MY SIDE OF THE STORY

MY SIDE OF THE STORY, BY REBA RAE MORGAN ALSUP

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HOME

Looking back now I still can see in my minds eye the free days of my childhood. Yet I want to look back even farther to the day that I was born. It was on a farm in Randolph County, Arkansas that I first made my appearance into the world. This community is located in the northern most part of the state of Arkansas, between the towns of Walnut Ridge to the south of us, and Pocahontas to the north of us. This was near the little place or community called Holmes (later called Fender). The same community that my Dad had been born in before me. I, Reba Rae Morgan was October 26, 1929. The Morgan household already had two children when I came along. Charles William Morgan, born January 30, 1924 and Gleaston Juanita Morgan, born December 20, 1926. Both also born in Randolph County. My Dad, William Henry Morgan and my Mother, Mae Wells, had gotten married on March 11, 1923 at her home in Greene County, Arkansas, and moved into a little house in Randolph County to start married life. I was born in a little house on a gravel road not to far down the road from my Mother’s brother Charles A. Wells lived with his family. Mom had been sick all fall with bad pains in her back and side. When I arrived two months before schedule, I almost didn’t make it. Dad went for the doctor and my Grandmother Wells came to stay with Mom. It was about three days before Mom and Dad knew that I would live, but it finally became apparent that I was going to be alright. After I was several months old Dad and Mom moved back to Greene County. After me came the only other son that William Henry Morgan and his wife Mae (Wells) Morgan were ever to have. Benjamin Wells Morgan arrived on a hot August 11, 1931. The Morgan Family was then residing near Delaplaine, Arkansas in Greene County, when Benny, as we so fondly called him arrived. Since we were so close in age we became dear playmates, and he was sorely missed when he died at an early age.

After Benny was born in Greene County, Dad and Mom moved back to Randolph County near O’kean on a farm called “The Bode Farm”. Dad was a farmer and did mostly tractor driving for other men. The next child, a sister for me, was Annie Dell Morgan. She was born on February 2, 1934 on the Bode farm. When Annie was born Dad wanted to name her after his Mother. Her name was Minnie Bell, but Dad was mistaken and thought her name was Minnie Dell. So Ann was named Annie Dell. When she was several months old she was still so small, Mom sat her in a water bucket and made her picture. After Annie Dell came another girl which was named Noah Othaniel Morgan. She was later called Noie. She was born on a cold November 2, 1936 in a little farm house also located on the Bode Farm.

William Henry (always called Henry) Morgan was born December 19, 1904, in Randolph County, Arkansas. He was a farmer, poor but honest and worked hard all his life. Since hard work was nothing new to him, he worked very hard for his family to give us the things we needed for our livelihood. Our life rotated around our home, school, church, and farm work. Everyone had worked in the cotton fields just as soon as they were big enough to work. Our Mother, Mae (Wells) Morgan was born April 19, 1902, in Faulkner County, Arkansas. She also always worked hard raising her little family. She always had to tend children, keep house, and make a vegetable garden. Mom always would can up all the vegetables and fruits she could raise or afford to buy. She also had a sewing machine and she would work making all the clothes the girls wore, or the biggest part of them. In the winter time after the crops were gathered in Dad usually had some time off from his work to go hunting or fishing, but Mom was usually always busy working at something. We always usually had a cow to milk and feed and always had our chickens and pigs to feed and care for.

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OUR MOVE TO HELENA

It was in the winter of 1936, when I was still a young girl that my Dad made a deal to drive a tractor on a farm of a man named Ed Agee. This required our family to make a move of some 150 miles to the south to a farm near Helena, Arkansas, right near the Mississippi River to a community of Modoc, near Old Town Lake.

The day we moved to Helena was to be a day long to be remembered. We then lived on the Bode Farm, then operated by a man named Gale Bennett. It was early February, 1937, and the roads were dirt with no gravel, and therefore almost impossible to travel over during the winter months, or during wet weather. Just before we were ready to move, our cow got out of her pasture and into our turnip patch. Since she was our only cow and the only source of our milk and butter, she was very precious to us. She was so sick they day we were to leave that Dad had to leave her in the care of a neighbor. There to stay until he could make arrangements to come back after her.

Since we were moving to a farm rented by Ed Agee, he had an open stock truck sent for us and the household goods. I think that nature was against this move from the very beginning, or seemed to be so. The day dawned a gloomy overcast day. Before half the loading of our belongings had been completed, the rain had set in for the day, not to be slowed or stopped. After much pushing and pulling the truck was hopelessly stuck in the mud. Mom and the children were then sent to a nearby farmhouse to stay until a tractor could be sent for to pull out the truck. Mom had packed our lunch and set it in the seat of the truck. In our haste Mom had left the lunch sitting in the truck seat when we were sent to the farm house to get in out of the rain. There Mom sat with us all day without a thing to eat. The lady of the house offered us nothing to eat, even after the little ones were crying and saying they were hungry. The lady took her family off into the kitchen and fed them, offering us nothing.

Sometime in the late afternoon the truck was finally freed from the mud and pulled by the tractor to the main road where we had been staying all day. We then were able to get back into the truck and eat the lunch Mom had packed for us. The rest of the trip was made in the pouring rain. A tarpaulin had been thrown over the truck but offered little protection to us from the blowing wind and rain. We finally arrived at our new abode in the wee hours of the next morning. All were dead tired and everything we owned was soaked and some things completely ruined. Finally we got the things dried out and settled into our new home.

Dad was to be the tractor driver, only one of several, on a big cotton plantation. There was some other with families that lived on this plantation, mostly the other families of the other tractor drivers. Mainly the people who lived here were Negro. The crops here consisted of cotton fields and sugar cane, but a little of that.

It was while living here that I remember going to school. Charles, Juanita and I would walk the distance each day to catch a bus to take us to a school near Helena. I think the name of the place was Wabash, but do not remember the name of the school, but I do remember it was located by a cotton gin and a small grocery store called “Water’s Store”. It was operated by a Mr. Waters. I remember the teacher that I had that year. A lady by the name of Miss Doris Haskett. We called her Miss Doris. She had a brother who was named Philip. Why I remember that I surely don’t know.

Mr. Ed Agee had a son Robert Edward, just about Juanita’s age. Each day he also walked to the bus stop with us. Sometimes on the cold winter days, we would be invited into the house of a Negro family that lived there to wait in the warm house for the bus. Robert was a spoiled brat and always repaid their kindness with all sorts of mean things. Sometimes it was things like putting the family cat into the mail box and raising the flag for the postman.

Most of the things that happened there I can honestly say I just barely remember. Other things is what I’ve heard talked or been told through the years. I do clearly remember the house in which we lived. Since our Dad was one of the few white families on the large plantation of mostly Negro Families, we had about the best house to be had, except the houses the owners lived in. It was a large white house with a huge hall running right down the middle of it. A large veranda or porch was across the entire front. Also an L shaped porch in the back. There was no plumbing or inside bathroom. To have that was almost unheard of then, even in the owner’s houses.

Since our house was on a lot with pretty trees and grass and was close to a lake and little canal, there were always some picnickers who came out from Helena on the weekends and promptly used our yard for a picnic area. Each time there would be garbage and litter left behind. Mom would always make us go out and clean up the mess that they always left behind, which caused us to grumble and fuss. Sometime I would think it was just about worth all the bother just to see the cars and the pretty clothes the ladies and girls wore.

Our Mother always got up early in the morning to do the necessary things she had to do before going to the cotton field with us children. She would work hard all day, going home from work, fix supper, wash dirty children and get them ready for bed, then work half the night getting things ready for the next day. Mom had to do her washing on a scrub board for several years before ever having a washing machine. Mom always seemed to be the last in bed at night after a long day work and the first up in the morning.

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THE FLOOD

Not many months after we arrived at our new home outside Helena in the cotton delta, there were unusual amounts of spring rains, thus causing the mighty Mississippi River to over flow its banks and back up the water to the levee tops. In places the levees broke. All along the river the people were having to be moved out to camps for safety, in case the levee did break there and flood the land. Our family was among the families that the government moved out to higher ground. We lived in a tent like city near a place called Barton until all danger of flooding was past. Just how long that lasted I don’t know for sure. Everyone had to have all sorts of shots (injections) in case an epidemic should break out. The men worked days sand bagging the levee and helping move people out. After this was done the workers began trying to rescue deer that was been trapped in the flood waters trying to make them go the few spots on higher ground. I don’t know just how this was done but I do remember my Dad talking about it. I also remember him telling about things they saw floating down the Mississippi river as they worked on the levees. Sometime whole sheds or buildings with chickens or animals still clinging to them. At Barton where we were living in tents the Red Cross helped out by sending food and clothing. The food was fixed in one main cook tent. Then everyone had to line up in a line at the time the food was served. The first baby that was born at the Barton Flood camp was a little boy born to a Negro woman. He was named Barton for the place in which we lived. Gradually the flooding receded and we were allowed to return to our homes. No damage to our house or any around us had been done. After we came back home we started back to school. The water was still so high on the levee that some of the pumps were running in a stream from the ground. There were sand boils, I think they were called. They bubbled in the sand as if boiling water on a stove. These had been also sand bagged to keep people from failing into them. I shutter to think what would have happened had that happened. All along the river banks, there still could be seen evidence of the rampage the river had taken on homes and property. Robert Agee brat and brave boy that he thought he was, sometimes would climb upon the sand bags and walk around on them. There was one place called Old Town Lake, not to far from the Mississippi River that people told Dad no one had ever found a bottom to it, seems it had an opening that flowed to the Mississippi River and anything dropped into it was gone forever, never to be seem again. One black man told Dad there was no telling how many bodies that had been dropped into it. The black people called it “Blue Hole” and “Hell Hole”.

Not many months after we went back to our homes, my younger brother Bennie got sick. Nothing anyone could do for him was to be of any help and in only a few hours Bennie was dead. The doctor said Bennie had congestive chills. Bennie died October 6, 1937 only a little less than a year after we moved to Phillips County. Since Dad didn’t have the money to buy a casket or any insurance to pay for one, Bennie was laid to rest in a little cemetery near Modoc, near the Mississippi River. The little wooden homemade box was the best handiwork of Dad and some of our closest neighbors and friends. I just barely remember all this or when our family moved away from there. Charles was the only one of his family that ever was to go back to visit that sad and forsaken place. We were later told the new levee was built and the cemetery, what was left had been moved from behind the levee and the rest of the graves had been washed away.

Some of the families that lived on the same plantation as our family were Yoder, Forrest, Fowler and Judd, Miller, Etchison and Bolien family. The Forrest family had a girl also named Juanita, she was about the same age as my sister Juanita. While we lived there one or the other neighbor ladies would come to our house and use my mother’s sewing machine to make clothes for their children. Some times we went to church located near the school, but I do not remember the name of the church.

After about 15 months after Bennie died, our sister Grace Lee was born. She, like the rest of my Mother’s children was born at home, with the doctor coming to the house to deliver the baby. Grace Lee Morgan was born on January 6, 1939. I remember she had red hair and look for the world like a beautiful doll. As I have said our only playmates and friends away from school were the few white children of the other white men who had been also employed by Mr. Agee as tractor drivers. Mostly we played with these children or the children of the Negro families who lived near us. Since no Negro families at that time lived near us in Randolph County, and I had never before seen Negro’s, we were at first shy around these children. Soon we became friends and were playing in the sand together. One incident that had been told over and over in our family is how Noie caught whooping cough. It seems that my older sister Juanita and Juanita Forrest had made friends with a Negro girl also named Juanita. This Juanita always carried Noie around on her hip. One day while playing together black Juanita was holding Noie and she gave Noie a big kiss right in her mouth. Soon black Juanita came down with the whooping cough, and in the proper time following Noie also had whooping cough. A few years after we moved to the place near Helena things begin to get worse and worse. Dad began to worry that something was about to happen there and he and Mom talked about it, so Dad decided we would go back to Randolph County. Mr. Ed as all the colored people had been ordered to call him got meaner and meaner to them and his wife became more and more demanding of people. There was talk about Ed’s wife Thelma and Mr. Anonymous that she had been seeing, so Dad and most of the others from Randolph County moved back. Mr. Anonymous wife fell over dead one morning at the breakfast table on August 13, 1941 and Ed died mysteriously about 2 weeks later on August 29, 1941. Of course no one could ever prove anything so things just went on, and soon Thelma and Mr. Anonymous were married.

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HOME AGAIN

My Dad had been born in Randolph County, Arkansas in the Holmes Community, later became Fender Community. He was the son of Benjamin Tillman Pryor Morgan and his 2^nd wife Minnie Bell Nancy Dow Parks. He was born and grew up in Randolph County so it doesn’t seem to unnatural to become homesick for his old home and family that still lived there. So after about three years working for Mr. Ed Agee, Dad made arrangements with Gale Bennett who operated the Bode Farm to move back there and work for him again driving a tractor. This was a small farm compared with the large plantation of Phillips County. Here in Randolph County a farm was a farm and never called anything but a farm. Seems strange how things could be so different in such a short distance. Here a porch was a porch and not a veranda as referred to near Helena. My Mother’s Mother was still living in Randolph County so Mother was very glad when Dad decided to go home (as the reference was). She also had brothers and sisters living there. So in the late fall of 1939, Dad made the arrangements and we moved back to the Bode Farm near O’kean. Dad had gotten the family settled and had started farming when the second time death occurred in his family. There was a lot of diphtheria going round. When Grace Lee took sick it was our regular doctor was out of town and Dad had to get another doctor. Instead of giving her a shot to get rid of it, he made three doses out of it, giving her a third each day. By the time she had taken the third shot the diphtheria was under control, but pneumonia had set it. By then Grace Lee was in to weakened conditions to live through that so she died at the hands of a very careless doctor who should have known better. Grace Lee died on May 1, 1940 and was laid to rest at the Sharum Cemetery, also in Randolph County, where in later years our Grandma Mona Wells was buried beside her. The other children in the family and also the neighbor children were called in and given shots for the diphtheria, this time as it should have been with Grace Lee, one big shot.

The Morgan Children started back to school at O’kean after we moved back from Helena. This was a small two room school house with grades one through four in one room with a teacher, and grades five through eight in the other room with a teacher. Living on the Bode Farm at this time was Frank and Ida Fowler and children. They had moved to Helena and came back when we did. Frank Fowler was Mrs. Fowler 2^nd husband and she had some Judd children. Edna Judd was always living near us as long as I could remember and she was Juanita’s closest friend. She was also my brother Charles girl friend. We had to walk about a mile to catch the school bus out on highway 90 taking us to the O’kean school. About a year after we got back home to Randolph County, while living on the Bode Farm, my last sister Bonnie Fay Morgan was born. She was the last child for my parents. She was born on May 6, 1941. She too had red hair and it soon grew into long red curls. Bonnie was born just one year and 5 days after Grace Lee had died, also in the same house.

One day Charles disappeared from home with none of us knowing where he had gone. He was gone about two weeks and we were all worried about sick wondering where Charles was. Dad may have had an idea where he was, but if he did I was too young to know about it. Finally after awhile Edna told Juanita that Charles had gone back to Helena. It was at this time Charles went back to the cemetery where Bennie was buried or had tried to find it. Anyway we were never so happy to see anyone as we were the day Charles came home. Not to much longer after that he ran off again and joined the Civil Conservation Corps (C.C.C.). He didn’t stay there very long until he decided he wanted to come home, but this time he found it wasn’t so easy as just doing that. Our Dad had to get some papers fixed up stating Charles had started back to school. He started back just long enough to get the teacher, Ralph Stayton to sign the papers. As soon as everything was in order and he was officially out of the C.C.C.’s he quit school again. I too, was going to school at O’kean and Ralph Stayton was my teacher. I had failed the 5^th grade, having to take it over again. On March 6, 1942 Charles and Edna Judd went to the court house at Walnut Ridge and got married. Edna’s step father Frank Fowler went with them to get the marriage license. Charles and Edna stayed with our family a few weeks, then Charles got a little house on highway 90, near the family of Cleo Tillman. Later they moved back and lived with us when their first child, a son Billy Gene Morgan was born on Oct 25, 1942. Billy Gene was born on the Bode Farm in the same house where Bonnie was born.

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THE WAR YEARS

Charles and Edna continued to live with us after Billy was born and Charles worked on the farm with our Dad. Dad continued to work for Gale Bennett on the Bode Farm. In the early spring of 1943, Dad had rented us a house closer to Fender, so Charles & Edna and our family all moved over closer to Uncle Charley Wells once again. Charles and Edna got a little house a little farther down the road from us. Now we lived on land owned by Henry Higginbotham. Our closest neighbors were Tommie and Leota Johnson (Stayton). Dad bought a tractor and was making a share crop for Mr. Higginbotham. Dad and Charles started the year putting in their crops. Mae and Henry were scared by all the reports of the War going on in Europe, with so many American boys going to war and never coming back. Juanita, Reba, Annie and Noie started to Sanders school. In the fall Juanita didn’t start back to school but went to Corning to a little hospital where our cousin Charlene Galbreath and her mother worked and enrolled in nursing school. She was barely 17 years old. She worked there for awhile, but when the Brown Shoe Company opened in Pocahontas in the spring of 1944, Juanita came back and got a job there and rented a room in Pocahontas with the family of Chubby Hart. By now the Second World War had started and the Government had started construction of a Big Air Base not far from our house. It was toward Walnut Ridge in Lawrence County. After the crops were laid by, Dad and Charles got a job as carpenters working on the new air base. They worked there all winter until it was time to plant crops again. In September 1943, Annie, Noie and I all started again to Sanders School. Our teacher was a man named Taid Ford. Uncle Charley Wells and Uncle Pat Wells and their families also lived close to us and each had girls about my age that went to Sanders school with me. Patsy Wells was Uncle Charley’s girl and Margie Wells was Uncle Pat’s girl so we had some good times together after we moved there. The next year after we moved close to them, Uncle Pat took his family and moved to Trumann and we never lived close to them again. Charles and Edna later moved to Shannon and worked for Uncle John Wells. That winter Charles got called for the war but as Edna was expecting their 2^nd child, Uncle John got him a deferment until the baby was born. So on April 9, 1944, Gary Charles Morgan was born and Charles had to go away to the Navy on the 25^th day of May.

After Charles went away to War, Edna brought her two little boys and moved back into the house with us. When school started in the September of 1944, I was still going to school at Sanders, but now we lived close enough to walk to school. Annie and Noie walked with me. Also Uncle Charley’s children. At the end of the school year, 1945, I graduated from 8^th grade. Taid Ford was still the teacher there. We didn’t have any sort of graduation services, just handed us our diplomas, and it was not even signed. Finally after several tries, I did get the teacher to sign it and he used a pencil.

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CALL ME DUSTY

When school started that fall, 1945, I started to high school at Delaplaine, Arkansas. This school was over in Greene County and I had to ride a bus to this school. How scared and delighted I was the first day of school. It was only a small high school, but to me it seemed big and awesome. From the very first time I met her, Pat Kincade had been my very best friend and we were happy now to be going to school together and riding the same bus. We were always together. She would come to my house and spend the night and I would go to her house. One day she said. “lets change our names”, and I said, “OK”, what will our names be”? She said, “I will be Pat Burtam and you can be Dusty Rhodes”. Her name was Wilma Fay, so her name Pat stuck and I soon abandoned my name Dusty. All through the years she and I have visited and kept in touch with each other even after we married and our paths took different directions. I turned 16 in October of 1945 and Mom took me to Pocahontas and got my picture made wearing my heart shaped locket that I received as a birthday gift. I once had a boy friend named Wayland Wheeler, but he went away to the Navy and that was the end of that. As I said, my closest friend all through high school was Wilma Fay (Pat) Kincade. She lived at O’kean and we sat together on the bus and went on dates together. One of the first dates Mom let me go on was with a boy named Vernon Lacy. He also went to school at Delaplaine and was 2 years ahead of me. When I started to school in September, 1947, I was in the 11^th grade and Vernon had gone away to College.

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GRANDMA WELLS

Our Grandma Mona Wells lived in a little house in O’kean. That winter she got sick with pneumonia and was brought to our house very ill. We still lived in the farm house by Tommie and Leota Johnson. This was not very far down the road from Uncle Charley Wells. Grandma stayed at our house until she died on January 15, 1946. While she was sick the house was so crowded that someone took Edna and babies and Juanita and I over to Uncle John’s house as we were all exhausted from the cooking and dish washing that had to be done. After Grandma died we came back home. Grandma was buried on January 17^th and was laid to rest beside our little sister Grace Lee at Sharum. While Grandma was sick at our house, I had missed two weeks of school having to stay at home and help Juanita and Mom take care of things that had to be done. Two of Grandma’s children, Aunt Esther and Uncle Noah were living in California and didn’t get to come to her funeral. When the Brown Shoe Company had opened in Pocahontas, Juanita got herself a job there. She also got herself a room there in town and was living in Pocahontas. On March 6, 1946, Charles got out of the Navy and come home, then he and Edna moved out into their own place. He began farming with Dad again. When school started in September of 1946 at the Sanders school, Annie and Noie was going there, so Mom started Bonnie to school too, even though she was only 5 years old. This was to be the last year that Sanders School was open, before it consolidated with the O’kean grade school. Just before or right after Grandma Wells died at our house, the electric company came through string electric poles and we got electricity for the first time. The next day after our electricity was hooked and turned on Dad went to Pocahontas and bought Mom a new refrigerator. I can’t remember if it was a Gibson or Amana. Before that we had an ice box sitting on our front porch and the ice man would come and bring ice about twice a week. Before we had an ice box, Dad always built us a pump box with holes in each end and placed a big rock or bricks in it, so when the water was pumped it would go into the box and keep the food cool. Soon it would have moss growing inside it and that helped keep the things even cooler. We kept our milk and butter in it.

Even before the end of the first semester of the life of Southern Baptist College, on December 7, 1941, World War 11, already 2 years old, involving the United States by the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. After the war the old air base was closed and Southern Baptist College had leased it early 1947, moved there from Pocahontas as their school had burned by arsonist on December 26, 1946. They were later able to buy the air base and moved the entire school from Pocahontas to Walnut Ridge. Several students had enrolled there, including a boy from Blytheville, Arkansas, who I was yet to meet. He went one year to Pocahontas College, before the school was moved to Walnut Ridge in January 1947.

All during this past year I had been having attacks of pain with my appendix. They came and went often now, but still having nothing done about it. Finally when I was in the 10^th grade, I had a bad spell coming home on the school bus. When we got off the bus, Patsy ran all the way home and got Uncle Charley to come and take me home. Dad and Mom took me to Memphis to the Methodist hospital where I had an emergency appendectomy that night, March 30, 1947. Again I had to miss out on some school, causing me to get behind on some of my subjects. Sometime during the summer of 1947, my sister Annie, Patsy Wells and I were baptized in the First Baptist Church of Walnut Ridge. After school was out Juanita got me a job working with her at the Brown Shoe Company, as I was not able to work in the fields. I only worked there for the summer until school started again in the fall. When the school session ended in 1947, the Sanders School was closed forever and the school consolidated with the O’kean School. In October of 1947 my sister Juanita quit her job at the Brown Shoe Company and went to Coulterville, Illinois to live with our Aunt Annie Thomas as Uncle Henry was then in the TB Sanitarium at Cairo, Illinois. Juanita got a job working at a dress factory in Coulterville, as Aunt Annie had a job working there.

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ENTER LOVE

On January 18, 1947, Charles and Edna Morgan had a baby girl and Edna let me and Juanita name her. Juanita chose the name Yolanda and I chose the name Carol. So it was that Yolanda Carol Morgan came into this world. Sometime during the latter part of 1947 a church was started up in the Sanders School House. Some of the different boys that were going to the Southern Baptist College were taking turns coming out and preaching on Saturday night, Sunday and Sunday nights. The first time I ever laid eyes on Warren Alsup, he came walking down the road with his Bible in his hand inviting people to attend the Mission they were trying to start in the old Sanders School House. Annie started going pretty steady also Patsy Wells. I went a few times but not regular.

In November of 1947, my Uncle Charley and two of his sons Lloyd and Albert were out hunting in the woods behind our house. While hunting Lloyd walked by a limb and it flew back hitting Albert’s gun as he was walking behind Lloyd. Albert’s gun went off, shooting Lloyd in the back with the shot gun. Uncle Charley ran to our house for help. Dad took the tractor and wagon and went into the woods after him. They took him as far as our house in the wagon, then Uncle Charley took him to Pocahontas by car. Then Lloyd was transferred to a hospital in Memphis by ambulance. The next day on November 8, 1947, Lloyd died of his gun shot wounds.

The little Sanders Church continued to grow and at Christmas, some of the kids drew names for a Christmas gift exchange. Annie came in with the name James Warren Alsup. He was one of the ministerial students attending the Southern Baptist College at the old air base.

All this time Juanita was still living in Southern Illinois with our Aunt Annie at Coulterville and working in the dress factory. She had started dating one of the local boys there by the name of Ralph Homer Thomas. Juanita and Ralph were married on January 18, 1948 in a simple ceremony at the minister’s house at Sparta, Illinois. After they were married Ralph and Juanita came back home on a bus to visit us.

