Haskell County Historical Society

Dean, J.D. and Marie - Interview by Jeff Bean (Excerpt)

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BELLE STARR Rides in Haskell County, Oklahoma

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INTERVIEW OF J. D. AND MARIE DEAN

By Jeff Bean

1984

(Skip ahead to topic of outlaws--)

JEFF BEAN: Do you know anything about any of the old outlaws?

SECOND SPEAKER: Pretty Boy Floyd, you know, and he was an outlaw. He was the outlaw that lived out here around Sallisaw. I'm pretty sure it was him I saw one time two mile out north of Stigler. He was in Stigler about that time that I seen this guy, and he was on the road down there waiting on a car and he came where we was at up there at an old Indian cemeter. He asked us if we's going in town pretty soon. I told him no, we wasn't going in for a while yet. He said, I'd rather you wouldn't go in because I'm waiting for a car to pick me up. I'd rather you wouldn't go in until after that car comes by, and it wasn't but just a few minutes after he left and went out to the road that car come by and picked him up. So if that wasn't Pretty Boy Floyd, why, it fit his description according to what he looked like. He was a pretty nice looking man, just a medium size. He wasn't tall new he wasn't short, he's just a pretty nice looking guy.

(Skip ahead to topic of the dust bowl--)

JEFF BEAN: Do you remember anything about the dust bowl?

SECOND SPEAKER: Yeah, we went to Kansas the year we was married and I worked for a guy on a ranch out there and it come up one of them dust storms while we was there and we had to even light the light to see how to get around in there.

FIRST SPEAKER: We just had coal oil lights. You had to light the lamps to see how to get around in the house. You had oil cloths for table cloths and you take your rag just before you was going to fix the table and wipe it off. By the time you got the table set it was just that thick again.

SECOND SPEAKER: It would get on your food before you could eat it.

JEFF BEAN: I guess that was pretty bad then.

SECOND SPEAKER: It looked just like a tornado or something when that dust storm would come. It would just be black in there.

FIRST SPEAKER: It would just roll up and you couldn't see through your windows, the dust would be so bad.

SECOND SPEAKER: You would just pretty near have to get in the house when that thing would hit, because you couldn't stand to stay outside. It would come in the windows with them shut till they'd just settle all over everything. You could write your name on the table or anything else.

FIRST SPEAKER: When you went to bed at night you would shake your quilts and bedding outside. The wind would die down and you would shake them outside because they would be so gritty you couldn't sleep in them.

(The above is an excerpt from the interview of J. D. and Marie Dean by Jeff Bean.)

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Haskell County Historical Society * P. O. Box 481 * Stigler, OK 74462 * 918-967-2161

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