Life and Times of E.O.B.

(Written in 1976 – 1978, maybe…)

 

“For as long as I can remember, I have gone to sleep at night thinking of a story or a poem.  Some poems I have written down.  I am sure my life has not been as colorful as Dad’s, but to me it is a medley of joy, sadness, wondering, loving, and nostalgia.  (The latter, especially lately, with the loss of Grandma Osthoff – Mama, June 13, 1975.)

 

My very first memories are of the farm we called the ‘Shepherd’s’ place, on the South St. Vrain, south of Lyons, CO.  The house is gone, burned about 1940, and it sat a little south of the large house which is there now.  To me it was a pretty house, though I think we had no running water, and I know our toilet was outside.  (It had one small and one large bedroom, and parents slept in the parlor area.  So many houses then had a large living room, with columns and bookcases separating it form the parlor.)  I remember the bucket of water, which sat on the counter, with the diaper in it.  Also, we used coal oil light, and a heater in the living room – a coal stove in the kitchen.  No one heated bedrooms in 1918, and in winter we often took a wrapped heated brick or flat iron to bed with us.  I was about 3 ½ when I began to recall, but the things I remember may not be in the proper sequence.  I remember the end of WWI, and we may or may not have climbed the slope south of our place to look back on Lyons and see why all the bells were ringing – church and fire bells.  That was November 1918.  It seemed to be a very big day for all, even in a small town.  (Helen says we took big tubs and pans out in the yard and banged on them.)

 

Don’t know how many acres we had, but most of the land north of the house, as I’ve showed you, was in thick forest, where the cows and horses grazed – Lots of grass, a stream, and our own mushroom ground.  Papa had a penchant for raising fruit and vegetables, though we nearly always had corn, alfalfa, and barley or wheat fields.

 

One occasion I seem to recall very vividly.  Several neighbors were bringing wheat to be threshed, and the noisy old machine was set up just across the lane north of our place.  There were lots of men and children around, and I think probably the women were cooking (inside and out) for everyone.  The youngest Shepherd girl, about a year younger than I, always ‘put on airs’, and acted as if she were much better than anyone else (I think several Shepherds had TB, and died quite young.  Probably the little girl was delicate).  About five or six of us were allowed to get into the large wagon into which the grain was streaming, all gold and clean and exciting – no hulls or sticks, kind of slippery.  We were all prancing about, having fun, keeping out of the way of the falling grain (it shot out of a large metal spout at one end of the truck).  Suddenly, the little Shepherd [girl] started crying and wailing.  She’d lost a shoe – a brand new patent leather shoe!  Why she was wearing new ones and good too, we never knew.  All the machinery had to shut down – and it was evening and the last day we could use the machines.  Papa was so upset – everyone hunted for the shoe.  As far as I know, it was never found.  She may have lost it on the ground some place earlier and just noticed.  Mama was unhappy because ‘the work must be finished’, and by trying to be so fancy, the little girl had stopped it.  Also, the Shepherds were very poor, and were known to receive some kind of ‘aid’ from the town

 

or county.  So what were they doing with the red patent leather shoes?  Don’t know what form ‘aid’ took in those days, but it carried a sad stigma.  The Shepherds lived east of us, down the lane north of us, and also had a large family.

 

Mama had a super abundance of pride – It could be almost her ruling trait.

 

We loved the ‘forest’ and special times – to me, at least – were when several of us could go play in it.  Helen made herself a really nice ‘stick horse’ – named it Hector, and no one else could use it.  One day I finally convinced her she should make one for Janice and me.  They were a treat, and we cavorted and galloped in style, but had to have different names for them.  This had to be when Helen was quite young, as Papa found an old, slow, gentle horse for us (Dick) to ride (pictures, 3 girls on a horse, and 2 boys).

 

Herbert, Helen, and even Janice got in on some field work summers.  Papa had always said that onions were the best paying field crop.  He really raised nice ones – but OH!  the work involved.  No tractors for us – all plows, harrows, discs, and planters drawn by horse.  Some of the machinery we owned, some was part of rental.  (We sharecropped on all our farms.  Cash available was not enough to buy land.)  The onions had to be weeded, hoed, thinned by hand (a picture taken at harvest time shows ten onions covering almost a yard).  I guess I was too young to work, but Janice says she still remembers how she hated the onion work!  It is all very sad, because no matter how hard Papa worked, we never made anything because the prices were so low, marketing uncertain, and everyone had a backyard garden.  They were especially prevalent during WWI, then came a period when lawns were popular, until WWII, when Victory gardens became the style.

 

At ‘Shepherds’’ Place, we raised all our own vegetables and had a large root and fruit cellar.  Somehow, Papa had learned of the dangers of botulism (through Grange or home demo?), and somehow our folks found a way to get a pressure cooker for canning peas, corn, beans, beets, spinach, and several kinds of meat.  Mama was always a little fearful it would blow up, but it had a safety valve, and I don’t remember any serious blowups.  In our root cellar, always away from the house, we stored all kinds of celery, potatoes, apples, onions, cabbage, beets, turnips, sauerkraut, and pickles in crocks.  Some apples, like Jonathon and Wealthy, lasted only till Christmas.  Others, Delicious and Winesap lasted a little longer.  The waxy skinned Winesap and Rome Beauty would last all winter if properly wrapped.  On a warm, late winter day, apples were sorted to get rid of spoiled ones; potatoes were de-sprouted, to prevent spoilage.  I have wondered so many times how Mama and Papa got so much done.  Work seemed endless.  Mama made all our clothes, except man’s pants or coats, and sometimes boy’s corduroys.  Winters, we all wore long underwear – long sleeves and legs, which were bought, but in summer we wore ‘waists’, short or no sleeve vests which had a ‘supporter’ to hold stockings up.  (Mama made all our waists, and told once of making 125 buttonholes in an evening, by hand.)  If we wore shoes, the only stockings were long.  In summer, we went barefoot, except on Sunday for Sunday school and church, or for a special party (I only remember

 

about one, but people often had Sunday dinner for friends).  I remember having a bad bumblebee sting when I was about four or five.  I couldn’t get my shoes on to go to Sunday school or church.  I think Mama stayed home with me.  Papa loved to show off his kids, his garden, his crops, talk about new ideas, and hope for better prices.  If the weather were decent, occasional company would come on Sunday in the winter.  The evening always ended with popcorn (home grown) and candy and apples.  Try popcorn with whole milk.  Mix a pitcher of milk, sugar, and vanilla, and our on fresh, unsalted popcorn.  I still like it.  ‘Old maid’ popcorn was saved until we had about a quart, usually only two or three weeks, then ground and cooked as a cereal.  It was good!  (Helen says it tasted awful to her.)  A very special treat on occasion was parched corn.  It was made with sweet corn (dried seeds).  A handful of corn was put in a skillet, medium hot, in which about 2 tbsp. of butter was melted.  The corn has to brown slowly, and puff up a little.  Add a little salt.  It was crunchy and nutty.  Stores sell ‘corn nuts’ now, but don’t seem to use sweet corn, so it’s not as good.

 

Things were very bad for our parents – crops were hard to sell.  No fancy co-ops, though we did have some sort of Granges or county agents for information.  The fruit crops must have frozen several years in a row.  I distinctly remember two very bad hail storms in early June.  I know it was June because the St. Vrain flooded, washing down into our year, and the water was probably seven or eight inches deep, full of hail, and the blossoms of the snowball bushes all around.  Lyons seems to be in a hail belt even today.  We sold fruit to anyone who stopped.  Cherries, apples, strawberries, gooseberries, currants.  Fancy boxes of cherries, with clipped stems, sold for good prices, so we children helped do that.  The boxes we used had to be made by hand.  Long strips of very thin wood were soaked in water, then bent to the proper shape to fit over the bottom (see diagram, page 10, memoirs, ‘Book 1, My Life – EOB’).

 

We younger ones soaked and bent the wood, and the older ones fastened the overlaps with tiny tacks and hammers.  I’ll never forget the smell and feel of the wood.  The boxes had hollow bottoms so the fruit would not be mashed when the boxes were set on one another.  (See diagram on page noted above.)

 

There were lots to be done in the summer.  Any job possible was done out of doors, as it was cool under the cottonwoods, and the house didn’t get so messed up.  Papa had built up an outdoor area with flat rocks, so he could build a fire in it, and set the copper boiler (large, oval, copper tub pot, used for boiling clothes, canning, heating water for anything, as it also fit over two ‘stove lids’ on the stove inside).  White or light clothes were soaked overnight, then boiled with soapy water (lye soap).  Two large wash tubs also had rinsing water and bluing water.  They sat on a bench as near as possible to the boiler.  Usually, a funnel shaped plunger was used for white clothes.  I think Mama had a washer, even then, but it was easier to wash outdoors in the summer.  The washer was oblong with ribs along bottom and ends.  A sort of paddle was pushed back and forth, rubbing the clothes against the ribs.  I can’t remember how the paddle was fastened on.  (See diagram, page

 

11, same reference.)  There was always a hand wringer, which swung from one tub to another.

