My mother was born one mile east of Cold Springs School (now Co. Rd. 109). She was the first child of Elisha Thomas Stricklin and Mary Catherine Swann. Both parents, however, had been married previously, and Mildred already had half brothers and one half sister. Two years after Mildred`s birth, a sister, Onnie Belle Stricklin (Gossett) was born. They were the only children that Elisha and Mary had together.
    Mama`s father owned a general merchandise store near their house and 100 acres of land. (The land was homesteaded.) These provided a living for the family. A lot of the farm work was done by the children, Mildred, Onnie Belle, and a couple of the younger half siblings, before they married. Elisha ran the store and did some of the farm work, but he had a partially-paralyzed hand from a boyhood accident. Mary Catherine cooked, did the housekeeping, and worked on the farm sometimes, but she was diabetic, a condition which gradually worsened until it necessitated the amputation of one and, eventually, both legs below the knee. There was little time for play, but Mama told how she and Onnie Belle sometimes played with a "click and wheel," which was a metal rod used to roll a small metal wheel. They would see who could roll her wheel the farthest without letting it fall over. They also enjoyed helping their daddy at the store and eating hoop cheese and crackers from the cracker barrel. They were afraid of a certain customer, Ben Brasher, who was burly and red-bearded, and would hide under the counter when they saw him coming. Mama liked the farm animals. Milking the cow was her job. She always laughed about the time a cousin talked her into trying to ride an almost-grown bull calf. It`s hard to picture my lady-like mother even attempting such a thing!  
     Both Mildred and Onnie Belle attended Addington Chapel school for the first few elementary grades. It was located about one-tenth mile south of Addington Chapel Methodist Church, where her father and most of the Stricklins attended. The teacher, Miss Ruby, boarded at Mama`s house. When the school at Cold Springs was built, Mama began school there and went there through tenth grade. By then, her parents` declining health made it necessary for her to stay home and work. Mama always hoped to finish her education and become a registered nurse, but family responsibilities, together with the hard times of the Great Depression, kept her from achieving her ambition.    During her teenage years, most social occasions were church related: Sunday services, singing schools, singings, and revival meetings in the summer. Often, groups of young people would get together and walk to these services, sometimes as far as five miles.       It was at one of these church services (at New Prospect, I think) where she met my daddy, Evans Bowers. They married on September 12, 1937. They each were 21 years old when they married. They lived with my daddy`s parents, William L. Bowers and Nollie Murphree Bowers, for a while and helped them farm, but soon moved about a half mile away, into a little house they rented from Andy Edwards, a family friend. Within a year or two, they were needed to help Mama`s parents on the farm, so they moved  in with them at Cold Springs. They continued to live there during WWII. By then, both sets of parents were in bad health and depending on them to work on the farms. Because of this, Daddy was granted a family hardship delay that kept him at home during the war. Mama said that this delay of service had to be renewed, and it was doubtful that it would have been renewed again if the war had continued. If not, both sets of parents would have been left with no one to work their farms, therefore, no means of support. Luckily for everybody, the war ended!