Shankleville Oral History Project TRANSCRIPT INTER VIE WEE: Elzie Odom INTER VIEWER: Dan K. Utley DATE: June 16, 2002 PLACE: Odom family home, Shankleville, Newton County, Texas TRANSCRIBER: Justin Snider (TAPE 1 OF 1, SIDE B CONTINUES) Odom: We would have devotion at least two mornings a week, and that devotion had prayer and singing, and it was lead by the principal-- Utley: Religious singing? Odom: Yes. And everybody participated. I almost had the scripture he used to read all the time. (both laugh) I will think of it a little later on. He used to have one scripture that-- “Open your pearly gates oh ye God, and be you lifted up everlasting door, and the King of Glory will come in. Who is this King of Glory? The Lord, God of olds, He is the King of Glory.” And, he used to like to sing Battle Hymn of the Republic-- “Mine eyes have seen the glory” that is one of those that we sang. First thing of all, though, my mama was a disciplinarian. Utley: I was going to ask you who the disciplinarian was. Odom: Mama was. Utley: Okay. Odom: Until the day she died. (Utley laughs) The school was right there, so Mama walked out on the porch, she could see what was going on at the school. The other kids would get to school fifteen, twenty minutes early, and they’d go out there and they’d play and have a ball. Mama would keep us out there pulling peas, doing something until the five-minute bell rang. The five-minute bell rang, then you go to school. Utley: Because you are only a hundred yards from school-- Odom: Yeah. Now, we never missed a day. Some of the other kids would have to stay home sometime and help work in the crops-- she didn’t allow that. But, you were going to stay home until the last minute. And, when that bell rings, to let out in the afternoon at two-thirty, she’d stand on that porch with her hands on her hips looking at you. So, you had to get right down-- I never had a girlfriend. Never got to participate in any of the activities up there because Mama was so closely on it. And if she happened to miss seeing something, Mrs. Simmons’ first stop was 'to tell her. And so, we were strictly supervised. That went on until I think I was in the eleventh grade when those schools were consolidated, and this school was closed and we had to ride a bus to Wiergate. Utley: Okay. Odom: I was so glad-- Utley: Did some of the time-- go ahead. Odom: Finally, I’m getting away from Mama. And on the first day of school, I had heard that they had hired a bus driver, and guess who-- Mama (both laugh). I couldn’t get away from her at all. It wasn’t but about a dozen kids. Utley: How would she discipline you? Odom: Oh God! Utley: Other than give you-- Odom: The switch from that brush broom-- that dogwood brush broom-— the hedges she kept growing around the house that we didn’t need, but it served their purpose. And, she was big on-- Utley: Now did she make you go get a switch? Odom: Oh yeah. You got to think about that. Utley: That’s right. Odom: If you get one too big, she is going to kill you with it. (Utley laughs) And if you get one too small, she going to make you go back and get a bigger one-- Utley: Or it’s too much like a whip. (laughs) Odom: You got to decide. What do I take-- somebody calling me? So what do I take, do I go back and-- usually you tried to get some middle ground someplace-- Utley: Did you ever try to get away from her? Odom: Oh no, oh no. Utley: You didn’t try to run away? Odom: No. Oh no. I would have to come back. (Utley laughs) I went to church-- I will never forget-- one of the things about church, when a kid starts getting twelve, thirteen years old, it makes him feel special if he can get up and walk out before the services end. And, I always wanted to do that. And the other boys did it. I knew not to do it, but finally one day I decided it was worth a try. So, I got up and left out just like the other boys did. And, came when church was out and Mama walked out, and she just looked at me. And we came home-- I walked home. Well, usually we had the pick-up. Church is down there-- Utley: And your church is Mount Hope? Odom: Yeah. I came back-- I walked home-- got home, went in there and pulled off my clothes, and I went out there and sat down in the garage. But, I just couldn’t face her. And she let me come on and have dinner-- she got dinner ready and called us to dinner. She didn’t say a word about it. Let me sit there and eat, and that food just wouldn’t go down. I knew it. And she let me wait until I guess about three o’clock that evening when she called and said, “Come here.” (Odom laughs) And, she started (inaudible) (Utley