CHAPTER 5

THE HOUSE OF MANY ROOMS

James running away from home was nothing to compare with what I did in Ida, Louisiana. It was just before school was out. The southern spring flowers were in bloom. They are so pretty in the south in the spring.

Mrs. Waters, a friend of my dad, was making arrangements for me to leave home. In fact, she was going to help lure my parents only daughter. I was just fourteen and did not like where I was living, or the school I was attending. That is not an excuse for what I did. That is just the facts. I was just a stupid little kid. From the things I was hearing, I was convinced that I was grown. I had learned all my life to be a housekeeper and to take care of kids. I could do everything but cook. I had a lot of knowledge in some things, but I was very green in other areas.

The Waters family had fallen in love with me. They had never had a daughter. They had told me many things, and I was buying it all. It was all behind my parents back. Daddy had a lot of men and boys working for him. Mr. Waters was one of them.

I ran away with a soldier. James had gone to Texarkana with Mrs. Waters and her son, Herman, to get the marriage license so I could elope. Mrs. Waters kept them hidden in her flour barrel.

My paternal grandmother had written that she was coming to visit. She would ride the bus and she would need someone to pick her up. It would be on a Saturday morning. Mrs. Waters made arrangements for James and me to go with Herman to pick her up. We left early in the morning with the top down on the car. Hershell and Verlon and LaHue wanted to go. So they went. Kenneth was just a baby, but he went, too. I had always had to take care of my little brothers. We were all on the way to Rodessa, Louisiana to pick up our grandmother.

We all climbed into that old rattle trap Model T Ford. Lord have mercy, I don't know how we all got in it. I was holding Kenneth. I was used to holding Kenneth, and all of the rest of the babies that came along. Norman LaHue was also in the front seat. James and Hershell were in the raggedy back seat, with Verlon between them, so he wouldn't fly out. God only knew where Grandma was going to sit, if we ever got to Rodessa.

As we started out in that old Model T, we had to stop at a filling station in Ida, because the water was boiling in the radiator. It was spewing and popping and carrying on. That water was boiling, so when we took the cap off of the radiator the water blew everywhere. We had to let it cool and add a little water at a time so it would not crack the radiator.

A little further down the road a tire blew out. When a tire blew out you had to jack up the car and take the tire off. Then you had to take a tube out of the tire and patch it with some stuff you carried under the seat. Then you had to pump it up with a hand pump and put it back on the car.

We went on to Rodessa and got Grandma and put her in with Kenneth, and moved Norman to the back seat with Hershell and James, so he would not fall out on that gravel road. Grandma and Kenneth took Norman's spot.

My Uncle Hawk would always come around and brag on me and tell my daddy what a good looking girl I was. I really believed him, and I thought I was a grown woman.

After we met the bus my grandmother wanted to know where we were going. I was only fourteen and this boy was past twenty one. I was allowing myself to be taken. Herman told my grandmother we had to go to Arkansas. She did not want to go. She said she wanted to get on to the house. But we went on to Arkansas. Herman promised her we would get to the house. So many in the family had married so young I guess my grandmother did not think much about it. She did not do anything to stop what was going on.

In Doddridge, Arkansas, there was a justice of the peace, who lived on the river. I was a little afraid on the way there, because I had always been afraid of bridges and water. My grandmother was there with me and she was a comfort to me. I stayed in the car while Herman went to the door. A lady came out and said her husband was on the other side of the river. He was a ferry operator. He was notified to come back to our side of the river. When he returned, we were married on the river bank. I heard all of those words he said, but I really did not have any idea what any of it meant. I did not know anything. I had not been taught about anything. The only thing I knew was that you never let a boy kiss you. I was not ever kissed by anyone.

In those days cars were rather slow, and the roads were gravel, so this, for that time, was a long trip. We still had to return to my parents home with my grandmother and all of the kids. It was a beautiful spring morning and the air was full of the smell of the meadow and the smell of the woods and the flowers. I should have been having some kind of school activity going on this day. Instead, I was getting married.

On the way back the car was low of gas. When there was a little hill to climb you had to turn around and back over the hill, so the gas would run from the gas tank. When you stopped the car it had to be cranked to start. The throttle lever had to be pulled down and the engine would have to be cranked with a hand crank to start it.

