Blog – Page 10

REMEMBER WHEN: Money for Christmas

Earning our own money from Christmas

It was our first year living in the Ozarks of Missouri. Money was tight and we wondered how we were going to have Christmas. Our parents had always helped us get something for our siblings and grandparents, but this year that wasn’t going to happen.

We asked dad how we were going to have gifts to give. He said maybe mom could help us make things or if we wanted to work for the money the MFA feed store was buying walnuts. He said we could go out to the walnut parch and pick up the ones that had fallen and he would take them to town to sell. He said we could divide the money between us and use that to get gifts for the family.

We thought that was a great idea and asked if we could use the tractor and wagon on Saturday to go to the patch. On our farm was a stand of walnut trees that someone in the past had cultivated. There were several acres of trees that mom called her living emergency account. If there wasn’t enough money to meet an emergency repair of something on the farm dad would harvest a tree or two and sell the logs at the mill. We would always replace the cut log with a sapling that mom started in her garden.

On Saturday after chores, we hooked up the wagon to the tractor. We packed a snack and a jug of water and headed to the walnut patch. We worked all morning picking up walnuts and had the wagon about half full. We stopped to eat and rest abet when my brother said we should pull the wagon up under the tree then shake the limbs and the nuts would fall into the wagon. It was a good idea in theory but the nuts would fall on the edge of the wagon and bounce out or miss the wagon altogether.

Dad came by ever so often to check on us. He came by as we were shaking the tree limb and the walnuts flying all over. He got to laughing so hard he had to set down on a stump. It was not what he had said we could do but he was impressed with our ingenuity. We said picking up walnuts was hard work and were trying to save time. After a while, the little kids got tired and just wanted to set down instead of working.

Dad brought some feed sacks out and said it would be easier to take the nuts to town in sacks than loose. We had the little ones filling the sacks while we bigger kids picked up and carried the nuts to the wagon. Around 2 o’clock dad said it was time to come to the house. We finished sacking what we had gathered and had several sacks full.

When we got back to the house and rested for a while dad said we could get more money if we hulled the nuts. That the store would pay more for the nuts if they didn’t have to take the hulls off. Of course, we were all for making more money.

We discussed several ways to get the hulls off. We tried to peel the hulls off but that didn’t work too well and the hulls gave off a black stain that wouldn’t come off without a lot of scrubbing. We tried putting them in the driveway and running over them with the tractor. That worked but we still had to separate the nuts from the hulls which meant dealing with the black stain again.

After a while, dad came out of his workshop with an old corn sheller he had hooked up to the motor off a lawnmower. He said we should be able to put the walnuts in the top of the sheller and the nuts should come out where the corn would and the hulls where the cobs come out. The motor was to take the place of the hand crank; it sounded great and would save a lot of time. He set it up by the milk barn facing the driveway. We loaded the hopper with nuts and dad turned it on. It mumbled and rumbled and started shooting the hulled nuts out of the side of the machine into the driveway. It worked wonderfully, except the motor only had one speed, so the nuts flew about 20 feet into the drive. We spent the rest of the afternoon running after nuts. Dad got such a kick out of watching us chase flyaway nuts that he called mom to come to watch and they had a great time laughing at us.

When we got them all hulled, picked up, and sacked again we only had half as many. We added up how much we would get and divided the amount between the four of us, it didn’t come too much. You get a lot more for walnuts nowadays, but back then we got seven dollars for one hundred pounds. We had bagged four bags at seven dollars a bag which gave us each seven dollars. That doesn’t sound like much but to kids under ten, it was a fortune.

The next Saturday we loaded up the bags in the truck and dad took us to town. After we sold the nuts at the MFA Feed Store we went to the department store. It was a type of general store with just about anything a farm family would ever need. I can still remember that store. I loved the smells of fruit and candy and you could test out the cologne in the perfume aisle. The floor was wood and your shoes made a clicking sound when you walked across it.

We needed to get something for all the members of the family with the seven dollars that each of us got from the sales of the nuts. We had seven people to buy for and we had to put seven cents in our offering envelope for church.

