From Single Man to Married with a Child - the 1910s

Herbert Shaw, the Captain's son, was my age and took an interest in me. They wanted to go the "open air" street meetings, so I carried the American flag.

One night, after meeting, I asked one of the young ladies if I could walk her home. She said "I guess so."

They had a porch to sit on, and we sat there with our feet hanging down. I couldn't think of anything to say and she couldn't either. I remember that I asked her three times how far it was to Main Street. When I left I felt really good that I finally had a girlfriend.

I walked her home for several weeks before I could carry on a conversation with her. Her name was Bessie. I eventually married her.

I told her that sometime I had a question I wanted to ask her. I don't know whether she said "I guess so" or what. We were engaged for several months. [And that's the extent of what we know about their courtship.]

We were married in a house by the same preacher who married her sister Cloy.

When they were moving from Colorado they had to sell the belongings they couldn't move with them. Lucy went to help them sell and move. The first place they went to was Hutchinson, Kansas, to our home. We'd only been married a year or so. Lucy saw that someone would be there to help with our first load. Instead of going west to her place, she stayed to help.

Before the baby was born I got a job on a farm. World War I was going on. I got notice to come to the draft board in Langdon. I went and the farmer I worked for had gotten a notarized statement to say I was needed to work on the farm. They didn't pay much attention to the paper, but told me to step on the scale.

Since I weighed only about 110 pounds I was too small to be drafted, and since my chest was all caved in they said I could go back to farming. I was 21 [in 1917].

The first time I voted, I remember everyone said that Wilson had kept us out of war and that he'd keep us our of war again if he was elected for a second term. So I voted for him. The war started anyhow, soon after he was re-elected.