Woodward, Ralph Lee, My Autobiography (typescript, n.d., written probably in Fayette, MO, about 1927. Carbon copy in Woodward-McGrady papers)

Title	Woodward, Ralph Lee, My Autobiography (typescript, n.d., written probably in Fayette, MO, about 1927. Carbon copy in Woodward-McGrady papers)
Short Title	Woodward, Ralph Lee (c. 1927)
_BIBL	Woodward, Ralph Lee. My Autobiography. typescript, n.d., written probably in Fayette, MO, about 1927. Carbon copy in Woodward-McGrady papers.
_SUBQ	Woodward, Ralph Lee, My Autobiography
Source ID	S312
Text	1/ "My Autobiography "I was born in Kansas City, Wyandotte County, Kansas at 903 Orville Avenue on August 31, 1906. I was the third child of the family having an older brother who was fifteen years old and an older sister thirteen years old. "Thei first thing that I can remember is my older sister taking me in to see my new brothers and sisters when I was nearly three years old. I found that I had two new sisters and a brother. Triplets! I can remember how surprised I was at having so many playmates. I often wondered why it was that so many people came in to look at them and should talke about them so much. The four of us grew up together enjoying all the fellowship and pleasures that a large family enjoys. "When I was old enough to start to school I went to Lowell Public School. One of the incidents of my very early childhood that I will never foget is the first day I was at school. Mother had dressed me in a new school suit, the first suit I had ever had, and I was very proud of it. While at school on that first day, many of us began sliding down a slab of stone that was placed along side of the steps. The trouble came tho at the end of the day when I arrived home with the seat of my trousers completely worn out. "When my younger brothers and sister were ready to start to school I was ready for the third grade. 2/ "The family was so large or rather the house we were living in was to [sic] small for the family, and we moved before school started that fall over three blocks to 913 Ohio Avenue in a much larger house. From there we attended school at the Irving Public School. "It was while I was in the third and fourth grade that I first started working. I sold the Curtis Publishing Company's magazines and at the end of the second year had a regular route of customers. The little money that I received for this was put away for me by my mother that I might get different things that I wanted and needed from time to time. "When I entered the fifth grade there at Irving School, the janitor offered me a job working for him for the year. I gave my magazine route to my younger brother and took the job helping the janitor of the school. In the mornings I dusted and arranged different things in the building. After school in the evenings I helped the janitor sweep out the entire building. FOr these services he paid me, what I thought was a great deal, three dollars a month. This nearly paid for the clothes that it took to work on the job, but I was keeping busy and I like the work. "When I entered the sixth grade, the man that lived across the street from us was running a small dairy. He offered to hire me to work for him with another boy my own age for three dollars a week. I took the place and worked there and went to school for three years. When I began working thre I was more or less of a weakling and all of the boys on my street were always calling me "sissy". It was not long tho before the work I was doing broadened me and I steadily grew stronger and stronger. I was bothered with 3/ being called a "Sissy" very little after that. "The next fall I entered the new Junior High School that had only been completed the year before. I stayed there for three years, the first two of which I worked on the same milkroute that I had worked on the year before. In my last year there, Freshman year, I took a paper route thru out the school year. "That summer I visited with my grandparents near Dearborn, Missouri, and had many pleasant and unpleasant experiences for it was the first time I had ever been on a farm for more than a day or two at at time. In the fall I returned to my home in Kansas City, Kansas. "I enrolled at the Kansas City, Kansas High School that fall as a Sophmore. Among the subjects that I signed up for was a course in printing. I enjoyed this class all thru the year and the next spring I gave up my paper route and found a job in a little job printing office in Kansas City, Kansas. "I had been interested in Boy Scout work for a great while and had planned to go on a two weeks trip before school started the next fall. Our plans were to go to the Ozarks. My parents though I was planning to go with them but secretly, another boy and myself had planned to go out into the western part of Kansas and Eastern Colorado for the two weeks. We did not go with the scouts but went on the trip we had planned, not telling our parents until we were well on our way. We had a great many experiences before we returned