photos of Patsy, Bill and Bob in 1954

One day a friend took these pictures in our back yard in Comanche.  I believe the Episcopal priest Father John Salberg took these.  They were slides which have now been digitized. I don't know that anyone else had a camera that made slides in those days.

Bob would have been 4 and Bill would have been 12 about this time.  I think it was Easter Sunday.

Hayne and Patsy Reese

Hayne and I met in the summer of 1956. I was still 17 years old. When he was in Comanche we spent a lot of our time together with Joe and Margaret Waring at their home at 501 West Wright St. in Comanche.

We both went off to school in the fall, Hayne to the University of Iowa for his second year of graduate school and I to Texas Women's University. We courted by mail and spent Christmas together that winter. In the spring Hayne gave me a ring and the announcement of our engagement was made in the Comanche Chief newspaper.

Hayne worked most of the summer at a Boy Scout camp in North Texas to save money for our wedding trip.  He taught water skiing at Possum Kingdom Lake.

This is the Comanche, Texas High School marching band.  It was either 1955 or 1956 and I am in the color guard, the last person on the front row.

We practiced at 7 a.m. every morning for two weeks before school started.  When we could practice on the football field, we practiced marching 6 steps to 5 yards, which meant everybody stayed in line if they could keep up.

My dad designed the half time shows for the football games.  Nowadays there are computer programs for that.  We learned to play while marching, and had to memorize our parts so we didn't have to have those little clip-on music stands when we marched.

Carolyn Meyers, Quay Williams, Joyce McNutt, Bethel McDaniel, Patsy Atwood.  Color guard carried white wooden fake rifles and learned maneuvers with them.  I don't remember when we carried the flag, at parades I guess. 

snow in the pasture

This was about 1943 I think.  We had a terrific snow and the grownups made this huge snowman.  Daddy built a sled out of lumber, tied it to the back of our car and towed us around (slowly, of course) in Uncle Ed's pasture.  I can still remember that day.  The snow made everything so quiet, and we screamed with laughter, and everybody was really happy that day.

There is another great photo and paragraph about this at

http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3801104567582240677#editor/target=post;postID=7509114308771295114

Bill and me, 1949

Uncle Ed made this picture of Bill and me in his back yard at the Atwood Hatchery when we were almost 8 and 12 years old.  We sure had lots of good times there.  Often my dad and Uncle Ed and their  brothers-in-law went fishing together.  They brought back fish, usually bass and stripers, for the whole clan. We would eat supper out in the yard and then make home made ice cream. What good times we had! 

The four of us

About 1944 we had a family portrait made of the 4 of us:  Thurston (my dad) me, Anna Louise (Mother) and little Bill.  Daddy's family called him "Bill" most of his life; I am not sure why.  But when my brother William Thurston came along everybody called him "little Bill."

I am sure Mother made the dress I am wearing here. It was made of some kind of sheer floral print and I think it was my Easter dress that year.  She made most of my clothes; after her workday and her housekeeping, she would stay up nights sewing clothes for us.  

Snow in Comanche January 1943

On January 2, 1947 Aunt Laura wrote in her letter to Aunt Mamie:

"we are having the most beautiful snow.  It started New Years Eve and the forecast for tonight is more snow.  We (Ed and Laura) are carrying water to the chickens three times a day for three days so far."

We lived nearby Ed and Laura's place that year. Snow was and is so rare in Texas.  It was huge fun.  Here are a couple of pictures from that day. In January 1947 Bill was 4 and a half and I was 8 and a half.  Our birthdays are 4 days apart.