Now and Then

NOW - Everything going well. Have had nice weather for last week or two. High in the 60's and 70's. Much warmer today but still nice. Getting settled into the apartment. Cole has come over a number of days and she and Ellen have been sewing about 30 or so small dresses and short pants they will give to some short term missionaries to take to our missionaries in the Dominican Republic. It is reported that the small indigenous children in the Dominican have few garments to wear. The girls have limited clothing and the little boys go about in their all together.

We have had the opportunity to babysit for Stone and Ryan at different times. They are both very good boys and easy to care for. It's amazing the difference between a one year old and a two year old. They are both exceptional for their age of course but Ryan ( 1 year old) has not started walking yet but is standing without assistance. He has a limited vocabulary but is picking up new words all the time. Stone is 2 years old runs and climbs everywhere, has many words in his vocabulary although he is not making sentences yet. He sits at the table and eats with a fork and is fascinated with hand tools and Bob the Builder.

THEN - I just came across my record book in which I was writing my autobiography. This work is specifically for my heirs (not having anything of worth to bequeath to them) so anyone else can skip over these insertions with my apology.
It will be easier for me to start over again and transcribe the contents of the record book than to try to edit and blend what I have already put in the blog with what is in the book. I ask therefore that you bare with me through the first few years of my chronicle so that I can catch up on what I have written.

The title of these memoirs is "No You Can't....You're Too Young" (From Pearl Harbor to the Moon And Beyond)

The writing gets its title from and dedication to my (much) younger sister, Susan Elizabeth Broyles Gembler who always thought she could remember things that happened before she was born.

CHAPTER 1 pg. 1

It was one of those sounds that grabs your teeth in such a way that you clinch them tightly together in order to keep them from being yanked out by the roots. It ran down my spine like a thousand electrical wires attached directly to the nerve endings. It crawled like phantom spiders up and down my flesh and made me shudder involuntarily.

Such is my first memory. The memory of a 3 year old digging with a tin shovel in a neighbor's sand box and of scraping against a rusty tin can hidden just below the surface of the sand and of hearing the sound of tin on rusty tin similar to fingernails scraping on a chalk board.

I was born in Dallas, Texas on July 14, 1938 and my early memories are of the time when we lived on Mentor Street in Oakcliff, a section of Dallas populated mainly by lower to lower middle income families beginning to be upwardly mobile during the Second World War. (My mother told me later that the First World War was thought to be "The War to End All Wars". Since the beginning of WWII, Korea, Vietnam and now the Middle East conflict(s) we have begun to realize that God is right, "there will be wars and rumors of wars but the end is not yet")

ADDED 6-4-9
Our house was a small (though it seemed very large at the time) frame house with a single car, dirt floored garage. The only thing I remember about the interior is that there was an archway between the living room and the dining room and a door that swung both ways between the dining room and the kitchen.

I have images of sitting in the dining room at lunch listening to Mother’s soap operas and eating Campbell’s Cream of Tomato Soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. The radio soap operas, 15 minutes I think, included: Our Gal Sunday, Portia Faces Life, When A Girl Marries, Just Plain Bill and Stella Dallas. There was one called ----- Back Stage Wife but I don’t know if that was Stella Dallas or someone else.

Other early memories include my mother making me a Porky Pig Halloween mask out of a brown paper bag so that I could go to a Halloween party with my sister (she loved taking me --- Not!) Two little girls that lived down the street gave the party. I remember bobbing for apples and a Piñata I think.

We had a red bull calf that was staked out in the empty lot to the west of our house. I had to cross the lot to get to a friends house and the calf would try to run and butt me when I crossed the lot. I was terrified of the calf.

On the east side of our house lived Mr. Johnson, a Dallas Fireman, who had a big stallion in his back yard. The horse got in to a shed or garage where the oats were kept and foundered on the feed. I remember going with my dad one evening and keeping a vigil with men of the neighborhood as the horse slowly died.

I also remember the time the city paved the street with tar. The tar came in large rolls wrapped in heave paper. When needed, it would be chopped into manageable chunks and put into a cooker, which melted the tar so it could be spread on the street. Until it was used, the cylinders stood unguarded by the side of the street waiting for little boys to gouge are cut off chunks and chew it like gum. I don’t know whether this was a macho thing or whether we thought it tasted good. We did it either way.

My dad had a friend who lived nearby named “Cub” Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell had worked in Panama in Central America who came back with tales of seeing donkeys being swallowed by Boa Constrictors.


At the time of my first memories our family consisted of my Father, Mother, older brother Jimmy (James Allen), older Sister (Sherrill Elain) and me (Teddy Lawrence)
my legal name is Teddy. I was supposed to be named after Theodore Lawrence, the male lead in Little Women. My mother thought I was too small for such a big name and so shortened it to Teddy. My Father, Clarence Eggar Broyles, was the oldest son of a share cropper named James Ernest Broyles and his wife Roxie Eunice (nee Jones.) My Grandfather James Ernest had come as an infant from Tennessee to Texas.

My father, who his children called "pumpkin" when we were small, terminated his formal educating in the seventh grade in order to earn a living and help support his family of two adults and 5 children. Most of what I know about my fathers childhood is that he picked cotton, got into fights in school (beginning the first day of the first grade) and got a piece of fruit (apple or orange) and a half of a cedar pencil for Christmas.

Next time: Enter Mother

Catch Up

In the last week we have:
Sold house, (Money's in the bank)
Moved into our apartment
Heard that friend/brother Joe Pruitt died from heart attack
I went to Dr. for treatment of gout.
Ellen helped Nichole get her flowerbed cleaned and planted
Ellen sewing dresses for missionaries to give to girls in the Dominican
Ellen making summer togs for grandsons (Dorcas, Dorcas, Dorcas)
Spent Saturday with Doug and family. Got to play with Stone.
Gout almost gone.
Still haven't located some items from the move.
Had 2 flats last week. Found out that tire stores in Tulsa (Hibdons, Goodyear,
Firestone) don't charge anything to fix and remount flats. (Tate Brothers
in Skiatook charged $10)
Ellen got hanging basket of Impatiens and other blooming plants for large pot in
front of apartment.

A New Place for Our Home

We have found a new place for our home. We now live at the Ridge Park Apartments on S. Yale in Tulsa. Our address is Ted & Ellen Broyles, 4904 E. 76th St. #607, Tulsa, OK, 74136. I will take some pix and add to the blog later. We have so many great friends and brothers and sisters in Christ who took time out of their busy lives to help us pack, load, unload and unpack our belongings in our move. It is impossible to thank them enough for their time and efforts. We have told God how much we love them and how much we love Him for sending them to us.