Autobiography: MY SINGLE LIFE

                          MY SINGLE LIFE

                                

     Yes, gone are the days when my heart was young and gay, more than three quarters of a century, since I was young back in the nineteen twenties.  I don't think I was particularly gay, though I was happy enough, not troubled much about anything.  I lived with Grandma, Grandpa and my sister Margaret.

     I was told I was born August 19, 1923, but on one of the rare occasions of seeing my mother, she told me I was born around midnight, and she hadn't been certain on which day I was born, whether before or after midnight, but she had arbitrarily picked the 19th.  After that I wondered if I had been born between the 18th and 19th, or between the 19th and 20th.  When I made marriage plans I secured a copy of my birth certificate.  It had been signed by Dr. E. S. Cooper, and stated that I had been born at 5:00 pm on August 19th.  However the certificate was dated in late September, and I wondered how accurate the listed time of birth was.  My only remembrance of him was when I was very young.  He had given me "pills" to take, but I suspect the "pills" were really small sized red candies.  They tasted very good.

     My mother was a widow, my father having died five months before my birth from the flu that raged at that time.

     My birth took place in the upstairs front bedroom of our grandparents home on Elm Street in Almond.  My Mother had taken refuge there to have her baby.  I understand that she wanted to  name me Elizabeth after Grandma, but that Grandma objected, and proposed to name me Catherine instead.  In the end I was named Harriet after the heroine of a novel my Mother had been reading while expecting my birth.  I have sometimes wished I could somehow read that same novel.  What kind of person was she?

     When I was about six weeks old, mother went back to Milwaukee where she had previously lived with our father, taking with her, her three children, Robert who was ten, Margaret who was four, and myself.  Overwhelmed by the loss of a beloved husband, the care of a small baby and two other children, and the lack of money, she suffered a nervous breakdown.  We children were taken to the Milwaukee County orphanage.

     Grandma, who was my mother's step-mother, asked for custody, and drove to the orphanage to get us.  When she arrived I was sick and confined to an isolation ward.  Grandma was not allowed to take me out of the orphanage at that time because the authorities thought that I would not survive a trip to Almond.  When Grandma went back later to get me, the attendant who brought me to her played with me for awhile, then abruptly thrust me into Grandma's arms, and with tears in her eyes, turned and left.  Who she was I do not know, but I am grateful to her for having taken loving care of me when I was so much in need of it.

     Grandma and Grandpa took my sister Margaret and I into their home and lovingly cared for us.  Our brother Robert, being an active, energetic ten year old, was considered too much for Grandfolks to care for properly, especially since Grandpa walked with a cane and crutch.  Robert was cared for and raised by Uncle Ed (Grandpa's son and our Mother's brother) and his wife, Ada.  He was treated as a son and as a brother to Allan and Yvonne, their own son and daughter.

     I heard the story but have no memory of the time Grandpa said I crawled out of my high chair onto the table and began throwing the dishes on the floor.  Neither do I remember when Grandma went to visit some neighbors living on a side street, leaving me with Grandpa.  He said I cried, so he spanked me to stop me from crying.  The louder I cried the harder he spanked me for it, and the more he spanked me the louder I cried, until Grandma being some houses away heard me cry and came rushing home.  As soon as she picked me up, I stopped crying.  Grandpa used to say it didn't do any good to spank me so he never spanked me again.

     My very first memories are of living on a farm about three miles north and east of Almond with Grandma, Grandpa and my sister Margaret.  Grandfolks had moved from the house they owned in the Village of Almond (the house where I had been born), to this farm, one of three farms which they owned at that time.

     There was a large kitchen with a big old fashioned black range.  That stove is about the only thing I remember being in the kitchen though I'm sure there was other furniture also.

     Along the south side of the kitchen were two doors.  One led into the pantry which had a number of shelves and drawers where food and dishes were kept.  It was an interesting place, but a place where I was not allowed to go in alone, or to explore its many fascinating articles.  The other door led to a small bedroom where Margaret and I slept.  I had to sleep next to the wall, between the wall and Margaret, to prevent me from falling out of bed.

     Near the door to the pantry, but located on the adjacent west wall, was another door leading to the woodshed, a large unfinished addition to the house.  It was here that in summer, on Saturday evenings, a galvanized wash tub was set on the floor, hot water was carried from the kitchen range to the tub, and I was given my weekly bath.

     A door from the woodshed led outside to the back yard.  Not too far off was the granary.  It had a huge stone before its door that took the place of a step.  My little legs had a hard time climbing from the ground to the stone and from the stone to the granary floor.  I remember Grandpa standing in the granary but I do not remember how he got there.  As I look back, realizing that he walked with a crutch and a cane from my earliest memories, I wonder how he managed steps that were so huge to me.  He stood looking out the open door.  From the right side of the door, he took a large conch shell placed on a cross piece between the studs, and blew into it.  What a noise it made!  I somehow connected it with a fog horn, though I really didn't know what a fog horn was.  When the chickens heard it they came running from all directions.  They knew it as a dinner gong, because it was the signal that Grandpa would throw out handfuls of shelled corn on the ground for them to  scratch and gobble.

     Along the driveway was another interesting building, the milk house.  A water pipe entered it from the windmill, spewing water into a concrete tank large enough to cool two 80-pound milk cans.  Another pipe, leading from this tank to the much larger stock watering tank, carried the over-flow from the smaller tank to the larger one.  I had entered the milk house from a hot bright summer day into the cool, dark, damp interior.  I knew I was not supposed to be in there alone, but what fun to splash the water and see it flying!  So interested was I with the water, that I did not notice the horses that had come up the lane to drink.  They had quietly appeared on the other side of the tank, where an opening in the building wall allowed them to stick their heads in through the opening to reach the water in their tank.  I was unaware of their presence until suddenly they snorted, and I looked up to see those huge animals so close to me!  They were on the other side of the tank, and could in no way have gotten into the milk house where I was, but I didn't realize that, and guilt from being in a forbidden place overwhelmed me!  I have been afraid of horses ever since.

     My very earliest memory seems to be of a barn dance being held in a newly constructed barn that had not yet held any animals.  I was sitting on a great big, huge wooden box that was taller than I.  It might have been built to hold ground feed.  I don't remember Grandma or Margaret, but Grandpa was standing near me, bragging about his granddaughter and showing me off to whoever came around.

     One cold, dark night Aunt Ada took me from our farm house to her place, a farmhouse just down the road.  I was shivering as we were walking down the center of the road.  I couldn't remember ever being out in such darkness and cold before.  Aunt Ada taught me how to put each hand up the coat sleeve of the opposite arm, to warm my hands.  Warmer hands was a great relief!  Why she took me to her place I don't remember.

     I was too young to go to school but Margaret attended a rural one-room school up the road known as the Hetzel School.  I remember going there to visit.  A merry-go-round on the school grounds intrigued me.  Half afraid, half daring-do, I clung to the rail before me while others kept it whirling.  Unfortunately my stomach revolted and its contents spewed out all over me and the ground, a terrible embarrassment to my sister.

     On the side of the house away from the farm buildings was a large garden.  Grandfolks raised many vegetables there.  Along one side was a strawberry bed.  I remember Grandma sitting on the porch hulling berries, while I played near her.  I had three caps, like the caps that came on tubes of toothpaste, though they were much smaller than the present day toothpaste caps and were made of metal.  I picked out the largest intact berry hulls from the discard pile, and put them around the caps.  The caps were my "pretty ladies" and the hulls were their "beautiful dresses."

     One day when Grandpa was in the garden hoeing, Grandma sent me out to tell Grandpa to come in for dinner.  I ran out to the garden but did not see him at first.  Then I saw him lying on the ground.  When I ran back and told Grandma, she rushed out to him.  He had suffered a sunstroke.  I remember her holding an umbrella over him and putting wet cloths on his head while he was lying in the garden, but I do not remember anything else about this tragedy.

     It was after Grandpa's sunstroke that we moved back to the house Grandfolks owned in the Village of Almond.  This was the house in which they had lived at an earlier time and in which I had been born.  As Grandma prepared to move, she got out all the things that had been stored in the upstairs attic.  Most of them did not excite me until one day I noticed her electric iron.  She had been unable to use it on the farm which had not had electricity.  She had had to press clothes with cast iron flatirons, which had to be heated by leaving them on the top of the kitchen range in which a fire was burning.  Not knowing anything about the wonder of electricity, I ran to Grandma to tell her about the wonderful shiny iron that was so pretty compared to those dark ones that she used.  I endured much teasing about my "pretty iron."

     About the first thing I remember in the "new" house was standing on the bottom step going upstairs, and reaching way up for the electric light wall switch.  I could turn the upper hallway light on from the bottom of the stairs, go up the steps, and turn off the light upstairs, all by myself!  For the first time I could go to bed after dark all by myself without someone carrying a kerosene lamp to light my way.  In town our bed was again pushed up against the wall to keep me from falling out.  I was still supposed to go to bed before Margaret and crawl out after her.

     After we were in bed Margaret would very often tell me stories that she made up.  I loved to hear her stories, but the sandman would insist on coming.  The next night Margaret would ask me to tell her the previous night's story in order to find out how far I remembered her story before I had drifted off to dreamland, so she would know where to pick up the story.  It was a very interesting serial.

     The kitchen in town was smaller than the one on the farm.  Again, the main feature was the big black range.  It was space heater, cook stove and water heater.  It had a fire box where wood was burned, and as it burned, the heat rose to heat the cooking top, rolled around the oven to heat it, circulated past the water reservoir, and exhausted up through the stove pipe.  The reservoir was kept full of rainwater which was used for washing dishes and cleaning.  A small pan or kettle was used to dip out the hot water needed.  Then an equal amount of cold water was added to the reservoir in order to maintain the supply of hot water.  A teakettle was filled with well water and heated on top of the stove.  This provided the hot water needed for cooking.

     There was also a warming oven which was like an enclosed shelf attached to the upper back of the stove.  In it food could be kept warm for any late comer.  Grandma also used it to store skillets or frying pans.

     As the wood burned, the ashes fell into the ash pan.  Ashes had to be carried out regularly as well as wood and kindling had to be carried in.  They were kept in a wooden box near the stove.  At least once a year the stove pipes had to be taken down, pipes and chimney cleaned of soot, and the pipes replaced.  Soot also collected where the smoke curled around the oven and reservoir.  There was a small door below the oven that was opened and the soot scraped out using an iron scraper.  The scraper had a long rod-like handle with a small plate attached perpendicular to the handle.  The plate was perhaps an inch or inch and a half high and several inches wide.

     The house had no plumbing.  A water pump, operated by moving a long handle up and down, was very conveniently located on a platform just outside the back door.  The platform was on the same level as the enclosed back porch, so water could be conveniently carried into the house without lugging it up the steps.  A pail was hung on the spout of the pump to catch the water being pumped.  The well was drilled; its water was used for all drinking and cooking.  An open pail of well water with a dipper left in it was kept in the kitchen.  Whoever wanted a drink dipped up water from the pail, drank it directly from the dipper, and replaced the dipper in the water.  The teakettle was also filled from the drinking water pail.

     Under the kitchen floor was a cistern for catching all the rain water that fell on the house.  Water was conducted there by eave troughs and down spouts.  A small, short handled pump, mounted on a built-in stand in the corner of the kitchen, was used to draw the water up out of the cistern below into the kitchen.  This was the water used in the reservoir of the stove.  By dipping water out of the reservoir we had warm water to wash with, without waiting to heat water on top of the stove.

     There was no drain in the house.  All waste was carried outside in containers such as pails.  Dishwater was usually carried out in the dish pan and thrown on the grass in the back yard.  In winter it was thrown out on the snow.  A slop pail was kept handy on the back porch, and small amounts of dirty water or garbage was thrown into it.  When full it was carried out and thrown in the dead furrow along the edge of the vegetable garden.  After the vegetables were harvested, the kitchen waste might be scattered over the garden itself.  All potato peelings, food trimmings, raked leaves, weeds etc. were eventually returned as humus to the garden.

     Wash day was a work day.  In the evening before, a big copper boiler was brought inside and put on the range.  It was filled with rain water and left overnight, absorbing some of the heat from the range.  In the morning a big fire was built and a big bar of Fels Naphtha soap was shaved into the boiler.  (If Grandma had the necessary grease, she would sometimes make her own soap, but more often she used Fels Naphtha.)  When the wash water became heated, it was dipped out of the boiler by pails, carried to the washing machine and emptied into it.

     The washing machine was like a huge wooden tub mounted on wooden legs.  It had an upright hand grip mounted on the edge.  It was used to swing the tub back and forth in a circular motion.  Several heavy metal coil springs were underneath the tub part.  They prevented the tub from swinging too far.  As they stopped the motion of the machine, the water continued to swirl through the clothes.  The washing machine was stored on the enclosed back porch where clothes were washed most of the year, though it was sometimes brought into the kitchen in very cold weather.  The usual wash day was Monday, though in very rainy days it would be put off until another day.

     If clothes were very dirty or had stains they were scrubbed by hand before being washed.  Hot soapy water was put in a galvanized tub, the clothes put in to absorb the solution and perhaps to soak for awhile.  Then a wooden-framed wash board with a heavy corrugated glass inset was propped against the inner side of the tub, the cloth laid over the corrugated section, a bar of Fels Naphtha rubbed over the dirty stain, and the clothes rubbed by hand back and forth over the ridges of the wash board.  Old work clothes did not always get rid of their stains, but were worn as they were, stained but clean.

     After the clothes had been washed in the machine a hand wringer was clamped to the edge of the machine.  It had rubber rollers, adjustable springs to hold the rollers together, and a hand crank on the end to turn the rolls.  The clothes were fed into it with the left hand while the right hand turned the crank.

     A wooden wash-stand big enough to hold two galvanized wash tubs was set in place and the tubs filled with hard water (we saved the rain water as much as we could so we would not run out of soft water.)  Very often in summer these rinse tubs were set outside on the back lawn near the clothes lines.  The wringer was unclamped from the washer, clamped on the first rinse water tub, clothes wrung from the first to the second tub, the wringer again moved to the second tub, and wrung out.  Then the clothes were ready to hang up on the clothes line.  These motions were repeated for the second, third, and all later tubs of clothes.  Sometimes old cloths, like cleaning cloths, were spread out on the grass for the sun to bleach. 

     One summer day while our clothes-rinsing was going on outside, a young neighbor girl came to watch.  She wanted to turn the crank on the wringer.  Grandma told her she wasn't big enough or strong enough to turn it, but she insisted on trying it.  Finally Grandma let her try.  She was unable to turn it very fast and Grandma, becoming impatient and using an old cliche, told her she would "have to eat more bread and butter" before she would have the strength to wring clothes.  She ran home.  Soon she was back literally eating a big slice of bread with butter on it.  When she was finished she again asked to turn the crank.

