School “Daze” in Arkansas ~

“Wake up Judson Cole and Odus Jack”!! “Wake up Mary Helen and Patsy Ruth”!! “Put your clothes on and tie your shoes. Mary Helen, help Patsy Ruth tie her shoes! Wash your faces (Brrrrrr, the water was so cold) comb your hair and come eat breakfast”. Breakfast was usually biscuits and sausage, oatmeal, mush or fried rabbit. If it had snowed Daddy would go out and follow the rabbit tracks in the snow until he found one. He was a good tracker and provider. Mama put our lunches of biscuits, sausage and fruit into empty molasses buckets that had wire handles. Daddy grew peaches, apples, grapes, plums and strawberries. Then we waited for my cousins, Joe and Leo, to join us for the long walk to school. It seemed like a mile. Half way to school lived the Mitchell family. In the winter, Mr. Mitchell would invite us in to warm up and sometimes he gave us something warm to eat and drink.

Our schoolhouse was two large classrooms, one for lower grades and one for higher grades. 1st - 5th was taught by Mrs. Crawford and 6th - 10th was taught by Mr. Crawford, while 11th & 12th went to a high school in a town nearby. The grades were arranged in rows. In the winter our socks and shoes got wet as we walked to school in the snow so our teacher would tell us to take them off and hang them near the potbelly stove. Mr. & Mrs. Crawford lived in an adjoining apartment and if we wanted to ask them something or let them know that someone got hurt during play time we had to walk down the long hall and knock on their door. It took a lot of courage because Mr. Crawford was a very large man. We could hear his footsteps tromp, tromp, tromping to answer our knocks. At lunchtime the girls would go out in the cedar trees and make a playhouse out of cedar needles. We scooped the needles together and made the outline of a house and the rooms. The boys would play ball in the schoolyard. When the last bell rang and the school day was over it was time to start the long walk home. One day, after we had gotten home, the subject of mustard came up and Leo said he could eat a spoonful of it so Jud and Jack challenged him to do it. They filled a spoon with mustard and, little did Leo know, they put a red Mexican pepper underneath. Leo ate it, pepper and all, and went running through the pasture and plum thicket crying all the way home.

My Grandpa Cole had chartered 2 banks in Alma, Arkansas and was financially able to buy ten 80 acre plots of land in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. When he passed away my Mama, and each of her 9 siblings, received one of those 80 acre plots. So, we loaded all of our belongings in a pickup truck and headed to Raymondville. Jud and Jack rode the whole way on top of mattresses in the back of the pickup and my sister, Pat, and I rode inside. We were off to begin our new adventure.