Memoir Monday, May 31, 1962

 I am not forgetting Memorial Day because I never do but this anniversary is significant too.  Right behind my wedding day, some seven years and three months later, May 31, 1962 was the most important day of my life. I am thankful I recorded a detailed report of the event and my feelings and impressions on that day or at least the next while it was fresh in mind. Beginning and end, happy and sad, one huge dichotomy. . . fifty nine years ago.

May 31, 1962

It’s all over—even the glory. I woke up at 5:00 am with Eve’s Curse. Thank heaven that I had some stout pain pills. They saved me. I got up at 7:30 and dressed for my last day of school. I ‘ate’ only a stout cup of coffee and took off armed with camera, annual and purse.  They rang the bell late and I spent my time talking to ‘Reen and signing annuals when people asked me to. Next came the awards assembly. I got a certificate for art and honor roll, my valedictorian pin and a medal for excellence in social studies. I was surprised to get so much.  I got 1’s in every subject for the final six weeks. Even Doubek relented and said “congratulations.” I took a picture of ‘Reen and she took one of me. Anita was crying too much for me to get one of her. I came home in sort of a daze. I got two more cards with $5.00 checks and a lovely watch from Uncle Dan. This is one I can be proud of.  I ate a cup of soup for lunch and gave Dad my speech to look over. He made a few suggestions but was very pleased with it. Mom and I went uptown to get blood tests and xrays from the state mobile unit. I mailed off an order for my riders from Millers. I figured I could afford them now. I took a very brief nap when I came back but soon got up and started getting my things together. I helped Mom lead the mules up but that’s all the chores I did. Before we knew it, the time was slipping away and we all had to hurry to get ready. Dad and Charlie Mike had done the pasture chores. Dad even wore a suit. He didn’t look like himself but very nice. So did Mom, Charlie Mike and Alex. We were plenty early. I had time to talk to a few of my friends before it was time to get capped, gowned and march down the aisle under the arches of flowers. Strangely I wasn’t scared at all.  The program went off very smoothly. I received a $450 scholarship from CSF but I am afraid I won’t be able to use it. Mrs Fitz announced my GCC scholarship and made some very nice remarks about me. I must write her a  letter. I made my speech and although I was unsure of my degree of excellence, I know I spoke better than Secretary Bolin! Soon I was shaking hands with Mr. Patterson, taking my diploma and Mr Ryan was giving me an elbow down from the platform.  Next I was marching down the aisle again. Judy, Rick, D.F. and I gave horrible yells when we got to the 3^rd floor. Mrs Reeves nearly flipped. Mr West congratulated me on my speech and I shook so many hands, especially after we went over to the reception. Janni gave me a gift; at least I got one! For a bit I felt lost but then Charlie Mike found me and I went over where the folks were. I got congratulated some more and then it was over. We came home and I looked at all my ‘trophys.’ It was too easy. But I didn’t fail. It was my day and even if I must say so myself, I came through with flying colors. And “King” as there to know I had beaten him. But he was with a girl or that is what they said. I never saw him. I did see Ron Davis though and scads of other people. I was happy and sad… It’s over at last.

Not a lot of explanation needed. Doubek was the music teacher and I had Girls' Glee Club with him; he had given me a "2" all year and I had always been a little ticked at that. 'Reen was my semi-best friend Maureen Jewell; we had been close for a year and a half. Baby brother Alex was just three; he cried during part of the ceremony and  Mom had to take him out, missing most of my speech.  Mrs Fitz was Mrs Fitzgerald, the girls' PE teacher and main counselor; she was always good to me and very helpful. Mr Patterson was a school board member, maybe the #1 at this point, do not recall. He ran a feed store in Cottonwood so we knew him well. Mr Ryan was the Principal and Mr West the Superintendent. Wesley Bolin was the Arizona Secretary of State. and the guest speaker. 

Judy was Judy Jaynes, the salutatorian; she and Rick Patterson had walked together. D.F. was D.F. Frisbee and he had walked with me. Mrs Reeves was our class sponsor I think. "King" was one of my nicknames for Marvin Kallsen who I had known at Willard Grade School back in the 1950s. I chose that nickname for him because his initials were MLK like Martin Luther King, so it was a clumsy joke. He was salutatorian in 1959 and I had rashly vowed I would be valedictorian to beat him. Amazed that I did!! I think he was going with or engaged to Connie Nesbitt by then; she had graduated the year before and they both went to NAU, then still ASC-Flag.  Ron Davis was the older brother of another friend, Judy Davis, who'd been off in the navy; I knew him fairly well. Janni was Janice Benatz, a somewhat younger friend of mine.

