In May of 1994 my mom got a call from Bub O'Dell, who asked her to draw up a letter of reminiscences that could be shared with the family at the next reunion.  The other cousins were doing the same thing and they especially wanted my mom's memories, since she was the oldest of the Odell grandchildren.   She enlisted my help in getting it down on paper, but she never completed the task.  At the time I was using a Mac computer and made a backup of the document to a floppy disk.  The disk sat in my desk for years until this weekend, when I happened across it.  Since I now use a PC exclusively and the Macs bit the dust long ago, I had no way to retrieve the information.  In fact, I didn't even know the file was on this disk.  After an internet search I found a cheap program to convert Mac files to PC files and began to check this and about 50 other disks to see what was on them.  Lo and behold, there was my mom's letter to Bub.  What follows is that letter, plus my own recollections of stories she told abut her childhood.

Dear Bub,                                                                                                                                                                                    May 14, 1994
     Here is all the information I know about our grandparents: Grandpa always said that he was born on a farm outside of Carbondale, Illinois.  He used to tell about the snow being so deep in the wintertime that he could walk over the tops of the fences.  He also reminisced about sticking a stick in a rabbit hole in the snow and jabbing until the rabbit came out, then knocking them in the head with the stick! He was a very small child when his mother died.  I think it was just him and his sister.  Then his father remarried and had at least two more children, Joe and Ab, Grandpa's half-brothers.  Then, Grandpa's family moved to Texas.  He was just a young man when he and Grandmother met.

       Grandmother was born on a farm outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee.  She said that it took a wagon all day just to go to town.  She always liked to tell the story about when they moved to Texas when she was nine.  Her brother kept fiddling with a gun that he wanted to take with him.  Her mother got after him and told him to leave the gun behind, that he would just get hurt.  He went ahead and sneaked the gun into his waistband, and as he was stepping onto the train, the gun slipped out and hit the station platform, discharging and hitting him in the leg.  He had to stay behind with other family members and come to Texas after he recovered from the gunshot.

       My Mother always said that Grandmother's people were so nice and polite.  They would sit on the porch in the evenings and never say a word.  Grandmother, of course, loved to talk, so she must not have taken after her side of the family.  You probably have records about the names of Grandpa's and Grandmother's brothers and sisters.

     Grandpa and Grandmother met in Ft. Worth, or the area, and married.  While they lived there he was a streetcar conductor, driving a horse-drawn streetcar.  He also was a barber and cotton farmer.  He liked to laugh about the time that Uncle Bob and Uncle Gene were shucking corn in the barn.  They had made a big pile of shucks and it got to be time to go to church, so he called them to hurry up and get in the wagon.  They raced to get to the wagon, but Gene didn't have his hat and Grandpa wouldn't let him go unless he had his hat, so he raced back to the house.  After looking, he couldn't find his hat so Grandpa told him to go ahead and get in the wagon or they would be late.  As Uncle Gene was running through the barn, he kicked at the pile of shucks and out flew his hat.  Grandpa always got a kick out of telling that story. 

     Another time Bob and Gene kept having little scuffles, and Grandpa got tired of it.  He took them around to the back of the barn and told them to get busy and have at it.  They didn't want to so he told them he would whip them if they didn't.  So, they began to fight and every time they would slow down he would threaten them again, until they were so tired of fighting they just fell to the ground.  He said he never had any trouble with them fighting, again, they learned their lesson.  He was a tough man who didn't believe in sparing the rod.  They did what he said, or else.  They were afraid of him, even so far as to hiding their engagements from him until almost the day of the wedding. 

     Grandpa and Grandmother moved to Balmorhea about 1907.  He came to barber and set up in a tent on the main street.  Later they moved to Brogada and he became a hog farmer.  The kids had to walk four miles to Balmorhea to school.  When he sold the farm they moved back to Balmorhea and he worked part-time on farms for different people, and also carpentered.  Finally, in later years, he worked as a night watchman.
     One of my favorite memories of Grandpa was how he would take us out driving in his big old Durant open touring car.  It was so long that we

