6. California 1958-1960 The Early Years

California, 1958-1969

 

 

The Early Years, 1958-60

        I grew up in southern California in the 1930's. I was born in Whittier and I remember my grandfather’s place in El Monte and my early boyhood was spent in Long Beach, especially on the beach and in the parks. And what a wonderful climate. We often took a Sunday afternoon drive in my Dad’s Model A Ford into Orange County when they still had orange trees there and inexpensive fruit markets were in many places. I remember the wide boulevards and the beautiful Mediterranean style homes and the wonderful climate where kids could play outside year round. And we did. My brother and sister and I roamed the beaches and played in the parks, taking a peanut butter sandwich for lunch so that we didn’t have to take time out to go home and eat. I remember dropping that peanut butter sandwich in the sand one time only to discover that it didn’t matter how much you “dusted it off,” it was impossible to eat a peanut butter sandwich that had sand on it. So I stood around a picnic table, trying to look pitiful where a family was eating their lunch, hoping they would give me something to eat. They did. ^-*)

        World War Two began for the United States with the attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941. (Minnie’s Uncle Bill was stationed at Pearl Harbor when it was bombed. He was washing up for breakfast and when he heard the sirens, he ran. The heel of one of his shoes was shot off. J-74) Obviously there was a great deal of excitement and activity in California. We had blackouts, air raid drills, and even some nervous anti-aircraft fire on the coast sometimes at night. And in November, 1942 we moved to El Paso, Texas because my Dad, who was an accountant, got a job in defense industry there. I was 9 years old then in the 4^th grade. So I grew up in my teen-age years in West Texas, but I always missed California and the beauty of the beaches and the coolness of the climate.

        So it’s not surprising that after Minnie and I were married and we were discussing long-term plans, I kept talking about California. We also discussed the possibility of moving to Colorado or Oregon or Washington. And we looked at “tract houses” and considered buying one for $8000. I was a veteran and had the G.I.Bill and FHA loans were also low. But I had such a great desire to show California to Minnie. I just knew she would love it. And she did. And it was a wonderful place to raise children because they could be outside all year round.

        What neither of us realized, though, was how much Minnie would miss her mother if we moved away. We didn’t realize the intensity of it or the feeling of aloneness and “you’re on your own” attitude that would occur. Minnie’s mother told her, “You must go where your husband wants to take you.” And Minnie knew that, too. For my part I was just so enthusiastic about sharing that lovely world of my childhood with my dear wife and children. And we did. And it was idyllic in some ways. But we had not foreseen the difficulties that you will see as this story unfolds.

        Many years later Minnie evaluated our move to California this way: “In 1958 Bill and I with our two little ones left Texas to move to Southern California. I had always lived in Texas and was able to see my mother very often.”

        “Then I found myself in California with a 3-month old and a 15-month old–and a loving husband. Seeing new things was exciting, but I had not realized how much I would miss Mother, Patsy and my brothers. This was such a growing up experience for me. I was 21 years old.”

        “Letters, phone calls and visits helped. I am glad my mother didn’t discourage our move as being away from family caused me to draw closer and closer to Bill and to depend on the Lord.” J-101

        Minnie was 70 or 71 years old when she wrote those words of wisdom. But if I had realized the pain it would cause her and her mother and sister I probably would have made the decision to buy that “tract home” in San Antonio. And our lives would have been quite different. And God would still have taught us the lessons He wanted us to learn. And we would have had a happy home either place.

        Through it all we learned a lot about the providence of God. The Lord has a way of getting us where He wants us and more important, He has a way of teaching us what He desires to teach us. He is more interested in how our character and our relationship to Him is being formed than He is in the particular place where He guides us. And we know some of what He wants to accomplish because He revealed it in His Word. He wants to make us more like Christ in our character and attitudes. He uses our ignorance as well as our knowledge to guide us. And He puts us through the hard times that we are reluctant to put ourselves through. You saw what Minnie wrote, “[It] caused me to draw closer and closer to Bill and to depend on the Lord.”

         That’s precisely what the Apostle Paul wrote when he talked about the hardships they experienced: “But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God. . . .” 2 Cor. 1:9 NIV Nevertheless, separations are one of the most painful parts of life in this fallen world. And we look forward to the day when there will be no more pain or sorrow, including the pain of separation. But we did see her family often. Every summer or at Christmas we made that long drive from California and across Texas. And more important than where we lived was how we lived especially in our relationships together and as a family. And that, as Minnie indicated in what she wrote, that was very strong indeed. And for that we are especially thankful. We went through difficult times together and that brought us ever closer to each other and to the Lord.

        But back to our story. Look at the picture at the beginning of this chapter and see how beautiful it was in Santa Barbara the first time Minnie and Jeannine saw the ocean. We had just crossed the desert in summer time without air conditioning. (In those days we just had an air-cooling water fan in the window.) We stopped at road side parks for picnics and to rest. . After the hot desert it was so refreshing to get across the mountains surrounding the Los Angeles basin and were met with the cool breezes from the ocean and the magnificent seascapes. Minnie fell in love with the place just as I had. And the fruit and vegetable markets were wonderful after such a hot summer.

        Jeannine sent this picture to her mother and wrote this on the back, “Mother – This is on the beach. Oh how Jeannine Jo loves it! That is Billy's bassinet back upon the beach.”

        The first order of business after initially seeing the surroundings, though, was finding a job and God in His providence gave me the first job I applied for, a teaching position in the Long Beach Unified School District. And things were really difficult financially. The school credit union helped us out with a loan so that we could drive back to San Antonio and rent a trailer and bring our things to California. By this time Minnie was pretty exhausted as you can sense from this picture I took of her at the Grand Canyon on the way back to California on our second trip.

        Minnie and I were both so thankful that I had been given a job by the Long Beach Unified School District that paid more than the preceding year. My salary in San Antonio had been $3650. a year and Long Beach paid me $5070. that first year. But it wasn't enough to support a family so I had to get paid on a 10-month basis rather than a 12-month. That meant we would not have money to live on the next summer.

        Our first apartment was on Long Beach Boulevard, very noisy on the second floor so we needed to move to a quieter place as soon as we could. But our little family was happy together as you can see from these pictures of Jeannine and Little Billy.

        Finances were so tight that first year in California that Minnie made the reluctant suggestion that she should apply for a federal government job since she already had a top secret clearance. Both of us knew that was not a good idea, but we reluctantly thought of it as a possible “short term” solution. It was a mistake and we both realized that it was and so it was very short-lived. But we also learned that God can use even our mistakes to work out His purposes for His kingdom and for our lives. The place where Minnie worked was called Maywood Air Force Depot and during the lunch hour almost everyone went to the Officer’s Mess except Minnie and one other civilian employee. So while they ate their sack lunches in the office they got acquainted and Minnie found out that he was “Jehovah’s Witness” and did not know the Lord as his savior. So she told him the truths of the gospel from the scriptures and he listened politely and they had several discussions. We were already in the habit of inviting people to our home for dinner and conversation and we both saw hospitality as a ministry towards others as well as an enjoyable social occasion. And Minnie was an excellent cook! So she invited this young man [I can’t remember his name!] and his wife to our home for dinner on a Saturday evening. We had long conversations about the Lord and salvation and the Bible and they also met us one Thursday evening at the Church of the Open Door for Dr. McGee’s Bible class.

        The friendship ended when Minnie resigned from her position in just a very few weeks, but several years later she received a phone call from a man who asked if she was the “Minnie Burnside” who had worked at Maywood Air Force Depot. She told him she was and he identified himself as her co-worker in that office. He said he wanted her to know that gradually the Lord had worked on their hearts and he and his wife had noticed that there was a strength in Minnie’s and my relationship and they recognized that it was because we knew the Lord that we also treated each other so kindly. He and his wife both discussed what they had heard and seen and decided to go to a neighborhood Baptist church where the Lord brought them to Himself. Obviously this was very good news to both Minnie and me and it was a good example of how God brings fruit out of our lives and efforts to serve Him.

