I went through the tenth grade, and started in the 11th, and quit. (Why?) Stupid, for one thing, but I decided I needed to go to work. Mom and Dad had a tough time. It was an excuse, I’m sure. They would’ve made it somehow. I didn’t go to work to help them. I went to work because I wanted this and that. I wanted to be on my own. I couldn’t wait til I was eighteen. You’d have had to known me as a kid. (I think I did. *I referred to Candice. She laughed) When I quit school, I thought I knew it all. I thought I could do anything. I had these big ideas about getting a job, getting my own place. I already had my own car.
I got my first car when I was sixteen. Daddy bought me a 47 Pontiac. I drove it for a year, then the reverse when out in it. It was an automatic. I still drove it quite a while. I’d have to get out and open the hood and put it in reverse. I tried not to get where I have to back up much. I decided I wanted another car. It was before I was eighteen. Dad said we could trade that one in on another one. Mom didn’t want him to get the first one. But anyway, we went and traded it in. It was a 51 or 52 Chevrolet. A little coupe. I was still driving it when me and Wayne got married. He had a car, so I gave that one to Mom. She went to sell it, then Wayne bought it back.
(who were your running buddies in high school?)
Deanna, Betty Floyd, Susie Davis, (and) Joyce Cook.
(what kind of things did yall do for fun?)
They had a donkey ball game during basketball season. The buses ran then, so we’d all meet up at school. Mom and Dad always told me I couldn’t date til I was eighteen. We liked to go roller skating. All of us would stay at one’s house. Each time at a different house. We jumped rope. Jumped the board. (?) That’s when you get a cinder block, and put a two by six, or eight, on it. Then one person would stand on it and the other would “boomp!” jump on the other end. We’d play walk the barrel.
I had one dog. Mom and Dad got him when I was real little. He lived for ten years. He was a miniature collie. His name was Pooch. He died when I was, I don’t know, I was probably in the eighth grade. We lived out in the country and dogs just roamed. Some other dogs got a hold of him and tore him up. He made it back home. We had him on the front porch. Before we opened the door, we had to carry him in the house.
I had a pet chicken. Mom and them raised chickens, for the eggs and all. I don’t know how I ended up with this little chicken, but it’d ride on the handle bars of my bicycle. I don’t remember it’s name, but it stayed outside. It didn’t get to come in the house. Everywhere I went, that chicken went. I I don’t know, but they had it for years. I remember when her husband died, I was probably in sixth or seventh grade. I’d come home from school and do my homework and stuff, then I’d go down there and walked everywhere.
Granny Mittendorf lived down the road and behind us, on another little dirt road. I’d walk down there. She was Claude’s Wife’s, Mary Ferguson, Mom. She was real old. Or, she was to me when I was a kid. She lived by herself. She had that, I don’t know what they called it, shaking disease (Parkinsons?) I don’t know, but they had it for years. I remember when her husband died, I was probably in sixth or seventh grade. I’d come home from school and do my homework and stuff, then I’d go down there and spend the night with her so she wouldn’t have to stay by herself.
(Who was Mrs. Fletcher?)
They moved from Gosnel Missouri when we were like in the seventh grade and they were our neighbors. That’s how I got acquainted with them. They were just our neighbors. Their daughter and me run around together before we quit school. (the daughter would be…?) Jeanette Fletcher Stone. (She married Cletus Stone) Cletus was just sixteen when we got married. By then Jeanette went to St.Louis to work. She had two kids. Jeanette was two and a half years younger than me.
If you want to go back to, as a teenager, I thought I knew everything and was gonna do this, and I was gonna do that. That why I say, in those ways, Candy reminds me of me a lot. She’s determined. (Hard headed?) She don’t want to admit (she’s wrong). Back then, I couldn’t say I was wrong, or admit I was wrong. ‘I’d show you’, you know? I was a smart-alack, was what I was. I couldn’t see it, but then, after I got married I growed up, I guess.
(Did you have any nicknames growing up?)
Yes. As a teenager, when I worked all weekend, restaurant work, and I was a cashier most of the time. It was at a truck stop, and they’d call me “shorty” and “half-pint”. Of course you know what my mom called me? (laughs….’no, what?’) My Momma used to call me “Shit Head”. (laughs) I had forgotten about that. Well, one night we saw a rat in the house. We saw it run under the couch. I went and got the broom. She’d told me to go get the broom. I went and got it. (When I got back) she was bent over, looking under the couch to see if that rat was there, and I goosed her with it (the broom). And she said “you little Shit Head!”. (laughs) She didn’t make it (the name) an everyday habit, but I WAS bad about aggravating her. (I didn’t get away with it) so much with Mom, as I did with Dad. He’d grab me and run if she started to spank me, when I was little girl. He never laid a hand on me. As a teenager, when I got my smart mouth, he kindly put a stop to that. He told me that he’d slap me across the room one day, when I said something smart to Mom. So I never did too much of that around him.
On that question you asked me about who taught me how to drive:
Louise and Willard. Willard had an old car. It was a forty-something model, and he let me drive it, with him in it. I can remember the first time I ever went anywhere by myself, driving. It was before I had a license. It was me and Deanna. We were at the house, one Sunday afternoon. We were wanting to go riding. We were probably fourteen, or fifteen. We were wanting to just go somewhere, go somewhere! We were bored! We wanted to do something! Did ya ever hear that before?! Willard said “here! Take the keys and go!” I said ‘are you serious?’ and he said ‘Yeah’. He was like a big brother to me. So, he just threw me the keys. I said ‘I ain’t ever drove by myself!’ he said ‘you’ve been driving, you can do it.’ So we went down Granny Mittendorf’s road and right past her house was a big old wooden bridge. We lived on Highway Fifty One and had to drive down to Fletcher’s, three or four houses, then go back. They had an old bridge right past Granny Mittendorf’s house, and it didn’t have no side’s on it. It was an old plank farm bridge and Deanna said ‘I wanna get out and walk’. (laughs) She didn’t trust my driving. She got out, and the silly thing, when I started across there, I was going real slow. She walked right behind the car, so if it (the bridge) fell in. She was scared of the bridge was what it was. If it’d fell in, she’d have still went in (the ditch) cause she was right behind the car. We had a big laugh about that. We went riding all back in the country roads and come back home. Everybody kinda give in to me, cause I was the youngest. If I wanted to do something, I usually got to do it.
Rolling Stones 
❤️
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