Growing up on the Stroh place.

According to records in my geneagloy collection and stories handed down, my dad had gone to work as a hired hand for Josie Haas, a widow woman.  My mother had eloped and gone to Chicago with a man named Jack Walden, who was rumored to be a criminal who worked for the "mob".  She was 19 years old at the time.  She escaped in the dark of night and came home to grandma.  Or so the story goes.  

At that time Reuben Bartholomew was the handyman for Josie Haas.  Christine Haas was her daughter.  Christine and Reuben soon fell in love and married.  What followed is history.

 Of course, I was not born yet when that happened, so I can only surmise!  My first memories are of life on the Stroh place outside of Nickerson before I started school.  By coordinating my memories to what I recall I can figure out, I must have been about 6 years old when we left there and moved across town to the Ailmore place.

The big book that shows my genealogy is screwed up and shows my sister Mary married Tom Shea when she was 2 days old.  So I am going to forgo  dates and jump right into my memories.  According to the birth dates that I am sure are correct, I was six years old when Dorothy was born.  I remember momma bringing her home and she was crying all the time.  Harvest was about a week away and when it came time to drive the truck that hauled the wheat to the silo in town, Dorothy went with momma.  She was nursing and there was not much she could do, but take her. 

So the dynamics of the home at that point in time were these:  

Josephine, my half sister from mom's first marriage was 12 years old.

Jake was 10.

I was 6.

Donna was 4.

Mary was 2.

And Dorothy was new.

I did not like her because Momma always babied her.  Of course, she was a baby, but that was not taken into consideration.  My dad worked as a farm hand for a man who owned bottom land named John Britain.  We did not know him very well., but sometimes Dad would take Jake and I to work with him.  There was a slough that ran through the farm and sometimes it would have water flowing through it.  The water fed through to the Arkansas River which was next to the land.  If Jake had been lucky in his foraging he would have enough scraps of wood to build me a boat of sorts to float in the slough.  If not we just poked around to find crawdads.

I recall one time when Donna who must have been about 3 years old at the time poked her finger at a turtle, which latched right on and would not let go.  It was rumored that it would let go when the sun went down.  Donna screamed he head off until John Britain took his pocket knife and severed its head from its neck.  It let go then and I do not think Donna ever did that again.

As I recall, momma had geese and one time John Britain and dad snuck a goose egg into the chicken house and when John's wife found it, she was very excited!  "Oh look at the size of this egg my chicken laid!"  Not sure if anyone ever told her!

I started school on the Stroh place and one time it snowed very deep and Jake Stroh brought his horse to the school so he could bring us kids home to momma.  People used to help people like that.  It was called "helping your neighbor".  It must have been one of the memories that makes me help people today.  It was just "doing the right thing."  Helping your neighbor.

We need more of that today.  We need more kids playing with crawdads in a slough.  We need more walks in the woods and more helping each other and less television time.  I guess even televisions are going by the wayside and being replaced with computers, cell phones and the internet.

I may have outlived my usefulness!

Peace!

Hindsight is 20/20 looking back!

 My momma, the wisest woman in the world told me that years ago. I sometimes wonder if my kids will ever look back and remember anything I said.  I sure hope they do.

Growing up in a house that was home to six kids we all had our place in the hierarchy.  When my father married my mother, he had 3 sons from his first wife who had died.  They had been placed in an orphanage because he could not care for them.  The younger two were adopted into homes but kept in touch over the years.  The oldest left the orphanage at age 18 and mostly wandered the world.  

Of my family growing up, Josephine was oldest because she was the first born to my mother.  She had a different father than my dad.  Her father was supposedly a gangster in Chicago.  Who knows!  Then came Jake, who was the only son, simply because he was the only son.  Then came me, a bright and shining star on the roster of children!  Not really.  That put me in the middle child position which is not a place anyone wants to be.  But there I was, nonetheless.  Then the others who mostly tended to favor my father in coloring and mannerisms.  Donna and Mary were next followed by Dorothy who was the youngest.  Her sole claim to fame is that she was the last one born to my mother. 

Mary was always my dad's favorite.  There was never a question about it: It just was.  When Mary went to Junior High School and they had a dance, my dad went to town and bought her a beautiful white prom dress.  It was so soft.  Mary met and married her future husband when she was 13 or 14 years old.  He was 15 or 16 at the time.  I think.  I am a little foggy on the ages, but they were both very young. I do know I borrowed her prom dress when I married Earl Duane Seeger in 1960.

I look back down the road that I have traveled, and it makes me very sad.  My mother tried to give us kids everything we wanted and needed when she herself had been through trauma that I would never know about.  There are only two of us left, me and Donna.  I wonder if Donna ever thinks about our childhood.  I wonder if she remembers it the same way that I do?  I do know she squeezed a baby rabbit so hard once that it bled out its mouth and she put it in a drawer and covered it up with a washcloth, but it died anyway!

For the record, Lavender is still my favorite color, and my mother is still the angel that I remember.  The only difference is that instead of living on Strong Street in Nickerson, or on Avenue A in Hutchinson, she is walking on the streets of gold.  She is not in any pain, and she gets to look down on me and see that she raised a very strong woman after it is all said and done.  She is waiting for me to take that leap from here to where she waits for me.  I just hope she knows how happy I am that I was raised at her knee.

