My Buttercup Creations Home Page

CHAPTER ONE

As I turn down the lane, looking south toward the old farmhouse, a million memories come rushing back to me. In the distance, I see the long buildings, the old barn, the round top, the old farmhouse, and a sweeping vista of woods lining three sides. As the memories wash through me, I relive the feelings I experienced growing up on this old farm in Central Illinois.

An isolated homestead, our closest neighbor a half a mile up the lane; its years of history intermingled with tales of Indian burial sites, finding many arrowheads, axe heads and old revolver remnants, and thoughts of pioneers passing through this lovely valley. Finding old barbwire in the woods, left there from the beginnings of Keystone Steel and Wire. Tales of the old mill-run in the bottom field, an old homestead under the gravel pit hill near a spring, and the old cabins down by the Mackinaw River. Old Bob Hodgson who walked across our fields to see if Dad needed a farm hand. Hoping Dad would say yes so he could get some of Mom’s pie for dessert at lunchtime. He told us that no one made pies as good as Mom’s.

The homestead lies on a plateau, sloping into a valley. I was two months old when we moved there. World War II was in full force and Pearl Harbor had just been attacked. There was very little running water, electricity or plumbing in the nearly 100-year-old farmhouse. The tiny kitchen contained a wood burning stove, a small refrigerator, and an old beat up wooden table and chairs, yet we managed to get nine people in there for mealtime. Just incredible! But the table was always piled high with good things to eat, most of it from our bountiful garden and orchard. There was a well, an old outhouse to supplement the tiny bathroom, and an old coal-burning furnace that chugged out what heat it could during the bitter cold winters. Years later Mother named our farm “Tranquil Valley”. She was correct in saying that it was in a valley, but the tranquil aspect never came to pass. With seven children and Mom and Dad yelling at each other, there were very, very few tranquil moments in that valley.

As I sit there, at the top of the lane, I remember the big yellow school bus stopping to let out a bunch of tired children. As the cool air hit our faces, we were revived, ready to make the long walk home. And, as certain as the sun rises and the sun sets, there was our dog, old Bobo, waiting for us, ready to “herd” us home. Once in a while Tyne or Flossie would be in their yard and we would stop to say hello. Occasionally, our neighbor, Marie Schmidt, would call us over, in her broken German accent, and invite us to come in for a freshly baked cookie or sweet roll. We never passed up food. Marie had beautiful flowers around her house. Once Mom told her that she too wished for beautiful flowers. Marie told her, “Oh, but your children are your flowers”. Mother never forgot that, in theory anyway.

As we walked home, we would explore the ditches that lined the gravel lane and playing in them was especially fun after a rainstorm. We would find tadpoles, frogs, bugs, bees, butterflies, and beautiful rocks from the gravel road. A corncob, a stick for a mast, and a cornhusk made a wonderful sailboat. As we continued walking down the lane, a scuffle or two would break out. Someone would shout, “I can run faster than you”, and we would race the rest of the way home. Then there was homework, chores and supper before we ended our day.

Before the schools were consolidated, my older brothers and sister attended the little one-room schoolhouse, which was about a mile from our home. I wanted to go to school so badly, I would beg Mom to let me go with them. My siblings still fondly remember many interesting times from their days at Pleasant Valley School. By the time I was in first grade, the little school had been closed and we were all sent into the big school in the nearby village.

As a child, I thought, Bobo was the most wonderful dog that ever lived. He was the only dog we owned for many years. I think he was a border collie; black with a large white collar. He was a very faithful dog and seemed protective of us. He would herd us home from the school bus, herd the milk cows from the pasture into the barn to be milked, and herd the chickens into the shed in the evening. He loved bringing us gifts and would be so proud of himself as he brought us dead birds, dead rabbits, and dead snakes. Then Dad began bringing all kinds of other dogs home, a boxer, a cocker spaniel, hunting dogs, and on and on and on.

We had several other pets too. Most were wild baby animals or injured animals we had found in the woods. We had several raccoons, a red fox, and a crow. I think at one time we had a baby skunk, but that didn’t last long! One of the raccoons was named Liza and she was with us for several years. She was quite tame and got into all sorts of mischief. She learned how to open the screen door to the back porch and would scavenge through everything she could find, one time destroying a freshly frosted birthday cake. Another time she found her way into the attic and destroyed the boxes of Christmas decorations. She lived in a tree near the back porch in a large hollowed out space. When we went out the door we would see Liza peering down at us. Although we liked all the animals, none touched our lives like Bobo did. I believe he was with us for nearly 18 years.

