My kingdom for a horse, or son, whichever comes first.

I woke up this morning at 2:30 thinking about my first pregnancy and marveling at how times have changed.  I married Duane Seeger back in 1960.  I was 19 years old and I had known him for 3 weeks.  In hindsight, I think I might not have made the wisest decision, but then it was a good run and I got 5 kids out of the deal.  He wanted a son.  He explained that to me when he proposed.  I kind of wanted a son too, so it seemed a match made in heaven.  So we spent the first year trying to get pregnant and the next 4 trying to stop!

In 1962 I had Debbie.  1963, Patty.  1964, Dona.  1965, Sam.  We took a break, got a divorce and then had Susie and got another divorce.  I have actually sent several divorce lawyers through college.  But that is not what this is about.  This is about how the whole business of delivering a baby has changed.
I remember when Momma had my little sister, Dorothy.  It was right before harvest and back then women laid in bed for 10 days (or so it seems).  When harvest started mom had to drive one of the trucks that hauled the wheat to the elevator.  She was nursing, you know, and no one else could do that, so Dorothy laid on the seat beside her.  The rest of us kids were left at home at the mercy of Josephine.  Women did not go to the hospital to give birth.  It was done at home, usually with a midwife in attendance;

Side note here:

Origin

Middle English: probably from the obsolete preposition mid ‘with’ + wife (in the archaic sense ‘woman’), expressing the sense ‘a woman who is with (the mother’).

And you must remember that women were second class citizens until the last century.  A good horse was more highly prized than a wife.  A man could always get another wife,  but a horse was hard to come by!

Lucky for me, I went to the hospital for all my births.  The first one, Duane dropped me at the front of the hospital and called the next day to see what I had.  He came 3 days later to take me home and rail at me for not having him a son.  I kind of liked her and she was really cute.  For the next 2 years, we repeated that scenario until I finally got it through my thick head that he REALLY wanted a son and I finally had one in 1965.  He did not want him named after him and he had no idea what he DID want.  I had always coveted the name Samuel Reuben.  Everyone knew that.  So I told the nurse my choice and she was aghast!  It was a Catholic hospital and that was a Jewish name. So I caved and named him Earl Edward.  Back in those days I would not have said shit if I had a mouthful.  I have gotten a backbone since then.  Today he is still called Sam.  He was always Sam and he will remain Sam.  Somethings do not change.  

Now I had a son and Earl Duane actually came to the hospital to pick me up.  Boy was I surprised!  Sadly, our life and relationship did not change because I gave him a son.  But life did go on for both of us.  He has been gone for many years, but one of the girls still lives on the land in Lakin, Kansas.  

Now, I must confess, when I crawled out of the bed 3 hours ago, I was thinking about Wakeeney,  Kansas and events that had transpired there, but I digressed.  I must remember to do a blog about places we lived and how the rental of apartments had changed from back then.  Right now I have to go do other things, because I am old now and my duties have changed.  

The old testament comes to mind at this moment. Not sure of chapter and verse, but I know I knew it at one time....

Go forth and mulitply!!!!

Holy shit! An attack mouse at grandma's house!

The grandma's both worried about me and mostly it was needless.  Life was pretty mundane there in Plevna.  Get up and eat breakfast.  Now you need to know it was pretty well ready the night before.  The egg poacher held 3 eggs.  The water was put in the poacher and the poacher was placed over the pilot light.  The eggs were in a bowl on the table.  The coffee pot was a drip o later and it was filled with water and the coffee grounds put in the basket.  Our plates were on the table with 1/2 of an orange on each one. The jelly was in the middle of the table.  The table was covered with a cloth.  While we slept the waters were staying warm over the pilot lights.  The next morning the poacher and the coffee pot were both pulled forward and the burners turned on.  The eggs were broken and placed in the 3 places for them to poach.

Now I can not remember just how that damn coffee pot worked, but it seems like the water somehow was vaccumed up into the upper chamber and then the burner was turned off and it slowly dripped through the grounds.  Bear in mind that all happened 60 years ago, so I am not real sure that my memory is completely accurate on this little detail.  I do know the toaster was set on the burner and the burner was real low and toasted the bread just right as long as you did not try to dash out to the outhouse while it was toasting.  The whole breakfast was on the table in short order.  We always prayed over our food.  Always!  Both grandmothers told me in no uncertain words that if I did not pray I would most likely choke to death!  I was not going to test that theory since I had what I hoped was a brilliant future ahead of me.  And here I am!

After breakfast was finished I was allowed to put all the dirty dishes in a pan under the sink to wash later.  They did not want me to be late for school because the principal would administer punishment in the form or a whipping with a rubber hose.  I never tested that theory either.  You may not believe this, but I was pretty much a model child and it was all because I did not want to be beat.  I was secure in the knowledge that when I dashed home for lunch great grandmother would have a sandwich ready for me.  That plate also went under the sink.  Now for the evening meal, I do not recall at all what we had.  I am sure we ate something, but I do not know what it was.  So after supper, I pulled the pan out and started washing the dishes.  Then I dried them and put them away and after I laid out the breakfast for the next morning I was free to do whatever I wanted to do.  Bear in mind there was no such thing as television.  The radio was for the market futures and I was not allowed to read anything but the Bible.  I could crochet, but I was still learning the basic chain stitch.