We all different mannerisms as is common in big families.  Josephine was the oldest, so she was bossy.  Jake was the only boy, so he was expected to do boy things, like chop wood, take the old tomcat that ate the baby chicken to the forest and chop off its head with the same axe, and mostly just do boy things.  He did let me tag along sometimes.  Of course, we all had to cater to Mary and Dorothy, because Dorothy was the baby, and Mary was the pretty one.  Mary was also Dad's favorite.    I do not think he liked me at all, but that taught me how to raise my own kids later in life.  

I bent over backwards to make sure that I did not favor one over the other.  If I spent $20 on one for Christmas, I spent $20 on each of the others.  Later my son pointed out to me that this was wrong.  I should have bought each one a gift especially chosen for them regardless of price.  He also pointed out that he was the only boy and should therefore be granted special status!  Little turd!

But this blog is actually about my high school prom.  Mom had somehow managed to get her hands on enough shiny polyester fabric in a beautiful lavender color.  She then scraped together enough to buy several yards of lavender net to pair with it.  She sewed me a beautiful prom dress all my hand with a pattern in her head!  It was beautiful!

It is at this point that the adage, "You cannot make a silk purse out of a cow's ear." comes to mind.  The softest net is very soft and lays differently than the cheap net that momma could afford.  When the skirt was stitched together with the bodice, it left the stiff net to completely encompass my waist.  What started out to be a fairy tale night, ended up being a torture.  By the time I got home to take the dress off I had a very raw waistline that was actually bleeding. It was packed away in a box under the bed and I do not know what ever happened to it. 

Lavendar is still my favorite color.  Always will be.  Lavender is still my favorite scent, and the beautiful fields of Lavender in Grand Junction is my favorite place in the spring.   

Momma told me long ago that my childhood would be what defined me in my later years.  She sure hit that nail on the head!  My experiences of those long-ago years guide me in everything I do in my old age.  When I think of momma it is always the house on Strong Street and the old wood stove and the ducks and chickens out back.  It is the Peach Tree by the chicken house and the treadle sewing machine and the Catalpa tree by the road.

Wonder it that is what heaven is like?  I sure hope so!

Peace!

October is almost gone!

And for that I am grateful!  October is a busy little month around here. I was born on October 1.  I have 2 children born in October.  My only brother was born October 5, 1937 and died October 31, 1965.  I was married the first time on October 30, 1960.  I might have actually been married another time or 2 in October, because I just love the whole month.  I am a Libra.

Libra is the horoscope sign designated for me and pretty well fits me and my brother to a "t".

People born under the sign of Libra are peaceful, fair, and they hate being alone. Partnership is very important for them, seeking someone with the ability to be the mirror to themselves. These individuals are fascinated by balance and symmetry, they are in a constant chase for justice and equality, realizing through life that the only thing that should be truly important to... astrology-zodiac-signs.com

• Element: Air
• Color: Pink, Green
• Day: Friday
• Lucky Numbers: 4, 6, 13, 15, 24
• Strengths: Cooperative,diplomatic, gracious, fair-minded, social
• Weaknesses: Indecisive, avoids confrontations, will carry a grudge, self-pity
• Libra likes: Harmony, gentleness, sharing with others, the outdoors
• Libra dislikes: Violence, injustice, loudmouths, conformity
• Greatest Compatibility: Aries, Sagittarius
• Career: lawyers, judges, diplomats, designers, composers, In search for truth and justice, they are good lawyers and judges, and can also be successful as diplomats, designers and composers if they have nurtured their artistic side from childhood.

And that about says it all.  

Life before the street lights came on.

 I started first grade a month before I turned 5.  I remember my teacher was Miss Donough when we started and she was Mrs. Breece when school was out for the summer.  We lived on the Stroh place when we started, but moved into the only home my father ever bought before school was out for the summer.  I have few memories of the Stroh place, but those I have are vivid.  Dorothy was born there.  Mother went to club every month there.  There was a big mudhole by the house that we were not supposed to play in there.  Donna poked a turtle with her finger and it latched on and John Britan had to cut its head off to make it let go.  Jake was kicked in the face by our Shetland pony.  He carried the scar until the day he died. Our old cow caught some disease and died, leaving us with no milk for the baby.  But in the spring, we moved to our own house on the other side of town out by the cemetery.  Dad bought another cow.  That was Strong Street.  709 North Strong Street to be exact.

I do not remember where the street light was located, but it seems to me it was right past the Reinke house and before the Smith house.  Probably right in front of the Goodrick house.  I do know we went out every night after supper to play in the "hood".  We had to be careful not to speak to any strangers because they would kidnap us and kill us or sell us to the Gypsy's which was a fate far worse then death!

Strong Street was a destination, not something you came across by accident, so we were fairly safe there.  Hank Windiate, the old crippled man with the horse and wagon lived on the end of the street, right across from Jerry and Ora Ayres.  First was our house, then the Reinke house, then Jake Smith and then Hank Windiate. The Ayres house, which was seperated by a vacant lot from the Goodrick house was the last house on that side of the street.

  

Our house, the Reinke house and the Ayres house were the only houses that had kids.  The Reinke girls, whose mother had died after giving birth to her last child, were not allowed out after dark.  Neither were the Ayres kids who were older, so it was basically just us.  So every night it was a rousing game of "Kick the Can!"  Now, for those of you who do not know how to play this, I will explain the rules.

First, you must have a can.  Now back in the 40's, a tin can was a coveted item.  First it meant your parents had enough money to buy a can of vegetables, or your brother had gone to the dump and foraged around and found a nice solid tin can!  Jake was good at that!  The can was placed upside down over a place that was designated as "home" and was usually located by the old Catalpa tree.  Whoever was "It" closed their eyes and counted to 100 while all the kids ran and hid.  Then "It" would go and find the hiding kids.  That kid would be brought back to the can and placed in "jail."  The only way to get out of jail was for one of the "hiders" to wait for the "jailer" to wander off and look for another hider to tag and "arrest".  When the jailer left someone could run in and "kick the can", thereby freeing all the kids held in the jail.  Some times one of the kids from "town" would come by and play.  That always made it more fun.