 

The ashes from stoves and fires were carefully saved, leached, and the liquid was used as lye for soap.  Mama made almost all her soap, which nearly all farm women did.  I have several recipes for soap – some people love it, but I don’t.  It hurts my hands and is hard to use in modern washers.  I have never made any, but with all the grease we throw away, I guess I should.

 

We had dairy cows, and used the extras for beef.  Once, a cow had twin heifers, and as any farmer could tell you, twin cattle are sterile.  [Is this really true?]  Twin heifers are ‘free-martins’ and can never have calves.  I know we used one of them for meat.  Helen always named any animal.  These were Josephine and Geraldine.  You always butchered in the fall, and with luck, it was cold enough to save lots of the meat (steaks, chops, roasts, etc.).  Some we gave to neighbors or put on a bill at the grocery store in town.  When the neighbors butchered, they gave us some.  Several large pieces were brined and smoked in the smokehouse.  Others were brined in corned beef recipe brine.  These lasted a long time, and the dried beef, if kept cold, all winter.

 

Hogs were easier to keep, as most cuts of them were brined in a barrel or smoked.  We always saved a few pieces of ‘salt side’ (unsmoked bacon).  It was sliced like bacon and dipped in cornmeal, then fried.  Huge slabs of bacon were cured along with the four hams.  Feet, parts of the head, and some scraps, were made into souse.  All fat (and hogs were big and fat then!) was rendered and put in covered pails for lard.  Mama prided herself in the smooth, white lard she made.  We never had anything else for shortening.  Scraps and small pieces of meat were ground into sausage – oh, how good that sausage was!  (A sausage grinder was like a food grinder; you put the meat through, seasoned it, mixed well, and then attached a tubular sausage stuffer instead of a grinder blade.  Every few inches you gave it a twist for a new sausage.)  It was stuffed into a cleaned and scraped small intestine.  There is a membrane in them that can be removed and they are used in a lot of sausages today.  Wish I knew what seasonings Papa used.  I do know he smoked a lot of sausages in the smokehouse.  When they ran out of the natural tubes, we made muslin ones, then made patties, fried them, and layered them with lard in crocks.  Most farmers had lots of cylindrical crocks for meat, sauerkraut, pickles, etc.

 

Papa had a good touch with kraut, seldom did it spoil.  It was put down in a large (10 gallon or larger) crock.  Cabbage was sliced on a regular ‘kraut slicer’, with a box on top to protect fingers.  Every few inches of cabbage in the crock, a measure of salt was added, then tamped down by one of us until it looked juicy, then more layers were added until it was full.  A damp cloth was laid on top of the crock, then a wooden lid – wood breathes.  It had to be stored at the right temperature or it would spoil (38 degrees?).  This was a good source of vitamin C, as a couple of crocks of sauerkraut lasted all winter.  When some was needed, a light scum was removed from the top of the kraut, and underneath it was as crisp and sour as if vinegar were used.  Dill and sour pickles were done the same way.  No one put vinegar in to cure dills.  They gently fermented, layers of

 

 

cucumbers, dill, and salt.  (German cookery was not garlic oriented.)  Those dills were so good – sour and dilly and solid!

 

Our car then was a Model-T truck.  Papa put a seat in the back, one he made of course, but it was windy, even at the slow speeds we attained then.  We got to Raymond, Allens Park, and Estes Park often in the summer.  Gas was cheap, and how much could a Model-T use?  Papa became adept at working on the motor, and tried to keep it in shape.  It was never unusual to pass a farm house and see a car front hoisted into a tree while someone worked on the motor.  Also, seldom did anyone go anyplace without getting at least one flat tire.  You didn’t carry a spare – you carried patching sets.  Maybe we really didn’t enjoy going to the mountains as much as it seems now, but I think we did.  We always had fried chicken, sandwiches, pickles, celery, beet pickles with eggs, often a freezer of ice cream, and of course, cake.  We had no lights on this car, so had to be home before dark.  If it rained, we had to find an old barn or shed or a big tree to get under, for we had no top.

 

We girls wore dresses, coats, and hats.  One of us was bound to lose a hat, and Papa wasn’t very patient if it happened often.  The roads were exciting, really, narrow dirt, some corners so sharp that the big aspen buses or large cars had to back up at least once to get around it.  (You always obeyed the signs ‘honk for corner’, and on some corners a mirror was installed to see whether a car was coming.)  These large cars and buses were always in the way, for they couldn’t make it up the hills, either, and we had to wait behind them while they ‘geared down’ or got out and pushed.  By that time we’d either lost our speed and had to back up and make a run for it or get out and push. If the road was clear, we could usually make it.  Papa would steer or have Herbert steer (Mama wouldn’t touch the wheel – more of that later) and all of us except maybe George or Bob would push, depending on the age of the boys at the time.  Mama never really got to like the mountains like Papa did – I can see she was in for lots of work when we went out, and lots of roads were so poor, with virtual cliffs on one side.  She never got over her fear of cliffs and mountain roads – neither have I! 

 

But, how beautiful it all was – not too much traffic at times, no end of flowers, shrubs, meadows, and such wonderful picnic places.  Papa often talked of buying a piece of land near Allenspark for a cabin.  How I wish he could have!  No big ski slopes then, and how beautiful the mountains were!  Some of those places are priceless now, and one of us could have made improvements over the years.  We nearly always met friends here and there, usually by accident, so a picnic party took shape.

 

One incident I’ll never forget.  On the road leading up out of peaceful valley, the old dirt road in the twenties was steep, narrow, and scary.  One of the bad things about a Model-T was that the radiator heated up so easily, and our radiator cap didn’t screw on, but was just pushed on.  Also, cars at that time had open caps – that is the hood didn’t cover them.  When George was about three, Bob just a baby, we started up the hill one Sunday, got behind some slow cars, and before we knew it, the radiator was boiling.  The cap blew off.  Boiling water spewed over my folks and the little boys.  I think George was burned the worst, probably had no cap on.  Mama always wore a hat with a brim, and Papa his cap with a bill, so whatever came over the windshield didn’t hit the upper faces, at least.  I know they all had some burns, and Mama was so angry that it had burned the boys.  I think she cried.  Of course, they had no water, so I suppose Herbert walked or got a ride to the bottom of the hill for water (you always carried a pail).  Meanwhile, we had to park on the edge of a turnout – cliffside.  The road now is wide, much farther up mountains in the trees, but every time I go over it, I remember.  (You can still see little parts of the old road.  When our Dick and George were small, about 3 or 4, the county was building the present road area, but it wasn’t yet paved and was very rough.  Just beyond the top of the hill, it got so rough a back window shattered.  It scared us terribly, as there was no safety glass in our old `34.  How lucky that no one was cut!  We often talk of it when we go up there.)

 

We had one camping trip when I was about five.  Someone went with us, and we set up tents (borrowed?).  We girls, Mama, George, and Bob all had new coveralls for camping.  We went to Peaceful Valley.  I don’t know how long we stayed, but probably several days.  At that time, Peaceful Valley was just a huge meadow with a stream, a toilet, and almost no road in.  (Everyone bogged down at a small creek where there should have been a bridge.)  There were probably only two or three groups there, so it was peaceful.  Papa tried fishing, and we have a picture of all us kids out catching grasshoppers, but I imagine he and Herbert didn’t catch many fish.  Helen and Janice were the ones who went to the store, probably ½ mile away, down the lane to the main road, then follow that to the Peaceful Valley store.  One day when they went, they thought they saw a coyote.  They were so scared.  It was really dark, and trees overhung the road then.

 

Mama never learned to drive a car.  Papa thought she should, but he made her so nervous, and she always did something so ‘dumb’.  Model-T’s were hard to learn on, for they had three pedals, and if you hit the wrong one you went into the wrong gear, or reversed.  One day she got so upset and scared she took her eyes off the road for a second – the next thing she knew she was off the road and into a pasture.  Luckily, the road back was very low and not rocky.  It was many years before we could laugh about it, and she never could.

 

One day, Papa noticed some shrill squeaks in the car.  He examined the motor, brakes, gears – everything.  He finally took out the front seat, which of course was pretty worn, and there in the shredded wood and hair seat was a mouse nest – full of mice.  A whole family!  They scattered in no time at all, but we had no more squeaks.

 

I remember Grandma Forney coming to visit us here.  George was her pet, and no one else.  She was always fond of Papa and got along well with him.  I felt a little left out, for I always wanted to be liked, but being fourth in a family and the third girl, I was too small to be smart and too big to be cute.  I know I sometimes resorted to tattling, just to be noticed.  One morning, Grandma Forney asked George to find her cane, as she had lost it.  Being a very observant girl, I ran to it at once and brought it to her.  Grandma scolded me, as she said George had been sent for it.  I was terribly hurt.

 

I remember so well, later, that Janice was so cute and sweet, Helen so pretty – what was I?  (Not a pretty child…)  At sometime, Helen and Janice had both had long hair, mine had always been bobbed.  At one time, Janice had lovely long curls, which were made by ‘rag curlers’.  Seemed as if for a while there, everything I had was ‘hand-me-downs’ – dresses, slips, coats.  Shoes and stockings at least wore out.  Papa always mended our shoes – put half-soles on, or heels, or toe caps.  How embarrassed we were when he got tired of us kicking rocks and cans and wore out our shoe toes.  The Papa had to put copper toes on and everyone teased us.  Papa had a complete shoe repair set, with about six different size lasts [?].  I’ll never forget the feel and smell of the leather.

