Do you ever feel like the memories you have did not really happen? That they are nothing but figments of our imagination. Sometimes my memories feel like they came out of a dream, and sometimes they are crystal clear. But I can honestly say, although they are probably not 100% accurate, they are still my memories and I perceive them to be 100% true..
There is a saying I have heard on numerous occasions: "You have to love me because I’m family." That isn’t always true. However, when a child’s parents say "We love you all the way around the world because we got to pick you out of all the babies in that world," now that is DEFINITELY true. At least in my case it was. With my parents, who did "pick me out of all the babies in the world," came a very large extended family. I was an "only" child so many of my family childhood memories came from my dad’s seven siblings and their families and my mom’s nine siblings and their families. Although Daddy’s family were mostly from Oregon where we lived, it was Mama’s "Missouri" family that left the biggest impression in my mind. This scrapbook is to help my mom understand just how much that family means to me. (I am going to make copies of it to send to at least one person in each family belonging to one of her siblings so they can take a walk through my "memory lane.")
OUR TRIPS TO MISSOURI
Daddy worked at two places after I was born. For the first seven years, he worked at Hanford in Richland, Washington. We moved to Hermiston, Oregon when I was seven and he worked at the Umatilla Army Depot until his retirement. Because he had a "regular" job, he got weekends off and "normal" vacations. I would describe Daddy as a loner, so when he got a vacation, he would head for the hills. He would take a tent and his fishing pole and off he’d go. Sometimes Mama and I went with him; sometimes it was just Daddy and I, but it seems to me, most of the time he went by himself. In all the years I lived at home as a child, I can only remember one time when we took a "regular" vacation and the three of us went to Missouri together. Now Mama...that was a different story! When she got homesick, she planned a trip "back home" and off we would go. She was the driver and I had the coveted position of navigator (she taught me how to read a map when I was 8.) She was fearless! She loved to drive and I remember she would wake me up at dawn, we would eat breakfast at a restaurant next to the motel where we were staying and off we would go. She would drive until she couldn’t stay awake anymore and we would pull into a little motel for the night. The next day we would start over. As we got closer to Missouri, the more excited she would get and of course I would get excited too. Later, after I left home, she told me horror stories of going to Missouri by herself and instead of getting a motel, she would pull into a rest stop, strip down to her undies (she didn’t want to get her clothes wrinkled for crying out loud), crawl into the back seat and curl up in a sleeping bag, sleep a few hours, wake up, dress in the sleeping bag and off she would go. (She’s lucky she didn’t get herself into some major trouble!) I do know one thing for sure, I liked it when Mama drove because I didn’t have to pee in a Sir Walter Raleigh can on the floor of the back seat; she actually stopped at a gas station and let me use the "real" potty!! Daddy NEVER stopped!
Some of the things I remember about Missouri can be summed up in short descriptions like: Dogwoods, rain, fried chicken, fun with cousins, Gasconade River, leaches between my uncle’s toes (gross me out the door), chiggers, hot and humid, milk straight from the cow, crossing the creek, St. Louis zoo, county fair, green apples and a salt shaker, outhouses, singing, smell of the old country store, licking the salt block in the cow pasture, climbing the loft in the barn, trying to skip rocks across the pond. I could go on and on. Those times can definitely be counted as some of my fondest childhood memories.
GRANDPA SMITH
I don’t remember ever seeing them together, although I’m sure they were at some time when we were there. They lived in Vichy, Missouri and just the name of that little berg brings the memories to the surface.
Grandpa was sick a lot and I think he spent a lot of time in hospitals and nursing homes. We were back there for a month one winter when I was 5 or so. It was cold outside, but it was toasty warm in their house with the wood cook stove going full blast all of the time. Grandpa had a wooden rocking chair and he would take me up on his lap and rock me and sing to me. He was bigger than life (or so I remember) and I think if he had a chance, he would of spoiled me rotten!
One summer we stayed with him again at their house in Vichy. It was spring and I must have been 6 or so. The dogwoods were blooming and the smell in the air wasn’t anything like I had every smelled (in that ripe old age of mine) or smelled since. He asked me if I wanted to walk to the mailbox with him. Of course I wanted to do everything I could to be with my Grandpa so off we went. His legs were so long and mine were so short. He walked fast and I couldn’t keep up so he would slow down for awhile, but then all of a sudden, off he went. One thing about Missouri that I really remember was the thunderstorms that came out of a blue sky (or so it seemed.) It would be sunny and warm one minute and the next it would be pouring down rain ... pouring so hard you couldn’t see in front of your hand. That happened when Grandpa and I were going to the mailbox. He grabbed me and ran to a culvert pipe and put me in it. He told me to stay there while he ran to the mailbox. I remember the rain running down the pipe and the sound when the rain hit the metal. It seemed like he was gone forever because I couldn’t see him through the rain. But, of course, it wasn’t far and after he got the mail, he stood by me in the culvert and held my hand.