Grandma was a little bit perturbed, because she wanted to go straight home. There was not much she could do though, so she just went along with everything.

It was a clear day and by now it was getting late in the afternoon. When we got to the house, I would not go in. My grandmother told me to go with her. She said she would do the talking. When we entered the back door, she told my parents what had happened. My daddy threw a Cherokee Indian fit. He threw a real fit. Everybody wore a hat then. He threw his hat through the house. It sailed like a Frisbee. He said the marriage would be annulled and he would send me back to Spruce Pine to my grandparents. His mother continued to talk to him, and calmed him, and he agreed to do nothing, to let me go.

I would now live in Texarkana. I would become the daughter of the Waters family. I would do what they said to do. They had convinced me.

The house where we lived had many rooms and many entrances, and a lot of fireplaces. I was a kid of fourteen who did not really know anything. I had not been taught about the ways of the world. I was just raised to see what was put before me. It had not been but a few days since I had been playing with Aunt Lelia's now five daughters on the railroad track, as a child. Now, I was suddenly fourteen going on twenty four years old. I would never know the real life of a teen-ager.

Everyone that visited seemed to love that house. It was a huge house with a lot of parking room. Mrs. Waters did all of the cooking, and everybody ate at the same time. This is how I met Ruthie. She has been a good friend since then. Ruthie lived at the end of the street, where it turned into another street.

By now Herman was away in the service and I was getting a check from the army, so I had money to spend. I would often go back to Alabama to visit. In about eleven months Patricia Ann was born. At seven months of age she would be running all over that big house, with her big brown eyes and dark curly hair. Now I was getting a check for her, as well as for myself. We spent a lot on bus tickets to Alabama. When we would go to Alabama, Mrs. Waters would always come and persuade me to come back to Texarkana. That would make my daddy angry, but I would always go.

While living in the big yellow house, I met Sally. We became the best of friends. Sally married Tom, Herman's half brother, and moved in the big house with us. Then we became as sisters. Soon she had a baby, named Billie Jo. Now there were two babies in the house. Patsy Ann became my life. I worshipped her. I thought she was the prettiest baby in the world.

Abraham and Virgie lived in the house with us. Abraham had been raised by Mrs. Water's mother. They were married and living in the house when I met them. They had a baby boy, named Clyde. He was a little older, but he was still a baby. The house was getting full of babies. I was from a big family of kids, but now I was part of a family of adults. The children made me feel more at home. I had always been around younger ones.

I was still visiting Alabama as much as possible. I was riding the train or the bus. Once Mrs. Waters took us to Wisconsin. There was a lot of ice and snow and I had never seen this kind of weather. She took us to Camp McCoy. It was my first experience with U.S.O. I was fifteen, and everything was new and amazing to me. We had a room provided by the army. It was a new experience for me. We traveled there and back by bus. We changed buses in Chicago. I had never been to Chicago.

We returned through Kentucky and Memphis before going to Texarkana. I was on the back seat of the bus with Pat. It was a long seat that went from one side of the bus to the other. I had Pat and all of her things on the seat. I had a regular nursery set up. When we crossed the Mason-Dixon line the driver stopped the bus and came back and told me I would have to leave that seat and move toward the front of the bus. I had everything set up and I told him I did not want to move. He said it did not matter what I wanted to do. He said it was the law and I had to move.

I had never heard of such a thing and I argued with him. However, when it was all over I had to pick up Pat and everything I had set up and move toward the front of the bus. At that time I did not know about the Jim Crow laws and I did not understand why I could not continue to sit on the big comfortable seat in the back of the bus.

I met the girl at the corner across the street who was named Ruthie. Ruthie had a boy friend named Hector, who was a cab driver. I would be hanging clothes, and he would drive by the house and honk the horn, and Ruthie would run out to talk to him. They eloped when she was about seventeen. I had gotten to know Ruthie very well.

There was a small house in back of the big house. Uncle Hosey and Aunt Jewel and their two boys, Charles and Milton, rented it, and they lived there. They were only there a short time before they moved back to Vivian. However, they did visit often after they moved. I was glad to have them there for that time. My grandmother would come up from Vivian and visit, but my grandfather never did. The trip from Vivian to Texarkana then seemed like a long trip. Now, of course, it is nothing.

