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childhood and living in Okla. and then New Mexico. I was born Nov. ll, l9ll, the fourth of five children on a farm six miles from Okarche in the early evening. My dad had gone to get the midwife, Nettie Fredrick and I made my appearance while he was gone. Being very small, Aunt Ellie, Mama's sister lined a shoe box with cotton so I would be warm. I was to be named Loretta, but an aunt from Sedalia, Mo., insisted I be named Agnes after her. She was known as Aunt Aggie. Being small, 3 lbs, I cried for six months, my poor mother didn't get out of the house for six months and when she went to town in the wagon, got a painful sunburn, but I lived in spite of all the crying, floor walking at night with colic. Brother Joe was 23 months old, Marie, born in l905, so Mama had her hands full with no modern conveniences. The folks had built a new house, Joe was born there, the old one was made into a chicken house. Dad and his brother Math had made the run for land when it was territory and staked out 80 acres from that by hard work and saving he acquired the rest of the land, he had the whole section, but got hard up for money and sold SW acreage to Uncle Math, which went to John. He offered to sell it to Joe and Margaret when he retired and moved to town for $l5,000 and Joe wanted to biuy it, but Margaret said that was too much money, so he didn't. There was a little country school house one mile west known as the Tamm's School, where we went until Holy Trinity was built, then we went there. Always had a hard time getting to school, especially in the winter. One year Loley Moseley offered to fix up a flat bed truck with a canvas covering it and seats on each side and Jo and I went that way, paying so much a month. After that she and I drove a topless old ford, sometimes we got there late, but not always. Joe and I played together, he called me Johnny. We took coffee beans and called it our tobacco. Many times we had to take care of Jo. She was a cry baby. usually sat in the wagon with her. The drive way had many mulberry trees and that was where we played. When Joe got big enough to help Dad in the field, Jo and I played house under a nice shade tree and when Mama called us to help in the house we fussed but we went. We would spend two or three days at the Wiewel's home in the summer. There was Art, John, Joan, Helen and the three of us. We had such a good time. There was lots of work on the farm as we raised chickens with a brooder to keep them warm, milked cows, gathered eggs and helped with the house work and always had a garden, picked grapes for wine from our garden, but it was a good life. We had plenty of fried chicken and we did our own butchering and cured the meat. One room upstairs was used for that and we had a cave that we smoked the meat in. Dad made the best sausage liver and the other kind. Joe went to school in Shawnee in his senior year in high school. Marie went to Kingfisher in her senior year. After that she got a job at the Band in Okarche and stayed in town. Joe farmed with Dad and Nell married at 20 and moved to Calumet, about l2 miles from home. By this time, Mama wasn't too well, so it was up to Jo and I to do the housework and cooking. We would get up about 4 a.m., heat wash water and do the wash before we went to school. We did by that time have a Maytag run with gasoline, putt!! putt!! We would clean the whole house on Saturdays, start upstairs and come on down. Mama was a good housekeeper and an excellent cook, made the best white cake. Also, the beds were spotless. She kept plenty of sheets and pillow cases in white. Always bought 2 sheets every year so that she would never run out. In June, the summer before I started my junior year at Okarche High, I was brushing my teeth and tasted blood. I called Mama as she was still up and she said I think you inhaled fumes from that gasoline iron the afternoon when you did that big ironing, but it kept coming. Joe and Dad were in bed as we were in the harvest. Joe had a little Chevie Coup and the three of us went to Okarche to the doctor. Mama had called him and he met us at his office. He spread a newspaper on the floor and I vomited blood for quite some time and then he gave us an ice pack and said keep this around your throat. I was so sick for several days, coughing up stuff, but Mama took such good care of me and I gradually got better and started school in September. Joe was hauling wheat to Okarche and a new Dr. McCord was asking Joe how I was. This Dr. Wolf I went to wasn't much of a doctor and I'm sure this young Dr. McCord knew I was very sick. But I got better and finished Jr. and Sr. High School. Marie was working at the Okarche Bank, and she offered to send me to college, so she took me to Chickasha about 75 miles from home and enrolled me. She was paying my tuition and I was ever so happy, loved the school. I roomed with a girl from Watonga in the western part of Oklahoma, Alice Casad was her name. She was cute and we got along fine. This was in l93l. I loved being there and was doing well in my classes. About the first part of November after going to bed, I started that coughing and there was that blood agfain. I knew what it was and started plans to leave school and go home. So I packed up, checked out and took the bus back to Okarche. In a few days I made an appointment with a doctor in El Reno that I had gone to after the sick spell. He examined me and said "You have T.B." I left his office and cried all the way home. The folks didn't believe what he said and Joe and Dad took me to Oklahoma City to St. Anthony's Hospital. They admitted me and after tests told me the same thing, T.B. and said I should go to a sanatorium as it was dangerous to be there among other patients. I slipped out of bed after the lights were turned low and called home for them to come to get me which they did the next day. They put me to bed and made arrangements to send me to Roswell, N. M. as the folks knew some people that had gone out there for their health and recovered, so Dad asked Marie if she would quit her job and take me and she said, "yes". She was making 60 dollars a month and staying in a room in Okarche. It was at the height of the Depression, so Dad went to the bank and borrowed 250 dollars and we left on the train at night from El Reno. Poor Dad as we got in the car (Mama and Joe took us). Dad walked back to the house and I felt so sorry for him. We left about l0 o'clock and rode all night until l p.m. the next day when we got to Roswell. We took a taxi to a small hotel there on 3rd St. that someone