It was a cool rainy day, April 12, 1916, in McMinnville, Oregon...

when I first opened my eyes to see my mother Mable Bunn smiling at me and my father Chester Bunn looking so happily at me too.

Growing up on my peaceful farm in Yamhill my dad would yell, “Dinner Time!”  I would run to the house through fields of flowers only to see a plate full of liver.  My mom said that I could have dessert if I ate my liver, but I refused to touch it.  No dessert for me!

I never attended kindergarten, but would often join my mom at the little library she created downtown.   At home my grandma taught me how to sew, at only age 5.

When I was six, times were tough, and we had to move to the city because we lost our farm.  My dad became a security guard at the bank and my mom found a new teaching job.  I started 1st grade.

It was tough.  I needed to make new friends in the city.   I was a poor reader and placed in a low reading group.  My eyes were bad, and I needed glasses, however my mom never bought me any because she didn’t want to change my looks.

I was always a curious kid.   I remember one time when I shocked myself on an electrical outlet. “Ouch!! Did that hurt!”

When I wanted to play with my friends, we didn’t have telephones back then.  So, I had to shout my friends’ names in front of their houses so we could go and play. “Brianna!! George!!” They would run out and we would run in the streets of Grant Hill.

Not everyone was my friend.   Some boys in school would make fun of my last name by singing “Hot Cross Buns.”  I felt angry, sad and embarrassed every time they sang it on the playground.

To get my mind off these bullies, I entered an essay contest.  I won first place.  My essay was about animals.  The prize was $2.00, which felt like 1 MILLION to me!  Later on, I figured out that I was the only one who entered the competition, and I didn’t feel so accomplished anymore.

Eventually I mastered reading!  It was second grade, and I finished my first book, The Dutch Twins. I didn’t really like the characters in the books we read because they didn’t relate to me. The characters were from England, and they were like sissies to me. They were spoiled and rich with nannies to watch over them.

In sixth grade my teacher told me I should be a writer of children books.  Little did she know, I would be a famous writer one day.  I wrote a funny story the next year.  It was about my pet chicken and how I had to sacrifice him to feed Washington's Army.

As I grow older, I started Grant High School.

One day, me and my best friend were talking about how old we wanted to be before we died.  We decided that 80 was old enough.  I was in for a big surprise, because I lived for 100 years.

PE was rough.  I had to pick up marbles with my toes to correct the arches in my feet, but it didn’t work.  My feet just hurt even more.

However, my mom did finally buy me glasses which made school much easier.  But not easy enough… There was still one topic I did not like.  Can you guess what it is?

I didn’t think you would know, “It was tying!”  My fingers would hurt…. and hurt… and hurt some more.  I used my typewriter often, but even as an adult, I never owned a computer

Soon I graduated from Grant High School, and I moved in Canada.  I studied hard and earned my degree, then back to California where I earned my English Degree.  I was kind of tired, but I didn’t stop there!  I went to earn a librarian degree at Washington State.

I met a man while away at college, but little did I know this man would be my husband one day.   His name was Clearance, and he gave me a cigar band as my wedding ring, because he was poor.  Eventually he bought me a new ring.  I always kept the cigar band because I still thought it was very sweet.

We had to elope and if you don’t know what elope means… well, it basically means we don’t have a big ceremony.  We just tell the priest, and he is okay with that, luckily, because my parents didn’t like the church Clearance went too.