MEMORIES OF IZMA RUTH RANSOM ETHERTON About two months before Mom died of cancer in the summer of 1985, she and I had a good visit. Her illness was not responding to treatment, so it was decided that she would stop chemotherapy and radiation. We knew this definitely meant the end, but for a time she felt restored and improved-those treatments were hard on her. During that good period, she and I sat together several hours a day, she telling her reminiscences, slowly, just a sentence or so at a time so that she could do it without getting tired or losing her breath, and so I could keep up with the writing. Sometimes there are cryptic little bits of summary, but most of what follows is pretty much in Mom's exact words. When I reread it, I hear her talking. Linda Louise Etherton Danielson 195 E 38th Eugene, OR 97405 Note by Cathy: Izma Ruth Ransom (or Maupin)- 2nd daughter of Charlotte Leeds Sickler Ransom Maupin. Ethel (Ransom)-Izma’s older sister (by 11 years) Wil (Ransom)- Izma’s older brother Mama- Charlotte Leeds Sickler Grandpa- N.B. Sickler Grandma –Paulina Applegate Ethel and the Braid Ethel was about three years older than Will. She had scads of hair and she had two braids down her back. Will, the scamp, used to grab her braids and swing on them and it would just drive Ethel crazy. Mama got tired of this and she told Ethel, "The next time he does it, you just smack him as hard as you can." And that ended that. Exploding lamp - Ethel Ethel's teeth weren't crooked, but one side was a little higher than the other, and this caused a little bit of a lisp. And the kids at school - she must have been sixth or seventh grade - laughed when she read or talked, and she had the lisp all her life until she got dentures. The teacher may have thought with a little ridicule she could get rid of the lisp. Anyway, she joined into the laughter. When she got home - this was when Mama was a widow - she was a nervous wreck. And Grandpa - this was when Grandpa Sickler had the store and Mama was working in the store -Grandpa saw the condition the little girl was in--thin, nervous little kid, crying--he was a very gentle man but defended his family to the nth degree, especially if anything unjust happened to them. The teacher had boarded and roomed at the Derby Hotel, which was just a block from where my grandparents lived. Well, that evening after supper he got his cane in hand, which he always used, and he said "I'm going to call on Ethel's teacher." And when he got there he told her who he was and why he was there. Then he reviewed the situation and told her what he saw as the result of an unjust act of the teacher and the children in the room and said he decidedly did not want to hear of a repetition. While he was very gentle, he was also very decided and firm in the things he said. As he had finished and was bidding her goodnight in his courtly way, he noticed that the lamp wick had burned down the side into the oil, and would have exploded in another moment, but he picked it up and threw it out the window and saved the hotel from burning - there was no water works or anything like it at the time. Unless a wick is the right size and properly taken care of, an oil lamp can be awful. Philo Butterfield His father was the mayor, and he was the secretary for the city council - just a kid, but that's how it was. A lot of the old-time residents of Derby were on the council, such as W C Waugh, Sam Austin's father - Mom bought the farm from the Austin family - and other old-time settlers of Derby were on the council. This is what Philo said. He gave me a tap on the shoulder and he said "You ought to be mighty proud of your grand-father." I said "I am - he died when I was about three years old, but I've always been proud of him." He said "You should have heard what they said about Pole Sickler (Napoleon B)." He was always Pole. Poley was Uncle George's son - he was named N B Sickler just like Grandpa, but he was always called Poley. He said that the men said that he was one of the pioneer settlers who would share anything in his store with anybody who needed it. My mother has said this too. Philo said "He must have been a fine man." I was so proud that I nearly busted my buttons all day that day. A Third of Derby "Paw and us built a third of Derby"-Charlie Sickler Grandfather Sickler was a carpenter and with three sons built many of the early stores and houses in Derby. Later he bought a store in a building he had built and ran it until his death. Grandpa owned the block where their house was and east of them - the whole half block. The blue house was what Grandma moved into after she left the home place and where she died. The rest of that half-block was in grass and in the middle of the grass was a hand pump. There was no water on Grandma and Grandpa's place. We carried water - all the drinking water and water for cooking and for washing faces from that pump to Grandma and Grandpa's over on the next street. And half the neighbors around there used that pump too. Louise and I have carried many a bucket of water to Aunt Anna's kitchen, and Mama said she did the same for Grandma's kitchen, but it was up to the girls to do it. Grandfather even hired a douser to witch for water, but they never could find water on the place. On Grandma's place, there was a cistern - a beautiful deep cistern - lined with rock, with a cover on it and a pump (crank) that brought water up in cups - the cups were on a chain - and that was used for scrubbing floors and washing hair and all that. At the time of Grandma's death, she lived in the blue house. And Uncle Charlie and Aunt Anna and the children lived in the yellow house. This is concerning Grandma's death. Louise was about eight years old, and it was her duty every morning to go over and knock on Grandma's door and say good morning and is Grandma all right. That morning when Louise went over, Grandma didn't come to the door and she didn't say "come in" and Louise ran back home and said to Aunt Anna, "Something’s wrong." Aunt Anna said, "I think I know what." She went over, and Grandma had died by herself in the night. She had a bad heart. That's why all the carefulness about knocking on the door - we knew better than to surprise her. Grandma could have her likes and dislikes decidedly. And Uncle George had a pair of spanking boys, which he drove to Wichita once a week to bring home fresh produce and meat for the store (after Grandpa Sickler died). Uncle George's stable was at Uncle George's place. And these two horses were kept in the two-acre pasture where the pump was when Uncle George wasn't using them. As the summer grew on, the horses would have eaten the pasturage down pretty low. The horses discovered finally that right across the fence in Grandma's yard was a lush growth of grass. So guess what they did? They ate the grass. And they left piles of manure right along next to Grandma's fence. Grandma told me about this. She said "It makes the house smell terrible, and I don't like my grass chewed by horses. I'm going to tell George he has to do something about those horses." This is my personal recollection. It was a giggle among the family. The rest of us who lived on the farm were used to manure. Snakes The whole family hated snakes. One day Dad was plowing and he had the reins tied around his waist because they were too long. The ends were hanging down behind him. He glanced back, saw them and thought they were a snake and like to died. One day when I was out in the woods, I heard a squawk, squawk, and looked up in a tree and there was a black racer - had a blue jay half-swallowed. I ran and got Mom and she brought a hoe and killed the snake and released the blue jay. I don't know if it could live - it was all wet and slimy, and fluttered around - but we let it alone. Prohibition This was when the local option law was passed in Kansas, and I was just a little kid - maybe six or seven, or maybe younger than that. Sedgwick County had voted local option, meaning it was dry. There were two or three saloons in Derby at that time. This particular episode had to do with the Hogan Brothers' saloon. The WCTU, of course, in connection with some of the Derby officials, was hard at work trying to get the saloons out. But the Hogan brothers stayed right in their darned old saloon and kept selling whiskey and so forth. And the WCTU was not church-affiliated; all women who were interested in doing away with whiskey and drinking belonged to the WCTU. The WCTU women - Mrs. Doctor Dixon, my mother, Mrs. Gross and I can't tell you how many others, had enlisted their husbands to help move out the Hogan saloon. My dad, with his farm wagon and team backed up to the doors of Hogan's saloon, and the men and women there cleared out the shelves of all the drinkables and the cases, and the Hogans had to stand by and watch. In the meantime, by wire from the Derby depot, Hogan's had alerted the district attorney, Sam Amaden, in Wichita. He had one of the first automobiles in the country. It was a bright yellow little roadster-like thing. He and his assistant district attorney cam booming down to Derby and spread out and said, "I'm going to make out warrants