Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Eureka Springs, Arkansas

Gina in Eureka Springs

E is for Eureka Springs, Arkansas.  Eureka Springs is one of our favorite places. We try to go there several times a year as it is a beautiful three and a half hour drive from home.

Eureka Springs is a Victorian mountain village that was founded in 1879. Judge J.B. Saunders claimed that his crippling disease was cured by the spring waters. Saunders started promoting Eureka Springs to friends and family members across the State and created a boom town. Within a period of little more than one year, the city grew from a rural village to a major city of 5,000 people. By 1889 it was the second largest city in Arkansas. With bath house cures falling out of favor, and the depression that hit the nation being particularly bad in Arkansas, Eureka Spring fell into decline during the 30's.

With the end of World War II the era of the family car trip began. Businesses and services moved to the highway, rustic tourist courts and air-conditioned motels were built alongside diners and gift shops. Sights that had been horseback adventure were now attractions to the motoring tourist. The motoring public could turn-off Hwy 62 down 62B into the valley, follow the loop through the historic little Victorian city, and come back out on the highway.

Downtown Eureka

Early in the 1960s Beaver Lake was completed, and shortly after that Pea Ridge Battle Field National Military Park was opened. Northwest Arkansas attractions continued to expand the number of tourists passing through the Eureka Springs area. In the 1970s, the public was looking for a different lodging experience. The bed and breakfast concept was a perfect fit for the public and for Eureka Springs. The city prospered at a rate reminiscent of the early boom days. It is now a favorite vacation spot for many with over 2500 rooms available. On peek weekends it can be difficult to find a room.

The city has steep winding streets filled with Victorian-style cottages and manors. The old commercial section of the city has an alpine character, with an extensive streetscape of well-preserved Victorian buildings.

City Auditorium

I love to take photos in Eureka Springs and have taken many over the years.

Basin Park

Old Glory

Banjo

The streets of Eureka are always so colorful and filled with interesting people

IMG_0679

J.A. Nelson Gallery

Lillis

Biker Chicks

Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory

Santa's Helpers 3

Here are a couple of signs that caught my attention. I have always found the sign at Scarlett's amusing. Scarlett's is a shop that sells sexy lingerie and other items to "enhance one's sex life". While everyone else in town is open, Scarlett's is closed on their Sabbath.

Closed On Sabbath

Practice Safe Lunch

Our favorite time of the year to visit Eureka Springs is in the fall when the autumn colors are so beautiful.

Fall Eureka Street Scene

Gina and I

Eureka Color

Eureka Color 2

The ABC Wednesday Meme is a fun way to see some great blogs.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Deep Water - The Mena Star


This is my article as published in the August 8, 2013 issue of The Mena Star

Steamboats

Steamboats changed the face of America.  Before steamboats, freight had to be either hauled by wagon or on rafts, flatboats, and keel-boats. River transport was difficult, hazardous, and costly.

In 1811 the first river steamboats left the dock at Pittsburgh to steam down the Ohio River to the Mississippi and on to New Orleans.  With the use of steamboats, the freight rates per hundred pounds from New Orleans to Louisville dropped from 5 dollars to 25 cents, between 1815 and 1860.  Steamboat traffic including passenger and freight business grew tremendously during this period . So too did the economic and human losses inflicted by snags, shoals, boiler explosions, and human error.  From 1811 to 1899, 156 steamboats were lost to snags or rocks between St. Louis and the Ohio River and another 411 were damaged by fire, explosions or ice.  Travelling by steamboat was dangerous.


Back in the days when steamboats were common, a passenger stood watching the pilot guiding the ship through the river.  The passenger asked the pilot, "how long have you been piloting a boat on this river?"  "About twenty years," was the reply.  The passenger said, "so I suppose you know every rock and shoal and sand bank and all the other dangerous places."  "No, I don't," said the pilot.  "You don't!" exclaimed the passenger in alarm.  "Then what do you know?"  The pilot said, "I know where the deep water is."

Many Christians waste a lot of precious time and resources studying error.  They think that to avoid error they must understand all of the inns and outs of it.  Instead of focusing on Jesus they focus on these erroneous ideas and the people who are teaching them.  They become conspiracy theory Christians who spend more time focusing on these conspiracy theories than they do on Jesus.