The farm was quite different than it is presently. There were many fenced-in areas, some wooden, some wire. The small pastures contained cows, bulls, pigs, sometimes sheep, and other animals. Behind the house, there were two large pear trees and an orchard with a fence around it. One of the windows in my sister, Janie, and my bedroom faced North, peering into the pear trees. Sometimes we would lie across our bed and watch the birds in the pear trees as they built their nests and sang to each other. It was a sad day when the two trees were cut down. From our bedroom window we could watch all the other activities in the orchard. When the apple trees, peach trees, apricot trees, and cherry trees were in bloom, it was quite beautiful. Occasionally a rabbit would hop through the grass and later on, a cow or two would pass by as she grazed on the grass.

Behind the barn was a fenced in alley way where the milk cows could walk down to the pasture near the timber. A medium-sized lot connected the South side of the barn, the corncrib, and the large watering trough. Sometimes one of the boys would win a goldfish or two at the County Fair. We would bring the goldfish home, put them into the trough, and they would grow to a tremendous size.

We called it the horse trough, but we never raised horses. Dad didn’t like horses. As a boy, it was his duty to brush and care for the horses, so once tractors came on the scene, he never looked back. At one point, there were bulls in the lot. We learned early on that they were quite dangerous to be around. One time a bull chased me and I just barely climbed the wooden fence on time. Later on, the lot contained pigs and hogs. One year we had a little pig that Dad let us raise and we named her Gertrude. She was the runt of the litter, so we kept her in a coop, separate from the other piglets. Our local veterinarian would come to check on one of the cows or some other animal and would give us samples of vitamins and medicine that we would give to Gertrude. Soon she grew to be just as large if not larger than the other pigs. When she was grown and back in with the rest of the hogs, we would call her name and she would run to the fence so we could feed her weeds or some other treat.

Inside the corncrib were little sections with cross beams. In the summer when the corncrib was empty, Janie and I would pretend it was an apartment building. We would carry our dolls into the corncrib and set up homes, schools and churches. Our imagination would run wild. Sometimes when we played church, we would get a piece of bread and flatten little circles of it and give communion to the dolls. Sometimes we would climb up the scary ladder and jump into the bed of oats. I don’t know how far up it was or how far we jumped, but at the time it seemed like a very great distance.

Janie and I were known as “the little girls” or as Dad put it, “the little gulls”. We remained “the little girls” well into our adulthood. I remember when my sister, Jeri, brought her beau, Denny, home to meet “the little girls”, he was quite surprised to find that we were fully grown!

An old two-story house stood near the windmill for many years. As children, we spent hours playing in it. Janie and I would take our dolls to the large room upstairs and we would arrange our house just the way we wanted it.   Mom had made us Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls and these were our favorites. One time Raggedy Ann got too close to the edge and fell in between the inside wall and outer wall of the old house. We searched and searched, even using our brother’s Boy Scout flashlight, but never found her. Years later the old house was finally torn down, but by that time, Raggedy Ann had disappeared.

There was a large garden in back of the chicken house, near the west side of the family home. It seemed huge at the time. I think there was a fence around it. This was one of Dad’s favorite forms of punishment. When one of us misbehaved, we had to go weed the garden. Needless to say, I remember spending many, many hours in that garden. You would have thought every one of us would have hated gardening and growing things, but just the opposite happened. To this day, in late winter, I get the urge to dig in the dirt, order seeds from the seed catalogs, and can’t wait to watch the miracle of growth from seed to magnificent flower or vegetable. I have to admit, I still find weeding my garden very therapeutic!

During the early years, the barn was a regular working barn. A proud structure, very much a part of farm life. There was hay in the hayloft and sometimes between the bales of straw, we would find a litter of kittens. There were always cats around the barn. I’m sure there were plenty of mice and birds to keep them fed. Plus the daily squirt or two from one of the milk cows. I still have dreams about those old buildings and all our adventures. Sometimes my mind is blurry recalling what was fact and what was fiction.

One definite fact of life concerned my brothers. Four mischievous, ornery boys, who delighted in making life challenging for Janie and me; mostly me, because I would get so mad at them. My brother, Dick was the leader of the pack. He was a born leader. He honed his leadership skills on his unsuspecting little sisters, and occasionally, a little brother or two.

