Growing Up in New Mexico 100 Years Ago

Esther E. Gregory was born in 1914 and grew up in the bustling, rural town of Willard, New Mexico. She describes what life was like back then, such as the food they ate and where it came from, the schools, how life changed during the 1918 flu pandemic, and what social life was like in a small town. Some colorful characters lived in Willard, from the flapper to the bootlegger, and she captures their personalities. Later, Esther spent an adventurous 16 months in Los Angeles, seeing the ocean for the first time and riding the streetcars to work. In 1939, she married Virgil Lee Gregory, a railroad man, and they lived in one room of a section house. When World War II began, they moved to a farm near Willard and became farmers. In 1954, Esther moved with her children to California and began college at the age of forty, becoming a schoolteacher. She raised her three children and had a long and fulfilling life.