Several years later, after Everett was married and had two children, he contracted encephalitis, commonly called sleeping sickness, and was never well for the remainder of his life. He and his wife, Alice, always owned horses, and the year he became ill, many horses in the area had the disease. The disease is carried by mosquitoes and can be transmitted from horses to humans. This is probably what happened in his case. Everett and his wife, Alice, had two children, Bill and Almeda. Alice, apart from suffering from arthritis, is in good health. At the present time she lives just across the street from me in Ayrshire.

My older brother, Russell, owned a coupe. If my memory serves me correctly, it was a Hudson. It had a rumble seat, where everyone loved to sit. He and his girlfriend, Verna, who later became his wife, would take Bonnie and me to the basketball games with them. Usually, he would take us home after the game, but one night in the dead of winter with snow piled high, he stopped at the corner a mile from our house. He got out of the car, took out a kerosene lantern, and told Bonnie and me we had to walk. Boy, were we mad. Russell thought it was very funny. I still don't let him live this down.

When I was 13 years old Russell, mother and I went to Illinois to visit our relatives. Russell drove his Hudson coupe, and I rode all the way in the rumble seat. I can still remember that ride. Believe me, they don't make rumble seats like they used to.

Russell and his wife Verna had three children, Ramon, Dale, and Marilyn. Their oldest boy, Ramon, died of cancer when he was in his forties.

At the present time Russell and myself are the only ones of mom and dad's children still living. Russell always says the two ornery ones are left.

My two sisters, Pauline and Helen, were my oldest siblings. Pauline was the oldest and was married two days after my ninth birthday. Mother prepared a big dinner in honor of her wedding. I remember that mother took a skillet of sweet potatoes from the oven and set it on the stove to keep it warm. For some reason I came along and took hold of the handle. It was very hot, and I burned my hand badly.

I also remember a newly married couple that sat on the couch and did a lot of kissing. That's all I remember about Pauline's wedding. I do not remember a lot about Helen's wedding either except it took place on my 11th birthday.

Something every newly married couple could expect a few days after their wedding was a shivaree. On a dark night friends would sneak up to the couple's house and scare the living daylights out of them by banging pans and doing all sorts of silly things. It was the time-honored custom for the groom to treat the rowdy guests by giving candy bars to the ladies and cigars to the men. Sometimes the men would 'kidnap' the young bride and take her to town or maybe just for a ride. Pauline and Melvin had a shivaree and they made Melvin walk a mile down a railroad track in the rain. And he still remembers that walk.

After they were married, Pauline and Melvin lived only a few miles from our house northwest of Curlew. I would often go to their home and would sometimes stay overnight. Their oldest boy, Kenneth, was only ten years younger than me. He lost his life when he was 14 from a rare infection. He was almost like a brother to me. They had two more children, Lavonne and Max.

Pauline's health started to fail shortly after they lost Kenneth. I always felt this was the main reason for it. Other than the childhood death of little Margery, Pauline was the next sibling to pass from this earth. She did so when she was 79.

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I remember one day when Pauline's future husband, Melvin, came calling for her. Melvin and Pauline were sitting on the grass on the lawn. Melvin was showing me in some detail how to kill a bug. I thought he was so funny. We were always good pals. We still are.

One Sunday afternoon when Melvin came calling on Pauline, he brought with him a blind date for my sister, Helen. The four of them spent the afternoon sitting in the living room. My mother was upstairs taking a nap, and dad was doing something out in the barn. Everett and Russell were upstairs in their bedroom. I wanted to go upstairs too, but to get there I had to go through the living room where my sisters were entertaining their beaus. There was this new man in there and there was no way I was going through that room with him there. So, I went outside and called to Everett and Russell through their upstairs window. They said they'd lower a rope and pull me up. So, they tied a knot at one end of the rope, and I stood on it while they started pulling me up. Everything was going fine until I passed in front of the living room window. One of my sisters saw me and let out a scream. All four of them rushed to the window just in time to see me hanging out the upstairs window. Helen's blind date never did forget that. I know this for a fact since he became by brother-in-law. His name was Bruce Rouse and we laughed about that incident many times.

When Melvin and Bruce came to pick up Pauline and Helen they often went on long walks. They wanted me to stay in the house and play with my dolls, but I would have none of that. Sometimes as I tagged along behind them, they would stop and say they could hear mother calling me, but I would have none of that either. I would tell them I didn't hear anything and continue to tag along. I don't think they really minded since they never got angry.

My sister, Helen, lived to be 88 years old. She had good health until the last two years of her life. She and Bruce had three sons, Donald, Eugene, and Gordon. Bruce died in the late 1960s from Lou Gehrig's disease, about twenty five years before Helen.

Pauline's husband, Melvin, is 94 years old and is living in a nursing home in Emmetsburg. My one remaining brother, Russell, is in good health and lives with his wife, Verna, in Curlew.

Hair Styles and Squab

A popular hair style in those days was the Buster Brown cut. The sides were cut straight and short. I remember my mother telling the barber to cut my hair to the middle of my ear. Straight bangs were cut across the forehead just above the eyebrows. The back was shingled. I wore it straight except when I was in a Christmas program. Then, either Pauline or Helen would curl my hair with a curling iron. To heat it up the curling iron was hung in the chimney of a lamp to get it hot. They wrapped strands of hair around it forming teeny-weeny curls. If you smelled burning hair, you knew the iron was too hot. I always liked curls, but I sure didn't like those burnt ears.

