We all have our baggage.

And my Father was no different.  When he married my mother he already had a shattered family behind him.  He had been married and had 5 kids.  One son and one daughter had died at a very young age.  His wife was deceased and he had been left with 3 sons.  The boys had all ended up in an orphanage.  Earl had been adopted as had Richard.  Sadly, Gene had not found a forever family.  Earl seemed to be the most normal as he married and sired 2 boys and 1 girl.  We were in contact with them although it never was a close relationship.  Richard had a lot of mental health issues stemming from his years in the Army.  Ah, but dear Gene was a study unto itself!

I did not see Richard or Earl until my teenage years, but Gene turned up early.  We were living on the Stroh place.  I must have been 5 or 6 years old, possibly 7.  I recall him turning up in the middle of the night, or so it seemed.  He came with somebody named Banks and that is about all I recall about that meeting.  When you are little you pick up scraps of conversation and piece together your own reality.  That is what I have done with Gene Bartholomew.  Over the years I learned that he had a wife and son back east some where.  Seems brother Gene had a bad habit and that was writing checks on someone else's bank account.  The state also had a bad habit of arresting him and putting him in prison.

In a box in my closet are letters from Gene that he had written to our father.  Parts of those letters are seared in my mind.  I do not read them anymore.  "Dear Daddy, When are you going to come and get me?  We are going to get a new pair of overalls in a couple weeks.  I miss you, daddy"

Some time in my grade school years I recall carrying on a correspondence with him while he was in Lansing Prison.  I recall that he was an artist at calligraphy.  Mother always said that was his downfall because he was in prison for forgery.  He did have beautiful handwriting.  I do not know what we wrote about, only that we did.  I do recall once when he was released he came by the house and somebody with a car drove him out to the Arkansas River and dropped him off so he could "be alone to clear his mind."  The next day she picked him up at the specified time and he once more disappeared.

He turned up again when I was in high school.  This time he stayed with my sister and her husband, but that only lasted a few weeks and then he was gone again.  The last anyone heard of him, to my knowledge was that he had been arrested in Nebraska and rather then prosecute him for whatever he had done, they took him to the county line and dropped him off.  He was never seen nor heard of again.

I have often thought of his son.  He would have to be about my age.  His name was William (Billy) Bartholomew.  Of course I am too late, I am sure.  But wouldn't that be nice if he had heirs and one of them read this?  I am not holding out any hope at all.  Just a silly old woman waking up in the middle of the night with something on her mind.

Do you remember when you first remember?

I have reached a new plateau in my morning thought process.  Usually I wake up and remember what day it is and then begin to remember what all I have planned for the day.  Well today was just a little different.  I woke up and tried to remember how far back I could actually remember.  I remember when Dorothy was born.  Mother had to stay in bed 10 days.  Seems like it was harvest and dad was pretty upset that he actually had to hire someone to drive the grain truck into town.  We lived on the Stroh place at that time.  That would have meant I was 5 years old.  Oh, I bet I was so cute!  Not sure because I do not ever remember anyone saying, "Oh, what a cute little girl!"  I remember them asking Momma, "Wow!  How many kids do you have?"  I was named after my Paternal Grandmother, who I never met.  Or at least, I do not remember if I did.

I remember an aunt and uncle coming for a visit and they were rich because they had a car!  I also remember when it came time for them to leave that the uncle sat at the steering wheel with the aunt in the passenger seat and dad "cranked" the motor to get it to fire.  I often wondered just how that worked if there was no one to turn the crank.  Did Auntie in her finery and feathery hat do it?  A mystery indeed.

I can vaguely remember the day my dad brought home a Shetland pony named Star.  That horse came out of the trailer kicking and I do not think he ever stopped.  I was terrified of that damned horse.  He was brown and white and I could see him watching me and I knew if I got close he would send me flying.  My dad had been in the Cavalry and had been bitten on his upper arm by a horse and carried the scar his entire life.  To this day I live in mortal terror that a horse will bite me if I get too close.  Ito was the one exception.

I do not remember being flogged by the geese when I wandered into thier pen.  Mother did.  I do not remember Jake whacking me on the head with a turnip, but she did.  I do remember when the cow died and dad had to pull it down to the pasture, cover it with some sort of fuel and light it on fire because there was an epidemic of anthrax and "you just never know and it is better to be safe then sorry."  The government told us that.

I remember Momma getting out the stamp books when she went to the store because the government only allowed us to buy so much sugar, gasoline and other thing that were "rationed".  I do not remember having a Christmas in the Stroh house, but we must have.  I remember my step brother, Gene Bartholomew coming for a visit once.  He came with someone in a fancy car that did not need cranked.  He was just out of the Army and he was very handsome and smelled very good.  He only stayed a little while and then I remember talk of "prison", "forgery", and a "damn long stretch ahead of him."  He remained in my memory and in my life for the next 10 years.  He wrote me from prison and I answered all his letters.  He wrote in Calligraphy which I guess made him a very good at forgery.  I saw him once when I was about 16.  He left to hitch hike to Oregon, was arrested in Nebraska for "vagrancy", given a ride to the outskirts of some little town and disappeared off the face of the earth.  Some loose ends we just never get to tie up.

I have to interject here about my father and how he ended up with kids we never knew.  My dad was much older then my Mother.  He had been married before and they had 5 children.  A son and daughter had died during the great depression leaving them with 3 sons.  William Eugene Bartholomew, Richard Bartholomew, and Earl Bartholomew.  For whatever reason his wife died.  He put the boys in an orphange because he could not care for them and had no family members that could help.  Richard and Earl were adopted.  Gene was not.  Richard and Gene were both in World War II and both were "shell shocked" when they got out.  Richard was more affected then Gene, but neither of them were ever productive members of society.  I do know Gene married and had a son.  As I recall the son's name was Billy.  I expect it was William Eugene Bartholomew.  He may have children, but who knows and I do not know how to find out.