        I was paid only once a month by the school district so we had to manage the little money we had quite carefully. We used a cash envelope system and set aside money for each of the necessities of daily living. And Minnie was VERY good at finding the “specials” at each of the grocery stores. She made a list of exactly what we would buy at each market and since she did not know how to drive a car in those early years, we would take the children to each of the stores and make those purchases each monthly pay day. It was actually an enjoyable outing, particularly when we went to the fruit and vegetable market. And I worked carefully on a family budget.

One day I came into the kitchen very excited with the budget in my hand and told her, “Look, Honey, I’ve got it worked out. We’ve got enough money to get by and you won’t need to work anymore! Then you can stay home and take care of the children. That’s more than enough for you to do.” And I showed her how all the figures added up and we could make our payments and buy the groceries and even have a small allowance for clothing occasionally. So she was very happy and immediately submitted her resignation to her employer.

        The next pay day I set aside the cash in envelopes just as planned and began writing checks to pay the utility bills and other payments. And suddenly I realized that there wasn’t enough money in the bank to pay all of the bills and I couldn’t quite figure that out. So I went back over the budget very carefully and compared it with my pay stubs and then I realized what had happened. I went into the kitchen laughing and told Minnie, “Guess what, Honey!” I made a $100. addition error in the budget so we will be $100. short of what we need every month. And I laughed and laughed because I thought it was so funny. Minnie’s reaction was a little different. She said, “Well, what are we going to do?” I told her that obviously the only thing I could do was to get a part-time job to make that extra $100. a month–but I was so happy that she could stay home with the children that I didn’t mind the extra work. And we learned again that God can use our mistakes!

        And He immediately gave me a job at a neighborhood Western Auto store as a salesman. I worked two evenings a week helping customers find what they wanted. I remember one evening a lady came in and wanted to buy a television set. Well, that’s a big purchase so I began helping her find the one she wanted and started to write the sales order when she casually made the comment, “Boy, my husband is going to be mad at this!” because she was wanting to open a charge account to make the purchase. I talked to her a little more to find out what she meant and she explained that she had opened charge accounts all over town and of course that was very difficult on the family budget and her husband was frustrated at her irresponsibility. This was on a Friday evening and so I suggested to her that maybe she might want to go home and talk about it with her husband and then if they wanted to open the account, she could come back on Monday. Well, that sounded good to her so she thanked me and left.

        Unknown to me, however, the sales manager had overheard the entire conversation–and so had the store manager. The sales manager was “hopping mad!” and confronted me with “losing a sale.” I told him, “Well, we’re supposed to ‘love our neighbor as ourselves’ and it’s a matter of love to be concerned with irresponsible purchases so I was just acting in love being more concerned about the welfare of the customer and her marriage than whether I made a sale or not.” The sales manager didn’t quite see it that way! And he chewed me out. I don’t remember what he said but it wasn’t very helpful.

        But scripture also tells us that “The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.” Proverbs 21:1 Well, it was the store manager and not the king that the Lord gave me favor with, but “the rest of the story” is that the store manager actually liked what I told the sales manager and he took a personal interest in me and our little family. As Christmas 1958 approached, we all knew we would have very little money for Christmas and yet this was the first Christmas that Jeannine was old enough to understand what was happening. And I really wanted to get her something that she liked a lot, a toy horsey to ride, and Billy was old enough for a little red wagon. It just “so happened” that the horsey and the wagon both had been on display and had been slightly damaged so that they couldn’t be sold at full price. The manager told me that if someone wanted to buy either one or both, they could have them at a greatly reduced price. Well, I found “someone” to buy both of them–but I couldn’t have afforded them at full price. Just another “small” example of how God looked after us in those difficult years (and has continued to ever since, of course.)

        Here are some pictures from Christmas, 1958, and a later picture from April, 1959 showing Billy also riding the little horse. The other pictures are from Easter, 1959. You can see that Minnie is wearing a maternity dress, carrying Cheryl. We lived in a beautiful house with a wonderful back yard with a fig tree and they wanted us to buy it, but we couldn’t afford it and eventually had to move when it was sold.

        The Lord’s kindness was shown in a VERY unusual way one night while I was working at Western Auto and Minnie was home taking care of the children. The telephone rang and the caller asked to speak to me. Minnie told him that I was at work at Western Auto but she could take a message. He said he knew that I was a teacher and wanted to know why I had not applied for an evening teaching position with the Adult Division of Long Beach City College. Minnie told him that I knew about those positions but that I had been told that they were available only to teachers with master’s degrees and that I had just started my master’s degree at Long Beach State College (which I had in order to have a little income from the G.I.Bill). And she asked him who he was. The man told her, “I am Dr. Norvell, Dean of the Evening Division of Long Beach City College.”

So Minnie asked him how he knew her husband and he told her that he was in my adult Sunday School class at Truitt Memorial Baptist Church and so he knew that I had the ability to teach adults. (I knew he was in my class but I didn’t know who he was or the significance of his position.) He asked her if I might be interested in teaching in the Adult Division and she told him, “Oh, I know he would. He’s mentioned it before.” So he told her to tell me to come by his office to sign papers and I could teach in the fall semester of 1959. So that’s how the Lord got me started into college teaching and also eventually eased our financial situation considerably because the part-time pay was much higher than Western Auto.

        But that didn’t solve our problem for the summer of ‘59 when Cheryl was born. That was the most difficult summer in my memory as I tried to get enough part-time work to support the family, but also because Minnie became VERY ill with fever and a throat infection at the same time she had to take care of her new baby–and I had to work long hours and was not there to help with the children. We had no income that summer except what I could scrape together with two part-time jobs and the G.I.Bill for summer school. I worked as a coach in a day-care center at a public park and then at night I drove to downtown Los Angeles to sort mail in the evenings and got home around midnight each night.

        After Cheryl was born on July 27, 1959, Minnie had to take care of herself and a new baby and our two other small children. Then she got very, very ill. I came home one night at midnight after working at the post office and she was sitting on the floor holding baby Cheryl and had the other two children asleep beside her. I touched her face and she was burning up with fever. She said she was so dizzy that she was afraid to stand up for fear she would fall. I immediately put in an emergency call to Kaiser clinic since that was our medical plan. A doctor immediately made an emergency call despite the late hour and realized the situation. He gave her an intravenous antibiotic and other medicine and instructions to me as to how to care for her and our three children. What a difficult summer it was! The Lord gave Minnie a friend just a few doors down the street, a mother with children just a bit older than ours. She was so-o-o helpful during those days of great need and I’m grateful to her to this day.

        Minnie’s mother had come to see us in March and was a very big help during the time she was here. She loved California and her grandchildren very much, but she obviously couldn’t make a second trip that soon after the first one.

        Lolly (Cheryl) made a sweet addition to the family and everyone loved her and took care of her. These pictures were taken Easter, 1960.

        Minnie worked hard to take care of her family, but it was a happy family. Here is Minnie under the fig tree. She was the mother of 3 children and yet still 22 years of age.

        We took the children to Disneyland, just a few miles from where we lived, every year.

        Finally in 1960 I was able to take the family to Yosemite. You'll notice that Minnie was pregnant again.

        These pictures are from the next year when Minnie’s mother came to visit and brought her granddaughter Vanessa.

