In contrast to yesterday’s post discussing luxury and having too many toys to play with, today I offer some memories belonging to my aunt about her childhood. She grew up on a ranch on the prairie east of the Rocky Mountains. It wasn’t exactly a subsistence lifestyle, but there certainly were no luxuries. Her parents (my grandparents) worked hard, and my grandfather, especially, had known true poverty growing up. Bob, her older brother, was my father.

Please excuse the randomness of this narrative. My aunt is presently in her mid-80s and suffering from Alzheimer’s. I have done some light editing, but the following is essentially unchanged.

I have many memories of the ranch. It was a great life for a child. I was pretty much free to play in the barn loft, climb trees, and wander around with our dogs Boots, Elmer, and Dewey. We also had two porches on our old house that were great for playing house. There was also the barn and lots of sheds to play in. Of course, we always had barn cats too.

Every spring, Mom ordered baby chicks from the feed store in town. The mailman delivered them in a big box. I wonder how the mailman felt, listening to them cheep all of the way from town. We had a special shed with a heater for them and they all clustered around it. They were sure cute, yellow, fluffy creatures, but they soon grew and got feathers. Then they weren’t so cute anymore.

When the calves were born, they were so pretty and clean. They ran and played in the pasture just like human children. I remember once Bob brought a big newborn calf right into the kitchen to warm it up. Unfortunately, it died.

We also had baby pigs that were clean and white — for a while. I remember coyotes howling up on the hills at dusk. Even though I was only a few feet from the front door, I was afraid they would get me before I could get inside.

After school, I would walk part way home with Ann Carter. We would play, and sometimes Mom decided I had played too long, and then I wouldn’t be allowed to walk with her for a while. When I got my bike, I didn’t know how to ride, so my “friends” took me to the hill where the school was and let me go. I fell and had a huge scab from the top of my nose to my lips. Boy, did that hurt!

After I started dating Walter, we decided to go horseback riding. Walter was on 2 Bits and I was riding Molly by the pond north of the haystacks when she (Molly) decided to have a roll in the water. I managed to get my foot out of the stirrups and except for getting wet I was fine, but the saddle was wet. Needless to say, Bob was upset.

Some wet years, cactus bloomed. Cactus blossoms, 4 o’clocks, primroses, indian paintbrush, yellow wild lupines, apple blossoms, and in the schoolyard lilac colored wild sweet peas. They were all so beautiful in the spring. We had five apple trees, so we got lots of apples. The elm tree windbreak was planted by the W.P.A. or C.C.C. during the Depression.

Since we didn’t get electricity until I was a freshman in high school, Mom would put perishable food like butter and meat in a clean bucket, and then Dad would put it down in the well to keep it cold. Mom had Mrs. Cox do our laundry. I think they had seven kids, so she could use the money. It sure surprised me to see one of the girls wearing a dress that used to be mine.

Later, we went to town to the laundry, which had wringer washers. I remember Mom saying at one time, they had a washer with a gasoline motor at home. Dad would start it for her and go out to the fields to work. He would just get out of sight and the motor would die. She couldn’t start it again, and it really made her mad.

[At the one-room school] we always had Halloween parties, Valentine parties, Easter Egg Hunts, and a Christmas play. Such excitement! We were always nervous and afraid we’d forget our parts. After the play, we exchanged gifts for the person whose name we’d drawn. Since there were so few of us, we always got big sacks of hard candy with an apple and orange.

A couple of times a year, we’d get it into our heads to go for a hike. We usually had to wait until the next day so everybody could bring a lunch. Then, we’d go up into the hills. We’d come home tired and happy. Once I found an arrowhead.

When it was too cold to play outside, we had to entertain ourselves. If we got too noisy, Mom came up with some games. She invented one something like musical chairs, but we were supposed to walk with a book on our heads. If it fell off, we were out of the game. When I was in 8th grade, I got to go to a Spelling Bee in town. I misspelled daffodil and I felt so bad.

Once or twice a year, our school nurses came and checked us over. They gave us DPT shots and smallpox vaccinations. I remember when the polio vaccine came out. I think they may have had clinics in town for those. When the polio scare was real bad, Mom wouldn’t let me go in public places with her for fear I’d get it.

I remember Mom making lye soap. I think she used a big kettle of bacon grease she had saved. I think she put the lye on top. She told me not to touch it because it would burn me. Well guess what-of course I had to touch it. I very quickly wiped my hand, but I don’t remember that it hurt.

We didn’t get electricity until I was a freshman in high school in 1952-1953. FDR was responsible for getting REA (Rural Electrification Association) through. Before then, we had a gasoline generator, but Dad or Bob always turned it off at bedtime. Once a battery exploded, and a piece hit Dad in the head. That was sure scary. Fortunately, he was okay. Before the generator, we had kerosene lamps, but they didn’t give much light.

I remember Dad driving the hay wagon with two horses while he and Bob stacked hay on it. I rode a few times, but didn’t like it because it was scratchy. Once in a while, Bob would go down in the arroyo to fix watergaps [fences across water courses]. Sometimes I got to go and if there was any water in the arroyo, I got to wade. What a treat! Dad used to make bows and arrows for me from the greasewood.

Both Mom and Dad worked very hard. There was no running water, no electricity and no indoor plumbing in our house until I was 13. Mom raised us, cooked over a wood stove, heated water for bathing, washing clothes and dishes, and canned large amounts of food, which she stored in the cellar. She said she would start getting meat ready to can in the morning. It took all day and until late at night because the jars had to be boiled three hours after they were ready to can. She made lye soap, churned butter, and sewed nearly everything we wore. Dad worked at the coal mine for a time. Dad carried water and wood, built and repaired fences. He and Bob also milked cows, branded, butchered and dehorned, plowed, planted, and harvested crops. They smoked their own meant.

Mix one pint lye (made from wood ashes) with two pounds of clean melted fat (bacon grease) and simmer gently for three hours, stirring frequently. As it cools, add one pound salt. This would fall to the bottom, but hardened the soap. After salt settled, pour into molds lined with damp cloths. Then let it set. Cut into bars.

It was a Saturday night in the spring of 1939. My sisters were sent to bed, except for the oldest, who went to a dance. Dad was in the Army Hospital with an infected, ruptured appendix. Bob was sent for the doctor and at about 9 p.m. on May 6, 1939, I was born. Dr. Hurst spelled my name wrong, and many years later, I had to get it corrected on my birth certificate. Mom was 44 and had four other children. The youngest was Virginia, who had her 12th birthday a few weeks after I was born.

Dad had gone to Denver to the VA Fitzsimmons hospital on the train by himself [with the ruptured appendix], and at age 18, Bob was the man of the house. Besides taking care of the ranch, he graduated from high school that spring. I think Mom said she borrowed the money from one of the neighbors (who also had a store at in town) for Bob’s graduation suit.

Dad was gone [hospitalized] for six weeks. Mom said she would go out to get the mail and if there was no letter from Dad, she would cry. Then I would cry and she’d have to take care of me. Sulfa was a fairly new drug that saved Dad’s life, but a few years later, he had to go back to Fitzsimmons to have his appendix removed.

When we moved into the new house that Uncle Harry and Uncle Lawrence helped Dad and Bob build, it felt like a mansion. We had no heat and the men wanted Mom to move back into the tool shed [old house] for a year. Mom said no, so I had to sleep on the couch in front of the fireplace for the first winter.