At one point, there was a great deal of secrecy among the boys about an alleged cabin that was being built under the hill down from the old oak tree. Janie and I were most curious about this cabin and wanted to get a closer look at it. We would head for the timber, trying to follow the boys, but ominous warnings would be shouted back to us. Some of the more frightening warnings contained phrases, such as “Arkansas horses, and they kicked” and the always mysterious, deadly “blue racers” that would chase us. These, of course, came from the fertile imagination of brother Dick and were meant to scare us silly. And, of course, it always worked. Later on, the phrase “corn monkeys” seemed to accomplish the same results among small children who came to the farm.

Around this time, we had a new little brother. He was the cutest thing we had ever seen. Janie and I loved playing with him. As soon as he was old enough, the older boys began to take delight in teasing him and scaring him. One incident that comes to mind concerned an old fur coat collar, which was kept in an old cedar chest at the top of the stairs. Actually, it was a flattened fox fur with a clothes pin-like gadget in its mouth so it could be clasped shut onto the tail. The older boys would chase little Mark with it and later he would have terrible nightmares about the “flat wolfus” coming under his door. Of course, there were hundreds more stories like this one, including the tomahawk over Dick’s bedroom door, the bucket of slop over the machine shed door, and the terrifying electric witch in the storeroom chimney. Many, many years later, I was up in the storeroom, heard a strange whirring noise, called Dad upstairs, and we both laughed when we realized it was probably chimney swifts who had built a nest in the old, ancient chimney. A many years’ old mystery solved.

By now, you are probably wondering where the snow forts come in. It has to do with the four distinct seasons we have in Central Illinois, down on the farm, one just as glorious as the next.

CHAPTER TWO

Beginning with a fresh, crisp spring as the last snow flakes of the winter gently cover the new blades of grass, and the jonquils and daffodils are peeking their leaves and blooms out of the earth. There were so many things to explore; it was difficult to take the time to go to school. So many new little things being born, so much mud to play in. There was a definite chill in the morning, as if winter didn’t want to let go just yet. We would head out of the house to do all the chores before getting ready for school. The sun was just coming up and a light fog was hovering in the valley. As the sun was rising, the sky turned such beautiful, eerie colors and looked almost primordial, illuminated with pinks and oranges and grays and purples. The geese honking down by the river were welcoming the morning sun. Robins were hopping along the grass, searching for a nice earthworm, and singing to each other as the world awakened to their song.

On weekends we would explore the woods to see which trees were blooming and which wild flowers were emerging. The dogwood, redbud, wild plum, and wild cherry trees were especially beautiful. We would search for spring beauties, sweet Williams, jack-in-the-pulpits, trillium, violets, bluebells, and May apples. The smell in the air was both sweet and pungent, a true “forest” smell. We would spend many hours outside, just happy to not be cooped up in the house and anxious to explore every corner of the farm. Farmers were getting into the fields to plant the corn. Garden preparations were in full swing. So much to do to get ready for the year!

The Easter season brought special excitement. Ash Wednesday had passed, Lent was almost over so we could eat chocolate again, and spring break was near. We never went anywhere for spring break, but just thinking about it was enough for us. And just how did that Easter bunny climb the trees to hide the eggs?

As the school year was winding down and the days were getting a little longer, we spent more and more time outside. Just running and exploring was enough to fill our spirits. The fragrant yellow roses by the garage fence were now in full bloom. The old, old rose bush had a beauty and fragrance that is lacking in most modern roses. I will always remember their sweet, beautiful scent.

After the winter and spring storms, the yard was full of tree limbs, sticks and branches. We would all line up in a row and march through the large yard picking up everything our small arms could carry. These were deposited on a large pile to be burned later, along with all the debris cleaned out of the garden and Mom’s flower borders. The grass was growing tall and the dandelions were nodding their bright yellow heads to the sun. Of course, a dandelion placed under the chin to see if it shines yellow indicated one’s love of butter. Dad found many chores for us to do. Mowing the huge yard was always a dreaded task, especially when using the reel-type lawn mower that never seemed sharp enough to cut the reluctant blades of grass.

