6/5/08
Friona school memories of Mary Eulelia Wiley
(As told by her daughter, Mary Lee Boston)
Mary Eulelia Wiley’s family were early settlers and longtime residents of Friona. Her parents were Ralph Grier and Rose Wiley. Her sisters Alice Whaley and Ella Dukes, and brother Melvin Wiley, raised their families in Friona. Her parents and sisters are buried in the Friona Cemetery. The following is submitted by Mary Lee Boston:
Before my mother’s death on March 24, 2008, at the age of 96, I spent many hours sitting with her, listening to stories of her life.
She was born November 8, 1911, in Snyder, Oklahoma. Due to ill health of her father, in 1925 when she was 14, she moved with her family to Friona where they were early settlers and longtime residents.
She had three sisters, Ella, Anna, and Alice; and two brothers, Melvin and Ralph. Sister Anna was 16-months older than Mary and they were always together. They lived on a farm located about 5 ½ miles southeast of Friona. At this time Friona was a small town and the school building was a gathering place for the community and church services were held there. The family attended services in the school until the Church of Christ was built.
Mr. Reeve and some other men decided that Friona needed school buses. Several trucks were bought and big, box-like affairs with seats inside were mounted on the trucks. They were painted a dark red. Friona was the first school district in Texas to have buses.
One morning as Reuben Gisler, the bus driver, drove along the road between Hub and Friona, the bus turned over. Mother was behind in a second bus and watched as the bus slid off the wheels. The children had to walk part of the way to school on a muddy road.
She and her sister Anna and brother Melvin were the first to be picked up on the bus route and the last to be delivered home. This made them arrive home in the late afternoon when chores needed to be done. Then they gathered around the dining room table with a coal-oil lantern for light to do their homework.
There are two books in mother’s library that were her cherished possessions, a music book and history book she had while in Friona high school. She and Anna sang in the Glee Club, which was only for girls. Boys and girls sang in the Choral Club.
Mr. Conway, the school superintendent, was their director. They had chapel once a week where they would sing songs, say the pledge of allegiance, and Mr. Conway would give a talk. Up until the end of her life Mother could recite poems that she had memorized in school. She could also sing some of the songs she learned in the Glee Club.
Mary and Anna were members of the Society Clubs at school. All students in high school were divided into two groups: Anna belonged to the Tomahawk Club and Mary belonged to the Montezuma Club. The purpose of the clubs was to provide entertainment for the school. She also told me she and other girls went down on the field to cheer the football boys. These were happy times for her.
Mother sold eggs at the grocery store in exchange for school supplies. For the Junior/Senior banquet the girls invited the boys. She asked Harry Hamilton. Since she and Dorothea Benger did not have evening gowns, two of their teachers, Miss Odom, the P.E. teacher, and Miss Ruth Holmes, the Spanish teacher, offered to loan them dresses.
They went to Mrs. Horton’s home where some of the teachers boarded. Dresses were hung on nails in a large bedroom to keep them from wrinkling.
As a fundraiser Miss Holmes and the students made hot cheese sandwiches to take downtown. They went up and down the street at noontime yelling, “hot cheese sandwiches” but they did not sell one sandwich. So they all had a picnic after school.
During the summer before Mary’s senior year her sister Anna and her husband Pearl Taylor, introduced Mary to Pearl’s brother Roy. He fell in love at first sight. That fall she started her senior year and was looking forward to graduation with her class.
Roy came to see her and while they were sitting in his new car watching football practice at noon, he asked her to marry him. She wanted to wait until after graduation but he persisted and they were married November 2, 1929. She later finished school at the American School of Chicago, Illinois.
Another of her prized possessions was an autograph book. Some of her Friona “chums” were Neva Jones, Dorothea Benger, Lucille Allen, Estella Welch, Martha McFarland, and Lillian Nailon. This was another of her prized possessions. She also was very proud of her picture of Friona High School.
Mother’s sisters Anna and Alice and brothers Melvin and Ralph attended Friona schools. Ella, her oldest sister, finished school in Snyder, Oklahoma. Anna married Pearl Taylor, and Alice married Watson Whaley. Melvin married Irene Robards and Ralph married Ola Iris (Sue) Nelson. After Ella joined the family in Friona she married Jennings Dukes. Alice, Melvin, and Ella’s children attended Friona schools.
Those afternoons with her are gone now but the memories are precious and linger on.
Mary Lee Boston
Ft. Worth, Texas
P.S. I am enclosing a picture of Mary and Anna as Mary would have looked when she was a senior at Friona High School. Mary is on the left and Anna is on the right.