        Christmas 1960 was especially eventful for us because Jonathan was born Christmas night–two hours after midnight. Minnie had a difficult delivery but he was finally born well and healthy and we were thankful for that. Minnie was 23 years old with 4 children and only 3 ½ years between the oldest and the youngest.

        While we were waiting for Jon to be born, we made a candy house for the children and they loved helping us make it (with plenty left over for them to eat). You can see it in these pictures. Lolly was fascinated with it and sometimes helped herself to some of the candy. My Dad and Mom came to see us just before the baby was born.

 

 

5. San Antonio, 1955-1958

San Antonio, 1955-58

        Minnie and I lived in San Antonio for the first three years of our marriage and our first two children were born there in 1957 and 1958. Minnie continued working at Kelly AFB as a top-secret typist for the OSI (Office of Special Investigations for the Air Force). I was attending Trinity University in San Antonio as a history major and also working full-time for San Antonio Savings & Loan Association in one of their branch offices in one of the Handy-Andy grocery stores. I was so busy with those two full-time assignments that our time together was even more special because I was so busy. Minnie filled her extra time with friends and family and cooking and reading and thinking about the future. We lived next door to Richmond Avenue Baptist Church so she often went there whenever they had services in the evening. Our first little apartment was so-o-o tiny that we could sit at the kitchen table eating supper and Minnie could reach things off the stove without getting up and I did the same with the refrigerator. This picture of my sister Darlene and her husband Leo with Minnie in our little kitchen gives an indication of the size.

 

            And during the first year we somehow managed to go to Alum Creek Baptist Church on Sundays with Bob and Bernice and Kenny and sometimes on Wednesdays for prayer meeting. Money was tight in our newlywed status. I remember sometimes we would stop on the way home and buy a 5 cent ice cream cone and share it. Now that’s romantic! ^-*) Our Sunday trips also enabled Minnie to see her mother almost every week-end. It was about 50 miles from where we lived to her Mom’s house in Stockdale. We were always invited to someone's home for Sunday lunch because we all stayed and waited for the evening service every Sunday evening. And sometimes we had family or church picnics. My grandfather who was a Baptist pastor sometimes came. He loved Minnie. The first time he met her as soon as she came in the door, he said, “Min, sit down and tell me how you love Jesus!” So Minnie did and they were friends ever since. Sometimes he would say, “I like to go see Min and Bill. Min sure feeds good!”

 

          We were married so quickly that Minnie’s many friends did not have time to give her a bridal shower so they did that the next month in October, 1955. Here is a picture of her at that shower wearing her beautiful wedding dress. The old snapshot is blurred but you can get some indication of the enormous number of gifts given to her. There were so many that I could not get them all in the car and we needed to take another load home the next time we came to Stockdale. We had enough sheets and towels and kitchenware to last us for many years. That shower showed the kindness and generosity of so many, many people. Minnie was so greatly loved everywhere she lived and Stockdale was her childhood home.

 

         I began teaching school in 1956 while I was still finishing my degree. I taught at Edgewood High School in San Antonio. That first year I taught English, Typing, and Business. I had mostly hispanic students and they were exceptionally polite in those days. They all responded to anything I told them with, “Sir, Mr. Burnside, yes sir.” At the end of that first year of teaching Minnie and I took my English class on the school bus to a park for a picnic with the help of several mothers. It was a special year for them and for me and Minnie, too. The next year I taught history at Sam Houston High School in San Antonio and was the sponsor (with Minnie’s help) of the Youth for Christ student organization.

        Both Minnie and I wanted 4 children and we were both very ready to get started on a family but we needed to wait until I finished college, as Minnie explained, “Before we were married we talked about family plans. We were both from families with 5 children and we both felt that we would like to have four children if the Lord allowed–and we prayed for two girls and two boys. The Lord answered our prayers.” (Indeed, yes! The children were born in 1957, 1958, 1959, and 1960! Many years later when Minnie was telling about this rapid sequence of children being born, she added, “And then I got a biology lesson!” And her audience laughed appreciatively. That was typical of her sense of humor. She was very quick with her wit and we laughed a lot together—not just in our early years, but all through her life.)

          She wrote, “Since Bill was still in college, we waited until he was in his last year to start our family. Jeannine was born the same week he graduated from Trinity University with a B.A. in history. Family was very important to us. We never considered not having children.” J-91

Six weeks before Jeannine was born Minnie took maternity leave from her job at Kelly AFB because in those days that was the official regulation for pregnant women. She had extra time on her hands so she spent a lot of time reading about nutrition and new things to cook or bake. She decided to learn how to bake bread simply by reading instructions in a couple of old cookbooks we had. She walked to the neighborhood grocery store and bought some flour and yeast. (She had to count her loose change because she just barely had enough money.) And when I came home from work that night, I was greeted with homemade bread! How surprised and delighted I was! And from then for the rest of her life Minnie baked almost all of our bread. She baked such a variety and all of them were excellent. The entire family certainly appreciated that extra work. She got very efficient at it and often tried new recipes. It became almost a tradition for her to bake some kind of sweet bread on Sunday afternoons for the family.

        Many years later after we had moved to Arkansas we woke up one Saturday morning and I told her, “Honey, I had a terrible dream last night. I dreamed that you died and you hadn’t taught me how to bake bread!” She laughed and laughed at that and then she said, “Well, Honey, today is Saturday. I’m going to teach you how to bake bread.” And she did! I entertained her all morning, though, because I had trouble learning how to knead bread without getting it to stick all over my hands. But with her help I finally mastered the technique and then quite often helped her knead the bread because we made so much. We would slice and wrap the fresh bread and then freeze it. It was so easy to thaw and toast the slices.

          “The birth of each child is very clear in my mind,” she wrote. “Such a miracle from the Lord! Jeannine was born on May 24, 1957 at the Baptist Memorial Hospital [in San Antonio]. They would not let the husband into the delivery room, so I felt very alone being taken there. J-92 Jeannine’s birth was so exciting for us and also for both sides of the family and we had a lot of visitors.

        It was only one year to the day before our second baby was born, William Timothy Burnside, born on Jeannine’s 1^st birthday, May 24, 1958. Minnie wrote, “ They took me back to the same room [in Baptist Memorial Hospital] I had been in one year before–and the air conditioner was again broken. We were so happy to have a little son join our little daughter.” J-92

4. Courtship and Marriage, 1955

Courtship and Marriage, 1955

        Our courtship was only seven weeks long. We met August 5, 1955 and were married on September 26, 1955. This was the most important event in our lives after knowing Christ as Savior and we were both well aware of it and joyful and thankful to the Lord for giving us to each other: “What God hath joined together.” In fact, we took as our “life verse for our marriage:” Ephesians 3:20-21 “Now unto him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.” Many times in our marriage we would tell each other that the Lord had done “exceeding abundantly” more than we had even thought or asked for. Looking back after 54 years of marriage, I feel that more strongly than ever. What an amazing privilege to be married to Minnie all those years. How good and kind she was to me and such an excellent wife and mother. The heart of her husband trusts in her. . . . She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.” Proverbs 31:11-12 ESV That was so true of Minnie all her life. As beautiful as she was physically, her inner beauty of character surpassed even her physical beauty. She knew that scripture, “let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.” 1 Peter 3:4 ESV

          How did God in His providence bring the two of us together on August 5^th and 6^th 1955? I finished my tour of duty in the United States Army on 31 January 1955 and returned to college at Howard Payne College in Brownwood, Texas. My brother was living in San Antonio and was the lay pastor of Alum Creek Baptist Church, a mission church of Richmond Avenue Baptist Church in San Antonio, Texas. Alum Creek was a small country church just a few miles north of Stockdale on the road to Seguin. Minnie usually went to church in town at First Baptist but she had relatives and friends who attended Alum Creek and they all decided to go to some special meetings at Alum Creek. When those meetings ended, Minnie was still attending there temporarily and joined other young people from San Antonio for a church ice cream social the night she met me because I was one of those “young people from San Antonio.” I was staying with Bob and his wife Bernice and little 4-year old boy Kenny during the summer of 1955, intending to return to Howard Payne in the fall. I was working for my dad who was an accountant in San Antonio. Listen to how Minnie described our meeting:

          "In August 1955 I went to a church party with a group of girls. It was a 'tacky' party--meaning you wore jeans or something that was not 'dress up.' We were all in a backyard enjoying a cook out and home-made ice cream."

