During the Christmas holidays, 1925, we moved to Ft. Davis, as Dad was already at Mt. Livermore. Bill and I had another trail drive, taking the cows to the Davis Mountains straight through the country. By the time summer came around, the bear and panther had worked over the goat business, so we left the Davis Mountains and headed back to Alpine. Dad day-worked around until December, 1926, then we made another move to Marfa. He went to work for H.B. Holmes at his chicken farm, and ranch, too. The ranch was about six miles south of Marfa. Now we had another distance to go to school. In the meantime, Bill had given up and refused to move to Marta. I always had to peddle eggs, butter, and milk. The kids called me Butter Smith, the butter and egg man from the south. I never did have any spending money, and had to wash and crate eggs. I got to where I would steal six eggs a day and sneak them to town under the seat of the old Model T. I had spending money, anyway.
     Mr. Howard Cox from Ozona bought 24 sections of Goat and Merrill Canyon on the southwest side of Mt. Livermore. Dad got in touch with him as he knew him from Eldorado days. They went in partners in the sheep business. I got to live in town and be close to school. I started football in 1927 at Marfa, but had an appendicitis operation in August, 1927. I couldn't play that year. I came out for Track in the spring of 1928, and was one of the first boys to run the mile in less than five minutes. The Bowman boy, from EI Paso High, and I were the boys.
In the fall of 1928 I played football. I played center on the team. We were the best team in the south of district. Midland beat us for district, the score 21 to 23.
     In the summer of 1928 the sheep business went under as the bear and panther put the company out of business. Dad and Mr. Cox sold the sheep to a man in Colorado, up above Denver. We loaded the sheep at Ryan Siding between Marfa and Valentine. I got to go along and help take care of the sheep. I had never been anywhere by myself. I was just 18 years old. I got to ride on the caboose. When I got to Denver the man who bought the sheep really showed me around. After we got the sheep loaded on a narrow gauge train, I caught the passenger train back to Marfa. It was some trip for a young fellow who hadn't ever been anywhere.
     Dad went to work as a trapper for the government in 1930. I finished high school in 1930 and went to work keeping books at Marfa National Bank in the summer of 1930. The stock market crashed and awful hard times came on. I was the last one hired, and so was the first one let go. I was bookkeeper and operated the first semi-automatic bookkeeping machine to come to West Texas. When I was let out in 1931 I moved to Balmorhea where the family lived.
     In the spring of 1932 I went to Eldorado to tromp and tie wool for Uncle Tom Smith's shearing crew. The first of the summer my cousin, Jack Smith, and I rode the freight train back to Alpine and went to Balmorhea and hired out on a road job between Balmorhea and Van Horn. In the summer they had a big flood on Toyah Creek and it washed out the bridges and the diversion dam.
     In the fall of 1932 I went to work for Mr. W.A. Oatman on the Toyah reek bridge in Balmorhea. I worked there as long as the job lasted. When that was over I went to work with Edgar George as a powder monkey, shooting dynamite for the new diversion dam on Toyah Creek.
It was on the Toyah Creek work that I met my true love, Margie Oatman, on March 28, 1933. She was fifteen and I was twenty-two. Mr. Oatman was always just like a father to me and we remained very close for all the years. Mrs. Oatman was a dear lady, also. They both were very close to me.

     On or about July 23, 1933, my mother needed to go to Alpine to spend a week with her mother, who was being taken care of by my mother's sister, Mrs. Oma Doole.   During the summer at Balmorhea I didn't have a job so I decided to make me a business of my own.  I bought me a 1924 Model T Ford that had the touring car body cut into at the back of the front seat and a truck bed built on.  I went to the ice house there to see if I could buy ice wholesale, sure enough I could.  Ice was made right there and in 300 lb blocks.  I took an old crosscut wood saw and cut it so I could have 25 lb and 50 lb and 100 lb pieces.  I bought a pretty good load and went around town as everyone had ice boxes.  There were no electric ice boxes in those days.  I had good luck and sold the load. 
