All My Ancestors

Written for 52 Weeks To Better Genealogy – Challenge #7

from Amy Lenertz Coffin at http://wetree.blogspot.com/2010/01/52-weeks-to-better-genealogy.html

Play with Google Maps (http://maps.google.com). This is a helpful tool for determining the locations of addresses in your family history. Where your ancestral homestead once stood may now be a warehouse, a parking lot or a field. Perhaps the house is still there. When you input addresses in Google Maps, don’t forget to use the Satellite View and Street View options for perspectives that put you were right there where your ancestors once stood. If you’ve used this tool before, take sometime and play with it again. Push all the buttons, click all the links and devise new ways it can help with your personal genealogy research. If you have a genealogy blog, write about your experiences with Google Maps, or suggest similar easy (and free) tools that have helped in your own research.

As I’ve written here many times, I come from a family of farmers–persons who had land, for the most part.  Those farms and ranches are no longer in the family.  But I can visit any time I like using Google Map.

My maternal grandparents lived on a ranch in South Dakota.

The main buildings were the house and the barn.  The barn, at the time of this photo, sported my grandad’s brand above the doors, Lazy XY.  The house actually faced north, but this is the southern exposure.  It was too cold in South Dakota to have a north facing entry, so we always used the “back porch” as the entry.

My grandparents had moved most of their things back to Texas by the 1980s–they were in their 80s by then and they first spent winters in Oklahoma and Texas with my folks and my aunt and uncle, and later stayed “in the south” year round.  Shortly before my grandmother died in 1998, the house burned.  We don’t know the details, we just know that it burned to the ground.  In a sense, it was a blessing that the house took care of itself–

When I find myself thinking about the carefree summers I spent at my grandparents’ ranch, I look at my photos, but I also often pull up their place on Google Maps:

I can still see the barn and the tree rows planted east of the house to catch the wind and snow.  A trailer home replaces the house for the family that lives there now.  If I really want to, I can move to the right on the map to “roam” the pasture.  And I can follow the road (306th Ave. on this map) a couple of miles down the hill to the little village of Canning where my grandmother ran the country store and post office, and where we lived the year I was in the 6th grade.

This picture brings back lots of memories.

Over there at the left is the beginning of the spring-fed lakes where we swam in the summer time and ice-skated in the winter.  At the right, the “top” of Cactus Loop, is where the school was.  There was a cemetery behind it and a huge hill down the side.  We sledded in the winter and rolled down in tractor tires in the spring.  Why we weren’t killed is amazing to me.  My grandmother’s store and PO was to the left of the intersection of Chesley Rd and 206th St.  It looks like there’s some sort of barn there now.  Above where Spring St, crosses Chesley St. is the church, with another cemetery behind it.  On up that hill takes me back to my grandparent’s ranch.  See the house at the lower right?  I won’t include the name of the people who live here, but my granddad helped build that house–with someone as particular as he was–they got along fine.  The drilled holes for the nails before they pounded them in–no nail guns here.

I have these places, and others, bookmarked on Google Map.  I like visiting them occasionally.  There’s a country cemetery in Beaver County I like to visit–it’s easy to count the miles as I travel down the road, and I know how many miles and which directions it is to visit where my great Aunt Edna and Uncle Gurly lived, and where my great-grandparents lived out there in Beaver County Oklahoma.

And then I can always “drive-by” the house where I grew up (marked with the small white heart)–it’s a different color now but it’s still located across the street from the high school, between the First Christian Church and the Church of Christ on Jackson Dr., and I can drag Main Street if I’m feeling really nostalgic.

3 Comments »

I spent part of yesterday at Mercy Hospital here in Oklahoma City with my husband.

He asked me if I heard “that lullaby.”  Of course, I hadn’t.  The clamor in the emergency room had me on edge, not to mention just the fact of having to be there.  Hubbo is a minister, among other things, and he is a frequent visitor to the area hospitals.  He told me that the music I hadn’t heard was an announcement that a baby had been born.

Mercy Hospital is huge–I was amazed that they had such a personal touch as announcing the birth of a baby.  Of course, we had no personal information about the new one but somehow just the knowledge that a new life was beginning somewhere in that building was comforting.  I found myself listening to see if I could hear the musical announcement the next time.  And I did.

I also remembered how in the small town where I grew up we would always check the northernmost third floor window at the hospital on Main Street to see if the light was on.  From personal experience, my mom knew that was the labor and delivery room.  So if the window was lit, we knew someone was having a baby.

My friend Richard from ‘The Cheek that Doth Not Fade” welcomed his first grandson into the world Saturday night as we followed along on Facebook.  Yesterday and today it’s been great to see the pictures of the bright-eyed little Sam Andrew.

So announcements of births come in all forms–just thinking about the beginnings of the lives of the persons to whom we will someday be ancestors. 

1 Comment »

Some Osborne Women

Perryton, Ochiltree Co., Texas

home of George M. and Eva Rosemary Osborne Cooper, est. 1963

back row: Winifred Cooper Bozeman, Nancy Bozeman, Eva Osborne Cooper, Mary Parker Graham, Joyce Bozeman

front row:  Fannie Osborne, Inez Osborne Parker.

Fannie, Eva and Inez are sisters and daughters of Charles W. and Gertrude. S. Mobley Osborne.

Winifred is Eva’s daughter, and Nancy and Joyce are Winifred’s daughters.

Mary is Inez’s daughter.

Fannie never married.

No Comments »

My Aunt Dot died 9 September 2008.  She hadn’t been in good health for a very long time.  She was one of two of my dad’s 7 siblings who were still living and since my dad died in 2003, they became even dearer to me.

Aunt Dot and Uncle Jimmy never had children of their own so we nieces and nephews usually felt pretty special.  I still treasure the Fostoria crystal pieces she gave me for my wedding, and I spent time with them back in high school when I was at “camp” at Texas Tech in Lubbock.   One week was photography camp and the next week was yearbook camp–I didn’t see any sense in traveling the 4 hours it would take to get home and then back to Lubbock, so I spent the weekend with them.  They took me out for Mexican food and any other place I wanted to go.  I remember they had a combination washer-dryer–it was all in one machine, a front-loader of some sort.  Coming from my family of 5 I couldn’t believe that anyone could get along with just one machine for washing AND drying.

