now and Then” at the Sooner Theater. Every child shared a part of that production because everyone deserves to be a part of a bigger stage and recognized for his or her talents.

                                           1917-1959

There is a mural on a wall in our school depicting three distinct time periods of our school. Various pictures symbolize our history. In a “Memory” one student recalled walking by that mural every day. She wrote, “I can see that mural and those students playing marbles, swinging on a tire, jumping rope, and swinging on the witches hat, playground toys that we never had. In every passage the Jefferson bell stood proudly in the pictures and in my mind. When I graduated from fifth grade, I rang the same bell that those children in the mural rang. I am proud to a Jefferson Dragon.”

And then, life went on. My husband and I moved away but I never left behind those memories where we painstakingly built a culture of how best to educate children from all walks of life. A place where parents and children could each be recognized as valuable people.

Children are alike, they have the same needs, but their home lives differ greatly. Jefferson elementary school gives all of children a safe place to grow, to learn, and recognize their own strengths and those of their classmates.

With retirement I found time to reflect. Reflection I observed comes with age and time. I discovered as Kierkegaard once said, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

In 2019 a team of three began collecting stories and photos from people whose families held history with our school and from former students who now had time to reflect. People came with zeal to share their history with us. I wanted to honor those families, some who sent multiple generations of children through our hallways.

1945-1946 Mr. Risenhoover, Principal; Mr. Middleton, band director.

Being apart of that energy gave me the purpose to collect and write a thorough history of a place where lives were changed. As a writer, storytelling, and an older wiser woman I can see the truth to these words:

“Everyone dies twice. Once when their souls leave their bodies and a second time, when their story is no longer told.”

 

If you love history and stories, may I recommend reading this collection of 182 memories between the years 1889—2025. In 1889 the Methodist Episcopal Church opened the first subscription school. From the beginning, education played a role in the lives of our early Norman settlers.

**Contact me by replying to this blog or email historyofjefferson@gmail.com If you live in the Norman area your may go to Jefferson Elementary between 9:00-2:00 on a school day to purchase the book for cash or check $30.

***There is also a Jefferson School link where you can use your credit card, and the book will be mailed to you at a total cost of $40.00. https://sfnd.io/q7z2v-historybook

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

Detective Who? Watt?

Does anyone other than myself remember the fatal crash of a P38 Lightning airplane crashing north of Jefferson grade school? (Glenn Smith  on Facebook)

February 2020 was the last date of my files on Jefferson Elementary (Norman, Ok.) history before Covid. 

During Covid I made a promise to finish my Miami Ok. Golf and Country Club history story, and I did. That also meant that I could not concentrate on two aspects of history at the same time, even though I continued to collect trivia and newspaper clippings about Norman and Jefferson. This history brain doesn't forget when there is an unsolved question.

What parachute? Where did it land? Why can no one find an answer? 

That question hung in the back of my historical, sometimes hysterical, brain until January of 2025. 

Notice the treeless prairie in this 1894 original landsite of Eastside school, later renamed Jefferson in 1916 after the building mysteriously burned to the ground, and was replaced. 

It took until January 2025 before a small team of teachers could once again gather to complete a project started in 1984--to finish the history of the original landsite school in Norman, Oklahoma where I was the librarian. With the help from Sallie Kennedy and Carol Upchurch we have a plan in place to compile and publish this fascinating time in Norman, Oklahoma. 

Jefferson is the original landsite school with enough history to fill a thick book. Like other buildings of its time, 1894, the three-story structure was known to lean and wobble with spring winds of Oklahoma. The first floor of stone work came out of the Rock Creek bed north of this landsite on the corner of East Gray and Cockrell. 

It housed grades 1-12. After statehood, Norman began to grow and needed more classroom space.  In 1916 this thinly clad red brick and stone building mysteriously burned to the ground a few days after the State Fire Marshall closed it after his inspection. A sturdier structure was built and opened for classrooms in 1916. The north and south wings of that structure still stand and have been reconfigured several times over the decades. 

The view is facing West or Stewart Street. This is the only picture we have found of the structure from 1918--1958 when the middle part was torn down leaving the north and south wings. The playground would have been a large area in front and behind this building.

From research in 2019 through elicited memories on Facebook about The History of Norman, I copied this paragraph: 1944 Lee Hester--That information puts me back to 7th grade in Jefferson school where I imagined seeing a parachute coming down. 

