The next note comes from my mothers best friend, Joyce, they had been friends since they were young girls growing up in Love County, OK. Quick side note, I don’t know if Joyce ever knew this or not, but when the twins moved into the area my mother instantly fell for my dad, Foy. She and Joyce were playing house and were deciding which twin would be their husbands in their pretend game. My mom let Joyce go first and she always said she held her breath, hoping and praying her friend would not pick her twin. Joyce chose Roy so my mom could breath again. I asked her once what would have happened if Joyce had chosen the wrong twin. My mom winked at me and walked off whistling. To this day I don’t know what would have happened to Joyce if she had chosen unwisely.
Jan. 3, 1984
Joyce (Hudson) Seefeld
Rogers, New Mexico
I have very fond memories of the Testermans and Allens. Odela was my best friend by the time I started to school at Greenville, OK till we left there in 1924. I shall never forget how she and I could climb a hackberry tree, find a forked branch where we could sit comfortably and listen to the noises of the creek such as birds singing and crickets chirping and eat hackberries. Thinking back there wasn’t much to eat but they were good to two hungry barefoot kids when the hot summer days were as long. I also remember sneaking in her mama’s kitchen and each getting a biscuit to eat with the sheep showers we’d gather and sat on the creek. Um-m-good eatin! I wonder if kids would like them now? And would kids like to ride saplings? We could go mighty high if we could find a young tree, bend it over till we could get a good hold and give a little kick. Up we’d go and a bluff never got too high for us to jump off of, especially if it had a sandy bottom to land in.
Odela was the envy of every little girl in school when her teacher presented her with a pretty doll for making the highest grades, I don’t think I envied her for I was glad it was she who won it (since I couldn’t) and like I said she was my best friend.
School was fun and to second graders in “love” with two cute (handsome?) twin boys made it even more fun. She liked Foy and I liked Roy. I’d like to ask Odela a few things that she remembers,..
That night we saw the wicked elf with his sword drawn to cute off our heads? How miserable we were with our heads under the cover on a hot summer night?
Picking boll weevils off of wild flowers and weeds and selling them for 1 cent each?
Getting the day lights scared out of when the strangers stopped close to the bridge to have a picnic? And how we sat high in a tree waiting for them to go on? How we pushed and pulled on Lillian to get her up there? She might have been four years old. And getting their paper cups they had left?
Finding the dried up knot out of the tree, thinking God had started making a baby and had dropped it so we dug a shallow grave and after a short service, perhaps a prayer and a few tears we buried it and went on our way Just goes to show we sure hadn’t watched television!
I could go on and on. I could say a lot about Foy’s mother. She was our closest neighbor and my mothers very dear friend. They wrote letters to each other long after we came to New Mexico. I’d walk with my mom to visit them and have such a good time playing. Mama would say before we got there “now Joyce don’t you ask for something to eat” but Foy’s mom knew kids were always hungry and I remember how good the bread, meat and buttermilk was. And mama would eat too! I remember the day I spent with them and a terrible sand storm blew all day and we went to the cellar. Foy’s mom brought food, water and clay and we played, moulded all kinds of farm animals and wagons and buggy. Really had fun.
Childhood memories!
Angie World 