In 1933, when I was two and a half years old, I almost drowned while playing in a stock tank. We lived on the Thornhill farm northwest of Sand Creek in Grant County, Oklahoma. I do not recall what I was doing to fall into the cow tank, but I clearly remember walking back to the house afterwards.

My brother, Willis, filled me in on what he thought I had been doing and how he rescued me. He is four and a half years older than I am, so that would have made him a six year old hero. He said the windmill was running almost full speed making the water swirl around and around underneath the pipe that fed the water into the tank. Mama was outside of the house washing clothes while Willis was to watch out for me. He thinks I had a stick playing with the whirling water. He thinks I had a stick while playing with the whirling water. Somehow, he just happened to look toward the tank and saw only my feet sticking out of the tank just in time to save me from a sure drowning. I had fallen in head first and could not aright myself. He said I went under and was going around in a circle with the swirling water. I was just out of his reach when I surfaced the first time and the next time I resurfaced he was close enough to catch me before I went down for the third time. He dragged me out by my feet and sent me directly to the house. He said in the struggle to get me out of the tank, the pressure on my stomach expelled the water I had swallowed.

I was all wet and miserable with water still up the inside of my nose and some still in my lungs. I was very scared and whimpered all of the way as I slowly trudged my way back to the house. I was expecting to get some sympathy from mama and daddy for what had happened to me. I do not remember much of what happened after I reached the house except that I was really crying by that time and the severe scolding I got from mama about playing in the tank wounded my pride.

I do not think I would have needed any reprimand as I was deathly afraid of water from then on. To this day, I panic when water is higher than my chest.