About a true American.
To help pay for the care of her mother and her family she went to work for Woolworth in the 1950's. For a time they lived in a house between a packing house and a cotton gin. The packing house often let chickens get loose and did not try to catch them so she and her husband would catch them. That put food on the table, eggs and chicken meat. The family was able to move from rental property into a nice home. It had a big backyard so there was enough room for a garden. It was a big upgrade.
While working, she made friends with one of her bosses. He moved to New Mexico and bought a small dime store chain. He then talked her into moving to Gallup, N. Mex. to manage one for him. The pay was good and she prospered because she got a percentage of the profits. After about eight years he got sick and ended up selling the stores to a chain out of Oklahoma. They told her that if she wanted to continue working there that she could but they did not have women managers. She quit.
Her sister lived next door to a small convenience store in a small West Texas town that was for sell. The family moved to West Texas. Her husband had bought a small donut cooker in Gallup and had tried to open a store there but it had not been profitable. The store they were buying was not doing much business so they started to make and sell donuts. EVERYBODY loved her donuts. After a year or so, she bought a big cooker and icer. Soon she was getting up at 3 AM to make enough donuts. The donuts paid for the store, the house next door, two vacant lots, and a nice house with an apartment across the street.
In her late 70's she started working part time for H & R Block in the next town over. After two years she closed the donut store and opened her own tax business. Because she was more than five miles away from Block, she was allowed to do so. In her late 80's most of her old customers died off. As she turned 90 she closed the business because of health problems. Two years later, Mom died. Everything she owned was paid off and she had money in the bank.
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