Telephone Chat with Elizabeth

I had a nice telephone chat with Aunt Elizabeth over Memorial weekend. She, and her brother George, are the only remaining members of Mom’s family. Due to failing health Elizabeth has recently moved into a care facility. She has poor eye sight and is hard of hearing, but she can hear quite well on the phone.

Elizabeth is 91 years old, but her voice is youthful and reminds me of days long ago when my sister and I would meet Elizabeth when she got off work and walk home with her. She was a pretty, 18 year old with a sweet disposition. She worked at the bakery waiting on customers and I was very impressed with her responsibility of ringing up sales on the cash register and making correct change.

The country was in a deep depression; grown ups talked about ‘hard times’, but Dad always had a job with the phone company and received a regular paycheck. I was never aware of being deprived in any way but I saw newspaper pictures of people selling apples, or razor blades or shoe laces; wire photos of long lines of people at ‘soup kitchens’ as well as pictures of huge mounds of oranges having oil poured on them and burned in California or thrown into the ocean in order to raise prices.

For people without a car, hitch hiking was a safe way to travel and our family hitched rides when they needed to go somewhere. The summer that I, with my brothers and sisters, went to stay with Grandma W, Mom and Dad would hitch hike on weekends to come see us.

Grandma didn’t have a phone so we never knew ahead of time if Mom and Dad would be coming. If they had good luck hitching a ride, they might arrive by 8 or 9 o’clock Friday evening, but if rides were hard to get, it might be as late as 11. If it was later than midnight, we knew they wouldn’t be coming that weekend.

Grandma let Adeline and me stay up late on the nights we expected Mom and Dad. After all the others were in bed asleep, Grandma would take a chair out to the front porch to sit in while Adeline and I sat on the steps. The moon light was bright enough for us to see each other, and there was a street light at the corner so we could spot Mom and Dad when they turned onto our street.

During those summer evenings Adeline and I would ask Grandma to tell us about her wedding picture. Sometimes she would show us things from her special trunk. We always coaxed her to sing and if she wasn’t too tired, she would sing hymns and old ballads. She knew all the verses to Jessie James and that was our favorite.

Grandma’s dog, Penny, an American Spitz, kept us company as we waited on the porch, but he observed his own private and regular bed time. He slept on an old overstuffed chair in the front room. When Penny indicated it was his bedtime, one of us would open the screen door so he could go inside. We never turned on a light for him but he knew exactly where the chair was. One night after we opened the screen door for him, we heard a great plopping noise. We rushed to see what had happened. Penny had taken a great leap expecting to land in his chair but instead, landed on the floor. That day Grandma had moved the furniture around in the living room and either Penny didn’t know the chair had been moved or he forgot. He wasn’t hurt but he had a look of embarrassment on his face! Penny was a wonderful pet and we loved him dearly. He lived to be 19 years old

Remembering

This is a poem I wrote in honor of my three brothers, a sister and our parents who passed away within several years of each other.

Remembering

In loving fellowship
They graced our lives
In springs and
Summers fair.
In common, felt
The breath of autumns
And snowy winters air.
We knew the seasons
From farmer’s fields,
Heard Robins sing
Their birdsong trills.
Picked wild flowers
On the river banks,
And hiked the woods,
Went nutting where
The great trees stood.
The stars we followed
Set the paths on
Journeys, once begun
To fated ends, when
At last, we mourn their
Leaving one by one.
No use to wish for
Life’s undoing,
For each one lost,
There’s only grieving
Until the weight of
Grief jells memories
Of time and place
To seek a sweetness
In the sorrow and
Again to trace
The bonds of love,
Of fellowship and grace.

A Sparkling Day

It’s Saturday morning. The neighborhood is quiet; no traffic, no barking dogs. The air is delightfully fresh but without noticeable breezes. Tree shadows are blotches of shade without fluttering edges, an indication the day may become uncomfortably hot. The street has a manicured look with uniformly trimmed lawns.

Only the birds are moving. A redheaded woodpecker is searching the bark on a pecan tree and circling its way up the tree trunk. There isn’t a squirrel in sight, but they’ll be running thru the trees playing tag soon.

I’m wearing a ‘sparkle’ ring. It’s an oversized purple raspberry made of plastic rubber that flashes red and blue lights when pressed. It’s a fun trinket that some poorly paid person or prisoner in China, probably made. When Esther visits, I’ll give it to her to give to one of her grand children. .

It’s picnic weather so I’m making picnic foods; potato salad, deviled eggs and baked beans, aka South Beach Diet Cheaters foods. I plan to picnic in front of the TV tomorrow and watch the Indy 500.

May readers of my blog also have a fun and safe weekend!

