804 Imperial Way
Salmon, Id 83467
208-756-2475
About Helen’s mother:
She did much sewing for other people. She had studied sewing and tailoring under the instruction of a lady who was very careful and strict. She made her pupils sweep out every stitch which was not perfect.
Mother must of had her training when she was 18-20.   She was 24  when Helen was born and they had been married  2 years.  We lived in Muskogee, Oklahoma only 2 years.  I don’t know why or when we moved to Granite, Oklahoma in  _____    County, out west in the Pan Handle. Mother said I played with a   2 year old in Muskogee named Lillian Durham.  Papa did not stay with us much.  I remember that mother and I were in a different small town about once a year where a few days each time  ____  believed we visited papa.  I remember knowing that he was there, but I do not remember seeing him. Papa probably took us to Granite because of the mountain of granite rock which was excellent for tombstones. But he was not there at anytime until 1905 when I was 5 years old.  He stayed one month and did a little tombstone work.  Mainly papa was a gambler.  That is why he moved around so much.  He needed to find new players or move away from gambling debts. 

My earliest memory is only a flash.  I was 2 years old.  I was sitting on the floor  in a small house in a place where we had been only a short time.  This is only an impression.  Mother was frying fish and she sang “fishy, fishy in the brook, papa catch them  with a  hook, mama fry them in a pan, baby eat them fast as she can”  That is all. That is the whole impression. 

Three years old.  This is a different town Ma ma and I lived at Mrs. Paynes in one half of a small house.  We stayed longer this time. Mama planted early garden seeds under an old swing door.  We probably did not stay long enough for them to mature. Mrs. Payne had some little baby chicks.  I was delighted with them. I stood among them and held one in my hand .  I stepped on one and killed it. I was so very sorry. Mrs. Payne told mama that she was cleaning out all old records she did not want such personal things left around after she died.  She was as  healthy as anyone. In appearance she was 69.  People died younger then or expected to.  My Boss  ? much later wrote to his daughter that he was living on borrowed time at 72. At that place I went out to the toilet and there was a man in it.  I went back to the house told mama.  She said that it was papa!  I have no memory of leaving him at that time.  Incidentally my boss lived to be 82.

Another flash when I was 4.  I was sitting on the floor beside mama’s machine where she was working. I was picking up basting thread, and tiny scraps of cloth which she allowed to lay until the end of the working day.  I suddenly thought “ I am me, I am Helen,  no one else is me” .  How that sudden thought came or went, I do not know. 

At Granite we lived only one block from the school and I often went there to play with the children or just to be near them .   There was no organized play, no playground teacher.  Kids just ran and chased each other. Miss Jessie allowed me to enter the 1st race when I was 4.   I passed to the 2nd grade when I was 5 and I finished the 3rd when I was 6 or 7 .  (7 in February)

Back to 4 year old.  Can you imagine a 4 year old being allowed to go down town alone? Sent down to buy a ?
Spool of thread for instance. I was in the 5 and 10 cent store and I stood beside the colorful toy counter admiring the toys.  I picked up the little red wooded soldier holding it in my left hand as I examined others.  I walked out of the store clutching the red soldier in my tight little fist. I didn’t realize that I still held the toy until I had gone a little way from the store. No clerk seemed to have been noticing me.  When I realized that I held it I went back and laid it down where it belonged. The point of this incident is, my hand was all red, the soldier had faded on me.  Such as that is what made manufacturers aware that they must make things safer for children. 

In 1905 I had a little red wagon. Mother sent me with a gallon syrup bucket of buttermilk to deliver it to a customer of hers. A dress making client. The syrup bucket was the kind that the lid pushed down on the top. In getting onto a sidewalk from the road, my very small wagon tipped over and spilled the buttermilk. I was very sorry and mama did not scold. 

Another time that year a little boy and I went down town together. We were on the wooden sidewalk outside the store when a horse and buggy were driven up to the hitching wheel. The horse reared and bucked and broke loose from the buggy. It went running down the wooden sidewalk, just a few feet from us. I was so very frightened that I as choking.  We recovered soon.

Very few people had a telephone.  None of our neighbors had one. Our lighting was by kerosene lamps and maybe a lantern.  I don’t think we had a lantern, because we went to live plays. _____ville perhaps it was. There was shooting there.  Mama assured me that they were shooting blanks. What about the lantern, which we did not have? 
We went home in the dark . There were no street lamps. Of course we were walking.  There arose before us a big black shadow.  I was scared. It was only a cow. 

People made their own pleasures. One time mama and I went to a penmanship class.  A public meeting just to practice penmanship under a director.  I practiced too. There were literary societies where members participated in debates.  They were given a title to debate.  One person choosing the pro and one the con.  No matter if you really believed the pro was right.  If you were given the opposite  you tried hard to give reasonable statements for your side of the topic. 

Mama got 2 lots, with one 2 room house on one lot. She had only her work of sewing to bring in any money. And that was very low pay  in those days.  The bought another 3 room house and had it moved on to her lot.  Two men with 2 teams of horses moved it.  They charged her  ten dollars. I imagine the house cost two hundred dollars  or less. She rented the extra house  for maybe  ten dollars a month.  I remember we bought a milk cow in 1920 for ten dollars.  I don’t know where we got drinking water.  There was no city water on our lot. Everyone kept a barrel of rain water for washing their hair and dishes and small things. Mama traded sewing work for clothes washing. 
 
When I was 5,  I earned my first money for real work. (Big Deal)! Three girls of about 11 years old took me out to a cotton field where we picked cotton for one cent a pound. I picked 15 pounds with the help of the girls.  So I earned 15 cents. Of course we walked out to the field, that’s just the way it was.   People walked. 

In 1905 Papa came and stayed one month with us. He did some tombstone work.  He carved beautiful angels, doves and flowers in a granite monument.  The stones were already shaped and polished. They came from the mountains near Granite. 

One time the school children were taken up on the mountain where the great rocks were so smooth that we sat down  and slipped down them. Imagine what the little girls little white panties looked like then. 

Papa said he would carve a stone plaque for me.  It was to be an open book.  But he did not get it done. 

Papa taught me to say that he was born in Beaver City, Beaver County, Pennsylvania.  He was about 20 years older than mama.   He had been married before and had a daughter only six years younger than mama.   He was quite handsome.  Six feet tall, blue eyes, wavy brown hair.  Mama said she was attracted to him because of his nice manners.   Living as he did in hotels he had city ways.  As I said before, he was a gambler and when he left that time, he left some gambling debts. Mama said she had to pay them.  She did not say how much.  No matter how small they may have been it was too much for her to have to pay. 

Mama kept my hair very healthy and nicely curled. It was easily managed. It still is. It was light brown with golden tints in it. I can prove that for I still have some of the six or eight inch long curls. My eyes were brown when I was small but they turned green.   Mothers eyes were blue.  She was about my height  5 feet 2 or 3 inches.   She weighed only 98 pounds during those years, but she gained some more later.  Her back ached from sitting at the machine so much.  She would have me push a pillow under her lower back when she was lying down.  She probably didn’t get enough out door exercise.  She would have been worried of course, not knowing what to do for her future.  But she never fretted and stewed and became cross.  


My granddaughter  Paula says to tell you how you dressed, what you wore.  Mama’s dresses came down to the  ground.  A lady must not show her ankle.  Much ado was made of it if a lady showed an ankle as she mounted a horse or entered a buggy.  We wore high button shoes in winter.  The slippers in summer had one or   two buttons.  Every family must keep a button hook.  There were also high laced shoes.  Ladies wore long black cotton stockings of fine threads held up by supporters attached to the corsets. She wore below the knee white muslin underpants and one or two petticoats with many ruffles and a corset cover.   All of this under a long dress with long sleeves and high collar.  Maybe she had leg of   muslin shoes. That is they puffed up fully above the elbow and fit neatly below.  Most of these other things were sewn at home and made of white muslin .  So much white muslin was used that mama had many pieces left over from her customers garments.  She made dresses for me out of the white muslin.
I wore long black cotton stocking in winter, white ones in summer.  When I was not barefooted, there were black leggins or leggins. I looked  it up in the modern dictionary, but it is not there.  They were very warm, fleece lined, extending from foot to knee, fastened with many buttons. 

Many people chewed tobacco. And they left it big juicy mouth with tobacco juice.  They spit on the sidewalk.  Ladies skirts drag the side walk  and were soiled.  Citizens had to be stopped by law not to spit on the walk. 

I learned the hard way not to stick my fingers into places that  I did not know about.  Two times it happened when I was 4.  I stuck my right forefinger into a  clothes ringer of a washtub.  Mama was turning it to ring water out of the clothes.  The ringer was caught to the wash tub.  It damaged the finger to the depth of half of the nail.  Mama was so scared.  She took me down to the doctor.  If she had had half a dozen kids with all the accidents they can have, she wouldn’t have been so scared and worried.

Another time we were in the drug store and there was a small brown box on the  counter where I could reach it. I wondered what it was for.  There was a small hole in the top which just fit my finger.   Yes the same finger.  So I put my finger in the little hole.  Clip went a very sharp blade and nipped off a bit of finger.  Cigars were made with an unfinished end which was left to be clipped once they were purchased. 

Babies were something I knew nothing about. I knew they were small and cute and helpless and had to be cared for. I was sitting on the porch of a home of a customer of mama’s.  I must have of been sent there on some errand. I sat out there waiting for the lady to get me whatever I was sent for.   The baby was about a year and a half.  He was walking and carrying a poker.  Well my goodness, I didn’t know a baby could or would hurt anyone.  He hit me with a poker.  I didn’t know how to defend myself from a baby. 

In a gathering of the whole school a speaker gave us a rousing talk against alcohol and cigarettes. He said when you see a boy on the streets with a cigarette in his mouth, you go right up to him  and jerk the cigarette out of his mouth.  Wow, can you imagine what would happen to that girl.  That speaker never imagined that girls would smoke.  He had us sing “cigarettes must go from Oklahoma for the ACL girls say  so.”   Those initials stood for Alcohol, Cigarette, League.

I was given a bannie hen which we kept alone for quite a while.  But when we were going on our trip to see papa we had to ask some friends who had chickens to keep her until we returned, which was not very long.  When we came back and went to get the little hen, they told us she had laid eggs and was sitting on them so she should be allowed to sit until they hatch.  You can see how it progressed. She had to hatch the eggs.  Then she had to raise the chicks. And finally we never did get her back. 

These paragraphs are rather disconnected but they indicate how we lived. 

After we sat in class at school,  a bucket was passed down the isle by 2 boys with one dipper for all to drink from .  I don’t know where the water came from  weather there was a pump on the school ground or not.  I do not remember one or weather they went to a nearby home.  The dipper was made of tin.  Many things were made of tin.  Cups, wash pans, dishpans.  Tin would rust and the pans had holes.  You did not throw a pan away because it had a hole.  You’d take a small square  pot stick the corner into a sharp pipe and poke it though the hole, pull it tight and it would do quite well, unless you want to sit it on the stove.  You can fill a small hole with solder.   But there again, it should not be set upon a hot stove.  Must make do.  There is always a way.  For ironing clothes our irons had removable semi - circular wooden handles.  And every garment must be ironed.   Most of them were  starched.  The materials were cotton, wool, silk, and linen.  Rayon came much later. 

I had a good speaking voice and an excellent memory.   Where did it go? I memorized poems easily and liked to say them wherever appropriate.  Mother or fiends would ask me to recite when I was very small.  One of the first pieces goes like this “  Roses on my shoulders, slippers on my feet, I’m my papa’s little darling, don’t you think I’m sweet”?     A little later was this one  “ Grandma was naughty,  I rather think,  and Freddie was sly and quick as a wink, He climbed onto the back of her great arm chair,  and nestled himself very comfortably there.  Grandma’s dark locks  were sprinkled with white, and quickly this fact came to his sight.  Soon a sharp       was felt in her hair as she woke with a start to find Freddie there. Why what are you doing my child she said.  He answered  ____________

My half sister Clara came once to visit.  She did not bring  her son Floyd.  He was probably left with his grandmother.  Floyd was 2 months younger than I.  She was probably 24 at that time. Mother gave her money to return home.  We were both 4 at that time (Floyd and I).  Clara became a beauty operator and used her treatment on her own skin. It was lovely.  She was 6 feet tall.  Lots of long dark hair.  It was 16 years before I saw her again.  She sent me a gift every Christmas. 

In 1904  we were at one of those towns we visited occasionally and a friend of mama’s took me to a Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. I remember Indians on horseback  yelling and shooting, firing arrows that burned a small building.  I had a balloon and on our way out a man touched my balloon with  his cigarette.  A moment for him, but a long lasting sadness for me.  

Two or three girls drove a buggy out to a park . They took me with mama’s permission and out on the park they thought they would have some fun.  They sat me out of the buggy and drove off leaving me crying.  Of course they didn’t go too far away.  Mama was very angry when she heard about it. 

Illnesses, we had some of it every winter.  That seems to have been influenza.   At 2 1/2  I had the measles.  They thought it cute the way I said “Henna’s got the measles” .  Mama told me that she had typhoid fever when she was quite young in Muskogee. She was so ill, she thought she might die. She asked the lady at the hotel to keep me if she did die.  The lady said she would .   But mama thought she would raise me only to be a hotel worker.  How glad I am that mama survived.  Auntie (Pearl)  4 years younger than mama, had typhoid at the age of 16 and all her hair fell off and came back in curly.   

