Born: I was born in a little town called Carleton, Nebraska.

Family: I had three brothers and one sister. One brother the oldest died at birth and then The second oldest died at the age of eight from lockjaw (blood poisoning).

Childhood: Mostly I worked; I was on a dairy farm, so we had what we called stock or cattle to take care of and I helped. We milked cows and I helped with processing and delivering that to homes. I worked all the time. There wasn't a lot of planned activities for after school. Most of the kids worked on a farm or were in sports. I never was sports minded; I didn't do well in sports so I didn't get into that. I worked and that was about it. I read a lot, I just liked the old fashioned books (classics). I can't remember any of them now and I don't have any of them.

School: School was enjoyable because it wasn't work. We had good teachers. My favorite class was English Lit.

We always had plenty of animals, I had dogs and cats. I had bad things happen to me as a child, lost friends that died. One boy that I was close with worked for my father on the farm, killed himself in a hunting accident, he set a gun down and it went off and killed him. That was sad for me because he was like a brother.

Very seldom kids had enough money to go off to collage and if you went you had to find a job that you could work and get yourself through school because people didn't have money for tuition.

It was a whole different world; really. This was during what is called the Depression, it got a little better and then World War II came along.

Depression: It was hard on them. It was hard for my father to get enough money to pay the loan on the farm that he owned. Every Year he had to pay so much money. That was hard. There was never any extra money. A lot of people left Nebraska. A lot of people went to Idaho, apparently they were starting farms there in Idaho. Maybe the land was better and it was easier for people to make a living

World War II: My brother went to the Navy and my parents worried about him while he was gone. I had an Aunt and Uncle that lost two boys in the war.

I graduated when I was 17 and then I moved to California when I was 18. My sister lived in San Francisco, so I came out on a bus and lived with her. I stayed with her for a couple of years and then I moved into a girls club called Mary Elisabeth Inn in San Francisco and lived there until I got married. My Husband worked for the city and county of San Francisco and we were fortunate to live down here in the Peninsula.

I just wish that families were more family oriented. My cousins and I would do things together. Even families that lived way away from us would come home and visit with us. I don't see that much anymore. I don't think that families are as close as they used to be. We used to camp a lot. We went to Camp Mather; when the workers were building Hetch Hechy Dam, that's where they'd live but afterwards they turned it into a recreational camp. If you lived in San Francisco you could rent a spot and we did that with a lot of friends.

I want to thank the people at the Elms for being so kind and helpful to me, while I was working on my Girl Scout Silver Award. It truely seems like a wonderful place to live.
Sincerely -Morgan Manter