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BLALOCK
by
Stampteach
- continued -
That was another story. The INSPECTOR came out unannounced once
per year to see that all of her books were in order. The last words that my
that my father had said to her was to keep the Post Office job, and
to take care of their baby. When the INSPECTOR came out, she was
always fearful that he would find something wrong, and give the job
to someone else. How would she make a living? The grocery store
did its part, but she needed the Post Office to draw in the customers.
By now the town was growing and had added another grocery store. The
INSPECTOR checked ALL of her records. If something was one penny off,
he would check for as long as it took to find the mistake. To my
knowledge, he was never there for more than one day. Once she had
co-mingled the grocery store money with that of the Post Office
because someone had brought in a $5.00 bill, and she didn't have
change for it in the store or the Post Office, so she had put the
bill in the Post Office until she could get her store money change.
Because the money was IN the Post Office, he accepted her admission,
but cautioned her. Each time he visited, mother went home with a
nervous headache for a day or so. I caused her more headaches. One
day she got a letter from the POSTAL INSPECTOR. One of the patrons
had reported that I was in the Post Office and was being rude. Mother
had been trying to teach me that when you wanted something, you said,
"Please" and "Thank you." This unfortunate patron had appeared while
mother was on a potty break and I was left "in charge." Even a Post
Master must occasionally have a "potty break." The customer had
asked for his mail. "Say 'please'" I encouraged. That did not set
well with the man, so he had reported it.
I guess I did not help mother's life run smoothly. Another time
a truck driver came into the store...just as white as a sheet. "See
that box out in the road?" he screamed. "I was driving down the
road, when I saw it. I centered my truck over it. After passing it,
I looked back. A little head appeared and a small girl climbed from
under it. I missed killing her by inches! "Little Nelouise lived
dangerously.
The town was growing again. Mother had to compete with the other
grocery store. Rumor had it that another store might be built soon.
Mother had bought enough lots in town to build three buildings...all
adobe. Again my feet got muddy. Soon mother had 3 beautiful stores.
She moved the Post Office (with the approval of the Post Office
Department and the grocery store into the middle building, which was
the largest of the three. They had adjoining walls. She went on a
visit to Oklahoma and brought back the beautiful fixtures, which had
once been in a store where grandmother worked. Now we added a drug
store, complete with fountain...and with a Pharmacist! We were
really coming up in the world. Oh, yes, we got a telephone, too. It
was used by most everyone in the community as the only "public" phone.
We had a handle on the phone, which we would crank one time to get
the Operator. OUR ring was three cranks. One of the buildings was
rented to a family, who took over the creamery from mother, and added
a feed store. The children of the new renter, would sit outside in the
sun eating ice cream and would be COVERED with flies...in their eyes,
in their mouths, everywhere! The other store was rented as a
residence and barber shop. Mother had several little one-room houses
that were rentals.
Maude was the only person in the community with any medical
training. She gave first aid to all accident victims. Sometimes
she helped men from the cotton gin, who had been injured. Before
she could give any prescription drugs, she had to call a doctor in
Morton, Muleshoe, or Littlefield. The doctors did not like to come
that far to see a patient. As you will remember, it took all day
to drive that 30 miles. I suppose now that people were getting cars,
it didn't take that long, but the roads were still dirt, and
sometimes poorly maintained. There were many accidents at one
section line where there was a right angle turn with little warning.
Many salesmen travelled those old dirt roads trying to sell bread,
candy, groceries, soft drinks, insurance, etc. One day a man was
brought into the store mortally wounded. He had been changing a tire
on the traffic side. An old man....almost blind was driving. He ran
over the victim without seeing him. Mother tried to stop the flow of
blood, but they had transported him 5 miles to bring him to her. As
she worked on him, he expired. As she cleaned the blood from his head,
she glanced into his mouth. "My God! It's Sam Hodges!" Until that
moment, she had not known who he was. Sam had a mouth FULL of gold
fillings, which everyone saw when he smiled. That was how mother
recognized him.
The town's richest man, about whom I told you earlier, had several
negroes, who worked for him as field hands. One day mother was called
to take care of an emergency in front of the "other grocery store"
on the other side of the street. A crowd was beginning to gather
around an old car. When mother arrived there, she saw that there
was nothing she could do. A love triangle had caused an awful
accident. One negro man was very jealous of another negro man. He
had taken a gun and shot his competitor in the head. Of course the
man was dead. Mother wanted me to be a doctor, so every gory detail
should be imprinted on my mind. She dragged me...and I do mean
dragged...me out to the car. What a sight! Blood and brains were
dripping everywhere.
