I dedicate this to my great-grandchildren by
Hazel May Cauble Agan Garrett December 2, 1997 I was born November 9, 1915, on a farm near Walnut Grove, Missouri. I was the third daughter of twelve children born to Arthur and Edna Cauble. One baby died in infancy. Lois Johnson is the oldest. She is 82 years old. We lost one sister, Gladys Laura Raef two years ago. She was 82 years old. My other brothers and sisters are all in good health.
We were all, but the youngest, born in the same house that our father was born in. Grandpa and Grandma lived there also. Grandpa was a Civil War veteran. He fought on the Union side and was injured in battle. He carried a bullet in his leg until his death at 86 years old. He was a tall man and when he was older he had snow-white hair and a long white beard. He always wore a white shirt and dress pants. He was well liked and a fine gentleman. Grandma was a small lady and had a temper. Her maiden name was Lee. She claimed to be related to Robert E. Lee. Later my brother and his wife Shirley spent many hours and a great deal of money to see if this was true but they couldn't find her birth record and this remains unproven. We lived on a farm and raised most of our food. We always had a huge garden and canned lots of food for winter. We canned green beans, tomatoes, kraut, pickles and lots of wild blackberries. We picked wild grapes and gooseberries for jelly. We also had an apple orchard and a pear tree. We made lots of apple butter. We raised chickens, turkeys, geese, hogs, cows, horses and sometimes sheep, a goat and a pony. We usually had twelve to fifteen jersey cows and sold milk and sometimes calves. We churned sweet cream for butter and made cottage cheese. As a child, I liked to make cottage cheese. Here's how we would make cottage cheese. You put milk that had just started to sour (clabber) on the back of the stove. In two or more hours the curd would form and leave the whey. We put the curd in a clean flour sack and hung it on the clothesline to drip. Then we added sweet cream, salt and pepper and you have cottage cheese. Around Thanksgiving we would kill hogs. That was a big job. We had sausage to make, lard to render and the ham, shoulders and bacon to salt down. Later it needed to be smoked with hickory smoke. We used the lard for all cooking. We saved the cracklings for com bread and we ate the cracklings like potato chips, as kids do now. Soap was made from old grease. We saved all the old grease and when we had 2 gallons or so we'd strain it so the soap would be white. Then we added two cans of lye and made soap. You made it in an enamel pan. We used that for washing dishes and clothes. We bought Palmolive soap for baths, face and hands. We had two tin tubs and everyone bathed in the tubs. Baths began with the youngest child, three or four at a time, then the next and so forth until everyone had a bath. Water was something we had plenty of. The older children went to the smoke house to bath. We cooked and heated with wood. We had kerosene lamps. At night we would sit around the table to do homework. The older children would help the younger children. We also were on a party line for the telephone. Our ring was one long and two shorts. There were six or seven families on the same line. Neighbors would sometimes listen in on all rings. Mother wouldn't allow us to do that. My mother was a fine lady. She never gossiped or criticized anyone. She was a wonderful cook. I can still see her coconut cakes. We had two springs. One big spring was near the house. The water was real cold and it never ran dry. We had a big iron kettle near the spring, under a big tree. This was where we did the washing. We rubbed the clothes on a washboard. The white clothes had to be boiled in a big kettle then rubbed again and rinsed twice before hanging them on me line. Monday was wash day. We were supposed to hang clothes just right: tea towels in a row, sheets and pillowslips in a row (no tea towels in that row). Then you would hang socks or something else. Everything had to be hung just right. The second spring was smaller and a little farther off. We had a box that we put the milk and butter in.
The spring kept things real cold. Before a meal daddy would send one of us for milk and butter but before we had time to get back, he would send another child to look for the first child he had sent to the spring and the in a minute or so another one of us was sent to look for both children he had already sent to the spring. My sister, Gladys, would sit down and wait awhile. Gladys was daddy's pet and I think this amused him. Another thing about daddy. No one could touch the paper until he was through ready it. Sometimes he would call mother in and read her an outrageous story. When we got the paper, we would hunt and hunt for that outrageous story. We finally wised up to that trick. Another thing he did was in the spring he would cut a hickory limb and make a whistle. We went to a country school. It was a two-room schoolhouse. The first room was for first through fourth grades. The big room was for fourth through eighth grades. The teacher would have eight or ten chairs in a half circle and teach a grade and then send them back to their seats and call up another grade. Two students had to sit in one desk. We had inkwells in the big room. Once we had a teacher that carried a leather strap and if you whispered or wasn't studying, he would strap you. We played baseball, drop the handkerchief and crack the whip. In the winter we sometimes skated on a stream branch that would freeze. It was at the foot of the schoolyard. We had spelling bees and pie suppers. A girl would decorate a box and fill it with food, usually friend chicken, pickles, potato salad and pie or a cake. The boy would try to figure which box was his girls and bid. Course the old men would run up the bid. That was fun anyway. We went to high school at Walnut Grove. That was a two-story brick school. I played basketball for three years. I also played second violin. I only had group lessons so I wasn't really good, but anyway, I liked being in the orchestra. I also sang in the glee club. When I was small, or growing up, I sang solos at church several times. We had a school bus, but I played basketball and practice was after school so I always walked home. We had showers at school and I like that better than the tub. We always had a lot of company on Sundays. Uncles, aunts and cousins came after church. They always said they came to see Grandpa. I know they did but I'm sure mother's dinners were nice also. We started getting ready on Fridays. We cleaned and scrubbed the whole house. The smaller kids that weren't big enough to help were sent to the bam to play. On Saturday, we baked cakes, made rolls, killed chickens and were sure the white tablecloth and napkins were clean and spotless. Most of the time daddy got ice and we made ice cream. It was a two-gallon hand crank freezer. Mother would slip the kids chicken wings or rolls or something to held us over, as we had to wait until the grownups had eaten before we could eat. They were not in a hurry. When I was a mother, and mother was visiting me she said, "Hazel, your three (children) are more trouble than my whole brood." I was quick to remind her I didn't have a bam to send my kids to. The bam was a great place to play. We had cribs, hay and the loft. It was warm on a chilly day. Most of our entertainment was a school or a church. We had an outhouse and when we had a goat you had to take the broom with you or the goat would butt you. Also, once, we had a big goose that like to peck and we had to take the broom then too.
When I was in grade school, daddy bought a Ford Touring car. He was a terrible driver. I don't think he ever got much better tires and they weren't good at first so we usually had two or three flats whenever we went anywhere. Course then all the roads was gravel or dirt. When I was small, we had straw ticks and feather beds to sleep on. We slept three or four to a bed. In the winter, we had double cotton flannel blankets and we heated irons and wrapped them in towels to warm our feet. The first sunny day, we washed the blankets. Each spring we took up the rugs and hung them on the line and beat them with the broom. We scrubbed the floors and aired the feather beds and changed the staw ticks. I think we got springs and mattresses about the time I started high school. In the spring grandma would start telling daddy to dig up some sassafras roots for tea. She thought our blood needed thinning. Finally, he would go out and dig up the roots and mother would wash and boil the sassafras roots and sweeten it and we all had tea. Mother like hot tea and we often had it with gingerbread and whip cream in the winter. Life was good in those days and if we worried, I didn't know it.
Also, in the spring we would walk on the right of the way by the railroad tracks to pick wild strawberries. They were real sweet. We usually had two big short cakes and lots of whipped cream. Dewberries also grew early. They were real good for cobblers. I like to pick wild greens. Watercress grew wild on the branch and we ate lots of watercress in the early spring. There were plants called curly dock, lambs quarter, wild lettuce and poke. Poke needed to be parboiled before added to the rest. We cooked lots of pinto beans and com bread. We always had milk and eggs. Once during my high school days (during the depression), a lady came to school and all the students were taken to the auditorium. We were told to write down what we had for breakfast. I wrote biscuits, oatmeal and gravy. My sister, Gladys, was a senior that year and came to see what I had written. When she saw what I had written she tore that up and wrote grapefruit, ham, eggs and toast. I had never even tasted a grapefruit. Anyway, I guess the lady thought we had plenty.
We all had chores to do. I was mother's helper. I always liked cooking and taking care of the baby. There was always a baby to rock. I like to rock and sing the baby to sleep and I also got to feed the baby. We fed the babies mashed up potatoes and vegetables. This was called pot lickers. We were all healthy so I guess it didn't hurt us. Of course, I didn't feed my children that way. We had playhouses and played train. The train track ran through our field and my Uncle Ed was a conductor on the train. Sometimes Aunt Mary, his wife, would come down and the train would stop and she would get off. She always brought oranges, bananas or treats. We always waved at all trainmen. I still do. There was a branch on the farm and we went swimming a lot. Sometimes we would boil eggs, roast potatoes, fry crawfish (we called them crawdads) tails and have tomatoes or whatever. If daddy were away, mother would join us. We had a buggy and we would all get in, but one to push us, then jumps on the back of the horse and rides it down the hill. It stopped in the branch. It was fun. We also had a big funeral for every little chicken or turkey that died. We saved matchboxes and covered them with scraps from mother's quilt piecing. We marched two by two to the graveyard and then Lois preached. I was the mourner until mother caught on then I got promoted to the chair. Singing beat crying. When I was probably in the 6th grade, Lois was starting high school and girls were just starting to cut their hair. She wanted her hair cut. Daddy said, "No." Aunt Mary came down and told her she would show her how to wear it so she ratted (now we call that back combing) her hair and put it up. Daddy didn't like that and he told Gladys to get up at night and cut Lois hair off at the neck and not to tell a soul. Well, that was some surprise the next morning when she woke up. Then we went to a big picnic and Gladys won a sack race and got $3.00. She decided she wanted her hair cut too. She offered me $1.00 to cut it off at night. I was afraid and said no. She upped the price to $2.00. I still said no. Finally she argued that Lois got hers cut and nothing happened and she would give me $3.00. So, I cut her hair and then went back to bed and cried. I knew I was in trouble. Well, I had to give her back $1.50 and we both got a whipping with a peach tree limb. There was an old two story house that had a basement that people said was haunted. We called the basement a dungeon when we went by the house. Gladys always wanted me to go in with her. It was said on a still moonlit night you could hear a little girl cry. The tale was a stepmother had killed the little girl and burned her body and now she was a ghost. Sometimes, people said, you could see her. We never went in. Rachel was always so easy going and never got in any trouble. She was the teacher's pet and made real good grades. Once she got to skip a grade and I worried she might catch me. She loved to read and embroidery. One time, during a snowstorm, mother didn't think we should go to school, but Rachel cried and Daddy walked us to school. When Nelson was born we were so thrilled to have a brother. Imagine, seven girls and finally a boy.
Once when he was little I was combing his hair for school and I ask him which side he wanted it parted on. He informed me to stand him toward the henoweth's house and part it toward the Killingsworth house. Daddy was strict about some things. We were taught respect for elders and always say, ''Yes sir." Or "No sir." And "Thank you." He would say, "Stand straight and don't stoop." "Sit with your feet on the floor." "Girls don't cross their legs." "Boys never come to the table without washing their face and hands, or wearing a shirt and combing their hair." Then I grew up. In high school, my junior year, I sometimes had 15 cents for lunch. Hamburgers, cokes and Snicker bars were 5 cents. Snickers and cokes were new then. You could go to a movie at Ash Grove on Wednesday night, two for 1 0 cents. It was called Buddy Night. Lois graduated from Business College in Springfield. Gladys was in nurses training. I was a senior and couldn't buy lunch. But I wasn't the only one. It was the depression and Oklahoma almost blew away. We could see dirt in the air. Sometimes it hid the sun. There was a drought. Our garden dried up and people left by the carload. Several families went to California. We didn't have caps and gowns to wear when I graduated in 1933 from Walnut Grove High School. Some of the teachers were paid with what they called script. We didn't have typewriters in high school. Sex Education classes were unheard of. Women didn't even say the word pregnant. Sometimes a lady might whisper so and so was in the family way. We didn't throw anything away. We saved flour sacks for tea towels, fee sacks for cows. Mother made roller towels with them. If a sheet got worn in the middle, you cut it in half and put the strong side where it was used most. That year we did raise a good crop of turnips. Daddy went west to Idaho and then on to Oregon for work. Eventually we all went west. I wanted to be a beauty operator but that was unheard of. That Thanksgiving mother had quit raising turkeys but daddy told us to start dinner and he would get some meant. He had 21 Shotgun shells and when he returned he had 22 quails.
