THE STORY OF MY LIFE: ADALEE EDNA LOVE SIMS

MAY 1990

I was born at home on a farm in Mobeetie, a small community in the panhandle of Texas on April 13, 1915; the only daughter of Minnie Lee Worthington and Len Walker (Bud) Love. My older brother John B. was fifteen years old and my brother Emory Walker was ten. Emory's twin, James Henry, had died at age two from complications of whooping cough and pneumonia, years before I was born.

When I was about three, we moved to another farm about a half mile east of Mobeetie at the edge of town, and there I was raised. My early memories are of this "home place." I lived in this house until I married at 21 years of age and moved away.

We had a large barn, a good-sized apple orchard and some peach trees. A creek came down from the pasture and wound around the house, the orchard, the cowsheds, and the animal lots (both a cow lot and a horse lot), and huge cottonwood trees grew along the creekbed and all around the house.

Our house was made of three little houses moved together and the floors of each building were on different levels. The two rooms in front were joined by a short hall with a porch all along the outside. The two back rooms were a foot lower and held together by the back porch. Under the back porch was a hand dug well; I don't know how deep the well was, but it was fourteen feet down to the water level. It was fed by a spring and was "the coldest water in the county!"

There must have been an open area between the floor of the porch and the top of the well because small animals would fall into the well from time to time: a mouse, a rat, a possum, or even a frog, and ride up on the side of the wooden bucket. Sometimes they would drown in the well and the water would get to smelling and tasting bad and Daddy and the boys would have to draw out all the water to clean the well.

Occasionally, they would find my small toys and maybe a spoon or fork; even pieces of onion found their way into that well! After they'd clean out the well, the back yard would be soaking wet and stay that way for 2-3 days, from where they'd thrown the water.

On the back porch, to protect the well, a wooden frame had been built up, about waist high, around the well site. There were two lids in the top cover. We drew water up by a rope draped over a pulley wheel; there was a wooden keg (bucket) on each end of the rope:

Our backyard was big and shady. There was a woodpile, a smokehouse, some chicken houses and an outdoor toilet. A fruit cellar had been dug into the side of a dirt bank beside the kitchen door. When I was sent down into it to get something I was always scared of spiders and snakes. We stored canned fruit, homemade lard, and barrels of apples down there because it was cool. I never saw a snake, but behind the shelves there were some holes in the dirt walls and I just knew snakes lived in them!

From my first remembrances, Mama's youngest sister, Ruth, lived with us. She was so pretty and I loved to go into her room she had such nice smelling 'stuff' on her dresser. She used powders and creams and always smelled so nice. So, I smeared the cold cream on my self and covered it with powder. Of course I got into trouble, but she really loved me. She had me call her "Auntie" because she wasn't married and said that I had Aunts but I had only one Auntie. She was Auntie to me all my life.

Mama was an excellent seamstress she could look at the picture of a dress, cut her own pattern (to fit the measurements of whomever she was sewing for) and make a dress just like the picture. She dearly loved to rip up something old a coat or a suit brush it, turn it, press it, and make something new out of it. At one time, Auntie made hats and with Mama sewing… they had quite a business going. I hated having to find pins and needles for them and folding up the patterns.

When I was four years old, John married Ira Belle Davis and they lived in part of our house. Ira played with me some, in the shade of the big cottonwoods in the back yard and showed me how to make a playhouse out of buckets and boxes and tree stumps and all kinds of broken dishes and pretend stuff.

Two days after my fifth birthday, Ira and John had the first of their children, a baby boy named Adrian Claude. So, I grew up with my brother's children, more than I did with my brother… they almost always lived near us. Daddy bought me some bib overalls to wear to the fields. I was too little to pick much cotton, but had to go along with the rest of the

family. These overalls had a lot of pockets and I thought I had to fill all of them with something so I tried to find enough useful things to put there… but didn't have very much I could use… just a few nails and some string, so I finished up with rocks. This wasn't very comfortable, so I after a while, I got rid of most of them.

I had a little cotton sack, made out of a flour sack. I wanted a doll buggy, so Mama told me that when I had picked enough cotton, she'd buy me a buggy. I was finally told that I had enough cotton… I quit… I didn't pick any more cotton.

A few years later, I was picking in John's field and I found out putting the green bolls in the sack, made it weigh heavier. The first sack he emptied for me, he gently but firmly told me "that won't work" and sent me to the house to stay!!

My cousin started to school and had a book called a "primer." She'd show me the pictures in it and told me the stories, so, I wanted one, too. Daddy got me a primer and he'd read me the stories while I sat in his lap. He'd spell out the words to me sometimes; I learned to read and to spell; I was four years old.

Because I could do these things, when I started to school, I was put in the third grade. I didn't know how to write and I couldn't handle numbers so I ran into a lot of trouble. Finally, by the time I got into fifth grade, I could do the times tables and write passably.

Snows were deep in the wintertime. I can remember walking to school through drifts up to my waist, all wrapped up (clear to my eyes) holding Emory's hand. My first school was a large rock building: one room with a stage in the front. It was made of native rock and was old then. While we were in this building I was in a short play called the "Sleeping Princess" and I was "Thorn Rosa" the princess. After a few years the building was condemned, so school was held in the building next door for a year or two until it was torn down and replaced with the school building which still stands.

I loved to go to school and to be in plays I was always in the class plays. I was even a Negro mammy in our Junior Class Play… blacked my face with soot and had a ball!

I got two paddlings in school both for talking (of course!). In the fifth grade the girl in front of me kept turning around and talking to me I had to answer her… and the teacher caught us. We got three swats each. I got the other paddling when I was a senior in High School for talking too much, again. Those three swats were administered by my English teacher and embarrassing to us both, I might say.

Every year, our school entered into the scholastic and track meets held at the county seat, Wheeler, 11 miles from Mobeetie. I always entered the spelling contests, and after drilling and studying for weeks, I never even placed in the contest! When I was in the 6th grade, I entered the declaiming division. That's where you memorize and recite a dramatic address or poem in contest with declaimers from other schools.

I had a great poem called "Out to Old Aunt Mary's" and I did a good job on it. It was an interesting, descriptive, and colorful story. My teachers thought I should have won first place instead of third. (There were only 3 of us declaiming.) They felt the judges were prejudiced by the fact that the girl who won first was the daughter of a leading merchant in Wheeler, was crippled with polio, and wore a beautiful taffeta dress I don't even

remember what I wore. I still love that poem; I still have it; at times I can recite most of it, though I might get the sequence of the verses mixed up.

I was Salutatorian of the 7th grade class… wrote my own speech and it was pretty good, even if I do say so. My best friend that year was a redheaded, freckled-faced girl who wore glasses. I thought she was the most fascinating person I had ever known; we were together just about all the time. My Mama made our 7th grade graduating dresses just alike and oh, did we feel special!

I wanted red hair so bad I could taste it. I knew my mother's family was Scotch-Irish from way back and that kept my hopes up that some day my hair would turn red. I watched it carefully but the closest I ever got was brown-with-reddish-highlights… that didn't fill the bill at all.

High School was 8th through llth grade. I had an awful time with Algebra in high school. Some of us had to drop it the first year, but the next year, we had a good teacher who explained it to us from the beginning and we caught on and made good grades all the way through.

I just couldn't make sense out of Geometry and I was complaining one day: "just what good is it?" The school principal told me I would use it every day of my life. He said, "Why, Adalee, you'll never cut out a baby dress that you won't use geometry." Huh! I bet I've cut out a hundred baby dresses and never once needed Geometry!

I never did like my name. I wanted to be a "Dorothy" or a "Virginia" instead I was named for 2 aunts (Delma Adah and Ruth Edna) and Mama (Minnie Lee). I was Ada Lee Edna Love, with 4 initials: A.L.E.L. Everyone else had 3 initials, so, when I got in high school, I began writing Ada and Lee together, which has confused people ever since. They just can't seem to see "Adalee." They've called me everything from Adlai, Adele, Adalla, and Adelaide, to Adell. I even had a teacher in college (who thought she was pretty cute [and she was]) call me even worse.

In college they don't call you by your given name. It was "Misterv or "Missv plus a last name. So, this cutie-pie teacher called me all versions of "Love": Lovey Bird, Lovey Dove, Love Bell, even Dovey Mae! But, anyway, in school when the teacher said Ada Lee, I knew she meant ME!!

I was raised in church. Jokingly, I have said I thought I must have been born on the church steps because we were there every time the doors opened. A lot of preachers would eat with us and spend the night at our house. We usually kept the evangelists and song leaders during revivals, because there was just me at home and people thought we had plenty of room, which we did.

Daddy was a quiet Christian man, he never said much at any time. He always sat in the Amen Corner to the right of the pulpit. The Men's Sunday School Class met there and all the men kept sitting there on through church services, while their wives and families sat out in the auditorium.

The church building was one large room, divided by curtains into class rooms. Mama taught a class of Intermediate boys up behind the pulpit. My Card Class was a bench at

the very back of the building. The floor sort of slanted down to the front so you could see over the people in front of you. Our Cards had pictures on the front with a Memory Verse and a story on the back. I got a new one every Sunday and was to learn the Memory Verse by the next Sunday.

I progressed through various locations and classes in the church 'til I ended up in the Young Folks class on the left of the pulpit, which was also the choir area, and right by the piano.

Mama was active in Missionary Society and other church activities. I went to Missionary Society with Mama all the time because she wouldn't leave me at home alone. Other women had to bring their small children from time to time and there was always at least one baby. I loved to play with the babies, so I tended them for their mothers and played with the little kids out in the shade of the building when they met at the church. When they met in the homes, there were refreshments and a yard and swings to play on.

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One day, as Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Beck, Mama and I were coming home from Missionary Society (I was about 10 or 11) we heard an awful commotion: yelling and screaming coming from the pond just down the creek from our house. We found out some little boys had been swimming there and one had drowned.

I had the chickenpox when I was about 6 or 7. Daddy told me if I would let the chickens fly over my head, the pox would go away. I went out to the chicken house with him. He opened the door and I sat down in the doorway, and Daddy shooed the chickens out over me. The pox went away all right!

When I was about 10, I had the mumps during Christmas Vacation from school...and for Christmas I got a new warm bathrobe and house slippers. The pond down below the house had frozen over thick enough to skate on and as I was about over the mumps. Mama let me go skate for a little while with a friend. She didn't tell me NOT to wear my new bathrobe and houseshoes... that's what I wore skating. Soles of houseshoes aren't very "thick" and they didn't last long on rough ice. Mama was quite upset with me!

