"Dearest Grandchild, Great Grandchild,

"This is a love Memory Box with cards given to your granddad, Homer Lee Howard, from your parents or grandparents to let him know they loved him. He loved them for doing this! Also included is my story¼ a chronology of the things I remember from 83 years of living. You might not enjoy reading it now, but KEEP IT and when you are 80 years old and have grandchildren and great grandchildren, read it to them.

"I am proud I married your granddad, proud of the three wonderful children we had and also proud of the spouses they chose and the children they had. You grandchildren total 6 and great grandchildren total 5. We have loved and enjoyed you all!

"I was born Thursday March 17, 1921 Juanita Mae Key to Walter Lee and Lillie Mae Key in Megargal, Texas but grew up on a farm five miles northwest of Amherst, Texas during The Great Depression. We lived in a home that did not have electricity or a bathroom. We did have a windmill but it was 100 yards from the house. There was no kitchen sink and no water heater. We carried the water in a 5-gallon bucket to the house, and used a large teakettle to heat the water to wash dishes in a dishpan and used another dishpan to rinse them. All the dishes were dried with a cup towel and placed in the cabinet after every meal. We bathed in a large washtub that we also washed our clothes in. We had an outhouse for our toilet.

"A large galvanized tank stood by the windmill for the farm animals to drink. The horse I rode from an infant until after I left home was named Blaze. Blaze lived close to 40 years. We had horses to ride and pull our wagon or trailer to town every Saturday afternoon to buy enough groceries to last for one week. We only had to buy flour, sugar, spices and cornmeal. There wasn’t any kind of juice or drinks to buy. I was given a nickel to spend on an ice cream cone or candy. There wasn’t any kind of fresh meat or fresh vegetables in the grocery store. We had a big garden in the spring and summer. This was the only time we had fresh vegetables. We canned enough green beans, black-eyed peas with snaps, corn and tomatoes to last until the next spring.

"We always had from 50 to 100 chickens and I gathered the eggs every day after I came home from school. I rode in the school bus to school. I cleaned the chicken house once a month. Daddy had from 10 to 20 Jersey milk cows and calves all the time. We had all the milk we could drink and eggs we could eat and cook with. We drank the whole milk and churned cream to make our butter. We had a separator to get the cream off of the milk. We sold eggs and cream to help pay for our groceries when we went to town on Saturday.

"Portales, New Mexico had a pasteurizing milk plant and a truck came every morning from there and picked up our milk in two large metal cans and took it to Portales to pasteurize it. They would leave two empty cans and take the two full ones. I have one of these cans on my front porch.

"In January 1933, the Keys moved from Amherst to a farm in southern Bailey County in a community called Watson where there was only a small school house and grocery store with gas pumps for the cars. Watson was west and north of Enochs and Bula. We attended church with everyone that lived in the area in the same building that school was held. Traveling preachers and farmers from different religions would lead in the singing and preaching. My father Walter was a deacon in the Baptist church. The school and store buildings are now gone.

"This was my last year in elementary school at Amherst and I lived with my sister Lucille and her husband Robert Butler north of Littlefield until school was out for the summer in 1933. This is where I learned to play baseball and basketball – both outdoors. We did not have a gym. We had one teacher for every grade and 30 students in my class from grade 3 to 7. When I was a freshman I went one year to the Watson school. The superintendent taught all the high school students (only 10 or 15 of us) in one room and we didn’t learn anything! The next year, Watson High School transferred to Bula School and we rode in a school bus.

"The superintendent of the Bula school talked to all the Watson students and asked us to take the past year again and not move up to the grade we were promoted to. He knew we had not had a good teacher at Watson. I stayed a freshman for the second year. The year was 1936 -–they built a gym at Bula. We basketball players loved it! I received a gold basketball for being such a good player. I still love to watch baseball and basketball games on television.

"One time a wasp flew into my ear and went as far as it could go. You cannot imagine the pain inside your ear when it flutters its wings. I only had the reins on the bridal to beat the horse. He still would not go fast enough for me. When I got within hearing distance of the house, I began screaming, "I’ve got a bug in my ear and he is kicking!" I was lucky a neighbor who lived in a dug out ¾ mile from us was there and he knew what to do. He told mother to put some warm grease (we would call it oil today) in my ear. This would kill the bug and stop his kicking and the pain. It worked! The bug was out of sight, but sister Cile put my head in her lap and started digging for it. It seemed like hours before she got it out. I have had gnats in my eyes, a red ant in my pants, but I hope I never get another bug in my ear!

"I remember one Sunday, April 14, 1935, the greatest dust storm that ever filled the sky and daylight turned dark and black as midnight. We were living at Watson in Bailey Country. There was another one of these in 1936. I was in high school at Bula. Our superintendent must have seen it coming and he went around to each room and advised us to stay in our seats where we were as long as it so dark. You could not see your hand in front of your face. After about 30 minutes, it was just a regular old sandstorm. Homer saw one of these after we moved to Littlefield. He had come home from the barbershop sick with a fever and sore throat and was in bed by the north window and looked outside. He said, "We had better go to the cellar." I told him it was just a sandstorm.

"In January 1939, my senior year of high school, daddy bought a farm west of West Camp. It was located 12 miles west and 3 miles north of Muleshoe in the Farwell School district. I finished high school there. All five of my sisters – Lola (Bobo), Lucille (Cile), Tince, Jane, and Janell and one brother, Dwaine attended my graduation in Farwell. My older brother Bill and his wife Elnita were at her sister’s graduation."

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