In the back of the store building, Mother had made three rooms:
a bedroom, a kitchen, and a living room. The kitchen and closet were
about 7 feet long by 4 feet wide. The second half of this area was
the kitchen. It was so small, that the kitchen sink had the stove
beneath it. To the right of this was the small kitchen work area
with cabinets above and below for dishes, and pots and pans. The
sink area was open to the hall as a "pass through." One day I went
back there for something, and found a huge snake curled up in the
sink. Another day I saw a snake slithering behind the shelves in the
store. I never knew whether they were poisonous or not...and I did
NOT want to know. A snake was a snake was a snake.
Since the schools were not accredited here, mother decided to
send me to Dallas, TX to get a better education and to have my teeth
straightened. Her mother and sister lived in Dallas. I was sent to
live in the EMILY DORSEY METHODIST HOME FOR LITTLE GIRLS! Forty
little girls lived there. I saw my mother 1/2 day at Christmas, and
during summer vacation. This continued for 8 years. While I was
there, World War II had started. We had blackouts, gas and sugar
rationing and other restrictions. When Miss Dorsey had saved enough
coupons for gas, we would go for a drive. I talked so much that she
threatened to leave me at home. When I was older, I learned that one
of my room-mates at the home had been murdered in Germany; another of
the girls had committed suicide; one had become a drug addict. I was
one of the few, who was college bound.
Vacation time found me back at the store going to wonderful
singings on weekends. Mother had many suitors...people, who came
to the store or Post Office. Several were sales persons; one was
a lawyer; one was a rural mail carrier. By the time I came home
for the summer, she had fallen in love again. One day the Mail
Carrier came to me and said, "May I marry your mother?" He had
been very good to me, and we enjoyed singing together, so timidly
I said, "Yes!" He teased me for years about that. He had been a
widower for 3 years; mother had been a widow for 2 years. To my
young eyes, he was a handsome man. He came to the marriage with
a piano, a trundle bed, and a banjo...not rich. His children
stayed in Littlefield with their grandparents. Daddy Zed had a
golden voice. People came to gospel singings from miles around
to hear him. Partially because of the singings, our little church
grew. We enlarged it. The new part had beautiful pews and a new
piano. The older part of the church became Sunday school rooms, an
INDOOR bathroom, and a kitchen and dining area. When people came
to singings there, we had all day singing and dinner on the ground.
People came from towns as far as 60 miles away. Daddy Zed was
welcomed with a standing ovation most anytime he visited another
area. We loved our church and enjoyed the wonderful music. Several
times each year, we had "Singing Schools" down at the school. We
learned to read "shaped notes"...a triangle, a rectangle, a round
note and one that was shaped like an ice cream cone. We would sing
the "Sol-la-sol-fa-" notes before we used the words. Our harmony
was great.
Finally, the time came when our Church could afford a parsonage.
It was partially pre-built. The church members helped construct
partitions inside. The rooms were small, but clean. There was one
big problem. The church was out of money, and could not afford
wallpaper for the kitchen. They had bought some wallpaper from a
store in Morton. Now they begged the store owner to make a "contri-
bution." He had one kitchen pattern left that was so hideous that no
one would buy it. He generously made the donation. How badly I felt
for the new preacher and his family, who had to look at that paper
..not for one year, but more like their whole tenure there as pastor.
I think that gruesome paper stayed there about 30 years. I vowed
then that when I got a job, and started paying tithes, I would ask,
first, what the minister and his family needed, which was not covered
by the annual budget. To this day, I put the minister first. My
tithes have not had to cover wallpaper, but a computer for the church
came in handy, when the budget made it unavailable.
Mother worked for 38 years as Post Master in that small community.
When she first moved there, sometimes her salary for the day equalled
the sale of stamps for that day...3 cents, 5 cents, 1 cent. This was
back in 1929. A little later, Montgomery Ward made a deal with the
Post Office Department, that they would furnish blanks to be filled
in by patrons making money orders. If they used one of the Montgomery
Ward blanks instead of the regular government blanks, they could be
used towards scholarships. I went through College partially funded
by Montgomery Ward scholarships.
As soon as I complete College, I got married. I was immature.
I had been over protected in the Dorsey Home. My husband was in the
U.S. Navy, so we did see parts of the country. When he decided to
leave the Navy after 12 or so years, we moved back near mother. We
lived in Goodland, Texas, a farm village much smaller than the town
where mother was. It had one store and a 4th Class Post Office. I
became Post Master there. By this time we had two wonderful children,
Marcia and Michael. Each weekend we spent with Mother and Daddy Zed.
We bought a horse, which we named Ginger. The children enjoyed
riding her. There really wasn't much to do "out there in the sticks."
My husband would get some chickens together and chloroform them.
When they awakened, they staggered around like crazy. He thought
that was great fun to watch.
