I was just out of high school, 18 years old, when Jay and I married. Mama and Papa weren’t too enthused about that, as Jay was older than me and had been married previously. But things worked out and they got over that.

Thelma and Cecil married not too long before the war. Cecil was a pilot in the Navy during the war.

We three girls had different lives. Paul was an engineer and worked for the government. Cecil was a pilot and flew commercial airlines. We lived on a farm; the one Jay and his father bought back in the 20’s. Jay couldn’t pay for his during the depression, so Mr. Griffin had it. Over the years, as Mr. Griffin wanted to sell some of the land, we bought it. At Mr. and Mrs. Griffin’s death, 80 acres of the land went to Claudia and Velma. They finally wanted to sell it, and we bought it. We never had anything given to us. We worked and paid for everything we had. Jay worked the land until he was 80, then rented it out.

When we married, things were pretty rough. Jay worked at a filling station for a few months then we moved to Erick, Oklahoma to Mr. Griffin’s farm. We lived there for 5 years, making 4 crop failures. We then moved to Spade, on the farm where we still live. Things were not very good for several years. Jay had lost the land during the depression. But we finally began buying it back 40 acres at a time.