Barstow, California

I asked Daddy if he took this picture. He said "yes." I said "tell me about it." He said, "well, the one with the big ears is Rhoda." Rhoda was visiting California to see Mama and Harry, who spent a portion of each year inspecting potatoes in California.

Dad was stationed in Barstow, California when he was in the Marine Corps. Mama wanted to join him after Cindy was born, but they couldn't find a house to rent off-base. Dad found the house in this picture, but the owner had two or three hundred acres of alfalfa and wanted the house for the hired man to harvest the hay. So Dad made a deal with the owner that he would bale, haul, and stack the hay for $1 an hour, and pay $100 a month for the little house (in other words, he would work a minimum of 100 hours a month). This was in addition to working at the Marine Corps Base 40 hours a week!

During the winter months, the hay was sold to a dairy in Los Angeles, about 150 miles away. The trucks would arrive in the middle of the night and honk their air horn. Dad would get out of bed and go load the truck, which would take a few hours.

Mom and Dad didn't have any money for furniture. A civil service worker at the Marine Corps Base, Pee Wee from Oklahoma, took a liking to Dad. Pee Wee and his wife cosigned at a secondhand shop for $200 worth of furniture. Mom and Dad were able to get the bare necessities: a refrigerator, a stove, a mattress. Dad paid the debt off monthly.

Their sole source of recreation was Dollar Nite at the drive-in theatre. Every time the movie changed--which was about twice a week--they would load Cindy in a basket and put her in the back of the car and head to the drive-in. She was less than a month old when they moved to Barstow, and 18 months old when they left.

One afternoon Mom was hanging clothes up to dry. She brought Cindy out in her basket, and covered her face with a blanket to shield her from the unforgiving sun-- it was regularly 110 degrees in Barstow. Mom and Dad had adopted a stray dog, and the dog pulled the blanket off Cindy's face without Mom knowing. When she was done with the clothes, Mom was shocked to find a sun blister about the size of a silver dollar on Cindy's little face! The new parents were afraid it would scar her delicate skin, but luckily, that didn't happen.

After Daddy finished his stint in the Marine Corps, they returned to Blackfoot where Dad farmed Grandpa Winmill's acreage for two years. This picture of Cindy was taken at that time.