True Tales of Life In the Old Days - Part 8, Recollections of Gladys True

A Vintage Vignette by John P. Rankin

October 5, 2009

Gladys McFarlen True in her book "My Life from Wagons to Rockets " described her early married life and move to Madison. Excerpts from the book are given below, continuing the series about her life, 1913-2004.

"When Pud was young, he had a head full of hair. He was quite handsome, and he was a good athlete. (He played ball until he was about forty years old.) He was quite a "man about town. If anybody had visitors, he was the one who always showed them around. We had a good married life. We worked hard, but we stayed in love and we celebrated fifty-six and a half married years. Pud said he liked me because I was feisty and pretty enough. He was not one for fancy words but could write a sweet love letter. He left me one when he died."

"We worked together for thirty-five years, and of course we had words. He had a quick temper. He wanted to say what he said and I was not supposed to remember it the next ten minutes. But if he said something I did not like, I just got in my car and went home. When I came back, everything was fine."

"During our courting days, I did not have a telephone. I would get a letter that Pud could come at such and such a time. He came with a man from Gurley who rented his car to five boys who had girlfriends up in Paint Rock Valley. Each one would pay him a dollar and a half. I was the first house they would come to, so I was the first one to get my boyfriend. But then we were just there. We did not go anywhere because we did not have anywhere to go or any way to get anywhere. We could take a walk, but that was no more fun than sitting in the house."

"When school started that fall, Pud had gotten a job in the drugstore at Gurley. Mr. Harry (Williamson, the pharmacist,) taught him how to fill prescriptions. Under close supervision he became able to do that. He was working because he had finished school. I was still in high school. This arrangement went on for a couple of years."

"I graduated in 1931. That summer Pud came up to tell us that he had joined the Army. He was very unhappy in the Army. He came home for Christmas by train with a three-day pass. The three days did not start until he got home because it took a day to get there and a day to get back. When he got home, we decided we would get married. Then he said he did not get permission. He was just a private, I think. But we got married and did not tell anybody. Pud and I were secretly married a year before anybody knew it but my parents."

"We moved to Gurley for just a little over a year before we came to Madison because he did not stay in the Army but a year. Pud's boss (in the Gurley drugstore) was Mr. Harry Williamson. Mr. Williamson received a letter from Doc Hughes in Madison asking if he knew anyone who would want a job in the Madison Drugstore. Mr. Williamson really did not need Pud at that time. He told Pud to go to Madison and work for Doc Hughes for three months. Pud came to Madison and rented rooms in a house on Front Street owned by Mrs. Collier. We first arrived in Madison on Valentine's Day in 1933. I arrived on Saturday, went to church on Sunday, and had joined the Methodist Missionary Society by Monday."

"Mr. Williamson had told Pud that three months is about as long as anyone new stayed in Madison because nobody liked the town. Mr. Hughes was paying Pud $100 a month. Mr. Harry had been paying him $1 a day in Gurley, so we decided to stay on in Madison."

Pud worked for Doc Hughes for eight years and later operated his own grocery store for 35 years.