The war was raging, but I did not think much about it. I just knew that Mrs. Waters and the adults would listen to the war news, and all of the people on the radio. I was not paying much attention to the war news. My life now was with Pat and Sally and Billie Jo. We all played as if we were all kids. Mr. and Mrs. Waters were really happy to have girls. They worshipped the babies. Mr. and Mrs. Waters and Mr. Fraser could not buy enough for the babies, it seemed. Mr. Waters would hold them all at once. In fact, he would do anything for them.

Sally was from Gladewater, Texas. Her father was a driller in the oil fields. She would come and visit a good friend that she considered an aunt. She would go to Gladewater when she could. That was not very often after she married, because Tom would not let her go.

One of Mrs. Water's former husbands lived in one room of the big house. He was Tom's dad. I could not understand if our name was Shipp why were we Waters? So I did some investigating. That was the first time I met Bert Lowery, who became my lawyer.

Mrs. Waters had told me about her husband, John Shipp. But it seemed the Shipps of Texarkana did not agree. She also introduced me to Bert Lowery, the lawyer. He would play a big role in my life. Mrs. Waters asked him to get her son, Herman, home from the army. He told her he could not do that, and would not if he could. So now we had two names--one in the army and one in Texarkana. I never got to know any of the Frasers or Shipps. Only the Waters.

About a year after I left home Mama and Daddy went back to Spruce Pine. Now my family was back in Spruce Pine, and I knew it would never be the same for them or me. I had bought Verlon and LaHue the biggest red wagon with side boards to take with them. As usual, my dad went first and my thirteen year old brother, James, drove the family from Ida to Spruce Pine. That was another miracle that they made it OK.

I would think about all of the things I could not be in any more. I would miss James and Hershell fighting. I would always take up for Hershell, and James could whip us both. It was no problem for him to whip us all. I did not know if they would live on the Prentice place or not. My thirteen year old brother would drive the car back, so they at least now had a car, instead of a wagon. They would no longer have to take the wagon wheel off and go soak it so it would swell and fit the rim.

I had heard my daddy say his dream was to go back to Spruce Pine and make a Holy Roller out of my grandma Thompson. She was a hot headed Methodist. He thought he could go back and get her to get out of her church and into his. In years to come, he learned that she would stay in her church and, in fact, be one of the main members. She continued to have the preachers in for Sunday dinner.

I thought about the fun times with James. I remembered when he took the little girl across the highway at Spruce Pine on her front porch, where they had cotton piled. He packed her clothes with cotton. He had her underwear full of cotton. They were playing husband and wife. James started his romantic life very early. My mother made her own lyrics to some tune and the song of the affair began after that. The tune was very pretty. The lyrics were, "Way back yonder when James was about ten, he invented a new cotton gin." We always had much fun. We were a big family, but now the circle was broken--forever.

Mr. Waters was a very good man. He was always good to my babies and me. If any of the little ones walked or crawled to him, he would pick them up and carry them. He would carry them around and hold them on his knee and talk to them. He would take up as much time as any of them wanted. He was one of the best baby sitters in the world. He never said a mean word to one of them, or to me. He was really and truly good to us.

It was less than two years from the time I eloped from Ida until I working as an eighteen-year-old in Nashville, Tennessee.

My first day in Nashville I met Ginger and Danny Mackingford. She became my very best friend from that day. I had gone to Nashville to work, and I left Patsy Ann at home with her grandma. In fact, several years later, Ginger came to see me, and told me about her little boy who died of polio. Her first husband was killed in battle while in the army in Burma. Now she had lost them both. Danny, her husband, was a sweet boy. He was very, very nice. He was from Fayetteville, Arkansas.

In Nashville we worked together, roomed together, and went places together. She would come with me to Spruce Pine. We would go by Greyhound bus, and would get off at my grandma's or at Uncle Bob's station or at Jim Scharnagel's store. Actually, Mose's store was the depot, but the driver would let us off anywhere.