We were allowed to play for 30 minutes after the street light came on.  We knew when 30 minutes was past because mother would holler for us to "get in here and get ready for bed."  Now "getting ready for bed" was another ritual.  That simply meant washing our feet in the wash bowl in the kitchen and drying them on the ragged old towel that hung from the back of the chair.  Now that may not sound like much to you, but to this day, I can not go to bed with dirty feet.  Of course, now that I have shoes AND socks, dirty feet are a rarity around here, but some memories never die.  

Sometimes I find myself looking at an empty can and thinking how Jake would immediately think about using it for our next game of "Kick the Can."  I wonder if my sister, Donna Bartholomew remembers those nights on Strong Street?

The years have dimmed my eyes and slowed my feet, but my mind continues to relive some of the best times of my life back when the hardest thing I had to do was "Kick the Can" and save my sisters and brother.  I wonder if that helped make me into the woman I am today, that marched in the Gay Rights Parade and held the hands of the hospice clients as they crossed to the other side?  I like to think so.  

I do know Mothers Day is just around the corner and I would give my right arm to just be able to see my mother one more time and look into her gray eyes and tell her I love her.  I think she always knew, but I never said it often enough.

I host a high tea at my church the Saturday before Mother's Day.  Tickets are $25 if you are interested.  This year I am going to have a table for "Mothers pictures."  If you are interested in attending contact me here on facebook or call my church at 719-544-1892 and leave a message with Jill.   My number is 719-546-1555 here at home.

Closing of the season.

October is a sad month.  It does not start out as sad, but it ends on a very low note.  1965.  October 30.  Dona Marie turned 1 year old.  Sam was 26 days old.  Duane and I had been married 5 years.  My brother was in a bad car wreck in McPherson, Kansas.  We left the kids with Duane's sister in Jetmore and drove to McPherson hospital arriving about 1:00 AM.  

My mother was alone in the room.  My brother lay swaddled in bandages on a hospital bed that held him in a semi raised postition.  His right leg kicked  constantly.  Mother said they had gone though a stop sign and broadsided a loaded gravel truck.  She thought he was trying to hit the brake, although he was not the driver.  He was incoherent.  Mother was already planning in her mind how she would bring him home and she knew he would be an invalid, but that was her son and she would take care of him.  Jake was her only son.

His name was not Jake, it was Delbert Leroy Bartholomew.  He was born October 5, 1935.  He carried a scar on his right cheek that he got when he was about 9 years old because he snuck up behind a Shetland Pony and "goosed it".  Of course it reacted and kicked him.  What did the silly little shit think would happen?

 

He introduced me to my first husband.  After that we sort of drifted apart.  Distance had a lot to do with that as well as guilt that my husband was not the knight in shining armour that Jake had anticipated for me.  The fact that he fell in love a couple times and now had a son he needed to help raise and another on the way made the distance even greater.

 

I missed Dona's first birthday that year and my sister in law cared for my only son that was 26 days old.  To say I was devastated by his death would be an understatement.  He was so young and vibrant.  He had his whole life ahead of him and I needed him in mine.  But, God had other plans.  

And, that my friends, is what this is all about.  God has a plan for our lives.  I do not know what his plan for me was, and I may never figure it out.  I do know that the little girl above being held up by her sister and brother could have aspired to soaring heights, but fell short of the goal!  I look back and try to see just where I went wrong and it is a mystery to me.  I wanted to be a missionary and when that fell through I just pretty much drifted along with the tide.  So, in all fairness, I think maybe God just put me here in Colorado to kind of shake up the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. 

I have worked to get AIDS awareness to the forefront and what was a killer disease is now a manageable health condition.  

Gays are now accepted as a segment of the population.

I worked the Eleventh Hour in the Hospice program and helped many people smile as they crossed the bar and looked back before leaving this earth in a cloud of fairy dust to meet their saviour.

My children all seem to be successful in one way or another and are responsible citizens.

The important part of all of this is that as I mark this anniversary every year.  I will spend October 30 crying most of the day, but I will do it where no one sees.  I have a shoulder to lean on that even I can not see.  They say "seeing is beleiving," but that is not always true.  I have never seen God, but I do know that without him, I would not be here today. When I am happy he smiles with me.  We have even been known to laugh out loud.  When I cry he holds me.

So rest in peace, my dear brother.  Jake, Josephine, Dorothy, Mary, Mother, Dad, Grandma, Aunts, Uncles, friends, lovers, in-laws and outlaws.   click here

Calling all arm chair phycologists!

Do you analyze dreams in your spare time?  I just woke up terrified.  Here are the facts of the dream I just had:  I was young, probably in my 30's.  I had a small child and a husband that was very hard working and devoted to me and my child. We lived in a small house near a prison facility.  I do not know where he worked.  My brother (who has been deceased for 55 years) was there visiting.  We came back from a car ride to find barrels of guns and ammunition in the front room.  There was one barrel filled with grain.  Since we were all law abiding citizens we were freaked out.  Suddenly there was a knock on the door and the police were there.  They had a tip that I was running guns.

One of the police was a heavy set, very friendly cop that seemed to believe me and one was bound and determined that I was pure evil.  These two played good cop/bad cop while the other 5 ransacked my house.  They found nothing else; just the guns and ammo in the front room.  I do not know how the dream ended because I woke up.