Memorial Weekend

People are already clogging the highways, airports and bus stations. It’s reported 30 million people will be traveling this weekend! Police and highway patrol officers are out in force pushing ‘CLICKIT or TICKET’. For a week or more, spot announcements on radio and TV have been warning people of consequences if caught not wearing seat belts. Volunteers, at the rest stop on I 10 outside of town, will serve free soft drinks and coffee to drivers and passengers caught in traffic jams if their driving lane is closed due to an accident.

I plan to put new flags on the graves of my brother, Mickey, ex Merchant Marine, Mom and Dad who was in the National Guard. They are buried next to each other here in the local cemetery. Two brothers and a sister are buried in National Cemeteries, Elbert, an ex Marine, in San Mateo California, Charles, also an ex Marine, in Houston, Texas and Adeline, an ex Wave, in Riverside, California.

I have been flying a flag at my house for years. I leave a light on inside the house that shines thru the window onto the flag at night so I never take it down. It hangs from the corner of the porch and can be seen thru the pecan trees by people driving past the house. Sometimes, I have to untangle it from the pole when the wind wraps it around. I replace it with a new one when it gets dingy from weather.

After 9-11, flags sprouted everywhere. Even on barn roofs and walls of buildings. It seemed as if savings banks were in competition to have the largest flag and tallest flag pole in front or on their building roofs. . I don’t see as many flags now as I drive around town. Maybe the flags just got soiled and raggedy and were taken down.

I know it’s Memorial Day when the Indy 500 race is on TV. This year I’ll root for the young 23 year old girl everyone is talking about. They say she has a good chance to win. Wouldn’t that be something!!

I Like to Read

We had a rain storm last night with lightening flashes and thunder that shook the house. The rain started with a whisper of wind, but in moments the screens of the open windows were splattered with rain drops. I quickly moved five new books off the window ledge before they got soaked.

I am a greedy book person. I get panicky if I don’t have a stack of books waiting in the wings for me to read. I like ‘how to’ books on subjects I’m interested in, but basically I read for pleasure.

My brother Charles had the same reading taste in history and whodunits that I do. My sister Adeline loved historical novels and romances.

When Adeline and I were in the first and second grades we owed the library so much money in over due book fines we thought we’d never get the bill paid. The librarian was kind and allowed us to continue checking out books on our promises to pay, but it took us all summer to whittle down the charges. We ran errands for a neighbor and earned a nickel or a dime mailing letters or buying stamps at the post office for her. Another neighbor hired us to feed her cat when she was away for a day or two. Mom paid me a quarter a week to iron the tea towels.

I am a sucker for the three day book sales Friends of the Library have annually. On the first day I usually need a cart to haul the books to the car. On the second day I only need someone to open the library door for me since my arms are loaded with books. On the third day I go to browse just in case I’ve missed something.

Electronic books are a wonderful source as are audio books but I’ve stopped checking out library audio books since my machine ate the DA VINCI CODE.

Let’s Get Acquainted

My Mother’s people were farmers. They settled in Iowa, but had homesteaded for a period of time in South Dakota. Dad’s people became shop keepers in Kentucky but had farmed in Virginia.

Mom was Lucinda G. W., born August 7, 1902, in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Dad was Herod E. A., born October 3, 1900, in Pulaski, Kentucky.

As a young man, Dad went to Iowa with a friend and hired out as a farm hand. After several years, he got a job with Northwestern Bell Telephone Company, where he met, fell in love and married Mom. She had been trained as phone operator but was working in the front office of the phone company as an assistant to the bookkeeper. They were married in Mason City, Iowa.

In those days, a lineman’s job didn’t pay a great deal and the work was hard, especially during harsh Iowa winters. Dad quit his job at the phone company and they moved to Louisville, Kentucky.

Mom and Dad moved from Iowa to Kentucky and back to Iowa several times until Dad started working for the phone company a second time. He remained an employee of the phone company until he retired many years later in San Francisco, Calif.

The company transferred our family many times in the early years. Of my brothers and sisters, two of us were born in Louisville, Kentucky, one was born in Steubenville, Ohio, one was born in Beacon, Iowa, two were born in Spencer, Iowa, and two were born in Iowa Falls, Iowa. I was the oldest of three girls, and five boys.

Grandparents, Great Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and Cousins on both sides of the family were familiar people to us children as we grew up. Visits and family gatherings reinforced family bonds and we learned to adapt to the ways and traditions of those above and below the Mason Dixon line.. Many of them lived with us from time to time.

Welcome and Come On In!

I'm taking the fork in the road launching my family stories and would love to have you visit often. This is a new adventure for me. I hope you will find my stories and memories of interest. The people in my stories are more than just names on a genealogy chart since I have known most of the persons I write about.

Some of my stories have been told and repeated many times when older family members get together, but these stories may be new 'history' for those members scattered around the country.

Both my maternal and paternal families were early settlers and their history is the same as that of our United States. One family was from the North, one from the South; plain, working class people who believed in being self sufficient. The families they raised were part of the fabric of this country in times of Peace and times of War.