for your arrest for damaging private property." Mrs. Dixon, who was very tender-hearted and cried about everything, with tears streaming down her face, and a great basket of eggs on her arm, threw the first egg at this bright yellow car and these were her words. "Take that, Sam Amaden." and the tears were running down her face, "and that and that." And with every that she threw an egg. The others joined in, and the district attorney had to turn around and go back to Wichita. After Amaden left, the other men got into that wagon with the whiskey and wine and whatever was left, and drove down to the Arkansas River, and backed up to the river. The men emptied every bottle of whiskey or spirituous liquor into the Arkansas river. Now as I remember it, there were threats made of lawsuits by the Hogan brothers and by the district attorney, but although people were scared for several days that they'd be sued or have to pay fines, nothing ever came of it. That was one of the times local option won. Burning of Derby This was before my time, but I've heard the story many times, and I've written it up and had congratulations from the department at state school (Emporia) about when Derby burned. Now this was before Grandpa and Grandma's time there. This was a story that was told and retold, of when the herds of longhorns came up from Texas. Derby being only 12 miles south of Wichita and having good pasture open to public use, the herds would often stop all night at Derby before going on to the Wichita market the next day. There was a strong cattlemen's association in Wichita. They resented the fact that the drovers would stop in Derby and drive on in the next morning because they would be cheated out of their overnight charge for taking care of the cattle at night. So the story is that a great bunch of cowboys rode down from Wichita, stormed through the town, tore up the stockades for bedding down the droves of cattle, upset water tanks, and burned pretty much of the town, the main street. And that was the end of the herds' stopping in Derby. El Paso is Derby's legal name to this day. All deeds are made in the name El Paso. This caused confusion on the Santa Fe Railway because the train went to El Paso, Texas - caused confusion in consignment of goods and for orders to the trainmen. So the Santa Fe named the station Derby - it was always Derby. Margaret Cowan's daddy was a very uneducated, fun-loving man. He went to Arkansas to visit his twin brothers - they were the cutest things you ever saw - they had goatees. Margaret told me this story. And the funny part of it was that he sent a postcard to tell his family he was safely there and he spelled it DIRTY, Kansas, and they got it. That just tickled Margaret half to death. Toys When we moved up to the new house and had the new fence around the yard, Dad planted a row of young catalpas which grew into beautiful shade trees, and there's where I spent many hours by myself or with the cousins folding those leaves back and tying them with string or ribbon and calling them dolls. (doesn't remember about head or face - maybe corncob head) I'll tell you something awful nice that my mom used to do for us. Down over the hill in the picnic grounds was one particular oak that was different from the other oaks, and this would have a flat cup - not a cup-shaped cup, but flat - they'd be this big around, some of 'em (indicates 2 inches in diameter) - huge! And before the acorn was full ripe, while it was still in the green stage, she'd take a knife or scissors and prod the acorn out of the cup. That cup was a beautiful thing - or rather a saucer, which it turned out to be. While it was green and yet pliable, she'd cut up the side so it would slip off. She'd cut so one end was a cup with a handle and the other half was a cup with a hole in the side. Along that hillside from the south to the north were three colors of clay -one was orange, one was almost white, and the third was dark red. You could put a little water with it and roll it between your hands and make the cutest little marbles you ever saw, and stretch 'em out on a board to dry. We'd pelt each other with those marbles - just something to do. (they'd make clay "foods" to dry in the cups and saucers) One time the family thought we really had it made. Representatives from Wichita came down and took samples from our clay hills, and we thought we'd make a sale to a Wichita pottery company. But when they put the samples through chemical analysis, they lacked something. Claim Jumper This I remember very well, because I was a pretty good-sized kid when it happened. The Arkansas river, in the course of its many floodings, had dug out from the west and added onto the east side, which was our farm. Wherever there's a decided bend, there's a high side and a low side. It would take from the high side, and an eddy would bestow this dirt on our farm. Well, this had been happening. So through the years, this had added something like fifteen acres that had not been recorded as part of our farm. It was a darned good cornfield later. This was down at the south end of our farm which adjoined the Foley farm to the south. One day Mr. Foley said, "Levi, did you know there's a man built a shack down on that added land on your farm?" Dad said, "What?" So Mr. Foley said, "We've seen this man sneaking along the river." Of course, he never came up our way, but Mr. Foley had seen him, and that's when he came to Dad about it. (The guy had made an illegal trail across Maupin and Foley property) So Dad went down to confront the guy. So he said "You're on my land and I demand that you get off. What are you doing here?" The man said, "You have made no claim on this property. By squatter's rights, I have as much right to be here as you have." Neither had the guy made any claim to the property, which Dad found out from asking him. So Dad immediately rode to Wichita to the county assessor's office, explained the situation, and added the fifteen acres to the farm. The guy disappeared and left the shack right there. Nobody understood how he got those boards there. It was just a shack, a rough shack on property that he was going to claim. Anyway, that was what you had to have, was a habitation on it. And the tallest corn grown on the farm was grown on those fifteen acres. The boys - Frank, Forest and some of their compadres, as they called `em, called that shack the clubhouse. Well, this went on until Dad began to smell cigar smoke and things like that. Dad thought this was a little too cozy, so Dad did a little snooping' and he found out they were playing cards and smoking and spitting and acting real boyish, and he said, "We could get in trouble with the neighbors if they do things like that." So he had the shack torn down. "They don't need to be down here by themselves. There's the whole farm to play on", he said. Quilts Grandma Maupin wanted to make everybody in the family a quilt. She made Forest a large size flower garden - he said he didn't want it - wanted a nine-patch, and not some flowery thing. (Now Louise has this quilt, she's saving it for me.... L.D) "Leeds" name. "Zeigler" name This is a question to me - always has been. The story was that the Applegate family was the English and they came from Leeds. Now this is hearsay and these people were from the manufacturing town. They were ordinary people; they were not the blooded royal families of the other parts of England. The working class people lived in Leeds. Still, there was an Earl of Leeds, who had his castle in that section of the country, and still this exists. I read that not long ago. The story goes - and this is purely hearsay - that a younger son, who could inherit nothing, because that wasn't the way it was done; it was handed down to the oldest son, and he came along down the line pretty far - this boy was very dissatisfied with his life as having no chance whatsoever, so his father sent him to America. How the Sickler-Applegate family got connected with the name Leeds, I do not know, but the name has been in the family for several generations to my mama (Charlotte Leeds Sickler Maupin) and her granddaughter (Charlotte Leeds Jones). As to the Sickler name, this is a story my mama told me, and it was told to her: that this great-great-great grandfather, or however far back it went, was originally spelled Zeigler (Holland Dutch). Now then this is a funny thing, too. He is supposed to have been an owner of a sailing schooner that dealt with India for spices and silks and so forth, that were brought to England and thence to America. Now here's a mystery to me. My grandfather (N B Sickler), according to Mama was called a Jersey man. Now the State of New Jersey Dutch were called Jersey men by the Holland Dutch that settled in the state of New York. And my mother said that my grandfather always jokingly referred to himself as a Jersey man. I also know that Grandfather was raised in New Jersey. And how he and Grandmother ever met, I don't know, because she was a Virginian. This is all very vague and indecisive, but these were the stories that were handed down. Could the family have lived on the Isle of Jersey and then would be called