I was eight years old when Mama bought me a piano and arranged for me to take music lessons from our church pianist. I would walk to the pianists house after school to take a lesson, which Mama paid for with eggs, chickens, butter, the way all the farm wives got their spending money.

I had to pass by a house where they took a couple of Sunday newspapers: The Denver Post and Fort Worth Star Telegram. Those papers had wonderful funnies and every once in a while, I just had to stop by and ask Mrs. Long is she had any funnies I could look at. I think maybe she saved them up for me to read, because she always said "Yes, come on in and see what you can find." The papers were always stacked in the same corner and

I'd spend a happy hour or so with the funnies and go on home, put my music up, and never mention to Mama that I had skipped my music lesson.

I don't know if the teacher ever spoke to Mom about my missing a lesson; if she did, I must have made up some excuse as to why I hadn't gone there that day. I loved those funnies.

In fact, I liked to read anything. Mom had a few books in a bookcase in the front room...probably 20 or so. In my growing up years, I must have read them 8-10 times over, every few years. I still love to read a GOOD book.

I learned to play a few church songs, as soon as I could find which notes made which sound on the piano. I played them mostly by ear, making up my own bass. I never did learn which key was which - tho' I was told over and over again - guess I had a mental block about getting down to basics as long as I could skim over things and make it sound like it should. I didn't learn about timing. That's why I never felt capable to teach music to my own kids. I wanted them to learn it right and I was lacking on that.

We lived in a good neighborhood... in a little place like Mobeetie, everybody knew everybody else, and most every body got along real good. We had good close neighbors:

Tarvins, across the bridge and up the hill had two older boys Halbert and Edd) and twin girls (Edith and Ethel) about my age.

Joneses, up on the hill to the South, had two adopted boys close to my age. The youngest one was quite a sissy we thought. He played dolls with the neighborhood girls (turned out when he grew up - he was "gay").

Becks were on up the road towards town. Their kids were all about grown, except one boy a little younger than me and a little girl the age of Peggy, my brother John's first girl.

Scotts lived just across the road from Becks, their kids were almost grown.

Then Mrs. Hawn, up on the hill just across the draw, was raising two grandchildren.

In those days there seemed to be plenty of time to visit with the neighbors. People would go to a neighbor's house after supper, now and then and sit until bedtime, while the kids played in the yard or around the house. Bedtime was not very late, as farmers rose early in the mornings to get in the fields.

The women would visit in the afternoons, sometimes, especially if one of them had a quilt up. They'd go over and quilt an hour or two, leaving in time to get home and have supper on the table when the men came in from the fields.

Occasionally, there would be a Quilting Bee where several quilts would be put up at someone's house... depending on how much room they had. The women would take a covered dish and spend the day, sometimes finishing off two or three quilts. The teenage girls learned to quilt and took part in the Quilting Bees, occasionally.

I remember going to Scott's house up the road from us. They always had sugar cookies which they called "Tea Cakes" and the minute we'd hit their porch, I was hungry! They usually gave me one or two "Tea Cakes." Their girls were grown but they played with me some. When the youngest one went to a community near by to apply for a school teaching job, she took me along. I don't know why, unless she just wanted some company. She was Emory's age, 10 years older than me; when she got the job, she took me with her the last day of school to their school picnic!

Becks raised peanuts and always had a big patch close to the house. We loved to stop by in the fall when they were pulling the vines up and stacking them to dry, with the peanuts turned on the outside. Later on, they would take the vines into the barn and on cold, rainy days when they couldn't work in the fields, they'd pick the peanuts off and sack them. If you were lucky enough to be there and help with the harvest, they would give you some to take home with you... or you could buy a big sack of them. They always had a pan of roasted peanuts in their house and they'd give you some.

Mrs. Jones was a kind lady and she liked the neighborhood girls, I guess because she had the two adopted boys about our ages. She baked bread a lot. It must have been sour dough... didn't taste like what my Mama made... smelled more "yeasty"... but when she took it out of the oven and cut big slices while it was still hot, and put butter on it, you just naturally had no complaint!

Tarvins had the first radio I ever saw... a big box with wires and frames and dials and strings. Sometimes, we'd go over there on a cold frosty night when reception was fairly good, and listen to the "Grand Ole Opery." It didn't come in too clear, lots of static, but if we were real quiet, we could hear what there was!

Halbert Tarvin had a small pony named Dolly, sometimes he let us girls ride her, that's where I learned to ride... and the Tarvins always had a Holstein bull or two and it seemed to me they were always mad, especially when they got out of their own pasture. They would come down the lane… pawing and bellowing... just looking for some kid to chase! Nothing could strike terror in your heart quicker than to be coming down the road barefooted, picking your way so carefully to avoid goat heads and stickers... and hear a bull coming... mad as a hornet, and you had to get home before he saw you!

The only thing that could compare to -that scene was to be threatened by a sow with some little pigs. Sows always acted mad too, when they had a new litter of little ones. Daddy had fenced the orchard and when the apples began to fall off the trees, he turned the pigs in to graze. If you happened to be up in a tree... after some really good looking apples... and a bunch of pigs, including an old sow and her piglets started rooting around under that tree... well, you stayed there, hoping she would go on and not decide to lay down right there and feed her pigs for awhile. Because if one of those little suckers squealed she got mad and started looking around to see who done it. You might have a foot dangling down from a limb...you better move it! She might decide to pull you on down! I'd heard wild tales of sows eating children!

Another thing about that orchard - some trees were outside the fence. Daddy had two big mules with w-i-d-e backs and one of them would let Adrian and I ride her (if we could get on). Her back was so wide, our feet struck straight out on each side… and when she

got tired of us, she'd walk up under an apple tree real close and just sort of scrape us off, as neat as you please!

Daddy always had farm machinery out around the barn and we'd get on the plows and pretend to drive the mules...we'd really plow up a storm! One piece of machinery I especially enjoyed playing on was the hay-mowing machine. It had a place for an oilcan, which was usually full, and there were about 8 or 9 neat places to "oil." You'd just lift up a little lid and squirt in some oil. I kept that machine in good running order.

John and Ira went to California when Adrian was about two, I think, 'cause Ira's folks were out there and kept writing for them to come. Emory was around 18 then...he went a little later on. Auntie had been in California several years and seemed to be doing all right... I felt forsaken. When Auntie would come back for a visit, she'd bring wonderful presents. My favorite was a Kewpie doll named Frances, about three inches tall...and Emory was always sending me a little something, too.

As I have already mentioned, my Daddy was a quiet man, never said too much. When he was young, he'd had a nervous disorder called "St. Vitus' Dance," 'characterized by irregular and involuntary action of the muscles of the extremities and sometimes of the face.' He couldn't keep still: when he stood, one leg sort of moved all the time. When he sat, a foot would jiggle or his thumbs would twiddle. We now know that this was a form of epilepsy, but he didn't take any medicine for it. Sometimes he'd be sitting in a chair and he'd just stiffen out and slide to the floor. He'd come to in a few minutes and he'd be OK. It sure gave me a scare a time or two when I was alone with him.

One night I had a date with Everett and before we left the house. Daddy, who had been reading a book, just all at once stiffened out and slid to the floor. It scared me to death; I ran to the phone and called John and it seemed like to me I had hardly hung up the phone when John hit the porch; he must have run all the way. He said for us to go on and he'd stay with Daddy until he felt like he was all right.

I never knew my father's parents and very few of his brothers or sisters, though Mama always said I was a lot like one of his sisters.

Daddy's worst fault, I thought, was that he chewed tobacco. It seems like he always had a wad of it in his mouth. He had a bucket of dirt he'd spit into and it always smelled bad...I just thought the habit was filthy beyond words! It held a fascination for his grandkids though; when John's second boy, Johnny, was about three or four years old, he was asked what he wanted Santa Claus to bring him for Christmas. He replied, "I want a 'pit' bucket to put my 'pit' in like Grampa." I swore I'd never marry a tobacco chewing man...and I didn't, but the cigarette smoker I married turned into a snuff dipper - almost as bad!!!

I want to mention my Grandpa Worthington, Mama's Daddy...I almost worshipped him. His word was LAW...he could do no wrong, as far as I was concerned. Mama said that in his younger years he had been tall, a handsome man with black hair, a black beard and quite a dashing figure. When I knew him, he was almost bald...had a fringe of white hair around his head, a white mustache, was stooped, and had no teeth! I thought he was the finest man I had ever known.

John came back from California when Peggy was about two years old (she was born while they were out there and named Marguerite Helen) and they moved up the hill from us into a small house. Our house was in a low place along the creek so everybody was "up the hill" from us! John and Daddy farmed together and shared the barn, the cow and horse lots and the machinery.

One October evening, when I was eleven, I was going to a Halloween party at the Scotts and Mama said I could spend the night. That was unusual; I didn't ever spend the night anywhere without her. Just before I left, John and Ira came to our house. When I got home there was a brand new baby boy in bed with Ira. They named him John B., Jr. but Ira said "no Juniors" so he was called Johnny... three years later came another little baby boy... and they let me name him Raymond Lee.

Oh, I enjoyed these two babies more than anything I'd ever had. I dearly loved to rock them and carry them around. Ira would say, "Adalee, isn't he asleep yet?" and I'd jiggle the baby and he'd open his eyes and I'd say, "No, not yet" and rock him some more...just as much as I could get by with.

I knew, in Mama's family background were a lot of twins. Mama's mother was a twin. Mama was a twin, she had a brother and sister who were twins, and she had given birth to twins. (Mama's stepmother also gave birth to twins and miscarried twins 2-3 times, but that wasn't Mama's maternal line, though her father sired them). So, I thought maybe some day I would have twins, or one of my kids would. I don't understand why the "twin gene" skipped two generations. Not until one of my granddaughters, Ada (yes, named after me, poor child) had twin boys in January this year!

So, now Johns had four kids and as they got older and rowdier, I called them The Thundering Herd. And when I'd hear them coming down the road to our house, I'd firmly close the front room door and wouldn't let them in there, unless I went in with them. Our best furniture was in there: a leather divan, a bookcase with a glass door, a library table, and the piano...and there was a wool rug on the floor (which the kids loved to roll around on). In later years, I entertained my friends in the front room.