That was a lot for a little kid to think about. We walked around the store trying to figure out what to buy. The boys went with dad and we girls went with mom. We picked out handkerchiefs with lace edges for grandma and bandanas for dad and grandpa. While mom took my sister to find something for me, I got some cologne for her and ribbons for my sister to put in her hair. We bought the boys caps for their cap pistols.

We each carried our sack of purchases out to the truck proud of ourselves for working hard to make the money ourselves. When we got home mom helped us wrap the gifts and we put them under the tree.

As we got older and earned money from jobs we had. I watched neighbors’ kids and became the go-to babysitter for the surrounding farms. My brothers worked on hay crews. Presents got bigger and more expensive but we still picked up walnuts and sold them every year to add to what we had to spend.

We were taught how to work for what we wanted and to always give to others. We were also taught to give back to God part of what he gave us. We have instilled that same concept in our own children. That you work hard for what you get, give to others, and return some to God who gave it to us in the first place.

God Bless all my readers and have a Merry Christmas

Remember When: My First Summer Camp

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HOW I GOT TO GO

The year was 1957, I was 10 years old and loved being in the brownies. When cookie-selling time came around I was so excited to find out that if you sold 40.00 dollars worth of cookies you could go to camp free. I wanted to go to camp more than anything. Back then a box of cookies was a dollar, which was a lot of money for a box of cookies that wasn’t homemade.

But I was determined and wanted to try. I got my first dozen boxes and set out to ask everyone on our street that didn’t have a girl in the club; if they wanted to buy a box of cookies and why I was selling them. I didn’t have much luck on our street and asked if I could go on the next street over to try and sell some. Mom said only if I could get my older cousin to go with me, I could not go alone. None of my cousins would go with me so Dad said he would take me on Saturday.

In the meantime, I asked all my relatives to buy some so I could go to camp free. I sold a few boxes to my parents and grandparents. But it wasn’t all the cookies I had. Saturday Dad took me on the next street over from where we lived and I went from door to door. The cookies weren’t as popular back then as they are today. It took a lot of walking but I sold my first dozen boxes. I had a hard time waiting to get the next dozen boxes so I could go out again.

The next week I went to stay with my grandparents and my colder cousin went with me on the street where they lived. I did better this time and sold all 12 boxes in one day. That got me thinking if dad would let me come to his work on lunch break I might be able to sell some. Mom didn’t like the idea much but my cousin said she would go with me. And the factory where dad worked was just down the street from grandma’s house. I sold another dozen boxes at the factory. I was only 4 boxes away from my goal of 40. I had 3 days left to sell them, but mom wouldn’t let dad buy them she said it was my idea and I should finish on my own.

I talked my brother into going with me to the man’s house at the end of our street. There was an old man living there that we were afraid of. He would yell at us if a ball happened to go into his yard, dad said we shouldn’t bother him and to not play close to his fence. But I was desperate to go to camp free and was willing to try. We walked to his gate and my brother wouldn’t go in so I walked up to his door by myself. He was sitting on his porch he wanted to know what I was doing there. I started my talk of what I was selling and why I was doing it. That I really wanted to go to camp and selling 40 boxes of cookies was the only way I could do it.

He asked how many my parents had bought. I told him 2, that mom said I had to do this on my own. He wanted to know how many I had sold so far. I told him 36 and had 4 boxes left to sell by Friday. He wanted to know what would happen if I didn’t sell them all, I told him I would not get to go to camp. He said he liked my bravery to come to him when all the kids were afraid of him. I told him my dad said I should be bold but respectful accept whatever answer you gave me. He grinned and said he liked my dad and he bought 2 boxes. He also said for me to go 3 streets over and tell his brother he said to buy the last 2 boxes. I thanked him and ran all the way home to ask my dad to take me over to this other house. Dad laughed when I told him what the man had said and agreed to take me and dinner.

