"Funny, too," she laughed. "Bob held an exam for teachers and I made out the examination questions. Then I took that same exam and of course, passed. You see, there are more ways than one, to get a school."
When asked the length of a school term in the old days, May Bailey replied: "That all depended on the amount of money the county had. I rarely ever taught less than three months in each place, sometimes, four. I usually managed to work from six to seven months out of each year. My salary was thirty dollars a month, and I never received more than forty dollars. Some of the towns had a school house, a small one room adobe with a dirt floor, straight wooden benches with a desk for the teacher."
"You see teachers, were scarce and since I was the only one teaching in this part of the country, my services were in constant demand. As soon as I was through teaching in one community I was called to another. I first taught at La Mesa, then, my parents moved back to the ranch at Chamberino and I taught there. Vado, or Earlham, as it was called at that time, was my next venture."
In referring to the Rio Grande, May Bailey, exclaimed: "That freakish river! It was the bane of our lives! We were always battling that turbulent stream. It was like playing a game of construction and destruction. For as soon as our Mexicans finished a piece of work the Rio Grande would rise and distroy it. Prior to the building of the Elephant Butte Dam, our spring floods were traditional, we knew just what to expect.
"I have a great deal of respect for that old river after all. For it helped Royal and me to find each other and to convince me that I was really in love. When a certain young man who had been watching me from the office of the Santa Fe Station, approached holding his hat (they removed them in the old days) and introduced himself as 'Royal Jackman, station agent and telegraph operator for the Santa Fe Station.'
"You see, I was teaching school at Mesquite. The river, which had been rising for several days, was pretty high, consequently, I was marooned on its eastern bank waiting for someone to come along with a boat to ferry me to the other side.
"Royal told me later that he had been waiting for an opportunity to serve me, offered to be my escort. Before parting he asked permission to call at my home in Chamberino not forgetting to add the customary courtesy due parents in the old days, 'I shall look forward to becoming acquainted with your father and mother.'"
The former May Bailey became the wife of Royal Jackman in 1897. Prior to her marriage May Bailey Jackman taught school in the early days at La Mesa, Chamberino, EarlHam, Vado, La Union, Mesquite and Anthony.