No Frills
May 5th, 2008 by 1coolgranny

I got in the bed to early tonight and my eyes got big as saucers. I got what we called the “big eye” when I was a kid. That’s where you turn over and over trying to go to sleep because you know that time to get up for work comes too early and you really need your rest but the harder you try the more awake you get! Your mind goes round and around and you get to thinking about all kinds of stuff.

Anyway, I got to thinking about how hard it must be for Beverly to have to worry about her baby having cancer and how with her red hair she probably looks a lot like Gladys did when she was little. Then I thought of how sad Maggie must be with losing Tommy and how she had made him such a good wife. I prayed for all my family and friends and hoped I never had to lose a child and thought of Dorothy Gail and Dorothy. Then I thought about Vance.

I remember when I was to little to go to school. I remember him bringing home Ina Jane Day once. They had walked up Big Branch and it was during the day. I guess mom or somebody told me she was his girlfriend because I remember knowing that she was. What I remember was they sat leaned up against the living room wall in two home made chairs side beside. I bet Vance wished I hadn’t stood there looking them both in the face until he walked her back home!

I remember when he brought Gladys home too! It must have been just about near the same time. It was after dark and there was more than just him and Gladys that came in. I don’t remember who all but I remember Gladys leaning up against moms sewing machine and she had on a long straight skirt, dark colored, maybe checked, a light colored sweater, bobby socks and long red hair! And, she was skinny!

Then I got to thinking about our log house on Big Branch and how that there was eight of us and mom and dad all home at once in two (maybe) 14X14 feet front rooms, about an 8X18 foot kitchen and about an 8X8 tiny room for mom & dads bed and a small canning room and unfinished loft. Man! Everything we had was used and useful! There was no room for frivolity!

The best I remember, the first room where the front door came in had two full size cast iron beds, mom’s treadle singer sewing machine and the chifarobe which was actually a tall cabinet with shelves that dad had made with a curtain over it for doors and that was it! The other front room had two full beds, one walnut that dad had made and one cast iron, the battery radio cabinet, a walnut dresser that he had also made, the heating stove and 3or 4 homemade, straight back chairs. A quilt rack hung from the ceiling.

In the kitchen was a coal and wood cook stove, a dish cabinet that dad had made (Shirley still has it) , a small table for the water buckets, a long, homemade dinner table with a homemade bench behind it and several homemade chairs around the end and front side. At the end of the kitchen was the 8X8 room with mom and dads sassafras bed on one side and the dresser and chest on the other (he made these too, I still have them). There was barely enough room to walk in and open the drawers. There was a long stick in one corner which held the hung up clothes. At the back of the kitchen was a little room with shelves all around 3 walls for the can stuff. A ladder went up into the loft. There was a bed up there for some of the boys!

We had cheap linoleum on the floors, flowered wall paper on the walls, plastic curtains on the windows and two coal oil lamps. The walls had one calendar hanging behind the heating stove and one picture of a little blond haired girl with red pajamas sitting in bed praying on the wall over one of the beds. Delphia and Bill had brought it to mom for Christmas.

We also had soft feather beds and beautiful handmade quilts to sleep under. We had gorgeous crochet doilies mom made and starched and molded around jelly glasses until the ruffles stood up by themselves until the next washing. We had country smoked bacon and ham and fresh eggs, milk and butter. We had green beans, corn, tomatoes, apples, blackberries, krout, chowchow, apple butter, jams and jelly, all canned by mom and the girls. We had strings of shucky beans hanging on nails behind the kitchen stove. We had potatoes buried in a hole under the floor with straw over them to help them to keep all winter.

We had a mule and cow in the barn, hogs in the lot and chickens anywhere they wanted to be except in the house or on the porch and steps. They always got shooed off there because they were to messy. We had a rooster that flogged me every time I had to go out to the toilet. Shirley would have to go with me with a broom to keep him from spurring me!

Well, I digress! Back to the point! The point is that I, like everyone, have 7 rooms of junk and 90% of it is useless. Maybe I need to downsize. Well, I am getting sleepy now so I will have to think about this another time. I sure do love all my stuff!!!

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Posted in 1950's memories | 3 Comments »