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He and I had been to a little home dance over at Mrs. John Browns and were sitting in the buggy after we had gotten home and I said to him; oh, did you know this Tuesday is Mardi Gras? and he said yes, so I said I've never been and he said would you like to go?, and I said yes, so he said then let's get married and go, so I said, sounds good to me, so he said I'll be up after you Monday morning. So about the usual hour Monday A.M. my daddy called me at five o'clock and said daughter, are you going to get up and fix your old dad some breakfast? I said no sir, and he said what's the matter are you sick? And I said no sir, then he said what's wrong? So I told him I was going to get married today, and he said, I gollies; I didn't know anything about it, so I told him no one else knew it either. He was hiring a colored woman in Gainesville about three miles from where we lived to do our washing, starching & ironing. Her name was Minerva Warren and she'd have my slips starched so stiff until you could hear them rattling for quite a distance away. So I said, papa would you hitch up Dandy and go into Gainesville and get our clothes. So here he and Dandy went on the fly to get the clothes, so when he got back he tried to talk me into waiting awhile and he he'll give me a church wedding, get me a set of silverware and have Sister Emma's house cleaned up and painted and we could move in to it a short time, but I told him no, we already had our plans made. So sure enough Willie was there after me around ten o'clock and papa was talking so until Willie never had a chance to ask for me and it's doubtful if he would have anyway, as he was so backward. Then we started, my daddy said you children follow me and we didn't know where he was taking us until he drove up to sister Stella's and Emile's gate in Westonia. So we just got there in time to see Dr. Segura pull strips of skin from baby Loyal's face and arm. He was eight or ten months old when he was sitting under the edge of the kitchen table with sister Emma's Nancy about the same age. When Stella walked over to the table with a boiling hot skillet of grease and when she started to pour grease in the bowl the skillet handle turned in her hand and that whole frying pan of grease went down on Loyal's face, neck and arm and after he was drowned and came up, that was all they had to identify him by, were those terrible scars.
Going back to 1914 when I was going to school at the St. Joseph Academy in Bay St. Louis, I just wanted to give the Catholic nuns the credit for being so kind and good to all of us girls. Especially Mother St. Rose (the Mother Superior). She was one of the
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