two weeks later. "Upon my arrival at home I had a great deal of explaining to do but we did not get into nearly as much trouble as we 4/ really expected to. "On the first day of September I enrolled as a Junior in high school, but becaem very disgusted and gave up the idea of taking up some kind of Christian work as my life work. I decided to take up newspaper work and printing. After begging and pleading with my parents for several weeks they finally consented that I could quit school after they saw that I would not take the school work seriously. "For the next three years I worked in a newspaper office and printing plant. I began to gather a fair knowledge of running a plant and bought a small printing press for seventy-five dollars and in my spare time did some printing for people in business near my house. I also found the opportunity to work on the outside in the newspaper game and liked that part of it too. "During those three years, I took an active part in teaching a young boys Sunday School class and enjoyed that a great deal for I was interested in Boy Scout work and this gave me an opportunity to take them on outings and other things places that would interest young boys. "I enjoyed myself in both my work and church activity but there was always something pulling at me to go back and take up a life's work of CHristian character. it was after a long fight against it that I finally decided to be a minister. "I was licensed by the Kansas City District Conference in April, 1924. I lost several friends that I had come to think a gread deal of when I made this move but since that tiem I have made so many more that are finer and purer, that I feel and know that I've gained instead of losing. 5/ "In September, 1924, I left home to attend our church school at Morrisville, Missouri; Scarritt-Morrisville College. There I tool up my regular Junior course of high school work again. I enjoyed they year there for I learned more in one year than I dreamed was ever possible. I enjoyued the fellowship of the students, it was different from anything I had ever known before. That year I swept the floors of the college building and ran a little weekly paper for the town and school to pay my expenses thru school. "That spring, the Board of Education of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, voted to close several small schools thru out the state. S-M-C- was one of those schools. The buildings were sold to pay off all of the debts and any surplus was to go to Central College. "During the summer I worked in a printing chop in Walnut Grove, Missouri and in the fall was given a charge near there. I enrolled in the high school there and continued to work in the printing shop. I preached every Sunday. That year I played football with the high school team there. When the end of the school year came I was nearly worn out from trying to do so many things. "I kept even busier during the summer for I held two revival meetings and did a great deal of visiting. I had made arrangements to enter Central College in the fall and had a promise of taking work in the Southwest Missouri Conference near Jefferson CIty somewhere. Two weeks before college started I returned to my home in Kansas City nearly worn out but thought I could rest enough during my visit home to go ahead to school for the year. "I enrolled at Central in the fall of 1926 as a Fresh- 6/ man. I was given a charge in the Missouri Conference instead of the Southwest Missouri, on the Paris circuit, near Paris, Missouri. As I started the school year I didn't seem to want to take any interest in my work at school at all and was very disgusted. I had trouble financially for I had gone into debt some during the two years before that and my bills were pressing me. I was really in the place where I felt like giving up and going back into the newspaper work. As it happened I decided to stay a while longer and then took a place in Fayette at the newspaper office there working at night two or three nights a wek. I found that I could not stand up under the pressure of three different jobs and finally I quit school for the year, thourghly disgusted with nearly everything and everybody. "From there I went over to Paris, Missouri and stayed there until the following September. In less than three months after I went over there I was beginning to feel more like my old self. I was healthier than I had been for nearly a year. I kept busy on my church work all summer, holding three revivals. "This last fall I went home on a short visit in Kansas City, just before going to conference. After being appointed to the Prairie Hill Circuit near Salisbury, I returned to Fayette and enrolled in Central College again as a Freshman, this time with plans made to stay with my school work and church work regardless of whatever kind of troubles may come along." "Ralph Lee Woodward"
Linked to	Ralph Lee WOODWARD

Notes
Appears to be paper he wrote during his 2nd Freshman year at Central.

Maintained by Michael Stafford.