After WWII, Daddy worked on government projects. He went to Paducah, KY to help build the first atomic plant. Then he went to Kennewick, WA, Minot, North Dakota and an army base in Alaska. After the retired Mother and Daddy got on a Greyhound bus and went to see all of us. At night, they got off and went to a hotel to eat and sleep. They also went on a train ride to Canada. I was glad mothers' days were easier. There is a verse in Hebrews that when I read it I think of mother. It says, in part, "Let us lay aside every weight, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us." To me, that was the essence of my mother's life. I had a boy friend (Joseph Ralph Agan) now and he asked my father if he could buy the old touring car. The car hadn't run in years and some parts were gone. The chickens had been roosting on it. Daddy gave it to him. He pulled it to his house and overhauled the motor and made a truck out of it and started a milk route. I graduated from high school in 1933 and was married to Ralph Agan that October. In December 1944 our son was born (Jack Agan). The doctor bill for delivering Jack was $25.00. He was born at home during a blizzard and my sister, Gladys, who had just became a registered nurse came and stayed seven or eight days with me. When Jack was five weeks old we went in the truck to my husband's parent's house in Oklahoma. When we arrived in Oklahoma we had 15 cents left. My husband did odd jobs until Mark and then he turned 21 years old and was hired by Skelley Oil Company. He built a little two-room house and we had an outhouse in the back and a cowshed. I milked the cow. He always said he didn't know how to milk a cow. We lived there for about two years. Once there was a storm and hour house was turned completely around and swept away about twenty feet. I sat down in the corner and held the baby. The windows blew out and the rain poured in. When it slacked up my father-in-law came and got the baby and me and we went to his house. Ralph's brother, Ed, was married to my best friend, Myrtle. They also had a baby. She took her baby and went next door and the storm blew their house away completely. She was also pregnant and they lost everything. We lived there about three years and then my husband was transferred to Texas.We had a company house, which was a modern two bedroom with one indoor bathroom. I also had a washer and refrigerator. My husband was making about $150.00 a month and we bought a new car for $845.00, a big Ford. Elaine was born in October 1941 in Pampa, Texas. On December 7th of the same year, I was getting ready for church when a neighbor came over and said we were at war. The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. I didn't even know where Pearl Harbor was. We went on vacation to California in May 1942 and stayed. Ralph got a job paying $2.65 an hour with Standard Oil in Richmond, California. The papers were full of news about the war and how they needed women to work. A neighbor woman came over and said if I would go to work she would take real good care of my baby and that would be her contribution to the war effort. I was hired at the shipyard and attended machinist school for six weeks. Then I was sent to work and was assigned to the gun crew. First we cleaned off where the guns were to be put. Then we painted the place deep read. Next we marked and drilled the holes. Then the crane would lower the gun down in place. We placed the guns to match the holes. The guns were then bolted, cleaned, oiled and then covered. We were the last crew to leave the Ship. Two of the ships were turned over to Russia. One had a woman captain. When I first went to work, the boss put me with an old man. He had me to do the drilling and he just squirted the oil. After a week or so, as we were doing out the our, I said, "Today I think I'll squirt the oil and you can run the drill." The boss said, "Hold it!" Then he asked me if I was drilling and I said, ''Yes.'' He then put me with another man and I was his helper for three years. I had four sisters who also worked in the shipyards: Gladys, Edith, Anna Lee and Bernice. My father and brother Nelson also worked at another shipyard. Hazel was Rosie, the Riveter for over three years with her four sisters at Richmond, California during WWII. "The Richmond shipyards produced more ships, faster and better than had ever been done in any time in the history of the world. One Liberty Ship, the Robert E. Peary was built in just over four days, setting a record that has, to this day, never been surpassed." - Elaine Taylor
When we went to San Francisco, the government had rounded up all the Japanese people and put them in a compound. They were not trusted. Some of the men did join the service and fought honorably for our country. It was a mistake to put them in compounds. They lost jobs, home and some lost everything. Anyway, apartments were available and we got an apartment on Haight Street. It was a real nice neighborhood. There was a delicatessen; a market and little shops close by. Later, in the 1960's the 'hippies' took over and it was a disgrace what went on: dope and etc. I got pregnant with Jerry at the end of the war and quit work just before the war ended. We then moved to a pump station near Taft, California and then soon moved to Bakersfield. I wanted to work when Jerry started school, so I decided all I knew was cooking. I got a job cooking in a coffee shop in Greenfield and worked from 10:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. I did that for seven years and then I came in to town and got a job as a cashier and sometimes a waitress. I worked at Stan's Drive In for twelve and a half years and for about nine of these years I was in charge of the dining room. I hired the waitresses, cashiers, bus boys and fountain boys. I kept track of the schedules and their time and the money. I loved my job and I had wonderful bosses.
(Stan's Drive In was a top of the line restaurant and drive-in of the 1950's. Stan's was very popular, especially the drive-in, with teenagers. All of us worked there at one time or another: I was a cashier and waitress, Jack and Jerry worked at the drive in fountain, and Mary Ellen, Jack's wife, was a cashier. Mother made many great friends working there and they still get together and visit over lunch in the 1990's. - Elaine)
Times have sure changed in my lifetime. I remember when Lois' first boyfriend came courting in a buggy. I drove a team of horses and a wagon to the Farm Exchange to get cow feed. I remember the first airplane I ever saw. After the war, women didn't want to stay in the kitchen anymore. They wanted equal rights. Airplanes were the way to go anywhere. Everyone could work. We all got new cars, new furniture and women did their own thing. I think of when I was first married and a lady wrote a column in the newspaper. Her name was Dorothy Dix. She said if a man was straying, it was the women' fault. A wife should always keep a clean house, have meals on time and before a man came home from work, take thirty minutes to bathe, put on a clean dress, fix your hair and have the children clean and well behaved. If you have a problem that day, wait until after dinner and then say you need to talk to him. If you disagreed about something and it was your fault, apologize. If you really thought it was his fault, say I'm sorry we quarreled. Then he would have a chance to say he was sorry. Well, I tried. These were the days before Ann Landers and Dear Abby. Now I look at these young fathers and I'm so proud of them. They are such good husbands and fathers. They share the load. I met my second husband, Lester Woodrow Garrett when I first went to work after Jerry started Kindergarten. I cooked at a a truck stop from 10p.m. to 6:00 a.m. for seven years. Les was working for a water well driller. The men met there. He didn't drink coffee so he would always put a nickel in the machine and say "I'll playa tune for the cook." I didn't know his name and he didn't even know me. One night it was real foggy and he stayed. We tallied a little and he told me his oldest daughter had run away from home. I never talked to him again for 4 or 5 years. I always wondered if he found her and felt bad about it. Several years later he came in to Stan's where I worked, he was alone and I asked him why he was out without his wife? He said they were separated. I said I had just left my husband a month ago. He asked me to have coffee with him and I said I can't because I have two children at home and need to get home. He said just have coffee. Well I did and then he told me where he lived and it was just a block from me. A night or two later Elaine called me at work. Jerry and her were having a fight and both were crying. We were so busy at work I couldn't go home and I didn't know what to do so I called Les and said would he go down and see about my kids. He did and he started walking down often to see if they were okay. He asked me to go to the coast on our day off so we took all the kids. The next thing I knew we were a couple. He always treated my children just as if they were his own. We were married 33 years when he died. He always enjoyed our family reunions and I think he only missed one. In the late 70's, Atlantic Richfield made a lot of changes. They sold a lot of their operations and sent our forms to the workers to take overseas jobs. Les said he wouldn't work overseas. He was retiring. Earlier, we had bought a 74 acre farm in Kentucky. In January of 1979, we both quit our jobs and with a truck of furniture and me driving the car we headed to Kentucky. I really didn't want to leave Bakersfield. I tried to persuade Lester to buy a pie shop, or a place in Oregon, but as far as he was concerned, there was no place like Kentucky. At first we ere so busy: we had a house built, a water well dug, bought 12 cows, 23 (three day Old) calves, a tractor and tools. So, I was busy all the time. We had lots of company. We loved having the family visit and the grandchildren loved the farm. Les was a gardener so I canned and froze, and cooked and ate. We both gained a lot of weight. I wanted to do all the things I never got to do working six days a week and split shifts. I went to church every Sunday, joined Eastern Star and Home Makers. I was worthy matron in Eastern Star for three years. I went to Grand Chapter one year. I was a hostess and one year a page. I really enjoyed the things I never got to do before. I even got hooked on a soap opera for a while. I worked around "Days of Our Life" for awhile. We also killed a steer every year so I have lots to cook. I missed the grandchildren and decided to keep small children. I had a little boy for one year and then I got a baby girl and had her for 12 years. She loved the farm and the stock, birds, chickens, and our dog. She never wanted to go home. So we became real fond of her. She was like one of the family. I also thought a lot of her parents. Her father did a lot for me after Les died. The grandchildren really enjoyed the farm and we enjoyed having them visit. Julie, Beth and Cindy spent three summers with us. Julie started kindergarten there and I drove a car and picked up four children one week a month. They loved the animals and every child had to gather the eggs some. They enjoyed the dog, cat and all the animals. Brent and Mark came two summers and they had BB guns, (so watch out all). I told them my cat didn't come up for three days after they left. Jack, Mary Ellen and family came from Louisiana one summer. We had a wagon and two horses that summer and every grandchild drove the wagon and target practiced. Gail had a guitar then and sit in the field and played and sang. One summer they came from Pittsburg and Marion brought her boyfriend. We always enjoyed having everyone. Food wasn't a problem as we killed a steer every year and Les always had a huge garden. I always canned and froze lots of vegetables and fruit. Les was so healthy for several years. He did anything he wanted to do. We had wonderful neighbors and enjoyed their company. His family came often to visit. Kentucky was a comfortable and relaxing place. We lived in a dry county and nearly every one went to church. The sound is called the bible belt. I'm sure there was crime there, but I didn't know it. The traffic isn't any thing like here. They cater to senior citizens. In that part of Kentucky a lot of retired people live there. I never learned how to pump gas. They always did it for older people. The high light of our life in Kentucky was my family reunions. I always knew we were going. Our reunions have always been so special and I love being with all my family. I love them all. Our reunions are a special time.
The one in Payson, Arizona when we had the fire was scary. Les was sick and never recovered. He was a true gentleman and though women were special and always treated each as a lady. After he died I sold the place and moved back to Bakersfield. I went to the desert 5 or 6 times with my sister Bernice and her husband Jim. It was fun. We did all the things: swim, hot tub, read, walk and went to Yuma, Arizona and old Mexico. It was great. My sister Rachel and her husband, Vernon, were there also and some times my brothers Robert and Nelson and their wives Nell and Shirley joined us. Those were great times. I liked living close to all the family, doing birthdays, Christmas and get togethers. I hope I live to the year 2000. Great things are happening. I never thought I was under privileged or mistreated. I love life and all my family. I'm blessed with the best family in the world. We have a family reunion every two years and have 80 - 100 people there for three days. I have fun with my sisters and brothers and all my family. My children are exceptionable, my grandchildren, as well, and the great grand children are super. I have friends and have been blessed with fairly good health. I have had some problems and I have made mistakes, but God has been good to me. My love to all,
Hazel May Cauble Agan Garrett
Hazel May Cauble Agan Garrett December 2, 1997 I was born November 9, 1915, on a farm near Walnut Grove, Missouri. I was the third daughter of twelve children born to Arthur and Edna Cauble. One baby died in infancy. Lois Johnson is the oldest. She is 82 years old. We lost one sister, Gladys Laura Raef two years ago. She was 82 years old. My other brothers and sisters are all in good health.
