Donna Hyatt ( Aka Horton):  

Life I started my life in Long Beach, CA. I attended Daniel Webster Elementary School from kindergarten through the sixth grade. I have many happy memories of there. Sports, crafts and learning to play the cello and learning how to dance. I also got to play in the all county orchestra. Being able to participate in the Maypole dances every year and dressing up like we were from different countries was fun. I was in the Brownies and Girl Scouts and I hated that. The simple reason was I am not a salesperson and I absolutely hated having to sell cookies and calendars. I did a lot of the schools art work and even would read books to the younger classes. I think my biggest moment was going to the mountains in the sixth grade and camping in cabins in the snow.That was in 1962. Now for a Southern California girl that was big stuff! I hated moving from there. I had lived in Long Beach all my life so that leaving my friends was like leaving my family. I may have been prissy but I loved playing volleyball, football and fighting with the boys. One day one of the boys mothers brought some bras to my house and told my mother she was tired of me 'bouncing' all over her sons! I was not ashamed but my mother was. I had been telling her for a year that I needed a bra. She told me I didn't because I was just a little girl. I guess that other mother didn't agree with her! I was also involved in sand art contests at the beach, Bible Education at school, library helper, afterschool sports and all city sports as a standing broad jumper. I liked the boys too but especially two of them, Johnny and Earl. But alas, I was too young. Later my family moved and I went to Havenscourt Jr. High School in Oakland, CA from the seventh to ninth grade. My orchestra teacher there was too smart. After having played cello in various orchestras in southern CA for three years Mr. Reed busted me. He found out I was playing by ear and I couldn't read a lick of music. He promptly put me in begining orchestra where I quickly learned how to read music. Boy was I humiliated. I'm still smarting from that one. I was a tutor for fifth and sixth graders in reading and math and I actually got paid for it by the Ford Foundation. I had some of the best teachers there because you could not fool them at all. At least I couldn't which made me a much better student. I also played in the school orchestra, all city and all county orchestra and in a quartet. I was a member of the YMCA travel club and we toured California during spring break. There I met my first 'real' boyfriend named Bill. Too much for my Dad I guess (Dads name is Bill also) because he moved us out in the country where there were no buses and I didn't know anyone at all in McColl, SC.There I went to McColl High School and quickly found out you could get a drivers license at 14 and since I was 15 I thought I'd been cheated. Without a license or a boyfriend you were dead in the water as there was no transportation there. Football ...Expand for more