I believe my father was a college graduate.  Now what kind of colleges they had, whether it was equal to high school or any thing about it, I don't know.  But anyway, he did teach school and he didn't have any trouble keeping any job he had.  And then his sisters all taught school and they were all supposed to be collage graduates.  And so they were well educated any way.  I don't think that my mother, at least it was never mentioned if she went very high in school.  So I really don't know about it.

 

My Mamma's sister, that was Aunt Lizzy Cooper and her husband, John Cooper,  were the ones who liked it at Garber and persuaded my Mamma and Papa to move to Oklahoma.  When my father was still living in Kansas, when they had the opening here in Oklahoma, he came down in 1892 or 1893, whenever that was, and got a claim down here.  While he was on it trying to get things ready, two men came and pushed him off of it, so he just let them have it and went back to Kansas where my Mamma was.

 

When we moved to Enid and were pretty well settled, and while we were going to school, I worked at a yeast factory just North of us where we lived.  I worked there for short while, just helping them get things sorted out.  Then after I got through the eighth grade, I started teaching school.  At sixteen years of age, I taught three years in the country schools.  Each year was at a different school.  As I think about it, I don't know why I didn't stay at one school.  They didn't ask me and I didn't stay and I had a chance to get another school closer to home.  I enjoyed it there and the kids seemed to like me.  And then they made an Oklahoma law that you couldn't teach school unless you were a graduate of high school.  

 

So then, I quit teaching and I finished high school.  Then I taught six years in the Enid schools.  I got through high school in three years because after I finished the eighth grade, my sister, Hazel, was going to Tonkawa to school so I went up to Tonkawa for one year.  That helped me so I got through high school that much earlier.  I taught one year pretty close to Enid, southeast of Enid.  I would ride the bicycle out to school every morning.  Then teach that day.  Then I would ride it home that night.  That was pretty good transportation because they didn't have any cars and you just couldn't get a horse and buggy to drive.  So that is the way I did it.  I don't think I did it all the time.  I just can't remember any other transportation that I had.  

 

The other two schools were far enough from Enid that I had to stay away from home.  I would come home for the weekend most of the time.  I had different places to stay.  I taught one year at Fairmont and I would go on the train every Monday morning and then I would come home on a Friday evening.  At these schools, I had pretty good luck getting room and board at some of the neighborhood houses.  I was at the age of my life that I wasn't too particular about the bed room or what I ate.  As far as I know they all treated me pretty nicely.  I know at different times I would meet them years later.  I would meet them at Enid and talk to them and they were all friendly and nice.  My greatest trouble was that I would forget so many things that I should have remembered.  I was sorry about that because I wouldn't be as friendly with them as I would have wanted to be.  When I taught over near Garber, I could go to Aunt Lizzy's and Uncle Johns on Friday night if I didn't go home to Enid.  That was quite nice to have a place to go over the weekend because I didn't know these people and I didn't know anything about the churches they went to and so it was just nice to get to go home on the weekend.  

 

[Linus:  Mom, being the 2nd youngest girl was a little kicked around.  When she worked, she lived at home and she turned the money over to her parents.  When she taught school in the country, she lived at one of the pupils homes and paid room and board.  The only thing she had when they were married was the bed room furniture in Dad bedroom and a solid walnut table that is in the front bedroom.]