It was a very exciting day for me, the first day school. What was the first day of school like in 1926? Maybe very different from the first day of school children of today but I am sure it was just as exciting an event as it is for a five-year-old today. I was seven years old and I did not start in kindergarten but as a member of the primer class which is called kindergarten today.

The school day began at a quarter to nine on about Sept. 20th because all country children were needed at home to help pick the last bales of cotton. We attended, my sisters and I, a three room school called Komensky which was located about three miles from our home near Moulton in Lavaca County. On the first day of school I was allowed to wear my Sunday best dress all stiffly starched and ironed and of course my new hi-tops which pinched my feet. Perhaps that was due to the fact that I was not accustomed to wearing shoes. We went barefooted all summer long and barefoot to school after the first day for at least as long as weather permitted.

My father had “Frank” our white horse that was also our pet hitched to the gig or buggy as it was called. My sisters and I were assisted into it and with sister, Ida, the eldest, holding the reins off we went. We had already heard the eight o’clock bell ring which alerted all the farm children that school would take up in forty-five minutes. The bell would ring again at eight-forty and at eight-forty-five.

I remember quite well my pleasure when we arrived at the school ground and my teacher; Miss Annie Novasad was pointed out to me by my sister Mary. She wore a black skirt and a red blouse which I thought, was beautiful.

There was a barn with a fenced enclosure in which Frank; the horse would be stabled until school was dismissed for the day at 3:45 P.M. He had plenty of company as other children also rode in buggies or horseback.

When the last bell rang for the start of the school day we lined up in front of the school building. There were three grades in each room and there was a line for each room. Every child wanted to be first in line. It was, for some reason, embarrassing to be last in line. Sometimes, if weather permitted, some announcements would be made to the student body by the principal from the school porch. The pledge might be recited in unison and we might sing “My Country Tis of Thee.” One of the announcements I remember the principal making was, “Don’t waste the toilet paper.” That was an item in short supply since schools operated on a very low budget. We sometimes did without but that didn’t bother us too much. We often did without at home and had to use the Sears and Roebuck catalogue or a box of corn cobs. We had outdoor “Johnies” as they were called with three holes and a great deal of the time the odor was very unpleasant although they were treated with lime on a fairly regular basis.

Our classroom was equipped with a teacher’s desk and chair which was in the front of the room and the children’s desks, all wooden double desks facing the teacher. It was quite exciting finding our who your desk partner was going to be and a form of punishment to have to sit with a boy which was sometimes necessary since there were not an equal number of boys and girls. The desk had inkwells which contained liquid ink for the pens and fountain pens and were very messy for young children who had no knowledge of how to fill the cheap pens. We were not allowed to use ink until we were in the third grade but still ended up with ink spilled on our desks, ourselves and our papers.

At night during the long winter evenings my sisters and I did our home work by the light of an oil lamp at one end of a long table while our parents played dominoes on the other end. We had no radio or television and reading materials were in short supply.

My first book was called “Baby Ray” and we were taught to read by “sight”. I always took my book home and one of my sisters would read my lesson to me several times until I had memorized it and I could read the story and look out of the window at the same time. I shall never forget that when I had my “reader” at home over the Christmas Holidays I suddenly realized that I could recognize words and no longer needed my sister’s assistance except for unfamiliar words. It was a happy day for me - I could read!

Soon after I learned to read my teacher told me she would promote me and two other children to the first grade. Since we were all in the same room I had listened to the first grade students recite their lessons and I was scared “stiff’ that I would not be able to keep up with them but I soon teamed I could. Most children spent an entire school year in the “primer” class because they had not learned to speak English at home and they had a difficult time learning their lessons. Their parents spoke either German or Czech at home. We were allowed to speak only English on the school ground so out of necessity they learned to speak English very quickly.

The first year of school was over before I knew it. School was only in session for seven and a half months. May found us all back in the cotton patch chopping “thinning” the cotton plants and looking forward to the next school term when we would be in the next grade and maybe even in another room with another teacher. When I was in the third grade I was most happy that I would not have Frances Ripple for a teacher again. She was a strict disciplinarian. She walked around with a leather strap about fourteen inches long with which she would whack you over the back if she caught you whispering to the student sitting at the next desk. We all hated her and she has convinced me that a teacher needs to be taught child psychology as well as subject matter. As a whole though, I remember my school years as being mostly happy years.

