The Hills

By P. A. Nelson

The Hills is a true story experienced and told to me over the years by my
mother, Beth. This story about my mothers childhood began in Lepanto,
Arkansas and ended in Concrete, Washington. There was a lot of pathos,
happiness, and learning about life that we dont see in our families today. Mothers
fi rst seven years were spent in a little 2 bedroom house in Arkansas where she
learned family values. The second part of her journey in growing up was three
weeks spent in a Model A crossing the United States in a move to improve the
quality of their lives. Upon arrival in Concrete, Washington, her family settled
into a situation where they had a much nicer lifestyle for a time. It is a true story
of how families were making it in the Big Depression.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 2, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483609522

P. A. Nelson

P.A. Nelson is Professor of Acoustics.

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by P.A. Nelson.

Library of Congress Control Number:         2013904542

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4836-0951-5

                Softcover         978-1-4836-0950-8

                Ebook               978-1-4836-0952-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 04/30/2013

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Contents

Author Image And Autobiography

Book Summary

Chapter 1 The Hills… Are Alive

Chapter 2 The Hills… On The Move

Chapter 3 The Hills… Settle In

Epilogue

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my mother, Bethyl Nelson, one of the children in this story. In those long ago days, life was easy and innocence was still alive. She was born during a time when it seemed like everyone was poor compared to today’s society; however nobody knew they were poor, nobody compared themselves with ‘society’ and life was simple and full of adventure and possibilities.

AUTHOR IMAGE AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY

author.jpg

P .A. Nelson (Peggy Nelson) was born in Mt. Vernon, Washington in 1937. She grew up on the road, as her father was in construction following the ending of World War II. By the time she graduated from high school, she had lived in 48 places and changed schools 24 times.

She married in 1956 and brought five children into the world while living in San Jose, California. The 28 years of marriage was spent as a homebody, until she was divorced in 1983. She attended a business college and took a secretarial job at the Hanford site in Richland, retiring in 2002. Since then she has worked side jobs, but spent most of her time writing. She resides in Richland, Washington near her 5 children, 16 grandchildren, and 27 great grandchildren.

BOOK SUMMARY

T he Hills is a true story experienced and told to me over the years by my mother, Beth.

This story about my mother’s childhood began in Lepanto, Arkansas and ended in Concrete, Washington. There was a lot of pathos, happiness, and learning about life that we don’t see in our families today. Mother’s first seven years were spent in a little 2 bedroom house in Arkansas where she learned family values. The second part of her journey in growing up was three weeks spent in a Model A crossing the United States in a move to improve the quality of their lives. Upon arrival in Concrete, Washington, her family settled into a situation where they had a much nicer lifestyle for a time. It is a true story of how families were making it in the Big Depression.

CHAPTER 1

The Hills… Are Alive

1922 to 1925

G randma Beth sat on the couch, dreaming through the afternoon. Through the large picture window next to the couch, she could see the overcast skies. It was going to rain again. She could feel it in the air. Now, she knew why all of her friends were now living and basking in Arizona or New Mexico. Cold, overcast equaled to sadness and depression. She knew it was way too late to plan a move south, so she cuddled up on the couch and thought about her past and what her future was going to be like.

She was alone for the first time in what seemed to be a long, long life. Bill had always been there alongside her, but suddenly he developed a losing battle with a cancer bug and she didn’t have him with her anymore. She had never even considered the possibility that she would be living her life out without him by her side, and the prospect of lonely years ahead wasn’t a pleasant one.

She had her family, but they were busy with their own lives and didn’t have a lot of time to dedicate to Grandma Beth. She understood, because once upon a time it had been her and her parents in that position. She set about to try and find something to keep her occupied in these last lonely years, but was hard pressed to find anything. She always wanted to write when she was younger, so that’s what she finally determined to attempt. She decided to start her ‘blossoming’ writing career by telling the story of her life. It was interesting to her, so surely it would be interesting to others.

Yawning, she looked at the clock that looked back at her with a 5 o’clock face. It was time to fix supper. Five o’clock had been suppertime for her entire life and old habits are hard to get over. Even though she had no one to cook supper for but herself, her stomach still remembered that it was time to eat. She thought about getting up off the couch and firing up the stove, but it was so much trouble to cook for just one person.

