My amazing half-Cherokee, half English royalty descended mother, with dogs. This place was where a road dead-ended. We considered ourselves lucky to have electricity, but there was no telephone lines, no running water (until we dug a well), no indoor plumbing, and the house was a shack so run-down most people probably thought only ghosts occupied it.Big Beaver Creek was only a mile away and it used to rage with a big rain, sometimes washing away our wheat or cotton crops that we depended on for our meagre living.