I’ve always loved this picture of them–possibly on their wedding day in 1950.  Uncle Jim always wore his hat at that angle and Aunt Dot always looked that dressed up (with later subtractions of corsage and hat).

Family members used to say I looked like Aunt Dot–I can certainly see the family resemblance.  I tend to blame my shortness and wideness on my German ancestry, but truth be told, I get some of it from the women in the Osborne family as well.

I always loved it when Aunt Dot and Uncle Jim came to Perryton for Thanksgiving or for Christmas.  They were often driving Uncle Jimmy’s very clean, very spiffy pickup.  (There were only working pickups in my life then–it’s what my dad and all the farmers drove–you didn’t just travel in them.)  Uncle Jim worked for Texas Tech and I’m pretty sure he could build or repair anything.  For a few years he would bring the clay pigeons and device he’d built to “throw” them, along with all the shotgun shells he’d reloaded.  His 6 brothers-in-law and various other relatives entertained themselves for hours out at the farm with his toys–Aunt Dot was in the kitchen bossing and cooking.  She had on her good clothes with an apron and she always smelled good.  I was in awe because she was so dressed up and also, she was one of the few women in my family who worked outside the home.

Part of my dealing with grief is to record the lives and deaths of my loved ones.  I went to www.findagrave.com to post Aunt Dot’s obituary only to find that it had already been posted.  I felt a little robbed, though ultimately I am grateful that there are so many generous folks out there who do that sort of thing in their area.

I didn’t get to attend her funeral–the only one of my dad’s siblings that I didn’t get to go to.  We were getting ready to go to Detroit and I just could not get away and I knew I couldn’t drive that far and back in one day–all the time I had if I really squeezed the calendar.

So now there is one.  My Uncle Ray, at 81, believes he’ll farm another year, because what else would he do?

2 Comments »

After reading couple of posts online about “jobs I’ve had in my life,” I decided it would be a good topic for today.  (I can’t find my camera to post a picture of an heirloom for the Carnival of Genealogy!)

In childhood and junior high, I thought I wanted to be a nurse.  I had a great-aunt who had gone to school to be an LVN as an adult and I admired her a lot.  I still can make hospital corners on a bed thanks to her–one of life’s really useful skills.    I also read a lot of Cherry Ames as a child–then I hit chemistry class as a high school sophomore.  That did it–I knew the nursing curriculum was not for me.  Looking back on it, I should have recognized that the appeal for me of Cherry’s adventures probably had more to do with her solving mysteries than with her nursing skills.

The first regular paying job I remember was working at one of two of the dry cleaners in my hometown during the summer.  My mom was working there and the owner had a daughter my age so it was familiar.  I didn’t work much but I do remember being very tired after standing on cement floors all day–Mom had to get really stern one day after I’d come home from work, fallen asleep, and didn’t want to get up to go to the basement for the tornado coming our way.  The dry-cleaners had a drive-up window where I took in items to be cleaned and dispensed the spic and span ones.  The worst “take-ins” were floor to ceiling drapes from the house of some heavy smokers and the laundry of one of the harvest crews in town.  ick!  The other thing I remember from this job is that I folded shirts on a machine–the first step was to button the front and put the neck down into a cutout that had 3 knobs in it.  After the shirt was “installed” and smoothed, I hit the button that made the 3 knobs move out to make a triangle of the shirt collar.  One man in town had shirts with necks so large the machine wouldn’t touch the collar, so we had to improvise for his.  It seemed like magic to me each time I then hit the lever that made the rest of the shirt fold up and I put it in the plastic bag.  At least I didn’t have to iron them!

Another job I had about this time was helping my Grandmother Osborne clean her house–looking back on it, it’s sort of an interesting proposition.  She wasn’t a warm and fuzzy grandmother, but I find my myself wishing I’d paid more attention.  One of my jobs was to help her wash down the walls around the chair where my grandfather sat smoking unfiltered Old Golds.  The walls were actually sticky and yellow.  We also took down, washed, ironed, and re-hung the curtains.  I don’t remember much else, but I do remember that she would write me a check for my “labors.”  I wasn’t used to being paid for helping out around the house, but I think that was my grandmother’s way of telling me she appreciated my help and that what women did was important as well.  I wish I had a copy of those checks–I’d still like to know if she had her own account and just how she and my grandfather handled the household funds.

When I got to college, I worked in the college print shop.  That was probably one of my favorite jobs of all time.  We worked in a really old building, and this was the early 1970s, before the days of ubiquitous photocopying machines.  So nearly everything that was printed at the college went through our shop.  We often knew the scoop before the rest of the campus because we didn’t fail to take a look at what we were printing.    I didn’t actually run one of the presses, but I think I could have.  Rather I was responsible for burning the plates, which sometimes included taping in negatives of photos–doing the layout.  I had a desk with a top over it to shield the lightbox a bit and I wielded my exacto knife with precision.  Then there was the folding machine–which my friend got her hair caught in one day–and the huge paper cutter that could cut reams of paper at once.  I started out making $.90 an hour and then somehow the student rate was raised to a whole $1.00.  It paid enough to keep me in Diet Dr. Pepper and Tab, as I recall, and the occasional dinner out at El Charrito ($.98 for the enchilada dinner on Wednesdays).

My other college job was being editor of the yearbook.  For being selected for this position, I got free tuition for up to 18 hours a semester.  I’m sure my folks appreciated that break in their tuition payments.

Summers and Christmas breaks I sometimes worked at Corner Drug in my hometown–doing inventory, cleaning out files, wrapping packages, doing extra duty on the floor during the last frenzied days of Christmas shopping.  My most useful skill from these days is that I know how to make a ribbon rose, the trademark of packages from Corner Drug in those days.

My first professional job was teaching junior high school.  The year after I graduated from college, 1973, I worked at a graduate assistant while earning my masters degree.  I taught a 7:30 am class then then went on to my junior high school day.  I usually had classes after school–how did I do that?  Much younger!  I taught 7th grade speech and I was glad for the job–I worked out in what we called the t-building (“T” for temporary) and those were the only classrooms that were air-conditioned.  The last hour of the day, I had to go back into the main building and teach yearbook.  I loved doing the yearbook but it was hot in that second-floor classroom.  This was also the year I took on my first debt–I went to the credit union to get a loan to buy a washer and dryer.  The house where I was living had hook-ups and I hated going to the laundromat.