She thought about looking in the refrigerator and seeing what there was to eat without any fixing, but she decided to sit here for another minute or two. The phone rang, but she didn’t feel like answering it, so she let it ring until it rang itself out. She listened to the answering machine and when nobody came onto the open line, she thought that it was probably one of those politicians wanting more money. I hate election years, she thought to herself. It could be Peggy, though. She’s the only person I knew who would let a telephone ring 16 times before giving up on it, and then hanging up without leaving a message.

Grandma said to herself under her breath, If it was Peggy, it should start ringing again in… . Grandma’s thoughts were interrupted by the ringing phone. Sighing loudly, she got up stiffly from the comfort of the couch and hobbled to the phone.

Hello, she said into the atrocious green phone that one of the family members thought was cute. She just knew that Grandma Beth would love it. It was shaped like a frog with one long leg sticking out sideways where it became the earpiece. Why in the world would anyone think I’d like a frog telephone simply because I have a frog statue in the garden?

She knew the family members thought her taste was passé, and she would love or at least she’d keep anything anyone gave her. She felt that nobody took her serious and she had outlived her time. Where and when did she become the brunt of the family’s jokes? She remembered the days when everyone hung onto every word she said and thought she was so smart to know about all that old stuff. Now, the entire family was treating her as though she were senile and out of touch with the real world.

Don’t I watch Fox News every day to stay in touch with what’s going on? Just because I don’t agree with the morals and the behavior of the people these days, doesn’t mean I’m old fashioned and immersed in the past. It’s not my fault things were so much better then.

Mother? Are you all right? I just called a minute ago and didn’t get an answer. If you hadn’t answered this time, I was going to send the police out to check on you.

Hello, Peggy. I heard the phone ringing, but by the time I got here it stopped.

She had answered Peggy’s statement with her fingers crossed behind her back. She knew it was wrong to tell a fib, but sometimes a person just had to do it to keep peace in the family. Besides, the crossed fingers cancelled out the sin of telling the little white lie, didn’t it?

You need to get caller ID on your phone, so you won’t miss a call or so you can at least know who called when you do miss the call and you can call them back. Anyway, Mother, I was wondering if you planned on coming over for the 4th this year. We’re establishing our guest list and need to know if we can count on your being here. And we can’t have a 4th of July party without your special potato salad.

I don’t know, Peggy. It’s too far away to make plans.

It’s only two weeks, Mother, and I’d really like to have you over to the new place. We moved in two months ago, and you haven’t seen the place yet. I’ve done a lot since we moved in, especially the back yard. It’s going to be the best 4th of July party we’ve ever had. I hired a local band to come over to play some old Rock and Roll, and I have a clown coming just for the kids. We rented one of those big playrooms for the kids, so there will be something for all of them to do. Of course, there’ll be the normal stuff like swimming in the pool, lawn games, and the fireworks around the pool. You know how much fun we always have. Lynda and Neal are coming all the way from Montana. You don’t want to miss them, do you?

Beth knew that Lynda and Neal would come to see her even if she didn’t go to the 4th of July party, but she decided to try and keep her older daughter happy. Beth thought about seeing her younger daughter and her husband who rarely made it for any of the family get-togethers, living two states away as they did. Grandma Beth knew if she didn’t agree, Peggy would keep calling her until she did agree, and she really did want to see Lynda.

Okay, Peggy, count me in, but it depends on how I feel that day if I actually come. If I can’t make it that day, I’ll be sure to get the potato salad there anyway.

Mom, you’re the healthiest person I know. You may be in your 90s, but your real age is probably 70 or less. Those vitamins you’ve taken all your life are really kicking in for you. Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. I’ll count on your being here then. Talk to you later and have a good day. Bye! Bye!

Grandma Beth hung up the phone and wandered back to the couch where she sat down dejectedly and continued her reverie. Going to Peggy’s for 4th of July used to be such a fun thing, but lately she just couldn’t get any of that holiday celebration feeling-thing going.

I feel out of place and out of step with everybody and every thing. I miss Bill and all the old friends and most of the relatives. They’re all gone now, leaving me behind all alone. Oh, sure, I have the younger family members, but almost everybody in my generation is gone. Even the friends that Bill and I used to camp and fish with. Who do I have to talk to and reminisce with? I go to the family things and I smile when somebody looks at me or tells me to smile for the camera, but it isn’t the same. I’ve outlived my purpose.