laughs). I’m still careful about walking out of church. (Odom laughs) Utley: What would she discipline you for, other than walking out of church? What other things did you do to get into trouble? Odom: Don’t fight. I mean this one time Daddy got me. It was because me and Lee had a fight. He said, “You’re supposed to love each other. You don’t fight.” He just didn’t believe in that. And, he believed in being truthful. You had to be truthful. You tell the truth. Utley: Did he ever catch you in a lie? Odom: No, no. I knew better than that. (Utley laughs) I had older brothers and sisters. (Odom laughs) I knew better than to lie, and she knew it. Utley: By that, you mean they’d turn you in? Odom: No, I watched them get into trouble for trying it. Utley: Well in your family, who was the troublemaker? Odom: Well see, the way our family was structured there was three boys up top, then three girls, then two boys. So, me and my brother-- Utley: You are in the last group with the two boys? Odom: Yeah, yeah right. And, we were so far removed from the others, until they were high school and above when we were little kids. And the girls didn’t associate with us. So, me and Lee were sort of together. And, he would tell on me and I would tell on him. We’d get in trouble. But, it wasn’t nearly as bad as some of the kids nowadays. Utley: Well what would you do to get into trouble? Odom: Not come immediately when Mama called. I mean, you didn’t question why anything. The only two words you needed to be successful with Mama was ‘yes ma’am.’ (both laugh) Anything else is out of line. We were talking about school when I ventured off and got into Mama’s watching us. Utley: Okay, okay. Odom: But, it was not unusual for us to have these religious services at school. We had box suppers, that is when they were trying to raise money, usually to buy athletic equipment, or to buy balls or something. Or, the girls would bring a box-- the high school girls-- take a shoe box and dress it up, put some ribbon around it, put food in it. And, they would bring it, and the boys would bid on it. And I don’t remember the amounts-- Utley: Well, they weren’t supposed to know who-— Odom: Whose they were getting-- Utley: But, they sometimes did-- Odom: Once they bought it, once they got it, well then that girl would sit down and eat with them. So, that was a big deal. (Utley laughs)-- a box supper and those kinds of activities-- all community activities. And that is how the school was used. But, that school I think did more to prepare kids with what they had than any of the schools do today. Utley: How is that? Odom: We had teachers that cared. Utley: They all lived in the community. Odom: Oh yeah. Mrs. Simmons lived right there, and one lived down the road, and they had one that changed often, I mean every two or three years. But, she lived with somebody else in the community. Well, we had some live here with us, in spite of having eight people. We had some that lived here. But, there was something different about their caring, really caring about the kids, and really wanting them to learn. Hey, I can recite literature now that some people from some of the better high schools don’t recall, or was never taught. But, it’s the things that Annie Simmons just believed in teaching. And she cared. And she-- hey, I remember she put on plays at this little ole bitty school-- Lady Windemere ’s Fan and things like that. She just cared. And as a result, we have had a few people leave this community and do quite well, in spite of having to use second-hand books and less of everything. So, I recognized the iniquities and shortcomings of the community at that time. I think there were some other things that more than compensated for it because of the caring, cooperative attitude that the people in the community had towards each other. Utley: How often did you get out of the community? Odom: Never. I never. I bet I was sixteen-— well, occasionally I would go to Jasper with Daddy when he would go to get groceries for the store-— and that is how he got groceries for his store. He went to-- Utley: Wholesale house? Okay. Odom: He went to a wholesale house in his pick-up truck and bought the stuff and then brought it back. He would usually do it on Saturday, and we would get to go with him. And, there was a big shop in Jasper, and we’d get a hamburger. That was the extent of it; that was the extent of it until I was in high school-- Utley: How far is Jasper from here? Odom: Well, it’s twelve miles now. It was a little bit further then because we had to go around-- twenty-five miles. But it