I was the oldest in my family.  By the time I was three and a half, Mother and Daddy had two more little girls. Mother sewed a lot of our clothes, and our Grandma T.  knitted capes for us. We have the sweetest picture of the three of us girls in our new dresses and new capes.

My sisters and I spent hours playing with paper dolls. We cut out “families” and furniture and clothes from catalogs, and cut little tabs on the clothes so we could change our paper doll’s outfits. Just a few years ago, a boy cousin of ours sent each of us a new book of paper dolls. He remembered how much we had loved playing with our paper dolls. A very thoughtful gift that was.

We lived in Johnson, in Western Kansas, and we loved going to our grandparents. One set lived in Reno County, and the other set lived in Cloud County. In the summer, we would switch visits.  Daddy had a small airplane, and would deliver and pick each of us up at different times, so we each could have special times with both sets of grandparents.

We have pictures of these three little girls in our pajamas coming down the stairs at Grandpa and Grandma T’s house to this humongous Christmas tree with gifts all around. Two special gifts I remember are my toy typewriter and my baby doll I named Susie. I still have Susie, and still love her. 

My Grandpa Mc. raised cattle, and I loved going with him over to the “other place” when he went to check cattle. Now, as a Colorado ranchers wife,  contented cattle in the pasture is a scene that still blesses me, just as it did when I was a little girl. 

I was born in 1933. The dust bowl in Western Kansas was dreadful then, and for several years after that. In 1935 or 1936,   Mother and Daddy decided that Mother should take “the girls” and live with our grandparents until the air was cleaner.  Mother put damp washcloths over our noses and mouths, so we did not have to breathe so much dust.  The black cloud rolled in from the west.   We called them  “rollers.”

When the dust bowl days were finally over, Daddy raised some good wheat crops.  I loved wheat harvest time.  We had custom cutters and the same crew came year after year.  They stayed in our bunkhouse, and we cooked three meals a day for them and did all their laundry.  Plus, one of us was always running the scale house, weighing in the trucks.  Every day we baked pies for noon, and cakes for supper.  We were busy,  but I loved the busyness and all the people around.

After harvest, the wheat was stored in the Roundtop, and before school started, we would go to Dream Canyon in the Rocky Mountains.  It is one of my very favorite places in the whole wide world.  I loved it, and we still vacation there.  In the stream is a special rock where I would sit.  It became “my rock”, my favorite spot.  Once, when I was small, I slipped off that rock and went tumbling down the stream.  A girl who was there helping Grandma that summer saw me fall ran downstream ahead of me and pulled me out of the creek.  She really saved my life!   I don’t remember the experience, but perhaps it is why I don’t like water, or water sports

Dr J’s Comments

My new project, Rural Women’s Stories,  offered me the honor of hearing this beautiful woman’s childhood story. I hope she knows how special she is, and how many women she has influenced and helped.