My Little Dream House

When you have lived in the house with your mother- in- law for three years you start to dreams of a place of your own. My mother- in- law wasn't the problem, it was the relatives. My mother-in-law was good to me and I loved her. I married into a large family. My husband supported his mother and took care of her. Her oldest daughter and her husband liked to live close, so they bought a new Airstream trailer and moved it into mother's yard. That made too much family so close together. There was no privacy for us. There was always someone coming through the back door. The house was small and we lived in one bedroom. Of course we had use of the rest of the house, but it was too crowded. In our second year of marriage our first baby was born. That made the little house seem smaller. There was never a quiet place for our baby to sleep without someone coming in and waking her up. And then I was pregnant again. This togetherness was getting the best of me. I started looking in the want ads for a house for sale. I found one.That day when it was time for my husband to come home from work I dressed my little girl up in her cutest little dress. I curled her hair and she was so cute. I then made my pregnant self look as pretty as possible and we went for a walk to meet daddy. I had the newspaper with the ad in it in hand. When we got in the car I showed the ad to him and we went to see the little house. The house was perfect for us. It had two bedrooms, one bath, kitchen, pantry and living and dining room combination. We bought the house for $6,500. The down payment was $75.00 which we didn't have to pay because there was a chip on the bath tub. We settled even for that. Furniture was the next problem. We had a table and four chairs, a console radio-record player and a lot of records, a chest of drawers and a baby bed. We went to Montgomery Wards and bought bedroom furniture and appliances for the kitchen. We didn't have cookware, so we bought as few pots and pans as we could get by with. My mother- in- law gave us a roll-away bed for our little girl to sleep on. We didn't buy living room furniture for several months, but that was fine with us, we were on our own. What a relief? One of the greatest purchases that we got was the washing machine. When you have two little ones and pampers had not been invented yet that machine was a blessing. My friend said she could find our house easily because the white flags were always flying. It was good to be home.

Saturdays When I Was Growing Up

Saturdays sure have changed a lot since I grew up. I don't know if I can put into words, but it was fun back then. We didn't have a Walmart or Mall to do our shopping in, but we did have a General Store where one could buy food, clothing, tools, feed for the animals and seeds and fertilizer. You could also buy candy and cookies from big glass jars. Sugar, flour, corn meal and dried beans, rice and peas could be bought by the pound or by larger amounts. Lard was sold in buckets. We only bought that when we had used up the lard we had rendered when we killed the hogs. Crackers were kept in barrels and you could buy as many as you needed. A few cracker and some cheese cut from a big block was a good lunch for a hungry person. Saturday was the shopping day for most country people. Since there wasn't a lot of cars during this time and the Great Depression had made everybody poor, travel mostly was done riding in the farm wagon pulled by the faithful team of mules. We would sit on our front porch and wave at the neighbors as the rode into town. We didn't ride into town, we lived close enough to walk there. Everybody went to town on Saturday afternoon. Some went early and stayed all day. Our little town had three general stores, a drug store, a barber shop and two doctors offices. The stores were lined up in a row with a common sidewalk. There were benches in front of each store. That's where all the people met to do their visiting for the week. The little sidewalk would be so crowded you would have to push your way through. But it was fun to be there. You would see friends you hadn't seen all week. In the summer when the church ladies made ice cream and sold it by the cone was a good time. They would set the freezer and all the fixing in a shaded spot and sell the cones for .05 cents? It would melt and be messy, but oh so good. At the end of the day everybody went home until next Saturday. It was nice to go visit friends and shop on Saturday. Nobody was in a rush, Oh well, times do change. S

Wedding Day.

This morning as I was tidying up my bedroom I glanced up and looked at the pictures hanging on the wall. There is a picture of myself taken when I was 21 years old. Beside that picture is one of my "Honey" in his Air Force uniform. We were not married when these pictures were taken, in fact we didn't know each other at all. I met him after WW2 was over. I was working as a bookkeeper at the bank and I had a friend that worked with me who was his friend. My friend asked me to go on a picnic to the lake and be a date with his friend Bill. That was the beginning of a long, long love affair. We had a very good time on the picnic. He had just returned home from being in the Air Force for three years. He enlisted when he got the letter from Uncle Sam saying that he needed him. All young and some older men got those letters, and they had to enlist or have a good reason that they would not be able to serve. Bill chose the Air Force because there was a base in his hometown, and he had worked on the base when he graduated from high school. He got his orders to report for training in December. He was sent to Colorado Springs, Colorado in the coldest time of the year. That was pretty hard on a southern kid. They had to take hikes in snow and rain. Their barracks were cold, the wind and snow would blow in the windows. When his training was over he was sent Kearney. Nebraska. He was assigned to office work and did office work until the war was over. In the last months of the war he was sent to Guam. He worked on the island where they were getting ready to bomb Japan. He was never in or saw combat duty. After the US bombed Japan the war was over. He said he typed up his own discharge papers. The pictures on the wall brought back memories of seventy years. I can remember the little wedding we had at a friends home with family and friends there. We stood before the fire place in the living room. There was a big spray of gladiolus on each side on the mantle. We were so nervous, I got the giggles when I had trouble slipping the ring on his finger. The minister was a friend of ours. Our wedding cake was made by Bill's mother. Everything was so simple, but so sweet. We were married for 51 years,7 months and 12 days.

Fourth of July Picnic.