Pearl married my father’s brother ( Will Kaylord).  They had no children.  Will was also 6 feet tall. Pearl was about mama’s size.  They had a brother ( Sid) , redhead and tall. Mama always  wished that  some of us would of have had a redheaded  child.  But it was not to be. 

Sid operated a sawmill. Mama and I visited him and his family at the sawmill located somewhere in Oklahoma.  He had a son Elmer and girl Birdie  (Birdie) .   We called him little Elmer to distinguish him from mama’s brother Elmer.  Little Elmer was 2  when I was 5.  While we were at uncle Sids we heard a loud croaking of a bullfrog.  It was not the usual sound.   This frog was in great trouble. Uncle Sid went out to see what the trouble was and found that a snake was trying to swallow the frog. Uncle Sid killed the snake and released the frog.  Also, while we were there I had pink eye quite badly. A home remedy was used on my eye. They used slippery elm bark.  It worked very well and the eye was well in less than a week. 

Grandma came to stay with us in 1906. She and mama rented a horse and buggy. In attempting to hitch up the horse, mama dropped the reins to the ground and was standing on them when the horse jerked up to hit suddenly and mama’s ankle was sprained.  We went on a sight seeing tour anyway out to the  ? wall  Indian reservation. It was just a wild wide prairie.  On the road there was a nice little clean bonnet.  They picked it up and after washing it , I wore it often. When Grandma had stayed a few months, she and mama took over the operation of a hotel on Main Street in Granite for board and room.  They worked there  6 months and then mama sold her houses and according to the advise of the Doctors family and probably grandma’s too, she divorced papa  and had all our furniture loaded on a crate car and we boarded the train for   (Tucom Perrie),  New Mexico where the doctors son in law had gone with his wife and baby. That was quite a neat town where people with T.B. were being advised to go for treatment. By living in tents and having the purest fresh air to breath. The other passengers were amused at me. Grandma and mama asked  me to wet  a cloth  to lay over their eyes as they rested and took a  nap.  I had to    copy   them and to do the same.   AT one point on the route the train crossed a very high long tressel. It went very slowly. A nervous lady made a great deal of fuss.  She was scared of  the great space below us. I don’t know where that was.  At the end of the trip, a trainman showed me that my little doll with springs had come all apart. The post and rounds had separated. He asked me if he could have it for his little girl. It appeared to be of no use to me so I said yes. Mama said she could have fixed it, he shouldn’t have asked me. 

Having arrived at Tucum Perrie, New Mexico we went immediately to Mrs. Crumps boarding house where grandma and mama must have arranged to go. I don’t know, they arranged to take over the operation of the boarding house.  About 6 regular men in rooms. Mrs. Crump still owns it.  We just rented it.  I know because we were there only about 6 months. Mrs. Crump was a grump. Nothing and nobody pleased her.  She reclaimed the boarding house and all of the boarders moved with us to another boarding house.  She was very mad about that.  

One of the boarders was  Mr. ASA  R.  ROSE with his son RUSSELL ROSE  age 9.  My first appointment with Mr. Russell was that Robert Crump had a gentle old horse and both boys were climbing all over her.  Russell had a fingernail that had been smashed and was halfway off.  He caught the nail in the horse main and jerked it off.  And that was painful.  Mr. Rose and Russell were with us ever after that..  Mr. Rose was a widower and he and mama were married within a year.  I never knew when they were married.  They didn’t make any waves about it.   The family was simply melted together. Years later I said that grandma had asked me if they were married and I had said I didn’t know.  That meant nothing to an 8 year old.  Mother said I told you.  We lived at the 2nd boarding house through one winter.   Russell and I ran home from school for diner.   How delicious it tasted.  Often it was navy beans and ham shanks. And maybe afterwards grandmas special apple pie. 

Some girls and I learned to make angels in the 6 inch snow.  We lay down on our back with arms spread and move them up and down which made wings, oh well,. you knew that too.   Of course there was plenty of ammunition for the boys to make to throw snow balls. Also, the boys made forts to protect themselves.

Russell and I were sent to get the mail. People were lined up for nearly a block to ask for mail at General delivery. Mr. Rose was a carpenter contractor.  Mama couldn’t get used to the name ACE (ASA), so she continued to speak of him as MR ROSE.   That was not too unusual for women  did speak of their husband as MR. so and so.   

With the money from the sale of her  two lots with houses in Granite she bought six spare lots in Tucum Perrie.  Mr. Rose built a one room shanty on one of the lots.  It was near the outer edge of town.  I don’t remember moving but we lived there the 2nd Christmas.   Five of us in one small room.  Two full size beds and Russell had a bunk above Grandma and me.  With  cook stove, table and chairs, there was scarcely room to walk.  

Russell and I were in the same grade at school. He and his dad had traveled around so much that he was one year behind his age group.  I would have been in the 4th grade but mama asked me to stay in the 3rd because I was only 8 years old and quite young for the 4th.  There was a spell bound and I stayed out until there was only one other.  My down fall was the word Bethlehem.   I thought it was pronounced BethleHAM.

Mr. Rose wore ready made bow ties. The collar buttons were decorated with gold, pearls or other fancies. Also most ever man had a watch bob hanging outside his watch pocket which extended his pocket watch.  This could be quite ornamental.  Both the burro  and the watch.  There was an  English  watch which sold for one dollar.   It kept good time.  This was popular with the working men.  A Mexican came along with his camera and a girl taking pictures of children on the burro. I have a picture of me on the burro with mama standing beside me.  Mama and me and Burro.  That was the year of the Williams Jennings Bryant and William Howard Taft presidential  contest.  Children at School would ask me  who  I would vote for.  I certainly had no knowledge of such a decision.   There were pins with fairly large pictures of your choice for president.  

The country all around Tucum Perrie is black but a mountain rises above them Shaped like a steam ship having a top with a ledge all around.  We climbed it one day.  I found climbing to be very hard and someone helped me. There was a fine view from the top, nothing to obstruct it for many miles and the air was usually very clear. 

Mr. Rose talked to some people about where would be a good place to go. He took the advise of some acquaintances and packed us up to go to ARKANSAS.  The 4 roses went on the train to Marshall, Arkansas where Mr. Rose hoped to buy land reasonably priced.  Gardens grew well and the winters were not too cold.  On the train to Marshall, Arkansas, Russell and I played hide the thimble using a nickel instead of a thimble.  WE hid it in and around the seats or in our shoe laces. We kept ourselves entertained. Of course mama had packed a lunch.  There were no diner or sleeper on that train. Once when the train stopped for 10 minutes,  Russell was attracted to bunches of small white flowers along the railroad track.  He wished he could pick some.  His father knowing what they were told him there was time enough, he could get off the train and pick a handful.  So he did.  But oh when he smelled the flowers in his hand he was not so well pleased. I think the plants were called  (    ) and they smelt horrible. 

Grandma had gone back to live with her son at Muskogee, Oklahoma.  He worked around oil mills or saw mills.  She came to us when we were settled in  Arkansas.

Upon arrival at  Marshall in Sercy County, Arkansas,  The first thing to do was rent a two room house located in Locust Grove near the depot.  2nd they must buy some food flour to make light with, but there was none in town.  So they knew we were foreigners right away.  There was one other family in town who used hard food  flour.  All the natives must have biscuits baked 3 times a day.  So they used soft food flour.  Next they must find a place to stay permanently. They bought some heavy canvas and sewed it on the machine making a tent.   Mr. Rose rented some land on a big hill that rose from the bottom of the hollow it ran down from the depot.  He later bought the hill.  He was intrigued by the odd expression by the local people.  When he tried to use some of them it was as if her were making fun of them.  This made him less popular. When asked how far is it to any certain place, the old timers used to say “Well, its a right smart hep”.   Again he annoyed the townspeople by jokingly saying  he had bought 10 acres of land which by contour of the hill was actually 16. 

As a family we were getting along nicely. This was August 1909.  Mr. Rose became enraged .  I don’t know what it was sudden or what.  The first I knew of it , he poured kerosene on mamas  black silk skirt and the sewing machine  and was scolding and swearing.  Mama said she did not know what set him off on such a rampage.  The outcome of that was Mama and I went to the train to go to Muskogee to visit Grandma and uncle Elmer.  Three miles before reaching  (       )  the train stopped 3 horses on the track.  We had a hard shaken’.  The engine tipped over, the passenger cars jumped off the track.  The engineer was killed and the  fireman  had a broken shoulder. The train crew removed a door and put it on the top of the backs of  2 seats to place the fireman for care.  Mama  (   )  was shaken loose.  We  had to wait until the railroad officers sent a train out from  (   ?  )  .    We went on without further incident.

Both of our parents cooled down and Mama and I returned to Marshall in time for Russell and me to start the 5th grade in a 2 story white square frame building which accommodated all 8 grades.  There was no high school really.  But the students needing high school training could study and have instruction from the 8th grade teacher.  There were 2 or 3 other towns.  Our teacher , Mr. Robertson , carried around a switch in his had  all the time.  He would give someone a lift with it every once in a while. He struck me on my skirt once for whispering at the blackboard with my best friend (Juicy ???).  He didn’t make me cry because it was just something he did all the time. And I must add whispering is something I did too much.  In the 3rd grade in grammar I was caught whispering and teacher had me stand in front of the room and put quinine on my tongue. I endured that problem until I reached home then  I cried so hard that mama thought I would be sick. 

When we returned to Marshall, we lived in the tent and a one room shack that winter. Our folks even gave a birthday party for me.  On February 11th and for Russell that same day, but his birthday March 25th..  We received gifts such as a handkerchief, and small dishes for me and neckties and a book for Russell.  We played outdoors drop the handkerchief , where all the guests joined hands and formed a ring with the one who was “it”  outside the ring to run around and drop the handkerchief behind someone who chases “it”.  When “It’  was caught a new one drops the handkerchief. Stick candy and lemonade were served. 

In 1910 at the west end of the hill Mr. Rose built a pink 4 room house. He also built a white house near it to sell.  A schoolmate of mine lived there with her sister and brother -in -law.  She was a friend, but not as close as Juicy Wood ( the doctors daughter) . 

The school held a speaking contest and offered a prize for the best speaker.  My friend Donna Hudson and I were the ones who tried out from the 5th grade. Her piece was “THE DEATH OF ARRON BURR”.  I remember how it began.   

May 28, 1913 a baby boy was born to Mr. and Mrs. Asa Russell Rose.  What a wonderful occasion.  I was sent to Iva Gates place and Russell was sent to walk 10 miles to a farm.  I don’t remember but he must of stayed overnight.  I asked him later if it was bad, such a long walk .  He said it wasn’t.  When the baby was cared for and mama was better  and Dr. Wood had gone,  I was sent for and returned home. The baby cried much that night and grandma held and rocked him a long time.  He cried  with colic for 3 months.  His eyes were weak and he was nervous..waking at every sound.  What to name the baby.  Daddy said that was up to his mother.  She couldn’t decide, didn’t like the most ordinary names such as Edward or Thomas or James.  It was popular that year to use 2 names together, such as John William, or Glen Charles.  They finally decided on Morris and I asked that it be Ben Morris.  Grandma and Russell didn’t like it and they called the baby John Henry and Russell said “Kenneth Johnny” So. his name was Ben  Morris  Rose (Maurice) Rose.  But nobody called him by his name or spoke of his as any name but “baby” .  The birth was registered with the state, but no birth certificate was sent to us. A handsome handmade cradle of fine workmanship was loaned to us. It was made of walnut wood. It was my job to keep the cradle rocking while baby slept. Don’t say he was spoiled, not so, we were glad to give him rest from his crying.  We would do anything for him.  

I loved  to read and it was against the rules of the man of the house for anyone to read during working hours.  I could keep the cradle rocking with one foot, so I was allowed to read at the same time. Mama called her mother “Ma’  and I was taught to say mama and papa .  Mama thought it would be nice for a child to call their parents mother and dad.  So I had to practice to make it come natural to call mama mother and call Mr. Rose Dad.  It wasn’t easy to form the habit.

Baby’s dresses were white and long. Below his feet for the first 3 months. The diapers were always folded in triangle shape and fastened with safety pins. Also he wore under slips as long as the dresses and 4 inch wide band pinned around his middle to keep the navel flat.  It took 10 days to 2 weeks in those days to dry up and heal. Long white stocking were pinned to the diaper and he wore booties that grandma had crocheted.  She made him a bonnet to shade his eyes when we took him outdoors because his eyes were weak from so much crying.  Mother tried nursing him.  But that didn’t agree with him very well.  So they tried cow’s milk in a bottle with a small nipple that fit it.  Baby still had colic with cow’s milk.  Catnip tea helped somewhat. He was not getting enough rest the doctor prescribed paregoric. Finally a baby food was found which he could tolerate.  It was chocolatey.  It would compare with Ovaltine as we know it now.  In rinsing the diapers mother picked them up by the edges and ring them, so the wrinkles would come out, then pin them on the clothes line. We did not have a baby buggy.  We could not have used one down the steep  hills and up the other side to the depot. 

