Mildred and I had a hard time. We married in 1933. We didn’t starve through the winter but we come mighty near it. I worked some for a dollar a day, took some for 75 cents a day. Mildred and I lived in a two room shack and we didn’t live by ourselves, we had a houseful of bats. In town. I unloaded a carful of coal so I could get Mildred a Christmas present. I got her a cosmetic case, $3; we didn’t even have electric lights! I did get the lights put in on Christmas Eve. Mildred was a wonderful wife. Honey, the dress she married in, that’s the one dress she had to wear. That’s how poor we were now. We loved one another; Mildred was the big answer. I felt sorry for Mildred, two different times I went in all wet and sweaty, been in the field working. She was crying. I said “What’s the matter honey.” She said “Look at you, if it wasn’t for me you’d wouldn’t do that, you’re working for me, to give me things.” I wouldn’t let her go in the field and work; it was my responsibility to feed her. For 73 years, she was my finest possession. I was laying on the side of the bed when she died.
