My Saga

By m.o. Merlin

If you wanna know about me, then read the book!....

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543449518

Book preview

Part 1

My Beginnings

My name, for purposes of this narrative, is Meg Merlin. I am adopting a nom de plume for two different reasons: 1) to protect my privacy and avoid embarrassing my family; and 2) I think my real name sounds boring.

For purposes of this narrative, I have changed the names of all the people included in the story, and most of the place names, except for large cities. But the incidents reported describe what has really happened during my 80-plus years of life -— from my point of view.

But before proceeding with MY narrative, I must summarize the lives of my parents and grandparents -— because THEIR lives were the building blocks upon which MY life was formed.

I was born in 1933, in west central Oklahoma, about 50 miles west of Oklahoma City. My father, Will Overton, was born in Oklahoma Territory in 1902; Oklahoma did not become a state until 1907. My mother, Mabel Martin, was born in East Texas, near Tyler, in 1903.

All of my grandparents had only about two years of schooling, except my father’s father, Ben Overton. But Ben was born and raised in Iowa. He finished high school up there. In those years, 10 years was a high-school education, and very respectable. When he was in his mid-teens (around 1885) his family moved to Wichita Falls, Texas, where they opened a general store.

In 1892, Ben participated in the Oklahoma Land Rush, held that year in western Oklahoma, called Oklahoma Territory. A similar land rush had been held a few years earlier in eastern Oklahoma, then called Indian Territory.

Ben enjoyed describing the event. The participants, with their horses, lined up at the starting line the night before the Run. That night, he remarked, We slept out in the open. I used my saddle for a pillow.

He and two of his brothers, and a brother-in-law, all ran for the land on their horses, when the starting gun went off at dawn. They were able to obtain adjoining claims of 160 acres each. 160 acres, a quarter section, was the standard claim that day. A section -— 640 acres -— is one square mile. The town of Dalton was soon established about three miles from these claims.

I must interrupt this narrative to confess that the land my grandfather claimed as a homestead had been guaranteed to American Indians who were forced to leave their homes in the 1830s in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and other southern states. They were deprived of lands their forefathers had inhabited for many centuries - by the relentless westward expansion of white settlers.

This tremendous westward migration began in the early 1600s. It pushed southward and then westward - and did not end until it reached the Pacific Ocean.

Oklahoma - a territory in the 1830s - had been set aside as a dwelling place for the Five Civilized Tribes who were forced to follow the Trail of Tears, so that whites could take over their lands.

Many Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Crees, Creeks and members of some other tribes were forced to endure the 1200-mile talk west. Many died on the way from cold and hunger. But they were told that Oklahoma would be their new country, forever.

Well - forever lasted about 40 years.

There are still a good many American Indians in Oklahoma - especially in the northeast and southeast parts of the state. [8% of the state’s population]. But land rushes were held for white homesteaders in Eastern Oklahoma in the 1880s, and in Western Oklahoma in 1892 - when my grandfather Ran for his land.

So - my grandfather’s gain was at the expense of the rights promised to these Native American tribes - promises broken, as has happened so many times in the tragic destiny of these unfortunate people.

Each homesteader was required to prove up the land for about five years, to establish a permanent claim. Grandfather Ben was required to spend a certain amount of time on the land: to plow up a number of acres each year; perhaps to plant a certain number of trees each year, and to begin construction of some sort of dwelling. But after fulfilling these requirements each year, he was allowed to return to his family’s home in Wichita Falls.

By 1897 or 1898, he had proved up the land. In 1898 he married my Grandmother Hattie; and in 1899 they moved permanently to the homestead.

Now - Back to the genealogy of my family.

My father’s mother, Hattie Baxter, was born in a tiny town northeast of Dallas, Texas in 1873. In 1888, she fled an unhappy home situation, and moved to Wichita Falls to live with a married older sister. She worked as a domestic servant for about 10 years, then met and married Ben Overton in 1898.

My mother’s father, Peter Martin, was born in 1859 in East Texas, near Tyler. His own Dad, Frank Martin, had migrated from Tennessee after Texas became a state in 1845.

Frank had two wives and 22 children. In those days, one thing the Scotch-Irish (that was our ethnic group) knew how to do very effectively was to reproduce. Frank’s first wife had nine children and died; his second wife had 13 more, and lived a long life. My grandfather Peter was one of the youngest of the first brood.