     After the washing had been done, a bung was pulled from a hole in the side of the washer near the bottom.  The dirty wash water spurted out into the pail placed there for it.  When the pail was full the bung was replaced, the water carried outside and thrown on the lawn.  This was repeated until the wash water was disposed.  The washer was then rinsed with clear water, and a pail of fresh water was left in the washer to keep the wood from drying out and cracking, which would have ruined it, or at least caused it to become very leaky.

     Dresses, blouses, aprons, etc. were all starched.  Grocery stores carried both corn starch for cooking and gloss starch for clothes.  The gloss starch was mixed with cold water to dissolve it and then stirred into hot water and boiled, stirring constantly until clear and thoroughly cooked.  Those clothes already washed and needing starching, were then wrung out in the starch water.  Those needing the most starch were dipped first.  As the starch solution became thinner from being used, those clothes needing less starch were then dipped.  These clothes then had to be thoroughly dried, then sprinkled with water (quite heavily), rolled tightly and given time for the moisture to be evenly distributed, before they could be ironed.  Ironing day was usually the day after wash day.

     Yes, we had electricity!  That wonderful invention of modern times!  But it was electricity in its infancy.  While every room had its overhead hanging light with a wall switch to turn it on, there were no receptacles on the walls to plug in an appliance.  No matter.  The only appliance owned was that electric iron which had been so useless on the farm.  It was plugged into the light fixture hanging from the kitchen ceiling; its cord going straight up in the air to the light fixture, and swung back and forth with the iron.

     The ironing board was a very wide board such as it came from the sawmill and was about six feet long.  It was covered with several thicknesses of old blanket, which were themselves covered with an old white bed sheet.  The covering had been drawn tight around the edges and then tacked on the underside.  The board had no legs or support of its own.  When in use the board was supported on one end by the kitchen table and on the other end by a drawer partially pulled out of the cupboard.

     Such an arrangement precluded any draping of the clothes over a tapered board.  Tricky procedures were used instead, often ironing two sides at a time.  Shirtwaist dresses were folded along the bottom of their shoulder yokes, the yokes ironed, and then unfolded, so that the wrinkles ironed in below the yoke could be ironed out.  In those starched dresses the wrinkles would have to be dampened again to do this.  A wet cloth could be brushed over the wrinkle to dampen it.  If the wrinkle was very small a quick swing of the finger from the mouth to the wrinkle would be sufficient.  Straight sleeves were folded along the underarm seam and both sides ironed at the same time.  Puffed sleeves were folded by bringing the arm band to the armhole and ironing the sleeve as if it were a ruffle.  This left a horizontal crease around the arm which helped puff out the sleeves.

     There was no thermostat on the iron.  Temperature was regulated by turning the switch on to heat up, and off to keep it from getting too hot.  To test the heat of the iron a finger was dampened, usually with the tongue, and touched to the bottom of the iron.  If it sizzled the iron was probably hot enough.  A piece of paper was kept handy which would be ironed for testing the temperature.  A scorched paper indicated that the iron had to cool down before applying it to the cloth, or the cloth would get scorched.  A good fast ironer could iron fast enough to prevent the iron from getting too hot without turning the current off.  Usually the ironer had to constantly judge whether to turn the current on or off.  If a white cloth was lightly scorched, it might be able to fade the scorch by hanging it in the sun and having the sun bleach it white again.

     When wintry winds blew making it impractical to dry clothes outside on a clothes line, clothes washing was kept to a minimum.  Light cotton flannel sheet-blankets replaced regular sheets on beds, and were not washed during the winter.  Cotton aprons were worn over winter dresses to keep the dresses from needing washing as often as summer cotton dresses.  Washing not needed immediately was sometimes hung on clothes lines strung in the unheated attic over the kitchen, where Grandma said they could "freeze dry," which could take three days or longer.  When it was necessary to wash long underwear, they were put on clothes hangers near the dining room stove.  These hangers were supported by the casing of the door between the dining room and the front room (parlor).  This wide door, which slid into the wall, was kept closed in the winter.  The drying clothes hung down before the closed door.

     The dining room stove, used for heating, was not continually set up in place as was the kitchen range.  It was stored in the woodshed during the summer, and brought into the house when fall weather became chilly.  It was not always the same heater.  The earliest one I remember was unique.  It was rather low and had a squared shape.  Wood was loaded into it from the right side.  Several decorative, ceramic tiles were embedded in it.  The left side had a woman's face cast in the iron that formed the stove.  Wood was the usual fuel, with an occasional use of coal in very cold, stormy weather.  In later years a different heater was used in the dining room, one that was taller, round and loaded in the front.

    

     We had many feather pillows.  When Grandfolks lived on the farm they had raised chickens, ducks and other fowls.  Sometimes at butchering time, feathers would be saved, washed and used in filling bed pillows.  Ducks had finer more desirable feathers than chickens.  Sometimes chicken feathers would be saved, and the barbules of the feathers stripped from the shaft.  This was a tedious lengthy process, but the resulting material was finer and softer than if the whole feather had been used.

     Grandma also had some nice warm wool quilts that she had made over the years.  I remember Grandma cleaning and carding wool that she had taken from a quilt.  When a quilt would have gotten too dirty to use, Grandma would take the quilt apart, wash the cover and wool separately, and put the quilt back together again.  If the cover was worn, she would piece together a new cover from scraps of material that she had saved from various sewing projects.

     The wool was gently washed, rinsed, dried and carded.  Grandma had a pair of hand carders which she would use to straighten the fibers of the wool, and roll them into small bundles.

     When she put the quilt back together, she would clamp quilting frames together.  These were made of four long, small width, sturdy wood bars that had narrow cloth strips closely tacked to them.  They would be held in a rectangular shape by using four metal clamps at the corners.  This frame would be large enough to hold a full sized quilt.  It was supported approximately waist high by being placed on the backs of four dining room chairs, one on each corner.  The bottom cover of the quilt would be pinned  to the frame, the bundles of wool placed closely together on top of the bottom cover, then the top cover of the quilt would be pinned in place over the wool.  The quilt would be tied with yarn, which was pulled through the layers of the quilt by using large darning needles.  Tying would begin on the ends of the quilt.  When it progressed too far for the tie-er to reach the center of the quilt, the sides as far as the tying had been completed would be unpinned, and the ends, still pinned to the end of the frame, would be rolled up along the edges of the quilting frame.  This allowed the quilt to be tied closer to the center.

     There were commercial places where people could send their wool to be cleaned and carded into a cohesive batting the size of the quilt.  It was cheaper, though much more work, for Grandma to do it herself.  With her small carders Grandma's wool was less cohesive, but once tied in a quilt would remain evenly distributed.

     The first Christmas I remember, we had a beautiful pine tree set up in the living room.  Grandma had some German made, hand-blown glass ornaments that glittered.  She had small silver colored candle holders with spring clips.  They could be pinched on the outer branches.  Each held a little red candle.  On Christmas Eve all the candles were lit.  They were allowed to burn only on Christmas Eve, and only when Grandma was in the room.  We did not have electric lights on any Christmas trees in our home until my sister Margaret earned money teaching school and bought some.

     One Christmas Grandma came up to me holding a wrapped present.  She spoke to me but I was so interested in that gift she was holding, that I didn't listen to a word she said.  She finally handed me that gift and left.  Eagerly I ripped off the paper.  Inside was a pair of men's suspenders, the kind with metal coil springs in the back, like the ones Grandpa wore.  I think they were already old fashioned in those days.  I sat there looking at them, wondering why Santa Claus would bring me a pair of men's suspenders.  Grandma then tried to explain to me that they were supposed to be my present to Grandpa, and I should give them to him.  Gladly I passed them on to him.  Grandma tried her best to teach me to think of others, an idea not very appealing to me.

     We had an old first grade reader that I loved to have read to me.  One winter snow-stormy evening some high school girls, who had been neighbors when we lived on the farm, stayed overnight at our place.  (It was a common practice in those days for the older students to stay someplace in town during bad weather, rather than the parents struggling to get them home on the farm for the night, only to get them back to school the next morning or have them miss school.)  In the evening I got out the old reader and told them I could read.  Grandma told them I couldn't read.  I felt my talents were unappreciated and wanted to show these ladies I could too so read!  I took the book and pronounced the story word for word until they were convinced I could read, until I turned the page in wrong place and they knew Grandma was right when she said I had everything memorized and I was not reading.

     After more than sixty-five years I can almost repeat the story of Tiddy Mouse and Taddy Mouse.  "Tiddy is dead and Taddy weeps; the door slams and broom sweeps; the window rattles and the stool hops."  Another selection I liked was "Where the pools are bright and deep; Where the grey trout lies asleep; Up the river and over the lea; That's the way for Billy and me."  It had a picture of a boy walking with a fish pole and a dog by his side.

     I had a doll to play with, a hand-me-down.  The doll's head was cracked and chipped.  Grandma glued a knit piece of material over the hair section to hold it together.  (I think she used a piece of fleece-lined knit long underwear for the repair.)  When Grandpa noticed the head, he would laugh and tell me that the doll "had gone through the war."  Grandma made some bonnets matching her doll dresses to hide her head.  Grandma also made clothes for her at different times, usually for Christmas.  She made the doll an ensemble consisting of a dress, a matching coat and bonnet.  I often wished I could have an ensemble like the one the doll had.

     We had an open bottomed sturdy wooden box, a "jack of all trades."  It was used as a step-stool to reach higher, a portable seat, a prop to hold the door open, or anything else that might be needed.  I often used it to play with.  It could serve as my doll's table, or by turning it upside down as her wash tub, to "bathe" her, to "wash" her clothes, or as any thing else my imagination would dream up.  I had a toy iron and remember being teased when, the doll dress hanging over the edge of my "ironing board" (the box), I held my hand alongside the board under the dress and "ironed" over my hand.  Grandpa laughed when he asked me if I hadn't burned my hand.

     One of my favorite pastimes was playing with "paper dolls."  A Montgomery Ward catalog was the source of all the people, furniture and accessories.  How precious a newly discarded catalog was!  Small girls were cut out to become "Harriets," larger girls became "Margarets" and "Yvonnes," younger women became "Aunt Adas," and older people became "Grandmas" and Grandpas."  All the "Harriets" were stacked in one pile, "Margarets" in another, etc.  To change dresses the current "Harriet" was put back on the pile and another with a different dress was selected to continue the action.  The furniture cut from the catalog was placed in "rooms" creating a whole house.  The box was laid on the floor solid bottom up and covered with a doll blanket to form an "upstairs."  A piece of paper folded accordion style became a flight of stairs.  A paper person could sit on a chair or sleep on a bed by being laid upon them.

     Somehow I had acquired a celluloid doll, maybe five or six inches high.  I don't remember breaking it, but I was holding it in my hands looking at the cracks in it.  Grandpa sort of laughed and said, "Throw it in the stove.  It will make a good fire."  Before I could be stopped by anyone, I opened the wood stove in the dining room and threw in the doll.  The fire roared out at me and singed my eyebrows.  Grandma, who had been in the kitchen, rushed in.  The blaze subsided as quick as it had flared up.  She scolded Grandpa severely for telling me to throw it in the stove.  I was glad he was the one getting that scolding and not me.

     Another thing I liked to play with were the poker chips.  I am not sure from what material they were made, something like celluloid.  They were more durable and nicer than the cardboard poker chips some other families used.  Our chips were in a nice lined case and kept up on the shelf where the clock stood.  They were used when grandfolks played "Five Hundred," which they often did if anyone was around to make a foursome.  I was sometimes allowed to play with them.  There were twenty-five of each color, red, blue, yellow and white.  I would lay them out in flower-like designs, or build walls, towers etc.  I don't remember having wooden toy blocks to play with.  We had dominoes, but I didn't play games with anyone else using them.  I used them more like the poker chips, to make towers etc.

     I don't remember my first day at school.  School was just up the street a short way.  We were divided into "Grey Squirrels" and "Bunny Rabbits."  What the difference was I do not know.  I was a "Grey Squirrel."  We had peg boards with colored pegs for making designs.  There were beads to string or "sew" on cards with string.  We could play with these as a reward for some achievement, or sometimes during recess in bad weather.

     We drew outlines of our hand on paper which were displayed on a bulletin board.  Every morning the teacher would look at our hands.  If our hands and fingernails were clean we got a gold star posted on our hand shape.  If they were dirty we got a black circle instead.  Grandma would scrub my hands in the morning with soap and an old tooth brush to clean under the nails.  By the time I got to school the nails would be dirty.  When I returned home she would ask me whether I had received a star or another black dot.  I was a big disappointment to her.  She finally got disgusted and told me I would have to take care of my hands myself.  Eventually I managed to keep my hands clean, at least until the teacher saw them.

     We had a sand table in the primary grade room.  It was like a sand box with side boards around the edges to hold the sand.  It stood on legs so we could stand around it to see the display in it.  In one area some blue paper was laid under a piece of glass, with the sand covering the edges and sloping up away from it.  This glass represented a lake, a river, or the ocean, depending on the current theme of the display.  For Thanksgiving we colored paper Pilgrims, Indians, turkeys, pumpkins etc. to place in the sand table.  When we studied Holland windmills and Dutch boy and girl skaters were displayed.

     I remember during a winter recess or noon hour when I was playing with another girl who did not have any friends to play with.  She had "eczema" and the other girls were afraid of catching it from her.  She crawled under the sand table and I crawled after her.  Her skirt crept up around her waist and from behind I could see her body and legs all bandaged up, and I felt so sorry for her.  She always wore long stockings and sleeves to cover her bandages.  Her folks were poor and couldn't afford medical expenses.  Nothing they tried seemed to help her problem.  In spring someone told her parents that she needed to be free of bandages and the sun should shine on her skin.  That summer they sent her out day after day to play in the back field where no one could see her.  She wore nothing but a pair of little panties.  By fall she was very, very dark skinned, but her skin was clear and smooth.  The family moved away shortly after that.  I haven't heard anything about her since.

     One cold winter day during recess time the teacher and some of us pupils were gathered around the register in the front of the room.  We were enjoying the warm air rising from it when we heard a noise coming from below, (probably from the furnace).  The teacher asked us what we thought was causing the noise.  I replied that it came from Mr. Adams' spanking machine.  Mr. Adams was the school principal.  The teacher tried to persuade me that Mr. Adams was a good man and would not have a "spanking machine," but she really didn't convince me.  I firmly believed that Mr. Adams did not exert himself greatly, but used a machine to help him spank all us naughty children.