Christmas, 1950 was approaching. We put the lights up on our
tree on the 13th of December. It was lightly snowing outside. The
children had not seen snow before. They played in it, and then came
in to the house. Michael kept saying, "Pretty lights!" as he looked
at the tree. We noticed that he was not feeling well. He had
developed a high temperature. The next morning I took him to the
Littlefield hospital...almost 50 miles away. We stayed in the lobby
for several hours. Finally, at 2:00 P.M., the doctor saw us. He
examined Mikey carefully. "What's wrong, Doctor?" I asked. "Oh, he
has some stiffness here in his neck." "Indicating WHAT?" I asked.
"Oh, it could be spinal meningitis." he replied. "You'd better take
him home and get his temperature down before he goes in to con-
vulsions," he suggested. I couldn't believe my ears. If he is that
sick, shouldn't he stay here? "No. Take him home and get his
temperature down." On the way home, Mikey said, "My head hurts." I
stopped at mother's house. We gave him cool baths for an hour or so. A
At 7:00 P.M., he was unconscious. We phone ahead to tell the doctor
to BE at that hospital. We were bringing our baby in. The doctor was
there when we arrived. At 10:00 o'clock, Mikey was dead.
A day or so later, Mikey's body was "in state" at mother's house
for people in the community to stop by. I had to go down to the store
to make some phone calls. (No, we didn't have a phone at the house!)
When I returned, I looked at Mikey's body. I had left a tiny toy in
his hand. It was now in a different place. I asked who had moved
Mikey's body. Some of the neighbors told me that mother had taken
his body out of the casket and had taken it out to the front porch,
where she begged someone to take pictures of them together.
My husband decided to go back into the Navy to make it a career.
Within the next year, we had a wonderful, new son, David.
Mother kept as many as 500 white turkeys and 500 white chickens
at a time. One day Marcia went out to help her Grandmother feed the
chickens and gather the eggs. As they gathered the eggs, mother put
them in a large metal pail. Soon Marcia came running, all excited.
"Grandmother, I was very tired, so I sat down on top of the eggs!"
Her grandmother asked why she got up. "'Cause I heard them acrackin'".
Mother cooked some of the best fried chicken in the world. Some
of the time she would "wring their necks" by grasping their heads in
her hand and spinning them in rapid circles until the heavy bodies
departed from the heads. The bodies would jump and flop for ever so
long. I was terrified when she tried to get me to follow in her
footsteps. You can readily see why I never became a doctor. Another
way that she would kill chickens was to tie their feet to a clothes
line and slit their throats. They quickly bled to death. After they
were dead, we took the bodies and emmersed them in HOT water. Then
we pulled the feathers out.
Mother built two L O N G chicken houses on one of her farms. I
don't know how it happened, but the chickens came down with chicken
pox. Their heads were swollen terribly. Mother wanted ME to poke
pills down them. ME? As usual I was terrified. You might well
determine that I was not a great deal of help on the farm. I feared
that the chickens would peck me. Their beaks looked as if they were
made of steel!
Mother always raised something at her house...canaries, rabbits,
you name it. For a time she kept turkeys there. These were the
most stupid birds in the world. Sometimes one would manage to jump
or fly to the top of a post holding up the fencing. If one toe
got caught under the wire fencing, the turkey would fall over. All
the other turkeys would run over and peck the poor victim to death.
They were cannibals! For some reason they would run at me to peck me.
FEAR was a major part of my life then.
Frequently I went to the field at noon to take Daddy Zed his lunch,
when he was plowing. For 3 days in a row, when I had been there less
than 5 minutes, Daddy Zed killed a rattlesnake. I really feared them.
They could "strike" the length of their bodies. Daddy Zed usually
killed them with his hoe.
Mother decided to sell the 3 adobe buildings and grocery store.
She moved the Post Office back to the old building. Not long after
the sale, the drugstore and grocery store mysteriously burned. Some
thought it was Insurance Fraud. Gone were the lovely Oklahoma
fixtures. A gaping hole was all that was left.
When mother retired from the Post Office, she kept all of the
Post Office fixtures. Back then, each Post Master had to furnish
his or her own. I now have these, and they are almost antique.
Certainly they are a part of history. I'd like a museum to have them.
As I told you, the salary of a Post Master in a a Fourth Class
office, was very small. When she retired, she drew more money than
she had ever made in her life. She also suddenly had wonderful
medical benefits, which were deeply appreciated in the last few
years of her life. She lived to be 98.
One day Daddy Zed and Mother went to Muleshoe. She had decided to
buy a new home. Daddy Zed totally fought the idea. He said that the
old house was plenty good for them. Anyway, she made him take her to
look at some new homes. Without his knowledge, she had already
purchased the home. They moved to Muleshoe. They outlived most of
their friends while they lived there. Eventually, they moved to
California to live with me.
Hearts and Lines courtesy of Graphics by Design Originals
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