Margaret Luise White (nee Hyde)
When your parents bought the ranch do you know what they paid for it? When was this?
Six dollars an acre in '08 (1908) it was a thousand acres, now the other they bought I don’t know what they paid for it. In the end, it was a little over three thousand acres.
When you asked where were you born what did they tell you? Do you know the name of the doctor if one was there?
I was born at home on the ranch the doctor came from Ingram (were he lived) which was sixteen miles from us. He came to the house and delivered me. Mom always had a doctor but he didn’t always make it but her mom was good with that. His name was Dr. Fallor. I weighed 12 lbs I was a pretty big baby (with a chuckle)!
What was your typical day like when you were a kid?
Me and my sister would get up about five when we had little lambs and goats. Me and my sister had to feed the baby lambs while mom, and dad would milk the cows and we would bottle the babies. Then we would go back to the house to eat breakfast. Then we would get ready for school. When we would get home from school we had to feed the babies again. Summer time was about the only time we didn’t have baby lambs and goats. Then we would have to fix the night meal we always had some kind of meat like ham or beef but we had no way to keep fresh meat because we didn’t have electricity.
Where did you go to school? Were was it? Do you remember the name of the school and how long did you go to that school?
We would ride our horse more then three miles to school. It was in the back of our pasture I don’t know when it was built. It was called Ward School it was a branch off of Hunt, Texas. We would take our lunch and a feed bag for our horse that the both of us rode to school. I went there from the first to the third grade. They took the school away and we had to go to Sunset which was close to Mountain Home. Then I went to Tivy High School in Kerrville, Texas. Tivy used have busses but, because of the war there were no buses so I had to board with a family in Kerrville they had two boys and another girl and me. My folks would bring me to school on Monday and pick me up on Friday and I would walk to the Fishers’ house with their kids. My folks, will it doesn’t sound like a lot of money thirty dollars a month. They gave me all my meals and board.
Because you said you could not have fresh meat do you know when it was you got electricity?
I was abut eight or nine years old when dad bought the little Delco plant you had to start the little motor, it was like batteries and it would make the electricity that went to the house. That was about the time when we got an iron. We always had to use a wood stove and the only iron was the one for the wood stove and this was also the time we got a washing machine. We were really up town (she begins to chuckle) well we thought!
Do you remember getting a telephone?
I was in high school before we got a telephone. Dad had to pay for the wire from Mountain Home about six miles four us to have a phone. Every time we would get a call from as far as Kerrville which was twenty-tree miles we would go outside and water the ground where the wire was so you could hear. We know it was us because it was a long and a short ring there would be 4 to 5 family on the line it was a party line, and everybody wanted to listen and that was bad. (Now laughing)
How close were your neighbors from ya'll on the ranch?
The neighbors that were close were six or eight miles. It was Robert Menges. We were friends but I only saw them in school. My folks would go the thier friends house on Friday night. They played dominos and the woman had no children so she would have oatmeal cookies ready for me. She spoild me.
What is your best memories of Christmas?
I couldn’t have been very old when I got a little doll and buggy it was made of this heavy paper kind of like cardboard. Most important part was to get together. The family, there was ten of us kids. I was the youngest (she starts to get a little teary eyed). Most Christmas’s was fruit that was a real treat. We only had the fruit that we grew in the summer the peaches and apricots, so fruit were a treat.
How did your folks make their living on the ranch?
We raised sheep for their wool. I can remember jumping into the large sacks of wool to push it down so we could get more in the sack.
Because they were rationing everything did school make any exceptions in the things you needed for high school?
No mam! (As she leans back from the table) No mam! The first year I went I had to have tennis shoes and my other shoes so I had to use my dad’s and my mothers (stamps) because they weren’t hard on shoes. Dad wore boots al the time, he had them made and there was no ration on having a pair of boots made, isn’t this crazy. No he could go in and have them made there was no rations on that.
Did you finish school?
I finished school in 47 (1947) and that December Linda was born (my mother). I was three months pregnant when I graduated from school. (Laughing) The school didn’t care about being married but if they found out I was pregnant they wouldn’t have let me finish school. The class of 47’ of Tivy High school was only 110 the biggest class Tivy had up til then. They have a big school now.
Where did you and daddy-o get married?
Well we decided to get married on my parents’ wedding anniversary but mom said no because I would not be eighteen till May. So we settled on June 2, 1946 (this last June they celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary) my dad said we would have the wedding at the ranch and we would have a big Bar-B-Q on that day. (Starting to tear up) Dad died a week later on the 12th of March. After that l wanted to wait a year but mom said dad knew you were getting married, so you will get married here on the ranch but not going to have a party, so that’s what we did. I was married on the Hyde Ranch in Mountain Home, Texas.
Where do you think you got the better education?
I got a better education in the country school because when I finished the eight grade, there were four of us. We had a lot of attention from the teacher, she was really great.
Where did ya’ll get the things that you didn’t have on the ranch?
My dad believed that you buy from local merchants you keep up the community. Even though there was a really nice JCPennys in Kerrville you only bought from Shriner Dry Good you bought Shriner clothes.
Did you have everything you needed as a young couple?
After we were married, you could not buy a mattress or box springs; so in Kerrville there was a man who made mattresses, we had to get it made. We only had Foset Furniture and you could sign up for things but you had to wait. I signed up for sheets at Shriners in February and they got them in three or four days before I got married and sheets were like muslin. But that’s all there was and they did not last at all. It was the only thing in town. There was no such thing as plastic forks or anything like that. So my mother loaned us two forks, two knives, and two spoons so we could eat (laughing)! We had a little girl and the only way we had to keep her milk was to buy a 5 lbs or 10 lbs block of ice and put it into a bucket with the bottles all around and cover it with a blanket that’s all we could do that all we had.
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Because there was no sugar what did you use in place of it?
My brother Earl had a sister-in-law that lived closed to the border. They would go over into Mexico and get un–refined sugar it looked kind of brownish but it was good to make jelly with and that’s what we used to make jelly.
Did your house come with a stove like they do today?
No we bought a stove from this guy. But we thought it might have been black market but we didn’t ask; we needed a stove. May of forty-eight (1948) before we got a refrigerator it was 18 months after I signed up. You couldn’t buy even a second hand one. It was an apartment size refrigerator paid almost $300 for it. Luckily that day they called us about that we got our income tax had come back.
The Handbook of Texas Online. Copyright © The Texas State Historical Association. The Handbook of Texas Online is a multidisciplinary encyclopedia of Texas history, geography, and culture sponsored by the Texas State Historical Association and the General Libraries at University of Texas at Austin. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/ Last Updated: May 16, 2005.
AIER Cost-of-Living Calculator. The calculator uses the Consumer Price Index to do the conversions. The source for the data is the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The calculator converts the cost of items in American dollars from 1913 to the present. Organized in 1933 as a private, independent, scientific, and educational charitable organization, the American Institute for Economic Research plans its research to help individuals protect their personal interests and those of the Nation. American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), P.O. Box 1000, Great Barrington, Mass 01230. http://www.aier.org/colcalc.html. (2005).
Tivy High School Kerrville Independent School District I choose this because you can now see the school has grown since 1946 http://www.kerrvilleisd.net/tivy/ Last updadted: May 26, 2006.
DelcoLight Plants Thanks to Mike DeMaria, Rockfall, CT. I found this cite to give you a look at what the delco power plant might have looked like in my grandmothers day. http://www.oldengine.org/members/frank/delco2.htm Copyright 2006.