(note: This article on Roosevelt County resident was featured in March Issue of Enchantment -The Voice of New Mexico’s Rural Electric Cooperatives)

 

 

By: Amber Knox

When you think of rural life in the forties and fifties you probably picture men working long days on their farms and mothers toiling over children. You may imagine a lifestyle that is nothing more than surviving. Times were hard, yes, but you won’t hear Joann Blakey complain. What you will hear are stories of a strong woman living her life as wife, mother, friend, teacher, musician, and artist.

In 1929 both “Tarzan” and “Popeye” appeared in comics for the first time, US president Herbert Hoover authorized the building of what would become the Hoover Dam, Babe Ruth became the first MLB player to hit 500 home runs, and in Rogers NM, Joann McCormack Blakey was born. She will jokingly tell you that she came in with the stock market crash because 1929 was also the year the Great Depression began. She matter-of-factly says, “Ya I think millionaires lost lots of money and they jumped out of buildings. We just got by.”

Her father worked for a family that, “had more money than most people.” Later, he became a bus contractor and had school buses. She remembers Rogers being a small tight-knit community saying, “Everyone’s mama was your mama. If you didn’t act nice, they got onto you. You know, they were your mama.”

At school if Ms. Carter caught you visiting, you had to sit under her desk. If you got more than two questions wrong, she would swat you on the leg with her ruler. But school was also fun. “See James McCormack and I were, he was about three weeks older than me. So, we were just like brother and sister. You know, he was just as full of mischief as he could be. If you ever knew Vivian McCormack, he got it from his mama. And we laughed a lot.” She didn’t say whether the laughter ever earned them a spot under the teacher’s desk.

In high school Joann played volleyball and competed against Dora and Floyd, but said it was much different than today. She laughs as she describes volleyball now, “It’s not like it is today. It’s power ball now! We were just graceful. Ballet dancers.”

It seems sports and burning gas have been teenagers past times for quite a while, “They just used to drag main. We thought it was really exciting to come to town once a week to go around the square.”

Her parents were big supporters of the school and went to all the ballgames. The rivalries between schools were fierce. So fierce that when the school in Lingo had to close Joann said, “They snubbed their nose at Causey when they went through cause they were rivals and came to Rogers.” Eventually Rogers students would go to Dora.

Joann estimates her graduating class in Rogers was fifteen. Some of those were young men who had served in the service and came back to finish school. “So, they were a bit older than the rest of us,” she says matter-of-factly.

 

In 1947 Joann graduated high school and moved to Portales to work at two different movie theaters where she sold and collected tickets. Shortly after moving to Portales, she would reconnect with Buster Blakey. When asked what her first impression was of her future husband, she laughs and says, “Well I thought he was a handsome young man. And he was. And he knew it.” After almost three years of dating, they were married, and Joann started the next chapter of her life in Causey, NM. Later, Buster would get a farm loan and they would move west about five miles and build a house.

It was the fifties, Joann was a young new wife, and the community laundry was where you got all the good gossip. “Well, there were a lot of people that knew your business and we knew theirs. And of course, we had the community laundry. Real good laundry. Hot water and everything. But it was a gossip center.” Monday was the day of choice to gather at the community laundry, which happened to be right across the street from her house. The men couldn’t be left out of all the fun, they would gather at the croquet courts by the laundry for night games.

Then the babies started coming and Joann says, “And I haven’t breathed since. One right after the other.” She had six in total. Just like her own mother.

Now living on the farm, raising babies, other forms of entertainment replaced Mondays at the community laundry and nights at the croquet courts. “We were blessed to have TV. I know when we were growing up, we just had the radio. We listened to it and your imagination filled in the spaces of who they were.”

With Joann and many of her friends now staying home with the children, they watched their favorite shows, soap operas. “We’d get on the phone and of course we had the party lines and everybody on the line was listening in. And we’d talk about some of those characters on our tv shows, you know, and I think they were thinking it was personal,” she says with a bit of mischievousness to her laughter.

Party line phone calls didn’t equal face to face time with friends though, “Well us girls would try to get together once a month to play cards or something and we’d go to each other’s houses. And that was the big deal. Leave the kids home with their dads.”

But life wasn’t just about gossip and cards. Joann taught private piano lessons and taught choir two afternoons a week at Causey and two afternoons at Dora. Then she decided to return to school herself. After quitting school, the first time, due to her belief that her parents couldn’t afford both her and her sister being in school, it was time to go back.

Joann and several of her friends would carpool to Eastern New Mexico University to take evening classes. She studied elementary education and music. Her daughter, Judy, who she believes was ten at the time, was left at home to watch the other children while Joann was in class. “Judy felt like I mistreated her. Made her babysit. And of course, Buster was right with her. He didn’t want me to go back either. But I don’t think he was mistreated too much,” she says laughing.

It would seem her daughter, Judy Clark, has since forgiven her mother for making her babysit. When talking about her mother, Judy says, “Her faith runs deep and she has always had the best, positive attitude of anyone I know or have known.” Her daughter Doris Welch has a similar observation of her mother saying, “She has always been the rock of our family and rarely complains about anything.”

Joann went on to teach, raise her kids, make beautiful quilts, and fill her home with her paintings. She now lives in Portales and at ninety-four still lives independently.

When asked what the best thing about country life was, she says, “Oh, you can see the sky and you can see the sunsets. Here, you know, you can’t see anything unless you drive out to the country . . . and relaxing. I walked quite a bit, you know, down the road and back. But it would be dull for a lot of people, I think.” But it seems the people are what really meant the world to her, “It was a good time and you had good neighbors, and good friends, and loyal people.”

If we learn anything from Joann it should be that women have always needed to escape their husbands and kids at least once a month, and whether it’s croquet or cornhole men need to escape their wives and kids. More importantly find yourself some good people to live your days with, and enjoy the view.