We were all, but the youngest, born in the same house that our father was born in. Grandpa and Grandma lived there also. Grandpa was a Civil War veteran. He fought on the Union side and was injured in battle. He carried a bullet in his leg until his death at 86 years old. He was a tall man and when he was older he had snow-white hair and a long white beard. He always wore a white shirt and dress pants. He was well liked and a fine gentleman. Grandma was a small lady and had a temper. Her maiden name was Lee. She claimed to be related to Robert E. Lee. Later my brother and his wife Shirley spent many hours and a great deal of money to see if this was true but they couldn't find her birth record and this remains unproven. We lived on a farm and raised most of our food. We always had a huge garden and canned lots of food for winter. We canned green beans, tomatoes, kraut, pickles and lots of wild blackberries. We picked wild grapes and gooseberries for jelly. We also had an apple orchard and a pear tree. We made lots of apple butter. We raised chickens, turkeys, geese, hogs, cows, horses and sometimes sheep, a goat and a pony. We usually had twelve to fifteen jersey cows and sold milk and sometimes calves. We churned sweet cream for butter and made cottage cheese. As a child, I liked to make cottage cheese. Here's how we would make cottage cheese. You put milk that had just started to sour (clabber) on the back of the stove. In two or more hours the curd would form and leave the whey. We put the curd in a clean flour sack and hung it on the clothesline to drip. Then we added sweet cream, salt and pepper and you have cottage cheese. Around Thanksgiving we would kill hogs. That was a big job. We had sausage to make, lard to render and the ham, shoulders and bacon to salt down. Later it needed to be smoked with hickory smoke. We used the lard for all cooking. We saved the cracklings for com bread and we ate the cracklings like potato chips, as kids do now. Soap was made from old grease. We saved all the old grease and when we had 2 gallons or so we'd strain it so the soap would be white. Then we added two cans of lye and made soap. You made it in an enamel pan. We used that for washing dishes and clothes. We bought Palmolive soap for baths, face and hands. We had two tin tubs and everyone bathed in the tubs. Baths began with the youngest child, three or four at a time, then the next and so forth until everyone had a bath. Water was something we had plenty of. The older children went to the smoke house to bath. We cooked and heated with wood. We had kerosene lamps. At night we would sit around the table to do homework. The older children would help the younger children. We also were on a party line for the telephone. Our ring was one long and two shorts. There were six or seven families on the same line. Neighbors would sometimes listen in on all rings. Mother wouldn't allow us to do that. My mother was a fine lady. She never gossiped or criticized anyone. She was a wonderful cook. I can still see her coconut cakes. We had two springs. One big spring was near the house. The water was real cold and it never ran dry. We had a big iron kettle near the spring, under a big tree. This was where we did the washing. We rubbed the clothes on a washboard. The white clothes had to be boiled in a big kettle then rubbed again and rinsed twice before hanging them on me line. Monday was wash day. We were supposed to hang clothes just right: tea towels in a row, sheets and pillowslips in a row (no tea towels in that row). Then you would hang socks or something else. Everything had to be hung just right. The second spring was smaller and a little farther off. We had a box that we put the milk and butter in.
The spring kept things real cold. Before a meal daddy would send one of us for milk and butter but before we had time to get back, he would send another child to look for the first child he had sent to the spring and the in a minute or so another one of us was sent to look for both children he had already sent to the spring. My sister, Gladys, would sit down and wait awhile. Gladys was daddy's pet and I think this amused him. Another thing about daddy. No one could touch the paper until he was through ready it. Sometimes he would call mother in and read her an outrageous story. When we got the paper, we would hunt and hunt for that outrageous story. We finally wised up to that trick. Another thing he did was in the spring he would cut a hickory limb and make a whistle. We went to a country school. It was a two-room schoolhouse. The first room was for first through fourth grades. The big room was for fourth through eighth grades. The teacher would have eight or ten chairs in a half circle and teach a grade and then send them back to their seats and call up another grade. Two students had to sit in one desk. We had inkwells in the big room. Once we had a teacher that carried a leather strap and if you whispered or wasn't studying, he would strap you. We played baseball, drop the handkerchief and crack the whip. In the winter we sometimes skated on a stream branch that would freeze. It was at the foot of the schoolyard. We had spelling bees and pie suppers. A girl would decorate a box and fill it with food, usually friend chicken, pickles, potato salad and pie or a cake. The boy would try to figure which box was his girls and bid. Course the old men would run up the bid. That was fun anyway. We went to high school at Walnut Grove. That was a two-story brick school. I played basketball for three years. I also played second violin. I only had group lessons so I wasn't really good, but anyway, I liked being in the orchestra. I also sang in the glee club. When I was small, or growing up, I sang solos at church several times. We had a school bus, but I played basketball and practice was after school so I always walked home. We had showers at school and I like that better than the tub. We always had a lot of company on Sundays. Uncles, aunts and cousins came after church. They always said they came to see Grandpa. I know they did but I'm sure mother's dinners were nice also. We started getting ready on Fridays. We cleaned and scrubbed the whole house. The smaller kids that weren't big enough to help were sent to the bam to play. On Saturday, we baked cakes, made rolls, killed chickens and were sure the white tablecloth and napkins were clean and spotless. Most of the time daddy got ice and we made ice cream. It was a two-gallon hand crank freezer. Mother would slip the kids chicken wings or rolls or something to held us over, as we had to wait until the grownups had eaten before we could eat. They were not in a hurry. When I was a mother, and mother was visiting me she said, "Hazel, your three (children) are more trouble than my whole brood." I was quick to remind her I didn't have a bam to send my kids to. The bam was a great place to play. We had cribs, hay and the loft. It was warm on a chilly day. Most of our entertainment was a school or a church. We had an outhouse and when we had a goat you had to take the broom with you or the goat would butt you. Also, once, we had a big goose that like to peck and we had to take the broom then too.
When I was in grade school, daddy bought a Ford Touring car. He was a terrible driver. I don't think he ever got much better tires and they weren't good at first so we usually had two or three flats whenever we went anywhere. Course then all the roads was gravel or dirt. When I was small, we had straw ticks and feather beds to sleep on. We slept three or four to a bed. In the winter, we had double cotton flannel blankets and we heated irons and wrapped them in towels to warm our feet. The first sunny day, we washed the blankets. Each spring we took up the rugs and hung them on the line and beat them with the broom. We scrubbed the floors and aired the feather beds and changed the staw ticks. I think we got springs and mattresses about the time I started high school. In the spring grandma would start telling daddy to dig up some sassafras roots for tea. She thought our blood needed thinning. Finally, he would go out and dig up the roots and mother would wash and boil the sassafras roots and sweeten it and we all had tea. Mother like hot tea and we often had it with gingerbread and whip cream in the winter. Life was good in those days and if we worried, I didn't know it.
Also, in the spring we would walk on the right of the way by the railroad tracks to pick wild strawberries. They were real sweet. We usually had two big short cakes and lots of whipped cream. Dewberries also grew early. They were real good for cobblers. I like to pick wild greens. Watercress grew wild on the branch and we ate lots of watercress in the early spring. There were plants called curly dock, lambs quarter, wild lettuce and poke. Poke needed to be parboiled before added to the rest. We cooked lots of pinto beans and com bread. We always had milk and eggs. Once during my high school days (during the depression), a lady came to school and all the students were taken to the auditorium. We were told to write down what we had for breakfast. I wrote biscuits, oatmeal and gravy. My sister, Gladys, was a senior that year and came to see what I had written. When she saw what I had written she tore that up and wrote grapefruit, ham, eggs and toast. I had never even tasted a grapefruit. Anyway, I guess the lady thought we had plenty.
We all had chores to do. I was mother's helper. I always liked cooking and taking care of the baby. There was always a baby to rock. I like to rock and sing the baby to sleep and I also got to feed the baby. We fed the babies mashed up potatoes and vegetables. This was called pot lickers. We were all healthy so I guess it didn't hurt us. Of course, I didn't feed my children that way. We had playhouses and played train. The train track ran through our field and my Uncle Ed was a conductor on the train. Sometimes Aunt Mary, his wife, would come down and the train would stop and she would get off. She always brought oranges, bananas or treats. We always waved at all trainmen. I still do. There was a branch on the farm and we went swimming a lot. Sometimes we would boil eggs, roast potatoes, fry crawfish (we called them crawdads) tails and have tomatoes or whatever. If daddy were away, mother would join us. We had a buggy and we would all get in, but one to push us, then jumps on the back of the horse and rides it down the hill. It stopped in the branch. It was fun. We also had a big funeral for every little chicken or turkey that died. We saved matchboxes and covered them with scraps from mother's quilt piecing. We marched two by two to the graveyard and then Lois preached. I was the mourner until mother caught on then I got promoted to the chair. Singing beat crying. When I was probably in the 6th grade, Lois was starting high school and girls were just starting to cut their hair. She wanted her hair cut. Daddy said, "No." Aunt Mary came down and told her she would show her how to wear it so she ratted (now we call that back combing) her hair and put it up. Daddy didn't like that and he told Gladys to get up at night and cut Lois hair off at the neck and not to tell a soul. Well, that was some surprise the next morning when she woke up. Then we went to a big picnic and Gladys won a sack race and got $3.00. She decided she wanted her hair cut too. She offered me $1.00 to cut it off at night. I was afraid and said no. She upped the price to $2.00. I still said no. Finally she argued that Lois got hers cut and nothing happened and she would give me $3.00. So, I cut her hair and then went back to bed and cried. I knew I was in trouble. Well, I had to give her back $1.50 and we both got a whipping with a peach tree limb. There was an old two story house that had a basement that people said was haunted. We called the basement a dungeon when we went by the house. Gladys always wanted me to go in with her. It was said on a still moonlit night you could hear a little girl cry. The tale was a stepmother had killed the little girl and burned her body and now she was a ghost. Sometimes, people said, you could see her. We never went in. Rachel was always so easy going and never got in any trouble. She was the teacher's pet and made real good grades. Once she got to skip a grade and I worried she might catch me. She loved to read and embroidery. One time, during a snowstorm, mother didn't think we should go to school, but Rachel cried and Daddy walked us to school. When Nelson was born we were so thrilled to have a brother. Imagine, seven girls and finally a boy.
Once when he was little I was combing his hair for school and I ask him which side he wanted it parted on. He informed me to stand him toward the henoweth's house and part it toward the Killingsworth house. Daddy was strict about some things. We were taught respect for elders and always say, ''Yes sir." Or "No sir." And "Thank you." He would say, "Stand straight and don't stoop." "Sit with your feet on the floor." "Girls don't cross their legs." "Boys never come to the table without washing their face and hands, or wearing a shirt and combing their hair." Then I grew up. In high school, my junior year, I sometimes had 15 cents for lunch. Hamburgers, cokes and Snicker bars were 5 cents. Snickers and cokes were new then. You could go to a movie at Ash Grove on Wednesday night, two for 1 0 cents. It was called Buddy Night. Lois graduated from Business College in Springfield. Gladys was in nurses training. I was a senior and couldn't buy lunch. But I wasn't the only one. It was the depression and Oklahoma almost blew away. We could see dirt in the air. Sometimes it hid the sun. There was a drought. Our garden dried up and people left by the carload. Several families went to California. We didn't have caps and gowns to wear when I graduated in 1933 from Walnut Grove High School. Some of the teachers were paid with what they called script. We didn't have typewriters in high school. Sex Education classes were unheard of. Women didn't even say the word pregnant. Sometimes a lady might whisper so and so was in the family way. We didn't throw anything away. We saved flour sacks for tea towels, fee sacks for cows. Mother made roller towels with them. If a sheet got worn in the middle, you cut it in half and put the strong side where it was used most. That year we did raise a good crop of turnips. Daddy went west to Idaho and then on to Oregon for work. Eventually we all went west. I wanted to be a beauty operator but that was unheard of. That Thanksgiving mother had quit raising turkeys but daddy told us to start dinner and he would get some meant. He had 21 Shotgun shells and when he returned he had 22 quails.
