DONNIE IS BORN

The "Poor Little Chickie's" story most probably happened in the spring of 1939. I think the "Visit to Aunt Lou" story was later that year. I only remember a few times Arnold Ray and his family coming. It seems the Mother and sister were there more than the Daddy. There are faint thoughts that others of our parents families were there, but I'm not sure who they might have been.

During the years at the "Two-Roomer" and "The Morgan Place" there are stories I remember being told after the fact. Those years were still in the Great Depression, The Dust Bowl Years. When the dust storms begin to blow in, Mother dipped sheets and blankets in a tub of water and hung them on nails over the windows and doors, to keep out some of the sand and dirt. When morning came one could see the imprint of each persons head on the pillow, surrounded by dust. Those storms of wind and dirt did not come just in the night. They sometimes blew for two or three days without letup. The dirt came in through every crack in walls, windows, doors and roofs.

The walls, both exterior and interior, were generally made of one inch by twelve inch boards standing on end, nailed at top and bottom to a two by four inch plate. Up and down studs to support the plate were two by fours at corners and each side of each door and window. The cracks between the exterior boards were covered with a two inch wide strip nailed in place. That style of wall was called "board and batten". As people were able financially they bought rolls of felt paper and tacked that to the inside. It helped keep out some of the air. If they got a news paper, after it was read, they glued it to the felt paper with a thin mixture of flour and water. Later they applied wall paper.

Daddy said the house walls shook so hard at times during those winds, they thought the house would collapse. They often pushed furniture against the walls hoping to stabilize the structure. But more often the shaking of walls and floors, jiggled the furniture out into the room.

Water was scarce and had to be drawn from a cistern or halled from somewhere. So to conserve, Mother often left her dish water from the breakfast dishes to use again for the dinner (noon lunch) dishes. On Christmas Day we unwrapped our gifts. Out of a nicely wrapped little cardboard box I retrived a little cast iron truck. I drove it into the other room, then came back and played with the box the rest of the day. When dinner time came, Mother went into the kitchen to prepare the food and found the dish water had frozen in the pan.

Time and thoughts began to lap over into 1940. I remember seeing Daddy out on the tractor at the Morgan Place plowing the field. I remember going to visit Grand Pa Easley. He was bedfast. His bed was to the west of the double windows looking out to the south and his old barn down the hill. A mile south was the Red River he had crossed in wagons pulled by teams of horses with his family in 1900 when they moved to Oklahoma Territory. On that day of our visit I don't remember seeing Aunt Pearl and Uncle Everett who took care of him and farmed his land. His farm was about 5 miles southeast of the Morgan Place.

I remember one morning when we got up, Mother was not at home. Daddy got me dressed in a pair of little brown riding britches Mother had made for me. We stood outside the house ready to get in the car. He looked me over to see that my hair was combed and everything else was in place. He said, "We have a new little sister at Dr. Crow's. Let's go see her." That seemed fine with me. The next remembering after climbing the staris to the doctor's clinic, was going into the room where Mother lay in bed, and there in the cruck of her arm was a little baby sister, "Donnie Carolyn Easley". Wow! What a fine feeling that was, to have my very own sister. It was September 7, 1940. So far as I knew, all was fine with the world...how little did I know!