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I first met Judy when she joined our Senior class in Fountain in the fall of 1955. I did not have very many dates in high school. Our class did a lot of activities as a group. I thought I would ask Judy out for a date. She just ignored me.

The senior class had a ice skating party at a frozen pond on John Marshall father’s farm. Judy was standing by the pond with some other girls with her ice skates on. I came by her and said, “You look like you are sterilized”. I meant to say hypnotized. She just ignored me.

After several tries and some help from my friend, Violet, Judy finally consented to a date. The senior class always put on a school carnival to raise money for their end of school class trip. We, the class, decorated and prepared for this carnival the night before. By this time Judy and I were going steady, kind of.

Judy lived ten miles north of Fountain, in Security, and I lived fifteen miles southeast of Fountain. I had to have her home by 10:00 p.m. I had my new Ford pickup parked pretty close to the school. When I backed away from the school, I backed into a fire hydrant. Water was going everywhere. Our class sponsor, Mr. Fox came out and said, “Take Judy home, Erine, we will fix this”.

The next night we had our carnival which was open to the public. Our friend and neighbor, Bill Brinker, who I helped put up hay, was there. He wanted my to show him my girlfriend, Judy. He was very impressed.

Judy had a high soprano voice and sang at school, church weddings, and funerals. The fall after we graduated from high school, she sang for a classmate’s wedding.

Judy had not ridden a horse since she was small on her pony. One time my cousin, Eleanor from Michigan, who was a year older than me, was out for a visit. I took the girls for a horseback ride. When we started to lope, Judy fell off her horse. Judy got back on and helped me many times down though the years, moving and sorting cattle by horseback.

Living in the Baker House

After my sophomore year in college, Judy and I came home for the summer. We stayed in my Baker grandparents farm home in Hanover. My Great Uncle Gabel had just moved out of the house, and it was fairly clean.

We still needed a house the next summer. This time the house was awful. The mice had moved in. They chewed the molding on the refrigerator and made it unusable. It was a terrible job to get it cleaned enough to live in for the summer. Judy’s parents helped us a lot.

Before I graduated from college, my dad bought the Wiseman ranch with the house on the east side of Squirrel Creek. We moved into this house after I graduated from college and stayed there until after the food of 1965.

To get to the clothesline, Judy had to cross the driveway and go under some tree branches. One time after she went under the branches, she heard this plop sound. She looked back and there was a big bull snake on the ground. Thank God it didn’t fall on her. Bull snakes can climb a tree and clean out all the bird nest and then throw themselves on the ground.

Judy and I attended the Hanover Community Church, which was under the auspices of the American Sunday School Union, that was non-denominational. Services were held in the Hanover School. Judy and I attended Sunday School class which was made up of older people of various denominations. They would get into some lively discussions. Judy and I just listened.

Some of the people at I remember in that class: Mr. Ed Koop, who was a homesteader from Germany and a Lutheran. He had lost his wife in a house fire. He had a son that lived with him and two daughters that lived in the Myron Stratton Home for orphans. There was Bennie Dickson and his wife from Oklahoma who were Baptist. He was very vocal in his beliefs. Roy and Right Chisman who were Methodist. They were my daughter-in-law, Brenda’s, grandparents. My grandparents, John and Ivy Baker who were Baptist homesteaders from Oklahoma. There was also Mr. and Mrs. Causey who were homesteaders and devout Christians.