A few of Bill’s relatives were still living, but they had all abandoned her and moved off to Arizona for the winter of their life. The chance that she would ever see one of them again was nil. She felt pretty good, but she wasn’t able to get around like she used to. In fact, she had just yesterday purchased a walker, a new kind that had big wheels and a seat to sit down in if you got too tired to walk. Not that she really needed one yet, but it made her feel more secure.

It’s too bad a person’s body doesn’t stay in the same condition for her entire life. I thought back to those days when I was a little girl and had a little girl’s body that could go and go all day. I remembered those early years in Arkansas just like they were yesterday. It’s funny! I can’t remember when or where I left my glasses today, but I can remember so many things that happened to me when I was a little girl in Arkansas. I guess that’s what happens to us when we get old. We have selective memory. But, where was I? Oh, yes, Arkansas… . Maybe, I should write this stuff down as I think about them, but it is just so much work. Maybe, later…

I was born in a very small town in the northeastern part of the state of Arkansas. In fact it was barely a dot on the map back then. It was small, but it was my home for the first 7 years of my life. I didn’t know that it was a ‘small’ town, because I didn’t have another town to compare it to. When you’re a kid, you think where you’re living and how you’re living is normal for the whole world. I guess you just don’t have a frame of reference. I didn’t miss living differently, because I didn’t know it was different.

We left there when I was 7, but I stored up a lot of memories of our lives before we left. I looked my birth town up on a map when I was in high school in Washington State, but I couldn’t find it. Momma told me it was northwest of Memphis somewhere, but she’d never seen it on a map either, so we decided it might not even be there anymore.

I wish I’d asked my mother and father more questions about their families when I was young. A person doesn’t think about that when they’re growing up but as they grow older they begin to wonder about those family members that are no longer with them. Who was my Grandpa and who was my Grandma? As long as I can remember we had these big antique pictures on the wall of a young girl and an older man. Momma told us the man was her father and the young girl was her when she was 15. I often wondered why there wasn’t a picture of her mother there too, but Momma didn’t know why and we didn’t have anyone else to ask.

The Grandpa of the picture pair, looked like Grover Cleveland, but I don’t think it was him. I was pretty sure if my Grandfather was a President of the United States, I would have known about it. He looked very stern; like he never smiled. I used to stand on the floor below that picture and stare at this unknown man who was my Grandfather. He looked like he could be mean and might be quick to spank, so I decided maybe I was lucky not to have known him. I asked Momma about him, and she said she couldn’t remember ever seeing him smile. Fathers in his time were distant and didn’t interact very much with their children. In fact, they didn’t have much of a family instinct bred into them…

I hardly know anything about my parent’s extended families. Momma’s family’s last names were Holladay and Mayo. I guess the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota was started by some of Momma’s cousins, but Momma didn’t remember them so they must have been from a part of the family that branched out early on. When I asked Momma where her father and grandfather had worked and what they actually did at work, she said she didn’t know; she’d never asked. I guess people back then didn’t talk about things like that.

I do know that Papa was born in Mississippi County in Arkansas. When Papa was only two years old, his mother and father died from some kind of sickness. Papa had to go to live with an old maid aunt, who was severe in her punishment. He said that he got spanked every day of his life. Papa didn’t come to our town until he was grown and went to work at one of the local companies. He met Mama, married her and had never gone beyond the city limits until we moved across the United States to Washington.

He did tell us that his family once owned a plantation in Mississippi County. He said they had slaves and had a house in town, so they must have been rich. Papa had a sister that lived in Little Rock, Arkansas after she grew up and got married. He didn’t know who had raised her after his parents died, but she didn’t live with him and his aunt. When he found her again, she was married to a lawyer and they lived in a big house and had a live-in maid. Papa and his sister never did get close. It might be because his sister’s husband was an attorney and somehow, they gypped my father out of his part of the family inheritance.

Momma told me about her family moving to a big city to live for a while. She said she didn’t know what city it was, but it was enormous to her. When I asked her if they lived there very long, she said she thought it was more like passing through than living there. They soon moved to this little town and settled in for the duration. Other than that, she didn’t remember much about her growing up years.