There was a big graduation party at Lake Montezuma but as usual, my social life was almost zilch so of course I did not go. I had not gone to the prom or much else that year--or ever. It was not allowed. Yes, I resented it a lot and in my ongoing memoir, a future book, I go into the reasons and a lot into my feelings and bitterness about this part of my life. The next four years were not generally very happy for me. In September 1966, I finally started college at Flagstaff. I did not attend the graduation ceremonies for either of my degrees but that was my choice for a number of reasons--no regrets there. So this one was a kind of epitome for me. I had made it!!

Three souvenir photos of the day/year. In the regalia; the picture Maureen took on the art building steps,  and my senior picture. It seems so long ago, almost like a previous incarnation I somehow can recall. Was I ever that young and innocent? 

Memoir Monday, May 24, 1961

 May 24, 1961 Wed

Today began for me at 4:30 am—too early. Dad was giving Mom heck for not helping him prepare for the trip. I hustled around and did all I could. He got away about 5:30. I ate and sort of got waked up and then rode Trix out to the pasture. By the time I got the monsters fed and came home it was too late to go to school so I just stayed home. I made myself useful though. I got the mail, did dishes, ironed and baked cookies. Charlie Mike ditched school in the afternoon and hiked down to the river with Clarence. I tracked them a ways and really hurt my ankle. He got a paddling when he got home, anyway. I did the evening chores and sewed on my light blue shirt. Dad got home about 9:30. He reported a lot of interesting data about eastern Arizona but doesn’t think it is the place for us. Another disillusionment. We have wasted too damn much time trying to find the perfect solution. We ought to go ahead and get Hidden Valley or some other place and get to work on it. At this rate we’ll never get out of this dumb junk heap of a town. Bye-dee-o.

This was a rather typical day for me in many ways. My dad's trip was to look at some property over in eastern Arizona. I'm not sure where but in the genereal area of Showlow and such I think. I expect he was to meet a real esate agent at a certain time, thus the early start. He was always going to get a good ranch but this never happened. Over the years I got pretty disillusioned. And to him, Mom never did enough to help and support all his wild schemes and in time I came to be in the same category. It was impossible.

Trix (Trixie) was a favorite little mule. I rode her a lot. She was small and had the cutest face; I kind of thought her mother must have been an Arabian mare.She was shiny black with the white muzzle. 

The pasture was the leased area where we kept many animals out behind Tuzigoot and south of Peck's Lake and Tavasci's Dairy. Some were in pens or corrals and had to be fed and taken care of, usually twice a day. That was one of my major duties for a long time. I would have had to put out some hay. probably move some so they could get water in the ditch that flowed through one of the pens and look them all over for any signs of injury, sickness or other problems. So this time I did not get back as early as I had planned. Missing school was not too bad but I did not do it on purpose. The shirt I mention was a favorite. I know I have a photo of me wearing it.

Charlie Mike was normally pretty good but probably figured he could get by with a little adventure. I can't really picture Clarence and forget his last name but they were buds for awhile. I was eighteen at this time which meant Charlie was nine and a half--still just a kid and not always responsible! Well, who is, even older folks??

Just a couple of photos here: Trixie with the regular mule rig--the rump strap was critical to keep the saddle secure. That was my favorite little saddle I had been given a year or so before. And me in that shirt. I made my western shirts from a commercial men's pattern that I had altered a bit and designed my own sleeve, yoke and other variations. I made a bunch of them! I loved western shirts. 

Memoir Monday, May 17, 1959

 

May 17, 1959 Sunday

Today began at 2:00am. You guess it. Charlie Mike and I were left to fend for ourselves. I kept busy all day to keep from worrying. Charlie Mike was real good. About 4:00 pm dad arrived with the news that we had a new 6# 12 oz red headed boy in the family. Mama and baby are doing fine. Isn’t that nice? I rather enjoyed being the ‘Lady of the house.’ It will take a little work but I am capable. I even got to see Maverick tonight. It was a real good show. Helps to get away from your troubles for an hour. Thank God for everything.

So this is what happened on that day, 62 years ago. I was sixteen and twenty days and Charlie Mike,who became the big brother that day, was seven and a half. Back in those days there was nothing such as ultra sound pictures and gender reveals. You did not know what the stork was bringing until that first cry when the doctor held up the newborn and said, "It's a baby." (ha ha). We had known there would be a sibling since the previous fall and possible names had been discussed but whether we'd have a sister or brother was to be a surprise. Turns out it was a brother and he was named Robert Alexander. A sister might have been Robin, Roberta or perhaps Ruth and maybe Alexandria. (Maternal grandpa was a Robert.) 