     One day a "new" pupil came in our primary room.  Today he would probably be called "mentally challenged."  He had been a problem for teachers who had "passed" him into the next grade routinely, glad to pass him and his problems on to the next teacher.  He had been in the "fourth" grade before he simply quit going to school.  When threatened with a charge of truancy his parents sent him back to school.  Tests were given, and he was placed back in first grade again.  A larger sized desk was installed just for his use.  He received much attention from the other children, especially when he began to draw pictures for them.  He gave at least one treasured drawing to almost every girl in the room before he quietly and simply quit coming to school again.

     There was a boy named George who was in my grade.  One day after school he was walking home on the opposite side of the street from where I was walking.  I began hollering at him, "Georgie, Porgie, puddin' 'n' pie, kissed the girls and made them cry.  When the girls began to play, Georgie Porgie ran away."  He became very angry with me which fed my ego, so I kept it up.  Finally he said he was going to "tell teacher" on me.  He ran back to school.  I stood there waiting for him to come back, feeling very guilty and wondering what the teacher would do to me.  He came back walking very slowly on his side of the street with his head lowered.  He made no effort to talk to me, so I asked him, "What did the teacher say?"  He answered, "She said you were off the school ground and she couldn't do anything about it."  I was pleased that I was not going to be punished, but guilt kept me from teasing him again.

     There were no school busses.  Parents had to take children to school if they lived too far away to walk.  Several girls in my class lived a mile or two from school and walked in pleasant weather.  When cold stormy weather blew, walking became a problem.  I was lucky that I lived near the school.  When the snow was on the ground, one of my classmates was brought to school by her father in a sleigh.  If the roads were blocked, they came across fields, temporarily taking down fences.  The sleigh was similar to a fishing shanty on runners.  A horse was hitched to it.  The reins were threaded through holes in the wall below the window where the driver looked out to see where they were going.  Straw might be scattered on the floor for insulation.  If there was no straw, a small kerosene heater might be set inside the shanty and lit.  Passengers could sit on a shelf-like seat or on the floor wrapped in blankets.  In our ignorance we envied our classmate her ride in "luxury."

     The other classmate who lived so far from school always walked, if she did come to school.  In cold weather her mother wrapped her in layer after layer of socks, shoes, overshoes, pants, sweaters, jackets, caps and scarves.  In the end a very long scarf was wound around and around her.  Only her eyes were left uncovered.  She walked to school and had to wait for the teacher to unwind her scarf before she could move her arms.  At the end of the school day the teacher wrapped her up again so she could walk home.

     One day as I was walking home from school with another girl, I said something about my "Daddy," which was what I called my grandfather when I was very young.  We had quite an argument when she told me I didn't have a "Daddy."  "He's your Granddaddy, not your Daddy!"  She had a Daddy and I didn't!  In later years I wondered why it had bothered me so much.  I am sure it was because instinctively I had felt that what she was saying was that because Grandpa was not my "real" Daddy, he didn't love me as much as her Daddy loved her.  I felt then and now that Grandpa loved me as much as any "Daddy" would have.

     Grandpa had been born with shallow hip sockets.  It was very easy for his hips to slip out of joint, especially if he exerted himself in lifting a heavy burden.  Doctors had put his hips back in place.  At least one had recommended a wide leather belt be tight around his body to hold a hip in place.  It had been very uncomfortable, and while Grandpa still had the belt, he never wore it.  Earlier than I remember he had been to a doctor who told him that his right hip had been out of place so long that the leg bone had worn a new socket in his pelvis.  His right foot permanently turned toward his right.  

     Because of his condition, it was hard for Grandpa to get up from sitting in a chair.  When he was thirsty he would often start singing, "How dry I am, nobody knows how dry I am."  This was the cue for me to bring him a dipper of water.

     When Grandpa was away from home and tried to climb some steps, he sometimes had a hard time lifting his left foot high enough to reach the next tread, especially if the risers were a little higher than normal.  I learned how to help lift that foot and push it onto the tread.  He didn't need much help, but appreciated a little gentle help.  Whenever some men were around they would offer to help him, wanting to do something instead of standing by and having to watch a little girl give him the help he needed.  Grandpa refused their help in favor of mine.  He was afraid of their strength and that they would, in their excessive use of energy, topple him over.

     Whenever someone would, as some adults do when speaking to children, ask me if I wanted to go home with them, I would reply, "My Daddy needs me."  I wanted to be with him.

     Grandfolks owned a 1919 model T Ford.  Grandpa had wanted it to ride around and see the country, but because of his malformed hips he could not sit naturally.  He always sat on the front edge of a chair and leaned against the chair back, with his hips only slightly bent if they bent at all.  His legs extended farther forward then anyone sitting naturally.  Because of this condition he was unable to drive a car, or even sit in the driver's seat.

     The story goes that when he bought the car he insisted on a guarantee that if his wife could not learn to drive the car it could be returned for the full purchase price.  In those days, around 1920, very, very few women drove.  It was said that when Grandma first started driving she hit a cow, but the cow was able to run to the other end of the field faster than anyone could catch her.  No real damage had been done.

     In order for Grandpa to get in and sit in the car, the front passenger seat was removed.  I don't remember ever seeing that seat.  Originally it had a back hinged to the seat so that the back could be folded forward over the seat, and the seat was hinged at the front so that it could be folded forward out of the way.  This allowed back seat passengers to enter the car through that space ordinarily occupied by the seat.  The front seat could then be unfolded by laying it back, allowing someone to sit in front next to the driver.  In Grandfolk's Ford, all that remained of the original front passenger seat were two metal hinge parts still permanently attached to the floor of the car.

     Grandpa had a wooden block with a piece of plank nailed to it which he used in order to get into the car.  It was placed up against the hinge parts which kept it from sliding away from him.  Before he entered the car someone had to sit in the driver's seat leaning against the back to prevent that seat from folding forward when Grandpa used it for support.  Grandpa would face the open door, place his left hand on the back seat, his right hand on his special block, and with his arms hoist himself up to stand on the running board of the car.  He would then use the back of the driver's seat with his left hand, the back seat with his right hand and hoist himself onto the back seat while twisting his body, turning his feet stretched out before him.  Someone would have to turn his special block from an upright position to a more level one.  Grandpa would rest his feet against the block which would be against the hinge parts, keeping his feet from sliding too far forward.

     Grandma drove.  Margaret and I sat in the back seat behind her and next to Grandpa.  We stepped over his legs to get in if we had not entered the car before him.  There was no seating for anyone else.  On the rare occasion when our cousin Yvonne rode with us, a box was placed ahead of Grandpa's feet next to the dashboard and Margaret sat on it.  No seat belts were even heard about, and the box was not fastened down but left free to move.  Speed was very moderate.  Those where the days when "going like sixty" was considered a daring, reckless, almost unattainable speed.

     Grandpa loved to ride in the country and see all the crops growing or harvested.  He watched to see if the elderberries or the choke cherries were ripening, what stage the growing crops were in, or what damage the recent rain or wind had done.  Often he would tell Grandma to slow down because he wanted to look at something.  He would say something like, "Mama, you're going so fast I can't see how ripe that oats is."

     It is surprising how far Grandfolks traveled with that car in their time.  The story goes that before my time they drove clear to Virginia in northern Minnesota.  They took Uncle Ed, Grandpa's son, there where he had applied for a teaching position.  As they drove through the great northern woods, and I don't know if it was in Wisconsin or Minnesota, the rear axle broke.  It was miles and miles between homes.  Uncle Ed in his despair is supposed to have sat on the running board and cried, "Take me out in the woods and hang me."  Well, helpful people happened along, and pulled them, car and all, to a garage where another axle was put in the car.  The next day they were able to continue the trip.

     It seems that in those days a broken axle was fairly common.  Cars were built high off the ground so they could straddle stumps, clear mud puddles, or even ford some streams if necessary.  Running boards were necessary to climb into the high cars, and were sometimes used to carry extra passengers who hung on to whatever part of the car they could grasp.  Grandfolks carried a tire pump at all times.  When needed it was clamped to the running board, attached to the tire valve stem, and the handle was pumped up and down to deliver air to the tires.  Most drivers carried tire patches in kits to repair their inner tubes at all times in case they got a bad leak.

     In winter the car was put up on blocks to save the tires.  The battery was taken out and stored in the cellar or left at the local garage.  When spring days were warm and sunny, and they decided to get the car out, it was taken off the blocks.  Until the battery was replaced the car was run on "magneto."  This meant that Grandpa had to crank the car to start it.  Grandma was always very nervous.  There were a lot of stories around about men who had gotten run over when the motor started and took off before they had time to get out of the way, or when the crank had "kicked back," breaking an arm.  Grandpa would not have been able to jump out of the way if it had been necessary to do so.

     One nice summer day after we had been out riding, Grandma had left the car parked in the back yard.  Like many young kids have done, I sat in the driver's seat pretending to drive.  Grandma was near and jokingly said, "Put her in the garage."  I promptly stepped on the starter and the motor caught immediately.  Grandma got very excited and hollered at me to turn it off, turn it off!  I reminded her that she had told me to put it in the garage.  She answered, "How did I know you knew how to start it?"

     Once we were out at Aunt Ada's and didn't leave for home until after dark.  Then it was discovered that the lights on the car were not working.  Grandfolks borrowed a kerosene lantern, the kind often used to hang in the barn when milking during winter darkness.  They hung the lantern on the front of the Model T, and drove the three miles home by the light of the lantern.

     I was quite young when we were driving to some picnic or gathering.  I don't remember what the occasion was, but it seems as if a lot of neighbors and people we knew were also going to it.  We were on a narrow country road when a car came speeding in the opposite direction and Grandma swerved to avoid it.  She got too close to the edge of the road and the car tipped over into the ditch.  The car leaned about forty-five degrees off perpendicular.  Only the fact that the ditch was full of bushes kept the car from overturning.  Grandpa's side was leaning into the brush.  No way could he crawl out.  Some friends came along and stopped to help.  They went to a nearby farmer who came with a team of horses.  Quite a few men gathered around.  They steadied the car while the horses pulled it out on the road and upright.  Grandpa was not hurt much if any from the ordeal, and we kept on going to the gathering.

     The model T was mostly used to go out to Aunt Ada and Uncle Ed's place or to one of Grandpa's farms, or to visit friends occasionally, though they did take a few long trips.     The longest trip I remember taking in the car was when we drove to Kewaunee to visit Grandpa's sister, Francisca, and her family.  Her son Wesley, his wife Ida and their sons, Roland and Raymond, lived on a farm with her and her husband, August.  Raymond was a few years older than I and we played together.  Aunt Francisca had been born in Europe and spoke only German, a language I knew nothing about.  Raymond's vocabulary had both English and German words which he mixed indiscriminately.  He also stuttered, and I had a very hard time understanding him.

     Raymond had been to a funeral and was very intrigued with it, wishing to act out the ceremony.  I knew nothing about such a thing.  He had a doll who had supposedly "died."  He put her in a shoe box for a coffin and carried it out near the pig pen.  He dug a hole and put the box with the doll into the "grave" and conducted a funeral for her.  I don't know what he said, whether eulogy, prayer or gibberish, but when he finished, he whisked the doll and box out of the hole and replaced the dirt he had dug out, leaving me to wonder what it was all about.  It was not until years later that I understood it was supposed to be a funeral.

     During morning milking Raymond and I went out to the barn.  In a tin cup we were given milk to drink which was still warm from the cow.  I didn't like it at all.  I was used to drinking cold milk from a bottle, but warm milk from the cow was the only way that Raymond would drink it, milking time being the only time he drank any.  After milking Roland hitched a horse to a cart having a wagon seat in the front.  The milk cans containing the evening and morning milk was put in the back of the cart behind the seat.  Roland drove the horse, I sat in the middle with Raymond on the other side of me to keep me from falling out.  We took the milk to the creamery.

     Raymond was told to go out to the pasture to bring home the cows for evening milking.  He wanted me to go with him.  After receiving permission to go with him, we started down the lane.  We had not gone far when I stubbed my toe.  It hurt and I started to cry.  Raymond told me a big story about how badly he had been hurt and he hadn't cried.  I had wanted sympathy, not his boasting of the pain he survived, and I cried harder.  He told me to "go home cry-baby."

     I turned to go back toward the house, but at that point the lane passed the side of an orchard with many apple trees.  A swing hung from one of the trees and I turned in to play.  Soon the cows were passing in the lane.  I was still mad at Raymond and decided to hide from him.  He would be sorry he had called me a "cry-baby" when he didn't have me to play with!

     After he passed the orchard I again began to play and swing.  Between the orchard and the house was a large garden containing many vegetables and flowers, so many pretty flowers I hadn't seen before.  I stopped to examine them, but whenever I heard Raymond calling I ran and hid.  It seemed like a long time that I was hiding from him, but I kept telling myself what I had remembered hearing, that time always goes slowly when you are waiting for something.  The truth was that I was actually having a very good time playing.  When I heard Roland calling me I felt good.  Raymond really missed playing with me if he got his older brother to help look for me!

     Finally I thought I heard Grandpa call me.  I listened, yes, Grandpa called me and that was different!  That was an adult calling.  I ran up the rest of the lane to him.  What a commotion!  Everyone was out looking for me!  Grandpa was walking outside with his crutch and cane calling me.  Old Uncle August, who must have been in his nineties, was leaning against the house coordinating the search, telling everyone who checked back with him, who had

looked where and didn't find me, and suggesting other places to look.  Uncle Wesley was next to the barn hitching up a horse to a buggy, preparing to ride to the neighbors asking them to form a search party, desperately hoping they could find me before dark.  Grandpa kept asking me where I had been but I wouldn't tell anyone that I had been hiding.

     Sometime after we had moved to the Village of Almond, Aunt Ada had her farm house wired for electricity.  The power lines had not yet been strung in that area, but Aunt Ada had a bank of batteries installed in the cellar.  They were charged by a gasoline motor.  Only lights and a very few appliances were able to operate on this system.  If the batteries were low in charge the lights were very dim.  A light was installed in the hen house which could be turned on and off in Aunt Ada's bedroom.  Extra light caused the chickens to lay more eggs.  What a convenience for her to be able to turn out the hen house light from the bedroom when going to bed!

     They installed a water tank in an upstairs room with pipes leading down from it to a faucet in the kitchen.  The windmill pumped the water up into the tank and gravity allowed the water to flow to the faucets.  Cold running water was a convenience we never had in our house in town.