People didn’t travel around much in those days. They were born in a town and died there, some never going beyond the city limits. Nobody seemed to want or expect to go gallivanting around the country. If the town they lived in supplied them with a living and a roof, they were contented to stay there. Hardly anybody aspired for a better job, and if they did, it was pretty much just talk. Nobody thought anything about it when Papa talked about wanting a new job, but they finally believed it when we packed up our car and drove away.

I never would have thought we would actually get up and move away from our home, the only home we’d ever known. I loved our house in Arkansas. I guess you’d say it was a little run down, but we lived there cozily and happily without realizing the flaws. Our house was small and had once been painted white, but as long as I knew it, it was a faded wood color and the paint was chipped. When I was around five years old, I found some old cans of partially used paint in the shed and got real excited as I ran to tell Papa.

Papa, we can paint the house now. I found some paint.

I don’t think so, Beth. That paint is probably older than I am. It isn’t good anymore.

Then why doesn’t somebody throw it away? Papa just looked at me as though I were some kind of nut, but I knew he didn’t have an answer to this down-to-earth, always thinking, little girl.

Because somebody forgot, I guess.

Can I throw it away then?

Sure, go ahead if it would make you feel better.

Can we buy some good paint and paint the inside of our house someday? Mine and Elise’s bedroom could use some new paint. It’s not very pretty, Papa.

You’re right, Beth, but pretty is not really all that important. Clean is what’s important!

He didn’t realize it, but it really did make me feel better to throw those almost empty cans of bad paint into the garbage pile. When we moved away a year or so later, and I took my last look around our yard, I could still see those paint cans sticking up out of the trash pile. Somehow, it made me feel a sense of accomplishment to know they were forever in the garbage of our house.

That afternoon when Momma called us to dinner, I asked them why we didn’t buy some new paint and paint the inside rooms of the house. I thought the kitchen would look pretty with newly-painted walls.

Papa said, We can’t afford to paint them right now and besides, we’d have to get the landlord’s okay to paint them. Up to that point, I didn’t know that we even had a landlord.

Why do we have to ask a landlord if we can paint our house?

Because the landlord owns this house; we just live here.

I pondered on that for awhile, but couldn’t figure out the high finances of that arrangement, so I decided to drop the subject. Later, when I knew what that was all about, I felt real bad for my Momma and Papa, not owning their own house; when I grew up I was going to make sure that I owned the house I lived in.

Papa, how come the trash is still in the back yard? Can’t we find someplace else to put it? It makes our back yard look messy with all that stuff out there.

I don’t know, Beth. It’s always been back there and I don’t know where else to put it. Everybody has a trash pile in their back yard. Eventually we can dig a big hole and cover it up with dirt. That’s what most people do.

Oh, that’s a good idea! When can we do ours, Papa?

I don’t know, Beth. One of these days!

Even if it wasn’t really our house, I loved it. I especially loved the front porch. A big covered porch wandered across the entire face of the house, and nobody thought that was a luxury then, even though it’s a luxury in houses today. In those days, everybody’s house had a front porch. It was a ‘necessity’, just like the cooking stove in the kitchen was a necessity. The front porch was where everybody congregated to sit and visit, weather permitting. Most of the porches were covered, so even rainy weather wouldn’t drive us inside. Only the freeze of winter could interrupt a cozy conversation amongst friends on a cold day in December. It was the place to greet and holler at friends and neighbors passing by. Nine times out of ten, the passersby would come up on the porch and set a spell.

We gathered on the porches to visit into the evening, talking about the weather, politics, families, and whatever else was the news of the day. The children would play in the street or in the yard, slowly retiring to the porch one by one to listen to the learned rambling of the adults. The babies were lulled to sleep in their mother’s arms to the drone of the voices. Momma always had a pitcher or two of tea or lemonade to share with the visitors in the summer and hot tea or coffee in the winter. The security and serenity of our lives began on those front porches in our infancy.

Little by little as the night progressed, groups of families would rise from the porch and, signaling good-night, would walk down the street to their homes, carrying the little ones and dragging the in-betweens; parents walking together arm-in-arm with their older children. By 8:00, the porch would be empty except for the ones who lived there. Papa would say, Okay, kids, it’s time for bed. Beth, can you help put Elise to bed for us? Momma looks a little tired. Well, kids, it’s off to bed. Tomorrow is another day.