took probably an hour then because of the roads and vehicles, et cetera. But, going to a singing convention or something like that. I didn’t realize that there were any racial problems until I got grown. Everybody out here was black. I didn’t see anybody else. So, what’s the problem? (Odom laughs) You know? Hey, it wasn’t until I was at least sixteen or seventeen years old before I really knew that there were problems out there. Utley: When did you first confront that? How did you first confront it? When you got into high school? Odom: No, no. Our high school was all black. It wasn’t until I was married and moved away from here that it really grabbed me. I went to work in the Orange post office in 1949, and they had-- when I went to work for the post office, they had separate drinkingfountains. Utley: Let’s back up a minute. How did you know to go get a job in Orange? Odom: My brother was working at the post office in Orange. Utley: But you could have worked here, at Wiergate, or kept your family’s store? Odom: Well, there wasn’t anything to do. I had worked with Daddy as a carpenter during high school, and that’s what I was doing when I married. But, I worked at a service station out here at Burkeville one day. I say one day, it wasn’t long, about a week or so. And I’ll never forget, a Greyhound bus came in from Louisiana and had a flat on the inside rear tire. I didn’t know a thing about that. I started working at it, and he came out there and was going to make me rush. The driver. Not my boss, but the driver. And, he called me a few unhealthy names, and I quit, right then and there. I don’t know how long after then, but I had taken the exam for the post office in Orange. I had a brother who lived there, and they called me, and I went down for an interview. I was put on the sub list, and of course in those days, we’d sit out on the dock hoping that the carrier would get sick and couldn’t work his route, and we’d get a chance to work. Ninety-five cents an hour, that’s how we started. Utley: You had separate drinking fountains and separate restrooms? Odom: There wasn’t separate restrooms, but there was one stool over on one side of the large bathroom, and two on the other side. And I was told the first time I went up there that there is an unwritten law that you use that one. But it wasn’t labeled. Now, not too long after I went to work there, they changed out the drinking fountain. I heard one of th ladies say, “What are you going to do with that old one? Take it down stairs for the niggers?” So, that is when I first began to realize how bad it was. Utley: How did you face that? Odom: Well, you learned to roll with it. Utley: Did your family prepare you for that? Odom: No, because we did not know that was out there. The only thing that they did thatwould prepare you for something like that, they did teach us a certain amount of passiveness, a certain amount of turn the other cheek, a certain amount of do good to those that hate you. And all of that is embedded in you. Utley: But they also taught you pride didn’t they? In the family and-- Odom: Pride in what you do, with what you accomplish, who you are, and those kinds of things. And I suppose that is what enabled me to-- I don’t like to use the term-- “rise to the top.” But, I am the highest elected official in my city. (Utley laughs) Utley: Can’t get any better than that. Odom: I became the fifth black postal inspector-- I went to work in that post office in ’49, where we had the separate fountains and worked as a sub carrier. And it was in ’67 that I was appointed from that post office as a postal inspector. And I was the fifth black postal inspector in the nation. So, somewhere along the way, I must have done something right. But by then, I knew what it was like, and we had some very, very unpleasant experiences, racial. And, I can take it better than the other people can. I don’t know-- Utley: Has any of that ever crept into the Shankleville community? Odom: No, not to my knowledge. Now I remember seeing some old guy come out there and talk to Daddy one time out in front of the gate about voting, trying to tell him not to vote. And, that is the only time I saw Daddy show any signs of fear, because it looked like Daddy was trembling. And I don’t who the guy was, but he had on cowboy boots and a big hat. And, I won’t wear cowboy boots or a hat until this day because something about that image that really bothered me. But, I don’t know who he was, but he was trying to persuade Daddy not to vote. Utley: Did the law ever come out here for anything? Shankleville has remained sort