I got married the summer after my first year of teaching, and midway through my second year, my husband and I moved to a small town in western Oklahoma.  He pastored the church and I languished–I was way too unprepared for the expectations of being “the preacher’s wife.”  The only question I remember being asked by the board when we interviewed was whether I played the piano.  I did not–probably the only wife of a Nazarene minister not to do so, but, trust me, being a minister’s wife had never been one of my goals.  I thought I was marrying a history teacher/bus driver.

Part of what helped me during that time is that I worked part time at a flower shop.  This was a small town but it had a large hospital that drew people from the panhandles of Okahoma, Texas and southwestern Kansas.  Until my boss put in his shop, there’d only been one florist in town.  So we were the new kids in town.  We were very busy.  I remember being ankle deep in clippings from corsages and bouquets on Mother’s Day.  The other thing I remember about working there is that there was a significant Seventh Day Adventist population in the area.  Their faith discouraged them from buying and selling on their sabbath, so about 1 hour before closing time on Saturdays, the phone would start ringing.  They allowed as much of their sabbath to pass as possible before they placed their orders.  Then we had to scurry to get them done and out the door before being closed for Sunday.  Other memories of this time include our boss getting married and our having to do the flowers–talk about pressure!!

We moved back to Oklahoma City after about a year when I got an offer to apply for a teaching position at our alma mater.  I got the job with the proviso that I would start graduate school and earn a PhD, which I readily agreed to.  The next few years are a blur–we lived in the men’s dorm where my husband was the resident counselor, we had a son, and I continued teaching fulltime and going to school.  I had no idea what I was doing in grad school–I could certainly do the classwork, but I had a hard time grasping a vision of what I was doing beyond meeting the requirement for teaching at the college.  Time moved on, we bought a house, re-did it, had another son, my husband finished grad school, sometimes commuting 150 miles 3 times a week, and I grew restless, thinking I was never going to finish my dissertation.  I had no problem finishing my coursework but not having the discipline of class meetings to write, I soon began to feel like I wasn’t going to make it.  I took a sabbatical from teaching and determined I was going to finish–therapy also helped.    I was an avoidant personality–oh, really?  I remember taking my 6 year old to school one morning during this time and noticing that he was distressed.  When I inquired, asking him what was wrong, he replied, “I don’t know what I’m going to do my dissertation on.”  yikes!!  I assured him that not everyone in the world had to do a dissertation, and resolved to be a little less transparent about my struggle.  (Just this week he started his own graduate program!)

I was stuggling, too, at the college.  Women were not very high on the list of valuable human beings at that place–it was very paternalistic, reflecting its religious roots.  I was growing more and more dissatisfied with the whole conservative religion thing–I’d traveled to Russia as a sponsor of a mission trip with abut 50 college students and was treated like an underling–told to go to a meeting with the students when the rest of the (male) sponsors went out on the town in Budapest.  I’d been able to move into working in the degree completion program for adults and that had helped me some, but I just didn’t see staying at the college for the rest of my life–as I did when I started.

So, with a newly minted PhD, finally, and a great deal of disagreement from my husband, I quit my job there.  I worked as a GA again, this time in the school of library and information studies at the University of Oklahoma.  It was small-time wages but I felt like I had to re-tool.  My library studies classes merged nicely with my communication studies.  I was offered the assistant dean’s job in the library school, which I accepted.  Commuting 35 miles to Norman everyday was not great, but my mantra was “I am the mother of teen-aged sons; time alone in the car is not the worst part of my day.”  I got a cell phone for emergency calls, most of which entailed some variation of “What’s for supper, Mom?”

I worked at OU 3 years–then I decided I wanted to work in a library–what I’d gone back to school for.  I actually didn’t get a couple of jobs I thought were shoo-ins for me.  I had this great academic background but no academic libraries seemed interested.  Just as well.  I hired on in the large public library system in town and became manager of the Downtown agency about a year and a half after I started.  I learned a whole lot during that process–we built a new building, installed the internet, went through a couple of directors, and about 9.5 years later, I knew it was time for another change.  I’d gotten too old to dread going to work each day, to work for a person who was a nit-picker and who was never going to give me the support and freedom I needed to do my job.  Besides, I found myself at the same age my mother was when she was diagnosed with the cancer that finally took her life, and I knew that I didn’t want to spend the next 10 years of my life there if my life-path happened to follow my mother’s.

For the first time in my adult life, I wasn’t working.  The first six months were great, but then I began to become the hermit that I am prone to be.  My friend at the library at the state historical society asked me if I wanted to work a few days a week, and I agreed.  I’ve worked there about 2 years as a library-tech–and it’s been great.  It’s the sort of job you don’t have to take home with you.  I’ve recently been “promoted” to replace the librarian who has left–I’ll have some supervisory duties and work 4 days a week.  Part of me wishes I could have just kept the tech position, but this is the library that got me started in my genealogical adventures and where my volunteer time convinced me I wanted to go back to school to earn an MLIS.  So maybe this is my give-back time.  We’ll see.

That’s my history of labor–it’s fascinating to look back and see how fortunate I’ve been to be able to nearly always work in a job that I love–that involves information and communication and research of some sort.  And, as I always told my seniors at the college and a few people since–it’s not the degree, it’s the skills.  Market your skills.

1 Comment »

The current challenge to us genea-Bloggers is from Lori at Smoky Mountain Family Historian, to write about some of the stores where we used to shop that are no more.

I have lots of ammo for this one as I grew up in a small rural town before malls.  We had a true Main Street lined with home-owned stores.  My “city-slicker” husband always says it has to be the widest Main Street in the country–it is pretty wide–4 lanes with andled parking on both sides.  It’s Texas State Highway 83 and there are no curves. 

All the buildings are still there but they have morphed into other businesses.  I could write about Malone’s, the children’s store where we went for our shoes and my school dresses, or at least the ones my mom didn’t sew for me.  They had one of those x-ray machines to check your shoes–was it a Buster Brown product? Maybe that accounts for all my foot problems at this point in my life. 