I sold the last 2 boxes the night before the contest was over and got to go to camp. It was everything I had thought it would be and more. I got to stay a whole week and meet a bunch of girls from all over the city. We did a lot of camping stuff to earn badges for our uniform sash. I got to fly up to be a girl scout the next school year, it was great.

When I grew up and had girls of my own I decided to start a brownie troop in our neighborhood so my girls could experience the joy of scouting. There are many organizations for girls to learn skills they will need out in the adult world, scouting is a fun way to gain those skills.

Remember When: The Smells of the season.

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Christmas time is coming

The Holiday Season has its own special smells. Just thinking about them brings back memories from childhood. Mom would get out the recipes handed down from generations past and we would start cooking. You couldn’t just run by the local big box store and buy goodies like today. In my opinion, baking is becoming a lost art. This hustle of cramming as much in a day as you can has destroyed the closeness of family getting together in the kitchen. Some of my fondest memories are of Mom and Grandma teaching us how to bake.

We baked bread and desserts all year long but during November and December, we baked special things that we only got once a year. Certain receipts became family traditions like my Great-Grandmothers sour cream cut-out cookies. Or Grandpa’s fruit cake that had been soaking in bourbon, he would tease my mom to just give him the cloth the cake was wrapped in and he would be satisfied. He was not a drinker but he sure liked that cake at Christmas time. We also made gingerbread cookies from sorghum we grew and took to a neighbor who processed it into molasses for us. Mom made mincemeat pie and a big Yule log cake.

I try to replicate those tastes today but they just don’t turn out as well as they did on the farm. Back then we grew nearly all the ingredients ourselves. Nothing can taste as good as everything fresh from the farm. Even though it was a lot of work, it was very satisfying knowing you did it yourself. And those old receipts were treasures to be relished. I still have some of them and I like to get them out and look that the handwriting and the stains on the cards and remember those happy times. I like to bake things with my great-grandchildren when we can get together. To try and pass on what I learned about the love of family and being together.

Progress is wonderful but it has destroyed the multigenerational family unit, all living and working together. I am glad I have those memories to sustain me now that I am a great-grandmother. But I sure miss the smells of baking goodies for the family, mom’s kitchen when it was cold outside but warm by the cookstove, and we knew Christmas was coming. Here is a couple of those recipes that have become holiday traditions in my family.

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Sour Cream Cut Out Cookies

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

½ cup sour cream

3 ½ cups flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 pinch salt

Cream together butter and sugar, add egg, sour cream, and stir until well mixed. Mix baking soda, salt, and flour together in a separate bowl then add to the butter mixture a little at a time until dough becomes difficult to stir. Turn mixture onto a floured surface and knead until no longer sticky.

Chill for at least 2 hours or overnight.

Divide dough in half and roll out on the floured surface to ¼ inch thickness, cut in desired shapes, place 1 inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes at 350 degrees F.

Cookies should be lightly brown at the edges. Remove cookies to wire rakes to cool. Ice with your favorite icing.

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Gingerbread men

¾ cup brown sugar

2/3 cup molasses

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla

3 ½ cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1Tlb ground ginger

1 Tlb cinnamon

½ tsp cloves

All ingredients should be at room temperature. Beat butter for 1 minute add sugar and molasses. Beat until creamy, add egg and vanilla. Beat 2 minutes on high speed.

Divide dough in half wrap in plastic and chill for at least2 hours. Roll out on the floured surface. Cut in desired shapes, bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 9 to 11 minutes at 350 degrees.

Remember When: Out of Place Christians

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Everyday Christianity

Blackfoot, the farming community where we moved to in the ’50s, was a long-time Baptist community and the local people were leery about a catholic family from out of state moving in. The congregation was always trying to convert us. But when they found out my dad was a master mechanic and inventor they soon came around. He could fix just about anything and shared his knowledge with anyone who asked. During harvest time he was in big demand fixing equipment that had set ideal all summer. In payment for his free knowledge and willingness to work on others’ equipment first, our farm was the first on the list to get planted and harvested.

