My Life on the Homestead Claim
by
Mrs. B. B. Boykin
My life was a very uneventful one and my girlhood was spent in much the same way as the other young girls of the time. Attending school, Sunday school and a few parties (that is, after I had reached the age of sixteen, as my father didn't allow me to have dates or attend parties where there were going to be any boys, before this time.)
I suppose my life was a little different from the other girls in that respect or at least I thought so as I felt that I was being very badly abused.
There were four of we children, two boys and two girls, and I was the oldest. Although our lives were very nearly normal, I still contend that my father was a little hard on us, as he never believed that children should spend any time playing. They should just eat, sleep and work from the time they are big enough to do anything.
I attended High School for four years, and after graduating, took a course in Commercial training and obtained a position in a large Dry Goods store as bookkeeper.
All thru High School I was very shy and reticent, making very few friends and no intimate friends at all. I had very little time for friends anyway, as I was expected to go straight home from school and help in my father’s store. Then rise early in the morning and help until it was time to go to school, as did my brothers and sisters.
The position I obtained was in Clovis, NM, a town about one hundred and fifty miles from my home in Roswell. I became acquainted with one of the girls in the store who was a few years older then myself and we roomed together for awhile. Later, I helped a cousin of mine, who was just my age, in obtaining a position in the same store. We three took a small house together. Our entertainment consisted of a few dates thru the week, maybe an occasional movie, and the usual Saturday night dance.
It was at one of these dances that I met my future husband. Although at the time I had a steady boy friend that had been my High School sweetheart, and with whom I thought I was in love, he (my future husband, Bolly), soon changed my mind about that. He insisted on my breaking up with this boy friend at the earliest possible moment. Although we could not be married for some time as Bolly was still in college, never the less, he insisted on being the one and only.
Bolly finished college the next year, obtained a position and we were married on the first day of the New Year in that fateful year of 1929. He had been working a few months before we were married and just three days later he was laid off as so many, many were during those never-to-be-forgotten years. The Depression!!!
Then it was a question of “what to do?” – “Where to go?” We were living with Bolly’s mother and stepfather at the time, but we knew that we couldn't continue to do so under the circumstances.
Out of the blue, it seemed, an idea struck Bolly that he would like to file on a homestead, At least we would have a piece of land we could camp on and not have to pay rent, and the other living expenses would be so much less than in town.