Barron, Monese Myrick 37

Lea County Families and Histories, Then and Now, Vol II

Barron, Monese Myrick

By: Monese Barron

Graduation at Seagraves High School was mid-May in 1938 and there were twenty-one graduates including myself, Monese Myrick. My Dad E.W. Myrick moved the house we had occupied since he built it in the summer before from Seagraves to Allred. He soon had it remodeled to house the post office for my mother, Ethel Virginia Westerman Myrick, who had been appointed postmaster. A small stock of drugs and a soda fountain was purchased from Mr. Davis and a drug store was kept open in connection with the post office. It rained a lot that summer and the road to Hobbs had wide puddles to drive through. Mother would drive the pickup filed with all the kids- Haroldene and Mildred Graves, Blackie Wooten, a boy named Ferman, David Davis, and my sister, Ava Lee and me to Hobbs on Saturday. We could go to a movie. We could skate in the old cloth hung building with the warped floor or swim in the “Ole Swimming Hole”. Many times the pickup would “drowned” out and we would sit singing in the moonlight until it would start again.

Allred was named for Jimmy Allred, the governor of Texas. The town site was located on Annie Miller’s ranch land in Yoakum County. Ben Miller, son of Annie Miller, and Sue Stephens, her daughter lived in the ranch house on the east side of the road going north to Plains. The businesses were all on the west side of the main street. Miss Sue had fine saddle horses and she invited me to ride with her to change cattle from one pasture to another. She, also, invited me to attend the rodeos in Hobbs and Carlsbad. Sue Stephens was active in Lea county ranching.

The Humble Oil Company had big “camps” in Hobbs and Denver City. Each 4^th of July there was a big company picnic held at Humble City between Lovington and Hobbs for the Texas-New Mexico employees and friends. UI can remember the “a’’ day” dinner and entertainment. Fun for all ages.

            The fall of 1938 was wet and cold for Texas-New Mexico plains. The Permian basin “boom” was slow. Many little towns’ sprang up and soon died. I went to Oil Center to work for Roy and Willie (Cheryl) Martin. The falling down building was Roy’s service station and Willie’s café is across from the post office.  Willie’s sister was Edith Davenport who lived in Allred. My sister married Eddy Ingram who worked for Phillips Refinery near Oil Center. Ava Lee and Eddy later moved to Borger, Texas. I returned to Allred after New years of 1939. These were the days when the country was just pulling out of the Depression before World War II. I married O.K. Flowers of Chico, Texas who was field salesman for national Supply in Denver City. He was required to make deliveries that took him to the Hobbs store and this was when he found time to enroll with B.F. Hines Flying Service.  Frank Hines was well liked by all his pilots and he promoted clubs where each one could buy a share of an airplane. The Porterfield and Piper Cub clubs were very popular. Sherry Ann was born in 1941 and when I could go with “Tig” Flowers I took my baby and watched the boys shoot landings. The war kept “Tig” from completing his flying and receiving his instructor’s rating at Hobbs but he left there believing he could come back to Hobbs after the war and work with Frank Hines. We were sent to Big Springs, Texas- back to Artesia, new Mexico- to Bonham, Texas- Dallas, Texas next- then to Wilmington, Delaware. This was the Air Transport Command. It was overseas for O.K. Flowers in November of 1944. Gayla Sue was born February 15, 1944 and wasn’t a year old when her father was killed when his plane crashed returning from a flight across the “Hump” in India. My two little girls and myself were visiting my parents in Carlsbad where we had come to spend Christmas when the letter from the War Department arrived. We stayed on in Carlsbad for three years. (See Eddy County History Book).