After WWII, Daddy worked on government projects. He went to Paducah, KY to help build the first atomic plant. Then he went to Kennewick, WA, Minot, North Dakota and an army base in Alaska. After the retired Mother and Daddy got on a Greyhound bus and went to see all of us. At night, they got off and went to a hotel to eat and sleep. They also went on a train ride to Canada. I was glad mothers' days were easier. There is a verse in Hebrews that when I read it I think of mother. It says, in part, "Let us lay aside every weight, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us." To me, that was the essence of my mother's life. I had a boy friend (Joseph Ralph Agan) now and he asked my father if he could buy the old touring car. The car hadn't run in years and some parts were gone. The chickens had been roosting on it. Daddy gave it to him. He pulled it to his house and overhauled the motor and made a truck out of it and started a milk route. I graduated from high school in 1933 and was married to Ralph Agan that October. In December 1944 our son was born (Jack Agan). The doctor bill for delivering Jack was $25.00. He was born at home during a blizzard and my sister, Gladys, who had just became a registered nurse came and stayed seven or eight days with me. When Jack was five weeks old we went in the truck to my husband's parent's house in Oklahoma. When we arrived in Oklahoma we had 15 cents left. My husband did odd jobs until Mark and then he turned 21 years old and was hired by Skelley Oil Company. He built a little two-room house and we had an outhouse in the back and a cowshed. I milked the cow. He always said he didn't know how to milk a cow. We lived there for about two years. Once there was a storm and hour house was turned completely around and swept away about twenty feet. I sat down in the corner and held the baby. The windows blew out and the rain poured in. When it slacked up my father-in-law came and got the baby and me and we went to his house. Ralph's brother, Ed, was married to my best friend, Myrtle. They also had a baby. She took her baby and went next door and the storm blew their house away completely. She was also pregnant and they lost everything. We lived there about three years and then my husband was transferred to Texas.We had a company house, which was a modern two bedroom with one indoor bathroom. I also had a washer and refrigerator. My husband was making about $150.00 a month and we bought a new car for $845.00, a big Ford. Elaine was born in October 1941 in Pampa, Texas. On December 7th of the same year, I was getting ready for church when a neighbor came over and said we were at war. The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. I didn't even know where Pearl Harbor was. We went on vacation to California in May 1942 and stayed. Ralph got a job paying $2.65 an hour with Standard Oil in Richmond, California. The papers were full of news about the war and how they needed women to work. A neighbor woman came over and said if I would go to work she would take real good care of my baby and that would be her contribution to the war effort. I was hired at the shipyard and attended machinist school for six weeks. Then I was sent to work and was assigned to the gun crew. First we cleaned off where the guns were to be put. Then we painted the place deep read. Next we marked and drilled the holes. Then the crane would lower the gun down in place. We placed the guns to match the holes. The guns were then bolted, cleaned, oiled and then covered. We were the last crew to leave the Ship. Two of the ships were turned over to Russia. One had a woman captain. When I first went to work, the boss put me with an old man. He had me to do the drilling and he just squirted the oil. After a week or so, as we were doing out the our, I said, "Today I think I'll squirt the oil and you can run the drill." The boss said, "Hold it!" Then he asked me if I was drilling and I said, ''Yes.'' He then put me with another man and I was his helper for three years. I had four sisters who also worked in the shipyards: Gladys, Edith, Anna Lee and Bernice. My father and brother Nelson also worked at another shipyard. Hazel was Rosie, the Riveter for over three years with her four sisters at Richmond, California during WWII. "The Richmond shipyards produced more ships, faster and better than had ever been done in any time in the history of the world. One Liberty Ship, the Robert E. Peary was built in just over four days, setting a record that has, to this day, never been surpassed." - Elaine Taylor
When we went to San Francisco, the government had rounded up all the Japanese people and put them in a compound. They were not trusted. Some of the men did join the service and fought honorably for our country. It was a mistake to put them in compounds. They lost jobs, home and some lost everything. Anyway, apartments were available and we got an apartment on Haight Street. It was a real nice neighborhood. There was a delicatessen; a market and little shops close by. Later, in the 1960's the 'hippies' took over and it was a disgrace what went on: dope and etc. I got pregnant with Jerry at the end of the war and quit work just before the war ended. We then moved to a pump station near Taft, California and then soon moved to Bakersfield. I wanted to work when Jerry started school, so I decided all I knew was cooking. I got a job cooking in a coffee shop in Greenfield and worked from 10:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. I did that for seven years and then I came in to town and got a job as a cashier and sometimes a waitress. I worked at Stan's Drive In for twelve and a half years and for about nine of these years I was in charge of the dining room. I hired the waitresses, cashiers, bus boys and fountain boys. I kept track of the schedules and their time and the money. I loved my job and I had wonderful bosses.
(Stan's Drive In was a top of the line restaurant and drive-in of the 1950's. Stan's was very popular, especially the drive-in, with teenagers. All of us worked there at one time or another: I was a cashier and waitress, Jack and Jerry worked at the drive in fountain, and Mary Ellen, Jack's wife, was a cashier. Mother made many great friends working there and they still get together and visit over lunch in the 1990's. - Elaine)
Times have sure changed in my lifetime. I remember when Lois' first boyfriend came courting in a buggy. I drove a team of horses and a wagon to the Farm Exchange to get cow feed. I remember the first airplane I ever saw. After the war, women didn't want to stay in the kitchen anymore. They wanted equal rights. Airplanes were the way to go anywhere. Everyone could work. We all got new cars, new furniture and women did their own thing. I think of when I was first married and a lady wrote a column in the newspaper. Her name was Dorothy Dix. She said if a man was straying, it was the women' fault. A wife should always keep a clean house, have meals on time and before a man came home from work, take thirty minutes to bathe, put on a clean dress, fix your hair and have the children clean and well behaved. If you have a problem that day, wait until after dinner and then say you need to talk to him. If you disagreed about something and it was your fault, apologize. If you really thought it was his fault, say I'm sorry we quarreled. Then he would have a chance to say he was sorry. Well, I tried. These were the days before Ann Landers and Dear Abby. Now I look at these young fathers and I'm so proud of them. They are such good husbands and fathers. They share the load. I met my second husband, Lester Woodrow Garrett when I first went to work after Jerry started Kindergarten. I cooked at a a truck stop from 10p.m. to 6:00 a.m. for seven years. Les was working for a water well driller. The men met there. He didn't drink coffee so he would always put a nickel in the machine and say "I'll playa tune for the cook." I didn't know his name and he didn't even know me. One night it was real foggy and he stayed. We tallied a little and he told me his oldest daughter had run away from home. I never talked to him again for 4 or 5 years. I always wondered if he found her and felt bad about it. Several years later he came in to Stan's where I worked, he was alone and I asked him why he was out without his wife? He said they were separated. I said I had just left my husband a month ago. He asked me to have coffee with him and I said I can't because I have two children at home and need to get home. He said just have coffee. Well I did and then he told me where he lived and it was just a block from me. A night or two later Elaine called me at work. Jerry and her were having a fight and both were crying. We were so busy at work I couldn't go home and I didn't know what to do so I called Les and said would he go down and see about my kids. He did and he started walking down often to see if they were okay. He asked me to go to the coast on our day off so we took all the kids. The next thing I knew we were a couple. He always treated my children just as if they were his own. We were married 33 years when he died. He always enjoyed our family reunions and I think he only missed one. In the late 70's, Atlantic Richfield made a lot of changes. They sold a lot of their operations and sent our forms to the workers to take overseas jobs. Les said he wouldn't work overseas. He was retiring. Earlier, we had bought a 74 acre farm in Kentucky. In January of 1979, we both quit our jobs and with a truck of furniture and me driving the car we headed to Kentucky. I really didn't want to leave Bakersfield. I tried to persuade Lester to buy a pie shop, or a place in Oregon, but as far as he was concerned, there was no place like Kentucky. At first we ere so busy: we had a house built, a water well dug, bought 12 cows, 23 (three day Old) calves, a tractor and tools. So, I was busy all the time. We had lots of company. We loved having the family visit and the grandchildren loved the farm. Les was a gardener so I canned and froze, and cooked and ate. We both gained a lot of weight. I wanted to do all the things I never got to do working six days a week and split shifts. I went to church every Sunday, joined Eastern Star and Home Makers. I was worthy matron in Eastern Star for three years. I went to Grand Chapter one year. I was a hostess and one year a page. I really enjoyed the things I never got to do before. I even got hooked on a soap opera for a while. I worked around "Days of Our Life" for awhile. We also killed a steer every year so I have lots to cook. I missed the grandchildren and decided to keep small children. I had a little boy for one year and then I got a baby girl and had her for 12 years. She loved the farm and the stock, birds, chickens, and our dog. She never wanted to go home. So we became real fond of her. She was like one of the family. I also thought a lot of her parents. Her father did a lot for me after Les died. The grandchildren really enjoyed the farm and we enjoyed having them visit. Julie, Beth and Cindy spent three summers with us. Julie started kindergarten there and I drove a car and picked up four children one week a month. They loved the animals and every child had to gather the eggs some. They enjoyed the dog, cat and all the animals. Brent and Mark came two summers and they had BB guns, (so watch out all). I told them my cat didn't come up for three days after they left. Jack, Mary Ellen and family came from Louisiana one summer. We had a wagon and two horses that summer and every grandchild drove the wagon and target practiced. Gail had a guitar then and sit in the field and played and sang. One summer they came from Pittsburg and Marion brought her boyfriend. We always enjoyed having everyone. Food wasn't a problem as we killed a steer every year and Les always had a huge garden. I always canned and froze lots of vegetables and fruit. Les was so healthy for several years. He did anything he wanted to do. We had wonderful neighbors and enjoyed their company. His family came often to visit. Kentucky was a comfortable and relaxing place. We lived in a dry county and nearly every one went to church. The sound is called the bible belt. I'm sure there was crime there, but I didn't know it. The traffic isn't any thing like here. They cater to senior citizens. In that part of Kentucky a lot of retired people live there. I never learned how to pump gas. They always did it for older people. The high light of our life in Kentucky was my family reunions. I always knew we were going. Our reunions have always been so special and I love being with all my family. I love them all. Our reunions are a special time.
The one in Payson, Arizona when we had the fire was scary. Les was sick and never recovered. He was a true gentleman and though women were special and always treated each as a lady. After he died I sold the place and moved back to Bakersfield. I went to the desert 5 or 6 times with my sister Bernice and her husband Jim. It was fun. We did all the things: swim, hot tub, read, walk and went to Yuma, Arizona and old Mexico. It was great. My sister Rachel and her husband, Vernon, were there also and some times my brothers Robert and Nelson and their wives Nell and Shirley joined us. Those were great times. I liked living close to all the family, doing birthdays, Christmas and get togethers. I hope I live to the year 2000. Great things are happening. I never thought I was under privileged or mistreated. I love life and all my family. I'm blessed with the best family in the world. We have a family reunion every two years and have 80 - 100 people there for three days. I have fun with my sisters and brothers and all my family. My children are exceptionable, my grandchildren, as well, and the great grand children are super. I have friends and have been blessed with fairly good health. I have had some problems and I have made mistakes, but God has been good to me. My love to all,
Hazel May Cauble Agan Garrett
I dedicate this to my great-grandchildren by
Hazel May Cauble Agan Garrett December 2, 1997 I was born November 9, 1915, on a farm near Walnut Grove, Missouri. I was the third daughter of twelve children born to Arthur and Edna Cauble. One baby died in infancy. Lois Johnson is the oldest. She is 82 years old. We lost one sister, Gladys Laura Raef two years ago. She was 82 years old. My other brothers and sisters are all in good health.
