I must have been four or five years old, which would make it around 1929, when there was an outbreak of typhoid fever in our community. I don’t know
whether the water was actually contaminated or whether mother was just taking extra precautions, but she only allowed us to drink water that she had
boiled and knew was safe.
On the particular day that I vividly remember, one of my friends, Emma Jean Price, had come to play with me. It was summertime and we played hide and
go seek and other running games. Pretty soon we were really hot, sweaty, and thirsty as could be. There was an outside faucet behind the house where we
got water for the animals and attached a hose for washing the car. We turned the water on, and leaned over and drank from the faucet. No sooner had we
swallowed the water than I remembered that drinking it was going to kill us.
I told Emma Jean that we were sure to die. She asked didn’t I think that we should tell my mother but I said, “No we’re going to die anyway, let’s not
get punished first”. We walked around the house to the front yard and picked out a nice shady place to lie in the grass. We lay down side by side with
our arms and legs perfectly straight and waited to die. It was taking longer than we had thought that it would, but we remained perfectly still. After
a while we began to get hungry. We didn’t think that we would have time to go and eat so we stayed prone. A few more minutes went by and then Emma Jean
declared that she was going home to eat dinner! We both decided that it was not our time to go, and we got up, and went on with life.