In Philippians 4:8, the Bible tells us,  "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."  That seems to tell me that God wants us to focus on the positive.  There is so much evil and error in the world that we could never hope to understand it no matter how long we studied it. Why would we want to take time away from Jesus to study such things?

I am quite often given materials or sent e-mails and internet links to articles that are meant to expose certain groups or organizations.  I don't want to take the time to study things that I already believe to be error.  If we know our Bibles and we know our Savior we will not be deceived.  We don't need to see the evil side of life to be able to seek the good.   Jesus tells us in John 8:31,32 - "If you continue to obey my teaching, you are truly my followers. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”


We need to know where the deep water is.  We need to travel in the deep water as we negotiate the river of life.  To many lives have been wrecked by the rocks and sand banks of life as they have strayed from the deep water.  Let's resolve to stay in the deep water of Jesus.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Daddy - written by Lloyd Lawry

In 1995 my Uncle Lloyd Lawry gave me a number of stories and articles he had written.  Among those was this story of his Daddy, my Grandpa.  This is the story exactly as he wrote it.


My Daddy, Bennie Eugene Lawry, was born February 15, 1895 near Bronson, Kansas. Evidently he wasn't too fond of the "Bennie". By the time I first knew him he had shortened it to Ben.

When he was small he must have had 2 brothers, 2 sisters, half-brother and one half-sister living at home. Grandpa Lawry lost his eyesight in 1888 so they had to struggle just to live.  He attended Stony Point School. I believe he completed eighth grade.

He said he farmed the home place the year he was 14. It was done with a plow and a cultivator that he walked behind as the horses pulled them. He never told me much about his early life.

I do have two tales of his experiences during his horse and buggy days. He had a "moon eyed" horse that ran him in a creek off a low water bridge, and one time he asked a girl if he could drive her home. She replied "you can if you have any harness that will fit me."

He married my mother in 1918, and they went to Santa Rita, New Mexico, where he obtained a job carrying samples of the copper ore from the mines. I think one of Grandpa Lawry's daughters by his first marriage lived there and found the opportunity of a job for him.

He told of an incident which made him think his guardian angel was watching over him. He was walking along in the dark when he felt that something had stopped him. He stopped immediately and lit a match. He was standing on the brink of a deep pit. One more step and he would have fallen, probably to his death.

They came back to Kansas after the war, and I was born at my Aunt Cody's (Cora Hixson) farm. It was a few miles northwest of Bronson, Kansas.


In 1920 Mama and Daddy were living in Mildred, Kansas. There was a cement plant there and Daddy worked as day watchman. He broke his leg getting it caught while stepping over a moving belt.

Daddy ran a restaurant in Yates Center, Kansas in 1924. I don’t know how long he had it, but I think he went broke running it. He fed the prisoners in the local jail and I was in awe of them when I went with Daddy to take their food.

I'm uncertain when mama and daddy first separated but I remember living in Chanute, Kansas when there was just mama and I. Also, I remember living in Wichita, Kansas with daddy and mama. He worked at the oil refinery. They evidently separated again before I was 6 because Mama and I were living by ourselves when I started school.

In March 1926 Daddy was working for a construction company building an addition to a salt plant in Lyons, Kansas. He worked in several places, finally coming to Buffville, Kansas to work in the brick yard. He married Hazel there September 3, 1927.


His job was shoveling shale into metal carts. I believe they were 1/2 cubic yard capacity. They dynamited the shale down and Daddy loaded it with a shovel, picking up big chunks and loading them by hand. He had to push the carts on a narrow gauge railroad track to the bottom of an incline ramp where they were pulled up to the place where the shale was ground. He got 25 cents for each cart he loaded and pushed up the ramp.

In a letter he wrote October 28, 1928 he said "there was two days that I made $6.90 a day each". In the same letter he told of paying $240 to pay off his Model A Ford. When he was thinking of buying it the salesman came out where he was working and helped him load shale all day to clinch the sale. Daddy didn't tell him until the end of the day that he had decided to buy the car before the salesman came out!

In October 1929 the brickyard closed, never to reopen. Sometime after that we moved to a farm east of Buffville where we rented a house with garden space and pasture for a cow. We lived there for several years. Our house burned when I was in the eighth grade and we moved back to Buffville until the owner of the farm bought an old house and moved it to the farm. Then we moved back to the farm again.


Later we lived on similar farms north of Altoona, south of Altoona, and east of Altoona. We also lived in Buffville again part of my senior year in high school.

