Page 51 - Ninety Miles From Nowhere

O. C. W.’s Annie Oakley - Chapter 12
The O. C. W. Administration Building
The days following my “foot” episode were filled with quiet enjoyment for the four of us. I was still wearing Mother’s felt house slippers, so did not venture out into the snow. I was able to help with the sawing and splitting of the wood, though, near the cabin where the snow had been trampled down. The heat from our range kept us toasty and warm and the continuous fire was an excellent means of cooking beans or stew or any other long-cooking meal.
When the boys were lucky enough to find a dead oak tree, we were treated to some of Mother’s prize-winning light bread, as yeast- raised bread was called then. Oh, what a welcome change from our water biscuits! We had to have the slow-burning oak for baking the loaves, for the juniper wood provided only a hot, quick fire.
We all missed Rose and her fun very much, but didn’t have much time before Dad and Red were expected for Christmas. Mother prepared a real old-fashioned Texas Christmas dinner with baked hen and all the trimmings. They did not arrive before Christmas, neither did they come on Christmas Day. We enjoyed our feast and shared it with Mr. Warren and another man who were out hunting on foot. Mr. Warren
remarked about Mother’s dressing and said he knew she’d grown up in Texas from her cornbread dressing.
Two days after Christmas Red and Dad appeared. They had been delayed by the worst winter storm for many years. As they came down U.S. Highway 60 west of Clovis, through Vaughn and Willard, the snow had been too deep for cars to travel and many had been left stranded. On stretches of the road where the snow plows had been, the snow was piled up on either side of the highway twice as high as the car.
At once Dad began demanding that we return to Oklahoma with him because he was worried about what might happen to us if we stayed. Reluctantly we gave in. The irony was that after spending all that time in the below-zero weather out there, I returned to “civilization” and immediately caught a bad case of the flu.
Fortunately I had recovered in time to enroll at midterm at my alma mater - Oklahoma College for Women at Chickasha, Oklahoma. Since it was my senior year and I had only one semester in which to finish my degree, I took twenty semester hours and a correspondence course trying to get through. I still lacked six hours’ work which I completed the following winter by correspondence, and returned to O.C. W. in the spring of 1934 for my degree.
I had my old job back as business manger of the college paper, The Trend, and was student assistant again to my philosophy