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I'd ever been kissed by a young man. He and Ola went as far as our front gate with us and he said remember what you promised. I didn't dare to ask them to go in because my daddy had strictly forbidden him to come there. He was a railroad engineer in Longview, Texas, also in Galveston and he was there in the year of 1912. The best I remember when that terrible storm hit Galveston and swept it almost entirely off the map. He was one out of hundreds that was saved. He said that was the awfullest thing he had ever seen in his whole life. He said he saw babies hanging up in the forks of trees, older people under lumber, men and women with their arms and legs torn off. Oh, I couldn't tell you all he said he saw. He said he saw the big seawall in Galveston washed away and people thought that seawall would stand anything but the Lord showed them different. He and I corresponded up until Willie and I were engaged and when I wrote and broke the news to him he never wrote me another line, but wrote his sister and told her he never dreamed my heart was made of stone. The night we parted at my front gate and he held me in his arms for a minute and then kissed me good bye that was the last time I saw him. Of course I used to see him at times before that at Gainesville church and if my daddy didn't happen to go with me he'd ask if he might ride with me as his sister then lived right on the road going to my home. He was working in Bleweth, La., at that time and would come over to his sisters quite often. He was engaged to a wonderful girl up around Nicholson where I was born and I'll tell you about that later on. This girl I spoke of, her name was Lola Alsobrooks; she and I became real good friends and we corresponded up until I got married. Of course I stopped writing to her as I found other things to do, but we still thought a lot of each other. Georgia was engaged to her when he decided he thought more of me. So he dropped her like a hot coal. I felt sorry for her because she really loved him. Although, I never heard her call his name.
The way I got acquainted with so many girls like Myrtle Schuethies, Amelia Lott, Lola Alsobrooks, all of Jim Davis' daughters, Mosouri, Nancy, Ellen, Lilly, Olla, Ester, Edith, Lena and the boys were Johnnie, Russell, Edgar, and Curtis. Then there was Velomia Yates, Lola Miller, Jewel Simmons, Ethel Eves and Aline Eves and many others. And as i said before, the way I got acquainted with so many was when my daddy would take me to big speakings, picnics and other places to visit his old friends or
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