When I first met Warren I don’t remember the exact day. I remember he came walking down the road to our house inviting people to come to church. He was so bashful, it was amazing anyone so bashful could stand up before a crowd of people and preach the way he did. After that day I starting going to church there pretty regularly. Not to long after that I started dating Warren. By this time he had managed to get his old car fixed and a new girlfriend. In May of 1948 I was graduated from the 11^th grade and our school class and the senior class went on a school trip to Hot Springs, Arkansas. I missed Warren while I was gone more than I ever thought. I continued to go steady with Warren all summer. After school was out I went to Coulterville on a train and stayed with Aunt Annie as she had been in the hospital and had one of her eyes operated on. When I came home, Juanita came home with me. We came home on a train to Hoxie, Arkansas and Warren met us at the train station. Warren went home with us that day too, as he now was just considered part of our family.

Warren and I set our wedding day for August 22^nd and started making plans. Warren was to conduct a revival in a church at Sulphur Rock, Arkansas just before we were to be married. Before he went away we went to Pocahontas and signed for our marriage license as there was then a three day waiting period before the license could be issued. During the weeks he was gone I went to town and picked up our marriage license. I will never live that down as Warren always said that I was so anxious to get married that I even went and got the marriage license.

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OUR WEDDING DAY

Finally on Sunday, August 22, 1948 at about 2:30 in the afternoon at the house of my parents Warren and I were married. We went to Jonesboro for the wedding night, then on to his parents house near Blytheville, Arkansas the next day. His brother Wilber had came from near Chicago to be Warren’s best man. Patsy Wells, my cousin was my only bridesmaid. That was the only attendants we had in a very simple and plain wedding. The week after we were married we made a trip to Illinois to bring Wilber back home and stayed about 4 or 5 days. That was our glorious honeymoon. We visited Warren’s brother Wayne and his wife Joyce, we went to Riverview Park and had our picture made sitting on the moon. Some ladies from the Bible Faith Church in Des Plaines gave me a bridal shower, all of which was needed and much appreciated. When we got back home the members of the church gave us another shower.

When School started again in September, I was in the 12^th grade. Warren had hoped I could get my credits transferred to his school and we could go the year together. I really didn’t want to change, so Warren didn’t start back to school but instead was hired by the Delaplaine School District to drive the school bus that year. So he drove the bus and continued to preach at Sanders Church. Warren and I were living with my Mom and Dad for that year. Edna and Charles had another baby on September 16, 1948 which they named David Bruce Morgan.

On November 20^th 1948, my Uncle Noah was killed in Bakersfield, California. Aunt Esther lived in Fresno so she was the one notified when his body was found. She took care of funeral arrangements and he was buried in a cemetery at Kingsburg, near Fresno. None of the brothers or sisters living in Arkansas was able to attend the funeral. The person or persons who murdered him were never found.

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A FAMILY GROWS

I continued to go to high school and Warren drove the school bus and preached at Sanders. For Christmas that year the people of the church gave Warren money for a new suit. The few times that we could get off from the church and my school, Warren and I were making trips to Blytheville to visit with his parents. On January 15, 1949, Warren’s brother Richard was married to Lois Franzen in the Bible Faith Church in Des Plaines, Illinois and on April 17, 1949 his sister Narma was married to Troy Poplin in the Armorel Church and Warren conducted the wedding ceremony. On May 13, 1949, I graduated from High School at Delaplaine. Warren sat on the stage with the graduation class, superintendent and guest speaker. He said the closing prayer and marched out with the class. I sure was happy that day. Not only to be graduating but that Warren got to be with our class. By this time I was already expecting a baby. Warren had just two or three weeks before resigned as pastor of the Sanders Church and had accepted a call from a church near Bassett, in Mississippi County. The church at Sanders then called C. L. Lindsey for their new pastor. He was married to Vivian Bennett, who I had grown up with. They had a couple of small children. After C. L. Lindsey left Sanders Church, Rev. Bennie Gates became the pastor there. After a few years the church was abandoned as the building was sold and torn down.

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THE ALSUP FAMILY

Here I am going to use some space to tell about Warren’s family. He was born James Warren Alsup on December 31, 1923, near Hayti, Missouri in Pemiscot County. He was the second child to live that was born to Levi Jackson Alsup and his wife Edna Louisa Beaury. The first child was a still born son, then came Wilber Jackson, born May 29, 1922; then came James Warren. Next came Jesse Wayne, born August 3, 1925; Next Richard Earl, born February 2, 1927. Warren’s father was a farmer, They were hard working people just like my parents. In the spring of 1929, Jack Alsup moved his family to a farm at Etowah, Arkansas. On May 20, of that year the long awaited girl was born. She was named Edith Juanita. However she only lived about a year before she died on June 1, 1930. On December 17, 1930, Edna and Jack had another daughter which they named Narma Jacqueline. After came another daughter Margaret Louise on December 28, 1932, then Eva Marie on August 19, 1934, then Luella Ann on February 21, 1936. And lastly another son Ernest Monroe was born on February 20, 1938. All these children were born in a farm house at Etowah, Arkansas. Jack had worked for Mrs. Gurley, then got a job working for Bob Wilmouth tending animals and working at the cotton gin. In the spring after Ernest was born Jack took his family and moved to a farm near Blytheville, at Promise Land. When Warren and Wilber came back from the CCC camps at Pierce, Idaho, the camps were changed into Army camps as the World War 2 had already begun. On September 1, 1942, Wilber was drafted into the military service and was sent over seas. He served in Italy, Sicily and North Africa. His draft registration card said he was 70 inches high and weighed 139 pounds. Having spent the time away from home in Pierce, Idaho, this was their first time away from home. Now Wilber was really away from home and was missed by his family, not knowing if he would ever return. During the war Warren was called twice for the service and sent to Little Rock for physical examination. Both times he was turned down because he had a hernia.

Once when Warren was a boy living at Etowah he was sent to the pastor to get their cow which had been staked out with a rope. He had the rope on the cow and she started running away. He tried to wrap the rope around a stump to stop her, in the process pulling him into the stump and breaking his leg. In the year of 1939, when Warren was 16 or 17 years old he was rushed to the hospital at Blytheville, Arkansas with a ruptured appendix. He almost didn’t live for by the time he arrived at the hospital he was critical, his appendix had ruptured with gan green infection. His doctor was Dr. Mahan. After spending about 20 days in the hospital he was able to come home in a very weakened condition. In May of 1944, Warren again went to the hospital at Blytheville and had a hernia operation. His doctor was Dr. Heubner. This operation wasn’t a success and in a matter of months Warren could tell that the hernia had returned even worse. Warren always blamed himself but later on when he was operated on in 1956, the doctor told him it was not his fault, but a poor job by the surgeon. Sometime after Wayne and Joyce had married in 1944 and moved to Des Plaines, Illinois. Wilber got out of service in May or October 1945, so Warren and Wilber went north to find work, but they soon returned and both started to Southern Baptist College in 1946. Wilber quit after one year and returned to Park Ridge, Illinois to live. At this time Richard went with him. It was while Warren was attending college that the church at Sanders was started in 1947. The church called Warren as their pastor and he was Officially Ordained as Minister of the Gospel on May 26, 1948.

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OUR MOVE TO BASSETT

On January 15, 1949, Warren’s brother Richard was married to Lois Franzen in the Bible Faith Church in Des Plaines, Illinois. And on April 17, 1949, Warren’s sister Narma was married to Troy Earl Poplin in the Armorel Church with Warren conducting the ceremony. On May 13, 1949, I graduated from Delaplaine High School. The day after I graduated from high school, Warren and I loaded all our belongings and moved to Bassett, Arkansas, where he had been called to pastor a church at Wardell, Arkansas, out a little ways from Bassett. We moved into a big old house with about 10 rooms. Our little bit of furniture occupied 3 rooms with the rest of the house vacant. There was hay stored in some of the rooms. And I suppose plenty of snakes lived there with us. It was my first time of being away from home and in this big old house, needless to say these weren’t happy ones. I was still having morning sickness and just didn’t feel well in the heat and humidity. Not long after Warren and I moved to Bassett, his Grandmother Beaury died suddenly at Warren’s parents house out by Armorel, near Blytheville. Warren and I just happened to go to their house in the afternoon after she had died on May 24, 1949. She was buried in the Dogwood Cemetery near Blytheville, Arkansas.

Not long after Warren and I moved to Bassett and got settled, Warren started taking me to see OB Doctor Finis Taylor with his office located in the Baptist Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Warren did not stay long at the Wardell Church as I was so scared and unhappy, so in November he resigned and we moved our furniture to his parent’s home. There we stayed until the time for our baby to be born. Then Warren took me to Memphis to stay with some friends, Mr. and Mrs. Billy Walker as they lived near the hospital.

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MICHAEL ARRIVES

On December 13, 1949, our little son, Michael Warren Alsup was born in the Baptist Hospital in Memphis. He was a big boy weighing 10 lbs even at birth. He was the prettiest baby I had even laid my eyes on and Warren was sure a proud Dad too. After I got out of the hospital we spent one night with his Uncle Joe and Aunt Gladys Alsup. The next day we went back to Mom and Dad’s house and stayed there until Christmas.

Richard was drifted into the Military Service and left while Lois was expecting their first baby. When their baby girl, Mary Lois Alsup was born on December 27, 1949, Richard was discharged from the service because of the sickness Lois had developed upon the birth of their child.

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FROM ARKANSAS TO ILLINOIS

Warren, Michael and I stayed with his parents until the early part of February, 1950, when Warren decided to go to Illinois where his brothers, Wilber, Wayne and Richard were living to see if he could find work. The salary he had been getting from the little churches, he could not possibly support a wife and family. So in February, 1950, Warren went to Palatine, Illinois to find work. Right away he found a job working for a sewer contractor by the name of Charley Osborn, the same place where Wilber and Wayne were employed. In about two weeks, Warren came back to Arkansas, along with Wilber’s truck and got our few belongings and got me and Michael and we moved to Illinois on March 5, 1950. Warren had found us a 2 room apartment upstairs from Wayne and Joyce. This was in a big old yellow farm house right on Northwest Highway, Palatine, Illinois.

Narma had her first baby born at Armorel, Arkansas, a girl born April 26, 1950 which she named Anita Diane Poplin. Troy went to Illinois and stayed with Wayne and Joyce, making trips back and forth to see his family. After the birth of her second baby, Christine, Narma and Troy moved from Arkansas to Des Plaines and lived in Wilber’s little trailer parked in Mr. Gabriel’s back yard. They soon bought their own trailer and moved to a trailer park on River Road, south of Des Plaines.

Wayne and Joyce had a son David Wayne Alsup, born in June of 1950. After school was out Margaret and Eva came to Illinois and spent a week with all of us. When we went back home later on during the summer Noie and Annie came home with us and spent a week. On July 17, 1950 Charles and Edna Morgan had a baby girl Judy Alma Morgan born in a clinic at Walnut Ridge, Arkansas. On July 29, 1950 Juanita and Ralph Thomas had a son, Craig Morgan Thomas, born in Red Bud, Illinois. In October of 1950, Warren found us a house in Des Plaines on Ballard Road, owned by an old mean lady by the name of Mrs. Mueller. Places to live were hard to find so we were happy just to have the house.

Dad and Mom lived in Arkansas and Dad farmed there until the last of the year. So after the crops were laid by, Dad decided to move his family to Illinois and find work. So on December 18^th we made ready to go to Arkansas to help them move. We took our car with a trailer and Wilber took his truck. After we got there we went to Blytheville for a visit with his Mom and Dad. Then Wilber and Warren helped Dad move some of their stuff down to Aunt Grace and Uncle Bill Caradine’s house near Egypt, Arkansas to be stored on their back porch, until arrangements could be made to return for it. In this stuff was my Mom’s dear old green cabinet that Dad had built for her years ago. I never did know just what happened to it as I don’t ever remember seeing it again. So it was that on December 24^th Mom, Dad, Annie, Noie and Bonnie left Arkansas never to live there again. Dad was driving his car. Warren and I were in our car with a trailer loaded, and Wilber had his truck loaded. By the time we got to Coulterville, Illinois and reaching Juanita’s house, we ran into a blizzard. Wilber decided he would try to make it on to Des Plaines. We stopped at Juanita and Ralph’s house and spent the night and Christmas day, then headed on the rest of the way. Dad and Mom and girls moved in with us until they could find a place to live. When we got there and unloaded Mom’s things, all her canned fruit and vegetables she had brought along was frozen and busted open.

Dad got a job working at Wilbert Vault Factory and Mom got a job working at Pallet Devices, a box factory. Some time later Dad found a house in Long Grove and moved his family there. Charles farmed one more year in Arkansas then on March 24, 1951, Charles, Edna and Family moved from Randolph County, Arkansas and moved to Long Grove, living in a house, belonging to a family named Rodawald. This was near where Mom and Dad now lived. Charles got a job working at the United Motor Coach Bus Company.

On April 1, 1951, when Michael was 14 months old, Warren, Michael and I moved to Palatine and lived in a little house on Ela Road renting from an another mean old woman by the name of Mrs. Christine Deninger. The place had been converted into two apartments and had once been a chicken house. Warren and Wilber had to do a lot of work on it even before we could live in it. Soon Warren, Wilber and Wayne got enough money together to buy a Ford tractor and equipment and went into business together. They called themselves Alsup Brothers Sewer Construction. We later found that it was not a good idea to use your name on any of your businesses.

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OUR SON PHIL IS BORN

It was while we lived at Palatine, our second child was born on April 25, 1951 in St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, Illinois, a little son we named James Philip Alsup. Before Phil was born I had some kind of kidney trouble, toxemia, and spent 4 or 5 days in the St. Francis Hospital in Evanston. Old lady Deninger was so mean and kept promising to fix the house, so we decided to move as soon a possible. While living there, the sewer flooded our house and I lost a lot of my books of notes and my first few years of my diaries. My pictures and school diplomas were also wet and some of the pictures were lost but my diplomas were saved.

On July 23, 1952, when Phil was a few months old, Warren and I had a chance to rent an apartment in Des Plaines in one side of a house owned by Glen and Georgia Gabriel. This house was also on 9600 Ballard Road, near the house we had lived in before. The Gabriel’s were good people and treated us just like we were their own children. They liked us and we loved them right back. When Phil was about 3 months old, Warren’s grandmother Sidney Alsup died at Hayti, Missouri on June 28^th. Warren and I, Richard and family made the trip back there to her funeral. She was buried on the hottest day I had ever heard of in Arkansas or Missouri. It was above 110 degrees and the cars made tire tracks in the hot asphalt roads. She was buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery at Hayti, beside her husband Elijah.

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MAKE ROOM FOR MORE

After Warren, Wayne and Wilber went into business together for a few years, things just didn’t seem to be working out for them, so Warren managed to buy out Wayne and Wilber’s share of the business and started in business alone as W. Alsup Sewer Construction. Warren and I still lived in the part of the house where Mr. and Mr. Glen Gabriel lived. After Margaret and Eva graduated from high school at Blytheville, Arkansas in June of 1952, they both started to work in a dime store in Blytheville. Then on December 1, 1952, Eva was married to James Leonard Bowling and on April 5, 1953, Margaret came to Illinois to find work. For awhile she lived with me and Warren until Luella also came to Illinois and they got themselves an apartment together, along with James Bowling’s sister Joyce. On July 8^th, Troy and Narma got themselves a new trailer and moved into Pleasant Trailer Park, on River Road, south of Des Plaines.

For several months now Dad had not been well, but Mom couldn’t get him to so to see a doctor. Dad bought himself a new car, and had a clause in the contract if he died the car would be paid for. Annie had started working in a café in Des Plaines. There she met a man by the name of George Janetzke and they were married September 10, 1952, at Libertyville, Illinois in the Minister’s home. On June 10, 1953, Charles and Edna had a baby son, Dennis Henry Morgan born in a hospital in Elmhurst, Illinois. On Friday July 3, 1953, Mom, Dad and girls Noie and Bonnie went with Charles and family and helped Charles and Edna move back to Arkansas. Warren and I went too and went to Blytheville to see his folks. After we moved to Des Plaines, Warren put some pump pipes into the ground with cement and made the boys a swing. The last time I passed that way, the pipes were still there, rooted deep into the cement. On December 18^th Warren traded in our old Studebaker car for a new 1953 Ford Car. For Christmas in 1953, Warren surprised me with a new clothes dryer, the first one I ever owned. Annie and George moved to Chicago and Annie was now expecting her first baby.

The year of 1954 dawned cold and crisp and we were living on Ballard Road and Warren was working in the Sewer Business. The first part of January, Warren took an extra job working nights at Benjamin Electric in Des Plaines, to make ends meet for his still growing family. On February 6, Mom sent Warren to Arkansas after Charles and they stopped on the way back and picked up Juanita. On February 8, 1954, our life was shattered as my Dear Dad went to a hospital in Evanston, Illinois, then on February 17^th, discovered he had inoperable cancer and it was already spread. Then the next day on February 18, Annie and George had their baby boy, George William Janetzke. On March 7, 1954, Warren and Charles left for Arkansas to get Edna and his family and move back to Long Grove, Illinois. Once again Charles got his job back working for the United Motor Coach Bus Company.

As soon as Dad was able I started taking him each day to the Cook County Hospital for cobalt treatments. For about 6 weeks, each day, I took Michael and Philip and left early in the morning driving him for his treatments, sometimes getting back a little after noon, other days later than that. After awhile Dad got to a point that he was not able to go in without help so Charles missed work and took him for a week. Charles asked the doctor if the treatments were helping and when the doctor said no, Charles said he didn’t intend to put him through that torture any longer. After Mom discovered Dad had cancer, Noie quit school and got a drivers permit for her drivers license, so she could take Mom back and forth to work. So after she had completed 11 ½ years of school, she got a job working at Pallet Devices where Mom worked. My Dad died on June 4, 1954 at his home in Long Grove, Illinois and Mom had his taken to Coulterville, where my sister Juanita Thomas lived and buried in the cemetery there.

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ANOTHER SON STEPHEN DALE

On Easter Sunday, April 18, 1954, a group of Christians got together and rented a building in Mount Prospect, Illinois and started up a Baptist Church. Warren was called as the Pastor. Since they would pay so little amount of money, he would have to continue with his job. On May 5, 1954, Warren bought some material from Laugerhausen Lumber Company and built himself a pulpit for the church. I never knew what finally became of it as it was used as long as Warren was the pastor. We had our third child, a little boy which we named Stephen Dale Alsup, on September 7^th. He was born in the Resurrection Hospital in Chicago. On October 21, 1954, Juanita and Ralph Thomas had twin sons, Larry Paul Thomas and Jerry Keith Thomas, born in Red Bud, Illinois. For Christmas this year Warren bought us a movie camera and projector. The building the church was using was sold in Mount Prospect and the church managed to get a building in Des Plaines known as the Masonic Temple Building on December 26, 1954.

On January 6, 1955, after Dad died Mom bought a mobile home and moved to Des Plaines, into Rand Road trailer park. In February Eva had another baby, James Leonard, Jr. Soon afterward Warren, the boys and I went to Arkansas to visit and bring his Mother Edna back home with us so she could attend Luella’s wedding to Bob Ballou. They were married on February 13, 1955 in the Masonic Temple Building, with Warren conducting the ceremony. On March 31^st the church lost their lease on the Masonic Temple building, then they started having church at our house until they could find another place to hold services. On April 5, 1955, Warren sold his tractor and equipment to Eddie Corra and started working for him. On June 5, 1955 Warren conducted a marriage ceremony for Margaret and Lehman Shea in the back yard of Mr. Gabriel’s house under some huge big willow trees. Grandpa and Grandma Alsup rented out their house in Blytheville and moved to Des Plaines on June 19^th, 1955 and moved to Des Plaines. Grandpa Jack got a job working at Benjamin Electric in Des Plaines. Finally on June 22^nd the church was able to rent a building on Ellenwood Street located upstairs over an old fish market. It then officially became known as the “First Baptist Church of Des Plaines”. On August 26, 1955 Charles and Edna had another daughter born in Elmhurst, Illinois and they name her Cathy Ann Morgan. When school started in September, Michael was enrolled in kindergarten in the North School on Rand Road in Des Plaines. This was a very proud and happy day for me to see him going off to school looking as nice and sweet. On Christmas Day we spent part of the day with Warren’s Mother and Dad. Some of the others were there with their families so there was quiet a house full. We all had a good day.

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WARREN’S SURGERY

As the year 1956 begins Warren and I and our little family are still living in our apartment in the house of the Gabriel Family. They had been so good to us just as if we were part of their own children. Warren had been doing heavy work for years now and was now badly in need of another hernia operation. So in the slow months while work is slow he decided to have another operation. So on the third of February, 1956 he entered Resurrection hospital to have a hernia operation. The surgeon was Dr. Martin Fahey. He was the doctor who told Warren if his first surgery had been done correctly, it would have never come back. On February 2, 1956, Annie and George had their 2^nd child, a girl born in Chicago, Illinois, which they name Gayle Ann Janetzke. On March 30, Stephen came down with measles and mumps at the same time.

On March 17, 1956, my sister Noie got married to William August “Bill” Hahnfeldt and this left Mom with only Bonnie at home with her. Mom still worked at Pallet Devices, but now she was having to walk back and forth to work.

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AND THEN CAME JOHN

Then on April 3^rd, exactly 2 months after Warren’s surgery, we had our 4^th baby, a son which we named John Edward Alsup. He also was born in the Resurrection Hospital in Chicago. Warren had been out of work since his surgery and we were just skimping along until he was able to work again. On June 3, John got very sick with dehydration and had to be put in the St. Francis Hospital in Evanston. While John was in the hospital Michael and Phil came down with the measles. Dr. Horst gave Steve a gammagoblin shot to keep him from taking them, also John a shot in the hospital. Finally Warren was able to go back to work but on July 19^th Warren got laid off from his job working for Eddie Corra Plumbing and Sewer Company. Now what to do? So on July 24, Warren bought another tractor from Beer Motors and once again went into the sewer constructions business. On August 31, Margaret ran into our mail box and broke it down, so Warren went to Sears and bought us a big mail box. We had been assigned a street number, now we lived at 9600 Ballard Road, without having even moved. When we started Michael to school on September 4, he again went to the North School in Des Plaines and he was in 1^st grade. On October 15, Warren bought some sand and made the boys a sandbox. Sometime during the last part of the year Michael was baptized in the First Baptist Church of Des Plaines. Since they had no baptistery, the church used the baptistery in the First Baptist Church in Elgin. On December 6, 1956, Charles and Edna had a baby girl which they named Linda Fay Morgan. She was born in a hospital in Elmhurst, Illinois. On December 12, 1956, I bought Warren a mantel clock from Richart’s Jewelry Store as a Christmas present.

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OUR MOVE TO ARLINGTON HEIGHTS

On March 14, 1957, Mr. Gabriel had been looking at another house out near Cary, Illinois. This left Warren and I without a place to live. Mr. Gabriel said he had a brother who lived in Arlington Heights by the name of Wilfred F. “Bill” Gabriel who had a house on 2 acres of land the he was trying to sell. Warren and I had so far never owned a house so in April Warren managed to get $1,000.00 to pay down on the house with a promise to pay another $1,000.00 in 30 days and we bought the house. This house was at 2012 N. Chestnut, Arlington Heights, Illinois. As there was another family now living in the house and Michael was in school at Des Plaines we still stayed at the house in Des Plaines until school was out. In the 30 days as promised Warren had the other money for Mr. Gabriel. Finally at the end of June we moved to Arlington Heights, along with our now four sons. Warren and I had an acre of land in the back of our house we started a garden there. Warren continued to pastor the church in Des Plaines and to work for himself on sewer construction. On May 12, 1958 Annie and George Janetzke had a baby boy which they names James Richard Janetzke. After we got moved in Warren started to fix up something that needed to be done on the house and yard. When school started in September Michael started to school in the 2^nd grade at Wilson Elementary School on Palatine road not to far away from our house. This Christmas we spent the day with Warren’s parents Jack and Edna Alsup in Des Plaines. After much pleading from Mom with Bonnie not to quit school, she quit school at the end of December after finishing 11 ½ years of school.

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HEARTBREAK

As the New Year started in 1958, all seemed well with us living in our first home. Warren and I had decided that God did not intend us to have a girl so we were content with our four boys. Michael was attending school. Warren was still doing sewer construction. On January 1, 1958, my sister Bonnie got married to Lincoln Haynes, so this left Mom completely alone. When spring came Warren was changing the driveway from one side of the property and we were making another garden. So on June 7^th one day after school was out a tragic accidentally occurred when Warren backed the tractor over Stephen killing him instantly. It was such a horrible thing to have happen. I have asked God why many times. Rev. Scott and his wife came from Arkansas and he conducted the funeral service and Stephen was buried in Memory Gardens Cemetery in Arlington Heights. On Sunday, June 15^th Warren resigned as pastor of the church. He never preached again. The church then called Rev. Charles Hampton as the 2^nd pastor of the Des Plaines Church. When school started on September 2, 1958 Michael and Phil started to Wilson Elementary School, with Michael in the 3^rd grade, and Phil in the first. Phil didn’t get to go to kindergarten as Wilson School didn’t have kindergarten. On December 1, 1958, Noie and Bill Hahnfeldt had a son which was named William Gustav Hahnfeldt. And on December 20, 1958, Bonnie and Lincoln Haynes had a baby girl and they named her Deborah Sue Haynes.