Before the Civil War, Frank was an overseer on a large plantation near Tyler. It was about 5000 acres (7 or 8 square miles).

An overseer oversaw the slaves: made sure they got their assigned work done in the fields. To make even more sure, the overseer appointed slave drivers from among the slave population, to be the first line of enforcement. If the overseer saw lax picking of cotton, for instance, he would tell one of the drivers to go talk to the laggards: to warn them they would be punished (by being whipped by the drivers) if they did not shape up and work faster. It was a brutal job in a brutal time. I imagine that Frank Martin was rather a brutal man.

I’m not sure what Frank did after the Civil War, except to produce more children. I suppose that he, like most other blacks and whites in the South after the War, became a dirt-poor farmer, living out in the country, far away from schools. Many southern children, for several generations, had very little opportunity for formal schooling. For this reason my grandfather Peter, although very intelligent (Mother said he could do algebra in his head), could barely read and write by the time he was grown up.

My mother’s mother, Daisy Hunter, came from more prosperous stock. Her mother’s father, John Jackson, had come from Florida in the 1830s and acquired the large plantation where Frank Martin later worked as an overseer.

By the time the Civil War was over in 1865, that plantation of 5000 acres was deep in debt. John Jackson, instead of selling off all the land, kept 1000 acres and -— most unusual, I have heard -— gave the rest of the land to the 200 or so freed slaves who remained upon the land at that time. To this day, the area is known as Jackson’s Mill. Naturally, the former slaves were very grateful, and extremely fond of the Jackson family.

My mother’s maternal grandfather, Robert Hunter, was born around 1840 in southeast Alabama. He migrated with his family (by covered wagon) to East Texas in 1844. His father, Samuel, settled near Tyler and developed a business as a leather tanner.

Robert Hunter served in the Civil War -— on the Confederate side, of course. Shortly after the war ended, he met and married Molly Jackson, daughter of John Jackson, the owner of remnants of the big plantation. Molly was John Jackson’s sole surviving child. I think a couple of her brothers were killed during the Civil War.

Robert Hunter assisted Molly’s father in farm work. By then, of course, there were no more slaves to do the work. Robert and Molly had four children -— a boy and three girls. My grandmother Daisy, born in 1877, was the youngest.

I often wondered why Grandma Daisy married Peter Martin in 1895. She was 18 and he was 36 -— a widower with two young children. My mother explained that in those days, after the War, Suitable men were hard to find.

Peter Martin and Daisy Hunter had three children: Bill, born in 1897; Aggie, 1900; and my mother, Mabel, in 1903. In 1909, Peter and Daisy moved their family to Mesa, Texas, about 50 miles west of Fort Worth. This was a journey of about 150 miles. By that time, the trip could be made by train, rather than by horse and wagon.

Peter Martin started a horse-taxi business in Mesa, which was at that time a prosperous spa, with popular mineral baths. His main income came from transporting visitors from Dallas and Fort Worth -— small but rapidly growing cities at that time -— from the train station to one of several hotels featuring mineral spas.

Fast forward to 1910. Both my father’s people, in Dalton, Oklahoma, and my mother’s people, in Mesa, Texas, were urging their children to Get an education, so you can have a better life than we have had. Both of my parents (and their siblings) did just that.

Both my parents finished high school around 1920 -— soon after World War I. My Dad (Will Overton) got through college in Oklahoma on a football scholarship; he trained to be a coach and teacher. But he didn’t like teaching, and was complaining to Dick Martin, Dalton’s leading dentist, that he didn’t know what to do in life.

Dick Martin suggested that my father train to become a dentist. At that time, there were no state-supported dental schools in Oklahoma; so my father went to dental school in Kansas City, Kansas. He worked his way through, and thus did not graduate from dental school until the age of 29. He borrowed money to set up a dental practice in the tiny town of Moultrie, about 15 miles southeast of Dalton.

My mother, Mabel Martin, took a secretarial course in high school, then worked for a year in Dallas (living with relatives) to earn money to begin college at the University of Texas in Austin. She worked her way through college by being a secretary in the School of Engineering, and getting help from some charity to receive free room and board at a school dormitory. She earned a degree in education -— in English and Spanish. After teaching for a year, she went on to earn a master’s degree in the same subject.

