White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1935-07-18

fellow went back east. So did thou
sands of others. But my father was
man who stayed
HE wasn't an educated man. But he
was great reader and a born farmer
Sagging gates never had any place, I'll
tell you, in his scheme of things. The
way he saw it, Uncle Sam had bet him
$14 he couldn't make a living off that
claim, those 100 acres of buffalo grass
So he stuck it out in spite of every
thing, on a bet. And before he died he
had it all in corn, wheat and alfalfa,
with good white house on it, with
green shutters, in place of the old
log cabin.
II was born in the log cabin. can
shut my eyes and see the kitchen of
it yet. We had an old Charter Oak
cookstove. The wallpaper was news
paper. The old Toledo Blade and the
Prairie Farmer were the leading pat
terms. And we had a Seth Thomas
clock
my mother was hardly more than
a girl. It hurts, when think how she
tried to beautify that cabin. Bitter
sweet berries in a queer old green vase
A bunch of cattails tied with a faded
pink ribbon. Things like that.
MARY Small Owen-that was her
name when she married. l used my
middle name in signing my book be-
cause it was her name, too. She came
from good people, from a home of COM
too much for her But she never gave
in to it; that gay Irish heart was never
! daunted. She died when I was six
years old. My sister was four years old
at the time and my brother eight days
old.
my father married again. We grew
up with a stepmother. She was good
to us, but guess we worried her a
lot, and Father, too. I did, especially.
l hated dishwashing. always had my
nose in a book, and whenever I made
cake it always looked as if the cat
had laid on it! I would read while !
was churning and, as if that weren't
enough, I'd steal off to the haymow
and read some more!
about the time got through grade
school, my stepmother died. That put
high school out of the question. had
to stay at home and take care of the
house and the younger children I
didn't want to, but 1 had it to do.
II kept house for sixteen years
from the time was fifteen until 1
was thirty-one. I never did learn to
like housework, but I could always
| escape into books. read everything /
| could lay hands on. An awful mixture
e. P. Roe, Lena Rivers, Mary j.
Holmes, Bertha M. Clay anything!
Father was worried about the way
devoured book after book, but hazy
and helpless about how to guide me.
He would throw some of the books I
was reading into the fire and give me
magazines instead: The Youths Com
panion, The Worlds Work, Farm and
Fireside, Munsey's. He himself read few
and Pilgrims Progress.
I "He died in 1915 1t seemed as if
that was the end of the world to me.
But I had been doing some church
work and two pioneer Presbyterians,
Mr.. and Mrs. j. E. Van Glider, they
were the ones that gave me the cour-
age that put me back in school again.
It's not too late they said.
well, I went. entered the State
Normal, high school section, at En-
poria. I had never been away from
home. None of my family had ever
attended high school, much less COL
lege. was frightened all the time,
but I found that I knew more than
I thought I did. Things would come
up in class and I'd say to myself, why,
I knew thatp got through the eight
year course, high school and college,
and graduated in the upper third Of
| my class.
II never expect to enjoy another
six years that much. washed dishes
0U ~ OOdIOlAlS l1OuSc, WdICCQ COullU6T
at the cafeteria, edited the school pa
per, and reported school news for the
Gazette. never missed single good
concert or play, but wore certain
Norfolk-Shepherd suit every year Of
my high school and college career.
In my senior year it was made over
into dress and wore it when I sat
for my photograph for the class book.
left school out of debt.
"That paragraph Mr. White liked,
wrote it for the school paper and
they threw it into the wastepaper bas-
ket took it to the Gazette office and
slipped it on the city editors desk.
Mr.. White sent for me and made me
school reporter He had me in to all
the dinners and conferences, when the
staff goes over the paper and talks
~-oc~~co.~>~o~~~~~
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