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RUTH, OUR LITTLE GIRL

On June 21, 1959, Annie and George had their 4^th child, a girl which was named Geni Lynn Janetzke, also born in Chicago, Illinois. On July 22, 1959, Warren and I finally had our long awaited baby daughter, Ruth Ann Alsup. She was born in the Resurrection Hospital and Dr. Levan delivered her, as he had delivered all the other boys, except Michael. While I was in the hospital Mom took off from work and came to our house to look after the children so Warren could work. On August 11, 1959, Charles decided to move Edna and his family from Long Grove back to Arkansas. Charles bought a place out from Pocahontas and moved Edna down there. On August 15, Phil and John were playing in the back fields and Phil made a home made bow and arrow, put an apple on John’s head and promptly shot him in the eye. The arrow just missed the eye ball and stuck into the lower part of his eye socket. John came running back with the arrow still stuck there, just flopping up and down with blood streaming down his face. My, that almost gave am a heart attack as I was afraid his eye was gone. The next week on August 23, 1959 Charles returned to Illinois and stayed with us for awhile, as Uncle Pat was then living with Mom and working. This year when school started, Michael was in 4^th grade and Phil was in 2^nd grade. On Sunday afternoon, November 29, Warren married Joy Gabriel and Matt Weinacht. While we were on our way to Cary to the wedding, Phil was sitting in the back seat of our old car, and he told me he pulled off a piece of the blue plastic seat cover and stuck it in his ear. We looked for it, and sometime later one afternoon as the sun was shining in the window, I could see the piece of blue plastic in his ear. I believe I had to take him to Dr. Horst to get it taken out. It was on December 1, when Charles was crossing the railroad tracks in Des Plaines as he got off from work, a passenger train hit his truck and completely demolished it. Charles was able to jump to safety just in time but did hurt his head on something, gravel, I think. On December 13, Michael turned 10 years old and we had a birthday party for him. Christmas day we spent at home, and Ernest and Melba came, and Charles was still there with us too. We had a good day.

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OUR SON JOSEPH ARRIVES

On January 1, 1960, Charles quit his job again at the bus company and returned to Arkansas, but on June 5, 1960 he had returned to Des Plaines, and started staying with Mom at Des Plaines, and got his job back working at the bus company. Things weren’t going so well for Warren in the sewer business so on June 10, 1960 Warren quit his business and got a job working as a bus driver for United Motor Coach in Des Plaines. On June 16, 1960 Noie and Bill Hahnfeldt had their 2^nd child, a girl which they name Anne Elizabeth Hahnfeldt. In July Charles returned to Arkansas to see his family and we let Michael go with him. When Michael returned he discovered he had chiggers on him and he cried. On September 6^th when school started, Michael was in the 5^th grade and Phil was in the 3^rd. On September 11, our little son Joseph Ray Alsup was born, and also on September 11, Bonnie and Lincoln Haynes had a son and they named him David Neil Haynes. Ruth got sick with roseolla and spent 4 days in a hospital in October. Dr. Horst said it was a type of measles but they didn’t break out. Christmas Day we spent the day at home and Mom was with us. On October 3, 1960 while living in Randolph County, Arkansas, Charles and Edna had their last child a girl which was name Janet Lynn Morgan.

On Saturday night February 18, 1961 Warren got painfully sick and didn’t know what was wrong with him. I called Charles as he was living with Mom and he came over right away and took Warren to Northwest Community Hospital. He discovered he had kidney stones. By Tuesday the stone had passed and he was able to come back home again. Soon Charles decided to go back to Arkansas and sell his place and moved his family back to Illinois, so on March 27, 1961 he went to Arkansas and they moved back to a house Charles bought them in Streamwood, Illinois. On Easter Sunday, April 2, 1961, we spent the day with Narma and Troy and family. All the rest of Warren’s family was there too and we all had a good day

For a good while now Mom had been having pains in her right hip and leg, so in July she spent a week in the hospital. After she got out of the hospital she went back to work, she had to walk to and from work, and she was still having trouble with her hip and leg. On August 19^th Joe also had to go to the hospital with bronchitis. Joe had been sickly since birth and kept getting sick almost every time he was taken out. He stayed in the hospital until August 23^rd. Mom was still trying to walk to work and live in her trailer. She found she just couldn’t keep on working. On August 25, 1961, she quit her job and sold her trailer to Annie and George and on September 10^th went to Coulterville, Illinois to live with Juanita. When school started on September 5^th, Michael started to 6^th grade in Miner Junior High. Phil was in 4^th grade and John started to kindergarten in Wilson School.

Things were going along pretty much the same for us. Warren worked long hours at the bus company and I tended children and kept house. Grandpa and Grandma Alsup still had the house they owned in Blytheville rented out and Grandpa is still working at Benjamin Electric. This Christmas Warren and I and the children spent the day with his Mom and Dad at Des Plaines, Illinois.

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GROWING UP

On February 25, 1962, Bonnie and Lincoln Haynes had a baby girl and they named her Sherrie Elaine Haynes. On March 15, 1962, John came home from school with a high fever, and by the next day he had broken out with a bad case of measles. On April 1^st Warren had started a week vacation, and by the 4^th Ruth and Joseph were also sick and came down with the measles. Warren had to help me with the sick children. Then on Phil’s 10^th birthday, April 25, he was playing in the garage and threw a match into an empty gas can, causing it to explode and burned his face. On May 31, 1962 Joseph entered the hospital for hernia surgery. He got an infection and had to have 2 pints of blood and was put into isolation. He finally got to come home from the hospital on June 16, with a drainer still in his side. On July 23, 1962, I took the children to Hawthorne Melody Farm at Libertyville just for a day out with them. When school started again in September, Michael started 7^th grade in Miner Junior High. Phil and John started to Wilson School. Phil in the 5^th grade and John starting in first grade. On Christmas we ate a noon meal with Warren’s Mom and Dad, then went to Streamwood to Charles house as Mom was there too.

On May 14, 1963, Grandma Edna got a call from Benjamin Electric, where Grandpa Jack worked telling her he had been taken to the hospital as he had a stroke. After Grandpa got out of the hospital he was never able to work again. Grandma Alsup had been trying to get herself a drivers license as Grandpa could no longer drive. Finally I took her for her drivers test and she passed. Out last picture of Grandpa Alsup was taken at a 8^th grade graduation party for Mary held at Richard and Lois house in Prospect Heights. He was just barely able to stand up long enough to get his and Grandma picture made together standing in their back yard. Then on September 9, Grandpa Jack died after having a massive blood clot try to pass through his heart, following prostrate gland surgery.

When school started September 3, 1963, Michael started to 8^th grade and Phil in 6^th grade in Minor Junior High School. John was in 2^nd grade in Wilson Elementary. When school started on September 8, 1964, Michael started 9^th grade in Wheeling High School. Phil started to 7^th grade in Thomas Junior High and John in 3^rd grade and Ruth in kindergarten in Wilson Elementary School. On February 18, 1966, Noie and Bill Hahnfeldt had their third child, a girl which they name Amy Jean Hahnfeldt.

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SEPARATION OF FAMILY

On January 3, 1967, I took Michael to Dr. Hamilton, foot doctor for warts on the bottom of his foot. On January 25, Mom, Bonnie & children, Noie and Children, my children and I all went to Chicago to see Bozo’s Circus. On January 29, 1967, Mom went with Charles and Edna to Kensett, Arkansas to attend the funeral of our cousin Roy Wells. On March 5, we all give Charles and Edna Morgan a surprise 25^th Wedding Anniversary Party. On April 1, 1967, Phil got his collar bone broken at a wrestling match at Elk Grove High School. On April 16, 1967, Bonnie and Lincoln Haynes were married again in Chicago, Illinois. On April 27, Wilber had his lung removed with cancer. Grandma Alsup entered Holy Family Hospital on June 11, and didn’t get out until 81 days, on August 31^st. On July 1, 1967, David Morgan and Rose Ansel were married. On July 5, Bonnie and Lincoln Haynes moved to Wood Dale, Illinois. On July 18, Juanita came and moved Mom’s things back to her house from Bonnie’s house. On August 2, the boys and I went to Coulterville to visit Juanita and Ralph and Mom. On August 9, Mom, Juanita and Larry & Jerry, me and my children all went to Belleville to visit the “Way of the Cross Shrine of Our lady of the Snows”. On August 16, Noie, Bill and children went on vacation to South Dakota. When school started this year Michael and Phil were in 12^th and 9^th grade; John was in 6^th, Joe and Ruth were in 3^rd and 2^nd grades. On October 6, 1967, Michael got a new 1967 Dodge car. On December 17, 1967 George and Annie Janetzke and children and Mom left on a three week vacation in California. While in California, Mom went to visit Aunt Esther and her children. On March 31, 1968, John and Alan Gabriel set the fields on fire in back of our house. On April 15, 1968, I fell down the basement stairs and broke my foot. Mom came on a train on April 20^th to stay with me to help me out some while my foot was in a cast. On June 29^th John, Ruth Joseph and I took Mom back to Juanita’s house. And on September 3, school started, Phil in 10^th grade, John in 7^th grade, Ruth in 4^th and Joseph in 3^rd grade. On January 4, 1969, Mom came on a train to Chicago, Warren the children and I met her at the station. On February 22, 1969, John, Ruth, Joseph and I took Mom back to Juanita’s house at Coulterville.

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WEDDINGS AND GRANDCHILDREN

On January 11, 1970, Warren, the children and I went to Coulterville after Mom. On March 23, Noie and her children took Mom back to Coulterville. On April 12, 1972, Annie and George Janetzke went to court in Chicago and had their last name changed from Janetzke to Carey, his Mother’s maiden name. Phil got married to Margie Schweitzer, July 3, 1970. Michael moved away from home in August into an apartment with his cousin Mary. On August 31 school started and John was in 9^th grade in Hersey High School. Ruth was in 6^th grand in Rand, Jr. High and Joseph was in 5^th grade in Greenbrier Elementary School. Andrew Martin “Andy” Alsup was born Dec 17, 1970. Michael got married to Dianne Riverburgh on Aug 20, 1971. Phil got divorced April 1973. Kristie Michelle Alsup was born July 26, 1973.

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EXODUS TO COLORADO

On March 9, 1973, Warren and I got a new Oldsmobile Car. On March 26, 1973, I got a job working at Motorola. After school was out 1974, Ruth went down to Poplar Bluff to spend some time with her grandma Alsup. When Warren went back after her in August I was in the hospital, so he and Joseph went alone.

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PHIL MOVES TO COLORADO

On July 1, 1974, Phil left home heading for Colorado. On September 12, 1974 Phil came home riding his motorcycle with a girl Vick Ryan with him. On September 9, 1974, Michael and Dianne moved to California. I quit my job at Motorola on October 9, 1974. Phil got married to Vicki Ryan on 21 Oct 1975.

On January 1, 1975, Michael, Dianne and Kristie went to the Rose Parade in Pasadena, CA. In January Phil and Vicki moved to Larkspur, CO. And on February 8, John left going to Colorado to live with Phil. He soon came back home.

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MICHAEL MOVES TO COLORADO

On March 20, 1975, Michael and Dianne moved from California to Colorado. On June 27^th Warren, Ruth, Joseph and I, along with Edna Morgan all left hone going to visit out children in Colorado. It was the first time ever we had been in Colorado.

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JOHN MOVES TO COLORADO

On May 28, 1975, John left home again and moved to Colorado to live with Phil. On January 1, 1976, Ruth quit school and went to live with Phil and Vicki. John got married to Carol Beetem on 20 Nov 1976. Ryan James Alsup was born 23 Jan 1976.

On May 1, 1977, John and Carol moved back to Illinois. Michael Stephen Alsup was born 28 June 1977. On May 26, John and Carol packed a trailer and moved back to Colorado. On June 6, 1978, Ruth and Joseph graduated from Buffalo Grove High School. Joshua Philip Alsup was born July 3, 1977. On May 4, 1978, Michael and Dianne went back to Colorado to find a place to live. On June 24, they came back and sold their house and moved back to Colorado. On October 23, 1978, Katie Marie Alsup was born. Jason Edward Alsup was born 19 March 1979. On August 21, 1979 Bonnie married Ralph Jakovec in Deadwood, South Dakota. On August 31, 1979 Ruth took Joseph to Rockford to start to college.

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HOME AND FAREWELLS

On February 21, 1980, I entered Holy Family Hospital with chest pains and got out on February 29. On March 15, 1980, Warren and I took Mom back to Juanita’s house at Coulterville, then we went to St Louis to visit Grandma Alsup. On July 10, Michael and Dianne Came from Colorado to attend Ruth’s wedding. On July 12, 1980 Ruth married Alan Richardson. On August 16, 1980, Warren and I went to Colorado to visit our children. On September 15, 1980 Craig Morgan Thomas got killed in a coal mine cave in. On September 18, Warren and I and Charles went to Coulterville, Illinois to attend Craig’s funeral.

On October 6, 1980 Charles and Maureen Morgan had a son and they named him Charles William Jr. “Chip”. On January 19, 1981, Charles Morgan had surgery for an aneurysm in the aorta. On March 5, 1981, Ruth, Alan, Mom and I all went to Lake Zurich to a surprise 25^th wedding anniversary party for Noie and Bill. On May 15, 1981, Warren’s Mother, Edna Alsup died at St. Louis, Missouri. Benjamin Alan Richardson was born Aug 23, 1981, Evanston, Illinois.

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RUTH MOVES TO COLORADO

On October 23, 1981, Alan, Ruth and Ben Richardson left Illinois heading for Colorado to live. On Sunday April 18, 1982, all Mom’s children gave her a surprise 80^th birthday party. On April 24, Mom, Warren and I went on vacation to Colorado. On May 25, Mom and I went to Des Plaines and watched the Circus Train go by from Baraboo, Wisconsin.

Jesse Lee Alsup was born December 31, 1982, in Denver, Colorado. On May 15, 1983, Joseph graduated from Rockford College. On October 22, 1983 Warren got me my first computer, a Commodore. On July 11, 1984, Michael, Dianne and Children moved from Colorado to Arizona. Jacob John Alsup was born 22 March 1985, in Denver, Colorado. Sarah Ann Richardson was born September 26, 1986, Colorado Springs, Colorado.

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THE BUS COMPANY

Congratulations to driver Warren Alsup who recently celebrated 20 years of service with Nortran. Warren, a resident of Arlington Heights currently drives on Route 210-211. For a little background information on Warren we found excerpts from the Spring of 1961 edition of the Uniter: “Warren Alsup, who formerly lived in Blytheville, Arkansas, has been with the company since June 1960. In Arkansas he worked on the farm raising cotton and corn. After he left farming, he did mechanical work for two and a half years”. Warren always has a very warm and friendly greeting for everyone and is always willing to do “that little extra” which helps in a big way to keep the operations running smoothly. Best Wishes to Warren on his anniversary. (1980)

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Local 1028, Des Plaines, Illinois, Undated, by Charles Morgan (ca 1981)

Although we have been working very hard to be accepted for the past three years by our Mass Transit District, now that it had happened I must admit that I smile with a heavy heart. We have fought for so long to keep our company going that it is hard to quit even though it is for the good of all.

Many years ago the Manuel family owned and operated a livery stable in the center of Des Plaines. They were a large and friendly family. This company evolved into United Motor Coach. A large portion of this company had recently been taken over by a Mass Transit District. I am sure if there is ever a Bussman’s Hall of Fame it will start out with Leonard Manuel. Near the top of the list will be other great old timers such as Elmer Schumann, Larry Michaels, Art Dody, Herb Shimp, Warren Garland, and the list could go on forever through many more retirees who have built a great company. I only hope that I have added my small portion and someday someone will say Charlie Morgan was a part of that company.

I wonder if the people of Des Plaines ever realize what a friend they had in United Motor Coach. I can remember years when we ran runs that didn’t pay for themselves but they hauled friends and that pleased the Manuel’s. Mass Transportation is needed desperately and it had to come or our city would grow stale. It is sad however, to see small companies lose their identity. Now we have opened a door to the future. Now contracts have been signed and new equipment has been ordered. Many old faces carry on and many new ones appear. May success follow in all our footsteps. (This was wrote when Charles Morgan retired)

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NORTRAN, ON SCHEDULE NEWS LETTER, 1987

PROFILE, Warren Alsup, Position: Driver, Years in Service, 28 years

The employee being featured in this issue had earned the distinction of being the only Nortran driver to be a recipient of the National Safety Council’s Million Mile Award for 1987. This special honor goes to only a small percentage of all drivers across the nation who have driven one million miles or 12 ½ years without a preventable accident. Warren Alsup, who began his career with United Motor Coach in 1960, has become the 19^th Nortran employee recognized for this achievement. In addition to the Million Mile Award, Warren was also named Employee of the Month in July, 1985 for his pleasant manner and excellent work record. For nearly 18 years, he has driven the 210 route and is well known by his riders. Joy Callahan, Training Instructor

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NORTRAN, ON SCHEDULE NEWS LETTER, Summer 1988

CLOSEUP, 1 Million mile driver enjoys job

Twenty eight years after he first set behind the wheel of a bus, James Warren Alsup has passed the one million mile marker and expects to travel a few more miles before his careen reaches the end of the line. The 64 year old driver for the Des Plaines based Nortran Bus system recently received the prestigious Million Mile Driver Award from the National Safety Council, making him one of nine active Nortran operators to pilot a bus that distance during their careers.

A million miles is a staggering number, equal to nearly 336 trips from Boston to Los Angeles, and what makes the award even more impressive is the heavy emphasis on safety. Under the rules of the award, drivers are penalized for each preventable accident they have during their careers. If they have a preventable mishap, they must travel two accident-free years to erase the mark, Nortran spokeswoman Tina Wright said. Alsup has had no serious accidents during his 28 years behind the wheel for Nortran and has had only two or three minor preventable accidents, Wright said. And he has achieved that record while driving much of his career on Nortran’s lengthy Route 210, which takes him from Glenview into the Chicago Loop and back.

“I’ve been pretty lucky,” the Arlington Heights resident said. “I’ve never put a lot into awards, but this one is something I can look back on and show my kids and grandkids. He now spends about 134 miles a day behind the wheel in traffic, which has became more congested with the booming growth of the Northwest suburbs. However, Alsup said bus driving hasn’t changed a lot in 28 years, and added that he still enjoys driving and heartily recommends the job to his children. Written by Pete Nenni.

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The Bus

Oh! Lord, I pray that I may live;

To drive a bus until my dying day,

I’ve drove so many miles on earth;

With not much time away.

And when I reach the other shore;

My loved ones will be waiting there for me,

A brand new bus arrives and then someone;

Comes forth and hands me a shiny key.

Then when the saints comes marching in;

And all are seated just so-so,

I’ll take my seat and turn the key;

And down the road we’ll go.

When all my deeds are brought to light;

What I have sown, so shall I reap,

And when I stand before my God;

Then may I be judged good enough to keep.

And as I stand before the throne;

And my God says to me,

Welcome home my dear and faithful son;

You may keep that bright and shiny key.

Reba R. Alsup

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THE RETIREMENT

When Warren and I first bought our house on 2012 North Chestnut in Arlington Heights it was mostly open fields and old houses. Most everyone there had 2 acres of land 100 foot wide and about 600 foot long. Over the years almost all the land around there had been used to build more expensive homes as Arlington Heights was close enough to the Chicago Commuter rail lines, so that people who lived there could easily commute to work into Chicago each day. The land was being divided into 4 lots for homes that were much bigger and expensive and brought in much more tax revenues. Our real estate taxes, which one time was no more than 3 hundred dollars per year, shot up to more than 12 hundred a year. This was done to make the older land owners sell so the land could be divided into extra lots. We had raised our family there but by 1987 we had began to get offers to sell our place. Warren was trying to work until his retirement at the end of 1988 and was struggling with his diabetes to stay on the pill, as it was illegal to drive a bus if you were on insulin. Gregg Stye had been trying to buy our house but Warren kept saying no, as he needed to stay there until he could retire and get his Social Security. Finally after Mr. Stye agreed that he would buy our property and let us stay rent free until Warren retired, Mr. Stye gave us $1,000.00 dollars as a security deposit on June 9, 1987, and on September 14, 1987 we sold our home to Mr. and Mrs. Gregg Stye for $145,000.00 dollars. On September 24, we sent some money to Phil to pay down on us a lot located at 18180 Briarhaven Court, Monument, Colorado. We chose Monument because it was half way from where John and Carol lived in Castle Rock and Colorado Springs where Ruth and Alan then lived.

Warren had been needing another hernia surgery and had just kept working and putting it off, so on September 29, he entered Holy Family Hospital to have the surgery, with an associate of Dr. Fahey doing the surgery. This doctor, I forgot his name, was going to put Warren on insulin, and I tried to explain to him if Warren went on insulin he would loose his job. He said to me, “If he doesn’t go on insulin he will be a dead man with 2 pennies in his pocket.” Warren was already prepped to have his surgery. When he said that to me I got so mad I told him we didn’t need anyone like him to operate on Warren. He walked out and Warren spent the night in the hospital, the next day Dr. Martin Fahey operated on Warren and on October 1, 1987 Warren came home from the hospital. We never saw that doctor again. I wish I could remember his name, I would let him know that Warren had more than 2 pennies when he died.

On October 27, 1987, Phil got the building permits and started building our new house. Warren kept working at the bus company trying to keep his job until he could retire. Finally near the time he retired he did have to go on insulin, but did not tell the bus company. One day one of the supervisors asked him and Warren told them, “Don’t ask me anything like that”, and he said ok, I won’t ask. They knew but as he only had 2 or 3 more months to go, they never caused him any trouble. On November 6, 1987, Warren bought an enclosed trailer from Lowell Webb in Palatine, Illinois for 1,800.00 to be used in our move to Colorado.

On June 1, 1988, Warren and I went to his Million Mile Safety Award Presentation, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, along with several others who were getting awards, then all had dinner, sponsored by the bus company. Warren was very uncomfortable and didn’t even want to stay, but we did.

Mom had cataracts on both of her eyes and we were trying to get them done before Warren and I moved. So on August 17, I took Mom to Holy Family Hospital to have the cataract removed from her left eye, with Dr. John Winkler doing the surgery. And again on September 28, 1988, she had surgery on the right eye. Both operations were successful. On November 29, Noie, Bonnie and I took Mom to Lincoln, Illinois and Juanita met us there and took Mom on back home with her.

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OUR MOVE TO COLORADO

December 9, 1988, Warrens last day of work as he had 6 weeks of paid vacation due him. Phil, Vicki and Katie, John, Carol & Jacob all came with trailers to help us move. We packed and left our home in Arlington Heights forever and left on December 11, heading for Colorado. It was a sad thing to me to be leaving our old house we had lived in for so many years, and I often dream I am back there again in the old house doing washings in the basement and getting children off to school. Where did all those years go so fast? When we pulled out of the driveway for the last time we looked like a caravan, with Warren and I in our truck pulling the trailer. John, Carol and Jacob was in John’s truck pulling a trailer John had brought with him, Phil and Vicki and Katie in their truck pulling a trailer with Warren’s little garden tractor on it, and Joe coming along in the old black car, with Max the dog, pulling the old red cement mixer. When we finally arrived in Monument on the 12, Ruth was standing in front of our new house waving and smiling as we drove up.

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JOSEPH MOVES TO COLORADO

Joseph moved into the little back house on July 1, 1983. In our deal with the man who bought our place, in 1988, Joseph could continue to live there rent free until the house was torn down. After we moved to Colorado he lived there until he had to move as the old house was to be torn down. So on September 13, 1990, Joseph bought a house in Wauconda, Illinois. On May 21, 1995 Joseph graduated from Roosevelt University, Chicago, Illinois. And on October 14, 1995, Joseph put his house in the hands of a realtor to sell for him and moved to Monument, Colorado with his 2 dogs Hannah and George. He had only been in Colorado for a month before his Grandma Mae Morgan died in Sparta, Illinois on November 9, 1995.

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Somewhere In The Sands of Time

Somewhere in life’s tomorrow, someone waits for me;

It may not be tomorrow or when ever the time may be.

I know not what path awaits me, or how soon that may be;

But in life’s tomorrow, someone waits for me.

So now I live alone in memories, of what used to be;

Yet, I know in life’s tomorrow, someone waits for me.

Reba Rae Alsup

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TIME

The earth on its axes in space, keeps rotating by,

Day turns to night and night turns to day;

The sun and the stars keep the time of our life,

And we follow the paths as our life drifts away.

Oh! Could we but just turn back the hands of time,

Do some things in our life over, no time to delay;

But the seasons keep turning, and years flying by,

As season on season our life drifts away.

Oh! Time in your flight, could you just slow down,

As our many tomorrows have all passed away;

Make time just stand still for even an hour,

Keep holding my memories of my love today.

Reba Rae Alsup

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Walk Through A Storm And See A Rainbow

When you are old and gray, before they put you on the shelf;

Sit down at your computer, and make of fool out of yourself.

Tell of all the things that you have done, now make it very nice;

Write of some things you didn’t do, just to add some spice.

Tell of the day that you were born, as if you really know;

Go on about how cute and sweet you were, and how they loved you so.

Talk of the wonder and awe you caused the world, you really cast a spell;

As only three days after you were born, the great stock market fell.

Mention the days you worked in cotton fields, when you were very young;

Of long by gone days of your youth, the sad songs you could have sung.

