King and his father had traveled to Grants, New Mexico and found employment. They returned to Oklahoma on Saturday and we were married on Monday. For the next week we prepared to move the Johnson families to New Mexico. Now you will have to understand I had been out of the state of Oklahoma very little. Since I graduated from high school I had been working but had remained residing with my parents. Naturally, being in love and just married, I thought this was going to be the adventure of my life. Everything was going to be just wonderful. As I look back now, I wonder how I could have been so dumb.

The day came to leave Oklahoma and with tears I told my parents goodbye. King's parents took the lead in an old panel truck and we followed behind in the Ford station wagon. With us went King's sister Darnetta and her little girl Joetta. The first problem happened at Clines Corner, New Mexico. The U-Haul trailer had a flat tire so we had to stop. Now this little town was only a wide place in the road to me. It consisted of one store with tourist items and groceries and a motel. To our surprise, there was no telephone, only a radio. So, they radioed to the Albuquerque, New Mexico U-Haul office about our delimna. The tire would be there the next morning. So we checked into the motel. King and I in one room and his parents and sister in the room next door. Being a gentleman, King insisted that I get the shower first. Now that is when the fun started. Just as I was stepping out of the shower I heard a big bang. I yelled to King and he replied that the bed had fallen down. He couldn't fix it alone and he was going to get his father to help him. Grant you my timing has always been off a little and naturally this was not the time for it to change. I walked out of the bathroom door just as my new father-in-law walked in the front door. I don't remember him saying anything but I will never forge that little smirk and twinkle in his eyes when he looked at me. I don't think we have ever convinced him we were not BOTH on the bed when it fell.

Well, the next morning the tire got fixed and on the road again we headed for Grants. Now when I first saw Grants I thought this isn't such a bad little town. Believe me, I had a few other thoughts before we got out of there. King and Dad had not had time to find us a house to live in so we checked into a motel where they had been staying. The net day when they went to work, the Johnson ladies began looking for a place to live.

Our first discovery was there were very few rent houses in Grants, New Mexico. However, we did find a mobile home for rent. It was probably the dirtiest thing I had ever seen, but Mom Johnson said a little elbow grease and we would have it looking like home in no time. Since money was short, King and I would move in with them. For some reason, probably because we were newly wed, King and I moved into the back bedroom which was the master bedroom. Mom and Dad Johnson took the second bedroom which was smaller and shared it with Joetta. Darnetta drew the living room couch. With five adults and one child, needless to say, no one had much privacy. However, we managed and I think probably grew closer than if we had all lived apart.

Before Christmas King and I got our own mobile home and I went to work at a local car sales. About three days later King lost his job. So, Christmas that year was a very lean experience. We took any extra money and bought for the niece Joetta. I can't remember, but it seems I got a pair of gloves and King a pair of socks. I had never been so homesick in all my life. Then, to top things off, in January I found out I was pregnant!

Time rolled on and about March of 1961 King and Dad both got jobs with the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Crownpoint, New Mexico. We al moved to Fort Wingate which was about 12 miles from Gallup, New Mexico. Now, this was a real delightful place. One trading post and a mobile home park. The only good thing was McGaffy Lake and Park which was up in the mountains about five miles away. I had never seen so many beautiful pine trees and I fell in love with the mountains.

Being raised in Oklahoma, I was accustomed to lakes. But this McGaffy was something different. I think this lake was the real start of my realizing how things were looked at differently in other parts of the country. McGaffy Lake was probably not as big as the pond on my Uncle Carl's farm. But, to the people in Fort Wingate, it was next to the ocean!

To complicate matters, King's temporary appointment with the Bureau of Indian Affairs ran out and there was a hang-up on his permanent appointment. So, on top of being pregnant, he was once again unemployed. If it had not been for his parents, I guess we would have starved to death. Once again, Dad was supporting us al. I remember we ate beans and potatoes every day. One day it was beans and fried potatoes, the next it was beans and boiled potatoes and if we were lucky there was money for chicken on Sunday. His Mother kept it going for us and them and I'm sure it was not an easy thing to do. With all of us smokers, we couldn't afford cigarettes, so Mom, King and Dad began rolling their own. Now Dad, being an ole cowboy in his younger days, was an expert. Boy, his cigarettes looked good. But King and Mom really had a hard time. They would get them rolled up and lit and about half way through the whole thing would fall apart. Darnetta quit and I refused to smoke them. So, felling sorry for me, Mom would usually find money to buy me a pack about every two days. Now I wonder if I ever really thanked her enough for all she did. I craved peanut butter and she made sure no one ate my peanut butter but me.

