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- I was born on November 9, 1888 at 2101 North J Street in Fort Smith, Arkansas. I was baptised on December 2, 1888 by Pastor T. F. Germann of the First Lutheran Church, which was a small frame building on North D Street between North 11th and 12th Street. When born, I was so thin that my mother put a red ribbon on one of my legs to tell I had two.
- I began school at the age of six at the Lutheran School, a two story frame building in the 400 block of North 12th Street. There were two rooms on the first floor - one for grades one through four; the other for grades five through nine. I had various teachers from the first through the fourth grade. From the fifth through the ninth grade, I was taught by G. O. Henning. He was very strict and used a plaited leather stick for punishment. I felt the sting of this stick quite often because I was mischievous and kept the children near me laughing. I must admit that I was not very studious.
- When I was twelve, I was obliged to do chores for my mother and father. For instance, I had to go to the meat market before school on some mornings. The meat market was on Garrison Avenue near Towson Avenue (then called Texas road) nearly two miles away. It was owned by Jim Kelly. Since it was quite a walk for me, Mother would meet me half way. For a short cut, I would go through an old cemetery located between North 16th and 18th, and Grand Avenue and North 1. One moonlight night, an elderly neighbor was walking through this cemetery and saw his shadow. He thought someone was following him and ran all the way home, only then to realize it was his shadow.
- After school (about 4 P.M.), I had to clean two horse stables and two cow sheds and feed the animals. The horses were fed hay and the cows, bran. During the bitterweed season, my mother put molasses in the bran to keep the milk sweet. I was expected to have the barn doors open when my father reached home in the afternoon. Two of the whippings I got from him was for not having the barn doors open, which caused him to have to get down from the wagon to open them. On one occasion, I was late getting home because of swimming in a creek nearby called May Branch. Later it was filled and paved and today is known as May Branch Road.
- On some Saturday mornings, I had to oil and shine the brass on the harnesses. While doing this, my playmates were playing baseball behind our barn. It made me wish I was with them.
- My father always had beautiful horses which I helped care for, such as currying them each evening. Since my father was in the sand hauling business, he always had two piles of sand at home for my brothers and sister and I to play in - one under a big pear tree in the back yard for pretty days; another, in the stable for bad days.
- When the old cemetery previously mentioned was relocated to make lots available for houses, many sassafras trees were uprooted. I gathered the roots, washed them, tied them in small packages, and sold them for ten cents each, going from house to house. Some people did not know what sassafras roots were used for, so I explained to them how to make sassafras tea which in those days was used as a Spring tonic
- In 1898 when I was ten, a big cyclone hit in the vacinity of our house on North J killing about fifty people, some being our neighbors. Another one hundred were injured. Part of the roof and chimney of our house was damaged, but no one was hurt.
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