Old Friends and Strange Bed Fellows

Recently I visited with a friend, Mel, who had lived across the hall from me in Stangel Hall at Texas Tech University 41 years ago.  I was working at the museum when she walked in.  I was transported back to those long ago innocent days in a moment.  It was like no time had passed.

Jan and Mel

Mel was the life of our hallway.  She was always laughing and playing pranks on all of us.  And right when you thought you had her figured out she came up with something else.  She was tall with long blonde hair, and enough confidence for three people. Never intimidated..…ever.  I envied her confidence.

We lived in all girl's dorm and by that I mean, men were not allowed on the hall at anytime.  Mel would walk down the hall with her hair in curlers, in baby doll PJs, her cigarette in a cigarette holder calling us for us to go to the Pancake House at 4 a.m. or something else equally outrageous.

 When the top on her Mustang convertible would not come up she told us to just use umbrellas and hold them down low so the wind wouldn’t blow them…didn’t work…but we all ended up laughing until we cried.

Mel and Stephanie never closed and locked their dorm 
room, consequently when a stray dog wandered on to the 2nd floor it went in their room. He obviously had some kind of intestinal distress because when they came back from class he had pooped all over their room, beds, desks and all.  Everyone on the hall heard the shrieks when they returned.   

We had to wait in line in the dorm cafeteria for every meal.  Mel had nicknames for all the people we saw everyday in line.  There was a very hunky guy who always wore plaid flannel shirts and when she saw him in the line she would burst into the Campbell soup commercial song, "How do you handle a hungry man," who also wore plaid flannel shirts.  The funniest was the couple who were always making out in the line, Mel could never resist and would say under her breath, "Kissssssssy kissy kissy kissy, huggggggy huggy huggy huggy,"  which made everyone around us either giggle or roll their eyes.

 There were about 4 or five of us who loved to ski.  We would pool our funds and figure out how to make a trip to Ruidoso on whatever amount of money we had. On this particular weekend Melanie had a sorority sister who parents had a cabin at Ruidoso.  She and her family were going up and she offered Mel and our hall mates the use of their attic, which was a bunk room.  It was strictly a place to sleep with a bathroom…we would have to eat out, which worked perfectly.

It snowed a lot that week and Mel was not sure she could drive the treacherous 12 miles up the mountain on ice.  Two guys she knew were going to hitchhike to Ruidoso.   They said to meet us at the service station where we had chains put on.   They would drive the car up.   However…there were two of them and 5 of us.  Her new Cutlass was a 5 passenger car. Normally it was about an hour drive but with ice it could easily be two hours.

We met the guys and reshuffled our seating to accommodate them.  Phil sat in the back with Molly, Stephanie and the other Melanie. Mel sat in the front with me in her lap and Mike drove. The wind was howling, and the road was slippery.   There was the occasional hold-up due to other cars not being able to make it around the steep switchbacks and having to be pushed.  We had the heat and defroster on high to keep the ice from building up on the windows. With the seating arrangements, we were uncomfortable at best.  About an hour into the trip, the most overwhelming fumes started to penetrate every inch of the inside of the car.  Stephanie screeches,   “Molllllly!!!! What are you doing???”  She had taken out her fingernail polish and begun painting her nails. Immediately, all the windows went down. Phil reached over, grabbed the nail polish, and hurled it out the window.  Now instead of being it cozy and warm we had a blizzard blowing through the car.   

After another hour we made it to the ski area. The day of skiing was great, it snowed most of the day providing the rare treat of powder in New Mexico.  We all met at the car when the lifts closed minus Molly, who had found her boyfriend and decided to ride back with him.

                                                           Melanie and Jan

When we got into town, we had dinner and headed to the lower canyon to find the cabin where we were going to stay.  Mike and Phil had met up with their friends in town and took off on their own.  Mel had told them about the attic bunk room and how to get there.  