But for the Master’s Degree, she had substantial help from her Uncle Dick Martin, the prosperous dentist in Dalton, Oklahoma who had advised my father to go to dental school. Uncle Dick was a much younger half-brother of my Texas grandfather, Peter Martin.

And that is how my Texas mother met my Oklahoma father -— when she came up for several summers to stay with Uncle Dick and his wife Ella. They had no children, but had helped many young nieces and nephews (from the 22-child brood of Frank Martin) with educational expenses.

My mother worked for several years in Okmulgee, Oklahoma as a teacher at the high school and junior-college level. After she and my father enjoyed a courtship of several years, they were married in May of 1932. My mother quit her teaching job, and went to live with my father in Moultrie.

In those years (The Great Depression) there was a 25% unemployment rate for WHITE MALES -—much greater than what we are suffering nowadays. When Mother got married, she had to give up her teaching career -— because since men were the usual breadwinners of a family, that sort of job could be offered to a man.

Part 2

Oklahoma (1933-1937)

When I was born -— in 1933 -— Oklahoma was suffering from the Three D’s -— the Drought, the Depression, and the Dust Bowl.

The Great Depression began about 1929, with the stock market crash in October. It continued for more than 10 years, only really ending in 1941 when the U.S. entered World War II and began massive defense spending, leading to a huge increase in jobs. As one shipbuilding laborer in New England stated: Thank God for Hitler!

The Great Drought also began around the same year, and also lasted about 10 years. For several decades, farmers on the Great Plains had been taking for granted that the rich prairie soils would always produce wonderful crops. But they misused the land in many ways -— not putting in enough cover crops; not rotating crops; not giving the land a chance to rest.

So -— when the severe drought began, and kept on year after year, the great prairie land lay unprotected.

The bad dust storms began about 1932, and continued through 1937. By the end of 1937, the U.S. government had begun massive soil reclamation projects: contour farming, crop rotation, and other soil conservation techniques. But during that time, life was hard in most of Oklahoma, Kansas, West Texas, and parts of many other states. The epicenter, according to an excellent book, The Dust Bowl, by Ken Burns, was the top of the Texas Panhandle, and the western part of Oklahoma, called the Oklahoma panhandle. My father’s home town was about 100 miles from that epicenter.

By the year I was born, dust storms had begun to be very common, and very frightening, and terribly destructive. The sky would become full of blowing black dust clouds. At mid-day, it would be almost as dark as night. My mother stated that the dust in attics of the flimsy wooden houses in that area would become so thick and heavy, that the ceilings of the houses would collapse.

Livestock died on a massive scale. My Aunt April’s husband, Uncle Horace, was hired to shoot the starving, dying cattle. There had been no grass for them to eat for several years, and the farmers had run out of hay to feed them. Aunt April (my father’s younger sister) had majored in home economics in college. She got a job as a home demonstration agent, teaching the farm wives how to can the meat of the cattle that had to be shot.

Of course, all these troubles coming at once had a terrible impact on my father’s dental practice. Even before the drought got severe, farm prices had been dropping for several years. Farmers tried to plant more, to sell more, even though the prices for crops, and livestock, got very low. But then with the Dust Bowl, farmers became unable to plant anything at all.

A BARTER ECONOMY developed. A farmer would come into my father’s dental office, saying: Doc, I sure need this tooth pulled. But I don’t have any money. Will you take a chicken instead? Or a dozen eggs?

My father did, of course. But in the meantime, he had to pay rent for his dental office, and keep paying for the dental equipment he had made a down payment on in 1931, with such high hopes of success.

By 1935, and even before, masses of people began pouring out of Oklahoma and other affected states. Most were headed for California, where, they had heard, life was much better. Many had lost their land, and headed west in an endless stream of old jalopies loaded down with huge numbers of families, all hoping for a better life, picking crops, in California.

Although not all these refugees were from Oklahoma, a good percentage of them were. So, as a group, they began to be called Okies.

My parents rented a house in Moultrie for $5 per month. Before the Depression, it probably would have rented for $30 a month or more. But the cheap rent didn’t help. My father’s dental practice didn’t have nearly enough money coming in.

