GRANDMA AND GRANDPA TANKERSLEY

As told to Mary Tankersley-Smith, her members:

(Transcribed from a letter from Mary to her Brother Charles, Dec. 18, 1999. Charles' notes and Mary's notes in blue italic.)

Benjamin Robert Tankersley was 20 years old when he left Indiana or Illinois, heading to Texas to become a cowboy. Rachel Catherine Bixler was 16. She lived with her parents on a farm in the southeast corner of Kansas. It was the custom that when strangers passed through the area, a family would feed them and give them a place to sleep in exchange for work done around the place. And there was always work to be done.

Ben stopped at the Bixler farm and he and Kate were taken with each other. Ben never went to Texas. He stayed and helped with Kate's family. He had never learned to read or write, so Kate spent the winter teaching him. They were married, and stayed right there in Kansas, while Ben studied law. They had a daughter, Lola.

When Lola was four years old, the Oklahoma Territory was being opened for settlement. Ben rode his pony and took part in the first land run of 1889. He found that one man had filed on several choice pieces of land, which was being given in quarter sections . Ben removed the paper that was placed at the marker of a piece of land that he liked, and put his name there. He went to the land office and told them about it, and he was able to file on that piece of land. It was the only piece of land around that had both water and trees on it. Ben constructed a sod house with no roof, then went back to Kansas. He made a deal with a man on the piece of land next to his to have the man cut trees and put a roof on his sod house in exchange for the neighbor to use some of Ben's trees for his own roof.

In the spring of the following year, he and Kate and Lola put all their possessions in a covered wagon and took them to Oklahoma. When they arrived at their new home, the saw that the neighbor had not got around to putting the roof on their house, but had put a roof on his own.

Before long a two-story wooden house was built. Ben and Kate had four more children: Pat, Kenneth, Theo, and Ben. Kenneth died when he was a boy. Ben severed in the first Oklahoma Territorial Legislature. He eventually found that he was not cut out to work the land, and he didn't "prove up" on the land the way he was supposed to, so he had to sell the homestead and move to the nearby town of Stillwater. In 1904, when his young son, Ben, was 2 years old, Ben was traveling around the countryside as an itinerant preacher. In his travels, he caught pneumonia and died. Kate, having been a farm girl, was not trained to do most jobs that ladies did, so she became a teacher.

Below is a copy of a newspaper article provided my Marilyn Catherine Tankersley-Smith as provided to her by her sister-in-law, Jon Garrett Tankersley's wife Jean.

May 4, 1904
Tankersley, Ben R., ex-senator, died at Stillwater 29 Apr. 1904, of typhoid-pneumonia. Settled early Paradise Twp (township). In the Upper House of the Legislature 1895 on the People's Party Ticket. Member of the UB (United Brethren) Church. Buried in Paradise Twp (township). Leaves wife and several kids.

This article is inserted here to help correct some of the dates concerning Ben R. Tankersley's relations to his youngest son, Ben A. Tankersley, Mary's father.

She never married again; she was so in love with Ben to the day she died in 1942 at the age of 82

(Charles - this is the nearest I can remember from what daddy and Aunt Lola told me. As I said before, Patricia (Pat) Wood was doing a lot of research on family even before daddy died. She lives in Oklahoma City (address not given here for security). One other thing Aunt Lola told me was that granddaddy had "the bluest blue eyes, and almost black hair." Uncle Pat once told me that granddaddy was not handy with tools, though grandma was. He had more to do with art, music, intellectual things, etc.)

(end of "Grandma and Grandpa Tankersley" Mary's memories)

Childhood Memories of Mary Tankersley-Smith

(part 1, CHILDHOOD MEMORIES-Oklahoma: as transcribed from a letter to her brother Charles postmarked January 18, 2002.)

(Charles - Most of these will not be in chronological order; just snippets here and there.)

Oklahoma-

I guess the oldest memory I have is of Jon as a toddler. Mama and Daddy would put a harness on him and attach a long rope from the harness to the clothesline so he could run and play safely. After that the memories seem to go to the house in Duncan. Grandma Tankersley was with us. She would sing hymns as she worked around the house. She would sing "Rock of Ages" and I learned later that the hymn was played at Granddaddy's funeral because it was his favorite. Funny, I can still remember her voice.