There was a speaking contest held by the WWCPU.  Women’s Christian Union.  I won the silver medal.  My speech was a poem speaking strongly against drinking intoxicating beverages or serving them to anyone. 

At our school there were no school wagons bringing kids from miles away.  There were no horses being driven to school  and hitched there.  Any who lived too far away to walk had to attend summer schools in country church buildings. Drucy’s eldest sister, May, taught one term in a country school, after one year at Fayetteville, which would compare to one year of high school.  It was just like “Little House on the Pararie”.  Our school yard covered several acres. It had been an apple orchard. Many apple trees remained.  Drucy and I tried budding one according to our agriculture lessons.  Drucy told me years later that it grew.  The school ground was enclosed with a hog type woven wire fence.   Because Arkansas had a free range law.  Animals could range freely in the wood and could roam into town.   That was pre- automobile time. Entry onto the school ground was by a style.  Step over the fence. Arda Gates and I ate our lunch just outside the furthermost corner where we had a favorite tree that had been bent when it was young to grow horizontally. And under it was a stump onto which we could spread our lunches. We were so far away that we could barely hear the iron triangle hit and rung to call us back to lessons. The 7th grade was held in the auditorium room which extended across the whole building upstairs. Sometimes the boys would start shaking a leg, in unison and the whole floor would vibrate.  I related that to DAD and he said it was dangerous.  He told us how soldiers are ordered to break stride when crossing a bridge, because in a certain tempo the bridge can sway. Teacher didn’t do anything about it, nor the bullet that was put into the heating stove and it was shot into the blackboard.  Now that’s about all our living in Marshall, Arkansas.   

Grandma locked herself out of the house one cool day when no one else was home.  She went to Audie Gates house.  Near that time Russell had dislocated wrists which hurt us all  until he improved. Because Dad made himself disliked by the remarks he sometimes made, when he bought the stone butcher shop, close to Dr. Woods drug store,  The Doctor saw a chance to run him out of there. He sued dad for letting the rain water run off his stone building Against the drug store. I do not know the details. Anyway 

Dad went to  (       )  Oklahoma and found carpenter work. He left mother to do all the packing and preparing to leave.  She cried at having to leave her house and good friends , but dad never stayed longer than 4 years in any place.   The last night before we left Marshall,  Drucy and I were in a program.   Just before the program began a black wasp stung me on my wrist. It was quite painful and it was wet to the elbow.  A man in the audience applied a chaw of tobacco to it but it did not relieve the pain.  We sang the parady to “Home sweet Home” .  Home home sweet home,  there’s no friend like Jesus,  there’s no place like home”.  I spent the night with Drucy and met my  folks at the depot the next day.  

And so in September 1913 we moved to Talaqua, Oklahoma.   Russell and I had finished 8the grade in Marshall.  Russell did not attend School anymore.  Signs of the times.  Disconnected odds and ends.  

Still talking about times at Marshall.... There were community picnics on each 4th of July. The one at Marshall was in the woods beneath the depot.  There was always a political speaker, someone running for an office.  Lemonade was made in a new galvanized wash tub and probably stirred.  Lemonade made in the shade, stirred with a spade.  Probably was not perfect having an acid drink in a galvanized container.  Sold for 10 cents a glass.  A merry go round was there at the picnic ground.  It had seats instead of horses. A young man sat in his seat playing his guitar and the power that  made it go round was a mule.  5 cents a ride. 

The next year on the 4th we went to Gilbert on the freight train riding in the caboose. Idling Men and boys sat upon the side walk and leaned against the store talking and spinning yarns.   They do that to this day in 1991. They have whipping contests.  At one little grocery store near the depot the old timer who owned it would ask “did you bring a poke”  He did not want to furnish sacks. This quiet little peaceful town    had remained the same for many  generations.  A safe pleasant place for children to grow and roam the hollers without fear.  To pick fruit, nuts and flowers and catch pollywogs and crawdads. It remains so, not trying to catch up with the rest of the world until the  2 world wars stirred the young men out into far places. It is now quite modern. Yet much of the old is retained. 

Why did women wear dust caps?  A light weight cap made of a circle of long  percale, gathered by a line  sewn about an inch from the edge so that it made a ruffle around the edge.  Why wear a dust cap?   Because cleaning out the dust was done by switching  a feather duster to displace dust from shelves and mantels and chairs.   The dust fell to the floor and was swept up with a broom causing dust to be moved through the air.  Carpets were carried or dragged up to clothes lines and beaten with a broom.  Some people had a special carpet beater.  Something like a tennis racket. One lady had me help her carry her big carpet across the grass upside down.  It didn’t move much of the dust. 

Every woman and girl had bonnets.  Bonnets cared for the hair in the wind and shaded the face from the sun.   We must keep our complexion as white as possible.  Wear long sleeves when exposed to the sun.  Bonnets were made at home of percale, calico or gingham.  If sleeves were short we wore long stockings on the arms having the foot cut off.   One more garment I must mention,  I tried one pair of long black stockings .   It came above the knee in the back and to the waist in the front. It buttoned to the patty waist in front. Girls grew so fast, as now, their dresses and petticoats had to be lengthened.  These garments were made with a one inch tuck or two which could be ripped out  to make it longer.   

These are not in chronological order.  They are just being picked up as they float around in my memory.

Mother made me a pretty dress of Rose silk  and white satin collar.  The front part of the collar, this material was left over from some ladies dresses or 2 ladies. In grandma’s early days she had made their own brooms. Made their own broom corn and sewn the brooms by hand.  She had made shoes and candles. She had a rod from which hung string the length of candles and she dipped them into melted wax .  Dipped and lifted to cool,  Dipped and lifted for another layer and so on until the candles were the proper size. Grandma sang an old song from civil war days.  ‘A Mother on her dying bed had sent for her boy so bold,  He hastened to obey the call was captured on the way. She never saw her boy again for he died at break of day.  The volley was fired at sunrise just at the break of day.  And as the echoes lingered his soul had passed away into the arms of his maker there to learn his fate.  A tear a sigh,  a sad goodbye, a pardon but it came too late.’  Another song ‘As we parted at the gate,  I thought my heart would break as she said ‘Jack you have told me this too late’ and a tear stood in her eye,  As we said our last goodbye for she loved me as we parted at the gate. Oh the roses bloom so fair, but a face is missing there and I heard a voice repeating ‘Jack you have told me this too late’ and a tear stood  in her eye as we said our last goodbye, for she loved me as we parted at the gate. 

Grandma had two secrets which she kept just for fun and never revealed to us.  She sent me to the drug store to buy a certain powder which when added to sugar syrup tasted very much like honey.   She handed me a folded note and asked me not to look inside and I didn’t.  It was a light brown powder with some fibers in it. Like a finely ground root.  We never knew what it was ... just Grandma’s private little secret.  Also she prepared a liquid and kept it in a bottle.  She combed this liquid through her hair to keep it dark.  It worked.    

We had un-spillable ink bottles and everyone who used them needed blotters to place on the office desks.  The small ones gave merchants a place to print their adds. They came in all colors. 

Boys must keep their shirt tails tucked into the pant top.  One mother insured that her boy would obey that rule.  She sewed lace on the bottom of his shirt.  

Somebody gave dad a toy for us that I have never seen another like it. It was half of a hollow rubber ball with a metal lid of chrome or nickel with a hole in the middle the size of a nickel. This first lid was securely fastened  on the rubber.  This was not a homemade item.  It had another lid with the same hole. We raised the top lid fitted a small piece of newspaper across between the  2 lids.  Then clamped the top lid down.  We held this in hand and wacked it on the cement porch floor and it popped as loudly as a firecracker when the paper burst. 

There was a community Christmas Tree at the Christian church .  It was an enormous Cedar tree.  Every child in town was suppose to receive a gift.  The families brought them.  Russell and I wanted to make sure we received a gift, so we gave each other one on the tree. His was a small picture in a tin frame.. mine was a cute funny doll with a round heavy weighted bottom.   It wouldn’t tip over.  Slap it or knock it and it rocked right back upright.  Each cost no more than 25 cents. 

There were no movies in Marshall in 1909 to 1913.  There was no library and no school library. I loved to read.  Mrs. Bratten of the Hotel loaned me the best loved books for girls.  The Elsy Densmore books by Martha Finley. The first book I read was Beautiful Job ( a dog story) . The second was Black Beauty.   

I would be sent to the hotel to deliver sewing and once I was allowed to collect 10 cents for picking a gallon of strawberries which mother gave Mrs. Bratton.  A room at the Hotel was reserved as a showroom for the traveling salesman. ( Hal Drummers).  I suppose the merchants were called there to inspect the merchandise.  A 2 seated hat was driven to the depot every day to meet the train and the town idlers walked down to see the train come in. 
About that time Russell caught the mumps.  Mother said I have never had them and I did not get them as far as anyone could tell.  I had no swelling. But I did have a special feeling when I ate a pickle.  I must of had mumps slightly for I never had them when my children did and their father and his mother at age 70. 

After Maurice was born mother was too busy in the mornings to braid my long hair .  She cut it off to about shoulder length so I could arrange it myself and tie on an ever present ribbon.  She and grandma strung 4 or 5 strands of thread on a board and wove the top ends of the sheared hair so it hung firmly.   They removed it from the board and hung it by one end combing it all so that it became a swish.  Which mother wore to increase the size of her bun of hair rolled up on the top of her head .  The color was about the same, dark  brown. 

Grandma was always busy with embroidery or crochet work.  She made herself a handbag of black silkatine thread in Irish crochet.   A new craft appeared in 1912.  Macramé.  She made a handbag of carpenters cord called chalk line and lined it with white satin. Quite attractive and serviceable. I kept it for many years until it disappeared from my house. I wrote to my half sister Clara about the Macramé work and she wrote that a customer of hers buy for 5 dollars a mat of macramé for her dog.   Grandma made it, but the lady had changed her mind and did not want it.  5 dollars looked big in those days. 

Customers in grocery stores and variety stores were not allowed to go to bins and pick up what they chose to buy.  The clerks did the picking up.  The customer read a list and the clerk carried the things to the counter for wrapping and tying with twine.  Items for sale were enclosed in glass cases or on rows of shelves behind the counter. A ladder on rollers would be easily moved by the clerk to reach the top row. 

Dad used the long razor blade that had to be sharpened on the strap. He liked to smoke a pipe sometimes and he liked various types of pipes. He also chewed tobacco but he was very careful with it. Not messy. He used to say that he had enough nicotine in his system that a snake bite wouldn’t affect him. 

We went to  Tele ??/   in 1913.  School had been in session for some time there.  We moved into a 3 bedroom house about 3 blocks from the school.  Dad was working on a bank building.  We spent the winter there.  Christmas must have been very skimpy for I don’t remember it.  I went to school immediately.  As I stood near the line a girl with very blonde hair mentioned for me to get in line ahead of her.  She said her name was Lillian Durham. She was in the 7th grade. I found that the Oklahoma school was ahead of the Arkansas school so I put myself into the 7th grade whereas I had been in the 8th grade in Marshall.   When I told mother about Lillian she asked me to ask Lillian if she had a sister named Viola and a brother called Bunny.  Sure enough they were the ones mother had known in Muskogee.  Walking with some school kids on my way to school, I had been asked my name.   Dad had said I should call myself  HELEN ROSE so there would be no questions about the family. So the first time I said my name I said Helen Kayler (Keller,  Kaylor Kaylord) er  I mean Rose .  After that it came easier. They didn’t seem to notice.  

A neighbor girl about a year older than I had a party. She invited me to come and bring my cards of which I had several kinds. I went expecting to meet some new young people and be a guest at the party.  But I had been invited only to play cards with her younger brothers and keep them out of her way. I had to play cards with the boys, but  I Did not feel very happy about it. 

Auntie Pearl, Mother’s sister,  who had married Papa’s brother  Will Kaylor (Keller, Taylor ?? Kaylord)  came to visit.  She made me a lovely collar. A delicate work made with sewing machine thread  spun like little spider webs across a circle of pins in a stiff cushion. 

That school is where I learned from a school mate to make taffy. I couldn’t get mother or grandma to make taffy, but I still do it and try to get others to learn .  I have taught a few, but it takes determination and patience.

7th grade teachers name was Miss Youngblood. She said she was not part Indian as her name would suggest.  Several pupils in that room were Indian. Bruce Walkingstick,  Nevermore Hubbard, and Darkie Mantis.  WE stayed in that house only through the winter.  Dad rented a farm 3 and a half miles from town and we moved into an old log house.  Two bedrooms upstairs and two rooms downstairs with a big fireplace that dad liked.  He still had some carpenter work to do so he subleased the farm land to a Negro to raise sugar cane.  And Papa grew some cotton.  We had a share of the molasses produced.  It was interesting to watch the sugar cane ground and the juice cooked in long shallow vat.  The grinder was operated by a mule going round and round .    This place was  about a mile from the small Illinois River.   Dad made a flat boat which I enjoyed rowing slowing along while he fished.  The river was mild and no more than waist deep.  At the crossing where the road met the river, we sat Maurice one year old in the water, no more than one foot deep. WE all went wading.  This must have been a splendor place for waterfall. Grandma and I walked over and dug a skillet full of tiny wild onions. We also gathered dandelion leaves and lands quarters.

