The-Journey

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The Journey

I think I have lived in the best time in all the universe. When I was born, we rode in a horse and buggy, and now they travel in space. So many things have changed. Nobody really knows what you've gone through unless you tell them, so I thought it might be worthwhile to tell some of the things that happened in my life~Goldie

The Journey

Part 12

When Thurman was up there that week he rented a three room apartment upstairs. We gave $8 a month. There was nothing in the three rooms. We carried water up and trash down. There was an outside toilet and the Sear’s Roebuck Catalog. We slept on the floor. We did not have any bed. We had no table and chairs. We took the back cushion out of the Model A and we set on the floor and ate off the car cushion. A grocery store was around the corner and Thurman asked for a couple of orange crates to put my skillet, cooker and four plates in. I put an old curtain around it. That was my cabinet. We went to the grocery store and got a bag of groceries for $5.00 that would last all week. Thurman’s first check for six days work was $15.35, May 9, 1941. Oh yes, we had a two burner camp stove to cook on. We didn’t complain, we were so happy and we had a lot of fun.

Later we moved into one of Mr. and Mrs. Cosman’s houses. That was wonderful. Pansy was three years old. She fell and cut her leg real bad. We had to rush her to the hospital. Everett, my brother stayed with us and worked at Rose’s greenhouse too at that time.

Then Thurman got a different job in August of 1942 and worked there until he was called into service. He went in the Navy to Great Lakes, Illinois. Boot camp and ATB Camp was in Bradford, Virginia. Then back to Great Lakes Ill. Navy Pier Chicago. He was assigned to LST Ship 647 [LST stands for Landing Ship Tank,] If you don’t know what a LST ship looks like, it has two big doors in front and it would carry infantry boys and equipment in to land for an invasion. Thurman was a gunner in one of the gun turrets in the front of his ship.

There were six LST ships that came down the Mississippi River and Thurman’s ship was one of them. Thurman had found out when they would go by Cape Girardeau, so I took my mom and dad and Thurman’s mom and dad and went to Cape Girardeau to see them go by. That was something to see. I think I cried most of the time, not knowing whether I would see him again. My brother went in service as well on July 1, 1943 and served on the USS Preston battleship.