of isolated. Odom: Um-hum, um-hum. Way back when I was a little bitty kid, there was some shooting on a Sunday afternoon at a singing convention, and somebody fired a shot, and the sheriff came. By the time the sheriff got there, Daddy had gone home and got his shotgun. Daddy stepped out of his truck and said, “We don’t need no sheriff. Send him on back.” (both laugh) I don’t remember the details of it. They probably wouldn’t let me know. Utley: Tell me about the relationship between the two of them. How did they work-- Odom: Mama and Daddy? Well, Daddy’s boss as everybody knows, but what Mama says always goes. (Odom laughs) Dad was an easy-going type guy. You couldn’t pick an argument out of him no way you tried. He was easy-going, and he just wanted everybody to be happy and make everybody happy. Mama is a little bit overbearing. Mama is going to have her way, and what Mama believes, Mama believes, and you don’t changer her much. She’s in charge when she was around. Utley: I don’t want to leave the impression she was all bad though-- (Utley laughs)-- always the disciplinarian. Odom: She wasn’t all bad, all disciplinarian. She had a heart of gold. Utley: Tell us about the good side, the humor she had maybe. Odom: She’d give anybody anything that they needed. She loved to help those in need. Boy, she’d go see sick people that she didn’t even know. Mama had one thing that always tickled me. She believed that one New Year’s Day, the first person that comes to your house, if its is a man, brings you good luck. If it’s a woman, she brings you bad luck for the whole year. And there was an old lady that lived over here by herself that came to Mama’s house on New Year’s morning. (both laugh) Mama got upset, told her to get out. And from then on, she’d get one of her brothers to come to her house early in the morning on New Year’s (Odom laughs). Everybody knew Mama, everybody in the community. You heard a couple of those ladies this morning mention her-- Utley: Sure. Odom: She was Mama to everybody, and they all respected her, they all loved her, and they all did what she said. And she would help them-- absolutely. Utley: What other superstitions did she have? Odom: She wasn’t really that superstitious. She used to tell us things like, “ice cream and fish would kill you.” Utley: Yeah. Odom: But I think she told us that because she didn’t want us to have any ice cream.(both laugh) But those kinds of things. But they weren’t very superstitious. And Mama and Daddy, to have come from a situation where I think both of them must have dropped out of school about sixth grade-- that must have been as high as they go-- both of them were quite learned shall I say. Both of them were able to read well, write well, count well-- they were what I considered intelligent people. I have often told people that my Daddy was the smartest sixth grade dropout that ever lived. Because he would come up with a way of doing thing-- he could while he was out on a job. A skill not many people have anymore, Daddy could sit down and mark off the rafters of the roof, up there with a framing square. He could take a square and he could out every one of those rafters and throw up there to you, and they’d fit. Utley: That’s a skill. Odom: Not many people can do it. Not many people can cut steps. How do you determine how many steps it takes? All he did was measure that distance and divided it, and he would lay it out on the square, every bit of it on that steel square. Utley: Tell me about his store. Odom: His stories? Utley: His grocery store. Odom: They had rice in a hundred pound sack, they had flour in a hundred pound sack, sugar in a hundred pound sack, and they sold it by the pound. I don’t remember the figures, but I guess they made a profit off of it. It wasn’t highly profitable, he kept working-- Utley: They sold canned goods, and hardware-- Odom: Yeah, canned goods. No hardware, I don’t remember any hardware. Sardines, mackerels, and canned meat-- no meats. They didn’t have refrigeration-- well they did have some salt bacon that didn’t have to be refrigerated. They had a little icebox where you put ice in. But, not electric. It was practically everything that the people in this community would need. I remember people buying canned mackerels and salmon and sardines, those are about the only meats that they would have. Utley: How long did that store last? Odom: I don’t know. That store must have lasted fifteen, twenty years. Utley: When do you think it closed? Odom: I would have been-- Utley: You said he died in ’79. Odom: It’s before then. He moved it away there before