Then there was McClellan’s–truly an old-fashioned dime store.  Everytime I see take-out boxes for Asian food, I remember that I first knew those boxes as the transport for goldfish purchased at the dime store.  (You could also buy baby turtles with decals on their backs and at Easter time, baby chicks or ducks.  PETA would not have approved!)  I remember wooden floors and fans from the ceiling–I remember thinking that ceiling fans were a really cool idea and wondered why people didn’t have them in their houses.  It was also the place to buy records–the vinyl kind–remember those? 

Bryan’s Food Store, on the north end of Main, was where we bought our groceries–there was a real butcher’s case there, a ledge in the front window where people sometimes sat to pass the time with Mr. or Mrs. Bryan or Edith who were checking–it also served as the place to store boxes waiting to be filled with our purchases.  The office was at the back, about 1/2 a floor above the main shopping area–I can still smell the baskets of Lava soap and the dusty potatoes. 

Next door to the grocery store was cousin Delbert’s barbershop.  This place was considered a little shady because my mom suspected he kept “girlie magazines” for his customers.  I’m surprised she actually sometimes let my brothers go next door unaccompanied for their haircuts while she and I did the grocery shopping.  I loved the smell of the butch wax when they came out with their fresh buzz-cuts.  And bubble gum.  Life wasn’t fair for girls in my small town!

But the store I want to write about for this post is Plainview Hardware.  I did a google search on this phrase just to see what would come up and I was pleased and shocked to find that it has some sort of historical landmark status in Texas, with this restored WW II sign mentioned in most of the write-ups.  I also learned that the same folks owned the adjoining Perryton Furniture store–you can see part of the letters for that store in this same picture.

Think of every part for every appliance and machine that existed in the 1960s as well as a full range of kitchen ware, including cooking and serving, and you have Plainview Hardware.  Whatever you needed, they had it.  I graduated college in 1973.  Sometime shortly after that one of my friends broke the basket in her Pyrex coffee maker. 

She was lamenting not being able to use her coffee pot–and she was really attached to it.  This was after electric percolators were available, but before Mr. Coffee was very popular.  But Lori took great pride in using her stove-top pot to brew coffee.  I knew I could save the day.  I went to Plainview Hardware on one of my trips home, and sure enough, they had the glass surround for the basket.  She couldn’t believe it when I brought it back to her.  I was so proud to shock this world-wise friend from southern California!  My dad brought me wire from there for my tomato plants, my mom bought shower gifts as well as her own snack sets she and the other church ladies would pool for wedding and baby showers.  It was like a general store without the groceries.

 I never tired of wandering the aisles and looking at all the different nuts and bolts and washers and nails and chain and pipes and dishes and pyrex coffee pots and parts.  There was, of course, some distant connections to the people who ran the store–the man was from the family one of my great aunts had married into and then divorced, and the woman was the aunt of one of my best friends–and they lived within sight of our house.  Home Depot just doesn’t hold the same charm. 

The only other store that evokes many memories due to the variety of things available there is what used to be known as Corner Drug.  After I went to college, my mother went to work there and as a result, we had all sorts of decorative items–my sisters-in-law still use the leaded glass pitchers and my sons have the Fitz and Floyd dishes.  I worked there during summer and Christmas holidays–usually wrapping packages at Christmas and floor duty in the summers.  I sold magazines and paperbacks and perfume and band-aids and candle-sticks.  This is the place I remember seeing my first Barbie doll.  It was, too, of course, the place we got our prescriptions filled–in later years, they delivered.  Clerks kept kept tablets under each cash register–if a person asked for something the store didn’t stock, the clerk wrote it down and by the next time the customer came in, it was on the shelf.  The store’s services included selling some sort of hair tonic with “Alligator” in the name that the old guys had to ask for from behind the counter–it was the town’s answer to being a dry county but having some customers who couldn’t make it to the state line 7 miles away for their alcohol fix.

My husband asked me the other day if I wanted to retire “back home.”  I told him I really wasn’t interested in living in that small town, but I am (mostly) glad I grew up there.

6 Comments »

Here’s my response to Miriam’s AnceStories2 prompt for this session, “The Doctor”  

*Who was your doctor or health practitioner when you were growing up?

When I was a child, my doctor was “Dr. Roy.” At that time, there were only 2 doctors in town, I think.  Dr. Kengle had his own hospital and had delivered me, but I found in the county history that he started practicing in 1929, so I think he was probably retired shortly after my birth.  I rdo emember being in that hospital as a child–one of my aunt’s worked there.  I don’t remember why I was there, I don’t think it was for an appointment.  But I remember that it was built more like house.  It had wooden floors.  The building was later the local USDA office–pretty appropriate for the small rural town I grew up in.

Dr. Roy’s hospital was on Main Street and was a 3-story building.  I can still smell what it was like.  One of my brothers now has an office in the basement of that building–a few weeks ago we went up to the first floor.  It really still looked the same–the pharmacy, the waiting room, the two halls that the receptionist sat in front of.  It was all office space now but I could still see the hospital there.  We rode up to the first floor on the elevator–probably the first one I’d ever seen as a child.  I remember going to visit my dad in that hospital–he’d had to have an appendectomy.  Hospital rules prevented me from visiting him, but for some reason, they brought him down on the elevator and I got to see him.  He was in a hospital bed and I don’t remember getting to be very close, but somehow just getting to see him and have him speak to me made me feel better.  It was amazing being in that space again–somewhere in the late 1960s the county built a new hospital on the outskirts of town–probably about the time Dr. Roy retired.

So with that move to a new hospital, we could no longer tell by driving down Main Street whether someone was having a baby.  On the top floor on the north end of the building was the labor and delivery room, according to my mom, who ought to have known.  If the lights were on, we knew there would soon be another citizen of our area.  It was one of those rituals we always went through when we drove down Main Street.

*How often did you go to the doctor? Every year for a check-up, or just when you were ill?

I remember going only when I was sick, which wasn’t very often, and when I had to get vaccinations for school.

*Did you have a lot of illnesses as a child? Or were you fairly healthy?

I must have been fairly healthy.  The only childhood illness I can remember having is the mumps in the second grade–I still have the “get well” cards my class made, drawn on that thick now-crumbling paper we used for art in our classrooms in those days.  Earlier, I know I also had the chickenpox and have the scars to prove it, but I don’t remember having them.  The family story is that I got them from my brother who’d been hospitalized with the croup–he came home with chickenpox.

*Did you have any injuries (broken bones) or surgeries? Have you ever had to be hospitalized?