Baby brother grew and learned . There was a box of apples on the stairway halfway up the stairs.  He would crawl up there, get himself an apple and scoot down without falling. He would get one apple and come away without throwing them out. His favorite toy was a little leather mule which uncle Will gave him .  Also, he was always carrying his little red chair. 

Our water supply was down, down, down, in a deep ravine.  We crossed a stream of water  to the stream flowing under a spring house where we kept milk, feed and butter to cool. All water for houses had to be carried one or two  buckets at time. Some of these clean and milk containers were set in the spring water. Some milk in shallow pans to let the cream rise for churning were on the shelves. 

Convicts worked on the roads.  They covered them with gravel. Every man who voted was suppose to spend some time working on the road  or pay some one to work in his place.  The age limit must have been 55 because Mr. Rose told them he was 56.  He didn’t want to buy Arkansas history books for Russ and me for he told the school board he didn’t want us to take Arkansas history.  So we sat and listened while the class decided.  It didn’t matter much to us, but it was one more point against me as a citizen.  However, he did one good service to the schools. He changed the doors from opening inward to outward so they would be safer in case of fire and a  pushing crowd.  The teachers tried a fire drill  once only and they didn’t actually handle it the way a fire drill is suppose to be done. In a regular fire drill as I understand it the children are told it is a practice drill and all must remain calm and march out as directed.  IN our school they put a bucket of coals and chips to make smoke.  They told us there was a fire and all would be well if we did as told. Do not take time to collect  clothes or books, all go down the west stairway,  keep calm, do not push or rush. I kept calm.  I was one of the last out of the room.  There hung my coat on the end of the line. It took me no time at all to grab it off the hook.  The west playground was full of students. No one was on the east stairs, a clear way out of the building.   So I thought I was doing a reasonable thing by going down that way.  I wasn’t scolded.  Teachers probably didn’t notice. One boy was so frightened he was going to jump out of and upstairs window. 

Russell and I had two swings.  He tied a big rope to the limb of an old oak tree that extended over the hillside.  It had a big knot in the end to keep our hands from slipping.  Wee, it felt like flying to run and swing out the far side.  Mr. Rose put up a swing for me on the other side of the Oak tree. It was made of white window hanging cord.   The cord was put through two holes in a board.   Mr. Rose told me it was not strong enough for two to swing on.  Only one!

Mrs. Daniels came to try on a dress mama was sewing for her.  We got on the swing together.  We were swinging freely when it broke and we clung tightly to the unbroken cord.  On the palm of her right hand and my left were blistered.  She never came again.  But that doesn’t especially indicate the reason.  Very few people came to visit us having to climb that steep hill.  It is still known as ROSE  HILL. 

Mama bought enough heavy red coat material and made identical coats and hats for Ida Gates and me.  We were often mistaken one for the other by people we met.  We wore our new coats to a Halloween party at  Dr. Daniels beautiful home.  Russell escorted Ida and me.  The affair was an open house for the whole town. It was a costume affair. Our first!  We girls had long pink cheese cloth dresses.  We didn’t let Russell see our costumes and mask before the party began.  They played all games which are now known as typical old time Halloween games. Dunking for apples, pin the tail on the donkey, and many others.  We went home by the light of a kerosene lantern.   This didn’t prevent wagon wheels from being hidden and toilets from being tipped over, and windows being soaped or candle marked. 

Our parents sent us on an errand to town one afternoon during the summer.  When we returned our folks were not home yet.  We just returned to our friends place.  Why?  our reasoning?   just kids!  When they came  home and we weren’t there,  Mr. Rose became angry.  We weren’t often late, came home before dark.   Mr. Rose said “ you whip yours and I’ll whip mine”.   Mama didn’t think it was that serious, but knew she better do what he said.   She told me that she needed to at least pretend to whip me.  So she went through the actions.  Later Russell asked me if it hurt.   We both said “not much”. 

In the summer vacation a man and wife came to our town to teach a month of singing lessons to people of any age who wanted to join the class.  They charged a reasonable amount and gathered 20 or 30 members. Here again Mama and her sewing machine had a part since the lady singing teacher was glad to have some sewing done.   They roomed in the home of Fern Lindsey, a girl about my age. At the end of the month they had a concert to which the public was invited for a small price for tickets.  A prize was offered to the child who sold the most tickets.  The prize was a lovely doll with sleeping eyes and real hair, about 14 inches long.  Mama had sewed a pretty dress of peach colored silk and nice underclothes.  Mr. Rose told me to get out on the sidewalk  and meet the people as they were coming to the meeting and sell the tickets there.  I did and it worked.  I sold the most tickets and was awarded the doll, which I named  Nona.  Now that didn’t please Fern one bit.  She thought she had special privileges because they lived at her home.  When I went there the next day to receive the prize,  Fern followed me part way down below the depot and said she should have the doll.  I was glad that Ida Gates was with me.   I am sure I  needed the protection of an extra person present.

I needed a new pencil and mama gave me a nickel asking me to buy 5 one cent cedar unpainted red pencils with imbedded erasers.  But I couldn’t resist the 5 cent ones painted pink and silver.   A tablet with rough paper could be bought with a nickel. 

My legs ached at night.  Grandma said it was because I jumped rope so much.  She rubbed my legs beginning above the knee. She rubbed with each stoke all the way down and part of the foot ending with a jerk as if to take away the pain.  The pain eased and I fell asleep.  

In this year of 1991,  Evelyn, my daughter  was chatting  with her little grand daughter.     (  )  as Pamela jumped rope suddenly one came to my mind and they laughed and said they had never heard it.  Evelyn said I should record it, so here it goes;  Mother, mother, I am sick - send for the Doctor, quick, quick, quick -  Doctor, Doctor, will I die,  “yes my child, but don’t you cry”, How many carriages will I have,  one, two, three and so forth.  

In 1911 and 1912 we lived in the pink house.  Mr. Rose was building a very nice , well planned,  perfectly constructed  two story rock house.   He was a hard worker.  He did the carpenter work himself, having a stone mason to cut and place the stone.  They helped each other.  The stones were brown, sandstones, dug and shaped at a site not more than 200 feet  from the house.  I don’t know how they cut the stone.  Perhaps with chisel to mark the lines.   Then with wedge and sledge hammer stones might break as marked. They may have been formed in layers. The stone mason fitted them together in any shape they turned out. The walls were smooth.  He received probably one dollar a day.  The house on Rose Hill is still in good condition in this year of 1991.   

Mr. Rose and mama prepared the floor plan.  It was to be their home for the rest of their lives. There was a large kitchen with a big adjoining  (  ? ).  A spacious dining living room, three bedrooms downstairs and of course a parlor.   There was room upstairs for 4 bedrooms which he never finished.  The large L shape porch had a cement floor.  Mr. Rose liked roofs to be different, not just plain A shaped.  This house had wide eves with a gable on each side.   There were plenty of windows of ordinary size.  No large one like the style of later years.   We had a well with a pump near the back door.   Soft clear water.  The pump had to be primed every time we used it.  So we had to be sure to keep a small amount of water on hand to pour in the pump.  Russell or I had to keep the reservoir on the cook stove full and he had to chop wood and carry armfuls to the wood box beside the stove.  Mr. Rose believed women must know how to do every  thing necessary in and around the home.  He made me learn to use one of the ends of a two end saw in cutting lengths of logs for the wood stove.  I didn’t have to do much of it,  just to know how.  Also, I had to learn to use the buck saw for cutting smaller limbs.  That is like a poker saw or meat saw.  Everyone in the home had to awaken and rise early , dress and be ready to eat the breakfast with all the rest of the family. WE had a real meal for breakfast.  Bacon, eggs, hashbrown potatoes, and also oatmeal and buttered toast with jam.  

Also he thought we should all keep up with the news of the times and he bought the Little Rock Newspaper to us sometimes.  Two events during that time were Haley’s Comet in 1910  and  the sinking of The Titanic in 1912  William Jennings Bryant spoke to the people from the back of his passenger car at our depot.   

One morning a long freight train took out the depot just when we were on our way to school.  I had to walk a long way down the track to get around the train. 

A carnival came to town .  It had all the curious and attractive vehicles drawn by beautiful horses. It had elephants.  The freight platform at the depot was old and plainly showed it was not too safe.  The old elephant snorted and honked and tooted.  He did not step out of the freight car on to the platform .  They finally coaxed him out some way and he crossed the platform safely.  Two weeks later when the crowd gathered on the freight platform  to hear Williams Jennings Bryant speak,  a lady of great weight  went though one weak plank.   One leg went though all the way.   It took several men to help to pull her out.  After  we saw the circus, Russell made a trapeze and we tried out some of the safer acts.  We could do the birds nest, hand and toes on the bar, face down. 

I could climb any tree Russell and two neighbor boys could.  Grandma had me pick wild grapes  by an Oak Tree.  I wore girls clothes at all times.  I must have ignored the rules of modesty.  Girls were taught to keep their feet down, knees together, when sitting dresses covered the knees. Modesty has gone with the wind. That is one thing in the long list of what has caused ignoring of our generations rules of right and wrong. 

Once Iva Gate, who had no brother, bribed us to try on Russell’s pants.  We put them on. They were knicker bockers, buckled below the knee. We didn’t let anyone see us. We kept ourselves in the chicken house.  

Drucy and I played so much that I didn’t study very hard and made only about C grades. It seemed Drucy could absorb history in one reading. It just doesn’t soak into me.  Drucy made better grades although we spent time on a secret code of our own.  Dr. Wood demanded good grades of his girls. He sent them all off to College. My folks didn’t fuss about grades, perhaps thinking I would learn it later. I soon learned not to ask Mr... Rose for help with Arithmetic. He wouldn’t do it the way the book taught and the teacher required.  He had quick short cuts.  We always got into a quarrel. He and mama and grandma had all of been to school only 3 years or so. They all could spell well and read properly and calculate any figures that were needed in every day life.  Such as amounts of wall paper or curtains.  I learned the rules for figuring wall paper , but it was a rule I didn’t understand how or why it worked. 

As I said Drucy and I had a secret code on which we spent time.  We could as well had real short hand lessons. I would have enjoyed it as I did in later time. She and I organized a girls club.  Called it the Jenny When Club.  We sang songs and played games.  Had about 8 members.  Among others were Ida Gates and a little 8 year old .  We kept quilt blocks and each of  did a block or two.  Unfinished we gave it to the Ladies Aide as mama suggested.  She was the president of the Ladies Aide of the Methodist Church that year.  She told me, but I never told the girls that the ladies at the club took our quilt which was made by hand,  apart and did it over. It was a nice try though.

Mama had a special little poem that she enjoyed and she read it to the ladies. She asked me to memorize it. For I just naturally did as is my custom.  In later year she would ask me “ what was that little poem that I liked so much”?  And I would recite it for her. 

I  have neglected  to say I attended the Methodist and School regularly.  I had joined the Church in Tucum Perrie at the age of 8. Mama thought I was too young to know what I was doing.  I signed the pledge to never smoke,  or drink alcoholic beverages.  To me that was a very solemn vow and I have always kept it.  But I think I would have lived the same way because I naturally dislike tobacco and all alcoholic beverages.  To me a vow is to be kept.  Regardless what happens, the same applies to marriage vows.  I kept mine for 52 years regardless of difficulties. 

John R. Aday was the mayor  and owner of a store.  He died of cholera, which they say was caused by cucumbers. Some say cucumbers must be  peeled.  Some said they must be soaked in salt water to kill the poison. Some said slice a certain end off.  I don’t know which end and  rub it around and around on the cut end  to drive the poison out.  We know now that it must have been brought on  by flies.  Flies were awfully thick at every house. They were very thick on the outside of the screen door.  We had to shoo them away before opening the screen door.  An apron was useful for this purpose.  A folded newspaper cut into inch strips  tapped to the top of the door  helped to scatter the flies as we opened the door.  A similar paper tacked to a stick or a handle  was swayed gently over the table  while the family ate.  I had to wave a branch of a tree with leaves on it quietly over and around the cow while Mr. Rose milked her.   You think I’m calling him Mr. Rose too long?  Just bear with me a little while longer. 

 Our big event was near.  Items used on the table every meal were left on the (?) mill.  Salt, pepper, syrup, jam, sugar and bowl with lid and a bowl that matched it for spoons.  Sometimes tables were re-set with plates upside down over knives and forks at each persons place.  In fly season the table was covered with a skeeter mitten between meals.  Butter was tipped to and from with a wet cloth over the butter dish and set in a bowl of water put in the buttery where the shallow pans of mild were set for cream to rise.  We would skim off the pure cream for coffee or corn meal mush for supper. Left over cold corn meal mush was firm in the morning and was sliced and fried eaten with butter and honey.  Sticky fly paper was the only  thing one could buy to particularly control flies. Yes we ate much fried foods and were not over weight.

Meeting places, churches and the school auditorium were hot in summer  and there were no ceiling fans or window fans or ventilation. On every seat a cardboard fan was placed with a small wooden handle and a picture and advertisement of some local store on them.  One of the best gifts you could give a lady was a lovely folding fan or a fancy side comb for her hair. A hat pin with an ornament on it was very acceptable.  I remember one I had  from the circus group.   Hat pins were useful for ladies when our hair wore long forming firm rolls or buns or braids in which hat pins would hold like the hair pins of wire.  Hat pins were about 8 inches long. Other common everyday articles were sometimes fancy handles or shoe button hook,  and cork screws. 