In January, 1937, Mother and Daddy -— and I, age 3½ -— piled into Uncle Dick Martin’s 10-year-old Cadillac, which he had given us, and pulled a trailer to New Mexico.

My father had landed a government job as a dentist in New Mexico, going around to labor camps in the southern part of the state, to care for the teeth of the young men enrolled in the CCC -— the Civilian Conservation Corps. This program was part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s effort to provide government jobs for at least some of the many millions of unemployed young men in the country in those years. Each young man was paid $30 per month, and provided with board, room, and medical care. But of the $30, $25 was sent home to the person’s needy family; the CCC member kept $5 a month for spending money. The CCC camps were located in state and national parks. The young men helped with needed improvements within those parks.

This job paid my father $100 per month. In later years he remarked, I was never so glad to see anything in my life as that $100-a-month salary.

Part 3

New Mexico (1937-1940)

Before beginning the chronological description of this time period, I need to make a number of related observations.

Although I was a very young child at this time, upon reflection I have gradually come more and more to remember happenings and tendencies which, it seems to me, are very important to include in the story of my life.

1. Two wanderings away -- age 3½. Hot Springs and Las Cruces, NM.

2. Two runnings away -—

a. Mexican orphanage: Mesilla, age 4.

b. Loretto Academy; Las Cruces, age 5½.

3. Sexual exhibitionism and explorationism (compulsive): ages 4 - 8 or so.

Here are the characteristic which, I believe, are revealed by these behaviors:

1. Courage (or fool-hardiness)

2. Curiosity (perhaps a sign of high intelligence? Or the opposite?)

3. Bull-headedness: plain old-fashioned stubbornness.

4. Anxiety (especially in the sexual activity): A persistent feeling of unworthiness. A deep need for reassurance and love. Basically, I developed, at this age, a feeling that my mother did not love me -— that she considered me either in the way, or inadequate. My father was consistently good, kind and patient. Unfortunately, he was absent most of the time, due to the requirements of his work.

A good friend has assured me that the sexual acting out was perfectly normal, and nothing for me to be concerned about. But MY activity was compulsive and obsessional. I was always the instigator in these incidents. The determination to continue with this activity, despite numerous punishments, convinces me that my drive was abnormal. And I feel that the #4 item, listed above, was the primary cause.

Now - on with the narrative.

When we first arrived in New Mexico, we spent several months moving from place to place in the trailer. During that time, perhaps we lived on base at the camps where my father worked. Two of them, I recall, were White Sands National Monument and Elephant Butte State Park. My father’s job at these locations was to tend to the dental needs of the CCC workers.

Then we lived for a month or two in a trailer park near where Daddy was working. The town was Hot Springs. It was later renamed Truth or Consequences, after the town participated in a popular radio game show of that name.

In that town, as I recall, I wandered away not from unhappiness, but because I wanted to see the Hot Springs. The name intrigued me. I am not sure if I succeeded in reaching the springs before I was rounded up and somehow returned to my mother.

After leaving the trailer park, Mother and I stayed at the home of her sister, my Aunt Aggie. Her husband, Uncle Henry, was by then a young math professor at a small college in the town of Mesilla. Mesilla was near the larger town of Las Cruces. These towns are located in the far southern part of New Mexico, not far from El Paso, Texas. Daddy, of course, was absent most of the time with his job at the CCC camps.

The second wandering away occurred during this period. I had heard the grownups talking about an abandoned underground mine with an interesting entrance. I wanted to find that mine, and go into it and explore (at the age of almost 4). I can’t remember ever finding the mine. I suppose I was rounded up and returned to Aunt Aggie’s before I had a chance to reach my goal.

After we had stayed at Aunt Aggie’s for a few weeks, my parents located a room to rent, in Mesilla. It was just a bedroom with kitchen privileges, in a big old house occupied by two single ladies: Mrs. B., and Miss W. Perhaps they were sisters; I’m not sure.

When we first visited the house to look over the bedroom, I was intrigued by the many small knicknacks placed artistically on various occasional tables in the living room. I went around the room, touching them, and perhaps picking them up to look at them more closely.

Miss W. kept saying Don’t touch this; and Don’t touch that.

I looked at her and said: Can’t I even touch the floor?