          "Suddenly I noticed a very handsome young man standing over in a part of the yard with no one near him, so I went over and introduced myself. He said his name was Billy Burnside. Little did I know that I had just introduced myself to the love of my life!"

         "The following Sunday morning the pastor introduced him and said that Bill would be teaching the young people on Sunday evenings! All the girls were excited--"

          "After church I asked him what we would be studying. He told me and I went home to study and prepare some questions to ask Bill! I wanted to get his attention! [Note from "Bill": she already had my attention!--riveted on her!] It worked. He asked me to ride back to San Antonio with him and his brother so we could continue the discussion. . . ." [That discussion continued for 54 years!] J-88-89

          Minnie had dated other boys, of course, and had one steady boy friend as well as others she liked, but the kids in Stockdale did many things together and she was very sociable. She loved getting together with the other kids but she worked so many hours that those social occasions were all the more special to her. She wrote, “When you grow up in a small town of 1,000, life is pretty simple. We lived near a river so we would sometimes take a picnic and swim in the river. We also liked to go to the movies. Our little town had a movie theater. We also went to all the activities at the local Baptist church.”

         “We also liked to go to Seguin, a town about 23 miles away. Seguin had a big park with a swimming pool, minature gold and lovely walking trails. There was a drive-in restaurant called The White House where we loved to go to eat. And we loved to go to rodeos and football games.” J-36

         Speaking of dating and boy-girl relationships, Minnie wrote, “I never felt that I was looking for love. God gave me lots of friends–both girls and guys. I was very young and very busy. We often did things as a group. You didn’t need to have a date to be part of things.” J-87

        She said, “I dated one guy off and on for several years. From the beginning my mother didn’t like him. She tried to explain why she thought he was bad for me, but I didn’t want to hear her objections. She allowed me to go out with him but she was strict about where we went and what time I had to be home.” (Later I was very glad that Minnie’s mother approved of me. She proved to be a very good mother-in-law!)

          One interesting dating incident tells something about Minnie’s theological knowledge even as a teen-ager: “A friend once arranged a blind date with a friend of his. I don’t remember the guy’s name but I remember a conversation. I asked him if he was a Christian and he said, “No.” Then he proceeded to tell me that God was just an idea in my head so it didn’t matter whether we agreed about it or not. I remember telling him that God was real and that Jesus showed us what God is like. I agreed that if God was only an idea in my head, it wouldn’t matter, but I knew that was false as I know the Lord.” J-87

 

        When I realized that I had already quickly “fallen in love” with Minnie, I also realized “how can two walk together except they be agreed” [as to where they’re going] Amos 3:3 so I knew I needed to find out what Minnie believed about life and God and the Bible and her purposes in life and what she thought about children and work and a whole host of beliefs. So one night after we began going out together, I stopped at a roadside park and began asking her a lot of questions about her beliefs. I hadn’t intended it as an oral exam, but several years later she asked me one night if I remembered that particular night and of course I did. She told me then, “Do you know what I almost asked you when we drove away from that roadside park? I wanted to ask you, “Did I pass?!” Obviously she did! And I’ve always been thankful, too, that I “passed” in her evaluation and decision to marry me.

        Many years later Minnie mentioned our courtship in a talk on Worship that she gave to the women’s group “Heart and Hand” at Sequim Bible Church, Sequim, Washington on Oct. 9, 2003. These are her verbatim comments: “And then I had various boyfriends of course as all girls do and then I met one boy friend that was very different because on every date he wanted to read the Bible together. And I thought, “Oh, this guy is really neat!” And we did. I don’t think we ever went out that we didn’t read the Bible and pray together. And we’re still doing that. [She said that with a sweet smile and approving laughter from the audience.] So the pattern from the time I met Bill of our relationship together was very much centered around the Lord.”

       Indeed it was because we both knew the words of Jesus, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Matthew 10:37 Obviously the same would apply to husband or wife so our love for Jesus had to be greater than for each other. In some ways that is difficult to comprehend because of the intense love we had for each other. But we knew what God required of us and we sought to be obedient and we taught those same truths to our children.

       “We both loved the Lord Jesus,” Minnie wrote in her journal, and wanted to serve Him. Our mutual love of the Lord and our desire to serve Him drew us very close to each other.”

       “From the beginning we had very long discussions about our views of the world, what we wanted in life and how our lives could bring glory to God.”

       “We became engaged in early September and were married on September 26–same summer we met! [1955] My roommate [Janet Chappel] had moved out and so we decided to change our wedding date from December to September. God has richly blessed our lives together.” J-88 Minnie was 18 and I was 22.

In her journal Minnie went into more detail:

       “Bill and I were engaged with plans to get married during the Christmas vacation of 1955 but my roommate decided she needed to move back with her parents, so I was left with an apartment and no transportation. This was on a Friday evening. I told Bill the problem and we tried to figure something out. Finally he said, ‘Well, I could cut class on Monday night and we could get married on Monday.’ Sounded like a good idea, but I told him we would need to talk to Mother. We drove to Stockdale and she agreed to help us get a one-day license on Monday. We planned to have just our families, but my Aunt put an invitation on the restaurant bulletin board and the little church [Alum Creek Baptist Church] was full. Bill’s brother, Bob, married us–his first wedding! We did not have a honeymoon at that time, but I spent a night in a motel for the first time!” J-90

1955 September 26 Wedding Picture--taken a few days later

         The church was full and it was a simple, but sweet wedding–although I missed the cue to come in on the wedding march and Janet had to start playing it a second time. An old couple who were friends of Minnie’s let us hide our car in their garage so that the boys wouldn’t be able to tie cans on it. And after all the ceremony my brother Bob followed us in a procession enroute to San Antonio and then when we got to a narrow section of the highway he began going very, very slowly, blocking the highway from the other cars behind him. Minnie and I took off quite fast towards San Antonio and none of them ever saw us again that night. We stayed in a motel in Alamo Heights and then rented our own apartment the next day. And we both had to go back to work the next day. My dad arranged for a friend to take this wedding picture the Friday following our Monday wedding. I took Minnie on what amounted to a delayed honeymoon to Colorado the next summer. [She was such a cute bride! She has on her wedding dress while we were wading in that cold Colorado river.]