There was no television or video games to interfere with the hours and hours of exploring, creating, running, and enjoying our private wonderland down in the valley. We would play tag, hide and seek, Red Rover, Andyover, cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, and all sorts of other games our minds would come up with. Some of our ideas would come from the radio programs we had listened to in the evenings. When we were worn out from working and playing, we would gather around the huge upright radio in the dining room. Some of our favorite programs were “The Shadow”, “Dragnet”, “Calling All Cars”, “Hopalong Cassidy”, “The Cisco Kid”, “The Lone Ranger”, and “Roy Rogers”, as well as “Amos n’ Andy”, “Burns and Allen”, “Fibber McGee and Molly”, “Arthur Godfrey” and “Bob Hope”. It was just like television, but our imaginations would picture the scene. We didn’t get our first television until the mid 1950’s. And that, of course, was in black and white.

We would sit quietly, listening to our programs until we would hear the alarming sound of our old rotary dial wall phone. We had a large “party line”, which meant there were many other families using the same landline. Our ring was “three shorts”. All calls were placed through the Operator and each family was designated a certain number of rings. Some folks had a long and two shorts, or two longs, or five shorts, etc. You had to listen very carefully to determine if the call was for you or for a neighbor. Since there were so many people on the same line, it was difficult to have long, chatty conversations. A couple of things would interfere with a conversation. One was when we would hear a nosy neighbor listening in. The other was when someone said they had an emergency, at which point we would hang up so they could call the Operator, who would alert a doctor or the police. This was the equivalent of today’s 9-1-1.

During the Memorial Day weekend we would visit St. Mary’s Cemetery on Springfield Road to visit the graves of our ancestors and to place flags on the graves of those who had served in the armed forces. Mom would take glass jars, water, and a bucket of spring flowers with her to put on the family sites. There were three or four generations of our family, both Dad’s and Mom’s, in this cemetery. We would then visit another cemetery where Uncle Joe’s grave was located. He had been at the Great Lakes Naval Yard when he contracted influenza, during an epidemic, and died. In later years, Janie and I found Mom’s grandfather Peter’s grave. No one had remembered that he had come to the United States from France until we found his passport in an old trunk.

During the day, we would rush through the chores so that there was enough time left for playing. My brother, Neil, would be busy building toys with scraps of wood he would find in the shop. His little hay baler was magnificent and, as I recall, had working parts so we could pretend we were actually baling the cut grass from the yard. Brother, Don, was busy tinkering with some machine or other. He could always get everything back into working condition. All the boys were very talented that way. They would get pocket watches for Christmas, tear them completely apart and then put them back together so they were in perfect working condition. The same thing happened with their little steam engines and later in life, their first cars. These were remarkable learning experiences for them and they carried this valuable information throughout their lives.

The fields were all planted and the corn, soybeans, wheat and oats were growing. Each row was perfectly straight and the orderly symmetry of it was amazing to see. Later on, while cultivating the corn, one sibling discovered that if a row of corn was accidentally plowed up, it couldn’t be successfully replanted by hand. The beans were getting taller and the weeds were attempting to take over the field. I never understood why the weeds would grow faster than the crops. That was before the use of all kinds of pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilizers. Most farmers just depended on good clean cow, pig, chicken and turkey manure to fertilize their fields.

This ushered in one of our least favorite things to do, which we called “walking the beans”. Dad would send four or five of us down to the bean field and we would space ourselves so we each covered four of the rows. We would walk down the rows pulling all the weeds in our area and then shift over to cover another set of rows, and continue our march down the field. This would go well until we started getting bored and tired. Soon, someone would throw a clod of dirt across the field or a horseweed spear would come flying through the air. This usually started an all out war and few weeds were pulled after that. We were tired, dirty and exhausted so if we were near the river, it was an opportune time to go jump in and wash ourselves clean. The Mackinaw was a dangerous river. The occasional floods and rushing water claimed many trees along its banks. This caused deep holes and whirlpools in the river. I nearly drowned three or four times, but my brothers’ strong arms always pulled me to safety. I’m sure my brothers and sisters all have equally scary stories to tell about their encounters with this river.