Now, the facts leading up to bed last night.  Jiraiya and I had a visitor who actually came in my house and drank a cup of tea and we set at the table with our masks off.  Later Ross came by and picked up noodles, but he stayed on the porch and wore his mask.  Jiriaya and I walked down and looked in the ditch to see if the water was running (If it was we would try to catch a crawdad, which he calls dagcrawlers or crabs.)  We also watched a bird setting on a nest up in the tree right outside the window.  None of those activities seem to me a portend of a nightmare!  But, for some reason I woke up scared to death.

So, give me your take on this.  Leave it in the comments below this post, or go back and leave it on facebook, (which would be the quickest way for me to see it.)

So, for now I am going to make Bret his breakfast sandwich to take to work, have another cup of coffee and try to shake this feeling of dread that has me in it's grip.

Have a good one and may the peace that passes all understanding be with us today!

My daddy did not have a gun.

He did not have a gun.  What he did have was a buggy whip and a 2 x4.  My brother tasted both of them.  I did not.  I did live in mortal terror that I would.  I could tell when he was mad or that something was bothering him because he would rub his thumb and fore finger together and talk to himself.  He was a strange man.  He did not seem to have any friends that I knew about.  He had a few acquaintances.  He also had a couple farmers he worked for on occasion.  John Britain and Ed Crissman.  Mostly he just hung out at the local pool hall where the "ne'er do wells"  hung out.  He worked there some afternoons.  He did let me go in there once when nobody was there.  He actually played a game of dominoes with me.  Of course he won.  He always won.  Score was kept on a stick with a series of holes.  Each time one of us made a score the stick was moved forward a  number of holes.  The score was always a multiple of 5, so 10 points was 2 holes  and so on.  I still enjoy playing dominoes, but rarely find anyone who knows how.

I always thought my dad was a very big man, but I think he was 5'10" which is not tall at all.  He had a ruddy complexion and hair with a reddish tint.  I inherited neither of those.  My sisters and brother did, but I was a miniature of my mother.  I had brown hair and hazel eyes that turned to blue or green, depending on my mood.  Dad's skin was light and mine was darker.  I tanned very easily and the sisters burned easily.

My father did not like pets.  We never had a dog and the cat mom kept as a mouser was not allowed in the house.  Mother did have a canary at one time.  It had a cage that hung on an iron post that kept it off the floor.  The cat did come in one time on my watch and made short work of the canary.  Mother was livid.  Seems the bird was the only thing that really gave her pleasure in her mundane world.  She had received it from Grandma Haas.  Not sure mother ever forgave me for that little fiasco.  I do know she never forgot.

Dad never interacted with any of us kids but Mary.  Mary looked a lot like Dad with his rather ruddy complexion and the hair that had an almost red tint, but not quite.  Mary was always delicate.  I do not mean sickly, because I was the sickly one.  I had my tonsils removed when I was 10 or 11 and then became the healthy person I am today.  Donna and Dorothy were bordering on being pudgy, but Mary was just delicate.  There is no other way to put it.  Josephine was the oldest and she was a half sister.  Jake was the son.  I was the oldest daughter born to the union.  Then came Donna, Mary and Dorothy.  That made me the middle child and I lived the "middle child syndrome" my whole life. Still do.  I am not quite happy with anything I do so I try harder.  Just can not do anything completely and revel in success.  I always fall just a little bit short.  You would think after this many years I would give up on that!

Don't know why I got this in my head today, but here it is.  Guess I will go downstairs and do something constructive.

Randy Travis calls this "Pickin' Up Bones."  Just makes me wonder if we ever really escape our childhood?  There are only 2 of us left now.  We live 400 miles apart and visit sporadically if at all, but it is enough to know she is there. And I am here.

Happy Birthday Delbert Leroy Bartholomew!

On your left is Jake, on the right is Josephine and there in the middle is little old me.  I must have been almost a year old there.  See the loaded hayrack in the back?  That means it was harvest and the year was 1942 in the fall, right before my birthday.  Jake and I were born 4 years and 4 days apart.

I do not know how he came to be known as "Jake", but I do not ever remember calling him Delbert.  He was kicked in the face by a horse named "Star" when he was 9 or 10.  I recall when my father brought that horse home one night.  It was late.  It was dark and he was drunk.  And mother was pissed.  In all fairness, Star was not a horse, but a Shetland Pony and Shetland Ponies were mean by nature.  Star nearly kicked the side out of the trailer before he even got unloaded.  

It was just wonderful having a pony!  I say that with the utmost sarcasm, because to the best of my knowledge no one ever rode that pony.  No one ever petted that pony.  We fed him.  We fed him a lot!  I lived in mortal terror of being bit by those big yellow teeth.  I think in the back of my mind I know that Dad was a gambling man as well as a drinking man and he won that horse in a poker game.  Not real sure who the winner was in that deal, but it is what it is and we had a horse from hell for a pet.

I was trying to tell you about my brother and I see I got side tracked.  Life does that to me a LOT.  So, I only had the one brother growing up and it was Jake.  He snuck off to join the Army when he was 16.  He crossed off the date of his birth which was 1937 and wrote in 1935.  Of course, since the recruiting officer was neither blind nor stupid, he took one look at Jake, whose face was covered with peach fuzz since he was not old enough to shave, and called mother.  He did join the Army 2 years later.  He served in Germany.  He came home, fell in love and got married.  Got divorced and got married again.  Got separated and searched for happiness where ever he could find it.

