by Kat Kelly-Heinzelman

Created on: April 23, 2008

I grow up in what I thought then was a backward nowhere sort of place that could never exist on a map or that hardly anyone had ever heard of boy was I wrong. I find out that Wichita Falls, Texas does exist on maps even back in my childhood days. That the backward nowhere place that could never exist was the only place I really wanted to be when I grew up.

I lived in Scotland, Texas for awhile which is about 20 miles away from Wichita Falls, Texas. It is a dairy community at the time it was not very big and if you wanted to do something you would go to Wichita Falls to do or Lake Arrowhead. After we moved back to Wichita Falls to go to school we would go to the dairy farm every weekend and all summer long unless we had to go to summer school or we have a school scheduled activity that we could not get out of.

My Grandparents owned the farms and they were so strict. Because the cows were milked when I was little by 5 AM we all got up by 3:30AM so we would have breakfast do chores get the cows milked, pigs slopped, horses feed, and chickens feed and eggs gathered. It was hard work and it was a hard life. We milked the cows twice a day morning and at night we were ready to go to bed by 8:30 PM at night so we could get up and started over the next day.

My Mom was not quite as bad but I knew that she was tough on us kids because it was a way of life she really did not want us to choose unless we really wanted to do that type of life-and hard work for the rest of our lives.

I remember when my Grandpa died and it broke my Grandma heart to have sell that piece of property because to her it was her life and her husband's. She loved the land, the animals, and every square inch of it. I thought we would loose her for awhile but I found out she was made of sterner stuff then that. She was a tough old broad and she lived another twenty-eight without my Grandpa and never married anyone else either.

I remember asking her about marrying so she would not be alone and she told me she was not alone that Grandpa was with her where it counted and that was in her heart so she did not need any other man beside she told me she would just have to train them all over again like she did Grandpa and she had no patience to do that again once was enough for that. I did not understand so later on I asked her to explain she replied was Grandpa was all she needed and he was waiting for her in heaven and she would take up with him again in heaven where he was waiting.

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