'More to thank God for'

MOSES LAKE - Mary Vearline Young lived in Moses Lake at a time when segregation was still in place.

Young, 87, moved to Moses Lake in about 1956. When she arrived, black men couldn't pursue white women, and white women couldn't pursue black men.

"I remember when they had one little drug store here," Young said. "We had to go to the back of the drug store, in the back door of the drugstore here in Moses Lake."

Life in Arkansas

Born Feb. 1 1921, Young grew up in Warren, Ark., as the oldest of five siblings.

"My family was farmers," Young said.

Young's dad left when she was about 8 years old and her mother died when she was 11 years old, so her great-grandmother, her grandmother and her aunt raised the family.

Because she was often working in the fields, Young went to school only about two months out of the year.

"You had to work the field out there. You had to work," she said. "It was the only way

you could live."

Young's family homesteaded, where the government provided land and they worked it. Family members grew corn, cotton and raised animals for meat. To this day, her family still owns the land.

Families in the neighborhood would raise meat and then share it with other neighbors. They would also cure the meat in a smokehouse.

To make money, her family would sell the crops they grew.

"You sell corn. You sell cotton," she said.

Young remembers her family had white friends while living in the rural area, and they visited each other's homes.

Young was puzzled when she rode a city bus for the first time during a visit to St. Louis, Mo.

"I couldn't understand why the whites sit on the front of the bus, and the blacks sit on the back," she said.

She boarded the bus with her brother-in-law and went to sit in the front. Her brother-in-law told her she had to sit in the back.

"They had to explain it to me, and I got highly upset," Young recalled.

At home, they rode in wagons rather than taking a bus.

Although upset with the rule, Young complied and sat in the back of the bus.

"I felt real nasty, real nasty," she said. "I didn't feel good about it at all."

Change in

Moses Lake

Young moved to Moses Lake with her first husband in 1956 because he got a job in town. She said she remembers some of segregation's end, but she was busy working much of the time.

Young worked for several companies in the area, including Basic American Foods and Samaritan Healthcare. She attended Big Bend Community College to become a nurse. She retired in 1976.

"When I came here, the black boys couldn't mess around with the white girls because (they would be in) big trouble," Young said. "The white girls couldn't mess around with them little black boys, because they would be in big trouble. And look at it now."

Young believes the soldiers coming into Larson Air Force Base changed Moses Lake. She said there were a lot of black soldiers in town.

Young said things have gotten better for black people in America.

"We have more to thank God for," she said.