Some where out in this cold cruel world are 2 sons of his.  Mother kept in touch with the oldest and we never heard anything  of the youngest.  That lady moved to Missouri.  I will probably go to my grave not knowing what became of them, but so it goes.  On the day Jake died, my middle daughter, Dona Marie turned 1 year old.  Sam was 26 days old.  That was a dark time in my life and we know how those times affect us later down the road.

On October 29, he and a friend were coming home from work on country roads.  They ran a stop sign and hit the side of a loaded gravel truck on the highway.  I do not know who was driving.  I do not want to know.  I saw him that night in McPherson Hospital.  He was unconscious. He died the next morning.

I like to think I have put my dark times behind me, but I haven't.  Hopefully I am dealing with this better then I used to.  There was a time when October 5th entailed a bottle of whiskey and a beer chaser, but I have not done that for years.  And since I am dealing with my new reality, I am going to look back on his birthday as a cause for celebration.  So here goes:

He was born and he held my hand while I learned to walk.  He taught me to ride a bike.  He hit me in the head with a turnip when I was very small.  He went to the Army and wrote me every week.  He sent me a Brownie Camera from Germany.  We listened to the Grand Ole Opry on a car radio on Saturday nights.  He introduced me to my first husband, the father of my children.  He died, but he never left my thoughts.  

I had a brother.  My life would not have been complete without him and today I celebrate that God gave me the most wonderful brother in the world, Delbert Leroy Bartholomew, known to the rest of the world as "Shakey Jake!"  Some day I will see him again and he will be in that same pair of overalls and hopefully Hank Williams will be picking on his guitar.

If he had lived, what would his life have been?  I know he joined the church just 2 weeks before he died.  I know his friend who was in the truck with him, Johnny Rogers passed away the day after we buried Jake.

Rest in Peace in the arms of Jesus, my beloved!

Oh, the things in my mind.

Click here to listen  I woke up this morning with this song on my mind.  Then I went to facebook and some one had posted the same link.  Small world.  However the context the person had posted the link was far different than the link in my mind.

Like most, actually all, people, I had a father.  I knew him.  Or I thought I did.  A very wise woman once told me, "You never really know anyone, you only know of them.  You know what they let you see."  And so it was with my father.  He was a lot older than my mother, but the wedding picture shows a very happy woman.  My mother was very well liked in high school and married soon after she graduated.  Sadly that marriage did not end well and soon she returned to her roots and married my father.  He was a widower (? but some secrets are best left untold).  He had 3 sons that were past their teens.  They had been put into an orphanage when Dad's first wife died.  2 were adopted, one was not.

Jake was the first born to this union followed by me, Donna, Mary and Dorothy.  We were all as different as night and day.  Jake was the only son and he was a screw up according to my father.  Of course I was perfect, but he never did particularly like me much.  He was of the old school that kids were to be raised and leave home.  Now just look at me!  Wasn't I the cutest thing you ever seen?

Donna was smack in the middle so she had middle child syndrome.  Dorothy was the baby, so she carried those tendencies throughout her life.  Ah, but Mary.  Mary was cute and delicate and everyone loved Mary. Now you must understand that this is being written by me and is my feelings.  I am sure if the other sisters were alive they would dispute my findings, but you must realize that we are all a product of our raising and I never at any time ever in my life ever thought my father cared about me in any way shape or form.  It was as if I existed in a vacuum.  If he was there he ignored me.  He refused to attend my first marriage.  I simply did not exist.

Ah, but he had a weakness.  He liked babies. Shortly after the birth of my first daughter he paid my older sister to sew her a pretty red dress and he bought shoes and a hat to match.  Some where I have that picture of him holding Debra when she was about a year old and wearing that outfit.  That is the only one of my children he ever touched.  I don't recall him ever touching me in anger or love.  I never actually had a conversation with the man.  If I fell and skinned my knee that was my problem. 

And then he died.  By this time I had the 3 girls.  I left them with my sister in law and came home for the funeral.  I remember how very sad that was.  I stood at his open coffin and cried my heart out for a man I never knew.  I do not think a child ever understands their parents and I envy the children who played catch with their fathers.  Or took walks.  Or went fishing.  That is why I always tried to keep my kids and their father in close contact.  He and I had a strained relationship, but he and the kids found a way to make it sort of work.  We sort of shared custody, but that is water under the bridge.

I do remember far in the back of my mind, that dad was a share cropper with a man named John Britan.  John had acreage across the river and sometimes (and I will never know why) I would go with dad to the acreage and John Britan would make me hot chocolate using cocoa, sugar, hot water, and Pet milk.  It was the best stuff in the world!  I have tried to make it but it is never the same.  I also remember that there was a little creek that run through the farm and sometimes it had water in it.  Jake made me a little boat out of a flat piece of wood.  He put a stick through a hole and tied a string to it so it would not get away.

So, as sad as my childhood was, I do have some good memories.  I just forget them sometimes. 

Happy Birthday Delbert Leroy Bartholomew!

DELBERT LEROY BARTHOLOMEW

10/5/1937-10/31/1965

Some where I have a picture of my brother Jake in his Khaki pants and shirt.  Lord only knows where that is in this computer.  So this one will have to do.  In this picture, I am the only one left.  I worshipped my big brother; my big sister, not so much.  Jake was my hero.  I would like to say he was a lot of things, but he wasn't.  