I just couldn't stand to hear a kid "peck" on a piano... and I STILL can't! I made John's kids wash their hands real good before they touched my piano...and I kept the sessions short.

John raised a big truck garden and he had a lot of chickens along with his farming. He'd take a load of produce in to Pampa every week and peddle it door to door to people who didn't raise gardens. He'd let Adrian and I go with him to help deliver things like corn, peas, okra, beans and tomatoes. On the way home, he'd get us a hamburger or an ice cream cone... and if we'd had an especially good day, he might give us a quarter. Oh, we loved going with him!

I always liked boys and I always had a special one in school I liked best, but he'd never know it...and if he said or did something that wasn't very nice, I'd drop him and start liking someone else (in secret). I made the rounds through several in grade school. Even though I liked boys, I played dolls and paperdolls with a couple of neighbor girls until I was 14 years old! I guess we just weren't ready to grow up yet.

I was on the debating team as a Freshman and one time the question was "Which makes the best milch cow - Jersey or Holstein?" Well, naturally, I was for the Jerseys because we had some of those and I hadn't forgot those mean Holstein bulls of the Tarvins!

That year, my Freshman year. Mama took in three school teachers to room and board. Two of them had the front room and one shared my room. She talked in her sleep and I would get tickled at some of her remarks. While they were with us, I found out I didn't want to be a school teacher.

In 1930, the railroad came through our part of the County, a mile and a half north of town...and everything "moveable" relocated to that site...just ruined our town. Neither Old Town nor New Town ever amounted to much.

A new high school and gym were built at New Town, which meant we had to walk a mile and a half to and from school every day. In cold weather, Mama took me, if the car would start.

We had an odd sort of a car: a Whippet Sedan... and there was a knob in the middle of the steering wheel. Lift up on it and it was the automatic starter...press down on it and the horn honked! There was never a question of my taking the car to school and keeping it all day. Such a thing was not heard of! Mama did let me run errands in it sometimes, and boy, I stretched the time by taking a side trip or two, just in order to drive a little longer.

After I learned to type, in high school. Grandpa Worthington had me type the story of his life to send to a farm paper. The paper was printing life stories of some of the Panhandle Pioneers. Grandpa was overjoyed to see his story in print! I wish I had the actual paper, but he kept that himself, naturally. I have a copy, though, and it has become a family heirloom, bad typing and all. I guess typing wasn't one of my best subjects, either!

That same Fall, a tri-motored plane landed in the pasture just North of our place. Things like that just didn't happen very of ten...and planes were just coming into their own. Of course, everybody in the community saw it and started over there. John jumped in his Whoopie (his car) and took out over there, too. For some reason, he stopped and picked me up to go with him!

The pilot, seeing a crowd gathering, offered to take up everyone who wanted a ride, for $1.50 each. John bought us a ticket and we went up. It just thrilled me to death!... as I recall, four or five could go up at a time. We circled around over the farms, ours and the neighbors. Mama could hardly believe it when I got home and told her. From then on, my ambition was to pilot a plane! 'Course, I got more sense in my old age and now I'm reluctant to even ride in one! !

School would start early in August every year and let out for a month or so when cotton was ready to pick, so the kids could help bring in the crop...and we could make some money for school clothes.

Oh! How we suffered the first few days of picking cotton! There wasn't a spot on us that wasn't sore. We'd gradually toughen up so it didn't bother us so much, but it was back-breaking work: bend over and drag a sack along 'til you couldn't stand it another minute,

then drop to your knees and crawl along, dragging that sack. When it got so full you could hardly budge it, you'd drag it or get someone to help you get it to the scales to be weighed, empty it, and start over again.

After we'd toughened up, we'd try to get 500 lbs. a day, and sometimes we made it. Whole families would go from field to field, picking cotton or pulling bolls. It was easier to get the weight with bolls, but bolls paid less.

After a hard day's work, I'd get cleaned up and play the piano for awhile. That rested me better than anything. Of course, if it was a Friday or a Saturday night, we kids would try to gather somewhere for a party. If we couldn't get a party at anyone's house, we'd take buckets of water and a flashlight and drown crickets out of their holes, then gather them up to feed to someone’s chickens... anything to be together and have a good time!

I took a singing class when I was 13 or so, from some singing-school teachers who came to the church there in Mobeetie for a couple of weeks. They taught by "shaped notes" and didn't use a piano, so I think they were probably 'Campbellites' (Church of Christ, nowadays). Anyway, we learned the basics of beating time and leading songs which I used later on in our own church, when we'd run out of a song leader. I had a strong voice and I loved to sing. I sang specials with just about anyone else who wanted to sing!

I could play the piano well enough to substitute for an absent church pianist...and I played for several revivals.

I was about 15 when electricity and natural gas came to Mobeetie. Everybody who was close enough tied into both of them. Hey! We were really getting somewhere! Women bought washing machines and electric irons...what a blessing!

That same year, the highway just at the north edge of our farm, underwent some improvements and a gang of men moved into town to put in bridges. Mama rented our front room to some men and boarded them, too. The company put up a cookshack in our pasture across the creek and Mama sold them milk and eggs and vegetables. The cook had a five-month-old baby girl. I got acquainted with her real fast, so I got to take care of little Margie every afternoon for awhile.

Mama washed clothes for some of the men and I ironed shirts...made enough money to buy me a wristwatch. Emory had sent me one a few years before, but I had either broken or lost it.

Ira's dad had moved from California to Arkansas and left some of their belongings at our house...one was a radio. When I didn't have anything else to do on the long summer afternoons, I pieced quilt tops while listening to the radio. Because Mama sewed so much, there were always plenty of scraps to piece from. When I married, I had twenty quilts... and a lot of other stuff (in my hope chest): cup towels, pillowcases, pot holders... all embroidered and pretty.

While a Senior in high school, I took Voice from our principal's wife. There were several girls in her class and she thought she could help us with our voices and we did our best to learn how to sing right. Once she took us to Amarillo to sing on the 'air' in a 15 minute program. It just thrilled us to death!...a very exciting experience for us AND for our

families who were home listening. Mama said that Daddy cried...I presume he was touched hearing his daughter on the radio and that it wasn't because we sounded so bad. Mama said she thought he was proud of me, but he never said a word to me about it.

I had a good time my Senior year, even if I did get my second paddling for talking in class. My best friend and I just happened to become the favorites of the principal and he just about let us do as we pleased, as long as we kept our grades up. I never did know why he was partial to us. He was a lousy principal and hardly anybody liked him...he was only there the one year.

Three of us were at the top of the class - just fractions of a grade apart. The other two were Valedictorian and Salutatorian... I think the Geometry teacher passed me just because I was a Senior! Maybe that grade kept me from being one or the other. Those girls could both do geometry problems!

I was editor of the Mobeetie High newspaper and wrote the class prophecy. I was also a cheerleader. We had our first ever football team that year and the Pep Squad was right there cheering them on!

I graduated in 1931 at 16 years of age. I dated the same boy all through high school...he was on the football and basketball teams, so, I went to all the games.

My Mom had a way of calling curfew on visiting friends: she would be reading or sewing in the room across the hall from where I entertained. When 10 o'clock came, she'd start moving chairs across the room and making noises. That was a signal for visitors to go home. If they didn't get the hint right away, she shoved and scraped the chairs harder and started clearing her throat.,.and it worked!!

Emory had come home, for the last time, when I was 15. The next summer he got married and was killed in an auto accident on his honeymoon trip down beyond Ensenada, Mexico.

Mama was the beneficiary of one of his small insurance policies, and she used that money to pay my tuition to college. Mama was determined I was going to go to college. I liked school and was willing. Since our school credits were not "affiliated" no college would accept them. Those of us who planned to go on to college had to go to Wheeler High School for a couple of weeks and take exams there that would affiliate our credits. Then we had to take college entrance exams, from the college of our choice.

That summer, my boyfriend's family moved to another town and I lost him. We wrote all summer and when Mama moved me down to Wayland college, where I was enrolled, he came over and drove Mama and I in our car to Plainview, Texas, but I lost him anyhow!

Money was scarce everywhere: the stock market fell and banks closed, teachers taught without pay for months. Times were hard all over.

I stayed in the dormitory. It was a large building and had been full of girls in the past, but most of it was closed off with only one wing being used this particular year. There were about 12 of us girls and a "Dump Mother"-a real sweet, elderly (she was probably about 45 or so) lady. We all became good friends and had a lot of fun together there.

I got homesick right off, but didn't get to go home until Thanksgiving, and then again at Christmas. Two of the girls were from Clovis, New Mexico, where Auntie lived (now married and with a family). So at Easter, I went to Clovis with them and spent the weekend with my dear Auntie.

It was a big deal if Mama could send me 50¢ now and then for spending money. Sometimes she'd send a spice cake. It was sorta mashed when it got there, but oh, so good! Sometimes she'd send cookies and I'd share with the others.

We walked everywhere... there was a sort of a city bus but it cost a nickel to ride it 17 blocks to town or church, so on Sundays we all walked to church and sometimes, if we were flush, we'd walk to a movie on Saturday afternoon ...we'd stay and see it through several times.

I belonged to several of the campus organizations. I never did know what those Greek words naming some of the clubs meant, or what the clubs did, but I joined! I did know about the Volunteer Band.

It was a group of preacher boys and singers and anyone else who wanted to go along on weekends to small towns nearby to hold church services. There was a rickety old bus we went in - never knowing if it would get us home or not. We'd go on Saturday afternoons, have a service that night and spend the night with some of the families around, have a service again next morning and go back to Way land Sunday afternoon. I remember one morning when we got up we were all covered with red bumps: Bed Bug bites! We had stayed at the Batty home and we always warned the others "don't stay at the Battys!"

I dated a preacher boy for a few weeks at the beginning of the term. He was a tall, nice looking young man, with dark curly hair. He was very serious and I liked to have fun, so, it didn't last long. Then I met a Jewish boy, ugly as a mud fence, but lots of fun. It wasn't long until his family moved away though and I was out of a boy friend. By the way, the first boy went on to become the pastor of one of the largest churches in Oklahoma City!!

I had made a Profession of Faith when I was about 10 years old and had been baptized in the pond by our house. Now I began to have doubts as to whether I was really Saved, and greatly feared that I wasn't.

One morning, during our Spring Revival, I decided I was gonna get this thing settled in my mind. So, I ended up with all doubts gone and when I went home at the end of the term, I got really baptized again...in the same pond.

