In this, my very first book, I interviewed the eight Hawkins children who grew up in a very small town in western Kansas in the early 1900's. Then I wrote this book to document those memories. Many things have changed since the Hawkins kids early years and I felt it was important to have their personal stories told, so their children and grandchildren will have a record about how it was “way back then”. The kids, along with their parents, faced many of the hardships that most of us have only read about. They dealt with the weather as it came. There was no forecast to notify them of an oncoming blizzard or the arrival of those terrible dust storms. They also had to endure rough times during the great depression, and they just had to deal with it. Rather than dwelling on the bad times they may have endured, or things they didn’t have, they like to remember and talk about the fun they had while growing up. Each of them knew they lived in a family where they were loved and cared for during those early years. They continue to get together at least once a year for a reunion to laugh and talk; but mostly to show their kids how important it is to keep those memories alive.