I attended school at Komensky until I was twelve years old and in the sixth grade when we moved to another farm about half way between Scott School and Baursville School. We attended the Baursville School which was nearly four miles away and we had to walk back and forth each day. I was the only girl in my grade. I hated attending school in Baursville. Nearly all the children were from reserved German families and did not feel comfortable with new students.

About that time we began to feel the effects of the great depression as it was called and life changed very drastically. We were never hungry since we raised our own food; nor did we suffer any other physical hardships. Everybody was suffering the same difficulties caused by lack of cash. Cotton prices dropped from about 20 cents a pound to less than 10 cents. We were forced to sell off all of our farm equipment and most of our livestock to pay off a bank loan. We could no longer farm. My father worked for W.P.A. provided by the government for a while and then accepted a position as foreman on a ranch in Kyle.

In the meantime I had moved in with my sister, Martha and her husband in Breslau. The school at Breslau was a better school than the one nearer our home and perhaps one less mouth to feed helped in my parent’s decision to let me attend the Breslau School. Although I missed my family I was not too unhappy. We visited often until the family moved to Kyle. Moving into the home of my sister and her husband and their two young sons was quite a change for me. They lived on a farm too so there were the same chores to do only now I did not have the assistance of my sisters and brothers (my nephews were too young). My sister and her husband were good to me but I was expected to carry my weight. I soon learned to milk cows, shuck and shell corn for the chickens and feed the other farm animals as well as help with housekeeping chores. You have never lived until you have lived in a house without indoor plumbing and no running water. All the water had to be pumped (we always had had windmills) and carried to the barn for the chickens and farm animals. There was a water bucket on the porch from which we all drank using the same dipper. I don’t think we had any more illnesses than we have today even though it sounds unsanitary. I pumped tubs of water for doing the laundry before I went to school in the mornings. Baths were taken only once a week in a washtub set near the kitchen stove except in the summer time when we used bucket showers near the water pump. Even brushing your teeth was a chore since you had to go outdoors to rinse your mouth. We used soda and salt instead of toothpaste to clean our teeth. Many of the farm children did not own a tooth brush.

We washed the dishes in a dishpan with water from a bucket heated on the stove which was fueled with wood. The dirty water than was poured out of doors usually on flower beds. What a blessing it was when farms finally got electricity and water was pumped with electric motors and piped into homes but that was not until the war was over. Perhaps the most satisfying thing I did for my mother was to have a modern bathroom installed in her home shortly before I married.

She had running water in her home but Moulton had no sewer system and all the newer homes had cesspools. The old homes had outdoor toilets.

Farm life may still be difficult but Oh what a blessing R.E.A. was for rural areas when they provided electricity for farmers. Tractors replaced horses and mules. They don’t have to be fed. Milk machines took the place of milking cows, electric shellers shelled the corn and electric pumps finally brought running water into kitchens and bathrooms. No less wonderful were fans and air conditioners to help make the hot summer days in Texas more bearable.

To return to my life in Breslau, the change in schools was very fortunate for me. I was warmly welcomed into the school at Breslau. Miss Timm who taught the upper three grades and was also the principal met me at the door on my first day, gave me a hug and introduced me to the other students who were soon my friends. Miss Tinim was a wonderful teacher as well as a friend to her students. She tried to inspire her country students to become the best they could be. She was not only a teacher but a psychologist.

About a month after I started school, my nephew, James who was then a darling child of two and whom I loved very much became seriously ill with diphtheria. The Hallettsville doctors recommended a doctor in Austin. On the way to Austin in a Model T Ford his condition deteriorated to a point that his parents decided he might not live to reach Austin so they stopped in La Grange where he was operated on and a tube placed in his throat so that he could breathe. After about twenty-four hours he began to improve. Oscar Lee, his brother, and I were quarantined. I went back home and stayed for five weeks because Oscar Lee also took the disease although he had a much less serious case. My parents must have been worried sick that I too would get diphtheria and pass it on to my younger brother and sister but they never let me know they were worried. After five weeks out of school (I did study at home) I caught up with my class and passed the county tests which all seventh grade students had to pass in order to begin high school classes.