We all hated to part at the end of the school year, but promised to meet there again in the Fall. Unfortunately, there was no more money for college, for me.

Daddy was sick and had been diagnosed as having cancer; he had to have surgery: Mama needed me at home. I was very disappointed, but it couldn't be helped, so I had to find something to do.

A girl I knew had taken a beauty course and opened up a shop in their house. She offered to teach what she knew to anyone else for $10. Daddy sold a calf to get the $10 so I could learn how to give permanents and finger waves.

One of the Beck boys had married a beautician from somewhere down in Texas. They were living with his folks and she wanted something more to do than sit home with her in-laws. She had been fixing my hair, so when we heard of a woman who had bought some fixtures and wanted to open up a new shop in town, we asked to run it and were hired!

We had a lot of fun... ruined a few people's hair… before the owner closed the shop. We dyed schoolboys hair red... gave permanents for $1 on Special, and dyed one woman's hair 3 different shades of brown. The woman was mad at her husband and wanted her blond hair dyed brown or black to spite him. Well, it ended up with her and him both mad at US! We should have never touched her hair!

A friend of mine was working at the telephone office – and when they moved away, she put in a word for me and I got her job. I liked that work, though it didn't pay much...it was a job. I worked 8 hours a day for $.50 and my lunch. It was $3.50 a week, but I made enough to buy me some clothes. Or rather, I bought the material and Mama made the dresses. I felt like was helping some, anyway.

My best friends always seemed to be the preachers' daughters, if they had any. The next preacher who came to Mobeetie had mostly boys and one was just a little older than me. Naturally we got acquainted and went around together. He was sort of mechanically minded and kept our car running, as Daddy didn't know anything about cars. Daddy didn't even drive, but Mama and I did and we didn't know anything about them either!

I just couldn't get serious about this boy but we sure had a lot of fun going to neighborhood parties and church things. He had a girl back at Texhoma, where they'd come from, that he always said he was going to marry, but that didn't keep him from dating me. He'd go back to Texhoma every now and then and stay with his married sister a month or so, then come back to Mobeetie. He was sorta high-strung with a short fuse...didn't get along with his dad very well, so, he'd have to leave and cool off every once in awhile. He sure was a lot of fun when he was around!

A family by the name of Shipman had moved into the Scotts house when I got home from college. They had seven kids, ranging in age from just older than me down to 6 years old. Those kids fit right in with all the other kids in that end of town and we all went to parties together. A Shipman brother (Ralph) and sister (Bonnie Joy) were dating a Tarvin sister (Ethel) and brother (Halbert)…that made a very interesting connection in our group! Then, these couples began to pair off...they weren't too bad though.

One of the Shipman girls, Inez, was going with the "best looking" Sims boy, the one with the most beautiful black curly hair you ever saw. No one would ever dream he wouldn't keep it always(!!) I was always a sucker for curly hair...especially black curly hair...so, I kept my eye on him at all the parties. When I saw her begin to lose interest in him and look around, I began to perk up and get interested!!

I had known these Simses all my life - but thought Everett was a lot younger than me, because he was in grammar school when I was in high school. I thought his mother was the prettiest woman I had ever seen. I had been at the Methodist Church the day she and the boys joined and I felt disappointed that she wasn't joining the Baptist Church. Simeses also had five pretty little girls, just as cute as they could be.

Shipmans moved to Wheeler about this time, though they still spent a lot of time in Mobeetie. We were all down at their house in Wheeler one night and Inez said something about Everett Sims. I said, "Well, if you don't want him, I do!" She said, "You can have him!"...I think that was the last date she had with Everett.

Of course, I couldn't just go up to him and say "I aim to go with you"...I had to bide my time. I wasn't going with anyone - the preachers family had moved away - I didn't like anyone in particular and didn't care to go anywhere with any of the bunch, so I did a lot of staying home, along about that time. I did tell one boy that I thought Everett Sims was cute!!

One Christmas night, Everett couldn't find a date anywhere else, so, he knocked on my door. That was my first date with him. We went over to his house where there was always a bunch of kids dancing and having a good time. When we started home, the car broke down and we walked on home, not too far. That sort of set a pattern. I walked home a lot while dating Everett Sims! Well, so much for the first date with him...but there were others and we soon began going steady, I guess.

Later Simses moved out in the country and Everett had to ride a horse in to town and leave it (at his uncle's store usually) and walk on to my house. Sometimes his cousins could use their folk’s car and we'd all date together going to parties and church. Sometimes the Tarvins or Shipmans cars were available to their kids and we all piled in.

I never did know when Everett was coming. He'd just show up or not - late! One Sunday afternoon some boys from Wheeler came to my house and wanted me to go out a few miles with them to get one of the boys a date. I had gone out a couple of times with one of them, didn't like him very well, and didn't aim to go with him anymore. I said I'd go out there with them but that I had to come right back home and couldn't go anywhere else with 'em.

I didn't know if Everett was coming or not - and if he did, I'd probably be home before he got to my house, as it was early afternoon. Well, wouldn't you know...he came while I was gone...and thought he'd been "stood up."

When I got to church that night, he came in and sat at the back...I thought "uh-oh". After church we finally got together and he walked me home...he has never got over it nor forgiven me...to this very day, I guess. He mentions it yet, every now and then...even after 50 years. You talk about holding a grudge!! HA!!

Once a bunch of us had gone to Pampa and coming home by way of Lefors, the car broke down. It was 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning (Sunday morning) when I got home. Do you think my Mama let me sleep? No sir, it was up at the usual time, set the table for breakfast and get ready for church...my feet hadn't even got warm yet!

One Sunday afternoon in April 1935, Everett was at my house and it began to get darker and darker and by mid afternoon, it was as black as night: dirt was blowing. Everett decided he'd better start home, if he was ever gonna get there. About that time, one of his cousins drove up in their car to get him, or he might never have made it! That was THE famous (infamous?) dust storm of the '30's.

There were a lot of dust storms in the early 1930's – just ruined farming in Kansas, Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. Then is when so many people went to California.

On New Year's Eve that same year, as we were watching the New Year in together, Everett asked me to marry him and I said I would...in fact, I was wondering if he was ever gonna ask!!! We didn't know how or when - but we began to work towards that end.

The Tarvin boys, Jane, and Bonnie Joy were already married and Everett's cousins were engaged, so, we figured if they could make it we could. Nobody had anything and jobs were scarce, not much pay if you got one!

Everett and one of his cousins went as far as Colorado hunting work. He found a job washing dishes in a cookshack at a gold mine location...but no gold. After awhile he came back home and worked for his uncle at about $1 a day. Savings didn't pile up very fast, however, he managed to buy me a set of rings. All the other girls had them, too.

Ralph Shipman went off to a conservation camp where a lot of boys worked and wages were sent home to their parents.

Somehow we finalized plans to get married August 15, 1936. The Tarvins and Shipmans and various neighbor kids sometimes found a swimming hole somewhere along the creek and everybody would go swimming. "Mixed swimming" was looked down on in those days, outside ones own family, but it didn't bother everybody. When they'd let me know, I'd sneak my bathing suit out and go over and spend the afternoon with Edith and Ethel, the Tarvin twins.

This one time, the swimming hole was near the highway and anyone passing could see the swimmers. I couldn't swim, but I sure liked to get wet on a hot summer day! One nosy old lady, who was always telling my Mom how to raise me, happened along and spotted me! Soon as she got home, she phoned Mama and informed her where her daughter was and what she was doing: swimming with men and boys!!

As soon as I got home, Mama lit into me. She was so mad...she felt disgraced..."where have I gone wrong?" and more. Well, the next day was Sunday and I rebelled and refused to go to church. It was the first time I had ever done such a thing!

Mama told the preacher what had happened and as he was an old bachelor and narrow-minded as to how young people should behave, he came down on me, too! The scandal finally blew over, but I remained mad at him for butting in and I did NOT want him to perform my wedding ceremony. I was 21 years old and what I did was none of his business!

We were at a carnival in Wheeler, when we came across the pastor of the Wheeler church, whom I'd known at Wayland. He'd led the singing in our last revival, so, I asked him if he'd marry us on the 15th; he said he would; that was settled.

I would have liked to have had a church wedding, but not very many couples were having them, the times were so bad. I don't think I could have talked Everett into that anyway. Mama bought some white cotton lace to make me a dress and I got white shoes and underclothes... I'd look like a church bride, anyway!

Most couples went over into Oklahoma and got married either at some preacher’s house, anybody they could find, or at a Justice of the Peace's office. We had gone along with Halbert and Bonnie Joy, when they did that. We wanted them at our wedding, however, Ralph and Ethel were gonna stand up with us.

I got a huge wedding shower, not fancy stuff, but useable, necessary things. In fact, I'm still using the rolling pin I got in that shower.

Next thing we found out was that Ralph couldn't come home from the Camp on the 15th, but he'd be available on the 7th...so, we changed plans the day before and got married the next day, August 8th, instead of a week later! Mama finished up the handwork on my dress on a Friday night while sitting with my first music teacher who was in the hospital, dying.

Everett was baling hay with his Uncle Marvin's hay crew at that time - I guess they may have come in earlier than usual that Saturday afternoon, because he was ready by about sundown... and we all took off to Wheeler to get our license and find our preacher. Plans had changed so fast, I hadn't had a chance to notify the preacher! Well, he happened to be out of town that night...so, we went on to Shamrock; the pastor there had just finished a revival at our church not long before and had stayed at our house...so, we woke him up!

It was 11 p.m. and I guess he was tired. He raced us through the ceremony as fast as he could get it out. To this day, I don't know what I promised or what he asked of us...we just stood there nodding our heads, he didn't even ask about a ring. Everett put the ring on my finger after we got back in the car. I guess whatever we agreed to in the ceremony was binding...it has lasted over 50 years.

The others dropped us off at the White Hotel in Wheeler and that's where we spent our wedding night/honeymoon. They picked us up the next morning and took us to my house and later we walked up to the church, where service had just been dismissed, and received congratulations. Everett had to go back to the hay fields that afternoon and I didn't see him until the next weekend.

We stayed with my folks; Everett finished hay harvest and worked wherever he could. Daddy was very sick by then and Everett helped Mama around the place. He heard of a job on a ranch about halfway between Mobeetie and Pampa at a place called Laketon. We rode up there on a milk truck to see about it and came away with the job.

