One memory still vivid in my mind is the dust storms. We would see a dust storm rolling in. We would get loaded and the bus would go up a hill to the first place about 3/4 mile from the school. This family would get out near the house and then the driver would park the bus beside a Quonset and usually set there for about an hour. It would be so black one could not see their hand a few inches in front of their face. After an hour or so the driver would start, as usually one could see a little. Everyone on the bus would watch and when and if you saw a fencepost they would tell the driver, helping keep the bus on the right tract. Eventually we would get everyone delivered. When we got off the bus at our house, at least four of us, we held hands and walked to the house. Mama would always set the lamp by a window and they always had the yard gate open.
Another time it was a cold frosty morning. A creek (dry most of the time) was just north of the school. A bridge was over the creek as that was the deepest part. A family lived about 1/2 mile up the creek. One morning one of the boys had a cold so the teacher sent him home to get his own drinking cup. In our country school we took a cream can full of water each morning and everyone drank out of the same dipper.
Anyway, Hugh started home and as he went under the bridge, he got the “bright” idea to stick his tongue on a steel pilling. Of course his tongue got stuck and he didn’t think or know to blow his breath to loosen his tongue, he just pulled it off and took all the skin off his tongue. Needless to say, he didn’t come back to school. At noon the teacher sent his brother home to see why.
Mildred O. Jones Waldren
Tribune, Kansas
Back in 1955 a call went out from the editors of the then Capper’s Weekly asking for readers to send in articles on true pioneers. Hundreds of letters came pouring in from early settlers and their children, many now in their 80s and 90s, and from grandchildren of settlers, all with tales to tell. So many articles were received that a decision was made to create a book, and in 1956, the first My Folks title – My Folks Came in a Covered Wagon – hit the shelves. Nine other books have since been published in the My Folks series, all filled to the brim with true tales from Capper’s readers, and we are proud to make those stories available to our growing online community.
