Juanita Rhodes was born in 1923, at home, naturally, on the "old McCloud Place" which was located "back around by the Sells' place" which was located somewhere east of Arbala and west of what is now Hwy. 154 in southern Hopkins County, Texas. It was snowing that March day of her birth.

The fifth of six children, she grew up in the area of the Union Community, which is where she attended school and church. Her mother's family had settled there before the Civil War.

When she was about two, she fell and broke her nose, but a much more serious accident occurred one day while her father was chopping wood. Wanting to "help" him, she attempted to drag the axe over to him.It stuck in the ground and she tripped, falling upon the freshly sharpened blade, inflicting a large gash just under her left breast. It is said, they saw her heart beating. Kerosene was quickly fetched and doused into the wound before it was bandaged. That very common household remedy of the day was the only medical attention the injury received. The scar is still very visible today.

The family, nor the neighbors, were particularly impacted by the Great Depression. They were poor, had always been poor. It was a way of life. Juanita owned two dresses, her everyday dress and her Sunday dress. The everyday dress was washed at night, if needed. When the black cotton stockings she and her sisters wore became torn, they painted over the holes with shoe polish, leaving their legs spotted black when the stockings were removed.

Treats, or any kind of indulgences, were rare. At Christmas, there was the orange and apple, and eggs for breakfast when there was an excess, which occurred sometimes in the winter. The eggs would freeze in the hen house, and had to all be cooked at once. Normally, the only one to get eggs for breakfast was Ernest, my grandfather.

Ernest went to town most every Saturday for supplies in the horse drawn wagon (the family never owned a car), and the trip to Sulphur Springs began early in the morning, so that he would get home "by dark". Years ago, I was told he would bring hamburgers for everyone. Juanita said "they were "delicious", and that it didn't matter if they were cold and greasy. Now, she doesn't remember telling me that at all, doesn't remember him ever bringing home hamburgers.

The family almost bought a vehicle, once. The oldest brother, Buddy, talked Ernest into going to town to look at a truck he'd heard about that was for sale. The kids all waited anxiously all day, watching for Buddy to drive up in that truck. They were all disappointed when father and son returned at dusk, in the wagon.

When Juanita was about 10 or 11, one of the neighbors got a radio. Every Saturday night, she walked to their house, with a group of other kids, to listen to the "Grand Ole Opry." Juanita can't remember who the stars were, but "probably Kitty Wells and Red Foley." The "invention" itself, the radio, was thrilling, so anything they heard, any "program", was exciting. They could not leave until the show ended because they had to "listen to 'em blow the jug." I suppose that must have been the grand finale in those days at the Opry! It would be late when they hurried home in the dark, fearful of a murderer rumored to be on the loose in the community, roaming the sandy isolated roads late at night, looking for victims. She told me his name, but I won't mention that here.

When Juanita was fifteen years old, nineteen-year-old Avon Friddle, from the neighboring Greenpond Community, proposed to her one Sunday afternoon. It was during one of his weekly chaperoned visits, having met her a year earlier. They were in the living room listening to records on the "Edison", the family's new windup "victrola". Before the end of the next year, they were married.

Thus, in November, 1939, Juanita began her life as a wife.