I can recall being baptized in the church across the street from us and learning the Hail Mary and Our Father. There was sort of a summer program put on by the priests, Father George and Father Ferdinand. There were a lot of kids there and we had ice cream and cones. What a treat!. We kids used to go over to the rectory to visit the priests and they had a can of candy up on a shelf and would give us some. One time they were a little slow getting the candy down and Jon asked about it. I was embarrassed.

Mama and Daddy forbid us to over to the railroad tracks that were in my memory several blocks from our house. One night something by the tracks caught fire and when I saw it burning I became so scared that I didn't want to go to the tracks again.

Charles seemed to be the one who led all the kids in our play and apparently there were kids at our house playing a lot of the time. One day I was given a metal coin bank that was shaped like a building and I was so proud of it that I should it to the kids that were at our house. A boy took it from me and ran away and I never got it back. I can remember climbing the mulberry tree in our front yard and getting stained from the berries all over my skin and clothes. We didn't wear shoes when the mulberries were ripe and the soles of our feet were always stained from walking on the berries that fell off the tree.

I don't remember Daddy teaching me to read when I was four years old but I remember one time before I learned trying to write, making lines and circles on paper and asking the grownups what it said. After I learned to read I used to get the newspaper and open the comics, then spread it out on the front porch and lie on my stomach to read the comics to any of the kids who were around.

Both of our parents worked at the Lindley Hospital in Duncan. Daddy was an x-ray and lab technician and Mama was a registered nurse. Sometimes they had to take us to the hospital because there was no one to watch us at home. We used to commandeer a wheelchair and take turns pushing each other at high speed up and down the corridors until a nurse of nun caught us and dragged us before Mama and Daddy.

There was a nun at that hospital, Sister Catherine, who started me on piano lessons. She was a very small, pudgy lady and very sweet. I was four years old and small for my age so I had to sit on Montgomery Ward catalogs on the piano stool to reach the keys. There was no chance that I would be able to reach the petals. I remember having to sit on catalogs at the dinner table, too. I think I was four years old when I stated piano lessons.

All this happened before I started school. I believe I was five years old when we moved to San Antonio.

CHILDHOOD MEMORIES-San Antonio: as a part of the letter postmarked January 18, 2002.

San Antonio-

I seem to remember an apartment above a garage where we stayed when we first moved to San Antonio. Then we moved into a duplex in Kelly Homes, a housing project for employees at Kelly Field. Daddy worked in the hospital at Kelly Field and Mama worked in the hospital as Normoyle Ordinance Base. Our house was on the corner of Mars Street and Thompson Place. Mars was paved and with curbs while Thompson Place was gravel. Except for the very small trees that were planted in the yards there were two big trees big enough to climb in the area. They were in a big vacant lot across Thompson Place from the housing project. One was a huisache and the other was a mesquite. Both trees were prickly and uncomfortable to climb but they were the only trees that were big enough so we climbed them. We referred to the mesquite as "the tree", i.e., "I'll meet you at the tree."

There was a childless couple who lived next door to us on Mars Street. They were Paul and Julia Lange and had come from Fredericksburg. They were like another set of parents to us and I lived them very much. They looked after us kids whenever they could while Mama and Daddy were at work.

Every residence had a clothesline set up just outside the back door. It consisted of 3" pipe put together in an inverted U about 15 feet apart and with wires strung between them to hang clothes. The wires were kept taut by turnbuckles. I was not only small for my age but wiry and liked to climb. I used to shinny up the vertical poles, hand-over-hand to the center of the horizontal pipe, swing my feet up over until my knees were on the pipe, grab the wire, and pull myself up into a sitting position. I sued to spend hours on those poles hanging by my knees, swinging on them, "Skinning-the-cat", etc. I used to like to charge out of the back door, hit the top step, then the ground, onto the hear pole with both hands, and let my momentum swing me around the pole several times. When I got big enough, I would see how far away from the poles I could get from the poles I could get and jump to the horizontal pipe to swing on it.

When we first moved there, our neighbors across the street were the Copelands. They had four kids whose names I am not sure of but think they were Shirley, Billy, Billy Kay, and a boy about two years old. They did not stay long. Then the Beckers moved in. They also had four kids: Betty, Edith, Sonny, and Cookie. Mrs. Becker had never in her life been outside of Bexar County (San Antonio's county). She was not very sophisticated and when Daddy brought home a record of the Grand Canyon Suite I listened to it and was so thrilled at the quality of the music I had heard that I wanted to tell someone about it. Mrs. Becker was the first one I saw and she thought I was crazy when I gushed about it. I think Red River Dave and T. Texas Tyler were more her speed.