This picture was taken before he sneaked up and goosed the horse which kicked him in the face leaving him with a scar he carried to his grave at the age of 29.  He ran away to the Army as soon as he could forge a birth certificate that would get him in with mothers signature.  He went to Aschaffenburg (sp) Germany where he and one of his friends managed to wreck a motorcycle and get sent home without a dishonorable discharge.  I was 15 when he came home. He fell in love and may or may not have married the girl, but they did have a son.  I fell in love and began my family and we sort of drifted apart.  Then he fell in love and may or may not have married that girl, but he did sire another son.  

To make a long story short, Jake was in a wreck on October 29, 1965.  He died on Halloween.  Dona Marie was one year old and Sam was 3 weeks.  Somewhere out there in this big world my brother left 2 sons the youngest being 9 months old when Jake died.  I have often thought of trying to find them, but I am sure they have lives that would just  be better left as they are.

So, if I seem a little flaky in October, just bear with me.  It will all sort itself out someday.

Grocery shopping has sure changed from 1950's.

Back when I was 12 years old Flemings grocery store  and Berridge IGA (?) had contests.  IGA was for a trip to St. Louis and when you bought something you had so many points to vote for the contestant of your choice.  That contest was won by Irene Reinke.  As a general rule, we did not shop at IGA because that was the store the "rich people" shopped at, so mother did not vote for Irene.

Flemings had a contest where you turned in labels from cans of a certain brand of food.  I stood outside the store and pushed for people to buy that brand, then save the label and I would go by their house and pick the labels up and put them in my stash.  Now, the city dump was different than dumps are today!  The powers that be would designate a place as the city dump and if you wanted to dispose of something you took it there and threw it on the pile.  People also went there to paw through the "stuff" and pick out good stuff.  My idea of good stuff was labels from cans, which I tore off and took home to my stash.  My stash grew bigger every day as I waited for the closing day when I would turn them in to be counted.

Now there were 2 prizes in my contest.  One was an English Racing bike which was for a boy which meant it had the bar across the frame.  Girls were open in that area.  The other was a radio.  I had my eye on that bike and nothing was going to deter me.  When the day arrived I took my labels in to be counted and I had almost 3 times as many labels as the boy who came in second place.  In all fairness, he was livid.  He had been beat by a girl and now that girl walked away pushing a boys bicycle while he stood there with a stupid radio.  Yes, I pushed that bike all the way home.  My sisters were so envious.  I pushed it around the block.  I pushed it into town and pushed it home.  I never had ridden a bike before and when I tried to stand with my feet on either side of the bike, it was not happening.  That damn bar was higher than my crotch.  But at no time did I think about trading it for the radio.  I just let that boy eat his heart out as I pushed it past his house.

And then the tires went flat because there are a lot of goat heads on Strong Street.  Mother could see no reason to have the tires fixed because it was apparent by this time that I would never ride that bike.  No one ever rode it until I gave it to a boy named Johnny Isabel who lived in Hutch and I do not remember how I knew him or why, but I  made a deal to sell it for $5.00 which he never paid me, but there you go!

Back to the grocery store, we always shopped at Flemings.  They had a locker plant inside the store where one could rent a small freezer to store extra food that was not canned or dried.  Things, like meat.  Not that we ever had meat, but if we did we could have rented a small cubicle, which we never did because meat was a rarity at our house.  Well, Jake would get a rabbit now and then, but not worth renting freezer space for the short period of time it took to go from dressed meat to the table to digested and forgotten.

There was a barrel for dried beans, onions, potatoes and such item.  You put what you wanted in a brown paper sack and took it up and had it weighed.  We were always careful with the brown paper bags because they were reused over and over.  Milk bottles were refilled.  Pop bottles were returned for a deposit that had been paid when the pop was purchased.  Lots of times we walked the ditch along the highway to find bottles that were discarded by people who were too lazy to return them to the store.  Seems like the deposit was only one or 2 cents, but it was free money and we could buy candy at Engle's store.  The display case there was filled with boxes with tops removed.  We pointed to which ones we wanted and the items were placed in a small brown paper bags.  A nickel was usually over half a bag.  As kids we never worried about "spoiling our appetite"  because evening meals were few and far behind at our house.

Don't get me wrong, poverty sucks.  No food sucks.  Wearing "hand me downs" sucked.  Walking every where was a pain. Easter was the only time we could ever hope to have anything extra and that was Easter Eggs.  We had chickens that were laying hens so eggs were fairly easy to come by.  Sadly eggs were either sold or cooked into something that could be shared among the 8 of us, but at Easter we got a whole egg and sometimes, if times were good, a chocolate something that resembled a rabbit.  I will go on record as saying my mother tried harder than anyone else in the world.  She went to clean houses every day and never asked for anything in return, except that us kids were fed.  She paid the lady up the street 50 cents a week to babysit the little kids.  Dad hung out at the pool hall, but as long as he was there playing dominoes, he was not home screaming at us to shut up.  No television back then, so creeks and haylofts and the cemetery  were our playgrounds.

Damn, I miss that life. .When I can not sleep at night, I run up and down Strong Street.  I spy on Hank Windiate(sp) and Jake Smith.  I listen to Rudolph Reinke singing in German as he did his chores.  I see the chickens scratching in the dirt for some hidden scrap.  I watch Joe Hedrick roping calves over on the corner.  But mostly I just watch for my momma to come home.  I have quit waiting for her and now anticipate the trip I can make to see her again.  I want to see her hazel eyes and hold her thin, long fingers.  But mostly I just want to see her smile when she comes to meet me.  And yes, momma, I am bringing the tomato soup made the way you like it with home canned tomatoes and milk.

Santa used to be on radar!