To this day, I still recall him saying, Tomorrow is another day. I find myself saying that to my children and grandchildren, although we don’t have the security or the comfort of the front porch to enjoy. I notice in several of the newer home developments in the area that front porches are making a comeback. Some of them are even sporting wrap-around porches. Maybe… .

None of our neighbors had more money or things than we did, so we didn’t know there were other ways to live. There were a few people in a separate part of our town who were well-to-do by our standards, but we never felt the urge to try and keep up with each other. They traveled in different circles than we did, and we were happy in our circumstances. We didn’t dwell on what we didn’t have. I don’t think we even thought we were missing anything.

Of course, those were the days before the world was filled with electronic devices and new scientific advances. About the best even the rich folks could come up with in those days was a bigger and nicer looking radio. They got the same stations we did, so we didn’t feel deprived. Cars were just coming into being then, and the new ones didn’t look any better than the old ones, so nobody had to feel bad about the car they rode around in.

Papa’s friend, Gerald, was one of the first in town to buy a car. He bought a black Model A and proudly drove it up and down the streets of town, impressing all those who cared to watch and making the rest of us wonder what had possessed him to buy such a thing. Why, what would anybody need a car for? The town was small enough to be walked within 20 minutes, so a car seemed to be a foolish thing to be spending money on.

After driving up and down the streets a couple of times, Gerald drove the car to his house, parked it on the street, and didn’t drive it again for several months. It became a standing joke in town, to greet Gerald by asking him if he’d taken any road trips in his new car lately. Gerald did get the last laugh however. When one of the neighbors was having a heart attack, our town doctor was down sick himself, so Gerald drove the victim to a doctor in the next town and saved his life. After that, whenever anybody asked him if he had taken any road trips lately, Gerald answered, Just one, to save my neighbor’s life. Pretty soon, nobody asked him anymore.

Eventually a lot of people bought cars. Papa bought one of the first trucks that came out. Momma got mad, because it wasn’t big enough for the family to fit into the front and you couldn’t ride in the back in the rain and snow, even if we did have a place to go.

Papa argued that the family never went anywhere anyway, so why would we need a car to fit the whole family? But we did use the truck several times to haul things from the hardware down the street. Once Papa loaded all of us and the neighborhood kids into the back of the truck and took us out to the swimming hole on the forbidden end of town. It was the neatest thing that happened to us that entire year.

Papa, why did they make the swimming hole on the end of town where none of us kids are allowed to go?

I don’t know, Beth. I don’t think it was a planned thing. I think it just happened that way.

Well, what’s the good of having a swimming hole when we can’t even go there to swim in it?

Things don’t always happen the way we want them to, Beth. Maybe, we should have made our end of town to be the forbidden part of town. How would you like that?

Beth thought a minute and then said, No, we wouldn’t have the school, the church, and I wouldn’t have my friends if this was the forbidden end of town. Why is the other end of town forbidden, Papa? What happens there?

It’s where some of the not-so-nice people hang out. It’s a small town, but there are a few people who are considered bad influences on the others, so they keep pretty much to themselves on the other side of town and we keep to ourselves on this end of town.

How come all the bad guys live in the same place? Did the place make them bad?

I think they just moved that way to be with others like them. You’ll find out more about them as you get older, Beth. In the meantime, we don’t need to think about them.

Except when we go over there to swim, huh, Papa?

Beth, what am I going to do with you? You’ve got a million questions inside of you and personally, I’ve only got about a thousand answers, so I hope you quit asking soon and quit having to have the last word.

We walked most of the places we went. It was real easy when the entire town was less than one mile from one side of town to the other side of town. We lived in the part that was reserved for those of us who were considered home town folks; those of us who had been around a long time. Strangers, who moved there within the last 10 years, gravitated to the north side of town where the houses were bigger and a lot newer, but the friendship was sparser.

Natives were hesitant at trusting new folks and kept their distance for the first few months after they came into town. Some of the strangers never made it as accepted members of the township. Some would quietly slip away, looking for another place to call home.

Why do we act funny when we see new people come to town, Momma?