There was a family who lived a few doors down named Schneider. I can't remember how many kids they had but I remember the oldest girl, Shirley, as a very nice person. She must have been in her teens. Then there were the Wrights. The youngest boy, Jerry, was called "droopy drawers". He was always spoiling for a fight. He was skinny, had buck teeth, and his nose ran and he would sniff. His favorite saying was "sheer, (sure) ya dumb dope!". One time some of the kids put him up to fighting Jon and was getting the best of it, so I stepped in to defend my little brother. There was no meat on the kid and his fists were bare bone. It hurt a lot but I wouldn't let him beat me. He had an older brother named AlJean who was also skinny and buck-toothed but a lot nicer (especially after Mary's big brother, Charles, beat the pea-wadden shot out of him after school one day.)

I and a best friend named Marilyn Brown. She was a couple years older than me. She had sandy red hair and freckles and was very attractive. (Mary's older bother, Charles, had a crush on her, too.) She lived down the road a few houses so I would stand by our back door and yell her name to see if she were home. We used to play jacks a lot. Even then I was competitive enough that I did not like to lose. One time we actually had a short falling out over her beating me. She took ballet and tap dance lessons and used to practice her dance when I went to her house. She was also very good on the piano and I used to have her play Chopin's Minute Waltz almost every time I was there. She didn't hang out with any other kids in our neighborhood for some reason. She was a good friend. We would confide in each other. I lost track of her some time after we left San Antonio.

Daddy took Charles and me to the hospital at Kelly Field to get our eyes tested. He left us with the eye doctor and went on to work. They had just dilated our eyes when we heard a whooping noise and the people rushed us out of the building into the bright sunlight. They explained that a plane had crashed and had ended up 10 feet from the hospital and sprayed oil on the walls. They pointed it out and Charles said he could see the tail of the plane sticking up but I couldn't see anything. We were standing in a crown of people when Daddy come rushing up. He had been trying to locate us and was relieved to finally find us. We did not ever get our eyes tested because shortly after the plane crash, the war started. We were driving down by the Alamo after church and were fright by the San Jacinto Monument. Daddy heard the news boys yelling about something so he bought a paper. Across the front of the paper was the headline: WAR!

When I started school we went to St. Mary's school downtown. We had to walk a block to the bus stop and take a public services bus downtown. I loved school when I started. My first grade teacher wad Sister Mary Fideles. She was super. I was the smallest kid in my first and second grade classes. I know how to read, so I thought I would be put in the highest reading group, however, I would up in the middle group. That was kind of a blow to my ego. I loved the stories in my readers and would read them over and over. I didn't like penmanship; I never could make good circles or stay on the line. Since St Mary's Church was in the middle of town there was not a playground it. At recess the boys would go to the paved area behind the school and play basketball. St Mary's Church was across the street form the school and there was a tunnel that ran under the street, connecting the school basement to the church basement. The girls would have access to the church basement. We played dodge ball, which I loved, and most of all, we danced. I loved dancing. We learned the schotticche, the polka, varsouvienne (Put Your Little Foot), and Ten Pretty Girls. If we didn't dance I also played jacks. Jacks and a ball were basic equipment for us. Since they were cheap my parents could afford to keep me in jacks and balls.

We prepared for our First Communion and it was a big event for us. But during the ceremony I felt sick. Sister asked me if I was all right and I said yes because I didn't want to miss my first communion. Afterwards I got so sick that they had me lie down and called my parents. When Mama saw me she knew immediately what is was and I was taken to Santa Rosa Hospital where I had my appendix out. When I went home I still had tape around my middle. There was no one to stay with me so I had to spend days at home alone. I got bored. One day Mama come home form work and found me standing on my head and she went into orbit. When I got back to school I was not allowed to go down the stairs to the cafeteria in the basement so my lunch was brought to me. That was pretty nice.

The girls in the 6th to 8th grade got to be a choir. I could hear them practicing scale and I wanted so much to be a part of it but we only attended St. Mary's for my first three years. Then we went to Blessed Sacrament Academy.