When I was in the ninth grade Miss Timm insisted that I enter in competition with other rural schools in the UTL contest in essay or ready-writing as it was called then and in public speaking. i won first place in both contests and also won district in ready-writing but I did not get to go to regional because Miss Timm became seriously ill and I had no one to take me to Austin.

Breslau only taught through the ninth grade so I graduated as salutatorian in 1935 about two weeks after my father died of throat cancer probably brought on by all of the bull Durham cigarettes he smoked. I loved my father and my memories of him are mostly good ones. In spite of his faults he was good to us.

I had not been living in the same household for 2 1/2 years so perhaps my grief was not as severe as it would have been had the situation been different. After my father’s death my mother rented a house in Moulton for $5.00 a month and I went home to live with the rest of the family. There were still five of us living at home at the time. Financially, we were in bad straits. There was some life insurance money. My mother took care of her father, my grandfather, for some money and the rest of us worked in the fields during the summer earning what money we could to help pay for clothing and school supplies. I remember Cookie (a nickname) who was about 12 years old at the time working all day on Saturday from six to six at the local grocery store bagging groceries for which he was paid one dollar. My mother gave him a dime to go to the movies on Saturday night and kept the rest.

I did not want to start a new school but my mother said I had to go back to school or get a job to help with the family finances. There were no jobs available for girls my age in Moulton except as housemaids and I did not want to be any body’s servant. Not that there was any stigma attached to the profession at the time. Nearly all the farm girls worked in some ones home at the time. Many of them went to Houston to find jobs. After all, we all wanted to eat and taking charity was looked down on a lot more than earning your living honestly.

Naturally I had enjoyed my school days at Breslau and I didn’t want to start over in a new school I had no alternative so I enrolled about a week late and for the first time in my school days I made a “D”. That was in geometry. I had missed the introduction to the course and it took me a while to catch up in both geometry and Spanish. After the first few days I enjoyed my school days in Moulton too.

Outside the fact that we were always short of money (who wasn’t) those two years, my junior and senior years were very happy ones. I had a very close friend named Helen Novak. We were dating then and I went everywhere she went. We often chose to go to dances which was all the entertainment we had except an occasionally movie (admission 10 cents) without dates as it gave us the opportunity to dance with all the stags. Many boys also went stag too, some because they chose too and others because they could not afford to pay for the extra ticket and drinks that a date would cost.

My one disappointment in my school days was that the school only accepted a 75% average from any transferee from a rural school. In spite of losing my 95% average I still graduated with an 87% average but I was salutatorian again instead of valedictorian. The one compensation for my ego was that I was chosen the most popular girl that year. I beat the valedictorian in that respect.

After my graduation, I spent about a year working in Schulenburg as a doctor’s receptionist. I got room and board and I helped with the housework for about $18.00 a month in cash. In September, with the help of my sisters and their husbands plus my mother selling her last horse I began college in San Marcos which at that time was Southwest Texas Teacher’s College. At that time it was strictly a teacher’s college but it did offer business courses which we took advantage of. My friend Helen and I both enrolled and we took the same courses following the advice of one of our high school teachers who suggested we may not like teaching so she advised us to take shorthand and typing. We were thankful that we had followed her advice when we became bored with teaching (we taught in the same school for two years) and moved to Houston after the war began.

We were roommates in college for the first semester after which Helen’s mother said she could not afford the $12.00 a month it cost to live in a Co. Op. house. Room and Board was cheap because we took care of all the cooking. Taking turns one day a week each day six of us had to plan the menu, cook the food and clean up afterward. Of course we did have a housemother who advised us but she did not do any work. We learned a lot as well as we were paying part of our own way. Sometimes we went hungry because we were allowed only so much money a month. My mother sent cookies quite often. We never left food on our plates. We were only too happy to get it. Sometimes we didn’t like it but we ate it anyway. As a whole it wasn’t bad. Working together was fun and each girl mostly carried her own weight. In order to stay in school Helen worked for her room and board in the coach’s home. It was not necessary for me to do that but when she got out of school she didn’t have to repay anyone and I had to repay about $250.00 which my sister’s had loaned me. She had earned her way.