 

About 1921, we moved (as we later found out, owing the landlord, for we had poor crops for two years) and went to the big (13 or 14 room) house on the North St. Vrain, one which has been very much changed, but is still there, as I’ve shown you.  [The house plan, as mother drew, is on file.]  About the only things I remember about moving were (1), electric lights – when you push the button in, how do you get it out; (2), the huge bathroom – our first; (3), the telephone; (4), the bits of toys in the years; and (5), the two rooms used by the landlord for storage, which we were forbidden to try to get into – we never did.

 

(Extra Insight…)  {A large family also lived down the road from us on the North St. Vrain, the Roy Platts.  I don’t remember how many there were, as some of the older ones were grown and married.  One girl, Fern, was Helen’s best friend.  There was Vernon, a boy my age, and one younger.  The older girls had to work in the fields, planting, plowing, disking, etc.  Mama was always shocked that any woman had to do ‘man’s’ work with a team, but I guess someone had to do it.

 

One Sunday, we loaded up our big wagon with sides on it (as opposed to the hayrack, which was open and had no sides).  We packed a super lunch, and Platts did the same.  We drove up the little canyon which was later to become a park for CU Professors, and is now all built up.  It was quite a rough road, and we forded several creeks.  It’s really rough riding in a wagon like that, but no road for cars.  We had a good day and enjoyed it all.  I know Platts moved out near Hygiene, east of Lyons, then later north of Boulder, where we visited a time or two.  Sad to say, Mrs. Platt died rather young (49-50?) of a heart attack, and Fern helped with the younger boys.  Then one day, she tasted some canned corn and was dead of botulism in a few days.  This was about 1930, as Helen was already married and living in Lamar.  She was very hurt that she couldn’t come, even for the funeral.}

 

Papa worked awfully hard on this farm, but it still wasn’t enough with the rent/crop-sharing plan.  The Freemans had lived here, and they had just one very spoiled boy, about George’s age.  He had pink skin, and pinkish blonde hair, and was about the worst brat I ever knew.  His father was an old man who had been married before; his mother was an artificial redhead, about 35.  She was about as mean and nasty a person as I have ever known, doing everything she could to embarrass or hurt Mama.  She made big talk on party lines about our poverty and shabbiness, and when she gave us something, it was when she could hurt or embarrass us.  This house had either one or two steps up or down to each room.  I still think of it as a beautiful house (then), but it is so changed, one would never know it to be the same place.  The so-called pantry had a sandstone floor, and was so big we had shelves along one side, the cream separator on another side, an old butter churn (wooden) which we never used, and I think some storage cupboards or shelves on another side.  It was cool all summer, and whatever we could not get into the icebox could go into the pantry.  When Grandma Forney came to visit us here, she thought all the ups and downs were awful.  Grandma Forney had a stroke about 1919 and used a cane for many years.  I don’t remember anyone ever falling down any of them.

 

So many interesting little things happened here.  Helen, being the horse lover, immediately started riding ‘Dick’, the younger horse.  His mother ‘Kit’ I don’t remember much, but they were just big, broad work horses.  We also had ‘May’, a slimmer, smaller

horse.  (We heard she had been a race horse – maybe she had (a quarter horse?).  However, because he was wide and frisky and young, Helen rode Dick when she was standing up.  We must have been to Boulder about that time and seen our first circus.  She made it down the road and back, but we girls were scared to death.  He only trotted or an easy canter – less jarring than a trot, but it seemed very daring to us.  Another time Helen followed a bunch of about 50 horses on round-up down the road (was she on foot?).  She chose a likely looking one and rode him a ways – just to show she could.  Helen also climbed to the top of a huge silo (one built by us – with some help – and made of cement slabs), and sat on the edge, petrifying us again.  She loved horses, dogs, cats, and any baby animal.  She helped nurse baby pigs when our old sow had 11 or 12 babies and had only 8 or 10 ‘dinner plates’.  They had to be fed every few hours the first few days, then the old sow never accepted them, as they weren’t ‘hers’.  Once in a while, if a sow had too many and another too few, within a few days, a transfer could be made, but that seldom happened.  Helen was often the one to teach a calf to drink from a bucket.  The calf was seldom left with the mother long, as they didn’t use all the milk each nursing and cut down on dairy supply.  A cow will only ‘make’ as much milk as is needed, so if a good milker could start on her and strip the most possible milk, some could go to the calf, and the farmer got some, too.  We didn’t have a fancy bucket with nipples, as they have now.  You had to straddle the calf to keep it from running (sometimes you had help).  You hold a bucket of milk up to the calf, put one hand into the milk, and try to get him to suck on a finger in the milk.  It was a poor substitute, but Helen and Herbert seemed to get it done.  Of course it never helped to have ‘mama cow’ bawling nearby for her baby.  We had some cows that bawled off and on for weeks.  They knew it wasn’t natural.

 

Sometimes Mrs. Freeman would ask Helen and Janice to help her clean house.  She didn’t pay much, but gave an old coat or dress or old junk jewelry.

 

To me, this was a most magical place.  It’s the one I dream of most.  As soon as we moved in, we younger ones began finding marbles, torn up balls, broken toys, jacks, etc., all over the back yard.  ‘Finders keepers’ we said, but if Tommy Freeman was there he claimed anything that we found -–took it, too, though he probably threw it away afterward.  If we were very lucky, he threw it in our yard and we craftily waited till he left to hunt for it.

 

We had a small creek right in front of the house – for irrigation.  (It is very small now – 1976).  At that time, we could catch fish in it.  How we loved it!  We could wade, fish, or even swim.  I don’t remember ever getting in very deep.  It was quite shallow except for holes.  Papa heard that one summer the river (North St. Vrain) had been stocked with fish and some were coming down our creek.  He had an old net, and at the risk of getting caught, we used it and got several dozen trout and suckers.  We ate suckers in those days.  We kept some of those fish two days, just because it was so unusual to get to see them

 

Out of the back door and up the hill about 30 feet was a small hill.  Into this had been dug a cellar, so again we had a good place for produce.  Being on a main highway now, we set up a fruit stand and got some tourist trade (to Estes).

 

This was a nice big cellar, and often we could sell fruit to a neighbor late in the winter.  A little farther down the hill were two smaller cellars, but we were not allowed to go in there except with Papa.  It was his vinegar cellar.  In it were three or four big wooden barrels, with apple cider in various stages of fermentation.  Papa was a very strict abstainer, and if anyone ever drank any ‘in between’ cider, I never knew of it.  I don’t remember how long it takes to make vinegar – probably a year, as we went from one vinegar season to the next.  I suppose we gave a lot of it away or traded it.  The making of good vinegar depends on the ‘mother’ being used.  In a vinegar barrel or vat, there is always a thickish slimy hunk of stuff, which is what makes the cider turn sour after fermenting.  If this is present, it makes vinegar, if not, you take some from a barrel which is already cured and put it in the other barrel.  It would ‘make’ vinegar so sour and good as any ever made.  It is so much more sour than ‘store bought’ stuff you wouldn’t believe it, but that is homogenized, pasteurized, diluted.  Store cider is a travesty, too.  It is also treated the same way.  If you ever tasted fresh-off-the-press cider, you would know what I mean.  Some folks let it stand two or three days, to the fermentation stage, or even longer, but when ours started to ferment, into one of the barrels it went.

 

Why was Papa so radical about drinking?  His father lost his business (a nice butcher meat shop) and all rights to family recipes as used in the shop, because he was drunk so much he couldn’t tend to business.  Many nights he came home so drunk he abused his children and beat his wife.  Papa adored his mother – she seemed to try to understand him, many ways.  We think Papa may have tried drinking during the time he was away from home.  He really was so unhappy he ran away at 16.  Don’t know how long he stayed, but know he came to Colorado later, and that’s when he became so excited about it.

 

At one time, there was a lot of poison ivy growing on the hill just north of the vinegar cellar.  Papa decided he should get rid of it, so he grubbed it out with a shovel and hoe, raked it up, and burned it.  He had been careful not to touch it, but when he burned it, the fumes carried the oils to him and he had the worst case of poison ivy.  Some of the ivy grew back, but we just left it.  As far as I know, we all had poison ivy outbreaks at one time or another.  My case will come up later.  [Mother always told me that Grandma was terribly allergic to poison ivy – all she had to do was walk near it, and she would break out…]

 

I don’t know how many acres we had, but it was a nice farm, a huge lawn all across the front, a low picket fence in front of the creek, apple and cherry trees west of the house, and a small garden.  North of the house was the hill with the cellars.  [See rough map, page 35, ibid.]  It was in kind of a curve and Papa used the west end of the hill to the creek for his watermelon patch.  He had the best watermelons in the world.  Always got the same.  He tried others, and settled (I think) on Kleckley Sweets.  They were long and slim and dark green.  Of course, the other vining growths grew there, too – cantaloupe and cucumbers.  But the melons were the best.  We had several watermelon feeds each fall before frost, and everyone agreed on their taste.  He loved to give the kids a long slice to eat with hands and mouths only, and see who had ‘seeds in their ears’.