The months passed and King finally got back to work. Meanwhile it was getting closed to time for the baby to be born. Now this being the first one I didn't know quite what to expect but I had made up my mind that I could handle it no matter what. After all, babies were born every day in this world. Little did I know about the Gallup hospital or my big ugly doctor.

Time came and they put me in the labor room. King and his mother was with me and one of them was allowed to stay. First King stayed until the pains got closer and closer and he could stand my screams no longer. Shortly I was in the delivery room with nurses working over me. I remember hearing someone say "This baby is coming, where is the Doctor?". Then to my surprise I heard a reply,"He is out at the ranch delivering lambs, he'll be here when he gets through!". At that point I wondered what the hell I was doing out here on the reservation having a baby. Why wasn't I back in Tulsa with my mother near? My first son was born while the Doctor was scrubbing up. What really burned me was he actually charged for delivery. I always figured we paid to have him deliver the lambs!

While being rolled down the hall with my newborn son laying on my stomach, I heard another wonderful remark. The Dr. was telling my husband and mother-in-law, "Come take a look at the baby. You won't get to see him again until she goes home. Someone broke out the nursery window and tried to steal a baby, so it's all boarded up." However, all my fears disappeared as I saw the look on King's face as he looked at his son.

Some months after we got Keith home, King was transferred to Chinle, Arizona to another branch of the BIA. My first view of Chinle was quite another experience. On our way we passed through some beautiful mountains with tall pine trees. I was naive enough to think we were going to live at the foot of these beautiful mountains. But we started our descent and I saw the barren land stretching out in front of us. We came to a "Y" in the road and I noticed a small service station and trading post. All the stores out there were called trading post. I assume because that is where all the Indians traded. I noticed a sign that read "Regular $1.85 gallon." I knew we couldn't afford to buy gasoline there. We turned on this road and traveled what seemed a hundred miles and saw only sand and an occasional herd of sheep with a Navajo lady walking behind carrying a crude cane shaped from a tree limb. Suddenly we were going down off the mesa and there before us was Chinle, Arizona. A small settlement of government houses, a post office and the government offices. But to my delight I saw trees. I think it was at that time I realized just how much I missed the green grass and trees of Oklahoma.

Chinle proved to be a quiet little settlement. Before long Kings parents and his older sister and her family from Tulsa were settled there also. The sister Darnetta who had first traveled to New Mexico with us, was working and settled in Crownpoint. And, Carol was pregnant AGAIN!!!

It was in Chinle that we met some people named Wanda and Perry White. Perry worked for the telephone company and he and King began to build and fly model airplanes. There being no television and the only thing we could hear on the radio was Indian music, this filled the gap for King and Perry. The night our daughter was born King and Perry were fooling with electric motors for their planes at our kitchen table. Somehow, one of them blew up. Smoke billowed up and filled the trailer house. The two brave men ran outside. I have always said this is what scared me into having the baby that night. No sooner than the smoke cleared, I discovered it was time to head for the hospital some 35 miles away. We dropped Keith with his grandmother and hit the road. About half way there King remembered we didn't have a spare tire. God forbid this baby would be delivered in the back seat by its father in a car with a flat tire in the middle of nowhere with no trees around!

By the time we reached the hospital I knew we didn't have time to mess around. This baby was ready to come into the world. Our daughter Kimberly Sue was born nine minutes after we rang the bell on the Mission Hospital in Ganada, Arizona. At the time, there was nine babies in the nursery at the hospital. Kimberly Sue was the only white baby. She looked very pale laying beside the little Navajo babies but she held her own when it came to crying loud.

Back in Chinle things were going well for us. Then King got detailed to a roving maintenance crew. He would leave home on Monday morning and not return until Friday evening. I was left tending two babies alone for the week. Then another bomb hit. I was pregnant again!!! I couldn't believe it. King just smiled and said we'll make it. I wanted to KILL at that point in time! To get off the roving crew King applied for a job in Fort Defiance, Arizona and was accepted. So, another move was to be made.

The move to Fort Defiance put us closed to Gallup again. Chinle had been almost a hundred miles from Gallup and in order to purchase groceries or anything else at a decent price we would travel there on Saturday, shop, rent a motel room and return home on Sunday. Fort Defiance meant we could shop and return home in one day as it was only about 30 miles to town. We moved out of the mobile home and started another experience. We moved into Government housing --- a quonset hut that had been remodeled into living quarters. Our rent was something like $25 a month. When we moved into that house King stood six foot four inches tall. When we moved out two years later, he stood six foot and stooped shoulders from the round walls. This was the only time in my life I was glad I was only five foot four inches because the slope of the walls started at about six foot.

