Grandma Haas and puberty.

 I was living with the grandma's the year I started high school.  I was sent there by momma to "help take care of them."  Grandma Haas was 62 and her mother, who was my great grandma was in her late 90's.  Grandma used a walker to move from place to place, but great grandma Hatfield was as spry as a spring chicken.  She was very tall as I recall and very regal.  She had a very sharp and well-defined nose.  All of her features were well defined and the word that comes to mind when I picture her is "regal".  Grandma Haas was always happy.  And kind.  Very kind.  She smiled at me with the sweetest smile that I am sure made the angels in Heaven dance with joy.  Both of them had beautiful blue eyes.   As blue as the summer sky.

Great Grandma did all the cooking.  I do not remember what we ate for any meal except breakfast, but I am sure it was a sandwich and probably an orange.  Oranges were plentiful at the grandmas' house.  Grandma Haas owned a house on one corner and Great Grandma owned a house across the street.  Great Grandma had been married 3 times and was on her way to the alter with number 4 when he died suddenly.  At that point she gave up on men and moved in with Grandma Haas to take care of her.  Enter me.  

I started high school that fall in Plevna, Kansas.  The grandma's wanted me to come home for lunch break and since it was only one block, the principal let me.  I would step out the door and I could hear the noon stock report blasting from the old radio.  This was one of those floor models that was wood and had a dial you turned with a knob.  I was never allowed to touch the knob and the only time it was ever turned on was at noon for the stock and market reports.  While the grandmas no longer planted wheat, it was still imperative that they knew what the market was.  The world turns on the stock market, you know.

This particular day my grandma wanted to talk to me, and great grandmother busied herself in front of the Hoover, which was the cabinet which held the flour, sugar and other baking things.

"Have you started your menstrual cycle yet?"

"Huh?" 

"Have you started bleeding down there yet?"

I immediately fell into a dead panic because I knew I was going to be bleeding or at least I was supposed to and I was scared to death and no one I could ask.  The subject never came up again and when I got a little older I figured it out for myself.  Sure glad they started teaching that in school shortly after that conversation.  Well, not so much that, but the whole reproduction thing became more a matter of course then an enigma wrapped in a mystery.

I still have only the fondest memories of the grandmas.  They were from a different era and they were blessed with my being sent to "take care of them".  Sort of like the blind leading the blind.  It was a strange time in my life and the grandma's taught me a lot.  It was there I learned to crochet and do other "handwork".  We read a chapter from the Bible every night.  We never discussed it and it was just understood that if the Bible said it, it was true and I better do what it said.  Period.  End of discussion.  I still hold that philosophy to this day.  God said.  I better do it.

There is not a day of my life that goes by that I do not think of the grandma's.  Great grandma with her ramrod stiff back.  She was like a rock.  She never wavered.  I don't recall her ever laughing.  Course, she never cried either.  She was the epitome of a lady.  And my sweet grandma Haas.  She was crippled from a stroke, but she always had a smile.  Her blue eyes shone with love for me.  She may not have actually taught me the facts of life, but she alerted me to the fact that someday something would happen.

One day I came home from school and Aunt Mabel had come from Coldwater.  She was Grandma's sister.  Momma came the next day and took me home.  Grandma was put in Broadacres which was a hospital where old people went to die.  Aunt Mabel took Great grandma Hatfield home to Coldwater with her.  Grandma Haas died a couple weeks later.  Great grandma Hatfield lived to be 104 years old.  She was preceded in death by her parrot, Poly who lived to be 60 or 70 years old.

My grandma's live inside my head.  I never knew a grandfather, but I still love my grandma's and can see them in my mind's eye as clearly as they were in that two-story white house in Plevna, Kansas.  I have my own idea's about where we go after we die.  I am sure I will make a stop in Plevna to see the high school and run home for lunch with the grandma's.  And Polly will be there singing "Ater the ball is over, after the dancers have gone....."

Peace!

Into each life a little rain must fall.

I remember back when I was a kid that life was so simple.  One of the highlights in my memory is crouching in the dirt and watching through the chicken fence as an old brown hen laid an egg.  I recall her looking at me a time or two and wondering if she was ever going to get done.  I do not recall it being any kind of "bonding moment" with the chicken, but in that few moments we were alone in the universe.  After she laid her egg and left the nest, I picked it up and took it into the house to momma.  While she was pleased that I brought her the egg she was upset that I had bothered the chicken it her egg laying business.

So, now to the crux of the matter.  Looking back I can see the folly of my experience.  First, laying face down in the dirt I was subject to all kinds of bugs and spiders.  Not to mention the fact that snakes also slither around chicken houses looking for prey.  And had the chicken not been engrossed in the act of laying an egg, she could have pecked my eye out!