 

Beyond the melon patch was a fence, and beyond that a big alfalfa field that reached clear up to the road that is still there (houses in field now).  He used a small corner back of the cellar for the pig pens.  It wasn’t too close to the house, and yet the garbage and the ‘slops’ could be gotten to them easily.  ‘Slops’ were whatever you made them.  Cherry or peach seeds, whey, skim milk, sweet or sour, if any to spare, and there usually was.  We always had lots of corn for pigs.  We fed it to them right on the cobs.  We younger kids had to go out and gather dry cobs for stove fires.  It was a dirty job, and we hated it!  In winter, he used a commercial feed recommended by Country Gentleman magazine.  I think it was stored in one of the rooms on the lower level marked ‘storage’.  I don’t remember how many pigs we kept, probably three or four sows and one boar (he always had to be a good one) and whatever small pigs not yet ready for market.  We had lots of pasture below the alfalfa (east), another ditch between, then the area where we grew corn (sweet), potatoes, cabbage, beans, onions, and so forth – any vegetable that would grow in Colorado.  We caned or stored hundreds of quarts or pounds, sold or traded some.  Market hard to find, still.  There was a storage barn, icehouse, and chicken house east of the main house, with lots of fruit trees all over.  We kept the car in the south barn, one side.  Some of the field tools in the other barn, as well as all larger tools needed to repair machines.  Our land reached across the river and way up the side of steamboat mountain (there was no road there then, of course).  Just across the creek was the best mushroom area I have ever seen.  Always morals – we had no way to identify others.  You can hardly find them anymore.  It was a lovely damp grassy pasture area, full of trees and shrubs.  I remember we (Papa of course) drove a wagon across a wide shallow part of the river to pick up dead limbs and parts of trees.  Mostly narrow-leafed cottonwood, alder, willows by the creek.  Up a little higher, I think it was fenced, so the animals wouldn’t get into the neighbor’s property.  Steamboat Mountain base rose pretty steep and was rocky.  Possibly someone owned or leased the upper parts.  I do know Papa was cautious about rocky grazing for his milk cows.

 

A large family (eventually 8) from Missouri now lived in the house we had first lived in in Colorado.  Mr. Harvey was stubborn, lazy, and a know-it-all, but several of us had good friends among the children.  Helen was known to go hiking or on a picnic with Albert (along with Herbert and another neighbor, Adeline Clark) and sometimes as many of us younger ones as they would allow.

 

Once in a while in the summer, a lot of us would gather in our big front yard and play ‘run, sheep, run’ or ‘last couple out’.  I think there would have been at least 20 of us, though, of course, I was only seven or eight and just a nuisance. 

 

Mr. Hervey finally proved his manners when he let some fence posts rot, and also across the river the fence was destroyed.  I think our cattle got into his crops.  He was going to have the law on us.  Papa called landlord Freeman to tell of it, and Mr. Hervey yelled across the party line he would get out his .22 rifle and kill the cows.  As I recall, Papa fixed the fences, but the two never liked one another in any way.  He was so mad he almost got out his own gun.  I imagine Mama prevailed there.  She was horrified of guns and ‘feuds’. 

 

Virginia Hervey Twist was my best friend as long as we lived there, and we corresponded until about 1940.  I just learned this year (1976) that she died of a heart attack several years ago.

 

On this place, we walked on the old road we’ve shown you [???] (it has changed a little as of `77) two miles to school almost every day.  On hot days we scuffed the dust and climbed roadside hills or rocks, but not very long.  Mama was quite aware of our ‘due time’.  Once or twice in the spring, we were tempted to pick soft fuzzy crocuses on that pretty hillside just out of town.  Also yellow Johnny-jump-ups, spring beauties (pink) and yellow ‘wild sweet peas’.  We were always careful to watch for snakes, for there were quite a few on this hill, as no one had built on it.  Often we got wood ticks, but at that time we didn’t know of ‘tick fever’ and evidently it wasn’t prevalent.  Now there are houses at the West End.  Just where you leave the ‘new’ highway to turn onto this old one, we walked by the river about a quarter of a mile.  Here, Helen lost her hat.  We were definitely forbidden ever to go down to the river, so we just watched the hat float away.  I hated those hats.  They were hot and had wide brims.  Some relatives sent them to us.  Janice’s and mine were felted and fuzzy.  Helen’s was fuzzier!  One place we passed had big Airedales, which they raised to sell, and we were so scared of them.  Although, they were either tied or penned up.

 

Winter was most difficult, and we younger ones had enough to worry about just getting to school and back.  When I think of Herbert, Helen, and Papa doing the milking (I think we had about four cows and milked or boarded about five or six more) before school, all the chores to do – coal and wood to get in, fill tubs to wash on wash day, feed horses, cows, pigs, chickens, and so much more.  Mama had five lunches to pack (Bob started first grade in Boulder in 1925).  Helen and Janice had long hair until then, too, and sometimes needed help.  For a while, Janice had long curls, and they were put up in rags at night.  Helen’s hair was braided and worn in whatever mode girls her age wore (12-15 years).  I always had short hair, and how I longed for long hair, but I guess that two girls with long hair were enough to manage. 

 

If the Model-T would start, Papa could take us as well as five or six others once or twice a week, but sometimes it wouldn’t start in winter, or the milk wasn’t ready (he’d have to go later – no big milk trucks to come by then).  Many, many days we trudged off down the road, and our winters then were often snowy – a foot or eighteen inches lay on the ground months at a time.  Few cars passed, but sometimes a mail truck from Estes Park would leave tracks.  It helped to walk in those tracks.  Once in a while a few of us got on the road before the bus and he would pick us up, but that was seldom.  I can still see Mama rushing around to get breakfast ready, lunches done, check the younger ones hair and faces, hands, help with boots and shoes.  (Helen said we all had some sort of boots – big buckle ones.)  Never-the-less, our feet were always wet.  One very bad day we had to walk – Herbert, Helen, and Janice were ready earlier, so they started out and down the road a ways the big bus picked them up, just as we got to the road.  We yelled and ran, but they were full or didn’t see us, so we two little ones dragged off to school – freezing all the way.  (A Freeman boy or Shinkle boy sometimes came with a Hervey, or us.)  That day when I got there, I had to take my boots off (holey socks?) to get warm, and got to sit by the stove all morning.  I was subject to chilblains – none of you know about those [want to bet?]  Some way, I always got my feet wet so often and never had sense enough to go in the house till I was frozen.  When I was about four I started having them.  I would come into the house, take off shoes and socks and warm too fast.  Soon, my feet began to hurt and itch, and a layer of skin blistered and came off around my toes.  It was a pain I often couldn’t bear – I guess I often fried a lot, but in a day or two I’d be out in the snow again.  (Dad says he wrapped gunny sacks around his shoes, but I know we did not.)

 

Each room at school had a large stove in a corner.  A thick round shield of asbestos surrounded it, so we couldn’t get burned, but there sure wasn’t much circulation of the hot and cold air.  If you sat by the stove, you toasted.  If you sat very far away, you chilled.

 

No food ever tasted so good as Mama’s sandwiches.  My favorites were jelly and butter, or cottage cheese with onion and butter.  She must have had quite a time deciding on what to use, but I know we had roast pork or beef, scrambled eggs, meat loaf, or real old fashioned peanut butter once I a while.  Mama’s cottage cheese was as different from store-bought as a product can be.  It was softer, more tart – no cream added, no tough blobs.  It takes raw milk to make that, and it is hard to find now.  I could write a whole book on her recipes, though most of Papa’s meat recipes are lost.

 

Besides the big Hervey family, we played with Tommy Freeman, Bobby Shinkle, and some of the Platts.  B. Shinkle’s father ran the power plant west of our place, in the little valley.  I think it is still there and running.  That was nearby to a pond where we could cut ice in winter.  Mr. Shinkle made a little wooden chest for each of us girls one Christmas.  They were so cute, and I have some very nostalgic things stored in mine.  (It was badly scratched by the Harlow boys in about 1946, at 1608 7 Street, when they were installing a gas furnace.  They stood on it.  We will refinish it for someone.)  Shinkles were ‘high tone’, though friendly in a way.  Not neighborly, but because Papa had been an electrician, they had similar interests.  The pond where we cut the ice is probably still there.  We had a very large icehouse.  The ice was packed in sawdust, lay upon layer, large squares of ice.  With proper use, it lasted all summer.  It was a sad day when the ice ran out.  Needless to say, that icehouse door wasn’t opened very often.

 

We raised quite a few chickens, sold eggs and poultry, along with all the other vegetables, fruits, meats, and live animals.  In the summer we had a fruit stand and sold to tourists, boxing fruit as we had before.  We built the silo that used to stand across the creek by the cow barn (Helen and Herbert painted it red and it stood till the `60’s).  After the silo was put up, a ‘new’ grain storage plan could be used.  A corn chopper, run by motor, was brought in, and while corn was still green, but almost ripe, it was cut and h hauled in wagons to the cutter.  It was a co-op venture, but I don’t know the details.  The chopped corn was stored till winter, when it was sort of fermented – you never forget the smell of it.  The farmers still use silage, and some put it in large pits in the ground, then cover it with plastic sheets, and weight it down with old tires.