The house was amazing.  It was all cedar inside with a huge kitchen and living area.  The hosts were all visiting, when we arrived, we said hi and all headed upstairs to go to bed.  The room was huge with bunks on every wall,  enough to sleep 15 people.  In the middle of the room were two double beds.  On the outside wall was a double bed, which had a twin bunk on top.  The extra part of the double bed extended into the eave of the roof with only a clearance of about two and half feet and got smaller the closer you went to the wall, the twin bed on top also touched the sloped ceiling wall. The other walls had twin bunks.

We were exhausted from leaving Lubbock at 4 am and skiing all day.  I grabbed one of the doubles, Mel got the other one, Stephanie and Melanie took the twin bunk by the stairs.  Molly was still out with her boyfriend and would be in later as would Mike and Phil. It wasn’t long until Molly showed up making noise, turning on lights, laying her sleeping bag out, picking out what she was wearing tomorrow, to which everyone told her to shut up, turn out the light  and go to bed.  She slipped into the double bed in the eave of the house and zipped the sleeping bag up as loudly as she could.   Several hours later Mike and Phil showed and asked the snoring room, “Where can we sleep?”  Sleepily Mel said, “Any bed that is empty.”

Early the next morning the hostess rang her bell and called to us that breakfast was ready if we wanted to come down.  Still drowsy from the long day before, we all just sort of laid there trying to wake up when we heard Molly’s voice.  “Who are You?!”  Then we heard Phil’s voice,

“I believe we met yesterday. Who are you? and what are you doing in my bed?”.

“Your bed? Well obviously I was here first since I am on the inside.”

“How do you expect me to have seen you in the total darkness…and you rolled up in that sleeping bag?   I thought that was a pillow.  You didn’t tell me to leave when I got in!”

Molly unzipped her sleeping bag, whacked her head on the sloped ceiling as she got on her knees, then started to stomp out of the bed stepping on top of Phil, dragging the sleeping bag across Phil's head, with him flailing his arms trying not to get trapped by it.  Then she headed down the stairs stomping like an elephant.  The rest of us, now wide, awake, were rolling around, laughing hysterically. 

Jan

We didn't see Molly skiing that day. We heard she rode home with her boyfriend.  I still laugh every time I think of that ski

trip......

New Skis

The Gossip Club

Watching The Astronaut’s Wives the other night on TV, I was reminded of a tangled web that happened in our lives in the 1950s.  When my parents married they bought a new house on 18^th Street. They were only 4 houses from the seawall and only 6 feet above sea level.  That meant major concern whenever a hurricane was heading our way.

Five years later they decided to move.  They moved seven blocks further from the bay, just a block off of the downtown area, on 13^th Street. The house was a bit bigger and higher above sea level.  My mother Faye had always worked.  She and Dad decided that this would be a good time for her to stay home with me.  I was two when we moved.

It only took a few days to meet the neighbors.  One of Mom’s good friends, Louise, lived only blocks away and could walk down to our house….which she began to do on an almost a daily basis. Opening the door without knocking and calling in, “Coffee ready yet?”  Mentioning the coffee with Mom to others, several more ladies began to show up. 

 Louise had a four year old boy, who was an absolute terror.  She allowed no one to correct him under any circumstances.  When Eddie was around nothing was safe…even me. Louise had an appointment, stopping by our house she told Mom,” It will only take about 30 minutes and I am absolutely desperate…could you please keep him?” Then, there he was, with us. Anything I played with he snatched it away and either broke it or threw it.  Mom was so frustrated she took us to play in the back yard.  While we were pulling out the trike and wagon to ride, Eddie disappeared.  Mom was frantic, until she heard him laughing.  He had climbed up on the roof and was running back and forth, taunting Mom.  She got the ladder, but by the time she got it set in one place, he took off running to the other side. Standing there looking up at him I could see her frustration mounting.  I was glad she was upset with him and not me.  Finally seeing her anger, he climbed down.  Mom got ahold of his arm and proceeded to spank him.  She told him he would never taunt her and do something that dangerous again.  In the midst of the whole scene, Louise drove up in time to see Eddie getting spanked.  She marched up to him took his arm and left without a word.  It was several days before she showed up at the house again.

