MY MEMORIES

Chapter 2

My Years in the White House

I have fond recollections of that little house on the east side of the highway just north of Alder Creek. I named it the "White House." People would look at us a little strangely when one of us would say, "Was that when we were living in the White House?"

Life on the farm was a happy time for me. I had my parent's full attention. I could watch the occasional car and the other traffic pass on the highway. I had two dogs, Ginger, a little terrier, and Chubby. Chubby was a Collie or Shepherd. These dogs took good care of me and Ginger became so protective that she got cross and nipped a couple of adults that were just playing with me. I heard my dad tell my mother that he knew a man who had so many dogs that he would never notice another. Daddy said the man was good to his dogs and he was going to drop Ginger off there the next day. Many months later we went to see a new cousin and the wife of the dog man was there. I ask her if I could talk to her and she said, of course I could, and that she loved to talk to little girls. I sat on her lap and asked her if her man had liked the little dog my daddy left him. She didn't understand me the first time and I repeated my question. The lady was very gracious but my poor mother was horrified. She didn't think I knew about Daddy dumping the dog but I pretty well made it my business to keep up on the little secret goings-on around me.

Farmwomen "set" setting hens on a hatching of eggs and hatched the baby chicks. A setting hen was a hen that had quit laying and was feeling motherly. They were also called broody or brood hens. I was scared to death of them because they would peck your hand if you reached near or under them. Women would trade hens if it was time to hatch chickens and they didn't have a hen ready to set. I don't remember how many eggs in a hatching but 15 sounds about right. The heavy breeds were better setting hens than flighty Leghorns but Leghorns were better egg layers.

When we lived in the White House we had an incubator to hatch our chicks. There were only three rooms and we all slept in one bedroom with the incubator. The incubator held a good many eggs and was kept warm by a coal oil burner. That would be called a kerosene burner today. I wonder why we didn't die from the fumes. I can smell them yet. My mother marked an X on one side of each egg and turned them every day as a mother hen would. The first time I remember seeing my mother cry was when the burner malfunctioned and ruined the eggs.

Eggs and cream were the source of a farmwoman's grocery money. Of course it had to stretch to cover other things as well. Much of the food was home grown. "Store-bought" food consisted mostly of sugar, salt, coffee, flour and cornmeal. Saltine crackers were a real treat but we never had store-bought bread. Molasses, made from home-grown cane boiled down in open vats, was often used for sweetening. When my parents were married, near the end of World War I, sugar was not available and they had a molasses wedding cake. The home-made molasses was superior to anything on the market today.

Saturdays and Sundays were special days for us. Saturdays we went to town and Sundays to church. The work ethic was strong but it was necessary to take the time off from work to sell produce and buy groceries. The time in town was also a social time. The merchants provided benches where farmers could sit and visit.

I must admit I liked Saturdays the best. We would take our baths in the zinc wash tub, don clean clothes and go to town in the one horse buggy or the wagon depending on the weather and what we were hauling. The buggy had side curtains that provided some protection when it rained or snowed or was just plain cold. Even though we were only six miles from town it was still quite a journey for a three-year-old. Our Saturday trips to town are vivid in my memory. A trip in the buggy was a lot more fun than a trip in the wagon. It seemed to me that we were going as fast as the wind when Dad would speed up the horse for me.

Old Nell had pulled the buggy for my folks when they were courting. When I was about four years old she got tetanus from a foot injury and had to be destroyed. I remember her rearing up and the pitiful sound she made when they were treating her foot. The day of her death we all cried.

That was the day mama told me about the time, shortly after she and Dad started going together, that they went to the Jericho Springs Picnic. Daddy had bought a new lap robe with a large red rose in the center for this special occasion. On the way to the picnic they ran into a rain shower. Daddy put up the side curtains but the lap robe got damp. Mama had worn a new white dimity dress and when she got out of the buggy the robe had faded and she had a red rose on the front of the skirt. Mama was a shy girl and easily embarrassed but she said they enjoyed the picnic anyway. Daddy was very sorry because new dresses were hard to come by in 1918.

We did our trading at Jess Shoemaker's Grocery on North Main Street. Jess had a hand in spoiling me. I would hint for something and he would give it to me. One Saturday my mother told me that if I hinted for anything she would spank me when we got home. I went in and sat quietly on the wooden bench at the rear of the store.

I sat there downcast and didn't talk to anyone. Jess finally asked if I was sick. I told him, no. He asked what was wrong. I told him that I couldn't tell him because if I did my mother would spank me. He "forced" me to tell him that I wanted a banana. Jess not only gave me a banana but he took me to the front of the store and let me cut it off of the big stalk that hung near the store window. He had a talk with my mother and I didn't get the spanking. However, through the years I did get my share.