     At Aunt Ada's there was a nice sheltered play area out under a willow tree.  At one time a huge branch had blown over, the main stem of the branch was still attached to the trunk a few feet above the ground, while the outer end of the branch lay on the ground.  It had continued to grow, shooting up new branches.  Yvonne had a "play house" under that tree.  The ground was a "first floor."  We could walk up the fallen branch, and sit in the "upstairs," a level place between the large upright shoots.  Robert and Allan had fixed up a pail and hose to hang in the tree.  With water in the pail, Yvonne and Margaret could siphon water down to their "sink."  I was not allowed to monkey with it.  Old dishes and pop bottles were left there to play with.

     It was there under that willow that I saw the workbench which my great-grandfather, John Mathe, used to make wooden shoes.  I was very curious about how it had been used, but I had no idea that in later years I had wished I had examined it more closely and had made more mental notes.

     Aunt Ada's brother, Uncle Push, worked on her farm.  He was a widower with a son, Jack, a year or two younger than I.  Jack lived with them during the summer and I played with him whenever I was out at Aunt Ada's.  Though he was a little younger than I, he was the leader and I followed him along, flying a kite, swiping a gizzard from Aunt Ada's plate of chicken, or telling stories.  Jack had a miniature steam engine.  Very small nuggets of coal could be put in its fire box and ignited.  We played with it in the sand along the side of the driveway.  Jack gathered tiny pieces of coal for it, but it was never lit or operated while I was present.

     One summer day Yvonne, Margaret and I were lying on Aunt Ada's front lawn near the lilac bush, gazing up at the fleecy white clouds drifting by.  Yvonne and Margaret let their imagination take over, talking about which cloud looked like what.  Then they began talking about a funnel cloud which meant a tornado was coming.  If a tornado was coming you should go hide in the cellar.  I asked them what a tornado was.  They looked at each other and Yvonne said, "Don't tell her. It will only make her scared."  They could have told me anything else.  It wouldn't have scared me as much as thinking a tornado was such a scary thing that I shouldn't even know about it. That night I dreamed that a tornado came.  It was a great big giant outside the house and was looking in the window.  He was so big that his eye filled the whole window.  I didn't have time to get to the cellar; I tried to hide under the bed.  He withdrew his eye and put his huge arm in the window and reached for me!  Margaret had a huge problem calming me down.

     I speak of the farm as being "Aunt Ada's" which was really Uncle Ed's too, but Uncle Ed was a High School professor of History and Economics who, as long as I knew him, taught at Soldan High School in St. Louis, Missouri.  He was home on the farm only during the summer and Christmas vacations.  How soon he got home before Christmas depended on what day of the week on which Christmas occurred.  I remember one year when his train came into the Adams-Friendship train station on Christmas Day.  Allan drove to pick him up there.  Aunt Ada planned for an evening dinner, a very unusual time for dinner in those days.  It stormed, driving conditions were bad.  We waited dinner until they came, Aunt Ada especially being very anxious.  We sat down to eat our Christmas dinner at midnight Christmas day.

     One Christmas I began to understand that there was no Santa Claus.  We went to Aunt Ada's for Christmas.  Uncle Push was there telling a great tale about how he had seen Santa, and Santa had left some skis there!  Even a pair for me!  Yvonne and Margaret also received skis.  Up to that time I had tried to ski by tying some wooden covers from grape baskets on my feet.  That year, with such a wonderful present as a pair of skis, I began to believe in Santa all over again.  Before this all we had had was a small sled.  Margaret and I had shared the sled.

     Uncle Push was great for his stories.  One Thanksgiving Grandma had invited the family to dinner.  She had a minor problem while expanding her dining room table.  Uncle Push happened along and the story he told!  How her table broke down with all the food on it and now the whole family wouldn't get any dinner on Thanksgiving!  What a tragedy he portrayed!  He didn't eat with us but went to eat with Isabel Milius.

     One day the teachers at school passed out free tickets to a movie in Stevens Point.  I had never seen a movie.  I had no idea that I would ever get to Stevens Point, so I didn't keep the ticket.  Then Uncle Push offered to take Yvonne, Margaret and I to the movie.  I explained that I didn't have my ticket anymore, but Uncle Push told me to come along anyway.  He gave the ticket lady a big tragic tale about how my ticket got destroyed.  It was quite unbelievable, but she let me in anyway.  The movie shown was "The Great Train Robbery."  Two scenes impressed me.  In one a man ran up some stairs but tumbled all the way down before he got to the top.  I asked Margaret why he fell.  She said he got shot.  I still didn't understand what happened, and wondered why he fell.  The other scene was the train roaring right for me!  I ducked down under the seat for protection.  I didn't want to get run over!  They had a hard time getting me back in the seat, and then only after the train had disappeared from the screen.

     One morning as I was waking up in our bedroom, Margaret having already left, a woman came into the room.  I didn't know who she was, or how she had gotten there.  It was our Mother.  Uncle Ed had picked her up from the Milwaukee County institution where she lived and brought her home for a visit.  They had arrived after I had gone to sleep.  She had slept in the room where I had been born.  Uncle Ed, being responsible for her actions, had slept on a cot in the storeroom.  She tried to "Mother" me, but I resented this woman, whom I did not know, touching me.  She stayed with us for only a short visit.   Afterward Grandma would ask me to write to her.  I obeyed but it was never easy, and my letters must have been very stilted.

     I was something of a tomboy, not too careful of what happened to me.  One day I tore three dresses.  Grandma was a great seamstress and made all my dresses on her treadle sewing machine.  I don't remember how I tore the first dress, or even the second dress.  After the second torn dress Grandma sighed and complained about how hard I was on my clothes.  She said I didn't have any other dress to wear.  She was almost finished making one for me and made me sit on a chair until she finished it.  She said that it would be so much nicer if the hem were made by hand, but I was so hard on dresses, it didn't pay to take the time.  She used her sewing machine to sew up the hem.

     Dressed in my brand new dress I went to play next door.  They had a hammock frame standing in their back yard.  There was no hammock hanging on it, but they had leaned some long boards up against it.  I climbed up on top of the stand, and slid down the boards as if they were a slippery slide.  It was great fun for awhile, until I was at the top, ready to slide down, when the top end of the board caught the hem of my dress.  I slide all the way down, but the back center bottom of my skirt was still caught at the top.  I climbed up to release the skirt, which was torn almost all around away from the waist, only a few inches remained in front where skirt and waist were still connected.  I wrapped the skirt around me and went home to Grandma.  Poor Grandma!  My new dress already fit for the rag bag!  Without a dress to wear, she sent me to bed.  Luckily for me it happened during a long summer evening when I had already eaten supper.  The next day she had another dress for me to wear, whether she had washed one or mended one I do not know.

     I longed for a pair of overalls to wear, but Grandma did not want her "little girl" to wear anything like that.  A neighbor lady promised me that if I mowed her lawn three times, she would take me up town and buy me a pair of overalls.  I tried real hard to do a good job for her.  After the third mowing she took me up town to Walker's General Store which sold dry goods, and bought me a pair of girl's overalls.  Grandma said I could not come to the table in overalls, but must wear a dress when eating.  I wore a dress until breakfast was over, put on the overalls until noon when I changed back to a dress to eat dinner, after which I changed again.  Grandma soon got tired of that and let me come to the table wearing the overalls.  They were the only overalls I have ever owned.  When they were worn out I had to go back to wearing dresses.

     Margaret or I were sometimes sent up town to go to a store for a particular item.  Grandma once sent me to the butcher to get a 10 cent soup bone.  It was not the first time that Grandma had asked for a soup bone and received a bony hunk with enough meat for a meal for the four of us.  She would stew it, adding vegetables, making a delicious soup eaten with Grandma's home baked bread.  This particular time the butcher had given me a very large piece.  When Grandma opened the package she said it didn't smell right.  She sent me back to return the bone and to tell the butcher that she might be poor but she didn't have to accept tainted meat.  The butcher asked me, "What does she expect?  A whole cow for 10 cents?" but he did substitute a different piece.  It was smaller c

but Grandma was satisfied with it.  After this incident Grandma would ask the butcher for a 15 cent soup bone.

     Mail was not delivered to homes in the Village of Almond.  Grandfolks rented a lock box in the post office which had a small iron stoop before its eastern door.  In the summer when the sun shone on it, it became very hot, hotter than the cement sidewalks.  As I was usually barefoot in that season, I hated to step on it.  In hot weather I would try to spring across it in one leap.

     One day when I went to the post office to pick up the mail.  A letter was in our box with a picture on the upper left hand corner of the envelope showing three men standing up in a boat.  I had never seen an envelope anything like it.  I rushed home to give it to Grandma.  It was from her brother, John Kissinger, informing her that his wife had died of cancer.  He and his wife were proprietors of the Waushara Resort on The Island near Fox Lake.  It was a business envelope used to advertise their summer resort.  It pictured three men fishing from a row boat, but in my immature muddled mind, and in reaction to Grandma's agitation, I thought the men in the boat were burying a body in the lake.  It was years before I got over this notion.

     Several years later Uncle John came to Almond, driving a big Hudson touring car.  He took Margaret and I back to the resort for a visit.  He had taken a man and wife in as associates to help in the resort business.  They had a fleet of about a dozen row boats as well as two skiffs used during duck hunting season.  We enjoyed rowing short distances along the shore as well as swimming, or at least getting in the water.  I never learned to swim.

     I fell off the pier into the water wearing practically new shoes.  I was afraid of what Grandma would say about the shoes, but after wiping them off and letting them dry, they didn't seem to be too much damaged.

     The resort had a three man combo playing for the patrons.  Its leader was Jack Wilson from Fond du Lac.  One of the players could not read music.  When they learned a new song, Jack would first have to play it for him, who would then pick up the music almost immediately.  One song I remember them playing was, "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie."

     Grandma and Grandpa came after us with the Model T.

     My brother Robert was about ten years older than I.  He had been raised by Uncle Ed and Aunt Ada along with their son, Allan, who was a little older than Robert, and their daughter Yvonne who was slightly older than Margaret.  I have few memories of him.  I regarded him as an adult, not as a child like myself.

     One memory of Robert was of one stormy wintery day when he was in high school.  He and a friend of his came to stay overnight at Grandma's, rather than go home in the storm and come back to school the next day.  Grandma told them that if they wanted to eat supper they should go to the woodshed and bring in some wood for the stoves.  They were in the shed for a long time.  When they came back to the house, Robert guided his friend staggering under two big armfuls of wood, one in each arm.  They were piled so high that he could not see where he was going.  Robert came carrying two little sticks, steering his loaded friend and opening the doors for him.

     Another memory was at Aunt Ada's farm, I was walking out in the field barefoot.  The oats had been cut leaving sharp stubble.  I carefully stepped so as to bend the stubble over as I walked, making it less hurting to my feet.  I was going very slow because of the difficult walking.  It began to rain and I was getting wet.  Robert came running, picked me up and carried me off the field.  I was so grateful for his help.

     Robert had not been allowed to play on the high school basket ball team because of a heart condition.  In the fall after graduating from high school he enrolled in Whitewater College, but was physically unable to continue.  He returned to live with Aunt Ada.  That Christmas he was so ill he was not allowed to eat his Christmas dinner at the table with the rest of us but was fed while lying in bed.  In the afternoon he was allowed to sit up and visit with us for a very short time.

     His health improved.  By the next August (1933) he was feeling better than he had for a long time.  Then one morning Yvonne found him in bed.  He had died in his sleep.

     I was with Grandma when she went to see him.  I don't remember reaching for him but I remember Grandma admonishing me, "Don't touch him."  Remembering this admonition for years, I have never touched any deceased person, neither grandparent or husband.

     Robert was buried from the Immanuel Methodist Church where He and Allan had sung in the choir.  It was the first funeral I remember attending.  I was barely ten and had never been close to him, neither physically nor emotionally.  Uncle Ed brought our Mother home for Robert's funeral.  I think it was the last time she came to Almond.  Authorities said her visits were too upsetting to her for them to allow any more visits.

     In fifth grade the teacher asked us to write stories.  The next day we were each supposed to get up before the class and read the story we had written.  Several classmates had already read their writing when she called upon a boy who started to read his story about a horse he had named "The Devil."  He read, "The Devil stood on a hill.  The Devil switched his tail."  By that time the teacher confiscated his paper and no more stories were read.

     In sixth grade I became aware of a Teacher's unfairness.  I was supposed to be studying at my desk, but I was idling around playing with a fountain pen cap.  Half unknowing what I was doing, I blew into the cap.  It surprised me when the air blown into it caused a shrill whistle.  The teacher descended upon a fellow who was sitting near me and scolded him for disrupting the class.  He denied making the noise.  She began to accuse him of lying.  Quaking in my shoes, but seeing the injustice of his being punished, I admitted that I had caused the noise, and showed her how it had happened.  She simply looked at me, then turned and went back to her teaching without giving me a single reprimand.  Why had she been so furious with him when she thought he had done it, and yet been so accepting when I had done it?

     She was the same teacher who in our social studies class had asked us what America's greatest problem was.  I raised my hand, and when called upon told her, "To catch Dillinger."  John Dillinger was an infamous hoodlum in Chicago and everyone seemed to be talking about his criminal activities, and about getting him put behind bars.  The teacher asked if I didn't think that getting out of the depression was not a greater problem.  I didn't agree.  At that time I had heard more talk about "Dillinger" than I heard about "Depression."  The depression was no longer newsworthy.  However much Grandfolks might have worried, I was not concerned.  I was comfortable, living in a house, had wood fires to keep warm, and always had something to eat.  I might not have liked what I had, but I had no real unfulfilled needs.  What a person does not remember, he does not miss.  I did not remember ever having more than I already had.   Grandpa talked about being "land poor" which went over my head.  He had signed an agreement with his son, Uncle Ed, giving him a farm in exchange for a monthly payment to be made as long as Grandpa lived.  Uncle Ed had a job teaching school for which he was well qualified and very conscientiously carried out his duties.  He faithfully paid Grandpa the monthly sum they had agreed upon.

     When I went to the Almond public school there was one room with one teacher for kindergarten, first and second grades; another room and teacher for third and fourth grades; and a third room and teacher for fifth and sixth grades.  These three rooms were on the first floor of the schoolhouse.  Seventh and eighth grade classes were held on the second floor utilizing the same rooms and teachers as the High School classes.  Desks in a main assembly room were assigned to the students in all the six upper grades.  The passing from sixth to seventh grade involved a greater change in school environment than any previous passing.

     When I entered seventh grade our Arithmetic teacher was a man, the first man teacher I had ever had.  Back in third grade when we were being taught the multiplication table the teacher used flash cards.  As the cards were held up before the class, the first pupil to give the correct answer was given that card.  At the end, the one who held the most cards was given the honor of flashing the cards during the next round.  I never had the most cards, so I simply lost interest in even trying.  For four years I had depended upon the multiplication table as printed on the back of theme notebooks.  I hadn't cared if the lady teachers thought I was dumb or lazy, but I didn't want any man teacher to think I was dumb or lazy or both.  I promptly learned the multiplication table up to 12 x 12 at home and by myself.

     In this period of my life I was tagging along after Margaret when she went to Epworth League meetings and socials.  Epworth League was an organization of young people sponsored by the Methodist Episcopal Church.  I remember the socializing which took place in the church basement much more than the spiritualizing.  Because I was younger than any of the others (there being no members near my age) I tried hard not to be an embarrassment to Margaret.  Once at a dinner with them I had a pickle on my plate.  At home I would have picked it up with my fingers, but I was trying so hard to have good table manners so I wouldn't embarrass my sister, and I tried cutting that slippery pickle with my fork.  It slipped, flew off my plate and off the table.  I was lucky enough to catch that pickle below table level with my left hand.  I glanced around the table.  No one was looking at me and I felt a wave of relief, until there was a pause in the conversation and the minister's son said, "Harriet, that was a neat trick you did with that pickle."  How embarrassing!

     We had seven members in seventh grade.  Then a new girl came to town so we had eight members in eighth grade.

     During eighth grade Mary Margaret moved next door to us.  I had become acquainted with her when she was in fourth grade and I was in third, both grades being in the same room.  She had lived on a side street just a short way from our house.  She had invited me to her birthday party, the only childhood birthday party I ever remember attending.  After she and her parents had moved to her grandparent's farm house near Bancroft, her parents had picked me up to spend a week with them, to play with Mary Margaret who was an only child.

     When she moved next door we became bosom friends.  She was the leader, I was the follower.  She had long curls which her mother combed and twisted around her finger every morning.  When her mother had to be hospitalized, I began to comb and twist her curls every morning before school.  One day we got a late start and both of us were late for school, causing some sharp comments about what we were doing together.

     She got us into such situations as when we dressed her kitten up in doll clothes.  The poor kitten escaped, ran up a tree, and could not be coaxed down.  Mary Margaret's father had to borrow a long ladder, but finally got the kitten down.  The doll clothes were in a bad state.

     Somehow Mary Margaret acquired a book on palmistry.  She studied her own palm, then mine, and then Margaret's.  At that time she was invited to a birthday party and became the life of the party "reading" palms, but before reading all who wanted her "reading," she suddenly stopped.  She refused to "read" anymore, and instead began telling everyone that there was nothing in "it."  "It" was not to be believed!

     When she got alone with me she began telling me what happened.  She started to "read" a girl's palm.  When she noticed that the girl's "life line" was very, very short, she got a sinking feeling.  She said she kept on talking, jabbering some stuff she started to make up, but all she could think of was that short life line and forgot what she even told the girl, except that she could not, and did not, tell her anything about a short life.  To me she said that if there was anything to palmistry that girl would not live long.  In a matter of months the girl, a high school freshman, died.  Death was diagnosed as caused by uremic poisoning, kidney failure.

     After a year of our close comradeship, Mary Margaret and her family moved to Dayton, Ohio.

     Margaret graduated from high school when I passed eighth grade.  The next two years she attended the Wisconsin Central State Teacher's College at Stevens Point, enrolled in the rural school division.

     It was during this time that Grandma and Grandpa came down with "the pink eye."  A doctor recommended using a particular solution for hot compresses to be applied to their eyes three times a day.  The solution was warmed on the dining room wood stove and I applied the compresses to both of them until their eyes improved and became less red.

     One day Uncle John, Grandma's brother, showed up at our house.  The depression had taken its toll on his resort business.  He had taken a married couple into partnership to help him but it had not been profitable.  He sold the business including all the real estate to his partners for one dollar.  They assumed all debts against it.  All the material wealth that he had left from a life time of work of both him and his wife, was packed in the Hudson touring car he was driving.  It included a huge cedar chest which contained among other things many linens and laces which his wife had made.  Every window in the summer resort, including all the bedroom windows, had been covered with curtains and lace she had made, much of it battenberg.  He was homeless and Grandfolks took him in.  He lived with us in Almond many years.

     

     In our freshman year many of the eighth grade graduates from the surrounding rural schools came into Almond to attend High School.  Those of us who had been taught in town eyed those who had come from the rural schools, and vice versa.  It was a time to get acquainted.  I tried to strike up a conversation with one of the boys.  I asked him what his name was.  He answered very briefly, "Arden."  I continued, "Do you have any sisters?"  "Yep."  No elaboration to let me know that he had more than one.  "What's her name?"  "Betty."  "What's she like?"  "She's just as fat as you are."  End of conversation.

     As a freshman I began to dabble in sketching.  One day I made a pencil drawing, a portrait of one of my classmates.  It was not a flattering sketch, and she disliked it greatly, but those who saw it recognized her in it.  Two of the fellows wanted me to sketch them, and I did.  Again, while others recognized the subjects, both boys were disappointed and angry over their looks.  The problem was that both sketches of the boys seemed to have a very feminine look, and the last thing a freshman boy wants is to look feminine.  I had no art instructor, qualified or otherwise, to critic my work, to teach me any techniques or how to correct the undesirable look.  With three people mad at me I gave up art and never tried to do another portrait.

     High Schools were being advised to offer more science and math.  Almond High School had a shortage of classrooms so an unused space in the basement was renovated as a classroom.  A new chemistry class was offered.  Today it would hardly be recognized as a chemistry class.  The only laboratory experiments were conducted solely by the teacher and only during regular lecture classes.  I remember one experiment demonstrated by the teacher about gelatin.  After he added hot water to the gelatin, the solution did not gel as he expected it to do.  Then the teacher tried to demonstrate that reheating the gelatin would not allow the solution to gel a second time.  That time, against his expectation, it did solidly gel!

    

     When I was a freshman, we staged a play, "Murdered Alive."  Actors were drawn from all high school grades.  It was a comedy about an inspector trying to solve a murder, only to have the so-called "murder victim" walk in alive during the last act.  I was cast as the maid.  In the opening scene the curtain rose on a darkened, empty room, and I was supposed to scream off stage, walk on stage and scream some more.  Well, I got stage fright.  I forgot how to scream.  Someone told me to scream; I thought I heard someone else scream; then I realized that it was I who had screamed, which scared me some more.  I finally got my lines said before I settled down and was able to act my part.  Someone complemented me afterward that my screaming action was most realistic.  It probably wasn't due to my acting as much as being scared when I was supposed to act scared.

     At the end of the play I was supposed to fall into the arms of the inspector as we had evidently fallen in love.  The hero and heroine had fallen in each others arms shortly before.  During play practice the "inspector" had shown great reluctance to take me in his arms, so our director had let him skip that part, a decision with which I heartily agreed.  We were, however, to act as if we were madly in love at the end of the actual presentation.  All went well, except my sister informed me afterward that we had already parted before the curtain had closed completely.

     The day after the play was given, I started a job washing dishes for the banker's wife, who lived across the street from me.  She had wanted me to start the day of the play so I could get acquainted with her kitchen as she was expecting to have a big dinner party the next day.  When I told her I was acting in the play being given, she told me I could come the day after; I would just have to start washing for the big party before I became familiar with her kitchen.

     When I arrived the night of her party, I was overwhelmed!  Dirty dishes were everywhere!  She had done her own cooking for the large sit down dinner, and there were dishes and pans everywhere, in the sink, on the shelf above the sink, on the stove, on the table, stacked under the table, on the window sill, and even on the floor of an adjacent lavatory!  I had never seen so many dishes!  Grandma had worked cooking for rich people before she married.  She had instructed me on the proper order of washing dishes, i.e. glassware first, silverware next, good china etc., but I had a hard time just finding an opening space to start washing anything without worrying about an orderly succession of categories.

     I worked for her most of my high school years.  Sometimes washing the dinner dishes for just the two of them.  Other times washing dishes for a large dinner party.  Pay was ten cents an evening.  If there was a greater amount of work than usual, she would pay more for the extra work.  During the summer she would ask me to work in the garden, pulling weeds, picking peas and shelling them, etc.  For that I was paid fifteen cents an hour.  I kept my money stashed in a covered dish on Grandma's dresser.

     I was in another play during my high school years.  It had been decided to have an all girl cast, girls taking all parts even the masculine ones.  I was selected as the father of the family.  As a costume I borrowed a man's two piece suit from my cousin Allan.  It was slightly big for me, but not too bad.  They pinned my hair up to make it look short, and powdered it to make it look gray.  Then they pasted a moustache on my upper lip.  I looked in a mirror and was startled.  I looked like a picture I had seen of my father!  That father who had died before I had even been born.  It was the first time I had felt any connection at all to him.

     Another time the school put on a presentation based upon Dickens' Christmas Carol.  We did not act, but stayed behind a curtain; only our words conveyed the story.  I was cast as "Scrooge" and learned how to growl out, "Bah, humbug!"

     A High School classmate of mine lived with her family on a farm, but when winter weather raged about she stayed with her grandmother in town.  Another classmate who lived far out in the country with no grandmother or relative in town, boarded in town during stormy weather.  She was the only girl in a large family of boys living on a farm where they had no electricity.  Another classmate of mine stayed in town with a grandmother who was hard of hearing, and always went to bed promptly at seven o'clock.  This classmate felt safe in inviting the three of us to come over, but only after her grandmother was in bed.  We gathered around the dining room table with books, having told those responsible for us that we were going to study together.  While we were talking the lights went out, nothing unusual to us who were used to electrical outages, but not to the girl from far out who was unfamiliar with electricity.  She called out, "Who is there?"  I realized she thought some unknown person had entered the house and she was scared.  I thought I would have a little fun with her and grabbed her from behind.  Well, she had learned to hold her own with all those brothers on the farm, and thinking she was attacked, she hauled off and let me have it!  I saw stars!  The only time in my life I saw that kind of stars.  There I was, the lights having come back on, lying flat on my back on the floor, my legs up on top of an overturned chair, and three scared girls staring down at me.  Then the grandmother was at the top of the stairs asking if something was wrong.  Her granddaughter assured her that everything was all right, that she would be coming up to bed very soon, while the rest of us were as quiet as church mice.  As soon as we dared move, we left, very quietly.

     One of Grandpa's cousins in Almond died.  She had been raising four grandchildren.  When she died these children then went to live on a farm with their aunt.  The children's grandmother had been using a washing machine with an electric motor.  Their aunt, not having any electricity on the farm, could not use the washing machine.  They were asking five dollars for it.  I had saved more than that from washing dishes, so I gave Grandma five dollars to buy the machine.  It was a "Big 3" brand built by Barlow and Seelig from Ripon.  We could now wash clothes with electricity, the cord going straight up to the ceiling fixture.

     Sometime in 1939 Grandpa had a bad fall, landing with his hips on the threshold between the kitchen and back porch.  Somehow they managed to get him into bed where he lay for several months.  Grandma cared for him diligently, weakening her own health.  At one time a doctor came to the house to examine him.  He stood in the dining room talking to the family and said that Grandpa would never walk again.  Though Grandpa was in the bedroom and his hearing was somewhat diminished, he did hear that statement and determined that he would walk again.  When he felt able to try he began to pester Grandma and Aunt Ada to have two men lift him up on his feet.  His insistence was irritating and finally Aunt Ada told Grandma that if they did lift him up, he would understand that he couldn't walk, and would then stop pestering them.

     Uncle John and Gus lifted him up on his feet, he screamed in pain and they laid him down again.  Aunt Ada assured Grandma that now he wouldn't pester them again, but the next day he began again asking to be lifted up.  He said that he now knew that the terrible pain would come and was prepared for it.

     Gus was the janitor at the schoolhouse.  He passed our house early in the morning to stoke up the fire in the school furnace.  On his way home for breakfast he would stop in and help Uncle John lift Grandpa up.  At first Grandpa could stand only a few seconds before they would lay him down again.  Then he began standing for a longer time, hanging on to a dresser for balance.  They started lifting him twice a day, and Grandpa started shifting his weight from one foot to the other and back again, always hanging on to the dresser.  In the end he walked again using two crutches, where before he had used a crutch and a cane.  When school shut down for the summer and Gus no longer passed our house, I began to help Uncle John lift him up out of bed.

     Her loving care of Grandpa took its toll on Grandma.  Her health waned.  She suffered a stroke.  Aunt Victoria, Grandpa's sister, and Aunt Ada did what they could to help.  Grandma became comatose.  One evening when Aunt Victoria was at our house she said she would stay all night because Grandma had the "death rattle."  I lay in bed but I couldn't sleep.  Grandma's breathing could be heard all over the house.  At first I didn't want her to die that night because if she did I would be expected to stay home from school the next day.  There was something special taking place in school that day that I didn't want to miss.  But the sound of her breathing touched me and I began to pray that she not suffer any longer.  I got out of bed and entered her bedroom.  Her breaths became farther and farther apart, and finally stilled.  Her suffering was over.  Grandpa, Aunt Victoria and I were with her when she died.  Today I can't remember what it was that I so greatly wanted to attend, I just remember the relief when I knew that her suffering was over.

     The funeral was held in our house in order that Grandpa could attend.  At that time he could walk but only with great effort.  He was still confined to the house.  Grandma was buried in the East German Cemetery in Grandpa's lot, across the driveway from where Robert was buried in Uncle Ed's lot.

     After Grandma passed away, Aunt Victoria felt it was her God-given duty as the next female in line to oversee my "raising."  At sixteen I figured I was already "raised," a finished product and needed no surrogate mother.

     Margaret was in her first year of teaching a rural school and having problems.  She boarded in the district, coming home only for week ends when Uncle John, with his big old Hudson, would pick her up late on Friday and take her back on Sunday.  I was suddenly expected to "keep house" for the two men during the week while Margaret was gone.  Aunt Victoria once told me that I was old enough to get married, but that no man would want me when he found out how little I cared about "keeping house."

     Grandma had been a very good cook, having cooked for rich people before she had married.  Her recipes were in her memory, not in any book or paper.  She loved to cook.  I'm afraid I had never been very eager to learn that skill, and in the depression Grandma felt we were too poor to allow me to waste food.  She thought I would not need to cook until after I got married and had a husband to pay for my costly culinary blunders.

     Grandpa sent me to Aunt Victoria's house to learn how to bake cookies.  She began by telling me that if eggs were cheap and she had plenty she would use so many, but if they were high priced she used only so many; if she had sweet milk to use she would use baking powder in the cookies, but if she had sour milk she would use baking soda instead.  She used no written recipe, or any measuring cups or spoons.  When I got home from Aunt Victoria's, I still didn't know how to bake cookies.