Not as a child, and it’s a miracle, really.  My brother built tree houses and I would help him and then sort of take them over for my own purposes–usually reading.  And we would walk the top of the corrall fence, which was essentially a 2″ x 4″ several feet in the air.  Grandad’s barn was always fun, too–despite dire warnings, we climbed to the top of the hay bales stacked to the top of the barn.  And if he was in the field for the day, we ventured onto the roof of the barn.  I only had brothers and there were only boys in my neighborhood so playing rough was part of my growing up.  My brothers ended up with stitches but I managed to escape with neither stitches nor broken bones.

*What specialists did you have to see?

I never saw a specialist of any type and I don’t remember anyone else having to see one.  Except maybe my cousins might have seen one because they had to wear special shoes.  I’m not sure that as a child I was aware of specialists.

*Did you have to see an optometrist and/or wear glasses?

We always had health screenings at school.  I remember the year I couldn’t read the eye chart–I was in the fifth grade.  So off to Dr. Nowlin’s.  His son was in my class and the last time I checked, he was the town optometrist, following in his father’s footsteps.  My first glasses were pink cat frames.  So cool.

*Was going to the doctor a pleasant or unpleasant experience? Share both your most unpleasant and your favorite medical memories.

I was always scared when I had to go to the doctor.  Probably because it wasn’t any sort of regular event.  My most unpleasant childhood medical memory is getting my diphtheria vaccination.  Those were the years when they stuck your arm repeatedly and then an awful scab almost the size of a dime appeared.  I still remember thinking the nurse wasn’t ever going to stop sticking me and I find myself checking the upper arms of people about my age for a similar scar.

I don’t remember any particularly pleasant experiences, except I do have this vivid image of sitting in the waiting room at Dr. Roy’s hospital, reading magazines.  I think the floor was those green tiles of linoleum and the chairs were red vinyl–it was the 1950s after all.  In my mind, I think I remember reading an article about Twiggy, but she was hot in 1966 and that was kind of late for me to have been at that hospital.  I don’t know–I just remember there were always lots of interesting reads in the waiting room.  We always had the newspaper at home and we went to the library, but there weren’t the glossy magazines that were in the waiting room.  It was a peek into a world I didn’t have much access to.

*As an adult, how do your current medical experiences compare with those of your childhood?

Probably the biggest difference is that I try to do “preventative maintenance” with fairly regular visits to the doctor.  I’ve had surgeries, including knee replacements and a couple of C-sections, with two healthy sons to show for it.  I use health insurance which is not something my parents dealt with until I insisted.

*Do you still see the same doctor?

Dr. Roy is long deceased and I am long gone from my home town.  About 8 years ago, my physician of 30 years retired–much to my distress.    He certainly deserved some time with his family without the stress of his practice, but I felt pretty abandoned.  I shopped around until I found a good replacement–I was careful to look for one younger than me (easier and easier to do these days) so I don’t have to go through the retirement trauma again.  

*What kinds of health problems are prevalent in your family? Are there any genetic diseases of which your relatives should be made aware? How have you attempted to avoid these risks or diseases?

The two diseases I know of that may be genetic are arthritis and heart disease.  I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis at a fairly young age (35) when I weighed what I should.  I had to have my first knee replacement 20 years later–again, a bit young for such an intervention.  My weight is more than it should be, but I also know that my dad and many of his cousins had knee and/or hip replacements.  Both of their grandmothers were in wheel chairs because of arthritis.  When I first visited him for my knees, the osteopath asked me if there was some sort of cartilege disease in my family–there very well could be but as far as I know, it has never been diagnosed.

My paternal grandmother’s family has strokes and my paternal grandfather’s family has heart disease.  That said, my grandmother lived to be 83 (she did have a stroke a few years before her death) and my grandfather lived to be 93.  And my grandfather smoked unfiltered Old Gold cigarettes until his late 80s. 

And then there’s my mother who had breast cancer despite there being none in the family.  Her mother lived to be 92!

So I eat healthy and attempt to be active.  I’m not as active as I should be but I’m doing better since my knees no longer hurt.  My weight is more than it should be, but my “numbers” are good–no high blood pressure and decent cholesterol.  I cannot discount fate’s role in my health.

*Are there any doctors, surgeons, specialists, nurses or other health practitioners in your family, or in your ancestry?

I have a sister-in-law and a niece who are nurses–they do not currently practice, but it’s nice to have them available as “resources.”

My fourth great-grandfather was evidently a country doctor.  William Greene Ball was born about 1808 in New York City, trained for his medical career in Clark County, Indiana, and practiced for many years in Warren County, Iowa until his death in 1881.  He’s referred to in the family as “Dr. Ball.”    I have a couple of his “recipes” for various ailments.

*Are there any stories about certain medical problems or injuries, or about interactions with medical practitioners that have been handed down through the generations?

My dad was always proud to have had Dr. Denton Cooley (whom his staff called “LJ” for “Little Jesus”) do a valve replacement on his heart.  My mother’s family didn’t have much use for “doctoring.”  My grandad on that side had a pacemaker implanted and never went back to the doctor–until about 25 years later when the battery was apparently run down.  And the other family story is of “Ol Doc Smith” who came to the family home in Beaver County, Oklahoma, in the early 1930s when my great-grandmother drank carbolic acid.  He left a signed death certificate there because he didn’t think she’d live until morning but left instructions to try feeding her raw eggs to cause her to throw up the acid.  She lived through that episode but was untimately successful in taking her life.  I don’t know where Doc Smith was based, but I do know my grandparents lived several miles out in the middle of nowhere, so he must have truly been a country doctor who made house calls on those dusty roads.

Thank you again to Miriam Midkiff for her prompt down another memory lane.

No Comments »

This post is written in respnse to Miriam Midkiff’s prompt at her AnceStories2 site.

I have bad teeth.

Who knows why?  My dad had terrible teeth–he said they were “chalky.”  Supposedly he didn’t assimilate calcium.  I don’t know who made that diagnosis but I do know he didn’t have good teeth.  He had dentures fairly early.  I don’t know if he went to the dentist as a child, but I doubt it.  He was one of 8 children, born in 1929, and reared in a fairly rural area.  I just don’t think he would have been taken to a dentist–there may not have even been one there.  (Isn’t it amazing what you don’t know about your own parents and hometown once you start this sort of a project?)

