Julia decided she could better provide for her family by moving to Newport which was a small town of a few thousand and very close to the airbase. She found work in a dry cleaning business working for $15 per week, 10 hours per day. Living inE.Newport she had to walk a couple of miles each way to work since bus transportation was almost non-existent at the time. There was no money to buy a ticket anyway.
Home was a converted garage of two small rooms with a concrete floor with cracks which allowed roaches and waterbugs to play at night. But Ernestine, the oldest child was the caregiver and took over the home while Julia worked. It's furnishings were sparse, two beds and a cot, a couch and chair and an old radio that was the family's lifeline to the outside world. Kitchen was a stove, table and chairs and an old sink with a cold water spigot. The outhouse was just that (out) which was hardly ever emptied and when this happened Mary Lou and Willistine would go to the landlady's to use her indoor facilities but she didn't like it very much telling them she didn't like trash in her house. This hurt deeply both Mary Lou and Willistine and aded more fuel to the fire that Willistine wrestled with most of her life. Feelings that made her feel like she was afflicted with the same affliction as her father. It only made Mary Lou feel more insecure but more determined that she WAS NOT afflicted like her father. It put a desire in her heart to get as much education to learn about "insanity" and see why everyone treated her father as they did.
Julia made the little house a home of love and caring even though it was of a very humble presence. We were loved and it was loved by her family. Work was very hard. Standing on her feet for 10 hours daily and a dry cleaning press on concrete floors. After several months Julia became very ill, she had always been a very thin person but it had never stopped her from her appointed tasks. The children had a hard time fitting in to the "city school" once again the old prejudice arose. Not about mental illness but in the fact the children were very shabbily dressed because there was no money for the extra clothes. It took everything for food, rent and utilitites even though Julia had gotten a raise, she was making $18 per week. Mary Lou was having a difficult time. Being very introverted and easily intimidated...having no self esteem but she had a kind and loving teacher named Mrs. Nance who took her under her wing and helped her. Julia was determined that her children should and would do better in life than she had been allowed to do. She knew God would help her accomplish this, and she in turn would never give up trying to further her education. Not by book learning alone but living life in whatever situation she found herself in.
The city was a difficult, alien world to a woman having to make a living for her family, but Julia always took time to help someone else in need. She always said, "We may not have much but we can share what we have." Most families were struggling to make a living also during the depression. Many people walked by her house and if they stopped she fave them food such as she had and offered the screened porch for shelter to the moether and small children. The father and older boys would camp in the woods nearby. Julias family never was never prosperous in material things, but they were prosperous in a mothers love and never really went hungry. She always asked the Lord for provision when there would be nothing in the house to eat, and this was quite often...especially living in the city having no garden to provide food. The Lord always made a way and food would arrive maybe at the eleventh hour but God never failed to provide.
Julia didn't recover from her illness sufficiently to return to the drycleaning job so she packed up her family and moved to the country into a tiny town for a while and worked in a grocery/drygoods/post office store for 35 cents an hour. This started another chapter in her life and her quest for knowledge. She was very good working with the books and charge tickets in the store and dealing with the people. Most everyone had a running tab at the "we sell everything" store and she gained a new spirit and independence and enjoyed working there for quite a long time.
She had rented a three room house for $5 per month. No inside plumbing whatsoever. Heated by woodstove but the family was happy there. During our stay there her oldest daughter Ernestine was married and moved away so the kids were on their own before and after school. The girls stayed with Grandma Anner during the summer while Julia worked. She also taught herself to play piano, organ and violin (in the country it was called a "fiddle.") She enjoyed this very much and she and the children would sing hymns and when other families came for a meal, Julia would retire to the living room and play her fiddle while the others ate. It was a happy yet hard time for her.
After a few years in "town" Julia was given the oportunity to move to a farm to care for a number of cattle in return for a place to live and have a beef to butcher and raise chickens, hogs and a garden to sustain her family. Everyone was excited about this except her son Alexander. He didn't want to leave "town" but he was old enough to join the Armed Services so he did just that and at 17 years of age joined the navy. So Julia was left with Mary Lou who was 12 and Willistine who was 9. So the three musketeers moved to the farm which was owned by a kindly old gentleman who was very good to all of them and cared for them but for easons only known to him, marriage was never part of the package. Even tho he and Julia loved each other and he was the father image that Mary Lou and Willistine had never had since their father passed away at such an early age.