We were all, but the youngest, born in the same house that our father was born in. Grandpa and Grandma lived there also. Grandpa was a Civil War veteran. He fought on the Union side and was injured in battle. He carried a bullet in his leg until his death at 86 years old. He was a tall man and when he was older he had snow-white hair and a long white beard. He always wore a white shirt and dress pants. He was well liked and a fine gentleman. Grandma was a small lady and had a temper. Her maiden name was Lee. She claimed to be related to Robert E. Lee. Later my brother and his wife Shirley spent many hours and a great deal of money to see if this was true but they couldn't find her birth record and this remains unproven. We lived on a farm and raised most of our food. We always had a huge garden and canned lots of food for winter. We canned green beans, tomatoes, kraut, pickles and lots of wild blackberries. We picked wild grapes and gooseberries for jelly. We also had an apple orchard and a pear tree. We made lots of apple butter. We raised chickens, turkeys, geese, hogs, cows, horses and sometimes sheep, a goat and a pony. We usually had twelve to fifteen jersey cows and sold milk and sometimes calves. We churned sweet cream for butter and made cottage cheese. As a child, I liked to make cottage cheese. Here's how we would make cottage cheese. You put milk that had just started to sour (clabber) on the back of the stove. In two or more hours the curd would form and leave the whey. We put the curd in a clean flour sack and hung it on the clothesline to drip. Then we added sweet cream, salt and pepper and you have cottage cheese. Around Thanksgiving we would kill hogs. That was a big job. We had sausage to make, lard to render and the ham, shoulders and bacon to salt down. Later it needed to be smoked with hickory smoke. We used the lard for all cooking. We saved the cracklings for com bread and we ate the cracklings like potato chips, as kids do now. Soap was made from old grease. We saved all the old grease and when we had 2 gallons or so we'd strain it so the soap would be white. Then we added two cans of lye and made soap. You made it in an enamel pan. We used that for washing dishes and clothes. We bought Palmolive soap for baths, face and hands. We had two tin tubs and everyone bathed in the tubs. Baths began with the youngest child, three or four at a time, then the next and so forth until everyone had a bath. Water was something we had plenty of. The older children went to the smoke house to bath. We cooked and heated with wood. We had kerosene lamps. At night we would sit around the table to do homework. The older children would help the younger children. We also were on a party line for the telephone. Our ring was one long and two shorts. There were six or seven families on the same line. Neighbors would sometimes listen in on all rings. Mother wouldn't allow us to do that. My mother was a fine lady. She never gossiped or criticized anyone. She was a wonderful cook. I can still see her coconut cakes. We had two springs. One big spring was near the house. The water was real cold and it never ran dry. We had a big iron kettle near the spring, under a big tree. This was where we did the washing. We rubbed the clothes on a washboard. The white clothes had to be boiled in a big kettle then rubbed again and rinsed twice before hanging them on me line. Monday was wash day. We were supposed to hang clothes just right: tea towels in a row, sheets and pillowslips in a row (no tea towels in that row). Then you would hang socks or something else. Everything had to be hung just right. The second spring was smaller and a little farther off. We had a box that we put the milk and butter in.
The spring kept things real cold. Before a meal daddy would send one of us for milk and butter but before we had time to get back, he would send another child to look for the first child he had sent to the spring and the in a minute or so another one of us was sent to look for both children he had already sent to the spring. My sister, Gladys, would sit down and wait awhile. Gladys was daddy's pet and I think this amused him. Another thing about daddy. No one could touch the paper until he was through ready it. Sometimes he would call mother in and read her an outrageous story. When we got the paper, we would hunt and hunt for that outrageous story. We finally wised up to that trick. Another thing he did was in the spring he would cut a hickory limb and make a whistle. We went to a country school. It was a two-room schoolhouse. The first room was for first through fourth grades. The big room was for fourth through eighth grades. The teacher would have eight or ten chairs in a half circle and teach a grade and then send them back to their seats and call up another grade. Two students had to sit in one desk. We had inkwells in the big room. Once we had a teacher that carried a leather strap and if you whispered or wasn't studying, he would strap you. We played baseball, drop the handkerchief and crack the whip. In the winter we sometimes skated on a stream branch that would freeze. It was at the foot of the schoolyard. We had spelling bees and pie suppers. A girl would decorate a box and fill it with food, usually friend chicken, pickles, potato salad and pie or a cake. The boy would try to figure which box was his girls and bid. Course the old men would run up the bid. That was fun anyway. We went to high school at Walnut Grove. That was a two-story brick school. I played basketball for three years. I also played second violin. I only had group lessons so I wasn't really good, but anyway, I liked being in the orchestra. I also sang in the glee club. When I was small, or growing up, I sang solos at church several times. We had a school bus, but I played basketball and practice was after school so I always walked home. We had showers at school and I like that better than the tub. We always had a lot of company on Sundays. Uncles, aunts and cousins came after church. They always said they came to see Grandpa. I know they did but I'm sure mother's dinners were nice also. We started getting ready on Fridays. We cleaned and scrubbed the whole house. The smaller kids that weren't big enough to help were sent to the bam to play. On Saturday, we baked cakes, made rolls, killed chickens and were sure the white tablecloth and napkins were clean and spotless. Most of the time daddy got ice and we made ice cream. It was a two-gallon hand crank freezer. Mother would slip the kids chicken wings or rolls or something to held us over, as we had to wait until the grownups had eaten before we could eat. They were not in a hurry. When I was a mother, and mother was visiting me she said, "Hazel, your three (children) are more trouble than my whole brood." I was quick to remind her I didn't have a bam to send my kids to. The bam was a great place to play. We had cribs, hay and the loft. It was warm on a chilly day. Most of our entertainment was a school or a church. We had an outhouse and when we had a goat you had to take the broom with you or the goat would butt you. Also, once, we had a big goose that like to peck and we had to take the broom then too.
When I was in grade school, daddy bought a Ford Touring car. He was a terrible driver. I don't think he ever got much better tires and they weren't good at first so we usually had two or three flats whenever we went anywhere. Course then all the roads was gravel or dirt. When I was small, we had straw ticks and feather beds to sleep on. We slept three or four to a bed. In the winter, we had double cotton flannel blankets and we heated irons and wrapped them in towels to warm our feet. The first sunny day, we washed the blankets. Each spring we took up the rugs and hung them on the line and beat them with the broom. We scrubbed the floors and aired the feather beds and changed the staw ticks. I think we got springs and mattresses about the time I started high school. In the spring grandma would start telling daddy to dig up some sassafras roots for tea. She thought our blood needed thinning. Finally, he would go out and dig up the roots and mother would wash and boil the sassafras roots and sweeten it and we all had tea. Mother like hot tea and we often had it with gingerbread and whip cream in the winter. Life was good in those days and if we worried, I didn't know it.
Also, in the spring we would walk on the right of the way by the railroad tracks to pick wild strawberries. They were real sweet. We usually had two big short cakes and lots of whipped cream. Dewberries also grew early. They were real good for cobblers. I like to pick wild greens. Watercress grew wild on the branch and we ate lots of watercress in the early spring. There were plants called curly dock, lambs quarter, wild lettuce and poke. Poke needed to be parboiled before added to the rest. We cooked lots of pinto beans and com bread. We always had milk and eggs. Once during my high school days (during the depression), a lady came to school and all the students were taken to the auditorium. We were told to write down what we had for breakfast. I wrote biscuits, oatmeal and gravy. My sister, Gladys, was a senior that year and came to see what I had written. When she saw what I had written she tore that up and wrote grapefruit, ham, eggs and toast. I had never even tasted a grapefruit. Anyway, I guess the lady thought we had plenty.
We all had chores to do. I was mother's helper. I always liked cooking and taking care of the baby. There was always a baby to rock. I like to rock and sing the baby to sleep and I also got to feed the baby. We fed the babies mashed up potatoes and vegetables. This was called pot lickers. We were all healthy so I guess it didn't hurt us. Of course, I didn't feed my children that way. We had playhouses and played train. The train track ran through our field and my Uncle Ed was a conductor on the train. Sometimes Aunt Mary, his wife, would come down and the train would stop and she would get off. She always brought oranges, bananas or treats. We always waved at all trainmen. I still do. There was a branch on the farm and we went swimming a lot. Sometimes we would boil eggs, roast potatoes, fry crawfish (we called them crawdads) tails and have tomatoes or whatever. If daddy were away, mother would join us. We had a buggy and we would all get in, but one to push us, then jumps on the back of the horse and rides it down the hill. It stopped in the branch. It was fun. We also had a big funeral for every little chicken or turkey that died. We saved matchboxes and covered them with scraps from mother's quilt piecing. We marched two by two to the graveyard and then Lois preached. I was the mourner until mother caught on then I got promoted to the chair. Singing beat crying. When I was probably in the 6th grade, Lois was starting high school and girls were just starting to cut their hair. She wanted her hair cut. Daddy said, "No." Aunt Mary came down and told her she would show her how to wear it so she ratted (now we call that back combing) her hair and put it up. Daddy didn't like that and he told Gladys to get up at night and cut Lois hair off at the neck and not to tell a soul. Well, that was some surprise the next morning when she woke up. Then we went to a big picnic and Gladys won a sack race and got $3.00. She decided she wanted her hair cut too. She offered me $1.00 to cut it off at night. I was afraid and said no. She upped the price to $2.00. I still said no. Finally she argued that Lois got hers cut and nothing happened and she would give me $3.00. So, I cut her hair and then went back to bed and cried. I knew I was in trouble. Well, I had to give her back $1.50 and we both got a whipping with a peach tree limb. There was an old two story house that had a basement that people said was haunted. We called the basement a dungeon when we went by the house. Gladys always wanted me to go in with her. It was said on a still moonlit night you could hear a little girl cry. The tale was a stepmother had killed the little girl and burned her body and now she was a ghost. Sometimes, people said, you could see her. We never went in. Rachel was always so easy going and never got in any trouble. She was the teacher's pet and made real good grades. Once she got to skip a grade and I worried she might catch me. She loved to read and embroidery. One time, during a snowstorm, mother didn't think we should go to school, but Rachel cried and Daddy walked us to school. When Nelson was born we were so thrilled to have a brother. Imagine, seven girls and finally a boy.
Once when he was little I was combing his hair for school and I ask him which side he wanted it parted on. He informed me to stand him toward the henoweth's house and part it toward the Killingsworth house. Daddy was strict about some things. We were taught respect for elders and always say, ''Yes sir." Or "No sir." And "Thank you." He would say, "Stand straight and don't stoop." "Sit with your feet on the floor." "Girls don't cross their legs." "Boys never come to the table without washing their face and hands, or wearing a shirt and combing their hair." Then I grew up. In high school, my junior year, I sometimes had 15 cents for lunch. Hamburgers, cokes and Snicker bars were 5 cents. Snickers and cokes were new then. You could go to a movie at Ash Grove on Wednesday night, two for 1 0 cents. It was called Buddy Night. Lois graduated from Business College in Springfield. Gladys was in nurses training. I was a senior and couldn't buy lunch. But I wasn't the only one. It was the depression and Oklahoma almost blew away. We could see dirt in the air. Sometimes it hid the sun. There was a drought. Our garden dried up and people left by the carload. Several families went to California. We didn't have caps and gowns to wear when I graduated in 1933 from Walnut Grove High School. Some of the teachers were paid with what they called script. We didn't have typewriters in high school. Sex Education classes were unheard of. Women didn't even say the word pregnant. Sometimes a lady might whisper so and so was in the family way. We didn't throw anything away. We saved flour sacks for tea towels, fee sacks for cows. Mother made roller towels with them. If a sheet got worn in the middle, you cut it in half and put the strong side where it was used most. That year we did raise a good crop of turnips. Daddy went west to Idaho and then on to Oregon for work. Eventually we all went west. I wanted to be a beauty operator but that was unheard of. That Thanksgiving mother had quit raising turkeys but daddy told us to start dinner and he would get some meant. He had 21 Shotgun shells and when he returned he had 22 quails.