Minnie 1956 in Colorado wading in the river wearing her wedding dress

Minnie in the Colorado Rockies on our "Honeymoon" Summer 1956

[Note: send me an e-mail and I'll send these pictures .pdf   They add so much to the story!

burnsidewm@cox.net

3. Living in town, 1945 to 1955

Living in town, 1945 to 1955

            When Minnie and her family moved to Stockdale, her mother began working in a cafe and cleaning houses or whatever work she could find. As soon as the children were old enough, they began working as well and helping with the family finances. Neighbors and relatives also brought produce from their garden or farm. Her father did what he could but cancer soon became too much to deal with. Minnie wrote, “From 1945 to 1949 our house was quiet a lot as my father was sick a lot, but he still loved having relatives and friends visit. We had lots of cousins and we played outside games.” (J.13)

 

School and work

        When they first left the farm, they lived where the children needed to ride the school bus but later they moved closer to the school and after that they always walked to school. (J.49) Third Grade was Minnie's first year in town and the next year she was very ill for a long time. She wrote, “When I was in 4^th grade I had the whooping cough. The other children had it also, and they all got over it, but I just kept coughing. I got to where I couldn't keep food down and lost a lot of weight. I was already thin. My big concern was that I would have to repeat 4^th grade since I was out of school for over two months. When I felt strong enough, I started doing my school work. Taking cod liver oil was something I remember. As I got stronger and went back to school, I soon caught up on my work and did fine.”    “I remember different neighbors cooking food they thought I could eat. The illness did scare me and I was weak for a long time.” (J.2)

        Minnie's first job for pay was when she was in 5^th grade and she worked for her fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Mills. “Mrs. Mills had three young children and she lived with her parents. She hired me to stay with them and help with the children. I would read to them, give them their baths and help with dinner. She had a lot of Christian books that I read. The summer between 5^th and 6^th grade, she went to summer school so I stayed there and helped the grandparents with the children. I cannot remember how much she paid me as I gave the money to my parents. Mrs. Mills and her parents read the Bible aloud after dinner and we all talked about what we read.” (J.42)

        Minnie was still 10 years old when she began her first full-time job in a cafe. She wrote, “When my 6^th grade year started I was working from the time I got out of school until almost 10 PM. My homework was done between washing lots of dishes at the cafe or after I got home at night. Not doing what was assigned was not an option. My teachers described me as being very responsible. When I was in 7^th grade some students didn't have their homework and my teacher said, “If Minnie could work until 10 PM and have hers done, there is no excuse for you.” I remember talking to the teacher and asking her not to use me as an example as the kids teased me and called me Teacher's Pet.” (J.54)

Holidays

        “Before my dad died in 1949 lots of his relatives would come to our house [for Thanksgiving]. They would get there early in the day and the women would spend the complete morning cooking. Pies had been baked in advance. All of the cousins would play outside, but we were sometimes called in to help.”

        “The men usually sat on the porch and talked. When we lived in the country, they would look at the animals and whatever was growing.”

       “Turkey and corn bread dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, candied sweet potatoes, salads and pumpkin, apple and pecan pies were all delicious. Sometimes all the kids took their plates out under a shade tree to eat.” (J.16)

Minnie's close relationship to her father

        Knowing that his death was impending, Minnie's father grew even closer to the Lord and very close to Minnie. His life and his premature death left a major impact on her life.  She wrote, “We were always in church, and as his illness progressed, he became closer and closer to his Lord. He spoke of how he didn't want to leave mother and his 5 young children but he was ready to meet his Lord in heaven.”

        “I admire the fact that he loved family—not only his wife and kids but the extended family—and his Biblical views of living. He felt strongly about purity, modesty, and honesty.  “The year I was eleven, I would get home from work at almost 10 PM. Daddy was very ill, but usually awake. I treasured the advice he gave me in those night talks. He died well!” (J.9)

        Minnie wrote just a few months before she died, “My father died when I was still eleven years old – I was very close to him and I missed him and his wise counsel. I treasured all he taught me about the Lord.” (J.165)

      Elsewhere she wrote in more detail about her relationship with her father: “I didn't get to know him when I was an adult, but I knew him well. When I would get home from work, I would sit by his bed and we would talk. He would tell me that he was going to heaven and would not get to see me grow up. I remember him telling me what kind of person he wanted me to be. He wanted me to love the Lord, never smoke or drink or have sex before marriage. Honesty was very important to him and family – He thought his brothers would help Mother [she drew a sad face] they didn't. He would also tell all of us to obey, love and respect our mother. He often reminded us that the Bible said God would be a husband to the widows and father to the fatherless! How true this was in our family.” (J.85)

Death of Minnie's father, age 39: Elmo Carroll West, March 19, 1949

        Minnie was working the night her father died and when she saw her Uncle Mart West coming in the cafe door with a very solemn look on his face, she realized what was happening. Her father's children gathered around his bed and God gave him enough strength to say yet a few more words to them and to commit them to the care of the Lord. He passed away peacefully and his funeral was conducted by the two preachers who had visited him in his illness so often, the Assembly of God minister and the pastor of the local Church of Christ. He was buried in the Steel Branch cemetery in the Pleasant Valley area.

Minnie's widowed mother's family leadership

        “Mother felt very strongly that children should show respect to adults, never talk back to her and be obedient and honest. She would not take welfare and she taught all five children to work hard to support our family. My dad had not paid social security - so we learned to trust the Lord, be frugal and work hard.” (J.10)

        “After Daddy died, we all worked. I remember the boys riding on the back of the ice truck and carrying the blocks of ice into people's ice boxes. The boys did a paper route, hauled hay, Buddy learned to run the projector at the local movie theatre. I remember Billy washing dishes in a cafe - Patsy worked as a waitress and we both helped Mother clean houses – We were taught to work hard and to appreciate having work to do as we needed to work together to support our family – Mother helped us develop a strong work ethic.” (J.68)

        “Family was very important to my mother. She was only 31 when my father died. She was left with 5 children – no money – and he had been a tenant farmer and had never paid social security, so her future looked bleak.”   “She said, 'we have each other and we will all work hard to stay together.' My father's brothers wanted her to put the three boys in an orphanage! She told them that she would never ask them for anything – and that if we starved we would do it together.”

“We all worked hard and many in our community helped us by bringing fresh produce. . . . She taught us to trust the Lord and to be thankful.” (J.84)

Christmas, 1949

        The first Christmas after Minnie's father died brought some joy and excitement into the family's life. Holidays had always been spent with her dad's family, the Wests. Now more time would be spent with Ruth's family, the Marcrums who lived in Austin. Minnie wrote in her journal, “We loved Christmas as it was a time to be out of school and home with our parents. We were very poor, so we didn't get a lot of presents. Mother would sew new outfits for each of us – often using fabric from feed sacks or her younger sister's cast-off clothes – we didn't mind, they were new to us. She was a good cook and made pies, cakes & cookies. Our Christmas meal was a lot like Thanksgiving plus a ham – and we always had fruitcake. There would be a Christmas program at church – we loved getting the mesh stocking filled with nuts, candy and fruit.”   “We often opened gifts on Christmas Eve as extended family came for Christmas Day. Christmas of 1950 [I'm sure she means 1949.] was the first one after Daddy's death and the first one we spent in Austin with Mother's family.” (J.17)

        “I remember our first Christmas in Austin. The day after Christmas Mother, Grandmother and some aunts decided to go downtown to see what was on sale. Granddaddy said he would take all the kids to an afternoon movie. After the ladies left, we all went to town on a city bus. We saw a double feature. Then he took us to the soda fountain in a Kress store for ice cream. We got on a city bus and started home. At the next bus stop, we saw all the ladies. Granddaddy told us to pretend we didn't know them, so we were all giggling when they got on.”  “Granddaddy had a great sense of humor. He told silly jokes that made all the kids laugh. He enjoyed being with us. He died in 1953 – and I missed him a lot!”

         “I only had one grandmother, Pearl Marcrum. She got married when she was only 14 years old – and she was 37 years old when I was born. She had a son only 5 months older than I and one 2 years younger, so she didn't make being a grandparent a big deal. She had ten children and I always felt she was a bit stern and strict. And I didn't like my middle name – Pearl – which mother gave me since grandmother wanted a name sake.”

