Doyle Vance McClellan:  

It was a deep dark stormy night back in 1936 when a band of ruffians set around a camp fire. One turned turned to me and said,"Tell us a story". And so I began...gguublubber squeal blat! What did you expect, I was only a few weeks old! Doing genealogy, I discovered that I followed the crops (mainly fruit) in California for my first couple of years. Don't know why we left Utah but we, as a family, never returned except for summer trips. We moved to the Phoenix area about 1938 and lived in a "tent camp" out east of town on the Salt River. Somewhere around 1939 we moved into a house at 2053 South 7th Ave. A few feet short of being on Watkins Road. This was a good place to learn about people. 7th ran east-west and Watkins north-south. We were on the north side of 7th Avenue.The south side was a very large farm, to the west (north side) of the avenue was all Mexicanos. On the south east side was the Colored neighborhood was ran from Watkins Road to the Salt River. The north east side was Gringos and more large farms. And, the corner of 7th and Central Ave, there was tent camp on the south side of Central that ran to bank of the Salt River. It was still there in the late '40s. I went to Adams School for a few years (1.1/2 mile walk to the City bus and a transfer to a street car to school) I've got a daughter that won't let her kids walk 2 blocks to school! I guess that why we grew up tough ole codgers ! From there I was transferred to Carter School (had been the Colored High School). We Gringos had to walk about 8 blocks in "hostile-territory" to get to Watkins...Expand for more