After WWII, Daddy worked on government projects. He went to Paducah, KY to help build the first atomic plant. Then he went to Kennewick, WA, Minot, North Dakota and an army base in Alaska. After the retired Mother and Daddy got on a Greyhound bus and went to see all of us. At night, they got off and went to a hotel to eat and sleep. They also went on a train ride to Canada. I was glad mothers' days were easier. There is a verse in Hebrews that when I read it I think of mother. It says, in part, "Let us lay aside every weight, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us." To me, that was the essence of my mother's life. I had a boy friend (Joseph Ralph Agan) now and he asked my father if he could buy the old touring car. The car hadn't run in years and some parts were gone. The chickens had been roosting on it. Daddy gave it to him. He pulled it to his house and overhauled the motor and made a truck out of it and started a milk route. I graduated from high school in 1933 and was married to Ralph Agan that October. In December 1944 our son was born (Jack Agan). The doctor bill for delivering Jack was $25.00. He was born at home during a blizzard and my sister, Gladys, who had just became a registered nurse came and stayed seven or eight days with me. When Jack was five weeks old we went in the truck to my husband's parent's house in Oklahoma. When we arrived in Oklahoma we had 15 cents left. My husband did odd jobs until Mark and then he turned 21 years old and was hired by Skelley Oil Company. He built a little two-room house and we had an outhouse in the back and a cowshed. I milked the cow. He always said he didn't know how to milk a cow. We lived there for about two years. Once there was a storm and hour house was turned completely around and swept away about twenty feet. I sat down in the corner and held the baby. The windows blew out and the rain poured in. When it slacked up my father-in-law came and got the baby and me and we went to his house. Ralph's brother, Ed, was married to my best friend, Myrtle. They also had a baby. She took her baby and went next door and the storm blew their house away completely. She was also pregnant and they lost everything. We lived there about three years and then my husband was transferred to Texas.We had a company house, which was a modern two bedroom with one indoor bathroom. I also had a washer and refrigerator. My husband was making about $150.00 a month and we bought a new car for $845.00, a big Ford. Elaine was born in October 1941 in Pampa, Texas. On December 7th of the same year, I was getting ready for church when a neighbor came over and said we were at war. The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. I didn't even know where Pearl Harbor was. We went on vacation to California in May 1942 and stayed. Ralph got a job paying $2.65 an hour with Standard Oil in Richmond, California. The papers were full of news about the war and how they needed women to work. A neighbor woman came over and said if I would go to work she would take real good care of my baby and that would be her contribution to the war effort. I was hired at the shipyard and attended machinist school for six weeks. Then I was sent to work and was assigned to the gun crew. First we cleaned off where the guns were to be put. Then we painted the place deep read. Next we marked and drilled the holes. Then the crane would lower the gun down in place. We placed the guns to match the holes. The guns were then bolted, cleaned, oiled and then covered. We were the last crew to leave the Ship. Two of the ships were turned over to Russia. One had a woman captain. When I first went to work, the boss put me with an old man. He had me to do the drilling and he just squirted the oil. After a week or so, as we were doing out the our, I said, "Today I think I'll squirt the oil and you can run the drill." The boss said, "Hold it!" Then he asked me if I was drilling and I said, ''Yes.'' He then put me with another man and I was his helper for three years. I had four sisters who also worked in the shipyards: Gladys, Edith, Anna Lee and Bernice. My father and brother Nelson also worked at another shipyard. Hazel was Rosie, the Riveter for over three years with her four sisters at Richmond, California during WWII. "The Richmond shipyards produced more ships, faster and better than had ever been done in any time in the history of the world. One Liberty Ship, the Robert E. Peary was built in just over four days, setting a record that has, to this day, never been surpassed." - Elaine Taylor
When we went to San Francisco, the government had rounded up all the Japanese people and put them in a compound. They were not trusted. Some of the men did join the service and fought honorably for our country. It was a mistake to put them in compounds. They lost jobs, home and some lost everything. Anyway, apartments were available and we got an apartment on Haight Street. It was a real nice neighborhood. There was a delicatessen; a market and little shops close by. Later, in the 1960's the 'hippies' took over and it was a disgrace what went on: dope and etc. I got pregnant with Jerry at the end of the war and quit work just before the war ended. We then moved to a pump station near Taft, California and then soon moved to Bakersfield. I wanted to work when Jerry started school, so I decided all I knew was cooking. I got a job cooking in a coffee shop in Greenfield and worked from 10:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. I did that for seven years and then I came in to town and got a job as a cashier and sometimes a waitress. I worked at Stan's Drive In for twelve and a half years and for about nine of these years I was in charge of the dining room. I hired the waitresses, cashiers, bus boys and fountain boys. I kept track of the schedules and their time and the money. I loved my job and I had wonderful bosses.
(Stan's Drive In was a top of the line restaurant and drive-in of the 1950's. Stan's was very popular, especially the drive-in, with teenagers. All of us worked there at one time or another: I was a cashier and waitress, Jack and Jerry worked at the drive in fountain, and Mary Ellen, Jack's wife, was a cashier. Mother made many great friends working there and they still get together and visit over lunch in the 1990's. - Elaine)
Times have sure changed in my lifetime. I remember when Lois' first boyfriend came courting in a buggy. I drove a team of horses and a wagon to the Farm Exchange to get cow feed. I remember the first airplane I ever saw. After the war, women didn't want to stay in the kitchen anymore. They wanted equal rights. Airplanes were the way to go anywhere. Everyone could work. We all got new cars, new furniture and women did their own thing. I think of when I was first married and a lady wrote a column in the newspaper. Her name was Dorothy Dix. She said if a man was straying, it was the women' fault. A wife should always keep a clean house, have meals on time and before a man came home from work, take thirty minutes to bathe, put on a clean dress, fix your hair and have the children clean and well behaved. If you have a problem that day, wait until after dinner and then say you need to talk to him. If you disagreed about something and it was your fault, apologize. If you really thought it was his fault, say I'm sorry we quarreled. Then he would have a chance to say he was sorry. Well, I tried. These were the days before Ann Landers and Dear Abby. Now I look at these young fathers and I'm so proud of them. They are such good husbands and fathers. They share the load. I met my second husband, Lester Woodrow Garrett when I first went to work after Jerry started Kindergarten. I cooked at a a truck stop from 10p.m. to 6:00 a.m. for seven years. Les was working for a water well driller. The men met there. He didn't drink coffee so he would always put a nickel in the machine and say "I'll playa tune for the cook." I didn't know his name and he didn't even know me. One night it was real foggy and he stayed. We tallied a little and he told me his oldest daughter had run away from home. I never talked to him again for 4 or 5 years. I always wondered if he found her and felt bad about it. Several years later he came in to Stan's where I worked, he was alone and I asked him why he was out without his wife? He said they were separated. I said I had just left my husband a month ago. He asked me to have coffee with him and I said I can't because I have two children at home and need to get home. He said just have coffee. Well I did and then he told me where he lived and it was just a block from me. A night or two later Elaine called me at work. Jerry and her were having a fight and both were crying. We were so busy at work I couldn't go home and I didn't know what to do so I called Les and said would he go down and see about my kids. He did and he started walking down often to see if they were okay. He asked me to go to the coast on our day off so we took all the kids. The next thing I knew we were a couple. He always treated my children just as if they were his own. We were married 33 years when he died. He always enjoyed our family reunions and I think he only missed one. In the late 70's, Atlantic Richfield made a lot of changes. They sold a lot of their operations and sent our forms to the workers to take overseas jobs. Les said he wouldn't work overseas. He was retiring. Earlier, we had bought a 74 acre farm in Kentucky. In January of 1979, we both quit our jobs and with a truck of furniture and me driving the car we headed to Kentucky. I really didn't want to leave Bakersfield. I tried to persuade Lester to buy a pie shop, or a place in Oregon, but as far as he was concerned, there was no place like Kentucky. At first we ere so busy: we had a house built, a water well dug, bought 12 cows, 23 (three day Old) calves, a tractor and tools. So, I was busy all the time. We had lots of company. We loved having the family visit and the grandchildren loved the farm. Les was a gardener so I canned and froze, and cooked and ate. We both gained a lot of weight. I wanted to do all the things I never got to do working six days a week and split shifts. I went to church every Sunday, joined Eastern Star and Home Makers. I was worthy matron in Eastern Star for three years. I went to Grand Chapter one year. I was a hostess and one year a page. I really enjoyed the things I never got to do before. I even got hooked on a soap opera for a while. I worked around "Days of Our Life" for awhile. We also killed a steer every year so I have lots to cook. I missed the grandchildren and decided to keep small children. I had a little boy for one year and then I got a baby girl and had her for 12 years. She loved the farm and the stock, birds, chickens, and our dog. She never wanted to go home. So we became real fond of her. She was like one of the family. I also thought a lot of her parents. Her father did a lot for me after Les died. The grandchildren really enjoyed the farm and we enjoyed having them visit. Julie, Beth and Cindy spent three summers with us. Julie started kindergarten there and I drove a car and picked up four children one week a month. They loved the animals and every child had to gather the eggs some. They enjoyed the dog, cat and all the animals. Brent and Mark came two summers and they had BB guns, (so watch out all). I told them my cat didn't come up for three days after they left. Jack, Mary Ellen and family came from Louisiana one summer. We had a wagon and two horses that summer and every grandchild drove the wagon and target practiced. Gail had a guitar then and sit in the field and played and sang. One summer they came from Pittsburg and Marion brought her boyfriend. We always enjoyed having everyone. Food wasn't a problem as we killed a steer every year and Les always had a huge garden. I always canned and froze lots of vegetables and fruit. Les was so healthy for several years. He did anything he wanted to do. We had wonderful neighbors and enjoyed their company. His family came often to visit. Kentucky was a comfortable and relaxing place. We lived in a dry county and nearly every one went to church. The sound is called the bible belt. I'm sure there was crime there, but I didn't know it. The traffic isn't any thing like here. They cater to senior citizens. In that part of Kentucky a lot of retired people live there. I never learned how to pump gas. They always did it for older people. The high light of our life in Kentucky was my family reunions. I always knew we were going. Our reunions have always been so special and I love being with all my family. I love them all. Our reunions are a special time.
The one in Payson, Arizona when we had the fire was scary. Les was sick and never recovered. He was a true gentleman and though women were special and always treated each as a lady. After he died I sold the place and moved back to Bakersfield. I went to the desert 5 or 6 times with my sister Bernice and her husband Jim. It was fun. We did all the things: swim, hot tub, read, walk and went to Yuma, Arizona and old Mexico. It was great. My sister Rachel and her husband, Vernon, were there also and some times my brothers Robert and Nelson and their wives Nell and Shirley joined us. Those were great times. I liked living close to all the family, doing birthdays, Christmas and get togethers. I hope I live to the year 2000. Great things are happening. I never thought I was under privileged or mistreated. I love life and all my family. I'm blessed with the best family in the world. We have a family reunion every two years and have 80 - 100 people there for three days. I have fun with my sisters and brothers and all my family. My children are exceptionable, my grandchildren, as well, and the great grand children are super. I have friends and have been blessed with fairly good health. I have had some problems and I have made mistakes, but God has been good to me. My love to all,
Hazel May Cauble Agan Garrett
Hazel May Cauble Agan Garrett December 2, 1997 I was born November 9, 1915, on a farm near Walnut Grove, Missouri. I was the third daughter of twelve children born to Arthur and Edna Cauble. One baby died in infancy. Lois Johnson is the oldest. She is 82 years old. We lost one sister, Gladys Laura Raef two years ago. She was 82 years old. My other brothers and sisters are all in good health.