Everett was to feed cattle and do ranch chores; I was to cook for 2-3 other hands that worked there. I wasn't much of a cook, but I got plenty of practice and they ate it. The pay was $20 per month and food. The ranch house had once been a large family home

with 11 rooms. We moved all our stuff into one large room and tried to make a home of it. The boss, Mr. McAfee, furnished mostly staples: flour, lard, sugar, and cases of canned corn, tomatoes, green beans and the like,...and sacks of pinto beans. He loved beans and after eating meals of steak, roast, and ham at his home in Pampa, he expected a big pot of beans when he came out to the ranch on the weekends.

I cooked on a wood stove that I wasn't used to but I learned to make hot rolls, cakes, and pies without burning them.

There was a bathroom of sorts...a small room with a bathtub. We all used it, including the ranch hands. We heated water on the stove to warm it up. We had an outdoor toilet that I was used to anyway.

If I wanted anything extra, I had to buy it myself. We had no transportation to go anywhere, so I would make a list and when the boss brought what I'd asked for, I paid him. I was pregnant by this time and so sick to my stomach. I craved things Mr. McAfee didn't provide, like peanut butter and crackers ...and popcorn.

As we were paid by the month, we paid our grocery bill by the month; it was usually about $5-$6. One month it was a little over $11; we were outraged! Groceries were cheap, along with wages. A beef roast was 12 1/2 cents a pound, bacon 10 cents a pound, steak 25 cents a pound; bread was 3 loaves for 25 cents and sometimes I bought a can of salmon for 15 cents and made a salmon loaf for Sunday dinner.

There were a few chickens on the place so we had eggs and now and then a fryer. I loved 'Pork and Beans' and the boss bought a case of them...before long I couldn't stand the smell of them, much less the taste! I have never felt the same about 'Pork and Beans' ever since.

I asked once for some cleanser to clean the bathtub and he told me to use kerosene on a rag. Now, there were two smells I could not stand to have on my hands. Kerosene was one of them and Chicken Doo the other. Seems like those smells soaked in and just would not wash off....sure didn't set well on a sick stomach.

Mama let me have her sewing machine and I bought material for baby clothes and to make me some maternity dresses...I spent most of my days sewing. I embroidered and beribboned the baby clothes and I was so proud of them; I thought they were just beautiful.

Outside of feeding the cattle, Everett was off on Sundays. Sometimes, some of our friends would come up and spend the day with us. There was an old truck on the ranch that didn't run very good and we never knew if we'd get back home or not if we used it, but we made a few trips to Mobeetie.

Everett's brother, Bob, came by late one Saturday afternoon and took us to Pampa to a Public Dance Hall...my first and only time to be in one. We didn't know anybody and Bob just knew two or three people there...it wasn't very entertaining so we didn't stay long.

I always said that when I got to be my own boss, I wasn't gonna go to church, unless I wanted to and not 'til I got good and ready!! I'd gone all my life because I was raised to go. After a few months of not being able to go to church (or to go anywhere) - I got good and ready!! I missed it and I got a lot readier before I got to go regularly again!

My Daddy died February 3, 1937 and was buried on the 5th. Mama's half-brother, Frank, came up and got us and brought us back a few days later; Mama came home with us for a week. Mr. McAfee butchered a lamb the next day and I learned that I cannot abide mutton...and you can't make lamburgers fit to eat out of it, either! In a month or so, Mr. McAfee sold some of the cattle to George Fritzlen of Higgins, Texas.

Everett got a job with Mr. Fritzlen at $35 a month, so we moved to Higgins. We had a one room house, about 10 feet by 12 feet; we crowded all our stuff into it...there was a path through the room.

Nothing could be cooked in the oven of the makeshift wooden stove, so as soon as we could, we bought a 3-burner oil stove with a moveable oven about 12 inches square. In just a day or two, Everett set a little pyrex syrup jug on one of the burners to warm up the syrup for pancakes. It broke and ran down into the burner, ruining it, and leaving us with only two burners. This was the first time I got really mad at Everett - I was just furious!... I could have killed him!!

Well...I finally did get over it, and by summertime, 'Fritz' had built a porch on the back of the room and a larger room on to the side, giving us more space.

We'd get up real early - Everett had to start milking cows by five. He'd take the milk to the milkshed and separate it, then come back in and eat breakfast. By then the other hands had arrived and the Boss was up to set them about their days work: feeding cattle, planting crops, harvesting, or maybe building a new chicken house or a pig shed.

My job was to wash the milk utensils including the separator, which separated the milk from the cream, and set them out to "sun" all day. The Boss sold the cream and gave the milk to the pigs. We were allowed one pint of whole milk and all the skim milk we wanted. We didn't have a refrigerator, of course, or any way of keeping the milk (or anything else) cold. That one pint of milk didn't make much butter, either!

Mama came up to be with me when our baby was born. The Bosses wife, who was also pregnant, was sympathetic and let Mom sleep in one of their spare bedrooms, in exchange for Mom's help around her house. She had a German girl to help her with the washing and cooking, so Mama just kept the house picked up and did some sewing for her.

Occasionally, she would give us vegetables from her garden; she was nice most of the time. Her mother was a Christian Science Practitioner and they "read" their ailments away at a Reading Room in Canadian. Their little boy, Jimmy, was seven and when he got a stomach ache or even one time when he broke his arm, she called her mother to read for themo Fritz made her let the doctor set the broken arm, though. She'd advise me about going to the doctor while I was pregnant 'because I wasn't a Science believer'.

Margie was born June 23, 1937 at the Higgins Hospital, which was three rooms up over a drugstore/doctor's office combined. Dr. Davis seemed real old to me, I guess he must have been in his late 40's, but he had white hair and I thought he was ancient, however he was a good doctor. I rested six days in the hospital and that combined with his bill came to a grand total of $25.00!

We thought that little baby girl was the most precious, beautiful baby ever was; we named her Marjorie Gwen, and as soon as we could, we took her to Mobeetie to show her off!

The Bosses wife had her baby, another little boy, the next month and named him Johnny. Sometimes we'd put the babies in the same buggy and push it around the place for a little ride. She'd let me use the buggy to take Margie with me to town, occasionally, when Everett would be busy. It wasn't long before we got us a car and then we could get around some on our own.

Everett's younger brother, Wiley Junior, came up to Higgins and began working for Fritz, too. He helped with the milking, and he stretched that one pint we were allowed quite a bit, as he loved milk. Junior said that as much milk as was given to the pigs, there was no sense in us not having a little more! Margie was a light sleeper and woke up at every little noise. Junior was very careful not to wake her - like the time he tiptoed into the bedroom after something and yelled back to ask where it was!!

In September that year, Ralph and Ethel came to Higgins to get married and, also, to work for Fritz. They went to the Nazarene preachers house and we stood up with them, including Margie. The pastor read them the nicest ceremony and took his time, talking to us all. I got a lot more out of their ceremony than I had out of ours.

Ethel and I enjoyed being together again while the men were at work. I think Ralph and Everett enjoyed working together, too. Then, after a few months, they went on back to Mobeetie.

My Uncle Charlie lived a few miles down the road towards Canadian and sometimes we'd go visit them on a Sunday afternoon. Meantime the preacher I had gotten so mad at (mixed swimming!) had gotten married and moved to Higgins to pastor the church there. I forgave him, we started going to church, and became good friends with both him and his wife!

The next June, on the day Margie was a year old, a tornado struck Higgins and blew most of it away (6/23/38). Everett 'was out in the field, plowing; he jumped off the tractor and got down under it, holding on for dear life as it rocked to and fro. Margie was sick with whooping cough' and when she cried she'd cough so "AWFULLY hard, I was walking the floor with her and crying and praying, and just scared silly.

Luckily our house stood, but most of the sheds and outbuildings around were flattened; a big feed grinder/mixer was laying on the ground. The yard was covered with tree limbs, drowned chickens, lumber, and bricks. The men were kept busy rebuilding the sheds and pens and putting things back to order, then there were crops to replant. Higgins built back some, but it was never the same.

In February the next year, we moved back to Mobeetie. John had sold his place and moved his family to Tehachapi, CA. Everett began to farm for his Uncle Doug and we moved into Mama's two back rooms. Jean Ann was born there on June 13, 1939 at home. Mrs. Beck came down and helped Mama. We called Dr. Nicholson from Wheeler, who just barely got there before she did! He charged us $35.00 and it took us two years to get him paid in full.

Jean Ann was the only one of my babies I was able to breast-feed all the way through; she was a sweet-faced little dumpling, and a very good baby, when Margie would leave her alone.

In the fall we got a government loan and bought some seed and some horses, and with the use of Mama's plows and equipment, we put in crops on her place. Mama bought a house up in town and left us on the farm.

It was during the drought, depression, and dust storms. Times were worse than ever. Tarvins and Shipmans had sold out and moved to the San Joaquin Valley in California. They worked in the fruit and vegetable crops near Fresno. Tarvins stayed in the valley and Edith married an orange rancher. Later, Ralphs and Halberts went on down to San Diego to work in the airplane plants there.

John’s family came back to visit us in the summer of 1940. Their youngest boy, James Dale, was about 5 months old and our Jean Ann was a little over a year. John saw what a shape we were in and talked to us about coming to California. He was working at the Monolith Cement Plant in Tehachapi and they looked to us like they were doing real good.

We didn't make anything on our crops that year. Our brooder house with 500 little chickens caught fire and burned up; we just didn't know if we would ever make it farming or not. We finally decided to sell the farming equipment (what wasn't Mama's) and take the plunge to California.

Everett's Uncle Al rented Mama's farm (he later bought the farm from Mama), bought most of our stuff, and traded us a car (a little better than the one we had) and a big, old cotton trailer to load all our belongings in to take to California.

We loaded up our things and set out for California on November 29, 1940. There had been an ice storm the night before; telephone posts, electric wires, and posts were broken off and scattered along the road, clear up past Amarillo. The trailer was so heavy, it took us until almost noon, just to get 30 miles up the road to Pampa.

We decided, if we were ever going to get to California, we better ship our heaviest belongings: the quilt box, beds and bedding, the boxes of household wares and clothing. We loaded all the canned vegetables and fruit into the car, putting quilts over them to make a bed for the kids.

