July 30th, 2010

Marjorie Lee Driskill 's Story

Birth Year: 1930




Table of Contents





    Chapter 1: How I Came To Be

    My name is Marjorie Driskill. My mother was Clementine Theresa Oliva. My fathers name was Irvin Wayne Oliva. I was born on December 19, 1930. I have one brother Lloyd Oliva.

     

    My mother was from Texas and she grew up on a cotton plantation. She lived in a huge house with porch all the way around. She came from a huge family with 10 children. They were mostly girls, with the exception of 2 boys. I don’t have a clear memory now but my mother’s parents and my father’s parents came from Czechoslovakia and they met on the ship coming to the United States. They became real acquainted and they promised their children in marriage- my mother and father, could marry when they were 18 years old. This was an arranged marriage.

     

    When they got to the U.S my mother’s family decided to homestead on a cotton plantation down in Texas and my father’s family went on through Oklahoma into Kansas. My mother’s family must have been fairly wealthy because they had so much more than my father’s family. He had 8 siblings, 7 boys and 1 girl.

     

    My grandparents on my father’s side lived in Kensington, Kansas that was quite a little drive from our farm. The rest of the families as they grew up settled 37 miles southwest and they each live fairly close together. Each had a dirt farm. The towns they lived around were Stockton or Plainville? That area is just north of Hays Kansas.

     

    Back to my story. My grandparents kept in touch as best they could back then. They didn’t really see each other very often. The families would come together in the between state to meet in Oklahoma. They worked it out as best they could until the right time came. They also infrequently used letters to communicate.

     

    When my mother turned 18 my grandparents on my mothers side and the parents of my father who was two years older at the age of 2O arranged to meet. They got together again and planned this huge wedding in a cathedral and they were married in Grainger Texas.

     

    My parents didn’t speak or see each other all through this time growing up. After the wedding, my mother moved to Kansas with her new husband and lived on our dirt farm and it was so primitive.

     

    As I was going through all of this, I thought “O my goodness how could she do this?”

     

    She lived on a huge plantation in a huge home with servants; it was such a beautiful life down in Texas. Then she moved to Kansas to live in a two room, little wooden and stone house in this very small town. That house really needed to be torn down and rebuilt, but she stayed there and made do regardless.

     

    When my mother had us children she had to have her babies at home and I think probably one of the neighbors came to help. Times were hard and I feel like I missed out on being a child. I always had to do a lot of chores and that was ok but I guess as I was growing up I kept thinking that I was not going to live life like this when I grew up. I had some ideas.

    Chapter 2: The Early Years

    Back in the time of the Depression, my brother and I grew up. We were 7 years apart so we weren’t very close. And to this day I don’t really know where he is. He was a roamer; once he could get out on his own he would disappear. Then he did. I have no idea where his to this day.

     

    I was the oldest child. Because of the age difference we did not get into trouble too much. I was sort of the protector of the two. He was a little hard to handle when he was growing up. He was the one that was more mischievous of the two. We had more of my father’s family already living in Kansas. So I had a lot of cousins, aunts and uncles on my father’s side around.

     

    I don’t go to church now, I went when I was younger but was not really raised in the church. When I was growing up we weren’t close to a church. And my father wasn’t really the church going type.

     

    When I was real young and we took trips down to Texas, I remember my grandparents having a real large home. I use to play with the little Negro children whose parents were cotton pickers. I use to think that was a lot of fun and my grandmother made me a little picking sack. And I would pick cotton until I would get tired or too hot. The days were very hot working out in the fields. We would pick cotton in the early spring or fall whenever the time was right. Most of those memories are vivid.

     

    The first house my parent’s lived in part of it was made of stone and part of it was made of wood. It was very primitive. It didn’t have a sod roof. One of the activities I remember was playing out in the dirt. I would make mud pies and silly little things, and other little things kids do.

     

    As the years went by and I went to school, I first started school by where my grandparents lived because there wasn’t one where I lived. It was a small one-room school where they would teach all of the grades and it was quite small. There must have been 2-3 kids in each grade. I really loved school when I was young. I also really loved my teachers. I liked geography and arithmetic and as time went by, I mean when I was an adult, I became fascinated with computers and typing.

    Chapter 3: Life On A Farm

    We were still on the farm in rural town so I would take the horse to school. We had to leave an hour or two before school started to get there on time because we were really out there.

     

    We rode horses when we wanted to go some place. We didn’t have a car until my father got enough money to buy one, it was a 1930’s model of some kind. This had to be around the late 30’s.

     

    When I looked back I see such a void in my childhood because we didn’t have books to read other than schoolbooks, so I didn’t begin to read a lot, probably until I was close to my teens.

     

    I have a picture somewhere.

     

    When I got into reading and reading for the children. I wanted a totally different life than my parent’s. It was a real struggle for us. For some reason I wanted to be fulfilled in so many ways that I sort have branched out by myself and took every opportunity to learn and to experience.