In some ways, Alex was a typical baby-of-the-family but in other ways, since we were spread out so much, each of us had some only child traits. We were oddly very alike and yet also different. Alex and I being both Taurus people ended up more similar than Charlie with either of us since he is a total Scorpio person. 

Alex was very bright, learned to read at about 3 1/2 to 4 and before he had started school had become a  virtual encyclopdia of geograpic facts--all the states and their capitols, the highest point in each and things like that. He had a mind for facts and never seemed to get to a point of 'insufficient memory.' A bit like his sister, if he enjoyed a subject he did well in it but some he was not interested in and just blew off. Eventually he started college very late and was valedictorian of his AA degree class, Summa Cum Laud in his BA (poly sci) and did well in law school, passing the bar his first try.  What he might have accomplished as a legal scholar and very skilled legal writer is anyone's guess. However he had an underdeveloped aorta that was surgically mended when he was nineteen and at age 46 developed an aneurysm at the site of the stint and bled to death internally before the medical folk could determine what was wrong. It was shatteringly sudden--okay in the afternoon and dead by early morning. 

Mom was thirty niine when he was born and the pregnancy and birth were a bit hard on her. She also breast fed him for a year, the only one of us she was able to do that for. I took over a lot of the household work for awhile, kind of learning by doing,and was a bit stressed to do that, keep up my school work and continue with my 'cowboy girl' duties which were becoming pretty taxing by this point. 

Alex and I got to be friends mostly after Dad and then mMm were gone in 1989 and 1996 resectively. He was finishing his legal education and then worked in Phoenix for awhile and next came to Sierra Vista and worked at Cardinal and Stachel. Together we sorted things out at the folks' old home in Duncan and got to know each other as adults. It fell to us since Charlie as working in Colorado and often could not get away. That was all very special to me and he helped me greatly when my usband died suddenly in November 2003. Then, not quite two years later, he too was gone. That gap cannot be filled. All the memories are precious now.

The photos: Baby Alex, summer 1959. There is a similar shot of Charlie and they do look a lot alike at that age. Next,  Alex the attorney, about 2004. High school senior in Silver City, NM, 1977. And Clarkdale, about age 2. Not sure what the dressed up look was for as that was not typical!. 

Memoir Monday, May 10, 1957

 Going way, way back here!

May 10, 1957 Fri

Got up about 7:30. Horse work as usual. Dressed, ate and left for school. Had more of our math test and part of reading test. Home for lunch. Back up. More work on my skirt. Had two movies 5^th hour down in the science room. I sat by Carolyn, second best to Jan! Had a test 6^th hour with Miss Rayle. The weather was cold and damp when I got home. I rode Chindy all around and Louie got into mischief. Finished horse work and came up. Made dad a birthday card. Ate supper and worked around a bit. Notes: Saw Jan at recess playing all, also at noon on the front steps and twice in the hall. TLG was over but left just before I came home. Botheration. On romance deal; Jan opens curtains so he can watch me ride while he practices his trombone.

This was my first year at Mingus, which was then still Clarkdale Junior High and High School. I was in the eighth grade. It had been a big adjustment for me because I had gone to school at Bridgeport in Willard Grade School from 4th through 7th grade. Willard was a one-room school with a decreasing enrollment of about 25-30 students from grade 1 to 8. Now after several months, I had mostly gotten accustomed to the totally different environment. 

 I finally even got a small crush on a boy! The boy was Jan Nobles, the eldest of a family that lived across the arroyo from me down in lower town. He was a freshman and his sister Carolyn was in 7th grade. There were some more younger kids too. I ended up graduating with Carolyn, but that is another story. Like most kids about 14, my crushes were not too long-lived but intense at the time. 

I was taking Home Economics, which was required. I did not care for Miss Berg and she was a stickler on sewing, baste everything and cut all those notches and tabs on the pattern etc. But I was sitll excited to learn to sew and made an apron and then a skirt, a simple gored a-line style. There is a bit of that skirt  fabric in the quilt I just took off my bed as the weather turned warm!

My Dad's birthday was May 11 so it always fell close to Mother's Day. It appears that year his birthday was Saturday so then Monther's Day would have been Sunday the 12th. I was not cooking much yet so Mom probably had to make the dinner or dinners and also her own cake. A couple of years later, I took over a good bit of those things.

Chindy or actually Tchindi was an old retired cowpony mare that was one of the first two horses we had obrtained in 1954 and Louis was the first mule we got. The year before we had also got my mare Tina as a nine month old colt but we were not riding her yet. Chindy was gray, actually going white as she aged and was mostly well behaved but had some tricks. She would edge around to try to keep you from getting on and sometimes managed to step on your foot. She would also puff her belly so the cinch could not be tightened enough and then the saddle would turn under you. I learned what I had to watch out for pretty fast! Tchindi is a word from the Dine or Navajo language that means a restless, spirit of one newly dead and that pretty well fit her! She was not mean but just wily like a mischievious ghost! And her color fit too.