 

How well I remember when Mama and some neighbors were cooking for the ‘crew’ and we ran out of butter.  Herbert was sent to town.  He had hardly learned to drive and was only 14 or 15.  He ran one wheel of our old car off a bridge!  Mama was tearful, but I guess the car wasn’t damaged.  I still don’t know if we got the butter!

 

And, once in a while when the silage was halfway down the silo or more, we sneaked up a ladder through the chute, and played on the fruity stuff.  Of course Mama always found out – we were quite odorous – and there were always large spiders all around, but we liked the adventurous feeling.  This was the silo Helen climbed and sat on top of when it was empty.  Cows did well on silage, but horses needed hay and oats.  It was best not to feed silage to them.

 

Another thing we really liked was to climb into the barn loft and jump into the hay below.  Our hay was stored form the ground up to the loft, which was floored only narrowly on two sides.  When the hay was half gone, we could jump into it, or swing on a rope until we could hit a soft deep spot across the hay area.  Mama just knew one of us would fall on a ‘lost’ pitchfork, or a hiding rattlesnake, but we never did.

 

Once in a while a cat would hide out in a hay nest to have babies, and what a thrill when we found them!  Or an old hen would get ‘broody’, leave the flock, and start laying eggs in a hay nest.  She knew enough not to sit on them long till she had a nice nest full.  They don’t start developing till they are kept warm for a day or two at a time, so they all hatched at once.  As soon as they hatched, we’d put the hen in a coop alone with her chicks, leaving holes the chicks could get out of.  They could get out and eat and run about and get used to the area around other chickens, but run to mother at night or when they got cold or scared.  In a few weeks, the old hen had forgotten the barn, and could be let out too. 

 

One night, when it was rainy, Mr. Freeman backed his coupe (Buick or Chrysler or something) into the creek – the bank was about four feet high.  I think he was trying to turn and couldn’t see.  (Mr. Freeman was small, thin, and a little crippled.)  They got several neighbors and teams of horses to pull it out of the water.  They finally got it out, but the men worked so hard.  It’s funny, but I remember we were having our first mutton for supper – none of us liked it much…

 

That same night, Bob had convulsions – Mama thought he was dying.  They got him into a tub of warm water (probably called the doctor and asked what to do) and soon he was all right.  They thought some frozen turnips we had for supper might have caused it.

 

We went swimming a few times in the North St. Vrain in a deep hole (four feet or so).  I think Papa had an old swim suit -–I don’t remember.  The rest of us wore what we could find and still be decent.  I know I wore a very old dress, with a pair of very worn out overalls (George or Herb’s?).  Generally, girls did not wear any kind of pants in public.  My first pair was one of George’s overalls.  I was about 14.  Once in a while a woman would wear coveralls or knickers for mountains or sports.  The coveralls were loose all over and not too ‘mannish’. 

 

When we were on Shepherd’s places and Bob was still pretty small, I remember we went for a hike – started south toward rattlesnake mountain, then finally around a hill and down into a valley where some friends lived.  Bob and sometimes George rode in a little wagon we had then.  It was a long day’s walk.  Mama never was much of a hiker.  By the time we got a day’s worth of work done around the house (and yard) she was too tired to hike.

 

In 1926, after we had moved to 2020 Spruce in Boulder, Papa wanted to take a hike, so he and Mama, and probably the younger boys, drove to the foot of Flagstaff Mountain in Boulder.  They hiked up to the ‘half-way area’, not much developed then, and Papa wanted to go on, so they hiked to the top.  It was rough going and pretty steep.  I’ve gone up by the road, but never by the front.  Mama was so lame and sore she had to go to bed – her back was very lame  - she was in bed at least a week.  That was about the last big hike she ever took, though I know they hiked up to Fulford cave from Fulford camp ground after they met the Browns.  Mama and Papa both went into the cave at least once.  We were going on hikes or walks or ’kin-we’s’ every day that we could.  Hills, pastures, creeks, fields, but we always had to ask.

 

Herbert and Helen worked hard, too.  Herbert helped with the plowing, disking, harrowing, etc., but he was a small boy for his age, and it was hard.  (He sometimes used several rocks for added weight…)  Helen worked at whatever was needed – hoeing, painting, herding cattle (keeping them out of alfalfa).

 

At least once, some of them got into the alfalfa – and they love it, but in one stomach (3^rd?) it causes severe gas and bloating, and the remedy then was a long sharp knife stuck into the proper area, piercing the stomach and releasing the gas, and it usually healed fine.  I know Papa did it at least once, and I watched.

 

One day Helen, Janice, and I took off on our riding horse, up the road, around the corner, and down through a neighbor’s pasture (with permission) across the river.  We had never crossed here before, and on the far side it was steep, but Helen just called ‘hang on’ and across the river we went!  When the horse got to the high, rocky bank, she just started scrambling up as best she could.  I was in back and started slipping.  I grabbed Janice tighter, and she started slipping.  Then she pulled Helen off, but she fell on the bank.  We didn’t put a saddle on the horse when we rode triple.  I wonder if we had shoes on – we were so worried about what Mama would say?  Were we looking for mushrooms or berries or just adventuring?

 

To me, Lyons was interesting, exciting, wicked, and sophisticated – though that word I didn’t know.  Friends who lived there had nice furniture, small, neat yards – smaller families – and usually were merchants of the town.  Some girls even had their own bedrooms and pretty dolls and dollhouses.  One girl was very spoiled – she’d take us into ‘her’ drug and sundry store and give us things.  Once, I think she gave Janice or me some beads.  Next day she asked for them back, as ‘they weren’t mine’.  We were quite hurt.

 

Sometime back in the years just before we moved here [to Lyons], there was an awful scandal.  One man caught his wife with another man, and took an axe to him.  He killed him, and I can’t remember what happened – maybe he was exonerated before the jury on grounds he was protecting his honor and home.  We children heard only whispers.

 

One fall, Papa had a huge amount of onions, and somehow decided to save them a while for a better price.  He rented a room in town over a grocery store.  The onions were in huge piles all over the floor of a large room.  Onions can’t keep if frozen, so there was a stove.  Everything went well for a few days, then whoever was to keep the stove going let it go out – a cold spell came and all the onions froze.  It was heart-breaking – all the work and the money loss.  We had to shovel all the musky onions and clean the place up – but I bet it smelled as long as the building stood!

 

The movie theater was near that building, and we only got to go a few times, though at least three of us got in free and full admission was only 15 cents.  My big problem was that there was no restroom, and I always got excited and had to wet.  I was sent out behind the theater in the dark.  If there was a toilet there I don’t remember.  I would have been afraid to go in for fear someone else was there.  I could find a dark place behind some old boxes.  I don’t remember my first show, but we saw so few, they were really ‘big deals’.

 

Most of our social life centered about the church.  We went to Sunday school, church, then sometimes stayed for a covered dish get together and had evening church (here was an outside toilet too, and I made good use of it, as did everyone).  Our good clothes were nearly always white, so it was a problem for Mama to try to keep us clean.  Most of us were in all the church programs – any kind of school play or entertainment was given in one of the large school rooms (crowded), the church (if suitable), or a large dance hall most of us would not have seen any other way.  Many, many people considered dancing as evil, also card playing, drinking, and women smoking.  One spring, when I was about six, we all were in a big program (children’s day?).  Different ages learned their parts, and the little ones performed first.  I begged to ‘go’ and hurried to make it back in time.  Somehow, the program of little tots went on and on, and I had a speech to say (kneeling with four others in a semi-circle).  The longer I waited, the more nervous I became (I still do!).  Suddenly I knew I had to ‘go’ again, and then our names were called!  We trooped up, ten or twelve, got through our parts.  I wiggled and suffered.  Everyone knew.  When we knelt for the last part, I couldn’t wiggle, and when the inevitable happened, I was so relieved.  I got mad when Janice ‘shamed’ me.  I made a nice spot about eight inches across, and it showed up beautifully for all of the older kids programs.  Nothing has ever been found to change this, though, and I think lots of others have the problem and don’t talk about it.  I avoid being president of anything, and I assume that my present blood pressure may be caused by the same tension.

 

Papa was a fairly important personage in the church.  He was Sunday School Superintendent for years, and was on the Board, and got along with everyone.  He really liked our small church.  Mama had her hands full with us three younger ones, but she enjoyed so many of our church families.  The Gordons, Eatwells, Spencers – to name but a few.  Mary Eatwell was a teacher in our school, and was very good.  She got her few science students (including Herbert) interested in chemistry far beyond the times.  Herbert and Mama met with her at Raymond resort in the mountains in about 1973  (She was still living in the Springs in 1987…).  (Papa made a big play cradle for Cradle Roll Department – it was so nice.  Then Janice made one (with a little help?).  So Papa made one for me – I still have it.)

