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I have a beautiful family. Fourteen living children. The greatest thing that happened to me, is that they finished high school and a big percent finished college. They were all good students in school, good athletes so we attended lost of gall games. We lived on a farm and had great satisfaction in raising good crops, cattle, hogs and chickens. We always attended church. The children are grown, have happy respectable families and I now live alone.

I will try to tell you some of the ups and downs as the years went by:

I remember the winter of 1932. WE had a terrible blizzard. Snow and ice stayed for weeks. our wood stove warmed the old farmhouse but used lots of wood, which wasn't easy to come by. We knew a young couple who lived across the road in the same predicament. In order to save wood, we stayed in our one week and in Ora and Jewel Wilson's house the next week. John and I had on child, they had two. We played cards and dominoes, cooked and ate all winter. We had a great time and also ended up life long friends.

My fourteen kids assumed that Thanksgiving was an occasion for eating all day. There were good things to eat all over the place. An hour after a big breakfast you could see them in the barn loft pulling peanuts from the vines, shelling and eating heartily.

My two lovely daughter s, Norma Jean and Vera; what would I have done without them. We cleaned and stuffed a dozen fat hens ready for the oven. We peeled potatoes and turnips. We candied sweet potatoes and apples, shelled beans or peas, baked peach pie, always hot and dripping with home churned butter. When the meal was over the men sat in the living room and the women washed and wiped the dishes. No TV yet so the men (we always had company on Thanksgiving) talked about farming and most of all about foxhounds.

Their foxhounds were especially bred to chase fox. Usually John had three buddies; Walker LeMay, Thurman O'Daniel and Brink Pierce. Most of the time some of the kids went with them. A big fire was built and the hounds were cast. A yelp came from down in the valley, They have found one," somebody would say and it went on all night. Some people might wonder what is so attractive about setting there by the fire on the cold ground listening to the foxhounds trailing a fox, but ask a foxhunter and he will tell you it is the sweetest music there is. It is bred in them and it is bred in the hounds. It is a game and everyone knows it including the fox. Foxes have been known to come right up to the dog pens and bark wanting to be chased. It is a good clean sport and I am proud to have been a fox hunters wife.

The kids were always busy. There was plowing, planting, milking, gathering eggs, wood chopping, hay pitching, potato digging, branding cattle, gardening, each task in its time of season there was always something to see and something to do.

The inner tube was one of the handiest devices that ever fell into a kids hands. No trip to the pond was complete without at least on tube to float on. On a snow covered hill there was no faster sled than the tube. A strip of rubber cut from a tube and tied between the ends of a forked stick made a perfect sling shot. Then there was the rubber band guns. They were made from a piece of wood about eighteen inches long cut and whittled into the shape of a pistol. Lots of fun but OH! the sting of the rubber band. And last but not least was the game of black man tires. Each child had a tire of his own. They would all line up on one end of the yard and one was chosen to be "IT" in the center. "IT" had to try to knock down as many of the other kids tires as he could before they could get to the other end of the yard. It was great fun and all came home with totally black hands and faces.

The kids swimming hole was the farm pond. After working in the fields it was great to jump in the pond. There were muscle shells on the bottom. The kids found them with their feet. Crawdads were plentiful too and would nip at the kid's toes. The kids made seines and caught them by the bucket full. They would pinch off their tails and wash them real good then cook them in fresh water and lo a bowl of shrimp.

Summer evenings were unforgettable. After a long day in the fields, we would sit outside in the yard and listen to the sound of children playing hid and seek or tag. Even then I never wanted it to end. Those memories are among my most precious memories. The games they played were tag, red rove, hop scotch, jump rope, anti over, New Orleans (Here we come, Where you from? New Orleans, what's your trade? Lemonade, show us something if your not afraid.) The children leaned a lot about fair play and sportsmanship while playing all those old time games for fun.

I am writing this because of a compulsion to make some record of a family of 15 children and what it was like to be a mother before penicillin; about the things that made me laugh and the sad things that made me cry. They say we shouldn't live in the past and I have no reason to do. Aside from the sad happenings I am still enjoying life. To me my past is a sweet safe place to be, so I shall spend a little time there now and then.

Where have all the days and years gone? The birthday cakes we have eaten together as a family for so many days and years. Why couldn't I have saved a few of them for sunless days? Why can't I remember some of these? What has been the rush? I remember each baby, each grandbaby, the six year olds, the graduations from high school, the newly weds but what about the in between?