After being assured by Mother that I would behave, the ladies allowed us to rent the room. Of course, Daddy was gone at least 5 days a week, all the rest of the time we lived in New Mexico.

We had only one car, of course -— Uncle Dick Martin’s old 1927 Cadillac. I think Daddy left the car with mother during his absences, so she could go to the grocery store, etc. Perhaps he hitched a ride with a co-worker who also commuted to the CCC camps.

Here are a couple of stray memories about this period; we were there about 4 months.

There were irrigation ditches in the area (a semi-desert climate). Wild asparagus grew in the irrigation ditches.

Across the road from our house in Mesilla was a large property of several acres, enclosed by a wire fence. There were a lot of shrubs and small trees on the property; the house could not be seen from the road. The main thing I remember about that property is that twin girls lived there. One was named Mary Janet, and the other, Janet Mary. I suppose the parents like both names equally well. I think they were a few years older than I. I didn’t get to know them very well.

Now, my running away from the Mexican orphanage.

It must have occurred in the fall of 1937, because it was during the school term. Mother had an opportunity to do substitute work in the local public school. But she had to find a place where I could stay during the day. The ladies at our house had no interest in looking after me.

There was an orphanage about a quarter of a mile away, beyond a plowed field west of our house. It was for Hispanic children, and was run by Hispanic nuns. Mother decided that she could pay the nuns to look after me, and her child-care problem would be solved.

But I didn’t like it at the orphanage. None of the children spoke English. Perhaps the nuns spoke my language. But I don’t recall that anyone there did so.

My main memory is that we all had to wash our own lunch dishes: metal trays and silverware, I think. But we had to wash them in a small creek that flowed through the orphanage property. I remember, with the other children, scouring out the grease and food scraps with sand in the creek. Then we rinsed the clean dishes with fresh water that was slowly flowing through the channel.

I suppose I stayed there for a few days, while Ma was teaching. But finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I ran away, across the plowed field, back to our house. By then, I knew its location perfectly.

I don’t recall my mother being angry, or punishing me. But as far as I know, she never did substitute teaching any more, as long as we lived in Mesilla.

Near our house in Mesilla there lived a little boy named Jimmie. He was about my age.

Jimmie and I hit it off right away. We loved playing together. One day we were playing together, both sitting in a circular decorative fountain in the front yard of our house. The fountain was dry, of course. But it was a fun, rather secluded place to play. The sun was warm and gentle; it was a lovely day.

One of us suggested that we take down our panties, and look at each other’s sexual parts. So we did that, and began to play with each other’s sexual parts. It was tremendously great fun.

But then we were discovered -— either by Jimmy’s mother, or mine. As far as I know, we were never able to play together again.

I was extremely sad and angry. I used to lie in bed in the evenings -— there must have been some light in the room -— and stare at the wallpaper, which had a pattern of huge, beautiful flowers: deep red, I think. I used to wish that Jimmie and I could flee behind that wallpaper to a kingdom of our own, play with each other, do whatever we wanted, without any mean, nasty adult interference.

But it was not to be. After a few more weeks, we moved away from there. I never saw Jimmie again in my entire lifetime.

Our new home was a large rent house in Las Cruces. I don’t remember exactly what months we lived there: probably late 1937 to mid-1938. But I DO remember being very happy there.

The owners -— middle-aged, no children -— were away, perhaps in Mexico for the winter, and kindly leased their lovely home to us. I don’t remember the floor plan. But it was spacious, and in a Spanish style. Also, I had my own bedroom.

I remember spending a very happy Christmas in that house: I still believed in Santa Claus. The main attraction was that he seemed to provide unconditional love, even to such an imperfect person as I. That aspect of Santa was much more important to me than receiving presents.

I also remember having chicken pox, shortly after Christmas, and being treated kindly by Mother during my illness. She and Daddy got me a kit which contained various colored tiles that could be formed into geometrical designs, then taken apart and be formed into other such designs. It was fascinating, and very precious to me.

I don’t remember having any playmates. I think Mother may have done some substitute teaching during this period, because I think that is when I became familiar with the Loretto Academy.

I’m not sure if it was an orphanage, or mainly a school. But I think it had boarders who lived there during the school term. Like the orphanage in Mesilla, it was run by Catholic nuns. They spoke English AND Spanish, and were very strict.

