During teen years, I visited my aunt in Mexia several times. On one visit, she introduced me to her friend's daughter. They lived in Grosebeck, a nearby small town. I was invited to spend a couple days with her. She thought my presence was a good excuse to have a party. After the party, on the way back to her home, we rode in a car with several young people. My concern was about the driver. He had a cigarette in his left hand and right arm over his girlfriend's shoulder. Drunk, he wasn't. No alcohol at the party. When he puffed his cigarette, both hands were off the steering wheel, and traveling too fast at that. I thought we were an accident waiting to happen. I had no way out and no control. I didn't know these people or where we were. I couldn't ask to be let out alone at night. As if that were not helpless enough, we met a group of people walking toward us on the right shoulder. As soon as they came into our headlight view, the driver thought it fwould be fun to scare them. He swerved toward them just to see them scatter toward the ditch. It was much too close for comfort, especially if some of them were to scatter into the road instead of the ditch, only to be hit if he should turn back on track. Those "friends" just wern't my kind of people. A life change in my riding comfort level was made that night. I'm hardly ever relaxed riding in a car if someone else is doing the driving.- Yvettah Queen -

In the early thirties my mother delivered a premature baby girl, Jackie Lou. She weighed over a pound, but don't remember the ounces. No incubators then, and she was wrapped tightly in blankets on a regular hospital bed. Hot water bottles were around her. Mother almost died. The baby lived 16 days. Dad took the body in a little casket in his car to Ponder, Tx for burial with other family memembers at Eaken Cemetary. While he was gone, I stayed in mother's room at Bethania Hospital, Wichita Falls. It was near Christmas. I had been taught Christmas carols at school. That night I stood by the window looking out at freezing rain in the street light's glow. Mother had me sing Christmas carols over and over in the darkness. At home finally, she grieved for a long time. Doctor said she shouldn't try another pregnancy which would endanger her life. She grew depressed, became reclusive and did a wierd thing. When I was 14yrs she told me "If you love me you would go to the Children's Aid Society and adopt a baby for my birthday." My dad worked for the Traction Co, which provided free transportation for family members on busses and streetcars. Being familiar going places alone, I knew the Children's Aid Society was next door to the water department. I asked dad if it was O.K. for me to adopt mother a baby. He said "yeah" while he was reading the paper. I went into the Children's Aid Society, and told the woman at the desk, "I want to adopt a baby for my mama's birthday, Aug 19th." This was probably June or July. I remember the expression on her face. She was amused, but tried to keep a straight face and treat me as a real client. She asked if my dad knew I was doing this. Yes I had his permission. She explained there was a list ahead of me, and she couldn't promise me a baby by Aug 19th, it might take several weeks, or years. She gave me application papers and said dad and I could fill them out. When I showed the papers to dad, he was shocked to put it mildly, but after a moments thought he said it was a good idea. We started filling out the questions. Finally he said, "We're going to have to tell her about this." Some questions about family background and names, etc, we couldn't answer. He said he would handle it. Sometime after school started in the fall, Sept or Oct, I returned home from school, and mother met me at the door with a baby in her arms. He was so cute with curly hair. Mother's hair was curly, and she thought he looked like her. She named him Curlee. She had called him Curlee from the beginning. Curlee came needing extra care and love, which was one of the reasons mother was so attracted to him. She had a lot of love to give him. He was ruptured in the groin, had a hip deformity, and digestive problems. His rupture healed itself after a few weeks. His digestive problems had caused him to cry a lot before he came to us, which had caused the rupture somehow. We had a cow, even though we lived in the city. The doctor prescribed milk to be brought to simmer temperature, cooled, skimmed, and addition of drops of lactic acid which turned sweet milk into buttermilk. At last his formula was correct for his system, and he quit crying. Before we got him he had been taken to specialist in Dallas, to no avail. Our family doctor found the answer. What a relief! Yvettah Queen ------ Zan- Story continues, in "Mom's Brother Curlee Pt 2 next story. 7/14/13