     Then Grandpa told me that she would come and show me how to make cookies in my own kitchen.  She came and showed me again.  She brought along her bowl to measure the flour and sugar, but when she went home she took her bowl home along with her.  Grandpa was very tolerant of my mistakes and ate whatever I came up with, even the burnt ones.  Regulating the oven heat in a wood fired range with no temperature gauge was difficult for me.  (The cook stove in the kitchen was the same one Grandma had when we lived on the farm.)

     Grandpa had his own ideas about what he would eat.  When Grandpa was younger he had raised animals and peddled the meat himself.  He said he had seen too many back rooms of meat markets with their dirty, or filthy, conditions to trust any of their products, including all hamburger, sausage, or other meat products.  The only sausage he would ever eat was what his sister Francisca made on their farm and sent to him for Christmas.  Otherwise he would eat only freshly butchered meat.  Because he thought tin poisoned food, he would eat nothing from a tin can, though sometimes Aunt Victoria would open a can, put the contents in a bowl, and bring it over for him to eat.

     Grandpa liked the prune and noodle dinner that Grandma had made.  Once Margaret made some noodles when she was home for a week-end.  She claimed she told me to soak the prunes before I cooked them.  I was positive she told me to soak the noodles.  The noodles sure were a mess after I soaked them overnight.  The prunes were very hard.

     I did find a recipe for pancakes that I decided to try.  The recipe didn't state how many people it would feed, but I didn't think it would feed more than one.  There were three of us to feed, Grandpa, Uncle John and I.  The men were big eaters so I quadrupled the recipe.  Grandpa had previously fallen, so I fed him in bed before Uncle John and I ate.  Though he laid in bed, he kept eating and eating, and ate all the pancakes I had made!  At last he had something good to eat!  I had to bake more pancakes for Uncle John and I.

     After Grandma had broken her arm she couldn't knead bread very well so Aunt Ada had bought her a bread mixer which we still had.  I learned to make bread, even as I went to school.  I would set the dough in the mixer during my noon dinner-break from school.  (We lived very close to school.)  Uncle John would turn the crank on the mixer to knead it down in the middle of the afternoon.  As soon as school was through for the day, I would knead it and put the dough in bread pans, then baked the bread after supper.  So we had plenty of home baked bread.  

     Grandpa always said that he had "the sugar disease."  He used no sugar on his oatmeal or added it to any food.  He did not cut out sugar completely from his diet, but he did limit the amount of foods which contained sugar.  For years he had a sore on his leg which did not heal, but seemed to slowly grow larger.  I think the sore was older than I was.  By the time I started taking care of him, it was rather large.  At one time a doctor had wanted to amputate his leg to preserve his life, but Grandpa refused.  He believed that if he had an amputation, it would mean that after his death his spirit would be without the leg, and he would rather die immediately than have to continue his afterlife without the leg.      After Grandma's death I began to take care of his sore for him.  He had a liquid Indian herbal remedy which someone had to apply to his sore for him.  It had a reddish orange color that stained everything to which it came in contact.

     One day Aunt Victoria came over and wanted to see what the sore looked like.  I had just bandaged it not too long before, and I was not anxious to re-bandage it, but Grandpa told me to take off the bandages.  I did.  She took one glance and told me to wrap it up again.  I was more than a little irked.  She had asked to see it, and she could have at least given it a decent look after I had gone to all that work!  Later when Grandpa was not present, she asked me how I could stand to take care of it.  She said that she had nursed two husbands to their graves, but that she would not be able to take care of such a sore.

     When I had been younger I had sometimes said I wanted to grow up to be a nurse.  By this time, after taking care of the "pink eye", witnessing  Grandma's death, and  taking care of Grandpa's leg sore, I no longer had any desire to go into nursing.

     Margaret was teaching school and earning money.  She saw some dresses on sale and bought two for me, the first new boughten dresses that I had ever had.  Before that Grandma had made all my clothes, sometimes from new material, and often times from used clothes that had been given us.  I was excited to get these brand new  dresses, but when I tried them on they seemed too long.  I promptly turned up the hems.

     The first time I wore one of the new dresses while going up town, passing Aunt Victoria's house, she called me to come over to her, and told me my dress was too short.  She lifted up the skirt and looked at the hem, pleased to see it had enough material that allowed it to be lengthened.  At that point I deeply regretted not having cut off the extra length.  She told me to lower the hem line, and that I could and should do that myself.  The fact that I didn't promise to do it aroused her suspicion that I didn't intend to do it.

     Grandpa was sitting on the front porch when I got home.  I sat on the threshold going into the house.  Pretty soon Grandpa said, "Here comes Tanta Dora.  She has something on her mind.  I can tell by the way she walks."  I knew what was on her mind!  I faded into the house, out of sight but within ear shot.  When she told Grandpa that "Harriet wears her dresses altogether too short," he replied that he was a poor man and couldn't afford so much money to buy so much material for long dresses.  She answered that there was plenty of material there; he didn't have to buy any more material for me to lengthen the dress.  But Grandpa just kept saying he was a poor man and couldn't afford such long dresses.  When she saw she couldn't change his mind, she got up and went home.  Neither one of them said anything more to me about my hemline and it stayed where I had put it.

     I had learned to sew and mend.  I bought a remnant of some new peach-colored material for eighteen cents, and made myself a blouse out of it.  For buttons I used some that had been cut off and saved from an old garment that had been discarded.  I was proud of getting a new blouse for only eighteen cents.

     Imperceptibly the depression was lifting.  President Roosevelt's reforms were having an effect.  People were less worried about "making ends meet" and were more comfortable about enjoying life.  Some of the members of our class had visions of proms like some other schools had.  We received permission to hold school dances to learn how to dance in preparation for holding our own prom.  It was mostly the girls who taught the fellows.  I made a good wallflower.  In 1940 we were the first class in Almond High School to hold a Junior Class Prom.  It was held in the new Community Building at the corner of Main and Elm.  I did not go.  No one asked me to go with him.

     When we were seniors, the class behind us also held a Junior Prom.  As senior class president, my date and I would have been second in line for the Grand March.  A fellow in our class asked me to go with him.  He was too bashful to ask me to my face, so he wrote a note, saying he wanted to take the most beautiful girl to the prom.  I did not wish to go with him because of rumors I had heard about his character.  I answered him with a note saying I thought he could find a more beautiful girl than I was.  Whether he went to the prom or not I do not know.

     Aunt Ada scolded me when she found out after the prom that I had turned a fellow down.  I told her that I did not have a proper dress to wear, which was true.  She told me she would have gotten me a dress if she had known.  She did buy me two lovely dresses, a formal for graduation and a street length dress for Baccalaureate Service.

     Baccalaureate Services were held in the Methodist Immanuel Church.  When it was discussed beforehand at school, a class member asked why it was always held in that church.  Why couldn't it be held in the Catholic Church some years.  The majority ruled.  They agreed to having it in the largest church in town.  Not all members of the class attended.  At that time there were members of six different sects worshipping and living in Almond.  Besides the two Methodist congregations, there were Baptist, Lutheran, Catholic and Seventh Day Adventist believers.

     Graduation was held in the new Community Building at the Main and Elm Street corner.  The three graduates with the highest grades were speakers at the ceremony.  As valedictorian I was one of them.  We wrote our own speeches.  The other two commencement speakers used scholarly themes to show off what they had learned during their twelve years of schooling.  I wanted to look forward to the future instead of backward, trying to demonstrate the knowledge I had already gained.  I spoke in symbolic terms of what we would meet in the future.  In those days before electronic amplifiers a speaker had to project his own voice in order to be heard, and my experience in talking with Grandpa, who was slightly hard of hearing, helped me to speak loud and distinctly.  My address was not enthusiastically received.  At least one person who heard us commented that I was the only one she could hear, but that she didn't understand anything I had said.  I do not have a copy of the speech.

     The summer after graduation was a long, lazy, drifting one.  Margaret went to summer school to acquire more credits for teaching.  She had bought a used car.  I stayed home with Grandpa, helping him where I could.  Uncle John still lived with us.  I had no direction.  As High School valedictorian I had received a scholarship to any state college, but someone had to stay with Grandpa and dress the sore on his leg.  Margaret couldn't.  She was going to summer school and had a contract for teaching a rural school for the coming school year.  She was the only one in the household who was earning any money.

     That summer Grandpa and Uncle Ed talked and worried about my future more than I did.  Grandpa had a high regard for education, though he had had only two days in school himself.  As a first grader he had stood on a stump in the school yard, boasting about his "high standing," when another boy knocked him off the stump.  His brother Frank then bested the other boy who went home and told his father.  That father then came complaining to Grandpa's father, who said if all they did at school was to fight they should stay home.

     Grandpa did not learn to read until after he had married his second wife who taught him.  Our mother was around fifteen and going to school when her mother died.  Grandpa was criticized for hiring a housekeeper and letting his daughter go to school when they thought she should have stayed home and kept his house for him.  Mother had gone to Stevens Point Normal School and became a teacher.  Now Grandpa insisted that I not be deprived of my chance for education.

     It was decided that I should go to Central State Teachers College, and Grandpa would go with Aunt Ada to live with her and Uncle Ed in St. Louis, but first she had to go there to prepare for his coming.  She would go with Uncle Ed when he went to start a new school year.  Margaret had bought a used car, and would take care of Grandpa morning and evening while driving each day to her school.

     Margaret made arrangements for my housing in Stevens Point, and secured a roommate for me.  From the start of school until Thanksgiving, she drove back and forth to the school she taught, taking care of Grandpa morning and night, while Uncle John stayed with him during the day.  During Thanksgiving vacation Aunt Ada came back from St. Louis and  managed to get Grandpa in her car to take him down to Missouri to live in an apartment with her and Uncle Ed.  He remained in the car all the way from Almond to St. Louis, Mo. and reached Uncle Ed's apartment.

     Through the college dean's office I got a part time job taking care of a baby and doing housework.  It didn't work out.  I had had very little experience with either occupation.  Toward Christmas I picked up a job at McClelland's Five & Dime clerking behind the kitchen ware counter.

     I usually went back to our home in Almond Friday evenings and came back to college late Sundays.  Around the first of December Uncle John was in the hospital in Stevens Point.  Margaret asked me to stay in Stevens Point over the week end and visit him in the hospital.  Sunday afternoon, December 7, 1941, I went to visit him.  He was greatly excited.  As soon as I entered his room he announced that we were in war.  In war with Japan at that!  The Japs had attacked somewhere called Pearl Harbor.  He told me all that he had heard about it.  I listened dutifully, not believing a single word he said.  I kept thinking, "Boy, his tall tales are getting more unbelievable than ever."

     Toward the end of the afternoon I went back to my rooming place.  As I was going up the stairs one of the other girls called to me, asking if I had heard that the Japs had attacked our base in Hawaii.  I stared at her.  Was all that story really true?  Not a figment of Uncle John's imagination?  It took time for me to adjust my thinking, to accept the thought that United States had indeed been attacked.

     I was rooming with Marie in a private house.  Six of us girls lived in the upstairs bedrooms and had our own kitchen facilities two flights down, in the basement.  The owner was a train engineer who often called his wife long distance.  To save money he called station to station rather than person to person, and expected only his wife to answer the phone.  For this reason we were forbidden to answer the phone at any time.

     One Friday afternoon the phone rang persistently.  The landlady was gone; none of us girls dared to answer the phone.  Marie asked me to go home with her that evening and go to a dance with her that night.  Her father would take me home Saturday morning.  Even though I was still a wallflower I enjoyed the evening.

     When I reached home the next morning I received the bad news.  Grandpa had slept away during the night and was being brought back to Almond for burial.  They had tried to reach me the day before but no one had answered the telephone.  I had gone to a public dance while my beloved Grandpa was lying lifeless!  Uncle Ed brought the casket home on the train.  Visitation and funeral was held in our house.

     Before leaving for St. Louis Grandpa had talked to me, saying that he loved Margaret and I, and that he wanted to be with us, but that he had more loved ones on the other side, some of whom he had not seen for a very long, long time.  He would like to see them too.  I thought of his words as I looked down at him in the coffin, and I was happy for him, as a person is happy for a loved one who has received something he desired.  He had gone to "a better land I know."  I learned later that some of the neighbors considered me a "hard-hearted Harriet."  "You'd think she would have showed some sorrow for him after all he had done for her!"  Though I did not cry for him then, for years afterward I would often cry in the night for his presence, but I always understood that I cried for myself, and not for his sake who had gone to meet and be with his other loved ones.

     It was a bitterly cold windy January day when Grandpa was laid in his grave.  Uncle Ed, in spite of the weather and against the wishes of Aunt Ada, took off his hat as a sign of respect for his father.  Both he and Grandpa's sister, Victoria, caught colds that day in the cemetery from which they never recovered.  Aunt Victoria passed away a month after Grandpa and Uncle Ed followed two months after Grandpa.  They too are buried in the East German Cemetery.

     Toward the end of my freshman year I began to consider a summer occupation.  For two summers, Margaret had worked for Mrs. Kutchin who ran The Maplewood Summer Resort in Green Lake.  I wrote to Mrs. Kutchin asking for a summer job.  She hired me without an interview because she had been so satisfied with my sister Margaret's work.  In the summer of 1942 I became the head dining room girl.

     After the dishes were done one evening, Emily, one of the other girls working for Maplewood, told me she had heard that the Maplewood pier to the lake had just been put in, and she wanted to see it.  We went down together.  Charlie who sometimes worked as a handy man for Maplewood had installed the pier.  He had just been gathering his tools, when his good friend, Vic, was passing, recognized Charlie's car and stopped to chat.  These two men were on the pier when we came.  Emily and Vic became quite friendly, Charlie and I quite passive, as neither one of us was known as being outgoing.

     I noticed Charlie's carpenter level and picked it up, intending to test the levelness of the railing on the pier which he had just erected.  Charlie thought I meant to throw it in the lake which is ten feet deep at that spot.  He lunged for it.  I told him I only wanted to see how level the railing was.  He guarded it while I placed it on the rail, which was indeed only a slight hair's breadth off.  Charlie was surprised that a girl knew how to read a level or even knew of what use it was!

     Vic asked Emily to go down town to the Hitching Post for a soda.  The Hitching Post was an ice cream parlor in Green Lake owned by Art Chambers.  Vic and Emily wanted Charlie and I to go with them but I refused.  I didn't know either fellow and wished not to trust a stranger.  The next day I learned that Charlie was a brother to John who was a full time worker at Maplewood.  The cook told me that they were good, honorable people.

     Charlie was a farm laborer who often escorted his sister and her friends to dances or other places of entertainment.  Western music was very popular at the time, with such songs as "The Yellow Rose of Texas."  One song that Charlie and Vic seemed to like went, "I've got spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle, as I go riding merrily along; and they sing, Oh ain't you glad you're single; and that song ain't so very far from wrong."