Living on the farm was a constant learning experience.  The chicken experience was mild compared to the life and death struggle that went on constantly.  I recall the "dead animal wagon" coming to pick up our old Shetland Pony, Star.  Dad had gotten Star back when we lived on the Stroh place.  As I recall that was one of Dad's biggest follies.  He had gone into Hutch to join some of his old cronies for "a drink" and returned many days later with Star in a horse trailer.  That was the meanest damned horse that ever crossed the pike!  As Dad was unloading him he was kicking at the sides of the trailer and when he was finally on the ground, he made it clear that no one was going to set on his back! Or pet him! Or brush him! Or do anything but feed him and stay the hell out of his space!

We moved to the Strong Street house about the time I started second grade and Star died about a year later.  I recall the "dead animal wagon" coming to the house and the man taking a wench line out of the back of the wagon and into the barn.  Mother made us go into the house at that time and let us out as the truck left the yard with a horse leg sticking straight up in the air.  The demise of Star was complete.  He would be made into dog food.  I learned that from my school chums.  "Yes!  Dog food.  And his hooves will be made into glue."  Now how in the hell 7 year old kids knew that was beyond me, but it sounded true enough to me that I spent several nights crying myself to sleep, mourning a horse that was meaner than hell and no one could get near. 

There was a big Mulberry tree in the back yard there and under it I started a cemetery.  Donna squeezed a baby rabbit to death and  I buried it under the tree and put a stick to mark the place.  Dead birds were eulogized as well baby chickens that did not survive.  A mouse made it in also. And then I lost interest.  

Jake went off to the Army and I entered high school.  The days of sand and shovels were behind me.  Time to grow up and plan my future.  I would be a missionary.  I read about Africa and how the natives needed saved and brought into the grace of God.  Reverend Barnett gave me books to read.  I  learned that a lot of them were cannibals!  That kind of scared me, but at 15 years of age the world was my oyster!

And then I went to live with Grandma Haas, who was crippled by a stroke, and Great Grandma Hatfield, who was caring for her.  And the rest is history.

And where do I put thier memory?

This is the braid that was cut from Grandma Haas's head when she entered the nursing home only a few days before her death in  1955 (as I recall.)

Now I do not want you to  think I have some sort of hair fetish, because I do not.  Mother had kept Grandma's braid for many years and when she passed it was given to me because I was the only one who knew whose it was or how it came to be in mother's possession. 

 

I recall the day I came home from Plevna High School and found I did not live there any more.  Grandma was not well.  We knew she had a light stroke.  It was her second.  When I had gone to live with them, she was using a walker and Great grandma Hatfield who was 99 years old at the time, was taking care of her.  I was there to help lighten her burden.  I loved both of those old ladies almost beyond belief.  They taught me to crochet and to read the Bible every night and pray before I took a bite of food or dared to raise up out of my bed in the morning.  Actually, it was not a bed.  I slept on the couch because they were worried that if I slept upstairs in one of the beds that something drastic could befall me.  I could fall down the stairs if I walked in my sleep.  The house could catch on fire and I would perish.  Some one might creep up the outside of the house and carry me away.  Any number of things could befall me, so I slept on the couch.  When cousin Carl would come to stay a night, I had to sleep on the settee behind the stove because he was taller and I fit just fine on that little thing as long as I drew my knees up to my chin.  Cousin Carl was a hoot!  He played basketball and I worshipped him.  (As I look back on my life I find I have loved and worshipped a lot of people.)

 

So back to that day.  Aunt Mabel and Uncle Goll had come from Coldwater.  Aunt Mabel was grandma's sister and she was married to my grandfathers brother, Uncle Goll.  That made all of us kids double cousins.  Sad as it seems, I have no idea where any of them are.  Course, they have no idea about me either!  I really think most of them are reaping their rewards up over my head.  Aunt Lola, mother's sister, was there.  Uncle Frank, Uncle Ray, and Uncle Charlie had all been consulted.  The decision was made to place grandma in the nursing home and Great grandma would return to Coldwater with Aunt Mabel.  (She remained there until her death at the ripe old age of 104.  She was in complete control of body and mind until just a few days before her death.)

 

My mind is not clear as to the sequence of events.  I know grandma was placed in the nursing home.  I may have remained with Aunt Mabel and Uncle Goll and Great grandma until grandma died just a few days later.  I do recall being in Plevna  and in school when she died.  The funeral service was held next door at the Congregational Church of Christ.  After the burial I returned to Nickerson and never saw the inside of the house again.  I know Aunt Lola emptied it out and mother received a small gray hassock full of crocheted doilies.  I thought that was so sad. 