I do remember being taken to the dentist as a child.  I guess somehow my mom got the word that it was important–I happen to know her own mother didn’t go until she was well into her 70s.  And then the dentist pulled the wrong tooth!  I’m pretty sure she didn’t go back.  My aunt, another daughter of my grandmother who didn’t go to the dentist until she was 70+, was also an adult before she went to the dentist.  When he told her to spit, she didn’t realize she needed to lean over the little bowl at the side.  I’m sure that dentist wondered where this rube had come from.  My mom inherited her own mother’s good teeth but she didn’t pass them down to me. 

I do remember Mom taking my brother and I to the dentist’s office–it was across the street from the library–probably my most important landmark in my hometown.  I really don’t remember anything about the visit except that the dentist was a youngish family man, new to town, and his name was Kelso.  This would have been in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  I started school in 1956, so maybe I went as a part of getting ready for school, though I’m not all that sure he was there that early.  Perryton was the sort of place where everyone knew everyone else–there were generations of families there and of course the “new dentist” was a novelty in town.

This prompt has been rolling around in my head since I first read it.  I had to think long and hard about how I wanted to address this posting.  The difficult part is that what I remember most about my dental history is that Dr. Kelso and his entire family–his wife and their two children–were killed in a plane crash.  I had somewhere in my memory that it happened during a holiday but I had no idea of a precise date. 

I started looking to see what I could find to document my faint memories.  Imagine my surprise when I found the 4 Kelso death certificates indexed as 27 November 1963 for the date of death–just 4 days after the JFK assassination.  No wonder the memory from that time is blurred and dark.  I was in the 7th grade in November 1963,  12 years old going on 13.  

I didn’t go back to the dentist until I was in high school, by which time I had 16 cavities!  I remember the dentist sounding pretty shocked when he delivered that news–as was I.  He filled those teeth, 4 at a time, over the next few months.  I ended up with a mouth full of silver fillings.  Shortly after that, I had to have my wisdom teeth out.  That same dentist took them out, two at a time, the first pair while I was still in high school and the last two after I was in college.  (As I recall, the reason mom didn’t take me there to begin with was that he was an older practitioner and had a reputation for being kind of rough.  But he did so much to preserve my teeth, I’ve always been grateful.  I don’t remember him being hard on my mouth–I think I had a fairly realistic understanding that filling 16 cavities wasn’t going to be a cake-walk.  I’d already been on too many of those.)  I remember steeling myself for having my wisdom teeth pulled, but it really wasn’t bad.  I begged my mom to let me go out the evening after I’d had the first 2 removed–I think I won that one and don’t remember any ill effects.

As it happens, I went to the dentist today and he reminded me that I have one more of those “old silver fillings.”  I started going to my current dentist, whom I love, in the mid 1980s–he was fresh out of dental school and he was amazed that those fillings from 1967 or so were still in there and doing as well as they were.  The worst tooth, one of my molars, which ended up with more filling than tooth, plus 3 others, now have crowns.  And there was a root canal or two along the way.  But one of those fillings, now 40+ years old, is still serving the purpose. 

I don’t mind going to the dentist–I guess I just made up my mind that I was going to spend lots of time in the dental chair and I might as well deal with it.  Nothing will ever be as bad as going to that dentist who found 16 cavities.  My dental hygienist today asked me if I drank coffee, and if I flossed.  I do drink coffee–lots of it, so my teeth show it.  And I try to floss but my crowns are so tight it usually breaks the floss.  So I brush religiously and use tartar control toothpaste and do pretty well.  I haven’t had a cavitiy in years–course, it’s sort of difficult to get cavities in those crowns.  Thank goodness.

 

 

 

 

1 Comment »

I’m late this week doing Miriam’s “assignment.” I think I spent too much time worrying about the prompt from last week–about diversity. From reading her blog, it looks like I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t particularly comfortable writing about my family’s views on social diversity and civil rights. It’s not a pretty picture and I like to think I’ve moved past those opinions.

So I am writing about games because we played lots of them.

*Did you have a regular game night or family night?

No. Our family of 5 didn’t play games all that much, but when we got together with other family members, we always played cards (with grandparents) or dominoes or Monopoly (with cousins).

*What games (board, card, dice, or acting out) did your family enjoy? Was there a favorite you played time after time?

I wish I had a dime for every game of Pitch, Gin, and Spades I’ve played. We had such fun–my husband had never played cards and when he got acquainted with my grandparents, he learned to play. My grandmother thought he was unnaturally lucky and would throw salt at him or back around his chair to make him think she could break his luck. The rest of us were usually collapsed on the table with laughter and my husband was just amazed that my grandmother could be that crazy.

We also played Yahtzee a lot, Aggravation (marbles), Sorry, and also dominoes. I remember learning to play Clue and playing it obsessively one South Dakota summer with my friend Lois. We’ve also played our share of Trivial Pursuit. This past Thanksgiving, we played a game called Apples to Apples which was great fun–I gave it to a couple of people for Christmas.

*Did your family have a family or game room? What was it like? What kind of game equipment did it have (foosball, pool table, etc.)?

No game room. We just set up the card tables in the living room or den–my brother has made an Aggravation board, and he’s also made this cool 8 sided, felt covered topper for a card table for cards or dominoes.

*Do you have any funny stories or a particular memory (good or bad) that stands out of game-playing time?

See the story about my grandmother and my husband above.

*Were there any games you disliked? Why?

To this day, I don’t like to play Monopoly because of bad memories. The great aunt and uncle we lived near by had one daughter and 8 grandkids. Those grandkids knew how to rumble, and when they came to visit, I inevitably got roped into playing Monopoly with the boys (there were only 2 girls in the bunch) and my brothers. I was sure they were cheating–which, translated, probably meant I was losing. Later, my husband and sons played Monopoly–I wouldn’t play–and the same level of emotion often “erupted” from that game. So I avoid it. Let’s face it–I work for non-profits.

*Were there any games that were not allowed to be played? Why?

The only thing I can remember is that my grandmother went through phases of thinking it wasn’t “ok” to play cards. It sort of depended on what preacher she’d heard recently. As she got older, and also as we begged her, she would play with gusto.

My husband had never played cards nor had he played any game with dice. He said his mother would make a spinner for any game that required the throw of dice to move ahead. He soon mastered both cards and dice. Don’t tell his mom.

