From: "Kelly Sullivan" <[email protected]> My Mother was from Shattuck Oklahoma, there as a child she remembered the Gypsies coming to town. She told me that they usually camped on the outskirts of town, arriving on foot, horse back and in wagons. After they settled in camp the women usually walked into town combing the alleyways and areas were folks through things away, looking for usable or salvageable items. This also inspired the town folks to send word on ahead of the women for folks to put away anything that may be misinterpreted as junk. The one thing Mama remembered most were their skirts.. she said that they were brightly colored very full long skirts, having lots of ruffles, layers and pockets. She said when they would walk through the store their skirts would touch both sides of the aisle. She too, remembered their speech was accented, but she did not know what kind of accent, only that it was different to her. Some times while they were camped out side of town Gypsy men would come into town to put on a show. That is where they would bring in a small wagon and put on a form of entertainment for the town people, like a play and then midway through it stop the play and have something to sell, while one man would be giving the sales pitch children and women would circulate through the crowd to collect the sales and give them what ever it was that they were selling.. then after as many sales as they felt could be made they finished the entertainment, afterwards usually making a few more sales before departing. When they left their camp to go else where, they would just be gone Mama said. It was like they left at night or so very early no one ever saw them leave nor which way they went, almost as if "Poof they were gone". I know this is not any thing with names or dates, only that I am able to tell you that this would have been about 1911 - 1925 around that time frame. Just some of my Mama's memories about the Gypsies who use to travel through Shattuck, Oklahoma. ___________________________________________________________________ Get the Internet just the way you want it. Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj.