A friend of mine said to me recently, "Why do you always apologize for everything you do?" I hadn't realized that I did that, but that set one to thinking. Finally I answered her, "I suppose that it is because when everyone found out that my mother was expecting again, they threw up their hands and said, "Oh, no! Not another baby!" That "other baby", the sixth in our family, turned out to be Leila Katherine Routh, and I should never have been born. You see, my mother had T.B. and had a hard time managing with five children, let alone six. Therefore, my first apology must have been for having been born!

Leila Katherine Routh was born 17 June 1917 in Dallas, Texas to Dr. Eugene Coke Routh, a noted Baptist Journalist, and his first wife, Mary Mildred Wroe. E.C. Routh (b. Nov 1874) was 52 and his wife 46 yo when Leila was born. To E.C. and Mary were born six children: Lucile ( ), Ross ( ), Elizabeth ( ), Porter ( ), Copass ( ) and Leila Katherine (1917- ). E.C. had one sister Leila Routh who later married the Baptist song writer, B.B. McKinney, and Mary Mildred had one sister, Katrina "Katie" Belle Wroe who later married Ryland House. Thus Leila Katherine was given her name to honor her two aunts. [JWA]

Another problem which confronted our family about that time was the illness of my brother Copass. I was too young to remember it, but for some reason he had a great problem with his hip and leg, requiring surgery, and he was bedfast a couple of years, I am told. He was just a little fellow, a little under three years old when I was born. "They" always said he had "T.B. of the hip", probably contracted from my mother, but that was probably not a correct diagnosis. At any rate, the surgery resulted in a long convalescence and required that he wear a special built-up shoe all his life, or go limping badly, since one leg was about six inches shorter than the other. Because he required so much care, my other brothers and sisters all claimed that they had to stay home from school, off and on, to "rock the baby" - another reason I needed to apologize to them for causing them so much trouble! Oh well___

With regard to Copass' illness, it was not until just a few years before he died, when he had a thorough physical exam, that a doctor became interested in his case and studied the x-rays and hip problem carefully. He told Copass that in his opinion he could not have had that type injury to his hip by having "T.B. of the hip", but he had probably been dropped, as a baby, causing the problem. It is so sad to me, and I'm sure that it was to him, to know that he went all of his life as a cripple when it could have been avoided. In today's world, given all the knowledge and orthopedic expertise available, things would have been taken care of so differently, and the quality of his life would have been much better for the seventy years that he lived.

A friend of mine just showed me an autobiography of her life when she had just completed. I really never thought that my own life was glamorous enough to warrant an autobiography, but then I thought that perhaps there might be some interesting aspects of it which people in the family might like to know later on, if not now, -- so here goes.

My father used to talk at great length about things "way back" in his youth, and I just half listened. Therefore, I don't remember much of what he said. Now, I wish that I had listened more, but he is no longer around to refresh my memory. My sister Elizabeth had many more years of listening than I did, and therefore she has been able to tell me about my parents life. I really have very few personal memories of a home with my mother and father, as my mother was away in a sanitarium somewhere and I was shifted around between Aunt Katie, Aunt Leila, or my older brothers and sisters, with the help of a housekeeper. I remember being in Houston with Aunt Katie and Uncle Ryland when I was a tiny girl. Finally, my mother decided that she would like to have the children near her (she was in a sanitarium in El Paso and my father lived in Dallas), so some of us children moved out to a house Daddy rented for us in El Paso, and my mother was moved to a back bedroom of the house, somewhat isolated and yet available to us if we wanted to come and go from her room. I must have been about five years old when this arrangement was worked out. Lucile was at Baylor U in Waco and Ross may have been at Simmons University in Abilene. Elizabeth, Porter, Copass and I were at home. Aunt Katie came from time to time to help and my father came on the train from Dallas about once a month. We had a Mexican cook who came over frequently from Juarez, Mexico.

I remember beginning school in El Paso. I can't remember whether I had gone to some pre-school or kindergarten in Dallas or not, before we children moved to El Paso, but I know that I went to first and second grade in El Paso at David Crockett School, I believe. The others in my family had all gone to school in Dallas before we moved to El Paso. Copass was nearest to me in age - nearly three years older. Porter was three years older than Copass. Elizabeth was two years older than Porter. Ross was two and a half years older than Elizabeth, and Lucile was two and a half years older than Ross.

Our parents [E.C. Routh and Mary Mildred Wroe] had been married in 1897 when my mother was seventeen and my father was twenty-three. Aunt Katie [Katie Bell Wroe], my mother's [only] sister, was about eleven years old at the time. She came and lived with my parents until she was grown. She went then to Houston to work, and it was there that she met Uncle Ryland. Elizabeth said that they were married at our house in Dallas in 1913 when Aunt Katie was about twenty-six. After that, she came back and stayed months at a time to help out with "Sister" (my mother) and "Sister's" children. She was always like a second mother to us, and we were like her own children, as she never had any children of her own. Uncle Ryland was equally devoted and we always felt close to them.

They lived in Houston and had a beautiful little home on Brisnard Street there until about 1946, when they sold their house and moved out to Uncle Henry's farm near Frankston when he got sick. He was Aunt Katie's only living brother. His son Sam had also lived there, but he and his wife had gotten a divorce, and he went to Dallas to build things during the war years. Since Henry was a widower, and head no one to take care of him, Uncle Ryland and Aunt Katie moved out there and nursed him until he died, in 1948. Sam was still working in Dallas, so he told them to stay on there, which they did until about 1970 when they moved to a retirement home in Austin, near Ross and Lucile.

To back up a little, my parents had met and married in the south-central Texas area and had lived in Winchester, San Saba, Copperas Cove, San Marcos, San Antonio, and Lockhart, where Lucile, Ross and Porter were born. Elizabeth was born in San Antonio, where they had moved for a short while between Ross and Porter. After that, the family moved to Dallas, when Daddy became asst. editor of the Baptist Standard until we moved to Oklahoma (1928).

El Paso

In about 1923 we moved to 2800 W. Lebanon St., El Paso, to be with our mother. I remember sitting by her bed, practicing my ABC's and "push-pulls" and "ovals" in penmanship. She was very ill, however, and I never remember her out of bed in El Paso. I remember hiding in a closet early one morning, before she knew I was up, and hearing her pray to herself aloud, asking to die. It must have been a very hard and lonely life for her, as my father was able to come on the train from Dallas (about a 2 day trip each way) only once a month. I remember hardly knowing him and hiding behind the door when he came. This must have hurt him a lot, as he was very devoted to his children and my mother. He was there in the room with her, as we all were, when she finally passed away in 1925 [June 21, Sunday], a few days after my eighth birthday .

There is one memory of my mother which stands out because it was of a little trip we took to a downtown store in Dallas to do a little shopping, I guess. I was quite young, maybe three years old, and I remember straying off, giving everyone a scare. We had been at a table for a little refreshment, I remember, and my mother went to the cash register to pay the bill, I suppose. I thought that she had gone out of the store and wandered out on the street looking for her. A newspaper man on the corner saw me and took me into a nearby bank and turned me over to a bank official. I told the official my father's telephone number at his office, and he came to get me and my distraught mother, who was searching for me. Someone in the family had done a good job in teaching me Daddy's telephone number.

My mother's funeral was at the First Baptist Church in El Paso [prob Wed June 24, 1925], but they decided to take her body back to Dallas for burial from a service at Cliff Temple Baptist Church since the rest of us would be soon going back there to live.

[On the occasion of Logan’s baptism in May 2011, Leila recalled that, at her father’s suggestion, she joined Cliff Temple Baptist Church the Sunday after her mother died, and her dad baptized her that night, June 28, 1925.]

I believe that most of us stayed in El Paso during the time of my mother's burial, and then we traveled to Dallas as soon as we could get packed up and Daddy could find a place for us to live there. He had just been renting a room for himself while we lived with our mother in El Paso.

The house he rented for us was on Velasco Street, in Dallas. I believe that all six of us were home with him that summer, preparing to go to boarding school. I am sure that Daddy must have been "beside himself" trying to decide what to do with us all; but he made a wise decision, though an expensive one, to send the four younger ones of us to San Marcos Baptist Academy, a school he had always been interested in and had been on a committee to find a location for such a school, when it had been founded. Lucile was a senior at Baylor University, and Ross was to go back to Simmons University in Abilene.

It was a busy summer we had, getting ready to go off to school, and Lucile was like a surrogate mother of us all. We had to buy sheets and towels and label them all, to take away to school. Aunt Katie was helpful in getting our clothes ready, which was made a little easier by the fact that San Marcos Academy was a military school, and Copass and Porter would wear uniforms. It boggles my mind to think about what all that - plus tuition, board and room - must have cost! I know that Daddy had to go heavily in debt; and he spent many, many years trying to pay for it all - which he finally did after the Depression!

Back to my mother's funeral; Elizabeth said that she and Lucile went back to Dallas with Daddy, and perhaps Ross and Aunt Katie, too but we younger children didn't go at that time. They had another funeral service for her at Cliff Temple Baptist Church and she was buried in a newly plowed field which was to be a cemetery. Years later my father searched for her grave in the field and found that it is now a choice location in the beautiful Laurel Land Cemetery in South Dallas. In 1966, we buried Daddy by her side, though his second wife was buried in the Lockhart Cemetery. Late in his life he had said he wanted to be buried by her, but we thought that at another time in his life he would have wanted to be buried by his first wife, the mother of all his children. Since he died in Dallas, it seemed appropriate to bury him in Dallas by our mother. We have visited the grave several times, when we have gone through Dallas.

One memory I have during the summer following my mother's death was walking from our house on Valasco Street to the home of Mrs. Hill, Daddy's secretary. She and her husband had a "crystal set", and we listened to it -- our first time to hear a radio! That was in 1925. We had to put on ear phones to hear anything, but that was quite exciting. We did not own a radio any time during my growing - up hears. My folks got one after I went away to college!

At the end of the summer of 1925, we all left Dallas for school. At San Marcos, Copass and Porter lived in one dormitory, and Elizabeth and I lived in another - Carroll Hall. We roomed together, which was rather a strain for her since I was eight years younger than she. I was in the third grade and she was a senior in high school. Part of the time she worked in the office, however, and so we were not together much except when we were sleeping. I tried to fool her by stuffing pillows in my bed to look like me sleeping there; then I'd go down the hall and try to spend the night with my girl friend. When she would come up from the office, though, she'd see what I'd done and come get me.

My father and Aunt Katie wrote quite frequently and when I needed a costume for a play or something like that Aunt Katie always made it and sent it from Houston. She was so good to us all. I'm sure she didn't have extra time, but she never made us feel that we were a burden. She worked at Foley Brothers many years.

I have several memories from San Marcos Academy days. One is: that was the year I learned my multiplication tables and I can remember repeating them (1 x 1 + = 1 to 12 X 12 = 144) over and over again as I skipped over the dormitory halls and campus. Another memory I have is of playing jacks on the splintery pine floor of our dormitory room and scooping up about a 2/3 inch splinter under the fingernail of the third finger of my right hand. That was a painful experience, but I soon recovered. I also remember having fun riding a little burro around the circle-drive in front of our dormitory. His name was Lazy Bones, a very appropriate name for the slow trips he gave us. He was a very safe pet, though, for us younger children.

The school had a laundry which did most of our clothes, but I can remember washing out handkerchiefs (it was before the days of Kleenex) and "pasting" them dripping wet on the window panes of our room so that they would dry smoothly and wouldn't have to be ironed.

One strange policy the school had, as I remember, was giving the boys demerits for misbehavior; and when they got so many demerits, their punishment was to move a pile of rocks, one at a time, from one end of the football field to the other end. Girls didn't have to do that.

The church we attended was the First Baptist Church of San Marcos. The academy was at the top of the hill and the church was several blocks away, at the foot of the hill. I can remember huffing and puffing as we walked back from church on Sundays. At revival-meeting time, when they had meetings every day for a week, we met in a chapel, or auditorium, which was in Carroll Hall. I still sing, once in a while, a little chorus I learned during the revival, though I don't remember the "evangelist's" and "singer's" names. Here's the way it went:

He took me out of the pit
and from the miry clay,
He set my foot on the rock
establishing the way,

He put a song in my mouth,
my Lord to glorify,
And He'll take me some day
to His Home on High.

I'm not sure that I understood it all, but I believed those words, and still do. We all went around singing that song, joyfully. The only music we had was what we made ourselves, since that was in the days before people had radios everywhere. I think that there was a piano on which I played "Love Lifted Me" and in a while "by ear". There was a school band for the older students, but not for us younger ones.

One funny memory I have of San Marcos days was that there was another school in town, high up on another hill, which they always referred to as the "normal school". I had no idea what a normal school was but thought it was a school for crazy people. Years later I learned that it was a teachers' college and eventually became Southwest Texas University where Clinton taught the last fifteen years of his life. He was head of the Placement Bureau for teachers, after he had retired from being superintendent of schools' in Harlingen, Texas, and had taught in A&I, a college in Kingsville, Tx.

The week before we left Dallas to go to San Marcos, my father talked to me about "giving my heart to Jesus" and becoming a Christian. I decided that I would and he "walked down the aisle" with me as I joined Cliff Temple Baptist Church in Dallas. After the church voted on me, we went to the baptistery, where he baptized me, as he had done his five other children at earlier times, either in that church or in the First Baptist Church of El Paso. When we went to San Marcos, the four younger ones in our family all "moved our letters" to the First Baptist Church of San Marcos. That was the beginning of a long series of changing my letter to belong to my local church -- about sixteen times, I think.

The next time I changed my church membership, it was back to Dallas, at the end of our year in San Marcos.

During the year we were in San Marcos, our father lived in Dallas. Part of that year Ross was with him there, Elizabeth told me, but then he went to Simmons University in Abilene. I do not remember just when he started. It may have been in 1925, the year our mother died, or he may have worked awhile in Dallas and gone to Simmons in 1926. He graduated, however, about 1929, I think, about the same time Fay graduated from there. Lucile had gone awhile to Simmons, too, when we lived in El Paso, but had transferred to Baylor University, where she graduated in 1926. When I left San Marcos, I remember going by Waco for Lucile's graduation in route to Dallas where we were to live. Daddy was interim pastor at Gaston Avenue Baptist Church and we were to live in the parsonage at 4412 Gaston Avenue while the regular pastor was on leave.

It must have been a lonely year for my father, with all his family scattered, and so it was natural that he seek companionship in the larger family circle. His sister (my Aunt Leila, who had married B.B. McKinney) lived in nearby Fort Worth. Their mother had always lived with her, but she died the year before my mother did. (She was the only grandparent I ever saw, and I don't remember much about her. One saying of hers I do remember however. When she sent me to the little store near Aunt Leila's house on Seminary Hill in Fort Worth, she always said, "Make haste!") Since Daddy's mother was no longer living he sought comfort in Houston with his sister-in-law (who was also his step sister), Aunt Katie.

Also living in Houston was another relative, Alice Routh, whom we had called "Cousin Alice". Her father and Daddy's father were brothers. She had never married and was what everyone in those days called "an old maid school teacher." She was a very bright person and had taught math for many years at South End High School in Houston. My father had always admired her a lot and had enjoyed talking to her though others in the family, I am told, did not care for her because of her being so opinionated and having such a caustic tongue (which she did have!). My Aunt Katie especially disliked her. She was quite distraught when my father told her that he planned to marry Alice Routh, and everyone said she cried all through their wedding which was held in the First Baptist Church of Houston on July 7, 1926. I did not know that a wedding was taking place, but Lucile and Elizabeth went to the wedding. The rest of us children were in Dallas. When my father and "Cousin Alice" returned from their honeymoon to Cloudcroft, New Mexico, I made a terrible faux pax and asked her how long she was going to stay! She was quite upset that my father hadn't done a better job of informing his children about their new stepmother.

My father was 50 1/2 years old and my mother was 45 years old when she died. When he married again he was 51 1/2. My stepmother was 52 years old when she became a bride and the "mother" of six children -- ages 9-22!! My Aunt Katie always said that my father had told her that three of the "children" were already grown and living other places, and it wouldn't be long until the other three would be grown. She must have been overwhelmed when she came back from her honeymoon and found us all there, to cook for and clean up after! She had never liked to cook nor ever kept up a big household. I believe she had thought that my father was better off financially than he actually was, because that first year we had a cook/maid who came everyday (with Thursday afternoons off). That gave rise to a saying we had in our house for many years about having a "Thursday night special" -- the menu we always had on the maid's night off: steak (broiled), mashed potatoes, and lettuce with Thousand Island dressing. It was delicious but must have been expensive, as my father always brought home a big inch-thick steak which he would pound awhile and then grill under the flame. Yummy!

My stepmother, whom we all continued to call "Cousin Alice" for years, much to my father's and her chagrin, was a very thrifty and frugal person who hated debt with a passion. She must have been quite disillusioned when she realized that Daddy was not paid a high salary and that he was "head and heels" in debt. In those days women did not go out to work -- in fact, married women were never able to get teaching jobs. So, she sat home and stewed - and stewed -! That was almost "the story of our lives" with Cousin Alice! Now that I am grown, I can understand and sympathize, but I was not very appreciative of the life we all lived together at the time it was happening. The first year, though, I don't remember any particular unpleasantness. At the end of that first summer Daddy's preaching assignment at Gaston Avenue was up, and we moved from the parsonage to a little house back in the Oak Cliff section on Montreal Street. We moved our membership from Gaston Avenue Baptist Church back to Cliff Temple Baptist Church where I had originally joined the Church. Dr. Wallace Bassett was the wonderful pastor there. He had a sweet wife and three beautiful daughters and a son. His daughters, Margaret, Elaine [for whom Elaine Arnett was named], and Verona, had all been friends of my older sisters when they had lived in Dallas earlier. The Bassetts lived just a few doors from us on Montreal Street, and I remember that they took me with them to see the only Metropolitan Opera I ever saw, "Hansel and Gretel." It was a wonderful experience. Two of the Bassett girls went on to New York and became Powers Models, the apex of the modeling industry in those days. They frequently had their pictures on the front of such magazines as McCalls and Ladies Home Journal. [The Bassetts would often pick Leila up and take her to church when then went.]

That fall I was in the fourth grade [9 yo] and attended Lida Hoe School. My favorite pastime that year was playing on the acting bar on the school playground at school. In those days girls did not wear slacks, but my stepmother made me several "bloomer dresses", since I was always hanging by my knees on the acting bar. "Bloomer dresses" were dresses with full skirts which had bloomers made of the same material.

The next spring my parents bought a house in East Dallas, 4908 Worth Street, not far from the Gaston Avenue address, and we moved back to East Dallas where we again joined Gaston Avenue Baptist Church. Dr. Marshall Craig had just been called as pastor there, and we all fell in love with him. That was the first time I had ever heard of Southern Baptist Seminary, as he had graduated from that school. Most of the preachers in Texas at that time had gone to Southwestern Baptist Seminary, Fort Worth. Dr. Craig's wife was from Virginia. I think she was about the first person I knew who wasn't from Texas. We used to sing "Carry Me Back to Ole Virginny" to her, and she would cry from homesickness. I never dreamed, then, that I would ever live in Virginia.

That fall I entered the fifth grade at another David Crockett School [10 yo]. We enjoyed living on Worth Street. It was a large two-story house with a big front and side porch. I can remember sitting on the porch, evenings in the summer and listening to Daddy read us books. He was a very fast reader and read with a lot of expression. I'm sure that our stepmother provided the money from her savings. I remember one thing that happened that year, however, which made things especially hard for my stepmother. She developed some kind of problem with her teeth and gums (pyorrhea??)and had to have all her teeth pulled and get dentures. That was a long drawn-out, painful process.

During that year a controversy arose in the Baptist community about another Baptist minister in Fort Worth named Frank Norris. He led a group called the Fundamentalists. While my father was not in agreement with Frank Norris and the Fundamentalists, he didn't believe that so much emphasis should be put in fighting him in the Baptist Standard, of which he was editor, as many of the Baptist leaders desired. Such men as George Truett, L.R. Scarborough and their friends wanted their wishes followed in this respect, and so Daddy resigned as editor. He was called as editor of the Oklahoma Baptist Messenger and so our family moved again, when school was out.

My father and stepmother sold the house in Dallas and rented a two-story house in Oklahoma City at 1423 NW 16th St. and I started school at Eugene Field School [1928 --11 yo]. Texas schools had eleven grades and Oklahoma had twelve, or vice versa. At any rate, I should have been put up to the seventh grade but, instead, they started me in the second half of the sixth grade. So at mid-term I was promoted to the seventh grade and attended Theodore Roosevelt Junior High School. At last I was able to stay put in one school for the full three years [11-13 yo] until I graduated there and was promoted to the tenth grade at Classen High School. Because of changing states, though, and my placement as a mid-year student when we moved to Oklahoma, I would have graduated at a mid-year unless I went to summer school one summer. Therefore, I attended summer school one summer while I visited Aunt Katie in Houston. I went for six weeks to Central High School in Houston and for six weeks to San Jacinto High School in Houston and had my credits transferred back to Oklahoma City so that I could graduate in June. I believe I took trigonometry, Latin, History and English that summer. It made me finish high school earlier (just before my seventeenth birthday), but I think I missed out on a lot of activities and also some elective subjects which would have made me much more well-rounded and also better educated.

About the time I was in the ninth grade [14 yo], my family moved to a smaller house in Oklahoma City, 1625 N. Klein St., not far from the 16th Street address. The Depression was in full swing, my father's salary had been cut in half, and so we needed to have cheaper rent. Porter had finished high school and went to Houston to live with Aunt Katie and work at a drugstore a year or two before beginning college. Copass soon finished high school and also went away to OBU and I was the only one at home during my high school years [14-18 yo] except for my senior year [17 yo], when Elizabeth came back home to live. She went to business college and worked as a church secretary, having finished Mary Hardin-Baylor and having taught for a year at San Marcos Academy. She was preparing to go to Africa and needed to learn a skill in taking dictation, as she was to be secretary to Dr. Green in Ogbomosho as soon as the Foreign Mission Board had money enough to send new missionaries out.

I remember the dust storms which started about 1930 and continued for many years. They were awful.

When we moved from Texas to Oklahoma, Daddy "laid down the law" to all of us that we were not to call our stepmother "Cousin Alice" anymore, but "Mother." We had always called our real mother "Mama", so that we should not have had any trouble doing this. However, all of us did! For the longest time we referred to our stepmother as just "her" or "you." Finally, after a long time, Ross (of all people, because he couldn't stand "her") broke the ice. A phone call was for her and rather than looking her up and telling her, he just yelled out "Mother, it's for you." Soon the rest of us followed suit, and that's what we called her or how we referred to her from then on. Ross, however, continued to call her "the old lady", behind her back.

Mother always loved cats. When she and Daddy married, she had a pretty blue-eyed white Persian cat which she had named "Blue Eyes." She never let the cat outside because he was deaf (all white blue-eyed Persian cats are deaf), and she was afraid he might get hurt. One day, during the first couple of years of our folks marriage, Blue Eyes disappeared. We all spent weeks and weeks looking for him and advertising for him, to no avail. It was not until twenty or thirty years later that I learned that Ross had gotten rid of Blue Eyes in some way. He never did say how, but he said he just got tired of seeing Daddy go out in all kinds of weather to get fresh dirt from the yard for the cat (That was before there was any such thing as Kitty Litter.) Mother never did know what happened to the cat, and I'm glad she didn't. She didn't like Ross anyway, for a long time, and she would never have forgiven him! I'm glad I didn't know it either, as I loved Blue Eyes, too. That cat was only the first of a long series of cats and kittens. There was Sunshine, John, Molly, Jerry, henry, Friday and many others. I remember one of our cats had three kittens whom we named Shadrack, Meshak and Abednego. Another litter we named Peter, James and John. It was one of that litter that I accidentally tied up in a big bundle of laundry and the driver took our laundry away. Fortunately when they undid the bundle at the laundry building they discovered the kitten and brought him back home, safe and sound.

In those days no one had a washing machine. Most families had a wash-woman (a Negro) came once a week to wash and another day to iron. The wash-woman would wash the clothes or a scrub board in a big wash tub in the yard. After wringing them out from the soapy water, sometimes by hand and sometimes with a "wringer" (if the family was rich enough to own one) and place them in another tub of "rinse water", and from that to a tub of "bluing water", to whiten up white clothes. If the clothes were especially dirty, the wash woman would boil them in soapy water in a big pan placed on the stove. After the clothes were thoroughly rinsed and wrung out, she would hang them on the clothesline to dry. When they were dry, people in the family would take them in and sprinkle them down to be ironed later. Dresses and shirts had to be run through starch water before they were hung out to dry, as everything was cotton in those days, and had to be ironed before worn.

I had observed the washing routine, to some degree, but not well enough, and that got me into trouble. I did not notice that the wash-woman always separated the white things from the colored things and dark things. When Ross came home to live with us in Oklahoma City after finishing Simmons, he said he'd pay me to wash out his silk underwear (he was extravagant) and socks. The underwear was white and the socks were black, but I didn't realize that they shouldn't be washed together. After washing them in soapy water, I put them in a kettle together and boiled them (weren't clothes supposed to be boiled to be sure they were clean?). Unfortunately when I took them out to wring them out and hang them out to dry, the white silk underwear was almost as dark as the socks! I was petrified at what Ross would say and do. He was not home at the time so I dried them, folded them nicely, and put them in his drawer. When he went to get dressed the next day, he exploded and wanted to know how in the world his beautiful silk underwear ended up that color! I don't think he ever forgave me, and apologizing didn't help any.

I don't recall many things that happened during my junior high school years, but I do have one or two memories. I remember a spring festival in which we all danced around the Maypole. I enjoyed gym classes. Some days we marched to music around the gym or played dodge ball, and other days we took swimming lessons in our school pool. One reason that I remember gym class so much is that my schedule in high school and also in college did not permit me to take gym again or to participate in any sports. I always felt that I missed a lot by not having time to enter into any sports or participate in any band, orchestra or chorus. One year, when I was at OBU, I did get to sing in the Freshman Quartet and really enjoyed that experience.

Speaking of music, when I was in about the ninth grade, my English class was held nest door to the chorus room, and we could hear everything they sang. When we were reading Moby Dick and carving out whales out of soap, the chorus class was invariably practicing "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life". I never hear that song without thinking of Moby Dick.

One final memory I had of my junior high school days was not a happy one. It was my own fault that such a dreadful thing happened to me, but I still think that the school administrators went a little too far in punishing me for my bad behavior. It all happened on the day of graduation. I had had good grades and had never gotten into any trouble, but on that day we were all in a festive mood and I committed the "crime" of blowing up a balloon in class and popping it. My step-mother had been to some occasion the day before and had brought home a balloon (never dreaming, of course, that I would take it to school with me) the next day.

Well, it so happened that we had a substitute teacher that day, and she sent me straight to the office with a note. The principal and assistant principal said I was going to be expelled from school for such gross misconduct. I sat in the office crying all morning. I knew my parents were on their way to school to see me graduate, with honors, no doubt and I - all dressed up in a new dress my stepmother had made - was being expelled! They (the school officials) let me suffer until about the last minute, when the class was ready to march down for graduation, and then told me that they had changed their minds and they would let me walk with the class after all. My folks never knew what a horrible experience I had had that day, but they may have wondered why I was so red-eyed. I still don't know what possessed me to pop that balloon, but I really didn't believe that it was such a terrible thing. One thing, for sure, it took all the joy out of that day for me.

When our family moved to Oklahoma City, we all joined a neighborhood church, Olivet Baptist Church. Dr. Rupert Naney was the pastor. He was a handsome man and very friendly but not a good preacher. He had one child, Mary LaNelle, who was my age. The only time I ever sent to a slumber party was at her house. I remember we slept all over the floor and stayed up quite late. It was a birthday party - the only one I ever remembered going to. I thought it was so much fun and I always envied her because my stepmother didn't believe in birthday parties. Actually, in those days not many people had birthday parties because of the Depression. Money was scarce and no one had any extra to spend on parties. In our house especially, not much was said about birthdays. The first time I remember having a birthday cake was the summer after I was married. Lucile and Clinton came to Nashville to attend Peabody College and lived with us that summer. She planned a surprise birthday luncheon for me and I was overwhelmed.

Back to Olivet Baptist Church and Dr. Naney. One thing he did which I always thought was strange was that when he led in prayer, he looked up toward the ceiling and kept his eyes wide open rather than bowing his head and closing his eyes like most ministers. Of course, if I had not been peeking I would not have known this, would I! One other memory I have of that church was that they used to give all of us children "Sunday School papers" as we went from Sunday school into church, and we were tempted to read the stories in church rather than listening to the sermon. Mrs. Barron, our superintendent, used to sing in the choir and I always thought she did that so that she could look out over the congregation during church. She'd always call us down, later, if we succumbed to that temptation.

One time I had a chance to visit First Baptist Church where Dr. T.L. Holcomb, a wonderful preacher, was pastor. I liked that church so much that I asked my parents if I could leave Olivet and join First Baptist. They said that I could if transportation could be worked out. We didn't have a car and were able to walk to Olivet. Daddy knew a family, Mr. & Mrs. Mashburn, who drove by our house in route to First Baptist and so he asked them if they would mind stopping and let me ride to church and back with them. They kindly agreed to do so, and I rode to church and back with them four or five years. The rest of the family continued going to Olivet. After I went to college, however, my parents also joined First Baptist. So did Porter and Ruth, also Ross and Fay, years later.

It seemed strange that I would go to a different church from the rest of the family, but I liked the worship service and the young people's activities at First Baptist Church. Our B.Y.P.U. (later called Training Union) was quite active and I enjoyed that. Most of my high school friends and social life revolved around that program and also around my Sunday school class. Actually, Olivet didn't have a very great influence on the others in my family either, as Porter and Copass soon left home, after high school, just as I was beginning to be involved in outside activities. Because of Daddy's work, he frequently had to leave town on week-ends to speak or supply preach at other churches in Oklahoma.

Every Monday night at that Olivet Baptist Church my father taught a Bible Class. It was an extension class from Southwestern Baptist Seminary. Daddy began teaching it every Monday night when they lived in Dallas and continued teaching it all the years they lived in Oklahoma City. Everyone said he was an excellent teacher, and many people came from all over town to study the Bible through; in depth. It took about four years to complete the courses. I often wish that I had availed myself of the opportunity to study under his teaching, as he was really a Bible scholar, and the seminary gave credit for his classes.

"Mother"

My stepmother didn't seem to be interested in going to church when he was out of town, and frequently she didn't feel well and preferred to stay home on Sunday. Too, because of the Depression and changes in styles, she always said she didn't have any decent clothes to wear. Her trousseau dresses were very short, and when hem lines went down she felt that her clothes were "dated". That may have been true, but I always felt that she could have made herself new clothes if she had really wanted to, as she was an excellent seamstress. It used to trouble me that she didn't get out more, but I never could do anything about that. She really never wanted me to go anywhere either, though she didn't seem to mind my going to church on Sundays. She thought some other things, like Vacation Bible School, and other things were "foolishness" and never would let me go, even to Vacation Bible School when I was in junior high.

Come to think about it, she didn't want me to participate in school events either, except to get my homework and attend classes. I didn't attend any school ball games or other activities like that until I went to college. The big activity of my week was to go visit some old maid and bachelor next door neighbors of our previous neighborhood, every Friday night and listen to their radio for a couple of hours. Copass would walk the several blocks they lived from our house on Klein St. and then accompany one home. He had an equally exciting life, spending his week-end evenings at home reading. He loved reading as did my parents, but I was more a "doer" or listener.

My stepmother was an individualist and a person of very strong opinions. She always prided herself on the fact that everyone knew exactly how she stood on every subject. She talked incessantly, giving her opinion, and I always said that if you agreed with her there was nothing left to say. If you disagreed with her, the "fat was in the fire" as she used to say, and she'd go to great lengths to tell you how you were wrong in your opinion. She was fiercely loyal to Daddy, in some ways, but very critical of him on other occasions, at home, not away from home.

She was really a very lonely person. I can remember only one person who ever came to see her, a Mrs. L.E. Patterson, who was a member of Olivet Baptist Church, and a member of the Bible class my father taught. She was a lovely person and very thoughtful. She lived in a beautiful house not far from us, and invited me to stay with her a week every spring when my parents went out of town to go to the Southern Baptist Convention. Her son and daughter were grown. I think she, too, was lonely and therefore liked having someone like my stepmother to talk to, from time to time.

One habit that Mother had which we thought nothing about at the time, but in later years thought was rather strange, was in the way we served her breakfast. She never liked anything on her cereal but sugar and "pure cream". Therefore, we poured the cream from the top of the milk bottle in a special little pitcher which was placed by her plate, and the rest of the milk was put in a big pitcher for the rest of us to use on our cereal. In those days milk was delivered to houses every day, in quart bottles. It was not homogenized in those days and so the cream always rose to the top. Therefore, Mother always got the best part. After she would use what part of her pitcher she needed for her cereal, she would pour the rest in a saucer and put it down on the floor by her chair, for the cat. We didn't know it then, but it was really more healthful for us to have the milk without the cream than it was for her, using the pure cream. All of our cats were nice and fat.

When Mother died [Oct 24, 1957], many years later after Daddy had retired, he had [Biblical quote] inscribed on her tombstone: "She hath done what she could." I believe that she tried hard, in her way, to win our love and respect and probably succeeded, in spite of her bad disposition. She had many good qualities, and I owe a lot to her for what she taught me about honesty, taking responsibility, sewing, manners, and appreciation.

I remember that when Lucile planned her wedding in our house on 16th Street in Oklahoma City, Mother sewed night and day, making Lucile's trousseau. Then when Elizabeth finally went to Africa, she sewed "around the clock" making many, many cotton dresses for her to take with her. A year after she went to Africa when she was planning her wedding to Christy, Mother made her a pretty white lace wedding dress and veil. Several years later she made my beautiful white lace wedding dress. Indeed, she made all my clothes from the time she married into our family until I finished college except for one wool outfit I wore at OBU, Baylor and Nashville. Elizabeth had bought it thinking that she was going to attend the W.M.U. Training School in Louisville. Instead she was able to go to Africa immediately and so I inherited her two piece wool dress, skirt, and coat. Mother made clothes for Frances and Carolyn and sent them to Africa, and later made some dresses for Mary Lou and Elaine.

Mother always prided herself on the way she "finished" the inside seams of dresses she made and always said that they would look just as well worn inside out. She would shudder to see the shoddy workmanship on dresses, today! She always "French felled" or "flat felled" all her seams, so that there were no unfinished edges showing. She taught me many things about sewing but I was never able to match her in the way clothes I made turned out. I was thankful, though, for the training she gave me, as it enabled me to sew for my own family and save a lot of money (which we didn't have!).

Mother was a very intelligent person, in many ways, and had a tremendous vocabulary. When she wasn't sewing or reading the many magazines to which we subscribed, she was working "cipher" puzzles which came out every week in a special magazine for people who were interested working them. She always solved them and sent the answers in - for thirty years, I guess; and she was always on their honor roll list. These were puzzles in which the message to be solved was given in numbers, each number standing for a different letter, and you had to figure out the code and supply the proper letters which eventually spelled out the words. There was another kind of puzzle she worked called "acrostics" or "double acrostics", and she always enjoyed these. She never worked crossword puzzles, however. She was always excellent in solving math and algebra or geometry problems, as she had taught those subjects for twenty or thirty years. She was a big help to me in doing homework. She never really solved the problems for me, but she'd give me clues and guide me through problems and help me get them right. She and Daddy were both knowledgeable in Latin, too, and were helpful to me there, as I took Latin all through high school. Our whole home life revolved around reading and writing, as Daddy read constantly. When he was home or wrote articles for the Baptist Messenger.

There were several friends from former days with whom my stepmother kept up a correspondence all her life after she left Houston. There was Ethel Gainey in Houston whose son Vincent was the apple of her eye and also my stepmother's eye. One summer Vincent came to see us and Ross hated him because he was so perfect in every way. He played the piano like a concert pianist. Porter tried to become friends with him several years later when he went to Houston to work, but they never really hit it off. Mother talked so much about Vincent that it just turned everybody at ;our home against him. About once a year she went down to Houston and spent a week or two with Ethel, her husband John Gainey, and dear Vincent. She always loved Houston and hated Dallas because people there were not friendly to her, she said. She always referred to it as "this man's town" whatever that meant. We all said that she felt that if she were good, she'd go to Houston when she died!

Another friend of hers in Houston was Miss Suzie Pattillo, who was a teacher friend of hers who had always taken her grocery shopping in her car, since my stepmother never had a car. I never met Miss Pattillo but I felt that I knew her. I did meet Mr. and Mrs. Gainey when I was in Houston one summer visiting Aunt Katie. In fact, she had me come over to spend the night with her, and she had a beautiful home. years later, when I was at Mary Hardin-Baylor and was visiting Houston with Mother and Daddy, the Gaineys gave a little Sunday afternoon tea for them. Mother had first gotten to know the Gaineys when she roomed at her house quite a while, years earlier, and their friendship lasted a lifetime.

Another friend whom mother wrote to regularly was Daisy Fetzer, in Nashville, and every few years she would go there to spend a week or two with Daisy and her husband Noah. When I went to Nashville I went by their house to see them one afternoon and introduced myself. They "knew all about me", from Mother, but I didn't know whether that was good or bad. She must have lived with the Fetzers when she was in Peabody and knew them so well that she really bared her soul to them when she visited them.

There was another person Mother wrote to named Rose Buckalew, whom she had known and befriended in Houston. I don't remember exactly how mother got to know her, but apparently Rose had had a broken home and sadness of some kind. She had a child named Isabel; and years later, after I had moved to Nashville, Isabel came and lived with my parents and went to college, with their help. She later became a stewardess on the airlines and married a pilot, I believe. I never met Rose or Isabel, but they were very much a part of our family. I always admired Mother's interest in a person who had had such a hard time, and she deserved a lot of credit for helping that family, with Daddy's help, of course.

As if Mother didn't have enough writing to do, she kept a log in which she wrote endlessly. She kept it locked up in her cedar chest, but once or twice when she was out I took a peek to see what in the world she was writing. It was a re-telling of happenings of the day that were giving her frustration, and writing it all down must have been an emotional release for her. For example, if she had had a "run-in" with one of us and had wanted Daddy to do something about it, she would write: "I told Eugene about so and so, and would he do anything about it? No! Not on your bottom dollar! He thinks all of his children are perfect and can do no wrong. Butter won't melt in his mouth where they're concerned." She had a lot of expressions like that which I never did quite understand. She used to say that to me, when I would do something wrong and tell me how bad I was, but that "butter wouldn't melt in my mouth" when I went down to "that church." I must have been the worst hypocrite in town!

Mother had several notebooks in which she recorded "scenes" which happened over the years. I told Lucile about them once, and she tried to find them. They were not in her cedar chest, though, so she must have destroyed them herself at some point. She apparently was the most unhappy at the time when she kept the journals. Things must have gotten better for her later on, after we all moved away. I was glad of that, because when I was in high school she used to threaten to "turn on the gas and end it all." My greatest fear was that I would come home from school some day and find her dead on the bathroom floor, near the gas stove used for heating the bathroom.

My stepmother had many sayings which I often think about. One of these, which I never did understand, was: "There are a lot of ways to kill a dog besides choking him on butter." Another one was: "He tells a lie when the truth would suit better." Also, "Nothing's a bargain if you can't afford it." Since she was born in Georgia and was raised in a rural area of East Tennessee where they did their cooking outside the main house, she used to call to us when we were in our kitchen washing dishes, "Come on in the house." She was always a skeptic, and never "kowtowed" to some of the denominational leaders whom most people applauded, like George Truett, L.R. Scarborough, and others. She used to say, "George Truett never saw the dog when he could preach as well as EC Routh." Dr. Truett was just the most renowned preacher in the Southern Baptist Convention!!

Mother was always good to the Negro wash woman or cook we had; but like most Southerners, she expected them to "Keep their place." I remember that she informed me one time that I should never refer to our Negro woman as "Mrs." So and So, but call them by their first name. Wouldn't she be surprised that I taught school with "Mrs. Anglin", "Mrs. Fowler", and "Mrs. King" - as well as with "Mr. Nowlin" and "Mr. Commodore"!! Furthermore, I ate lunch at the same table with them every day -- an unheard of practice "back in Mother's day," as we would say.

"Lighter Side"

Back to the lighter side of my life, it was not all "gloom and doom". I remember that the back yards of our houses on Worth Street in Dallas and on 16th Street in Oklahoma City were quite large. All the neighborhood children came to our back yard to play soft ball, which was a favorite pastime. We didn't have teams but played "work-ups" where each player would work up from position to position, until he advanced to batter. When he made an "out", he'd start over again to be an out-fielder, the out-fielder would advance to be third baseman, third baseman to second baseman, that baseman would go to be first baseman, who would advance to pitcher, the pitcher to catcher, and the catcher would advance to become the next batter. No one minded our playing in our back yard but the Bradfords, next door, took a dim view of this activity. They were unmarried brother and sisters, and so majored on their flower garden rather than entertaining children. If the ball happened to be hit or thrown into their yard, it was an automatic "out" for the person responsible, and each person would "work up".

Another favorite pastime of mine was skating and playing jacks or hopscotch on the sidewalk. When I had a friend come home from school with me to play, we'd always play either jacks or hopscotch. In the summertime evenings, all the kids in the neighborhood would come over to play a game called "Run, sheep, run" where everyone would hide while "it" was blindfolded. When "it" removed the blindfold, he'd look all around for each hidden person and try to beat him to "home base" where he'd be safe. At some point "it" would call out, "Run, sheep, run", and everyone had to run to "home base." The last one "home" had to be the next "it". Eventually, every one grew up and we moved away, so those pastimes became memories.

"Chores"

There is a lot of work involved in keeping a household going. Therefore, we were all assigned chores to do at home. Mother did the cooking and I set the table. I remember that when Copass was still at h home he and I did the dishes -- one would wash, and the other one would dry and put the dishes away. We frequently "dawdled" at this task and even got into a fight, now and then, when he would "flip" me with the dishtowel, I'd kick him, he'd grab my leg and pull me around by the leg, and about that time my father would enter the room and give us a dose of castor oil (his favorite punishment) or take off his belt and give us a swat! His rationale for using castor oil was that we must be sick or we wouldn't act that way. My older brothers and sisters said he'd use that same method of discipline on them too, when they had a spat. Each pair of siblings had a sparring partner: Lucile fought with Ross, Elizabeth fought with Porter, and I fought with Copass. It was even told me that at one time Elizabeth broke a plate over Porter's head.

Saturday was clean up day. We were all required to hang up our clothes and make up our beds but on Saturday we had to change our sheets, vacuum or sweep and mop and dust the furniture, baseboards and windows in our rooms and sometimes in the living room and dining room. It was my chore every Saturday to clean out the ice box, and Copass's chore each Saturday was to make a fresh supply of mayonnaise, beating up the eggs a long time (that was before the days of electric mixers) and slowly adding the oil and lemon juice. He liked to make it and it was really good - though very unhealthy, we have learned in recent years. I believe Copass also mopped the kitchen floor when he finished making the mayonnaise.

At our house on 16th Street, there was an extra bedroom and bath downstairs which we rented out to a couple. It was my job once a week to clean that room and bath. Since there was a private entrance for that room, we seldom saw those people. They finally moved away and my father advertised for a person to come live there and help with the work for her room and board. (My stepmother was not in the best of health and so was glad to have a helping hand.) The young lady who answered the ad was a pretty girl, Mercedes Noah, who had come from some small town in Oklahoma to "the City" (as they called Oklahoma City) to attend business college. She was just like a member of our family and we all liked her very much. She lived with us until she finished business college and married a Mr. Robinson. I thought that she was the most generous person in the world because when she left she gave me a whole quarter and told me to use it to buy an ice cream soda! I had never had one because in those days money was so scarce no one had any extra quarters to spend so extravagantly. I'll always savor the taste of that luscious ice cream soda!

While Mercedes lived with us she helped with the cooking and house cleaning but didn't have to help with the laundry, as it was sent out to be done weekly. By this time we had done away with having a wash-woman come to the house to wash. No one had home washing machines in those days, and so the laundry men came to the house weekly to pick up the bundle of clothes to be taken to a commercial laundry. It was frequently my job to sort out the clothes, count them and record them on a "laundry list" provided. When the clothes were returned, several days later, I had to check the list to be sure that everything was returned and then put the clothes away. We usually washed out dresses and ladies underwear by hand and ironed the dresses ourselves.

High School (1932-34): Classen, Oklahoma City

There are several girl friends I had in high school whose names I remember. Madelyn O'Keefe was a good friend of mine. She had gone to Catholic schools until the ninth grade when I became acquainted with her. We went through high school together and corresponded through the years. The last time I saw her was at my wedding. We had frequently visited each other on Friday afternoons after school. It always made a problem though, when she stayed for dinner on Friday night as Catholics in those days never ate meat on Friday and we'd forget to cook fish! Madelyn always entertained me by telling me stories she had heard on the radio or telling funny things that different entertainers had said. Many people, like us, didn't yet have radios, but her family did. One of the things I enjoyed about visiting with Aunt Katie and Uncle Ryland was listening to the radio. Their favorite program was "Amos and Andy," and we used to laugh a lot together while listening to that program. It came on at nine o'clock every evening. Madelyn was my first introduction to radio entertainment.

Another good friend of mine in high school was Geraldine Sparks. We had many classes together and therefore had many things in common at school. Her parents had come over from Germany but I didn't know too much about her background otherwise. She lived in a very pretty home, not far from Classen High school, and I used to like to go home with her because she collected pictures of movie stars. She kept all the pictures in big boxes under her bed and we spent hours and hours going through them, admiring all the big name stars of that day. Geraldine's brother was named Mackel , a very German name, but his name was about all I remembered about him.

A pretty little girl who lived on Klein Street and became my good friend after we moved there was Sue Pinckney. We spent a lot of time with each other, though we didn't go to the same church or have many classes together. She lived in a small upstairs apartment of a big house at the other end of our block. Her mother was a widow and took in sewing. I always admired her because everything was always so neat and orderly in her apartment. Sue was an only child and so there was a lot less confusion than there was at our house. She had a boy friend who wanted a date, so Sue latched on to me and we planned a big jaunt down to see an automobile show downtown. Therein lay my downfall! I knew that my parents would never consent to my getting in a car with Sue and two boys, so we decided to tell them that we were going down to Sue's house for the evening. Unfortunately, Mother watched us as we went down to Sue's house and got into a car. She decided to call Sue's mother to see "how we were getting along," and her mother told her that we had gone to the automobile show. The "fat was in the fire" as my stepmother would have said, and Daddy got in a cab and went down to get me. He had us all come right home and gave the boy a big lecture, there at our dining room table, about the awful thing we had done in deceiving them. Needless to say, I never saw that boy again or many other boys, for that matter until I went to college.

There were a few boyfriends I had at church with whom a bunch of us would ride around from time to time, but my parents never knew about that. One or two did ask me for dates and come to the house for me but that too resulted in disaster for me. One night just after we had driven up from going somewhere with our group, Daddy came out in his night shirt to tell me to come in the house, as we had been sitting in the car a couple of minutes to say good-bye (not kiss). I never saw that boy again, either.

The summer before my senior year in high school, when I was with Aunt Katie and Uncle Ryland, I met a lot of young people at her church in Houston, South Main Baptist Church. One boy, Oliver "Buddy" Brown was the son of a friend of hers, and we "went together" that summer. We had a lot of fun and wrote each other for awhile that next year, but finally we drifted apart. I had a good friend at church, William Freede, with whom I talked a lot but never dated. He graduated from Central High School and then went on to California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He wrote to me, off and on, but we finally drifted apart. The summer after graduation I entered OBU with "no strings attached", romantically!

Mother gave me a lot of lectures about what she considered proper behavior. She used the expression, "No nice girl would" do so and so. One thing that she told me was that no nice girl would call a boy on the telephone. This bit of advice cost me another boyfriend. I was being disciplined for some reason, and so they (my parents) told me I couldn't go out on a date that night. We had planned to go ice skating with our church group. Since Mother had drilled it into me that I should never call a boy, I didn't call him to cancel our date. When he came for me, I told him I couldn't go. After he left, I sulked awhile and then I decided I'd go in and play the piano awhile. About the only music I could play was hymns, so I started through the hymn book, playing. Pretty soon I heard Mother and Daddy dying laughing in the next room. I stopped and asked them why they were laughing, and they said "What is the song you are playing?" Then I realized why they were laughing. I was playing "Oh Love That Will Not Let Me Go" and I had just been sulking because they wouldn't let me go!

About five years later [1938] when Wendell and I were engaged, Wendell asked me to go with him to Salyersville from Nashville for a week-end. I had already been one time, with my parents" approval, but they thought I shouldn't go again. He went on to Salyersville without me and of course I was upset. Since my folks lived in Oklahoma City and I lived in Nashville, it seems a little strange that I was still asking their permission to do things, but that's the way it was. Too, Daddy was coming through Nashville on the train about that time, in route to a meeting at Ridgecrest, so I needed not to leave town. Anyway, after he left and was en route to Ridgecrest, he sent me a telegram which said simply, "Oh Love That Will Not Let Me Go. Love, Daddy." That took the edge off my disappointment in not making the trip.

"Sex Education"

In our household in those days nothing was ever said about sex education. It was as if it didn't exist - I do remember that when my stepmother sent me to the store to get eggs, she always told me to get "infertile" eggs. I couldn't imagine what the difference was between "fertile" and "infertile" eggs, but I always got the kind she told me to get.

In junior high school gym class when they called the roll, some girls would always step forward and say "Off the floor" and they didn't have to take gym that day. Everyone always said that they were "sick" but they didn't look sick to me. Mother did inform me that sometime before long I would have a "monthly period" in which I'd need to wear Kotex a few days. She gave me an old sanitary belt of hers which she no longer needed (as she was past middle age) and told me to keep it in my drawer or suitcase when I was away. It was a good thing that she had told me this much but she was probably too embarrassed to elaborate any further. When I was about fifteen and visiting Mrs. Gainey and Aunt Katie in Houston, I indeed had my first period and was able to take care of myself without telling them.

It was not until I was a sophomore at Mary Hardin-Baylor and took a course in physiology that female anatomy was ever explained to me. If anything was ever said in that class, or anywhere else, about male anatomy I don't remember it. People around me just didn't talk about things in those days the way they do today. Just before my wedding, Lucile came to my rescue and sent me a book which explained everything.

I remember that one time I was home from OBU just after Rob Roy was born, and my stepmother and Fay sat in another part of the room whispering about a little problem the baby had with his umbilical cord. They were whispering because they didn't want me (so young and naive) to overhear their intimate conversation. I was seventeen years old at the time.

Aunt Katie (Wroe) House and Aunt Leila (Routh) McKinney

When I was in junior high school and high school, I used to spend a lot of time in the summer at Aunt Leila's and at Aunt Katie's houses. I loved going both places. At Aunt Leila's and Uncle Mack's in Fort Worth, I had lots of fun with Gene and Mac Jr. (as we called B.B. Jr. in those days). They never had a sister, so they always said I was like a sister. Every morning Aunt Leila took the three of us out to Forest Park Swimming Pool Lake where she'd sit on a part bench and write letters, read, or do Sunday school or Training Union work until noon. Then we'd go home and fill up on sandwiches and milk before taking a rest or playing in the backyard, in the chinaberry tree or climbing on the chicken house roof. I liked going there because she had a maid who cleaned up and cooked. We children never had to do any chores at her house the way we did at ours.

Sometimes when I arrived at Aunt Leila's and Uncle Mack's house it was during revival-meeting time and we would go to church every night for two weeks. I always enjoyed the evangelistic sermons and the singing. Uncle Mack always led the singing, and he was wonderful! Most of the time Aunt Leila played the piano during the meetings and she had some really elaborate arrangements of hymns that were unforgettable. After church we always went home to a big dish of ice cream. She always served Uncle Mack and the boys about a pint apiece, but I couldn't eat that much. It's a wonder we weren't all fat but she seemed to be the only one who gained weight. In later years she watched her diet carefully becoming very thin in her old age, but in those early days she was quite stout (and short, making her look even heavier).

The McKinneys always made me feel welcome but I'm sure they must have gotten tired of having me around so much. Eventually they would put me on the train and send me down to Aunt Katie's and Uncle Ryland's in Houston. Lucile and Clinton lived in Houston for awhile, too, so they shared me with Aunt Katie.

Uncle Ryland, was the slowest driver in the family. He would have liked to drive faster, but when he would get up to about thirty miles an hour Aunt Katie would tell him to slow down! She was always so nervous she was afraid he would have a wreck, and she could never learn to drive herself. Clinton was the fastest and best driver in the family. I loved to go with them on trips because he always made such good time.

Aunt Katie and Uncle Ryland had a cute little coupe, and I always rode in the "rumble seat" when I went to see them. I would ride to work with them in the morning and then ride back home with them in the afternoon. Uncle Ryland worked as an accountant with the Rock Island Railroad, and Aunt Katie worked at the silk-hosiery counter at Foley Brothers, the biggest department store in Houston. Some days I rode the streetcar from town over to Lucile and Clinton's house. (he worked at the Y.M.C.A. in those days.) Other days they'd give me the money to go to a couple of picture shows and then I'd "window shop" until they were ready to go home again. They never had any children of their own and seemed to like it when I would come to visit them.

I thought everyone was having a wonderful summer because I was, but in retrospect, it was probably not so pleasant for the people around me. No one had taught me the importance of wearing a deodorant. Since I was entering puberty I must have needed it very badly. That's probably why Aunt Katie and Uncle Ryland had me ride in the rumble seat! I know that Lucile used to tell me about a terrible smell I had but didn't tell me how to remedy it. I took a bath every day but that must not have helped. I remember one time seeing some girls in front of me in typing class look at each other, knowingly, point to me and hold their noses.

Lifebouy Soap used to advertise on radio about "B.O.", and Pepsodent used to torture me on the commercials in the Amos 'n Andy shows about "Halitosis", and I hated to get close to anyone because I knew I had both. When I went to the picture show, people by me would get up and move, sometimes, and it was probably for that reason. I finally learned about deodorant, from Lucile, but "even your best friend won't tell you" about bad breath, the commercial said. I tried mouth wash but never felt that it was effective. One method, a rather strange one, that I resorted to, in order to alleviate the problem, was sucking a lemon. Lucile and Clinton used to kid me about it, in later years, but one summer that I visited in Houston I had to constantly have a lemon to suck on. I'd keep one in my purse, with a hole cut in the top of the lemon and take a squeeze every once in a while. Talk about peculiar! I don't think that helped my problem very much. Having lung surgery, many years later, may have helped my problem, but sometimes I wonder. I still feel uncomfortable getting close to people, though I take a bath and wash my teeth, use deodorant and mouth wash every day! I guess when I get to heaven, I'll know for sure.

The peculiar lemon-sucking habit just lasted about a year, and by the time I went to Houston for summer school I acted in a more conventional way. I ran around with the young people at South Main Baptist Church and had more fun. I remember that one time our B.Y.P.U. went down to the Galveston Beach swimming and that was a lot of fun. I also remember bicycling a lot that summer. I never had a bicycle but I had learned how to bicycle in Oklahoma City on a friend's bike and someone in Houston let me borrow theirs that last summer. Houston had a lot of pretty residential areas out in Aunt Katie's part of town and I traveled through many of them on that bicycle. In those days people didn't have to worry so much about crime as we do nowadays -- so nobody worried about my being kidnapped or assaulted.

Mother's Frugality

My stepmother's father had been a "section hand" on the railroad over in East Tennessee and she used to tell Elizabeth and me stories about her childhood. Unfortunately, we didn't listen too well, and we have forgotten most of the things she told us. She did talk a lot, though about the Rouths always being "poor but honest." Then she went on to say that "any occupation that is honest is honorable" and that made an impression on me. Her father was a Routh, of course, and so that made her one. No doubt she was defending his lowly occupation but honest character. She herself was scrupulously honest in the handling of money and also in her speech: not tactful, but honest!

Since mother had been a math teacher she knew how to keep records, how much money she had to spend, and was really thrifty. She had always budgeted her money and systematically saved some so that she could watch it grow, with interest. Unfortunately, my father was always deeply in debt and expenses were more than income. She did her best in "pinching pennies" by making our clothes and cooking frugally. Daddy always wanted meat, but when he was out of town (which was often) we subsisted on greens, black-eyed peas, boiled cabbage and corn bread. That kind of food was good for us, as well as cheap, and I learned to like it. We never had dessert, except maybe rice pudding, as mother didn't like desserts, and it was also cheaper that way.

We never "ate out" except in later years; on some Saturdays, Mother, Daddy, and I would get a taxi (at 10 cents a person, in those days), go downtown to Bishops Restaurant near the Huckens Hotel for a big bowl of their special bean soup for lunch. That was their specialty, and it was delicious.

The reason we took a taxi to town was that we never had a car and Mother couldn't do a lot of walking to the streetcar line. Too, taxis were cheap - They used to cruise up and down the streets and pick up extra passengers so that they had at least four or five passengers by the time they'd get to town or to your destination. It was not until I was in college that Mother and Daddy finally got a "used" Pontiac coupe which they drove for the rest of their lives. Daddy always did the driving and Mother navigated. He was a terrible driver, deciding to turn when he was already about halfway through an intersection, but fortunately never had a wreck. Maybe it was because he was a slow driver.

All the years that Daddy was editor of the Baptist Messenger he and Mother went to Shawnee on Tuesday to read proof. They were gone all day, giving Copass and me an opportunity to do things we wouldn't do if Mother were home! I can remember that on many Tuesdays he and I each made a batch of fudge! The reason we made separate batches was that he liked raisins in his and I didn't! Not only would we make it, but we'd eat it all ourselves, eventually. No wonder I had pimples all over my face, all through high school!

Another thing I would do on Tuesday, until I got caught, was to get into Mother's stocking drawer and wear a pair of her silk stockings to school. She always insisted that I wear "lisle" stockings (cotton) because the Cullinan girls whom she had taught in Houston (a real rich family) had bought lisle stockings to wear to school when they went to Vassar and "people who knew" didn't let their girls wear silk stockings to school. I don't know why I thought I could get away with it because I always pulled a runner. When Mother would go to wear her stockings, of course they were ruined, and I was in trouble for two reasons: first for getting into her drawer, as we were not allowed to get into other people's drawers; and second, for ruining her stockings. Usually I was grounded for such gross misbehavior.

For several years, from about the time I was twelve until I was about fifteen, my father wouldn't let me have my hair cut. At first I liked it long and braided around my head, but then I changed my mind and wanted to get it cut. I'm sure it was very unflattering to me because Ross told me one time that if he had a girl who wore her hair that way, he'd quit her! Finally, Daddy gave me permission to get it cut. It must have been about my junior year in high school, the day before school started, and I felt like a new person. A girl friend of mine and I used to take turn about setting each other's hair and that was a lot of fun. When I did my hair, myself, I would sit at Mother's vanity which had three mirrors to let you see the side and back of your hair. This was before the days of "permanents" but I did a pretty good job with a curling iron. The style then was to have wavy -- not curly -- hair. Later on, after the advent of "permanents", I wore my hair pulled back straight on top with lots of curls in the back.

As I have said, earlier, my stepmother had a very caustic tongue. I am sure that she must have regretted some of the things she said, but she never said so. This probably developed from her years of teaching school. No one of her students would have dared to misbehave or talk back, fearing her wrath. One such run-in I had with her was devastating to me, at the time and has remained fixed in my memory, almost negating the many, many good things she did for me. One afternoon a girlfriend came home from school with me. For some reason -- I can't even remember the details of what caused the confrontation -- she blurted out to me, in the presence of my friend, "You nasty, stinking little devil." My friend left, before long, and I can remember running into the bathroom and crying a long time about what Mother had said to me. I never had the courage to talk back, but Copass did. After verbal exchanges they'd go their separate ways for awhile then life would go on as usual. However, as the old saying goes, "There was never any love lost between them" - or between her and any of us children, especially Copass, Porter, Ross and Lucile. Since I lived at home with her and Daddy three years longer than anyone else, I learned to get along, though I went through stages of adjustment and acceptance. I remember that Porter came by one afternoon for a visit, when he and Copass were at OBU, and I was particularly bitter about something that had happened. He took me aside for a talk and said, "Leila, don't be like that." I felt that he really cared and was concerned about me, and that made me feel better, and change my attitude.

Porter and Ruth were both always so nice to me. The spring before I graduated from high school they invited me over to OBU for the week-end. They had been dating ever since Ruth was a Freshman. When I was a senior in high school, she was a Junior at OBU. Porter had graduated the previous year and was teaching at OBU. It was during that week-end that they got me a date with a ministerial student there, J.C. Sigler, whom I later went with when I myself went to OBU. His sister and brother had also graduated from there and had been friends of Porter's and Ruth's. J.C. and I went together only one year, however, as my father arranged for me to enroll in another college the next year -- Mary Hardin-Baylor College, Belton, Texas. Daddy said that it was because he got a better financial deal there. That was probably true, but I always had a sneaking notion that it was his way of breaking up me and J.C. It worked, because I saw him only three times after I left OBU. I felt that I was fortunate that Daddy broke us up, and it was undoubtedly part of God's plan for my life.

Most of my high school memories have to do with projects associated with classes I was taking. Three of these stand out in my memory. One was a newspaper I edited called the Tavela Herald (?) (or something similar) which was done in connection with the study of Silas Marner, in which we reported some events in the plot of that story. Another project I participated in was the building of a Roman house and also a Roman camp. Some of us displayed these projects at a teachers' convention in Oklahoma City. The third project I spent many hours on was the collection of an anthology of poems, which I typed at home and assembled with appropriate pictures. My parents took the pages over to the OBU Press to be bound. The cover didn't exactly fit, but it was really a nice-looking volume. Since I had dedicated it to Aunt Katie (at my stepmother's suggestion, ironically), I gave it to her. After her death, many years later, I brought the anthology home with me and have it still.

In the spring of 1934, just before graduation, I had a pleasant surprise. When I went with the rest of the students into the high school auditorium, I was surprised to see Mother and Daddy sitting in the audience. They had been called to come to school because it was to be an awards assembly. My name was called to receive a small scholarship to OBU, which I appreciated but was not really too excited about. The moment which really surprised me, though, was when they called my name to receive a "Classen Award", which was a gold medal pin given to several seniors each year for academic excellence. I forget now, but I think it was for getting "all A's" in high school. I really cherished this medal. Every year I still get a letter telling about a reunion luncheon held each spring of all Classen Award winners through the years; however I have never been able to attend one of the luncheons. I do contribute, though, to a scholarship fund which has been set up by Classen Award winners to help future students with their college expenses.

One further word about the gold medal I won: Several years after we moved to our present address our house was ransacked while we were at church one Wednesday night, and the pretty 14K gold medal engraved with my name was one of the things taken. The thieves went through all our drawers and recognized all the jewelry which was "solid gold". They took another gold medal awarded me at Mary Hardin-Baylor College (the Stella P. Ross Memorial Award), our high school and college rings, and several gold pins, including two which had belonged to my stepmother. One of these was one I had worn on my wedding dress. We learned the hard way the lesson taught by Jesus in Matthew 6: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." That was a lesson worth learning!

Before I go on to tell about college days, I would like to tell about one big event which happened at Christmastime in 1930 [Dec 21, 1930], in Oklahoma City. Lucile and Clinton married at our house, 1423 N.W. 16th Street. Daddy performed the ceremony, Elizabeth played the violin, and I was an attendant. They said that everyone broke down and cried, even though it was supposed to be a happy occasion! Daddy cried because it was his first "child" to get married, and had to pause in the ceremony to swallow hard; and Elizabeth cried while playing the violin, they said.

The next wedding in our family was Ross and Fay's elopement in 1933 [Nov 30, 1933], at Thanksgiving. They had gone together for several years while they were at Simmons University at Abilene Texas and had written each other every day for several years, while Ross was working in Oklahoma City and Fay was teaching in Rotan, Texas. Because of financial circumstances, however, they had to postpone marriage. Ross was deeply in debt when he left Simmons University and came to Oklahoma City to live at home and look for a job. Fay had a job teaching Spanish at Rotan, Texas, but could not afford to give up her job and move to Oklahoma City. In those days married women were not allowed to teach; therefore, Ross and Fay planned to meet in Dallas and get married secretly over Thanksgiving holiday. She went back to Rotan, after that week-end, and Ross came back to Oklahoma City to work. He did not say anything about getting married. The way we found out about it was that Fay came to see him at Christmastime and someone told Daddy, when he called Ross on the phone, that "he just left with his wife!" We were all excited about having a new bride in the family, but no big celebration took place as it was still a secret in Ratan, where Fay went after Christmas to finish out her year of teaching. At the end of that year Fay moved to Oklahoma City to live.

It is interesting that Lucile and Clinton's first few months of marriage were disrupted in a similar fashion, as, after their brief honeymoon she returned to Enid, Oklahoma to teach (she had gotten permission from the school board to continue teaching after marriage, though in most instances school boards did not permit married women to teach -- "too much distraction from their work"). Clinton returned to his job working at the Y.M.C.A. in Houston, and he and Lucile did not see each other again until school was out in June!

When Lucile looked for employment after graduation in 1926 from Baylor University, she applied at Stephenville, Texas, to teach history. She got the job, and it was while she was there that she met Clinton, the son of the superintendent of schools in Stephenville. Clinton had graduated from the University of Texas where he was a "Letter Man" on the baseball team for that school. He had always been active in Y.M.C.A. work, especially athletics, and at the time he met Lucile he had come home for a visit with his parents and met the pretty new history teacher in town. They went together several years while she was teaching in Stephenville and he was working at the Y.M.C.A. in Houston. In 1930, she went to Enid to teach, and it was at Christmastime that year that she and Clinton married. I do not know why she had moved from Stephenville to Enid to teach. It may have been that it was a better paying job. In the summer of 1930, Lucile and Elizabeth had gone out together to small towns in Oklahoma to sell Lincoln Library (a mini-encyclopedia) and she may have found the teaching job in Enid that summer. At any rate, she taught in Enid during the school year 1930-31, after which she moved to Houston to be with Clinton.

