A Mother Memory

Mom asked me to type an article she had written so that she can send it in to a magazine in hopes that they will print it. The article is below. I've added some pictures. I like stories like this from the past; helps me know what times were like when my Mom grew up.

Article by Virginia Pearl Salyer Cherry:

One of my favorite sons-in-law gave me a subscription to Reminisce Magazine. I am now a regular reader from cover to cover the day I receive it. After 92 years I have memories galore. This one may be interesting to your readers.

In 1930 my sister and I had a very interesting experience. We moved from Oklahoma to Texas after leaving our farm in Oklahoma. My Dad had nearly burned to death in a big fire when I was five years old, my sister was three, and my little brother was five months old. After a long convalescence and the oil company settlement, my Dad bought a small farm that we lived on about three years.

After a flood destroyed his last crop and with a broken leg, my father decided that farming wasn’t for him, so he rented the farm and took off for the great oil strike in East Texas. By then I was in junior high and we stayed for me to finish school’s end, then we took off for Texas to join my Dad. My Mother rented a truck, loaded our furniture, and put my sister and me atop the back in a sturdy double chair.

Kilgore, Texas was a very busy oil-boom town. My Dad had bought a two-room tent and built up two-steps in a mulberry grove filled with tents on the ground. He had worked long enough to get settled, but was let go from his first job the week we got settled in our new home.

He was not out of work for long and my mother went to work down the road a short distance at a little café. The owner let my mother buy several boxes of candy bars. She put straps on the boxes to go around our necks and let my sister and me walk around the oil leases where men were working on pipelines. We sold all our candy bars to hungry ditch diggers who were very glad to see us and welcomed our wares. Needless to say, we came home with empty boxes.

Later my Dad moved our tent down the road to a country school where my sister and I later graduated. My Dad became its custodian and my mother operated a café for the school’s children several years.

Should you choose to publish our family experience, my son-in-law will be very pleased.
[End of article]

Even if this article doesn't get published by the magazine, it was fun to type it and post it here. I'm glad Mom took the time to do this. I'm enriched.
MB