We arrived in Palmdale on February 1, 1914. My sister and brother-in-law, Genevieve and Dick Frahm, who were the new owners of the Cottage Hotel, and I.

    There were very few buildings here at that time. The Pearland and Cottage Hotels, a restaurant run my Mrs. E.J. Moore and Mrs. Nagel. The Post Office was in the grocery store. There were houses south of Palmdale Blvd. where the engineers and firemen lived. The Southern Pacific kept three helpers in Palmdale to assist the freight trains up the Vincent hill.

    The Palmdale School was across the railroad tracks. Miss Gwendolyn Sargent, sister of Mrs. Paul Schoeller, was our teacher. A very nice one too. There were five girls who graduated in May 1914. Mamie Lily, Made Hoskins, Agnes Schneckenberger, Leona Sadler and myself. We had two boys in the class, but they quit school about two weeks before graduation.

    My sister and Dick ran the Hotel for about four years. In that time we had a little excitement from time to time. One evening, there had been quite a bit of drinking going on, oh yes, and a lot of shooting along with it. Dick was washing dishes in the corner of the kitchen when a bullet came thru the side of the house and into the wall right in front of him. That was a little too close. We found out later that i t was fired by a very good friend. Fred Oxby, he had a little too much of that "fire-water", as he called it. And when that happened, LOOK OUT'' Another time there was a severe wind storm, more like a cyclone. I was in the building, which is the second hand store on eighth street now, and I wanted to get back to the Hotel - so, about twelve men formed a line by holding hands and got me inside, believe me, I was plenty scared. We stood inside and watched the roof of the barn across the street go sailing in the air - along with huge poles and any thing that was in the way. There were plenty of signs that went along for the ride. We found the corrugated roof out at "Section 13" about two miles from town.

    During the pear harvest time we would go to Littlerock to the harvest dance. They would have a large dance floor, that was just put up special for the event. We drove out there in a three seated surry - with the "Fringe on top", Dick played the accordion and we had a lot of fun going. However, on the way back we were a very tired group. We left about 7:30 in the evening and it was 5:00 a.m. next morning when we arrived home again.

    I went to work for Gus Miller, who was the Postmaster at that time. It was a fourth class post office and it didn't require Mr. Miller's full time. It was about four or five months later when my sister became Postmaster. That was in 1919. (She retired in 1959, after 40 years of continuous service.)

    In 1920 I went to work for Pac. Tel. & Tel. Co., as their agent. I later met Straud McBride, and we were married in June 1923. By that time there were quite a few buildings going up all over town.

    We had four boys, Straud Jr., Clayton, Glen, and Leland. I continued on with my telephone work all through the years however, and finally retired in 1952. During the war years I also delivered telephone messages to the Army camp that was located way out on 20th St. and sometimes even out as far as Littlerock, and as late as midnight at times. Those were pretty scarey nights, dark too.

    The boys have all married and with their families, my eleven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, all are residents of Palmdale.


Sincerely,
Viola McBride