a Jerseyman? It's a question in my mind. In later years, a man came to Derby and offered to trace the genealogy of the family - both grandmother's family and grandfather's family. Grandfather was interested in the thing and brought the man home from the store where he'd come to interview Grandfather. He brought him home and gave him board and room while he was doing his investigating. One day, after he'd lived there for several days and eaten all these meals, he was lying on the couch resting before he went to work writing. Grandfather had gone back to the store. He was supposed to be asleep with his hand over his face. Grandmother happened to look at him, and he was surreptitiously watching and eyeing her through his fingers. Grandmother, in her quick way of making decisions, decided he was a humbug, and when Grandpa came home from the store, she said "Get that man out of my house." She meant what she said, and Granddad immediately dismissed the man. My mother told me this story, almost exactly as I have related it here - that was the end of that. Grandma Stories Grandma had a regular store of stories of all kinds, and she delighted in telling them to me because I was a kid that listened. One time grandmother was busy telling me a lot of stories and I thought I ought to reciprocate with a story too. So I made up one saying that our beloved old buggy horse, Dodge, had died, and Dad was awfully sorry about it, as we all were--as I told Grandma about it. When Dad came to pick me up, Grandma said, "Oh, Levi, I'm so sorry to hear about the death of old Dodge." Dad said, "Why, there's nothing wrong with Dodge--what do you mean, Mother?" She said, "Izma said that Dodge had died." When Dad glared at me, and on the way home in the buggy, he said, "You told Grandma a lie" ...just like that. I had no excuse--I had told a lie. When we got home, Dad told Mama the story and said "She's got to be punished for that." My mother said, "I know my mother's proclivity for stories and I know exactly what the child did. She's not going to be punished." She told all kinds of stories--about slavery--she was raised on a plantation. She told true stories, but to me they were wondrous, and I had to tell something wondrous, too. I'll tell you for sure that cured me. I wasn't about to tell a lie again. I'd be going home from school and I'd walk by Grandma's house. One night it was storming like the dickens and she was standing by the window with her thimble. Grandma motioned for me to come in the house, and she said, "It's just too cold for you children to walk home from school. Levi should have hitched up the horse and buggy and came and got you." She was really mad. So Grandma said "I'm not going to let you go on home. Your stockings are wet and frozen to your legs." I said, "I don't know where Forest is." She said "That's all right--Forest is a big strong boy. He'll make it all right." I don't remember whether we sent word with Forest, but Grandma made me stay with her that night. I said "Mama won't know where I am and she'll be scared and I'm afraid to do this." Grandma said "I'll settle with your mother." Mama's word was law and order in our house and I didn't know about this business of Grandma settling with my mother. So I stayed that night, and the next morning Grandma had washed out my stockings and had my coat and bonnet and everything else that was wet all dried out by the living room base burner. She washed my face and hands and made the little braids and sent me to school along with a little lunch pail which she put up. I worried all that day, almost afraid to go home. Anyway, when I got home, she was very disturbed, but she said "I'm not putting this on you. My mother and I have to have an understanding about her keeping you children all night when I don't know it." My grandmother always had the custom of four o'clock tea. That thimble has rattled against the window many a time. "Come in and have some tea and a cookie." That was all right, of course, and after a little I'd go home. But I never stayed away all night without my mother's consent. Of course, then they did have an understanding. But that was a terrible storm. I figured out in later years that my mother knew about the times I stopped for tea and cookies, and that was what happened to me that night. Grandma didn't want me to come home in that storm. the only nice thing of that whole experience was that I got to sleep with Grandma in the big soft feather bed and wear one of her white nightgowns and a matching nightcap just like she did. But I still remember the anxiety. I had lots of playtimes with my grandmother. She'd play hide-the thimble or hide-the-button--those kinds of soft, easy games with me. One time, I looked and looked for that button. And guess where I found it? In Grandma's ear. Another remembrance of Grandma's ideas of giving her grandchildren a good time was a big bowl of cracked walnuts--both the black kind and English walnuts--and another bowl of raisins. And she gave each of us a horseshoe nail to pick the walnuts out with. Ransom Grandparents Granddad Ransom's name was William Augustus Ransom, and my brother, Will, is named for him, and so is Will, Junior, who is still alive. When my mother died, among her things was a picture of Grandfather Ransom sitting on the steps of his house in Wichita being interviewed by a Wichita Beacon man, in which he told about driving Abraham Lincoln--I think it was to Galesburg, Illinois--to one of his debates with Douglas. I think he was a senator at that time. Grandpa was a very stately old man with a long white beard. Grandfather gave this description of Abraham Lincoln, and I can almost quote the words from that thing: "Abraham Lincoln was the ugliest man I ever saw. On the other hand, he had the kindest voice and the gentlest manner of any man I ever saw." After my mother's death, I sent this to my brother Will Ransom in Texas. Will and Ethel were close to them, but I was such a little thing, they didn't pay much attention to me--I was a Maupin in reality. They'd drive down once in awhile to spend the day with Charlotte-once you're a daughter-in-law, you're always a daughter-in-law. I remember one time Grandpa had come by himself. Mother had a big bowl of sugared dewberries, and Grandfather said, (oh, she also served a nice pitcher of thick yellow cream to go over the berries.) And he looked up at her and he said "Charlotte, I'm eating these berries to have the cream. We don't get cream like this in Wichita." And I thought it was the funniest thing I ever heard anyone say. I thought everybody had cream. Except for the fact that Ethel and Will started high school living with the Ransoms--that's about all I can remember of the Ransom family. Grandpa Ransom. Great-Grandpa Sickler Mama and her first husband lived in Wichita where he was a real estate agent for awhile; then they went to Oklahoma at the opening of the strip--Melvin Ransom, that is--then after his death, Mama stayed on the claim, she and the children, and Uncle Charlie came to live with her for awhile --quite awhile, before he married Aunt Anna, and then they sold the claim and moved to Derby, Mama and the children, and mama went to work in the store for Grandpa'. The first thing I remember were Mama and Dad Maupin and Forrest and Grandma--early remembrances of them. I have memories of Grandpa holding me in his lap and singing to me, sitting in the old black painted Boston rocker. Another vivid memory I have of Grandfather--I was about three, you see--was in his last days, sitting in his black rocking chair again, in the doorway of a bedroom leading off the dining room in Grandma's house. And Granddad’s head was thrown back against the high back, and Uncle George was on one side and Uncle Charlie on the other fanning him just as hard as they could with palm leaf fans to help him get his breath. A third and final memory of my grandfather was his funeral day. This was held in Grandmother and Grandfather's home, as most funerals were in those days. I don't remember the minister, but I remember especially the Odd Fellow group--they were dressed in their formal attire with the high hats with the huge white plumes on them. This I remember because it was concerned with me, I guess. In the corner of Grandmother's living room was her sewing machine. Mama set me at one end and baby Forest between us and she stood at the side with her arms around us. And she said, "This is an awfully hard time for your mama, and I want you to help me take care of the baby." The immediate family filled the dining room, the Odd Fellow brothers were in a line along the sidewalk, and the rest of the yard was filled with friends and relatives that were not able to get into the house. Another memory: he came home one day and he said, "I've got a present for you, baby," and he put a little gold ring with an emerald in it on my finger. Some short time later--maybe two or three years--Irene and Eleanor and Forest and I were on the front porch playing. There was a small knothole in the flooring of the porch, about as large as a little kid could put their fingers in. We were playing a little game among ourselves, seeing