Emma Ertle's Mother

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. That saying is true regarding Emma Ertle and her mother Magnolia. Magnolia was just as eccentric in her youth as her daughter is now. Magnolia, like Emma, had bright red curly hair and big blue eyes. As a young woman, Magnolia spent time in the big city of Houston going to secretarial school and flirting with many interested males. She lived in a cheap apartment at the time. One night she apparently saw something amiss in a lighted window in an apartment across the street. She called the Houston police. "Please come quickly!" she pleaded. "There's a man being indecent across the street." When a policeman showed up, he asked Magnolia to show him where the man was. Magnolia pointed across the street to a lighted window above hers. "I don't see anything," the cop said. "Oh, you can't see him from there," Magnolia explained. "You have to stand on this chair."