When we moved from Dallas to Oklahoma City, three of us "children" were at home that first year or two, 1928-29, 1929-30. About that time Porter graduated from Classen High School and went to Houston to live with Aunt Katie and Uncle Ryland a year or two before entering college (OBU) in 1930. Then Ross came home from college to seek employment. He worked for awhile as an announcer at one of the radio stations in Oklahoma City and became active with the National Guard. He eventually moved from our house to the Armory, where he had a room, as he said he just got tired of all the cats. My stepmother really loved cats and we had quite a few, who had free run of the house. He used to say (half jokingly) that when he got cold at night, all he had to do was to reach down and pull up another cat!

More Sibling Weddings: Porter & Ruth, Copass & Cathryn

It was during his sophomore year that Porter met Ruth Purtle, who was a new freshman on campus, and the rest is history! They went together all through college and for a year after her graduation, when they finally got married. Ruth and I became good friends when I lived near her in the same dormitory at OBU. I was a bridesmaid in their wedding in June 1936 at the First Baptist Church at Sulfur, Oklahoma. Daddy performed their wedding ceremony, as he did ours many years later.

Incidentally, Daddy also performed the ceremony for the wedding of Copass to Cathryn Curry in Ada, Oklahoma, in about 1940; but their marriage ended in divorce after a year or two. It was many years (1946) later that he married Rhette, which no one in our familiy knew about until after the event. We met Rhette one time in New Orleans, when Cope, Jr. was a baby (1949), about nine months old. They lived in an old, old apartment in the French Quarter. I never saw Copass again until 1959 when he came for our stepmother’s funeral ( I think), and Wendell and I never did see Rhettte again after 1949. She died in 1970, but we did not know about her death until sometime later. Copass was quite non-communicative with the rest of the family for many years. I do remember seeing him at some funerals (Aunt Katie's or Uncle Rylands) and especially at Daddy's in 1966, when Copass appeared to me to be quite ill. I didn't know it at the time, but he was an alcoholic. Years later, after Rhette died and Cope Jr. had married Mary (1970) it was Mary who talked Copass into going to the hospital at Big Spring to receive treatment for this addiction. It was while he was there for a couple of years that he recovered and became active in Alcoholics Anonymous. For the next fifteen years until his death in 1987 he completely abstained and worked full-time with AA and the Texas Alcohol Commission. He came to see us in Louisville in about 1986 -- his first and only visit to our home. What a blessing his visit was to us!

Elizabeth (and later Christie)

In 1930 Elizabeth graduated from Baylor College for Women. Originally this school had been Baylor University, but at one point in history when Baylor University moved from Independence to Waco, a woman's branch of the school moved to Belton and became known as Baylor Female College. It was known by this name when Aunt Leila graduated from this school but was called Baylor College for Women when Elizabeth graduated from that school. Before I went to the school the name was changed to Mary Hardin-Baylor College, in honor of Mary Hardin whose husband gave the school a lot of money in memory of his wife. He also gave a lot of money in her memory to Simmons University, the alma mater of Ross and Fay. The name of that school was changed to Hardin-Simmons University. Today my alma mater's name has been changed again. It is now called University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. It is now a coeducational school.

After Elizabeth's graduation she taught at San Marcos Baptist Academy, the school she had attended when she was a senior in high school. It was during this time that she felt a call to be a missionary to Africa, and from then on that was her goal. It was several years, though, before the Foreign Mission Board had any money available to send out new missionaries. She was in the first group sent out after the Depression.

When I was about a junior in high school, Elizabeth came back home to live. Since our house had only one small bedroom beside the bedroom Mother and Daddy occupied, Elizabeth and I had to share the room and the bed. It was what they called a "three-quarter bed" not as wide as a double bed. It was not too roomy, but Elizabeth and I managed to live through it.

She worked as secretary in Daddy's office, as church secretary at Trinity Baptist Church, and attended business college to learn to take dictation on a stenotype machine, as she was to be secretary to Dr. George Green and the hospital in Ogbomosho, Nigeria, as soon as the money became available. In 1934, the year I graduated from high school, her appointment came through. Everyone was glad that I was going to be away in school, as everything at home was focused on getting Elizabeth ready to leave for Africa soon.

While everyone at home was busy making clothes, buying a three-year supply of everything she would need in Africa and packing things for the trip, I was having a wonderful summer at OBU. I moved into a pretty new dormitory, Memorial Hall. I loved my new classes, new friends, and my first job. I worked several hours a day in Mr. Fred McCaulley's office typing form letters to prospective students. It was a minimum-pay job, but I was happy to have any job at all and to be away at school.

When Elizabeth left for Africa, at the end of the 1934 summer, Mother and Daddy went with her as far as Chicago, where she visited a long-time friend in route to New York. It was in New York that she boarded a freighter for the month long voyage to Nigeria. That was before the days of much air travel, especially Transatlantic flights. Appointed at the same time with her was nurse Ruth Walden and teacher/preacher Christopher Pool. Little did anyone know that in less than a year and a half Elizabeth and "Christie" Pool would be getting married [Dec 26, 1935] in Ogbomosho, Nigeria!

Oklahoma Baptist University (1934-35)

I have many happy memories of my year at OBU. It was at that time that I became a "joiner" and really enjoyed all the clubs I joined. I joined a "literary society", the OBU equivalent, I suppose, to other schools' sorority. It was named Hatharean. The boys' club ("brother" club of our sisterhood) was known as Kalalean (?). There was big rivalry on campus among three brother-sister clubs. I had many friends in the other clubs, but since my brothers had been Kalaleans, I joined Hatharean. I also was an active member of the B.S.U., Y.W.A., First Baptist Church, and a member of the Freshman Quartet. It was made up of Ollie Meador, Nellie Cornell, Fredona McCaulley, and me. Fredona's father was "Field Representative" for OBU, and many week-ends he took our quartet to various churches in Oklahoma where he presented all the good things about OBU trying to recruit students, and our quartet sang several "special" numbers including the "invitation hymn" invariably "Jesus Paid It All". I loved those trips with the quartet. Fredona and I have remained good friends for these 62 years!

One of the most memorable experiences I had at OBU was when I was chosen by the Freshman Class as Freshman Queen. It was such a thrill to ride on the float at the Homecoming Parade and to be part of the court at the crowning of the Harvest Queen at the Harvest Homecoming Festival. I had never been particularly popular in high school or part of the "in" crowd, so it was rather a heady experience for me to feel that I "rated" when I went to college. OBU was a very friendly school, and everyone spoke to everyone else with a friendly "Hi". I really liked school and friendships I made there, and I was devastated when Daddy told me the last day of school there that he was sending me to Mary Hardin-Baylor for the next year.

I never was quite sure why Daddy switched me from OBU to Mary Hardin-Baylor. He said that he got a better financial deal there, and that may have been true, but I always had a sneaking suspicion that it was to break up my friendship with J.C. Sigler, a boy I had been dating "steady" for about six months. At OBU everyone knew "who was dating whom", and if you had two or three dates with the same person no one else asked you for a date -- so you went "steady" with one person. We did become very good friends and went everywhere together. Most people who went steady on campus did end up eventually getting married. Daddy did indeed nip that in the bud, as J.C. and I finally did break up the next year. Once he came down to Belton to see me, once I saw him in Fort Worth at Aunt Leila's, just before she and Uncle Mac moved to Nashville; and once I saw him at OBU when I went there to visit my former roommate, Margaret Poling. He may have gone on to Southwestern Seminary after graduation, especially since his brother Dr. Franklin Sigler taught there, but I went to Ridgecrest and Nashville after college graduation and never saw him again. I heard that he became a pastor in Oklahoma City and that his son, John Sigler, was a classmate of Johnny’s and Carolyn’s. I do not know whom J.C. Sigler married, as our paths never crossed in later years. I believe he died sometime last year (1995) in Oklahoma City.

The summer I entered OBU I made many new friends. My roommate and good friend that summer was Mildred Goodson from Hobart, Oklahoma. I dated several boys whose "steady" girls were not in summer school but were just good friends of mine that summer and also the next year when their girls returned. I remember especially James Sapp ( who later married Pletha Choak (?) and Sam Allen (who later married Peggy Wade). My roommate in the fall was Margaret Poling from Hollis Oklahoma. We remained good friends for many years, though we seldom saw each other. She finally developed a really bad case of rheumatoid arthritis and was an invalid for many years, cared for by her husband Jack Jayne. Their daughter Maudye, was roommate of Molly Marshall when they were students at OBU. Small world! Jack was in charge of Indian Affairs in Sells, Arizona, and later returned to Muskogee where they lived until Margaret died. We went by to see them there several times. I think Jack still lives in Muskogee and helps Maudye with her two children. (She and her husband had gotten a divorce and she had moved back to Muskogee, the last I heard, where she was teaching music in public schools then.) Jack spent much of his time after retirement making furniture as a hobby. I think he built all the furniture in their house in Muskogee.

One thing I learned at OBU was how much I didn't know! One subject that I found particularly stimulating because I had known absolutely nothing about it beforehand was biology. Professor Mundy, I believe his name was, was a wonderful lecturer. Then that period was followed by lab for a couple of hours in which we drew things which we observed under the microscope. I still remember how much I enjoyed that course. Unfortunately, though, I was unable to follow through on that interest. I seem to have just taken a hodgepodge of classes which I could fit into my working schedule at Mary Hardin-Baylor, since I had to work three hours every day in the Business Office.

Many of my other friends at OBU were girls on my dormitory floor, who were friends of Porter's girlfriend, Ruth Purtle -- Bee Snell, Mavah Abernathy, Doris Baxter, Peggy Wade, and Copass' girlfriend whose name I can't remember. She, like him, was active in working on the school publications and was a gifted writer. They eventually broke up, but Porter and Ruth went together all through college and eventually got married. I was a bridesmaid in their wedding at Sulfur, Oklahoma, in the First Baptist Church.

[Many of these girls were members of the select women's pep club called J.A.B., and Leila was elected to membership and entitled to wear the yellow-orange cardigan sweater and skirt which was their uniform. When Leila visited OBU in 1998 for the 60th reunion of the "Class of 1938" she donated her J.A.B. sweater to the museum at the library. Tom Terry, the librarian, set up an exhibit in 2002 which featured Leila and her J.A.B. sweater and the following history of that organization:

"The J.A.B. Club, women’s pep organization, was formed in 1925 as a sister club to H.O.W., the men’s pep organization. J.A.B. membership was limited to 45 women selected by members from the student body. "The 1925 yearbook says: 'J.A.B.’s always appear in full regalia wherever they are called on, and they are always the center of attraction whenever they give a pep demonstration.'  "J.A.B. stands for the French phrase, Jusqu ‘Au Bout, which translates 'Until the End,' the club’s slogan. The first sponsor, Annie J. Earle, was dean of women and professor of French."]

