Three or four years after the Robbs family moved to Sterley, they bought their first refrigerator. It costs $35 and they bought it from the Hargis family who lived across the railroad tracks. The refrigerator was small with only two ice trays in the freezing unit and stood on legs about a foot from the floor. The Robbs were thrilled with this new appliance.

     Several years after they moved to Sterley, Milt bought a butane system for heating and cooking. Juanita was then able to have a nice, white, cook stove and the butane system fueled an open heater in the living room. In the laundry there was now an open heater plus a burner for heating the wash water. All of this replaced a gasoline burner which had to be pumped with air.

     From operating the laundry, Juanita made enough money to provide for the family. If only one person washed in a day, this brought enough money to buy a pound of bologna, a loaf of bread and a can of pork & beans. Juanita always had a big garden behind the laundry and irrigated it with the waste water from the laundry. In Sterley, Milt kept a few cows and pigs to furnish meat and milk.

     Milton Robbs always had an old truck. He often used his truck to move people and he hauled apples from New Mexico in the fall and sold them from his truck. Milt hauled a little wheat during harvest and he also worked at the grain elevator. Juanita fixed dinner everyday for Mr. Thorton who ran the elevator. Mr. Thorton’s son, Owen Thorton and his wife, Kathlene, and their baby boy were good friends to the Robbs family.

     For a time, Juanita’s sister, Myrtle and her husband, Carl Mullenburg lived with the Robbs family. Carl was six foot, four inches tall. Milt came home from work one day to find that Carl had cut up the end gate to his truck and had used it to raise the roof of the outhouse. Because of his height, Carl thought that this was a really good idea and was very proud of his work. Milt was not so proud.

     By the time the Robbs children were ten or eleven years old, they earned money for their school clothes by pulling cotton in the fall. One year, Floyd even made enough money from pulling cotton to buy a used bicycle for $10. Of course, the sisters were forbidden to touch it, but, he was away from home enough that they learned to ride on that bicycle.

     Everyone in the Robbs family had some very close friends in Sterley. The family lived only a few blocks from the school. This was a primary school with two teachers for grades one through eight. There were two churches between their home and the school. Some Sundays the Robbs went to the Methodist church and some Sundays they went to the Baptist church.

Page 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 Index Previous Page Next Page