Life was not all bad back in the long ago days of raising children.  The one part I took advantage of was when they finally got Santa on radar.  The kids were always excited on Christmas Eve because they knew all they had to do was go to sleep and Santa would pop in and leave them presents.  Now I kind of resented the fact that I had busted my ass to buy presents and some fat fart was getting all the credit.  So I devised a way to actually turn the table so I could get a little credit for myself.

When the weather man would come on and show the tiny Santa and his tinier reindeer, they were inevitably clear up in Montana or somewhere just as distant.  I would carefully explain to the kids that they should go ahead and go to bed and I would keep watch and if they happened to notice I was gone it was probably because I had made arrangements to meet him in Nebraska or some where because no way in hell was I going to not let them have Christmas and there would be presents under the tree from that rascal or by God I would know the reason why.  So they went to bed and slept the sleep of children who could always depend on mother.

Now in all likely hood, had they awoken and gone to check under the tree and found me missing, I was probably at the bar just down the street for a quick beer or at the liquor store at the other corner replenishing my "will to live."  But either way, there was always a pile under the tree for each of them and I had the satisfaction of knowing there were 5 little kids who loved me and were grateful that I had stayed up all night to make sure Santa came through for them!  I was a damn good liar back in those days, but now I am not so good at it.

But then I really don't need to do it any more!  I may stay up tomorrow night just to see where Santa is and relive the days when a hairy old man in a red suit was something I really wanted to see.  I have my brother Jake to thank for ripping my belief in Santa to shreds.  I in turn twisted the knife in my sister Donna, she in Mary, and when the veil fell from the eyes of Dorothy our childhood was over and we transitioned into a family who celebrated Christmas for the birth of the Christ Child.

Everyone except my father, who was an atheist.

There was a barn and horses.

I woke up this morning remembering the barn.  The horse tank was out the back door of the house and off to the right.  For years it had a "pitcher pump" and we all took turns pumping to keep water for the animals.  Ever now and then we had to fish a chicken out because chickens can not swim.  That was not very often, because chickens are fairly smart that way.  We had Muscovy ducks and they occasionally took a spin around the tank, but they were very leery of those big horse teeth and mostly stayed around the back of the house where the kitchen sink drained out on the ground.  That was back before there were laws about that.
There was a red milk cow.  Her name was "Bossy".  She shared the barn with the other animals.  She eventually gave birth to a black calf that I immediately named Dennis.  She then took sick with milk fever (?).   My dad and the neighbor man tried to save her.  They even cut her tail open and put salt and pepper in it and bound it up.  That was sure to cure her.  Unfortunately, it did not.  Dennis took sick soon after and I think that was because he had no mother to feed him.  He also died, which broke my heart.
There was a brown horse named "Danny" that was my sister Josephine's.  It was her's because that was the meanest damned horse in the world and she was the only one who could ride him.  The rest of us kids were relegated to a Shetland pony whose name was "Star".  Dad would put one of us up on his back and then lead him around the corral.  I never did like either Star or the rides so I mostly hid out when that was going on.  The little kids got a kick out of it though.
My Dad had a big scar on his upper arm (think that is called a bicep).  (For this reason I have always been afraid of horses thinking that one might bite me.)  It dated back to when he was in the Army (World War 1).  He was in the Cavalry.  His job was to tend the horses and one bit him.  I knew my father to be a very mean man sometimes.  He never mistreated us kids physically, but he did tend to mistreat animals.  One of the things used to control horses was a stick with a loop of rope on the end.  The rope was put around the upper lip of a horse and twisted.  The horse was then pretty much at the mercy of whoever held the stick.  I do not remember what that thing was called.  Of course there was a black snake whip that hung in the barn for when the horses were really out of control.
Dad had a fondness (more like an obsession) for show horses.  They were not just show horses, they were work horses that were beautiful.  My dad was one of the last people to give up the horse and plow.  He would never buy one horse.  He always bought a matched pair.  The last matched pair he had was the only pair I even remember.  They were Strawberry Roans.  They were big and a light pinkish color.  They had blonde tails and my father would stand for hours brushing them.  When he went into town their tails were braided and he was a sight to behold.  My father.  (pause while a flood of memories leaves me in tears.)
The upper part of the barn was called the "hay loft."  It was called that because that is where the hay was stored.  That was also where the old cats went to have their kittens.  When the cow was alive and we milked her, there was a bowl by her stall that was always filled with fresh milk at milking time.  The one legged stool hung on a peg above it. 
When the hayloft was filled with fresh hay, we had to check it periodically through the day.  If some of the hay that went in the loft was not quite dry enough, it would heat up and if not turned to get air to cool it, burst into flame.  First it started to smolder and usually we picked that up right away.  We took the pitch fork and pulled that part of the hay stack out and threw it out the opening onto the ground where we spread it to cool, or burn if it was that hot.  Lots of barns burned to the ground because of that little problem.
My dad was pretty much a share cropper and us kids were put into use real regular. Sometimes we went to wheat fields and pulled out the Rye that sprung up magically.  If the elevator man found Rye in the load of wheat being sold, he would "dock" dad on the pay.  Sometimes we harvested field corn.  We picked the dry ears and stripped them in the field and then tossed them on the corn wagon.  The corn wagon was just a horse drawn wagon with board added on the back side so the corn bounced off and landed back in the wagon with the rest of the corn.  We picked rocks out of fields.  We pulled weeds in the garden.  Especially fun was cleaning the manure out of the barn and hauling it to the pile in the corner of the corral.  We gathered eggs.  Brought in fire wood.  Carried out the trash.  Made the beds. Washed the dishes.  In the winter we tried to stay warm and in the summer we tried to stay cool.
One of my clearest memories is laying on my stomach by the chicken house with my brother and watching the "dead animal wagon" back up to the fence in front of the barn.  The man pulled the wench chain out and over to the barn where he wrapped it around Star's neck.  He hit the button and Star was unceremoniously drug up over the sill, across the pen, under the barbed wire fence and up into the back of the truck.  My last memory of Star was seeing the truck pull onto the road and drive off with Star's  legs sticking straight up into the air.  Jake and I were very quiet the rest of the day and night.  Then life resumed, just like there had never been a Shetland Pony named Star in our life.
And now I sit here with my memories.  I see the house just as clearly today as I did then, only now I appreciate it more for it's simplicity.  I see my brother in his overalls.  The scar on his face was put there by Star many years before. 
There are only 2 of us left now.   I feel closer to the past then I do the future.  I long for those days when I could feel the breeze on my arms and face.  Back then I could not wait to grow up and get away.  I wanted my own home.  My own family.  Well, I got it and here I set.  If there is one thing I would tell the people I know it is this:  Hold on to today, because today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.  Yesterday is gone and tomorrow never comes.  I think they wrote a song about that.

