Jo Wetsel Sides. What a woman. What a story. Now 90 years old, Jo has lived a beautiful life, full of hardships softened by love - and I’ve known her long enough to see how wonderfully she has lived.
Jo was born in 1936, a time when our country was deep into an economic depression. Times were hard. Born in Bellvue, TX in her aunt’s house, just across the street from her grandparents, Jo was surrounded by love from the beginning.
But love doesn’t put food on the table.
The family lived in an abandoned service station comprised of two buildings…they used the front building as their living room and kitchen and the second building as sleeping space.
Work was scarce during those days, so like many people of that era, her parents moved quite a lot wherever work could be found. From Stratford TX where her dad worked on a harvest crew and her mom cooked for the hands, to a ranch job between Stratford and Dalhart TX with her mom cooking in area cafes, then on to Deaf Smith County where Jo’s dad ran a road maintainer.
Since there were no rent houses available at the time, the family lived in an old, unused country school house consisting of three rooms - two classrooms as a teacher’s office with two closets. There was no electricity and water had to be hauled in from 2 to 3 miles away.
There were more moves - to Crosbyton, Wildorado, back to Crosbyton, following work and opportunity and doing anything it took. At each stop, at the least liveable dwellings, Jo remembers her mother making a home for the family. Clothes made of flour sacks were common but beautifully sewn and always remade into new dresses for the younger girls. There was always plenty of food on the table. There were games and laughter each evening.
“We were poor, but I didn’t know it at the time.”
The family moved to Vega when Dovie leased Jerry’s Cafe from Bob Cotton (Jerry’s later became Krahn’s Cafe). While in Vega, the family lived at the Vega Hotel, owned by Bessie Montgomery. The entire hotel had only one bathroom. Because the bath water was heated by kerosene, Jo recalls that the County Judge was always the first to be allowed to bathe so his water would be warm.
Jo was 12 years old when Dovie leased the cafe, and helped at the cafe. She was in 6th grade at the time. It was at about this time that Jo became aware of a handsome young man by the name of Gerald Ray Sides. Apparently he had been aware of her for quite some time as he asked her to be his girlfriend…and the rest, as they say, is history. Jo and Gerald Ray eloped to Tucumcari New Mexico when she was 15…and he was "very close" to 15.
After their marriage they lived with Gerald Ray’s granny Morgan in a 2 bedroom house….by 1965 she started working, part-time at first, at the Vega school cafeteria at the initial pay of $40 per month with free food for her children. Later her salary was increased to $60 per month but with the understanding she was to pay for her children's lunches.
“I had the best job in town”
Jo became the manager of the school cafeteria a couple of years later, and remained in that capacity for 25 years until retirement in 1990. She and her co-workers, Grace Rogers, her mom Dovie, Dorothy Cooper, Myrt Lanier, Wanda Wetsel, Joyce Lynch, and Maria Esquivel had so much fun together it didn’t even seem to be work. Together they built a place where kids were not only fed but cared for.
There were kids who didn’t come from easy home lives, and Jo noticed. She would take them back to the kitchen to be sure they had their hair combed, faces washed, and clothes straightened ….just a mom doing what moms do. The kids were welcome to come back to get 2nds or 3rds if they were hungry; it was understood they were welcome.
All those years, and Jo reiterates, “I never did it by myself”. She and her fellow cooks were in this together, and each one had a specific job to do.
25 years at work. 72 years, 3 months, and 13 days of marriage. Four children (Harold, Danny, Tammy, and Gary), 10 grandchildren, 21 great grandchildren, and 7 great great grandchildren with another one on the way....
That’s a lot of life. And Jo Wetsel Sides made the most of it.
What a woman.
What a story.