Daddy didn't want to go on WPA, but finally did when our cash income one month was only $5. He went to broom corn harvest and followed the wheat harvest to North Dakota one year before finally giving up and going on WPA. While he and Grandpa Reeve were working in the Dakotas the old German farmer's wife where they were working had twin babies during the morning and yet got up and prepared their noon meal!

When we were living east of Altoona in 1940, Daddy decided to move to Missouri, so we loaded our possessions on a trailer behind the old Model A Ford and drove it most of the way to Poplar Bluff, Missouri. We lived with Jessie and John Borton in a three room house; ten people in 3 rooms.


Daddy and Uncle John worked for a man who owned a greenhouse for 10 cents an hour. I couldn't find any work so left home in early 1941, and hitch hiked to Texas.

One year while they lived in Missouri, Daddy took the family to Michigan to pick fruit. The family moved back to Kansas and bought 80 acres of farm land with an old house on it. They lived there for several years.

Daddy worked for the W. J. Small Company in Neodesha for 15 years. It was an alfalfa dehydrating plant. Daddy was in his late 40's and his 50's during these years. He sewed sacks and stacked bags of alfalfa meal. The filled sacks weighed 100 pounds and it was terribly hard work. The farm had several miles of mud roads between it and town, so these years of arduous labor were plagued by fighting bad roads and a car which often refused to start until pulled by their team of horses. Hazel and Delbert did much of the farm work while Daddy worked in town.

Daddy and Hazel went to Oregon to pick fruit and vegetables one year. They stayed all winter after picking was over, Hazel got a job and Daddy loafed all winter and read a lot of books.

In the late 60's Daddy and Hazel bought a farm and a few acres east of Altoona. They had a truck farm and raised tomatoes and strawberries as well as other vegetables.


After Bob's family moved to Arkansas, Daddy and Hazel also moved there. Daddy was happy with his chickens and his garden. He would say, "Tell the people you have been to paradise," when we would leave to go back to Irving. He puttered around the garden patch on the day he died.  He died December 2, 1981 of heart complications.

He was a kind, gentle, hardworking, loving man.  I have my Lord’s assurance that at some point in eternity I will again see him in heaven, as he used to sing, “Where they ring those golden bells for you and me.”

The ABC Wednesday Meme is a fun way to see some great blogs.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Aunt Opal's Memories - Chapter 1 - Part 2


We lived with Grandpa and Grandma in Buffville for a while. Daddy and Uncle Pete made a living by driving to Joplin, Missouri, to buy fruit and vegetables to sell door to door. The landlord moved another house to replace the burned one and we moved back there. The first thing I can remember, ever, was there. I remember talking to Daddy and I think we were dressed for Church.  We did have a new Model A Ford. Daddy paid $600.00 for it. They made a platform of something and a bar that slid under the back of the car so they could haul more baskets of fruit.

Later we moved north of Altoona to a big old farm house and I remember a big empty silo. One Christmas Aunt Lola, Uncle Derral, Donald (his brother), Aunt Fay and Uncle Les, Aunt Jessie and Uncle John all came and had a wonderful fun time.  Some of the guys, in the night ate a pie and said it was Santa. They also tied some of the men's clothes in knots. 'We didn't have a tree but Mom gave me a small rubber doll. We had lots of hard Christmases. Daddy saved dimes so we would always have a little something at Christmas. To this day I have to have a little hard Christmas candy at Christmas. No one likes it and I have to throw most of it out, but it wouldn't be Christmas without it.

                     LLOYD, DELBERT, HAZEL, OPAL, BOB, BEN

We later moved back to Buffville. Grandpa and Grandma still lived there and a few other families and Fred's Store. We had a cow and sometimes Daddy would let me ride her when he took her to the shale pit for water. Bob was born there. We called him Bobby Bill as they couldn't decide what to call him-Bobby or Billy.We lived several places after that.

We never knew we were poor. Daddy worked anywhere he could, Hoeing corn or other farm work. Even on WPA awhile. After high school Lloyd was at the CCC camp (Civilian Conservation Corps).

We had a happy childhood, enjoyed our cousins and aunts and uncles coaxing us to visit. We also enjoyed wonderful family get togethers. I had many cousins I loved but I was closest to Uncle Pete and Aunt Osa's family. We went to church at the home of friends in Neodesha. We never had a preacher, just Elder Jones from Fredonia. Daddy was not an Adventist but usually went to church with us. Our other aunts and families that lived close were not Adventists at that time but did join later.

