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!

Ah! 'twas but a mere dalliance!

 As most of you know, I have been married several times and sent several lawyers on vacation.  That having been said, I would like to clarify my current status.  I am now a widow and that is the way I plan on staying.  Kenny and I were married 20 years and he has been gone 20 years.  I plan on remaining in my current state for the remainder of my life.

When Kenny had been gone 5 years I began to date.  Now, you should know that I like tall men.  Kenny was 5' 6" or so, but he had a lot of redeeming qualities.  He was honest, compassionate, a very hard worker and most importantly of all, he had a sense of humor.  Albeit a warped sense of humor, it pretty much matched mine.  That and the fact that I had finally found a man of whom my mother approved made it a match made in heaven.  We began our marriage living in sin but remedied that 11 months later.  He passed away 20 years later.  I did not date for 6 years, but then I met a man at Starucks who struck my fancy.  His name was not important.  He was from back east.  

He was 6' 2".  I am 5' 1".  He was a Republican; I was a Democrat.  He took me out to eat.  We went for walks.  His dog loved me.  He was a retired plumber from Denver, originally from St.  Louis.  We had nothing in common, but we liked each other's company.   I love country western music.  He liked Opera.  I liked to pull weeds.  I volunteered at Hospice and he collected BMW's.  We had nothing in common and one day it became too much and it ended in a screaming match.   I did not see nor hear from him for 2 years.

I do not know if you know how the dyslectic mind works, but he was a classic dyslectic.  He looked for me in the sewing machine stores.  And the library and down on the levy where I used to walk.  But he never thought to look in the phone book.  Now if God has a plan, it always works out and one day my phone rang, and it was him!  A friend in Denver told him to look in the phone book, and there I was!

He began talking like our last visit was yesterday.  He now had prostate cancer and he was on Hospice Care.  I had just started volunteering at Sangre de Cristo in the Eleventh Hour program so he became my client.  A match made in heaven, so to speak.  I was with him every day.  We took walks.  We shared meals.  I did his laundry and cleaned his house.  I took him to doctor appointments.  When he was not feeling well, I walked the dog.  We became close friends.  His younger brother came to see him.  Then his other brother.  His sister in law.  Friends from Denver.  Another friend from California.  He grew thinner and weaker.

When he began to grow thin and weak and we knew the end was near, he made the decision to enter a nursing home.  He did not want to be a burden to me.  His executor came from Denver and signed the papers to make it happen.  His will was made and all the paperwork done.  I would be in charge of the house and the dog until his death and then things would be settled.  I was to get $5000.  But then he had a change of heart!  He decided he would marry me so I could inherit his estate! How sad he was that I said no.  But I did tell him that since he had managed to stay single for 78 years, God would be happy to see him without a wife!  I further explained that if his motivation was to make me his heir, the lawyer could easily change his will.  So he went that route.

He was clear about what he wanted me to do with his estate.  I got $5000 to spend as I wanted.  Everything would be sold and the balance would be deposited in a special account and spent on charities of my choosing.   So for a few days I owned a 4 story Victorian house with a round "witches hat".  I gave the dog to a friend of his in Colorado Springs, and gave the house key to the executor.  

I spent several months giving checks to various charities and different places in need of money.  The last $6,000.00 was spent on a new motor for one of the volunteers at SCAP who did a really lot of volunteering and organizing and needed a vehicle that he could depend on for travel.  And then it was all gone!  

I look back on that period of my life with a woulda, coulda, shoulda feeling.  I miss him in ways I can not explain.  When I met him he was a fire breathing man who had no use for anyone who was not white and Republican.  He hated minorities, gays, women, Democrats and most of all country western music.  (Damned  "Hillbillies!")  He was a Catholic and I a Baptist.  Watching him in the last months of his life was a joy I can not explain.  He came to accept my gay friends and my blended family.  Sister Nancy Crafton came to talk to him and I went to walk the dog.  When I returned she was gone and he had a countenance about him that was an acceptance of things to come and included a reconnection with the Catholic church that had been so long forgotten. 

 

In the name of love?

 How many of you have watched a friend struggling and wanted to help?  Usually there is nothing you can say as you silently watch their world spinning out of control.  Oh, there is much to say, but no one to listen.  Without going into all the details, I will just say that you all know my little grandson that I picked up every Thursday in Florence and kept over night.  I would then take him to his daddy, my son,  on Friday at 3:30 at his jobsite.  He would then return him to his mother Sunday afternoon.  Everyone was happy, or so it seemed.

What changed?  My son recommitted to some one else, as did his ex.  My son now has another baby.   His first baby momma has now decided that since my son now has another son, he does not need any contact with her son.  Apparently, in her world, you can only love one person at a time.  To me this is bizarre, to say the very least.  To say her bubble does not balance, would be an understatement.  Sadly, the man she now lives with who is also her "caregiver" stood next to a lawyer once or twice so he is now her "representative" in all legal matters.  All of this is irrelevant.