Julia worked the farm for several years, the whole family pitching in to do the work. But it was very hard work and her health again started to fail. She had just lost her mother Anner, and she knew her mothers house was for sale after her stepfather decided he would no longer live there, so the old gentleman farmer bought the house or Julia and her two girls and they moved to another small town called Grubbs. Not much of a town but several close relatives lived there and Willistine enrolledi n school and life was tolerable. Mary Lous was working but the work available was not steady so she decided she woulde move to Illinois to stay with her older sister Ernestine. Julia tried to talk her out of it, not wanting the 3 musketeers to break apart, but she finally relented and wished her well. Mary Lou found work and also the man she would marry, produce three daughters and 33 years of love and happiness before death parted them.
Willistine graduated from high school and went to Memphis to attend business college so Julia had to make a decision at this time and not wanting her last child to go out into the world alone, she decided to sell her home and moved with Willistine. After graduating from business college, Willistine met a man from Mississippi and they were soon married. This left Julia all alone in a big city for the first time in her life and she was frightened to death. She was now a woman in her 50s with no formal education and only limited means. She found herself not knowing what to do, she moved back to Arkanses to be near her sisters and brother and existed on whatever work she could get, helping out families when needed.
She met a man whom she had known as a young lady. He offered (she thought) security and a home so without means to have either she agreed to marry him. This turned out to be a disaster and they were soon divorced. Still feeling frightened with no means of support and her health and age against her, she met another man. She had known both he and his now deceased wife, so they were married and he wanted someone like his first wife to wait on him and Julia being the independent person had no liking for this so ater a few months...maybe a year, Julia found herself divorced again and on her own. Again. Once more she was back into a pattern of finding work when she could, visiting children and family, helping when new babies came along, doing what she could to make a living.
Years went by and Julia met a man who was several years her junio and fell in love with him and he cared for her also. They were married and were happy for several years but the age gap and interfering friends and family eventually drove a wedge so wide they could not bridge it, and eventually they too divorced. Now alone again and still with no home, Julia found herself again by searching for roots in her family and coming totally back to the God of her younger life who had never left her when she lost her way. She was always helping people, staying with children, adults, whoever needed her and growing strong in her reslove, love and dependence on the Lord. However, there came a time when Julia felt the need to be near her older girls and to seek out a better, easier way of life than the country atmosphere afforded her.
Julia made the little house a home of love and caring even though it was of a very humble presence. We were loved and it was loved by her family. Work was very hard. Standing on her feet for 10 hours daily and a dry cleaning press on concrete floors. After several months Julia became very ill, she had always been a very thin person but it had never stopped her from her appointed tasks. The children had a hard time fitting in to the "city school" once again the old prejudice arose. Not about mental illness but in the fact the children were very shabbily dressed because there was no money for the extra clothes. It took everything for food, rent and utilitites even though Julia had gotten a raise, she was making $18 per week. Mary Lou was having a difficult time. Being very introverted and easily intimidated...having no self esteem but she had a kind and loving teacher named Mrs. Nance who took her under her wing and helped her. Julia was determined that her children should and would do better in life than she had been allowed to do. She knew God would help her accomplish this, and she in turn would never give up trying to further her education. Not by book learning alone but living life in whatever situation she found herself in.
The city was a difficult, alien world to a woman having to make a living for her family, but Julia always took time to help someone else in need. She always said, "We may not have much but we can share what we have." Most families were struggling to make a living also during the depression. Many people walked by her house and if they stopped she fave them food such as she had and offered the screened porch for shelter to the moether and small children. The father and older boys would camp in the woods nearby. Julias family never was never prosperous in material things, but they were prosperous in a mothers love and never really went hungry. She always asked the Lord for provision when there would be nothing in the house to eat, and this was quite often...especially living in the city having no garden to provide food. The Lord always made a way and food would arrive maybe at the eleventh hour but God never failed to provide.