Rest in Peace always.

Delbert Leroy Bartholomew

(Jake)

October 5, 1937-October 31, 1965

Frozen forever in time.

He taught me to love conutry music.

He taught me to fish.

He taught me patience.

He was my brother.

Brothers never die.

Happy Birthday to me!

Well, I survived another year.  But is that good or bad?  Yesterday marked 74 years that I have been riding this big blue ball around.  I know I have good company in the form or Stephen Smalley, my cousin and my friend Mary Lou Abernathy, who I never see, and countless others that slip my mind.  All the kids checked in along with a mailbox full of cards from the dentist, insurance company, and the hearing aid place who recognizes every important moment of my life and assures me they are there to help me hear all the best wishes anytime I am ready to fork over the $4,000!  Ah, life!
I do like to look back at how far I have come from that little shack on the outskirts of Nickerson, Kansas.  That is where a mother and father made a home for 6 little Bartholomew kids.  Now there are 3 of us left.

Here I am on probably the last day that I was purely innocent.  The last day that I was completely helpless and I wonder where that blanket went!  I bet one of the younger kids got it as a handmedown, because back in those days, everything was handed down to the next kid.  Now do you realize that I got the handmedowns from my brother!

Doesn't look like he is wearing dresses, does it?  As a young girl I remember worshipping him my whole life.  We listened to the Grand Ole' Opry from Nashville, Tennesee on a car radio hooked up to a battery out on the porch on Saturday nights.  He is the one who taught me how to bait a hook and catch a fish.  He taught me how to choose the hardest clod of dirt in a plowed field and how to aim so I could hit someone in our clod fights.  He built me stilts which I fell off of and damn near broke my neck!  He dreamed of leaving Nickerson and coming back rich.  When he was 16 years old he forged his birth certificate and joined the Army.  Of course, he got caught and sent back home.

His name was Delbert Leroy Bartholomew, but in the 7th grade he became known as Shakey Jake.  That was later shortened to Jake because he did not shake.  He wore overalls and was befriended by a man in town named Roy Hasten.  Roy was an older man who had no kids and loved to fish.  I can remember him bringing Jake home and they always had catfish laid out in the back.  Some of them were really big, or at least big to my little memory.  When I hear the song "Bimbo" by Hank Williams, I think of Jake.

There is not enough paper in this world to hold all my memories of Jake.  I told you how he got that scar.  He did go away to the Army and he came home from Germany.  He married and had a son, divorced and had another son.  His second son and mine are almost the same age.  My father died in February of 1965 and Jake was killed that October.  My son was 1 month old.

10/5/37-10/31/1965

This was Mother.  I wonder if she remembered that dog?  Seems when we were growing up there was always an old cat hanging around outside, but never a dog.  Not sure I ever wanted one, but I am sure we never had one.  Dad did not like dogs.  I was always afraid of them.  There were always stories of "dogs running in packs on the outskirts of town, so be sure and keep the kids inside."  Never saw them, but like the Gypsy's (who I also never seen), we knew they were there and had to be ever vigilant.   Oh, yeah, and the cougars!  We could hear them scream down on the river and trust me, that scared the living shit right out of us.  Sure made me appreciate a home with doors.  Not that we ever locked them.  Doors had to remain unlocked in case a hobo or some homeless person needed to get in to get a drink of water or a bite to eat.  Times have sure changed.

So now I am rambling again!  I had one birthday party when I was growing up.  It was for my 8th or 9th birthday.  Mother was cleaning houses for my cousin Paralee Morris who was a teacher and was married to a teacher, so they were rich.  Paralee was the daughter of Frank and Helen Wocknitz.  Frank was the one who made Tony's Bologna and took the recipe to his grave.  She let mother make me a little party at her house and gave me a red Cinderella cookie cutter.  Birthday parties are just not a biggie with me.

(You must understand that all this stuff that I remember from 65 years ago may or may not be accurate and may change every time I remember it as well as every time you read it.  So it is best if you just read what I write and enjoy it and not try to make any sense whatsoever out of my poor befuddled mind!)

Enough about the birthday!  Fall is in the air this morning and I want to check the garden.  For some reason I would sure like to have a cigarette this morning, but I am always grateful when I realize that I gave those up.  That was a good change.  And change is what life is all about, isn't it?