I had long brown hair.  It was down to my belt in the back.  Mama said a woman’s crown and glory is her hair. Keep the hair and complexion in good healthy condition and you would be ready for any change in circumstances. She kept my hair in two long braids with a ribbon tied on the end.  Sometimes 6 inches might be left free and the ribbon tied above it.  

Mr. Rose and Russell operated a concession shop on summer.   He sold  candies, homemade ice cream, tobacco  etc.  Three flavors of ice cream which we made at home.  Vanilla, Chocolate and real strawberry from our garden made in large ice cream freezers which had to be cranked by hand.  This little store was down town just off main street. It was quite successful. He had to haul the ice cream freezers there by horse and wagon.  The brand of tabacco which was called Horse Shoe had little tin horse shoes imbedded marked off square.  These could be collected and turned into the company for prizes.  Russell had the opportunity to gather many of these. He saved 100 little horse shoes and pearl handled mic or me besides things for himself. 

 WE used a pocket knife in many ways.  To sharpen a pencil especially.  There were no pencil sharpeners in the schools. Mr. Rose had this store only one season. He had other plans. 

He and his stone mason built a large stone building for a butcher shop on the same street as Dr. Woods drug store on the corner.   It was very close to the drug store.  It was finished and operated for a time as a butcher shop. In four years he built 4 buildings. 

 Grandma had nine children.  Four of them died in their 20’s of typhoid.  One son died of a mine accident.  Grandma had participated in the Oklahoma Land rush of 1898  with 2 son, claimed a homestead but someone else took it.  In 1912 she went to Elno, Nodaway county, Missouri to visit her two brothers  Franklin and Jim Bailey and their children  two of who were Dick and Iva Bailey.   They all had a great time reminiscing.  If one said something another didn’t agree with he would say “over the garden wall my brother, over the garden wall”.   In the same circumstances today we would say  “balony” or “applesauce” .  

Grandma was 16 and a married woman during part of the Civil War.  She brought home a newspaper in which a friend of the family in  1912 read about Jim Bailey  helping to hide Negroes who were attempting to reach the north where they could be free.  Grandma was greatly bothered by Asthma and emphysema.  Her face was often puffy because she was always rubbing her face on her right sleeve when her hands were busy with making bread or washing dishes.   She wore out the upper part of her right sleeve.   She couldn’t fix vegetables because of her ailments.  She set the incubator with 100  eggs when she returned from Missouri and raised almost 100 little chicks.  Didn’t seem to affect her ailments.  There’s another use for the big apron, catch the baby chicks to put them to bed in a tub.  One of her roosters grew up to be ferocious.  We had to watch behind us or we might be attacked.  We always had to warn any visitors.  Beware of the big rooster.  

In the 7th grade during school hours  Russell was showing Ada Barr how he shaped his hands and blew on his thumbs to produce a loud whistle. She tried it and startled herself and everyone else in the room.  Teacher, Mr. Bailey, thought Russell made the noise.  He was going to whip him for it. Russell didn’t deny it and no one else, not even I told it was Ava  who did it.  She did speak up to save Russell.  The teacher sent a boy out to cut a limb from an apple tree.  You know what you what that boy did?  He sliced the limb so it would break when stuck against anything or in this case against anyone.  Ida was a young lady, more mature than the rest of us in our class.  A year or two older.  I don’t know what had caused her delay in the lower grades.  Teacher dropped the matter then. 

In the summer Russell worked a short time doing something with  (?- spades).  He earned about 6 dollars and felt quite rich. 

 A family had moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas and as was the custom in the south  they told Russell that he must come and visit them. 

You all come and stay a while. Fayetteville is about 75 miles from Marshall. Russell ran away from home, rode on the train and found his friends. They were surprised and not too well pleased to see him .  They said he couldn’t stay there more than just that days visit.  Russell’s dad didn’t worry about him being gone.  He said “ He  will come back soon.”   Russell had about  three dollars left when he walked down an alley in Fayetteville.  Three boys surrounded him took away his money.  It took the rest of the week for him to walk home getting an occasional ride in a wagon.  His  shoes were completely worn out.  

We had a telephone on the wall with a little crank on its right side.  You put the receiver to your ear and turned the little crank to get the operator. I think you just told her whom you wanted to talk to  and she would plug in the connection.  That was installed when we had the confections store.  Mama sewed for a lady who had a camera and wanted to sell it , so we acquired the camera which used dry plates 3 x 4 inches.  It had 2 shutter speeds.  1/25th  and 1/50th of a second.  Also time exposure. On a dull day, no bright sun, we were all out taking pictures near the house and one of the rock quarries. Mama set the camera for a time exposure and clicked it open.  She didn’t shut it off when we thought she should and I danced around saying “shut it off, shut it off, “.  Finally she closed it .  and what a surprise. That view turned out to be good.  She had been instructed to develop and print the pictures under red light. We could obtain supplies from Sears Roebuck and Co.  She formed a dark room in my bedroom and cut a window through the wall into the kitchen for the 8 X 10 inch red glass for a light.  When we were preparing to leave Marshall, the next year mama picked out the glass negatives that she wanted to keep.  One box to keep, one to discard.  It turned out that she discarded the one we wanted to keep. 

A Vaudeville troop came in warm weather during the school term.  Logs were laid for seats  on the old school ground near Dr. Woods place. While we waited for the performance to begin I was restless and I leaned far back and  strained my neck.  According to local speech,  I had a crick in my neck .   So I had to hold my head sideways.  In the meantime Addith Barr was leaving the boys of our class  and told them good bye.  She said she was leaving and wouldn’t be back.  She may have told some girls but I just heard what Russell said.  The Vaudeville troop gave and entertaining program lighted by kerosene torches.  I spent the night with Drucy. When we arrived at school grounds the next day we were told there would be no school that day because over there on the school ground lay Adda Barr suffering terribly from Carbolic acid she had swallowed. It became known that she had been taking buggy rides with a traveling salesman.  And she learned he was married.  When I reached home with my head tipped sideways and asked mama  “have you heard the news”?  She thought I had been in an accident.   Grandma massaged my neck and it felt better. 

I had sprained my ankle  a few weeks before that.  It made me feel faint to try to walk on it. Mr. Rose told me to get up and keep going ,  don’t give in to an injury, keep on working.  Grandma eased me though that situation , allowed me to lie down and  no more was said about it.  My ankle was sprained several times over the years.  It never swelled much and did not become discolored.  It would have been better for me if it had. 

One day when it had been raining Dad said the creek water was rising and might cover the spring water and the milk and butter. So we must go down and set them up on the shelves.  He went with me waited while I waded across the now knee deep creek.  I put things safely on the shelf then I turned to go back to where Dad waited.  A flash flood had raised the creek to waist deep and very  swift and was floating big objects, very fast.  Dad told me to push on into the water and he came half way to meet me.  We made it across there safely.  Thankfully. 

Russell went to work for a widow farm lady near the small town of Parkville.  After he had been there about three months  Dad made me go on the train about 25 miles and walk out to that farm and ask  Russell for ten dollars.  I did not want to ask him for money.  But we had to do what dad said.  Russell gave me the 10 dollars to give to dad. He must have really needed it. 

One warm day Morris was sleeping, so mother, grandma and I took a nap. I awoke first seeing Morris up and holding  the (? daisy side car ? ) off of her table which had nothing else on it. He had  it picked and would have died but grandma calmed and controlled.  She sent me down to the spring to get a cup full of sweet cream.  She caused him to swallow enough.  She may have caused him to vomit, so he was saved. 

I walked 3 and a half miles to and from school.  I didn’t mind the walk.  I memorized several long poems as I walked.  I remember them still.  There were no school busses, neither horse drawn or motorized.  Once a man gave me a ride in a model T Ford.  My first Auto ride.  That was in the days when one could accept a ride or pick up a hitchhiker without fear.  1914

Our third winter was in town.  Dad bought a big old log house on one lot.  It had a big fireplace too. He liked to put in a big log at night so there would be coals to start in the morning.  He cut a hole in the ceiling to let the heat warm my bedroom upstairs.  They had a bedroom downstairs. He couldn’t have paid much. Probably only a few monthly payments for we stayed there only a few months.  I was in the 8th grade, finished that term at  Waggoner.  That house was near Salt Creek where we later heard oil had been discovered. 

There was never any music in our family. We were not musically inclined. I attended the Methodist church at Waggoner.  Mother had no friends in (Talinqua)  except Lillian’s mother.  Grandma was not with us that winter.  She was with uncle Albert at Muskogee.  

The Rose Family minus Russell moved by team and wagon  to Waggoner.  Dad had taken the surrounding area as salesmen ... Singer Sewing Machine Company.  So he applied a button and went out every day trying to sell machines.  He sold very few.  I came home for lunch one day and they had left me only cold  tomatoes.  The sewing machines could be purchased on time for $6.00 a month. I don’t know why 1915 was such a hard time. There were many tramps who came to our back door.   Dad always gave them something to eat, probably bacon and eggs with some home baked white bread. 

Baby was learning to talk.  He was a handsome little fellow with a deep dimple on his chin. His long hair was cut buster brown style by mother.  Bangs straight across and hair even all around below the ears.  

A photographer came around to homes and took pictures of children which were all shown on the screen at the theaters.  Still pictures, life size.  We had to pay a small amount to get in.  The main street in Waggoner was paved
with bricks on the edge.  Mother attended a class on basics of cooking advertising tasty baking powder. She was very interested to learn that measurements should be accurate  always a fact by leveling with a knife to scrape it. 

As we passed a farm Dad said he wished he had $400.  He could buy that 40 acres for $10 an acre.

A play called 3 weeks was banned by the town.  I do not know if it was a stage play or a movie. It was about a lady of importance , Queen or Princess, who wanted to have an heir of strength and metal ability.  But her consort was from a family of lessor abilities.  She chose a handsome strong young man for her companion.  The public was beginning to talk of allowing   ( ? )   marriages.  But it was strictly forbidden at that time. 

Now we go again.  A covered wagon, just like in pioneers days, was prepared and all our belongings which we could not do without were packed in it.  We went to Kansas.  From Waggoner to Kansas  line  and completely across the state of  Kansas  to Minneapolis, Kansas.  I don’t know why Day went a way up there. He didn’t find any kind of work  but railroad track work at  $3.00 a day.   It was very hard work.  Dad was sick on our trip to Kansas. He had chills and fever of Malaria which was common  in  those days. We gave him the customary treatment of quinine in capsules.   Every family kept them on hand for  Malaria .   We bought the quinine powder and the capsule separately and filled them ourselves.   In a couple of days the fever left  and he was able to travel again.   This was customary of  Malaria.   Sometimes people would have chills and fever  every other day.   I would be sent to a farm house to ask for a bucket of water or to buy some milk.  Mother kept us dressed in clean clothes. 

We arrived at  Minneapolis, Kansas at the time of Peach harvest.  Dad helped a farmer with harvest work and he let us camp in a small building for a few weeks.  Dad always helped with canning peach and we canned a big supply of peaches for ourselves.  Mother cooked the peaches in a big open kettle  and put them in a scalding hot fruit jars.  We hadn’t thought of filling the jars with fresh peaches  and boiling them in the  wash boiler.  After the peach harvest  we moved into a big old framed house in town. It had an up stairs and a big old unfinished basement.  It smelled of mildew.  I had a bedroom upstairs and my folks were down stairs. WE went to bed early, nothing else to do.  I had the kerosene lantern and was reading in bed.  Dad yelled at me to put that lantern out and go to sleep.  I never could read when he was home. How did he know I had the lights on?

Grandma came. I don’t remember her coming but she was there at Christmas.  Oh, yes, we were in a smaller house.  Easier to heat. Mother made some friends to sew for.  We sent Morris (age 2 and a half)  across the road  with a note for the neighbor lady asking for  a spool of thread. We were so proud of him .  He accomplished the errand safely.  You say “what”?  “ send a baby across a street?” 

Some ladies came and asked grandma if she needed anything for Christmas.  She admitted that we would like a Christmas basket. Mother didn’t like that.  She was too proud to admit any need.  We would not accept any hand me down clothes.  

I attended first year high school and enjoyed it very much.   I studied hard starting a business course, taking Latin, business English, and commercial geography (amateur of course).  

Soon after Christmas there was a very stormy night.  Grandma was worried.  She had been in cyclones.  Dad didn’t seem to be afraid.  There would be a cyclone at Minneapolis. Sheet lightning flashed continually.  Lighting the night. There was not place we could go to be any safer. Of course it was accompanied by rolling, shaking thunder. The cyclone did not strike our town.  It did destroy half of the town of  Great Bends Kansas near the southern border. Dad being a carpenter and needing better paying work , went to Great Bend.  He re-built a nice little two bedroom house and rented it. Again, mother and grandma had to load all our belongings on a train and go to Great Bends. Our new neighbors all had tales to tell about the great storm. Bernice, Mildred, ?  and her mother crouched under a dining table in the corner of a room toward the storm. They were not harmed.  Though much of the house was damaged. Their mother had told the girls to bring their dolls and place them inside , because they might blow away. The youngest girl did not bring hers in - result - all gone. 