Back to my brother, Curlee....one side of his hip was slightly higher than the other, scarcely noticeable as a baby, but worse with adulthood. As a youngster he was small for his age which made him cute, doing things beyond what average children his size were capable of doing. Mother made the most of that attention by sending him into the store alone to buy an item while she sat in the car. Sometimes a store employee would follow him outside to see where he was going or came from. It was a game my mother enjoyed, showing him off. She dressed him in clothes that fit him like a little man instead of baggy clothes other children his age wore. After highschool graduation, he schooled at Texas University at Austin, but did not graduate. His doctor sent him home to recuperate after an illness, and he never returned. While in Austin, he began to appreciate and buy fine jewelry for himself and gifts for us. He made friends with the jewelers there, and carried that on after he returned to Wichita Falls and was working. He had a natural affection for people who were in the jewelery business, and they accepted him. His best friends were Jewish and told Curlee that he was more "Jew" than himself. Curlee was handsome. His hair became more African as an adult. Pictures of him as a teen in bright sunlight brought out african in his facial features. I came to believe he came from Jewish-African heritage. His skin was tanned. In babyhood, doctor prescribed several hours of sunlight daily to absorb vitimin D for bone health. His stroller was shaded, but he tanned, and that color remained. Many people knew Curlee; he kept in touch whenever he was near a friends office or home, he dropped in for two minutes. He "got around" a lot. After his death, someone reported talking to him curbside at his home on a windy day as Curlee was preparing to do yard work. Another person saw him that same day between home and doctor's office, pulled over being sick. Curlee arrived at the doctors office, threw his keys on the reception desk saying, "Take care of my car, I've been poisioned," then rushed into the examining area to find the doctor. Doctor put him on the table, gave a shot, and he died immediately. That is the way it was told by witnesses. He was 26yrs old. All this has been a mystery to us. Autopsy report concerned his deformity, previous thyroid surgery, and arsenic. About 13yrs earlier a nurse friend of mine who knew Curlee told me his deformity was called "Bell-Body" caused by attempted medical abortion, and people with that usually did not live long beyond 25yrs. Ironic prediction. Curlee did not know of that prediction. The day after Curlee's death, my dad along with my husband, found in the storage room the unopened can of weed killer, with a hole in the corner of the lid, and a screw driver and hammer. The contents under pressure spewed into his face. There is no evidence he had gotten to the spraying (in wind which would have been unwise). He left double indemnity insurance and many debts. These facts are a mystery to us also. He caused his own death. Was it an accident or carelessness or not? It was judged an accident, and insurance paid double. As Curlee's executor, Dad paid off the debts with insurance money. Curlee died March 8th 1961. Arsenic in weed killer is now outlawed. Arsenic builds up with each exposure to become lethal. His first exposure put him in the hospital a few days. That was months earlier. He was aware of its potential. Curlee is buried in Riverside Cemetary, Wichita Falls, where my dad and his second wife and her sons are buried. The woman behind the dest at the Children's Aid Society was Mrs. Whitney. Our family became aquainted with her during the adoption. Later we attended the First Presbyterian Church with her.

When I was a child, our family had a cow in the back yard, even though we lived in town. Dad led her to vacant lots to graze while he was at work, bringing her home for water on his lunch break. Then he would take her back again to graze until they returned after work. They were close friends. Our home was on Miama St. in Wichita Falls, near Sam Houston school. Our cow was a jersey with beautiful horns, and named Delia. We had her for many years. --- Another short story, When I was 9, we lived on the farm. One evening after dusk, I went to the barn to check on a setting hen we had there.I had peeked into her shelter and saw what looked like her and a can that had been opened partially, and the lid bent up, but still attached. I started to reach for the can to toss it away, but I thought something is not right here. I went for a flashlight, and then saw it was not the hen at all. What was there was a snake devouring her eggs. WHEW! And finally, when I was 10, brooms were kept in the corner of the porch. From my room to the kitchen, I saw a snake on a broom handle. Mother grabbed his tail as he went into the hole at the bottom. I held the broom head on him. She pulled, cut off his head with a butcher knife. His mouth kept snapping.-- Yvettah Queen--

My 10th grade at school was a pivotal point in my life. I felt bad all the time. Not really sick but dragged down, so tired. Never could get caught up on rest. I was skinny and looked unwell. After several weeks or months like that, I was taken to the doctor with no apparent identifiable illness. It happened that our old family doctor was really ahead of his time in alertness to early symptoms of Tuberculosis. Fortunately, my TB was diagnosed before the disease took its toll like it did to so many others. It was only in my bronical tubes. After the initial x-ray, in those days the report took about a week. Doctors orders meanwhile were for me to stay home from school and in the bed until the report. When the doctor confired his diagnosis on the phone to my mother, she came into my room, crying, to tell me. My initial reaction was of joy and relief that at last I was free to rest and relax. The doctor made application for my treatment at the Texas State Tuberculosis Sanatorium at Carlesbad, Texas, near San Angelo. In four months, I was called in. I did not want to go. It was for a time period of six months away from family and friends. The doctor said "Oh it'll pass fast. You never know, you might even want to go back there someday and go into nurse training....a Special TB Nurse." Farthest thing from my mind then, but seed was planted. Meanwhile I had gained weight with bedrest and lots of good food. Mother took a picture of me to compare with the one she had taken on the day of diagnosis. Quite a difference. I didn't look sick. I had been having visitors at my bedside. One friend had even said, "I thought I'd better come before its too late." Yvettah Queen Note from Zan- Story continues in the next blog "Tuberculosis Pt 2