At that time we could get a teacher’s certificate to teach in a rural school with one year of college and six hours of credit~ in government courses. Fortunately the school principal at Wildwood near Weimar had known my father and he insisted his school board hire me. He knew how badly I needed the job. I got $85.00 a month; a handsome salary then. Helen got a job at Novrahad because she could speak Czeck but her salary was only $55.00 a month. The next year we both taught at Wildwood. I taught the first three grades and she taught the fourth, fifth and sixth grades. We bought an old car, a whippet, which everybody laughed at for $135.00 and drove back and forth from Weimar which was about six miles from Wildwood. I tried to learn how to drive. I never had a chance before because my mother never had a car. I almost ran into a horse drawn wagon going around a blind corner which scared me so badly I refused to try anymore so Helen did all the driving. After Clifton and I were married and Chris was about two years old he taught me how to drive. Thank goodness. It certainly made a lot of difference in my life. Helen and I had a kitchenette apartment in Weimar. It had a combination bedroom, living room and a tiny kitchen and bath.

We painted it white, I bought a bedroom suite and Helen made red gingham curtains for it. We paid $18.00 a month rent for the apartment and our monthly food budget was $20.00 a month each. I sent my mother $15.00 a month which I was expected to do since I now had a job and that was why my sister’s husbands had been willing to loan me the money to go to college. To be honest I did not mind. I have always been grateful I got the chance to go since so many of my friends did not have that opportunity. Money was scarce for anyone. Of course we had car expenses. My brother-in-law, Les Blume (Mary’s husband) bought us an old whippet for $135.00 and it was always giving us trouble but we had a good mechanic living in the same house and he kept it running for the years we needed it. It spent some time during the war on jacks in my mother’s garage. My uncle finally bought it for $25.00 mostly for the tires which were rationed during the war.

I taught at Wildwood for three years and then at a one room country school near Fayetteville for one year. By that time most of the young people I knew had moved to Houston. Jobs were plentiful and the boys were all in the service. Life in a small town was boring unless you lived near an army base. I went to Houston too where sister, Alice was already working for Reed Roller Bit. Knowing this was a war job and wouldn’t last I went to work for Gulf Distributor Corporation (An automotive wholesale dealer). The Company hired me although I had no office experience because I came from a good family, so I was told. My parents were descendants of immigrant parents who were looking for a better life for their children and although as poor as church mice - they were honest, hardworking and a family oriented people. I worked at the counter taking orders from retailers for awhile for $125.00 a month and after the bookkeeper walked out - my boss decided I might be bright enough to do the job. That job wasn’t easy. I had never had any courses in accounting and there was no one to train me. I learned the job by researching how the bookkeeper before me had done the entries. Some of the accounts were out of balance but I didn’t know that then. After I learned the job I swore I’d never accept another job without a pre-audit. I fell in love with accounting and I worked for ten to twelve hours a day by going to work at six o’clock in the morning and quitting at dusk until I could keep up on a daily basis. I was soon a pretty good bookkeeper. Years later I took an accounting course at Del Mar and also took two correspondence courses in cost accounting and hospital accounting. I can’t believe it now but I actually looked forward to Monday’s with pleasure when I worked for Gulf Dist. Corp. My boss then was Herman Lee and he and Carmel, his wife treated me like a member of the family. I think God was looking after me during those years.

After the war was over my sister Alice and Judy with whom I shared an apartment both married and I was sort of at loose ends. The two ex-servicemen whom I had kept in touch with during the war came home and I, more or less discovered that the relationships I had romanticized did not live up to my expectations. I also knew I would never marry the salesman I was dating at that time in spite of his frequent proposals. One of the things I remember him telling me was that I would never find a man who would live up to my moral code.