       “When I was about thirteen, I started spending a week in Austin most summers. Mostly I went places with my two young uncles. We would take a bus to the capital to see grandaddy – and that was great fun. Grandmother died in her sleep in December 1956.” (J. 24-25)

House fire, 1950

        Disaster very nearly struck that young family with a widow and five children during the cold early months of 1950. Minnie always believed that her mother was protected by the Lord on a winter day in 1950 when she lit the kerosene stove to cook supper and then went outside to take the clothes off the clothes line while the stove was heating up. While she was unpinning the clothes from the line, the stove suddenly blew up and engulfed the kitchen with flames. The house they were living in was across the street from the fire department and the volunteer fire department was immediately called and the men came running to help only to discover that the keys to the building were on someone's farm not far from town. By the time the building was opened and the fire truck available, the house had burned to the ground with everything in it. All was lost—but no one was injured. Just think what a tragedy was avoided simply because Ruth was outside instead of inside that kitchen inferno.

          Minnie was in school in the 8^th grade and hearing the fire alarm, she jumped up and cried out, “That's our house!” and without waiting for a response, ran out the door and ran home. Pat joined her very soon and they stood watching their house burn to the ground, so thankful that their mother and the whole family was safe. Minnie and Pat stood with their arms around each other on that cold winter day with the crowd gathering around and people trying to fight the flames the best they could. Minnie looked back at the porch room where she and Pat slept with only ducking as shelter from the cold. The girls had always had to go to bed in a very cold room (although their mother often heated bricks to help keep their feet warm.) When Minnie saw that porch room burning, she whispered to Pat, “Our room is warm!” and both girls burst out laughing to the consternation of their mother—until Minnie told her what she had said! Then she, too, could barely control her laughter.

        The generous people of the community and the extended family rallied to this poor widow and her children and did what they could to supply places for them to stay and food for them to eat and clothing to replace what was lost in the fire. Minnie stayed with Janet Chapel and her family. She wrote, “I loved going to their house because it was very quiet.” but “Janet loved the activity of our busy house.” And Patsy married Janet's cousin that very year while she was only 15 years old. (And Minnie was 13.)

        One of the local store owners opened her store that evening just for Ruth and her children and had her pick out clothes for each one of them as her gift to help the family. Many years later Minnie recalled that bleak winter night: “So there we stood on a cold December afternoon with mother and the clothes we had on. Brownie opened her store and outfitted all 6 of us – Everything – panties, socks, & new outfits! A gift! The next day many families brought clothes. We stayed with wonderful friends – The 5 of us and their son all slept on the living room floor and shared the outhouse.” (J.11)

A new home

         The family again saw God's providential care of them when a lot of people in the community got together to raise funds to purchase property so that the men of the town could build a house for this widow and her children in their midst. There was a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of hard work. But volunteer work and contributions built a house for the family. “The men of the town told Mother they were going to build us a house. They had rodeos, fish fries – all kinds of fund-raising for a house for Ruth and her 5 children. We were amazed. They bought the lot right next to where we were staying and built a modest little house—the first home we ever owned! Later mother bought the back lot for a garden and added on a bathroom and extra large back bedroom. In her later years she added on a room for her quilting. No wonder the family feels such an attachment to the Stockdale community. This little place was home to Minnie until she married and it was home to her Mother until she died in April, 1996, while we were missionaries at Christ's College in Taipei. It is presently owned by our son Timothy. (J.11)

 

School, Work, Church, Family, Friends

       Minnie's life was filled with work and responsibilities but also with happiness. She was always such a cheerful, helpful person and people loved her greatly. She made many friends and the adults of the community respected her greatly. She wrote, “Since I was at work, I enjoyed the times when the coffee shop wasn't goo busy. Talking with people that came in was neat. I was friends with all the grown ups in town. Sometimes friends would come in and just hang out. I liked having time to just be a kid.” (J.51)

       “I have always liked people and been blessed with lots of friends. Being popular was never very important to me, but being respected was. My mother often pointed out that a good reputation was very important – she loved to tell me to avoid all appearances of evil!”   “Since I started working in a coffee shop when I was eleven, I knew all the adults in town and they liked me. That meant more to me than what the kids at school thought about me.” (J.30)

        Minnie was very intelligent and a hard worker, always dependable. Of course she excelled in school. Math was her favorite subject. Looking back at her life as an adult, she wrote, “From the time I was in 6^th grade until 9^th, I thought it would be fun to have my own coffee shop. Then in 9^th grade, I took Algebra I and decided being a math teacher would be much better. Helping other students with their homework encouraged me as they would tell me that it seemed easier when I showed them how to think about the problem. I felt that many of them were not making connections with things they had already learned.”

 

        “My math classes were always my favorites—I did numbers better than spelling! I liked the logic of math and the exactness of it. Since our school was small, I had the same teacher for Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II. Her name was Mrs. Williams—and she was an excellent teacher. I liked her strictness. She encouraged me to become a math teacher. Geometry was my favorite. I loved doing proofs. I still think the formal proofs are a great way to teach logical thinking. I found symbolic logic very easy after geometry.” (J.44-45)

 

        Minnie also enjoyed home economics since it was a double period class and they had time to do some serious sewing and cooking. She enjoyed both and learned most of her skills from her mother at home. Minnie particularly appreciate Arlena Luker, the PE and Science teacher because she “had a lot of influence on all the girls. She would talk to us about modesty and sexual purity. We all respected her as we knew she really cared about our welfare – and she had a great sense of humor. An advantage of living in a small town is that teachers know your parents and when I was a child, the teachers wanted us to honor our parents' standards of behavior.” (J.47)

         “When you grow up in a small town of 1,000 life is pretty simple. We lived near a river so we would sometimes take a picnic and swim in the river. We also liked to go to the movies. Our little town had a movie theatre. We also went to all the activities at the local Baptist church.”   “We also liked to go to Seguin, a town about 23 miles away. Seguin had a big park with a swimming pool, miniature golf and lovely walking trails. There was a drive-in restaurant called the White House where we loved to go to eat. And we loved to go to rodeos and football games.” (J.36)

 

       Minnie never played organized sports but she wished later that she could have. She “liked watching football, basketball, volley ball and tennis. The only sport I enjoyed playing,” she said, “was volley ball. Since I worked after school from the time I was eleven years old, I didn't have to take P.E. As I needed to do my school work. They let me have study hall instead of P.E. Looking back on it, I wish I had gone to P.E. Classes and learned to play more sports.” (J.50)

      “During my senior year I got off work on nights we had football games as I was one of the flag girls in the band. That was fun – but on the nights we had home games, I had to leave the game a little early, get back to the restaurant, change and wait on the crowd from the games.” J. 51

        “Since I had skipped 11^th grade, I graduated with students a year older than I. Since I liked school, leaving was a bit sad, but I knew that as soon as I turned 17, I would begin working in San Antonio at Kelly A.F.B. This was a very good job and I was excited about earning a decent salary and being able to help Mother support my 3 younger brothers. Also I would have my evenings free. Mother had arranged for me to have a room at her good friend's home. She did not want me to have an apartment with friends until I was 18 years old. I respected her judgment.”   “My cousin, Sarah, also skipped 11^th grade so I wasn't alone in the new class. We are both invited to class reunions of 1954 and 1955.”

Jubilee Queen, 1955

      “Each year our home town had a Watermelon Jubilee. The Chamber of Commerce selected 4 to 6 girls—usually seniors—to run for Queen of the festival and to represent Stockdale in the other local celebrations. I was very disappointed when I was not asked to run the year I was a senior. A few days after the girls were selected, the president of the Chamber of Commerce told me that I would be asked to run the next year since they felt sure one of the town official's daughters would be selected in 1954. Besides that, I had skipped grade 11, so should have been a senior in 1955. Sure enough, I was selected to run in 1955—and I won. There was a big meeting at the Community Building. Anyone that paid $2.00 to join the Watermelon Association could vote. This was all a lot of fun. My mother was so happy that I was selected.”