We were all, but the youngest, born in the same house that our father was born in. Grandpa and Grandma lived there also. Grandpa was a Civil War veteran. He fought on the Union side and was injured in battle. He carried a bullet in his leg until his death at 86 years old. He was a tall man and when he was older he had snow-white hair and a long white beard. He always wore a white shirt and dress pants. He was well liked and a fine gentleman. Grandma was a small lady and had a temper. Her maiden name was Lee. She claimed to be related to Robert E. Lee. Later my brother and his wife Shirley spent many hours and a great deal of money to see if this was true but they couldn't find her birth record and this remains unproven. We lived on a farm and raised most of our food. We always had a huge garden and canned lots of food for winter. We canned green beans, tomatoes, kraut, pickles and lots of wild blackberries. We picked wild grapes and gooseberries for jelly. We also had an apple orchard and a pear tree. We made lots of apple butter. We raised chickens, turkeys, geese, hogs, cows, horses and sometimes sheep, a goat and a pony. We usually had twelve to fifteen jersey cows and sold milk and sometimes calves. We churned sweet cream for butter and made cottage cheese. As a child, I liked to make cottage cheese. Here's how we would make cottage cheese. You put milk that had just started to sour (clabber) on the back of the stove. In two or more hours the curd would form and leave the whey. We put the curd in a clean flour sack and hung it on the clothesline to drip. Then we added sweet cream, salt and pepper and you have cottage cheese. Around Thanksgiving we would kill hogs. That was a big job. We had sausage to make, lard to render and the ham, shoulders and bacon to salt down. Later it needed to be smoked with hickory smoke. We used the lard for all cooking. We saved the cracklings for com bread and we ate the cracklings like potato chips, as kids do now. Soap was made from old grease. We saved all the old grease and when we had 2 gallons or so we'd strain it so the soap would be white. Then we added two cans of lye and made soap. You made it in an enamel pan. We used that for washing dishes and clothes. We bought Palmolive soap for baths, face and hands. We had two tin tubs and everyone bathed in the tubs. Baths began with the youngest child, three or four at a time, then the next and so forth until everyone had a bath. Water was something we had plenty of. The older children went to the smoke house to bath. We cooked and heated with wood. We had kerosene lamps. At night we would sit around the table to do homework. The older children would help the younger children. We also were on a party line for the telephone. Our ring was one long and two shorts. There were six or seven families on the same line. Neighbors would sometimes listen in on all rings. Mother wouldn't allow us to do that. My mother was a fine lady. She never gossiped or criticized anyone. She was a wonderful cook. I can still see her coconut cakes. We had two springs. One big spring was near the house. The water was real cold and it never ran dry. We had a big iron kettle near the spring, under a big tree. This was where we did the washing. We rubbed the clothes on a washboard. The white clothes had to be boiled in a big kettle then rubbed again and rinsed twice before hanging them on me line. Monday was wash day. We were supposed to hang clothes just right: tea towels in a row, sheets and pillowslips in a row (no tea towels in that row). Then you would hang socks or something else. Everything had to be hung just right. The second spring was smaller and a little farther off. We had a box that we put the milk and butter in.
The spring kept things real cold. Before a meal daddy would send one of us for milk and butter but before we had time to get back, he would send another child to look for the first child he had sent to the spring and the in a minute or so another one of us was sent to look for both children he had already sent to the spring. My sister, Gladys, would sit down and wait awhile. Gladys was daddy's pet and I think this amused him. Another thing about daddy. No one could touch the paper until he was through ready it. Sometimes he would call mother in and read her an outrageous story. When we got the paper, we would hunt and hunt for that outrageous story. We finally wised up to that trick. Another thing he did was in the spring he would cut a hickory limb and make a whistle. We went to a country school. It was a two-room schoolhouse. The first room was for first through fourth grades. The big room was for fourth through eighth grades. The teacher would have eight or ten chairs in a half circle and teach a grade and then send them back to their seats and call up another grade. Two students had to sit in one desk. We had inkwells in the big room. Once we had a teacher that carried a leather strap and if you whispered or wasn't studying, he would strap you. We played baseball, drop the handkerchief and crack the whip. In the winter we sometimes skated on a stream branch that would freeze. It was at the foot of the schoolyard. We had spelling bees and pie suppers. A girl would decorate a box and fill it with food, usually friend chicken, pickles, potato salad and pie or a cake. The boy would try to figure which box was his girls and bid. Course the old men would run up the bid. That was fun anyway. We went to high school at Walnut Grove. That was a two-story brick school. I played basketball for three years. I also played second violin. I only had group lessons so I wasn't really good, but anyway, I liked being in the orchestra. I also sang in the glee club. When I was small, or growing up, I sang solos at church several times. We had a school bus, but I played basketball and practice was after school so I always walked home. We had showers at school and I like that better than the tub. We always had a lot of company on Sundays. Uncles, aunts and cousins came after church. They always said they came to see Grandpa. I know they did but I'm sure mother's dinners were nice also. We started getting ready on Fridays. We cleaned and scrubbed the whole house. The smaller kids that weren't big enough to help were sent to the bam to play. On Saturday, we baked cakes, made rolls, killed chickens and were sure the white tablecloth and napkins were clean and spotless. Most of the time daddy got ice and we made ice cream. It was a two-gallon hand crank freezer. Mother would slip the kids chicken wings or rolls or something to held us over, as we had to wait until the grownups had eaten before we could eat. They were not in a hurry. When I was a mother, and mother was visiting me she said, "Hazel, your three (children) are more trouble than my whole brood." I was quick to remind her I didn't have a bam to send my kids to. The bam was a great place to play. We had cribs, hay and the loft. It was warm on a chilly day. Most of our entertainment was a school or a church. We had an outhouse and when we had a goat you had to take the broom with you or the goat would butt you. Also, once, we had a big goose that like to peck and we had to take the broom then too.
When I was in grade school, daddy bought a Ford Touring car. He was a terrible driver. I don't think he ever got much better tires and they weren't good at first so we usually had two or three flats whenever we went anywhere. Course then all the roads was gravel or dirt. When I was small, we had straw ticks and feather beds to sleep on. We slept three or four to a bed. In the winter, we had double cotton flannel blankets and we heated irons and wrapped them in towels to warm our feet. The first sunny day, we washed the blankets. Each spring we took up the rugs and hung them on the line and beat them with the broom. We scrubbed the floors and aired the feather beds and changed the staw ticks. I think we got springs and mattresses about the time I started high school. In the spring grandma would start telling daddy to dig up some sassafras roots for tea. She thought our blood needed thinning. Finally, he would go out and dig up the roots and mother would wash and boil the sassafras roots and sweeten it and we all had tea. Mother like hot tea and we often had it with gingerbread and whip cream in the winter. Life was good in those days and if we worried, I didn't know it.
Also, in the spring we would walk on the right of the way by the railroad tracks to pick wild strawberries. They were real sweet. We usually had two big short cakes and lots of whipped cream. Dewberries also grew early. They were real good for cobblers. I like to pick wild greens. Watercress grew wild on the branch and we ate lots of watercress in the early spring. There were plants called curly dock, lambs quarter, wild lettuce and poke. Poke needed to be parboiled before added to the rest. We cooked lots of pinto beans and com bread. We always had milk and eggs. Once during my high school days (during the depression), a lady came to school and all the students were taken to the auditorium. We were told to write down what we had for breakfast. I wrote biscuits, oatmeal and gravy. My sister, Gladys, was a senior that year and came to see what I had written. When she saw what I had written she tore that up and wrote grapefruit, ham, eggs and toast. I had never even tasted a grapefruit. Anyway, I guess the lady thought we had plenty.
We all had chores to do. I was mother's helper. I always liked cooking and taking care of the baby. There was always a baby to rock. I like to rock and sing the baby to sleep and I also got to feed the baby. We fed the babies mashed up potatoes and vegetables. This was called pot lickers. We were all healthy so I guess it didn't hurt us. Of course, I didn't feed my children that way. We had playhouses and played train. The train track ran through our field and my Uncle Ed was a conductor on the train. Sometimes Aunt Mary, his wife, would come down and the train would stop and she would get off. She always brought oranges, bananas or treats. We always waved at all trainmen. I still do. There was a branch on the farm and we went swimming a lot. Sometimes we would boil eggs, roast potatoes, fry crawfish (we called them crawdads) tails and have tomatoes or whatever. If daddy were away, mother would join us. We had a buggy and we would all get in, but one to push us, then jumps on the back of the horse and rides it down the hill. It stopped in the branch. It was fun. We also had a big funeral for every little chicken or turkey that died. We saved matchboxes and covered them with scraps from mother's quilt piecing. We marched two by two to the graveyard and then Lois preached. I was the mourner until mother caught on then I got promoted to the chair. Singing beat crying. When I was probably in the 6th grade, Lois was starting high school and girls were just starting to cut their hair. She wanted her hair cut. Daddy said, "No." Aunt Mary came down and told her she would show her how to wear it so she ratted (now we call that back combing) her hair and put it up. Daddy didn't like that and he told Gladys to get up at night and cut Lois hair off at the neck and not to tell a soul. Well, that was some surprise the next morning when she woke up. Then we went to a big picnic and Gladys won a sack race and got $3.00. She decided she wanted her hair cut too. She offered me $1.00 to cut it off at night. I was afraid and said no. She upped the price to $2.00. I still said no. Finally she argued that Lois got hers cut and nothing happened and she would give me $3.00. So, I cut her hair and then went back to bed and cried. I knew I was in trouble. Well, I had to give her back $1.50 and we both got a whipping with a peach tree limb. There was an old two story house that had a basement that people said was haunted. We called the basement a dungeon when we went by the house. Gladys always wanted me to go in with her. It was said on a still moonlit night you could hear a little girl cry. The tale was a stepmother had killed the little girl and burned her body and now she was a ghost. Sometimes, people said, you could see her. We never went in. Rachel was always so easy going and never got in any trouble. She was the teacher's pet and made real good grades. Once she got to skip a grade and I worried she might catch me. She loved to read and embroidery. One time, during a snowstorm, mother didn't think we should go to school, but Rachel cried and Daddy walked us to school. When Nelson was born we were so thrilled to have a brother. Imagine, seven girls and finally a boy.
Once when he was little I was combing his hair for school and I ask him which side he wanted it parted on. He informed me to stand him toward the henoweth's house and part it toward the Killingsworth house. Daddy was strict about some things. We were taught respect for elders and always say, ''Yes sir." Or "No sir." And "Thank you." He would say, "Stand straight and don't stoop." "Sit with your feet on the floor." "Girls don't cross their legs." "Boys never come to the table without washing their face and hands, or wearing a shirt and combing their hair." Then I grew up. In high school, my junior year, I sometimes had 15 cents for lunch. Hamburgers, cokes and Snicker bars were 5 cents. Snickers and cokes were new then. You could go to a movie at Ash Grove on Wednesday night, two for 1 0 cents. It was called Buddy Night. Lois graduated from Business College in Springfield. Gladys was in nurses training. I was a senior and couldn't buy lunch. But I wasn't the only one. It was the depression and Oklahoma almost blew away. We could see dirt in the air. Sometimes it hid the sun. There was a drought. Our garden dried up and people left by the carload. Several families went to California. We didn't have caps and gowns to wear when I graduated in 1933 from Walnut Grove High School. Some of the teachers were paid with what they called script. We didn't have typewriters in high school. Sex Education classes were unheard of. Women didn't even say the word pregnant. Sometimes a lady might whisper so and so was in the family way. We didn't throw anything away. We saved flour sacks for tea towels, fee sacks for cows. Mother made roller towels with them. If a sheet got worn in the middle, you cut it in half and put the strong side where it was used most. That year we did raise a good crop of turnips. Daddy went west to Idaho and then on to Oregon for work. Eventually we all went west. I wanted to be a beauty operator but that was unheard of. That Thanksgiving mother had quit raising turkeys but daddy told us to start dinner and he would get some meant. He had 21 Shotgun shells and when he returned he had 22 quails.