We had many good times down by the river, though, and this was one of the most memorable things from our childhood. There were large sandbars and we would spend afternoons exploring the shoreline, finding shells and other things the waves would wash up onto the sand. There were large dead trees and large pieces of driftwood in the river and on the shore, which made climbing up on them and jumping into the sand a fun thing to do. We would find animal and bird tracks, mostly from raccoons or foxes. Once in a while, we would see a mud slide that the river otters used to slide into the river. Occasionally, we would spot geese, ducks, cranes, herons and sandpipers. Sometimes we would see a beaver dam with the sticks and small trees piled high. Off in the distance, we would hear the beaver slapping his tail on the water, warning of danger, which was most likely us humans. We would frequently try our hand at fishing. My fishing pole consisted of a bamboo pole with a sturdy string tied to it, with a hook at the end of the string.   Occasionally, the boys would catch some fish. However, the only thing I caught was a crawdaddy (crayfish) and it scared me half to death. I believe that was my last attempt at fishing.

The nearly one-mile walk to get to the river was almost as much fun as arriving there. On Sundays, after dinner, we would walk toward the woods to the giant old oak tree, which was a landmark and must have been 100 years old. Once there, we would just keep on walking until we got to the river. There was a road along the edge of the woods, past the old oak tree, on top of the hill, which was actually the edge of the plateau. We would then go down the hill and walk the levees until we got to the river. We would see things scurrying in the tall grass on the levees, mice, snakes, ground squirrels, rabbits, and other little creatures. We would stop and explore every puddle of water, every interesting tree or flower, and would constantly be looking around, observing all the other nature along the path. The small rivers and river valleys were an important part of what makes Central Illinois such a fertile, bountiful area for the farmers. Before we moved to the farm, most of the bottomland was a marsh. When the river would rise, the water would just flow into the surrounding valley. Once the levees were built, the land could be farmed.

Another one of my favorite things to do involved the old oak tree and an alfalfa field across from it. On some sultry, sticky summer afternoons, if we thought a storm was coming, we would run to the alfalfa field and sit there, facing South, and watch the huge storm clouds come rolling in. It was beautiful watching the lightening bolts dance across the sky. Then, when a few drops of rain hit us, we would run as fast as we could back to the house. Sometimes I would ride the giant iron bike so I could get back to the house faster. I had to climb halfway up the fence to even get on the bike. Man, I hated that bike.

That was the same bike that Neil taught me to ride. I was quite little and I had to stand up to pedal it. Neil said he would run beside me as I pedaled. Thinking he was beside me, I would shout, “How am I doin, how am I doin?” And from back at the house he would holler “You’re doin fiiine!” At which point, I would promptly fall over, into the gravel. It took me a long time to learn how to ride that big old bike.

Sunday’s in the summer were most welcome. There was no toiling in the fields and almost all the stores were closed, so this was indeed a day of rest.   First, there was always church. We would dress in our Sunday-best clothes and put on the clean dress shoes, which had been lined in a row and freshly polished by Mom the night before. We would all pile into the big Buick and head for St. Mary’s, begging Dad to drive faster and faster, which he usually did because we were always “almost” late. Try to imagine seven children crammed into the car. There were no infant car seats. They hadn’t been invented yet. After church we would head home, begging Dad to put the car in neutral at the top of the big hill so we could see how far the car would coast. Mom would fix a large breakfast. There was no oatmeal served on Sundays, just bacon, eggs, toast and sweet rolls.

After resting a spell, Dad would decide to go for a car ride through the countryside. He said he wanted to check on the neighbor’s corn, but we knew we would end up at Spring Lake to visit Uncle Ben and Aunt Louise or we would go to Grandma’s to visit Dad’s home place.

We enjoyed visiting Louise and Ben because they had a cabin on the lake. The lake was covered in water lilies and sometimes Uncle Ben would let us take the rowboat out. This was a real challenge because the oars would constantly get tangled up in the water lily tendrils. Sometimes there would be one small child and one older child in the boat, so when we were trying to row, we would pretty much just go around in circles! Uncle Ben always had a joke or a trick for us. He liked making us laugh and surprising us and we always lovingly looked forward to his next prank. Our favorite one, and one we never tired of, was the can of peanut brittle. Uncle Ben would offer us a piece of candy, we would open the top, and a cloth-covered spring would jump out at us. We always laughed hysterically. After the first time, we knew what would happen, but would fall for it over and over again, usually just to see Uncle Ben’s reaction to our laughter. That way, each time, we all got something out of it.

Dad’s home place was just across the river from our farm, but there was no direct route; it was a 4 or 5-mile drive to get to it. Janie and I always liked visiting Grandma’s house. We would run upstairs to her room and she would be listening to a baseball game or listening to the news on the radio. We would briefly discuss current events, and then she would let us jump on her feather bed. Her hair was long and shined like white silver. She always wore it twisted up into a bun. Sometimes she would let us brush it, which was a real treat. I think Grandma enjoyed having us there with her, probably because she only had one daughter, then five boys.

