Juanita`s Teen Years

When Mother graduated 8th grade they could no longer go to the Normal School in Alva to take a test to more or less skip H.S. like her older sisters did.  They were able to teach school after passing the test.  So off to Enid to board with Aunt Mattie Harman to finish her education.  She attended Longfellow Jr. High a few blocks from her home on E. Chestnut.  The house is still lived in.  This was during the Depression so she, Milton, Mattie, Mattie`s husband Delbert, and Mattie`s children Leon and Lowell lived in the one bedroom house.  Must have been crowded.  I asked her what she thought going from only student in the class to a few hundred.  She didn`t remember it being a problem.  She walked to Enid High down on S. Jefferson.  The building is still used as a High School today.  I think it was over a mile and graduated 1937 at barely 17.  One way she earned spending money was to type other student`s typing homework.  One`s grade depended on how many mistakes on a page.  She got more money for an A paper.  Was this cheating???  I still have the red Royal typewriter Milton bought at a pawn shop for her.  Her brother Marlin was playing football at OU at the time and actually helped set a record that stood for many years.  He was listed mistakenly as Martin Phillips.  Anyway he would occasionally send his "little sis" a dollar to help out.  He mailed his laundry home to Grandma for her to do for him.  He went on to become a pharmacist in Mooreland.  Mother`s fond memories of H.S. were the May Fete held in Government Springs Park.  Girls wore spring dresses and wrapped May poles.  Another was the time she and girlfriends went to a very fundamentalist church for a lark.  They laughed all the way home.  Shortly after she graduated, they all moved to a much larger house across the street from the H.S.  after all that walking!  She stayed in Enid after graduation.  She worked in the office at the Nehi bottling company.  She said the fruit flavors were their finest right off the line.  She also worked as a Nanny for one of the large department store owners.  They didn`t believe in much discipline for the kids.  She and the cook laid down the law when the parents were gone.

Stay tuned for more tales of Mother.