After WWII, Daddy worked on government projects. He went to Paducah, KY to help build the first atomic plant. Then he went to Kennewick, WA, Minot, North Dakota and an army base in Alaska. After the retired Mother and Daddy got on a Greyhound bus and went to see all of us. At night, they got off and went to a hotel to eat and sleep. They also went on a train ride to Canada. I was glad mothers' days were easier. There is a verse in Hebrews that when I read it I think of mother. It says, in part, "Let us lay aside every weight, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us." To me, that was the essence of my mother's life. I had a boy friend (Joseph Ralph Agan) now and he asked my father if he could buy the old touring car. The car hadn't run in years and some parts were gone. The chickens had been roosting on it. Daddy gave it to him. He pulled it to his house and overhauled the motor and made a truck out of it and started a milk route. I graduated from high school in 1933 and was married to Ralph Agan that October. In December 1944 our son was born (Jack Agan). The doctor bill for delivering Jack was $25.00. He was born at home during a blizzard and my sister, Gladys, who had just became a registered nurse came and stayed seven or eight days with me. When Jack was five weeks old we went in the truck to my husband's parent's house in Oklahoma. When we arrived in Oklahoma we had 15 cents left. My husband did odd jobs until Mark and then he turned 21 years old and was hired by Skelley Oil Company. He built a little two-room house and we had an outhouse in the back and a cowshed. I milked the cow. He always said he didn't know how to milk a cow. We lived there for about two years. Once there was a storm and hour house was turned completely around and swept away about twenty feet. I sat down in the corner and held the baby. The windows blew out and the rain poured in. When it slacked up my father-in-law came and got the baby and me and we went to his house. Ralph's brother, Ed, was married to my best friend, Myrtle. They also had a baby. She took her baby and went next door and the storm blew their house away completely. She was also pregnant and they lost everything. We lived there about three years and then my husband was transferred to Texas.We had a company house, which was a modern two bedroom with one indoor bathroom. I also had a washer and refrigerator. My husband was making about $150.00 a month and we bought a new car for $845.00, a big Ford. Elaine was born in October 1941 in Pampa, Texas. On December 7th of the same year, I was getting ready for church when a neighbor came over and said we were at war. The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. I didn't even know where Pearl Harbor was. We went on vacation to California in May 1942 and stayed. Ralph got a job paying $2.65 an hour with Standard Oil in Richmond, California. The papers were full of news about the war and how they needed women to work. A neighbor woman came over and said if I would go to work she would take real good care of my baby and that would be her contribution to the war effort. I was hired at the shipyard and attended machinist school for six weeks. Then I was sent to work and was assigned to the gun crew. First we cleaned off where the guns were to be put. Then we painted the place deep read. Next we marked and drilled the holes. Then the crane would lower the gun down in place. We placed the guns to match the holes. The guns were then bolted, cleaned, oiled and then covered. We were the last crew to leave the Ship. Two of the ships were turned over to Russia. One had a woman captain. When I first went to work, the boss put me with an old man. He had me to do the drilling and he just squirted the oil. After a week or so, as we were doing out the our, I said, "Today I think I'll squirt the oil and you can run the drill." The boss said, "Hold it!" Then he asked me if I was drilling and I said, ''Yes.'' He then put me with another man and I was his helper for three years. I had four sisters who also worked in the shipyards: Gladys, Edith, Anna Lee and Bernice. My father and brother Nelson also worked at another shipyard. Hazel was Rosie, the Riveter for over three years with her four sisters at Richmond, California during WWII. "The Richmond shipyards produced more ships, faster and better than had ever been done in any time in the history of the world. One Liberty Ship, the Robert E. Peary was built in just over four days, setting a record that has, to this day, never been surpassed." - Elaine Taylor
When we went to San Francisco, the government had rounded up all the Japanese people and put them in a compound. They were not trusted. Some of the men did join the service and fought honorably for our country. It was a mistake to put them in compounds. They lost jobs, home and some lost everything. Anyway, apartments were available and we got an apartment on Haight Street. It was a real nice neighborhood. There was a delicatessen; a market and little shops close by. Later, in the 1960's the 'hippies' took over and it was a disgrace what went on: dope and etc. I got pregnant with Jerry at the end of the war and quit work just before the war ended. We then moved to a pump station near Taft, California and then soon moved to Bakersfield. I wanted to work when Jerry started school, so I decided all I knew was cooking. I got a job cooking in a coffee shop in Greenfield and worked from 10:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. I did that for seven years and then I came in to town and got a job as a cashier and sometimes a waitress. I worked at Stan's Drive In for twelve and a half years and for about nine of these years I was in charge of the dining room. I hired the waitresses, cashiers, bus boys and fountain boys. I kept track of the schedules and their time and the money. I loved my job and I had wonderful bosses.
(Stan's Drive In was a top of the line restaurant and drive-in of the 1950's. Stan's was very popular, especially the drive-in, with teenagers. All of us worked there at one time or another: I was a cashier and waitress, Jack and Jerry worked at the drive in fountain, and Mary Ellen, Jack's wife, was a cashier. Mother made many great friends working there and they still get together and visit over lunch in the 1990's. - Elaine)
Times have sure changed in my lifetime. I remember when Lois' first boyfriend came courting in a buggy. I drove a team of horses and a wagon to the Farm Exchange to get cow feed. I remember the first airplane I ever saw. After the war, women didn't want to stay in the kitchen anymore. They wanted equal rights. Airplanes were the way to go anywhere. Everyone could work. We all got new cars, new furniture and women did their own thing. I think of when I was first married and a lady wrote a column in the newspaper. Her name was Dorothy Dix. She said if a man was straying, it was the women' fault. A wife should always keep a clean house, have meals on time and before a man came home from work, take thirty minutes to bathe, put on a clean dress, fix your hair and have the children clean and well behaved. If you have a problem that day, wait until after dinner and then say you need to talk to him. If you disagreed about something and it was your fault, apologize. If you really thought it was his fault, say I'm sorry we quarreled. Then he would have a chance to say he was sorry. Well, I tried. These were the days before Ann Landers and Dear Abby. Now I look at these young fathers and I'm so proud of them. They are such good husbands and fathers. They share the load. I met my second husband, Lester Woodrow Garrett when I first went to work after Jerry started Kindergarten. I cooked at a a truck stop from 10p.m. to 6:00 a.m. for seven years. Les was working for a water well driller. The men met there. He didn't drink coffee so he would always put a nickel in the machine and say "I'll playa tune for the cook." I didn't know his name and he didn't even know me. One night it was real foggy and he stayed. We tallied a little and he told me his oldest daughter had run away from home. I never talked to him again for 4 or 5 years. I always wondered if he found her and felt bad about it. Several years later he came in to Stan's where I worked, he was alone and I asked him why he was out without his wife? He said they were separated. I said I had just left my husband a month ago. He asked me to have coffee with him and I said I can't because I have two children at home and need to get home. He said just have coffee. Well I did and then he told me where he lived and it was just a block from me. A night or two later Elaine called me at work. Jerry and her were having a fight and both were crying. We were so busy at work I couldn't go home and I didn't know what to do so I called Les and said would he go down and see about my kids. He did and he started walking down often to see if they were okay. He asked me to go to the coast on our day off so we took all the kids. The next thing I knew we were a couple. He always treated my children just as if they were his own. We were married 33 years when he died. He always enjoyed our family reunions and I think he only missed one. In the late 70's, Atlantic Richfield made a lot of changes. They sold a lot of their operations and sent our forms to the workers to take overseas jobs. Les said he wouldn't work overseas. He was retiring. Earlier, we had bought a 74 acre farm in Kentucky. In January of 1979, we both quit our jobs and with a truck of furniture and me driving the car we headed to Kentucky. I really didn't want to leave Bakersfield. I tried to persuade Lester to buy a pie shop, or a place in Oregon, but as far as he was concerned, there was no place like Kentucky. At first we ere so busy: we had a house built, a water well dug, bought 12 cows, 23 (three day Old) calves, a tractor and tools. So, I was busy all the time. We had lots of company. We loved having the family visit and the grandchildren loved the farm. Les was a gardener so I canned and froze, and cooked and ate. We both gained a lot of weight. I wanted to do all the things I never got to do working six days a week and split shifts. I went to church every Sunday, joined Eastern Star and Home Makers. I was worthy matron in Eastern Star for three years. I went to Grand Chapter one year. I was a hostess and one year a page. I really enjoyed the things I never got to do before. I even got hooked on a soap opera for a while. I worked around "Days of Our Life" for awhile. We also killed a steer every year so I have lots to cook. I missed the grandchildren and decided to keep small children. I had a little boy for one year and then I got a baby girl and had her for 12 years. She loved the farm and the stock, birds, chickens, and our dog. She never wanted to go home. So we became real fond of her. She was like one of the family. I also thought a lot of her parents. Her father did a lot for me after Les died. The grandchildren really enjoyed the farm and we enjoyed having them visit. Julie, Beth and Cindy spent three summers with us. Julie started kindergarten there and I drove a car and picked up four children one week a month. They loved the animals and every child had to gather the eggs some. They enjoyed the dog, cat and all the animals. Brent and Mark came two summers and they had BB guns, (so watch out all). I told them my cat didn't come up for three days after they left. Jack, Mary Ellen and family came from Louisiana one summer. We had a wagon and two horses that summer and every grandchild drove the wagon and target practiced. Gail had a guitar then and sit in the field and played and sang. One summer they came from Pittsburg and Marion brought her boyfriend. We always enjoyed having everyone. Food wasn't a problem as we killed a steer every year and Les always had a huge garden. I always canned and froze lots of vegetables and fruit. Les was so healthy for several years. He did anything he wanted to do. We had wonderful neighbors and enjoyed their company. His family came often to visit. Kentucky was a comfortable and relaxing place. We lived in a dry county and nearly every one went to church. The sound is called the bible belt. I'm sure there was crime there, but I didn't know it. The traffic isn't any thing like here. They cater to senior citizens. In that part of Kentucky a lot of retired people live there. I never learned how to pump gas. They always did it for older people. The high light of our life in Kentucky was my family reunions. I always knew we were going. Our reunions have always been so special and I love being with all my family. I love them all. Our reunions are a special time.
The one in Payson, Arizona when we had the fire was scary. Les was sick and never recovered. He was a true gentleman and though women were special and always treated each as a lady. After he died I sold the place and moved back to Bakersfield. I went to the desert 5 or 6 times with my sister Bernice and her husband Jim. It was fun. We did all the things: swim, hot tub, read, walk and went to Yuma, Arizona and old Mexico. It was great. My sister Rachel and her husband, Vernon, were there also and some times my brothers Robert and Nelson and their wives Nell and Shirley joined us. Those were great times. I liked living close to all the family, doing birthdays, Christmas and get togethers. I hope I live to the year 2000. Great things are happening. I never thought I was under privileged or mistreated. I love life and all my family. I'm blessed with the best family in the world. We have a family reunion every two years and have 80 - 100 people there for three days. I have fun with my sisters and brothers and all my family. My children are exceptionable, my grandchildren, as well, and the great grand children are super. I have friends and have been blessed with fairly good health. I have had some problems and I have made mistakes, but God has been good to me. My love to all,
Hazel May Cauble Agan Garrett
Gravesite Details
With Lester
Family Members
Siblings
-
![]()
Lois Almenia Cauble Johnson
1911–2011
-
![]()
Gladys Laura Cauble Raef
1913–1995
-
![]()
Mary Rachel Cauble Buff
1918–2020
-
![]()
Edith Claris Cauble Tillman
1920–2013
-
![]()
Anna Lee Cauble LaBar
1922–2003
-
![]()
Edna Berniece Cauble Row
1924–2020
-
![]()
Arthur Nelson Cauble
1927–2017
-
![]()
Robert E. Lee "Bob" Cauble
1929–2020
-
![]()
Joyce Gayle Cauble
1935–1936
-
![]()
Sandra Lane Cauble Malot
1937–2013
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
Explore more
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