Julia didn't recover from her illness sufficiently to return to the drycleaning job so she packed up her family and moved to the country into a tiny town for a while and worked in a grocery/drygoods/post office store for 35 cents an hour. This started another chapter in her life and her quest for knowledge. She was very good working with the books and charge tickets in the store and dealing with the people. Most everyone had a running tab at the "we sell everything" store and she gained a new spirit and independence and enjoyed working there for quite a long time.
She had rented a three room house for $5 per month. No inside plumbing whatsoever. Heated by woodstove but the family was happy there. During our stay there her oldest daughter Ernestine was married and moved away so the kids were on their own before and after school. The girls stayed with Grandma Anner during the summer while Julia worked. She also taught herself to play piano, organ and violin (in the country it was called a "fiddle.") She enjoyed this very much and she and the children would sing hymns and when other families came for a meal, Julia would retire to the living room and play her fiddle while the others ate. It was a happy yet hard time for her.
After a few years in "town" Julia was given the oportunity to move to a farm to care for a number of cattle in return for a place to live and have a beef to butcher and raise chickens, hogs and a garden to sustain her family. Everyone was excited about this except her son Alexander. He didn't want to leave "town" but he was old enough to join the Armed Services so he did just that and at 17 years of age joined the navy. So Julia was left with Mary Lou who was 12 and Willistine who was 9. So the three musketeers moved to the farm which was owned by a kindly old gentleman who was very good to all of them and cared for them but for easons only known to him, marriage was never part of the package. Even tho he and Julia loved each other and he was the father image that Mary Lou and Willistine had never had since their father passed away at such an early age.
Julia worked the farm for several years, the whole family pitching in to do the work. But it was very hard work and her health again started to fail. She had just lost her mother Anner, and she knew her mothers house was for sale after her stepfather decided he would no longer live there, so the old gentleman farmer bought the house or Julia and her two girls and they moved to another small town called Grubbs. Not much of a town but several close relatives lived there and Willistine enrolledi n school and life was tolerable. Mary Lous was working but the work available was not steady so she decided she woulde move to Illinois to stay with her older sister Ernestine. Julia tried to talk her out of it, not wanting the 3 musketeers to break apart, but she finally relented and wished her well. Mary Lou found work and also the man she would marry, produce three daughters and 33 years of love and happiness before death parted them.
Willistine graduated from high school and went to Memphis to attend business college so Julia had to make a decision at this time and not wanting her last child to go out into the world alone, she decided to sell her home and moved with Willistine. After graduating from business college, Willistine met a man from Mississippi and they were soon married. This left Julia all alone in a big city for the first time in her life and she was frightened to death. She was now a woman in her 50s with no formal education and only limited means. She found herself not knowing what to do, she moved back to Arkanses to be near her sisters and brother and existed on whatever work she could get, helping out families when needed.
She met a man whom she had known as a young lady. He offered (she thought) security and a home so without means to have either she agreed to marry him. This turned out to be a disaster and they were soon divorced. Still feeling frightened with no means of support and her health and age against her, she met another man. She had known both he and his now deceased wife, so they were married and he wanted someone like his first wife to wait on him and Julia being the independent person had no liking for this so ater a few months...maybe a year, Julia found herself divorced again and on her own. Again. Once more she was back into a pattern of finding work when she could, visiting children and family, helping when new babies came along, doing what she could to make a living.
Years went by and Julia met a man who was several years her junio and fell in love with him and he cared for her also. They were married and were happy for several years but the age gap and interfering friends and family eventually drove a wedge so wide they could not bridge it, and eventually they too divorced. Now alone again and still with no home, Julia found herself again by searching for roots in her family and coming totally back to the God of her younger life who had never left her when she lost her way. She was always helping people, staying with children, adults, whoever needed her and growing strong in her reslove, love and dependence on the Lord. However, there came a time when Julia felt the need to be near her older girls and to seek out a better, easier way of life than the country atmosphere afforded her.