                                  BEN AND HAZEL LAWRY

Our happiest times were when we got to spend the night with each other. Vera and I were the same age and Viola a little older. Delbert and Ivan were about the same age and Leo a little younger. To me it was more fun at their house. We got to ride home in the back of the pick-up truck, go after the cows (which we enjoyed more than they as they had to do it all the time). We played in the water barrels, at the spring, and in the creek. Slid down the calf shed roof ate watermelon in the patch, climbed trees, and sometimes Aunt Osa would make us molasses taffy.

Once we started to get some molasses (they made their own) from a container outside the kitchen but someone or something had the lid off and a poor chicken had gotten into it. She was a sad sight but we rescued her and washed her off so she was as good as new. Once we begged to stay up till midnight and Aunt Osa let us, but it really wasn't that exciting.

They made their own molasses. They squeezed the juice in a big mill run by a mule walking round and round. Then they boiled the juice in a large pan about 3 x 10 with three divisions over an open fire until it was of the right consistency. Aunt Osa would pick wild mushrooms and fry a whole skillet in butter. Yum, Yum!

Daddy always smoked a pipe. But gave it up and joined the SDA church when I was in seventh grade. We attended meetings in Chanute and he became a believer.

When they were first married he went to the Methodist church. Mom would go with him and he would go with her. Lloyd didn't much like that. He never did accept Adventism, but after Jane Ellen was born when he looked at her said, “There has to be a God", so he and Aunt Kathy became Baptists.

                                    BOB, OPAL, DELBERT

When I was in seventh grade we packed all we could in a trailer hooked to our old model A Ford and started for Popular Bluff, Missouri. Uncle John and Aunt Jessie lived there and daddy could work in a greenhouse where he worked. Lloyd drove us. I remember him saying as we drove out of a service station, "If a fly sits on this load we'll never make it." But we did!

Lloyd didn't stay but went to Dallas, Texas, to some cousins and did well. He worked at several jobs then got on with Braniff Airways and stayed until he retired.

We stayed there that winter. We shared a house with Jessie and John, Leland and LeRoy. Tom was born that year. Delbert, LeRoy, and I went to school there (interesting to me, here in Collegedale I met and became close friends with the lady, Thelma, who ran the greenhouse back in Poplar Bluff and her sister was married to Uncle John's cousin).

That Spring Mom and Daddy decided to follow the fruit harvest (John and Jessie had done it.). We started out picking strawberries and went on up to Michigan to peaches, pears, apples, and grapes. Mom was really fast at it and the rest of us did what we could. I had to start school in Hollywood, Michigan.

While there I got my first perm. The curlers were on long electric cords. We got a different car and headed back to Kansas. Guess they did pretty well. They bought an eighty acre farm.


CLICK TO GO BACK TO CHAPTER 1 PART 1

CLICK TO GO TO CHAPTER 1 PART 3





Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Carnton Plantation




C is for Carnton Plantation.  Recently on our way to Ootelwah, Tennessee for my Aunt's 85th birthday party, we stopped in Franklin, Tennessee.  My sister and her husband from Missouri were also heading to the same party.  We called them to see where they were, and they just happened to be in Franklin.  We got together for lunch at the Franklin Mercantile Deli.  After lunch we toured the Carnton Plantation.

Carnton was built in 1826 by former Nashville mayor Randal McGavock. Throughout the nineteenth century it was frequently visited by those shaping Tennessee and American history, including President Andrew Jackson. Carnton was a working plantation of 1,400 acres of which 500 acres was used to raise wheat, corn, oats, hay and potatoes. After his father died in 1843, John McGavock took possession of the property and continued to farm it until his death. Under his direction, Carnton grew to become one of the premier farms in Williamson County, Tennessee.  John McGavock married Carrie Elizabeth Winder in December 1848 and they had five children during the subsequent years, three of whom died at young ages.  The surviving children were Winder and Hattie.  Here is a photograph of them from 1865.