 

I have been back to visit the town, but it has changed so.  The high school is torn down and all that remains is the gymnasium.  But in the gym was also the kitchen where Mrs. Crawford taught home economics.  It was in that room that she informed me I would never be anything important, because I was nothing like my beautiful mother.  And I flunked cooking under her tutelage, which I found ironic since I have owned and managed very nice restaurants most of my adult life and am a very good cook.  And she was wrong about me not being like my mother, because I am.  I just never made the beautiful part, but all the rest is there for the world to see. 

This braid was cut from the head of Bret Mercer (nee Cavendar) when he came to live with us in 1998 (as I recall).

Bret was our grandson.  When he was first born he spent lots of time with us.  Then his parents divorced and took new mates.  Bret still spent time with us.   When he was a tiny boy, he always wanted a "Kenny Mercer haircut", which we gave him.  He disappeared from our lives for sometime and when he returned he had very long hair.  As circumstances some times happen beyond our control he ended up coming to live with us and the first thing he wanted was his hair cut.  We of course gave him what he wanted.  So this is a symbolic hank of hair here.  We ended up adopting Bret and this remains in my top dresser drawer with the one from Grandma Haas.

 

So my question here is this:  What do I do with these mementoes?  I can not just throw them away.  That would be sacrilegious as far as I am concerned.  So I keep them in the drawer and take them out very rarely.  Grandma's is very dry and brittle.  Bret's is still supple and filled with color and highlights.  But what about 10, 20 or 30 years from now when someone is going through my belongings and they come upon this hair?  Will they know what it is?  I could put a note in with it, but do I want to do that?  It is a quandary.

 

For the time being, I am just going to put them back in the drawer and forget I seen them.  Grandma's especially brings tears to my eyes to just look at it.  It is like spun gold and the head that produced it is so dear to me ...... 

 

 

 

I know I showed you this, but...

I just want to point out some things of interest.  Like see that thing in the lower left hand corner?  Do you know what that is?  That is a sewing kit that sets on the cabinet or some where that it will be handy.  The whole thing is wooden and usually hand made.  The bird has a pair of scissors that makes up his head feathers and the blades are his beak.  Under the beak is various colored spools of thread.  In the center is a pincushion and in the pin cushion will be a needle.  I can walk in anyone's house now days and tell them I need to sew a button back on and I will be met with blank stares.  Needles and thread are just not the common items they were 50 or 60 years ago.
The couch they are setting on is a dark blue sort of plush fabric.  It is called an overstuffed divan.  The pattern etched in the fabric would have been some sort of leaf design or flower.  The walls are papered it is matched!  It is very neutral, because bold statements were not made in those days.  The pillows are of course, hand sewn, probably either by hand or on an old treadle.  I just don't remember the sewing machine at grandma's , but I am sure there was one there.
But the crème de la crème can be seen on the back of the couch between mother and grandma Haas.  See those white round things?  Those are crocheted sets that go on the back and arms of anything you set on.  These particular ones are made by first crocheting the round things.  They are made up of probably 85,000 tiny crochet stitches and probably in a size 20 thread.  Back in those days these were considered necessary.  If they were not on there the couch was "naked."  And trust me, it would have been more acceptable for me to cavort naked in the street as for that couch to not be finished with it's crocheted trimmings.  And the matching overstuffed chair would have a set that matched.  Heaven forbid that it looked any different.
And any table that was in any room would have a doily on it.  The center of the dining room table, a very large,heavy, round oak table had a big pineapple doily as the centerpiece.  It was about 2 feet across and the pineapple ruffles stood about a foot high.  When this was "soiled" it was washed and then "finished" by soaking it in a very heavy sugar water and then placed on a towel to dry.  The ruffles were pulled to full height as it dried and when it went back on the table it was perfect and looked like it had been ironed.
So that is it for this picture.  Oh, one more thing.  See how they are dressed?  Dresses, aprons, hose, shoes, the whole nine yards.  When those women came out of the bedroom this is how they looked.  They were dressed "for the day" and that was that.  You might catch me in my jammies at about any hour before 10, but not them.  I do not think I ever saw grandma in her night gown any time except when I put he in it at night and took it off in the morning.
So much for the grandma's for today.

(I know there are some of you out there who read this blog as a means of keeping up with family history.  You should know that I have my blog converted into a pdf. file  regularly and if you would like I can send it to you as an attachment.  I have not done it for this year, but just let me know if you want one and I will make sure you get it when it is ready.)