The only time I was angry with Jess was when he gave me a cardboard fan and told me to fan my pet calf, Nancy Jewel. I tried and she ran from me. She was tied to a tree in the yard and she more or less bound me to the tree. I got mad at Jess and Nancy Jewel, too.

I thought Nancy Jewel was a beautiful name. I named my doll Nancy Jewel and declared that if I ever had baby girl that would be her name. Fortunately, when the time came I named my daughter Karen Lee. L. E. E. was her father's initials.

If there was enough money left after one of those Saturday trips to town my parents bought snack food to eat on the way home so they would be ready to chore when they got there. Daddy always got a small ring of bologna to eat with cheese and crackers. I loved the crackers and I expect I ate the cheese but I liked the bologna better. My mother wouldn't eat the bologna because nearly all the men called it dog. One time the weather began to look threatening and we started home early. A short way out of town we drove into a pretty bad little storm. Daddy secured things the best he could, got back in the buggy and said, "Where's my dog?" They couldn't find it. Daddy asked Mama what she was chewing. It was his bologna! Once she had tasted bologna she actually liked it and after that she ate it without a word.

During my third summer a crew came to paint the bridge over Alder Creek just south of us on what is now Highway 32 but has carried several other numbers during the years. All or part of the crew camped in out yard. I loved every minute of it. The boss had a three roomed tent that I thought it the neatest thing I ever saw. His wife had a pump organ and she would play and we would sing. I ate with them a few times and I have never since tasted salmon cakes as good. I expect they got thoroughly tired of me. I could hardly wait to grow up and have a job where I could camp all the time. I didn't realize the hardships this young couple had to contend with. It all seemed like fun to me. I wonder if that is what conditioned me to want an enclosed playhouse and the fact I have always enjoyed camping so much. It seemed like the crew was there all summer but Daddy told me later that they were only there three weeks.

My mother was not a physically strong woman. I don't see to this day how she managed to do all that was required of her. She was a terrific mother and would have mothered the whole world if possible.

Mama's health was never very good. The doctor gave her a white square of something for her stomach pain. She would cut a piece off the block and let it dissolve in her mouth. I begged to taste it, and the doctor said it wouldn't hurt me, so she gave me a bite. It was a lot like chalk but slicker. I suppose it was an antacid. It didn't taste good and I didn't ask for more. This was the same Doctor Williams that delivered me. He spoiled me too. I can remember him showing me how he rolled pills. He prepared a lot of his medicines himself. He chuckled one time and said, "There are times when sugar pills can do wonders."

Mama had terrible headaches. In the mid-1920's many women blamed their headaches on the weight and heat of their long hair. Bobbed hair was considered almost sinful unless a doctor told them to cut their hair for their health's sake. The doctor had advised Mama to cut her hair but Daddy was so against it she wouldn't do it. Mama was an attractive woman but rather plain and her abundant black hair was her best feature. Mama took her hair down each night, brushed it and braided it to give it more body and keep it neater at night. I felt quite honored when she would let me brush it.

Loose hair from brushing was kept in a decorative dish with a lid and arranged in a hair net. This was called a rat and was concealed under the front hair to give the pouf that was so popular. Sometimes women curled their hair with a curling iron or crimped it with a crimping iron heated in the chimney of a lighted coal oil lamp. Sometimes they rolled it around pieces of rag in hopes that the next day, when they took their hair down, it would be curly and manageable.

One day we were in El Dorado Springs visiting some friends and the ladies were peeling peaches. One of them asked Mama what could make her cut her hair. Mama replied that it would have to be a disaster or bad accident. She was wearing a bun low on the back of her head. This lady slipped up with a pair of scissors and cut just above the bun and asked if that was disaster enough. They cut her hair and I thought it looked awful. Mama cried and cried and when daddy came to town after work she hid in the pantry. I believe that is the first time I ever saw my Daddy angry and especially with the lady who did the cutting. He had his boss take us home immediately and Mama and I cried most of the way. Of course, Daddy had to accept it and his temper always cooled down in a hurry. This time he was really hurt because this dearer than life person had disfigured herself. He did understand that Mama really couldn't help it. The headaches didn't improve.

While we were living in the White House I was introduced a whole new life. My dad's brother Glen had an old car, a coupe of some kind, and he would take us to the theater on North Main Street in El Dorado Springs. I had seen tent shows and stage shows at the theater but he took us to movies. Movies were a wonderful experience for a kid with my lively imagination and an even more wonderful treat awaited me. Uncle Glen took us to Osceola to see a talkie. The show was Zane Grey's, Riders of the Purple Sage. I do not have words to express how thrilled I was.