Part I-The Early Years, Chapter 2-School In Mangum

CHAPTER 2
School in Mangum
1941-1942

We lived in north Mangum when I started school. They didn’t have kindergarten in Mangum then so I started first grade in the fall of 1941. Shortly after starting, I came home with measles and whooping cough at the same time. It seemed like I was sick for a long time. While I was sick in bed one evening, Mom and Dad were sitting at the table playing dominos. I told them there was a big spider going across the floor. They told me not to worry, he would go away. They were absorbed in their game but after I finally got their attention they saw it was a tarantula. That was enough to interrupt their game, and Dad dispatched the spider. I don’t remember if Mom gave me castor oil when I had the measles but she used it to cure every other ailment I had. It tasted so bad just the thought of taking it would cure most things. She would mix it with tomato juice to help make the medicine go down. I was in high school before I could drink straight tomato juice and not taste castor oil.
Dad had a lot of trouble with his teeth. While we lived here, he finally ended up having them all pulled and he bought false teeth.
It was in north Mangum that Mom and Dad gave Darwin and me some fancy tricycles. We had them for quite a while and then one day I left mine behind the parked car. Dad backed over it and I never had my own wheels again until I was a junior in high school when mom’s cousin gave me a used bicycle.
During the fall, Mom would go to the country and pick cotton. (Actually, she would pull bolls. When you pick cotton you leave the burs on the plant; when you pull bolls, you harvest burs and all). When she did this on the weekends I would go with her, but during the week I would go home with the Tinsleys after school. The Tinsleys were in-laws to my Uncle Ray. It was on one of these weekends when news came over the radio that would change the life of just about everyone in the United States. When the cotton sacks were full, everyone would listen to the car radio as the cotton was weighed. That is where I was when I heard about the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor.
We had air raid drills in Mangum. Mom made black-out curtains so the enemy bombers couldn’t see our lights. At that time it never occurred to me that Mangum was not the number one target in the country. In the months that followed, we had scrap drives. People turned in old tires, inner tubes, shoe soles and anything with rubber in it. Tin foil was a premium product. Grandma Sullivan always took the string from the feed sacks and made string balls. She always had two or three balls around, each of them several inches in diameter. I think the string was for her use and not the war effort. Gasoline, tires and sugar were rationed. Everyone, including the kids had ration books which had stamps in them that allowed you to buy a limited amount of things over a certain period of time. Grandpa Sullivan always kept bees to make up for the shortage of sugar. On Grandpa Cook’s side of the family, five of eleven uncles were drafted or volunteered for service. On Grandpa Sullivan’s side there were none of seven; he was on the draft board but I don’t know if that was a coincidence or not.

Dad must have been doing pretty well at the creamery. We bought a bigger house on North Byers Street in Mangum, closer to the middle of town. It had indoor plumbing and two bedrooms, Darwin and me in one and Mom and Dad in the other. The walk to school was a lot shorter. There was a laundry not too far from our new house, and it was owned by a blind man. I can remember helping mom carry our dirty clothes to the laundry. She would wash them in one of maybe 15 or 20 wringer type machines. We would then take them home and she would hang them out to dry because there were no dryers at the laundry. Before we started using the laundry, Mom washed the clothes using a rub board in a big tub.
Mom bought a Singer sewing machine while we lived here; she paid $5 for it. I don’t know why I remember that but I do. She had always made clothes for Darwin and me with needle and thread so this was really a time saver for her. She used it for years. It had two drawers on each side and was powered by a foot treadle. When Nell and I moved to Texas, she still had it but the machine and the stand were separated and stored in the wood shed. I made a nice ash table top for the stand and now one of my brothers or sisters use it for a table.
Our neighbor lady gave me the shock of my life one day. She was sitting in her back yard smoking. Up to that time I didn’t know that a woman would even consider smoking. I didn’t like her to begin with because she had a dog that barked at night and kept me awake. After I saw her smoking, I knew she was evil.
I think I finished the first grade while we lived in this house and I know I started second grade while we lived there. That fall, like the year before, Mom and Darwin would go pick cotton while I was in school. One day after they got home Darwin showed me a hand full of coins he had earned in the cotton field. I’m sure it was less than twenty-five cents but there were several coins and it looked like a fortune to me. My eyes must have turned green because I felt jealousy come over my whole body. I wanted to pick cotton. Unfortunately, I got my wish before the year was over.