I remember Grandma coming to our home to stay a day or so. She liked to be busy, so Mom would put a basket of torn jeans, ripped shirts, and holey socks in front of her and she would spend the day patching and darning until the basket was empty. She would make us rag and string balls that were so tightly wound, we could play hours and hours of baseball or Andyover before they fell apart. I especially liked it when she was there for breakfast. When Mom served the dreaded oatmeal, I would stare at the dish for about a half hour, and then when Dad and Mom left the room, Grandma would eat my oatmeal for me.

We had many aunts and uncles and some of our favorites were Mom’s two brothers and two sisters. They all lived together, as none of them ever married. Uncle Louie was a farmer, Uncle Tony was a carpenter, Aunt Josephine, whom we called Fini, was a teacher/librarian, and Aunt Lydie took care of the house. We loved having them come visit us and we loved visiting them. After all the chaos in our lives, their lives seemed very orderly. The house was always spotless, the yard was perfectly manicured, and their garden was magnificent. Not one weed to be found! I especially remember the fireworks they brought us for the 4^th of July and the New Years Eve parties, where my uncles taught us how to play penny-ante poker. I have so many wonderful memories of them, too numerous to count.

In the summer, Dad and Mom would take trips all over the country. Usually, the trips would last a week. It was too costly to take the children along, but occasionally one or two of us would go with them. Being allowed to participate in these trips was usually the result of some important rite of passage, such as graduating from grade school or graduating from high school. Since most of us were left at home, Aunt Lydie would come to our house to look after us. She would always willingly accept this task and we truly did look forward to having her stay, but our behavior was just awful. As soon as Dad and Mom were driving up the lane, the mischievous pranks and all-out battles would start. Aunt Lydie would yell at us to behave, calling us dumkoffs and doddles, while we ran around like a bunch of wild banshees. This would continue until another adult would arrive, usually Uncle Louie, and that would help calm things down. But, I repeat, we were just awful!

Uncle Louie was like a Grandfather to us and I will forever remember him with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. Aunt Fini always had a story or game for us and knew how to make things fun. Sometimes in the summer, she would teach crafts at the local park district’s summer recreation program. Mom would drive us to the park and we would spend the afternoon creating things. But mostly, we just wanted to spend time with Aunt Fini.

My uncles had been in the War, but we couldn’t get them to talk about it. I think they just wanted to forget what had happened. I remember too, when our cousin, Rosemary, brought her fiancé to our house to meet us. He was in an Army uniform and was the most handsome man we little children had ever seen. We were completely in awe of him. Sometime during that period, someone had given us an old Army tent. In the summer, we would pitch the tent in the yard and spend evenings in it playing Army or looking up at the sky, trying to name the constellations and watching for shooting stars. I don’t think we spent the entire evening in the tent because it was so hot inside and it had a very musty canvas odor, just like the soldiers must have experienced.

My Dad and his brother had married sisters, and Uncle Richard and Aunt Ludie’s children were our double cousins. The older cousins were nearly the same age as my older brothers and sisters and the youngest of their family, Colleen, was about the same age as Janie and I. It was wonderful having another playmate!   All of us were very close, and probably quite competitive, but the two families enjoyed spending as much time together as we could. We would spend most major holidays together and the meals that were served were incredible. Both Mom and Ludie were excellent cooks and on the holidays, they both outdid themselves. Aunt Ludie always had a dish of candy sitting out for us, which was quickly devoured because we seldom had candy. It was a sad, sad day when we kids outgrew being able to all fit in one car and our two fathers decided we needed to start having holidays apart.

We had many other cousins that we were very fond of too. Most of them were around our same ages and we would get into all sorts of mischief with them. Our family and extended family was very large and we were all close friends. Fortunately, that has continued to this day. We would spend weekends going to visit them or they would come visit us. It was a wonderful, full time in our lives. More anecdotes about our cousins will be written in later chapters of this story.