Daddy and Mama lived in a section house in Spruce Pine. He was working on the railroad in those days. He worked on the section, and he would ride the section car to work and we would be there with my mom and the boys. This one day, Ginger and I were sitting in the swing on the front porch when a freight train came by. The engineer blew the whistle and waved. We waved back and mama came through the screen door telling us how awful it was for us to wave at the crew. She was so embarrassed that we waved at those men. We thought it was so funny. She had us convinced that it was almost a crime. It is funny now to think of it, but she was very serious.

One time we were going to get on the bus, and daddy went with us. He said it would be dark when we got to Nashville, so he told the bus driver to really watch after us girls. We had a time with the driver. We flirted with him all the way to Florence, where we changed buses. We sat with him and his friend, another driver, and had a Coke and laughed and talked to them. It is so funny now when I think about it. We were all sitting there talking. The driver was cute, but his friend was ugly. Ginger got stuck with the ugly one. I was with the cute one with black curly hair. The four of us went together for a walk, and they stayed with us instead of going home. Daddy told them to watch us, and they did.

In Nashville we had a lot of experiences. We met this girl and we thought she was so nice. She told us our rent was too high. She said she lived in a little town near Nashville called Lebanon. She said she had this big house with the lady and she had a little cabin. She said the woman rents rooms to working girls. We thought that sounded good, so we went over to Lebanon with her for the week-end. She showed us around, and we saw the little cabin that the landlady had in the yard. Ginger and I decided we could stay there and split the rent and that would be super for us. Before the week-end was over we discovered that our new found friend was nothing but a slut.

We noticed our new so called friend was getting phone calls, and she was making appointments. We wondered what she did, and we found out. I walked out of our cabin and into the rooming house just to visit her. As I walked down the hall her bedroom door was wide open, so I started to walk in. What I saw made my eyed bug out, and I let out a loud noise as I turned to run as fast as I could. Her client yelled to me, "Don't run, You are next." I ran to our cabin as fast as I could and told Ginger not to go in the house for anything. I told her, "That gal has a business going, all right. I saw them stark naked in the sex act." I said, "Let's get to Nashville as quick as possible." We left as fast as we could to the bus station and boarded a bus.

We had only paid one weeks rent, so we left Lebanon and went back to Nashville and kept our room and our job. Nashville was so crowded with troops and everything that was going on, we had thought we would be better off out of town. However, this place was not for us.

Oh! sure, while I was working in Nashville I flirted like crazy with the young boys in uniform. They were from everywhere there on maneuvers. I was a kid that should have been in high school. Girls my age should not have had their first date, because I had just turned sixteen.

I was staying in close contact with my little girl and working. I went to Nashville to work three months. However, I got a letter from Mrs. Waters telling me Pat was sick. She said she had a bowel problem. I left my job and went back to spend every minute with her. The fear from my little sister, Faye, scared me terribly. I went back to Texarkana. I thought I would be there forever. I still made trips to visit my family, but my address was in Texarkana.

The most important thing in the world to me was my baby. It seems Mrs. Waters wanted my baby to be her baby. To Mrs. Waters, I was a baby, too. But my baby was going to be my baby. I would share, but I would be number one with my hard head.

Sally was real family to me. She was with me all the time before Paul was born. She went with me on the city buses for doctor appointments. She went with me in a cab when Paul was born on May 13, 1944. Doctor Pate was my big fat doctor. Dr. Billiams was my doctor with Pat. He had a glass eye.

I was seventeen and had two babies, Pat and Paul. I took them and went to Alabama often. I was in Alabama before Paul was two months old. I very much wanted my own place. I thought if I just had an apartment, or anything. Even a tent would be nice if I could be where the two babies and I could live by ourselves, and I could be me and I could run my own life.

I was young but I was not lazy. I had been raised to know how to take care of myself. Mrs. Waters seemed to think she had to watch me as if I could not be on my own. I was seventeen, going on twenty seven, I guess. I had been told I was a hard head, and maybe I was. But I wanted to be free from that big yellow house with many rooms where everyone except Mr. Waters, Sally and I drank beer and smoked. Mr. Waters worked hard every day moving houses. Mrs. Waters and her former husband, Mr. Fraser, would go to town to the movies and shopping together during the day.

Mr. Fraser worked at the pickle plant on the Texas side of Texarkana, at night. Mr. Fraser, too, told me that my head was as hard as the brick on the fireplace.