 

The Spencers were very nice elderly folks (older than ours were).  He put out the Lyons Recorder and was a pretty good newspaperman.  I wish I had an old copy of his paper.  He explored all the mountain areas near and far in Colorado, and made little maps of roads that could lead to good fishing.  He took Papa and some others to areas where only a wagon of buggy could go, and then you either rode a horse of walked in farther for super fishing.  Of course most people were too busy trying to keep food on the table to have time for ‘recreation’, and usually these trips took more than one day (most folks did observe Sunday as a day of rest from daily work).  The Spencers lived to celebrate their 70^th Anniversary.  I can’t remember how either of them looked, but I know how much my folks liked them.

 

‘Meadow Park’ was our one big recreational facility.  It is still there, though a little cut up and bedraggled.  Most of our summer picnics were held there.  Everyone went, even both church groups (Methodist and Congregational).  They had competitive races, games, baseball, and always-good food.  I do remember my first bottle of pop.  Mama didn’t want us to have such stuff – artificial flavor, just sugar and water – as opposed to our own lemonade (lemons were cheap, but we didn’t have them except for our own special picnic in summer).

 

They finally bought us each a bottle – mine was strawberry – so fizzy – I got it up my nose and it felt awful.  I don’t like strawberry pop!

 

To my memory, we had just got out of church when word came that an empty train car was loose at the quarry on the hill, and they had switched it to go over the dead end, past the depot, in Meadow Park entry.  We had only about three blocks to drive, and many of us jumped into cars and rushed down to see it.  I know we beat the train car down, as it had a wide circle to make and there was a long flat stretch past town.  I remember George and I at least, getting out on the track to see where it was coming, and couldn’t see it.  We were quickly ordered to get out of the way by parents and others, and soon, the big, empty, open train car came rumbling along, not too fast, but it made a lovely crash and crunch at the dead end against a pile of dirt.  That was the talk of the town for weeks.

 

(One time, Francis Lyons, a girl Janice’s age, fell into the creek, and drowned.  It was an awful shock to all of us.)

 

Just across the river and up a cliff was a big square ‘cave’.  (The cave was hewn out of real red Lyons sandstone.  It is still there in 1984… 1998.  There was a trail up, which we took once, I think.  You four older boys [Dick, George, Dave, and Wayne] remember climbing the face of the hill/cliff when Wayne was about three (1949).  Once we went right up the side of the steep hill, helping Wayne and me (again, 1949?).  WE have pictures of all of you on the little footbridge.  I made it up then, too.  Later, dad and I took Randy up the trail, but my fear of heights took over on a curve, and I had to sit down.  That was about 1963.

 

I don’t remember learning to read, but I do have a little book with several of our names in it.  We learned on approved books, but they were interesting.  Stories about homes, family, farms.  Miss Henry was my grade one and two teacher; Elsie Kirk three and four.  They were very good and kind and patient.  In school, too, I had toilet problems.  The girl’s toilet was way out behind the school and down a little slope.  There was a fence between the boy’s playground and girls, so we never played together.  We had swings, teeter-totters, a basketball area (dirt).  We played ‘Annie over’ on a big shed and ‘Pump pump pull away’, but it got rough with high schoolers trampling over us little ones.  If the big girls played basketball, we could watch or go and play.  I think younger boys came over to play some games, and small groups giant step or red light.

 

Helen played basketball a little, and there is a cute picture of her with a team, sitting on the ‘new’ fire escape, a tunnel affair which we were allowed to play in once a week, by turns.  The fire escape was a large round pipe that came from upstairs.

 

In winter we slid, one way or another, down a very inviting hill just west of the school.  This hill north of the school was a favorite place to play, even though we knew we weren’t supposed to.  It was probably ½ block long and ¼ block wide, steep and rocky.  But, ‘Outlaws’ and ‘Kidnappers’ games were fun.  Usually, some town kid brought a sled, so there was a chance of a turn on it.  Bravely, we could slide on our feet.  If we fell, we slid on whatever hit first.  This was pretty hard on clothes, especially girls, as we never wore any kind of jeans or pants.  Our black heavy stockings constantly had hole in the knees – too big to be darned, but they could be patched with a piece from an old one.

 

In winter, we had an old sled that Papa made.  It had iron runners, and we could find lots of hills to slide down.  We experimented with skis made from barrel staves.  There was always an old barrel somewhere.  The iron hoop rings [from the barrels] could be used to roll on the sidewalk or lawn or just a dirt yard, with a stick to guide it.  The staves were just bent pieces of wood and made pretty good skis, on the small slopes we used.  Herbert would nail small pieces of leather on the slats for us tho put the toes of our shoes into, and off we went – always hopeful.  I don’t remember anyone ever getting down too far without spilling.

 

Papa made a ‘sledge’ as we called it.  It was a homemade sleigh, with wooden runners (usually used half-logs, smoothed and turned up at the ends).  The roads were snowy most of the wintertime, and we could go to neighbors in it or haul things around when the car couldn’t be used.  In about `23 or `24, our folks went to Denver for the big January Stock Show.  They came home in a ‘new car’.  I don’t know what year car it was, but it was a Model-T touring car with two seats with celluloid and imitation leather snap-on curtains.  We thought it was pretty classy.  They had so many stories to tell of all the many interesting things they saw.  One I remember was of a woman who was knitting and weaving with the fur she combed from her Angora rabbits.

 

Papa was always looking for new and better things to grow.  One was soybean, which were even then acclaimed as extra good for many uses.  I had some seeds saved in my toy chest for years, but don’t have them now.  He grew Sudan grass as a supplement for fodder for cattle.  (There is a picture of Herbert and Helen with tall corn and Sudan grass.)  He grew his own corn seed, and when we lived on Shepherd’s was when I recall his testing for good seed.  He saved a lot of good, big straight ears of corn, and each was tagged (the tags on the end of corn ears had a number).  Then he got some large squares of unbleached muslin, tacked them to frames, laid flat, and marked off two-inch squares on each.  Each square was numbered and about three kernels of corn were taken from the center of the ear of corn, and placed in the proper numbered square.  I think they were stored in the attic, on the rafters, and the cloth kept damp.  Under those dark, damp conditions, they soon sprouted.  Then Papa saved the numbers of the quickest and strongest sprouters for his seeds.  I believe he did this every year.

 

On Freeman’s place, because we were on the main road to Estes Park, we could sell more to tourists, and I know that for several years, Papa furnished fresh sweet corn to the Stanley Hotel.  He had to get up very early to get it picked fresh (he never picked the night before).  WE all helped at times, and of course, if Mama helped, she couldn’t leave the boys alone.  I never could tell when it was ready without pealing it down, and that encouraged worms, but I had to do it.  Papa could just grab an ear and give it a jerk, or leave it alone.  He always could tell when it was ready.  We packed the corn in gunny sacks, by the dozen, and left it by the gate for the 6:00 or 7:00 bus.  Oh, those busses were pretty.  Some of them were big Stanley Touring cars, probably holding about 20 people, plus mail and baggage.  We were real proud of our being able to supply the Stanley.  Sometimes, we sent fruit (in season), but fresh corn was the big thing.

 

Our mail was delivered in a canvas bag.  We had a tall post with an arm extending from it and placed near the edge of the road.  A snap clothespin was on the end of the arm.  We put our mail in a bag, drew the string closed, and snapped it on the clothespin.  On his trip back to Lyons or Longmont, the driver slowed a little, grabbed the bag, and the next day threw the bag out of the bus near the post.  I don’t think we got mail every day.

 

(Dad says I go into too much detail, but it is hard to tell how I feel or how we live, otherwise.)

 

Well, as time went on, Papa found he needed more than farm money and would take jobs wiring or helping operate power plants.  We finally sold everything and moved into Lyons (1924).  We were there about a year.  Papa worked in Estes Park at the power plant [There is a letter on file that George sent Daisy from Estes Park when he was working there.], and our little house in Lyons seemed very closed in.  One day, he went to Boulder to look for work at the Valmont Power Plant.  (The first day he went over to try for work, a man walked up and said ‘hello, George, remember me?’.  It was Herb Woodward, who had known him in Kansas and had dated Dolly a few times.  He and Ethel Woodward had twin boys, but one died at birth.  The other twin, Eugene, lives in Greeley, and we used to see him at times.  Mama and Ethel W. remained friends until Ethel died in 1972.   Papa and Herb kept in touch as well….)  He was hired to help finish the plant (wiring?), and when he was finished, he went to work permanently.

 

We moved to Boulder in June 1925 when school was out.  We had kept one of our cows, Betsy.  How Papa hated to part with his favorite, Spot [there is a reference story on Spot…later in this writing], when he left the farm.  They really got along – she was the one that gave so much milk.  Also, Herbert won some blue ribbons with pigs at the Boulder County Fair in Longmont.  I don’t remember whether we entered grains or fruit.  Betsy was young, and a good producer.  We moved to a place on 24^th Street, an ugly old dark gray stone house.  There was a large pasture on the south and east of the house, and also a good big tract for a garden, a large apple orchard, grapes, barn, chicken house, and two horses.  Helen began to immediately plan on which horse she could ride first – Cream or Buck.  Cream was a beautiful light palomino, her son Buck buckskin.  I think they were broken to working, not riding, but Helen caught Cream every time she could.  She mad a lasso around the top gate posts on a narrow gate on a lane that went into the barn.  She often fed the horses oats from a pail, and they got so they came when she banged the bucket and called them.  Cream usually came first, so all Helen had to do was close the lasso on Cream’s neck.  Once caught, she was fairly tractable. 