CHAPTER THREE

All too soon, summer was coming to an end. The corn stood high over our heads and the crops were nearly ready to be harvested. It was very hard to let go of summer and start thinking about going back to school. Mom would take us into town and we would buy new clothes for school. Then we would go to the five-and-dime to pick up all our school supplies. This was quite an anxious time of year, because we usually hadn’t seen any of our classmates all summer long. While we did go into town for piano lessons and 4-H meetings, we usually saw very few of our school friends. By this time, the boys were driving their old cars into town for football practice. Dad wasn’t happy about them taking time for sports, as he thought they were needed on the farm. Somehow, everything managed to get done, but that didn’t seem to stop the grumbling.

For some reason, probably because there were so many of us kids, after a few years, the school bus decided to come down the lane to pick us up. That was a good thing, because we could use the extra 15 minutes in the morning to get our hair combed, find that missing shoe and get the last button buttoned. Janie had long braids and Jeri would braid her hair each morning before school. Sometimes the braids got a little tight and Janie would have squinty eyes until her hair relaxed. I had terrible hair, straight as a stick and it wouldn’t hold a curl. Usually it was shaped in a Prince Albert hairstyle. It was not very flattering, but there was very little else that could be done with it.

Harvest was always a good time on the farm, especially if there had been enough rain and the river hadn’t flooded that year, washing away the crops. All summer, we had been gathering vegetables from the garden and picking fruit from the trees. After many hours of canning, we had rows and rows of jars lining the shelves in the old fruit cellar. Picking the wild raspberries and blackberries was a particularly prickly task. These usually grew close to the edge of the woods and retrieving the small juicy berries required lots of finesse in wrestling them from the thorn-filled brambles. Our little arms would be covered with thorn pricks, but tasting the wonderful jellies Mom made from the berries was worth the trouble. We usually had enough jars of jellies, jams, fruits, and vegetables to get us through most of the winter months.

The days were getting shorter and shorter and there was a chill in the air, especially at night. The evening sky would be crisp and clear. We would watch as wispy dark clouds trailed over a full harvest moon. The pumpkins that Mom had planted in among the field corn were now bearing large beautiful orange pumpkins. Soon the crops would be harvested and, with the tall corn gone, we had a good view of the timber again. The leaves were starting to turn colors and the cool days made it more comfortable to take a walk down to the woods to gather acorns, buckeyes, and interesting leaves and seedpods. The small wild sumac trees were full of berries and their red leaves shined brightly in the sunlight. We would find a milkweed pod, open it up, and blow the little seed helicopters out into the wind to see how far they would travel.

The annual family wiener roasts have always been a part of our autumn rituals. During many autumns, we had stormy weather and would move the location to various spots around the farm and once or twice, it was held in the gravel pit; wherever we could find protection from the wind or the rain. Years later, it was moved near the round top. The first one I remember well was when Mark was quite small. A bon fire was built in the area where the old house used to stand, in the stump of an old walnut tree. After the wiener roast, we little ones would run around the fire doing an Indian rain dance. Little Mark fell into the burning embers and burnt his arm quite badly. But by the next year, we had forgotten all about that and, I’m sure, conducted the same ritual around the dying flames.

The wiener roasts were something we all looked forward to and most years they were held around Halloween. After Janie and I had both married and had several small children, a scavenger hunt was added to the celebration. Janie and I would make up a list of things for the children to gather up and bring back to the house. We would include things like “part of an Indian headdress” and they could bring back a feather. Or we would ask for “pioneer toilet paper” and they would bring back a corncob. We never judged how they interpreted the item; we just wanted them to use their imaginations. The children seemed to enjoy this event and they were quite competitive and rambunctious. They wore themselves out running all over the farm, but everyone had a great deal of fun with the scavenger hunt. So did Janie and I. We would rack our brains trying to come up with just the right clue for challenging the children’s minds.

The costume portion of the celebration was added around this time too. There was a large box of old costumes, masks, dress-up clothes, hats, etc. in the basement for the children to put on. The little ones would get dressed up, come upstairs, and we would try to guess who was who. Since most of them were about the same size, it was difficult to guess their names. The children, and the grown-ups, were beside themselves with laughter, as we stumbled through identifying who had on the gorilla mask or who wore the clown costume and on and on.

Brother, Don, had cut up some large dead trees to use in his fireplace, but he thought up another use for the stumps. He carried sections of the trunks of the trees to the back of the round top so we could use them for seating around the bon fire. They were approximately two feet high and three feet in circumference and made for very comfortable seating. It reminded Janie of Stonehenge, so she dubbed them Woodhenge. The name stuck for years and years.

