When Oklahoma Woman Turned Bank Into a Home, She Got a Lot for Her Money

In 1930, times were tough for Willis and Ida Mae Peterson. The newlyweds wanted to plant a crop, and the only way they could come up with the money was to seek a loan from the local bank.

The Petersons borrowed $100 from the First National Bank of Terral. In those days, interest was taken right off the top, so the Petersons left the bank with their loan, minus 10%, that was to be used for planting corn and cotton.

For a while, the bank owned part of the Petersons. Revenge is sweet, they say. Ida Mae Peterson now owns the bank.

Failed Four Years Ago

The First National Bank failed about four years ago. At that time, it was taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and on Feb. 8, the FDIC auctioned off the building.

Peterson said it had been her bank for 55 years already, so she just decided to buy it.

The bank that Peterson bought isn’t the same building she and her husband walked into 56 years ago to ask for a farm loan. It’s a modern brick building located on the north edge of town and ever since it was built, Peterson had liked it.

“When they built it, I thought, ‘Hey, that would make a gorgeous home,’ ” she said. “I’ve always liked it.”

So, when the opportunity arose, she jumped at the chance to buy the 2,800-square-foot building.

Has Night Depository

Peterson is proud of her new home. She has good reason to be. It’s the only house in southern Oklahoma with a paved parking lot and a night depository.

“I had plans already to build a house. It was going to be on a small lot which I didn’t really care for,” she said. “I wanted more openness. I had always lived in the country. Then, this came up for sale.”

Her view from the front is farmland, something that she is accustomed to seeing plenty of.

She and her husband owned 1,500 acres and farmed about half of that. They raised mostly cotton and corn for many years, then Peterson tried his hand at growing watermelons.

It was stated at his funeral that he had taught the community to raise something besides cotton and corn. Now, farms around Terral raise some of Oklahoma’s best watermelons.

Drive-Through Window

When Peterson purchased what was to be her new home, it looked much like any other present-day bank. White columns held up a big porch that ran the length of the front. There was a drive-through window and a night depository. There were office spaces and a teller counter and, of course, there was a huge concrete and steel vault.

It didn’t look much like a house on the inside, but Peterson and her daughters, Alpha Hall and Virginia Tanner, had some visions of what it could look like, and in no time, she had herself a new home.

Peterson held open house recently and people came from miles around to see “Ida Mae’s Savings and Loan,” as one man called it. Hardly anyone could believe how it looked, she said.

The teller area is now a beautiful modern kitchen and breakfast nook, complete with bay window. The living room-dining area is one wide open space big enough, Peterson says, to hold all her senior citizen buddies who want to come over and play dominoes.

Offices are now bedrooms and baths and what was the bank’s tiny kitchen area is now her utility room, roughly the size of most people’s bedrooms.

“It wound up like I wanted it. I wanted it comfortable,” she said. “I wanted two bedrooms and two bathrooms and I wanted a big living room. I don’t like clutter.”

Peterson has the only house in Jefferson County with a walk-in cedar-lined closet that doubles as an indoor storm shelter. It used to be the vault, so it can probably take just about any storm that might come blowing through Terral.