I began to shop for a home of some kind for my two babies and me. Anything to call our own. I found some pretty lots with big beautiful trees. All I needed was a house. Mr. Waters was a house mover. He said he would keep his eyes open for me a house. The three of us took off to Spruce Pine to wait for a house.

We spent much time at Spruce Pine, and later went to Red Bay, Alabama. My parents were different people than they were when I was growing up. Daddy was now a preacher. In Red Bay he had a big Church of God convention going on. My grandmother Hawkins, from Vivian, was visiting him and my mom.

I always took things to my brothers. That was something I enjoyed doing. I had previously taken things like army uniforms for Verlon and Norman LaHue. I always took things I thought they would like. After my dad picked us up, I had him take us shopping in Red Bay. He could hold Paul and lead Patsy by the hand while I shopped.

There was a lot of excitement in Red Bay. James and Cindy Browns ran away to get married. They were both sixteen years old. Her dad just found them in time, before James became his son-in-law. So that caper was stopped.

I had to get a doctor in Red Bay for the babies. Paul had gotten Infintigo. He had it really bad. I was so scared before he recovered.

The house was full of us. There were our parents, my grandmother, two young sisters, a church brother, Gomer Thompleson, from Cleveland, Tennessee, plus five brothers, and the three of us. We had loads of fun all together again. Colleen Clutchinson, a seventeen year old girl, was coming over regularly, trying to catch James. We would tease him. We went to the convention every night, and after it was over we would usually go to daddy's church. We loved it.

One day at the Red Bay drug store, daddy bought Patsy and my sister, Jean, glass slippers. I still have Patsy's on my dresser in my Tennessee retirement home. That glass slipper has traveled many miles from state to state.

Church people would give and give to their preacher. They gave vegetables from their gardens and live chickens from their pens to make sure they have food. But with my parents clan, it took more food than they could get. People would have us come to their houses and eat on Sundays. Daddy's cousins, the Thackers, would really pile that table full of food for him and his clan.

One day the bomb fell. A cab drove up and Mrs. Waters got out. She had ridden a train to Iuka, Mississippi from Texarkana, hailed a cab to Red Bay, and somehow found daddy's house. She had called my Spruce Pine grandparents, looking for us. She brought in her luggage and made herself at home until I agreed to go with her to Texarkana.

Mr. Waters found me a house and I went to look at it. I liked it, and bought it, and the movers Mr. Waters worked for moved it for me. I had saved a little money, so I used it for the house, and the cost of moving and setting it up. I fixed it really pretty. Now I had a yard to work in and most of all I felt like I was free.

Our little house was two rooms with a little hall and a walk in closet on both sides. One would eventually become Paul's (who I called Baby Boy most of the time) garage for all his toy cars and trucks. It was hard to get things off the hangers because if I put a foot in the wrong place and moved one toy, he would know it. Each one had its own parking spot. Paul always had to have his own way or have tears.

Ginger came down from her home in Fayetteville, Arkansas with her baby boy, after her husband got killed. He was the same age as my baby boy, Paul. Her baby was named Danny, after her husband. Now that I had my own home, I was glad for her to spend time with me. I had no relatives in Texarkana, and she and I had gotten close in Nashville. At this point I felt more freedom.

I had a job at Simmons Drug Store. Hershell, my brother, came to Texarkana to live with us. He worked at the drug store delivering things on a bicycle. He also sold newspapers in town. He met a girl, Joy, in Texarkana, while delivering for the drug store. She played the piano at the Nazarene Church, and she would go to KTFS radio station and play the piano. He saw her while she was playing. Her parents were drug store customers, so he got to see her every time he went over the Texas viaduct and delivered to them. I still have her picture she gave Hershell.

Later Hershell was selling bibles with a boy named Nix. They traveled to Texas, and came back and stayed a few days at the house with us. When they left this time, they went to Selmer, Tennessee. Daddy lived near Selmer and pastored a church at Curtis Hill. When Hershell came back to Texarkana, he told me he had met this girl in Tennessee. He said he was going back because he wanted to see this girl. I was really surprised. He went back to Tennessee, and he and Charlene were married. They were just teen-agers at the time. It was several years before he saw the Texarkana girl again.