When we had electricity to do the milking during a power outage and everyone else had to milk by hand and lantern light the neighbors wanted to know what his secret was. He showed them how he hooked a conveyer belt to the back axel of his tractor and then to a homemade generator made out of an old lawnmower, to produce power for the milking machine. Everyone wanted one so he showed them how to make one themselves.

My parents showed Christian love to all in the community by always lending a helping hand to anyone in need. Since all four of us kids were in school mom volunteered to cook lunch for all of us. There was a small lean too kitchen that had been added to the school building. Dad got the appliances working and some of the other moms helped when they could to make sure we had a good meal at lunchtime. If they couldn’t donate time they donated food. Everyone in the community pitched in to ensure we were fed and warm in the winter by bringing wood for the stove, they wanted the school to be a good experience for all the kids in the community.

My mother was a barber and she offered free haircuts to any child who wanted one before school started. She would set up a chair on the porch of the school the Saturday before the first day of school and start cutting hair. Word soon spread and before long there would be a line waiting. Being a small farming community we were more like an extended family than a group of kids that went to school together.

At Christmas time we were always invited to the Christmas service at the baptist church. We always went to be neighborly and not to offend the congregation. We kids liked the bag of candy and fruit they handed out to all the kids. Dad would be polite and thank them for the invite and ask them to come to midnight mass if they were so inclined.

When John F Kennedy ran for president the other farmers would come to dad and ask his advice, if a young Catholic man could run this country. Dad would always say they needed to follow their heart but that he was voting for him not because he was Catholic but that he was a Navy man, which my dad was also. I overheard our neighbor telling another farmer once who was putting down the Catholics that if he was ever needed anything fixed who would he go to first. The other guy answered why Tom Denney of course. Our neighbor said well, Tom’s a Catholic. Kennedy won in our district that year.

We lost my father to cancer at the age of 38. We had not lived in the Blackfoot community very long, a little short of 10 years. There were so many people who attended the funeral it was standing room only. The funeral procession was over 75 cars long from town out to the little community cemetery where he was buried. A great testament to living your faith and showing God’s love every day no matter what your religion. Are you leaving a legacy of Christian love?

Remember When: Harvest time

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Hay Harvest

From the time you were old enough to help out in the milk barn or able to guide a tractor or old pickup you worked on the family farm. I was nine when dad taught me how to guide the tractor. I drove the small Massey Ferguson tractor pulling the hay rake, or back and forth in the pit silo tamping down the fresh-cut silage for winter. I got good at racking hay and dad said that was my job. My brother Mike drove the hay truck around the field for the boys to stack hay on then to the barn. We had square bales then not the big round ones they have today. It was a rite of passage when you could through a bale from the back of the truck up to the hayloft. We would work alongside the crew that went from farm to farm during harvest time. As we got older we became part of the crew. We never questioned if the work was fair or not. Farming was a family affair and so we had to do our part. The older we got the more responsibilities we were given. Even though it was harvest time shores had to be done. Cows milked, animals fed, meals fixed, and younger children taken care of.

Being a girl I was soon put to work in the kitchen cooking for the crew of 10 to 15 men that traveled around from farm to farm harvesting corn or hay. In the 1950’s the neighboring farmers would band together and pool their equipment to get all the farms planted or harvested in the shortest amount of time. We were a small farming community in southwest Missouri called Blackfoot. We would start at 5 am cooking enough food for everyone. We cooked one main meal and a couple of snacks. When you were feeding grown men and teenage boys it took a lot of food. The morning snack was more like breakfast and the afternoon snack had to keep them going sometimes to way after dark. We would load up the morning and afternoon snacks in the back of the pickup and take them out to the fields so the crew didn’t have to stop working and could come to eat in shifts. The noon meal was served at the house so everyone could take a bit of a rest. We would set up tables in the yard and the food would be served buffet style. Certain women had their specialties. Sometimes men would let it be known that they would like a certain dish when they came to that farm. Our neighbor would let my mom know that I made the best biscuits around and that he was getting a craving for my cherry cream pie.

