Growing Up With

About the Book

When my father lost everything he had during the depression, we moved from the farm to a dilapidated log cabin in my grandfather´s property. There was no electricity, running water, or inside plumbing. With my parents working daylight to dark getting the place cleaned and livable, it wasn´t long until folks were saying how nice it was. Even under those circumstances, with the feather beds, kerosene lamps, and potbelly stove, linoleum-covered floor, horsehair couch, there was a warmth and family closeness.

With this cabin went seven acres of land, so Daddy had chickens that supplied us with eggs, cows that provided milk, pigs that he could butcher, and a large garden which provided many vegetables for immediate use and for Mother to can.

Despite having no refrigerator and using a kerosene stove, Mother prepared large delicious meals, including scrumptious cakes and pies and real whipped cream. Cream, which Mother took from the top of the milk that was stored in large crocks in our storm cellar, was used for the whipped cream. She also churned butter and made cottage cheese.

To do our laundry, she had to carry in and heat water in a large boiler, fill washtubs, scrub clothes on a washboard, carry out and hang up clothes, empty tubs, and then iron every piece with a flat iron heated on the stove.

There were no supermarkets, prepared foods, boxes or frozen. We were quite self-sufficient, so only occasionally went to a grocery. That trip, however, was always interesting. The clerk rolled a ladder along the wall, climbed up and reached the customer´s desired items, and then added the prices up on the back of a paper bag.

Since Daddy had been a farmer, he had no job. At a closeby canning factory, they hired him at ten cents an hour during the canning season. He also assisted farmers during hay-making and other busy times, receiving two dollars for the day, sun-up to sun-down. And when needed, he dug graves at the local cemetery. Mother cleaned houses, also for two dollars a day.

On threshing day at Grandpa´s, my sister and I felt so grown up when we were allowed to carry water to the ten or twelve men in the field; or to drive the horse when Daddy was putting hay in the haymow; or to help the women in the kitchen on butchering day.

Besides all her other endless duties, Mother found time, until I was in the seventh grade, to make all of our clothes from my aunt´s hand-me-downs.

Besides going to church every Sunday, my sister and I were included in our parents´church activities, square dances, and card club, where the kids had their own fun. With no TV, radio had everyone´s ear. Kids liked Jack Armstrong; mothers, Ma Perkins. Probably there were few households not listening in the evenings to Amos and Andy and Jack Benny.

Visiting relatives and friends was a pleasure, whether it was in front of the dime store on Saturday night, or with people dropping in at our house and staying for supper, or with relatives invited for Sunday dinner. Mother could always find something to feed them, a favorite meal of everyone being fried potatoes and eggs.

On Saturday evening we went to town, getting there early so we could get a parking place in front of the ten-cent store. Everyone that came to town would come to the ten-cent store sometime during the evening, so that was a perfect place to see people who we wouldn´t otherwise get to visit with. At the end of the evening, we had a special treat. A dairy had a street window, and we were allowed to splurge on a five-cent ice cream cone.

Sitting around the potbelly stove on winter evenings, eating popcorn or apples, was always pleasant. Lying on a blanket in the yard in warm weather, talking and looking at the clouds, playing croquet or softball, making ice cream, all brought the family together and made memories.

Home remedies were used to cure most illnesses, but if serious, the doctor came

About the Author

Doris, and her husband of 51 years, both retired educators, live in Sidney, Ohio. They have taught in American Samoa and China, as well as Ohio. Doris has written about their China experiences, plus personal stories of veterans.