Because of the ice storm we had dressed warmly the morning we left Texas. John had told us we better come the southern route because of winter storms and snow on Route 66. The first night on the road we spent in Vaughn, New Mexico. That place had the LUMPIEST beds I had ever slept on. We didn't realize, until we stopped that night, that

we had put ALL our clothes on the freight train, with the exception of what we were wearing and what we had changed out of the night before. We wore the same clothes all the way to California.

We had food with us and ate our meals along the way, as long as it lasted. We didn't have much money, less than $100. We had to buy at least one tire, maybe two or three innertubes, and of course gasoline. Rooms every night cost probably $2.00 or $3.00.

The desert got so hot during the daytime and what with us being overdressed for the heat, we REALLY felt it; we all took colds. I gave the kids most of a great big bottle of cough syrup, trying to ease their coughing and sneezing. The second night we had got as far as Socorro, New Mexico; I don't remember anything in particular about that place except, maybe, that it was an adobe building. Most of the auto courts along there were like that.

The next night we spent in Sholow, Arizona, a pretty little town up in the mountains. In this room, the sheets had been starched and ironed and were so slick, I had to get up two or three times in the night and put the kids back in the bed; they kept sliding off! The next morning was a little frosty outside with a skim of ice on the water holes. This was the day we got in to California.

We didn't know what sort of work we would be able to get 'when we arrived but we'd brought our cottonsacks along, knowing there was cotton to pick in California. We were stopped at the inspection center in Needles, THE HOTTEST PLACE ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH, .and-told that they would have to boil our sacks to guarantee we weren't bringing boll weevils into the state. There we sat...for hours...while they made a fire and boiled our cottonsacks. I never was so glad to leave a place...ANYWHERE west of there had to be better.

About 8 o'clock that night we got to John's house, flat broke. Bless his heart, he took care of us for several weeks. I washed our other set of clothes the next day, so we could change...what a relief! In about a week, our belongings came and John helped us rent a part of one of Mr. Griffin's houses across the street from the Catholic Church.

Another family lived in the other half and the woman sang "Rose of San Antone" nearly all day long, I guess she liked it! She had two little girls and wasn't married to the man, which shocked me to death! I didn't know people did such things!

Everett didn't get any work for about six weeks. Every morning unemployed men from town would go down to the cement plant and hang around hoping they would get hired that day. It seemed strange to me that my brother, John, couldn't just go up and say "My brother-in-law needs a job; hire him!!" I thought that naturally, John was one of the bosses... come to find out he was a common laborer! When Everett did get a job it was on the Jameson Ranch, not the plant; ranch headquarters was just across the road from the plant. His job was regular ranch work, feeding cattle, building fences.

We never did go hungry - he'd told me once before we got married that we might never have much but we would never go hungry. That promise sustained me for many years...and we never did go hungry. Sometimes the meals have been monotonous, not much variety, but we always ate. Now over the last few years, Everett says he doesn't

remember ever making that statement...what a let down...had I known that, I'd have given up, more than once.

Our little girls were used to drinking whole sweet milk straight from the cow...they didn't like the pasteurized milk we had to use now. They weren't used to indoor toilets either, Jean Ann especially would run right out in the middle of Pauley Street and squat down, she was a eighteen months old...I sure had to watch her.

The first thing that happened to me was: I got pregnant again. We were told it was standard procedure for every woman when they got to California in those days.

In February, after Everett got a job, we moved over across the tracks into a big, high-ceilinged house with six rooms, setting in a pasture all by itself. Our few belongings just rattled, around, we only used one bedroom and the kitchen! The house was right next to the railroad tracks, just a barbed wire fence between. It sounded like the trains were coming right through the house, every time one passed, but we got used to it and could sleep through!

It was wartime and trains went by every little while, moving supplies and troops: Santa Fe and Southern Pacific rails ran side by side. It was said as many as 17 to 20 trains came through every 24 hours.

Every day, after Everett went to work and I had got the kids up and fed them, I'd put Jean Ann in the stroller someone had given me, take Margie by the hand, and walk up to Ira's to spend the day. I know she must have gotten SO tired of seeing us at her door every morning, but she never said a word. Sometimes I'd take my washing to do: she had a machine. I paid her a quarter every time, 'cause she said water was so high. Sometimes John would be sleeping after working all night. They never let on that I was a pest or else I was so dumb, I didn't catch on. James and the girls played well together; I'd go home in time to have supper on the table by the time Everett got home.

In May we moved into a house belonging to Jameson Ranch, down at Monolith. Three other families were already living there. A Mexican family was on one side in two small rooms. Two related families had the back two rooms and porch and we got one big room. We were able to get two beds in it plus a table and a big wood stove. We stacked up some orange crates for a cabinet and curtained off a clothes closet in one corner. We had no electricity and used kerosene lamps. I got some books from the library and I would read aloud a while every night after supper 'til my voice would give out. We read a lot of Zane Gray's novels that year.

I had to store my quilt box and some other things in a little shed just off the Mexicans' side of the porch...a lot of things disappeared before I could ever use them again. I always figured one of the Mexican boys took them...either into their house...or sold them. I hadn't had any dealings with Mexicans and I was scared to death of them. I was sick to my stomach a lot anyway and the smell of "garlic-y" cooking made it even worse.

I was terrified of those Mexicans. They looked to me like they were just waiting to do something terrible to me or mine. The old man would sit out on the porch in the evenings and Everett would sit and talk to him. Margie and Jean Ann would go out to their daddy

and play around. Pancho would pick Jean Ann up and set her on his lap and talk to her and I'd just about die! I thought Everett ought to pick her up out of Pancho's lap and bring her into the house away from those awful people. It didn't seem to bother Everett any and I don't suppose she was harmed. She always-did prefer men to hold her., even when a baby!

We had an outside toilet that the whole bunch used. If you went down there after one of those Mexican boys had been in it, there was a mess, but the other families and I would take soapsuds down and tried to keep it fit to use.

When I wrote to Mama that Mexicans were in part of the house, she was aghast! She wrote back "for heaven's sakes don't let anyone in Texas know about it!" She and I felt the same way about them..but later on, some of Mama's best friends were Mexican women with whom she worked.

I planted a garden across the yard but it didn't do too well. One day the kids were out there with me and something bit Jean Ann on the elbow. I always thought it was a spider, but I don't know for sure. By the next morning her arm and shoulder was swelled tight; I took her to Iras and she rushed me up to the doctor, at the hospital.

The Dr's Schlotthauer (Madge and Harold) owned the hospital and had offices there. They put her to bed and started wet packs and probably gave her some shots, too. I had to leave her there almost a week and it just KILLED me! I knew my baby wanted her mother, but as I didn't know what to do for her, I just had to grit my teeth and bear it.

When I'd go to see her, I'd look through the doorcrack and not let her see me. I knew if she cried for me, I just couldn't stand it. She was 2 years old and seemed to make it fine - as far as I could tell. I was so glad when she got to come home. Something came out of that bite and left a little hole; she still has the scar.

Everett's Uncle Marvin and their 3 kids came by and spent the night with us at least once, while we lived in that house (room). It was awfully crowded, but it didn't seem to bother them as much as it did me. They had been in San Francisco several years; he was working in the ship yards there. They'd make a trip back to Texas every year and Tehachapi was a good place to spend the first night...they'd leave early - three or four o'clock in the morning - to get across as much of the desert as possible before it got so hot. Cars didn't have any cooling in those days.

Grandma Worthington died right after we came to Tehachapi (12/40) and Mama was living with Grandpa, taking care of him. He was 89 years old but wanted to come to California before he died. His youngest son, Hugh, was here in Tehachapi, so in June of 1941, he and Mama drove out here in her car. He really enjoyed that trip; they stayed at Hughs and Johns and we all took some trips together; to Hollywood for one place, we spent a day at Hart park in Bakersfield, and entertained them as well as we could. Grandpa died in September, just after Linda was born. Johns and Hughs went back for the funeral, but I couldn't go...I sure wanted to see my Grandpa, just once more.

I was so homesick for the farm in Texas, the first few years we were here, I nearly died. Then, I guess, we began to put down roots and Tehachapi started to feel like home.

After Grandpa died. Mama came out here to stay. She had a hemstitching machine she had got when I was 11 or 12. She had someone help her load it in the car and brought it right along with her!

Our third girl, Linda Lee, was born at the Tehachapi Hospital on September 16, 1941, while Everett was asleep on a bench in the waiting room. He was so disappointed at another girl, he began to think he just as well give up on a son. However, Linda was such a pretty baby and so sweet and good-natured, we just thought she was as fine as any boy could ever be. This time the bill was $75 including 5 days in the hospital - prices were going up!

I went to Iras for five days before I went on home. After, they'd put me to bed, Margie and Jean Ann came by the bed to see the baby and Jean Ann got so excited, she leaned over and bit Margie, right in the middle of her back! That caused quite an uproar. I don't think she ever understood why she did it. We paid Ira's neighbor to come over and help Ira with the extra work we caused.

As soon as we got home, the Mexican woman came over to see our new baby. I let her come in and stood there ready to jump, if she so much as touched Linda. I could smell beer on her and I knew she drank a lot. (She'd lay down on the bed drunk and one of her sons would throw things at her mainly shoes. I couldn't understand what they were saying but I knew he was mad because she was too drunk to cook.) She didn't offer to touch the baby, just said a few things in Mexican, smiled at me, and went out. She brought her youngest boy, Panchita, about 8-10 years old, in to see Linda later that day.

It was such a chore to go to Ira’s to wash, as often as I needed to, so Everett bought me a used gasoline engine washer. It was as noisy as all get out with its popping, I still had to heat water in a tub on an outside fire, but it sure was a help. I ran water to it with a hose and didn't have to carry so much of it. Everett rigged me up a clothesline and I felt somewhat "self-contained!"

Everett finally got on at the cement plant. He and John started building an adobe house on the back of one of John's lots...working on it on their days off and just whenever they could. When it was finished, we bought it from John - for $1,000. This was our first home and we were SO -proud of it. When we moved in, Linda was 5 months old.

The house had three rooms PLUS a bathroom...with a shower(!)...a whole house to ourselves! Never mind that it had two front doors and no back door! I had never moved so much in my life, as since I'd got married - after we married it seemed like we had been moving all the time!

John moved to Compton and Mama bought his house. She had gotten on at the hospital and was working as a Nurse's Aide. While John and Ira lived in Compton, their younger daughter, Patricia Ann, was born. We all called her Patsy.