Photos: Jan from the yearbook.  Mom and me riding; she was on Chindy and I was on Lady on some land we had south of Bridgeport. And me riding Louie.  Looking closer I can see this was the flat across the arroyo south of  Lower Main and Nobles' house would have been out of sight off to the left. 

Memoir Monday, May 3, 1961

 

May 3, 1961 Wed

Just another school day. I woke up early and spent some time on my Chemistry. My new study hall was okay, a little more quiet and less crowded which is a help. We had a test in history and I only missed one. I read Green Mansions today. It was a very odd book, sort of haunting. I’ll bet the movie was good and Audrey Hepburn great as Rima. I’ll have to see it sometime. Not much else exceptional happened in the course of the school day. The folks had been to Prescott and since Ellsworth went to Yuma we have a new lawyer working on the latest lawsuit  deal. We have high hopes of things turning out good. I rode Chip. He was better, I think because of his one day lay off. The hay etc. really made my hay fever bad. I didn’t do much this evening, made a few paper dolls and cut out a shirt. I only got one letter today. I don’t think Hunter Joe is going to write again in spite of what he said. I mailed a letter to Shane today hoping to put him straight on everything. I hate to go to bed because of my hay fever but I guess I must. Oh, I have a sprained ankle, not bad but painful. The Sedona rodeo is this weekend. We may go. I guess I can hope anyway. It’s always fun. Maybe I’ll hear from somebody interesting tomorrow. I am getting discouraged. This penpal racket ain’t what it’s cracked up to be. Well gotta sack in for now so hasta luego.

My Junior HS year again.  After acting stupid the first semester, I was trying to settle down and do better. Chemistry was tough for me. The more mathematical parts were especially challenging. I never did really understand valence and some of that stuff. Poor Mr Clark was really a pretty good teacher and I respected and almost liked him but he taught hard subjects!! At least hard for me. English and History etc--the reading and writing focused subjects--were no great trouble and that was what gave me the grade average I ended up with; that and avoiding all the tuffies I could!! I still hate math and am not very scientific either although subjects like astronomy, geology and zooolgy do deeply interest me now--too late. 

My dad went overboard on lawsuit crap and it really got ugly after a time.  It infuriated me and I stayed out of it as much as I could. Unfortunately ours had become a very enmeshed family and with Dad large and in charge, it was his ideas, opinions and projects that the rest of us were totally engulfed by. It took me a long time to understand the whys and wherefores of much I went through from early teens until I finally 'escaped' and went off to college in September 1966.  

At times I do feel I was a real case study for all sorts of family dysfunctionality.  That's one reason for my memoir efforts since I now know many people had some traumatic and difficult times when young and often feel isolated and alone, even perhaps guilty about what they had no control over. I want to give them some hope and at least show they are not alone out there! You can slowly shed the poison of those toxic memories and experiences, It helps to focus on the good things, and there always were some no matter how bleak and rough it may have been.

I'd been doing pen pals for over a year and right at this point was somewhat disillusioned with it. Actually Hunter Joe (the name he used) who I later called Jose Cazador or just Jose stayed an active one for two more years. Shane was handicapped but had sent me several nice things which stirred up a bit of trouble at home when my father accused me of writing porn or something to lead the guys on!! I did nothing of the sort and hardly went beyond some **very  mild** flirting in my letters. Oh well! 

Chip or Chipper was one mule we kept a long time and that I liked. I rode him a lot. He was a very ordinary looking little mule, kind of a dark taupe or mousy gray-brown color with no markings. He was about 14 hands or 56 inches at the shoulder--just an easy-to-get-on size. He was also not lazy or stubborn, qualities I valued in my mounts.

Maybe I should explain the paper dolls. I enjoyed sewing and wanted at times to be a fashion designer. I took a kid's hobby started with a 'kewpie doll' looking doll a rare babysitter made me when I was five or six and eventually made some proportionate dolls, both gals and guys, and then tried out many designs, mostly the flashy western clothes of that era, on them. When I was moving a few years after my husband passed on, I sold the whole collection on eBay for an amuont that surprised me! The lady took some to a paper doll collectors' expo or convention in LA a few years back and won first place in the handmade category.  You just never know! 

Below are a few pictures of some of them. Feel free to laugh!! My slightly upgraded "kewpie doll" girls; some of my much later dolls; part of  the buyer's display; and the certificate they earned.