I think it was during this period that Mother began having me take piano lessons. Of course, to take piano lessons a student should have a piano at home, on which to practice.

Perhaps there was a piano at the lovely big house; I don’t remember. Our family, at that time, owned not one stick of furniture. Somehow we had gotten rid of the trailer; perhaps we sold it. But every place where we lived in New Mexico, we rented it completely furnished.

I remember participating in a piano recital at the Loretto Academy which frightened me very badly. I felt panic-stricken and embarrassed because I did not feel adequately prepared. And I had to wear a navy-blue velveteen dress in which I felt very uncomfortable. I decided that I did not like piano lessons; but Mother was the boss.

I think it was during the summer of 1938, when I was almost five years old, that we moved to the duplex. The Spanish house had been on the south end of Las Cruces. The duplex was on the north side, in a less affluent neighborhood.

I can’t remember the floor plan of the duplex, except that it was much smaller than the Spanish house. Also, there was an electric refrigerator of the old style: its cooling motor was circular, and located on top of the fridge. Perhaps that is the way all of them were made in the early days of home refrigeration.

I don’t remember a piano. But we must have had one in the duplex. Because Mother made me continue taking piano lessons, with a new piano teacher.

Her name was Mrs. Underhill. When we were walking to our first lesson, a few blocks from the duplex, I assumed that she would live in a mysterious, gloomy cavern, because of her name.

I was very disappointed to learn that she lived in an ordinary house -— her name meant absolutely nothing. I remember nothing about the lessons, or her method of teaching.

Mother declared, many times, that her family had not been able to afford a piano, although she loved music and wanted to learn to play the instrument. She said she wanted me to have the advantages that she had not enjoyed as a child.

Unfortunately for her, I didn’t even WANT those advantages.

It was at the duplex that I began to be actively unhappy, and to misbehave sexually. As I have stated before, I have been told that such behavior is perfectly normal. But I continue to believe that mine was way out of bounds, and caused by feeling insecure and rejected by Mother, and by Daddy’s continued absences.

I recall only a couple of incidents. But I imagine there were more.

1. A group of children on the block were gathered to play. We assembled in somebody’s garage (not ours). I took off all my clothes, and began to do an exotic dance of some kind, to the delight of the other children.

Of course, somebody’s mother discovered this activity, and notified my mother, who must have been quite mortified. I don’t recall being spanked.

2. A Hispanic family lived across the alley from us. They had a lovely, shady back yard where they grew some fruits and vegetables. Perhaps they kept some chickens.

They had a little girl, about my age. We became good friends. And of course I suggested we explore each other’s sexual parts. We lay down in a garden shed at the rear of their property, and were beginning to explore. But we were discovered by the girl’s grandfather, and I was sent home in disgrace.

This pattern of behavior persisted for several more years: even the first two years in San Antonio, where we moved in 1940. Finally, my mother and father entirely lost patience with me, and I was given a really hard whipping around the age of 8½.

So I stopped the behavior. I was petrified with fear to continue such actions. And I went into the Age of Dormancy with a vengeance.

I became very much ashamed of my body. I felt very unattractive, and very much afraid of any kind of contact which might lead to any sexual activity. This attitude persisted for many years. It kept me from getting into any sort of sexual mischief during my teen-age decade.

Now to my second runaway experience in New Mexico: from the Loretto academy when I was about 5½ years old: the spring of 1939.

My parents had left me at Loretto while they went to spend the weekend in El Paso, Texas -— about 50 miles southeast of Las Cruces.

After a day or two there, I ran away. I think it was a Sunday evening; I knew my parents would be home soon.

I walked out of the Academy, and all the way back to the duplex. I think it was a mile or more. I had a good sense of direction, and knew exactly where I was going.

Nobody was home. But I desperately needed to go pottie. So I went through the unlocked side door of our garage, squatted down and did my business.

Soon my parents arrived. They were angry and worried about my behavior. But I don’t recall being punished for this incident.

In August of 1939, my parents and I drove back to Oklahoma for a visit -— I suppose in Uncle Dick’s old Cadillac. Daddy had a few weeks of vacation, and I suppose he and Mother wanted some peace and quiet, to go where they wanted to go, and do what they wanted to do. So I spent three weeks on the homestead farm of my Daddy’s parents, Ben and Hattie Overton.