He liked to take me to Vichy with him and it seems like he drove an old black car with runners on the sides. (Reminded me of the pictures of Model T’s or Model A’s, although I can’t imagine it being that old.) (Note: Aunt Alvena informed me that it was a Model T.) The funny thing about that old car is I can remember the huge steering wheel and the way it felt when I played like I was driving; the smell of the leather seats and for some reason, the gear shift knob (I think it was leather too.) I think Grandpa kept the car parked in a shed of some sort. Anyway, back to my Vichy story. He would take me to the old country store...just like the old store in Little House on the Prairie. It had a wooden floor and I think there was a pot belly stove in the corner. He would buy me lemon drops and he would eat horehound candy...that stuff was NASTY tasting!
Mama and I went to church with him in Vichy also. It seems like we sat in the first couple of rows, but I don’t remember much about that although I know Grandpa liked to sing.
I didn’t get to see Grandpa when we were back the summer I was 10. He was pretty sick in a nursing home. We came home in July and two weeks later Mama had to go back for his funeral. He was a great grandpa and I still think of him today with love and I’m looking forward to listening to him play the fiddle the next time I see him in Heaven.
GRANDMA SMITH
What an unbelievably precious lady she was. I didn’t know her very well until I moved to Kirkwood in 1968 and lived in Aunt Juanita and Uncle Al’s basement studio apartment. Grandma lived with them, but by that time she was sick and her memory was bad. She was so precious, she would hold her baby doll and call him James. I remember chasing her down the street because she had decided she was going to "go home."
As a child, my impression of Grandma can be summed up in one word...sweet. She was in Vichy, at their farm, part of the time during the summer I was 10. She always kept a can of bacon grease on the back of the wood cook stove and anytime I would run to her and tell her I was itching around my waist and under my arms, she would tell me I got into a bunch of chiggers. She would dip her hand in the can of bacon grease and slather it all over my waist and under my arms. I smelled like bacon a good part of the time I was on the farm.
She always wore a dress, whistled through her front teeth and worked very hard. One day Mama and Grandma were in the field cutting sprouts and picking up rocks. I was playing beside them. Grandma was further away from my mom and I and Mama told me she had to go to Vichy to buy some sanitary napkins. After she left, Grandma realized she was gone and asked me where she was. When I told her, I remember the look of shock and horror she gave me. She didn’t say a word, but just turned around and went back to work. Later, when I told Mama what happened, she laughed and said "Grandma is very modest and can’t believe you would have any idea what a ‘sanitary napkin’ was, let alone say anything about it."
THE FARM
It was on their farm that I fell in love with horses. I remember Grandpa chasing Red out of the corn crib because he knew how to open the gate and would eat as many corn cobs he could get down before Grandpa came running out of the house, hollering at him. While Red was kinda’ mean (he tried to bite me any time he could) Barney was a sweetheart. (By the way, Red was a red color and Barney was black.) Grandpa stuck me on Barney’s back one day when I was 6 and gave me the reins...Barney decided to go one way and I had no idea what he was doing. He must of known he could get me off his back because off he went under the clothesline. The line caught me under the chin and off I went. I was a little trooper though and got back on him. Grandpa also hitched them up to the wagon and he would haul some of the "grandkids" around. Fun, fun, fun.
I also loved Shep, their dog. He was a collie and loved to play with me. He ended up at Aunt Lavaughn’s after Grandpa got sick and went to the nursing home.
Mama did laundry in a wringer washer in the wash shed. She would then hang the clothes out to dry. One sunny day we had gone to Aunt Alvena’s. Before long, the rain and the wind started. The rain was coming down in bucket loads and the wind was blowing hard. We all went down into the root cellar and when the weather settled down, we came up the steps and outside. Aunt Alvena had lost a big tree by their house. Mama went back to Grandpa’s farm (I stayed where I was for awhile) and because she left the windows opened when we left, the house was full of water and the clothes on the clothesline were a soppy, dirty, mess. It seems to me she got something like seven wash tubs of water off the floor, bedding and curtains.
Grandpa had a barn fairly close to the house and that’s where the cows went at the end of the day. Mama would do the milking and I remember the smell of the warm milk. She would put the milk in a separator and separate the cream. It was never quite as cold as the "real" milk we had at home and nobody could convince me that my milk actually came from a cow. I would go down to the pond where the cows drank their water and throw rocks across it. (Actually, they probably just plopped a couple of feet in front of me.) One day Mama came to the cow pasture and found me licking the salt block. Unfortunately today I would have a salt block in the kitchen if I could get by with it...I still LOVE my salt (even though my blood pressure says I shouldn’t!)
There was a well close to the back porch with a square opening and a bucket tied on a rope. Next to the bucket was tied a silver ladle and when a bucket of water was pulled up, I was there for a wonderful, very cold drink of sweet water from the ladle.
At night, instead of going to the outhouse, we would go to the bathroom in a chamber pot that was under the bed. That was kind of like going to the bathroom in the Sir Walter Raleigh can in the back of the car...I was always afraid I would either miss the pot (or can), pee on my hand or knock the whole thing over. Although the outhouse and the chamber pot smells don’t bring back the best of memories...the experience is one I would never want to be without.
Grandma in her 30s.
I would assume they are on their way to church since Grandma is all dressed up. I'm not sure where this was taken.
This is a different music fest because Grandpa is dressed differently. Aunt Alvena is playing the guitar and Aunt Lavaughn is sitting next to her. (I think that's Aunt Lavaughn anyway.)