But….the morning coffee continued.  Mom and I would be on our way out the back door to run errands when we would hear the front door open and people coming in for coffee.  Mom would reluctantly turn around, going inside to meet our coffee guests.  By now there were four ladies showing up every morning.  Pauline lived across the street, she was older than the rest of the group.  I loved her, she treated me like I was her grandchild.  She would color with me and talk to me.  She had worries far beyond my understanding.  Her husband was an alcoholic.  She never knew where he was at night and sometimes he would come home in a terrible rage.  It wasn’t uncommon for her to show up with a black eye or bruises on her arms.

In the middle of the night I woke up to loud banging on our door.  I could hear Mom and Dad moving through the house, the door opening, and crying…not just crying, but the crying of someone who was hurt.  I peeked around the door to see Pauline with blood all over her face…..I ran into the room asking, “What is wrong with Aunt Pene?” Mother shuffled me off to bed and told me not to worry.  

The next morning when I got up Pauline was folding up bed sheets from the sofa.  Mom was telling her to call the police and not go home.  She was more concerned with getting out of our house before the coffee ladies showed up.  She told Mom, “Can you imagine the stories about me they would spread all over town?”  Then she hurried out the door.

When Dad got home Mom was very upset.  She told him, “I just realized that these people showing up at our house for coffee have become the gossip center of town.  I don’t want our house to have that reputation. What can I do?” She burst into tears.  He asked her,
“What do you want to do about it?”

“I want to go back to work, I want to find a teaching job.”

“Do it then.”

“But what about Jan? I have to find someone who is willing to keep her.”

“Just give it time, Faye, doors will open.”

The next day, Dad was working the evening shift.  We all got up early and went downtown to the little café for breakfast.  We ate leisurely and then drove out on the dike to see the birds, not getting home until all the coffee ladies would have long been gone.  From then on the front door stayed locked every morning.

A few weeks later a lady came up to mother at church.  Her name was Mrs. Hudnall.  She told mom that she kept children for mothers that worked.  She told mom if she ever decided to go back to work she would love to keep me.  The next week a principal from Hitchcock called Mom.  He told her that a teacher had quit suddenly mid-year, “Would you be interested in the job?”  Of course she was.

When I was six, we bought a brick house, outside of town with, as my mother described it “wall to wall” carpet.  It was closer to Mom’s school and I was starting to school in the fall.  There was never another morning coffee group.  Louise and Pauline continued to be Mom’s friends. Louise’s kids (and me) grew up. Pauline’s husband Ralph quit drinking and became a very kind thoughtful man.

Not quite The Astronaut’s Wives, but…….

Did you ever have a summer camp experience?

Several years ago, an artist friend of ours invited us to an art show of his work.  It was in Bandera, Texas. Off the highway through the woods we followed a winding road where gnarled mesquite trees leaned over the road. The thought occurred to me about how difficult it would be to find our way back to the highway if we left after dark.  Around a sharp turn, a long ago familiar cattle guard with a gate…..a For Sale sign hung by only one corner.  It had been for sale for a long time. Nailed neatly on the other side of the gate was a painted sign, now barely legible through the peeling paint, “K---- ----- Ca-- --- -irls.

My childhood friend, whose house was behind mine always got to go to a fancy camp, King  Ranch Camp for Girls, each summer.  She would come back, after 5 weeks, telling me of all her adventures.  She too, was an only child.  For those of us who were “only,” the chance at adventure meant getting away from our parents.  I wanted to go to that camp so badly.  Finally when I was in 6^th grade my parents agreed that I could go, provided I had all B’s or better in Arithmetic.  It was my most dreaded subject.  Mrs. Barnhill had scared me into “Arithmetic block” in 4^th grade.  Every time I thought about the subject my brain literally froze. So having B or better all year long was a big challenge.

When Christmas rolled around one of the boxes was wrapped up with a note, it said, “$200 credit towards camp”.  When my birthday came in January I got another present like that.  Finally by May all my holidays had been “infected” by camp credits I had “earned”, and the needed $500 for camp along with good grades in arithmetic.  I look back and think about how much money that was in 1962…it had to have been a whole month of my mother’s pay.