*Did your parents have a regular night when they would play games or cards with friends or extended family?

No, though I do have a very early memory of going to some people’s house who were high-school friends of my parents. They played cards, but I only remember that happening once.

*Did you ever have game nights with groups, clubs, or neighbors on a regular basis?

No.

*Was game playing associated with certain annual events, like holidays, birthdays, or vacation times?

Our game playing tends to be centered around the holidays when we were all together. The past few years, it is Thanksgiving.

*What kinds of snacks and beverages were enjoyed during game playing?

The times we played with grandparents, we often had popcorn. (See my story about popping corn with my grandfather and friend here.) My granddad was also particularly fond of ice cream, to “cool your belly.” My sisters-in-law usually have some yummy snacks–almonds, M&Ms, and those butter-soaked crackers with chocolate chips melted on top and sprinkled with nuts.

*Were there prizes awarded to game winners or even to losers? What kinds? Did everyone chip in towards purchasing the prizes?

No prizes. Just bragging rights.

*Did your family or you ever do jigsaw puzzles? What’s the largest–in terms of number of puzzle pieces–jigsaw puzzle you’ve completed?

We don’t do this so much any more but we used to. I remember having one one year that was too big to fit on the card-table. One of the doctor’s office I go to often has a jig-saw puzzle out on a table–I often find myself working on it and thinking about the times we used to do them as a family.

*What did you do with completed puzzles? Did you display them or simply put them away?

They went back in the box and probably then to the thrift shop.

*What about puzzles such as crosswords, cryptograms, or others found in puzzle books? Are you a Sudoku fiend?

My mom and I used to race to see who could get to the crossword puzzle in the newspaper first. And it was a standing joke in our family that Dad knew the most esoteric things. When I asked my own husband some question about a long-ago political party, and he knew the answer was “Locofoco,” I knew the torch had been passed.

One of my brothers likes crosswords and the other likes cryptograms. One of my sons does Sudoku–I’ve avoided them as I’m afraid of getting another obsession.

*Did you ever go to an arcade and play pinball machines or other arcade-style games? Or did you ever shoot pool?

There were pinball machines at the bowling alley in the little town where I grew up, and the bowling alley was one of the approved places to go. I liked playing pinball. I don’t remember playing pool until I went to college, and then it was at the home of the dean of the fairly conservative college I attended. fun!

*Do you remember seeing your first video game, either in an arcade or on a television (Pong, Atari or early Nintendo games)?

I remember playing Pong on an early Apple personal computer. We had one in the department where I taught–it was out for anyone to play so we could “get over” any anxiety we had about computers. What a good idea.

*What kinds of video games did you like to play, if any? Do you play any now (gaming station or handheld)?

I quit playing video games a long time ago–I used to play Mario Brothers–on my computer. Those games have long out-stripped my abilities. This past Christmas holiday, I was laying in bed, listening to my now adult sons out in the living room playing Wii–they were having a good time and I was having a good time listening to them.

*What was your first computer game? Do you ever play computer games now, either on your computer or online?

I think my first computer game was probably Pong. I do occasionally play Bejeweled, Text-Twist, Freecell, Solitaire, and Zuma–mostly games my son installed on my computer and got me hooked on. I don’t play online. Too chicken.

*What about the present? Does your family or do you personally play games or do puzzles? Do you participate in game nights with others, such as poker or Bunco?

We tend to play games only at holidays when we’re all together. My oldest son and I occasionally do crosswords–

*Here are some other game ideas to write about: lawn games (horseshoes, croquet, badminton); kid games (marbles, jacks); betting, casino games, and bingo; party games (pinata, pin the tail on the donkey), etc.

I loved playing jacks as a kid. I can still smell the heat coming off the building and sidewalk where we sat in second grade playing game after game of jacks at recess. I was pretty good–I think I had fairly good hand-eye coordination. I can remember playing horseshoes occasionally in South Dakota–I could never get the hang of it. I did master shuffleboard–the best minister at our little church when I was a teen put a shuffleboard game and a ping-pong table in the church basement. I wonder how I kept from letting loose with the swear words then?

*What do you know about your parents’, grandparents’, or perhaps even great-grandparents’ game playing? Do you remember them saying anything about games they played when they were young?

My maternal grandparents played cards. And they also talked about playing baseball and basketball at their country school. My grandmother was supposedly pretty good–or maybe it was just my granddad’s romantic memories. He always talked about how good she was. Somehow I don’t think my paternal grandparents would have played games–but I just don’t know.

*Do you have any photos of either your present or your childhood families playing games? What about ancestral photos?

I have lots of pics of us playing cards and various other games. Here’s one from last Thanksgiving–Aggravation on the homemade board. Sadly, no ancestral photos.

1 Comment »

In keeping with my plan to respond to other bloggers’ challenges or questions, here’s my response to Miriam Midkiff‘s prompts over at AnceStories2. The theme is winter.

* What has been your attitude toward winter? Is it “the weather outside is frightful” or “let it snow, let it snow, let it snow”?

Comparatively, I like winter more than summer because I don’t like to be hot. I don’t dread it and I’m not particularly afraid to drive in wintry weather. Maybe that comes from having grown up in the Texas panhandle where winters could be fierce but not all that long–and there were chores to be done no matter the weather so staying in the house all the time was not an option. (Not that I had to do the chores, but Dad was out there come rain or shine or snow.)

*What are or were your favorite outdoor winter activities? Some ideas to jog your memory include sledding, skiing, skating, snowshoeing, snowball fights, or making snowmen. Where did you go to do these activities? Did you ever have an accident participating in any of the more active sports?

Of course we had to make a snowman when we were kids if we got enough snow to do so. I also remember my brothers and the neighborhood boys making snow forts–we even had them on the playground at school for a few days one winter. We could hardly wait to get out there, install ourselves in our respective forts and let the snowballs fly.

I have never skiied–not too many opportunities in the panhandle, though some of the area families used to travel to Red River or Taos to ski. My winter sports were mainly done in South Dakota at my grandparents’ place. We ice skated on the companion pond to the where we swam in the summer–I loved ice skating even if my ankles weren’t really cooperative. And we nearly always went sledding or tobaggonning. Somewhere in the family archives are some wonderful home movies of us all out on the hills taken about 1953. My dad, who would have been a very young 24 or so, was attempting to go down the hill on a grain scoop. He had the handle out front using is as a steering mechanism. Needless to say, there were lots of accidents on the slopes that day, but it looks like we were having a lot of fun.

