I went home to Buna for a week; then Mom took me to Beaumont to find a job. I found one as service secretary at Alexander Motor Co. I rented a room at the YWCA across the street.

I shared a room at the Y with Joyce, a really sweet girl. After I had been there for 6 months, someone moved out of a single room and I rented it. It sure was nice to have some privacy. We weren’t locked in at the Y; but we were locked out if we were past our 10 PM curfew. I was never late.

There was a period of time when we kept having things go missing at the Y. The police had been called a couple of times. We girls suspected the manager who was also our housemother.

I had just gotten a new miniature clock radio. I was about to cross the street when my Dad drove up. I went upstairs to get it to show him. It wasn’t there.

I went down stairs and asked the manager if I could borrow her phone to call the police, have them get a search warrant and search the Y. I had only been out the door to meet my Dad at the car and knew no one had left the Y during that time. She begged me not to do that and told me she borrowed it and it was in her room.

We had a brief chat and she promised to return all the missing things that day. I told her if anything ever went missing again I would tell everyone including the police what had happened. Everything magically reappeared in everybody’s rooms and nothing ever went missing again. A few months later, she found another job and moved.

When my Dad got home, he informed Mom that he wouldn’t worry about me anymore because I knew how to take care of myself.

Rom 5:20-21 Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.