With much of the house still left to build, the family moved in. Portia changed schools to complete first grade at Byars where there were two grades in each room. Veta was one. We spent most of our childhood on that little farm about six miles north and half a dirt mile east of Stratford, Oklahoma. The following stories from our childhood are mostly Portia’s stories because Veta was too young to remember the days on the farm before our parents separated.
The house our father built was crude but livable. The house had unfinished wood floors and walls. Our mother nailed orange crates to our bedroom wall so that we would have a place to put things.
There was a wood heating stove, which required frequent feeding and carrying wood into the house, in the living room. Soon after moving in, butane was added for a cook stove and eventually an ice box. The wood-slat, one-seater outhouse was built to the north of the house about 40 feet. The cold wind blew through the cracks in the winter and in the summer the smell was enough to keep one away until desperation set in.
© 1997, 1998, 1999, 2003 Portia Isaacson Bass and Veta Leigh. All rights reserved.