Really I was the main one who had to take care of Pa and look after Moonie and run the store to boot. I was the oldest and stuck with all of the responsibility.

Sometime after the funeral a lawyer man came and told Ma that they were going to take the property away because of all the debts Pa had left. Ma got another lawyer and told him that if she could keep the store she would pay him back all the money Pa owed, which was $63,000. In those days that was like millions. But Ma worked the store day and night and paid back the money.

Of all the girls, Ma didn’t show any favoritism except maybe for Moonie. When Moonie was little, she had curls and looked like Shirley Temple. All of the customers in the store would come in and rave about her and make a fuss. It wasn’t Ma so much as it was the customers. Moonie seemed even prettier than Tootie because she liked being feminine and liked clothes and dressing up, but whenever Tootie halfway tried to look like a woman, she was gorgeous. She had the most beautiful shiny red hair like you see on those Irish. Beautiful smoochy lips, a pretty face—there’s no denying. She just couldn’t hide it.

When Tootie was about sixteen, the boys got after her something awful. She wouldn’t go out with them. She would play baseball and basketball with them and horse around with them because she was still this awful tomboy, but she wouldn’t “fool” with them. Tootie got sick headaches like Ma—they had that in common—and we would have to go up in her room and put ice packs on her head. It didn’t seem like Tootie to get sick, because she was so tough—because she was such a toughie and could go without sleep and work like a man—but when she got headaches she saw lights dancing in her brain and talked to angels. Sometimes she talked to Jesus. All of these headaches came after her first menstruation.