Wednesday, November 12, 2008

My Mother


My Mother, Her Car and Her Sister

I mentioned recently that my Mother's birthday is November 15th. I realize the 15th is 3 days away but I may post something about her another day or two. The picture is of my Mother cranking her car with her Sister, Lucile, sitting in the car. The picture was taken in 1923, one year before she married my Dad in February 1924. My Mother was 26 years old at this time, had graduated from high school and business college in Wichita, Kansas, and had taught school for a few years.

My Mother was born in Illinois and lived there until she and her family moved to Wichita, Kansas, when she was 16 years old. She was the oldest of 5 children---two sisters and two brothers followed. Her family was not wealthy but enjoyed a comfortable living. After my Mother and Dad married, they moved to White County, Arkansas. She left behind many of the comforts she had been accustomed to in Kansas but she made the best of what was available for her in Arkansas. Regardless of her meager living conditions, she used what she had to make her home inviting and comfortable. She would sew window curtains out of flour sacks and they were regularly washed, starched and ironed. (The iron was heated either in the fire place or on the wood burning kitchen stove.) The house I grew up in had no wall coverings until my Mother covered them with pages from magazines. She made paste with flour and water and pasted the pages onto the walls. There was no money in those days to buy wall paper so she did the only thing that was available to her to make the house a little nicer.

Life on the farm was hard. We had no electricity into I was 11 years old. Our water was drawn by hand from a deep well and our heat came from trees on our farm that we sawed down and chopped into fire wood. The cows had to be fed and milked even if the weather were freezing cold in the Winter months or very, very hot in the Summer time. Chickens had to be fed and eggs gathered plus all the other farm work. Sometimes there was not a lot of food. We learned not to be "picky", we were just thankful for any thing to eat.

That is all for today.

Dortha

1 comment:

MORunningWithScissors said...

I love to hear these stories Grandmother! Thanks for sharing.
Sherlyn