I loved those 3 weeks. The 10-year drought in Oklahoma was better by then - a few crops could be grown. But the Great Depression still persisted.

The farm was the place where my father had spent his boyhood -— at least during the summer. Like many homesteaders, my grandparents also had a small house in town. During the school months, the children and my grandmother lived in the town house, so my father, and his sister April, could go to school. Going to school out in the country was very hard in those days due to muddy, rutty roads in winter and the lack of transportation. At that time, I don’t think my grandfather had a car -— just horses and wagons. And at that time there were no school buses.

I suppose my grandfather spent much of the winter on the farm -— about three miles from town -— tending to the animals and doing other necessary chores. I’m not sure. For some years he also had a job at a hardware store in Dalton; but he lost it during the Great Depression, because times were so hard. I think he got the job back in the early 1940s; then he rented out the farm to a family of sharecroppers and lived in the house in Dalton.

However, during the summer of 1939, my grandparents were living on the homestead farm -—probably because of economic hardship.

The farmhouse was a weatherbeaten, shacklike structure of four or five rooms. Unpainted. It had survived the horrendous dust-storms of 1932-37.

A dugout, or storm cellar, was built underneath the house. The walls were just of earth (I think). Wooden shelves provided storage space for the many jars of home-canned vegetables and fruits that were produced in most farm kitchens in those days.

Also, of course, at the first sign of a twister, Grandmother would hustle us all into the dugout. A twister never occurred during my visit to the farm. But the area was often called tornado alley, due to the frequent severe windstorms. There were a couple of bedsteads in the dugout, equipped with musty old mattresses, where we could rest until Grandmother said it was OK to go up to ground level.

The house had a small amount of electricity: a couple of ceiling lights (just bare bulbs) in a couple of the rooms. But it had no running water. There was a pump in the kitchen sink, from which we could pump water from the cistern -— a flat, concrete platform near the house, where a truck would periodically deliver water if rainwater from the roof (which ran into the cistern) was insufficient.

And of course, there were no bathtubs or toilets. There were chamber pots (called thunder mugs), and an outhouse. Baths were in a big round metal tub, no more than once a week. Otherwise, we just took spit baths -— scrubbing the parts that got dirty.

The kitchen stove was probably wood or coal (not kerosene) I don’t remember. There was no refrigerator. If we needed to keep cooked food for a couple of hours, we would set it on the back of the stove. In most cases, food prepared on a day was eaten on the same day; any leftovers had to be fed to the chickens, hogs, etc.

I’m not sure about milk. Perhaps it could be lowered into the cool area within the cistern (above the water line). I know my mother’s mother, in Texas, kept milk in a jug and placed in a bucket, then lowered it down into the water well, where the temperature was a bit cooler than at the surface, even in the horrendous Texas summers.

My grandparents kept a few cows: for home production of milk, and perhaps a bit for sale. My grandfather milked the cows every day, morning and evening. When my grandmother made butter, she poured whole milk into a wooden churn, and plunged a wooden plunger up and down until butter formed on the paddles. The liquid which remained from churning was called buttermilk. It was drunk at meals.

My grandparents had a wind-up Victrola (no electricity needed). Over and over again, I wound it up and played one of the few records they had:

Put on your old gray bonnet, with the blue ribbons on it;

And I’ll hitch ole Dobbin to the shay;

Through the fields of clover, we will ride to Dover,

On our gold-en wedding day.

I loved that song very much. It reminded me of my grandparents.

I loved walking in between the rows of corn. The plants grew way above my head -— like a forest. I loved gathering fresh eggs from the chicken house every day. I loved playing with my cousin Nellie, who was just about my age and lived down the road about half a mile.

I loved walking with my grandfather out to the pasture each evening, to bring the cows home for the evening milking. He would lift me up onto the back of one of the cows (named Bossy), and we would stroll slowly homeward together. I loved their two draft horses, Pat and Mike. These were Irish names, common for horse teams (as I may have mentioned before, my people were 90% Scotch-Irish). I think my grandfather had a pickup truck by that time, and possibly a small tractor. But they still kept the horses.