Bernice became my best friend in Great Bend. We were both Freshmen in High School.  The  house next to ours had been lifted off the floor leaving the bed and occupants unhurt.  Bernice and I walked 9 blocks to school.  It was very cold after new years.  The Kansas winds made it very cold walking.  The school required us to carry everything home that we used all day.  We could not leave , books, pens, paper  or anything in the desk.  It was so cold one morning that my hand was freezing with a bottle of ink.  I stopped into a grocery store and  several men were sitting around a heating stove.  They rubbed my hands and put the little ink bottle in a sack.  I was revived so I could go on.   I like this school  too.  The algebra teacher made us understand algebra so well that we had finished the required amount and she asked if we would like to take another half  year of work in that term.  We all agreed. 

Dad rode to and from work with a man on a motorcycle until they had a wreck.  I don’t know how the driver turned out, but dad had a very badly injured ankle.  There was no doubt about his being injured.  It swelled very much and was very discolored.  I don’t know weather he went to a Doctor.  However, there were no bandages. He had us keep a hot bath for the ankle.  Again, he was as cross as a bear.  No one could do anything right.  He even criticized the manner in which I carried the tea kettle bringing the hot water. 

I had my 16th birthday that February and Morris was 3 in May.  I think we had electric lights that hung on a cord.  

A salesman came demonstrating aluminum kettles.   Our first contact with them.   We could not afford to buy them.  

Dad took me to the movies on Saturday night  about 6 times.  We watched an exciting movie where the hero and heroin were always left  until next week in a perilous situation. Grace Banard and Francis ? were the actors.  That was our first movie. 

One  thing peculiar to that particular year was the IWW. Independent Workers of the World.  Suspiciously called the I won’t workers.  They caused trouble between the honest workers and the labor union. They placed bottles in the wheat fields in such a way that the sun would cause a fire and burn the wheat. 

Dad bought an old 4 cylinder Buick.   It had 2 seats upholstered in real leather.  The crank set on the right side.  He had a plan and he put it into operation. This was his first experience with a car.  But he learned quickly not only to drive but much about his operation.  The town had one big  sweep called Boulevard.  It was ahead of its time.  It had flower beds down the middle.  On dads first solo drive something caused him to take a big jump  to the left and he ran the car into a flower bed.  He built a trailer which had buggy wheels.   His plan was to go to  (? )
Checklas,   Washington by traveling, camping out, stopping a few days and earning money to go further.   Mother was   3 months   pregnant.  (Checkelas/? ) , Washington, again he listened to someone’s advise.  Someone who said Chekhelas was a milder climate, plenty of rain ( so the man said) . 

Grandma couldn’t go with us. So she went back to  Muskogee.  Dad (? traded) the sewing machine and a big box and many treasures.  Also we left the trunk. These 3 big things were left with a neighbor  with a plan that we would send for them when we reached Chehela. Mother had to choose the fewest utensils, the fewest clothes, the bedding.  No tent.  Dad and I became quite proficient at folding  bedding and rolling it inside a wagon sheet, which was a big canvas.  In western vernacular a tar (harpoon?).  or a tarp.   One treasure which we didn’t leave behind was the little red chair.  It was the last thing on and the first thing off.  It hung on one headlight and the lantern on the other.  A canvas water bag hung on one side.  We had to have a water bucket.  Of course there had to be a sheet iron, cook stove , with a little oven which would even bake a pie or cake.  And cake mixes did not come in convenient small boxes. Dry cooking materials had to be protected from the rain.  Kansas had high winds when we had to pull over the top of the car .  Sometimes dad set a can of pork and beans on the car motor as he traveled .  It heated nicely.  The car made about 20 or 25 miles per hours.  That is much better than horses walking.  There were not gas stations as we know them today.  We had to ask where to buy gasoline and were directed to a bicycle shop  where they sold gasoline and kerosene.  And the gas sometimes had kerosene in it. When the 4 sparks plugs need cleaning dad would take them out and scrap them with his pocket knife.  Flat tires were just one of the hazards of the time.  You had to carry a jack, a pack of  tube patches, and a tire pump.  We never carried an extra tire. It was not easy to take the tire off  and put it back on the ring.  
One time a Pueblo, Colorado a tire went flat and the rim went rolling down main street. I thought it was funny, but mother was badly embarrassed.  Dad just took it calmly. We stayed a week at a farm where Dad help chop wheat bundles and mother sewed for the lady.   There was a pipe in their yard that stood up in which natural gas flew out.  They could light it with a match for a light at night and smother it with a lid in the daytime.  This gas was piped 3 miles from a discontinued gas well. They get it free. 

Progressing on we came to the top of a hill where there stood before us a wide valley of fine farms outlined by hedges that look like a checker board.  The roads were mostly just dirt roads.  Some were two deep ruts with a high center.  Too high for the Buick.  Dad had to place one wheel on the high center  and one on the side of the road. 
There was a mud hole in front of this farm house where the mud was so deep the car couldn’t go through.  The farmer kept a team of horses harnessed  so he could pull people out of the mud.  The mud was so sticky it made the wheels  or horses hoofs too heavy.  Dad said he bet the farmer kept that mud hole watered.  The Lincoln highway was beginning its 100th mile that year. Our road maps were in complete detail. It might say 3 miles to the big old red barn or 10 miles past the wheat elevator.  The Buick was caused to operate by one chain.  This chain would jump off its track often.  Dad would have to work to put it back.   We slept on the ground without a tent, just the cover of the canvas tarp, even in  the rain.  After one rain the quilts were soaked.  Dad hung a nice comforter on a barbed wire fence and left it there in spite of mothers protest. 

Bernice, back in Great Bend, had told me her grandma  had traveled on the Oregon Trail by covered wagon.  They asked me to keep a diary and send them letters as we traveled.  So I did.  Long afterwards she asked me by letter if I wanted her to return it to me.  I should be kicked.  I said “no  don’t bother”.   At Canyon  City, Colorado we stayed a week and dad traded the Buick for the running gears of a 1910 one cylinder.  Only One cylinder on which he put the top and body of a Maxwell.  Just like a horse drawn buggy.  It had no doors,  one seat, side running boards.  The brakes were outside on the left.  But oh no, the brakes did not hold tight.   Mother and Dad sat on the one seat.  She has Morris on her lap.  I sat on   the floor with feet on the running board.  That pregnant woman could endure children everyday  and jumping out and lifting a 3 year old out when the little car wouldn’t go up some hill. We camped one night on the edge of Royal Gorge, walked 2 miles down.  It is wonderful, awesome.  We were on the bank of the Arkansas River.  At that point the river was only about 20 feet across and was very swift.  Our little car was parked toward the river and the ground slopped down.  Morris climbed into the car and was just about to cause it to move forward when Dad ran and stopped it.  What a narrow escape.   Just now I examined the map trying to trace the Arkansas River to it’s source.  I find that Great Bend is not as near the southern border as I thought.  It is nearly the center of the state.  At Grand Junction City, Colorado we stayed a week.  There was a peach tree in our yard and peaches going to waste. We ate too many peaches and it took a few days to recover. 

Next on the route was the Monarch path.  11,400 feet. This was late August and there was some patches of snow. I saw some wild strawberries.  The fallen timber below looked like little match sticks.  This was all amazing to us sidewinders.  The little car could not go very far at a time. It’s brakes could not hold it. I had to jump out and  put a rock behind the back wheel.  Dad taught me how to keep fingers out of the ends of the rocks so they would not be smashed by the wheel.  I had to walk to the next stopping place or pick up a rock carrying it and run and catch up with the car and ride until it ? out again.  Dad had always believed he could make it.  So we did.  We reached the Summit.  Now we had to go down hill without brakes.  No cars passed us on the way up and only one on the way down.  No brakes.  Dad rolled the car against the banks. We were lucky.

We mostly disagreed about which road to take out of town.  We often took a road that led us many miles out of the way. He seemed to do that just to be contrary.  We were at Spanish Port Utah several weeks.  I attended school 2 weeks with 2 kids from  the family dad worked for. We studied German. 

Dad turned off  directly west on a dim country road.  Nobody knew why. At about 10 miles, far from civilization, we arrived at Blind Springs. There the car gave out completely. It looked very nearly hopeless.  Maybe no one would come along and help. And mother getting far along in her pregnancy.  She did not fuss or complain. All she could do was hope for better times. 

There was a little ball on the wheel to honk for the horn. Dad liked the brakes on the left side because he was left handed. We stayed one night at Blind Springs even though there was a dead cyote and dead porcupine.  Each had killed the other. 

The next day a caravan of farm wagons arrived and stopped to see what we needed. There were 4 or 5 wagons loaded with fresh produce from (?) city.   They were returning to their home at Almo, Idaho. They were neighbors who went each harvest season from Almo to Brigon City to buy fruits and vegetables from that little fruitful valley.  Alamo is so high in altitude that they can not raise late crops.  They raise cattle and horses.  Alama was a Mormon community. No other people were there.  and no automobiles in 1916.  These men, especially Mr. Aimes, helped  us.  They pulled our car behind a wagon while Mr. Aimes took us to his home  where we stayed about a month. 
Mother could rest from the constant traveling.  She helped Mrs. Aimes with canning the peaches and tomatoes.  Dad helped with the farm chores.  I kept Morris entertained.  Viola Aimes was my age and I enjoyed her.  I went with her to church and to her bee hive society for girls.  There was a boy 2 years older and 2 younger girls.  Viola and I hiked to the pines and picked pine nuts.  Roasted some and the heat caused the nuts to squeak and out came little worms.  We girls giggled about that a long time.  Viola and her neighbor girl  had good riding horses. I was no rider.  They caught a cow pony for me. Bill, short and stocky.  We three went to Bee Hives.  They trotted off easily,  left Bill and me behind , but it was all in fun and I didn’t mind.  They told us about an Indian massacre that had occurred on that week in the 1800’s .  A party of pioneers was killed there.  Viola, her brother George, the Ericson brother and sister ,  and I had been to 2 church meetings  in a 2  seated buggy. and were home about 9:00. They would sit out there and talk and laugh a lot.  Dad called me to come in.  That’s the way he raised me. No contact with boys. He believed girls didn’t need an education because they could just get married and stay at home. At the same time he was raising me to be an old maid.  I was so fortunate to have mother.  She always believed me, as she had no reason not to.  But Dad was always suspicious.  Give a girl an inch of freedom and she is sure to go to the bad.  Mother had wanted Clara to keep me for a while and on one of our moves we went to her beauty parlor.  But she was away on a trip. That just happened to be the train trip when she met Doctor Olan Hunter..  They were married shortly after.  He was the only doctor for a radius of 20 miles around Fairfax, Missouri.  So Clara could not have kept me as I found out years afterwards.  I would not have been happy with her because her ways were not our ways.  She was all for style and I was not.  She having climbed out of the poorest class  into middle class, looked down on the untrained workers. 

Amy’s son Arthur wanted our little car.  There was no other car in Alamo.  Ours just needed new coil boxes and not much else.  So Arthur traded 2 horses, Bill and a mare named Molly, and a mountain hat with no top.   Never were 2 horses more miss-matched. Arthur hitched the car on behind a wagon and pulled it with me guiding it while my folks rode in the back going to (?) where we left Arthur with the car. I do not know how he was going to get his two outfits home. 

We camped one night near Beula, Idaho.  Dad made me go into a field of oats and take 2 bundles of oats to feed the horses. The next day was November the 7th.  We stopped at an old box like two story house asking for rooms to rent.  The was on the edge of Buell (?).  They rented us a room upstairs in which we had 2 beds, a table and a cook stove. This house had been a stage stop for horse drawn stages on the way to Jarbridge?), Nevada, a gold mine area.  The family who lived there, as we soon learned to call them, grandma and grandpa Zimmerman, their son Fred and his 4 little daughters ages 2, 4, 6 and 8 lived with him.  (?) ‘s  wife had died that year.  They became such close friends that they seemed like relatives.  Also, the family of their daughter Nellie Wade and her husband George and 5 small children who lived at (?)  8 miles southwest of Buell. No harder working people ever lived.  Their whole life was work.  Early to rise, very early, therefore very early to bed.  Grandma Zimmerman put those children to bed very early and made them get up and have a hearty breakfast, far before anybody else would  be rising.  Grandpa Z raised hogs, chickens,  a cow, and garden produce.  This was 23 years before social security.  Old people had to work hard to make a living.  The children’s father worked at various kinds of work  to help  out.  He would sit alone in the dark parlor and sing to himself. 

As I think this over in 1991,  I see the occurrence of our being off the main road and stopping at Blithes Springs, from a new angle.  I imagine if Dad had stayed on the Main highway,  and the car gave out, we would not of had such kind help. Travelers on the main road would not have been prepared to take us to shelter. We would have had to hitch hike  to a place for car repair and would have had only the little car.  As it turned out we had  kind shelter and food and as we were to start farming in the near future,  the horses and hat were exactly what we would need most. 

Now back to our first month  (?)  .  A six year old had the same birthday as mine. The first person I had ever met having my special day. (?) gave us an old chair which they did not want and we let Morris do as he wanted with it.  The chair had a solid wooden seat.  Morris spent much time pounding nails into the seat.  Of course it couldn’t be used for sitting.  