     Anyway, about me getting married, I took Mama to Alpine and asked Mrs. Oatman if Marjorie could go with me, she said O.K.  One night a few days before that I had a date with Margie, we were parked on the dam at Balmorhea Lake and the moon was full and beautiful.  So I proposed to Margie and she said, "Yes."  Then we had to figure how to get married.  Those days the man had to have a health check so I went into Pecos, Texas, and got it from the Doctor.  When we went to Alpine we went to the courthouse to apply for a wedding license, we had to wait 3 days before we could marry.  An old friend of mine was the County Clerk, Worth Frazer.  When we went in we visited for a moment and I introduced Margie to him.  We told him we wanted a marriage license.  He asked Margie how old she was and she said 18 years old.  He said, "Listen, Honey, you aren't 18.  I have known Mr. Oatman for years and I remember when you were born."  He went ahead and fixed us up and said come back in 3 days. 
     In the meantime I had bought a 1927 Chevrolet Coupe and had made a truck bed out of the trunk for my ice business.  Anyway, we headed back to Balmorhea.  Then we began to figure how we would get back to Alpine.  It just happened Mama wanted to come home on Friday.  I asked again if Margie could go with me, again she said, "O.K."  We left Friday early for Alpine.  We went to the courthouse and got the license, then went to the Methodist parsonage to see the preacher, Brother Davis.  He invited us into the living room and got his wife to be witness.  We were both scared to death but the service went off beautiful.  We went on to pick up Mama after I took Margie to the Old Mexico Cafe for dinner...it was run by Leno Cano, an old friend.  I introduced him to my new wife, but told him not to tell anyone as we had slipped off.  Margie had 3 uncles in Alpine.  We picked up Mama and went to Balmorhea.  We went for 2 weeks before we told Mr. and Mrs. Oatman about our stunt.  They took it in good spirit.
     On my ice business, I made a route through the farms to Toyahvale and to Brogata and on to Saragosa.  I really did good until cold weather hit and people began to buy electric refrigerators.
     We rented us an apartment for $12.00 a month, and I went to work for a Mr. Humphries in his Texaco station for one dollar a day for 10 hours.  I worked 2 months and saved 12 dollars.  I took Margie to Marfa and on to Presidio and Ojinaga, Mexico, for a honeymoon.  We spent the day down there and back to Alpine for the night and got home with six dollars.  About that time things began to change as President Roosevelt brought on the W.P.A. work.  I worked at the Balmorhea Lake on the dam for $3.45 per day...a nice raise.
     When this played out Margie and I headed for Eldorado where I had a job shearing sheep for Uncle Tom's outfit...we got 5 cents a head and our board.  I could shear ab0out 115 sheep a day so I made pretty good money.  When shearing was over we headed back to Balmorhea.  I worked for Mr. Oatman.  We were looking for our first child in August.  She was born on August 26, 1934.  When she was 2 months old I got a job trapping for the government, and we moved to Marathon to the Iron Mountain Ranch for Walter Skinner.  We stayed out there until the 1st of March, 1935.  The job ended and we headed for Eldorado again as the shearing season was starting again.  When that was over in June we went back to Balmorhea.
     Work was looking up and I had started to learn the painting business.  We moved into Pecos and I went to work for a good painter, Frenchy Bourbon.  Our first good job was painting the headgates on Red Bluff Dam.  I ran a spray rig.  That was my first $1.00 per hour, and the first Social Security I paid was January, 1937. 
     We lived in Ft. Stockton, 1939 to January, 1942, because the FHA building boom hit, and our crew built about 40 houses. The first job I was on was the R.E. Marable house, and the last job was the Craddock Hospital. During and before the war, ten of us young fellows went together and formed a flying club. Jimmy Hartzell, Pete Backis, Martin Baze, Pete Slaton, Elbert Boatman, George Braddford, Bunk Fiester, Bill Barker, Howard Morgan, and I bought a new Porterfield Trainer and had an instructor from McCamey come over and give us instructions. We all soloed. I flew many hours, about 3500. When the war started I didn't have a birth certificate and the government wouldn't let me fly, so I quit for awhile. 