     Charlie had sent to Sears Roebuck and bought an accordion through their catalog.  It came with instructions.  Charlie had dabbled with it some but never learned to play it very well.  Charlie and Vic both praised "the single life," singing "oh ain't you glad you're single."  Both Charlie and Vic were single men, but Vic had had a steady girl who "had done him wrong."  Vic gave the song a more bitter twist than Charlie did.

     I received a letter from my good friend, Mary Margaret, who had moved to Dayton, Ohio.  She was in Wisconsin visiting her grandmother, and would like to see me, but didn't know if she would be able to get a ride to Green Lake.  I dearly wanted to see her again, but didn't know how I could get there.  Emily suggested that Charlie wouldn't mind taking me.  I asked him, saying I would gladly pay him for it.  He told me his insurance would not hold if he hired out his car, so I let the matter drop.  As it turned out Mary Margaret did get a ride to Green Lake and we had several happy hours together.  Afterward Charlie told me if he had known how badly I wanted to go he would gladly have taken me gratis.  It was because I had offered him money which he thought would have cancelled his insurance coverage in case of an accident that he refused.

     Emily and Vic wanted to date, but Emily wanted to double date only.  She worked on me while Vic worked on Charlie.  The first time I agreed to double date, Vic came alone.  He said Charlie was plowing his mother's garden.  They asked me if I wanted to go along with them but I declined saying, "Three is a crowd."

     A dance was coming up.  The Maplewood girls wanted to go.  In the end Vic and Charlie agreed to drive their cars.  The two cooks and six or seven of us girls piled in the two cars for a Dutch treat outing.  I just happened to get in Charlie's car which followed Vic's car.  By the time we piled out and got in the ticket line Charlie was last in the line, I was second to last.  As I was getting out my money Charlie reached around me, plunked down enough for a couple to include my fare, and we walked through the door together.  He promptly disappeared and I saw no more of him until it was time to go home.  Well, I was used to being a wallflower.  Vic asked me for a dance or two.  Charlie's brother John came and sat next to me, talking to the cooks and me much of the time, but he didn't ask me to dance either.  Such was my introduction to the ways of the Shikoski brothers, one paid my way in, the other sat and talked with me most of the evening, but neither one asked me to dance.

     One evening when it was time for me to wash the Hotel dinner dishes, Mrs. Kutchin came and told me that she would wash them for me.  She also told me that Charlie was in the laundry room and would enjoy some company.  This surprised me, but I accepted it without questioning.  I went out to talk to Charlie who was refinishing a dining room table for Mrs. Kutchin.  He kept working at it for quite some time that evening.  I found out later that Charlie had complained about the tedious work, asking Mrs. Kutchin if the table was worth the work, and she, having noticed his interest in me, used this strategy of sending me out to entertain him in order to keep him working on what she wanted him to do.

     Eventually Charlie and I starting double dating with Vic and Mary Ellen, and a little later just the two of us went out together.

     Gradually Charlie was attracted to another song being sung at the time.  It was, "Give me one dozen roses, put my heart in beside them and send them to the one I love.  There may be orange blossoms later, kind of think that there will, 'cause he's done something to me and my heart just won't stand still."

     One night after being out together, Charlie parked the car under some trees near the cottage where I stayed.  It was dark, but some moonlight filtered through the leaves forming mottled patterns, making things look strange.  Our talk got rather serious.  I told him I would never marry him because he was Catholic and that I would never consent to having my children raised Catholic.  Then I looked at him.  He was sitting in the driver's seat, facing straight ahead, and looking out through the windshield.  To me, in that strange, wavering, mottled light, he looked like Jesus!  A very, very sad Jesus!  At the sight I fled from the car, slammed the door, and ran into the cottage where I was staying.  As I prepared for bed I thought, "Well that's the last of that!  I'll never see him again."

     But the very next evening he showed up outside the cottage and asked me if I wanted to go to the movies with him.  I accepted.  He was good company even if I didn't like his religion.  Our relationship continued.

     The end of the summer came.  I returned to my second year at Central State Teacher's College in Stevens Point.  Charlie had received notice from his draft board.  In order to fill their quotas they had kept lowering standards as to age and status.  They were then drafting 38 year olds, and Charlie was 38.  He began talking about "pushing up daisies" in some foreign land.  He left for training in October.  Before leaving for the army Charlie had come to Almond or Stevens Point several times to visit me.  On his last trip he had left his prayer book with me.

     I was rooming at a different home than I had the year before.  Betty, Arden's sister, who was "just as fat" as I, was my roommate.  That fall the male population of the college was considerably lower.  As the popular song voiced it, "They're either too young or too old."  Speculation was rampant about any male who was left.  What was wrong with him that he wasn't in the army, or at least in a defence job?

     At the beginning of Christmas vacation I returned to our home in Almond.  Margaret was there.  She asked me if I would be Santa Claus for her rural school's Christmas party.  Me?  Santa Claus?  No way!  But Margaret was serious, saying, "Harriet, don't you turn me down too!"  Then she told me, she had asked every father who had a child enrolled in her school (and a few other men too) to be Santa Claus.  They had all turned her down, so she announced to the school that Santa was too busy that year and simply could not make their party.  After that announcement the mothers descended upon her complaining about not having a Santa.

     Margaret had the Santa Claus suit ready for me.  She asked me to go out to the woodshed behind the school to put it on, and come into the school when she signaled me.  It was cold in that shed.  I could not put the Santa suit on over my winter jacket, so I left the jacket off.  The suit was light and seemed to have no warmth at all.  At the signal I entered the school ringing the sleigh bells and calling out, "Ho, Ho, Ho."  I tried to talk to the little children.  They turned away from me and clung to their mothers.  It shocked me!  Never had I ever experienced anyone turning away from me in fear!  I made a very lousy Santa.  Margaret came to the rescue, diplomatically soothing the way, calming things down, and turning a bad situation into something less disastrous.  The presents were distributed and I was glad to get out of there and Ho, Ho, Ho myself out of the schoolroom into the shed and into my winter jacket.

     38 year olds were not working out as expected.  They did not have the stamina of younger men.  The army lowered its standards and started drafting seventeen and a half-year olds, promising not to send them into combat until they were eighteen.  38 year olds already in the army could get a discharge if they had a defence job waiting for them.  Farming was a defence job.  Charlie's sister and her husband who were renting her parents' farm signed papers that they had a job for him.  Charlie received an honorable discharge in February 1943.  He intimated to me long afterward that the main reason he asked for a discharge was because he was afraid of losing me if he continued to serve in the army.

     Early in January my mother died.  Her body was brought to Almond for burial in Grandpa's cemetery lot.  Among her few possessions that were sent with her were some still unopened Christmas presents.  A woman seemingly alone and forgotten.  I felt sorry, very sorry, for that woman, but I felt no personal grief. 

     Mother's funeral was on Monday.  Next day on Tuesday my Physics instructor sprung a rare test on our class.  He had announced the test the Friday  before, but I had not been in class on Friday or Monday because of Mother's funeral, and so had been unaware that a test would be held.  My spirit sank!  How could I pass this test?  The instructor, who had received my absence excuse signed by the Dean of Women, came up to me and asked if I had had time to study over the week-end.  When I answered in the negative, he told me to use my textbook and answer as many questions as I could.  He gave me a decent grade on the test.

     Early in 1943 the 97th College Training Detachment of the United States Army Air Corp set up head quarters in Central State Teachers College.  The girl's dormitory was taken over to house the men.  College professors and classrooms were shared by both the army and the college.  This was especially felt on the math and science departments.  I was taking Analytic Geometry.  To accommodate the army our class period was changed to another time, namely to 2:10 p.m.  Our teacher asked for a show of hands of those who had a conflicting class at that time, and asked us to see the registrar about resolving the conflict.  I raised my hand as I had a conflict with a Phys Ed class, which had so many sections that finding another time period was no problem.  The new time schedule would take place on Monday.

     On the Sunday before the change I took the Greyhound bus down to Green Lake.  Gas rationing was in effect and Charlie did not have enough gas to drive to Stevens Point.  According to the bus schedule, if he took the bus to Stevens Point and back between doing farm chores, we would have only about two hours together, but we could have a much longer visit if I rode to Green Lake Sunday morning and came back Sunday evening.  Charlie supplied me with plenty of money for the bus fares.  That Sunday evening the bus pulled out just as we were arriving at the station.  I had missed the bus!  I had to wait for the next scheduled one.

     I arrived in Stevens Point around midnight and had about fourteen blocks to walk to my rooming house.  I had walked three or four blocks when I was intercepted by a college professor whom I knew by sight but had never had as a teacher.  He recognized me as a student and wanted to know how come I was out walking alone at that time of the night.  After admitting that I had missed a bus he insisted on walking me home for my protection.  I would have preferred to walk alone.

     I had an 8:15 class the next morning which I did manage to make after a few hours of sleep.  At noon I thought I would rather get an hour's sleep than eat.  It was after two o'clock when I woke up, too late to make that math class at 2:10!  I turned over and slept some more.  The next morning I got the message to report to my math teacher.  Because I had raised my hand indicating that I had a conflict, and had also missed the first class at the new time, he thought I had dropped the course.  I was too embarrassed to explain my absence, so I had to endure his lengthy harangue about not wasting my abilities, but making the best of them.  I continued that math class.

     A notice was posted on the college bulletin board that there was an opening for a Physics lab assistant to help with army classes.  The position sounded like something I would like to do, but immediately rejected as something beyond my abilities.  One Friday morning I received the message that the Head of the Physics Department wanted to see me.  He told me about the opening for a Physics lab assistant.  When I expressed my doubts about my ability to handle it, he assured me that he thought I would qualify.  I told him I would take the job.  He advised me not to decide so quickly.  I should go home for the week end and discuss it with my parents.  I told him I had no parents, only a sister.  I repeated that I would take the job.  Again he told me not to be so hasty.  I should go home and talk it over with my sister.  By that time I realized he didn't think I should decide immediately.  I agreed to go home to discus it, but inside I already had decided to accept it.

     I should have audited an army class before showing up to assist at one myself, but no one told me I should, and I didn't have the sense to think of such a thing on my own.  I had been told the same system used for college classes would be used for the army, and I should be prepared to explain this system to the men.  The first class I was supposed to help was scheduled for 12:30 p.m. a time when no college classes were scheduled.  No one was around when I arrived at the lab.  I took another look around to see where all the equipment and materials were.

     When I heard tramping in the lower level, I went out into the hall.  My supervising instructor was no where around.  The men started up the stairs.  I went back into the lab.  They gathered in the hallway outside the laboratory door.  I passed into the teacher's office.  They entered the classroom.  I went into the hall from the teacher's room, listening for the footsteps of the instructor.  No instructor!  I peeked through the door into the lab.  The men were standing before their chairs, waiting.

     With a last look wondering where the instructor was, I walked into the lab.  The men raised their hands in a salute.  I stared.  A civilian does not return a salute from the military.  Again I told myself, a civilian does not return a salute from the military.  That much army protocol I heard about, and that was it.  But if I did not return the salute how could I bring them out of it?  How was I supposed to do anything with these zombies?  Then one soldier spoke, "Squadron A, Flight one, reporting for class ma'am."  Ma'am?  Is that what they were going to call me?  No one ever addressed me as ma'am before.  I really didn't care what they would call me, but how could I get them to put their arms down out of the salute?  The speaker continued, "Aviation Student             is in the dispensary receiving medical attention."  I never heard of that guy before, much less care if he was receiving medical attention.  "All others present."  The arms came down out of salute and the men found seats.  The speaker, whom I later learned was a "Flight Lieutenant," came up to me with a list of their names, pointing out which one was absent, and asked me to sign the roll call.  It was then that I first realized roll call had already been taken.

     Still no instructor!  I began explaining the laboratory procedure, got them to form groups of two to work together on experiments, and check out experiment equipment.  I tried to answer their questions.  The instructor who was supposed to guide me finally came in, looked around, and told me he was caught up in an important meeting, said I was doing just fine and left again.  I was on my way to becoming a Physics lab assistant.

     As part of my employment I was given the smallest desk in an office that contained three other desks.  Two of the desks were used by two of the new Physics teachers who had been hired by the College to teach the Army boys.  The other one was used by the Head of the Chemistry Department, who was now pressed into teaching a Physics class as well as coordinating civilian and army requirements.

     Inside the door of our office was a wall telephone which serviced all four desks.  As a mere assistant I had no need to use the phone.  I had seldom used a phone; we had not had one in our home in Almond, and our house mother had not let us use her phone, and I was uncomfortable using one.  When the head of the Chemistry Department found out about that, he insisted on my answering all incoming calls.  It was not until after I was married, having our own phone, that I felt comfortable using one.

     Our office was away from the classrooms.  While decision making was not done in our office, some of those engaged in making the decisions often gathered in our office and might make remarks as to what was happening.  Our office had several windows looking out on a narrow side street.  Directly across the street from our office was a private house where Lieut. Beebe and his wife rented a room.  If the Lieutenant wished to give his wife a message he would come in our office, open a window and whistle.  Upon hearing his whistle his wife would come to her open window and they would holler back and forth across the street.  Technically he did not leave "base" nor did she come on "base" but they could talk to each other, and relay such messages as what time she should expect him to see her.  Because of this arrangement he was often in our office, and would exchange comments with others who were present about what was happening in the decision-making meetings.

     One day a girl who worked in the main office of the college was talking with some of us.  She began telling us that she knew a "military secret."  I was not particular anxious to know a "military secret," but she wanted to confide it to someone.  It shocked me when she told me what time a new class would be arriving.  I had already known that information for almost a week, but had never regarded it as a "military secret."  Yet if spies wanted to sabotage our men, what better opportunity for them than when the soldiers were on the move.  I tried to remember if I had said anything that could have been picked up and passed on to an unfriendly source.  It made me much more conscious of the seriousness of what was happening in all our lives.

     "Physics" as I use the word here does not mean the same as "Physics" as it is used today.  "Physics" meant the study of mechanics, light, heat, sound and electricity.  "Nuclear Physics?"  What was that?  Never heard of it.

     What we were teaching included such things as measurements, airplane headings, and vectors, among other things.  A problem might be: a pilot's destination is so many miles at 279 degrees, the wind velocity and direction is given as well as the pilot's expected air speed; what should his heading be?  A problem could involve falling objects, friction or the mechanical efficiency of different pulley arrangements.

     Text books were outdated.  One book gave a formula meant to figure the lifting force of an airplane.  It included such factors as the weight of the airplane, its air speed, the angle between the wing and the ground, and the difference in the length of the air flow over the wing to the length of the air flow under the wing.  We were told by the better informed that according to this formula the B29 planes could not lift off the ground, yet these same B29s were daily bombing Germany.  Such was the lag between technology and the available textbooks.