Well, I got a little side tracked there.  Some other things I remember about the Stroh place years are good memories.  Like herding the old cow along the road so she could eat grass and then when it was time to bring her home I would grab her tail and she would run for the barn.  Of course I got in trouble because she would not "let her milk down" after that little jaunt.

I remember Donna poking her finger in a turtles mouth and the turtle would not let go and if dad cut the head off the turtle it still would not let go "until the sun goes down."  Poor Donna!

I remember the old yellow tomcat bringing a baby chicken to mother and I remember my horrified mother demanding Jake take that cat into the woods and kill it for killing her chicken.  Wonder how I slept that night?

I remember playing in a mud puddle by the house and how much fun it was when the water tried up and left little crunchy dried pieces of mud where it used to be.  Those were fun to walk on barefooted.

I remember mom holding me under her arm and washing my hair under the pump on the back porch.  Josephine pumped as fast as she could and I recall that water was so damn cold!

I remember "haircutting day"  when some lady would come and set us on a chair, put a bowl over my head and cut whatever was below the bowl off and that was a "bowl haircut."

I remember being in first grade and we surely lived there then, but I do not remember walking to school.  I remember walking to the store alone the first time from that house.

I remember Jake hanging out down on the river with a guy named "Blackie Joe" (?) and I remember the beautiful silver bracelet Jake gave me that he helped make, but I do not remember what I did with it.

I remember so much, but I do not remember what we ate.  I do not remember ever being cold.  I do not remember if we had furniture or an icebox, or what I wore for clothes.

I do remember being sad because we were leaving that house.  The saddest part is, I do not know where we lived before the Stroh place.  I do not know so much and the saddest part of all is there is no one I can ask.  Being the oldest sure sucks sometimes.

I like it better in the past!

Debbie, the wee tyke, called me after my blog of a week or so ago.  She thinks the cure for my writer's block may be in my past, since I write about it most often.  I think she may be on to something.  I sure enjoyed life back then when mother was the one who had to worry about putting food on the table and clothes on my back.  Not much fun when the burden is on my shoulders!
So I shall start way back as far as I can remember.  That would be before I started school.  We lived on the Stroh place on the edge of town.  That is where mother used to go to "Club".  I thought "Club" was a complete waste of time since it was a bunch of old ladies (They were probably 30 years old, which sure does not seem old now!) sat around and visited and exchanged recipes and patterns.  Us kids had to be clean when we went and I never knew why because we just sat on the floor and listened and tried to stay awake in case someone actually said something.  To my recollection, that never happened.  Then we would go home and we could get dirty again.
Oh, I do have to interject here what "getting clean" entailed.  Now try to visualize those days back then.  We had no running water; hence no water heater; hence no warm water.  Water was pumped on the back porch or kitchen, whatever that was.  Water was heated in a boiler on the stove for our baths.  Hair was a different matter.  That had to be washed about once every two weeks.  The way this happened was mother would catch us one at a time.  Our hair was wet in a basin of warm water and then suds up to get all the whatever was in our hair out.  That felt good!  Rinsing, however, was a whole new ball game.  Mother then tucked us under her arm and put our head under the pump where the water came out onto our head.  This took the cooperation of one of the bigger kids who liked to pump fast in hopes they would get done soon.
Now I do not know how many of you know just how cold water is when it is being pumped up from depths of the earth, but I am here to tell you, it is damn cold!  We were rinsed until mother could make our hair "squeak" when rubbed against itself.  That meant the soap was all out of it.  Then we were plopped unceremoniously onto the floor and told to go outside and dry in the sun.  Haircuts were given by a lady who lived nearby and she came to the house with her "hair cutting bowl."  This was placed on our head and she pulled her scissors out of her bag and trimmed anything sticking out from under the bowl.  Of course we all looked pretty much alike when the lady left.  Since our clothes were made out of flowered sacks that came full of flour or grain and had the "Gooch's Best" label imprinted on it, the little Bartholomew kids were pretty easy to pick out in a crowd.
Other memories of the Stroh place are coming to mind like there were a couple older half brothers that wandered in occasionally.  Apparently my father had been married previously and had 5 children.  Two of those children, a boy and a girl, had died of sand pneumonia.  Eventually the wife then died and the 3 boys were placed in an orphanage.  Richard was adopted.  Earl was adopted.  Gene was not adopted, but did go to a family named Banks where he stayed until adulthood.    Gene and Richard served in World War II.  Earl apparently  did not.
Earl married and had 2 boys and 1 girl.  Gene was married briefly to a woman named Louella and had a son.  His name was Billy (probably William Eugene Bartholomew.) I would love to find that boy.   Gene turned to a life of crime by forging someone else name on checks and seemed to fit well into prison society.  I know he was in prison at least three times.  He used to write me long letters and tell me how this time he had seen the error of his ways and when he got out this time, he would stay out.  The last time anyone seen him was when he was let out of a prison in Kansas and disappeard into thin air.  That was probably 50 +  years ago.
Richard suffered from "shell shock" after he came home from the Army.  When he would come for a visit, we would take him to the Arkansas River and drop him.  He would disappear into the underbrush and that would be the last we heard from him until we picked him up in exactly one week at exactly the same place.  Guess that was his way of coping with life.  Richard and Gene have both been dead for many years.
Anyway, these brothers used to pop in occasionally, but they were 20 years older than me so I was never close to them.  Brother Jake was a different story!
Well life is calling me to do something about my own life, so I will try to return tomorrow and tell you more about the Stroh place.