There were a lot of potato fields around Tehachapi with big sheds along the railroad tracks where women cut seed potatoes, in the spring, to be planted out in the fields. When the potatoes were harvested, women culled, graded and sacked them to be shipped all over the United States. Mama kept the kids for me and I tried "cutting" potatoes one

year; we got paid so much per sack. The work was seasonal and only lasted a few weeks. Almost all the women I knew had tried working in the potatoes, at least once. I didn't make much money but I got the experience.

There wasn't any Baptist Church in Tehachapi, just a Catholic Church, a 4-Square Gospel Church... and a Community Church that covered everything else, where we went one Sunday. They let us know right away that children weren't welcome in their services. Children belonged downstairs, out of sight and hearing. We weren't used to that and it did not sit well with us, so we didn't go back.

We met a lady at the telephone office, whose name was Ada Lee McLaughlin, and she was a Baptist!! By coincidence of our names, we got to talking and one thing led to another and she and Mama started talking about starting a Missionary Society...that was the beginning of the First Baptist Church of Tehachapi, which is a whole other story in itself and I have written a history of that! I have been Sunday School Secretary for the church for 47 years and pianist, most of that time.

The girls were real small when they were in our first church Christmas Program. When I dressed them to go, the only slip I could find for Jean Ann- was at the back of a dresser drawer, all wrinkled. I didn't have time to press it and thinking, "oh, well, no one will see it", I put it on her. She was so shy, when she said her part in the program, she pulled her skirt up over her head - and there was that wrinkled slip for all to see. Kids sure keep you humble!

Mama let me use her sewing machine and I made all the clothes for me and the kids. I tried a few shirts for Everett, but they really looked "homemade" so I quit shirts and stuck to blouses, dresses, and skirts.

Both Linda and Jean Ann had an eye problem - one eye being crossed. As soon as we could, we took them to an eye doctor in Bakersfield, on the recommendation of some friends who had a daughter with the same problem. The girls began to wear glasses when Jean Ann was 3½ and Linda was 1½; they did pretty good, never did break a pair, but sure did scratch up the first ones. After we got the second pairs, and they found out they really could see better with the glasses, they weren't so rough on them...though Linda would hide hers once in a while. One day we found them in a hole out in the back yard. It was Easter and I don't know if she was hiding them like an Easter egg or not.

Everett got tired of shift work at the plant and tired of taking cold lunches, so when he heard of another ranch job, he quit the plant and want to work feeding and fattening hogs on the "Grand Oaks Ranch" out west of town. The Boss would buy up loads of cull potatoes; Everett and another man from our church, who lived in the ranch house, would cook them up and feed them to the hogs.

We rented out our house in town and moved into a three-room house on the ranch without electricity or gas. Back to an outdoor toilet, cooking on a wood stove, using kerosene lamps, and keeping warm by an oil heater. One day the oil heater blew up just after I had mopped and waxed the floors. and had the whole house looking good. It was very discouraging; the explosion blew oily soot all over everything!

There was a small house over the hill where the Boss and his family and friends would come on the weekends. I was s'posed to air it out, dust everything, and freshen it up when they'd let us know they would be up. We lived out there (the White House) less than a year then moved back into town and Everett tried the plant again. We heard of a house for sale out beyond the edge of town, so one morning while Margie and Jean Ann were in school, I put Linda in a 'go-cart' and we walked out to see it on Valley Boulevard. We knew the owners... they were about to decide to go back to Oklahoma. There were very few houses way out there...potato patches all around and a reservoir for irrigation, just up the road.

Mama loaned us the money and we bought the house for $2,700...not knowing we would live there the rest of our lives. We moved in December 3, 1943. The house had six rooms, small, but they seemed so roomy after living most of our married life in three small rooms (or even less!). Linda was 2½ and for a few days, she'd get lost trying to find the bathroom.

The bathroom and service porch had a basement under them, accessible by a trap door in the floor of the porch, where we kept empty fruit jars and all manner of canned fruit, vegetables, and pickles, et cetera. There was a nice fenced front yard with a lawn and a tree in the middle; fruit trees had been planted in the back yard. Later on we added a garage on the west side and a wash house in the back yard. We thought we had found paradise...about a half mile from the city limits.

The next door neighbors had a little girl about Linda's age and a baby boy, just beginning to walk: Donna and Tommy Nelson. On the other side of us the Wests had two little boys and a baby on the way. Both families were good neighbors. There were a few houses scattered along down the street. As the children began to grow, our yard became the gathering place of the neighborhood (I liked to keep my children at home where I could keep an eye on them). The school bus stopped right in front of our house to pick up all the kids in the area.

One day I was canning green beans, the girls had gone to the library, and I was home alone. The cooker I was using kept losing steam, so I let it cool down, took the lid off, and added boiling water. The water I poured in was hot, but not as hot as those jars of beans. Some drops spattered on a couple of jars, which burst, spewing steaming hot boiling beans and juice and glass all over me and the kitchen.

I telephoned Mama to pick up the kids at the library, ran over to the Wests with a clean cup towel wrapped around my head, and asked them to take me to the hospital. The doctor and nurses picked beans and glass out of my face, hair and head, patched me up, and sent me home. Luckily my eyes weren't injured. Mama cleaned up the mess and finished cooking the beans left in the cooker. The neighbors sent over a big jar of soup for our supper.

The girls thought little Tommy Nelson was so cute and "wouldn't it be nice if we had a baby brother?"!! They talked about it for two or three years and even got to where they included it in their prayers. Everett and I decided maybe we might help answer that prayer. In March 1946 I had a tubal pregnancy and miscarried, but the next March on the 14th, we gave them that little brother. I had really hoped he would be twins so he would

have a brother to play with and grow up with 'cause I didn't intend to go through all that again!

As Everett was going to work that day, I rode down with him as far as the hospital for my regular check up. While I was standing at the window checking in for my appointment, something warm ran down my legs...they rushed me upstairs and prepared me for to have the baby! When Mama got off work, she went home and got my suitcase, which had been packed and waiting for two weeks, picked up the kids at school and took them to the neighbors to stay until she could get back to them, and came back to the hospital.

Harold Everett was born at 6 p.m....we had called him "Hank" while I was carrying him...but when he got here, it just didn't fit. Mama called Everett at work and told him; he stopped by on his way home from work at 11 p.m., said "my feet haven't hit the ground since Granny called!" I was so wound up I didn't sleep the rest of the night...I could hardly believe we had a boy at last!! God had answered all our prayers.

I dedicated Harold to God that very night and I know God has watched over him...God kept him out of Viet Nam in 1968 when Harold already had papers ordering him to go. No one will ever convince me it was just a happenstance that Harold wasn't shipped out.

Well, this "baby" bill was $165 and five days rest in the hospital. Prices had more than doubled!! We were all so happy over that little boy...the women of the church gave me a big shower for him.

One day I was canning plums; Harold was about six months old and in a jumper swing in the kitchen doorway. I started out to the back yard and right in front of the back door, inside the service porch, was a little 6-inch snake. It might as well have been six feet long! A snake is a snake is a snake! I could just see him going through the kitchen and biting Harold's feet! I called to one of the kids to bring me a hoe; I killed that snake... and shook the rest of the day.

When Harold was about a year old, John moved back to Tehachapi, started buying lots and building houses. Everett quit Monolith again and went in business with John. It was sort of rough until they got a house built and sold; then it came easier. They built and sold several houses.

Harold and Tommy Nelson grew up almost as close as brothers in spite of their age difference. In fact, Harold caught up with Tommy in size and for a few years they were about the same size.

In 1949, our neighbors, the Nelsons, got their first television. We would go over there and watch wrestling at least once a week. Finally, in 1950, we got our own TV and John’s family would come out to OUR house to watch wrestling. We watched everything we could find on it. Reception wasn't very good, sometimes we couldn't see anything for the snow. But Everett and Lee Nelson kept working on the antennas 'til it would come in a little better for awhile. On Saturday mornings I always washed the kids’ hair and rolled it up, gave them baths, cleaned house, did cooking for Sunday, and we'd watch TV all afternoon!

In 1951, Mama suffered a stroke, which left her disabled both in mind and body. In time she improved enough to be able to walk with a cane, but I had lost my Mama. She was never the same...she lived 20 more years in this condition and died October 24, 1971 having been in a convalescent hospital the last three years of her life.

In July 1952, about 5 a.m., a big earthquake hit Tehachapi and tore down most of the old business buildings. Harold had got a bee sting on his foot that day and was sleeping on the divan in front of the window. As soon as I could get my balance, I grabbed him and took him out to the car, which was rocking back and forth in the driveway. Everett went through the girls' bedroom and got them out to the car.

We could hear the burglar alarm going off down at the bank in town; after awhile we drove down to see the damage. We couldn't go very close because the-streets were barricaded. Marines from the Mojave Base were guarding the town to prevent looting. Eleven people were killed in the buildings that crumbled...it was a mess. We only had a few cracks in our house. John’s family had just moved back to San Bernardino, the day before. They were real happy they weren't here, when they heard about it!

There were strong aftershocks for weeks...people slept outdoors until rainstorms drove them back into their houses. Our mattress was on the bed of Everett's big red truck. At every aftershock the truck would rock back and forth.

Within the next few days, Harold had a toothache that just wouldn't quit. Our dentist had left town and we could get Bakersfield to find him a dentist. I was poking along down the street looking on both sides for a sign when someone bumped me from the back and pushed me over to the side... scared me to death.

I got out of the car knowing we didn't have car insurance, I'm not even sure I had a driver’s license then. There was this big old black Negro in an old rusty car that had hit me. Maybe I had wandered over in front of him, I don't know, but he could tell I was scared out of my wits. He raved around and threatened to call the police; I knew I was sunk if he did, so I begged him not to. I didn't know that if someone hit you from behind, it was their fault. I was easily intimidated and he knew it. He made a few threats about fixing his old rattletrap of a car and finally went on. I really don't remember if I found a dentist or not; I hightailed it back home as soon as I could and never drove to Bakersfield again!

Not many days later, Harold was playing with a neighbor boy in our front yard and broke his arm. Our hospital was so damaged by the earthquake, the Schlotthauers had opened up a building in Mojave and had a sort of makeshift hospital down there. So, I had to take him to Mojave to get his arm set. Dr. Harold wanted to keep him there overnight, but I wasn't about to leave my little five year old boy down there in Mojave all night...and I couldn't stay, so I brought him home, promising to bring him back the next day. When we got there the next day, the bone had slipped and hadn't set good and they had to reset it...and then do it again the next day. Finally, they worked all the tissue out of the break (that was making it slip) and got it set right and put a cast on it.

