Joella "Jo" Marshall's birthday celebration was held on Sunday, July 12, at the Prairie Grove Senior Center. Numerous family members, friends and neighbors joined the festivities at the Senior Center in celebrating a long lifetime of memories such as these.
Joella "Jo" (Simpson) Marshall was born on July 14, 1919, at Coppers Cove, Texas. Besides Jo, there were six sisters, two brothers, her mother Druecilla, and father Hutsie. She was only 10 years old when the Great Depression befell America and her family was a product of those trying and difficult times. Jo and her family spent many years as migrant farm workers in west Texas and east New Mexico. The family traveled from farm to farm following the cotton crops and always looking for any kind of work. Jo was pulling a cotton sack at about the age of 11, and either picking cotton or pulling cotton. She will be quick to tell you that there is a difference.
When the family wasn't tugging their sacks through the west Texas dust, they were hoeing the rows to control weeds. Most fields were marked off in sections; therefore, the rows were often a mile long. The going pay was either by the pound or by the row. A dollar-a-day per worker was good wages. The family traveled from farm to farm in a homemade covered wagon designed and built by her father, Hutsie Simpson. At night, all the females slept up in the wagon, while all the males slept on the ground under the wagon.The wagon was pulled by two white mules. Work days always began before daylight and continued well after dark. When cotton wasn't in season her father hired out to local businesses as a "drayman." He often wouldn't see his family for weeks at a time. The nine children and their mother learned to be extremely self-reliant.
Weather permitting, Jo still walks a half a mile each day up and down her street. Due to her own life experiences, Jo doesn't have a lot of patience with folks who whine all the time about how bad they have it today as they complain into their iPhones while pushing a shopping cart full of food.
General News on 07/22/2015