Grandmother told me of the days when my father and his sister were little children (around 1910). From time to time they hitched up the covered wagon and traveled south about a hundred miles, to visit relatives and friends in the vicinity of Wichita Falls, Texas. It took them several days in the covered wagon to make this trip, Grandmother said. Grandfather would shoot prairie chickens along the way. Grandmother would clean them, and cook them over an open fire (perhaps in a big iron pot among hot coals).

I was very traumatized when I saw my grandmother kill a chicken. She seized the bird and whirled it around and around, breaking its neck. Then she dropped it to the ground. It was dead (or dying); but it ran around and around for what seemed to me a good long time: Like a chicken with its head cut off, as the saying goes. I screamed and cried. But I came to realize that in order to eat animals, you have to kill them. I still have a hard time with that concept. But I still eat meat (in modest amounts, I hope).

After the bird was dead, Grandmother plucked all the feathers off (saved them, probably, for pillows etc.), and singed off the pin-feathers. Then she gutted it; and dismembered it; and probably washed all the pieces in fresh water before cooking it.

During those weeks, I saw that my grandparents had a close association with the land -— an association that my parents no longer seemed to have, although both of my parents had grown up without electricity or running water. At age five, I loved and treasured that association with the land.

When my parents came to fetch me, to take me back to New Mexico, I hid under the kitchen table, hoping my parents would not be able to find me, and that I could stay on my grandparents’ farm forever. For they were warm, and full of good humor.

My father had that same disposition; but he was away much of the time, tending to the needs of the CCC boys, and coming home on weekends. My mother meant well. She wanted me to grow up to be a lady. But to me she seemed cold-hearted and nervous, and very critical of my actions and appearance.

Alas! My parents found me, and we traveled back to Las Cruces, New Mexico. A few weeks later I was six years old and began the first grade. This was my first experience at schooling: there was no kindergarten in New Mexico (or Texas either) in those days.

I remember very little about the first grade in New Mexico, except that I bragged to my new teacher when we moved to San Antonio, Texas, that I could spell the word community.

We moved to Texas in March, 1940, when I was almost through the first grade. This was my father’s decision. He knew that war with Germany was almost inevitable, and he joined the Army Air Corps as a dentist.

The fortunes of our family were still modest, but much improved from the Dust Bowl Days of Oklahoma. By then, the drought there was over. The farmers were following better conservation techniques. My grandparents had managed to hang onto their homestead farm.

By the way, we never returned to live in Oklahoma. It was the same with many other Okies: once they were gone, they never went back, except to visit.

MEMORIES OF NEW MEXICO

High-altitude, semi-desert country interspersed with oases, created by water piped up from underground streams, or directed from rivers which flowed down through the state from the snow-clad Rocky Mountains in Colorado.

By contrast, the flat lands around San Antonio seemed boring and monotonous.

I remembered picnics with my parents and some of their friends, on small mountain plateaus near Las Cruces; that had been so much fun.

And I especially recalled a trip straight north through New Mexico, in Uncle Dick’s old Cadillac, to a fishing village called Creede, high up in the mountains of southwest Colorado. I was fascinated -— and also rather frightened -— to be going along a narrow mountain road, separated only by an insubstantial-looking guard rail from a gorge which seemed to descend straight down for hundreds of feet.

Scenic views of that kind were not uncommon in that part of Colorado. Ever after, I always longed to return to that beautiful area.

Looking at the maps of Colorado and New Mexico now -— in 2016 -— I see that the Rio Grande River seems to have its headwaters at or very near Creede. It enters New Mexico about 40 miles north of Taos. It flows southwest for a while, missing Santa Fe. It goes through Albuquerque, then flows more or less south: through Las Cruces, then southeast to form the very western border of Texas, at El Paso.

Now, with sparse amounts of snowfall in the Rocky Mountains, I wonder what the future of this historic river will be.

Will the snowfalls resume, and the river continue to flow? Or will it gradually become a dried-up stream bed in an increasingly desolate land?

Only time will tell.

Part 4

San Antonio (1940-1945)

After living in a tourist court for a couple of weeks, we found a nice rent house for $50 a month on the southeast side of San Antonio, not far from the air base where my father was to work as a dentist for 5½ years. The house was stucco, rather Spanish-style. Big living room, nice