King’s Ranch Camp for Girls sent us a patch when they confirmed my registration. It was to be sewn on my white shirt. I was going for sure now.  I had my patch.  When school was out Mom and I went shopping for all the gear I had to have. A white shirt and white shorts, white Keds, riding boots, a cowboy hat, jeans (I had never owned a pair of jeans in my life), a .22 rifle, a bow as in “and arrow”, swimsuits, towels, sheets, pillow cases, a pillow, a trunk, a sleeping bag for camp outs, bug spray and a myriad of other stuff all with my name on the inside.   It was more stuff than I would take when I went off to college 6 years later. 

I had to memorize all the rules and routines so I would know where to be when.  I wasn’t really too concerned about all that because Susie would be there and she had gone for the past two summers. As I was packing to go, Susie came by to tell that she would not be going to the first session after all, her parents had planned a vacation.   I was in shock….I was going off to this God forsaken place in the wild and I would know no one.

As we left, I sat in the back of the Buick frozen with fear.  Susie waved as we passed her house.  I didn’t wave back, she was the one who had convinced me to go and what is an adventure without a friend?? I would be all alone.

Arriving on  Sunday all campers were wearing their bright white shorts, white shirts with the patch sewn on and perfectly clean white Keds.  Our parents signed us in, as the campers were herded into a big circle around the flag pole.  We were taught several camp songs and by the time we finished, there were no parents…or Buicks in sight.  I felt sick.  Everyone seemed to know each other from previous years.  Then came the time to be assigned to our “Tribe”.   Before long my name was called, I was a Tejas.  I had only met one person, and she was in the other tribe.

Next was our cabin assignments.  Our parents it seemed had snuck off while we were singing camp songs and dumped all our stuff in the cabin by the bunk we were assigned to.  The cabins were stark.  The building was closed in only where the bathrooms were.  The bunks were around the outside of the closed in part, which was a large screened in porch.  You could see out into the woods during the day but at night it was a large, dark and made lots of scary sounds.  There was only one small light inside, on each side of the cabin.  I flopped down on my bunk trying not to cry.  There above me scribbled on the bunk above my head was written, “HILLARY WAS HERE”.   Who was Hillary anyway?  I asked…but no one knew.  The light on our side was directly over the top bunk where the girl above me was assigned.  To turn it off, she pulled the string at “Lights out.”.  I buried my head in my pillow, this was a nightmare not an adventure! I finally fell asleep, wondering what horror the morning would bring.

It seemed like I had only fallen asleep when some idiot started clanging this bell on the outside of our cabin.  Our first activity was swimming.  So while everyone excitedly got ready, I was once again filled with dread.  I had never learned to swim.

I was blind as a bat and tried to avoid anything that required me doing without my glasses.  As I headed out the cabin door with my swimsuit and towel, the counselor swiped the glasses off my face, “No glasses at the pool!”  I was the last one to leave and being blind I could see people moving around but finding my cabin mates was almost impossible.  I ended up at the shooting range and had to be directed toward the pool.  The girls last comment was, “What’s wrong with you, can’t you see the pool?”  No as a matter of fact….ugh just no.  The only thing I hated worse than arithmetic…swimming…and being without my glasses.

We ate our meals in a big log cabin with a high ceiling.  The food was always good, the homemade rolls were the best.  The smell seemed to reach me long before it was time to eat.  We were so busy that I seemed to be hungry all the time. After we ate, the camp border collie, Ruby was always waiting on the porch to greet everyone.  She was black and white.  She thought all of us had come to see her.  Sometimes when we left she would follow us to our cabin.  I loved having her come, I felt so homesick and somehow she seemed to understand.  I was thrilled on the nights she decided to sleep outside by my bunk. From my lower bunk I could see the light that shown on the front of the horse barn down the hill, occasionally flickering  due to the tree limbs swaying in front of the light in the breeze.

There was also an old barn cat, named Cat that hung out with the horses.  She was really fat. One of the girls in another cabin told me Cat was about to have kittens.  I asked the girl, “Where will she have them.”  She said,

“Oh you never know, it won’t be in the barn for sure though…she likes to fool everyone.”

