Memories of Long Ago Part 1 of 3

During the Great Depression years, we three girls and five boys lived with Mom and Dad on an asparagus farm in Iowa. The girls: Marion Elizabeth, Marie Adeline, and Esther Lavern and the boys: Herod Jr, Charles Hamilton, Elbert James, Richard Lee, and Gerald Dean had nicknames that changed over the years. We changed Junior to Mickey when he was in his teens. The only person to use Marie was her husband Larry. She was always called Adeline or Addy by family. Charles was sometimes called Chuck. Richard was Dick and Gerald was Jerry. My husband and his family called me Abby but I was always Marion to the family. When Elbert went into the Marine corps and later married, he was called Abby by his wife, Mary and his co-workers, but remained Elbert to the family.

Adeline and I walked to a school in town but Esther and the boys went to a country school and were driven there in a car. Their school had only one room with one teacher that taught first grade thru the 6th grade. Adeline and I took shortcuts thru several pastures to reach a road that led to our school.

Every morning Esther had her beautiful long, red hair braided French style. If Mom was busy, I braided her hair, but I did not know how to do French braiding so did plain braids and tied them with ribbons. Esther was always patient and never squirmed or wriggled when she was having her hair done.

Adeline had ash blond hair that was extremely fine, cut shoulder length. Sometimes she got chewing gum in her hair. If she went to sleep with chewing gum in her mouth, it would fall out onto the pillow and get into her hair. Mom would use oil to carefully remove the gum without using scissors, but sometimes it was too difficult and the gum had to be snipped out. Once Adeline spilled a bottle of blue ink in her hair and regardless of many shampoos, she had to wait until her hair grew long enough for the color to be trimmed away.

My hair was a lighter red than Esther’s. I worn it page boy style but when I wanted curly hair, I’d do it up in pin curls at night before going to sleep. In the morning, when I removed the bobby pins and combed my hair, the ends would be curly. Sometimes Adeline and I would ask Mom to put our hair up in rags. Locks of hair were dampened and wound around strips of rag. When the hair dried, the rags were removed and we’d have long curls like the children wore in the old south.