In those days there was no buying ready made clothes. We made our clothes ourselves. I was cutting my patterns and making my dresses when I was 14 years old.

When we lived at Joshua, we had a pump organ which I learned to play on. Mama and Papa traded it in on a piano before we moved from there. I don’t remember when I wasn’t playing the piano, so must have started when I was pretty small. Wish I had that pump organ now. Don’t know why Wilma and Thelma didn’t go on with the piano. I know they would have given them lessons if they had wanted them.

Mama seemed to manage the lessons some way, even to canning vegetables for one teacher at Wellington. I took from one young woman at Plymouth who went insane. I hope I wasn’t doing anything, but seems she let some man run her crazy. I have always enjoyed my music, and about 25 years ago I traded my piano for a Hammond organ.

Mama and Papa always kept us in church and Sunday school for which I am thankful. When Sunday came, we knew we went to church. Wilma and I sang duets at church when we were 8 and 12 years old. I started playing the piano at church when I was about 12 or 13. That early training we get doesn’t leave us.

Will have to tell this little incident on Mama. I’m sure things got a little hectic around our place at times, with milking cows, etc. Mama was probably running late that night, she ran in and slipped her dress on to go to church. When she got to the door of the church, she looked down and she had her dress on wrong side out. She ran back to the car, corrected that little detail, and went in to church. We all laughed at that little incident
the rest of her life.


Working in the Field Wilma and Paul