My favorite day was the day we had horseback riding.  I had ridden horses all my life.  Most of the horses were best described as nags.  The one I liked the best was General. Despite her name she was a mare and loved to run.  Most avoided her but I loved riding her.  Riding horses, I didn’t have to talk to anyone, I could just ride and enjoy the scenery.  After all, I was used to being alone and all this togetherness got to me after awhile.  I hoped Susie was as miserable on her vacation as I was at camp. Nothing was as wonderful as she had described it…. I just wanted to go home and have my privacy back.  That day we had been required to write a post card to our parents.  I wrote simply, “I am mizzerble come and get me.”

I awoke about 3 AM one night to Ruby’s fierce barking.  Before long everyone was up, faces pressed against the screen.  All we could see was Ruby’s flash of white on her face and another flash of white on something she was chasing.  Finally she started yelping and came running back to the cabin. Before anyone saw her in though….we smelled her.  There was no longer any doubt about what she had been chasing. She insisted on sleeping right outside our cabin, we all slept with wet washcloths over our noses.  By the time we got up Ruby had been hauled off to the main building for a bath.  She had killed the skunk but what we found out later was that she had killed a mother skunk…and the babies were under our cabin, two tiny little skunks whose eyes were yet to open.  We laid on our stomachs on the ground with a flashlight, peering under the cabin, but no one could get far enough under to reach the tiny creatures.

After all our activities and dinner that night we all ran as hard as we could back to the cabin to see if the baby skunks were still alive.  I knew exactly where they were, but when I looked no skunks.  Then another girl said she knew exactly where they were but no one could find them.  We lay in bed that night trying to figure out what had happened to them. One speculated a coyote ate them while we were gone, then someone else said coyotes slept all day.  Everyone suggested another kind of animal but the fact was they were gone and probably dead.  We were all heartbroken.  The next day when Ruby was standing by the door at lunch we all had decided not to pet her or even talk to her anymore.  She put her ears down and gave us such a sad look.  The fact was though, she had killed those babies’ mother.

After two weeks our parents all came to see us.  Mom and Dad took me out to dinner in Bandera.  I was so busy telling them about all the things that had happened that I forgot to tell them how miserable I was and that I wanted to go home.  When I remembered, I was waving as the Buick drove down the road toward the cattle guard.

Our cabins were inspected every day.  The cabin that had the most #1 inspections for the week got to go on a camp out on the weekend. I secretly hoped we never managed that award, but in the 4^th week of camp we had the most #1 inspections.  The one good thing was I would get to use my new sleeping bag.  Saturday we loaded up all our camping out stuff.  The cook had a little wagon full of hot dogs and delicacies for us to eat.  I never knew popcorn could be cooked on an open fire, or that marshmallows roasted black could taste so good.  My mother never bought hot dogs so I discovered another delicacy of childhood. We had a long day hiking to the river, eating and playing, so when it got dark I was exhausted.  Laying my glasses just inside my sleeping bag, I drifted off to sleep amid the talking and giggling of all the other girls.

I woke up rolling and rolling, I tried to grab something but all I got was my sleeping bag and it was rolling too. I finally found the zipper pull and as I ripped it down and rolled out I felt the pain of the rock I rolled over  as I slipped out of the bag, I heard a splash and then another and another, water was everywhere. I sat up sitting in the edge of the creek along with 3 other girls.  Everyone was screaming, it was dark, not just dark but so dark I couldn’t see anything. I could just hear people.  Finally one of the counselors turned on a flashlight. A herd of something had run right though our camp….someone said it was pigs and someone else said it was dogs. I was furious because not only was my sleeping bag a wet soggy mess… I had no idea where my glasses had ended up.  Everyone thought that was hilarious.  “You can’t see anyway since it is pitch dark Jan.”  Linda opened her sleeping bag up and laid it out flat, so I could have something soft to lay on.  After everyone had calmed down I lay there looking at the sky.  Tears rolling down my cheeks and into my ears, they did not know how serious it was that I had lost my glasses.  I really couldn’t see anything without them.  They laughed at me anyway. I decided I would just stay in the cabin for the last week of camp.  I couldn’t see to do anything anyway.