Now that’s not true I have to say, as my youth was happy and gay;

No one can say it was all that hard, as we still had time to play.

Tell of the time you first saw him as down the road he came;

You knew at once that very day, your life would never be the same.

Speak of the day that you were wed, from memories deep within your heart;

Two happy souls were fused as one, never more again on earth to part.

Write of memories of little children, my heart was filled with joy;

As one by one they were born to me, a boy, a boy, a boy, a boy.

Tell of the day life turned upside down, that awful tragic day;

When the death angel came down to earth, and took one son away.

Oh! God how did I endure the pain, thinking only of my selfish grief;

Not thinking how other loved ones felt, their sorrow beyond belief.

Dear God, what kind of sin did I commit, to be punished so severe;

Just tell me now oh speak to me, so that my heart may hear.

Then gradually the dark clouds rolled away, a time to heal life’s pain;

When God gave to me a little girl, to make me whole again.

And then one day to my surprise, God gave to me another little boy,

Never to replace my other son, but just to bring me joy.

Write about the happy years we had together, and the days of long ago;

My memories now is all that I have left, oh! how I loved him so.

Where did all the glory days go, as they have sped on by;

I never thought they would end so soon, and he would have to die.

Now in the sunset of my life, I am alone with memories to pass the time away;

Holding on to my long lost youth and life with him, until we shall meet some day.

Soon I once more shall stand by him, upon the other shore;

He’ll hold my hand and hug me tight, and we shall part no more.

To Warren, My Beloved, May you forever now rest in peace

Reba Rae Alsup

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ROMANCE

Warren had a girl friend, Ramona Huggins, that he wrote to when he was in the C.C.C in 1941, also a girlfriend named Inez. Then he had a girl friend named Verple Smith that he was in love with and wanted to marry her, but she was engaged another man named Ernest Walker. He was in the Military but she dated Warren anyway while he was gone, but when her boyfriend came home on furlough, she married him. I think Warren was heart broken over that. Warren still had her picture when he died. After Verple’s husband died she used to come over to Eva’s house to see us when we visited in Blytheville. She asked Eva is it was alright with me for her to come see us, and I told Eva I didn’t object at all. If she didn’t love Warren enough to marry him when he was young, she surely wouldn’t want him when he was old. She sent Warren a get well card when he was in the nursing home in 2002 and sent her condolences when Warren died. She was still a very beautiful lady and sold Avon to make ends meet after her husband died. Warren dated a girl from the Southern Baptist College while he was in school, but I forgot her name. I didn’t like her as she kept trying to take Warren away from me.

When I first started to high school I had a boy friend named Wayland Wheeler, nothing serious. He lived at O’kean. He went away to the Navy and that was the end of that. Briefly, I had a boy friend named Verlin Russom. He lived at Beech Grove and was a jerk. He had an old car with a leaky radiator and put mustard in it to try to stop the leaking. It sure did smell. Then, I had a good friend named Vernon Lacy. He was my best and longest boy friend except my lasting love of almost 59 years, Warren. Vernon was a nice young man and a gentleman. His Mother was a school teacher at Delaplaine and his Father was Ernest Lacy, one of my Mother’s old boy friends. Vernon lived up by Delaplaine and we went on dates with him driving his Dads car. Sometimes Vernon and I and Pat Kincade and her date J. C. Haynes used to double date. We had some good times those years. After Warren died Vernon and his wife Ellen sent their condolences to me through Pat (Kincade) McKinney. He asked Pat to express his and Ellen’s sympathy to me.

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LOVING MEMORIES

Your gentle face and patient smile, with sadness we recall;

You had a kindly word for each and died beloved by all,

The voice is mute and stilled the heart, that loved us well and true;

Ah, bitter was the trial to part, from one so good as you.

You are not forgotten loved one, nor will you ever be;

As long as life and memory last, we will remember thee,

We miss you now, our hearts are sore, as time goes by we miss you more;

Your loving smile your gentle face, no one can fill your vacant place.

Author Unknown

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MY LASTING LOVE

I remember the very first time I ever saw James Warren Alsup. He came walking down the road with his Bible in his hand. He was, along with some other Southern Baptist College students trying to get a Mission started in the old Sanders School House and Warren had been chosen to be the New Minister there. That was probably the first part of 1947, I can’t remember for sure. After I started dating Warren, those were some wonderful days. I remember all the good times we had there at Sanders, and all of us all piling into Warren’s old car after church services on Sunday nights and sometimes on Saturdays, and going to Pocahontas or Ravenden Springs. Sometimes it was just Warren and I, sometimes my cousin Patsy Wells and Bill Joe Carlton were with us, and sometimes it was Mary Jane White and James Bates, and sometimes all six of us. We would go to the café called “The Ravenous” at Pocahontas and have a soda or a root beer float. Warren didn’t like pop, so he usually had a cup of coffee or just water. Warren was shy and didn’t have very much to say while all the rest of us were talking up a storm. We didn’t have much money so that was usually the extent of what we bought. I remember the time we went up in the hills toward Ravenden Springs and got lost. Or, I guess we thought we were lost. Warren said there were some friends that he knew by the name Persiful, that lived somewhere up there and we would just go by and say hi. (In the middle of the night?). Sometimes Warren and I went to Current River Beach and sat in the gazebo or walked in the sand. My, those were wonderful days for Warren and I as we were so much in love. One day while we were at Current River Beach I lost my necklace with a heart on it that I got for my 16^th birthday. I was so proud of it and went and got my picture made with it around my neck. Where did all those good times go? I remember how we would all go park in the cemetery? Everyone did. It was a good place to just go park and talk. We never caused any trouble being there. One night the police came by and ran us off. How about that? Warren had an old car, then it broke down, and his brother Richard got him another one. It didn’t have brakes working half the time and it’s a wonder that we didn’t all get killed. We used to go back and forth to Blytheville in it. One time Warren pulled into a gas station, and someone came out to help us. Warren needed some water, as the old radiator leaked. Warren asked for some water. The boy went back into the gas station and pretty soon came out with a galvanized water bucket and a dipper in it for us some drinking water. He didn’t know we needed it for the old car. Ha!!

Sometimes Warren didn’t get a chance to go home to Blytheville during the week as he was going to school, then he would bring his laundry over to our house and Mom and I would do his washing. He spent a lot of time at our house and would often eat Sunday dinner with us. Sometimes other boys from the college would be there on Sunday too. One of the boys had epilepsy and had seizures and we didn’t know about it. One day he was setting at the table and had a seizure and almost scared all of us to death. I think he had a bad seizure sometime soon after that and died.

When Warren and I were to get married, the War was going on and there was a three day waiting period to get a marriage license. So many girls were just marrying men who were leaving for war, just to get their allotment checks, so the government put a three day waiting period on getting a marriage license. Warren was fixing to leave to preach a two week revival at Sulphur Rock, so we went and signed up for our marriage license before he left and later after the waiting period, I went and picked the marriage license up. Warren used to tell people I wanted to get married so bad I went and bought the marriage license. We ordered our rings from the Alden Catalog. I wore my rings until the engagement ring wore into, and then when I took off the engagement ring, I lost the wedding band as it slipped off my finger. Somehow we also lost Warren’s ring, but we replaced them when we sold our house in 1988 and moved to Colorado. Warren also got a little garden tractor with part of the money and I got a new sewing machine. Seems now a long time ago but not to long ago either.

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LETTERS TO REBA

Blytheville, Ark.

July 28, 1948

Miss Reba Morgan

Walnut Ridge, Ark.

Rt. 1

Hello Darling,

A few lines this morning wondering how my sleepy head is doing? As for myself, I am doing pretty well. I just got up from the breakfast table, and I am full. I chopped cotton yesterday and will again today. I was planning on going back today, but can’t before tomorrow.

You know I am anxious to know what you found out about your credits. When I get back we can go talk to Mr. Lincoln. I hope everything will turn out ok.

I hope we can get married just as soon as the revival is over, if I get to hold it, or before then if I don’t.

Say have you seen the new Sears Roebuck? I saw one yesterday. There were a few things that looked pretty good, but nothing extra. I guess though they will look better than their pictures.

Well darling I guess I had better close and go to the field as the others have already gone. I see you Thursday night. So long for now. May God Bless You, I love you, Warren

Reba’s note: About my credits Warren wrote about, he wanted me to see if I could get my high school credits moved over to the college he went to and both of us go my last year of school there.

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Sulphur Rock, Ark.

August 11, 1948

Miss Reba Morgan

Walnut Ridge, Ark.

Rt. 1

Reba,

Hi sweety face. How is ever little thing? I guess you are feeling pretty bad about now. I wish I could be with you as I miss you so much. You know I keep thinking of Sunday that I get back, you will be mine forever, and I will be proud.

Well this is the second night of the meeting, no conversions yet. Had a good crowd though, but no so many lost people.

And darling, is this place cold. It sure is hard to preach here. Maybe it mostly me. I guess I haven’t get enough faith and to nervous, but I guess I know just about how things are going to turn out by Sunday. I hope we can have a good meeting here as they need one so bad. I also believe that some of these church members need to be saved. One of the members was in a card game this evening. He needs something and I hope the Lord deals with him.

Well I sure going to miss you back this week, but I want you all to be praying hard fore me, I need it.

James (Bates) went back today, he will be there Thursday night for prayer services. I look for him back some time Monday.

Well did you get your rings in today or yesterday? I hope so. Well I guess I will close. I will write again in a day or so. So be praying for me, so long for now. May God Bless. I love you.

Warren Alsup

PS: Send this other letter to Wilber as I don’t have his address.

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Sulphur Rock, Ark.

August 13, 1948

Miss Reba Morgan

Walnut Ridge, Ark.

Rt. 1

Reba,

Darling, a few lines this morning in answer to your letter and was I proud to get it. Sorry that you were so sick. I am sure though you are ok by now. As for myself I am doing ok, except for a cold. I have been bothered pretty bad with a cold. Well as yet we not doing so well in the meetings. We just had one to come and unite with the church, she had made a profession 2 years ago but just joined the church Wednesday night. There seem to be quite a bit of conviction last night. There was about 6 or 8 that raised their hands for prayer. Maybe things will brake in a night or two. I sure hope so.

I miss being with you all last night, but I know you all had a good prayer service and I’ll also miss you tonight.

I’m wondering if you have your rings yet? I hope so, and I’m guessing you have our license by now. I’ll be proud when I get back and we can get married. I guess just about all of them know the date by now. We should hear from Wilber before long whether he is coming home or not. I look for him and Richard both now, and if they do they will help the others ride me on a pole.

I hope Lucell is getting along ok. Well I guess I will have to close and get ready for church. I have to do a little studying. So long for now. May God Bless you. I miss you that little you ask me to. I love you, Warren

Reba’s Note: I can’t remember who the Lucell was that Warren mentioned

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Sulphur Rock. Ark.

August 16, 1948

Miss Reba Morgan

Walnut Ridge, Ark.

Rt. 1

Hello Darling,

A few lines this morning before church, hoping you are doing ok, and that I really miss you, but I will see you before long. I am hoping you got your rings. It won’t be long now until you will be mine forever and will I be proud.

Well Darling this meeting isn’t doing as well as it ought to. We have just had 4 additions to the church. Two were saved Saturday night and one last night, and one that was saved 2 years ago joined the church. I hope and pray that we can have a good meeting this week as this place sure needs one.

I guess you all had a good service yesterday. I sure did miss you all, but I had a pretty good day. They had a home coming day and we had dinner at the church and sang a few songs and Bro. Cox brought a good message about the true church. I preached at the morning service and the evening service.

Darling, I am going to have to close and study for a while. So long for now, see you soon and May God Bless you. You know, I believe I love you more each day. I’ll be glad when we are together. Loads of Love, Your Old Man, Warren

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On April 2, 2007, the day that my life ended as I knew it

Lord, Give me faith as I can’t see, the way ahead at all;

Grant me the faith to just trust thee, Don’t let my courage fall.

Give me faith and wisdom Lord, I know no other way;

I need your help, please come to me, Be with me night and day.

Oh, Lord my nights are full of fear, I dread the hours each day;

Alone, I live with my memories; Please take my fears away.

Reba Rae Alsup

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BEYOND THE SUNSET

Should you go first and I remain, to walk the road alone;

I’ll live in memory’s garden dear, with happy days we’ve known,

In spring I’ll wait for roses red, when faded the lilacs blue;

In early fall when brown leaves fall, I’ll catch a glimpse of you.

Should you go first and I remain, for battles to be fought;

Each thing you’ve touched along the way, will be a hallowed spot,

I’ll hear your voice, I’ll see your smile, tho blindly I may grope;

The memory of your helping hand, will buoy me on with hope.

Should you go first and I remain, one thing you’ll have to do;

Walk slowly down that long long path, for soon I’ll follow you,

I want to know each step you take, so I may take the same;

For someday down that lonely road, you’ll hear me call your name.

Author Unknown

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SPRING 1924-LENA’S ILLNESS

All spring Lena had been ailing and she had often required help with her children and housework. Mae had sometimes taken Charles after lunch and went to Mrs. French’s to help her with some of her household chores. Burley had been trying to get Lena to the doctor for some time now, but she always made and excuse when the subject came up. Their three boys and one girl had been the reason for her constantly on the go. Now to Mae she looked thinner and thinner each time that she saw her. One day when Mae took Charles for her daily visit to Lena’s, she found her lying on the couch with her eyes closed. She made no effort to get up. Each day she was growing more weary and tired looking, but now she said nothing, as Mae entered and began talking with her.

The next morning as Mae was hurrying around getting Henry’s breakfast, there was a sound of heavy footsteps onto the front porch. Henry arose from the table and walked through the house. At the door stood Burley with a white strained look on his face. He quickly asked, “Mae, could you please hurry down to the house and stay with the children? I have Lena in the car and we are on the way to see the doctor. Lena began spitting up blood last night and it has continued off and on all night. She says this has been going on for a few days now, but just didn’t tell me.” Mae told Burley she would bundle up Charles and go right on down. As he was getting back into the old car, Burly turned and called, “Oh, yes Mae, the children have already had their breakfast, so you won’t have that to do.” With this he was off, flying down the road as fast as his car would go with Lena huddled against him.

After Mae had gone, Henry sat at the table and finished his breakfast. He remembered how Burley had kept saying that Lena must be ill, but he could not get her to give up and go to a doctor. Henry wondered just now as he sat there alone, how Burley would be able to cope with four small children, if something should happen to Lena. He finished drinking his coffee, got his jumper and cap down off the hook and went off down the road toward the house and barns. He stopped by the house just for a moment, then proceeded toward the tractor shed and his daily work. He had started rigging the tractor, the night before, with the cultivator to begin plowing the small cotton and corn. To get this job done would take at least another hour or two of his time. Then he could leave to the fields. He would check again at the house on Mae and the children before leaving. One of the neighbor men, Will Weitkamp who lived down the road from Burley on the little farm drove up in his old beat up farm truck. He usually stopped as he went by, if he were not in too big of a hurry, and exchange a few words. This morning, however, he had notice that Burleys car had been missing and wondered just where he had gone so early. After Will had talked to Henry for a few minutes he got into his truck and went on to O’Kean for the seeds that he had started out after.

By the middle of the morning, Henry had the tractor rigged and set to go. There was still no sign of Burley and Lena. He drove the tractor up the drive and stopped by the house. Mae came outside just as he was about to get off and go inside. “I’m starting to worry about Lena”, she said to Henry. Henry had felt the same way, but did not want to unnecessarily worry Mae. “How is things going?”, he asked Mae. She said she was managing the children and Charles all ok. So Henry drove down the road to the lane that went to the back forty acres to plow the early cotton. Since he was now back behind a grove of trees, he could not see the house to know when Burley did return. About 11 o’clock he saw the dust of a car or truck coming down the lane toward where he was plowing. He finished the row that he was on and pulled out to the end to await who ever was coming. Burley stepped from the car and almost immediately said “Well Henry they are sending her to the hospital in Jonesboro for more tests, they think she had TB.” Henry didn’t know what to say to Burley as he stood there before him. In a minute Burley said, “If it is TB, she will have to go to Booneville for at least a year, maybe longer, as she seemed to be pretty bad.” With these words, great sobs took hold and Burley shook like a leaf in a great wind. Henry had been saying something, but for his life, he later could not remember what. Somehow, he gotten through that hour and brought the tractor in home for lunch. Mae had fixed lunch at the French house and was feeding the children. He and Burley had eaten lunch there too, but he didn’t think Burley had eat anything at all.

The next few days were virtually a mad house around the Morgan and the French homes. Lena had been sent home to collect a few of her personal belongings and to tell the children goodbye for awhile. Burley had made a call on his widowed sister, Fanny Martin. He made arrangements for her and her nine year old daughter to live with him and his four children, while Lena was away at Booneville in the sanitarium. Fanny Martin had made her home with her sister and brother-in-law, and their three children since her husband had died last spring, with a sudden heart attack. She had only one child after her tragic fall that had almost cost her life and that of her unborn child. The baby, Liza, a wee little girl had been born early and had always been a very sickly child. Fanny’s husband had always suffered with chest pains and some people called him downright lazy and a chronic complainer. Many nights she heard him sitting up in the night, after he had carefully gotten out of bed so as not to awaken her. By the time he was thirty-two years old, he had died and Fanny was left a widow with her child to try to care for. For a while she had tried staying alone, but when it became apparent she would need some financial help she had agreed to move in with her sister. Burley had before asked her and Liza to come live with him and Lena, but somehow she had felt better and more at ease living with her sister. Now that she was needed, she knew that this was the thing for her to do.

After a tearful farewell to the children, Lena had left with tears flowing down her cheeks. Fanny had already been on the scene and had tried to console her with a few words about having her on hand to for the children. Burley had been gone for two days, when he made the trip with Lena. He had stayed with her the rest of the day when they had arrived and was too wore out to make the long trip home that night. He had taken a room in a local hotel and stayed the night. Early the next morning he had started on his way home, without going back to the sanitarium. The long tearful farewell the night before was almost too much for him to endure, and didn’t want to go through that again that morning before he started home. Lena had cried and begged him to take her home. Had it not been for the sake and safety of their children he would have been tempted to do so. He had never felt so hurt over anything in his entire life.

So, it was under these circumstances that Mae had suddenly had a new neighbor and friend. Fanny had at first been uneasy and shy when Mae was around. She was maybe about ten years older than Mae, or Mae judged her to be so. She was very tall and sort of skinny. Her hair was pulled back and tied severely in a bun at the nape of her neck. She did not in way nor any fashion resemble Burley. For he was just what his name suggested. Sort of big framed with a stomach that was beginning to hang over his belt. Mae thought they must each look like a different parent, as there was never in this world any resemblance between the two to them.

After Fanny was moved into the French household, Mae was not such a regular visitor. She had time on her hands, with just her little house and Charles only to care for. She soon had her house work done. She had not had material to sew lately nor for any other of her hobbies. Sometimes, she did cut clippings out of the newspaper and did have quite a collection. Someday, she told herself, she would get a scrap book to put them in. Until then, she would keep them in the big card board box under her bed. She also, had a few old books she had found in different houses they had lived, or junk collections, she had found.

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APRIL 1927-THE FIRE

Henry had been plowing the early cotton that Burley had gotten planted. There had been an excess of rain this spring and they had been kept out of the fields. Now that the weather had finally gotten better and the fields dry enough to work, the men had been working from daylight until after sunset, tying to get all the cotton, corn and beans planted. They had continued at this pace until everyone was tired out. Now that all the fields were planted and the tiny plants were up and big enough to start plowing the middles, the work must go on at a rapid pace, for now the weeds and grass was coming up too. Burley and some of the other hired hands had been busy finishing working in the soy beans while Henry and two other tractor drivers were plowing the tiny cotton plants.

Even before he could see the huge roaring blaze, Henry could see the black smoke billowing up over the trees toward the direction of the road. At first he went on with his work, thinking to himself, it was a very windy day for anyone to be burning brush. He made another round in the field, paying close attention to the small plants, taking care not to plow too close and root them up. As he was turning at the end of the row this time he realized this was no brush fire, so he started toward the field road that lead out to the main county road. He soon became very scared as it seemed the smoke was coming from the very point were his or Burleys house was located. Lena had gotten home sometime during this past winter and things were pretty much back to normal at their house.

Henry drove on toward the road, scanning the distance over the tree tops. Finally he came to a break in the trees, even before he was out of the field and could see a house was indeed burning. It had to either be his or Burleys house as it was coming in that very direction. As he was just at the road, Will Weitkamp came down the road in his old truck. He had some other men with him, sitting in the back. As he flew by, someone yelled at Henry, “Fire! Fire! Hurry up and help!”. Before he could get close enough to be sure, he was indeed thinking it was his own home that was burning. Now he began to worry about Mae and his two small children.

Only last December he and Mae had their second child, a little girl this time for Mae. She had been born only five days before Christmas, and Mae had said she was the best Christmas present she had ever had. They had named her Gleaston Juanita. Before Juanita had been born, Mae had worked making wee small baby clothes, out of soft white flannel and lawn. Each little garment had been lovingly embroidered with pastel shades of pink and blue. When she was born she had been placed in the same basket that Charles had used. Now Charles had a bed all his own, but to him it was much more fun and gratifying to slip into bed with Mom and Dad, whenever the chance came along. Juanita had been a good baby and Mae hadn’t had a bit of trouble with her. She had slept right through the nights from almost the first week.

As Henry sped along as fast as he could on the tractor, Abe Dean came by and stopped for Henry. He pulled the tractor over to the side of the road and jumped on the back of the truck, loaded with several other farm workers. By now Henry could see that it was their house that was in full blaze. In a matter of maybe two or more minutes they arrived at the scene. The house by now looked like a huge red fire ball looming like a giant skeleton in the sky. His first thought was of Mae and the children. The first thing he saw was the little basket sitting away out to itself with some of the other neighbor women. But where were Mae and Charles? Henry was just about to panic, when a strong hand caught his arm. It was Mae’s brother Charley. Henry hadn’t until now notice Charley standing there. “Mae and Charlie are ok, Henry”, Charley said, “they are sitting on the ground over by the old schifforobe”. Henry started walking through the crowd, but still didn’t see Mae. For just another moment he was about to panic and start toward the blazing house, when he noticed Mae. She was sitting on the ground, leaning back against the old schifforobe, she was holding Charles on her lap. Mae was crying and Charlie was leaning against her with his face all smudged and dirty. Henry just fell to his knees on the ground and put his arms around her and started crying too. Together, they sat there crying, watching their house and world crumble around them.

The other workmen had saved all that was possible to get out of the house. Now, they were busily moving the things back farther from the intense heat of the blazing house. After a while, that could have been ages, Henry and Mae got up and began to take inventory of what they had left. First, the schifforobe, that Mae’s mother had given her, when she had been married. It was gotten out of the house first. Inside it hung most of her and Henry’s clothes. However, all of Charles and Juanita’s clothes had been folded in the old red dresser, that had been sitting in the back bedroom, were gone. Since Juanita had been lying in the basket, that too had been saved. Mae’s precious sewing machine, she noticed sitting out by their two mattresses. Mae’s trunk and old wash stand that were in the first bedroom, were also sitting out, safe from the fire. Nothing had been saved from the front room, nor had the bed frames been gotten out. Nothing had been taken out the back bedroom that the two children had shared. From the kitchen she noticed two chairs, the cook stove and the homemade cabinet. Henry had made the cabinet for Mae the first year they had married. He had worked on it for several nights after work, until he had gotten it finished. They together had painted it green. One of the doors stood open and she noticed on the ground some to the dishes where they had fallen. The table and the other two chairs had been burned, along with the cabinet that had held all her pots and pans. The old pictures of her father and mother, that had been hanging on the wall had been passed over by the frantic men for more important things. It seemed Charles and Juanita had nothing now, except the clothes that they now wore. In her old trunk, were her pictures, old newspaper clippings, and other things that Mae treasured so dearly.

Some of the men had been making ready to go. All were saying things to Mae and Henry as they left. Abe Dean and most of his men had already gone, as it was now near noon. Henry noticed someone had brought the tractor on up to Burleys and had parked it out by the sheds. By now the old iron heating stove could be seen, standing, a twisted mess in the rubble of the house. Mae, Henry and children went with Charley back to his house. His wife, Agnes, had dinner fixed, so they all sat down, each pretending to try to eat something. Henry didn’t know just what would happen now to his family, but somehow, he knew they would make it through this, and go on to make a life for themselves.

All the next day, Henry took off from work and used the time to help Mae put new flowered paper on the walls of the little house, just down the road from Charley’s house. Charley had lived on Highway 90, about two miles before you came to Burleys house. The little house on the corner belonged to the old man Dean, Abe’s father. It wasn’t in as good a shape as the other little house, but with a little help from Mae, they would soon have it livable. Burleys had made arrangements with Mr. Dean, the day before to rent the house for Mae and Henry. Their things had already been moved into one of the rooms. The children had been left with Agnes, while Henry and Mae worked cleaning the little house, and putting up paper. Burley and Henry had driven to Pocahontas, where Henry had picked out the paper.

