2
Angela: Tell me about your mother's and father's personalities.
Royce: My father was hardworking, he was a farmer. My mother was a good cook and a hard worker and she handled money probably better than he did.
Angela: When did you move from Iowa?
Royce: We left there and went to the Rio Grande Valley, north of Mission, Texas. There was a big land boom on. They were told about the nice climate, there would be water to irrigate from the Rio Grande River. My dad bought 20 acres of land and they rented the farm and moved down there. With the help of some Mexicans they cleared the land and built a four-room house and we ended up there. The promises about water to irrigate were bad. We were 7 years in that area. I say we moved out before we starved to death. If we had stayed considerably longer, it would have turned out real well. They finally developed the irrigation system. We were 6 miles north and a half mile east of Mission, Texas. Mission, Texas, is rather famous in Texas history, some of the prominent citizens are U.S. Senators and others were raised there. But the area we lived in was mostly midwestern suckers---it's what I'll call them. They came down there and got suckered into a bad experience.
Angela: How old were you when you moved from Iowa to Texas? And from Texas to Arkansas?
Royce: I was 4 or 5 when we moved from Iowa. When I moved here and entered school I was 12. We moved to a farm five miles south of Hope on Hwy. 29, the Lewisville Road. I had no idea why my father moved to Hope, Arkansas. He never did tell us. I'm sure my mother wanted to move back to Iowa. I've often said if we'd moved back to Iowa I'd probably could have gone to the University of Iowa and driven a car. I ended up going to the University of Arkansas and hitch-hiked. But I wouldn't have met my wife, Dorothy.
Angela: Do you have any brothers and sisters?
Royce: Yes, there were four of us in the family. I was the oldest, brother Earl was second, my sister Mable was next. Now Earl was almost a baby when we left Iowa. My sister Mable and my sister Elsie were born in the Rio Grande Valley.
Angela: What school did you attend as a child in Arkansas?
Royce: The first school I attended was named "Alken." It was a two room brick school, a country school up to the eighth grade, six miles north of Mission. Then we moved one year down to a town called "Donna." It was closer to the river and had better water for irrigation. My brother and I went to Donna to school. We road burros, he and I. When we came here right after Christmas in 1919, I entered High Sixth, at Old Garland, where the courthouse is now.
Angela: Did you graduate from there?
Royce: I graduated from Hope High School in 1924.
|
| |||