After what seemed like an eternity, the group finally started to stir.  Everyone was gathering their stuff that had been strewn around by the nights attack.  They, had  found all their stuff, but my glasses were nowhere to be found.  The counselor gave me my soggy sleeping bag to carry back to the cabin.  I fought back tears as I trudged back, being sure to stay really close to the person in front of me.  That didn’t keep me from stumbling and falling over rocks and holes I couldn’t see. 

The counselor tried to comfort me and assured me that the laundry could clean my sleeping bag as good as new.   She had forgotten about my lost glasses. Later as we headed for the pool, she said, “Oh I didn’t even have to remind you about your glasses today.”

I could see things up close so I could still do the things on our schedule.  We had leather tooling, which was close work.  We also had riflery.  It was the one thing I could do very well.   My dad had taught me how to use a .22 at my grandparents, shooting cans off the fence. I was on my way to earning a patch for the best shooting record.  But not today…I couldn’t even see the entire target!  

That night was laundry delivery.  My sleeping bag was clean and fluffy like new again.  Laundry was handed out to everyone and as the lady walked out of the cabin, I asked her if there had been glasses in that sleeping bag.  She said she didn’t know, she just delivered the laundry.

When we went to lunch the next day, everyone was talking about Cat. She had given birth to the kittens.  She had gone to the tack shed behind the barn to have the babies.  She had two orange kittens, two calicoes and…..two baby skunks.   They were several weeks old because they all had their eyes open.   We were so excited to learn they baby skunks hadn’t died after all.  Ruby must have killed their mother about the time Cat had her babies.  It was a long way from our cabin to the tack shed…but she had gotten them there somehow.  She must have thought they were kittens.  And then at the end of lunch, an announcement.  “A pair of glasses had been found by the laundry.  If anyone was missing their glasses……”

And then it was the last Sunday .  We all stood around the flag pole, in our dingy white shorts, shirts and muddy Keds, with the “King Ranch Camp for Girls” patches on our shirts. Tejas and Comanches, holding hands, some crying that the final day had come.  The Buicks, Oldsmobiles and Chevy station wagons were driving over the cattle guard to pick up their daughters.  We all filed in for one last lunch in the dining hall.  Ruby sat faithfully by the door, Cat was laying on the porch with a couple of unruly kittens.  This time we all sat with our cabin mates and friends who had become like sisters.  Our parents, sat at other tables wondering if we had forgotten them. As I got into the Buick I told my parents how much fun I had…and that I wanted to go back every summer.

There was only one girl from camp I wrote letters to after that summer.  It wasn’t long though until the camp memories faded and what we had in common was gone.  By the next summer I was on to other things and actually never thought about going back to King’s Ranch Camp for Girls. Susie’s parents had sent her off to boarding school so I had never saw her again. I didn’t realize until many years later what a huge sacrifice it had been for my parents to send me there that summer.  I never did find anyone who knew that “Hillary had been there”.

Brooks and Books

A large old Victorian house with a porch, sat on the hill outside of Prague, Oklahoma. The porch wrapped around three sides.  Stepping in the door she greeted her residents with a beautiful grand, curved stairway. This was where the Emerson's lived, Maggie, Delbert, their four children, Oren, Faye, Orbie (who they called Jiggs), and Dee.

The house had a door coming out of the basement to the backyard.  It had fabled stories of its own…….one being,  it had been a brothel.  The basement door opened into the backyard so, as the story went, when raided, everyone could run into the woods behind the house.  Most stories were dismissed like haunted house or ghost stories, and it was just the Emerson’s house on the Hill.

Maggie was an industrious young woman, saving package string to crochet into bedspreads and table coverings.  She also saved the bright calico cloth the flour and calf feed came in, to make dresses for herself and Maggie.  The darker fabrics she made into shirts for the boys. She always had a large garden to provide food for her family, and shared what they couldn’t use with others less fortunate than themselves. She was one of the first women to vote in Oklahoma, that state  giving women the right to vote a full year before the 19th Amendment was ratified. With Delbert running a dairy, if she needed something done, she did it herself, only asking his help if absolutely necessary.  Maggie had married Delbert when she was fifteen and he twenty, in 1917.  By the time she was twenty one, she had given birth to her four children, three boys and a girl.