Beginning at 4 p.m. on November 30, 1864, Carnton Plantation saw one of the bloodiest battles of the entire Civil War. The Confederate Army of Tennessee furiously assaulted the Federal army entrenched along the southern edge of Franklin. The resulting battle was the bloodiest five hours of the Civil War.   The Battle of Franklin lasted barely five hours and led to some 9,500 soldiers being killed, wounded, captured, or counted as missing. Nearly 7,000 of that number were Confederate troops. Carnton served as the largest field hospital in the area for hundreds of wounded and dying Confederate soldiers.

As we toured the home, you could see blood stains on the floors from the surgeries and amputations done during that time.  A staff officer later wrote that "the wounded, in hundreds, were brought to the house during the battle, and all the night after. And when the noble old house could hold no more, the yard was appropriated until the wounded and dead filled that also"


Hundreds of Confederate wounded and dying were tended by Carrie McGavock and her family. Her two children, Hattie (age nine) and son Winder (age seven), provided some basic assistance to the surgeons as well. Over 300 Confederate soldiers were cared for inside Carnton alone. Hundreds more, were spread out through the rest of the property, including in the slave cabins.

Carrie McGavock described the scene at Carnton after the Battle of Franklin this way. "Every room was filled, every bed had two poor, bleeding fellows, every spare space, niche, and corner under the stairs, in the hall, everywhere. And when the noble old house could hold no more, the yard was appropriated until the wounded and dead filled that. Our doctors were deficient in bandages and I began by giving my old linen, then my towels and napkins, then my sheets and tablecloths, then my husband's shirts and my own undergarments"


Author Robert Hicks wrote a historical novel based on the life of Carrie McGavock titled The Widow of the South. A review of the book by Anne Rivers Siddons states,  "A memorable, many-faceted account of one of the definitive events of our history. To read this thrilling story is to encounter and recognize something essential of the worst and best about ourselves. What a wonderful story Robert Hicks has told. It speaks powerfully to us today." I haven't read the book yet but I am planning to.



In early 1866, John and Carrie McGavock designated two acres of land adjacent to their family cemetery as a final burial place for nearly 1,500 Confederate soldiers killed during the Battle of Franklin. The McGavocks maintained the cemetery until their respective deaths. Today, the McGavock Confederate Cemetery is a lasting memorial honoring those fallen soldiers and the Battle of Franklin. It is the largest privately owned military cemetery in the nation.

I really enjoyed touring Carnton and the surrounding gardens.  Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic. If you are ever in Franklin, Tennessee I highly recommend a visit to Carnton Plantation.   Here are a few pictures taken at Carnton.















The ABC Wednesday Meme is a fun way to see some great blogs.

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Aunt Opal's Memories - Chapter 1 - Part 1

While I was visiting my Aunt Opal Vega for her 85th birthday celebration she let me have a copy of her Memories that she had written down. I am transcribing them to this blog so that as many people as possible will be able to see them.


Grandma Reeve, Edith May Lewis, was born in De Moines, Iowa, on July 19, 1877.  At a young age, her mother, Nancy Jane Swan Lewis went to take care of her parents for ten or twelve years.  Edith and her father, John Henry Vreland Lewis, were not allowed to go.

Her father came to visit his sister in Tennessee.  While there he took sick and died. He is buried in St. Elmo's Cemetery at the foot of Lookout Mountain. Aunt Lola and Aunt Fay (Reeve) Prowant looked it up when visiting Donna and Bill near Chattanooga, Tennessee several years ago. Many of us cousins have visited his grave.

Grandma went to school in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1891. She visited the Chicago World's Fair in 1892. She had three sisters (Jenny, Ella, and Ida), and two brothers (Frank and Charles). Charles was a state senator from the thirty-eighth district in California. He also owned several drugstores and became wealthy. He lost it all during the depression. He visited the family in Kansas when my mother, Hazel Reeve Lawry, was young.

My grandpa, William Urbin Reeve (always called Urbin) was born in Nicoma) Illinois, in May, 1875. He had two sisters and two brothers (Ida, Edith, Ira, Leslie, and Ivan).

Grandma and Grandpa met during his days of delivering milk where Grandma worked. They were married on May 24, 1895, in Canton, Illinois. Three of their children were born there (Alma, Zenella, and Robert). Robert only lived a few days.

In 1902 they moved to a farm east of Altoona, Kansas. Four children were born there (Orval (Pete), Hazel, Jessie, and Fay.



After moving to Wickes, Arkansas, more children were born (Lola, Dolly Fern, and Leslie). Dolly Fern lived less than two years. While there Grandpa Reeve was Justice of the Peace for that area. He performed marriages, etc.

