Contents

High School

7th Grade: 1955-1956

Age 13

July 1956

While there I met some of the teenage neighbors, a girl and boy, and we went swimming at a lake and went to the movies. The movies cost a nickel. It was the first time I wore high heals. We walked to the movies down the street in the heels and it was hard. It was cotton country and they told me they would go out and pick cotton before school to earn money. The teens were nice friends.

Down the street the teens took me to an old lady neighbor’s house. It was really hot and she had an electric fan blowing in her living room. It was the first time I had seen an electric fan.

Aunt Wanda had surgery and they were living northeast Arkansas at the Air Force base where Sydney Clifford worked. She had surgery and when he went to see her at the hospital. He passed out and fell down and broke his jaw. He had to have his jaw wired. He had three little girls. Cindy, Vicky, and Karen. 3 and 4 years old. He asked mom if I could come and take care of the girls for the summer. They lived in a big old fashioned southern nice wood house off base. So stayed with them and took care of the girls and did laundry and washed cloth diapers and hung them on the line. The yard was beautiful. Lots of bushes and roses and trees. Summer nights were soft and humid, close to the Mississippi River. In the kitchen they had liquid dish soap that smelled so good. I had never seen liquid soap before. We used dry soap for everything, laundry, dishes, and washing hair. The kitchen was very old fashioned. One Sunday, it was fast Sunday, I was trying so hard to be a good Mormon and fast but Sydney Clifford made fun of me so terribly that I quit my fast. I missed two meals though. While there on the fourth of July, Sydney and some friends and the girls went down to the river and we had a picnic on the side on the bank of the river. I had never had a regular picnic, but they also had beer and booze. It was new and different and fun.

Dad holding my hand. That was something he never did.

Lewis lived in Cheyenne Wyoming when I was

8th Grade: 1956-1957

Age 14

I made my school clothes this year because mother was gone in Utah. I was very proud of this Japanese style dress with the Frog clip.

First Day of School

Art Class: Puppet Making/Shows

May 15, 1957– Behind the stage, in Lowell, Arkansas, for a puppet show.
Joyce, David Rand, Tuck Chaffee, Mary Ann Wilkerson

Mrs Prices art class. We made posters for a contest.

He eventually sold the car and got a flat bed truck and he was on the football team and the team would ride around town on the bed of the truck because they were the big football heros

Danny Biggs was a senior and I was about 9th grade. He was adorable. He took me driving in his car. Which was a big deal for me because I was so young. He and his sister and his dad always went skating every week at the roller rink at lake Atlanta. I had a big crush on him. Before Paul and I dated.

The lady was a friend of moms, and she and my mom were trying to fix me up with her teen son(Clark Cliborn). But I wasn’t interested. Mom was always trying to fix me up with someone.
(This was before Danny Biggs)

I painted that stairway yellow. Dad said the neighbors would think there was a black family living there. Mother always washed my white socks with cholorox, and I had the brightest socks around. I loved my white socks. Maybe a junior

Aunt Wanda is wearing the dark dress and the lady she is hugging is her mother. The girl next to me is Aunt Wanda’s sister. They came over for Easter and the girl forgot her easter shoes. Easter was a big deal back then. We were all going to go to church but she wouldn’t go because she didn’t have her Easter shoes. So mother suggested I give her my shoes and I wear her shoes. The road is dirt in front of my house. Old Hwy 12. Now it’s paved and very busy road. Above, Springs that were across the road from our property Probably built from 1890-1900’s when old hotel was there. Mom and dad bought ten acres across the road from those springs and there had been an old hotel on the property were we built our house. The rock foundations were still there. Dad built the house 100-200 feet back from them. Irises came up around the old rock foundation every year. The story was that people, before the trains, would come down the valley and stop at the springs and get water. People still did. There was a drive through road in front of the springs. The springs (all three of them) the water dripped down into a hollowed out rock like a bowl that someone had made. It was a steep hill above the springs. The last time I was in Rogers, my nephew Johnny Lowe came to visit. 1998? and the first thing that he did in his brand new pickup truck was to go to those springs and get a drink of water. Then he would drive around Lake Atlanta on the dirt road. It was a tradition for him. maybe 14 or 15 years old

The saddle oxfords were hers and the black shoes were mine and we traded to go to church. The baby is either Cindy, Karen or Vicky.

9th Grade: 1957-1958

Age 15

10th Grade: 1958-1959

Age 16

Latin Club Queen of Lore and Beauty

October 1958

11th Grade: 1959-1960

Homecoming Queen

December 1959

Junior Senior Banquet April 1960 Taken at Southside School

12th Grade: 1960-1961

I didn’t go to 12th grade in Arkansas because Paul and I got married November 28, 1960. I graduated from high school in Ft. Collins, Colarado when we moved there. We had been planning on getting married for a while and Paul’s dad objected. He drove out to our house and told mom and dad how upset he was. So, mother had a friend, Vera Dowrimple, that attended our branch that was moved to Fayetteville. Her and her daughter (she was a single mom) moved to Colorado and she and my mom stayed friends.

Cora Marie Florer: Teenager