Maggie never remembered a time when her daughter Faye, couldn’t read.  Faye was precocious, always in the middle of everything.  When her older brother, Oren, started to school, Faye devoured every printed word he brought home.  Maggie would be working  patiently with Oren on his reading when, peeking over the back of the chair, Faye would correct a word he had missed. Oren would leap over the chair and a fight would ensue, Maggie stepping in to break it up, sending Faye to her room.

When Faye was six she finally go to to the two-room school house down the road with Oren.  There was a bridge on the way to school which had slats that were widely spaced. While walking over it, looking down,  the long drop under the bridge was visible, to the water.  Faye had never walked over the bridge before.   She and Oren set our for school, clean and tidy, but when they returned home, Faye was in shambles, her dress torn, her shoes filthy with dirt, mud and socks missing.  Maggie didn’t expect her to come home like she had left for school, but every day another torn dress, more lost socks and wet shoes.  

Finally Maggie decided to wait for them on their way home from school.  She was horrified to find that while Oren was walking across the bridge on the way home, Faye was going into the brush down the banks, taking her shoes off, walking through the water in the brook and then scaling back up the steep rocky bank.  As Faye topped the bank, there stood Maggie, furious.  “What on earth are you doing???  Why didn’t you just go across the bridge??”
“She won’t do it Mom,” Oren said with a sly grin on his face.
“She is scared when she looks through the slats in the bridge, she thinks she is going to fall through the slats.”
Maggie looked again at Faye.  
“Is that why you won’t go over the bridge?”  Faye, now totally humiliated, tears making a trail down her dirty little face, slowly nodded her head.  Maggie took Faye’s hand and walked her to the bridge. Then putting her foot as far into the opening between the slats on the bridge as she could, said, “See even my foot won’t go through the slats.”  Faye nodded her head. “Faye there will be no more going under the bridge. Do you understand?  You will hold Oren’s hand and walk across the bridge with him."

The next morning Faye and Oren left for school holding hands.  When they got to the bridge though, Faye balked.  Oren begged pleaded and coaxed. Finally he had to take her hand and drag her screaming across the bridge.  

On the way home Faye was telling her brother about her day, as he took her hand, she didn’t notice, continuing in a rapt discussion as they crossed the bridge. She never realized she had walked over it.  From then on Oren was careful to engage her in conversation and hold her hand tightly until they got over the bridge.  If Faye looked through the slats, she still would freeze, so Oren worked his magic of conversation until they got over the bridge, then they dropped hands and took off running to meet their school buddies.   

At school there were two rooms, one with first through 4th grade and the other with 5th through 8th grade.  The year started with Faye in 1st grade and Oren in 3rd grade. 

It was only days until the teacher could see that Faye was going to be completely unmanageable, correcting other students mistakes and trying to take control.  She answered all the questions for the the first grade recitation and then wanted to participate in all the other grades as well.  Her brother Oren was horrified that his sister was such a know-it-all. The teacher realized Faye was going to be a major challenge.

There were many Czech immigrants in Prague, with quite a few children starting to school speaking only the Czech language.  Thoroughly flustered with Faye being so much ahead of the other first graders, the teacher decided to let her work with the first graders who needed help. Since most had yet to learn English, she told Faye teach them their letters. She was delighted and taught them talking non-stop.  In the middle of class one day Faye loudly proclaimed.  “I know what I want to do when I grow up!  I am going to be a teacher!”  As the year progressed and the other first graders started to read, Faye was allowed to recite with the other grades as well.  In her first four years of school she honed her teaching skills.  

Faye was 9 years old when the stock market crashed.  The Great Depression defined her childhood, but her memories were happy ones.  The Emerson’s still rented the house on the hill and the dairy.  Although they didn’t have much money, because of Maggie’s garden, and Delbert running the dairy, they had a place to live and plenty to eat.  

