Dad in 1920

The house where I was born in El Dorado, KS. Picture was taken soon after the house was built, before neighboring houses were built.

  was born in El Dorado because my father was making his living there with the embryonic Skelly Oil Company. In 1920 the company had only two employees other than Bill Skelly, who was the Executive Dept. My father was the Land Dept. and another man the Geology Dept. We continued to live in El Dorado until 1923. At that time, Skelly decided to move his base of operations to Oklahoma. He had the foresight to know that Oklahoma would be the better place for his growing oil company. My father refused to make the move and found himself without a job. It would appear to most people that my father made a serious mistake in this refusal because his co-worker, who did go with Skelly to Oklahoma, later on rose to a high executive position with the company. But Dad never had any regrets; he always said, "I never did like Oklahoma, and I wouldn't have been happy working there."

Mother, Bob and I in 1920

he earliest memory I have took place the Christmas of 1922 when I was two and a half years old. My grandfather, who was ill, was lying on the sofa in the living room. I had received a doll for Christmas and had it in my arms. Grandpa called me over to him and asked me what I was going to name the doll. I was stumped. I didn't even know I was supposed to give it a name. I remember Grandpa taking the doll and saying "I think Betty Lou is a pretty name." That was fine with me. I had Betty Lou until I was about nine years old, preferring her to other dolls, even though she was no beauty after a few years of bumps and falls had cracked the composition of her face.

second memory of my early days also concerned a doll. This was in 1923, and it was moving day. Mother had saved her beautiful china doll all the years since she was achild. To keep her three-year-old amused while she was busy packing, Mother allowed me to hold the doll. This was a mistake. There was a heavy iron gas meter at the east end of the front porch. A running child, a delicate doll, and a most solid gas meter: a blueprint for disaster. The incident of the broken doll was imprinted on my mind, I think, because Mother was very sad over losing her keepsake and the guilt I felt was strong enough to store the image in my memory bank.

y brother (who could barely remember going to high school) found it hard to believe I could remember anything that happened when I was so young. He thought I was repeating things I had been told. To prove to him that my memory was that good, I drew him a floor plan of the house we moved out of when I was three years old. Certainly no one had ever told me the floor plan.

recall that our doctor recommended that my baby teeth (which were not as hard as they should have been) be brushed with baking soda. The strong taste of that soda left an impression on me, and I'm sure that is why I can remember so clearly where the bathroom was located where I got a mouthful of baking soda on a regular basis.

Those curls aren't natural.

y parents loved to tell the story of the first time my brother saw me. Bob was seven years old, and when he went to school that May morning, he knew his mother wasn't feeling well. On the way home from school, he remembered his sick mother and stopped by a field of red clover and picked a bouquet for her. When he went to her bedside with his little handful of clover blossoms, Mother said, "Look what we have a baby girl." His response was "Ooh, can we keep her?" When I was grown, I reminded him of what a great first impression I had made on him. He said he thought Mother must have misunderstood him: he meant "Do we have to keep her?"

randmother had come to help out. She helped care for the mother and baby and kept house for us during Mother's confinement. She also helped choose a name for the baby. Dad's mother was named Ellen and Grandmother's mother was called Ellen; so the two of them decided that was a natural choice. Mother was disappointed. She was wanting to call me Gwendolyn. Mother was allowed to choose the middle name of Louise. Both Mother and I managed to live with those choices.

n April 23, 1923, my Grandfather Yantis died of cancer. He had suffered from carcinoma for quite a while, finally having his arm amputated. This served only to spread the disease rather than curing it. He was a handsome, fun-loving man, and I regret I had so few years to enjoy him. I was not quite three when he died. I cannot recall that I attended the funeral. I can remember being taken to his death bed so he could see me one last time. I remember this not because of the sadness of the occasion because I was too young to understand that. I remember it because I very much did not want to go. Mother insisted I was going to do it whether I wanted to or not. My great uncle, Jim Donnel, had found a coyote nest and had three or four baby coyotes which he had brought in to the farm yard to show us children. I was playing with the coyote pups and didn't want to go in the house even to see Grandpa.

Mother, Bob and I