     It wasn't long things looked good in this part of the country, we moved to Marfa as Mr. Oatman was remodeling the old Alta Vista Hotel into the Crews Hotel.  I worked for a fellow named A.W. Waldrip at $2.00 per hour.  When we finished the Hotel we worked on the USO Building in Marfa and a few more government buildings...the Laundry and a few buildings at Fort D.A. Russell.  Then the Marfa Airbase was to be built.  I went to work at the Marfa Airfield. I finally got my birth certificate. There were so many restrictions by the government that I quit flying until after the war.
     I started flying in 1929.  I would go to EI Paso and take lessons in a Parke Trainer biplane with a 0x5 water cooled engine. When the war ended I bought a Luscombe Silvare from J.W. Shannon at Marfa. That was after I moved to Marathon. Over my flying years I had two forced landings without a scratch. I took one flight I had always thought about. I flew up above St. Helena Canyon and came back down the canyon between the walls. That was quite a trip. The main thing about doing a stunt like that is to be sure and fly with full power on. There were always some wind gusts in that canyon.
     In 1948 we moved to Marathon.  I bought the Big Bend Cafe from Mrs. Creed Taylor.  I was so broke I couldn't do anything.  I made a deal with her.  I borrowed $250.00 from a loan outfit in Marfa to move my family to Marathon.  I had good luck and good business and paid off Mrs. Taylor in 15 months.  That got me on the road.  It wasn't long until I went to the bank in Alpine to see if I could borrow $250.00.  I wanted to build me some credit.  All the money I ever borrowed in Marfa, Mr. Nichols would cosign my note.  I went in to see Mr. George Baines to try to get the $250.00.  He turned me down.  In a few days I was in the bank, I saw Mr. Guy Crawford, he said he wanted to talk to me.  He said, "Charles, don't go to that Baines for help, if you don't have a ranch or cows he will turn you down, come to me."  That was the turning point in my life.
     (Editor's Note:  My dad failed to mention that he owned two cafés in Marfa, the Clipper Grill, which was a part of the Marfa Bus Station, operated before they moved to Marathon. In 1952 they moved back to Marfa for about six months and ran the Highland Café while still owning and operating the café in Marathon.  They also ran the Chuck Wagon Café and Motel in Sierra Blanca in 1954-5 while waiting for the Pecos River Bridge to be rebuilt and normal traffic to resume on Highway 90 after a catastrophic washout severely impacted the Marathon café.) 
     Later I decided I wanted to go in the music machine and marble table business.  I had borrowed money a lot of times and had a good record.  Then Dick Rogers was made president with the retirement of Baines, and Mr. Crawford had retired.  All the surplus money I made in the cafe I had bought 1 machine at a time until I had 11 jukeboxes.  I saw a chance to spread out so I went in and Mr. Rogers let me have $$29,000.00 to spread out.  I moved into all Alpine, Marfa, Presidio, Shafter, Ft. Davis, Balmorhea, Brogata, Saragosa, Sanderson, Valentine, Van Horn, and Sierra Blanca.  I was operating 55 jukeboxes, 6 marble tables, and 4 bowler games.  In about 2 years I had the bank paid off.  To this day I can get about anything I want or need from the bank.  David Moore is a fine fellow.
     I sold out my jukebox route and went back into the building business.  I bought 3 acres where the present Big Bend Cafe is (Oasis Café, 2006) and built the present building out of cross ties.  The railroad was changing out ties and they gave all I wanted.  I bought an old surplus Army truck and hauled ties everyday after I got through cooking a shift.  I moved into the new building June 16, 1960.
     Tragedy struck August 18, 1963.  Son, Tommy, born Dec. 8, 1942, was killed in a car accident.  It was a terrible blow to me and would have been my ruination if I hadn't come to my senses.  I started hitting the bottle pretty bad and finally woke up and realized I was doomed if I didn't wake up.  When I came to my senses I started tapering off.  After about 5 years I decided I would quit altogether, which I have, 15 years ago.
          I have built me a nice home and some nice rent houses as well as buying some old houses, which I have sold, and have a nice income.  As well, I am still doing plenty of construction work.  Come Dec. 25, 1985, I will have been here for 3/4 of a century and been married to the same little fifteen year old for 52 years, the thing that all the kinfolk said wouldn't ever work.