Blessed Sacrament was the opposite in setting from St. Mary's. It was in the country with many acres of land, partly covered with pecan trees. I didn't make friends easily and didn't have anyone to play with so I followed Charles and his friends around, which, of course, went over big. They were a couple years older than me. After a while I did make friends. We would get a bushel basket from the nuns and fill it with pecans that had fallen off the trees and then they would give us a piece of pecan fudge as a reward.

My fourth grade teacher was a mean task-master (mistress?). I didn't like school as well then. When I couldn't recite my 12-times tables I had to hold my hand out and let her whack the palm with a ruler. At least in made me learn my 12-times tables. One time I had gotten a fudge sickle when recess ended. I took it into the classroom and put it in my desk with my books and papers. What a mess!

In the fifth grade I got glasses. Uncle Rugie had been in Australia and New Guinea during the war as an army doctor and a hero of the Pacific campaign. When he came home he set up practice as an eye, ear, nose, and throat doctor. He tested my eyes for me. I had developed a lazy right eye during the war.

Sixth grade was my worst year in school. We were going to St. Henry's by then. I felt homey and unhappy in my 12 year old gangliness. I couldn't get the hang of writing with a fountain pen and my school papers were a mess of blots, steaks, and thumb prints. I didn't like my teacher probably because I got the idea that she didn't like me. I didn't do well in my studies and hated Texas history. Even in recess I was the last one chosen on a softball team, then I had to play right field which is where the put the worst player. The low point of my sixth grade year was when the teacher called me to her desk and asked me to spell the work strength. When I spelled it correctly she asked me why I hadn't spelled it like that on my paper. I didn't know what to say. She said that Jon had told her that I never studies and maybe I'd better stay after school. I still didn't know what to say. Mama had to come and get me.

We went to St. Henry's Church at the time (there was Catholic churches all over town). After Mass, we went to the Mexiquito Restaurant and I ordered two crisp chicken tacos and iced tea every time. Charles swears to this day that is was the best Mexican food he has ever eaten. The restaurant owners were immigrants from Mexico and went to St. Henry's, too.

Our family was better off financially, the war had brought us our of the depression that had made us poor before the war. The war was over and Mama was working for the tuberculosis division of the US Public Health. She loved the job. Her boss was Dr. Paul Pamplona from Brazil. More on him later.

That year I was going to carve a car out of a piece of balsa wood and I did something totally stupid. I let the knife slip and cut the tendon of my index finger. After two operations on it, it still wasn't good (probably because they didn't have the techniques they have now.), and it has never been completely normal. But it is usable and has never caused me a problem. Being in a children's ward was quite an experience. We kept comparing our little red marks from the injections they gave us. One girl got up out of bed and stepped right in her filled bed pan. We all got a good laugh from that.

Everything was either rationed or unavailable during the war. Daddy was a smoker and he had to smoke Wings or role his own from Prince Albert because all the good cigarettes had gone to war with the servicemen. But he did get pictures, similar to baseball cards, of war planes which we kids all loved, especially Charles. We only got gum for Christmas and it was so old that is fell into crumbs until we chewed it enough to consolidate the pieces. We saved everything: newspapers, rubber bands, cans, tinfoil, string, you name it, it was saved. After all, there was a war on! If it helped the war effort we saved it and turned it in. I didn't even have rubber bands to put on the ends of my braids so Daddy would pull my hair out of the brush and wind it around my braids. Charles used to tease me about my braids but I know he liked them. He was upset then I stopped wearing them. We were very patriotic and at school we bought savings stamps for our war bonds with every bit of spare change we got.

We would go to Bandera, which was near San Antonio, about 30 miles to the northwest in the hill country, and "swim" in the Guadalupe River (I couldn't swim) and pick pecans from under the trees. The town of New Brunsfels was near San Antonio. Mama used to like to go to the gingham mill there and buy yardage at a low price. She made some of my clothes. One outfit I loved was not gingham. It was a green skirt and a bolero set. I always felt snazzy in it.

There were so many things to see and do in San Antonio. Of course there is the Alamo. I loved the river walk. People could ride in the gondola that were poled down the river. It is called the Mission City because there are about five mission there. I enjoyed visiting them. I was also beginning to learn a little Spanish when we moved to Maryland in 1947. San Antonio was about 60% Mexican during the war as many people from Mexico come to San Antonio to help with the war effort. They were very patriotic too, and many had even helped the Texan's win independence from Sana Anna and Mexico in 1834. That much I do remember from my Texas History.

