All My Ancestors

It was a 1963 Chevrolet Impala SuperSport convertible, with a 409 engine. It was navy blue with a baby blue interior. I think the top was white.

I suppose as a female I shouldn’t have cared much about cars. But I did. I had a girlfriend whose brothers were proud of their mechanical skills and their restored antique cars, and I picked up some car knowledge from them. Plus this was the era of the original Mustang and the GTO, so there was a lot of car talk going around.

Additionally, I grew up in the Texas panhandle, where the highways are seemingly never-ending, disappearing off into those unreachable horizons, and vehicles are important. It goes without saying that the cars had to be powerful because things aren’t close together out there, and when you had to go to the neighboring town, like maybe sneaking off to see your boyfriend, you wanted to get there and back home in a reasonable amount of time. Amarillo, the nearest town of any size, was 2 hours away–we didn’t measure in miles, it was too depressing. Rather, we used time.

My grandad bought that car for my brother and I. I asked my brother once why he thought Grandad took us squirmy, loud kids fishing–understand that our grandad wasn’t the stereotypical warm, fuzzy grandpa–he swore like a sailor and he was probably more than a little bipolar. My brother said, “I think he liked us.” Leave it to my brother–a man of few words. So I guess Grandad bought us the car for the same reason.

I’ll never forget walking across the big round gravel driveway, out to the granary, and around to the back to see the car. There it sat out in the middle of the South Dakota prairie, a sort of enigmatic picture. The granary was ancient and held my great-grandfather’s carpentry tools. And then there was this gorgeous car. I still wasn’t clear on how I got so lucky, but I was willing to deal with the ambiguity.

I don’t remember how we got the car home to Texas. I guess we must have driven it all 640 miles home, but I don’t remember that as well as driving it back and forth to college. You couldn’t have a more impractical car than that one in this part of the world–it was cold in the winter and hot in the summer. Riding with the top down was almost an impossibility because you risked baking. Anytime it rained, of course, if you were driving at any speed, it leaked. But who cared? We were young and the car was fast.

My brother and I were driving home from college one night–actually early morning– through the back roads in rural Texas. From nowhere, there was a sheriff or a highway patrol–my brother got a ticket for going 121 mph! The thought of that gives me cold chills now, but at the time, we were pumped about beating our time driving home from school. That car could fly.

There are other special cars in my memory–the 1959 Bel Aire sedan I drove when I first got my drivers license at 14! And used it to break a guy’s ladder that was sticking out the back of his pickup the first time I drove it to the grocery store. I think this was the car that we had air-conditioning put in–it was a unit under the dash in the middle–it froze your shins if you were riding in the middle, but what a luxury we thought that was.

About 3 months after I went to college, Dad bought me a used Chevy of some sort–one time having to come pick me up at school and get me back somehow impressed on him that he needed me to have a car. When I graduated from college in 1973, he bought me a new car–the first new car I’d ever owned. I think he was a little disappointed that I wanted a Toyota Celica, but he got it for me since that’s what I wanted. My high school boy friend’s 1956 Olds 88 (the tales that car could tell!), my Grandad’s ‘48 Ford pickup I learned to drive in, with an in-the-floor shift, my brother’s first car that was a really a pick-up, a family Buick that kept catching on fire, my Uncle Larry’s’57 Chevy with Hank Williams songs on the radio, my grandmother’s circa 1954 purple Pontiac–all cars that are strong in my memory.

But they can’t top the Chevy SS convertible–I loved that car.

Here are Miriam’s prompts for this week. I guess I’m not really late if we consider that George Washington’s birthday isn’t until Friday–we just celebrated last Monday, supposedly.

*As a child, do you remember celebrating either Lincoln or Washington’s birthdays? How did you celebrate them? What do you remember learning about either of these men?
It’s been so long since grade school. But it seems to me I remember acknowledging both–along with the shoebox covering for the Valentine’s exchange, we cut out silhouettes of Lincoln and Washington each February.

Of course, I remember the “Honest Abe” stories–his hard beginnings, his mother’s death and his studying by candlelight, and his walking so many miles to return a penny or so he’d shorted his customer. Honesty seemed to be a big theme for emphasis because I also remember the cherry tree and “I cannot tell a lie” story for George Washington. And his wooden teeth.

