Joanne Whisnant
I knew Joanne Whisnant when she was a
young child. She lived with her parents
in Red Fork, Oklahoma, then a suburb of
Tulsa. We went to Pleasant Porter
school. Her parents helped her to be
independent and she was.

Her mother made clothes with little
capes at the shoulders to cover the
place where her arms were supposed to
be. And she wore pretty shoes to school,
no oxfords for her since they would have
been more difficult to manage.
Instead of a desk, she had one of the
usual school tables with a couple of
drawers. She would go to her table,
remove shoes, socks were dainty anklets
we called them, pull out the drawer for
her books and pencil. And away she would
go, writing with her feet.
She was a good student. And a pretty
blond child.
My aunt, Julia Mays, was a neighbor of
her family.
We moved back to Tulsa (just across the
Arkansas River) and I saw her no more
until high school and she attended one
of our dances.
Joanne never said, "I can't do that."
She seemed happy.
She had a friend, Ethel Marie St.
Clair, who also played a guitar so
they appeared in 1935 in Dallas at a big
fair.
I am 85 years old now but remember her
well.
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