The "Good Old Days"!

This is my family in 1955. It goes without saying I am that cute little girl!

What a wonderful time, we lived on a farm, in-between Del Norte and Center. My dad grew rocks! Laugh if you want, but I KNOW that was his best crop. He had someone with a rock picker come in and pick the rocks, and by the following year - they were there again. Something about that land out there, just tons of rock. All small sized - 6-10 inch rounded river type rock. (If you drive in the SLV now, you will see piles and piles of rock where rock pickers have piled rock from the fields.) One of the ways of dealing with this rock today is to roll them back down into the ground, leaving some top soil above. Not sure if this method is working though. Must (at one time) been a massive lake/river there to have created all those rounded rocks. And the rocks are only in places - so it's a geological formation. I know it was an ocean, and a large lake, but unsure of where all those rocks come from! Oh dad attempted to grow alfalfa, potatoes, even grew pinto beans. He raised sheep, we had our own cows for milk and our own chickens for eggs.

We didn't have a lot of meat to eat, and had a lot of bread and gravy! Homemade bread always. I remember bread from a grocery store - tasted like candy! Wow, it was SO good!

We had a good life out on the farm, we were so very poor, but so happy. How many times did dad tell us he was the richest man in the world. We were pretty self sufficient, mom grew a garden which was canned in the fall and we lived off that throughout the winter.

We had propane, I don't remember what we heated with though. I remember when dad made the monumental purchase of a StokerMatic stove for the house. It had an auger which took coal into the fire box and the end result was a ring of "clinkers"! Seldom any ashes, just lifted that ring out.

My mom would go into Del Norte almost daily, she helped her parents throughout her life. In the end, she either lived with them to care for them or when they got too bad, she moved them in with her and my dad in Alamosa. My grandmother and mom would do a lot of canning together in the fall. I learned very young, that there were certain things I could do without rather than have to prepare them for canning! (Peas and Pears to name a couple!)

We had an electric meter out on a yard light pole in the barnyard, that my dad would go out and read every so often. Back then, people were honest enough to read their own meter or possible smart enough??!! Once a year or so they would probably audit all the meters. We had a big wooden, hand crank telephone - and to get a phone call was something! And to get a long distance call - or make a long distance call took some doing. Took a long time to get a long distance call through and was very expensive.

We had a car (52 Ford) which served us well for many years. Dad had his pickup. Gas was always a problem, as was the propane,and electricity because of the money situation.

On occasion, we would have company, wow, what a thrill for a little girl from the valley! We would have these people come who told of far away places, even places like Kansas! Then one time, a first cousin came to visit who had been in the service and brought us gifts from Japan, Holland and other distant places. OH - I think I must have been totally speechless to think I knew someone who had actually gone to these places!

I have went on long enough - so until then!!!