MRS. CLYDE Mccrocklin INTERVIEWER: DR
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SOUTHEASTERN INDIAN ORAL HISTORY PROJECT UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA In cooperation with The Seminole Tribe of Florida INTERVIEWEE: MRS. CLYDE McCROCKLIN INTERVIEWER: DR. SAMUEL PROCTOR DATE: SEPTEMBER 1, 1971 INDEX Arts and Crafts, 5-6, 20 Alligator Alley, 18 Big Cypress Reservation, 1, 5, 10, 12, 18 Billie, Dorothy, 17 Boehmer, William, 4-5, 7, 9, 11-12, 15-16, 19 Bowers, Mr. and Mrs., 20, 24 Bowlegs, Billy, 25 Brighton Indian Reservation, 1, 2, 5, 20 Bureau of Indian Affairs, 5, 10 Christmas, 1963, 14, 24-25 Clewiston, 1, 7, 17, 19, 23 Clothing, 20, 24-25 Cobra, Jack, 14 Conditions of school, 4, 6-7, 16 Dania, 5 Employment, 18 Family, 22-24 Food and Nutrition, 6-7, 11, 14 Frank, Bobby, 5-6, 8, 19, 24 Frank, Nancy, 5-9, 12-13, 15, 19-20, 22-24 Glades County, 2, 4 Government aid, 7, 12, 16 Harper, Leona, 18, 20 Hollywood, Florida, 5 Humor, 13, 24-25 Integration, 4-5 Jumper, Frances, 17 Language Creek [Muskogee], 8, 10 English, 7-8, 22 interpreters, 8, 19 Miccosukee, 8, 19 Manners and respect attitudes towards outsiders, 9, 22 discipline, 9, 10 hospitality, 11, 22 sharing, 9, 22 trust, 10, 12, 22 Mexico City, 15-16 Moore Haven, 4 Okeechobee, 1, 2, 5, 12, 16, 19-20 Oklahoma, 3 Osceola, Billy, 12, 14-15 Osceola, Don, 5, 7, 10, 19 Osceola, Joe Dan, 19-20, 24 Recreation, 11 Religion, 10 Tampa, Florida, 15 Teaching Head Start program, 1, 12, 15-16 Indians, 2-3 reading and writing, 8-9 summer programs, 1, 5 Thomas, Addie, 17 Transportation, 18 Wilson, Mrs., 14 P: We're taping an oral history interview for our Seminole Indian project. This is September 1, [1971.] We are taping this interview in the library of the Okeechobee High School. The interview is with Mrs. Clyde McCrocklin [Avilla Shultz McCrocklin.] How long have you lived here in Okeechobee? M: We've been here about ten years. P: And you moved from ••• ? M: Akron, Ohio. P: What brought you to Florida? M: My husband had retired, and I was just going to substitute [teach]. I wanted to substitute where they had a golf course, so he could play golf. So I took a map of Florida, turned it over, stuck pins through, ten pins. And every place a pin came through, I wrote to the superintendent of that county. One pin came right through the middle of Lake Okeechobee. I wrote to the superintendent of schools here [Okeechobee County], and he called me immediately and asked me to come down and teach full time. I had no idea of teaching full time, but I've done it and have enjoyed every day. P: I know that you have worked with the Seminoles at the Brighton Reservation for some years, and I would like to talk a little bit about that. That's our primary interest here. Tell me what your connection was with the Seminoles. M: Well, this is the Big Cypress Reservation below Clewiston, where I .... P: Rather than Brighton ..• ? [Big Cypress Seminole Reservation is in the Big Cypress Swamp forty miles south-west of Clewiston; Brighton Reservation is about thirty miles south-west of Okeechobee.] M: Right. Three summer programs I had there. In 1963, it was remedial. I was supposed to have twenty or thirty students, and some days, I would have fifty or sixty. The next year I worked down there, in 1965, we had the Head Start program, and I did have twenty all that summer. Then again in 1967, I worked on their remedial work--on the eight week summer program. 2 P: Let's start back with 1963. Was this your first contact with the Indians? M: On the reservation, yes. P: Had there been Indians in your classes? M: Yes. That's why I was really interested; I mean I was intrigued to see if I could teach them, and I wanted to. P: You had already taught Indians, though? M: Just in my class in first grade in Okeechobee. That was my first contact with the Seminoles--was in [the] Okeechobee classroom. P: Can you tell us about your first contact--how you reacted to the kids? M: I loved them. First time I saw them was in the laundromat here in Okeechobee. I had this bright-eyed little boy, James Gopher. Never dreamed I'd have him in my classroom, and he was so active, and so quick and so free, and I just fell in love with him. Then I had him in my classroom that