how many fingers we could put in the hole and pull back up. It was a slanting knothole, and during the process, my ring went down the hole--slipped down the hole. I was just broken- hearted. Years later, Uncle Charlie replaced the boards, and he looked and looked for that little ring and he couldn't find it. Death of Melvin Ransom A squatter came on his property and Melvin Ransom went down to tell him to move. He lived about three months--he was shot through the chest and when the doctor at Blackwell gave up, that he couldn't handle the situation, he said, "Get him to Mulvane to Dr. Dorsey" who had a reputation for taking care of gunshot wounds. My mother and the neighbors fixed him a bed in a buckboard wagon, and mother and the children drove those thirty miles from Blackwell to Mulvane, Kansas, alone with the sick man in the back of the buckboard. There Aunt Lin invited them into her home (Dorothy & Harold's old house), and there is where he died, in my mother's arms. My mother has only told me about it a few times, and she always looked so grief-stricken. It was terrible for her--she was less than thirty years old at the time. Living close neighbors to them in Oklahoma was an Indian and his squaw wife and their baby, who Mama had befriended. In true Indian fashion, that baby was fastened to the Indian backboard from the time it was just a little baby. Mama said that baby's head was so flat from lying on that board all the time that it was just an elongation of the back of his neck. She tried to explain to the young mother that the bones of his cranium were not fastened together yet, and the bones of his head were being formed unnaturally because of that backboard. So the young mother learned to take the baby off the backboard and let him be on his side and on his tummy. So Mama felt it was rewarding that she'd gotten it across to that young mother to take him off that board sometimes. Mama told of picking wild mushrooms along the creek that ran through their claim. She told us also about how the wild prairie chickens were their greatest source of meat, and they could have all they wanted, because the prairie chickens were just that thick. She said it tasted like the pheasants she learned to like later. (12 years between Ethel & Izma, 8 between Will and Izma) I sent the newspaper article about the shooting of Melvin Ransom to Will after Mama's death--out of the tin box. Melvin Ransom shouted across the creek, "You're unlawfully on my claim," and the guy just raised a rifle and shot him. He was put in prison for thirty years and he died in prison. My mother, of course, had to be a witness at the trial--and that horrible thing. Grandpa Levi Granddad Sickler had taken the money from the claim and bought the farm for Mama, but she didn't live there until after she and dad were married. She could do anything that needed to be done on a farm from milking the cow to slopping the hogs, shucking corn to shocking wheat. She wasn't that big or that strong, and that's why she died when she was only seventy-years old. Married at seventeen and a mother at eighteen. She was forty-five when Nelda was born. I remember the morning Nelda was born. I could hear my mother--we had a practical nurse and housekeeper who lived across the river-she was a Miss Somebody--who went to people's houses when babies were to be born, and cooked the food for family, who stayed two or three weeks--seemed like she was there forever--. That morning, Mary(?) got us ready for school. We knew Mama was going to have a baby, but it didn't mean anything to us except that there'd be another baby. I could hear my mother making horrible noises, and worried all day at school. That day, Dad met us after school--it was December and cold, of course--with the horse and buggy. And the first words he said, "You've got a baby sister." I thought we'd never get home so I could see that baby. I was about fourteen, but kind of an innocent little ignorant fourteen, sure enough. I remember in the summertime when Ethel cam home, hearing her say to Mama, "Have you told Izma yet?" Mama said, "No." and Ethel said, "She's big enough to know there's going to be a new baby." So Mama told me, but all I knew was that pretty soon the baby'd be there. (There was no cradle or baby bed for that baby. We had a big rocker, tipped back on books so it would be stable, and filled with pillows--this was the baby's bed.) And I was a monster. That baby was mine. I didn't thank people for picking her up--I'd put her back in her bed as quick as I could. Mama had to lecture me: "This isn't just our baby, it's the family's baby, and you have to share her." I got in trouble once. This was when she got old enough to be a naughty little scamp, which she was because we all adored her and spoiled her to death. Mom was going to chastise her about something she'd done, and I grabbed her up and ran with her. I just defiantly said, "Nobody's gonna whip her." I can still see the look on my mother's face, half smile, half angry. And then's when I got told a few things--that parents were the ones who disciplined the children and the other children in the family were to obey and not interfere in any way. That's when I had to learn to button my lip. Mama was five month's pregnant when Ethel was married, and Thomas came at the end of nine months. Dad went to the depot in the buggy to meet Ethel and bring her home the night Thomas was born. Forest Jones had a job --someplace else at that time--I think it was in Pratt, Kansas--and Ethel and I were put to bed that night in Mom and Dad's bed downstairs. Dad and Mother were sleeping upstairs. That night, sometime about midnight, Ethel's water broke, and it surprised her, having never had a baby before, and she screamed, "Mama." I went tearing upstairs and woke Mama out of her sleep. Then I was put back in my room with little baby, Nelda, to take care of, and Dad went after Dr. Dixon (he delivered Nelda, too). So baby Nelda and I went to sleep and in the morning, there was another baby--baby boy, Thomas Field Jones. Ethel lived with us for a number of months before Forest got settled someplace where he could take his family back. During that time, Ethel tatted yards and yards of tatting and sold it to the neighbors and people at church for seventy-five cents a yard. She was doing the best she could to help with expenses. And then's the time Ethel taught me to tat. She had learned to tat from her mother-in-law. Forrest and Ethel moved to Oxford and there, about eighteen months afterwards, Ransom was born. And then in due order came Charlotte and Porter, and the baby who was born with an opening in its back and died a few months after her birth, and then came the twins--Harold Roe and Hobart Lee. After Ethel and Forrest moved to Wichita and the children were all married, I remember Ethel saying, "These are the happiest, easiest days of my married life." They bought the bright red Ford and they took trips to Oklahoma and Texas, and they came out to Colorado in the red Ford. Food Everybody had what they called their kraut barrel, and it stood about so high (3 1/2') and it was a particular barrel--I think they were heavy oak barrels. It wasn't used for anything else. My folks used these great big things (crocks) made of stone pottery to put down sauerkraut. The Mohrs use the barrels, and Raymond's folks used barrels, too. The cabbage slicer was a thing about this wide (1 1/2') and this long (2') with a sharp blade--or maybe it was three sharp blades--I bet it was. Whoever worked the slicer sat on one end and pushed that big head of cabbage across the blades. The cabbage fell into something like a dishpan--or it could have been a wash boiler. There was a thing called a cabbage stomper. It was a big piece of solid wood on a broom handle. You'd put a layer of your slaw-like cabbage in your jar, and a layer of salt, then you'd use your stomper. As the salt operated on the bruised cabbage, the brine would start to rise. You had to know the correct amount of salt or your kraut would be too salty and you had to rinse it before you could cook it. They didn't like to do that because you lose some of the good parts that way. If it's done right, it's crisp and crunchy, but if it's too salty or if you don't keep it at the proper temperature, your kraut can go flat. Then when the receptacle was full, it was covered with a pottery cover, big plates, or whatever you had--but not anything metal. On top of the plate went well-scoured bricks and stones to hold it down in place. As the brine would rise higher, it would come over the top of the plates. Every day the plates had to be washed in fresh water. The brine had to be removed or it would be slimy. And over the whole thing went a clean dishcloth. The aging period only went so many weeks--I don't remember. They knew when the kraut tasted right. They'd either transfer it to gallon jars or leave it in the barrel, after carefully washing the rims so there was nothing of the old brine there--just crisp sauerkraut (barrel would be kept in a cool place, like a cyclone cellar). When we lived on the farm in Derby, right up the road was the Swaney apple orchard. And he had an