Person:J C Stringer (1)

L.C. was my father's sister. She and Jess had a store in Heavener called Stringer's Furniture Store. Across the street, his brother, Alan, has a two pump gas station. L.C. took care of a kind of dime store in a front corner of Jess's store. She had a little candy counter and used clothes etc. My mother, Grace Fields Addison, ironed for her in the store sometimes. Jess was the choir director at the First Baptist Church. Lucille played the organ. She went to college in music, the first of my family to go to college. Late in life, she married the band master of a high school between Heavener and Ft. Smith, Ark. Jess lived with them when he got very old and died there at about 90.

When I was about 15, L.C. left Jess. This was a very rare thing to do in the town of Heavener. They say she ran off with a candy salesman. If she did, he wasn't heard of again. She disappeared fast though, so maybe she did. I don't think it would have been wise to have told Jess what she planned. My mother or my grandmother, I forget which, said she saw Jess spank her once.

L.C. did not like her name Elsie so she changed it to L.C. She married a jewler and lived for awhile in Arkansas. Later, she left him and lived near Grand Canyon, I think. Late in life, she returned to Heavener, and ran a kind of bread and breakfast. My daughter, Crystal, really liked her great aunt L.C. She always had something interesting to show and was lively and friendly.

My grandmother or my father told me that Jess heard a man walking through a carnival selling hamburgers for a quarter yelling, "Be good. Chizel fact." Jess is said to have said, "I don't want your hamburger, but I'll give you a quarter if you will tell me what you are saying." The man replied, "Big and good. It tiz a fact."