The weather could get pretty severe, both in Oklahoma and in Texas, with one inch hail stones common place, so we did not even pay them any mind. But we did have hail storms that dropped baseball-sized hail stones at one time. Daddy had to be out in it. He was an air raid warden during the war and he was wearing his hefty steel helmet. It was dented. Mama was driving the car when the storm hit. The back window was spider-webbed and there dents all over the car. Windows were broken out of buildings downtown. In the storm the Town of Fredericksburg the say the hail stones were as big as softballs and were going through roofs. I am not sure whether it was the same storm that dropped 16 inches of rain overnight but parts of the city were flooded and some people living along the river were killed. Where we lived was just high enough that we didn't have any high water but the street was a lake and just two blocks away a city bus was caught and the water was up to the windows.

(end of part 1)

(part 2, CHILDHOOD MEMORIES-San Antonio continued: as Transcribed from a letter from Mary to her Brother Charles, postmarked July 11, 2005.)

San Antonio-

At Kelly Field there was a hill. On that hill was a pilot training facility called San Antonio Aviation Cadet Center - SAACC. Uncle Charlie came there to take his pilot training. He became a bombardier/navigator and flew missions over Italy.

I loved dogs. I read dog books all the time. We got a little black dog that we called tarbaby. When he started acting strange, Daddy took him to the vet and found that he had rabies. I cried and cried at losing him. We had to take a series of rabies shots, so everyone who had come in contact with the dog gathered at our house every day to have Mama give them their shots. It became quite a social event that I was somewhat sorry to see end.

The dirt in San Antonio was black and sticky. Mama called it "cleechei" (caliche). One time we had a mud fight with some of our the other kids, throwing mud balls at each other. Of course, some of the mud balls would miss us, and a lot of them hit the house and stuck there. Mama was angry when she saw that but when we took them off the left a gray mark that was hard to clean off

I was hard on shoes and wore them out fast. I had to wear brown oxfords because they were tough. But I was pretty good at wearing them out, too. Sometimes the heel would come off and the nails would stick into my foot. Usually the sole would come loose and I would have to walk kicking my foot forward so that the sole would stay under the shoe. To keep my legs warm I had to wear tan cotton stockings held up by a belt that had button-type fasteners called supporters. None of the other girls had to wear these ugly, uncomfortable things. But my parents were very practical and sensible and didn't necessarily conform to style.

I remember the time it snowed in San Antonio about a half-inch. We loved it but there was no sleds or other snow toys around and there weren't any hills anyway. We found some pieces of linoleum beside the house of one of our neighbors and so we sued those by running and flopping on our stomachs on the linoleum. It worked pretty well. Anyway, there wasn't enough snow to make snow balls or snow forts.

When we got together with the other kids we played lots of games: hide-and-seek, kick the can, swinging statues, gossip, etc. We had foot races and wrestling matches and when we got older we played softball. In the evening in the warm seasons we would chase lightning bugs (fireflies) and try to catch them. Charles could somehow take the light off a bug while is was glowing and it would keep glowing. I never figured out how to do that. We seemed to end up rolling around on the grass even though we knew we would pay for it later. When we went into the house to go to bed we were being eaten by chiggers. We whimpered and fused about it with no sympathy from our parents for rolling around in the grass. After a while they found that if we painted the spot with nail polish is would kill the chiggers. We didn't take baths as often but since we went barefooted all the time we washed our feet every night before going to bed. Our feet were as tough as leather and the only thing that bothered me was the hot asphalt on the paved road. Charles used to pick the tar off the road in the hot summer and chew it like gum. I never got so I could enjoy it.

They talk about things being big in Texas but there is one thing that is bigger than any I've seen anywhere else and that is earthworms. Whenever we had one of these heavy rains the worms would come out of the ground like they do. They were about a foot long. We used to pick them up and play with them. We never ran out of things to do for fun

I think I was about 6 or 7 years old when Charles go a bicycle. He taught me to ride it even though I was super small. I remember sitting up there on it while he pushed me. Eventually I got the hang of it and was able to ride by putting my weight on one pedal with one foot, bending the other knee around the bar, shifting and doing the same thing on the other side. Getting on and off was the hardest. Until I grew enough I had to find something to stand on to mount the bike.