Because we don’t know them, and we can’t be sure they are good, God fearing folks, Beth.

How do we get to know them, if we don’t talk to them? If they’re not good God fearing folks, then what are they?

We’ll talk to them eventually. We let a few weeks go by before we approach a new person. It’s the proper thing to do. Some folks are just bad, Beth. They say bad words, and do bad things. A body wouldn’t want to get friendly with one of them.

What if they just look like they’re bad and they really are nice? And if we didn’t talk to them, we might miss a really good friend.

I guess you could be right there, Beth. We can’t tell how folks are by how they dress or how they look or what color they are, but we can be a little careful until we find out what is in their hearts. We always have room in our hearts for good folks. I was just telling you to not jump into a friendship with a stranger until you’re sure.

Okay, Momma, but I really think it’s dumb. I wouldn’t want to wait if I thought I’d really like them. I wouldn’t want to miss getting a good new best friend because I waited too long and somebody else got them as their best friend.

I listened to my Momma, because she knows a lot more than I do, but I liked to leave her with my final opinion, because I really valued my opinion. After that conversation with Momma, I would nod to someone new; I would even smile at someone new, but I didn’t invite someone new over to our house until I had time to find out about them.

I was always the rebel in the family. I wanted to know why, how, when, what, and all the other words that describe the information I was digesting. However, I didn’t hesitate to let people know how I felt. Momma said I should think before I talk, but sometimes if I try to think, I forget what I really have to say. Momma says I always have to have the last word, but I’m sure that isn’t always true.

Beth, stand still and let me do your hair. It’s time to go to school and you’re still fooling around.

I don’t like my hair braided. I like it hanging down.

It won’t stay out of your eyes. Now hold still. Burke, bring me the scissors. I need to cut Beth’s bangs.

I don’t like bangs. I want it long.

Beth, everybody has bangs.

Well, I don’t care what everybody has. I don’t like them. I don’t want to be like everybody else.

When you’re old enough to do your own hair, then you can decide how you want to wear it. As long as I’m taking care of it, you’ll wear bangs.

How come Elise doesn’t have to have bangs? Her hair just hangs down in her face and you don’t make her have bangs.

She doesn’t have all the hair that you have. Her hair is much shorter and doesn’t hang into her eyes the way yours does.

Well, she’s a girl and I think she should have to have her bangs cut if I have to.

We’ll see what happens, Beth. In the meantime, you are going to have bangs.

Okay, but I’m going to put a bobby pin in my bangs.

Beth, who turned five that year, frowned and when Momma looked the other way, she stuck out her tongue.

Don’t stick your tongue out at your mother, young lady. Do you want that hair brush on your bottom instead of on your head?

Beth hadn’t seen Papa walk up but she smiled sweetly at him, knowing that he rarely spanked with his hand and never had spanked her with the hair brush. Just threatening her was enough to make her straighten up and fly right. She decided to retreat and let her Momma do whatever she wanted to with her hair for the time being, but she swore that when she was old enough she would fix her hair the way she wanted it.

Fashion was a word that hadn’t been invented yet or at least it wasn’t spread about in our part of the world. Nobody wore ‘fashionable’ clothes. Some of the people had more clothes to choose from than others, but the clothes looked the same, so nobody felt out of place. Girls wore only dresses in those days. It was unthinkable to even imagine a girl wearing pants, but the little boys could wear his big sister’s hand-me-down dresses, if the need arose. There were current hair cuts that were in fashion, but they were cuts that were accomplished at home, so everyone had the same styles. Beth never knew anyone who went to a hairdresser in those early days.

We held hands with our best friends, girls with girls and boys with boys. Dads and his men friends even hugged each other when they met in a house or on the street. Relatives hugged and kissed each other hello and goodbye. Young cousins greeted each other with hugs and kisses. It was a show of friendship and had nothing to do with sexual orientation. In today’s society, we’d probably be ostracized by the entire straight world.

Everybody in the family had clear roles to play. Momma cleaned the house and took care of the children. She scrubbed, mopped, dusted, weeded, cooked, and babysat the household 24 hours a day, with no help from anyone but what little she got from the children when they were old enough to help. There were no modern conveniences like washing machines, dishwashers, electric stoves, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners; not even microwave ovens. Of course, we didn’t have toasters, blenders, mixers, etcetera, etcetera. Momma cleaned the house with a rag, a broom, and a mop. I wonder what we gave people for wedding gifts in those days.