grandchildren would sit in the back and take turns spitting at his bald spot, seeing who could come the closest without actually hitting him.  We never did hit him because the wind would blow it to one side or the other.  We would sit there just dying of laughter, and he never knew a thing.  He was so proud of that car.  When we got back to the house he had a big cover that he pulled over it and tied to the wheels.  He never had a garage.   
     One the things I remember about Grandmother was her wonderful old mantle clock that Uncle Raymond gave to her for Mother's Day.  I would have loved to have gotten that.  She loved to play cards and I loved to play old Maid with her.  She also liked dominoes, but I was bored to tears with it.  I played anyway because I loved her and would do anything for her.  She and Grandpa would play sometimes, but it most always ended in a squabble and argument (he was high-tempered and didn't like to lose), so they didn't play much together.  Grandmother was a great cook, and she had teachers for boarders all the time.  She also boarded school children and took care of them and sent them to school for farm and ranch people.  One of the best meals I had at her house was chicken that she fried until done, then put water with it and fricasseed it until it was so tender it just melted in our mouths.  She also made a cake called "Niggerhead Cake" (excuse me) and it was just wonderful, chock full of cocoa, raisins, nuts, currants, and fruit jam, not iced but like a pound cake.  She always tended to her Jersey milk cows herself.  I asked her one time why Grandpa didn't take care of them, since he did the other animals.  She said she didn't want him to be mean to her cows.  If they acted up he would whack them with the milk pail, and she didn't like that, so she just took care of them herself.  She also had a big bunch of Rhode Island Reds, and wouldn't have anything else.  The fun of staying with Grandmother was taking care of the animals and tending the garden.

     One Christmas we all got together at Grandmother's and the guys had big bundles of fireworks.  We had a big bonfire going and we were all sitting on the porch watching when a stray skyrocket landed in the middle of the fireworks and they all went off at one time.  Rockets were whizzing everywhere, and we all ran off to take cover.  There was such a commotion that the horses in the corral stampeded, broke the fence, and ran off into the darkness.

     At Grandmother's house she had a hand-pumped well that they had hand-dug before they built the house.  Balmorhea water was nasty and salty, and she would always caution us to throw away the first cups of water before we would drink.  But sometimes the water would be muddy and the first cups were the cleanest.  In her kitchen she had one of the first sinks I can remember.  She hauled water for it from the yard, while most others had a pump right in the kitchen.  Why she had hers outside I'll never know.  She had a big Hoosier cabinet with all kinds of drawers and bins for spices and what-not, and a flour bin with a sifter on it.  It was a soft cream color, with frosted glass in the doors.  It had a white, porcelain-painted tin tabletop.  I was so proud because she kept a potholder I had made all by myself when I was four, hanging on a nail on the wall.  She never used it, only had it for decoration.  She had a big wood cook stove, big enough to cook a turkey in, and beside it a wood box, a straight back chair, and an old-fashioned dash-type butter churn.  It wasn't until later years that she got a hand-crank butter churn.  She kept all of her canned goods and produce in a cellar.  Grandpa spent many a summer evening in the cellar, afraid that a tornado would come and blow the house away. 

~

     At this point my mother's narrative ends.  She was always going to come back and finish it, but she never did.  There were other stories I remember, though, that my mother loved to tell, like the time Goldo took the grandkids out for a ride in my grandfather's car, and when she got home she pulled into the garage, but her foot slipped off the brake and hit the gas and she drove through the back wall.  My mom said they were all scared to death at first, then laughed their heads off.

     She said my grandmother Gertie never drove the car because one time she piled all the kids in and drove off to the post office.  As she pulled up she misjudged and drove the car up onto the post office steps.  She said all the little old men who sat on benches in front of the post office laughed until they cried, and she was so embarrassed that she made everyone walk back to the house and sent my grandfather back for the car after he came home from work.  She never drove again.  She was never comfortable in cars or trucks, even when I was a boy and we used to go south of Marathon into the country to hunt rocks and arrowheads.  When we went around corners she always grabbed the seat with her left hand, a handful of roof headliner with the right, and held on like she was on a roller coaster.  I'm sure she was like that because once when Kay Young was a tiny baby she and my grandfather were taking the baby uptown in Marfa in the car, and as they rounded a corner the door flew open and she and the baby tumbled into the street, my grandmother landing on her elbows and knees with the baby cradled safely in her arms.  It only takes one accident to traumatize someone for life.

     My mother liked to talk about the summertime in Balmorhea at Grandmother's house.  They would take blankets out into the yard on early August nights to watch shooting stars.  She said they would lie there all night, giggling and joking and oohing and aahing at the beautiful display, and fall asleep to the chirping of crickets and the squealing of bats as they winged through the starry night.  That must be an age-old rite for all kids who live under the cloudless, sparkling West Texas night skies.

     Balmorhea was a typical West Texas town.  Burros ran wild in the streets and the kids used them for taxi service whenever they needed to go somewhere.  My mom said she and her sisters were somewhat spoiled because my grandmother didn't like them under foot in the kitchen.  Consequently, they were not taught to cook or wash or keep house, and that caused a little problem when my mom and dad got married.  She couldn't do anything and he had to teach her everything. 