What is relevant here is that my grandson has grown up in an environment filled with negativity and has had his daddy forbidden to see him until we go to court and get visitation rights which his mother does not want to give him.  She explained it to me this way; "He has a effin son.  I have a son.  Now we are even.  He can just leave my son alone."  

Warped?  To the max.  So here I set.  For 7 years my grandson and I have bonded.  The first words out of his mouth when he sees me is "I love you."  Those are the last words he says when he leaves me.  He loves his daddy.  He has a room here and he has a room at his daddy's.  I took him and his step sister to the Dairy Queen the last time he was at his daddy's house.  He watches over his step sister since she is smaller than him.  He is a big brother to her and the new baby.  His birth mother can not accept this.  How sad is that?

So, until social services or whoever the powers that be are reach a decision in this "matter", we live in limbo.  I can only pray that my little grandson is not being mistreated.  I know he is being brainwashed because I have seen that in action.  What his birth mother does not know, nor understand is that love goes on.  Someday, he will be big enough and old enough to make his own decisions and what will happen then, Amanda?

Momma always said "The chickens always come home to roost."  In the end, when that last trumpet blows and time will be no more, there is one thing you should remember and it is this...."As you have done it to one of these little ones, you have done it to me."

Sleep on that.

Let's start this off with a song!

click here Now that right there is the truth if ever I printed it!  Back in the days of sand and shovels life was so much easier!  We walked to school in a cluster.  Our family lived on Strong Street and there were 3 houses with kids.  On the end were the Ayers kids.  Willis, Ralph, and Marurite.  Then the Reinke kids.  Delores and Irene.  Flo was older so she ignored us.  Then came the little Bartholomew kids! Josephine, Jake, and me.   Donna, Mary and Dorothy would come later. I attended all 8 years in that 2 story red brick building on the corner by the First Christian Church.  I attended that church the same 8 years. 

We all walked to school.  Not so much in a group as one would think, but rather as a bunch of stragglers off to learn to be responsible adults some day.  My brother Jake was pretty much a goof off  but most of the boys in that era were.  He finally joined the Army, because that is what boys did back then.

Now back then, if a kid misbehaved they were sent to the office where Mr. Houston would administer the proper punishment.  That usually meant a spanking.  Lordy!  times have changed, haven't they?  If your kid got a spanking at school, they would also get a better spanking at home.  No mother or father wanted to have a kid that would misbehave in public.  It just was not done!  Period.  End of story.  The classroom teacher was not allowed to spank.  She (and most of them were women) would walk up behind an inattentive, wiggly kid and whack them on top of the head with the edge of a wooden ruler.  Trust me on this; I seen stars for days!  Mrs. Howe was the only one who ever struck me.  That woman was mean!  I prayed every morning that she would not look at me, but God ignored my plea!

I still remember my teachers through grade school.  First  grade was Miss Donough who married in the middle of the year and became Mrs. Breece.  She was so kind.  Then grade two was Mrs. Wait.  Grade 3 was Miss Holmes who was very sweet.  Fourth grade was Mrs. Howe who was, to my recollection, the meanest woman in the world.  Fifth grade was Miss Swenson who was kind and the first person to ever praise me for my feeble attempt at writing poetry.  She actually got me published in a magazine that was popular at the time. Sixth grade brought Miss Lauver.  She was strict, but very fair and probably one of the best teachers in the school.  Old maid.  Seventh grade was Mr. Schriber and eighth was Mr. Bollinger.  I did not like men teachers.  They were full of themselves.  But in all fairness, Mr. Bollinger owned the movie theater so he was cool.  

At the time I was in school there were less than 1,000 people in Nickerson.  The red brick building has been demolished and a one story grade school built a block away.  A bunch of houses occupy the lot where so many memories were made.  The church I attended which set on the corner across the street from the school is boarded up now.  There is one grocery store and it is in the building the appliance store used to occupy.  I left Nickerson, Kansas 65 years ago, but in my mind, I am still there.

We never wore shoes to school in the fall.  When the weather started getting cold the shoes were dug out and whoever they fit had shoes.  The Montgomery Ward Catalog was dug out and feet were measured and new shoes bought for whoever did not get a pair of hand me down shoes.  Life was hard back then, but poverty did not discriminate.  New shoes were a luxury, but they were also harbingers of blisters on our feet because they were stiff and needed "broke in".  I did not like new shoes.

I watched the kids getting on the bus in front of my house.  They are in little uniforms.  Shoes are all the same color.  Wonder how that works for developing adults that are unique?  Oh well.

Busy day ahead of me so I better get busy.  The days of sand and shovels must go back in my mind and wait for another day.  I hope I never get so old that I forget where I came from and the road I took to get to this day.  School days, school days, dear old golden rule days!  Reading and writing and arithmetic. taught to the tune of a hickory stick.........