Grandpa Z butchered a hog.  He was not going to use (the head ?) and grandma Z was glad to let someone else have it. Anyway mother asked for it to make to make ?head cheese , which wasn’t cheese but a solid mass.  She had grandpa Z slice it into quarters as she tried to get me to dig out the eyes.  I refused so poor mother did it herself. 

November 23,  the Thursday before Thanksgiving her baby was born at home with no doctor. Only Grandma Z and another elderly lady from across the street attended.  It was a boy. I kept Morris entertained.  Dad said “its just another boy”.   He wanted a girl because he had two boys.   

Russell  had gone to do farm work at age 17  and continued to live away from us. 

He met a farm girl in Iowa and they were married at age 19.  We saw them in 1920.   Her name was Katie. 

As it was with Morris, Mother could not decide on a name for the baby.  He was not named for 3 months. We would write out names mother liked Kenneth and David but just did not quite settle for one of them.  Dad said he wanted one name to begin with an A because his family had that custom.  He had a brother Anzle.  They lived in Nebraska so mother finally decided on Cecil.  and I supplied the second name of  Arthur.  This made his initials spell  C.A.R.  He was mostly healthy and contented and survived on  mothers milk. 

Buell is in the west end of twin falls county. which is one county in Magic Valley.   From Buell one can see 75 miles south to Jarbage mount  (?)  Nevada.  and 100 miles north to the (?)  Mountain.  All that area is in the Great Snake River basin .  In 1898 it was all one vast desert.  It had no available water.  The Great Snake River Canyon  divided the country.  ( I. B. Perine? ) laid a claim to the land down along the river and raised sheep and vegetables.  A road to his place was very steep on both sides of the canyon.  He built a bridge across the river down at the bottom of the canyon.  It became part of the stage route to Show sho nee.  Mr. Perine  interested several men to go to New York.  He had financial importance and they believed water could be taken by canal to all the land in the valley.  In 1903 the first damn site and canals were surveyed.   IN  1904 it was advertised that land could be bought 160 acres per person .  Towns sprang up and were named for one of the founding members.  Such as Buell , Kimberly, Milner, Anthony .  And the railroad was named Magic  Ballard?  And magic it seemed.  IN  1912 a high school was built carrying the 4 years of high school and 8 grades of lower school.  When we arrived in 1916 there were churches city hall and banks and the next year many streets were paved.   Once again Dad listened to an acquaintance.  He said there was a piece of land that could be taken by clearing the sage brush off  and settling on it.  About 10 acres.  There was a small stream on it with water flowing all year.   This is 3 miles north of Buell and now in Mallow? galley near the school. 

Dad earned money at carpenter work to buy lumber to build a one room shanty and a lean to for the horses and cow.  This shed faced the east because of the almost ever blowing west wind.   We had been used to the north wind mostly.  We moved into the one room shack when Cecil was about a month old.  Dad could work at carpentry and mother must not be left alone with water to carry  about 200 steps from the house. And sage brush to be ? SO often.   Sage brush  grew quickly  it was plentiful and grew  thickly all over the acreage.  So I must miss that year of  school.  It was a winter of deep snow.  The deepest we had ever seen.  Dad and I carried tubs full of snow to be melted  for washing clothes.  Many cups of snow were required for one tub of water.  The snow lay on the ground  until late spring.   WE ate mostly beans and pork bone or rutabaga from the Zimmermans.  We had a cow.  We made butter in a fruit jar. Shake it gently about  10 minutes.  Then open the lid to let out the air pressure. The shake some more. 

The winter of 1916 passed by.  I don’t remember Christmas but Clara surely sent me something nice.  Mother expected Grandma to come to us when we were under better circumstances.  She wrote to Grandma about the possibility of the higher altitude affecting her.  During the spring Dad turned a field to plant oats and a large garden.  Sage brush roots are near the top of the soil and are removed by dragging something heavy over the field and much  hard work .  Dad was a hard worker.  He was proud of the green oat field being watered from the little brook called Cooley in the West.   It needed constant watering.  WE all worked in the garden and it grew very well.  

One summer day when I was working in the garden, I looked up towards the house and there was a tall man talking to dad.  He was standing on one foot with the other foot resting on a  bottle or something.  I had seen uncle Will in that pose , but this was not Uncle Will.  I knew who it was although I had not seen him for 11 years when I was 5.   It was papa.  Mother refused to come out and speak to him.  I went to the house and met him as to any stranger.  No feeling of any kind concerning him.  He stayed only a short time. He had obtained our address from Clara.  He didn’t give me an address nor ask me to write to him. 

Morris was 4 years old in May 1917.   The oats grew as high as Morris’s shoulder under irrigation.  Our land came to the edge of the rim rock and it fell straight down about 50 feet. 

He still believed in onions as a cash crop and he raised a patch of onions a wagon load and they didn’t sell.  The merchants did not buy them. He finally had to dump them out on the (?buke), which is the western name for  a hill. It was a no man’s land. Now after the harvest of vegetables and oats and the land was cleared of stage brush,  along came a man who said “this is my land”.  He showed proof of the ownership. He owned many pieces of land in twin falls county.  He gained the clearing and the tilling of the land and we had a years living without paying any rent.  And we had the oats to sell and to feed the 2 horses and the cow. 

Dad knew how new lands were acquired  and he was very intelligent.  We never understood why he did not look into the title of that land.  Why he would take the advise of that Tennessee farmer and step onto that land without investigating the county records. 

Next he rented a big 80 acre farm 8 miles southwest of Buell, near the all growing alfalfa.  It had only a little one room shack.  Of course there was always a tiny outhouse on each place.  But I do not remember them. Only the one in Arkansas where mother said I always had to go just as it was dish washing time.

Montgomery Ward catalog was all engrossing.   This is the summer of 1917.  Morris is 4 in May, Cecil had his birthday the previous November 23.  Dad was thrilled with the tall alfalfa and irrigation. He would measure the tall plants up against his fist.  I liked watching the little streams of water flow into each cloragation equally and was sent up to the head of the field to keep each cloragation filled. 

Mother raised a group of baby chickens  under one hen.  One day when we all went to town by a team and a mountain hack,  something killed every little chick and left most of them lying around.   Dad said it looked like the deed of a weasel.  Another time Dad and Morris were not at home.  Mother and I were having a rest.   Cecil played near the door step.  I probably was reading.  He came in the door excitedly saying “Molly, Molly, Molly,” That was the name of the mare.  We ran out to see what was the matter.  Sure enough Molly was on her back thrashing her legs around trying to get up, but she could not.   Mother managed to push her onto her side to help her.  Cecil was only 18 months old. 

The only occasion for pleasure for me was a hay ride on a horse drawn hay ride.  Two neighbor girls and their dates.  I was paired off with their hired man.  A young man straight from Scotland.  I could not understand a word he said or very little. So it was not a great pleasure of that trip. 

When it came time to harvest the alfalfa dad exchanged work with Will Reed whose son Claude was 15  years old.  The father , mother and son lived 3 miles west of our place.  Dad had a small haystacker. It was called an overshot. It stood in one place until all it could pile was done. Then it was moved sideways to a new place.  His stacker could do only one direction. Placing it nearer or farther was accomplished by more or less speed of the team pulling the load.  The man on top of the stack had to smooth the piles off  with a pitch fork.  He would call out faster or slower as his work required.  They used one team at the stacker and one on the buck break and one man on the stack. The stacker team must go forward exactly far enough to dump the load where the man on the stack directs.  Then they must back up to the starting point. 

The Reeds had a model T which Claude drove. His folks didn’t drive. His dad learned how to drive but when he tried to park it in town he became flustered and the car jumped upon the side walk.  He didn’t know what to do quickly and he dislocated a finger. He did manage to get it stopped before hitting a store window. He never tried to drive again. Claude was allowed to drive at 13 because he was the only one in the family who could drive. He walked over the Beaut one and a half miles to the Sunset View Country School.  He finished the 8th grade and did not want to go on to high school. He would of had to driven 8 miles to Beaut and it would of been too much for him to drive an open Ford car after doing the required morning chores on the farm. They thought it was enough education for a farmer. 

Claude took me to Sunday school a couple of times.  But when I phoned him from a neighbors place his mother told me he wanted to sleep that Sunday morning. 

Our water supply was the open ditch and when the canal company shut the water off to clean out the moths from the canal and the laterals, we had no water.  I took a bucket and walked half a mile to where a school teacher and her son lived asking for a bucket of water.  She said they could not spare any.  Her cisterns were almost dry.  I walked another half mile and they let me have a bucket of water. The canal was dry for 3 days.  Dad managed to get  a further supply of water from some neighbors I suppose.

 Mother made arrangements with the old lady who lived across the road from the Zimmermans.  She had assisted at Cecil’s birth without a doctor. I was to help her with housework before and after school in exchange for board and room while I attended the 2nd year at high school.  Mrs. ? had 4 sons and a married daughter.  Three of the sons were adults and one was 15 years old. The boys lived with their mother.  They farmed the ? corner place and kept a herd of milk cows.  The town of Gerney was named for the owner of this place.  Mrs. Gueshabers/? folks had come from Germany. She acted towards Mr. G? as a sever were toward the great royal owner of  town.  When he came and was expected to come and check on business concerning the farm, she would work for days cleaning the big house and preparing food for him.  She kept special can fruits which he liked in the basement especially for him. 

From here on Helen this will be repeated on a new tape which I hope will be clearer. 

Physics was as required subject.  I didn’t like it.  Couldn’t even remember to study the lesson the first class in the morning.  I needed business subjects and I did well in geometry.  I was allowed to drop physics by special permission.  Mother told the teacher I must be prepared to make my own living soon and did not expect to graduate if I could finish typing, shorthand, and bookkeeping in the junior year.  We could not have afforded the expenses of a graduation.  All the girls in my class disliked geometry and the entire group was allowed to drop it. I did well in geometry and kept on with it. There was a girl in the next higher grade in the geometry class with a voice.  There was one problem which nobody had finished. Teacher said keep on with that problem and try to work it.  I tried so hard that it ran through my head in the night.   I worked it out if I could be allowed to add an extra perpendicular.  Teacher said that wasn’t the way he did it, but it was allowable.  Only one other pupil finished it.  A boy from the advanced class.   Now search me, as the expression is, I couldn’t do any of it today.   It has all vanished from my brain. 

In one oratonacle contest I was third.  Well there were only 3 of us.  An awful thing happened to me, but I went bravely on.  I heard myself repeating a paragraph.  You have heard about stage fright?  and your mouth going dry? It really happened to me .  I survived but just barely. 

Dad grew worse at scolding and swearing.  WE had to be careful what we said in order not to set him off. Lenora asked me to go to the church with her and her sister Ivy one evening.  Lea and I went to the Methodist church and Ivy went to the “Holy Rollers” as they were popularly called. The Methodist finished in good time, probably  9:00. Lea and I went to meet Ivory and walk home with her.  Her meeting wasn’t finished, so we waited. What else could we do? It may of been half an hour, surely not more.  When I reached home it was a “hot time in the whole  town  tonight”.    Dad had walked up to see the Methodist minister.   Yes, church had been out quite a while.  ‘Where have you been” ?  What have you been doing?”   I was 18, never had a date.  Dad never stuck mother and me. Strangely, Dad took me to the roller skating rink and taught me how to skate. He allowed me to go every Saturday evening and stay until closing time and walk home without an escort. 

Dad had bought a vacant lot on North Broadway in Buell. There were no houses below us.  We were the end house on that street. He built a nice big house using the lumber from the rebuilt lumber yard where he had been working. It is a very nice looking house yet.  (74 years later)  While he was working on it and had the floor in place, we lived in a tent erected on the floor.  I helped carry some shingles and bricks up the ladder to the roof.  I didn’t have to do very much.  WE set out small trees and carried water to them.  What giants they became. 

The winter of 1918 and 1919 was the time of the great epidemic of Spanish influenza.  Thousands of people all over the United states died.  Schools were suspended and people were told to  wear a mask over mouth and nose when going to town.  Not everyone did.  People must not gather in groups on the street but must go about their business and return home shortly. 

Grandma Zimmerman had suffered a stroke and grandpa Zimmerman had died. They had moved to a house on the border of the town near our place. She still did the house work for her son Fred and his four daughters but needed help with the bread dough. Kneading the large size which was required 2 or 3 times a week.  and bed making and sweeping. I was staying with them and helping with the house work.  I had not been anywhere but once they sent me to town to choose a doll for Gladys (the youngest girl) for Christmas.  Dad said I must come home and help mother because she had the flu.  So I went home with dad feeling fit as a fiddle as the saying goes.  We went to bed about 9:00 .   I awoke at 11:00 and knew that I had the flu.  WE all had it the next day. I should have helped mother out but when I tried to get up I was too nauseated. Mother had to feed the boys, dad had to milk the cow and feed the horses.  They had a rack of hay for the horses. They took care not to meet us... they did not get the flu and neither did the Zimmermans.  It has always been a mystery to me why they didn’t get it. I felt it so soon after leaving them.  Our doctor was old, near retirement. The medicine he prescribed was new to us.  It was Anacin. We all recovered but we felt weak for a month. I lost much of my hair, not all of it but the remainder was short and thin. Mother didn’t lose as much.  I tied mine low on the back of my neck with a ribbon, just as I did at age 14 when mother had cut it short. 