Several of the neighbors had gotten together and brought some used clothes over for Juanita and Charles. The weather had gotten so mild by now, they could make it through the rest of the spring and summer with out the heating stove, that had been destroyed in the fire. Maybe this fall, Henry would be able to buy a new stove. If not he would look around and find a good used one. Henry would have farther to walk each morning to Burleys, unless he drove the tractor home at night. By the end of the week, Mae and Henry had gotten the house cleaned and were back into another home. The first day Henry had taken off from work to help her, but he was needed so bad to work plowing the fields, that the rest had been up to Mae. Agnes had kept Juanita for three days and Charles had come along with Mae, as she had gone each day to make the house ready. Since the table had been burned, along with two of their chairs, Mae had put the wash stand in the kitchen, to have to eat off of. The green cabinet and her cook stove, along with the wash stand made up the furnishings of the kitchen. In the bedroom she had only two mattresses, the schifforobe, and Juanita’s basket. In the living room there was her sewing machine, and the trunk. And that is how Mae and Henry started life over, in the little house on the corner.

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FALL 1929-EARLY LABOR

Mae sat in the little rocking chair, in the little farm house she had shared these years with her husband, Henry, and their two small children, Charles and Juanita. This had been an unusually hot year and this pregnancy had not been an easy one. She had been having a constant hurting under her right shoulder blade and down into the small part of her back. She wondered as she sat there, trying to be as comfortable as possible, what she would have ever done to care for the other two children, had it not been for her Mother, who had been so good to come over and help her. Then she guessed the maybe her Mother was glad to be of service to her. She was a widow since her husband had died in 1919. She had no children left at home, so was free to come and help when she was needed.

Mrs. Wells, as she was so fondly know in the community, had been know for her generosity in going and helping with the sick. And in cases of new babies, she was almost always around to give a helping hand to those who needed it. She was a big sturdy woman, now in her 60’s, but she could out walk and out do any woman still in her 30’s. As Mae sat there listening to her Mother doing around in the kitchen, she wondered what she would have done without her these past few weeks and months. Juanita had been in a fretful mood too, from the heat, then she also had some of her teeth giving her some trouble. Henry had been working such long hours gathering in the crops, that it was usually dark when he got in, and he left again early in the morning. He was so overworked and tired, when he was home, that he was of little or no help with the two small children.

Mae sat back and closed her eyes and sat thinking of her own home and how things had been before she had met and married Henry, just a few short years back. She had been so happy with all her sisters. Their Dad had died when she was still quite young and her Mother had had to manage somehow to get along for her and the children. She guessed that was why her Mother always seemed to be such a strong woman to her. She never seemed to be sick, tired or grown any older. For as long as she could remember, her Mother was exactly as she was now. Always on the go, and always demanding perfection in everything and everybody. She just couldn’t seem to stand weakness in any one. Just a bad habit to her. She would always come and help out in any situation, but was always plain in her voice and actions as to how she felt of any situation. She seemed to think now that Mae should forget the nagging pain that has been hounding her all fall. After all, it was only another baby, and at that two months away. Still Mae, didn’t know what she would do with out her help at this time.

The little house was so hot and no breeze seemed to be stirring. Mae must have somehow fallen to sleep, for when she awaken from the sharp pain in her side, she noticed the darkness that had fallen over the room. It must be about time for Henry to come in from the fields. He was working this year for her brother, Charley Wells, who lived right on down the road from them.

Mae sat up in the chair. From the kitchen she heard the voice of her Mother talking to Charles and Juanita, as she was busily feeding them. “You should have called me Mom,” she called to her mother. At first she didn’t think that she had heard her, as there was not answer from the kitchen. Then Mrs. Wells came through the door, her face red from the heat of the cooking and hot kitchen. She was wearing a big starched apron over her dress and yet looked so cool and collected, as she always did. “I just didn’t want to bother you, as you looked like you were finally getting a little nap.” she said. “How is the pain in you side?” she asked Mae. As Mae started to answer her another pain shot through her side and into the lower part of her back, so severe that she couldn’t answer her. Mrs. Wells thought as she saw the look of pain on her daughters face, maybe there was something to all Mae’s complaining after all.

When Henry came in from work, the children had already been fed and washed up, ready for bed, but neither had to go far to get there. Juanita was almost three now, or would be in December and come next January, Charles would be six. Since there was no kindergarten at their school, Mae had not had the added problem of getting Charles off to school each day, even though it was just down the road a piece. Each of the children liked to be up and visit with Daddy some after he came in from work and ate his supper. By this time Mae had taken to bed, as the pain seemed to be getting worse. Mrs. Wells had covered the food and sat it on the stove to keep it hot, now went into the kitchen and went about sitting the food back on the table. Henry went to the back porch, where the water buckets were sitting to get water to wash up before eating.

As he and his Mother-in-law sit in the kitchen eating, Mae lay on the bed in the middle room of their house. This little house had only three rooms. The living room, which also had a bed in it. The middle room, which had their bed in it. The enclosed back porch, which ran across the entire back of the house and was enclosed with windows and screens. This was where Mae kept the wash stand, with the water buckets. Also, where the wash was done for the family. Since she didn’t own a washing machine, this was done in two wash tubs and a rub board. As first it had not been so bad, but as her family increased, the wash load increased accordingly.

Soon Henry came back into the bedroom and got clean clothes and walked into the small changing room on the side of their bedroom to change his clothes. As he came back by, he sat down on the side of the bed where she was lying. He took her hand and gently stroke the loose hair back from her face. She had been so hot today, but with the setting of the sun the air had begun to cool off. She was always glad for the coolness of the nights. It had seemed to be such a hot year to her. Her Mother was in the kitchen putting up the food and doing the last of the dishes. Juanita and Charles hung around their Daddy until he had played with them some. After Mrs. Wells had finished in the kitchen, she came through and asked Mae if there was anything she needed. Mrs. Wells was about to go to her own bed, where she would spend some time reading before going to bed. She had been sleeping on a fold away bed, that had been set up for her on the enclosed back porch. She was an avid reader and well up on the current events of the nation and the world. The impending disaster as she called it and the fall of the economy she was well aware of.

Henry walked into the living room and tucked the children into their beds. He then turned on the little battery radio. The news was already on and he had missed part of it already. As he sat there stunned by the things that he heard, Mae lay in the bed in the other room with her own thoughts and pains. After a while, Mae heard Henry turn off the radio and come into the room without lighting the lamp. Out on the back porch, the light of her Mother’s lamp still burning gave off a faint glow through the kitchen and into the bedroom. Just enough that Henry could make his way without stumbling. “Why didn’t you light the lamp?” Mae asked Henry was he undressed for bed. “I didn’t want to wake the children”, he said as he got into the bed beside her. Soon his gentle snoring told her he was fast asleep. She could still see the faint glow from the lamp out where her Mother was reading. The pain had now subsided some, so she relaxed and fell asleep.

At first, when she awakened, she didn’t know just how long she had slept, but the pain now was so urgent that she thought she had better call her Mother. At her first call, Henry sat up in bed. He asked, “What is wrong?”. She said she believed she was going to have the baby, and maybe he should call her Mother. Henry got up, put on his overalls and went to the back door and knocked on the door going out on the porch. Immediately, she heard her Mother answer Henry and heard the stirring of her Mother, as she put on her dress and shoes. Her Mother had thought all along that this was just her complaining, but now she must make her see that it must be the real thing. “Mother, I think Henry should go for the doctor.” she said, as her Mother came into the room. Mrs. Wells had assisted at many deliveries of children and knew a lot about, but must be wrong this time. “Are you sure Mae? You know this baby isn’t due for two more months.“ Mae fought to control the tears as she turned to Henry, “You go get Charley to drive you after Doctor Johnson. And I think you better hurry.” With that and the sound of her voice, Henry immediately began to ready himself to go.

Within a matter of minutes, he was out and into the night, heading for Charley Wells house. Since Charley had a car and he did not, this would be the fastest way. Neither one had a telephone, as the lines hadn’t been ran out in their part of the country yet. It had been brought up at many elections to have it done, but always been voted down. Mrs. Wells sat for a time on the side of the bed, but said nothing. She still though it would be a wild goose chase, but kept her thoughts to herself. Every once in a while Mae groaned softly, but said nothing. Mrs. Wells after a while got up and went into the kitchen. Mae heard her kindling the fire in the cook stove again and filling the big iron kettle with water. She walked to the closet at the end of the kitchen and took out the clean pad and sheets that Mae had specially prepared for this time. Soon, she came back carrying the lamp in her hand. With her she had the necessary things for the preparing of the bed. Mae looked at the clock on the night stand, beside the bed, and saw it was a little past 1:30 in the morning. She got up from the bed and sat in the chair as her Mother went about putting the rubber sheeting and the clean pads on the bed. Just how long Henry had been gone, she could only guess, but she thought maybe and hour now. Then a horrifying thought entered her mind. What if Doctor Johnson was out on another call and wouldn’t be there to come back with Henry and Charley.

After the bed had been fixed and turned back, Mae lay back down. Her mother carried the lamp back into the kitchen and put some more pieces of wood in the kitchen stove. She left the lamp sitting on the table in the kitchen this time, but walked back into the room, pulled a chair up by the bed by her daughter and took her hand into hers. By this time the pains had been coming so fast and furious that she was glad for the helping hand. As the pains came and went she would press on her Mothers hand and give out a small cry of pain. No need to wake the children sleeping in the other room.

After what seemed to be an ageless time, Mae heard the sound of a car driving up into their front yard. Just in a minute the front door opened and Henry and Dr. Johnson walked in. Dr. Johnson walked immediately into the kitchen where the water had been boiling for some time. Mrs. Wells walked through the door with him and began to pour the steaming water into the clean wash pan for him. Mae could hear them moving about and talking in the kitchen for what seemed to be an eternity to her. In a little while Dr. Johnson came back with his doctor bag. He moved around in it for a minute getting something. In just a minute of time Mae felt a dim stick on her arm as the doctor gave her a shot. From then on things seemed to come and go to her for what seemed to be hours.

When she awoke the first streaks of the red sky was shining in the window. She could hear the crying of a baby somewhere in the other room. Must have been on the kitchen table. Just then her mother walked into the room with a small pink bundle in her arms. When Mae looked at the baby, she knew immediately that something was very, very wrong. The small baby was tiny and blue, and with each breath gave off a soft grunting sound. She knew in her own mind that before the day was gone the baby would be too. She had already decided to name the baby Reba Rae, if she were to be a girl, so when her Mother told her she had a girl, she knew immediately what her name would be. No matter if she only lived on day, she still would have a name. So it was that on an early Saturday morning on October 26, 1929, Reba Rae came into the world.

Dr. Johnson had already gone when Mae awoke, so she did not have a chance to ask him about the chances for her baby. However, the doctor had already told Henry that things seemed mighty slim that the baby born two months too soon would survive more than a few hours. He had further said if she made it through the first few days, she would probably make it alright.

All the first day whenever the baby’s breathing it could be heard all over the room. Charles and Juanita were pleased as could be with the new little sister. Mae was so weak that she just lay with her eyes closed, trying not to hear the pitiful sound of the tiny chest going in and out. Her Mother was very patient with the children and made them play outside as much as possible the first day. By the time the second day had arrived the baby sounded as bad as the day before and was just as blue. Mrs. Wells washed the tiny baby and lay it in the bed beside Mae. Then she carefully washed Mae’s face and hands and gently combed back her hair. Mae was still too weary to even open her eyes more than a few minutes at a time. Henry walked around the house like a ghost when he was home or sat in the kitchen talking in low tones to his mother-in-law.

On the third morning, Mrs. Wells hurried around with the breakfast dishes. Got the children dressed and out to play. Bathed the baby and helped Mae wash and comb her hair. While Mae was washing she changed and put clean linen on the bed. Just about the time Mae was back in bed, Dr. Johnson drove up. He got out of the car and walked into the house. After asking Mae how she was feeling, he went immediately to the little basket where the baby lay sleeping and began examining her. Somehow, she didn’t sound so bad this morning when she breathed. The doctor turned and gave Mae a big grin, “You know Mae, I sure think she is going to make it. Her chest sure sounds cleared up a lot more today. I sure never thought it, the way she sound the other night.” Mae could only close her eyes and let tears silent drop from the sides of them. She looked at her Mother and saw a reassuring smile cross her face too. Miracles still happened, for wasn’t there one right there before her very eyes.

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DECEMBER 1931-THE VISIT

Mae had an older sister, Annie. Her name was Phoebe Annie, but she was always called Annie. She had been named to honor her grandmother Phoebe Annie (Morgan) Wells. Annie had been born with club feet. One had been corrected with a brace and the other one she had to have special designed shoes in order to walk. While the Wells family was living in Oklahoma for the 2^nd time, Annie met a man named Tom McConnell. He was a widower 18 years older than Annie and had three children. Annie had married Tom and had moved back to Arkansas and lived near Mount Vernon, Arkansas, then had a daughter of her own, Quinnie Mae, born in 1915. Tom and Annie moved to Sharum in 1918, where Tom’s daughter Dolly died when a gasoline iron she was using exploded and set her on fire. Later Tom and Annie moved back to Muldrow, Oklahoma where Tom died on May 22, 1929.

Annie brought her daughter back to Arkansas to live with Burley and Lena French, helping Lena with her house work and caring for the children. After Reba was born, Annie and her daughter Quinnie moved in with Henry and Mae and remained with them when the moved up near Delaplaine in Greene County in the fall of 1930. Annie was still living with Mae and Henry when their 4^th child, Benjamin Wells Morgan was born on a hot Tuesday Morning, August 11, 1931. Her Mother, Mona Wells had come from her home near O’kean to be there when the baby bas born. She hadn’t seen her mother in awhile now and she was happy to see her again and to hear the news about the rest of the family. Soon after Bennie was born Annie’s daughter Quinnie had married Tommy Ivy on October 26, and Annie went to live with them. While they were living in Greene County they lived by Mr. and Mrs. Charley Head, and Mr. and Mrs. Bill Wymer. The Wymer family was somehow related to Henry, and also had a daughter named Juanita.

Mae hurried around the house picking up the last of the strewn toys and clothes. She had gotten a letter sent from O’kean just last week from her Mother, Mona Wells. She had wrote, that she along with Pat and his family would be coming for a visit today with her and Henry and children. She and Henry had been living near Delaplaine this year. Henry had been working with Mr. Head this year but had already made a deal to work next year for Gale Bennett and live on the Bode farm out a little way from O’kean. They would be moving again some time in January. Mae hadn’t seen her mother for about 3 months now. She came and stayed with Mae again in August when she had her forth child. Mae had been hoping ever since she knew she was going to have another baby, for a boy. She had Charles and two girls now. When Benjamin Wells Morgan had been born on August 11, her Mother had been there with her. Henry had made a trip to Delaplaine for Dr. Hutchison and her delivery had been an extremely easy one this time. Bennie was a beautiful baby and had been a good baby too. The children loved their new little baby brother but Reba had delighted in taking a bite of him or anyone else when she got a chance to. Mae had spanked her but no amount of correcting had seemed to help any.

Mae had spent Saturday baking pies and had made a cake and banana pudding. Since Christmas was only two weeks away, this too her would just be an early Christmas. She had not gotten to be with her Mother much lately except at the birth of her babies ever two years or so. She had not visited much with Pat and Alpha since the birth of their little girl Margie, already two and half years old. She hummed a little song as she went about her work. Henry had been busy working at the barn feeding the stock and doing the daily chores that had to be done, even on Sunday. It was now Juanita’s job to take the water and chops to the chickens each morning. She had measured out a coffee can full of grain and Juanita knew exactly how much to take. At first Juanita had been scared as the old hens and rooster gathered around her waiting for their food. Charles always followed his Dad to the barn and threw corn cobs at the birds when they tried to eat the pigs food. It was Charles job to pump water into the horse trough each morning and night for the stock. It had always been Mae’s job to milk the cow, as Henry always complained the milk went up for him instead of coming down.

As Mae hurried around she noticed the clock said almost 9:30 and her Mother, her brother Pat and his family still hadn’t arrived. She went into the bedroom and fixed some bath water and bathed Bennie. Then she washed Reba and changed her clothes. About this time she saw her mother and Pat and Alpha and Margie drive up in the wagon. Pat unhitched the horses and took them to the barn lot. Henry went along with him. Alpha and Mrs. Wells came on into the house. Alpha had Margie by the hand. Even before she had been seated Margie was screaming at the top of her lungs. Reba had come at her with her mouth wide open and had left her teeth prints on Margie’s arm. Mae took Reba and swatted her on the seat and sent her into the bedroom screaming. Juanita started into the bedroom to console her. “Juanita, just come back here and let her cry,” Mae said. All the time Alpha had been trying to get Margie to stop crying. By this time Henry and Pat had gotten the horses into the barn lot and came back wondering what was going on. For the next hour Reba continued to stay in the bedroom and Margie hung onto her mother.

Mae, her mother and Alpha had gone into the kitchen where the dinner had been cooking. No one noticed when Juanita had gone into the bedroom and Mae could never be sure just how long she had been with Reba. Henry and Pat sat in the front room talking about the weather, farms and Henry’s plans for the next spring. They would be moving after Christmas back to Randolph County where Henry would be working as a tractor driver for Gale Bennett.

When dinner was ready and the table piled with the good food Mae had prepared, Mae noticed that Juanita was gone. She called her and there was no answer. She walked into the bedroom where she found Juanita sitting on the floor at the end of the bed with Reba fast asleep on her lap. Juanita hadn’t offered to move, lest she wake Reba. Mae went into the bedroom and picked up Reba and put her into the bed and put a quilt over her.

After dinner was over and the dishes washed, everyone went into the front room and sat and talked. Margie hung onto her mother and whined. Mae thought if Margie had taken a nap too she might have felt better too. When she noticed the bruise left on Margie’s arm by Reba’s teeth Mae was ashamed, but was nothing she could do about that now. Reba had finally awoke around 2:30 and had been fed. Bennie had been fed too and had gone back to sleep. Reba stood by her mother and glared at Margie, but Margie had not budged away from her Mother. Pat told Alpha around 3 that they had better start back home for the trip in the wagon was a long one and it would be late now before they could get home, even though it was only about 4 miles back to their place near O’kean. Mrs. Wells would stay with Mae and Henry until after Christmas, then Henry would take her home as he went to O’kean for feed and supplies for the stock and food staples for the family after Christmas. Mae was delighted to have her mother with her for a visit once again.

After Pat and Alpha left, Henry went to the barn to do the evening chores and Mae went out to do the milking. Mrs. Wells had stayed in the house playing with the children. Juanita had put on her coat to take the coffee can of chops out in the back yard to the chickens and Charles took the two water buckets out to the pump for water. When he came back with the water, he went out again and brought in a load of wood for the wood box behind the cook stove in the kitchen. By this time Mae was back with a big bucket of milk. She strained the milk and put it in the pump box to keep cool. Henry came back from the barn, took off his jacket and hung it on the peg by the kitchen door. He took off his boots and set them on the back porch. Mrs. Wells sat the food on the table once more. Henry, Mae and the children and Mrs. Wells set down at the table. Mrs. Wells offered thanks for the food and once again they ate.

Henry and Mae moved to the Bode Farm in January 1932. This farm was owned by a widow lady named Cynthia Bode. Gale Bennett had the land rented and Henry had been hired on as a tractor driver. Henry and Mae and their children moved into a house known as “The Stone House”. Why it was called the stone House Mae never knew but it was a sturdy little frame house big enough for her and her growing family. Now Mae was closer to her Mother who lived at O’kean. Now she would be able to visit with her more often than she did when she lived up by Delaplaine. The distance was now not much more than two miles and her Mother had been know to walk farther than that many times.

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SPRING 1934-MAE’S DREAM

Mae and Henry still lived on the Bode Farm when their 5^th child was born and was named Annie Dell. Henry wanted her named after his Mother and he thought her name was Minnie Dell, but her name was Minnie Bell. So it was that Annie got the name Dell by mistake. Annie was born on February 2, 1934. Now Mae and Henry lived in a little house called the “pump house”. Why, no one knew unless it had gotten its name from a big building nearby with a big wind mill not far away from the house. That is the place where Reba decided to disobey her mother and run from her when she was told to do something. It didn’t take Mae long to catch her and teach her a lesson she never forgot. Annie was born at home and was a little tiny baby. Mae didn’t have a scale so never knew how much she weighed. When Annie was about three months old Mae put her in a galvanized water bucket and made her picture. Not to much farther across the field grew a bunch of large trees and the chimney of an old house long gone. Some people were afraid to go close at night as there had been seen lights coming from the ground. At one time there had been a family cemetery on the property, but it was also gone. Some people said it was just swamp gas, but could only be seen at night. Mae had never been a very superstitious person, however not long after her Father had passed away, she was walking along the road and there sitting on a fence was her Father. She couldn’t believe her eyes and closed them and when she looked again he was gone. One hot afternoon while living in the pump house while sitting on her front porch, in a far distance she heard what she thought was a band coming down the road. She listened again and the sound became even louder. She wondered to herself why would a marching band be coming down through the fields on the dirt road. The band music became even louder and louder as it passed right in front of her front porch, then became quieter and quieter as it passed on by. The music had been beautiful like coming from a heavenly band. With a jolt, she arose from her chair. Was it real or was it a dream? Mae always believed it was somehow an omen of something to come to pass-for good or bad-she didn’t know.

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SUMMER 1934-THE PICNIC

Mae had been baking and cooking for two days now it seemed to her. These 4^th of July celebrations were about the only thing now that she seemed to be able to get together with all her family. She had been packing the big basket with all sorts of goodies that she had fixed to take along to the picnic that they and her family were having over near Pocahontas at the river beach near her brother John’s house. All the women had been preparing for the picnic and likely as not the men would drive off somewhere, only to come back with several big watermelons. Her newest baby Annie Dell was lying asleep in the same little basket that the other children had used as babies. First Charles who had been born in January of 1924. The second, a girl Juanita who was born right at Christmas time in 1926. Then Reba, who had come in October of 1929. The joke about her is that she had caused the stock market to crash. Then Bennie had been born on a hot August day in 1931. Mae would always remember that year and the long hot days awaiting his birth. Then little Annie had been born in February of this near. Such a tiny little thing. She had began to think Annie would never gain an ounce, and now with her 5 months old she was still a little baby. She had soft white hair and big blue eyes. With her so tiny, her eyes looked much to big for her small little face. She was a pretty baby almost like a small doll, and she had been a very quiet baby. Later on she seemed to cry at the very smallest thing. But now she was sleeping peacefully. Henry had this year gotten them a much needed car so now they would be able to visit more often without having to ask someone else to take them or go with some other family.

Charles was now 10 years old and Juanita was about 8. They were now a great help to Mae, but right now they just seemed to be getting in her way as she was trying to get the things ready to go. Some of Mae’s sisters and brothers she hadn’t seem for a few years now and she was anxious to get to see all of them once again. Juanita was bringing her a few things she had sat out to be left and packed at the last minute. The children were all dressed and ready to go when she suddenly missed Bennie. She sent Juanita to look for him for he might just toddle off somewhere and get into some sort of trouble. Mae wondered to herself why Henry didn’t try to at least keep an eye on some of the children while she was trying to get things ready to go. In a few minutes she heard Juanita calling her from the back of the house. She walked to the back window and looked out. The sight she saw was just about to make her cry and laugh at the same time. Sitting with the pan of water used to give water to the chickens upside down on his head sat Bennie gently patting the excess water into mud pies as it ran onto the ground between his legs. How just like him! He was always getting into something. Now he would have to be completely stripped, washed and given clean clothes. Mae went out and took him by the hand. As she went back into the house she called to Charles to have his Dad start loading the food and blankets she had folded for the children to sit on in the grass, into the car and ready to go. Since Charles had been born they had moved around several times, but this time they had finally succeeded in getting a little bigger house. She took Bennie into the bath room as they called it, even though there was no water in there except what was carried in and put into a big long wash tub that was used for that purpose. She carefully removed all his clothes and started washing the mud from his face and hands. He looked so funny standing there in his under clothes with mud around his eyes and on his hands, she was tempted to laugh, even though Henry had been urging her to hurry for the last hour it seemed to her.

When they at last arrived at the picnic grove Mae thought they must surely be the last ones there. Charles, Agnes and their family were there. Grace, her husband Bill and their children had already arrived too, as was her widowed sister Annie, who lived with her only daughter Quinnie and husband Tommie over in Greene County. Her sister Esther and husband John had recently moved to Oklahoma so they wouldn’t be present this year. Mae’s brother John and his wife Bertha and family lived just across the road and down a piece so they were likely here the first thing this morning setting up the tables and getting everything ready. Mae’s youngest brother lived in Memphis but he had wrote that he intended to come, as well as her sister Inez who lived about 25 miles away oven in Craighead County. Inez had married a man by the name of Arthur Endicott and they was raised their family over on Milligan Ridge, near Black Oak. It wasn’t to often that she got to see them either, so she was eagerly looking for any sight of them or any of her children. Mae didn’t see either Inez or any of her children nor did she see Noah there yet. The children scrambled out of the car and begin running amid the other children. Some of the children had taken off their shoes and were wading in the shallow water of the Black river along the sandy beach.

Matthew “Pat” Wells and his wife Alpha lived out just east of O’kean. They had one girl just Reba’s age. Pat and Alpha would stop by O’kean and they drove through and pick up his Mother. Mona Wells now lived in a house in the small town of O’kean. This way she was near enough to the stores and post office so she could be independent of her own needs. She always hated to call on any of her children to do anything for her, for after all they all now had families of their own to care for. All except Noah and he was living all the way down at Memphis now. She sometimes wondered if he would ever marry and settle down. He had all his life been a loner and on the constant go.