had told the folks about. It was our postman's brother by the name of Rodrick. We went to bed and slept until the next morning, ate breakfast and started out to look for a place to live, an apartment on South Missouri. When we got to 500 Missouri I sat down on the curb and told Marie I couldn't go another step. She need to call a taxi and the house we were close to didn't look like they had a phone, so she went into a little store at the back of the lot. Martha and Roy Swisher ran this little grocery store and invited her to sit down. Martha had come from Oklahoma for her health a few years back. They didn't have a telephone but knew the people at 500 S. Missouri, Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham and Sonny. Martha knew of a little house to rent and Sonny would take us to see it when his dad got home. They ran a little trucking business. Sonny was crippled. Can you believe this was the beginning of a romance between Sonny and Marie. Marie and I got into the truck with him and he took us to see this little house next to the Day apts. on South Penn. We got our bags from the Motel and moved in that evening. I think it rented for 25 dollars and utilities. The next day Marie was cleaning house and I got sick, high fever, etc., so she call the doctor Martha Swisher had suggested and he came by the next day and said I had the flu and had to go to the hospital and that I might as well go back to Oklahoma as to stay in this house with an open gas heater, so she had to look for another place. She found a duplex on N. Main with furnace heat, but was so expensive, $75 a month, furnished and everything paid, but she took it. Martha Swisher knew the people that owned it. What a help that couple were to us, plus Sonny and the Cunninghams. This place had 3 big rooms, livingroom, kitchen and glassed in sleeping room and bath, all on the south side of the house. I stayed in bed most of the time and Dr. Fall came by twice a week to give me shots, iron I believe to build me up. Marie was so good, cooked good meals and took such good care of me. I started gaining and Mama, Dad and Jo drove out that summer and also Uncle Math, dad's brother. We heard of a little 2 room apartment right across the street that was renting for $l5 a month. I was able to walk across the street when we moved. By this time Marie heard of a job on N. Main at a doughnut shop and bakery which she applied for and got and from there through Mrs. Cunningham she started working for Dr. Williams and when they built that nice clinic he took her with him and she worked for several more doctors. By this time I was feeling good, had gained weight and was wanting to get a job. We heard of this little house at 208 East Bland that was renting for $l5 a month and went to see it and took it. One bedroom, kitchen, bath, living room and small dinette. It was furnished, if you could call it that, with one bed stove, livingroom suit, dinette set, but we were comfortable. Marie heard of this job at a Dr.'s office, one dentist and one doctor. Dr. Eiffert, the dentist paid me $3 a week and Dr. Phillips, the M.D., $5. I kept their books, answered the phone and cleaned. Later a Dr. Lander moved in and paid me $3 a week. He had the most work. Finally a Dr. Guy, another M. D. and that was all the vacancies and he paid me $3, making a total of $l4 net. I really worked. By then I had met Eddie, through one of Marie's friends that was going with a fellow from Capitan at the Fort Stanton Hospital. We seemed to enjoy each other a lot. He was from Michigan and had been a Merchant Marine and had contacted T.B. and they had sent him there to recover. He never was very sick, and drew $60 a month pension, which was quite a lot in those days. He had a car and drove down to see me every two weeks and stayed with our friends, the Swishers, as they had an extra bedroom. We played cards with them and he and I went together all week-end, went to the bottomless lakes on picnics and had a lot of fun. We were in love but he was called back to Michigan to work. I think I died a little when he left. He drove a little Ford Roadster, red with a rumble seat. I know Marie was glad when he left. She thought we were getting too serious but I was broken hearted and sad. I decided to leave the Drs. and take a short business course. Jo had decided to come to Roswell and she went to business school and got a job at a Texaco Bulk Co, right there on S. Virginia. I got a job at the Roswell Plumbing and Heating Company on E. 3rd St. Mr. Herbert's daughter had been working for him but had moved to Amarillo, Texas to be with her husband and I took her job. The pay was good and I liked the job, answered the phone, kept the books and sent the bills etc., and he was nice to work for and insisted I take his nice car to pick up the mail every morning and also said any time I wanted or need to run home to see about my mother to geel free to take his car. By then Mama and Dad had moved to Roswell. When Joe and Margaret got married they lived in a nice little house on the south corner, but Mama got weaker with cancer so they decided to move into the house where Mama and Dad lived to take care of her but that didn't work. They were eased out, more or less, and Mama wrote Marie and asked if they could come live with us. They came out on a bus, so tired when they got there,and here the 5 of us lived in that one bedroom house. That summer we girls slept in the yard, put beds under the trees and the people we rented from offered to build a sleeping porch on with a $l0 increase in rent, making it $25 a month. It was a nice bit sleeping porch. By then Jo had met Carl and planned to marry and Marie was going with Sonny. I was to be the Old Maid. But by then I had met Chief Bray. N.M.M and Company had their tile samples at the plumbing shop and he would bring customers in to select their tile and we got to speaking and finally he asked me out. He drove a nice new black Ford and he took me out to dinner. That same evening he said the Draft had called him and he had enlisted in the Sea Bees, a branch of the Navy and was waiting to be called. I saw him when he came in and said, "I got my notice and I'll be leaving Christmas Day by bus for Norfolk, Va." I walked down to the bus station and saw him off. He said he would write when he got a permanent address and he did. He was sent to the Aleutian Islands in Alaska for l8 months. He wrote nearly every day and I wrote but not that often. I was busy taking care of the folks and working. By then Marie and Jo had both married. |
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