Guest post from Guinn!

Here's a guest post from Guinn, about her early memories. I've added a couple of corrections that she sent later:

We really moved around a lot until 1940. We didn't stay long, but when a rig was stacked we would head either for McNary or Breckenridge, Profitt or Olney. Aunt Jack was in the same boat we were in and a lot of the time the two families lived together. We went back to Pyote at least 4 times and to Monahans 3. I"m not sure about where Mom and Dad lived right at first. Except that she told me that Grandma Webb charged her for Daddy's room and board after they married. As well as I can remember right after I was born they moved into a tiiny house across a large garden from the hotel. Jewell was working at Bernices Dress Shop in Olney. We were there when at about 6 months I got sick and wasn't given any time to live, probably wouldn't last out the night, but of course I did. We spent time with Dell, Ruby, Grandma Webb and then would go to Grandma Carroll"s. We were in Olney in 1934 when Daddy decided to go to Pyote. We loaded up the car, I can remember making the trip sitting high up in the back seat because someone went with us. I don't know who. But it was a friend, not a relative. It was in the spring, and I started school in the fall. Jack and Nick were there because Benny and I were in the same room. Actually 3 grades were in the same room. We moved from there into Monahans but it wasn't long before we were back in Pyote and sometime during that time Aunt Lil got her back hurt and Mother took me out of school and put me in school in Canutillo. We were probably there a couple of months and Aunt Jack wrote Mom and said that if she wanted a marriage she better get home. We went home. There was a train from Monahans to El Paso and we were on it a lot.

I never went to school in Olney, but I went in Graham and Stamford and Breckenridge. Not for any long times ever and I can remember crying myself sick because I had to start going in Graham. Finally I started the stomach ache bit and all I got out of that was a dose of castor oil mixed with orange juice and some soda stirred in to make it foam. And when I finished throwing up I went to school. We spent one summer in St.Jo. It's up above Wichita Falls almost to Oklahoma. Randall was not walking so it had to be 1938. It was a pleasant summer. The town was built around a park and we stayed at a boarding house and Mom didn't have to cook or wash the sheets and towels. It was about the time Monopoly got popular and Mom and Daddy and some of the crew, Daddy wasn't drilling, would play Monopoly a lot. And they would buy watermelons and cool them in a river close to where they were drilling.

That ended and we went to Grandma Carroll's. I went to school in Ft Hancock. Had to ride the bus and Jimmy was in high school and he was great to see that I was on the bus before he left with his friends. I've probably gotten my cart before my horse in through here because before 1940 I stayed at Ruby's and went to school in Breckenridge. Mom and Dad went to Dell's. Probably got tired of Ben saying If we run out of food, poor old Uncle Ben will go to the store. The only thing that made that bearable for me is that Billy Dean was always there for me. We rode the bus together and he played with me at recess. Believe me I was miserably shy, always the new student, and I spent a world of time crying. While I was there the teacher put me up a grade and my world went to crap and I sobbed until I was put back to the same grade as Billy Dean. It wasn't one of my best years. Later on Mother breezed back and got me out of school about 6 weeks early. They said why not, she could have left when we put her up a grade.

I think this is when we went to Monahans again and the reason I think that is that Mom and Dad went to Ruby's from Monahans for a sort of reunion and that's when Mother wore the shorts in the picture. Really it was sort of scandalous. When we would make a potty stop she had a skirt that buttoned down the front and matched her shortsuit. She would put it on every time. And that was probably late 38 for Randall was a baby. Shorty got in touch with the folks and told them he was going to Calif and Mom and Dad could manage the cafe he had been managing. So being that the oil field was kaput, and I have to wonder how the friend Jug has found can think that Olney was not affected by the depression because I know Daddy looked for work there every time the rigs went down in West Texas. We lived in Fabens seems like for ages, probably it wasn't all that long. I had a horrible case of chicken pox there, missed about a month of school and Mom and Dad wore completely out. Mother worked the cafe by herself all day and Daddy worked it all night. 24/7.


