Where were you born?

Converse, Louisiana.

Where you born at home or in a hospital?

I was born at home.

How many brothers and sisters did you have?

I had three sisters and two brothers.  I was next to the youngest.

What is your earliest memory?

I remember living in the country on a farm. We had tenants that worked the farm but I went with them just to have something to do.

Where did you go to school?

Converse, Louisiana.

What did you wear to school?

Clothes that my mother made out of printed material.

What did the classrooms look like?

They were very plain and had desks with an arm to [do your] work on.

How was the classroom heated during the winter?

By a wood burning stove in the corner of the room.

What did the students do for lunch?

They brought their own lunches.  We had a room we called a cloakroom with a long shelf where we hung our coats and laid our lunches on this board.

What games did you play at recess?

We played ball, Drop the Handkerchief, Ring Around the Rosies, and games where we sang the rules.

Where did you live as a child?

I lived in the country about eight miles from town but still close to two small country settlements.

What were the roads like?

The roads were terrible and made of either clay or dirt.

What did the first house you remember living in look like?

It was very well built. It had six rooms with a hall down the middle and it had two porches; one at the front and one at the back, and it was the first house to have wallpaper in that part of the country.

Did you have electricity?

No, we did not have electricity until after WWII.

Did you have chores?

Yes we had our daily chores that were to be done as soon as we came home from school, like feeding the chickens, gathering the eggs and wood, and seeing that there was water.

Where did you go to shop for clothes or groceries?

Well living in the country we pretty much raised everything. My father had livestock, there were cattle and hogs and we grew vegetables and fruit.
 

(Photo: Maycell (2nd from left) and her   5 brothers and sisters pose in front of their family's Ford.)

What was the earliest kind of car you remember seeing?

Well it was a Ford but other than that I can’t remember what year model or anything. I know that my father had always had some type of vehicle and he bought his first one in about 1910 cause I was born in 1919.

What was your favorite thing to do as a child?

Play! But the one thing I would not do was play paper dolls, I hated paper dolls.

What did you do for entertainment?

Well being of a larger family we pretty much entertained ourselves we played games like hopscotch and rode horses.

What was your first job and how much did it pay?

My first job was a secretary in a laundry and cleaning plant in Port Arthur, Texas and it paid me 12 dollars and 50 cents.

Did people tell you ghost stories or scary stories when you were a child?

Yes, we had a school teacher that lived with us every fall and he always had a lot of scary stories and funny ones too.

What kind of music did you listen to as a teenager?

We had an old Edison Victrola that played the cup records and on Sunday afternoon all the young people would gather at our house.

Who was your favorite singer?

I remember some old Uncle Josh records and they were comedy.

What did teenagers do for entertainment when you were their age?

Mostly riding horseback, playing games out back, or we would put up a volleyball net.

When did you first start dating?

I had my first date when I was 16 and a half.

Where did you go on this date?

We stayed at home.

What do you remember about WWII?

Well that is the saddest part of my life because my husband serviced two years and nine months and our daughter was born during this time and I remember keeping up with the battles.

Do you remember when you first heard about the bombing of Pearl Harbor?

Yes I do, the couple I lived with--a friend of mine--he came and knocked on my door and asked me if I had my radio on and I said no and he told me to turn it on because they just announced that Pearl Harbor had been bombed.

If you could give me one piece of advice before I leave high school what would it be?

Well, know what you would like to do and pursue that course and do go to college.