Dad was a tenant farmer and we lived on the farm. In the winter, he worked at Cooper Tire and Rubber. When I was nine, the family who owned the farm sold it, and we moved into the town of Rossen where we lived across the street from the school.

Dad went on full-time at Cooper and worked there until he retired. So I went to school at Rossen for 11 years. Then dad bought a small farm where the house was in the town of Benton Ridge, and the land was in back. A friend of Dad’s farmed it for us and we lived there in town and I graduated from West Liberty School, which is now called Liberty Benton now. I just went there the one year.

He had promised that I could go back to Rossen to school; he would teach me to drive and I could drive over. Well, mom got sick and was in and out of the hospital that winter and so I wound up going on the bus.

Of course, the war was on, World War II, and he bribed me and said if I would ride the bus and go to Liberty School he would buy me a typewriter. And World War II was on and you couldn’t buy new typewriters. So Dad went to Evan’s Typewriter here and bought me a rebuilt typewriter. That was my bribe for going to Liberty School my senior year.