old-fashioned cider mill. You'd go to Mr. Swaney's orchard and buy so many bushels of fresh apples which would be washed at his windmill. Now, how in the world this was done, I don't know--what power squeezed them--but the apples went in a chute and something squeezed them and the juice came out a spout and there the buyer had glass jugs waiting. They didn't ever use Rome Beauties or any of that type of apple. Baldwins, Black Twigs, Winesaps - real juicy apples. And then there were the times making apple butter out with the big old black iron kettles. Everybody in the family--somebody sat there and ran the apple peeler, and somebody cored them and tossed them in the washtub. They were cooked in the iron three-legged kettles that were kept out in the yard with a big fire under them. It was hotter than the devil. All those apples were measured so you'd know the proper amount of sugar. The apples were put into the big iron kettle with a small amount of water--as little as you could put in to start the apples cooking (or you could use cider). Then shortly after they began to cook, you had to get out the old apple butter paddle, which had a broomstick handle and a board with varying holes in it. it was well taken care of and smooth from years of use. After some juice had risen, then you put in the sugar. And then's when the danger of burning began. So when you put the sugar in, you stirred continuously, and that would be several hours. The whole family were stirrers. I'll tell you, it got awfully hot. Later in life, I'd make apple butter in smaller quantities--you've seen me cook apple butter in the old granite kettle--do it all in the kitchen. When we lived in Kansas, Grandma had a copper kettle that would fit on top of the stove. But when we came to Colorado, we acquired the iron kettles like everybody else had and made apple butter outside. When you took Grandma's copper kettle back home, by golly, it better be scoured. The last half hour before it was finished, you added the spices--so they'd be sterilized. That would usually be cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves. Then when it was done, it was scooped into glass jars and sealed, or put into two or three gallon pottery jars, covered with a plate, and sealed with sealing wax, which you had to first melt and apply with a knife around the edge of the plate. With some fresh baked bread and fresh churned butter, in the wintertime, open a jar of that stuff with its wonderful taste and beautiful color--it was a real treat. When you had butchering in the fall, that same iron kettle had to be scoured again--with a broom and boiling water--and that was where the lard was cooked down. That was another thing that had to be stirred carefully or you had burned lard. (The whole family would be involved in these processes, too) Song Mostly from the older cousins and from Ethel and Will. Then I remember one time Will was in the process of singing religious songs with words based on the tune--"In the Sweet Bye and Bye (pass the pie)"..you know. "We shall meet on that beautiful shore (gimme some more)." He came home from Wichita High and he knew a bunch of these. Mama heard them about twice and she said, "Now look here, that's sacrilege and you can't sing those around here--I don't want the younger children hearing them." But I remembered this one, I guess, because it had pie in it. Anytime anybody mentioned pie, this poor child was in ecstasy. Forest and Frank and a bunch of the kids that ran together and played baseball together--they made up a language of their own. there were only a few words of it, but they were the only ones who knew what it meant. And they'd drive the rest of us crazy, just talking to each other is this crazy noise. I can only think of one word. I'd try to get Forest--"Now Forest, nobody's around, you can tell me what these mean. "He wasn't going to do it, but I caught onto one word--spelled c h o b (long o), and it meant yes. And another one they used was cheb--maybe it meant no. "Do you want some bread?" "Chob"--Mama got pretty aggravated at that, too. She liked people to speak correctly. Like that --she didn't like the idea of taking a beautiful song like that and twisting it around. Mom was strict or straitlaced--she provided most of the objection to doing silly things. "Oh, you beautiful doll", "Yes, We have no bananas" They were frowned on by a lot of people, just like rock music is frowned on by a lot of people now. "K-K-K-Katy" Will and Ethel would come home with these new songs, maybe from a vaudeville show, or maybe they'd just been hearing it all over the school. Then there was the period when they idealized the Indians like "Redwing" "Chippewa Maiden". Maybe that was the period when they were feeling sorry for the Indians--people got teary about them and idealized them and the Indians never were able to live up to people's ideals. They were going to make Christians out of them and everything else. Dad Maupin did not like music very well. The only song that I can remember enough to sing - and sing was hardly the word for it - "Bury me not on the Lone Prairie" -- and here are the words to the only other song I ever heard him sing besides "Lone Prairie" ..he'd hold Forest and me on his knee and sing: All I need to make me happy Two little kids to call me pappy I'd call one meat and the other gravy And if I had one more I'd call it baby He could do some beautiful bouncing with those knees, one of us on one side and one on the other. Usually one of us would fall off. My mom's kind of singing was "Last Rose of Summer" and "Bird in a Gilded Cage" and "Young Charlotte lived on a Mountainside." These were the kind of things her brothers and sisters sang around the organ. Particularly the girls--they were more likely to sing these dramatic songs - real sudsy, teary songs. (very much a family affair) It was carried through to my day (many hours of my young life were spent around pianos and organ.) Katy England and I were to sing a duet at the Children's Day Program at church, and her older sister, Hattie, was playing the organ for us. I was maybe nine, and Katy was a year or two older. Out in the apple orchard, Birds in their tiny nests I will not tell, no, never, Birdie, how I love you. It went on for two or three verses. And as we were practicing that day, I just took of f and sang alto. Hattie looked at me and smiled and said "That was nice. Do you want to sing the alto on the program?" I didn't know what she meant. So on Sunday morning, when we got up to sing our song, what did I do but sing the soprano right along with Katy, after we practiced the alto several times. To this day, when I hear music, I hear the alto above everything else, and I'm, under by breath, trying to pick it out. (Grandfather) "Down in the Diving Bell"--the old folk songs, just short little songs that he song to us kids. Once I was a sailor, and a story I can tell About the mermaids of the deep while down in the diving bell Out on the ocean sailing, the Captain challenged me To have pluck and go and see the mermaids of the deep. When I got halfway down, The mermaids came to me They sang and danced and welcomed me, Far down into the sea They came in hundreds to shake hands, It made me turn quite pale For the funniest thing of all to me, They shook hands with their tail. When I got to the bottom, I saw things made me laugh Down there they used for a clothesline the Atlantic Telegraph An old mermaid, she came to me with salt tears in her eyes Although 'twas underwater, 'twas not a bad place to cry I fell in love with a mermaid; To kiss her was my wish But like an eel she slipped away--you can't hold onto a fish Her mother caught and brought her back, And whispered unto me That if I would, we might be Married in the sea. So we were married in a little brown church made of oyster shells The parson wore a bathing gown, the codfish rang the bells Now we're married happy, You girls are in the shade For you can't stand up to one so fair, Although she is a mermaid- (and that was always dragged) CHORUS Down in the diving bell, The bottom of the sea There is a pretty place, Fishes for to see Down in the diving bell, The bottom of the sea One little mermaid, Two little mermaids, came courting me. As years went on, it was Mama that rocked me in the rocking chair and sang these songs. She didn't disapprove of these songs, you see--they were kind of romantic and dramatic. Mama also liked songs like "Flow Gently, Sweet Afton" and "Juanita" and one about fishermen coming home from the sea and wives waiting on the shore. And I never remember seeing my Grandmother sing, not even in church. COUNTING OUT GAME Craney, craney, craney crow Went to the well to wash his toe When he got there, no water was there Craney, craney, craney crow Later came the fad of rounds - ""Row, row, row your boat" - this was the first year I went to college when that was very popular. "Ten Little Indians." Do you remember when you came home from school and taught me "This Old Man"? I never knew that until you learned. Aunt Alice and Mama sometimes sang together. Aunt Alice sang alto and Mama sang soprano - like "The Last Rose of Summer" and