After this I visited Finger, Tennessee. However, it was not like visiting in Spruce Pine. I always loved to visit Spruce Pine. Granddaddy would always spoil all of us. I came with Pat and Paul to visit all of them in Selmer. We rode the train to Jackson, Tennessee. Hershell and Verlon came to pick us up and took us to Finger, Tennessee, where daddy lived.

While we lived in the little house in Texarkana, the Waters were there almost all the time. They would come by all the time. They knew everything we did, and everywhere we went. Mrs. Waters was always in total control. She was the boss.

I had a beautiful white ice box. It looked like a refrigerator, but the ice man had to put ice in it. When the ice man would come, the Waters would come over and stay until he left.

Mrs. Waters had two nephews and a niece who lived in Dallas, Texas. They were into the drug world. They were Mrs. Water's brother, Russ', children, by a former marriage. They would come to the big house with many rooms and visit from Dallas. Sometimes the daughter would come and bring a girl friend. Sometimes the brothers would come, and sometimes all three would come. They visited their aunt often. One day the younger brother, Clyde, came, and Mrs. Waters came to my little house and said, "Clyde is here and the police are looking for him." Sally would tell me they were in the drug world. I did not know what she was talking about. Mrs. Waters told me we had to hide Clyde at my house, because they would certainly come to his aunt's house looking for him. I panicked, but I was supposed to do what she said. She was like my mother.

She would hide Clyde and bring him anything he needed. Mr. Waters would spend the night there. They were hiding Clyde in my little house. One day the police came to my back door. There were two or three cars of them.

In my house you could go up in the attic. I had never been up there because I was always afraid to climb. Even as a kid I was afraid of ladders. I was afraid to go in granddaddy's hay loft because the ladder was straight up. I had never been in the attic, but Clyde was up there. The police came in and wanted to know if Clyde Wills was there. I was so scared. I did not know what to do. I just said, "Who?" They said they would look around. They had a search warrant. They found his shoes. They said they would use gas if necessary to get him out. When they started the gas, Clyde gave up and came down. They got him and took him in and he went to jail.

This is about the time I got a car. No one except Sally and me ever used it. I would always drive, because Sally did not drive. I did not drive too well, either. I can remember some rather close calls in that car. We would some time take the babies, and some time we would leave them with the Waters. There was a day when we were driving and I almost drove into the gravel pit.

Another time Sally was at the house and we started to go somewhere. It was a little wooded where the house was. I started out of the yard and I ran up the tree. Until the day I left there, that tree still had a bare spot. In those days, there was no driver's training. You just got in a car and taught yourself to drive. How we kept from getting killed, I do not know. That was the end of my little car. It was a goner after that incident.

Texarkana had city buses. After the accident, I walked to the corner and rode the city bus to town. It was nice. Just get on and put your money in the little slot, and go where you wanted to go. We would all go to town for the day and get bus transfers and go visit, and spend all day riding the bus and shopping. We would eat at the drug store, or somewhere at a lunch counter. Sally and I would go and spend the day just messing around Texarkana. It was usually just Sally and me. Sometimes we would take the kids. That was pretty much the life I was living in Texarkana.

A few months had passed since Ginger Mackingford had visited me. The next trip to see me she came from California with her second husband, in a motorhome. Little Danny had died from polio and I did not know it. I was so numb. It gave me nightmares the way it would bear on my mind. I thought how could anyone give up their child. It would be unbearable. If that happened to me I could not live, and would not want to. I looked down at Patsy Ann and Paul, and I thought, "they are my life." I would kill myself. I could not live without my kids. I felt so sorry for Ginger. I went down to my outdoor toilet where no one could hear me, and I sobbed for Danny and Little Danny, and for my dear friend, Ginger. I wondered why. She was a special person and had not done anything wrong. When they pulled out in the motorhome, I packed clothes for the three of us, Pat, Paul and me, and we took off to Tennessee. Hershell, Charlene and Gail lived in a little rented house in Selmer near the shoe factory where Hershell worked.