     My grandmother ran a tight ship, and the kids weren't allowed to cuss, even to using "Gee" or "darn".  I expect Grandmother and Grandpaw Odell drummed that into them.  But with a man like my Grandfather Oatman, the "jack-legged gambler from Ft. Davis" as Goldo described him, practical jokes and unacceptable behavior was the order of the day.  He constantly whittled away at what my grandmother was trying to achieve with the kids, so life was very interesting for the Oatmans.  My grandfather didn't go to church with the family very often, mainly because he audibly argued with the preacher as the sermon was being given, and my grandmother didn't like that.  He also had the habit of saying the first thing that popped into his mind.  At a Catholic funeral once, someone had brought a baby, who was cooing and laughing, oblivious to the ceremony.  My grandfather said, in a loud voice, "She's having a G** D*** ball, isn't she!"  My grandmother was mortified.

     Growing up in Depression-era times was challenging for folks in small-town West Texas.  Electricity had just come to Balmorhea, but it was used mainly for lighting and no one had money for appliances.  Also, people were distrustful of it, thinking they might be electrocuted, just by touching the light switch or chain.  The Oatmans did not have a refrigerator, and for the longest time they used a contraption my grandfather built onto the kitchen window to keep food from spoiling.  The device was a framework of wood, much like a bay window, but covered with cheesecloth panels, with the bottom part of the cloth dipping into a pan of water at the bottom.  The cloth wicked the water up and evaporated it, keeping the contents of the window box cool.  They also had an icebox, but until my father came along and began selling ice they couldn't always depend on a steady supply of ice. 
     Since my grandfather often used the barter system for payment for his carpentry services, they usually didn't have enough cash on hand to buy the extras.  My grandmother, however, was resourceful, and among other things, made her own cottage cheese, hanging it in a bag on the clothesline to cure and ripen.  With no money for candy, my mom and her siblings would recycle their chewing gum by rolling it in the sugar bowl on the dining room table, but only if their mother didn't catch them---that, too, was forbidden.  And store-bought clothes were a rarity.  My grandmother was a great seamstress, however, and they were always well clothed.  She pedaled a million miles on her old Singer, which, by the way, also served as entertainment for the kids when she wasn't using it.  I even played with it as a kid when I went to visit, which was every day when they finally moved to Marathon.

     My grandmother had an eerie experience at their old house in Balmorhea, as she was washing dishes one day.  It had been storming outside, and suddenly there was a pop and a ball of St. Elmo's fire flew right out of the wall and dropped down onto the countertop, which was made of wood, covered with tin.  The ball lightning skittered around on the countertop for a few seconds, then disappeared.  She hardly had time to react.  Another time, early in the morning, the ground began to rumble and the house did a seesaw routine.  The old model T in front of the house rolled up the street, then rolled back.  My grandparents' bed was on casters, and began to roll wildly around the room, crashing into the other furniture and the walls, with them hanging on for dear life.  Everyone in the house jumped up and there was much screaming and shouting, but my mom slept right through the commotion, only waking in the last few moments to hear the rumbling going off into the distance, like a departing freight train.  My grandmother was so upset that she had sick migraines for months afterwards.

     Marrying at the age of fifteen, my mom didn't get to finish school, but she enjoyed school when she was there, especially playing basketball on the outdoor dirt court.  That innovation was thanks to her Uncle Whitehead, who was the superintendent.  She got along with most of her teachers, but one she (and all her classmates) really despised.  At the end of that long year the teacher announced that she was being promoted along with the students to the next grade, and she would be their teacher for the next year as well.  The kids were horrified!  But something happened during the second year and my mom came to love that teacher dearly.  At the end of the year there wasn't a dry eye in the room when the kids were promoted to the next grade level, without their beloved teacher.

     Life with her parents came to an end when my mom and dad married secretly in Alpine.  Over the next two weeks she lived at home but saw my dad daily, riding with him on his ice truck, making deliveries.  Finally, my grandmother decided that it didn't look good for her to be seeing so much of him, and she put her foot down and forbid her to see him except on Friday evenings.  My mom and dad were finally forced to announce their marriage and take up housekeeping.  On the day they decided to tell my grandparents, my mom told my grandmother, and my dad told my grandfather, who was out in the yard, tacking screen on the window screen frames.  Not looking up from what he was doing, my grandfather's only comment was, "I surmised as much."  He was probably delighted to have one less mouth to feed.  My grandmother said, "Oh, no, Sister!  You're too young to get married."  But the deed was done.  A few weeks later my mom and dad had their first squabble, over her lack of enthusiasm for housekeeping (she slept all day and he had to work, then come home and do all the chores and fix the meals).  She took her things two blocks down the street and tried to move back home, but my grandmother would have none of it.  She said, "You married him, you have to live with him."  Apparently my mom took those words of advice to heart—-they were married 62 years and she never tried to leave him again.