Peace!

...

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!

Queen of the Silver Dollar!

Many years ago, when I was 18 years old in Hutchinson, Kansas, there were three taverns, better know as beer joints down on south main street.  They were known as the 3 Queens.  You should know that it was also about the same time the Navy base was being phased out.  Now brother Jake and I liked to drink and I liked to dance.  In Kansas, at that time any bar worth frequenting had a dance floor.  So, let's set the mood here by clicking on the title of the song!  queen of the silver dollar

So, this oasis down on South Main Street in Hutchinson, Kansas housed a plethora of bars.  Brown Derby, Manhattan Club (which was my favorite), Anchor Inn, another one that slips my mind, and the Crystal Ballroom.  The Crystal Ballroom, which had a giant crystal ball mounted high above the dance floor, was only open on Saturday night.  It was mostly for old people.  There actually was a bar called the Silver Dollar, but it was clear across town on Highway 96 on the way to Nickerson.  I was only there once or twice. I did not like the ambiance there.

The Manhattan club was owned by a man known as "Dutch" somebody.  I would sometimes work the bar so he could go do errands in the afternoon.  A few notes here.  At that time it was illegal to sell alcohol to Indians because it "made them crazy".  It was hard for me to differentiate between them and Mexicans, who could drink until they fell over.  Sure different from now when you are required to serve people of every nationality. 

 There were whores who worked the bars.  I knew only one and her name was Seabiscuit.  That was not her name, but it was her "working name." I do recall she drank White Horse Scotch with cream.  Pretty sure those two things together would curdle, but not my circus; not my monkeys!  I came to know her on a different level.  She once had a family and a home like normal people, her husband had left her and taken the kids and South Main Street became her home and prostitution  her means of survival.

There was another one who was a little "pudgy" and giggled a lot.  I am not sure she charged for her wares, but rather did it for the sheer enjoyment of the work.  Her name was Berniece.  

My step brother, Gene had frequented the bars and they both remembered him.  Since my maiden name was Bartholomew it was easy for anyone to link us together.  Gene Bartholomew, Delbert (Jake) Bartholomew, Louella Bartholomew.

Fights broke out fairly regularly at the Manhattan Club, but as soon as the police arrived the fights stopped and they were warned not to do that again.  I still carry a scar right below my ankle from a beer bottle someone threw across the floor that broke and went into my heel.  

The last time I went to Hutch, I was going to go to South Main Street and check out my old stomping grounds, but I didn't.  The next time I am going to make it a point.  I am willing to bet that the bars have turned into antique shops. That time of my life was over 60 years ago, and time marches on!

My kids will no doubt, cringe in horror when the read this post.  But then again, they may actually be relieved to know that momma was young once and wasn't always a prude.  And they may understand how I figured out what they were doing because Momma done been there and done that!!!

The real state of your affairs.

 If any of you out there think you have your likes and dislikes and that you have any control over them being fulfilled as such, let me clue you in to this fact: Karma rules the universe.  You are but a mere spot that shows up as a blip on the radar occasionally, if karma so decides.  Sometimes it does and it is good.  Life is wonderful!  Sadly, this is the seldom ever scenario.  Usually it sucks.  Mostly we just plug along with one foot in front of the other until we get a little break and we are happy for a time.  Usually it is the "blow below the belt" and we are left picking up the pieces of our broken dreams.

If we are happy it is usually at the cost of someone else being unhappy.  I do not mean that we have to do anything to make this happen, it is just the way life happens.  If I go shopping, my wallet is sad, but the store is happy.  I smile and say "Hello" to strangers that I meet  on the street and am usually met with a smile and greeting back, but not always.

Then when I get home and flip on the news.  I listen to news about car jackings, murders, thefts, child abuse and some one waving a flag to save the planet.  Inflation in out of control and law and order went out the window a long time ago.  If your child goes to school and comes home without some nut shooting it, we thank our God.  

What happened to our old fashioned values?  You know, the ones about God and country?  The one about remove the moat from your own eye before trying to get the one out of your neighbors eye?  What happened to holding a door open for someone to pass through?  Or picking up what the lady in front of you dropped and handing it to her?  How much does it cost to smile at someone?  You may be the only person someone meets today and a smile from a stranger might be enough to brighten their day so they can survive the night.

No doubt they sometimes think I am crazy when I go to the local grocery just to pick up an Avacado, but I go through the whole store and smile and make remarks to every person I see.  Maybe it makes someone happy and maybe it is my way of socializing in this post Covid world, but it works for me!

So, just some thoughts today.  

Remember:  You cannot sprinkle showers of happiness on other people without getting a few drops on yourself!

Peace!

 

 abuse and somebody waving a flag to allow abortions. What And then I come home and turn on the news to en