These were very good times for the family. Sitting together by the fire in the early evening hours as a hush fell over the valley, we could see for about a mile in each direction. We would look out over the bare fields full of corn stubble, notice the beautiful autumn trees and leaves in the timber line, watch the stars appear as dusk approached, and listen to far away sounds in the woods and near the river. Sometimes we would tell ghost stories, but usually we would just sit quietly and take it all in, feeling how blessed we were to have this little portion of the lovely valley to enjoy, and feeling thankful for all we had been given.

It was soon time to get out the heavy winter coats, warm winter clothing, and help prepare the buildings for the long winter months ahead. We would look through the wavy glass of the old windows in the house as the first snowflakes softly fell. This usually occurred after Thanksgiving, during the first part of December. We would draw pictures in the frost that formed on the inside of the panes. Mother had been busy in the evenings knitting gloves and mittens for us. The older children got the gloves; we little ones got the mittens. They were tightly knitted, so were quite successful at keeping the cold out. Mother also knitted stocking caps and scarves, which protected us. These were lifesavers on cold and windy winter days. The mittens did get pretty soggy when we played in the snow, but we would bring them in the house and place them on the registers or open oven door to dry them out. The smell the damp wool emitted was an odor we won’t soon forget

I’m not certain if we actually did get more snow back then or if I just remember it more clearly because we spent so much time outside playing in it. The fact that we were small children also may have played some part in making the snow seem deeper. As we were building snowmen, making snow angels, sledding, and dodging flying snowballs, it didn’t seem like the cold bothered us that much. But the delicious hot chocolate and cookies that were waiting for us when we came inside certainly did warm us up.

There were several ponds on which to ice skate. The small one was in Tyne and Flossie’s field and the larger one was about a mile from our house. The older children skated at the larger pond as often as they could. I just remember the small pond. We would take a broom along with us and sweep the snow off of the ice before skating. Usually, we little ones didn’t have skates and would just slide around on the ice. Either way, with or without skates, it was a lot of fun.

Our neighbors had two mules, Tom and Jerry, who would be hitched up to a giant sleigh. I remember riding down our lane in the sleigh. It was a very cold day and I remember we had some kind of large fur, maybe bearskin, covering us. I must have been very young when this sleigh ride occurred, but I do remember the details quite clearly. It was a wonderful experience! I can still hear the rhythmic sleigh bells as the mules trotted down the lane.

Now, concerning the snow forts! We would build two basic types of snow forts. The first was built after a fierce, howling snowstorm had dumped enough snow to almost cover the wooden fence running down to the corncrib. We little ones would dig a large hole in the snow, digging until there was enough room for us to climb in and sit down. This was actually more like an igloo. This type worked fairly well, until the roof collapsed. The second type was built by the older boys and was a true engineering feat. Each snowball would be carefully rolled to approximately the same size and then the large snowballs would be stacked like building blocks. The huge snow fort would contain several rooms and, of course, an arsenal area for storing small snowballs in case the fort was attacked. There were several strategic points within the fort from which a barrage of snowballs could be thrown at passersby. After several incidents, which won’t be detailed here, a ruling was made stating the snowballs could not contain chunks of ice. This snow structure would usually last until the snow melted. Both types provided hours and hours of play before we had to go inside the house to dry off and thaw out.

In spite of all the cold temperatures, blowing winds, and drifting snow, winter was quite a beautiful season down in the valley. The snow was a soft blanket covering all the earth’s imperfections - the plowed cornfields, the gravel road, the muddy patches in the grass caused by the diggings of an occasional dog, groundhog, or some other critter. Occasionally we would have a large blizzard in January or February, but we were prepared. If we were snowed in for several days, there was always plenty of food stored up for just such an occasion. And, there was always March and April to look forward to.

Actually, I don’t have a “favorite” season. Each one has it’s own beauty, and this was especially true of the four distinct seasons we have in Central Illinois, down on the farm, one just as glorious as the next.

CHAPTER FOUR

This Chapter will contain the memories, tales, and antics of Mom and Dad’s grandchildren. Another Chapter will contain the memories of my siblings and extended family.

The farm had changed quite a bit by now. A large round top had been built to hold the farm equipment; all the fences were gone, except for a few sections around the house; all of the farm animals were gone, except for a stray cat or two; and two long white buildings had been erected for the raising of thousands of chickens and later turkeys.

However, the beauty of the farm’s location had not been diminished by these changes. The saga continues . . . .