After flying back and forth to Corpus Christi to close the books there for the branch office and also keep up ahead of my job in Houston I decided a change might be a happy choice for me. Herman Lee, my boss in Houston, had been transferred to Corpus Christi and he asked me to take over as his office manager there and after due consideration I decided to accept his offer; Another lucky choice. The Lee’s had arranged for me to room with a girl from Luling named, Lillian Schroeder. It was because of us having the same first name that everyone from Corpus Christi and the Bailey family called me, Johnny. There were two other girls sharing the second flour of the house we lived in. So as not to cause confusion I told them to call me “Johnny” which was a nickname I had had for years in my own family and was accustomed to.

One of the girls who shared our living quarters was a close friend of Frankie Bailey Ott who arranged a blind date for me with her brother, Clifton and that is how I met the man married.

While I don’t believe it was love at first sight it was certainly a mutual attraction. We had our first real date on New Year’s Eve and went on from there. We did not marry until three years later for several reasons. One was because we both had families who needed our financial support but mostly because I was a Catholic and at that time all Catholics had to promise to raise their children as Catholics. That did not go over very well with my future mother-in-law as she was a devout Baptist. We finally compromised and joined the Methodist Church which was a decision neither of us ever regretted. We were warmly welcomed into the Methodist Fellowship and it became the mainstay of our lives and we have always been active participants in our chosen religion.

We were married in Grace Methodist Church in Annaville which is now a part of Corpus Christi with Herman and Carmel Lee as our attendants and J. Burney Wilson the owner of Gulf Dist. Corp. gave me away. I wore a navy dress with pink accessories and Clifton wore a blue suit. There were no members of my family at the wedding. My sister’s were all at a shower given for me by friends and so did not attend our hastily planned wedding. We did not intend to have a wedding celebration of any kind but when Mr. Wilson said there was no way he would miss my wedding we were forced to have at least a small wedding ceremony and reception. The Company he owned had always treated me wonderfully and we wanted to accommodate him so we hastily invited by mouth some of our friends and we had a nice wedding with the reception at the Lee’s home.

Clifton had bought a lot in Rolling Acres near Annaville and we pooled our savings and with the help of Dad Bailey he built our first home there and we paid cash for it. It was there I became pregnant and lost our first child. I also had a second miscarriage two years later. Neither of which was ever explainable. We wanted children very badly and had planned to have at least three. We tried for adoption but we were already in our thirties and no agency would accept our application. Fortunately my third pregnancy went well and Chris was born alive and well. I never had another pregnancy and I always felt extremely lucky to have him. He was and still is, our pride and joy as are our grandchildren.

I will summarize briefly the next forty years. Clifton was an electronics instrument specialist in civil service and when the Naval Air Station Base in Corpus closed he accepted a job at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio. We sold our home at 435 Wildwood and moved to San Antonio where we lived for two and one-half years.

The army took over the closed Base in Corpus Christi and reopened it as ARADMAC and we and all of our friends moved back to Corpus. We bought a home in Jackson Woods and Chris started school in Annaville. I stayed at home to be with Chris taking only an occasional part-time job until he was twelve years old. I kept busy with his activities and with church projects until I felt he no longer needed me at home. I then took a business machines and two accounting courses at Del Mar and went to work for E. & P. Trucking Co. where I worked until we retired and moved to Shiner. E. & P. Trucking Co. was located off Violet Road just a few blocks from Jackson Woods. When I told Mr. Moore, my boss, that I was leaving and he offered me a ten thousand dollar bonus to remain as his office manager. I cite this as an example of how women were treated sometimes in the market place. I was not offered a raise until I quit and Mr. Moore knew he would have to pay someone a lot more to do what I did.

After we built our home (mostly by ourselves) I worked for the Shiner Hospital as their head accountant for twelve years. It was because of my working during those twelve high inflation years that we were able to accumulate our adequate savings account since we owned our home and we never had to hire anyone to fix anything around our home. Clifton always did it himself Also Chris was no longer dependent on us. We enjoy living in Shiner and plan to live here as long as we remain self sufficient.