George

George W has moved back to ‘Osky’. He sold his house in What Cheer, Iowa, auctioned most of the furnishings and has rented a small apartment in Oskaloosa, Iowa. He will be 84 in August. Although his health allows him to retain his independence, he wanted to be closer to family members in case of emergency.

When I, along with my brothers and sisters stayed with Grandma W, uncles George, Paul and H.O. were more like older brothers than uncles. During summer days when school was out, Paul and H.O. spent their time with boys their own ages, but George and I formed a formidable pair that dominated most of the activities of the kids we played with. Neighbor kids, and those of my brothers and sisters that chose to join us, formed a loosely knit gang that expanded and disintegrated several times a day as our activities changed. The pair of us mutually took the attitude of being in charge and allowing others to tag along although we never voiced such an opinion.

We children had a freedom in those days that would be unthinkable in today’s world. We had the run of the town, and all its offerings. Occasionally we would ask Grandma for permission to go somewhere we thought might be out of bounds, but other than that, we came and went pretty much as we pleased. We hit home base a couple of times in the morning and the same in the afternoons, so Grandma had an idea of where and what we were doing as she let us ‘just be kids’.

Sometimes Grandma would ask one of us to run an errand to the day old bread store or the post office, but generally we ran in ‘packs’ as we walked across town to see Aunt Rita’s and Uncle Lester’s new baby, or to the stadium to run the cinder track. We never lacked for something to do, be it playing Michigan Rummy with Bicycle cards, (Grandma didn’t allow Euchre decks in the house) or taking turns playing Grandma’s old pump organ where one of us had to manually push the bellows because our feet couldn’t reach the pedals.

Grandma was quite tolerant of the mischief George and I got into, but I vividly remember one occasion when she was very cross with us. Grandma sent us to town with our toy wagon to get a large chunk of ice so she could make peach ice cream in the old fashioned freezer and asked us to help turn the crank. When the ice cream was ready, she took the freezer into the cellar room and covered it with gunny sacks and old blankets to keep the ice cream frozen until time to serve it.

As the morning passed I went looking for George and discovered him in the cellar, sneaking a taste of ice cream. I demanded a taste too. We carefully rewrapped the freezer and made our getaway. It wasn’t long before we decided another little taste wouldn’t be noticed so back we went for more. We made several furtive tasting trips before we realized we had substantially lowered the level of ice cream in the container.

When Grandma got ready to remove the dashers from the ice cream container, she discovered our dastardly deed and demanded to know who was responsible. After confessing, she lectured us royally! She sent us for more ice to make another batch and warned us to be ‘quick’ about it. She threatened to make us do with out, but when the time came to serve the ice cream; she relented and served us along with the others.