Mama often would say she sure did wish Lelia would put step-ins on those poor little girls. Mama said, "Sue Ann will be well cared for with that good Christian family." But how could anyone give away their kid?

We unloaded the truck in Vivian, and Denzil and his family went to Farmington, New Mexico. Everyone was looking for work and talking about the country going to get in a war.

There was a little church in the town of Vivian called the Church of God. That is where my grandparents went to church. We would go to church with them. The Maloys also went to that church. They had a daughter my age, and a son older than me. They had red hair. He became my boy friend. He was my boy friend in Vivian, but I wanted to go back to Walton, my real boy friend in Spruce Pine. The Maloy boy and I would sit together in church, and walk together up and down the street. He would come to my house. My parents and grandparents liked the family. They were nice people, and I guess they had lived there all of their lives. In fact, I learned from an uncle a few years ago, that they are still there. We would play ball in the yard and in the street.

My daddy was the only one of my grandparents children who was now attending their church. I wanted to go, because there was nothing else to do. When I was barely two years old in Spruce Pine, the Baptists were having a revival. That is the first time I recall my parents going to a church service. I would always follow my daddy's footsteps. When he got up and went forward and knelt at the altar, I followed him. I stood there beside him. Looking up into his face I saw tears coming down his cheeks. I began to bawl, because I thought something was hurting my daddy. He put his arms around me and comforted me. He always spoiled me, anyway.

The second time for me to see my parents in church was in Vivian. I feel they always felt God was with them, however.

In Spruce Pine, I could also remember my daddy holding my hand and walking on the dirt streets and talking loud to the people he knew when he had drunk too much. He would stagger along, but he never once let go of my hand. When he would go out the door, I wanted to go with him, and I always got my way.

Rice was my favorite food. When I wanted rice, I wanted rice now. If no rice was cooked, I would have one of my temper bawling fits. If I was at my mother's house or at my grandmother's house, it made no difference. The rice stayed cooked.

I was happy now that my parents were going to church with my grandparents. The church had strict rules. The women could not cut their hair, smoke, drink and could only marry one time. No movies were allowed, and no jewelry. No make up. They wore long sleeves and long dresses. No jeans or anything as men wore. There were so many rules. We were told, for sure, if we violated the rules we would go to hell. I believed it, because my daddy believed it. I had a horrible fear of hell.

My grandfather only had a thumb on one hand because when he was young his fingers were all cut off at a saw mill. He also wore a truss because he was ruptured. He kept a horse in the back yard and he plowed gardens all over Vivian. He was an average size man.

My grandmother was short and tiny. She had always used tobacco. Under this church's rules that was a very big no-no. Therefore, she kept it hid, and would go to the out house to use it. I never told her that I could smell that tobacco on her. She never knew that anyone knew.

I was used to churning for butter, but in Louisiana we had to mix with a fork a package of coloring that came with a pound of white margarine. They had no chickens, so they ate powdered eggs.

I noticed in Louisiana the women wore bloomers and some of them called their underwear drawers. I often saw women in Alabama step aside and hold the front of their dress out and spread their legs and pee. I had not seen that in Louisiana.

My granddad was ninety percent Indian. My grandmother was fifty percent Indian and fifty percent Black Dutch. They were good looking. That explained why my daddy was so good looking. My mother was extremely jealous. She was Irish, so they both had tempers. What could I be but an emotional type girl.

Uncle Bryce was called Hawk by everyone, even all of the family. He had made big bucks as an oil field driller since he was very young. He ran away with another woman from Russellville, Alabama. He left his wife and two children, who still lived in Russellville. The other woman became our Aunt Mamie, because after seven years they became common law husband and wife. Uncle Bryce had to get a divorce to marry Aunt Gladys, because she demanded that everything be legal.

I loved both my Uncle Bryce and Aunt Mamie. I had gotten close to them when daddy worked in the oil fields. Early one morning, Uncle Bryce came walking in our house, saying help him. Aunt Mamie had stuck him with a sharp fork. I took his side, so that made him more fond of me, I guess. I did not really understand the trouble. Later, I learned that Aunt Mamie was running around with the Vivian chief of police. They moved to Cotton Valley, Louisiana. My uncle Bryce married Aunt Gladys. She had three girls much older that I. I was very jealous of them. They soon moved to Mount Pleasant, Texas.

The winter before I was fourteen I had the flu, and they thought I would die, and that my grandmother would die, also. They brought her to our house. We were in bed, and it was a type of flu that kept you in bed. It was horrible. Everybody would talk as if we were both going to die. I would lie there and hear them talking. One night they were all over there and they were looking at pictures. I heard the Maloy boy ask for a picture of me. My mother told him if anything happened to me she would have one made for him, but she wanted to keep it, in case anything happened. I heard this and I thought, "I am not about to die." I think it helped me to get well.

As I was getting over that awful flu, my grandmother was recuperating, too. The house was not heated, so we had to keep cover over us. We had a kerosene stove. They called it a coal oil stove. I would watch my mother put that glass container upside down on that stove. It would bubble as it soaked the wick around the burners. When she would light the stove it would smoke really bad. We had to stay warm in the bed, no matter how bad the smoke got in our eyes. That oven smoked so bad. She would often fry flour dough for bread. It seemed you could always taste that kerosene smell, and the bread was most always smoked. Oh! how I missed my Alabama grandmother's big cook stove and all the good food.

My baby brother, Kenny, picked up some kerosene and drank some, and he almost died. He never talked plain again until he was grown.

