Colleen
Updated:
Saturday, Mar. 31 - 04:16 PM
|
Friday, July 18, 2008, 9:32 PM
[ General]
One day during the summer of 1901 when I was about seven, mother sent my brother Lewis and I to pick black cherries for jelly from a big wild cherry tree down the road from our house. We took a ladder to climb up in the tree, as the lowest branches were about six or seven feet up. I was straddleing the limb about four inches thick, when Lewie decided to go back to the house. I don't remember if he had his pail full, or just got tired of picking, but when he left he took the ladder with him. So I was left stranded up in the tree. It was too far from the house to yell for help, so when I got my pail full, I tied it to my sash strings at the back of my dress, then slid backwards til my weight let me down close enough to the ground and I dropped the rest of the way and landed on my feet. My clothes were a mess from the crushed cherries I had slid over, especially my underwear, and I think I got a spanking because of it.
Sometimes Lewie would keep teasing me and picking at me, calling me "Redhead Gingerbread, Freckle-Face, Eddie Belcher, and Pork Chops" and would poke me with sticks or pull my hair until I got mad and I would take him down, sit on top of him, and mop his face in the dirt. He would start hollering and mother would come running to see what was happening to him. She would yank me off and call me a little wildcat, and turn me over her knee. I knew it would do no good to tell her he had been teasing me, and it was worth getting a spanking to get a chance to give him a wolloping once in a while, because after that he would leave me alone for a while until his scratches and bruises healed.
Friday, July 4, 2008, 8:28 AM
[ General]
Grandma wrote about her childhood in her memiors, this is a story about Independance Day in 1897 when she was 3yrs. old.
On the 4th of July, I had a little flag, about 1and a half by 3 inches on a stick about the size of a sucker stick. I don't know where it came from, but my brother Harry made peaked paper hats for all of us out of heavy store wrap. The boy's were brown and mine was blue (and I still have it). My brothers had sticks over their shoulders as guns and I was the flag barer . We marched all around the yard and the house singing Yankee Doodle. Later we had lemonade to drink and a big fat oatmeal cookie, which was a treat that we did not get often.
I hope you all have a good Independance Day 2008!
Sunday, June 29, 2008, 8:06 PM
[ General]
The most fasinating person in my family has probably been my granda Nichols. Born Delilah Ann Schelske and daughter of Otto Ernest and Amy Amoretta "Ettie" Schelske in Kalkaska Michigan in 1894. I am second youngest of her grandaughters and she lived in Kalkaska most of the time I can remember. The only time I ever saw her was on holidays or the family reunion so she was always a mystery to me. Yes, she was grandma by name but I did'nt know her. As a little kid I always wondered why my family revered her so like she was royalty or something, but then if I still had my mother around today I'd treat her like a queen as well. As time went by grandma was older and unable to live on her own as it was that she was almost totally blind and hard of hearing. She stayed with a couple of aunts for a while and then stayed with my uncle Homer. He lived in a rual area but the house he lived in was located on a busy two lane highway. Grandma was used to her independance and did'nt let her physical disabilities stop her from doing what she wanted. One day she decided to go accross the road to get the mail without my uncle knowing like she had done many times before. She was struck by a car and thrown 8ft. into the ditch. She had a broken hip and the doctors said that at her age it was unlikely that it would heal proper so she could walk again. She needed special care that my uncle could not give her so my mom's family decided that the best thing to do would be to put her in a nursing home. It did'nt take long for my mother and her siblings to be appauled by the neglect that my grandma suffered while in that home. I remember it always smelt bad there and on more than one occasion she had wet the bed and had been laying in it for a while. On the last visit to see her in that awful place my mother could no longer bring herself to leave her there, mom and dad brought her home to stay with us. I was happy that she was to stay with us because not only would she get the care she deserved but I would finally get a chance to know my grandmother. I remember this time with a smile, my grandma's rituals where honored by my parents which goes as follows: Fried onions with her breakfast (pew) , sixteen cherries for desert after dinner and Mogan David wine with her meal. Grandma was also a baseball NUT! She was a faithful Detriot Tigers fan and never missed a game (The volume from her room was loud so we always had a play by play of the game whether we wanted it or not ). In a years time grandma was improving in health and was walking with a walker, a few months after that she was walking on her own again. Mom and dad let her go "up home" as she called it to a senior community where she stayed for another year. She passed away in her sleep perhaps of heart failer at the age of 86 in January 1981. After her passing her will was revealed and her things and family photos were to be divided equally among her children. My mom returned home one day with a box full of stuff that grandma kept. In the box I remember we found costume jewelry, old photo albums with everything from very old and not so old photos in it (the penny postcards were fasinating to me), composition and hard plastic dolls ,valentines , and report cards that belonged to my mom, a scrap book filled with news paper clippings, and also among the items where hand written diaries on letter stationary titled "My Memories". Mom gave them to one of my cusins and she organized them all and made a book from them and made copies for everyone. I read my mothers copy of grandma's memories and learned about how special she was. Well, it's getting late and I have to get ready for bed, I'll tell you more later!
|
|