And right after school was out in 1940 we went to Seminole. I can't remember Daddy being out of work after that. We were in Seminole mid 40 to 41 and moved to Sundown right before my 10th birthday. I was in 5th grade then. While in Sundown the schools in that county went to 12 grade system and I was promoted from the 5th to the 7th grade. That summer we lived in Lubbock. We lived in a large apartment house on College Ave. Jack and Nick and Benny lived in the same apartment house and when we moved back to Sundown, they went to Monahans, I went the 7th grade in Sundown. The first full year of school I had gone in the same place. I started 8th grade in Sundown. Then the rig went to Big Lake. By this time we were well into the war. Big Lake had bad gowing pains and we were in a hotel for ages before we could find a place to live. I went to school there and they were still 11 grade system and I really had to work because I had done 6th grade work in the 7th grade and actually skipped 7th grade. Math about killed me. Daddy worked evening tour and I would do my math homework and leave it out for him to check when he got in at midnight. That's where Daddy ate the coconut cream pie and got so very sick.


We had gotten a dog named Pluto and he was a cocker spaniel that hadn't had his tail cut off. We noticed that he was really getting slick and fat and looking good, and it was because he was getting into the landlord's hen house and sucking eggs. So we took him to Dell's We left there early too, I got out of school early and we moved to Levelland, We had a really neat apartment, Mom and I were happy, so we moved to Seagraves. We were only there a few summer months and moved back to Levelland. Only this time we couldn't find a nice apartment and wound up living in that duplex where there was a hole in the porch and became one of Randall's favorite stories. We got Pluto back and he got hit by a car and was in a cast and slept in the trailer we had and howled everytime he turned over and Mom was big pregnant and getting up all hours of the night and turning him over. Lil stayed with us for several months before Jimmy was born. Randall started kindergarden and I started 9th grade only to find that since I was back in a 12 grade system I had already done all of everything and so that was my easiest year and I had earned it. I loved the school at Levelland. I had a lot of friends.

Daddy got into a run in with the tool pusher and wham! he got run off and within a week he was called up to take a [draft] physical. We just knew he would have to go. But he had flat feet and didn't. So he found another job on a rig and it wasn't long until the rig moved to Monahans. So in the middle of my sophmore year we went to Monahans. I hated the house, the school, Mother and Dad for making me move, Daddy for buying an ugly little dump of a house that I was so ashamed of. So I spent another really bad year crying a lot. I went to work at the movie and made friends there and by my Junior year I was ok. I got married in March of 1950 and Daddy was already working in Snyder and they moved in April. George and I stayed in Monahans. They went to Snyder, Portales and Brownfield and George went to work for Daddy in November of 50 and we moved to Brownfield. Rodger was born there on January 27, 1951 and we all moved to Farmington when he was 3 weeks old. They stayed in Farmington until the summer before Susan was born.

In December of that year George and Rod and I moved to Ignacio, Colorado and back to Aztec and to Farmington and to Ignacio and back to Aztec and to Warm Springs and back to Aztec and back to Ignacio and then to Aztec and Susan was born in January of 55 and we moved to Boulder Wyoming. Daddy was pushing tools in Rock Springs and he told George he had a drilling job for him in Pinedale. Teresa was born in Jan of 56. We were there until the fall of 56 and went to Casper. The rig was moving to Texas and we really didn't want to go so George went to Farmington. We didn't stay there very long. I just flat couldn't take it, so we went back to Rock Springs where Mom and Dad still were. George decided moving with a rig was not really working for us wth 3 kids and he worked roughnecking until he got hired by Baker and Darned if they didn't send us right back to Farmington. Karen was born there in May of 58 and in November we moved to Cody.

We stayed there until Jan of 61 and moved to Worland. In Sept of 64 we went to Vernal Utah and the big joke was that I had to be dragged there. Each of our kids was born in a different state and I wasn't about to set out to a new state. But it wasn't true, I only cried for a month this time. We were there 10 years. And we made a lot of good friends and enjoyed the place. In 74 we moved to Rock Springs Wyoming. What a different world that was. Many many stories from there. And in 80 on Halloween night we arrived at 15964 E Bates Place, Aurora Colorado. We were there 6 years. There were good times and there were bad times. We've been in Loveland for 22 years. Probably both of us will die here. And that suits us fine.