She trained for two years, then married and joined my Dad on the railroad. She took her training at the Hotel Dieu in El Paso, Texas. Sammie: No, she wasn’t certified as such.

When I started remembering things it was probably about 1930 and on. Most people couldn’t afford to have plumbing done and he didn’t get paid as frequently as he should have. But my oldest sister and brother, well, my oldest sister practically raised the rest of us. I don’t think we had a telephone in those days so she couldn’t check up on us. At that time she’d be the chief cook and bottle washer and baby sit the other kids that were there and everything.

She’d stay with people for maybe ten days. She was a nurse and she would go out on maternity cases with the doctor. Mary: What do you remember about your early years in Casa Grande? I don’t know as they had indoor plumbing but they must have had some sort of thing. Sammie: No, evidently those outfit cars were a forerunner of the motor home. Mary: She had to get water from a river or stream? He was the equivalent of a plumber on the railroad. I guess my Dad would catch a train going through to take him to whatever job site he was going to. My older sister and brother were just little kids and they’d play along the railroad tracks. I don’t know why this was, but a lot of times they were stationed way out on the desert just in this one little car off on a siding. They’d station them way out on the desert. Mary: You told me a few stories about how they lived out on the railroad cars from time to time.

Sammie: We think they came here either in the Fall of 1921 or in the Spring in 1922. Mary: And they lived here beginning in what year? Mary: So you were the third or fourth child? Then, when they started to school and my parents were expecting another baby in 1922, they settled in Casa Grande because then my Dad could still work between Casa Grande and Gila Bend on the railroad. He worked for Southern Pacific and they were on outfit cars on the railroad tracks before my older sister and brother started to school. You told me that your Dad was working for the railroad. Sammie: I was born in Casa Grande on Center Street in 1926. OK Sammie, could we start by having you tell me when you were born? Mary: I’m with Sammie Caywood, Casa Grande, AZ, Januand this is being taped as part of the Casa Grande Education Project. INTERVIEW NUMBER ONEīegin Tape 1, Side A Casa Grande in the 1920’s His wife and he describe the trials and tribulations they experienced starting with their early lives in the mid-1920s. Those interested in the agricultural lifestyle will learn a great deal from Tommy’s experiences before and after World War II. In a series of three interviews over thirteen years, both of the Caywoods share their observations of a town and an economic period that are recalled with humor and compassion. SUMMARY: The Caywoods were among the young adults who helped tame the desert in and around Casa Grande.

What year did sammie i like it come out