Maggie  was one of the oldest of a family of eleven children.  In the midst of the Depression, when her brothers started to lose their homes and farms, she insisted they come with their families and stay with them, until things got better. The upstairs of the old victorian house was one large room.  To give everyone a little room of their own, she strung wires across the upstairs ceilings both ways.  Then she took quilts and hung them from the wires making as many “rooms” as she needed for who was currently staying with them. Faye loved having relatives around, with three brothers having her girl cousins there, was a treat.

During the thirties, everyone was trying to etch out a living in any way they could.  The man up the road from the Emerson's had started making moonshine and selling it.  When Jiggs overheard, he wanted to know all about moonshine.  Maggie explained it to him, then told him to keep his mouth shut.  “It’s none of your business, I have a garden to make ends meet and he makes moonshine. It’s not the best thing to do but it is none of your business. And if anyone asks you about it, don’t answer!”  Maggie warned.
“But that’s a lie.”
“Not if you don’t say anything!” Maggie told him sternly. Jiggs nodded his head saying "Yes mam", the other three kids knowing full well he could never keep a secret.

A few days later, in a big cloud of dust, a big black car came rolling up.  It was long, shiny and amazingly clean.  A man dressed in a black, double breasted, pin striped suit stepped out. Seeing the kids playing, he walked casually across the street and asked, “You kids know anyone around here who sells moonshine.”  Faye’s head whirled around to see where Jiggs was, but before she could grab him he said,
“The 'ole man up the road makes it in his bathtub.” By then Faye had grabbed him, twisted him to the ground by the ear, looked up and said, 
“Can’t you see? He is just a little kid and doesn’t know anything!”  But before the words were out of her mouth, the man had gotten in the car, and rolled away, hardly visible through the dust from the road.  Faye took off running to tell her mom, with Jiggs running trying to elbow his way in front to stop her.

Each night before bed, the children would gather in the light of the fireplace, or a kerosene lamp, as Delbert would read classic literature to them, always finishing off with a couple of folk songs accompanied by his ukulele.  Delbert brought home books he had been given or had pinched pennies to buy. There never seemed to be enough new books.The little town of Prague had no library, only the little school.  The children used the books that had been bought for their older siblings or that had been passed down from other family members.

Maggie with only a 4th grade education, was determined her children were going to have more of an opportunity.  She decided that Prague needed a library, and that not seeming to be a possibility, she decided she would come up with another idea.  The colleges all had books in abundance.  She kept brainstorming about how some college could loan books to their community.   

Delbert had a friend in Kansas who was a college professor. Maggie convinced him to write his friend. With the help of the professor, the university agreed to loan the books to Maggie and the little town of Prague.  They suggested Maggie buy a wooden coffin and send it back to them on the train, in care of the professor.  The university library would fill it with books of all kinds, for all ages, and put them on the train and send it back.  The books could be borrowed for nine months. At the end of the time Maggie would need to inventory them, load them in the coffin, send them back and the process would start over again. She was thrilled with the idea!

Delbert built a nice sturdy coffin sized box, which was sent on its journey to Kansas for the books.  When they were notified that the books were in, Maggie, Delbert and  kids took the wagon to the train station to pick up their greatly anticipated books.  Faye was beside herself with excitement and wanted to open the box at the train station.  

The next day the books were taken to the school. Faye, her brothers, mom and some other ladies sorted though the books leaving some in the two classrooms for the children to use.  The others were made available for the townspeople to check out.  The program continued for several years until the little school gradually acquired enough books of its own, for a library.

Faye never quit loving teaching or books.   Her teaching career spanned 45 years, elementary to college and three states.  She organized the first engineering library at Amoco Oil Refinery in Texas City, Texas.  Later in her life she became librarian of the Bertie Hetherington Memorial Library, at First Baptist Church in Texas City, Texas.   On her tombstone is engraved;

“If I had another life, I would still be a teacher.”

Faye Emerson Greenlee

March 23, 1921-September 10, 2007

Happy 94th Birthday!