 

(Many horses made a game of being caught.  When I visited the Browns in `34 and `35, at Yeoman Park, we always had to chase two of the horses.  Once a rope was on them, they were OK.

 

One day, Helen got a saddle on Cream.  I think she’d asked the owners, and they told her Cream had been ridden.  Papa was cautious, but Helen got on.  Cream was skittish but didn’t buck – she ran.  Helen stayed on, and everyone cheered as they went off down the road to the south.  She soon came back and rode whenever she could.

 

(To this day, I don’t remember my bedroom in this house, but I do remember a friend of Helen’s telling a ghost story.  I always looked under a bed after that, even when I was married six or seven years and Dad worked nights at the sub-station.)  We lived here only from the time we moved to Boulder until the end of October.  Helen and Herbert went to Prep school, where we all went later.  Janice, George, Bob, and I went to South Side – University Hill School.  It was the ‘snooty’ school in Boulder.  We loved the walk to school – cross the street, through a lane, an apple orchard (I never picked any of the apples, but sometimes got a good windfall, and the apples were so good…), another lane to a street, then to our school.  I was scared to death!  How different it was to what I had known.  Of course, there were differences in curricula between Lyons and Boulder.  I didn’t do too well in fifth grade.  They had mandatory homework, and woe unto the pupil who forgot their books!  (I did once, and Mama, bless her, got a neighbor to bring her up and give me the books.)  One day we were told we had to go down and get weighed and measured.  I was immediately panic-stricken.  Not only were my long black stockings dirty, but my toes were all out.  Desperately, I pulled them down and lopped them under at the toes.  Nobody said anything, but I’m sure some of them – and the teachers – knew! 

 

We had a wonderful summer, running in the hill pastures to the east, climbing trees, playing on the bar Papa put up.  One day, Helen tied a rope tight between two trees, and we walked the tightrope.  Helen did quite well, but the rope stretched and was pretty loose.  We took off our shoes so we could grip the rope better.  When I got my shoes, I put one on and tied it, the put on the other – what’s this – a trick?  Something was stuffed in the toe.  I turned it up and shook it, and out came a mouse – he was no more surprised than I was. 

 

There were enough kids to play ball in our backyard (I received my first hit on the nose by a fast grounder – it hurt so much and bled badly, and Mama scolded me for crying, but I do have a crooked nose and a deviated septum)!

 

I was always the one to climb to the top of the tree and pick apples.  I was lightweight, nimble, and always on the lookout for some way to impress Papa with my agility.

 

Helen and Janice worked a while at the Garnick’s chicken farm north of us.  They had the job of plucking feathers from birds, getting them ready for market.  How the girls hated that job!  (In 1983, when our Prep class had its 50^th anniversary, I met Nadine Garnick and her husband.  They remembered some of us.)

 

The Clements lived across the street in a big brick house.  Sometimes they would herd cattle (15 or 20) along the roadside for a neighbor.  They had a horse, and had to be on the ball.  Mae was Helen’s age and Ramona Janice’s age.  Once Janice and I were taking a turn at herding the cattle when they got away from us.  We had to get help to get them back, and were so embarrassed.  Of course, the roads were dirt and cars were few, so that helped.  Ramona had a big donkey for a while and we learned well the foibles of that stubborn animal.  What a bony backbone he had!

 

Papa was working eight hours or more a day for Public Service Company of Colorado (PSCo), then coming home and trying to do all of the field work.  Herbert had worked all summer delivering produce to stores, looking for other work for winter, helping around the place where he could.  In the fall, Papa got a bad case of what the doctor called the flu.  He was very sick.  I remember the doctor coming.  Then another man came (Berger or Burger?) and the folks had bought their first home – a house on 2020 Spruce ($2900?).

 

I don’t know how we ever managed that first winter.  The house was small (only two bedrooms), but Papa knew he could make a bedroom upstairs.  They crowded two beds into their bedroom (one for the boys – hardly room for one!), then when spring came the boy’s bed was put on the back porch, which was partly screened in, partly walled.  We girls had the other bedroom, and for a while, slept together.  We each had a special drawer in a chest (chiffonier) for under things, stockings, and special things like my paper dolls (I wish I had saved a few!).  In the closet, we each had an area to hang things, but none of us had much, so space didn’t matter.  (We had two beds in our room by the winter of `27.)

 

In the winter of `27 our cousin Hazel came to go to school at CU.  [Probably Hazel Irene Forney, daughter of Charles J. Forney, Daisy’s brother…]  I think Papa had part of the upstairs done by then so the boys could be there.  Herbert graduated [from H.S.] in 1926.  He had so many jobs over there [Ft. Collins?], I’ll never remember them all.  (Herbert worked in 1926 and 1927 at the service station on 15^th and Walnut.  He saved for school at Aggies.)  How hard he worked!  Cafeteria, yard work, helping the folks he lived with.  After about two years, he got a job with PSCo sub-station south of Ft. Collins, and also got a job with Munsells, who had a shoe store, but also had a room or two to rent.  It was close to the sub-station.  He usually managed to work out his room and board, and could study on the job.  More on him later.  (Years later, Harold Curtis bought Munsells shoe store.  Dick, Jr., drove over at times to work there.  The store burned down in 1954, while we were on vacation in California.)

 

When Hazel came, of course things changed.  She had married young, lost a baby, got a divorce, then her parents decided she should get away and go to a good art school.  She was very talented, a little spoiled, and much more sophisticated than we were.  Papa worried that we would get too fussy and want too much.  I think Hazel stayed at least a year.  I know we had a mix-up for Helen’s graduation.  Janice had got a piece of yellow voile for a dress, and Hazel said ‘why not smocking?  I can do that’.  Well, the dress was all made except the smocking, and the next day was Helen’s graduation!  I asked Hazel about it, and she cried ‘Oh my, I didn’t know you wanted it for that day!  I’ll do it now’.  She worked late into the night, and the next morning started again.  I had no other dress to wear!  But, Hazel finished it, then said she didn’t have time to dress, and didn’t go.  She and I both cried a lot.  I wonder if she still remembers?

 

I’m sure I have written someplace else about our neighbors, but we did have a ‘big family’ surplus!  Six Osthoffs, four Wahlstroms, seven Neiheisels, seven Smileys, plus a few pikers with only two or three.  We enjoyed tremendously playing outside at summer time (say, from May to October), especially if the big 14-16 year olds would play.  They kind of ran things; especially with ‘Run sheep run’ you needed a smart and fearless leader or two.  We had quite a few good game summers.  Afternoons, those who didn’t have jobs, gathered over at Whittier School – next block north of us.  There, we could really get loose on the hits, fights, softball, mostly, but we hated the hard ground.  Whittier is still being used, and its most memorable features to me were the two long, dark halls, restrooms hard to get to (in the basement), though the teachers had several on each floor.  I was kind of a tri-level, as it had been added to and there were steps (3 or 4) up and down here and there.  The basement was restrooms, furnace, etc.  Also, this school had an old slide or chute, so old it was made of hardwood (sliding area).  Usually we sat on a piece of waxed paper for speed and safety.  Even so, several of us got painful splinters in our legs or seats!

 

When I started school here, about the last of October 1925, again I was intimidated by a new school -–new rules, and my teacher was a very cross young woman who more than once hit a child’s hand with a ruler.  Once, she forgot to use the flat side and a girl’s hand was cut by the ruler.  (The girl who was hit was Opal Easter.  She lived east of 2020, and I palled with her a little.  One day we went on a trip to a farm, stayed all night, and came home on Sunday.  It was a relative of Opal’s.  When fall came, I couldn’t find my coat.  We finally decided I’d left it on a nail in the barn.  We never got it back.)  The parents came to protest, but the parents were ‘no one’, so nothing was done, although I think the Principal – Miss Fitzpatrick – made her understand she should be more careful.  Dad and I both had parents who believed that a teacher needed good discipline in class, and if we were spanked at school, we might just get another one at home.  In this year, after height and weight were taken, I was considered ‘undernourished’, and letters were sent home.  I was to have a better diet!  As I remember our food, it was pretty well balanced.  A little too much starch here and there, but would that make me skinny?  I think it is a family trait, as so many of our family were that way when young.  (Our own boys had a fast growth, skinny stage.)  Also, the schools offered a recess snack – free if we couldn’t buy it, three cents, if we could.  It was ½ pint of milk and some graham crackers.  My folks were furious, and so, I took my snack from home – my folks said it was cheaper that way, and they wouldn’t take charity, even if they needed it.  I was a pretty lively child, and felt good, but I did grow fast.  When I was 13, I was taller than Janice [she was two years older] was.