The other thing I remember is that when I would visit my grandmother in South Dakota in the summers, we would sometimes stop by a little house in Blunt. The house had belonged to one of Abe Lincoln’s teachers back in Illinois who had lived in Blunt at the end of his life. His name was Mentor Graham–though I don’t know if that was really his first name or a title–but I loved going there and feeling a direct connection to Abraham Lincoln. In 1981, my grandmother and I got to take my sons there–one was an infant and the other was 3, but it is a meaningful memory for me even if they can’t remember it.

*Did you get a day off of school, have an assembly, or was there a play performed?
Not that I remember. But those were the days before “Spring Break.” ahhhh, the good ol’ days

*Do you ever remember reading any books or watching any movies about these two leaders?
I don’t remember anything specific, though I have some recollection of Sam Waterston playing/reading for Abe Lincoln in Burns’ The Civil War.

*In your opinion, who was the greatest leader of our country, and why?
I don’t know that I want to do this one here. I can say that I have a great deal of admiration for both Lincoln and Washington–for their vision and their sacrifice and their humanity.

*In your current career, do you get Presidents Day off? Why or why not?
It depends. I’ve had jobs that we did not have the day off–teaching at University, working in a public library. I now work at a state historical society and we had that day off. Who knows the reasoning?!!

*In many communities, Presidents Day weekend is well-known for sales and special deals. How do you feel about this? Do you like to go shopping on this weekend? Or do you feel this emphasis on commercialism is disrespectful?
I can’t say that I think it’s disrespectful, but I don’t shop on that weekend. Of course, I don’t shop any weekend and as seldom as I can get by with, so I’m probably not typical in this respect.

*Presidents Day is also a day when veterans and Purple Heart recipients are honored. Are or were there any Purple Heart recipients in your family or ancestry? Have you written about what they did to earn this great award?
I don’t know anyone in my family who was awarded the Purple Heart. I do remember that one year we were doing a display for Veteran’s Day at the library, and one of our security guards brought his medal for our display. That’s really the first time I can remember seeing a medal and the person to whom it was awarded.

The other things I remember about Lincoln and Washington are that the summer we took the boys to South Dakota, 1981, we also visited Mount Rushmore. What a huge undertaking that must have been.

And my husband and I visited the log cabin ?replica? in which Abe Lincoln was born on one of our vacations before the kids were born–I just remember how beautiful Kentucky was and how much it smelled like whiskey.

Another favorite memory is going through Mount Vernon on one of our trips to D.C. I loved being there and looking at the gardens as well as the house. I thought His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph Ellis was a strong biography of Washington–I tend to like to get inside people’s heads, and I thought Ellis did a good job of describing the “why” of many of Washington’s decisions.

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.

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.

This morning I was chatting with a friend whose great-uncle had died. She was remembering that when she used to visit this aunt and uncle down in Haskell, Texas, that they always gave her Dr. Pepper, in a glass bottle. For a person of her age (read: young), I suppose a glass bottle was a novelty.

Her story made me think about going over to visit my own great aunt and uncle–we went into their house through the back door. On the back porch (though it was completely enclosed it was still called “the porch”), there was Aunt Eva’s kiln where she fired the china she painted, and a small sink for Uncle George to “wash up” when he came in from the field. And under that little sink usually sat a six-pack of small glass bottles of Dr. Pepper. There was a pantry on further down the way, but the Dr. Pepper didn’t belong in the pantry. It sat out there in plain sight for me to long for. Sometimes I got lucky and was offered one of the drinks–I couldn’t ask for one, y’know, it just wasn’t proper.

This would have been the 1950s and a time when soft drink consumption was way lower than it is now. In fact, we just didn’t drink pop, that I recall. It was a real treat when I’d go to South Dakota for the summers to stay with my maternal grandmother–she owned a country store that actually had pop in the refrigerator. I wasn’t really supposed to drink without paying, but Granny didn’t monitor me, or the inventory, too closely. The cowboys would come in at noon to buy their lunches–a can of vienna sausages or a sliced bologna sandwich, and buy some pop. But that’s the only time I can remember drinking pop as a child–sometimes I’d buy one while in the bus room after school, but not often.

I also remembered my brother and I going up and down the road in front of our house, inspecting the bar ditches for pop bottles. Seems like we could redeem them for 2 cents–it may have only been 1, but it was a way for us to earn some spending money. I have no memory of what we spent it on–but we worked very diligently to gather those bottles. Then began the campaign to get some adult to take us to town so we could cash them in, usually at Bryan’s grocery store.