When the food was done and the kitchen cleaned up the girls had to help outside. When the milking time came around and the men were still in the field the girls did the milking. If there weren’t enough guys on the crew to stack the hay bales in the barn that was our job, too. There was no distinction between boy jobs and girl jobs; we worked where ever we were needed. That is why my dad used to say he had 4 boys just 2 wore dresses on Sunday. Sometimes the hay crews worked until midnight or later to get the harvest in and go on to the next farm. We would work until we couldn’t stay awake any longer then Dad would let us go to bed. We learned work ethics and community. That your life was not your own, you were put on earth to help where ever you were needed.

It taught us to work hard where ever we were needed. Dad got paid twice a month from the milk company and we got to go to town and have a burger and fries at the café. If there was a movie playing that was on the A list we could go see it. By the time I was out of high school, I could count the number of movies I had seen on my fingers. My parents had strict Ideas about what we could see. They cared about what kind of adults we would become.

That type of community spirit isn’t around much anymore. The family farm has pretty much gone to the wayside. Large conglomerate businesses have taken over. Kids don’t stay on the farm as they used to. Society calls it a lost art. But as more and more people are looking into living off-grid and getting back to their roots farms are making a comeback.

Remember When: One Room School

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Blackfoot DistrictSchool

The school I went to from the third grade to the seventh grade was one of the last one-room schools left in the area. When I was in the seventh grade the school was combined with several other schools in the county. Dad didn’t like the idea and enrolled us in the catholic school in town. We were the only catholic family out in the Blackfoot district and dad didn’t think we would get as good an education with so many schools combined.

But getting back to the little one-room school, we had around 18 to 20 kids in the school my sister and I were the only girls at the time. There were other girls in the area but they were in high school. We were all from neighboring farms and were more like family than school friends. The older grades helped teach the younger grades.

Most of our teachers were student teachers from Southwest Missouri State teaching college in Springfield about an hour away. They were doing internships and had big plans of fixing all the educational problems of rule schools. We weren’t the easiest bunch to teach either. We knew they were only there for one year and most didn’t apply for a permanent teaching position. So we didn’t connect well with them.

Attendance was always a concern as we were all farm kids who had to work the planting and harvesting times of the year. We went in late summer; school would start in August then be off for fall harvest then back for the winter months. We got one day off for Thanksgiving and one day for Christmas. Then we got out in April for planting season.

It was a challenge for teachers to get in the allotted number of days, but in the ’50s kids were needed as part of the workforce. The farmers would pool their equipment and travel from farm to farm either planting, harvesting, or haying. One year our teacher offered to help; one to see how things were done and the second to see if his help would speed the process. It didn’t speed the process but it did give him a new outlook on farm life.

The school was also the local community center; the PTA would hold meetings and fundraisers. One such event was the annual pie supper auction. The girls would fix a meal and bake a pie, put it in a decorated box or basket. Then they would be auctioned off to the highest bidder. The bidders weren’t supposed to know who made which box, but certain young men seemed to know whose was whose.

The second-year we attended school at Blackfoot, I was given the lead in the school play. Not because I was a good actor but the teacher thought my Northern Accent made the production more interesting. Besides, I was the only girl old enough to remember the lines, and none of the boys wanted to play a girl part. It was a fun evening, one of the neighboring farmers bought my box supper. From then on when they would come to our farm to work I was to make a cherry cream pie as I made for the pie supper.

The year we got telephones in our area opened a whole new way of communicating with your neighbors. We got our first-party line and when you were talking to someone you could hear if someone else picked up. My mom was head of the PTA at that time. She would send notes to school with me to pass out to the other families. They were told to pick up the phone at seven o’clock, she would call our nearest neighbor, everyone would pick up and they would have a meeting and not have to leave home. Mom thought it was fantastic.

That time is a treasure trove of memories and I will write more in the future. Now though this will be the end of this one. Those were fond times in my life even if my dad would tell people he had four strapping boys to help on the farm, just two wore dresses on Sunday. Everyone would laugh, except us girls. But that is another story to come.