John Thomas Wells had been born in 1888. He was the oldest of the Wells children had already married when Mona suddenly lost her dear husband John C. Wells in death in 1919. Her husband had been about 9 years older than she was, but he was still wasn’t considered a old man when he died. John Thomas had married Callie Hall and already had two children. His oldest child, a son also named John had died when he was only six years old. This had left him alone with a little girl Elda Jane not quiet three years old yet. Soon after Callie’s death John had married again to Bertha Stroud and they had two boys Charles and Thomas, now 12 and 9 years old.

Phoebe Annie had been the second child. She was born in 1890. She was always called Annie. She was already married too when her father died and had her only child, a girl Quinnie Mae, born in 1915. Annie had married an older man with three children. When he died in 1929, she had been left a widow early in her life. She had remained a widow and brought up her daughter. Quinnie was now married and Annie made her home with her daughter and her husband Tommie Ivy over in Greene County. The third child of Mona Wells and her husband John Calvin had been a boy Vernon Lee who was born in 1892 and had died at the ago of 20 years with spinal meningitis. Next was a girl Esther. She was born in 1894. She too was already married when her father died in 1919. Now she and her husband John Burruss had 6 children, three boys and three girls. They were living out in Texanna, Oklahoma. Charles Albert, called Charley had been the next child. He was born in 1896. He had served in World War 1 and had just gotten home when his father died. He had married his childhood sweetheart Effie Agnes Finley and had been expecting their first child when his father died. By now Charley and Agnes had 8 children with their baby Albert being born last year.

After Charley was born another girl, Inez. She was born in 1899. She was still single and living at home when her father died. She had married Arthur Endicott in April 1923, just a month after Mae and Henry had married. Inez and Arthur had 5 children, 2 girls and 3 boys. This past January Inez and Arthur had lost their baby boy in death. They had lived most of their married life in Craighead County, so Mae didn’t see her as often as she did some of the other brothers and sisters.

After Inez came Mae. She had been born in 1902 and was still living at home when her father died. After Mae came Grace. She was born in 1905. Grace had married before either Mae or Inez, to a man named Gavin Richard Fowler. He was known as Doc Fowler. He and Grace had a very stormy marriage that produced 4 children and had finally ended in divorce. This past year now Grace had been Mrs. Bill Caradine, as she had finally met and married someone to care for her and her four children. Bill have never been married before and seemed as if was going to be a good husband and father to her children. Mae certainly hoped so as up to now Grace surely had not had an easy life. After Grace came another boy named Matthew Lester Wells. He was born in 1907. No one called him Matthew and he was always called Pat. He was still living at home when his father died and was a great help and comfort to his mother in the next few years. He was a worry too, as he liked to be out and on his own a lot and sometimes his mother didn’t know his where-a-bouts for days at a time. Then one day he would come walking in home. He had met and married Alpha Wilcox in 1928. They had one girl Margie. The next two children of Mona had been boys, Clarence Hobert born in 1910 and had only lived for 14 months, and Noah Clayton, the last child was born in 1912. He was only 7 years old when his father died and he could barely remember him. He had always been strong willed like his mother. He never wanted to be told anything or tied down. Now this year of 1934 found him still single. Mae kind of had an idea from what her mother had said that maybe there would be a marriage soon for him. But she had heard that kind of talk before, so she really thought very little about it.

The men gathered together in small clumps and talked about the weather, farming and all the other things that men talk about when there is a gathering. The women were busy getting the clothes on the tables and the food set out. By this time Pat and Alpha had arrived bringing with then the now head of the entire Wells clan, Mrs. Mona Wells. She was now 65 years old but got around as well as any of the women 35 years old. In fact she didn’t look too much older than some of them. It had always been Mrs. Wells habit to have face and cleansing creams. She had faithfully used them too through out the years and she had a very young and beautiful skin. She would never have thought of going out into the sun without her big bonnet and gloves on her soft white hands. Although a big boned woman, she always wore a bone stayed corset and the latest fashions in women clothing. After her arrival, Mrs. Wells went about speaking to all the women. Then talking to the children, kissing and hugging them as she went along. Arthur and Inez and their children drove up. Elfreda was 10 years old and Annie Laura was almost 9, and they hurried out to be with the other bigger girls. Jay and Everett were 6 and 3 years old so soon were playing with the smaller group of children. Inez called Arthur to help unload the car, as he had walked over to where Charley and Henry were sitting and begin to talk. Inez looked around but saw no sign of Noah. She just wondered if he would really come. She then walked over to where her Mother was sitting with some of the smaller children gathered around her, and gave her a kiss and fondly put her arm around her shoulder. Mrs. Wells turned her face to acknowledge the kiss without getting up from her chair. “Where’s Noah”, Inez asked her Mother. Mrs. Wells looked at her with an all wise look on her face and said, “Oh, he will be along after awhile”. Arthur had by this time brought her big packed hamper out of the car and Inez set to work at taking her food out and setting it on the table. Some of the men had been coming over and asking about Noah by this time, complaining that they were getting hungry. Charles and his cousin Buck Wells, Charley’s son and Charles, John’s son had been picking up muscles shells in the shallow water and looking for pearls, as they said. Most all the children had by this time discarded their shoes and had taken their turns wading in the water. Most of the little girls had on sun dresses or sun suits, with extra clean changes of clothes tucked in the food baskets somewhere. The boys were mainly in cut off jeans, or with the legs rolled as high was they could get them. None of the women wore shorts or slacks, for the Wells clan this was a sure sign of sinfulness.

Just as about everyone in the group had given up looking for Noah some of the children came running up telling of another car they had seen coming down the road from around the corner. By this time Noah had drove up in his latest of new cars. Always seemed to have a different one each time any of them saw him. The smiles on the faces suddenly became stares, for Noah was not alone. He got out of the car dressed in his latest of fine clothes and walked around to the other side of the car opening the door. For what seemed an eternity the girl sat there and said something in low tones to Noah. When she got out of the car the stares became even more noticeable, for getting out of the car was a woman who appeared to be some where around 20 years old. She was dressed in a low cut red knit top with a pair of white shorts on. On her feet she wore a pair of white platform shoes with straps that was woven around her ankles twice and fastened on the side with a small buckle. Noah grinned as he put his arm around her small waist and brought her forward. Some of the women cast embarrassed glances at one another then found something interesting on the ground to look at suddenly

“Everyone, I want you to meet my new wife Rene,” Noah was suddenly saying. “We were married last week but I wanted to save the surprise until today”. Mae had her doubts but said nothing until she was home and told Henry her opinion of a marriage. Mrs. Wells then told that she had gotten a letter from Noah just about as saying much and she had guessed the rest so she had not wanted to spoil his happy surprise. But right now Mrs. Wells was just as surprised as the rest to what she now was seeing. The little white thing she had on surely must not contain over an eighth of a yard of material. My, it was just scandalous that anyone would ever appear in public clothed in this manner. A hint of pink appeared on her face but she graciously held out her hand as Rene offered hers. No kiss this time was offered. Mae walked around to Rene and offered her hand too and said, “My, this is a surprise Noah has brought on us. Please forgive our stares, but you know we had just about decided our Noah was going to be an old bachelor”. With this the other women begin to introduce themselves and soon things were over the awkward moment and talk was flowing again from everyone at once. Still there were sudden peeks at Rene and her dare-some dress. Some of the older girls were obviously taken with Rene and gathered around her. Charley’s two older girls Nina and Melissa who were 14 and 12 years old were so taken with Rene that they were all agog. She surely must be a movie star they thought. Grace’s girl Mona, now 12 years old just stood back a little way and wondered what the big fuss was all about.

Soon the ladies had called everyone to come have food and each had gotten his own paper plate and had filled it to brimming with all sorts of things now set out in the table. The mothers were busy helping to get the plates fixed for the smaller children and feeding the babies.

When each had gotten their plated helped they were seated on the ground on the quilts and blankets their mothers had brought from home to be used as pallets. A few of the small babies were now asleep in their baskets or on a pallet their mother had brought for that use only. Agnes baby Charles Albert was only a little over a year old and her next child was Patsy, only 3 years old. Agnes would have to help get Patsy fed and also help Lloyd with getting his plate fixed and seated. He was only 5 years old and would surely spill everything before he could get himself settled with his food on the flimsy paper plate. Agnes and Charley’s oldest child was Calvin, now 15 years old. He was born with cerebral palsy and would need help with getting his plate fixed and to him. Agnes worked and wondered why Charley didn’t come and give her a helping hand. The other children Nina and Melissa, as well as the boys Buck, 10 and Harold, 7 would be able to shift for themselves. Everywhere children seemed to be milling about at the same time either asking for something or looking for some place to sit.

Little Annie, Mae’s youngest baby was asleep in her little woven basket. This was the very same old basket that all her other children had used. This had been the 5^th baby to use it and it had been a good one in its day. Now the ends of some of the stays had started coming loose but with a little repair it would see Annie through until she was much to big for it. This may be her last child and she wouldn’t have need for it any longer anyway. Bennie had been lying most of the morning on her quilt under the big walnut tree asleep. Now he was waking up with all the noise of all the children running to and from the tables, yelling and talking at the top of their voices. Each seemed to be enjoying themselves. The watermelon had been put into some tubs in which big chunks of ice had been packed. What must have been three or four cases of Coke and Pepsi had also been stuffed in assorted fashion around the watermelons. By now they would be iced cold too. The big thermoses of hot coffee that had been brought from home was now opened and John’s daughter Elda had became the self appointed vender. Last October she had been married to Bill Swyres and they were expecting their first child soon, but not so soon as her cousin Quinnie Mae. Elda felt sorry for Quinnie Mae as last year she had a little girl that had died at birth.

Mae’s sister Grace had married Gavin “Doc” Fowler in 1920 when she was just over 15 and half years old. She had only one girl Mona, now 12 old and had been named to honor her grandmother Mona. Grace other children were all boys, Ray, 10, Vohn, 8 and Boyd who was a little past 6 years old. Grace had been separated from their father since Boyd was just small and had struggled to make ends meet at times. For part of those years she had lived with her mother. Her mother had helped care for the children while she worked at any odd job she could find. Now she had remarried last year to Bill Caradine and things had begun to look up for her. Little Mona had became used to being sort of a second mother to her three brothers and she didn’t have to be told now to be of help in getting food onto the plates of the little ones.

Noah filled a plate for himself and walked over to the pallet where Rene was sitting with Nina, Melissa and Elfreda. Juanita, Mona and Annie Laura was just sitting a little over to the other side watching Rene. Noah gave the plate to Rene and came back to the table and picked up another one and begin filling it. By now all the children had been waited on and all were sitting with a bottle of pop or some milk and eating their food. After some spills and other assorted accidents most everyone was filled. The late eaters had been the mothers like Alpha and Mae who had little ones to feed first. Reba and some of the younger children lay down on a blanket and were fast asleep. Noah had brought several games, as did the rest of the other families. Charles and most of the older boys and men were engaged in a game of ball, and some playing badminton. Some one had brought some horse shoes and Henry was trying to get a game going, as that was one of his favorite games to play at picnics.

Patsy had gotten up from her nap unnoticed and had walked out into the water. Agnes saw her just at the edge and called to her son Harold to go bring Patsy back and to stay out of the water for awhile. Harold ran into the water and got Patsy by the hand. Just as he did so, both stepped into a hidden hole somewhere in the sand and disappeared below the water. Agnes and some of the other women begin screaming and soon had the attention of all the men. By this time Patsy and Harold had been caught in the currant and had appeared for a moment out in the middle of the swift Black River. This old river could be peaceful or a fearsome thing depending on the place you were. This place was normally a peaceful place and a good place for picnics. Not two weeks ago two children had been drown up on Black River near the curve close to Wineball Lake. By this time Charley had gotten to the river and was about half of the way out to where the children had last been seen. Everyone stood as frozen statutes and watched in horror. As the seconds ticked by nothing seemed to happen, then to the relief to all, they saw Charley with both the children starting back toward them. Their joy was short lived for both the nearly drown children had begin to climb upon Charley’s head pulling him under as they did so. Now all three were out of sight. Some of the other men were going out into the river by then but as they did so Charley came up again holding each of the children out from him so as to not let this happen again. What was a near tragedy was now relief and joy as Charley got to the shallow water with the two children. Both were immediately laid down upon the sand and pressure applied to their backs to force out the water they had swallowed. Soon Agnes was holding a sobbing Patsy in her arm as Harold clung to his almost drown father. What started out to be a happy occasion for the Wells family had almost ended in tragedy threefold.

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FALL 1935-GATES SCHOOL

On the Bode Farm there was a little one room school house, called Gates School. This is where Charles, Juanita and Reba started to school. The teacher was a lady by the name of Hazel Files. She had a daughter named Wanda Guy. There were some almost grown Sellers boys going to school there too. One day Reba told someone that Mrs. Files was struck on one of the Sellers boys. Word got back to Mrs. Files and she made Reba set in the seat with the Sellers boy for the rest of the day. Reba went home crying to her mother. But where did she hear that? Probably at home and maybe some of it was partly true, or could have just been in Reba’s imagination, who knows? There were big trees growing near the school house and a barbed wire fence to keep out the cows and horses from coming into the school yard. The pump was near the fence with a long trough extending from one side of the fence to the other. When water was pumped for the school children, water was also pumped for the animals. One day Mrs. Files sent one of the boys with the water bucket to get some fresh water. When he came back Mrs. Files got a drink and said, “this is sure good cool water”. The boy said, “Mrs. Files, I couldn’t get the pump primed”. When asked where he got the water, he replied “out of the horse trough”. Living near Mae and Henry was the Sellers family. They had a boy who was blind and he was almost grown. He would sit on the front porch with a can and some newspapers and cut them into strips and put then in the can.

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NOVEMBER 1936-ANOTHER LITTLE SISTER

When school started in the fall, Charles, Juanita and Reba had to walk through the fields on a dirt road to get to school. After the crops were gather in then Gale usually let the cows out to free range on the corn and cotton stubble. Some of the cows were mean and Juanita and Reba were afraid to walk by them. If Charles was with them they weren’t so scared. Sometimes they would go around to another road when they saw the cows in their way home. Most of the time Juanita’s best friend Edna Judd would meet them half way and walk with them. Juanita usually was in a hurry to get home and help her mother, as she knew another baby was on the way. Reba didn’t know this but Juanita did, as Juanita knew everything, or so Reba thought. She sometime got mad at Juanita and Edna for keeping secrets from her. Juanita and Edna always seemed to be keeping something from her. Mae had been busy making some new baby clothes, which she carefully put away before the children came home. Some days her mother came and helped her with the sewing. Little lawn dresses with small pink or blue embroidery across the front. Henry had been engrossed in the upcoming election that was to be held in November and listened to his old battery radio when he could get reception on it, as half the time he could only get static.

Henry and Mae had been living on the Bode Farm for some years now but was planning to make a move down near Helena and work for Ed Agee next year. Mae had her doubts about this move, but said nothing now as she was to engrossed in the upcoming baby that would soon be here. Noie was born on November 2, 1936, the very day before Franklin D. Roosevelt had been elected to his 4^th term as president. Mae’s mother wanted to name this baby. She had wanted to give Annie the name Henrietta, but Mae had stubbornly objected to that name. Mrs. Wells said it would be a good name and be named after her father too. This time Mae gave in and her mother named the baby Noah Othaniel. When she was born she had a mop of beautiful auburn curly hair and a little pug nose and a cute smile. Just a little angel on earth, Reba thought. She was now her favorite of all the things she could ever hope for. For several years of her life she was known as Nookie, but she later changed her name to Noie, as Nookie didn’t seem to be an appropriate name for anyone. Noie was nothing like her sister Annie. Annie was so tiny and skinny and seemed to cry at anything. Noie was a little chubby baby and always seemed to have a disposition of “anything comes my way, I can handle”. Mae would always say don’t do that or don’t hurt Noie’s feelings. As she got older she seemed to enjoy getting dirty and fighting. No one got ahead of her. She was a little scrapper. Annie on the other hand was usually a quiet sort of person who was usually on the loosing end of everything. She was loveable and wanted and craved love. So was Noie, but in a very different kind of way.

It had seemed that things were not in the favor of the Morgan family making this long move to Helena. Not to long before the time for them to move Annie got very ill and Mae and Henry didn’t know what was wrong with her. She was taken to see a doctor in Pocahontas, then sent to Jonesboro to the St. Bernard’s Hospital where it was discovered she had an abscess on her right lung and a bruise on her right ribs. Annie had surgery and stayed in the hospital almost two weeks. In the room with Annie was a little girl who had swallowed a penny and it had gotten lodged causing her to had gann green or something to set up in her, and she also had surgery to remove the penny. It was never determined to my knowledge exactly why Annie had the abscess in the first place.

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FEBRUARY 1937-THE MOVE TO HELENA

Mae and Henry were busy packing their household goods. This was the morning that Mr. Agee was supposed to send a truck from Helena after them. Henry had been living with his family on the Bode Farm for the past few years. He had helped make a crop for Gale Bennett. After the crops had been gathered in last fall Ed Agee had rented several acres of land in the rich Mississippi delta near Helena from a big land owner. Ed was trying to hire some good tractor drivers to come work on his land there. After Christmas he had supposed to come sometime in January for the families that had been hired to move from Randolph County down to Phillips County, some 150 miles south of where Henry and Mae lived. Henry and Mae and children, Mr. Bolien and his sons, Frank Fowler and his family were making the move from the Bode Farm to Helena. The other families had lived farther north up toward Pocahontas where Ed Agee and his family lived. Henry only slightly knew the other families. Mr. Agee had promised such good wages to these men that Gale Bennett said to himself it was better than he could do in his price offer. Gale had wished Henry and his family the best of luck in their move. Sometime the last part of January the truck were supposed to arrive and began moving the families of Mr. Yoder, Mr. Forrest, Mr. Miller and Mr. Etchison only arriving a few days apart. Last week the truck came back for Frank Fowler and his family. A man had came over to Henry and told him when to expect the truck back after him and his family.

Henry had been born in Randolph County, not to far from where he now lived in the little community called Holmes, but later became known as Fender. His father had been Benjamin Tillman Pryor Morgan and his mother was Minnie Bell Nancy Dow Parks. His father was 15 years older than his mother, having been married before. He had died when Henry was just four years old, leaving his mother with four small children to raise. Henry had worked as far back in his life that he could remember on a farm trying to help make ends meet. His mother had remarried Henry Walter Snodgrass, in 1913 and had three more children. This just added to their burden as this husband was not a good husband to Minnie and her children and one day he just disappeared leaving Minnie to care for these 3 children too. However by this time her older children were big enough to be on their own and her main concern now was these smaller children. Henry had been brought up to work so it was nothing new to him when he married Mae and started a family of his own. He and Mae had added another little girl to their growing family this past November. Noie was now their 6^th child. He had always been lucky he guessed as he had been able to hire out as a tractor driver on the different farms he and Mae had lived on. He also had been able to have a few pigs for their own meat and a cow so the children always had milk and butter. In the cold months the hogs would be killed and the meat cured in the smoke house to be used the rest of the winter months. In the spring there were the new potatoes and all the garden vegetables. Mae had been a good provider too as she always made a big garden and canned several hundred jars of vegetables during the summer. She also canned any fruit they could manage to get and picked wild blackberries and dewberries for jam and jelly.

The day before the truck was to have arrived after their family one of the children noticed that the cow had somehow broken through the fence and was out into a patch of new mustard greens that was already coming up. Just how long she had been out Henry didn’t know but he did know that it would likely as not make the cow sick and may kill her, as mustard greens had a way of bloating a cow, and sometimes causing death, depending on just how much they had gotten to. Before to long it was obvious that their cow had gotten quiet a bit and was soon swollen and ill. By the next morning she didn’t seem to be any better, if any. Henry knew she could never make the long trip in her condition, so he made arrangements with a neighbor to leave her there. If she lived he would come back as soon as possible for her. Since the cow was the only source of milk for his family, she was precious indeed. He had no idea where the money would come from to buy another cow to replace her. Likely as not they would just have to be without a cow until he and Mr. Agee settled up next fall, then there may not even then be enough money to buy another one.

The day dawned a gray overcast day. No rain yet but just may be any minute. The old dirt roads which had been frozen most all winter had begun to slowly thaw out and would soon be impassable. Mae had been up early and had prepared a lunch for the trip. She had gotten the children all out of bed and fed then an early breakfast. Charles, Juanita and Reba had been put to the job of helping wrap the dishes and pack them into the boxes. Bennie and Annie kept going from room to room getting into everyone’s way. Mae had not wanted to make this move. It would be a long way from home and the places she and Henry were familiar with. Noie was sleeping in the now worn out basket that had been used by 5 children before her. She remembered the day they had gone to Pocahontas before Charles was born and bought the basket for three dollars. It had seemed to be too much money at the time but Henry had agreed that she should have it when she had insisted she needed it. Now, with Noie lying there sleeping she realized what a good investment they had made those 13 years ago. Henry had by now taken down all the beds and stood the frames outside the door. The other things had been stood against one wall of the two bedrooms. By the time the truck had arrived and half their belongings had been loaded the rain had set in, first in a fine mist. Before all the things were safely inside the truck and the big tarps thrown over the back, the rain had set in as a steady downpour. Henry had taken the big lunch basket of food Mae had prepared and sat it in the seat of the truck. By the time everything was loaded and ready to go, the field roads looked like lakes of water. The days were still cold even at the end of February so the children had been bundled each in their coats for warmth. The driver started off toward the main highway. Henry and Mae and the smaller children riding in the cab of the truck, with Charles, Juanita and Reba riding in the back of the truck. It was soon obvious to Henry as he saw the deep ruts the heavily loaded truck was making that they would have trouble before they got to the main road. By the time half the distance was covered the truck was hopelessly stuck in the mud. The rain had slacked off some but the damage had been done. There was nothing to be done except go back to Mr. Bennett’s for another truck and tractor to tow the truck the rest of the way to the highway. Mae and the little children were taken in Gale’s truck on to the farm house at the main road to stay until the truck could be towed to the main road. Mae didn’t know this family very well but they had lived around here for a few years so shouldn’t object to giving them shelter until the truck could be towed to the road. They lady of the house had at first invited them in and had seemed friendly enough. As the hours wore on toward noon the truck still hadn’t been pulled out to the highway. Mae discovered that in her haste she had forgotten to have some of the men bring the lunch basket along when they had came on out to the road. Noon time came and past and here she sat with no food. No offered food was forthcoming from the lady of the house. Bennie and Annie begin to beg for something to eat. Also Juanita and Reba, but Mae had managed to keep them quiet but not the little ones. One by one the lady of the house had taken her children into the kitchen and fed them without offering Mae’s little ones anything to eat. With Bennie and Annie on the verge of crying for food, Mae wondered how she could be so hardhearted.

Since she had gotten the children up early and fixed them breakfast so as to let the fire go out and cool the stove for moving, they had been fed at an early hour. By the time 2 o’clock had came and gone Mae was so hungry herself she could hardly stand it and knew what the little ones must be going through. Finally Bennie and Annie had curled up on the floor and were sleeping. After noon the lady of the house had busied herself somewhere in another part of the house and had not come back to talk to Mae or the girls. Charles had stayed with his father so maybe he had found the food basket and at least he was not going hungry. When at last around 3 o’clock in the afternoon Mae heard the noise of the truck coming down the road, she thought she had never heard such a glorious sound. When they at last made their departure no one came from the back rooms to even say goodbye. Mae was grateful for the roof over her and the children’s heads these last few hours, but really wasn’t very much in a thankful mood. Had it been her alone she would have stood all the day in the rain rather than been treated so shabbily. Well, that was all over now and the children could at last have their food she had packed for them.

Finally the truck got under was and they were on their journey. The children lay back and went to sleep. Charles, Juanita and Reba was riding in the back of the truck trying to keep warm and dry. Reba crawled up nearest the cab of the truck with Juanita curled next to her. Charles was in the back about half way of the truck sleeping on top of the sewing machine. After what seemed to Mae hundreds of miles, in the wee small hours of the morning they arrived at their new home. Some of the bedding had been completely soaked from the driving rain and the blowing tarps. Many of her personal treasurers had been completely ruined. There was nothing of any value but to her, but things that could never be replaced. She had saved several boxes of newspaper clippings, old books and some old paper hand made roses that her grandmother had made years before. These were all wet and were a completely loss. A lot of the quilts were used as covers for the other things had been soiled and would have to be washed and dried before they could be used again. As Mae looked at what had been her treasured possessions a few hours ago before she could have cried, but a thousand tears would never change the fact. The other man was also tired and wet and anxious to get the truck unloaded and on his way home, so he and Henry sat about the task of unloading the truck in the breaking dawn. After they had set up the beds and got what was dry inside, they all fell over in exhaustion. The children slept most of the morning but after what was only a short nap Henry and Charles was up trying to get the rest of the things placed about in the proper rooms. Mae had to get up too as everything had to be placed just where she had wanted it to be. She walked through this old house and it seemed to her this must have been at one time a beautiful home. It was still beautiful to her. The old wooden floors still gleamed but was now covered with tacked in mud from the move and her family. With a little cleaning they would look beautiful again. The walls were papered with aging faded paper that had once been so pretty to look at. Even the long tall windows were so different to any she had ever seen before. This must have been at one time the home of one of the land owners. Now it had been discarded for a newer and more modern house but to her it was the most beautiful house she had ever lived in since she had been married and had her own home. When she was still small, the old home they had lived in a house quiet like this one. But that was long ago when her Mother and Father had been raising their family. She still could remember the uncles, aunts and cousins coming around the mountain in their wagons and spending the day at their huge old fashioned home of long ago. Mae thought to herself such memories never die. This had been when her Mother and Father had lived down in Faulkner County, before they sold the old home and had moved to Oklahoma, then back to Arkansas where her father had died in Craighead County. This is how she had met Henry and had married him in 1923.