Daddy wanted to go and fight during the war but he was at an age when they didn't want to take him. He was already in his 40's and had never been in the service before. He went to every recruiting office and got turned down all the time. Toward the end of the war, I guess they needed more recruits, so finally the Navy took him. Mama was always so proud of him for going. He took boot camp in San Diego then was sent to Corpus Christi for a while, then to Chicago for further training. While he was in Chicago the war ended. Then he was discharged and sent home without ever having been aboard a ship.

Shortly after the war started our parents bought a car from a man who was being shipped overseas. It was a 1937 Plymouth coupe. It was green - my folks called it the green beetle. We had it all through the war and afterwards. Daddy took the shelf out of the back window and put in a shallow seat so we three kids could sit in it. Mama was only 5 feet tall and she had to put a pillow behind her so she could reach the gas pedal. Seats did not move in those days. People used to say that they could hardly see her head when she drove.

Dr. Pamplona became the head of the tuberculosis division of the United States Public Health Service in Washington, D.C. He had admired Daddy's know-how and intelligence and contacted him about a job in Rockville, Maryland. Daddy would be one of the two men in an x-ray research facility. The other man was named Van Allen.

Sometime while my brothers and I were growing up, Daddy took the back window shelf out of the Plymouth coupe and put in a seat for us kids to sit on. Of course it was tight and of course we siblings fought over territorial rights. This was the car our family drove from San Antonio to Maryland in 1947. Our parents tried to point out the history and beauty that we were going through but I don't remember much about it even though I was 12 years old. I do remember Bull Run (it was just a creek, for goodness' sake!) and the Blue Ridge Parkway which I thought was absolutely beautiful.

Until we moved into a house of our own we stayed at a place rent-free for care taking it. IT was a house and several out-buildings on 100 acres of beautiful Maryland countryside. This place was owned by a family named Holmes. The house sat on a rise that was well back from the road. Turning into the driveway one crossed a small stream that was fed from a spring where we could get the coolest, sweetest, freshest water. The house had three levels. The bottom level was on the ground level in front (back) but into the hillside in the back (front). One side of this level was used as a tack room. The other side was what we would call a family room. Between the two was a bathroom. In between the two was a bathroom. The main floor of the house had a back (front) door on ground level. This was what would have been the front door if it had been used. On the front (back) of this level was a deck the width of the house and about 8 or 10 feet wide. There was a central hall with rooms on either side. On one side was the kitchen and dining room. On the other side was a large room the owners kept locked. It might have been a living room. A large staircase led up to the third level where the bedrooms were.

The Holmes' had two horses that were show horses. Somehow the names Yellow Girl and Miss Boo come to mind. There was a barn with stalls for the horses on the same rise as the house but quite a distance away. Hay was kept in the Loft of this barn and my brothers and I liked to climb up into the loft and play. Then someone told us that copperhead snakes liked to nest in hay lofts. There was a track running the length of the barn from front to back with a substantial rope hanging from it. We would take a run and see how far we could swing holding onto the rope. There were a couple of other sheds up there -- a tool shed and probably a workshop.

One day while I was down in front of the house I heard a sound line a plane buzzing the ground then hoof beats that I thought were the Horses'. It was my brothers. They were running down the hill yelling at me to go into the house because they had disturbed a hornets' nest and the hornets were in hot pursuit, buzzing as they came.

The holmes' had a dalmation named Jill in the farm. She had four puppies. She was a very (good) natured dog. Of course we enjoyed playing with the puppies and taking care of the (dog) family. We also enjoyed walking the horses.

About a mile (actually closer to ¼ mile, just on the far side of the pig pin.) from the house was the Patuxent River. It was pretty small here, about 50 feet across and shallow enough to wade across in most places (More like 20 to 25 feet across, these were the head waters of the river and bordering the entire west side of the farm, including the 10 acres of virgin timber on the south side of the corn field that covered the area from the pig pin south along the river). We liked to go down to the river and explore. Along the road to the river were wild blackberries. Their taste reminded me of mulberries, which I never really cared for. This was a magical place for kids our age. It was a magical summer. Daddy always said afterward that if he could have afforded it, he would have bought the place. When autumn came I enjoyed standing on the deck and looking across the expanse of trees in their fall colors.

But school was starting and our parents were buying a house in Kensington. We hated to leave the farm. But the Holmes' gave us two puppies. Mama named the male Pete because he reminded her of the Little Rascals' dog. Unimaginatively, we named the female Freckles.

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