Move to Texas

It was due to the produce Daddy raised on the farm that we eventually moved to Texas. Most of the produce, especially the cantaloupes, grown on the farms were sold to a packer and shipper named Mr. Post. He had packing sheds all over, and had one in the Rio Grande Valley. I think Daddy wanted more for us than being the daughters of a share-cropper, so he decided to follow Mr. Post's advice and try for a better life in Texas. Incidentally, the twin sister of Great-Grandmother Boggs (Grandaddy Boggs' mother) lived in Mission, Texas at the time. I remember visiting her at one time after we moved to the Valley. The story of our life in the Valley is another long one, which will be told.

Calvary Baptist Church of Roswell

We were members of the Calvary Baptist Church in Roswell. Mama Boggs was the Young People's teacher. I remember so many of those young people who were a little younger than Mother and Daddy. There was Helen Naron, the Groceclose girls who were very pretty, Willis Savage, who married Helen Naron, Dorothy Martin who became our aunt when she married Daddy's brother Raymond, Aunt Ruth, Ray Martin who became Uncle Ray when he married Daddy's sister Ruth (no relation to Dorothy Martin), and Vernie Ray and Roy Lee, Mother's brothers. We have a picture of that class, along with the pastor, Brother Brister. I thought his wife was one of the prettiest ladies I ever knew. She had blond hair and was very sweet. Several times the Bristers would come out to our house for Sunday dinner, and I always looked forward to that. We would usually have fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, vegetables of some kind, and the crowning glory - HOME MADE ROLLS! Oh, they smelled and tasted so good. They were not that easy to make, so we had them only on special occasions.

Dot Saw a Ghost (childhood memory)

We would "go to town" to Roswell every Saturday night to go shopping and maybe see a movie, or to visit Mama and Grandaddy Boggs or Grandma Bagwell. One night when we were returning home, I saw a ghost!! We had to cross a railroad track as we turned off the Dexter/Roswell highway to get to our house. I looked down the railroad track and saw something white floating along the tracks. Everyone said it was just some paper blowing in the wind or some such, but I KNOW it was a ghost!!

Childhood Bumps and Bruises by Dot

There were swings in the playground at the school, and I remember once I was swinging and someone - probably some mean boy - came up behind me and pushed me so hard I fell out of the swing. I still have a small scar on my forehead from that incident. One day we were outside the house playing on the car. We would climb up to the roof, then slide down the windshield to the hood. We were't supposed to do it, of course, but being kids, we did it anyway. On this particular day the car must have been really slippery because Carole came sliding down to the hood and kept on going to the ground. She broke her collar bone! Poor Carole, I think, was accident prone. She always had something wrong.

Childhood Memory of WWII Prisoner by Dot

We were living at EGP during WWII, I know, because there was a prisoner of war camp at Dexter, just down the road from where we were. Daddy contracted to have some of the prisoners, who were Germans, come to the farm and work. I remember them arriving in the back of a big truck. One of the prisoners became friendly with Mother and Daddy. His name was Bruno Gatermann. After the war ended, Mother got a letter from Ann Marie Gatermann, Bruno's wife, in 1946. She was trapped in East Germany with their three children while Bruno was in West Germany. Eventually she and the children escaped to the West and were reunited as a family. In 1975 Bruno and Ann Marie came to the US with one of their sons who was a doctor. They visited with Mother and Daddy in Missouri where we had land at that time. Bruno was an artist and did watercolors. He gave each of us a picture he had painted. I don't remember what happend to mine.

Childhood Christmas Memories from Dot

One Christmas when we lived there Mother gave us dolls and clothes for them that she had made herself. Another Christmas we got clothes. I remember I got a pink skirt with turquoise figures in it, along with a turquoise sweater. I loved that outfit! Of course Mother had made the skirt herself. The sweater was probably the first store-bought article of clothing I ever had. Speaking of Christmas....at one time when we were small, the Boggs families drew names for gifts. The grownups would draw among themselves, then the kids. We had several cousins our age at that time. There were Jerry, Sherry, and Charlotte Gay (we called her Gay) who were the children of Mother's twin brother Louis. Then there were Larry and Barbara, daughters of Delbert, another of Mother's brothers. I think maybe Pam was born by then, the first daughter of Emaline, Mother's sister. Her other two brothers, Roy Lee and Vernie Ray were too young to be married at the time. I remember the one Christmas we drew names because Barbara got my name, and when we opened our gifts, mine was a pair of cotton panties. I guess I never liked my Aunt Elanor after that. I was so disappointed, because the other girls were getting pretty bracelets or combs, etc. I remember I hid my panties and wouldn't tell what I got! My worst Christmas!!