My siblings and I walked at least a mile to meet the school bus. ( I am a white child by the way.)

One incident comes vividly to mind: It was in the early ’30s while times was still very hard following in the aftermath of the Great Depression.

My mother had gone to be with one of my older sisters, who was having a baby. We got up one morning, it was freezing cold, it had rained during the night and icicles were hanging from the roof of the front porch almost all the way to the ground. We had to break them off in front of the door steps in order to get out.

I was the youngest girl in the family, so all my clothes was hand-me down’s from my five older sisters, that had been washed so many times they were threaded bear.

Daddy was in charge of dressing us for school since, momma wasn’t there and he made us put on several layers of clothes.

We get to the bus stop and waited and waited, we were almost numb.

Finally a neighbor who lived up the road a piece, came out and hollered to us that the school bus had already passed.

When we got back home our hands and feet were tingling, they were so cold.

Daddy put on a kettle of water to heat and brought in what we called the foot tub. When the water in the kettle got slightly warm, Daddy started bathing our hands and feet. As the water got warmer are kept bathing until we finally got warm.

Back in those days, cars was few and far between. Heaters in cars was unheard of. If a car had came along and offered us shelter we would have stood in the cold.

It was in the second or third grade when this incident occurred, so I don’t know if people paid taxes back then.

Every parent should be responsible for their own children and not expect someone else to look after them.

I’m sure children today have much warmer clothes and shoes than I had as I stood there waiting for the school bus. Girls were not allowed to wear long pants in that area.

I am about as healthily as anyone else my age, so I guess my near freezing didn’t do too much damage.

Christine Murray