When I said Momma cooked, she really honest-to-goodness cooked. From scratch! The stores didn’t have boxed dinners, canned dinners, frozen dinners, frozen meats, or anything like that back then. We didn’t have fast food. When it came near to supper time, Momma and us kids would go out to the garden, pull some vegetables, dig up some potatoes, and kill a chicken, if it was going to be one of our meat nights.

Meat wasn’t on our table every day. Momma had to be pretty inventive in those days in order to make meals that would fill up the family. We ate a lot of beans, lentils, soups, and just plain vegetables, but we never went hungry. Things with strange names like rutabagas, turnips, parsnips, eggplant, and other unmentionables were cooked and eaten by the entire family. Children knew better than to complain about those odd ball vegetables and ate them whether they liked them or not. However, I’m not surprised that they have gone by the wayside for most people during these enlightened times.

We always had meals that were good for us, but that was before anybody knew about fast foods. In fact, the closest thing we had back then to fast foods was to go to the corner diner or drug store, sit in a booth, and share the latest gossip with ‘friends’ who went there for a fast supper also. Momma would revel in the idea that she didn’t have to cook and do dishes. Papa grumbled because restaurant food was not nearly as good as Momma food, and the kids would think they’d died and gone to heaven whenever they walked through that door.

There were no hamburgers on the menu (they were a recent invention a long ways from our town), no French fries with chili, no onion rings on a post, and no coca colas. Kids settled for hamburger patties (chicken was the main meat eaten in those days; beef was a real treat), fried potatoes, and milk. It wasn’t an every week occurrence to eat supper out, but we saw the inside of a restaurant on a monthly or bi-monthly basis. Besides the fun in having a bought meal, we enjoyed the camaraderie of meeting friends at the restaurant. You never knew who you would run into in the only diner or drug store in town.

The role of the Papa was definite. Papa worked and brought home the money that kept the household running. He made all the big decisions and disciplined the children. If there was going to be a spanking for anything we did wrong, it was Papa who did the dirty deed. Our Papa, however, wasn’t much of a spanker, so he did a lot of talking instead. Personally, Eddie and I both decided we’d rather have the spanking than the lecture from Papa. The spanking was over in a minute; the lecture continued on and on. The children of that day were raised up to know that Papa and Momma both were to be respected. There was no talking back, no ignoring, and no walking out of the room while they were continuing to harangue on and on.

Papa and Eddie kept the outside of the house looking pretty good. Oh, there were signs of deterioration here and there, but no more so than the neighbors, so we weren’t looked down upon. We didn’t have neighbors who complained to the city fathers that the Hills weren’t keeping their house up to standard, causing the neighbor’s homes to be devaluated. It was very much a live and let live sort of time.

Papa walked to work each morning and walked home after putting in a good 8 to 10 hours of labor. The whole family knew he was tired and appreciated the fact that he was working hard to provide for them. When he got home, he sat down in his chair while the children brought him his slippers; they took turns removing Papa’s shoes from his tired feet and replacing them with his slippers. He wasn’t asked nor did he volunteer to do anything around the house after working all day. He had done his bit and deserved to be waited on and doted on all evening. After dinner, which was ready to be eaten upon his arrival, he’d retire to the living room where he would read the paper and sit patiently and wait for Momma and the children to come in and join him for the rest of the evening.

I have to admit that I was a little jealous of Elise coming along when she did. She was two years younger than me, and she was trying her best to take over my Papa. I knew Papa felt I was his special daughter, but Elise was trying very hard to take my place. She would run real hard and throw herself into Papa’s arms and snuggle up on his lap. She would look at me as though she was telling me that she was winning this battle for his attention. When Momma came into the room though, Elise would tell Papa to put her down and she would run to climb up in Momma’s arms. I knew that deep down inside Elise was more of a Momma’s girl than a Papa’s girl, so I wasn’t really worried about her taking my place with Papa.

Papa went to bed early as his day began at 4 or 5 o’clock with chores that needed to be done at home before he left for work. If there was a lot to do,