Groom-Radley Family Tree

Daddy worked as a Borger News Herald paper boy starting around 12 years old. He hung two big bags of papers from the handlebars and delivered them around Borger in the early mornings before school. That's when he conceived his strong dislike for dogs because they'd chase and sometimes bite him. He also got chilblains from repeated frostbite, a permanent skin sensitivity in the shins which comes back forever after with cold exposure. He refused for a long time to let me have a dog until my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Haren of Phillips and First Christian Church, talked him into it. He got along pretty well with our dog for eight years and ended up being the one to bury him alongside the highway to Borger. I'd gone to Red River that August 1961 with Sandra, Aunt Jean and Uncle Arlen. Daddy went out to look for him after a couple of days and found him run over, swollen w/the heat...had to dig a huge hole right there in that rock hard soil. I've always thought that was a tremendous act of love, given the bad circumstances and the fact that he really loathed dogs in general.

by Carol Groom (10/28/2008)