Many things happened to us at Fort Defiance. The most important of all being the birth of our second son, Kevin Lee on September 4, 1963. Like Kimberly, Kevin Lee was born in the mission hospital at Ganado, Arizona. I had been waken about 2 am that morning by noise outside our home. I instantly woke King to check out the problem and protect me from harm. However, he tried to get out of bed about a dozen times before I would let go of him. I was afraid for him to go outside. When he finally did make it out the front door there was silence a few minutes and then a loud cry. I just knew something had him! To my relief he returned to tell me a big dog had jumped out from behind some shrubs at the side of the house and startled him. Well, needless to say, I never returned to sleep that night and about five in the morning I decided it was time to go to the hospital. Being the self- confident person who had everything under control, I never questioned King about spare tires, check book, money or any of the important things. My suitcase was packed and I was on the way to have our baby and I was smart and left my purse at home so King would not have to fool with it. That morning when he finally decided to go get some coffee, we both realized we didn't have a cent between us! We must have had an angel in our corner because some of his fellow employees stopped to check on us and not only treated him to coffee and something to eat but gave him enough money for dinner. Now apparently Kevin couldn't decide whether he wanted to be born or not. Finally about 12:20 pm that day he made his way into the world. Minutes after they had given me a shot that hadn't yet taken effect.

A few hours after Kevin was born I was, for the first time, challenged about his fathers name, KING. Some wonderful little lady whom I would have knocked on her buns if my body wasn't still numb from the waist down, insisted that King was a nickname and she wasn't going to put it on Kevin's birth certificate. Finally my sweet, normal charming self became a little mad and when she asked, "Who would name a child King?", I replied "His Mother, and if you don't believe me, why the hell don't you call her and ask!", giving her the telephone number. I never saw that lady again. However, I must have convinced her because on his birth certificate it says father: "Maurice King Johnson".

Well we finally got Kevin home and I began the life of a mother with three children in diapers. Now in those days the only time I used disposable diapers was when we were traveling and that wasn't often. I actually thought I would never get those kids potty trained. But, somehow I guess the good Lord didn't desert us and we make it through all those diapers and bottles.

One of the biggest fights we (King & I) ever had was probably here at Fort Defiance. It had been snowing for days and King came by to tell me he had to travel to one of the out of the way schools up in the mountains. The roads were really bad and the crews were not going out to the schools unless it was an emergency. When he wasn't back by six that night I was really getting worried. Time passed and before I knew it eleven had arrived and still no sign of him. I had already made several calls during the evening trying to locate him to no avail. By eleven I was ready to call out the fire department and anyone else who would listen to me and send out the dog sleds to rescue him. About eleven thirty the telephone rang. It was King. He and his fellow worker had been in town since 4 pm and had stopped at a party his boss was giving. For the first and last time in my married life, (to date) I locked him out of the house and it took a while of explaining on his part, for me to unlock and let him in.

While we were in Fort Defiance I went to work for the Bureau of Indian Affairs also. Being a working woman, wife and mother of three was not an easy job for me. I really enjoyed my job and got some good experience. However, I did miss being with my kids. We went through a series of Navajo babysitters who not only watched the kids for me but stole me blind. We finally moved out of the quonset hut and into a large two bedroom house near the office complex. Also next door to my boss. This was a blessing to us for his wife began to keep my children.

In 1968 we heard the Army Engineers was building a dam west of Sand Springs on the Arkansas River. We started trying to get a transfer for King. Between my two brothers and us calling corp personnel at least three times a week and Kings great resume, we finally got the job. At the time the transfer papers arrived I was working in Personnel. King's boss called me in and told me he had gotten the job but he was reluctant to give King a release date. At which I replied, "Tough! We're going and you can't stop it!" Release date was given for January, 1969 and we were extremely happy to know we would be returning home after all those years.

Christmas 1968 was one of the best times in our life. We had requested a large Christmas tree from the Lions Club and they delivered such a monster we had to cut it off to get it into the house. That year we put up a ten foot live tree that actually took up the better part of our living room. King and I also made a plywood Santa with sleigh and reindeer and put them on the roof with flood lights to brighten their way. To add to our delight there was nine feet of snow on the ground for Christmas. What more could we have asked for?

Well January came and we prepared for the move back to Oklahoma. The moving van came and took all our belongings and Kevin cried all the way to Oklahoma for "his bed". I guess that was his one secure thing in his life. Arriving in Oklahoma we stored all our furniture in Mother and Daddys garage until we found a place to live. Everyone was happy except Kevin. He insisted on standing at the back door, looking at the garage and crying for "his bed"!

And so began our life of raising kids and fighting the treadmill of making both ends meet, which we could never seem to do.

I suppose the next chapter of these memories will be entitled "The Curtain Climber Years" which will be continued someday.