During the early years of the depression, I do not remember Tulsa having the suicides other eastern cities had, but jobs and money were scarce. We had a good sized equity in our 5-room house and so were allowed to pay only the interest on payments until things straightened out and we could refinance. However, a flat cut of 10% throughout all the Mid-Continent workers was made two times. 

We weathered it by letting the taxes take an 80 acre farm and a city lot belonging to my dad and by cutting down to essentials. We had only Erwin's salary to take care of two children, my father, Erwin's mother and the two of us. In 1934, our third son Frank was born, in '35 my father died, and in '36 Grandma Schad died. These expenses were ours. No insurance was available then such as we now have and it took us several years to get all debts paid.

During the very dry summer of 1934, our house was like an oven due to the extended heat. I felt this heat worse than the celebrated summer of 1936. Dust storms caused Oklahoma to be dubbed the "dust bowl." We wet large Turkish towels and hung them over the open windows by day to keep the dust out. Frank was born March 5 of that year and really caused us concern trying to keep him from suffering from the dust and heat.

There was some relief at night as we moved beds into the fenced back yard and put Frank in his buggy with mosquito netting over it. Sleeping wasn't too bad out there. Everywhere beds were outdoors, on porches and in yards. Having a small baby and being responsible for so many people, I felt the heat worse. We had no rain for over two months and temperatures hovered at 100 degrees.

Crops burned up and plowed ground with no vegetation became dust as the top soil blew away. There were not as many man-made lakes as we have now and the water was rationed so that there was not enough to keep things growing. Many farmers picked up whatever they could load onto whatever they had in which to travel and left the rest behind. Most went to California to work in the orange groves. Thus the term "Okie" from Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" depicted what the summer of 1934 was like for us.

The 48 states had their own laws governing prohibition before World War I. Some were wet, some were dry, and some bone dry. The Indian Territory was bone dry. The 18th amendment prohibited the manufacture and sale of liquor; the 21st amendment repealed prohibition. Oklahoma remained bone dry. Governor Murray called a special election on May 24, 1933. Tax laws were re-organized and 3.2 beer was declared non-intoxicating and legal. Not until July 11, 1959 was the state allowed to buy and sell liquor. At this time liquor could now be sold by the bottle in package stores. Not until the summer of 1985 did liquor by the drink become a reality.

During Prohibition, people, including my father, made home brew even though it was against the law to do so. At times it became hard to prevent others from knowing that he brewed his own. When the weather was cool, if I left to go to the store or such, when I came home I could smell beer all over the house because Dad had brought the five gallon bottle into the dining room to keep it warm by the stove.

Often in the summer he bottled the beer and then he put it in his clothes closet. There was no air conditioning and all the windows and doors were open. One day one of the bottles blew up. Harry, then six years old, ran in to see what the trouble was. He picked up the broken bottle and cut his finger. It required a bandage. I heard him tell our neighbor that Grandpa's beer bottle blew up and he cut his finger on the glass.

In the late thirties after Skelly Stadium was built, John Phillips Sousa came to Tulsa. The different high school bands met at the stadium. The field was covered with these bands and Sousa conducted all the bands at the same time as they played his marches. As we lived only 1 1/2 blocks from the stadium, we took the boys there to hear the program and see Sousa. We all were impressed by this program.

When Harry and Charles were about 12 and 14 years old, they wanted to have bicycles. My husband told them he would match whatever amount of money they could make doing odd jobs in order to get them their own bicycles.

We had a snowstorm right after this agreement was reached and the boys took shovels and decided to see what they could make cleaning the snow from our neighbors' walks. The first day they got a pretty good part of their share of the needed money. In a few weeks spring was here and they cut grass for these same neighbors. As a result, the boys had their half of the cost of the