     

    I loved to be with people because I was home alone so much out on the farm we weren’t close to another farm where there were children. So I had to just play by myself.

     

    My father did all of the farm things outside. He did everything by hand and my mother did not want me to mess up the kitchen inside. So I was never taught to cook with my mom though she was a very good cook. I liked it, but she would have not part of it. It was her kitchen.

     

    My father grew wheat. He didn’t have a tractor but had a horse and a plow in those early years. As time went by he was able to get better machinery. I don’t remember how many acres he had though I think it wasn’t very much. It might have been about 5 acres.

     

    I don’t think we ever had more than 2 horses. I liked to ride the horses. We had a milk cow, but I didn’t milk it. We had chickens and 2 or 3 pigs.

     

    I use to play in the muddy mud puddles with the little pigs after it rained. They would get in the mud and roll around and when they got up they would shake. My mother use to get a washtub out and fill it with water and I’d have to get in. We had to get all the muddy spots off first. She, I remember, was just thrilled with that. This is what I had to do before I took my real bath.

     

    We got to eat the pigs when they got slaughtered so we would eat what we could raise right off the farm.

     

    I don’t think of my past very much because when I do I just want to reminisce. It was so different.

     

    My mother had a washboard for her washtub and that is how she washed the clothing. She had the homemade soap and the whole bit. I didn’t know how to make the soap but my grandmother did and she taught my mom how to do it. When they made the soap all of my family got together. All of the sisters and brothers would make a day of it. It was the old lye soap. Not so great for the skin. I haven’t reminisced about that Era for such a long time I’ve forgotten a lot of it.

     

    In the wintertime there was a potbelly stove in the kitchen and we put up trees that were chopped up for the wood fire. So it was warm during the day but not so during the night. So it was always cold when we got up in the morning. This was just a two-room house. Everyone slept in the same house. The beds stayed down. We had the kitchen and the bedroom.

     

    We didn’t have company very much because there was just the kitchen and the bedroom.  If they did they would go into the kitchen.

     

    My mother tried to have a vegetable garden. My grandmother was the one who always had a big vegetable garden in Kansas. My mother did a lot of canning they canned beef as well. We also canned pork and ham as well as making salt pork and ham. You can the meat by just cooking it place it in the jar and seal it. It would last quite a while. My grandmother had a smoke house at her place. They were very self sufficient on the farm.

     

    We had no electricity and used kerosene lamps. There was a well for water and we had a pump for water by hand.

     

    For chores I would gather the eggs in the evening, if I didn’t break them all, I had to be gentle enough, sometimes they would just crack.

     

    I remember when I was quite young that I realized that there’s got to be a better life. I would dream about my mother’s home back on the cotton plantation. And it was so nice and big and it had charm it wasn’t like the home to where I was. It wasn’t like a house that stood empty and it had no furniture, nothing nice about it, no running water everything was old wood.

     

    As years went by my father went on to become a mechanic and would repair farm machinery and engines. Somewhere at one point our family decided not to stay anymore. I don’t know the details of that decision.

     

    So we moved to another small town in Kansas. Alton? We moved there and had a little nicer house not a lot nicer though. Then I went to school there until I graduated. My father elevated his business, and made a better living. He had a lot of ideas and he was always making new things. He did get patens on some of them. He was always out in the machine shop and making new things.

    Chapter 4: After I Graduated

    I graduated high school and I didn’t go to college right away. I started working in a drug store that was owned by these two brothers.

     

    But my first job I had, I worked in a little Café as a waitress. There was a young man who came in for meals quite often. And I remember one time when he came in for dinner; he was sitting at the front counter. I was serving him a glass of water and when I was running the water into the cup, I had gotten it too full so I sipped some off the top so I wouldn’t spill it. That man saw me and after that he would never let me forget that and we would laugh about it.

     

    I was sipping it as I was walking up to him and as I put it down he said, “how did it taste?”

     

    I was beet red and very embarrassed, and I wanted to get him a new glass of water, but he didn’t let me. Oh, Gosh, I was probably 10 years old at the time. I was just a little brat. I was working very young. There was no problem with my age back then. No one had a problem with it. I got paid .25 cents an hour. Those quarters really added up.

     

    My mother took in ironing at that time. This is before WWII. My father didn’t have to go.

     

    We left the farm and moved into a small town, Alton and my father had a machine shop and did a lot of welding and he was very good. One of the patents that my father had was a gadget that would take the tires off of the rims. He patented some kind of tool that you used to take the big tires off the rims.

     

    Some years after I left the café I worked at the drug store in town and there I did everything. The drugs were already packaged so it was not like a real drug store. It would be sort of like a convenience store today.

     

    I took some courses in college, like they do today.

     

    My first boyfriend was in my class in school and he had a nice family.