year, and had the fun of teaching him to read. During the year, I went down to Brighton to visit his family, and made friends with them. P: You ran into him at the laundromat? M: I had gone to the laundromat to do our laundry. Then, we didn't have a home. James's mother had come up there with their laundry from the reservation, which was a new experience for her, and a new experience for me. P: How far is the reservation? M: It's about thirty-four miles from Okeechobee. At that time, all the Indians on Brighton came here to Okeechobee schools. They were in Glades County, but they were brought here by bus. Thirty four miles, early in the morning. P: Why were they not going to school in Glades County? M: Well, for different reasons; but then they were transferred to Glades later. They were all brought up here on the early school buses. The little ones would have to get up real early to get here in time for 8:00 classes. 3 P: Jimmy Gopher, then, was your first Indian student. M: Right, and I'll never forget that family. They had quite a large family. Mr. Gopher came to me later on in the year, after we'd made friends, and wanted me to show him on a map how he could get to Oklahoma where his son was in boarding school. They were starting to Oklahoma in the car, and his only way of finding directions was to ask the first grade teacher how you would get there. I only had a map of the United States like you would have in the classroom; I didn't have any road maps like you'd get at the gas station. I explained to him that he could get one at the gas station, and then bring it over, and we'd start him up through Florida, and on up through Alabama and on out toward Oklahoma. He really didn't know how to get started to Oklahoma, and yet he took his family out there to see his son, who was in boarding school. I was interested in that, or concerned about it--them coming from the reservation, and then going so far away from home to go to boarding school all year. You know, to be taken from their families •.. and staying out there the entire year. P: Jimmy was your first student. Did you have any others? This was in 1960? M: This was in 1961. That's right. P: Did you have any other Indians in the school that year? M: James was the only Seminole I had. I had another little boy who had a Seminole mother and a white father. P: How did James learn? Was he ••• M: Very well. P: As well as the white children? M: Yes. I'd say he was a good average student, and very easy to manage. He was as eager as they were, but he didn't show it like the other children did. P: Was he unusually shy? M: Right. In fact, I made up a little poem about James. I couldn't keep from doing it·. About the second day I had him ••• I'm always writing little rhymes, and I wrote this about James, my first little Seminole: I said, 4 "He stands at my door in his brown bare feet A shy little boy, and he looked so sweet, Pencil and book (and something like that ••• ) He's too shy to return my affectionate squeeze. James gets up early to ride thirty-four miles, He ..• (something about his smiles •.. ) And I'm awed at the teacher's role Because James is a challenge--he's a Seminole." And he was a challenge, but he was so sweet, so well behaved- I'll never forget the first day or two of school, how he would keep going into the bathroom, which was inside our room. It was a self-contained room, and he'd keep going in there and flushing the commode. He'd just constantly do it, and so I told Mr. Boehmer [William Boehmer], who'd worked with the Indians about thirty-four years, about James doing that. He said he imagined James thought he'd just found a spring; he'd just discovered a spring that no one knew about, because he could go in there and flush that, and all the water would just come gushing out. That just fascinated James, being able to flush the commode, because of course, no one on the reservation had inside toilets. That was a new experience for James. P: How did James get along with the other kids in class? M: Very well. He was shy, but a lot of first graders are. Actually, a first grade teacher appreciates a shy one once in awhile. James was lovable, completely lovable. P: What's happened to James? M: I think he's a junior now in Moore Haven.