*What are or were your favorite indoor winter activities? Did you play board games or cards, listen to the radio or watch TV, do puzzles or needlework, read books and magazines, or write letters, journals, or stories?

I’ve always read, no matter the weather. We didn’t have tv when I was growing up–not that it wasn’t available, but my mother thought it was “not a good influence.” I’m pretty sure it would have been no worse that the attitudes and words that were produced when my brothers and I played a game of Monopoly. But even today, when we get together at Thanksgiving or Christmas, there are card games and/or dominoes going on, and usually a really big jig-saw puzzle set up on a table over to the side.

*What do you remember about winter clothing in your childhood? Do you have any stories to tell about long johns, snow suits or snow pants, a favorite or unfavorite pair of boots? Did you wear a pair of mittens with a string connecting them around your neck?

The main thing this part of the prompt makes me remember is Bill Cosby’s routine on “Idiot Mittens.” I suppose you have to be of a certain age to remember that and smile.

*Did anyone ever make you hats, scarves, mittens or sweaters to wear? Were they knitted or crocheted?

No one in my family knitted or crocheted. I do remember getting this “wonderful” mohair sweater for Christmas about 1967–we’re all standing out in the South Dakota winter sun and snow having our picture made. Everyone’s all bundled up except me–I’m proudly displaying my gold fuzzy sweater and brown stirrup pants. Those were the days!

*What were your favorite winter foods or drinks? Some ideas include soups, stews, casseroles, hot chocolate, tea, or hot buttered rum.

I don’t remember winter food being much different than the rest of the year. After they retired from spending winters in South Dakota and would be at my aunt and uncle’s, my grandmother would make stew that was delicious. The last bite was always a kicker because she inevitably sneaked in a little cayenne pepper, which settled to the bottom. And Grandad would do his popcorn thing, so I guess those are my main memories of winter food.

*How about the cold? Did you ever get frostbite? Did you ever take a dare and stick your tongue on something metal? Was your bedroom cold at night in the winter? How did you stay warm at night…with an electric blanket, a bedwarming pan, or hot potatoes at the foot of your bed under the covers?

I don’t think I ever officially got frostbite, but I think I came close. The year I was in the 6th grade we lived in South Dakota and my brothers and I went to what was essentially a 2 room schoolhouse. Recess was great fun–there was a huge hill by the school and in the spring and fall we often went down that hill inside a tractor tire. In the winter, we used sleds or tobaggons or what were called “flying saucers.”

My bedroom that year was freezing. We lived in apartment above my grandmother’s store and post office. The only heat source was the furnace in the store downstairs. My mother lived in terror of our being in a fire, and, looking back on it, I can understand with that fear. All the bedrooms were in a row on one side of the apartment–I think it might have formerly been a hotel. My room was on the end that had an outside wall. I think I had an electric blanket but I don’t remember for sure. I just remember that I could usually see my breath in that room.

And the real “inconvenience” was that the toilet was downstairs and outside. This was 1963–not really the dark ages, but it certainly was different than what I was used to, having come from the oh, so civilized, Texas panhandle.

The only thing I can remember sticking my tongue on is the orange juice can. In those days, we bought condensed juice in a small frozen can, added 3 cans of water and stirred briskly. But what was there about sticking one’s tongue on that can? It’s almost a rite of passage for people from that era, and I have to admit I did it more than once. So much for “live and learn.”

*What big storms or hard winters do you have memories or stories of?

About 1956 there was a huge blizzard in the panhandle. We have a picture of our little house with a snowdrift up to the eaves.

My most recent memory of a bad storm is the ice storm we’ve just experienced here in Oklahoma City. Our power was out 6 days. Our fine mayor wants to bring an NBA team to the City–I’m wondering how interested they are going to be in coming to a place that has trouble keeping their power on?

*If you live(d) in areas that get little to no snow during the winter, what are or were your winters like? Windy and rainy? Warm or hot? Did you wish for snow, or were you glad you didn’t get any? If it did occasionally snow, did the bad weather shut down your community? Do you remember the first time you saw snow? What did you think of it?

I’ve always lived in a place that gets snow, at least occasionally. Of course, there’s always the hope that the snow will shut down work or school. That happens more here in Oklahoma–I don’t ever remember school being called in South Dakota. I am actually one of those people who can honestly say she walked to school in -20 weather. Granddad would sometimes take Grannie on the tractor to open the store–the mail must go through, y’know. She had to be there, just in case. Plus I think they kind of liked the challenge of it all–Granddad had some sort of heater on his pickup and that was the first vehicle I remember seeing plugged in at the utility pole. They certainly didn’t have a garage, so between the plugged in pickup and the tractor, they could usually get where they needed to go. They lived on gravel roads that Mr. Stuart, the county road caretaker, kept graded with the road-grader he kept at his home.

*Do you remember stories from your parents, grandparents, or other family members or old timers of big storms or hard winters of the past?

I just remember my mom talking about their first winter in South Dakota. Granddad had moved up there thinking he wanted to ranch. My dad and he had spent the summer and fall doing the back-breaking work of putting up fence and then the winter came. Feeding and watering the livestock in those conditions was a bit more than Granddad bargained for, I think. By the time I was a teenager, he was leasing out his pasture land and farming some land he rented from an absentee landlord. There were a couple of horses in the barn that had to be tended to, but that was far easier than having to tend livestock in the pasture.

*Do you have any photos of your ancestors outdoors in the winter, or of their homes or automobiles covered with snow? What about photos of ancestral horses and sleighs?

I talked a little bit about some of the photos earlier. Grannie would send us pictures of the snow in her letters from South Dakota–she was the family photographer. She was the one who shot the movies referenced above. No pictures of ancestral horses and sleighs, though there must have been some of those–I wonder if that’s how the part of the family who lived in Russia in the 1860s-70s got around.

I think there’s something to be said for living in a place that has seasons–sometimes in this part of the country it seems like there are only two–summer and winter, but the change of seasons creates a nice rhythm for life. And I can always use the cold as an excuse to not go out–sort of like I use the heat in the summer time.

2 Comments »