    Chapter 5: My First Marriage

    My first husband was Jack Conway. He had a funny personality and I knew something wasn’t right with him. It was a forced marriage. One evening he was in one of his bad moods and he was ranting and raving and I tried to clam him down and he crossed his fists across his chest.

     

    He looked me right in the eyes and said, “I have an urge to kill someone.”

     

    That terrified me and I tried so hard to act like I didn’t fear him. I kind of walked away and at that time I was totally afraid.

     

    He and his brother owned the drugstore that I worked in.  He was older than me by a few years and he became very possessive of me.

     

    I didn’t really wanted to get married and my father said I could so I did. We had two children, a daughter Judy and Douglas Conway. They were both just precious children.

     

    They, my children, are still a part of my life today.

     

    I got away from Jack. I ran away. I remember it took so much planning. I didn’t have transportation and I didn’t have money. I finally confided in one of my aunts who had a daughter my age and they were wonderful, they really helped me.

     

    My aunt was aunt Hazel Oliva, Martin was my uncle’s name. I stayed with my aunt and uncle while we decided what to do. We went to the doctor to get Jack some medical assistance. That all took place and so I wasn’t in on all of that. I didn’t have to be involved or afraid. My kids were very young.

     

    My boy was still a baby about 3 years old. Those were some real terrific times. Not knowing what to do. I was 16 when I married Jack. Jack was probably 8 years older. He and his brother had been in the military. They lived on the farm south of us. I was working in the drug store at the time that I met him, and they had just got out of the military and they bought the drug store. That was a bad time too. It was kind of like out of the fire and in to the frying pan. He was very jealous. I would have done anything to get out of my situation.

     

    He died very young. I stayed with my aunt and uncle who had two daughters and went on to school with them. I was still in school in my early 20’s. I just went back and got whatever teachers would give me and I got a good education as it turned out. I got a lot of attention and that I think helped me get to where I should be at an early age.

    Chapter 6: Second Husband

    My Second Husband’s name was Brice Driskill. He is not alive today. I had a small wedding with Brice at the church. I had no other kids with him.

    Chapter 7: My Career

    My computer business was successful. I was doing accounting for…. Gosh, I have drawn a blank.

     

    Eventually I did live my dreams. So it did become a Cinderella story!

     

    It was probably through my business adventures that I became so intrigued with the computers. I developed some systems, with software and then I began getting involved in different accounting applications. It was a book keeping application at that time that I was so fascinated with. With this application I could see so many other different uses for it.

     

    How I got started in computers was interesting. It was a time when they were brand new to the world. I knew some people that were in the oil business doing drilling. There are quite a few people drilling at that time in Kansas. Some of them showed me how they get their records in order and their income and payroll and all of those kinds of things.

     

    There was one company that was willing to sit down with me and teach me how to keep the records and we worked on turning that application into computer processing and then that just took off because that information was stored on computer for the accounting records.

     

    I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. My company was named Oil Tronix, Ltd. I got brochures and things I don’t know where they are now. I had around 20 employees at our peak. We were putting all the records on the computer. It was a book keeping company. Keeping track of all the records and making sure that the annual and monthly balance would be out and the bills were paid.

     

    For me it was, a dream come true. I had a fairly large company. Everything just came up so easy and I was so thrilled to have that opportunity. That’s what I did until I retired.

     

    I got my children involved in it for a while though they are doing something different now. They are not there anymore; they all got their own computers and they like them. They think they are exiting. My children and I were all in it together and had a lot of respect for each other and loved being together. Things really turned around since I had my own business.

     

    They came with me out to Colorado.  They went from computers to dry a cleaning business.

     

    My husband’s brother was wonderful to my children, and after Jack was gone he took them under his wing. He was in the dry cleaning business and he taught them what they needed to know. They were in San Diego for a while and eventually he had some dry cleaners here but not a lot.

    Chapter 8: My Business Travel

    I traveled but did not go back to Czechoslovakia. My travels were form my company Oil Tronix Ltd. With my work I had clients in Alaska and Canada. So each time I set up a system I would get more and more clients and as it was really perfected I cant remember what year but it took off like you would hope.

     

    It is like this because a lot of people in the oil industry knew people all over the industry. I had a big client in Denver who was at the top of the experience because he had a lot of oil wells all over the U.S and Alaska.

     

    We did it all together and if I didn’t know what I was doing I faked it until we figured it out. It was really exiting and a lot of times I felt like I was over my head but I would stay up all night until I would figure it out. It was quite an adventure.

    Chapter 9: In Conclusion

    I’ve had some sadness in recent years because the loss of my husband. I’m not ready to do anything else. I’m thinking about several different things now but I’m not quite sure on which direction I want to take next. I don’t want to be the boss any longer. But I still have the itch to do something.

    I guess what I should do some time is kind of run through the years and chop it into the different chapters that would be my life.