Well, I’m proud to be... ‘True’ or ‘transplanted,’ Okies celebrate Muskogee

By Donna Hales
Phoenix Staff Writer

September 03, 2007 12:43 am

— Martha Frances Jennings, who will be 98 in less than a month, learned how to work at an early age and kept at it until she retired in 1970.
Each family member had specific chores to do, as well as helping tend a large garden. Her specific task as a child was to mow the lawn and collect the rent on the family’s 15 or so rental houses.
She remembers being 13 years old and riding her bicycle, her bank sack dangling from her arm, as she embarked on her collections.
One tenant questioned her authority to collect the money. She said she assured him if he gave her the money, she had a receipt in her bag signed by her mother that she would give him in return.
“We never had any trouble after that,” she said, chuckling.

She recalled three little rent houses in a row on Kankakee Street that rented for $10 to $12 a month.
“I never thought anything about riding my bike there — now I’d be afraid to drive there,” she said.

When she was 17, her father bought the family’s first car. Her parents never learned to drive. She got two driving lessons from the seller of the car and became the family chauffeur. No driving test was required at that time, she said.
She continued driving until June, when lymphadema in her arm made it too hard to drive.
“Her body’s slowing down, but her mind’s not — she’s sharp as a tack,” said her caregiver and friend, Peggy Moore. “She’s fun to be around.”

Father taught her value of money
Jennings parents not only taught her how to work to make life better, but she said during World War I “Daddy taught us the value of money.”
She and her siblings would sell vegetables and fruit from the family’s large garden.
“When we sold $10 worth, Daddy gave us $8.75 to buy a Liberty Bond,” she said.
“He never bought a Christmas present in his life,” she said. “He’d take $5 and $10 gold pieces, put them in little bags and tie them on the Christmas tree.”
When the government asked that gold coins be turned in, “We were crazy and turned them in (at face value).”
She remembered once when she needed money for school, her father took a $1 bill and doubled it to make it look like $2.
“He wanted me to learn to count money properly,” she said. “He used to say bread would be $1 a loaf someday.”
She recalls when milk was 15 cents a gallon and getting 25 cents to go to the movies — 15 cents for the show and 10 cents for refreshments at the Orpheum.
She remembers buying a $75 Kennedy bond when John F. Kennedy was president. Years later when she turned it in at the bank, she was surprised it had earned $600 in interest.
“I paid income tax on that, too,” she said.
She didn’t purchase a home until age 60, which she said seemed to surprise those she dealt with. She had never lived in rental property, but lived in homes her parents owned before she became a homeowner, she said.

Favorites are church and travel
Still a member of a First Baptist Church missionary study group, Jennings has been involved in home mission work through the years.
In the early 40s she was regularly taking a carload of nurses who worked at the hospital and lived in the nurse’s quarters at Sixth Street and Fondulac to Central Baptist Church for services.
Her interest in church prompted her to attend several Southern Baptist conventions in various parts of the nation. She bemoans the fact she can’t be as active in her church as she once was. But she still attends some functions, including Keenagers, and enjoys playing cards and games at Keenagers and talking with friends.
Traveling has brought much pleasure. She’s been all over the southern United States, Europe, Japan, Hawaii, New Zealand and Australia. New Zealand was her favorite. Moore has put many of her mementos in pillows for display.
“I love to travel, and my traveling days are over,” she said. “Again, when you get old you can’t do all the things you want to do.”

OU graduate still enjoys OU sports
Jennings sported an OU T-shirt as she sat in her beautifully decorated home. She talked of when she was attending OU.
“You could get a season ticket to all the athletic events for $5 a semester,” she said, with a wide grin on her face. “The only fee then was a chemistry fee. This was the middle of the Depression.”
After her graduation, she continued to attend most OU athletic events until sometime in the 1940s.
“My brother and I used to go to games at Norman, but I got so excited it took me three or four days to get over it. So, I had to give up on that.”
But she still listens to the games or watches them on television.
“I watch them all the time,” she said. “I just love it all.”
She majored in math when at OU and upon graduation worked as a math teacher at Muskogee Central High School.
“I was a substitute in the mathematics division — for $5 a day,” she said.
Times were tough enough — “we were in the middle of the Depression” — and she quickly learned she was allergic to chalk.
She just switched gears and attended business college for a year, then took the Civil Service exam.
She worked for the Soil Conservation Service and later worked at the U.S. Solicitor’s office in Muskogee until she retired at age 62.
Then the traveling began in earnest.

Q&A

How did you come to be an Okie from Muskogee?
Moved to Muskogee at age 5 with my parents and siblings.

What do you do with your free time?
“I used to travel a lot, now I read a lot. When you get old, you can’t do the things you want to do. My activities have been curtailed because of my health.”

What would make Muskogee a better place to live?
“I like it just fine. I’d like to see some of the old houses and yards cleaned up.”

How would you sum up Muskogee in 25 words or less?
“I think it’s a good place to live, but I wish they’d clean up some of these houses and lots.”

Meet Martha Frances Jennings

AGE: 97
HOMETOWN: Born Sept. 24, 1909, on a bluegrass farm on the banks of the Kentucky River. Her family moved to Oklahoma the next year and to Muskogee in 1914.
CAREER: Math teacher, U.S. Soil Conservation Service and retired in 1970 from the U.S. Solicitor’s Office.
EDUCATION: Muskogee Central High School valedictorian in 1927, graduate of Muskogee Junior College and 1931 graduate of the University of Oklahoma, math major.
FAMILY: Her parents (C.C. and Katie S. Jennings) and her eight siblings are deceased.
CHURCH: First Baptist Church, Muskogee, where she is a member of Keenagers and a missionary study group.
CIVIC GROUPS: Former member of the Pilot Club and former volunteer at Muskogee Regional Medical Center.
HOBBIES: Reading, bird watching and traveling, with the last two being curtailed in the last several years because of her heath.

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