things like that. Don't say dancing or card playing or shows in the Evangelical Church. I remember when I was about seventeen, Dad had given up and was going to take some of us to a show in Wichita. I felt real conscience-stricken. This was the beginning of the time we began to go to shows. But we didn't play any card games until we came to Colorado, except for Rook - and that other one. Rook didn't have those devilish kings and queens, and you didn't gamble with Rook. You didn't even toss pennies at a crack. Another game we used to play was Flinch and Authors. Dad bought us a beautiful crokanole board. These were winter night games, I'm telling you. It just crept over the country that these motion pictures were something pretty nice - and vaudeville shows, and traveling shows. But preachers in the pulpit preached against them - that they were degrading things. But then when we came to Colorado, here were the Foleys and the Maupins and the Pattons and later the Ethertons playing games of cards - 21, Blackjack, several forms of poker, Bridge. They were also still playing Rook at that time. Jump rope Rhyme-We'd count out as we were jumping and sing certain little ditties. There was a game, called some kind of a cat - they'd swing the rope back and forth and raise the rope a little each time until you couldn't jump over it. Games - Run, Sheep, Run; Last Couple Out (boy/girl circle, one couple in it, hits hands of a couple in the circle, couples run opposite directions to get back to empty space), Flying Dutchman. Run Sheep Run - All the kids were in a den. One kid was blindfolded, shouted Run, Sheep, Run - everybody hid, then it took off blindfold, shouted Run Sheep Run - everybody tried to get back. Red Rover, Dare Base - Two base lines, two sides of biggest, strongest kids you could get. One kid would run out and dare the other side, try to get back to base line before being caught. If we were on a fishing trip riding in the wagon, we'd sing "Ninety-nine bottles hanging on a wall" (Will started it) Will's College Song (this was about Dr. Schwartz, a nice old physics teacher) I want to go back to old Fairmont To dear old college hill, Back to see old Dr. Schwartz Drinking varnish by the quarts I want to go back to old Fairmont To dear old college hill I want to go back, I got to go back To old Fairmont. Home Remedies When springtime came, Grandma always took a look at me and said, "Charlotte, this child needs a dose of sulphur and molasses." They talked about blood thinning - for heavens sakes I don't know why they talked about that. Mama always had her tongue in her cheek about it, but since Grandma had a reputation for taking care of children, Mama kind of half-heartedly fixed it and gave it to me. you took a saucer and put about a teaspoonful of plain old sulphur and about an equal amount of molasses - that would cover just about the center part of the saucer - and that was worked with a knife, paddled, until it made a thick paste. Then Mama gave me a spoon and said "Now, baby, eat as much of this as you can." It was not given in connection with meals, it was just fixed and put down on the kitchen table. And I remember that after two or three spoonfuls, Mama would say, "That's all right if you can't take it all, you don't have to take it all." I expect she remembered when she'd taken it, too, being her mother's daughter. I don't ever remember Forest having to do it, because he was a big husky kid and Grandma didn't think he ought to have sulphur and molasses. Now every farm wife had a few turkeys and a few ducks and a few geese along with her hens. The proper Thanksgiving dinner in my early days was roast goose. The way they were roasted was on a raised spit in a roasting pan so the grease would fall down below. This grease was filtered through cheesecloth till it was clear. This was saved for that famous old cold remedy - old cough remedy - goose grease and turpentine. If there weren't goose grease, then they used lard and turpentine. A small amount was put in a saucer. The grease and turpentine were heated together and a small amount of mentholatum - Mama did anyway - a small amount of mentholatum was added because it smelled good and felt cool. Mentholatum was made in Wichita, so everybody had mentholatum. I can remember what pure joy I had when I saw Mama coming up the stairs with that bundle of cloths that she was going to pin around my neck so they'd stay firm on me all night and I could get some relief and go to sleep. And, gee, did it ever feel good - those warm cloths that she'd had in the kitchen oven. When a child was that sick that they needed that kind of treatment, they couldn't go to school for several days. This hot oil treatment was repeated several times a day - the cloths were fastened on the inside of the child's underwear with safety pins. Mama would put a bandage around my neck, and to that would be pinned these squares of flannelette, or even flannel, the good parts from worn-out men's underwear. After several days, then, after you recovered enough so that your mother thought you were well on the way, then came the time of the hot bath in the kitchen washtub, then carefully dried, then came squares of clean cotton flannel, and I wore that on my chest for several days, just dry, for extra warmth. I never had croup in my life, but Forest was going to have at least one or two rounds of croup every winter. Croup is one of the most scary things you can have happen to a little child. You have to get them up, keep them close to a fire, keep them warm, and hold them in your lap until that wheezing and gasping for air because of the swollen condition of the throat - until they can begin to breathe with some ease and get rid of that raspy condition. And the swelling would miraculously begin to go down after awhile. A child can easily die, you know, before you can get anything done for them. So it Was a scary time for the parents, and the child was just terrified because they couldn't breathe. Then I can remember Mama saying in the morning - I would be asleep and wouldn't know this - Mama'd say, "Papa and I were up most of the night with Forest" because he had this terrible attack of croup. The child would go to bed perfectly all right and wake up in the night with the croup. I don't ever remember of any home remedy for croup - just the treatment of keeping them warm and holding them up so they could breathe. (Mom fixed lard and turpentine for me, too, along with commercial remedies.) Hiccups - putting a paper bag over your head and breathing in that paper bag. Sometimes people would shout "Boo" at you suddenly and scare you to death and you didn't have any more hiccups. Then there was that famous old ten sips of water, ten, if you could, without breathing. Everybody spoke of cattarh - if you had a thick blow-out from your nose, you had cattarh. You never hear of it now. One person I can remember who was bothered with cattarh the most was our minister, I B Miller. I remember an aluminum cylinder that he always carried in his vest pocket. in that cylinder was a kind of hard form of medicine or other - menthol was in it - and other additives were added to that hard case. The up end of that cylinder had many small perforations in the aluminum. this little cylinder was inserted in one nostril and the other nostril was held down tight. The the same process was repeated for the other nostril. Thrush - kind of a red thing that happened in the throat, and it was even red on the outside of the throat. It must have been something like croup, only you ran a high fever with thrush - and it usually hung on for several days, too. It was a horrible disease. I never saw any in my family, never saw it close, but I remember hearing plenty about it. You know, from Kentucky words are pronounced differently. Mother Etherton always said "fleem" for phlegm. She said that just as naturally as for my mother to say "flem". Another disease that attacked older people - I never heard of a youngster having it - was quinsey. This thing always called for a doctor because it was so severe. Roscoe had a bad case of it. It involved the throat and the lungs - it was an infection that just spread all over the body. I sometimes wonder if what they now call septic throat isn't quinsey. I have no idea what the doctor did. Nosebleeds - putting a cold pack on the back of your neck and stuffing the side that's bleeding with cotton. I'll bet the herb women would have different kinds of poultices that they would put on. My mother and grandmother were not much for herbs. (does not recall local herbalists) This just did not happen to be the style of the pioneer women of that country. Mama had a queer experience helping a woman get over eating mushrooms that were the wrong kind. Mom said didn't anybody know anything to do about it except in cases of poison a person should be given lots of milk--drink as much milk as they could. The husband - I don't know how he escaped it--this happened on the claim in Oklahoma. The husband came and said, "My wife and two of my children are deathly sick, and we're afraid it was that we ate the wrong kind of mushrooms." Mom told him she didn't