Before the week had passed by, Mae and the two older girls had the new house pretty well arranged. The furniture had been placed in each room and most of the boxes had been unpacked. The water soaked and ruined papers and books had been carted down back of the big barn and burned on a pile of limbs and rubbish that had been thrown there. Somehow Mae had noticed a white spot on the top of her prize possession, her Singer Sewing Machine. It looked like it too had somehow gotten damp but in a day or two the white spot had disappeared and it was polished back to its shining luster. Mae wondered what she would ever do without her sewing machine. Over the years she wished she could count the dresses, bloomers, slips and other things she had made on this old machine. Not even counting the times she had let other ladies come over and use it or just made clothes for other children herself. She couldn’t remember how long it had been that she had a dress ready made at the store. And her girls never had owned a dress that she had not made for them. Hew sewing machine was just something that would have to be replaced, had it been ruined, there was no doubt about that. As to the old cow, she hated to see the children go without milk even for awhile, but they could not go without clothes. She surely could not afford to buy them all ready made.

Mae and Henry had taken the bedroom in back of the front room and the kitchen. Charles and Bennie would share the other bedroom across the hall. Until Noie was a little old she would still sleep in the bedroom with her Mother and Father. For Now Juanita would have a bed all to herself, while Reba and Annie would share one. Since each of the bedrooms contained a small closet, the old Schifforobe that her Mother had given her had been set in the very back of the big hall that divided the house into. And so it was how the Morgan family settled into their new home so far away from their home in Randolph County.

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JUNE 1938-MOURNING BENNIE

Mae sat silently near the little mound of new grass. Somewhere, in the distance, a mocking bird was singing in a tree. The sounds of children playing drifted to her ears. Somehow, she still couldn’t believe that buried in this grave had only a few months before been a bundle of life, eagerly awaiting each new day. “Mom, don’t you think we should start for home now?” Reba called from a distant hill. This huge and looming hill was the levee to the Mississippi River, that was so swiftly rolling past on the other side. Just on this side of the levee was the small cemetery that contained a few loved ones, most has been so long departed. Most that were buried here now were the remains of loved ones that could not afford another burying place. Each year the mighty Mississippi encroach farther and farther and it was plain to almost all, that someday this place too, would be taken in and a new levee would be built. Right now, as Mae sat there, this thought had somehow been pushed out, by all the other scenes of the last few years, when Bennie had been alive and loved by his family.

“Mom, don’t you think Juanita will be worried about us? We should start home now.” Somehow, this time, the sound of Reba’s voice came to her, as in a far away dream. She got up from the little clump of grass and began to start down the hill to where Reba was waiting with the other two girls playing around her. Reba started to pick up the box of shells that Annie and Noie had been picking up to take home with them. Annie skipped along down the dirt road, stopping to examine each rock that looked pretty to her. Noie clung to Reba’s hand, as they started for home. It was such a short way, but to Reba and the children, the road grew longer each time they came here.

Little Noie who was just about two now, was getting tired and soon was picked up and carried on the hip of her sister the rest of the way home. As they were just about to turn into the road leading to the house in which they lived, a big truck came down the road, leaving behind a cloud of dust that hung in the air for an hour after it passed. This would be a late worker going home from the big government project, going on a few miles down the road from the Agee plantation. Dust covered Mae and the three girls, but this was something they had become used to, since Henry had decided to move his family to Phillips County to work as a tractor driver on the Ed Agee Plantation. There wasn’t very much for them to do but make garden and work in the cotton fields. Life hadn’t been so bad here, for the first few months, but then that had been before Bennie had gotten sick and died so suddenly. Henry had wanted to do what was best for his family. Mae hadn’t wanted to make this long move in the first place, but felt that as head of the family, Henry knew best and she could only go along with what he decided to do. The move had not been an easy one. The day had been a terrible day for moving. It had rained on them almost the entire trip and a lot of their household belongings had gotten ruined in the process.

Most of the white people that lived around this farm were the other families, that had been moved in, with the husbands being used as tractor drivers for Mr. Agee. Charles, who was not yet quite fourteen, could be of some help to his father, but not around the farm machinery. This was just one of the rules that Mr. Agee had set up for the men to follow. “No boys getting hurt on my equipment!” he would sternly say to his hired men. So, it followed that Charles had mostly helped with chopping the weeds out of the cotton or to help carry on the cooking and help with the other house chores. Mostly, Reba was to be a seeing eye for the other children at play. My! how she had loved Bennie and missed him when he had died. She remembered the days that he had allowed himself to be dressed up like a girl and played for hours with her and the two smaller girls. Now, that was all over and there seemed to be gloom everywhere instead of the happy voices ringing over the delta land in the early night hours. Noie and Annie had at first seemed puzzled by this change, but now had forgotten all about most of this and went on with their own playful baby games. Baby games was what ran through Reba’s head and she saw the little curly head of Noie bobbing along in the settling dusk.

Juanita was standing by the door as they finally reached the steps. The smell of food drifted through the open door. Mae went into the kitchen, took some water from the water bucket that was sitting on a small table in the kitchen, washed her hands and went to the back door and threw out the dirty water. She walked to the stove where Juanita had a pot of potatoes cooking and tested them with a fork. “Reba, you had better take out the water buckets to the pump before it gets any later.” Mae said as she went about the kitchen fixing the last part of the nearly done supper. Any minute now Henry and Charles would be in from the field, dirty and hungry. Mae poured the last of the water from the water bucket into the big iron tea kettle that was sitting on the back of the cook stove. “You should have already had that full of hot water, Juanita, for your Dad and Charles to have to wash in.” Reba took up the two water buckets and started out the back door. Just as she went out, Annie came along with her. Somehow, Annie had become her closest friend, now that Bennie was gone. Annie was so small and skinny to be tagging along after her, but now somehow it didn’t matter. “Will you let me carry one of the buckets back?” Annie was suddenly saying. “Oh, I guess so, but you mind that you don’t spill it or get anything in it on the way back to the house. Mom would sure make me come back and I don’t want to have to make this trip again tonight.”

By the time they came back to the house, Henry and his son had come in by the front porch and were in the kitchen washing up. Noie was sitting in the high chair by the corner of the table. She had just about grown too big for the chair, but was still to short to reach the table without sitting on a pan or a Sears catalog. When Reba and Ann had gotten the water buckets placed on the cook table, the rest of the family had already taken their places at the table. Mae and all the children silently dropped their heads as Henry did likewise and said the evening grace over their meal. During the meal most to the talking was done by the children, each trying to all tell at the same time what they had been doing that day. Henry had been working hard all day in the fields and this was just a time of a little rest and listening to his family talk. He was never a big talker himself, doing most of the listening. The main family discipline was mainly done by Mae, but with the big problems Henry was called on to make the decision or at least share in the making of it. Annie telling about the pretty shells and rocks she had found over by the levee. Henry looked up from his plate silently at Mae, but said nothing. He must have known what was going on in her heart and mind at this very moment. Maybe, in a few months, things could change for her and she would become the other person again, full of laughter and spirit. How could he blame her? Having to see her son buried in a place like that, in the little homemade wooden box. My, how the neighbors had proved themselves, just that in their time of need and sorrow. All the men had pitched in and helped to make the wooden box and the ladies had somehow gotten together enough money for the piece of white satin that had been sown inside, in such careful display.

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SEPTEMBER 1938-THE PROMISED NICKEL

Miss Doris Haskett, teacher of grades one through eight at the Waters School, District 25, sat at her big desk and stared at Juanita as if she had never seem her before or was amazed at her own eyes. About a week before at this very desk she had promised anyone who could say all the 48 states and capitols within a week she would give them a nickel. Juanita had already known most of the states with their capitols but had spent every spare minute she had studying to be sure of all them. She would write each of them down each night and carefully go over each until Dad made her put out the lamp and go to bed. She, Charles and Reba had gone to the school since their Dad had moved them to their now home. She didn’t like it very much as the girls weren’t very friendly here and too she still missed all her friends back at their old home. This school was half way from their house toward Helena in a little community with Mr. Waters store, Baptist church and a cotton gin. They had been attending the little church pretty regularly and she had been in Mr. Waters store a couple of times too. Of course her Dad had been her a lot of times as he often came with loads of cotton to be ginned. Reba had heard that Mr. Waters name was really Watterpee or Watterpea or something like that, but he had changed it for some reason. Who could have blamed him for it sure was a strange sounding name to her. Since Robert and Charles had been good friends, Charles had become friends with a lot of the other boys. But things just seemed to be a bit different for Juanita. So all her spare time she used on her school studies. Of course there was Martha and Juanita Forrest, Rosettie Etchison, Louise Yoder and Edna Judd that she still had as friends. They usually stayed together at school as each had been brought here with their families from Randolph County. Back home Juanita had hardly known the Yoder, Etchison and the Forrest family as they had lived up in the hills north of Pocahontas where Ed Agee had been raised. She had been good friends with Edna all her life and they still were very close friends. Since the other girls were from Randolph County they had also become her friends. Mrs. Yoder and Mrs. Forrest were her Mothers closest friends too now so it was sort of impossible not be play with the girls. Mrs. Forrest and Mrs. Yoder often came to their house to use Mae’s sewing machine to make their girls dresses too. So now standing in front of the class room Juanita had just finished saying all the United States and their Capitols. Miss Haskett was still sitting there looking at her in disbelief. None of the other students in her class had been able to do so, and for a minute she felt very proud. That is until she saw the look on the teachers face. Miss Haskett rose from her desk and made two steps toward her, then suddenly stopped.

“Juanita”, she said, “Maybe you had better take your seat and write this all down on paper, you know we wouldn’t want the other children thinking maybe you had some help, we want to be fair to all”. The look of dismay she had on her face was clear to all she had never expected this to happen, except maybe from some of her pets, surely not from one of those Morgan girls.

As Miss Haskett went about instructing the rest of her class in their next assignment and calling the next class up front for their turn at reading or what ever they were doing, Juanita took out her big tablet with the Blue Horse trademark on front of it and took up her pencil. She wondered to herself whose idea was it to make a blue horse in the first place. Anyway she knew her new assignment for her wouldn’t

cause her much additional trouble, for hadn’t she did it plenty of times at home in the last week. Soon the big nickel would be hers. Frances Burns and Julia Liming were whispering and giggling to each other as she looked up from her work. Miss Haskett was busy with the next class of children now and didn’t seem to hear Frances or Julia as they were busily talking. Juanita thought maybe they were talking about her, but now she didn’t seem to mind for after all she was the only one in her class who had qualified for the nickel. She already knew what she was going to buy with it. Last week during recess she and Edna had walked over to Waters store and she had seen a big candy bar there she had wanted so badly. Now it was just a matter of time until the precious candy bar would be hers. Of course she guessed she would have to share it with Reba or she would never hear the end of it.

As Juanita wrote now, paying special attention to the spelling of each word, these thoughts kept creeping into her mind. Finally her paper was finished and she folded it neatly in the middle of the page and walked to Miss Haskett’s desk with it. Miss Haskett took the paper and motioned her to go back to her seat without saying a word to her. As soon as the other children were settled in their work, Juanita saw her starting going over her work. Again she had the same look of disbelief come over her face as she checked the pages and turned it over to the other side. After she had finished checking all the written work she called Juanita to come up to her desk once again. Proudly she arose from her seat and started to the teacher’s desk as Frances and Julia looked on. No one else seemed to notice. Miss Haskett opened her little snap change purse and fingered through some loose change then suddenly said, “Juanita, you have gotten all the answers correct, but I don’t seem to have a nickel with me today, I’ll bring it with me tomorrow”, Now you may go back to your seat”. These words had been said in such a low voice to Juanita that even Frances and Julia didn’t hear or know what was going on. “Well how many did you miss” Julia said as Juanita walked past her desk back to her seat.

Nothing else was said about the nickel affair until they were on the school bus bound for home. Since neither Julia or Frances rode the bus they wouldn’t be on hand to ask her any more questions. Maybe they would find out her grade from Miss Haskett after the bus had gone. Edna, as usual was waiting on the bus for her, trying her best to save her a seat. As she sat down beside Edna, she asked in a low voice just what had happened. She could just as well have been shouting, for with all the noise on the bus, no one else could have heard her. Juanita told Edna about how she had gotten them all correct and she would get her nickel in the morning. When they got to the end of the bus route they had to walk the rest of the way to their homes. The Forrest children and the Yoder children all had to get off the bus there too, as well as her, Reba, Charles, Robert Agee and Edna and her younger half brother John Joe Fowler. Sometimes Thelma would pick Robert up, but since he usually threw such a fit, and made such a scene Thelma finally just gave in and let him walk the rest of the way home with the others. Even on the coldest days now Robert usually got to walk home with the others, but still on some rainy days Thelma or some of the hired hands came for Robert. Robert usually was doing something or thinking of something mean to do and the children enjoyed having him along. A lot of times he would tell them about his latest trip to Memphis and what he had done there. After they had gotten off the bus and started for home was the first chance the two Forrest girls or Louise Yoder had at asking Juanita about her grade. Reba had been sitting on the bus with Elsie Yoder and hadn’t heard the outcome either. Juanita guessed that Reba either didn’t care or had forgotten as she and Elsie had started on down the road toward home. Some of the other younger children were walking along the dusty road kicking up the dust as they went. Juanita, Edna, the two Forrest girls and Louise all stopped as Juanita once again told about Miss Haskett not having the nickel but would be bringing it the next day.

When she got home, Reba was already there in the bedroom changing from her school dress into one of her old dresses. Annie and Noie was sitting on the door steps playing with an old rag doll. Mom was out in the garden picking butter beans and string beans that she had growing on the fence around the garden. Sometimes Mae would have big wash tubs of beans picked and the girls had to help her shell or snap them after school. The next day her mother would work most of the day canning them in glass jars. By winter time usually Mom would had several hundred jars of different vegetables and fruit canned up for the use in the winter. Noie, who was about 2 years old now, held up her hands for Juanita as she walked by. Juanita carried Noie into the house with her and set her in the middle of her bad as she lay her school books on the table. She stood there unbuttoning her dress that Mom had made new for her not two weeks ago. Mom made all their dresses and did a good job at it too. Juanita guessed she had made so many dresses in her life, she was a near expert now. After she changed her dress, she picked up Noie and started toward the back door and to the garden. She was now eager to tell her mother she had won the nickel. As she got to the back door she saw her mother coming from the garden with her bonnet pulled down over her face to keep off the hot sun. In her hands she had two big buckets of beans. As she went to bed, Juanita could hardly sleep as she kept thinking of the nickel she had earned and how she was going to spend it.

The next day after Juanita arrived in school Miss Haskett called her to the front of the room and quietly said to her, “It has come to my attention that I am not permitted to pay any student to do their home work, I am sorry but there will be no nickel”. Juanita thought she couldn’t believe her ears. As she turned to go back to her seat she saw Frances and Julia whispering and giggling. She was sure then that they already knew what happened. She held back her tears as she was determined they wouldn’t see her cry. Juanita thought then and there she would never be hurt like that again and she never again trust anyone any more.

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FALL 1938-THE LITTLE YELLOW BOAT

As Mae opened her eyes, she could hear the rain gently falling on the roof and splattering on the window panes. She listened for any noise from the girl’s room next to hers. All was quiet so they must still be sleeping. Since Charles was sleeping alone now in the big room across the hall that ran the full length of the house it would be hard to hear him, even if he were up and about. The gentle snoring of Henry beside her in bed told her that he was still sleeping. Even with the rain falling she would have to soon be up and fixing breakfast. The men usually spent the rainy days inside the barns and out back sheds doing repair on the tractors and other farm machinery owned by Mr. Agee. He too would likely be driving up in his new red truck he had recently purchased at Helena and had came home with the name Ed Agee and Son neatly painted on the side. Just the idea of that, Mae didn’t know, for it seemed to her everyone for miles around knew just who Mr. Ed was. And no one knowing Mr. Ed could even miss knowing who Robert was. Robert was just between the ages of Juanita and Charles and he liked to spend his time playing with her children and following Charles around in the fields when they were not in school. Some days he spent almost the entire day at the Morgan house, in the farm sheds or with Charles in the fields with the cotton pickers that Mr. Ed had brought out from Helena to pick cotton by the day. Some days Robert wasn’t around, so that would mean Thelma had taken him to Memphis with her on one of her so frequent weekend shopping trips. My! how Robert had hated those trips with his mother. He had much rather spend Saturday with the Morgan children. There always seemed so much going on there and around their place.

Since today was Saturday the girls could sleep a little later but the men usually worked. Mae seemed to sense a coldness had settled over the house. That would mean the logs that had been neatly banked in the big stove in the living room had almost burned themselves out. It was always Henry’s job in the morning to get up first, fix a fire in the heating stove and with small dry kindling fix the fire in the cook stove. Mae gently nudged Henry to wake him up. As he got up and put on his overalls that he always wore, Mae lay there thinking of her life thus far and her children sleeping in the other rooms. She had been born into a big family of children as was Henry. Both had been reared in the northern part of Arkansas, so different than this place. Somehow it seemed like two different worlds. Their raising had been in a part of the country where there had been small farms and land owners. Here most of the land was owned by big land owners that owned thousands of acres. Here they weren’t even called farms, but plantations. How could things be so different all within the same state? Of course Mr. Ed didn’t actually own this land but it had been subleased to him by an even bigger land owner.

Mae wondered about her Mother and other members of her family still living in Randolph County, also Henry’s family living there too. It wouldn’t seem much different had they suddenly been transported to another continent. She eagerly awaited the mail each day for some word from family and friends back home. At the time Mr. Agee hired Henry to move to his farm as a tractor driver, he had also hired some other men from Randolph County. As they and their families were living near here too, so she wasn’t entirely alone. It had been these families that had been so close to them during Bennie’s illness and death. Mrs. Fowler, Mrs. Yoder and Mrs. Forrest had been especially close to her during these last few months and she was thankful to them for their kindness to her.

Suddenly as through a distant fog she heard a voice, “Mae, the fire is going so you had better get up”. It was Henry calling her from the kitchen. Slowly she got up and got herself dressed. She picked up a brush from the dresser and neatly brushed her hair back and pinned it up in a bun on the back of her head. She opened the top drawer of the dresser and took out a freshly ironed apron and tied it around her waist and walked into the kitchen where she filled the wash pan with water to wash her face and hands.

Noie came into the kitchen in her long flannel gown with her mass of curly hair hanging in disarray over her eyes. She usually was the first one up, coming with her cold feet to crawl into bed with her mother and Dad, but somehow this morning she hadn’t waken in time and Mom was up before her. When Reba awaken she suddenly realized it was raining softly on the windows. She got up and walked to the window and pulled the curtain back and looked out at the big trees in front of their house out by the road. Such a beautiful scene, even in the rain. The little river had ran on an angle past their house with the wooden bridge making clanging noises when even a car would pass over it. Now that so many big trucks used the road going to the big government project going on somewhere down the road, she had gotten used to the sound of the bridge. Today would be a day the picnickers wouldn’t descend on them, coming out from Helena wanting to use the front lawn for their picnics. She had hated the days when they had come asking to use the grass and trees as a picnic area. Others were just using it without even asking permission. Since there was a long path from the road to their house maybe they thought it was their privilege to use this area. Anyway to always seemed to Reba that it turned out to be her place to go down the lane and to pick up after they left. As she looked out this Saturday morning she thought she wouldn’t have that job today but what about tomorrow. As she turned from the window to see if Juanita was still lying there in bed, she suddenly realized she had been standing at the window for some time as Juanita was already up and probably out in the kitchen helping her mother with the breakfast meal. The bed she shared with Juanita looked a crumpled mess as she stood gazing at it. She had the urge to jump back in and lay there for a while longer. Annie was still in the bed she shared with little Noie, in the same bedroom with Juanita and Reba. Since there were only the three bedrooms in the house, the four girls all had to share the one bedroom. Charles had the other bedroom across the hall in which there was plenty of room. Somehow this didn’t seem quiet fair. But that was life, she guessed. Reba walked over to the bed where Annie was still sleeping and gave her a slap on the seat which sent her immediately to an upright position. She was always picking on Annie, and Annie was always tattling on her, keeping her in hot water most of the time. Somehow it seemed worth all her trouble for the little fun she had of pestering her. “You had better get up.” She said to Annie. “Mom just about has breakfast ready.” Just then she heard her mother calling her to go with the water buckets to the pump for more fresh water. She really did believe they just wasted the water to make her go back for more. “Alright Mom, just as soon as I get dressed”. If she went about dressing in her slow manner, maybe, just maybe Juanita or Charles would have already gone after it when she got there. Annie was up now and dressing, and all the time saying she was going to tell on her for hitting her while she was still in bed. She got dressed and went out slamming the door. Now Reba was alone in the still chilled bedroom. The rest of the house had by now gotten warm from the roaring fire in the big heating stove in the front room, but with the bedroom door still closed the night chill was still in the air. After awhile when breakfast was over and the beds made, the doors would be left open to the bedrooms, allowing some of the heat to escape into the other rooms, all but Charles room and the hall that is. The door was never open into the hall to heat or Charles bedroom. That would just take to much valuable wood to heat such a space.

Reba walked into the kitchen and got the two water buckets and started out the door into the back yard to the pump. The rain had finally become just a fine drizzle and it felt good in her face and hair. She liked to walk in the early morning hours but right now she must get the water and hurry back. Maybe after breakfast she could go out again and take a walk out across the road and down by the little stream that flowed by their house on its way to the Mississippi River. As she was getting the water she heard the sound of the men coming into the barn yards and sheds to begin their days work on the machinery, or what ever they did out there. Most of the time the men only worked until about noon on Saturdays then most went into Helena to get their supplies for another week. During the week the things that needed to be purchased was bought at the company store owned by Mr. Agee. And to tell the truth a good bit of other weekend supplies were bought there too. The price was much higher, but Mr. Agee would sell on the credit, taking the money from his hired men’s wages whenever they settled up at the weekend. The cotton pickers that he went to Helena and brought out worked by the day and each received their wages at the end of the day. If they bought more at the store any day than they made, he made them walk back to Helena.

After breakfast was over with and Dad and Charles were out of the house and gone, Juanita still was busy working in the kitchen. Mom was about doing the work, cleaning and picking up the front room. It was Annie’s job to wipe the dishes and put them away. Reba knew it was her job to clean the bedrooms and pick up the dirty clothes and put then in the big bag on the back porch where Mae did all the washing. Noie, was now was almost two years old usually followed her around wanting something. Reba worked unusually fast this morning as her job for she knew just what she had intended to do when she was free.

As she started off down the lane from the house toward the beautiful big trees in front she thought what a lovely place this old house must have been once when the land owners had made it their home. Now that it was old it was still lovely, but not up the standards of the big land owners and their families to live in. There was still this long lane that winded down to the house with the big front porch running across the entire front of the house. In the center was a hall that went the entire length of the house onto an L shaped back porch. On the one side of the hall was the lone bedroom that Charles had once shared with Bennie, now all alone. On the other side was the front door, a living room, and the girls bedroom. Going back into the hall would bring you to the kitchen, then the other bedroom. That was the bedroom of her Mother and Dad. This old house which was a classic design was now outdated and old fashioned. It contained no plumbing or inside bath. However this didn’t seen so bad to Reba or her family as they had never lived in a house that did have such things, and it would have been sort of a novelty to had such. The lawn that had been in years past been so carefully cared for now was a mix of a sort of tall grass that was referred to as Johnson grass. It was still a beautiful place in its own way and still attracted the city dwellers as a nice place to picnic. As Reba walked along she heard hurried footsteps of Annie running along behind her. Now that she was all of 9 years old, why couldn’t she get off sometime without Annie right behind her? Annie was only 5 years old and still not big enough to share her secrets and her thoughts. Everyday when the mail man had came by it wad been a race to see who could get out first for the mail. Mae was always eager to hear from any of the relatives back in Randolph County. Maybe today there would be a letter from Grandma Wells or some of the other folks telling some news of the old home or people that would be of interest to her. Mae seemed to live for those letters. Now as Reba walked past the mail box she knew there would be nothing in it, as it was much to early for the mailman to have already been by. Reba thought maybe after awhile Mom would have a letter to be mailed and someone would be coming back out this way.

Annie kept running behind her, “Where are you going?” Annie kept asking. Reba remembered seeing a little yellow boat tied up near the old shack of old Mr. John Birdsong down along the canal edge a little way back and she wanted to see if maybe by chance still tied there. She guessed maybe it had belonged to some of the people who came out from town to go fishing. It had looked so pretty to her bobbing there in the water by the old foot log. Maybe it was already gone but she wanted to see for herself, then too she liked to make this walk along the canal just to see the little river flow by and see the fish and the turtles along the bank. Annie kept just one step behind her as they walked along. As they came near the old house where Mr. Birdsong lived and sold fish, they say him sitting in the old chair on the front porch with a big fish net in his lap. He was repairing it, as he always seemed to be doing when he was at home. The old man smiled at the girls when they came up and asked them what they were doing out this wet morning walking in the sand and wet grass.