        “We were invited to be on some T.V. Shows to promote the festival and I remember being on a show where the Texas Top Hands were playing and singing—the Bob Wills Show. He sang and played the mandolin. I remember they teased me and wanted me to sing with them but I cannot sing. I remember that they announced me as 'Pretty Little Minnie Pearl West from Stockdale.'”

       “During 1955 my court rode in several parades and were in several other festivals. When you are 17 and 18, this is all lots of fun. Winning meant a lot to me since I was elected by the adults in town—and I was the first girl from a family without political ties or money to win. My picture was on the front page of the Flying Time Paper for airmen at Kelly A.F.B. The young airmen kept coming through the office I worked in to see me and say hello!!”

2. Living in the Country, 1937-1945

Mimi’s Journey

Living in the Country, 1937 to 1945

        Minnie began her journey as a tenant farmer’s daughter in south Texas on July 14, 1937. The family was poor but the children didn’t know it because they were rich in relationships and were happy. “The house had no electricity or running water, but it was full of love–love for the Lord and love for each other,” Minnie wrote in her little cookbook, “Breaking Bread Together.” (p. 5)

        Minnie’s memories of those early years were pleasant and exciting. Her parents worked very hard and the children learned to also. But there was time for play and time for each other. “Living in the country without electricity or running water limited what we could do,” she wrote in her journal, “but I never remember being bored. We played kick the can, let Rover come over, hide and seek and racing each other–and when Mother wasn’t looking, we would get on the barn and jump off. And climbing trees was great fun.” (Journal, p. 3)

        Minnie described herself as being “very thin and tall” with “big brown eyes” and, she said, “I was very shy.” She certainly had lost her shyness by the time I met her! But her “big brown eyes” were just about the first thing I noticed about her and I always thought they were so beautiful. You can see how cute she was in this picture taken in 1945 when she was 8 years old. Minnie’s cousin Hazel wrote that “she was blessed with lots of freckles and pretty red hair. Her mother kept her hair in pig tails and she was ‘cute as a bug.’” (Letter, 2-23-2010)

        Minnie’s family lived in the farmhouse with “a widow who loved us and treated us like her grandchildren.” (J. 4) “Aunt Minnie, the widow who owned the farm that my dad farmed, claimed me as her favorite of the 5 children. I was her namesake. I was born at home, in her house. She often took me into her part of the house for special treats. She would let me hold Abby, her old china doll that hung on her wall. . . . After we left the farm she sold it and rented a small apartment from my aunt and uncle. When we visited them, I would spend time with Aunt Minnie, drinking coffee with lots of milk and eating biscuits. She would let me dress up in beautiful old clothes she wore as a girl. She died when I was in high school.” (J. 12)

Engraved in the porcelain on the back of this doll is the date she was made:  December 7, 1880. Minnie made her beautiful dress many years later.  Abby was given to Minnie by her namesake,

Aunt Mint (Harraminta Lynn).

This second picture is Minnie holding Abby in 2009. She told Jeannine that she wanted to give Abby to her as a family heirloom. The doll was 129 years old then.

        Minnie had one sister, Patsy, who was two years older than she. Minnie described her as always being “very responsible and serious.” Her three brothers, Buddy, Billy, and LH, were younger than she was so she and her sister often had to take care of them when they were small. Both parents usually would be working in the field and the girls then took care of the smaller children so they learned to take responsibility at a very young age. They also learned to cook on a wood stove and they had to get water from their well. They used kerosene lamps at night. The girls also learned to sew on a treadle machine when they were 7 or 8 years old. They made a dress for their mother when Pat was 9 and Minnie was 7. She later wrote, “I am glad I learned a lot of things at a young age.” (J.61)

        The family would begin the work day by all helping with the many chores that needed to be done and then have a big breakfast of biscuits, gravy, eggs, sometimes bacon, sausage, or ham, and potatoes. Minnie’s chores would include going to the woodpile to pick up wood chips to use to start the fires. They had a wood-burning kitchen stove, a fireplace, and a wood heater. She also gathered eggs and was sent to the garden to get ripe tomatoes and other vegetables. They left the farm when Minnie was 8 years old so she was doing these things when she was 6, 7, and 8. And she helped in the kitchen, too, and learned to cook while they still lived on the farm. She made both cornbread and biscuits by the time she was 10 years old. (J.61)

        “Wash day was very busy. We had a big black pot that mother build a fire around to heat the wash water. She would often boil the white clothes to keep them white. We had a bench outside with those tubs on it. The first tub was for washing with a rub board. Then we would wring that water out of the garment and put it in the first rinse tub, lift it up or down several times, wring it out and repeat this in the third tub. Then hang the clothes. Doing the weekly wash took a complete day.” (J. 21)

        “Supper was always good!” Minnie wrote, “Often a big pot of beans and cornbread. We also ate a lot of greens of all kinds. In the summer we ate fresh veggies and in the winter we ate veggies that my mom had canned. Mother always had a big garden and the local farmers brought her fresh produce to can.” (J.15)

        Minnie remembered that during her early years on the farm her father was young and healthy. “He loved horses,” she wrote. “Much to my mother's dismay, he would agree to break a horse for $20 or $25—a lot of money in those days. I can remember watching him talk to the horse, stroke it, and finally give it a treat, put the bridle partially on and lead the horse around. I would stop watching when the horse started bucking. Mother didn't like for dad to do this, but he never got hurt and still did it after he had cancer.

        “Another love of his was to barter and trade. He traded our first car for a horse. The horse would not pull a plow. Mother watched from the kitchen window. When he came in all hot and sweaty, my mother said, 'Well you sure did good.' My dad made the remark that became a family joke. 'Woman, if you can't think I done good, just don't think at all.' Well after several more trades we ended up with another car.” (J.8-9)

        “I remember seeing my dad plow with a plow pulled by a horse as well as with a plow he pushed. I saw him using a hoe to get weeds from away from the plants! He raised watermelons and peanuts. I can remember helping turn the peanut vines. When the watermelons were ripe, daddy would hitch the horses to the wagon and take it to the field and he and Mother would take the loaded wagon to town and sell the watermelons to the buyers who gathered on 'Watermelon Street.' Farming with horses, plows, and hoes and wagons is hard work!” (J.67)

        “We had an ice box. Daddy would buy a big block of ice when he went into town on Saturdays. When it melted, we couldn't keep anything cold, so we would try to cook just what we needed for a meal. Life was harder and we loved going to town where our relatives had plenty of ice for tea!--and we could eat jello or cold banana pudding!” (J.21)

        “When I was very young, I loved the evenings. In the winter we would have a fire in the fireplace. The complete family would be in front of it. Mother often made hot chocolate which we loved. The summer evenings were also special as it cooled off. We would play outside until dark. Then we would sometimes sit on the porch. I can remember our parents telling us stories about their childhood. Sometimes we would read from the Bible or Daddy would tell us stories from the Bible.”

        “I also loved for relatives to visit. We had many cousins near our age. Playing with them was fun. We liked for our ‘city boy’ uncles who were my age and Buddy’s age to come. We felt they were soft because they knew nothing about country life.” (J.22)

        Busy as they were with the farm, her parents were very hospitable and always welcomed family who would come see them. “They may arrive hungry, but they won’t leave hungry,” is the way her mother put it. “One of my early memories of my mother was seeing her on the porch at about 10 AM looking at the wagon coming down the dirt road. She said to my dad, ‘Company is coming. I’d better go kill a chicken.’ So she did. About that time my dad said, ‘Honey, it’s Pat and Edith and it looks like they have about 8 of the kids in the wagon.’ So mother said, ‘I had better kill another chicken.’ This she did and plucked the feathers of both and got them ready for the pot. Then she made a big batch of dumplings. Company was always welcome and we shared what we had.”

