Legend of Millie Durgan Indian Captive
A Letter by
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Dedicated in memory of our beloved mother
Laura Agnes (Pruitt) was the mother of my wife, Fair. Fair was the youngest of eight Children (seven girls and one boy). Laura Agnes Pruitt was born in Rex, Arkansas on December 27, 1904. In 1924 she married Olan Franklin Godfrey and they started their family. After several good years of marriage, Olan became addicted to alcohol and began to neglect the family. In the late thirties the family migrated from Arkansas to California. In 1945, Olan deserted his family. Being destitute and stranded in a farm labor camp in central California, the family had to fend for themselves.
There were no welfare agencies in those days and Laura had no marketable skills. With eight children to feed, Laura remained at the farm labor camp working in the fields hoeing, chopping and picking cotton, potatoes, tomatoes and working other crops as their seasons came. The food on their table came from gleaning the fields after the harvest. The children made their cereal bowls from grapefruits cut in half and cleaned out. They quartered and shelled sections of onions to use as spoons to eat with. All their clothes and dresses were handmade from flower sacks. She raised her family as best she could having to depend completely on the fruits of her labor and her incredible faith in God.
Her oldest daughter, Maxine, sites the following example of her mother's faith: "I remember once she gave our last morsel of food to a beggar woman and her son. She then took her Bible and left me to watch the younger ones while she went to the woods to pray. At noon all the kids began to cry from hunger and I was angry with Mom for giving the last of the biscuits and fried salt pork to the beggars. There was a knock on the door and our elderly landlady stood there with a large pot of vegetable stew and a big pan of cornbread asking "Honey do you think you could use this? Papa doesn't want any." Something told me that because we had been faithful to share out of our meagerness that God had provided. "
As the older children came of age, they went to work to help out and Laura finally managed to purchase her own modest little home in Farmersville, California. In her later years, as the children grew and had their own families, Laura was able to live out her life in modest comfort. When she passed away in July 1976, the following letter was found neatly tucked away in her belongings.
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Laura Agnes
(Pruitt) Godfrey
&
some of her children
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Laura , Harley Floyd & |
Sylvia
Nadine, Barbara Loretta, Lois Jane
& Fair Jean Godfrey |
Shirley
Caroline & Fair Jean Godfrey |
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| James Franklin Godfrey | Sylvia
Nadine, Laura, Fair Jean & Shirley Carolyn Godfrey |
Fair
Jean, Shirley Carolyn & Sylvia Nadine Godfrey |