I use the telephone now for love, hurt and urgency where once it was just to talk.

Time passes so quickly. I did not notice when I became on of the so-called elderly. I've had enough birthdays to be know as "elderly" so I've decided it is time to slow down to my ability. In my way of thinking growing old is an attitude of the mind. You are only what you are when no one is looking. We never grow old emotionally. We all want to be loved. Our bodies change but our emotional needs do not. I have come to this conclusion, you have to have a toy to talk about or a problem to solve, or a job to do. You have to have something that identifies you with the stream of life. Something people will recognize you for, without it there is nothing to do but rust away.

The years pass as regularly for the young as they do for the old. First childhood, then adulthood, then old age. How one has used his talents, his abilities make a big difference. If along my way of life, I have done thing to deserve special attention my family and friend will not need to be told what to do for me. They know my likes and dislikes and will respond in their attention to me. Our yeas might be likened to mountain climbing. Sometimes it was rough going with worries and indecision's of a large growing family but eventually reaching a summit. Life can look beautiful from so great a distance.

I've swollowed the bitter pill of grief and I know how other aching hearts suffer. July 26, 1973 is etched in my mind. My number one had a massive heart attack and as dead on arrival at the hospital. the first days and weeks after the funeral were unreal. I was really in a state of shock. There seemed to be no future and it was too painful to think of the past. i just lived in the resent on day at a time. My family was all around me eager to help any way possible. I told them I was all right which wasn't exactly true. When I would lay down at night I could see his kind knobby hands always bruised on the back where a wrench had slipped. I guess a part of me died that night. The light went out of my life. Fortunately, I had worked a little at the high school as a cook so I went back to work. What used to be icing of the family budget had now became the whole piece of the cake. Now it was up to me. The sale of the farm tools bought me a house and some money but there was never enough money and I soon found out that social security was neither SOCIAL nor SECURITY. ...

Letting go is something all of us have to go through. Making any kind of break is a big step. We all need support and I told my family I need you. I need you to call me, send me letters, and let me know you love me. (I already knew but I needed to be told often.) We grow by losing and leaving and letting go. Sometimes I just sit outside and gaze at a star-studded night sky. That sense of being part of something large than ourselves can bring unexpected peace and help repair any disappointment in our lives. When Terri graduated from college she went to Alaska to live by Joyce. My family was now all gone; Alaska, California, Arkansas, Texas, Michigan, and other parts of Oklahoma. Jim, Sam and Joe stayed a while near me in Oklahoma, then drifted away a after a few years. My best friend and sister, Maude, was with me all along.

I can't say for sure just when I started picking up my life again, but at some point you look around and begin enjoying things in life again. I realized John wasn't coming back. My life was changed drastically in ways I never imagined. Having lived with one partner for almost fifty years, it's confusing and frightening to suddenly realize you are thinking of yourself.

John had been gone for almost ten years and I suddenly realized I was very lonesome. I had a few "talking to friends" but Ila Hass was special. He came to see me quite often and went to the same church with me. He was the most perfect gentleman I had known since John. Ila loved me from the start.
We were married June 30, 1983.
Our time together was happy but several years later, Ila began to show signs of Alzheimers disease and had to be put under a doctor's care. After a while Ila's disease progressed and became too much for me to handle. I was close to eighty years old at this point so the decision was made to put Ila in Mitchell Manor Nursing home. They were real good to him and I visited him everyday. he was always happy to see me. I stayed in my home and lived alone from then on. I am no eighty-four and it seems only yesterday I was sixteen. I am a new me. i dial a telephone number and white it is ringing I almost forget who I'm calling. Another thing I've learned a lot about is cholesterol and triglycerietes. The doctor says cut down on salt, sugar, red meat, whole milk, eggs and almost everything that is good. And now tell me why people are suddenly looking so young? How can you accept a speeding ticket from someone who looks like a kid dressed up for the school play? It beats me!

This is a poem I like: Entitled "Life's Clock" The clock of life is wound but once and on man has the power to tell you where the hands will stop, at late or early hour. To loose ones wealth is sad indeed, to loose ones health is more, to loose ones soul is such a loss. As no man can restore the past the present we live only at will. Place no faith in "tomorrow" for the clock may then be still.

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