When my mother, Hazel was about 18 years of age they moved back to Kansas in three covered wagons. This was in about 1924. They invested in the Petite homestead a few miles out of Thayer, Kansas. The house there was a Sears Roebuck pre-cut house.  Mr. Petite's daughter, Mrs. Frank Perkins, and family lived next door on a farm. They only lived there a short time as farming was not Grandpa Reeve's thing. They sold it to Orval and Osa who moved up from Arkansas when Viola (she was born on September 12, 1925) was about six months old.

                                            HAZEL REEVE

In a letter from Uncle Les Reeve---He said that when they moved back to Kansas they had comfortable beds in each wagon which Grandpa Reeve made in his black smith shop. They were three weeks along the way. They picked cotton on the way while in Oklahoma. They had a pet squirrel and a pet dog with them.

I remember my mother saying that one problem was there were no restrooms along the way. (From Derral Reeve's book, they stopped in Oklahoma and picked cotton for two weeks. So it must have taken three weeks to travel the three hundred miles from Wickes, Arkansas to Thayer, Kansas).

Grandma became a Seventh-day Adventist in her youth. Seems she never lived near a church but Aunt Fay said she gathered her children together every Sabbath morning and studied with them. In Arkansas they went to a community church. Grandpa was a Dunkard but as far as I know he never went to church. In his very last years he gave up his snuff and gave his heart to Christ.

Les said grandma insisted they move back to Kansas so the children could get a better education. Alma and Zenella had already moved back to Kansas and married. Jessie was a secretary. She worked at Enterprise Academy. Fay, Lola, and Leslie all attended the academy there. Jessie met Uncle John Borton while there and married him. Aunt Fay went to western Kansas to teach church school. While there two brothers, her students, lost their mother. She later married their father, Uncle Les Prowant. The two boys were Donald and Derral. Derral went to Enterprise while Lola was attending. They married. (Uncle Leslie Reeve went on to Madison College and became a nurse where he met and married Aunt Helen Lamberton Reeve from the state of Washington. He served in the Air Force then returned to attend Loma Linda and became a doctor. He was the only one of the family to attend college.

After selling the farm to Orval and Osa, Grandma and Grandpa moved to Buffville. Grandpa Reeve went to work at the brickyard. All the people who lived there worked at the brick yard. There was a small store and a rooming house. My father stayed at the rooming house.

                                             BEN LAWRY

Uncle Les told me this in a letter---He said that Mom and Aunt Lola delivered milk to the boarding house and Daddy began talking to them and then walked home with them and then would sit on the porch and talk. Les and Lola would crawl under the porch and listen, 'till Daddy caught them once.'

Mom and Daddy were married on September 30, 1927 . Daddy had been married before and had a son, Lloyd, about 9 years of age. His mother was raised by strict grandparents who wouldn't let her go out much. She really liked a faster kind of life than Daddy liked. Lloyd told me he tried to bring her back, but she did not want him. Later she was very sick and came back to his family. My mother said she sat and talked and cried with her and she told Mom she was thankful Mom could care for Lloyd. She died. Mom and Lloyd were always close. Daddy was eleven years older than Mom.


We lived in Buffville until the brickyard closed down. I was born there. We then rented different places and Daddy did whatever he could find to do, mostly on farms. Of course it was the depression years and no one had much.

We lived in a farm house near Buffville when Delbert was born. Daddy and Grandpa were in Colorado harvesting broomcorn at that time. Lloyd had to go to the neighbors in the middle of the night to call the doctor when Delbert was born. Lloyd said they got ice from the ice man and made ice cream a lot. Grandma Reeve was staying with them while Grandpa was gone. I guess that was why my mother was never crazy about ice cream and Delbert weighed twelve pounds. Mom said when Daddy came home he had a red beard and when he kissed me I said "stick you me" and he shaved it off.

                             LLOYD, DELBERT, AND OPAL

That house burned down while we were all away. I was bare foot and my shoes burned up. All the neighbors could save was a cedar chest Lloyd had made at school; in it were Delbert's baby clothes which were too small for him. I believe Jane Ellen has that chest now.


CLICK TO GO TO CHAPTER 1 PART 2

You Might Be a Country Boy If... Part 6

While going through my Daddy's things after he passed away, I found this handwritten list of things titled You Might Be a Country Boy If...