Mom's earliest memories were of her mom hitting her dad with her "big shoe" and he ran her off.
Grandma became addicted to alcohol because of putting whiskey on an aching tooth. (or that was her excuse or reality). Mom was 6 and she lived with her dad and granddad. She had to be the little helper, peeling potatoes for supper. She remember how little the potatoes were after she peeled them and lined them up on the window sill over the sink. Her granddad was a mean and selfish old man who didn't like kids much. They had a cherry tree in the yard and he would scold her for eating the cherries that fell to the ground. The only ones she could reach, of course. He was a classical violinist with one of the orchestras in Chicago.
Her dad decided she really needed some girls to learn from and a woman to teach her more about girls so he asked aunt Nellie (in Chicago) to take her in. She had two girls, Irma and Ora Ritter. They were fun, giggly girls with these very heavy Yankee accents. I remember them. Fun ladies.
She met dad at a dance. They used to have neighborhood dances. She went with her friend, Grace (Auntie Grace) and some guy got a little too friendly with mom and dad either punched him or told him off, but I'm pretty sure she said he got in a fight with him.
She married dad at Crown Point, Indiana.
I remember her dad as a very sweet man. When I was 3 or 4 he would stick his head in the door when he came home (this was after mom and dad were married, of course, and he lived with them). He would let me take his hat off his head and go put it up. I remember hanging it up on some kind of stand. I didn't know him well because he was killed when he stepped out in front of a taxi and it hit him.
Mom had most of her babies at home except for me. Aunt Bessie was there to help.
We had this little house in Chicago Heights Ill. Last time I went to Chicago (about 10 years ago) that house was still there and looked just the same.
She learned to sew from Aunt Nellie. So she would make dolls for us. I remember these two very long legged dolls. Barb and I were sitting in the back yard "painting' little rocking chairs with a brush and water. She tossed them out of the window. We had a nice back yard and Irene (Bob's wife) was a neighbor across the alley and we used to play together. She liked to manage our play so if we didn't do it right she'd go home.
I was in kindergarten when we moved to Beecher. Dad bought a "feed room." It was a little building that a big pile of feed was kept in and the geese and ducks would wander in and help themselves if we left the door open.
He cleaned it out and moved us in and began adding on. After getting three bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and large back porch added, he decided he wanted a basement. So by hand and a bucket he began digging it out and handing the dirt to us.
Mom learned to cook watching TV. She was a good cook. Dad raised chickens, hogs,a cow who had a calf each year that was butchered, as was a pig, and a crop of corn. He raised some tomatoes too but mainly he raised corn and stored it for the animals.
Mom started going to church when "Sister Witlock" came to invite her to a revival. She took us kids faithfully to every service. She made cute dresses from feed sacks.
She kept a clean house with fels naptha soap and a scrub brush.
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