MY STORY -- EUNICE S. DAHL
[My husband's aunt on his father's side – married to
his father's brother Clarence – Aunt Eunice was the epitome of graciousness.
Aunt Eunice welcomed me into the family with open arms in 1978, and when we
lost her in February, 2004, I truly felt as though I'd lost a dear aunt I'd
known all my life. Here is her story, in her own words… and reading them today
has made me miss her all over again. J. Dahl, 2006]
It was many, many years ago that I was born, but
unlike Annabel Lee, it took place on the plains of Oklahoma. The only bodies of water near were the
buffalo wallows and the little creek that ran through my father's farm The
nearest town of Buffalo was twelve miles away, and it was three miles to the
Paruna one-room country school, the little church, and the Browning grocery
store.
It
was a great place for my brothers and me to grow up. When there wasn't work to be done, which seemed always, there
were many things to do that were so much fun.
The nearest I ever came to learn to swim was wading in the buffalo
wallows. The water was so clear and the
grass in the bottom was green and soft.
Of course, that couldn't equal the ride down the old red hill in the
pasture on a buggy chassis, and the push back up the hill to do it all over
again. Or, the paddling boat ride on
the creek in Dad's little farm tank.
Memories overwhelm me when I think of those
days. Nothing could be more serene on a
balmy summer day than a lulling swing in the hammock held by two big trees in
the cottonwood grove. It was a wonderful
place to sneak off to with a book in hand when there were dishes to be done.
More adventuresome, though, were the trips to the
haymow in the big red barn. There we would grab the sack swing, climb up the
ladder on the end wall, jump astride the sack, and holding onto the rope for
dear life, would sail back and forth across the length of that barn in dizzy
gaiety. What fun! Equally as delightful on the long summer
evenings, when the sun had gone down but it was not yet dark, were the fun
games of hide and seek. And on the
snow-covered ground in the winter time, fox and geese was such a favorite with
all of us.
Never did I imagine that there was any world outside
of my own. My brothers must have felt
this way, too. One day, Dad took my
oldest brother, Len, with him on a trip to Woodward, about forty miles
away. When they got back Len said,
'Papa, if the world is as big on the other side as it is on this side, it must
be awful big."
School and church played a big part in our
lives. There were box suppers,
ciphering matches, spelling bees, and programs at school, and all-day dinners
and more programs at church.
When I was nine we left the farm to move to Shawnee,
Oklahoma. That trip was certainly a
revelation to me. That there could be
such a thing as paved streets, which I saw first in Alva, Oklahoma, and that
towns could be so big were real eye-openers.
I finished grade school, high school, and two years
of college in Shawnee before I started teaching seventh grade at the Prairie
View School in Seminole County in the world's largest oilfield. The school, originally named Ignorance Hill,
had been a one-room school for black children.
With the discovery of oil, the school quickly became a thirty-teacher
school with first through twelfth grades.
Teacherages and a home for the superintendent were built on the school
ground. There was a central dining room
and we always had a lady to prepare our meals.
Those ten years I spent there were happy ones, and the people I met were
some of the greatest. The school is no
longer, but the graduates, former students, and teachers keep in touch at a
banquet meeting in Seminole on the third Saturday night in June each year. I love to go. My former students continue to call me Miss Stith and they make
me feel like a queen, even though many of them are grandparents.
Incidentally, because of the gross production tax
from the oil, our salaries started out at one hundred dollars per month, and
had moved up to one hundred thirty-five before I left. That was good money for that time.
During those years at Prairie View I was going to
school in the summers at Oklahoma State in Stillwater where I received the
Bachelor of Science Degree. Finally, I
left Prairie View and taught in Stigler, Oklahoma before working with the
Extension Service in Wewoka, Poteau, and Stillwater.
I had met Clarence, and we were married in South Bend, Indiana, while he was in the Service in Chanute Field, Illinois. We lived there for a few months before going to Hebron, Nebraska. It was there that Clarence was loaned by the Military to the NACA (which is now NASA) and was sent to Langley Field, Virginia, to help supervise construction of the operation there. I decided to try for a job with NACA and, though I was not a math major, I was employed in the Computing Section. We used calculators to make the calculations for the aeronautical engineers who did research in the wind tunnels. This was only one part of the research being done.
When the war was over, Clarence was offered a permanent
position with NACA, but decided to return to his engineering job in Chickasha,
Oklahoma. While we were living there we
adopted our Duane who was five and a half.
It was in Chickasha that Clarence decided to leave
the Government Service. He was employed
by Wilson and Company Engineers, and we moved to Wichita where they were
planning and building the McConnell Air Force Base and the Kansas Turnpike.
When Duane was twelve, we adopted Dilynn who was
also five and one-half at the time we got her. Soon, we moved to Salina, and I began teaching again. Clarence was still with Wilson and
Company. Eventually, after more than
twelve years with private practice, Clarence went back in Government Service
and worked at Schilling Air Force Base in Salina until it was closed.
We moved to Tucson in 1965 where Clarence had Civil
Service employment at Davis Monthan Air Force Base and I began teaching sixth
grade with Tucson District 1. This is a great place to be, and it is wonderful
to be associated with Chapter AE in PEO.
Before this ends, I must say that Clarence and I
have four wonderful grandchildren.
--Eunice Dahl
(Written sometime in the 1980s)
Clarence Robbins Family
Memoirs
Stephen Alva Van Cleave
Memoirs
Tales of the Van
Cleave Elders