After that my daddy went into the pulpwood business. He was buying tracts and hiring help. He hired a lot of men and boys to work for him. Until then, I did not even know what pulp wood was.

The next thing I knew he was moving to the little town of Ida, Louisiana. There we moved to a big house in the little town of Ida. We walked to school. I hated it. I hated the school. I hated the town. I hated the state. I hated everything. All I wanted to do was go back to Spruce Pine. I had my fourteenth birthday in Ida.

I remember one thing from the house there. It had gas lights. I remember being fascinated by them. I remember if you touched them they would just fall apart. It was in town among the businesses on Highway 71. It was a huge yellow house, and it was on a bank. There were concrete steps going down to the highway. On the same day we moved in, Daddy gave us a lard bucket and sent us to borrow a bucket of meal or flour. It was on Sunday afternoon and no stores were open. I was so embarrassed. He said he knew the person, but I did not know anybody in that town.

My parents had started to go to church, and they had decided that it was definitely wrong to go to the picture show. They used to go, but now they did not go, and their kids were not going. Everything was wrong now. Everything was a SIN.

Near us was the small town of Kibbler, Arkansas. I remember the little old fashioned store there very well. It was an old store with a front porch on it. In front to the store was a pop box with ice in it and an ice pick to chip the ice. If you wanted a pop you gave the store keeper your nickel, and he would reach in the box and get your Nehi or Coca-Cola or Dr. Pepper or R C Cola, or whatever you wanted. On the counter there were Moon Pies and all day suckers and bubble gum. We all had our nickel for pop. We all got an RC Cola except James. He always had to be a little different from the rest of us. He got a root beer. He was standing and drinking his root beer when Mama walked up. She saw root beer on the bottle and she knocked the bottle out of his hand. She wanted to know what he was doing drinking beer. She said he knew better than to drink beer. They had even stopped drinking coffee. They told us it was a sin to drink coffee. If they said it was a sin, I believed them. For a long time I was not about to do anything that they said was a sin.

I sure was glad James didn't get a switch whipping for drinking the root beer. He only got it knocked out of his hand and got slapped. I don't think there were any peach trees around there to get switches from. The last time I remember James getting a switch whipping was just before we left the Prentice Place. He did something, and Mama made him go to the peach tree and break a limb and take the leaves off of it. She took him in the side room and James was pleading with her to stop whipping him. He was crying and yelling how much it hurt. I thought it must hurt awfully bad. I had only had one real switching in my life. I was pleading with her not to whip him. I went in the room and grabbed the switch out of Mama's hand, and ran with it. I did not know where to go or what to do. I ran in the garden and crawled up in the bean sticks and hid. Mama was yelling for me and I stayed hid in the garden. I stayed hid until I saw my mother going somewhere. I could hear the bees and could see the ants and I knew I had to get out of there. When I saw her leave, I got out of that garden.

We had a well with a covered top and a bucket to draw the water. When she left I ran to the well and hid. When I would hear her on one side I would go to the other side. I stayed there until I saw my dad coming home. I ran to him and the two of us walked to the house together. He saved me from getting a switching about that.

I didn't want to try to learn to love Vivian, or any part of Louisiana. I did not want to try to learn to love Ida, Louisiana. I hated the whole state. I did not want any part of anything. I did not want to go back near Texas. I only wanted to go back to Alabama. That was my roots. That is where the people were that I had been with all of my life. That is where I wanted to be. I was not going to try to like the school in Ida. When my aunt would come from Vivian, she would bring her now five daughters. We would walk the railroad track and do fun things. The older ones were trying to educate me. I did not want to live today. I wanted to live yesterday.

When I was in bed with the flu, I could hear my mother and my aunt talk about things. I just wanted to think about things of the past. I would think about hearing them talk about the Lindbergh baby, and how they would cry. When it made them cry, I would cry. I would think how bad it would be for something to happen to someone's child. I thought about how they would talk about the Dionne Quints. There was a picture of them in the store in Spruce Pine. I did not care about the news in Louisiana. I had rather think about things that had happened in Spruce Pine. I would think about the kids I had played with. I thought of when I was told there was no Santa Claus. I cried for days when Irene, the next door neighbor told me there was no Santa Claus. That was a horrible shock for me.

Of course, I loved my parents and Hawkins grandparents very much. I remembered highlights of visits with them. I remembered the time I went to Tremont, Mississippi to visit them. My parents were living near them for a few months. I loved to play my grandmother Hawkins' organ. One night, as I was playing the organ, my grandmother put me to bed. I got mad. I wanted to bang on that organ, but I would not say a word. They begged me to talk, but I would only cry. So, my grandfather bundled me up and walked, carrying me home to my parents. When he put me down my dad asked me what was wrong. I said, they would not let me play the organ. However, they asked me what did I want dozens of times, but I would only throw a temper fit. My dad only petted me and said he would take me later to play on that organ all I wanted to.

All of the past would go through my mind as I lay in bed with fever and the flu. My mother would stay busy putting cold wet rags on mine and grandmother's foreheads. As I lay in that bed I was thinking how the grown ups are saying we are going to war. They would listen to President Roosevelt speak. Boys, they said, are getting drafted. I wondered what would happen to my young life, which I had no control over. So young, so innocent and so unlearned. I thought, I will never help my Alabama grandma again. I will never go peddling again and buy fabric for ten cents a yard from a ten cent bucket of peas. My mom will never sit at grandma's machine and pedal it with her foot and make my dresses with all that pretty ric-rac and lace. So, as I recovered from an awful illness, I spent many hours dreaming of yesterday.

Chapter 5

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