Debbie 

My dad wad a little boy and he would tell us stories about a plane crash about 1945, but was north of Wilson school. North of Robinson. His mom let his older brother walk up to see it, but said my dad was to young. My uncle found what looked like the tongue of a boot with blood on it. We have tried to research but can never find anything.

Thomas 

If it is the one that crashed during the war where the copilot was riding piggyback and didn’t reject. I remember my mom and I were on the main street by the Palace garage and vaguely remember hearing about that at that time. Didn’t know where it crashed. I was only about three or four years old.

 Glenn Smith

At the time of the crash a parachute was seen descending so one of the pilots did eject. The reason that I said that it was a fatal accident was because a friend and I rode our bicycles out to view the crash site after the authorities had done their thing and we found Little Things like a label out of a sweater collar and actually some flesh. After a fatal crash medical people gather up the bodies and everything else as well they can but they don't get everything. Many years ago I went on a crash investigation of a B-52 in New York state. The plane was flying at low level over a landing strip when something went wrong, and it crashed into the woods and burned. Most of the crew perished but the copilot managed to survive. When we went through the debris looking for technical evidence for the cause of crash, I found a hand with a wrist watch still around the wrist. 

Thomas F.  to Glenn Smith

I think I think what I remember is correct… That a guy riding piggyback was not able to reject and died in the crash. 

Steve 

I remember talking to a retired Norman firefighter in the early 1970's. He told me that he was at the P-38 crash in 1945-46 He said that the plane had crashed nose first in to the ground at the edge of a small pond and left a big smoking hole in the ground. He told me that 2 men were killed in the crash, me being a smart 11 year old boy I let the gentleman know that the P38 was a single seat aircraft. He told me that the plane was at Tinker AFB for some work and had the radio equipment removed from behind the pilots seat. This made just enough room for the pilots buddy to hitch that final ride. I recall the plane that crashed was the F-4 version, of the P-38E in which the guns were replaced by four K17 cameras. It was not ever clear to me where the plane crash was.

Larry 

I think the P-38 crash you are talking about happened on May 4th or 5th, 1945. The crash site was on my Great Grandparent's farm on the SE corner of Tecumseh Rd. and NE 12th (Sooner Rd). The plane went into a small pond and supposedly the engines areas still buried there. My dad saw it go down from Moore.

Bill Lessly to Larry

The pond was on the south side of NE Rock Creek Road between 12th and 24th. My Dad told me about the crash. I used to swim in that pond back in the 1970’s. The crash happened 11 years before I was born. Our farm was 3 or so miles NE from the pond.

Apparently, Glenn Smith felt as frustrated over this crash info as I did. He used the Daily Oklahoma and found the story, the true story about the parachute high in the sky that the kids saw one day while they were outside playing at Jefferson. The parachute would have landed about two miles north of the school grounds. In 1944 there would not have been big neighborhoods of houses, cars, buildings to the north.

PLANE CRASH KILLS

WILL ROGERS FLIER 

January 21, 1944 the Daily Oklahoman 

Crash of a P-38 one and one-half miles northeast of Norman,  Thursday morning fatally injured Lt. Harry G. Kirk, 22 of New York City. The plane burst into flames and was destroyed. Col. B.S. Thompson, commanding officer of Will Rogers field announced.  

Capt. Vernon E. Black, Madera, Calif. parachuted to safety and sustaining only slight bruises and minor shock. Capt. Black's temporary home is at 2014 N.W. 12.Cause of the crash was being investigated Thursday night by a board of air force officers. Kirk's mother, Mrs. Frances Kirk of New York City, was notified of her son's death.

**At this point I jumped up and hollered at my husband. I know where the plane crashed in 1944. It's only a few miles from here.  

I do take breaks away from the computer and it felt good to share my mystery with my husband and then to romp with the dog outside and laugh. 

Lonnie Morris

Hey Glenn, I remember the incident. Our teachers at Jefferson took us outside so that we could see the man in the parachute still on his way down.  

Lockheed P-38 website and credit for photo 

Lee Hester, thanks for your research (Glenn Smith) and the good information. That clears up some things in my mind. The newspaper puts the date at 1944. which puts me back to 7th grade in Jefferson grade school. All the time that I have been thinking about this incident, I have imagined seeing a parachute coming down, but I thought it was my imagination. In a post by Lonnie Morris, he said that he was in Jefferson school when that happened and they took the students outside to watch the parachute coming down. That makes it possible that I really did see a parachute. 

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. 

Mrs. Watt, Librarian and author

 1978-95