Linda was just getting over the mumps two or three weeks later, when we got word that Everett's father had died and we went back to Texas for the funeral. Within a matter of

two or three hours from the time we got the message, we were on our way. I packed in a hurry with plenty of clothes for everybody but me. I only put in one pair of panties for myself. During the whole trip, I washed out a pair every night to wear the next day. Ever since that trip, the first thing I put in the suitcase is every pair of panties I own.

The folks back there had heard about the earthquake and were asking all about it. We had taken with us a bunch of pictures our pastor had made of various scenes around town.

It was the first time for me to go back, since I left. Everything had changed so much it nearly killed me. I just broke down and cried when I saw our home place. Everett's Uncle Al still lived there; he'd built a new house on the site. We walked around and looked over the whole farm. The hill I had climbed as a child, going to my music lessons, was just a little rise in the road. I enjoyed seeing old friends and neighbors and relatives. We went to church in Mobeetie the next Sunday. I had lived so long in Tehachapi, I really missed the surrounding mountains and felt quite exposed out there on the plain of the panhandle.

On our way back home, with just 2-3 days to spare before school started, our car broke down in Lucy, New Mexico. We had to call for a tow truck to pull us in to Mountain Air where we found a run down motel to stay in. We were all hungry and had no food with us. It was so late, what few stores there were, had long since closed. Everett finally bought us a loaf of bread and found some red pickled eggs in a saloon there and we ate a sort of supper.

The next day we found out they would have to order a part from another town to fix the car and it would take a day or two to get it. So, I bought a frying pan, a couple of sauce pans, a pancake turner, paring knife and several other utensils, some tin dishes to eat out of and a few groceries...we fared pretty well for food. The next night we went to a western movie at a little theater in town...it was a very small town, just a wide place in the road, actually. We finally got the car fixed and came on home...two or three days late for the start of school. Dr. Harold took the cast off Harold's arm and he started kindergarten.

Harold didn't like school at all. That seemed so strange to me, the girls liked school as well as I had, but he didn't get to liking school until he was in the fifth grade.

The girls did well in school. In fact, the teachers suggested that Jean Ann skip the second grade and go directly from first into third grade. I wished later that I had refused. She not only had trouble learning to write, but it put her in with a group of children a little advanced for her and she had to keep up with them the rest of her school days. She could do the schoolwork but they were just older than her in other ways and she was plunged into situations she wasn't quite ready for in High School.

I made the girls dresses for their Senior Proms; Margie was Queen of her Prom. (She was also Salutatorian of her graduating class, editor of the newspaper, and wrote the class will [like I did]). I also served as Room Mother for each one of the kids at least once apiece.

After John moved back to San Bernardino, Everett went down there and helped him on some houses, coming home on the weekends. Then he got a job working for Al Small at the Tehachapi Lumber Yard, doing construction work. Al was building houses and gave Everett all the plumbing jobs, which he learned to do by reading a book and by doing them! Before long he was being sent out on plumbing jobs all over town.

The girls were growing up and expenses increasing so I thought I might get some kind of a job and help out. Maybe we could get some new furniture...all of ours was what someone else had cast off.

I applied at the post office for a clerk's job - had to go to Bakersfield to take the Civil Service Exam. It has very little to do with postal work but if you are going to work for the Government you have to pass the Civil Service Exam! I passed with a grade of 79.6 and began working in November 1954...just before the Christmas rush.

I went through those days not knowing what I was doing half the time. Postal Rules are very strict and things have to be done just so. Alice Perciful, the Postmistress, was hard to work for, I thought. I'd go home just in time to fix Everett's lunch and cry awhile before going back to finish up my day at 3 p.m....crying seemed to settle my nerves and get rid of tension. Two more experienced clerks saved my neck for me a lot of times or I'd never have made it.

I'd go in at 6:30 a.m., empty mail sacks and have First Class boxed by 8 o'clock, when the others came. After I got used to the work, I liked it - it was really interesting. I worked for four years but never did get any new furniture. It seemed to take all I made to keep us in clothes and things the kids needed for school.

In 1955, Margie married in March and Jean Ann in September. I have often wondered if they would have married so young if I had stayed home and never worked...I don't suppose it would have made much difference.

Then came our first grand baby, Beth. I thought she was the most beautiful baby I ever saw and that I could love no other as much; there have been 10 grand babies and each one has made their place; I love them every one. I just couldn't be called "Granny" that was Mama. I never could stand such names as Nana, Nonney, Memaw, Gaga etc. So we started teaching Beth to say Gramma. Her first attempt of "Germo" sounded on the right tract to me! Then, in 1957, Margie had another little bright-eyed sweet baby I got to name Nancy.

In 1958 came Jean Ann's first little girl...a sweet-faced little dumpling like her mother was. They wanted to name her Ada - I just threw a fit - no way were they gonna stick my name an a helpless baby...but they did it anyway... named her Ada Marie! For weeks, when anyone asked me what her name was, I'd say "they haven't exactly settled on one yet" hoping they'd change their minds. I finally had to accept it.

In 1959, I quit working at the post office. Harold was big enough to defy Linda and there was a lot of trouble between them at home. So I just threw in the towel and stayed home and things settled down again. That year Linda got married...we gave her a church wedding because she graduated before getting married...even if it was just the day before!

I missed her, even more than the other two girls, because it had just been me and her in the kitchen for 2-3 years. It was years before I quit missing her, especially when it came time to put Sunday dinner on the table.

When Harold was 14 he went into DeMolays. Therefore, when he topped out I had to be President of the Mothers Club. I was certainly out of my baliwick there. I didn't know one thing about lodges and such, but I muddled through with the help of more experienced mothers. I don't think I was a total failure.

In 1960, all three girls had baby girls: Laurie for Margie, Kerry for Linda, and Vonee for Jean Ann.

Linda had married a sailor and he was on a long cruise when their second little girl was born. She came to Tehachapi to spend the last 3 months of her pregnancy with us as she was all alone in San Diego. Kristy was born here in Tehachapi. It looked like we'd never have a grandson...Everett offered $25.00 to the first one to have a boy! Harold kept saying "I'll have you some boys" but that was far in the future.

Then Jean Ann married into a family line that had had nothing but boys for generations (I'm sure that was not the reason she did it) and we had our first grandson; she named him Everett Eugene and collected her $25.00!

I know I have the smartest and prettiest grandchildren a-going. In 1962, Johnny and his wife Hazel were at our house one day when Ina and Leon Barton, whom we'd known in Texas, dropped by. During the visit we discovered that various people we had known in Mobeetie were now in California. Before Bartons left, we had made plans to contact as many as possible and get together the next summer. Since Tehachapi is about the center of the state and we have a nice mountain park, Tehachapi was selected as the Meeting Place.

Over 100 people came to that meeting and we planned to do it again the next year. It became an annual event and for 19 years, Mobeetie Day was held in Tehachapi Mountain Park. There were never that many again but every year there would be new ones that had not been before. The altitude began to get to some of the older one so we changed locations and tried to have it a couple of other places but the attendance dwindled until there were only a handful at the last one. We probably won't ever have it again.

I have always been strong and healthy but in 1970 I had to have gall bladder surgery. Then, in 1973 I just fell to pieces. I was in the hospital 5 times between March and September with 2 minor surgeries and 2 major ones, including 'removal of a cancerous kidney. Once I recovered from all of that I've been in pretty good shape ever since.

The only vacations I've ever had was when I'd go as sponsor with a group of church kids to camp in the summer. There I had a whole week off...no planning meals, no cooking, no dish washing...a real treat!! I paid for it by trying to manage a room full of giggling mischievous girls every night, but it was worth it.

The way Harold felt about school, I just hoped he would stay in long enough to graduate ...and he did. He even went to college the next year, driving the college bus to Bakersfield, full of Tehachapi students. That's where he met Vicki, his future wife!

Harold took courses in law enforcement, which set the course for his future career. He moved to Bakersfield that summer and worked for Hopper Steel.

Then...he got drafted! That just about killed me. I've never been able to talk to any of my kids, long distance, without crying. When I'd talk to Harold or get a letter from him while he was at Fort Ord, I'd end up bawling. I thought "they" were down-right-cruel to my boy!

Harold said later that the discipline was the best thing that ever happened to him, but let me tell you, it sure was hard on his Mama. Everett and I went over to visit him once...I couldn't hardly stand seeing all those kids so far away from home: facing war. When his basic training was over, he just barely had time to come home on leave and get married. He was to ship out to Viet Nam...almost immediately, these were his Orders.

I had been talking to God about this for quite some time...and just hours before he left Fort Ord, to come home, his orders were changed...he was told to report to Washington D, C. for further service. Don't ever tell me prayer won't change things. Harold and Vicki had a real nice church wedding and were here a few days. Then they took off for the East Coast making the trip their honeymoon.

Harold was assigned to the "Old Guard" an honor division of the Army. From this division, men are assigned as guards for the White House, Arlington Cemetery, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and various military events like funerals and escorts.

One day on TV I was watching visitors to the JFK Memorial, it was either Memorial Day of the anniversary of JFK's death, and I saw Harold walk across in front of the camera...what a thrill!! If he had re-upped, he would eventually have been one of the guards at the Unknown Soldier's Tomb.

When Harold was discharged, they came back to Tehachapi to make their hpme and eventually gave us two fine grandsons: Richard and Steven. These boys have been a joy in our-lives from the day they were born.

In 1968, Everett went to work in the maintenance department of the school district. He thought it was about time he built up some retirement credit. He worked there 11 years and retired in 1980.

Looking back over these years, I feel I have had a good life and mainly a happy one:

I have had enough heartbreak and disappointment to enable me to understand and sympathize with others I've had enough good times to balance out.

I have never had the desire to live any part of my life over. I did the best I could at the time and I doubt if I would do any better if I did it over.

I have had a good man all these years. We raised a nice family, all of whom are doing well. We have 10 fine grandchildren and, to date, 16 great-grands!

A few years ago we celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary and all 36 members of our family were there. I really appreciate the love and respect we have from all of them. Not everybody can say that - maybe we did something right along the way.

Good or bad, better or worse, right or wrong, these experiences have made me what I am and are what makes me tick!

WRITTEN MAY 25TH THROUGH 29TH, 1990