Since neither girl had any shoes on it didn’t seem to matter that they had sand on their feet and wet grass hanging on their legs. Mr. Birdsong was always glad to see them and always had some kind of tale or story to tell them that had happened to him the day or two before since they had been to see him. Reba looked around for the little yellow boat but it was nowhere in sight. Maybe whoever had owned it had already come and taken it on up the little river and into the big Blue Hole Lake to do some fishing. Or maybe they had came with a trailer and taken it off. Somehow it really didn’t matter so much now, with Mr. Birdsong telling his latest adventure the matter of the little yellow boat was put aside for now. She would have to ask Mr. Birdsong about the boat when he was finished with his story. Mr. Birdsong, as she thought about the old man and his strange sounding name, she wondered where he had come from and if that was really his name. She could never remember anyone having such a name in all her born days. Whoever heard of such a name? Of course all the people she knew had simple names like Morgan, Wells, Brown, Jones and names along that line. But it seemed people around here had some very funny names. This is just a funny place she guessed, or at least her Mom thought so. She had often heard her Mother asking her Dad if they couldn’t just go back home. Maybe it was hard on her Mom, but she had gotten to like this place even with its many canals, ditches, and small lakes. Seemed things grew twice as high here too, and everything was so green. The tall cotton was so high no one back in Randolph county would have never believe it had you wrote and told them. It was just about as high as the corn grew back home. She wondered had they raised corn here, just how high would it have grown. But it seemed to her they only knew how to raise cotton here.

After about what must have been about half an hour a car pulled up with a boat and started backing up to the landing to unload. This time the boat was an old dirty gray and wasn’t anything at all like the shiny yellow boat she had seen before. Two men were getting out of the car and making ready to put the boat into the water. She still was wondering about her yellow boat as she and Annie started back for home. Mr. Birdsong hadn’t mentioned the boat at all and that was odd too, for there wasn’t a thing that he didn’t see or know about. Maybe she would try to come back tomorrow and see if it were back or ask Mr. Birdsong about it.

Mae had a letter wrote to Aunt Grace Caradine, her sister living at O’kean, and another letter for Aunt Annie Thomas, her sister living so far away they probably would never see her again, all the way to Illinois, ready for them to put in the mail box to be taken off. Reba just wondered how the mailman would find someone so far away. Aunt Annie had been a widow for years living with her married daughter Quinnie and her husband Tommie Ivy. They had gone to live in St. Louis for one year and while there Aunt Annie had married and stayed on when her daughter and husband came back to farm in Arkansas. She wondered if she was lonesome living so far away, but by the letters her Mom got from her Aunt Annie, she seemed happy. Reba could remember her Mom crying for a week when Aunt Annie had wrote her that she was getting married again. Reba couldn’t figure out what all the crying was about, but guessed Mom was just sad about the whole thing. Aunt Annie and her new husband Uncle Henry Thomas came to visit them once from St. Louis and she had been wearing really beautiful clothes, maybe even silk and had all sorts of jewelry. Aunt Annie had brought all the children some gifts and from then on to Reba she was her favorite Aunt. Not that she didn’t like Aunt Grace and the rest of her aunts, but Aunt Annie must be rich and something special.

The days flew by and soon it was time to start preparing for the Thanksgiving season. School would be out for the holiday season so Mae would have a little help from the older girls with the preparation for Thanksgiving. Some day soon Mae and Henry was expecting her brother Charley Wells and some other men from Randolph County to be coming to stay at their house during the deer hunting season. Mae was also expecting another baby the first part of next year and hadn’t really been feeling very well the past few months. Mae had told Juanita about the new baby and of course Charles had known about it for awhile now and had gone out of his way the past few weeks to help his Mother as much as possible with some of the heavy work she had to do. Juanita had been her main help though as Charles had to spend so much of his spare time helping his Dad with things he needed done in the fields, about the barn and tool sheds. Reba and Annie could be of a lot of help too her at times too, if she could keep them busy at any given job. Of course all the children had their jobs and knew they had to help. In this household everyone had to help the other. Henry had promised the children he would go to the store this holiday season and get enough bananas for Mae to make them a banana pudding, which all the children so dearly loved.

A few days after Thanksgiving, Charley and three other men from Randolph County came on their hunting trip. Reba and the other girls had already gone to bed when they arrived. Mae and Henry were still sitting in the front room and Henry was listening to the news on the little old battery radio. Charles heard the truck drive up the driveway toward the house and came from his bedroom across the hall to tell his Dad that someone was coming. Mae knew right away that it must be Charley and the other deer hunters. Henry put on his shoes and walked to the front room across the hall and to the front door. By that time the men were on the front porch and knocking on the door. In this part of the country the porch was called a veranda but no matter in was still the front porch to the Morgan’s and the other new arrivals from Randolph County. When Charley and the other men came into the living room Mae was overjoyed at being able to see her brother and anyone else from home. As she still considered Randolph County her home, having just been transplanted for a few years, and soon to be going back or so she truly hoped. Henry, May and the men sat in the living room and talked long into the hours of the night about loved ones back home, neighbors, crops, dogs and all sorts of things people try to catch up on when away for a few years. It was decided that Charley and the three other hunters (Will Weitkamp, Burley French, and Dr. Ryburn) would sleep across the hall in Charles room on makeshift beds of blankets and quilts they had brought with them just for that use. Charles would sleep in the front room on the sofa.

In the morning when the girls awoke they heard talking in the house they didn’t recognize and each was in a hurry to get dressed and go out to see what was going on. Juanita was already up and in the kitchen helping her Mother with the morning chores. Noie got up from the bed and ran into the front room in her nightgown, but it would be unseemly for Reba and Annie to appear in front of strangers in their night gowns, for they were to old for that. The two weeks quickly passed by and all of a sudden the hunters were gone home and the Morgan household was back to normal. By this time all the cotton had been picked and the tractors had been put in the sheds until next spring. Henry and some of the other men would spend most of December and January repairing any tractor or any other of the farm machinery, repair the barns, sheds and other buildings on the plantation. Some time in January the work would be so slow that Henry might get a few days to do some of the things that he so enjoyed doing, such as squirrel hunting, fishing in the canals that seemed to run everywhere like a crazy quilt of patterns, or just maybe sitting around the house on rainy cold days with the children. Sometime he would give one of the girls a nickel to bake him a cake. He always liked to eat it hot, right out of the oven. Christmas this year appeared to be a meager one, as there was not much money for food, let alone gifts. Mae had managed to get enough material for a new dress for each of the girls and a new shirt for Charles and Henry. As for herself she didn’t need any new dresses just now. After the new baby arrived in January she would need a couple of new dresses then. The week before Christmas the mail man brought a huge package from far away Illinois, so big even he had trouble getting it up to the front porch. The children were all eager to get it opened, but Mae set it aside to be opened on Christmas morning along with the things she had gotten for the family. When the time came for the box to be opened, Reba and the other girls could hardly contain themselves, for in the package was gifts and toys for all the children, new shoes and a new ready made gown for Mae. For Henry and Charles there was a new pair overalls and shirts. Several pieces of material and sewing thread for dresses for Mae and the girls. Aunt Annie had thought of everyone. A book for Charles, and an art set and pencils for Juanita. A brush, mirror and comb set for Reba, for Annie and Noie a doll. Reba was happy with her gift but wondered if Aunt Annie thought she was to big to have a new doll. Maybe she would just have to write her a letter and ask her someday.

The first of the year appeared sunny and extremely warm for this time of the year. Mae was hot and feeling very tired. This had not been an easy pregnancy so far, but her time was near now. Henry had seen a doctor about coming out when Mae’s time came. When Dr. Ryburn had been there deer hunting he had asked Henry if Mae had been seeing a doctor as she appeared tired and pale. Henry reluctantly had to tell him no. When Mae’s time came, Juanita took the smaller girls to Mrs. Forrest house to spend the day. When they come back home they were welcomed by a new baby sister, all red in the face and with a mop of red hair. Reba thought she must look like a baby monkey as she screwed up her face to cry. Soon Reba changed her mind as she was as beautiful as a doll and everyone loved her. Mae had chosen the name Grace Lee. She wanted to name her after her sister Grace. Grace Lee was born on January 6, 1939 at 3:30 in the afternoon. The doctor had just made it in time for the delivery.

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SEPTEMBER 1941-MAKE ROOM FOR BONNIE

Mae was sitting by the window rocking her latest baby. A little girl that she had named Bonnie Fay. So many things had happened to her in the last few years, or was it a lifetime. She had been overjoyed when her baby had been born down near Helena, in that God forsaken place, as she called it. When Grace Lee was born in January of 1939 and Henry had at long last told her they were moving back home, her joy seemed endless. All her prayers had been answered. When they had moved down near Helena, the spring rains had come. Day after day the rain had fallen. Finally the Mississippi River had risen so dangerously high and there was fear the levees would break and flood the entire country. All the families had been forced to move out to higher ground into a tent city. Mae worked in the camp helping out with the food and clothing distribution whenever possible. However Noie was still only a few months old and the other little children she could not be of to much help. When the day came when they could leave the tent city and go back home had been a happy day, but when the day came that the big trucks came and loaded all their belongings onto it to moved back to Randolph county was one of her happiest days of her life. It had been in the fall of 1939 that this moved took place as Henry was committed to work the growing season of the year 1939 for Ed Agee. In the fall they would be moving back to the Bode Farm and again work on the Gale Bennett farm. As Mae sat in her chair thinking of all the things that had happened in her life, she recalled the tragic things that had happened to her. First her beloved son Bennie had died so unexpectedly on the 13^th of October 1937, then her baby Grace, her beloved little Grace Lee had died on May 1, 1940, after they had gotten back to Randolph county. She had gotten sick with diphtheria, and ended up with pneumonia. But her little Bonnie had been born just this past May 6, 1941, and she would try to go on with her life. Henry had been her mainstay all these years and would continue to be so far her. She could remember all the ups and downs in her life, her children, her husband and their hard life together. Would she have it any other way, she thought as she sat just now so quietly crooning to her tiny new red headed baby she called Bonnie, my Bonnie Fay. Soon the children would be coming home from school and her quiet would be broken. Noie was still asleep from her afternoon nap and would soon be waking. Rest now Mae while you can, she thought, for soon the supper food will have to be started.

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SUMMER 1944-ANNIE

Annie stood by the table putting the rest of the dishes at their places. She had been waiting until after they ate to see if Reba or Noie would go for a walk with her down to the little creek that flowed near their house. She was getting to go later on in the day to spend some time with her Grandma Wells. Her Mom and Dad was going to O’kean to do some shopping and would drop her off and pick her up later in the day when they came back by. After breakfast was finished and the dishes all clean and put away, Annie, Reba and Noie started off down the road as she wanted to look for arrow heads in the sand along the little creek. She already had a shoe box half way full that she had found there or in the fields nearby. Annie didn’t like to walk across the bridge that crossed the creek as someone told her something bad lived under the bridge. Maybe Reba, she forgot, but Reba was always telling her things to scare her. If Annie went to hunt for arrow heads soon after the creek had been full from a recent rain, sometime it was easy to find the arrow heads. Before Annie started collection, Reba and Juanita had in past years hit them with their hoe when chopping cotton, only to just picked them up, look at them and threw them back on the ground. Today as soon as Annie started looking she found one in the wet sand. Then she thought she had located another one and started digging, only to find an old rusty can. Noie started laughing and Annie picked up a hand full of wet sand and threw it at Noie hitting her in the face. Noie started crying and said she was going home and tell on her and she would be in big trouble.

When they got back home, Dad was just about ready to go to O’kean, so Annie put away her little bucket and spade and got ready to go with them. Annie was so proud that she was going to go without any of her sisters getting to go with her. When they arrived at Grandma Wells house they found her working in her garden. Henry let Annie out of the car and Mae talked to her Mother for a minute then they left. Grandma Wells told Annie to come help her weed the garden. “And mind you don’t pull up any of the vegetable or flower plants”, she told Annie. Annie got down on her knees to weed the small plants. Soon she asked Grandma if she could use the hoe. When Grandma agreed, Annie took the hoe and promptly cut down one of Grandma’s plants. Grandma took a weed and switched Annie on her skinny little legs until they were red and whelped. Annie begin to cry and started to walk back home. She knew then she would never go alone to her Grandma Wells house again. Annie had walked about half way home when her Mom and Dad came back by and picked her up. Mae never had the nerve to say anything about this to her Mother and Annie never got an apology from her. What begin as a happy day for Annie turned out to be a sad day for her. I have often wondered what happened to Annie’s box of Indian Arrow Heads.

Along this little creek grew a lot of willow trees and smaller willows suckers. Mae would make a big garden each spring, so Charles would take an ax and cut a lot of willow switches. Reba and Juanita’s job was to go with him and drag them home so Mae could tie them together like a teepee and plant running beans around the base and then the beans would climb all the way to the top and have beans hanging on them to harvest and for Mae to can. She called them “Pole Beans”. Mae also planted running butter beans along the garden fence and they would climb all over the fence. After Juanita left home, it became Reba and Annie’s job to drag the poles home. I can’t remember if Noie ever helped with this job or not. Maybe she just got lucky.

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FALL 1946-THE LITTLE RED BOOTS

Our brother Charles was drafted and went away to the Navy on May 5, 1944. He returned home on March 6, 1946. While Charles was away, Edna moved in with Mae and Henry and children. Edna had 2 small sons. Bill was just a little younger than Bonnie, and Gary. While living with us Edna started teaching Bill and Bonnie to say their ABC’s and to count numbers. Each day Edna would teach Bonnie more and more, until the time came when she got a tablet and started teaching Bonnie how to write down her numbers and ABC’s. By the time school was to start in September of 1946, Bonnie knew how to read and write. Mom said there was no need of keeping her from school, so it was that Bonnie started to Sanders School when she was just 5 years old. We had to walk to school down a muddy road in the winter time, so Mom bought Bonnie a pair of red boots. Vivian (Bennett) Lindsey was the teacher there. Each day Mom would dress up Bonnie so cute and put on her little red boots and off to school she went with the bigger children. This was the last year that Sanders school was open, as after the school year 1946-47, the school was consolidated with the O’kean school and the children bussed there. The next year Annie, Noie and Bonnie went to school at O’kean.

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SEASONS

The hot air of summer blows swiftly across the fields,

The green grass turns brown and withers in the sun;

Wild flowers bow down to earth and gently fade away,

You know then summer has passed, and autumn has begun

The shadows creep forward and the moon light grows dim,

Storm clouds grow higher and the north wind doth blow;

Autumn leaves rustle softly as they fall to the ground,

The night air grows crisper, a sure sign we’re going to have snow.

The strong winds now come whistling across the plains,

Snow is drifting high and the weather turns cold and severe;

The birds have flown south and the wild life stays hidden away,

Icy winds makes circles in the air, and we all know winter is here.

The icy winds fade, as green grass and small buds appear,

Day light gets longer and the song birds return to sing;

The whole earth rejoices, now warm breezes cover the land,

There can be no mistaking, we’re heading for spring.

Reba Rae Alsup

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MY GRANDMA SNODGRASS

My Dad was William Henry Morgan and his parents were Benjamin Tillman Pryor Morgan and Minnie Bell Nancy Dow Parks. Ben Morgan had married a lady named Elizabeth Reed, who died leaving a small son Felix Monroe Morgan, my Dad’s older half brother. After his first wife died Ben Morgan married our Grandma Minnie Bell Parks. Ben Morgan was 15 years older than our Grandma. They were first cousins once removed as Ben Morgan’s mother Arta Missa Elkins and Minnie Parks Grandmother Susanna Elkins were sisters. Ben Morgan and Minnie Parks were married in 1895. Ben was found dead in bed on October 9, 1908, by Grandma. She was left a widow with four shall children, Millie Mae, 1896, Jesse Marion, 1902, William Henry, 1904 and Lora Irene, 1907 to try to raise by herself. She did farm work, working in the fields, did house work, took in washings and ironings, any thing to make a living. Finally in 1913 she got a job working for Doctor James W. Ryburn and his wife and family, doing their housework. She became pregnant and Dr. Ryburn offered Walter Snodgrass some money and his new car if he would marry her. Walter Snodgrass obviously thought this was a good deal so he married Grandma on September 20, 1913.

By February 24, 1914 Grandma had her baby girl, our Aunt Ruby Lee Snodgrass. Then Grandma Snodgrass had Uncle John Snodgrass in 1917, and finally Aunt Betty in 1921. Walter Snodgrass was 13 years younger than our Grandma. He was a mean old devil to Grandma and Dad and Uncle Jess. Uncle Jess left home as soon as possible and Dad stayed to try to help and protect his Mother and took the abuse until he was grown. Walter Snodgrass beat them and Grandma with a horse whip or any other thing he could get his hands on. Walter drank moonshine and ran around with other women. Never did much work so Grandma was still trying to make a living for her family. Finally Grandma couldn’t take it any longer and left him. Once she came to our house when Aunt Betty was young, I am thinking around 1929 when she had pneumonia. When she got able to go back home Felix Morgan took her and the children in a wagon back home, only to find Walter there drunk in their bed. He told Grandma he heard that she had died and came to get the kids. When Grandma told him no, he said he was taking his son, Uncle John Snodgrass with him anyway and grabbed him and picked him up. Felix Morgan stepped up and told him to put the boy down or it would be the last thing he did.

After that Walter Snodgrass disappeared never to be heard of again. I have thought many times someone killed him and buried him but that is just my theory. Anyway Grandma was rid of him forever. Aunt Ruby married Bryon Wootton, a man who came through the country who was from Ohio. She fell in love with him and went to Ohio to marry him in 1933, then Grandma and her two youngest children were left alone. Grandma lived at Manila in a rental house, but when the War started, Dad and Uncle Jess got enough money to buy a lot in Manila and built her a snug little house with only a pump on the back porch. Later Aunt Betty got herself a second job at Howard Johnson’s to help pay for the plumbing and sewer system to be put in. This is how Aunt Betty met her husband Russell Ferguson as he was a chef working there. They were married in 1949 and they were married almost 56 years before he died June 6, 2006. My Aunt Ruby married Byron Wootton and she died in 1991 in Ohio. Our Uncle John Snodgrass died in Coloma, Michigan in November 1954, just 5 months after my Dad died in June 1954. My Grandma lived in the little house in Manila until she became to ill to stay by herself the last few months of her life, then she was taken to a hospital in Jonesboro. When she was discharged from the hospital, she went to live with Aunt Millie at Jonesboro where she died on 10 October 1959. My Grandma Snodgrass was a very tiny woman and so sweet and good to everyone she met. My Grandma Minnie Bell Snodgrass had lived in the little house in Manila, Arkansas since sometime in the early 1940’s. She had lived there almost as long as I could remember. She was a member of the Church of God of Manila and well liked by everyone who knew her.

One time when Charles came home on furlough from the Navy, Charles, Edna, Juanita and I all went to Manila on a bus to visit Grandma. Another time Juanita and I went to Manila on a bus to visit Grandma and Aunt Betty was also visiting there. This was about 1945. Aunt Betty, Juanita and I went from Manila to Blytheville on a bus to visit my cousin Charlene Galbreath, Aunt Irene’s daughter. Charlene had a job working at the Rustic Inn in Blytheville. She was dating a soldier by the name of Mike Yocum who was stationed at the Blytheville Air Force Base. She later married him in 1946. Anyway we stayed all night with Charlene and started back the next morning to Manila on a bus. When we got to the floodways, the road was flooded and the bus had to stop, all the passengers got off and walked on the railroad tracks across with the flooded water lapping at the railroad tracks. Then the passengers who were on the bus headed for Blytheville got off their bus and walked across the railroad tracks to meet the bus from Blytheville. Then each bus turned around and took their passengers on their way, us on to Manila and others to their destinations. It is a wonder someone didn’t slip and fall into the raging water.

One time after Warren and I were married and I was expecting Michael, Warren drove across the flooded floodways with the swift water almost up to the car doors. Noie was with us. It is a miracle that we all didn’t get swept away into the raging water. Maybe God was just looking out for someone who didn’t know any better. There were four floodways rivers (ditches) side by side, leaving the Mississippi river at Cairo, Illinois then going back to join the Mississippi river just down below Helena. The Ohio river merged with the Mississippi at Cairo, so when the river got to high the floodgates were opened to ease the strain on the levees, causing huge amounts of water to come rushing down the floodways, causing the road to flood near Manila and many other parts of the county, in what was called “The Floodways”. Now that railroad track have been removed and the highway road raised several feet so the road there doesn’t flood anymore.

After Grandma died, Warren and I took the children and went to Blytheville and left them with his sister Eva Bowling, and we went to Manila to attend Grandma’s funeral on October 12, 1959. She was buried in Manila, Arkansas Cemetery, not far from where she had lived for so many years.

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MY GRANDMA WELLS FAMILY

Here I will add a little bit about our Grandma Mona Wells family. Mona Wells was born Mona Lester, 12 April 1869, Olney, Richland County, Illinois, the daughter of John Thomas Lester and Hannah Shaw. John Lester’s mother Mary “Polly” Cheek died when he was about 2 ½ years old and he was raised by his grandparents, James and Nancy (West) Cheek. John T. Lester served in the Civil War. He served as Pvt. in Company E., 154^th Regt. Illinois Volunteers. He was enlisted at Olney, Illinois on February 13, 1865, and was discharged at Louisville, Kentucky on August 24, 1865, after breaking his right wrist at Stone River, Tennessee on June 20, 1865, for which he received treatment at Cumberland Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee until the time of his discharge.

John T. Lester had inherited some land from his Grandfather, James Cheek, also some from his Uncle Morris Cheek in Richland County, Illinois. About 1876 he sold his land in Illinois and moved to Texas by covered wagon, along with some other families. One of the other families who went to Texas was his half-brother Winsett Lester and his family. Also his mother-in-law Eleanor went to Texas with them. John and his brother sold their land in Texas about 1885/86 because there had been no substantial rain fall for about 4 years, and they relocated to Arkansas. They started from Texas in wagons, but by the time they had reached McAlester, Oklahoma, some of the women and children were sick and some of the cattle had died. Then John T. Lester put the women and children on a train bound for Little Rock, Arkansas. The men came overland with the wagons and cattle. John T. Lester hired John Calvin Breckenridge Wells to help with the move to Arkansas. John Wells’ family also lived in Texas and he had courted John Lester’s daughter Mona Lester in Texas and was glad for the opportunity to make the trip with them. John wells stayed on after they reached Arkansas and married Mona Lester in 1887. They became our grandparents, and as they say the rest is history.

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MY GRANDPA WELLS FAMILY

Here I will add a little about our Grandpa John C. B. Wells. John Calvin Breckenridge Wells was born 3 April 1860, in Tarrant County, Texas, the son of Charles Albert Wells and Phoebe Annie Morgan. Charles Albert Wells and his wife lived in Crawford County, Arkansas when their first child was born in 1856, but soon moved to Tarrant County, Texas where their other children were born. After Charles and Phoebe got to Texas they bought some land (this place has not been located).

According to family members he lost everything he owned after the Civil War. When the War started, Charles hid all his valuables in a barrel of flour to keep them from being stolen. It is uncertain if he served in the Civil War as no records have been found. His son John C. B. recalled in later years to his family, that he was just a small boy when the war ended, but he could remember it well. He said his Dad stood on an old stump and told the slaves the war was over and they were free to leave. I have found nothing to prove or disprove this.

There happened to be one Negro man that refused to leave, saying he was to old, and had no other place to go. This old man, whose name is unknown and has been lost in time, stayed with the Wells family until his death some years later. He was buried in a grove of willow trees on the banks of the Trinity River, near Valley View, Texas by Charles Wells and his son-in-law Rev. Brad Hays.

After the war was over, Charles lost everything, as all the money he had was in Confederate bills, which became worthless. By 1870 Charles had relocated to a farm in Dallas County, then by 1873, he was found living in Wise County. From there he went to Cooke County with the Brad Hays family. Charles A. Wells and his wife Phoebe and unmarried children then at home left Texas in 1885 with his son-in-law Rev. Brad Hays and family and headed out for the uncharted lands of Indian Territory.

Charles remained in Oklahoma Territory and died there on May 25, 1904, and was buried in the Northwest corner of Rivia Cemetery, Rivia, Oklahoma. His wife Phoebe lived on until March 8, 1920 and was buried in the Tushka Cemetery in Atoka, Oklahoma. It was at the time that his family was moving to Oklahoma Territory that John C. B. Wells went to Arkansas with the Lester family and married Mona Lester.

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A MOUNTAIN

Lord, you have given me many a hill in my lifetime,

And I have climbed them all one by one;

They have been hard on me, Dear Lord,

Especially when loosing my dear little son.

This time you gave me a high mountain,

You gave me a high mountain this time;

I am just to tired and weary to do it,

This mountain is much higher to climb.

Oh! Send some Angels to guide me,

And help me in my sorrow and pain;

Then maybe I can climb that mountain, Lord,

And soon be with my dear loved ones again.

To Warren, I miss you so very much.

Reba R. Alsup