Now one chore I had which I did on Saturday morning was trash.  We did not generate much trash back in those days.  There was a trash thingy over by the door going into the front room.  That was emptied by grandmother into a wooden crate like barrel right outside the kitchen door on the enclosed back porch.  This particular Saturday, I picked it up and headed for the burning barrel which was located a safe distance from the outhouse.  I spotted the outhouse and decided I needed to use that facility at that moment.  So I set the barrel down, availed myself of the comforts and then started to pick up the container and finish my job.  I recoiled in terror because there was a mouse that had crawled up through the trash and was perched on top!  In my world a spider is the scariest creature on earth, but a mouse is a very close second.

What to do?!  My mind was in a quandary.  If I picked up the barrel the mouse might jump on me.  If I screamed, grandma would no doubt jump on me.  She was very old and I surely did not want to get her too excited.  I knew if I could just get the barrel to the burning barrel and tip it over the mouse would fall into the barrel and I would light the trash and my problems would be solved.  So I got a stick and threatened the mouse.  He was defiant! I whacked the side of the barrel and he fell into the trash out of sight.  I grabbed the barrel and made it a few feet closer to the burning barrel, but the mouse reared his head out of the trash.  I immediately dropped the barrel and it fell over.  Horror of all horrors, the damn mouse was now free to eat me or whatever he had planned.  I screamed in terror and grandma appeared on the porch.  That woman surveyed the scene, saw the mouse, stepped forward and whacked it with her cane.  My savior.  She turned and went back into the house leaving me to gather everything up and put it in the burning barrel.  The incident was never mentioned again.  That is how the pioneer women did it.  I like to think I am just a fraction of the woman my great grandmother Helen Gagnbein Miller Hatfield was.

I am still afraid of mice and I have a cat that brings them in and turns them loose.  I hate that damn cat, but she is the only friend I have now days.  I would like to say that since the dogs are no longer here that she has taken mercy on me and has not brought a mouse in for quite some time, but as sure as I say that she will know and go get me one.

I lay in bed at night and think about my grandma's.  If I could go back in time I would do things differently.  I would listen.  I would listen and I would remember.  And I would teach my kids about the stock we come from.  The chickens, the molasses great great grandpa made and the way my great great grandmother Gagnebein nursed the sick, delivered the babies and then came home and whipped out a lemon chiffon cake without even reading a recipe.

I would if I only could.

This is friggin' unbelievable!

Do you see this picture?  Of course you do.  I was bringing my big Philedenron in and happened to wonder what I kept in the trunk it sets on, so I opened it up and riffled through the papers inside.  There was a plastic bag which contains a "Slip and Slide" Plastic thing that fits on an iron to make ironing of clothes easier.  It appeared to have my sister Josephine's handwritting on the outside.  Inside was the thing for the iron along with this picture.  This is 5 generations.  Well, it was at the time. 

Since Mary Jo was born in 1951, this picture had to have been taken in 1952.  That is 60 years ago!  The lady in the upper right corner is my great grandmother, Helen Hatfield.  She is a history lesson in herself.  She was born November 22, 1861 in Madison County, Illinois.  I have diaries that show her younger years in Abbyville, Kansas.  Her mother was Julie Calame and her father was James Gottlieb Gagnebin.  He was born  July 13, 1830 in Geneva, Switzerland.  Apparently they migrated to the Abbyville, Kansas area, because he was a farmer and raised sorghum for molasses and geese and turkeys for meat.  He hired the brothers out to farms in that area, but here is the best part: my great, great grandmother Julie was a nurse/doctor/midwife of sorts.  When someone was sick they sent for her and she would leave the family and go to the home where she was needed.  I can see a lot of her in my way of life. Great gandmother died in 1964.

The next lady is Josie Haas. She is the daughter of Helen Gagnebin.  She was born Josephine Miller on January 8, 1881 in Nevada, Missouri.  She married Christoph Haas and begat my mother along with 3 brothers and a sister.  Grandmother died prior to 1964 because Great Grandmother took care of her until her death.  Than she moved to Coldwater, Kansas and lived with Aunt Mabel until she passed in 1964.  Mother is there on the left end of the top row.  Can you imagine the history in the picture?  I am going to elaborate on these women in the next couple weeks. 

Then down on the bottom is my sister Josephine and her daughter Mary Jo.  Mary is the only one left in that picture.  I am so happy I found that!  Also in the same trunk is a picture of my brother when he was in about the 6th grade.  And that is not all, there is a picture of him as a grown man.  I had been lamenting that I had no pictures of him as a grown man and up pops this picture.  I did not even know it existed.  So my work is cut out for me!  I shall regale you with memories from now until Thanksgiving.  I just love to relive the past, so stay tuned!

 

 

************************************************************************ This is the novel I have for sale on Amazon. Do not be confused by the title. Chapter One simply means this is my first book. There may never be another, or there may be many more. I am very proud of this endeavor and guarantee you will enjoy the book in it's enirety. Lou Mercer

From the back cover

Chapter One...Loose Ends
Lou Mercer

Meg Parker led a simple life.  She was a widow of three years and lived on a chicken farm at the foot of the mighty Rockie Mountains.  Life was good and her little store on eBay made her extra spending money.  But snow and wildlife were not the only things lurking in the forest above her house.  Nor did it stay in the forest for long.

Marshall Purcell came home a wounded veteran from vietnam.  He still had his dreams, but they were of an incestuous past that threatened to consume him.

When Meg and Marshall met it seemed an inconsequential meeting, but it changed both their lives forever.  And change is not always a good thing.

This is adult fiction at its best without all the sex.  Well, maybe just a little bit. 

About the author.  Lou Mercer was born in Nickerson, Kansas. She came to Pueblo, Colorado in 1977 and is now a product of the majestic Rockie Mountains