The following was an essay written for English Class, Shamrock High School, 1931

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It was a fertile valley in the Carpathian Alps that I was born. On either side of the valley flows the Telajon River and it's tributaries to the beautiful Blue Danube. In a native village of some five thousand souls, three-fourths native Roumanians, one-fourth mixture of all the nations of Europe and Asia, with English and American colonies thrown in for good measure. Here in my native home, under the clouds of the great World War I, I spent the first fourteen months of my life. Then on the morning of August 23, 1916 at four a.m., the silver sound of a bugle awakened the village with the call to arms and the news that Roumania had declared war and joined the Allied nations against Germany. In the next four months I lived under the constant buzz of aeroplanes and the hourly noise of the cannon. The picturesque valley was governed to suit the gods of war, and the beautiful vineyards, wheatfields, oil derricks and wealth beyond mention was turned over to the government. I had to leave this home with only my parents and my brother and a few clothes and eatables and flee to the American Vice-counsulate. There I lived until December 16, 1916, when the vice-counsel chartered four box cars (the best he could get) and loaded his little American coloninists and a few English people in them and began the few weeks of which, if I could remember, would be fraught with worry, suspense, dangers of all kinds and hardships. Days at a time on the way out through Iassi Roumania to Russia were the eighty-five men and women and the thirty-five children in danger. Railroads bombed into useless masses of steel and timber, bridges were mined and the train had to be re-routed with delays -- until at last we came to Petrograd. Here for five days we were virtually held prisoner...in hotels...while American counsels arranged to send the little band on to the States. On Christmas day 1916, we reached Gottenburg, Sweden, riding in sleighs with reindeer to pull us across the frozen bay. Imagine me and thirty-four other children, no Santa Claus, no Christmas tree or toys, and entering a restaurant in Gottenburg, seeing a large Christmas tree, loaded with toys, fruit and chocolate animals. On hearing that the Americans were refugees and had not had any Christmas dinner, a bountiful feast was spread while the children kept gazing with rapture at the tree. A waiter mounted a table and stripped the tree, giving the gifts to us. A weeks wait, and then on New Year's Day, 1917, we sailed on the steam-ship "Stolkholm", landing in New York City on January 16, 1917. The same night I took a train to Toledo, Ohio, and then on to Findlay.

After a short stay in Findlay, we went to Gordon, Kansas, where dad's employer sent him. We spent about twenty months in Gordon, and then on to Big Muddy, Wyoming (officially known as Parkerton). I was passed three years old by now. Only one brief winter at Big Muddy, when I followed my parents to the Lance Creek, Wyoming field. Here I remember many interesting experiences, as: wanting to go barefooted among cactus and rattlesnakes, stepping on hot pipes and trying to burn myself up with gas, parties, feasts from the cook house, and at the age of four, starting to school in a class of four girls and two boys. I loved school and soon could read and write and spell. I was promoted to first grade and felt as proud as I could be. In February I went with my father on a two month inspection tour of the Grass Creek, Wyoming oil fields, living in beautiful Thermopolis, Wyoming, noted for its wonderful hot springs, where in winter the bear, elk, deer and buffalo still come to the city limits to feed when the snow forces them from their natural feeding grounds.

After two months I returned to Lance Creek and to school again, and was put into second grade--only to lose my promotion the next year because the city school demanded a school age of six, and I was only five. For one year I studied music and went to kindergarden.

At the age of six I went with my parents to Hardin, Montana. School began in September and I was promoted to the second grade the first week. I worked in school and studied music here for nearly two years, then moved every few months for the next two years. I lived in Billings and Lewistown, Montana, famous for the Lewis and Clark Expedition, wintering in the Judith Mountains. In the next few months I went to six different schools and scarcely knew the grade in which I studied.

I moved back to Billings, Montana in October 1922, and settled down to steady work. The summers I spent in Glacier National Park and Canada and Wyoming.

In 1925 Dad moved to Amarillo, Texas and, for a few weeks I attended Polk Street School in the fifth grade, but moved to Shamrock, Texas before Christmas. For months I lived at the Whittington Lease north-west of Shamrock. In September I entered St. Mary's Academy in Amarillo, from which I graduated in the following May from seventh grade. Back to high school the next September in Shamrock. With good work and hard study I will finish my course in three years and graduate in May 1931.

"I feel my life is just beginning. It may be uneventful, it may be adventurous."-------Kismet

(Copied from the original, August 1999)