One of the organizations that I was active in at OBU was the Baptist Student Union. A national convention of that organization was held in Memphis, Tennessee and I was permitted to go on the bus with all the delegates from OBU to that convention, since I was on the B.S.U. Council. That was an inspiring experience as well as a lot of fun. It was the first time, also, that I crossed the Mississippi River. I still remember what a thrill that was, as I had never been out of Texas and Oklahoma!

Unfortunately things were not all joy and happiness at OBU, though, and I guess it was my own fault that one of the most devastating experiences of that year occurred. It was on the day of the BIG event of the year, the spring banquet of the "brother-sister" social clubs (they would have been called fraternity-sorority party in any other school); and I went off campus to get my hair fixed and forgot to sign out at the dorm desk, in all my excitement. Well, it happened to be on the day that Mother and Daddy came to read proof on the Baptist Messenger which was printed by OBU Press each week. My folks came over to see me (check on me, I guess), and no one could find me. When I came from the beauty shop, I was summoned into the Dean's office (Miss Earle) where Mother and Daddy were sitting, having reported my SIN. They all raked me over the coals and told me I could not go to the biggest event of the year. Ironically, the pretty new evening dress I had planned to wear was one that Mother had made. I suppose that the thought of the work she had put on the dress would have been for naught if I didn't go to the banquet, so she finally changed her mind and told Miss Earle I could go if she said I could. Miss Erle, too, gave in eventually. However, no one seemed to care what this confrontation was doing to me emotionally. I felt that the punishment they had decided to give me far exceeded the "crime", and so the tears flowed - and flowed - and flowed! I didn't care whether I went that evening or not!! In fact, I was so upset and red-eyed that I decided there was no way that I could look well enough to go. My folks left to go back to Oklahoma City and I left to call my date (J.C.) to tell him what had happened. He came over and talked me into going, since he would have been without a date at that late hour (just about an hour before the banquet began). It was hard for me to regain my composure, and the evening turned out to be one of the worst experiences of my life. It all seems so childish now, but at the time he and I were both so angry at my parents and Miss Earle that the big event of the year was like a nightmare, one that I have never forgotten. I think that it was the only time all year that I had gotten my hair fixed, and that's probably why I hadn't remembered to sign out. (In those days girls had to sign in and out when going and coming to and from the campus.) I guess this was a learning experience for me but it seemed that it was an unnecessarily hard one, especially since it was a first offense. Oh well, as Johnny says, "Life's tough!"

[E.C. told Leila when school was out that she would be transferring to Mary Hardin-Baylor the next year.]

During the summer following my year at OBU, in 1935, I visited the McKinneys in Fort Worth, and Lucile and Clinton in Austin, where they were in graduate school at the University of Texas. They drove me over to Belton to see the campus of Mary Hardin-Baylor and also the dormitory where I would live. My disappointment at having to leave OBU began to fade away and I began to look forward to going to another school. Aunt Leila and Elizabeth had graduated from that school (called "Baylor Female College" in Aunt Leila's day and "Baylor College for Women" in Elizabeth's day). Lucile had graduated from Baylor University and was not very much impressed with Mary Hardin-Baylor (as it was called when I went there), but she tried to show me the good things about going there. For one thing, the dormitory was new and the rooms were in "suites": bedroom for two girls, dressing room, bath, another dressing room for the two other girls, and the other bedroom for two. My roommate was to be Sue Cook, a freshman, and our suite mates were Clara and Virginia Bowman (sisters). Clara was a freshman and Virginia was a junior. I was a sophomore/junior, since I had gone a year and a summer to OBU. Later on, those three girls were my bridesmaids.

One reason I believe that Daddy had me transfer to another school was for financial reasons. I was able to get a better job and no doubt some kind of scholarship, plus a loan, which I repaid over several years' time after graduation. Almost everyone in those days had "to make a note" for college expenses and then repay the note, by the month, for years afterward! My job was to be secretary to the Business Manager, Mr. H.E.D. Walker, whom my father had known previously at San Marcos Academy. I was to work three hours every afternoon.

When I was at OBU my work consisted of typing form letters in Mr. McCaulley's office or in Dr. Raley's office. I think I worked only an hour or two every day and the job was not one that required me to do much thinking. When I began working for Mr. Walker, though, it was an entirely different situation and I really had a lot to learn! I think Mr. Walker thought that I knew a lot more than I did because he had known everyone else in my family, and he thought I was like them. We both soon realized my limitations in transcribing my dictation correctly and in thinking about what I was doing. He was a very demanding boss and everyone was afraid of him. Somehow, though, he managed to teach me and to put up with me until I became more efficient, and I have always been grateful for the things I learned from him about taking responsibility, the importance of being accurate, bookkeeping, and office practices generally. He was a gruff old bachelor but really had a kind heart. Even though everyone feared him because he demanded so much from everyone, they respected him because he was so honest and capable and hard working, himself. He had had to support his family at an early age and was educating his sister there at M.H.-Baylor when I worked for him. He finally did have some time and money to pursue his own happiness and did get married, several years after I left there. I worked for him until I graduated.

I enjoyed the two years and summer school I went to Mary Hardin-Baylor. We had a really nice group of friends down at our end of the hall and I kept up with them for many years. In addition to that group, I had friends in B.S.U. and in Training Union, where I always seemed to have a job. I had several good friends whom I met there at the First Baptist Church, including a young man I dated on Sunday nights for church and also went to the movies with. (His name was Oscar George) and we enjoyed double-dating with Virginia Bowman and her boyfriend. I also dated some fellows who came over from Baylor University, whom we met a "Tri-Baylor Meets" - (Baylor U., Mary Hardin-Baylor, and Baylor Medical School in Dallas). Sometimes we'd date seminary students who came to campus, and sometimes the boys from Texas A&M would come over. One time I went to a B.S.U. Convention in Austin and met Lattimore Ewing who was state B.S.U. president. He and I corresponded quite a bit and I saw him several times at Ridgecrest after I graduated from college. Later on, he came to Nashville for a meeting and stayed over for a week-end. However, I had just met another young man in Nashville, Wendell Arnett, so the rest is history!

The War Years: Baltimore (1943), Richmond (1944), et al.

_____________

Leila wrote out this memoir by hand and gave copies to each of her three children for Christmas 1997. Subsequently the manuscript was transcribed by Carolyn Arnett, and John Arnett with assistance from sisters Elaine and Mary Lou is in the process of editing it. Editorial additions are [enclosed in brackets].

In 1951 E.C. Routh wrote a small 92 page autobiography, Adventures in Christian Journalism (pub by Broadman Press), mainly about his journalistic career. Not surprisingly there is only one fleeting reference to Leila Katherine, and E.C.'s opinion of Alice's parenting skills is somewhat at variance from that reported by the children. The following two paragraphs are all that E.C. had to say about L.K. and the transitional phase of their life after his first wife died:

"After the death of their mother [June 1925], my four younger children, Elizabeth, Porter, Copass and Leila Katherine, spent the next school year in San Marcos Baptist Academy. The other two, Lucile and Ross, were in college. It was my joy to lead to Christ each one of the six children and to baptize them.

"At the time when all the children were in their formative years, a second mother, Alice Routh [b.1874 and E.C.'s first cousin], who I married in Houston, came into their lives. She had grown up in east Tennessee [only child of Kenzie Lafayette Routh and his wife], attended Peabody, and had taught in Houston schools for years, the last several years in the San Jacinto High School. She was acquainted, to a rare degree, with the possibilities and problems of growing boys and girls. She builded well on the secure foundations laid by the sainted mother who had given them birth. The mutual affection of the children and the new mother who guided them as they walked into the modern world has been an inspiration to our home and to the homes set up by the sons and daughters. All the children attended college and all but one are college graduates." pp 41-42-- Adventures in Christian Journalism, E.C. Routh, 1951, Broadman Press

Notes about Vol II (1935-1945)

Note: "The Story Continued" part of this biography was begun sometime after the beginning of 1998. I had decided, since I hadn't had much chance to get out and do Christmas-shopping (because of Wendell's illness, beginning October 22, 1997) to make copies of my biography and send them to our children for Christmas. They all seemed to enjoy getting them. I decided, then, that at some point in the future I would continue with my story. Finally, while Wendell was in St. Matthews Manor (April 13-May 7) the second time, I took this notebook and began writing again. He slept quite a bit during that period of his illness, giving me time to continue our story. This is as far as I got, when circumstances prevented me from writing more, after we came home. On July 10, Wendell died, suddenly. Now everything is different, and I am not sure that I can still write. However, after reading a book by Judy Tatelbaum, The Courage to Grieve, I decided that perhaps one way I could "grieve courageously and survive" would be to write more about our life together, as I remember it. Since I am now eighty-one, my memory sometimes fails me; but perhaps our children can fill in some of the blanks with their own stories. I used to feel that "I had plenty of time" to write this story, but now I am not sure. Therefore, as Judy Tatelbaum wrote, "I want to act now, before it is too late;" and I want to dedicate this story to Wendell. Today is August 10, the first month anniversary of his death.

Before I actually start our story again, though, I would like to copy some of Judy Tatelbaum's suggestions of positive resolutions a person might make as we confront a life crisis. "These could make a difference in how we cope as well as in how we go on with our lives."

"I have the courage to go through this experience.
I grow from adversity.
I am strong.
I am strong enough to cope.
I can overcome my sorrow.
I will finish my grief and build a new life.
From now on I will share all my loving feelings.
From now on I will have no unfinished business with my loved ones.
From now on I intend to be patient (persevering, understanding, open, etc.)
From now on I intend to live my life to the fullest."

Pp. 135-136

"The resolve to help, to assist humanity in some way, is one of the most positive resolutions one can make after suffering a loss." P. 135
"There seems to me no greater memorial to loved ones who have died than using their deaths to propel ourselves to grow and to live our own lives in some better way."P. 137
"It takes courage to believe we can survive, that we will grow. It takes courage, too, to live now and not postphone living until some vague tomorrow."P. 160

Notes which began Vol III (1945 - )

Tomorrow will be June 10, 1999, our sixtieth wedding anniversary. While it is hard to write about the sadness that comes over me when I think about what has happened since our last anniversary, I am trying to "think positive" and realize the great blessing that Wendell and I were granted by having fifty-nine years together as husband and wife. Tomorrow will be the first anniversary-day I have had without him to share it with me (a rather awkward sentence); but it might provide a good time to return to the story of my life as "Mrs. Wendell Arnett", especially since all three of our children have recently expressed a hope that I will do this. So, here goes!

Last Sunday Dr. Sisk, our pastor, preached a sermon based on Philippines 3:13: "...but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." It was a wonderful sermon, I felt, and spoke to my heart on many levels. It is hard for me to remember all the things that have happened since we moved to Louisville, but I will try to fill in the blank pages with the major happenings of the past fifty-four years. I may consciously or unconsciously "forget some of those things which are behind", but I'll press on." In Philippines 4:13 we are promised that "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." I am depending on that help as I undertake this task and also continue to live my life following Wendell's death, July 10, 1998.