then. He took the building, took it down to the church. He’d give the church anything he had. I think I would have been twelve, fourteen years old when they stopped having the store. I was big enough to go out-- Utley: I’m getting a ‘no’ here. Clay: I don’t remember that store. Odom: You remember it? Clay: Vaguely. So, it had to be in the late fifties, early sixties. Odom: Do you remember the building or do you remember the merchandise in it? Clay: We were told not to mess with stuff in those sacks. Odom: Yeah, they had the sacks. Clay: We got caught messing with the stuff in the sacks. Odom: But I know they sold the rice, sugar. All that came in the sacks and they had the little scoop and the little scales where they put it in a bag and weigh it and sell it by the pound. Lard, Crustene in a little yellow packet. Utley: Yeah. Odom: So, they sold practically everything-- and they didn’t sit out there all the time. Mama would be doing whatever she needed to do, and they would come out there, “I want to get into the store.” And, she would go in and sell what they wanted and they would go on back home. (Utley laughs) And, a lot people bought on credit. And, they paid whenever they got it. Utley: We’ve got about seven minutes left. Let’s talk about Mount Hope Baptist Church and how important that was to your parents. Odom: Mount Hope Baptist Church was my Mama and Daddy’s heart, as it was to most of the members of the community. There are probably others in the community that felt this close, but there wasn’t anyone who showed it anymore than Mama and Daddy and who passed it on to their children anymore than Mama and Daddy, because that was the backbone of the community. Utley: Rather than the school [that was the center of the community], it was the church? Odom: Yeah, it was the church. And, that is where you got a lot of your training, in your Sunday school class, and then the closeness of the people who were members there. You kept getting that training every day of the week as you met them, as you saw them, wherever you saw them. And, that’s the thing I think is missing so much today, that we don’t get that. But the church was the backbone of the community. Ultey: What do you remember about the church itself? About the services or baptisms or anything? Odom: We baptized in the creek down there, and nothing particularly significant about it or the services. It was-- I mean, I thought all churches were like that. Utley: You remember one preacher over another one? Odom: There was one that was there when I was a little kid. His name was Reverend Fisher. He had a real heavy voice. He always came here-- I think he came from down around Call. He came on Saturday evening whenever he was going to be the preacher and when he drove down the lane the chickens would all run, (Odom laughs) because one was going to have to die. (Utley laughs) At the time I got married, my wife’s father was a minister, and-- Utley: What was his name? Odom: Henry Treuvillion. Utley: That’s a good name. Odom: Um-hum. Then, deacon’s son marrying the preacher’s son, that was it, you know? (Utley laughs) That was the way it was supposed to be. But, the church just reinforced the values that the community had. The community values were, really, just principles. Hey, “help each other,” “treat everybody the way you want to be treated.” Those are the kind of values that were taught in the community. It was in the schools, it was in the homes, so it’s no surprise that O’Donnell Odom will decide years and years later that he wants to be a model citizen because it was passed down. I mean, there are probably many others that could would do the same thing. So, what I’m saying is that it was the values of the community. Hey, even now this house sits here empty with that air-conditioning in that window. Nobody bothers it. Utley: Um-hum. Because of respect for-- Odom: There’s a shed out there that’s unlocked, and it’s still got some miscellaneous tools in it. Nobody bothered it. I mean for how long? Six years? Clay: Fifteen years. Odom: Fifteen years. See, I say it’s the community. Now, that might change because-- (both talking) I drive around here now, and I see some mobile homes on the side of the road, and I don’t know who they are. I don’t know how many there are-- Utley: But you never see people in this community that you don’t know, right? Odom: Usually not, usually not. Usually you know everybody. Everybody leaving out there, I don’t want to miss everybody. Utley: Okay. I’m going to end right now. I appreciate your time. Odom: Okay. Utley: Thanks a lot. (END OF INTERVIEW)