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Both Russell and Everett had rifles and did a great deal of hunting and trapping. I remember they often caught skunks. They would skin them and stretch the skins on shingles. I suppose they sold them, but I have no memory of this. They often had the tell-tale odor of skunk on their clothes. Someone told my mother that if you rendered the fat of a skunk, it made a good chest rub for a cold. So, she made some. I can still remember her rubbing that stuff on me. I also think it had a rather bad odor.

Often during wintertime Everett and Russell would hunt rabbits. which were used for food and made a nice change in our diets. They tasted a bit like chicken. I didn't care much for them. I always saw the cute little bunnies in my mind. Years later wild rabbits in our area contracted a disease so they were no longer fit for the table.

Mustard plasters were used for infections in the chest. Mother would make one by taking a tablespoon of mustard and five tablespoons of flour. She would add enough water to them to make a thick paste. She then spread this on a piece of cloth and put it on my chest. This would draw the infection out. They could get very hot.

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Another meat that we liked was squab, which means 'young pigeon.' Since many pigeons made their nests in the corncrib, it was easy to catch them. They made a very tasty dish. Russell and Everett loved to catch pigeons. They always told mother when the young birds were ready to eat.

Both Russell and Everett helped my dad with the farm work. I particularly remember them shocking oats. This was done during the hottest time of the summer in July and August. Dad drove a team of horses that were hitched to the binder, which cut the oats and tied them into bundles. Russell and Everett then set these bundles up against each other so they would dry and be ready to thresh. Several farmers then joined together to form a threshing run. The younger men loaded the bundles of oats onto hayracks and took them to the threshing machine, where the grain was separated from the straw. The older men generally drove the teams that were hitched to the wagons of grain. Russell and Everett always hauled the bundles. The number of men a farmer supplied to the run depended on the amount of oats the farmer had to thresh. Most farmers supplied two men. Dad always supplied two men. One of my brothers on the hayrack and dad on the grain wagon. The other brother usually worked for a neighbor during this time.

Threshing was always a big thrill for me when I was young. I remember the huge engine coming down the road with smoke puffing and belching out all sides of it. I remember one day when we were threshing, a neighbor, who was Danish, and had just come to America. He spoke broken English and came to our door to ask mother something. While he stood there he told me he had a little girl my age. That was all right, but then he told me he would like to take me home so I could play with her. Do you know every time that man came to our house, I would run and hide under the bed. This must have continued for at least two years until my mother finally convinced me he was really a nice man. He would not capture me, she said.

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The lamp we used to light our house had a small yellow flame. In order to read we had to sit very close to it. Then, one day my parents purchased an new Aladdin lamp. It gave a lovely white light and we could all read quite easily. The first evening it arrived, mother decided she would light it and surprise dad when he came in from milking. She lit the wick and a big flame shot out the chimney. She extinguished it but decided she would wait for dad to come in and light it himself. When dad finally lit that new lamp for the first time, we learned that the mantle had a coat of wax.

Corn picking was another back-breaking job. Both Russell and Everett were considered good huskers. In those days the corn was picked by hand. A good husker could pick over a hundred bushels in a day. This would generally be about three-wagon loads. Going to the fields early in the morning with dew on the corn would cause their hands to chap and crack open. They wore heavy gloves and a hook, specifically made for husking corn, was worn over one of the gloves.

When the corn was brought in from the field, it had to be scooped by hand from the wagon into the corncrib. Later, my dad built a new corncrib with an elevator that could elevate the corn into the crib. What a blessing. He would simply hitch a horse to a circular gear that drove the elevator. All the horse had to do was walk around in circles - which was the only way she could go. It was my job to drive the horse. I'm sure the horse could have managed without me. However, I did keep her moving. I really thought this was an important job.

My dad always planted pumpkin seeds in some of the hills of corn. I can still see loads of corn with a few pumpkins on top coming in from the fields. These pumpkins were used to make the best pie you have ever tasted. We didn't buy canned foods then, I don't even know if there were canned foods in the stores.

After the corn picking was done at home, Russell and Everett would get jobs picking corn for some of the farmers in the area. They used this to buy new clothes. Also they purchased Christmas presents for their girlfriends. The longer they worked the nicer the presents for their girlfriends.

When the last ear of corn was finally picked, we always celebrated this occasion with an oyster stew. This was the only time we had oysters. It was a real treat.

Pauline and Helen often brought girlfriends home with them for the weekend. On these occasions I would sleep with them. I don't know why. I'm sure it wasn't their idea. At any rate I always slept in the middle. The big girls would sleep with their back toward each other and their bottoms nearly touching. If I wanted to turn over, I would raise up above them and then flip over. I always felt like a salami sandwich. After one particularly bad night, I told my mother I would not be sleeping with them any more. Mother laughed and said that she doubted if it was as bad as I thought. I don't recall sleeping with them again.

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I hate to go on so much about Jack and Jenny, so here is the last mule story. This one involved me too. I think I said that I used to carry water to the men in the fields. On this particular day I was walking down the road to the field where Everett was cultivating corn. It so happened that he was going the opposite direction and didn't see me. I decided to surprise him so I hid in some tall grass. When he was coming back toward me and only a short distance away, I jumped up and yelled and waved my arms. I didn't expect the reaction of Jack and Jenny. They reared up and, ... well, I didn't have the courage to see what happened next, so I dropped down in the grass and stayed there until Everett finally stopped yelling and screaming. He managed to stop the mules at the end of the row. It was probably the fastest row of corn he ever cultivated. Although, he did plow out quite a bit of corn. He told me never to do that again.