        “From my mother I learned that God wanted us to be hospitable. She always talked about the fact that what we did for others was like doing it for Jesus. As I grew up, it was natural to want to fix meals for people, so this is a great heritage and something I want to pass along to my children and grandchildren.” (“Breaking Bread Together,” p. 5)

        Her cousin Hazel remembered her mother’s hospitality. She wrote that “the whole West families spent lots of Sundays together and every holiday. The women gathered in the kitchen preparing the lunch, and the men sat on the porch or somewhere and discussed the Bible, oh my, such conversations went on among the 6 brothers (uncles). I remember going to Uncle Bode and Aunt Ruth’s house for Sunday dinner. Aunt Ruth would have the best meal and it was so delicious. Nearly everything she prepared came from her garden, sometimes fresh or canned. Aunt Ruth was a jolly person. She was always pleasant even when things were rough.” (Letter 2-23-2010)

        The children walked three miles to school to a little country school house with 15 students, grades 1-8 with one teacher. The kids talked a lot as they walked and Minnie remembered that when her mother’s younger sister, Dorothy, visited, she would take them to school on a horse. Minnie rode in front of her and Patsy rode behind her. (J.49)

        She wrote, “I loved first grade as I so wanted to learn to read. Pat could read well and would read to me, but I wanted to read for myself. . . . The two eighth grade girls did most of the teaching of the three little girls in first grade. We all learned to read and loved to read to each other. We also learned a lot when the teacher taught the older students.” (J.41)

        Minnie later wrote in her journal, “We had to cross a wooden bridge over a creek. The older boys (grades 4-8) would stomp on the bridge and tell me I was going to fall into the creek. I would be so frightened that I would crawl across the bridge. Sometimes Pat would throw rocks at them so they would leave me alone. That left me with a fear of bridges. When I was in my 50's I was telling my mother about how the boys scared me on that big bridge. She laughed and said that it was a very small bridge. I insisted it was large, so we drove out to see it! I was amazed at how big it was in my memory but how small it really was! (J.40)

This is a picture of Minnie's “1^st Grade bridge”

at Caddo taken in June, 1983.

        “When I was in 3^rd grade we moved into Stockdale as my dad had cancer and could not continue to be a tenant farmer. The bigger school scared me—and I was afraid I would be behind—but I soon realized that we had learned more in our little school with 15 students.” (J.41)  

        The family also went to church in the country. “Like most of the folks, we went in the wagon. The church had a circuit preacher, Brother Briar. We never knew when he would be at our church because he had so many other churches also to look after. So Brother John Rice, a local farmer, was always prepared to lead a total church Bible study. We had no nursery and no Sunday School. The children didn’t know that the King James Version was hard to understand or that they needed something different than the adults. We loved to hear Brother John read the Bible verses and then to hear all the adults discuss the passage. The children could ask questions and add to the discussions. We had the best time. We all sang and praised the Lord together. These are rich memories of worshiping with the country folks. No one had more than a high school education, but there was a lot of Bible knowledge and wisdom.” 

        “When the preacher did show up–about once a month–we were delighted to hear a real sermon. And once a month the church had “dinner on the ground” and singing. We loved it. We would drop quilts on the ground and eat together. Then the children would play drop the handkerchief, kick the can, Rover, Rover, let Minnie come over! When the play stopped, we went back with the adults.” (from Minnie’s talk on Worship at Heart & Hand, Sequim Bible Church, Sequim, WA, October 9, 2003.)

        Minnie wrote in her journal, “Both of my parents were born again Christians. They were both baptized in the creek in Caddo.” They attended the Baptist church in the country, but there was also a Methodist church where they would go to Vacation Bible School in the summer also. “I can remember my dad reading the Bible to us in the evenings. I also learned a lot hearing the adults talking about things of the Lord.” (J.60)

        As a small child Minnie had one traumatic experience that she never forgot. She said, “When I was 6 or 7 years old we went to Cuero to visit Aunt Estelle, Daddy's sister, Uncle Ernest, Hazel and Buddy. We had an old car. One afternoon Daddy and Uncle Ernest piled Patsy, me, Buddy, Billy, cousin Buddy and Hazel into the old car to go to town. I remember going to a grocery store and then to a 5 and 10 cents store. Daddy went to get the car and Uncle Ernest was to take the 6 kids out to the corner for Daddy to pick up. Somehow I got left behind. They got part way home before I was missed. Daddy asked me how I liked Cuero—no answer, so he asked again—still no answer. Then he realized I wasn't in the car. He turned the car around and drove too fast back to the corner."

        “Meanwhile, I was looking at little toys, then I looked around and all the family was gone. I went to a clerk and asked her if she knew my cousin, Hazel. Of course she didn't, but she realized I was frightened, so she started asking me questions. Then I remembered that my uncle had said something about all of us going out to the corner so we could get in the car when Daddy came. She took me out to the corner and told me to stay there as he would come back to get me. She assured me that she would watch from the window. Sure enough, it wasn't very long until they came back—Daddy was so glad to see me that he didn't even scold me!” (J.33)

        Many years later her Aunt Hazel well remembered that incident from the vantage point of an eyewitness in the car when Minnie's father suddenly realized that “Pill” wasn't in the car! “He turned that little grey car around and headed back as fast as the little car would go. When we got back to where we had been parked – there stood Little Minnie on the nearest corner just as calm as could be, watching the people pass by. Uncle Bode jumped out of the car & run & grabbed her and loved her & said 'Pill, were you scared?' And she smiled a big smile and said 'No Daddy, I knew you'd come back and get me.'” (Letter from Hazel Meyer, Feb. 23, 2010)

        Minnie told me once again about that incident (I had heard it several times through the years) not many weeks before she died and she told me what her father said and what she said. I wonder if she thought about that in relationship to what Jesus had promised to His disciples (and through them to us), “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” John 14:3 That was one of her favorite verses and she had every confidence that just as her Dad had come back to get her, so, too, would Jesus come for her when His time came. And He did.

        “In the summer “when the watermelons were ripe, Daddy would hitch the horses to the wagon and take it to the field and he and mother would load the wagon, then Daddy would take the loaded wagon to town and sell the watermelons to the buyers who gathered on ‘Watermelon Street.’ Farming with horses, plows, and hoes and wagons is hard work!” (J.67)

        “My great-grandparents lived on a farm several miles out of Stockdale. Their house was built on a hill and there were lots of shade trees. When we would go to visit, there were usually other relatives there. A vivid memory is a screened-in back porch with wide ledges. There would be fresh pies on those ledges. She made a green grape pie that I liked as it was tart.” “At lunch time, all the kids would eat food fixed on tin plates. My cousin tells me they were old pie pans. We would all sit on the back porch and enjoy whatever the ladies had cooked. This was always a fun time as we didn’t see Mother’s family as much as we did Daddy’s. Both Grandma & Grandpa were sweet people–both were small!” (J.26)

        Minnie’s father seldom owned a car so they did not go to town very often since 8 miles is a long way in a horse-drawn wagon. When Minnie was 8 years old in the 3^rd grade, her father became ill with cancer and had to give up farm work and move into town, Stockdale, Texas. The house they were living in burned to the ground and that precipitated their move as well. That was in 1945. Minnie's father died in March, 1949, leaving a widow with five children and no insurance or social security so the next four years were occupied with caring for him and helping to support the family and helping take care of her younger brothers and with the housework and cooking. Minnie was 11 when he died and he was 39. (J.13)

Living in town, 1945 to 1955