James, LaVelle and Joan lived near Tennessee in Mississippi. Now my parents had four grandbabies, and they were still having babies. I had always said if I ever had sisters I wanted to name them. My mother always told me as I grew up that I could, and I did. When the first one came she kept her word, but I could only use one name. I put Jean and my mom put Millie, after my grandmother, whose name was Millie Roxie Ann. The second girl I named Jane, and my mom put Martha. For the third girl I put Barbara and my dad put Sue. The end of the line, which I called a caboose, was a boy named Ronnie.

Daddy was off preaching some place and we were visiting in Finger, Tennessee. He had a speaker on top of his car. My brothers, Verlon, Norman LaHue and Kenny, and my sisters Jean and Martha, and Pat, Paul and I played church. Our mom got embarrassed and said don't use the sound system. We thought it was fun. We went across the red mud road in the edge of the woods and built a church. Kenny was our preacher, but he couldn't talk plain. We had an altar and he would give an altar call. We would sing, clap and shout, and do it all. Our mom often came and calmed us down. She was afraid someone would hear us. We doubted it, because there was not a neighbor as far as the eye could see. We had much fun.

While we were there we had to carry water from a spring. Daddy and Mama had a well, but it needed cleaning. It took us hours to carry enough water to fill the long tub we would keep in the sun to warm the water for our nightly baths.

Daddy would drive us to Alabama to spend time with my family in Spruce Pine, my favorite place in the whole world. My Aunt Minnie kept me informed on all the Spruce Pine news. I always called her letter the Franklin County News. I loved her letters, and I loved her. Everybody would come to see me when I was at Aunt Minnie's and Uncle Charlie's house, or at my grandparents.

Ira Mae, my grandmother's first cousin, came often ever since I could remember. Ira Mae had Tuberculosis and epileptic fits so Aunt Minnie had Ira Mae a special plate, cup, saucer, glass and silverware. It was kept in a special place just for her, and we were not allowed to touch it. After Ira Mae would go home, Aunt Minnie would boil it all.

As a child, I remembered many times Uncle Bob knocking on the door looking for his only child, who was now near forty years old. Aunt Minnie only lived a few blocks from Ira Mae's home. Aunt Dora was Ira Mae's step-mother. Ira Mae's mother died when she was a young girl. Ira Mae's mother was Aunt Dora's sister, so Aunt Dora was Ira Mae's step-mother, and also her aunt. The rumor was that Aunt Dora was mean to Ira Mae, and Uncle Bob was very good to her. All of my family felt very sorry for Ira Mae.

I would go back to Texarkana in five or six weeks because my mail came to the post office in Texarkana. It was on the state line of Arkansas and Texas. Many people traveling would take pictures at the post office. It was a joy to go to the post office. It was a very busy place. There were places in it to buy all kinds of cards, candy, gum and souvenirs. It seemed there was always a blind man there, and at the bus stations and depot, and all places that sold this kind of stuff.

It was easy to get a train or a bus out of Spruce Pine, since they had both, but Selmer only had buses. You had to go to Jackson to get the train. I had become a very independent person now that I had my own little home and was free from the big yellow house with many rooms.

Now I was my own boss. I had my own house. I had two babies, and no more would I ever have to sit in a car when Mrs. Waters and Herman and Abraham and Virgie would go in the movies on Third Street and Broad Street, in the dark by myself. Never would I have to do that again. Daddy had told me if I went to the theater I would sure go to hell, so I was afraid to go in. I was afraid the world might end during a movie and I would go to hell and burn forever and ever. When there was a furlough or anything, they would all go, but I would sit in the car alone and no one would stay with me. I can recall sitting in the car before Pat was born. I was pregnant and afraid. If there was a double feature, it would be a long time in the car.

I would sit in the car at the V.F.W. and many places. I was not allowed to visit Ruthie or anyone while they were gone.

Never again would I have to sit around and watch everybody drink beer and do all of the things I did not do. My house was my privacy. It was my little home. It was spotlessly clean, with me and two babies. Some time Hershell lived with us. Otherwise, it was just us, and we did not have to put up with anything we did not want.

Our little house did not have indoor plumbing. We did not have electricity. We did not have a fireplace. We had a well, kerosene lamps, and an outdoor toilet. I knew as I could I would get those modern day things. But, for the time being, it was OK.

I would hand wash and hang our clothes. I would rub the diapers on a washboard, and they would be boiled and snow white. Everything was great and our little house was not only a house but it was a home.