Fourth of July has always been a special day in our family and since this Thursday is that day, it's a good time to tell you about how we celebrated one year when I was a kid. We didn't have a fancy outdoor cooker or grill. We didn't have a car to take us to the lake. We didn't have bathing suits, but we had fun. On that morning we were all eager to go on a picnic to the lake. We had dug worms and had plenty of the wiggly, slimey little worms in a can ready to put on the hook. Mama packed some grease in the big iron pot that she usually cooked our meals in. The grease was from rendering the fat from the pig that was killed in the winter. It was called lard. She packed some potatoes to fry in the grease, just in case we didn't catch some fish. She also had a chicken prepared and ready to fry. and for a special treat she had baked a cake. Since we needed to ride to the lake, Daddy harnessed up the mules and hooked them to the farm wagon and we were on our way. We rode the five miles to Chalk Lake sitting on boards laid across the sides of the wagon. Our family filled the wagon up. We were a big family. This will be a great day for all of uss. When we got to the lake we all got a fishing pole and started to fish. My daddy found a good place to fish. He found an old log that had fallen into the water. He found a place that he could ease out and catch fish in deeper water. We were only allowed to fish in the shallow water. None of us smaller kids could swim, so we had to be careful where we fished. It seemed that Daddy had a magic touch. He caught enough fish to fry for our picnic. He scaled and gutted the fish and prepared them for the big iron pot. They made a fire and cooked the fish, fried the chicken and potatoes. We had a feast and it was wonderful. After we had eaten we were allowed to wade in the water. It was very shallow near the banks. We were having so much fun that Mama decided to join us. We were all playing in the water in our clothes, and we were all soaking wet. We delighted in making Mama as wet as we were. She had a lot of fun, too. Everybody went home wet and happy.

What Would My Father Think?

What would my father think if he looked down from Heaven and could see all his children? First he would probably say "Where is everybody?" "What is going on here?" It is a different world than the one he left in 1959. His family has grown so big that he would have to get a bigger place to live and he would have to work a lot harder to feed all these people. He would wonder just who they were. He would know his nine children and fifteen grandchildren, but there were more, many more grandchildren, great- grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. Things have changed so much since he went away. He is not lonely in Heaven. He has Mama there with him and three of his daughters and two sons near him, so you see he keeps busy watching over them. He doesn't have to worry about the ones left on earth. They seem to be able to take care of themselves. He does have a fine family and he is proud. He is proud to know that he a poor dirt farmer who had only a third grade education had helped create this fine family. He is proud that he worked so hard to get an education for his nine children. Someone once told him he was killing himself trying to educate his children. He very much resented that remark. He was proud of all of us, and we are proud of him. The world has changed a lot since he went away. This is a place he would be lost in. Even I am amazed at the changes in my lifetime. I never dreamed I could sit in my easy chair and play games on my I-Pad or watch the news as it is happening on the TV. This month I have had a miracle in my eyes. My old God given lens were removed and new man made ones were put in their place. Now I can read without glasses. What a blessing? My father only had vision in one eye. He was nailing shingles on a house and a nail stuck him in the eye. In those days you had to just be blind. He was 80 years old when he died on November 11, 1959.

Depressed Is Not The Depression.

Last week some of my grandchildren were visiting and they started talking about some of the documentries they had seen on TV. They said they had never known about how the people suffered during that time. It was surprising to me that this was true. It should be in every history book. These things do happen and all should be aware of it. I am from a large family and I am a depression child. I remember how hard it was for my parents to provide food and clothing and a roof over our heads. We owned a small farm. Mama raised a garden and grew vegetables. We had a few chickens for eggs, a few cows for milk and a few pigs. My Dad grew cotton and corn. He had a couple of mules to pull the plow while he walked behind to guide the plow. It was hard work from sun-up til sun-down. There was never any money for extra things. We were happy to be able to be fed and taken care of. Our little house was bursting the seams with all the kids. All the beds were filled and then the twins were born. Now there were nine kids. Two more mouths to feed. My Dad lost the little farm to the bank because there was a drought and the crops failed. We had to move away from the little house he had built for Mama when they first got married. My Dad rented the little farm next to us and we moved into that house. It was a bigger house and we were happy for the extra room. Even though we had more room I had to sleep with a bed full of kids. It was usually my older sisters. They say the middle child gets the worst, and I can testify to that. We ate a lot of great northern beans and corn bread, that's what kept us healthy and strong through the depression.

Rollercoaster Ride

When I was just out of high school and new to the city life, my friends and class mates who were in the same city called and asked me to meet them at the park. They were there as nursing students and I was in business school. I had never been in a big city before and I was really a "greenhorn". I knew nothing about the city, but I went to the bus stop and caught the bus and paid my 7 cents and went to the park.

We rode rides all afternoon and had a glorious time until the rollercoaster ride. I don't think I have ever been so afraid before or since then. I was so thankful when that ride was over. My friends enjoyed every moment of it. I never rode another one until I rode the Matterhorn at Disney World in California with my little five year old son many years later. I couldn't let him know how scared I was.So you see I can be brave in bad situations.

Since I wrote my last blog several months ago I have been on a rollercoaster of a different sort. This has been pretty scary, too. Thanks to my girls I have spent a lot of their time carting me back and forth to doctor's offices and the druggist to make me feel better. If medication will make a new body, I should be about done by now. I take so many different kinds of meds that I have to keep books on them. I need a good bookkeeper. I read my medical history the other day and I'm amazed that I can still get up every morning and do as well as I do. This has been and is the ride of my life and I'm not ready to get off yet.