know anything except that milk was given in case of food poisoning, and if they could get them to vomit, they'd probably be all right. She said when that milk began to return, it was a greenish color. Her idea was that it had gathered up all that poison. Anyway, that family recovered. Mustard plaster - I wonder if I can find my recipe for mustard plaster that my mother gave me, and I used it on Raymond a number of times. (hand-written in a printed recipe book) Recipe for mustard plaster for fair-skinned adult 1 T ground mustard, dry 3 T flour Mix to a paste with cold water. Spread between two thin cloths. Heat the plaster in the oven (warm). Apply to sore location. For coughs, particularly with Daddy, and he liked 'em. Quilting Most of what I remember about quilting when I was a little kid was piecing four-patches and nine-patches and things like that. Mama taught me how to do that early. She taught me how to quilt, to do simple embroidery, and to make samplers. (Grandma used the rollup quilting frame, and that was the kind Raymond made for Izma) You had to have a short, very strong needle. What I can remember doing is helping to tie comforters. (Kept a scrap bag) I can remember Mother Etherton and Flossie and Mae Maupin and Mrs. Patton and I would have quilting parties at my mama's house. The last quilting party at Mama's house in Mosca--Daddy and I went up the night before and stayed all night with Mom and Dad. Mama fixed a turkey dinner for all this group of women that came to work on the quilt (miniature stars, quilted in star pattern). Mama wasn't too well, and Mama gave the noontime prayer and it made me cry. Both Mama and Mother Etherton had comforter tying parties before we were married, and they tied my two old comforters. Rag Carpet - this was the Mrs. Austin that Mom bought her farm from - the Austin family. They lived in Derby then. We had pieced carpet rags all winter - sewed them and made them into balls. I worked on those, too. I liked to sew carpet rags. You took old dresses and Mother took old sheets and colored 'em bright yellow. She wanted some contrast with the reds and blues and greens. Lots of times you used new cloth if you could afford it. She boiled it in the clothes boiler on the stove to make those yellows (commercial dye). The way you determined how many carpet rags needed was, you told the loom woman the size of your room, and she told you how many gunny sacks of carpet rag balls you had to bring. How I hated those yellow rags. We had to tear 'em in strips, of course. That which was dyed yellow was very coarse to handle, and as you tore the strips a kind of a powder came out. The carpet was loomed in 27 inches and 36 inches, and we always bought the 36 inch because Mama always said "What use" - well, you have to sew all these strips together by hand, you know. if you were lucky, your carpet just fitted you room, and if you weren't, you might have to double some of it under. (tacked it down all around) Also, people had tack pullers for when you had to take them up, which you had to do every now and then, because the carpets would get dirty. We bought from Uncle George's store these great big cones of grocery twine (to sew the carpet strips together). Carpets could last years--ten years, or even longer if you were careful. The floors were made of pine boards about four inches wide. Several days before laying the carpet, you scrubbed the floor with lye, then came layers of newspaper, and then if you wanted to, layers of straw or hay. it helped for warmth and it helped for looks, too. Then - this is the tricky part of it - you tacked down along one wall, whichever way you wanted the seams to run - usually the lengthwise. Then they had a thing called a carpet stretcher. It had claws on it, and you put those claws into the rag carpet. It's a kind of a ratchety thing, and you worked the ratchet handle slow and easy. You started in the middle of the wall and worked both ways, so your carpet wasn't zig-zagged by the stretching. Then after so long a time, after a year or so when the carpets got too dirty to respond to sweeping, which was the only way you could clean a carpet, you took it up (used the tack puller and pulled all those darned tacks) bought new tacks. if it weren't very dirty it was thrown over the lines and beaten with a carpet beater, and you'd beat till your arms wouldn't stand it - everybody in the family would get involved. Then you used the broom and the beater some more. The worst of it was if the carpet was very dirty. this is what you had to do: take it up and unstitch all that stitching you'd done before. Then every strip had to be washed separately. If your washing machine was strong, you could do some strips in the washing machine--if they weren't too long. If your washer wouldn't stand it, you had to wash them on a scrub board, in tubs, with brushes and brooms and everthing you could find that would get the dirt loose. (hand-powered machines) Then you had to sew them back together and put down your carpet again. (note from L D: Living room, Grandpa & Grandma's room, Mom's room had carpets) In Forest's room and the hall upstairs: Uncle George's store bought tea from China in these big basket-like things made of woven some kind of material that was shiny. Anyway, it was woven quite tight and these casks were made originally in strips that you could take apart. Matting-straw matting. You could either cover a whole floor or just lay it down in strips wherever you wanted to, like in a hall. And they were scrubbable, just like you'd mop a floor. When you wanted to sweep it, you could wet newspaper and scatter it around, then sweep it all in one direction, and you'd have a very nice clean floor. The first commercial carpet I bought after I began to teach was an Axminster rug, put down in the front room, and we did away with the rag carpet. I was so proud of that room, I didn't know what to do. A carpet! Making a Christmas Tree We never had Christmas trees in our own house. Christmas to us meant the Christmas tree at the church. A committee, usually Chris Mohr, Dad, and somebody else, would go down in our woods and pick out a tree - sycamore, usually. And everybody who had an evergreen waited until about that time to trim their trees. in the house next to grandpa and grandma's home, there were four great big old pines. they were kept well trimmed up high underneath, making kind of a canopy over the yard. These boughs and twigs (it didn't make any difference whether it was cedar, pine or what) were tied on the sycamore tree. And they only trimmed one side, let me tell you - they put that tree up in the corner. There were very few evergreens. We had a wild evergreen down in the forest. I didn't know it was there for a long time. Several weeks before Christmas, Mamas and Papas, the Mohrs and the Ripples, would come to our house, to the dining room in the kitchen, and we had this big long table. Everbody brought scissors, glue and paste. And in Wichita we bought sheets of silver paper and gold paper. We had patterns of stars and Christmas bells and half-moons and things like that. Since the paper was only printed silver on one side, you had to have two star cut-outs to make one star. Before they were pasted together, a loop of cord was put in there and pasted down. Small gifts were also put on the tree, and larger gifts on the floor. You see, there were no Christmas trees at home, so families brought their gifts to the Christmas tree when Santa came, which was Chris Mohr--it was always Chris' duty because he was the one that had the sleigh bells. At the end of the Christmas program, there was Santa Claus and at the end of Santa Claus there was distribution of candy and presents to every child. The young people - there was a committee - usually Louise and me and? we had to call on every family for a donation, usually a dollar per family. We sent to Montgomery Ward and got candy in big buckets - chocolate drops, peanut squares, hard ribbon Christmas candy. And there was always an orange and a handful of nuts, maybe just peanuts - but always some nuts. Again it was at our house. A woman stood before each bucket of candy. Small grocery bags were passed around and each woman contributed something to the bag. The men opened bags and passed them, and also received the bags at the end and tied the tops with cord. That Christmas tree took a lot of work, let me tell you. Those were happy times, times for the neighbors to get together - they all liked each other anyway. The program was usually Christmas eve. (Evangelical Association) In my later years, when I was teaching, there were commercial Christmas trees to be bought in Wichita. (The little key bank was a stocking present on Christmas morning) Grandma gave me my last doll. She called it my best doll, Ollie. I can remember what she wrote on the card: "Little Izma - this is my nicest doll, Ollie. Take good care of it, for I may never come again. Mrs. Kris Kringle." I knew Grandma's writing, so I knew it was Grandma when I read that note. Probably eight years old. Velvet Cat - I must have been about eight them - seven or eight. We had gone to Wichita and Mama was going