Memiors of a West Texas Pioneer

                                                                  Pauline and Martha Rhody

 This entry is all about the stories that Granny told me over the years.  The first I will remember is about the picture above. Granny said that it was taken just before she and her sister Pauline rode the train from east Texas out west.  She said her stepmother had the picture made just before they left.  It was a big deal back then not just because of the rarity of having a photograph taken but because they were wearing the first "No Iron" cotton dresses that were available in the region.  Sure enough, I don't see any wrinkles, do you?  Granny is the one without the hair bow, I guess she was a bit of a tomboy back then.  The other stories she told me about her childhood have to do with her time on a ranch outside of Floydada, TX.  Her mother died when she was little and a good part of her upbringing was left to her older brothers, I guess that might explain the disdain for hair bows.  She told me once that whenever she had had enough and needed to escape she would climb on the back of a horse and ride off.  If the Granny I knew was anything like young Martha, she probably spent a lot of time on the back of a horse.    She and her brothers and sisters also spent time on the back of a mule.   She told me that she and several others would all climb on the mule and ride around bareback  until the mule had enough and then he would head for the nearest prickly pear or thistle and  sit down just in front of it causing whoever was nearest the tail to slide off right into the spines.  When I first heard the story I thought that must have been one smart mule, later I began to speculate on the brightness of the children who would return again and again for the torture of being closest to the tail.  I guess hope sprung eternal back then too.Granny also told me stories about the ranch hands and the ranch.  She said there was a sinkhole on the ranch and that they never could find the bottom.  She said the ranch hands screwed together 17 windmill pipes  and lowered them down the hole and never did touch the bottom.  This is very plausible, the bottomless lakes near Roswell testify to that, as does the fact that the water was too full of gypsum to be good for anything other than the stock tanks, and even then, I think it would have to be diluted with sweet water to some degree.   I swam in Lee lake once at the bottomless lakes park and the water was very full of gypsum, so much so that as the water droplets dried on my skin they left little white patches.  Granny also told a funny story about the ranch hands trying to pull a fast one and sneaking what they thought was a watermelon from the garden only to be sorely disappointed when they cut into it and discovered that it was a citron melon instead.  She also told me of being stranded during the dust bowl days.  She said she was in the car with Uncle Clarence, I am assuming Papa was with them, when they were overtaken by a huge dust cloud.  It was so thick it choked out the engine of the car and it stalled.  They had to hunker down and wait for it to pass and try not to breath in all the dust.  I remember Granny telling me she was very frightened for the safety of Clarence who was just a little baby at the time.

    I am glad I took the time to ask Granny to tell me about her life as a child, there are not many stories, but I treasure the ones I have and I am pleased to capture them here so that Zach will be able to share them with his children, and they with theirs.