I worked hard on my book  keeping. It took time to finish a piece and calculation. I stayed on it at school and worked on it until 6:00 until dad ordered me to come home from school immediately when school was dismissed. There was one time when a rally was held before a football game. All students were urged to attend to uphold and strengthen the school spirit. Elizabeth and I cared nothing for Football but they emphasized it so strongly that it was the duty of every pupil to attend the rally.  So we went. The 2 most important boys asked everyone to join hands and form a long line which they led down through town loudly calling the school yell. They led us as innocent as lambs into the movie picture theater down the isle and out again. Puffing like a train, cho cho , cho cho,  the theater manager was very angry.  He reported it to the principal who gave the whole student body a reprimand.  Such as that could happen in this later of day.  

That November 11th the first world war ended. The town people acted wild with pleasure making every kind of noise possible.  Automobiles honking, guns being fired, even locomotives whistling.  Oh Lea and I walked up to town. The fire bell was on a 10 foot pole back of  C.C. Anderson store.  Lea said “Let’s ring the fire bell” and she did. 

In the fall of 1919 I quit school and began working in the post office. I worked at the general delivery window and distributed the letters and newspapers to the boxes.  We had to memorize the names on all the boxes. I learned them easily.  I had a good memory in those days. The forwarding books were also my care.  The postmaster asked me to take the forwarding books home and work on them  in the evening.  I was to write the latest addresses on  a card  and cancel all former addresses.  Just like forming a card file. I don’t remember whether I received extra pay for that job.  Anyway I felt rich.  The next year our salary was increased to 60 cents an hour.  My saving must go toward a business college which I expected would be at  Lenks? business college in Boysee.  

Grandma had died in 1917. She had pneumonia and asthma. She was visiting at the home of friends.  Her age was 72.  We lived in such poor circumstances that we could not have taken care of her. 

After the big house was finished and we lived in it for 6 months, uncle Elmer came to visit.  He worked a while on a farm doing hay or something.  He brought a young man to introduce to us. He was from Wisconsin.  A first generation from Germany. He told me he had come out here to marry his girlfriend but she was already married.  We took a Sunday afternoon drive in his Ford one seated run about, out to Castleford and had ice cream sundaes at an ice cream parlor.  Typical of those years.  I was used to having Sunday afternoon rides with Claude Reed. WE felt perfectly comfortable with each other.  We went sight seeing, picture taking,  fishing down in the canyon,  or played rummy at our house.  So this new young man made me uneasy.  He stared at me and chuckled to himself.  He showed his attitude, “I’m  a boy, your a girl, we are on a special date’  .  He was not my type.  He liked to dance.  I had never been to a dance.  His name was Herman.  Herman observed the rule of etticut.  He gently held my elbow as we crossed the street,  keeping his step and walked on the outside of the sidewalk. He opened the car door  and helped me in.  Claude had not been taught such manners. 
Now on with the tale, when Herman took me to the movie on a Saturday night the movie lasted from 7:00 to 9:00.  (9:00) seemed too early to end the date.  Herman wanted to go across the street to the other theater.  So we went to the other movie which ended at 11:00.   Then when we arrived at the Ford car we found it had a flat tire.  Every Ford owner knew he had to keep his tire repair matter on hand always. He sat down on the curb, right there on Broadway  and mended the tire. It took considerable time to remove the tire from the wheel, repair, replace it, and pump it full of air.  Probably was midnight when we returned home. That was a terrible time. 

When Herman and I returned to my home there was dad waiting for us on the back porch in the semi-dark holding an ax and swearing and scolding and threatening. It was an awful experience.  So Herman left .  A few days later he came to the post office window where I worked and asked me to go with him  again.  He said “ you don’t have to obey him, you are of age”.   Ha!  I refused his invitation  as  much because I was not especially attracted to  him as on dads account.  Herman said “I didn’t know it was an ax that your dad was holding.  I thought it was a gun.  I could have taken the ax away from him” .

The Post office was on Broadway, its back door opening on the first alley on the main intersection of the Main Street and Broadway. The horse drawn heavy wagons called the drade, dropped the mail every day from the train and unloaded at the back door.  The train was very often late during the Christmas season.  We had to work over time.  We were paid regular wages for overtime. Our postmaster and his parents own the K.C. Theater which was 2 doors from the post office. He gave us free passes to the theaters on evenings when we had to work late.  That year we moved the post office to a new and larger building on the same alley and a block west of the old one.  I was in charge of moving everything connected with the general delivery window.  We walked down the alley carrying everything possible to hand carry.   It was a delight to work in the bright and airy new building.  By that time I was a young lady with my hair pinned high up on my head and my skirts about 2 inches above my ankle as was the custom in Buela that time.  I ordered Christmas things in October which caused the 2 young men in the office to tease me about ordering so early.  Well I was determined to give my family the best Christmas they ever had.  I bought a sled and a tricycle, gloves for all and shoes for the boys and trimmings for the small tree.  By this time Dad had traded the nice big house in Buell for a 20 acre farm of sandy land to raise strawberries, raspberries, watermelon and clover seed.

I cannot fit all the happenings into the 4 years time frame.  I know we arrived at Buell in the late 1916 and left in the spring of 1920. 

Dad traded the big house in Buell for the 20 acres farm as I said before. It had a one room shack with a lean to room for a bedroom. I lived there one summer. They were just getting strawberries and raspberries established.  I didn’t have to do much work there but everyone must appear to be busy while dad was around.  He had a long pallet tip which tickled his throat and made him have a slight hacking cough.   I could be reading a book and mother would say ‘Dad is coming’.  So I must put the book away and appear to be busy setting the table, peeling potatoes, anything just so that hands were busy. 

My work in the post office was only during the fall and the winter season. I was caught twice lazing.  My hair had grown quite long after the flu and after washing it I lay face down on a bale of hay to dry my hair.  Ah Oh, how lazy can you get.  The other occasion I had a perfect place for reading.  Mother didn’t warn me that time.  Dad had covered the model T with a big tarp which came down to the ground all around.  It was a bright shinny day but the wind was blowing hard.  A lovely place for reading.  Dad looked until he found me.   He rousted me out of there in a hurry. That was the time when the Reed bought their new car a Chambruse? which they were very proud.  It was a handsome vehicle with all curtains which Claude demonstrated could be buttoned down to protect from the wind and rain.  They took us for a Sunday ride. The Reeds never bought anything on  credit. They pay cash or did without. 

Dad procured a place for me to have room and board while I worked in the post office. I shared a bedroom with another girl.   The cost was very low, the food was plentiful and good enough, but economical as possible. We both had to save money for education so we didn’t mind the food.   
Dad bought an old mare at an auction for $10.00 and led her to our home with the old rope that was around her neck  and reached to the ground.  He fed her at the hay rack leaving her untied.  Mother and I said “you’d better tie her, she is strange to this place”.  But he said ‘no she likes it here where she can get hay’.  Any resistance to his ideas only tightened his own resolutions.  So he left her loose that night. In the morning of course she was gone. He had me go with him and we chased her on the soft country road by the dragging rope. Every half mile or so the soft shoulder of the graveled road.  We didn’t find her.  $10.00 was a sizable amount in those days.  If I had been in any  way the cause of the loss, it would of been terrible.  But I couldn’t be blamed. Only himself and no one dared to comment on that. 

Work went on nicely in the post office. I had must to learn but our postmaster was patient with me.  Walter in later years never forgot and liked to tease me about the first money order I wrote .    I made a mistake on it so I tore it off the pad and put it in the waste paper basket. They had told me every one was valued at $100.00 if it did not show a  lessor amount.  It had to be retrieved and placed with the stub part of the pad.   Well anyway, I didn’t tear it up.  The next extra hired worker made an error on his first money order and he tore it to little pieces. He had to recover them all.  About that time the postmaster and his fiancee were  married and took a  weeks vacation for his honey moon trip to Salt Lake City. He warned us about leaving anything of value on the counter where it could be reached from outside.   That is the customer side.  No one was left in charge of checking up on all the cash. He would do it when he returned. There were 4 of us who could sell stamps, money orders, etc.  I could not handle the war saving stamps.  We must not leave them near the window. When the Postmaster returned he went to each of us 4 and privately said ‘there is a shortage of $100.00 .   Now I do not accuse you of taking it,  but we do not want the U.S. Postal inspectors looking into the matter do we?  If you 4 will each donate $25.00  out of your overtime, we won’t need to report the shortage’.   We did.   Walter and I never told a person.  I did not work in the post office after that winter season into the spring.  Walter was married 2 years later.  I met him sometimes on the street and we would converse a short time.   One time he asked if I still had the negative of a picture I had taken of him  in the post office.  Each time we met, even 5 years apart, the matter of something missing came up.  Such as he would ask, what really was taken?  I said it appeared to be a page of war saving stamps. He thought it was a money order. But neither would have done the person any good because they have to be stamped with a post office rubber stamp.  And war saving stamps have to be posted in a folder.  Walter stayed with the post office until he retired. He could have been post master but didn’t want the responsibility. 

Among the first things I bought with my post office salary was a folding brownie camera.  Dad didn’t make any objections to that.  Mother wouldn’t expect much from me.  I wanted to buy her new shoes, but she didn’t want me to.  I did buy material for her to sew a dress, boys shirts, or herself aprons, maybe new pillow cases.  Dish towels were always made from flour sacks. Mother made my nice dresses for work.  Sorting arm fulls of news papers soiled our sleeves badly.  I made a pair of black half sleeves  with elastic above the elbow to wear over the dress sleeves. 

Dad was quite influential in getting the Melon Valley School Built. He was one of the school board. Probably did most of the building. It was his idea to install indoor chemical toilets. I never did understand how they could be satisfactory.  

 Morris was 6 years old and started school.  He didn’t like it very well.  He didn’t want to read and write or spell or put 2 and 2 together.  Mother and I worked with him but could not accomplish much with him without his daily work papers which he did not bring home.  I sent a note to his old maid, out of style teacher asking her to send some of his papers home so we could help him.  She sent a note to us saying ‘she was perfectly capable of teaching school  and she wouldn’t send any lessons home.  More about her 3 years later. 

The Ed Bracket family were good friends.  We would have a two family diner on occasions such as thanksgiving or 4th of  July.   Dad enjoyed meeting with other families and he and Mrs. Bracket were both great talkers.  Mother and Mrs. Bracket helped each other with sewing and other household matters. Mr. Bracket was rather quiet mannered.  She’ ruled the roost ‘as the saying goes. Dad did some carpentry work for them at times.  Mrs. Bracket took the 5 children to Sunday school regularly even though they had no dress up clothes. They wore clean ironed cover alls.  The girls as well as the boys.  

Early in the spring of 1920 I was still working in the post office. It must have been March, probably near the end of my work session.  Dad had been working away from home several days.  He came to the general delivery and said  in a sharp  cold voice “you are coming home with me today”.  So of course I went.  He was sternly quiet all the way home.  He usually talked so much we couldn’t remember what he said.   This time he said nothing at all.  He had plenty to say but he kept it bottled up inside until after supper.  I have no words to describe the flow of swearing and scolding kind of talk that went on for hours as he sat still in the rocking chair.  He did not threaten to strike mother or me.  He was tired of a country where he had to irrigate.  He wanted to go back to Missouri where it rained.  What brought on that terrible storm?   My money.  I had money.  I had $300.  How terrible.  I had a great deal of money.  He had none and he wanted to travel.  He wanted some of my money to go into the Model T back to Missouri.  He had dwelt on that thought all the while he had been gone. Of course he had earned some money, but the family needed groceries etc.  He had been thinking like this  “ Helen has money,  she’s going to spend it all for her own benefit, she should give it to the family,  I want to move away from here,  She should give us enough to get us all to Missouri. She will, I will see to it that she pays for the trip ‘ and on and on he raved for hours.  No one else said anything, we didn’t dare.   Who could tell what he might do if we argued with him. 

Meanwhile the weather outside was matching the raging inside.  The wind was blowing a gale.  It even moved our shack 6 inches.  I managed to whisper to Mother that I could sneak out and walk the 3 1/2 miles to town .  He would calm down if I weren’t there.  She said it was too dangerous outside.  No one slept much that night.  He took me to town to my work the next morning.  He had run out of words. He was coldly silent.  We didn’t dare say anything.  It might start him off again.  Oh those light gray eyes looked as sharp as ice picks. 

I wrote to Clara telling her how my plans were blasted.  I couldn’t go to Links business college at Boysee.  I didn’t know what I could do.  Clara’s son Floyd was just out of the war , out of the army. 



Helen and Russel were walking home with a big -bag of beans which had gotten spilled . While picking beans back up  they looked up to see a huge horse , rearing in a rage. pawing the air teeth bared eyes wild  to get them , They raced across the field neather saying a word but worked in unison to dive and roll under the fence. Mom wondered if  this horse had eaten a wild weed called --loco weed.   They were safe . She said yesterday that Ace Rose  was eating these beans and broke a tooth . Needless to say he was very angry, must have been a rock  in beans.
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