 

(A funny thing happened years later.  We were having a family gathering at 2020.  It must have been when our older boys were fifth and sixth grades – little league players.  Dick, Herbert, George, Harold, and some of their kids and ours grabbed a couple of footballs and went over to Whittier to play ball.  A couple of hours later, they came back laughing and joking, but a little apprehensive.  Someone had kicked a ball through an upper window – they couldn’t get it back.  So, they wrote a letter to the school, sent some money for the window, and got the ball back.  We’ve all laughed about the ‘adult juveniles’.)

 

Miss Fitzpatrick was a pretty woman with white hair, a sweet face, and small and plump, but she was so strict.  I guess she had to have rules.  I never got into trouble with her – I was too scared to try.  One of the hardest things about school here was music.  I had always like to sing – all of us except Bob carried a tune well.  But in Fifth Grade we had to learn to read notes!  Most kids had been having a little of that in Boulder schools, but I had not.  It was a sudden and mysterious force thrust upon me, and I hated it.  However, there were about four or five from our room, four or five from the other fifth grade room, some from both sixth grades, and we had to stay after school several afternoons a week to study music.  I was the only one who never had any note reading, but I did eventually catch up and got so that, by seventh grade, I almost understood what it was all about.

 

We had an older, somewhat fussy teacher in sixth grade – Miss Moorhouse.  I did fairly well with her, and felt more at home now in Whittier.  One thing we had to do, which maddened George, but I loved: Every Friday, the fifth and sixth grades had turns at ‘good music’.  We filed out into the big, ugly, dark hallway, and where it widened a little beyond the stairway, there was an old phonograph.  Not old to me, as that’s what most people used then, but old to you, our children.  There, Miss Fitzpatrick played Minuets (2), Ave` Marias (2), To a Wild Rose, In the Hall of the Mountain King, Anitra’s Dance, Barcarole, and so forth.  I loved them all – I still do – and I am thrilled to hear them.  To George, it was always agony – he still feels animosity about it.

 

We were offered a prize for anyone who wrote a poem and put it to music.  I wrote my first poem (it is in my group of poems, #1).  But not for anything would I tell the teacher – I could have sung a good tune for it – but not in front of all those kids.  So another girl got the prize – and her poem didn’t even have rhythm.  I had learned to sing first or second alto in sixth grade, and it came natural to me.  I could always carry a tune, and when you learn alto, you just sing it.  I sometimes had to solo for the teacher (to prove worthiness of being in the chorus), and I always came out on tune.  The girl who had won the prize turned out to be flat on notes, but she was always in the chorus, too.

 

During our early teens, when Janice and I did dishes, we always sang – Janice soprano, I alto or harmony.  We sang ‘aloha-o’, ‘Don’t say aloha when I go’, ‘Down by the Old Mill Stream’, etc.  We both carry a tune well, and I think Mama said Janice was carrying a tune well at 18 months.  Being Sunday school attendees, we all learned short little songs, and also Mama sang to us – little rhymes or poems she knew.  I wish I had the words to them!

 

Helen was always trying to get more work, and she was good at housework and also baby-sitting.  One family she worked for was the Lawrence Lights.  They were the managers of a rent-a-car business.  Mrs. (Mabel) Light’s brother, Lawrence Reid, came up from Lamar to work for a while, and he and Helen got acquainted.  Then Edwin Reid came, too, and fell for Hazel.  They double dated some, and when Helen graduated in 1928, Lawrence asked her to go to Lamar to visit his parents.  They had a large farm near Wiley, and Lawrence as well as Ernest – an older brother – worked with their dad.  The crops were super, there was a small tenant house available, so Helen and Lawrence decided they would save money if she stayed and they got married – and they did on June 13, 1928, just a month before her 18^th birthday.  She wired home for permission, and they had a quiet ceremony.  Mrs. Reid was a termagant and made life so miserable for Helen.  Our folks thought Helen too young, but Lawrence was such a nice man, and ten years older, ready to settle down.  We all loved Lawrence so much.  He died in October 1937, of a perforated stomach ulcer and peritonitis (no penicillin or sulfa drugs then).  Hazel and Edwin married that fall, but were divorced a few years later.

 

Our years at 2020 weren’t so long, but once we got acquainted, it was home.  After Herbert went to school and Helen married, it wasn’t so very crowded, and Papa was always working to improve the house.  After he got the upstairs finished, he had to make a small closet in their bedroom, as the stairway used their closet to come down in.  He made a double-door area between the living and dining rooms, and made it larger, so it would heat easier.  He also built a cupboard under the sink, and installed a floor gas furnace between the living and dining areas.  The back yard was all garden, fruit trees, and flowers.

 

A year or so after we moved to 2020, Papa also built a one-car garage on the alley.  We had been renting a neighbor’s old garage, but it was down the alley east, and not very secure.  Papa once found a man hiding in the front, near some boxes.  Mama was so scared, but the man just walked out and went on down the alley.  They built their garage with a coal bin on the side, and later used it for storage. 

 

When we first moved here, we bought our cow ‘Betsy’, but after the first winter, we were told we could not have her here.  We took her out to Woodward’s – three miles east, on Arapaho – and got milk from them twice a week.  .  They were my folk’s best friends for years. 

 

When Helen and Lawrence’s Darrel was almost two, and she was expecting a new baby, they moved to Boulder for a while.  Things were not so good on the farm, and they thought Lawrence could get a job in Boulder.  Donna was born in the north Bedroom at 2020, and I was just 16 and remember it so well.  Papa never trusted hospitals because of the many infections they could spread, so the doctor came to us.  Mama and Papa helped, holding special lights, etc., but Papa said he’d never do it again.  It was so nerve wracking, but I think we four older children were born at home, in Hoisington.  He was younger then, and probably didn’t have to help, as they usually had some neighbor (experienced) who came to help. 

 

The Depression was in full force.  Papa’s salary had been cut several times, and the bank lowered the monthly payments to $25.  Lawrence took any job he could get – selling Christmas trees for Copeland’s greenhouse, and wreathes.  He also helped process turkeys for my boy friend’s parents (Delbert Brown).

 

Janice had met Harold that summer (`31) and I was dating Delbert.  Before Harold went back to Holyrood, KS, to his teaching job, they were engaged and were to be married in the spring or early summer.  However, Harold became very homesick, and decided they shouldn’t wait, so they planned a November wedding.  Everything had to be done at once, Papa grew very impatient with the ‘formalities’.  Copeland’s planned everything – even insisted that Janice have a ‘yo-yo’ quilt done by then (See picture and description on page 93, ibid.).  So many hours of work!  Copeland’s chose everything – flowers, maid of honor (Goldene), soloist (Marilyn C.), time of day.  I never even had a chance to be bride’s maid for my only unmarried sister.  I was taller than Harold was, but the best man wasn’t so short.  I did get busy and make a beautiful dark green crepe dress, long flared skirt, puff sleeves.  We served cake, ice cream, and plain punch.  Helen and I helped some, but it was Copelands all around.

 

On November 30 [1931], Grandma Forney died, so Mama made a very hurried trip to Lyons, KS.  She had a dress being altered for the wedding, and insisted that they must go on with it, as Harold had only the Thanksgiving weekend.  It must have been very hard on Mama – everyone thought so much of Grandma - though we didn’t see her often.  Janice and Harold went to Longmont to a hotel, but Harold became ill and his folks had to go get them (nerves?).  Janice had always been a kind of favorite of Papas, and he hated to see her leave on Sunday when they went back to Holyrood.  He told Harold to take care of his girl.  (I asked Delbert to come to the wedding, and was so naïve – we had no formal invitation for him, but he came in a dark suit, derby hat, and all.)

 

(Extra insight…)  {Mama was first and foremost always a lady.  When she and Papa were married, he was 26, she 23, so both had lots of girls and boys to date all those years.  They were able to get their furniture, pans, dishes, etc., from Uncle Frank’s furniture store at a very good price (you know most of the furniture, as we all have some).  They rented a nice little home in Hoisington, where Papa had worked for quite a while for the local ice and electric company.  I think the railroad owned it.  He was the electrical man, and took great pride in learning everything he could of it (I.C.C graduate).  We have some of his electric books.  His job was what might be called a pretty good one, though of course wages were quite low then – but so was everything.  Evidently, though, his boyhood or young manhood trip or trips to Colorado were on his mind.  Mama was happy where they were, and they had a plan to build a new house, but he took another trip to Colorado to look around (postcard on that to Mama) and just had the definite urge to ‘go west’ and get to the fishing and mountains.  In some way, he persuaded her to go, and she once told me ‘things were never the same’.  They moved from Kansas in January 1917 and rented a place on the North St. Vrain just west and north of the place we later lived in.  I was only 16 months [actually 20 months], so I don’t remember this place.  Mama hated it.  It was small and cold (and a cold winter).  When spring came, it was hard to do any planting, and I guess it rained too much all summer.  The big cash crop, onions, wouldn’t ‘season’ – that is the tops stayed fat and green and he couldn’t harvest them.  He finally rolled a log back and forth to break them, but the big money crop was not so good.

 

George had been born in May, and they had to rush Mama and him to the Longmont hospital.  George was 10 pounds, and she was so little.  Perhaps that was the winter we moved to Longmont, rented a house, and Papa got enough electric wiring jobs (stores and businesses) to see us through for a wile.  We probably moved to Shepherd’s place in 1918.  But, a