to do Christmas shopping. She gave me a dollar to spend. When she gave me the dollar, she said "Maybe you can find a handkerchief for Papa and a little tin knife for brother and maybe something for somebody else." And that's what we intended to do that day. I saw that cat for Grandma - pincushion for Grandma. And Mama said, "It costs a dollar - you won't have a cent left." I said, "Doesn't make any difference, I'm gonna buy that cat for Grandma." What made it really great is that Grandma loved that cat as much as I did. It always sat on the old dresser downstairs (Eastlake) on one of those side panels. (1990 - I have that plush cat sitting on my dresser - the same Bastlake dresser - in my bedroom -- Linda) And in the middle of the cat's back sat that jet and black enameled pin that she wore everywhere. Except for a wedding ring, I never saw a ring on my Grandmother's fingers. The cat came back to me in 1915 when grandmother died. I also kept the cat on that same dresser which we got when Grandma died - upstairs on the farm. Also the What-not was in my room. Fritzi We brought her home that night - Dad did - she was just about this big (double handful), a terrier. We put her in a box with covers and blankets. I heard her whining in the night and I went down and got that puppy and took her to bed with me. When I came downstairs with the puppy, Mama said, "Did you have that puppy in bed with you? I just hope it didn't wet the bed." I announced that its name was going to be Fritzi. Dad said, "Fritz is a man's name.: I said, "Well, Fritzi isn't a man's name." - and it stuck. Susan B Anthony The Rev. Peck family, our minister, had three daughters, Mildred and Zemira, and I can't think of the other one. Mildred was the youngest and the cat was hers. It was a calico, and she named it Susan B Anthony. The governing board issued a new charge to him; he'd be moving up to the northern part of Kansas somewhere. I don't know what the method of moving was, but they thought they couldn't take the cat, so Mildred gave her to me. Tennessee Pass This would have been 1922 or 23--somewhere along in there, Uncle Charlie had charge of a track-laying crew through the Tennessee Pass tunnel. This would be at the time when hoboes were crossing the country on trains--you'd see a train just full of 'em, just sitting there with their legs hanging over on flatcars or whatever they could find to ride. And the officers made no objection to 'em whatsoever--they just let 'em ride--couldn't stop 'em. And on Tennessee Pass there were old army barracks, just strings of rooms, with a door and a lock, where the men lived when they built the tunnel. Now the Mexicans lived in the box-car homes that the railroad provided for them on the siding. Uncle Charlie and two or three of his strawbosses lived in the barracks. Uncle Charlie said, "Now listen, you girls, don't you dare to go outside when the trains stop, because there's all those hoboes and they make awful remarks--"they'd just laugh like hyenas, you know. So we kept the front door locked, next to the railroad tracks. One day, we just couldn't resist the temptation--we were looking out, one of these hoboes reached down and undid his wooden leg--shod and everything-and waved it at us. We got away from that window. This had apparently happened before, because all those guys just roared--and what I mean, there were hundreds of fellows on that train. That afternoon as Louise and I were in our bedroom, we heard the back door creak. In the corner of the bedroom stood Uncle Charlie's rifle. Louise grabbed that rifle and stuck it around the corner of the bedroom door and said, "Don't come one step nearer or I'll shoot." Then we heard a meek little voice say, "Hold it, lady, hold it." It was an old time itinerate peddler with a pack-buttons, needles, and all that kind of thing. He was just going from town to town along the railroad, probably hitching a ride like the hoboes were. This would have been about 1923 or 1924 when hard times were just terrific. Unemployed were just moving from coast to coast and from north to south trying to find work. There was the depot and houses for the workers, and a few shacks for old-time miners and there was also a corral for sheep. Uncle Charlie was sent there to boss the laying of rail through the Tennessee tunnel. I had taken Louise on a kind of graduation present--a trip to Colorado to see the folks (who had moved here in 1921) and Uncle Charlie had asked us to stay at Tennessee Pass. Uncle Charlie would walk through that mile-long tunnel. When we first arrived at Tennessee Pass, Uncle Charlie said, "Izma, I've got something strange to tell you. There are two interesting old fellows here by the name of Maupin--two old miners. Their names are Levi and John. Levi lives in a little mountain cabin up a little trail here." Uncle Charlie said when he met him, "I have a brother-in-law Levi Maupin." And the old man said, "You're from Kansas. What part of Kansas are you from?" Uncle Charlie said, "Derby", and the old man said, "That's close to Mulvane, isn't it?" Dad was born in Mulvane. So this old man looked me over with a wondering eye. He didn't know anything about Dad. Dad's father Alexander (called Sandy) had deserted the family and gone to Montana to make his fortune, he said. But the old man knew of Dad's sister Rose and his brother William, but he didn't know anything about a Levi. When I was able to tell the old man the story of Sandy going to Montana, then he recognized that I wasn't something spurious--that I was real. He was Dad's uncle. The elder Levi and Sandy were brothers. This is another interesting thing--he invited us up to his cabin and took us to his mine, which had been worked out as far as gold was concerned, and there he showed us how to put a shovel of dirt in the sluice box at the top, pour water in, he said, "You won't find gold, but you'll find little rubies--little slivers of ruby." And we did. By that time, neither Uncle John nor Uncle Levi were still miners. They were retired. But Uncle John still had a lumber mill down at the next little town. The next summer, Dad and Mom and Nelda and I drove to Tennessee Pass to meet with Uncle John and Uncle Levi. the strangest part of it was that Dad and Uncle Levi looked alike. I had said to Uncle Levi, "My stepfather looks like you." Dad was born after his father had left, so he was tickled to meet Uncle John and Uncle Levi--he had a family. Izma and Raymond Meet That first fall, we had a Halloween party at Mosca Hall, which was part of the schoolhouse where graduations, basketball games, public meetings, voting--everything was held in Mosca Hall. The school put on the party, everybody was invited. Everybody could come in costume if they wanted to, or just wear a mask to a game party. It was just a fun party. I had an orange crepe dress that was quite pretty. I'd gotten hold of some sort of rope decoration--it was made up of orange and brown, and I sewed it to my dress. I also made a crepe paper hat, trimmed in this same kind of rope. And I had a mask, too. I was getting acquainted with parents I'd never met before, so I took my mask off. And soon through this crowd came William Etherton--Bill, Jr.--Raymond's cousin. With him was this young man I'd never seen before, who like to surprise the life out of me. I kind of expected him to bow or say "I'm glad to meet you," or something like that. Instead, he grabbed my hand and nearly shook my fingers off. You know how exuberant your Dad was when he kissed you or something like that--well, that's how he was, and I wasn't looking for that at all. Further on, it just grew until we were married in 1929. We'd like to have married sooner, but times were hard and we just simply didn't have the where with all to do it. He -was on the phone and writing letters and when I went to Kansas, he wrote to me every day. He worked at night at Mark Steven's filling station. (She holds up letters tied with a ribbon) I read them over recently--does you good to go back and realize what the beginning of your married life was like--your courting days. He was selling cars. From there the Jones' hired Dad away from Stevens. We had picnics and things like that. And them, of course, there was always church. The Etherton family was quickly taken in by the Maupin-Patton-Foley friendship group which stuck together through thick and thin. We had lots of times together that included both families. Along about the second year, when it was my birthday, Daddy handed me this little ring case. He never said it was an engagement ring. He said, "I planned to give you this on your birthday, but I just couldn't wait." So he gave it to me on April Fool's Day. We always had a joke about that. I didn't wear the ring--I put it away. I was afraid they wouldn't hire me, and I had to have that money. I didn't wear it until the last year I taught, when I'd told them I wasn't going to teach anymore. Forest, the old snoop, got into my suitcase and found the ring, so he had to tell Mom about it. She didn't make any objection about my not talking about it, but everybody knew we were engaged, everybody knew we belonged together and that was that. I/