     I was the wrong gender for the position.  The only reason girl assistants were hired was because of the shortage of civilian men.  Many men were in military service, or if not in service, had taken defense jobs.  Some aviation students thought they could get a good grade out of a female assistant by buttering her up and working on her ego.  Others would not ask for the help they needed because they didn't want anyone to think that they were trying to finagle a grade out of her.  Others didn't believe a female was capable of learning any Physics.  These problems were not eased by the fact that I was close in age to these men.

     There was one other girl lab assistant.  It did not help me that a rumor circulated that she would give an "A" to any aviation student who would take her out on three average dates, or to one formal date such as a prom.

     Some men thought a girl couldn't know anything at all about Physics, like the fellow who couldn't get his electric motor to run.  I told him it was because he had not removed the insulation from the wires at their connection points.  He should remove the insulation and scrape the wires until they were shiny before screwing them down.  His reaction?  Wasn't it just like a woman to think she could make a motor run by making a wire clean and shiny!  The only way I could instruct him was to ask a fellow student to explain his problem to him.  He never accepted any information from me.

     The army insisted on numerical grades, anything from 0 to 100.  I had a hard time evaluating write-ups on experiments, i.e. deciding whether this or that written report of an experiment they had conducted, deserved an 85 or an 87.  Furthermore the army insisted on dividing the members of a class into a top third, a middle third and a lower third.  If two students had the same grade average that happened to be right on the dividing line, then one would be listed in the top third, while the other must be listed as in the middle third.  It seemed so terribly unfair to me.

     For one class that was being shipped out, the instructor for whom I was assisting questioned the grade I had given to one of the fellows.  I had ranked him in the top third (either second or third highest in the entire class of 35.)  The instructor had placed him in the bottom third.  When the instructor asked me about it, I told him I thought the fellow was lazy and didn't always do the required work, but that he did seem to know the material assigned.  The instructor made no direct accusation of my favoritism, but I felt he implied it.  It seemed exceptionally irksome to me because I really didn't like that particular student.

     Several weeks later when the results came back from Santa Ana, the army processing center, this fellow was the only one out of at least 70 men who had passed through the classification center that day who had passed all the navigator tests.  When the instructor read this report to me, he questioned the ability of this particular student to accomplish this feat.  He looked up the grade that he himself had recorded for him.  Finding him in the bottom third, he looked in the records to see what grade I had given him.  It seemed to suddenly strike him that this was that same fellow whom he had thought I had overly favored.  He immediately dropped the subject, but I felt vindicated.

     Discipline in class was not a problem.  If a disturbance occurred the instructor would look over the heads of the men to the distant wall and call "at ease!" a reminder that they were under military discipline.  If that didn't work, the teacher could look directly at the perpetrator and bark "at ease!"  At either point the flight lieutenant could, and probably would, give the student one or more "gigs."  He was required to give a minimum number of "gigs," which had to be erased by some sort of punishment.  KP was not an option.  Civilians were hired to cook for the detachment.  A common punishment was so many laps walked around the tennis court during "free" time.  Rumor had it that one fellow from Wausau (one of the very few Wisconsinites in the 97th) could have walked home if he had been allowed to walk along the highway instead of around the tennis court.

     The aviation students came from greatly varied backgrounds.  One fellow in my class was an eighth grade drop-out who had left school to help support his widowed mother.  He valiantly struggled to keep up with his studies (only to be washed out in Santa Ana because of color blindness.)  Another fellow had passed Physics classes in UCLA.  He was bored stiff in my class, except for an occasional time when he would ask me questions just to trip me up to show off his superior knowledge.  Some men were barely out of high school, still adjusting to army life, while one class had a high percentage of men who had served in Alaska before transferring to the Army Air Corp.  They were the ones who sported an array of ribbons on their chest when they were in dress uniform instead of fatigues.

     The men were not above pulling a joke when they could.  One day one of them asked me about the Throckmorton Theory.  They acted surprised when I told them I didn't remember anything about it.  I promised to look it up and get back to them the next day.  Of all the physics books I looked through, it was not to be found.  The next day they tried to tell me what they thought it was about, a very garbled account.  That night I again tried every lead I could in the college library.  When I again told them I couldn't find any explanation of the Throckmorton Theory they all laughed and I realized they had sent me on a wild goose chase.

     The same fellow who asked about the Throckmorton Theory told me he was one of triplets.  Those around him laughed.  I decided he would not fool me again.  He was not a triplet.  This man left my class when he developed appendicitis.  Upon his release from the hospital, the 97th put him back into a later class, rather than keep him in the class I was helping.  I did not see him again until I attended a USO dance.  The fellow started to pass me.  I greeted him.  He hesitated, looked me over, briefly returned the greeting and passed on.  I noticed he must have put on weight in the hospital, and was surprised he hadn't joked with me as he had so often done before.  A little later the man came up to me, joked familiarly, and I decided that no, he had not gained weight.  A short time later someone asked me, "Did you hear?  One of his triplet brothers showed up."  It was true!  He was a triplet, and I had at first seen his triplet, who had no idea who I was.  The only difference between them that I could see was that the newest arrival was a little heavier.  They had volunteered for the Army Air Corp at the same time, but the army, in their "wisdom," had separated them; but later, not having kept track of them, had then separately transferred them to the 97th.  The brothers did not know they would be reunited until they ran into each other at the mess hall.  Their other triplet had joined the Navy Air Corp.

     One day several of my students came up to me and named two classmates, asking me which of the two did I think was the most handsome.  I refused to choose.  For several days they were persistent in spite of my refusals.  Finally they told me about the big bet that was going on.  It seems the whole class was involved in determining who I would pick as the most handsome man in the class.  They told me I had to choose!  They were not successful in breaking me down, and I never told them that if I had chosen the most handsome fellow in the class, it would not have been either one of the two they named; I thought one looked too rugged to be handsome, and the other looked too soft.

     It was hard to find qualified physics teachers, especially as the need of them for the 97th occurred in the midst of the normal school year.  One of the physics teachers who had recently been hired was Art Chambers, the fellow who had been running "The Hitching Post" in Green Lake.  When he heard that I was dating Charlie, he made the remark that Charlie often had a car full of girls he was running around with, and implied that it would be best for me not to get involved with him.  The girls that Charlie ran around with were his sister Dorothy and family friends.  Charlie chauffeured them around but spent much of his time cat-napping in the car.

     My job description did not include lecturing, but with the shortage of physics instructors, and the overload of those on hand, I was sometimes asked to pinch-hit.

     One day my instructor told me to lecture the next day on the turn-and-bank indicator of an airplane.  I thought he was kidding me!  He explained that he had a conflict, the class was due to be shipped out, and if I did not give the lecture the men would not receive it.  I told him I knew nothing about the instrument.  To guide me he gave me a book with a chapter describing the instrument.  I took the book home and studied like I have never studied anything else before or since.  Several sentences that I did not understand, I memorized so I would not mis-state them. I copied a drawing from the book on to the blackboard, using it to illustrate what I was talking about.  I finished the lecture before the end of the period.  Hands were raised.  They expected to be allowed to ask questions.  I wanted to avoid questions by keeping on talking, but realized I was unable to summarize the lecture, or say anything meaningful unless I began again at the beginning and repeated everything just the same way I had said it before.

     Then I got a brain storm.  If I called on the dumbest ones who raised their hands, they would ask the simplest questions.  I did manage to answer several questions before I was asked, what instrument was below and to the right of the turn-and-bank indicator on the instrument panel of the Cub trainer planes which these men were learning to fly.  I answered with a simple, "I don't know" and tried to go on to the next question.  The questioner thought I had not understood his description and insisted on expanding and enhancing his query.  The class bell rang signalling the end of the period.  Pupils are not always the only ones "saved by the bell," sometimes it is the teacher.

     However, instead of leaving, the questioner came up to me to continue the discussion.  I then had to tell him plainly that I had never been in an airplane, or seen the instrument panel of a Cub trainer, and I had no idea what kind of instrument he was talking about.  I don't know if he believed me.  He had to hurry and catch up with the other men before he would be missed.

     I was lecturing one day when I became aware of a subtle change among the men.  Then I noticed sitting in the back row was Capt. Filipo, commanding officer of the whole 97th.  He was listening to me lecture!  I stopped in mid sentence.  I tried to go on but forgot what I was saying.  I almost got back on track when I glanced up at the men.  They were all sitting before me grinning from ear to ear.  They wouldn't have dared grin if Capt. Filipo had been facing them instead of sitting behind them.  They must have known when he had come into the room.  I told myself to say something, anything, but could think of nothing at all to say.  Finally, Capt. Filipo got up and walked out before I recovered and managed to continue the lecture.

     After the period bell rang the flight lieutenant came up to me and asked if I knew that Capt. Filipo had not completely closed the door when he left.  He had left it slightly ajar and had stood out in the hall listening to me until just a few minuets before the bell rang.  I assured him I didn't blame Capt. Filipo.  It was part of his job to know what was going on, and what I hadn't known hadn't bothered me.

     Just before one of my classes was being shipped out one of the men came up to me and said he was sorry he hadn't listened to me sooner.  I asked him what he meant.  He told me that when he arrived at the 97th and heard that they had a girl assistant, he was very disgusted with the army.  He thought all she would be good for would be to sit up in front and look pretty.  He said he had found out too late that he could learn more from me than he could from the regular instructor.  It made me think that it is not always the most knowledgeable person who can teach best, but sometimes those who have only a little more learning than their pupil can be of more help to him by being closer to his level of thinking.

     Up until the end of my Sophomore year I had taken care of only one class at a time.  When summer vacation began and my college classes ended I was assigned to three different classes, taught by two different instructors.  The pay was $50.00 a month per class.  I was receiving $150.00 a month and paying $7.00 a week for a room with kitchen privileges.

     In the fall I enrolled in more college classes.  That year, being my Junior year, I continued serving as a lab assistant, changed roommates and began boarding.  I was paying $10.00 a week for room and board.  When I moved in with Alice.  She had a rosary lying on the dresser.  I had never heard of a rosary and did not know what it was.  I looked at it thinking it was a string of beads to hang around the neck, and thought she had a queer sense of fashion.  I soon learned that in that family, the rosary was said every evening.  They all, even my roommate who was a college student, prayed in the Polish language.  Where before I had done light house keeping, preparing my own meals such as they were, I now boarded and learned about meatless Fridays and other Catholic customs.

     My house-mother, who later became my God-mother, introduced me to the local priest as one desiring to learn more about the Catholic religion.  He had no current classes for adult instruction at that time, so he arranged private instructions for me.  I met with him once a week as his sole pupil.

     In October I became engaged to Charlie.  He had strong religious beliefs, and I realized that though he loved and desired me, yet he would never give up his faith for me.  He did not put any pressure on me to become Catholic in the beginning, quoting "Once a Catholic, always a Catholic."  He believed that a person who confessed the Catholic faith, but then fell away from believing and confessing that faith could never be "saved," but if he did not become Catholic he still had a chance of being "saved" by accepting that faith.

     About the time that we became engaged, Charlie's brother, John, spoke to him about buying their father's farm.  It had been leased to their sister, Mary, and her husband.  Possession could not be taken until the end of the lease on October 1.  The papers were signed and the two men were looking forward to working their own farm.

     When the priest asked if I had been baptized, I told him that my mother had once told me that she had not baptized me, though I understood that Robert and Margaret had been baptized.  He asked me why she would not have baptized me if she had baptized her other children.  He quizzed me on many things about which I had no sure knowledge.  Later, at one of our meetings, he informed me that he had received answers to some inquiries he had made.  The orphanage, a government institution, had replied that their record had listed my father as a Presbyterian and my mother as a Methodist, but they had no record about a baptism.  It was the first time I learned that my father had been Presbyterian.  The priest also received a letter from the Methodist church in Almond, stating that a fire had destroyed their records for the time period including my birth, so they could not state whether or not I had been baptized by that church.  The priest decided to baptize me conditionally.

     In February, 1944, I proclaimed belief in the Holy Catholic Church.  I made a sacramental confession receiving conditional absolution (in case I had been baptized and needed absolution) and received conditional baptism (in case I had not yet received baptism.)  It was not until he was ready to baptize me that the priest told me "Harriet" was not a saints' name, and he proposed to name me "Mary."  My god-mother asked him to use her name, which he did, baptizing me with the name, "Frances."  In March I was confirmed with others, mostly school children, using the name Louise.  In May I was married.  I had received five of the Church's seven sacraments in less than four months.

     I finished the classes I had signed up for the first semester of my Junior year, but dropped out of college at the end of that semester.  I continued a few more months as an assistant for the 97th before returning to Almond to prepare for my marriage.

     Neither Charlie's family nor mine approved the marriage whole heartily.  There was close to twenty years difference in our ages.  Our religious and cultural backgrounds were so different.  I had two and a half years of college to his eighth grade education.  Friends as well as relatives tried to discourage us.

     I wanted to be married in Almond and contacted the mission priest there.  In our interview with him, he pointed out the problems that might arise because of the difference in our ages.  I had already heard all this many times before and while I didn't express myself, I wanted to tell him, "If you are going to marry us anyway, shut up and proceed.  If you are not going to, tell us so right now, so we can decide what to do."

     Margaret had wanted me to wait to get married until after school was out so she could first conclude her teaching obligations.  After that she would have more time to get ready to prepare for our celebration.  But Charlie had wanted us to get married before lent.  The Church did not approve marriages during lent.  We had postponed the marriage until after lent, and felt it had been delayed long enough.  We tied the knot May 20, 1944.

     Margaret was my only brides maid.  Charlie's brother John, who was his best man, drove from Green Lake to Almond, bringing his parents and Charlie.  They arrived at our house before I was dressed for the wedding.  They caught me wearing an old goofy red dress that I ditched when I put on the wedding dress.  All my other clothes had been packed.

     Rain fell in the morning but stopped before the ceremony.  We had a private lunch afterward in our home in Almond just for the immediate family.  After lunch John drove us to Stevens Point where we had our wedding picture taken.  We went to my God-mother's place to change clothes, then John left Charlie and me at the bus station.  Charlie had no car at the time.  For a honeymoon we decided to take the first bus out of Stevens Point regardless of which direction it was going.  It went north so we got tickets to go to Wausau, where we registered at a hotel.  Early Monday morning we took the bus back to Green Lake.

     "Ain't you glad you're single" for us had changed to "Give me one dozen roses, put my heart in beside them, and send them to the one I love.  There may be orange blossoms later."

     The "orange blossoms" had come.