I dedicate this book primarily to my son Douglas Moore, who more than thirty years ago suggested that I, "Write that down because some day Mom you might write a book." Frequently he would remind me, "Did you write that down? I have many notebooks with notes of different experiences that I have kept through the years. About two years ago I opened the morning paper and found an article about a certain area in Nevada that had just been made into a National Park. I took a long second look and the pictures were so familiar to me. Mount Wheeler, Lehman Cave, and the wild horse area are where I lived in early childhood. I felt so nostalgic about this place and had so many memories. I cut the article out of the paper and sent it to my brother realizing later that I knew much more about this place than he as he was born there when I was five years old. This house and the acres around it were named Roland Ranch. Some people from California and Utah as well as Nevada were unhappy that this area was now government property and they were not as free to hunt and fish as they had been.
Not too long afterward I was going regularly to the Braille Institute as I had fallen in my backyard and had a detached retina in my right eye. While being examined for that condition and having the surgery to repair the retena the doctor found that I had macular degeneration in my left eye. As my sight was diminishing so rapidly, I decided that since I couldn't read any of my old notes it would be a good idea to put my stories on tape. Oner day a dear friend at Braille whose acquaintance I had made in a different class came searching me out to tell me that there was a class that I would be interested in called, "My Life and Timers," taught by Sharon Pistorino. I waited for an opening in her class and found that it was just what I wanted.
I had never been interested in genealogy although many of my friends and family have great interest in family research. In fact as a child I thought all the people talking about genealogy were talking about the Jennings history. After starting the class I would try to bring a portion of the tape I had made to the class so there would be one complete incident or story. I found that the teacher, Sharon, would nearly always plau my tape and the class seemed to urge me on. This really encouraged me. I'd like to remember all the names of the members of the class but I only recall there was Felix from the Philippines, Anna, who was not born in this country, and Janet and Elaine were there for awhile.
We had been told that when we finished our taping, a nearby college would edit and print our stories for a reasonable fee. When I heard that one student had finished his project and he had it typed, I was curious as to the cost. He said that it cost only three hundred dollars. I asked how many tapes he had and he said that he had only one. That really discouraged me as a way to go as I had many more tyapes than that already made. We were given an outline which was helpful but I didn't follow it exactly. Sharon and Elaine continued to encourage me. I had entered the class a little late so I took it a second time and after that the class was discontinued. I had made about eight tapes on both sides when my husband, Earl, began to take a great interest in my project. He began to make duplicates of the tapes because not knowing any better I had used old tapes and some would break and I would have to do a section over.
I found a young woman living near me who offered to type my story for me at a reasonable price per page. I was surprised to find that it took abouty twenty three pages of typing for each tape and when I figured the price it was a bit too much for my pocketbook. I thought that she lived so close that we could easily communicate, but like some typists, she typed without reading and when Earl would read it back to me it didn't make sense. This discouraged me and I knew that I would have to have the story edited in any case and so decided that I would try to type it myself. I blame myself that when I was learning to type I had been very lazy about learning all the punctuation because I could always see the ones I needed. I knew the period and the comma and that was about all. I was well into doing this typing when Earl became quite ill. His illness progressed until he became seriously ill so I was away from Braille for nine months and did not return until after Earl's death. I knew how interested he had been in having me finish this project so I went back to the typewriter to try to continue from where I left off. I am so grateful to all my friends who have encouraged me in this project.