In high school, in the Texas panhandle, anyway, Dr. Pepper was the drink of choice. I remember having a tower of empty waxed paper cups almost reaching the ceiling in my bedroom–I somehow decided it would be a good thing to save them. But we went faithfully through the Dixie Dog drive-in to keep ourselves well-oiled with the Texas elixir. Later, in college, I drank DDP–Diet Dr. Pepper. We had a favorite convenience store at 23rd and Meridian in Oklahoma City where we bought our drinks–one friend always had Tab, but most of us drank DDP. And the backseat floorboards in our cars clanked with the empties.

I was recently on an overseas flight when a young middle-easterner requested a Dr. Pibb from the flight attendant serving drinks. She asked him to repeat his request and they finally determined that he meant Dr. Pepper–he’d confused it with the Mr. Pibb Dr. Pepper knock-off. She laughed and said she was out but thought there might be one more in the back. Sure enough, she later brought him a can of Dr. Pepper and told him to take it with him. He was thrilled.

Dr. Pepper started in Texas and it’s still very popular there. It is my husband’s drink of choice, but then again, he always orders sweet tea at a restaurant. Maybe it’s his Texas roots–all that sweetness.

Today I’m making another trip to the Texas panhandle.

Another of my dad’s siblings has died and I’m off to the funeral. This brother’s children were the cousins closest to my age. I found this picture of us the other day and sent it to his daughter. I told her I’d give a lot of money to know what we were thinking–she wrote back that it was sort of scary given that her brother was holding a gun.

I think this picture was taken in South Dakota when others in that family were farming up there in the 50s. They’d harvest their wheat “down south” and then haul their equipment 640 miles up Highway 83 to South Dakota to harvest up there. I remember getting behind some of those caravans traveling through the 2 lane roads in the sand hills of Nebraska. South Dakota natives “credit” us with bringing goatheads to the state in our tires. I don’t blame them for being mad.

My mom is barely visible in the background on the left and Dad and Uncle Jack’s oldest brother is the faded image on the right. I believe this picture was at his house–I have this memory of their house always being so clean and so cool, even in the days before air conditioning.

One of the purposes of posting the stories from one’s families is to generate even more. And I’m thrilled to say that has happened.

Months after posting the pictures of my 4th great-grandparents I heard from a woman who had the wagon train story as part of her family lore. Her husband’s ancestor evidently purchased one of Dr. Ball’s farms in Iowa and they had handed down the story of Martha Jane’s rescue.

And after I posted the story of my great-grandmother’s suicide, I heard from my Cousin Kitty, whose mother Katie was one of my grandmother’s little sisters, who’d told Kitty a story about my grandmother’s mother-in-law. Neither Kitty nor I know the amount of truth in the story, as Kitty notes. But here’s the story she tells:

I just read your blog. My mother told me this story of your great-grand mother. My mom was only 11 when she died so I don’t know how accurate this is and may be you have been told this one too. When your grand parents were first married or just before:

Your great grand mother Unruh offered Lide (as a gift) as many chickens as she could kill and clean in a time period - don’t remember for sure but think it was a couple of hours. Thinking Lide was a “prissy” city girl her new mother-in-law was surprised when her chicken population was quite diminished at the end of the day.

For what it is worth that is the story I was told.

I don’t know why great-grandmother Matilda would have thought my grandmother Lida wouldn’t have known how to dress chickens. She was an oldest child of 12 children, was a “hired girl” in a neighborhood family, and her family, ironically enough, lived in a chicken coop–trust me, they were not city folk. They were poorer than church mice.

But the point is this is a story I’d never heard because the suicide overshadowed everthing. I laughed when I heard the story because I remembered the morning in South Dakota when I was probably about 10 or 11 when Grannie dragged me out of bed one morning to help her dress 10 chickens. She had 9 cleaned and dressed by the time I had 1 done. I guess I made a small contribution–I mainly remember the camaraderie and the lessons–we dressed them outside, going inside to heat the galvanized buckets of water and to singe off the pin feathers on her huge old O’Keefe & Merritt range.

But there was never any doubt in my family as to who was the master of the chicken and I guess she knew it at at early age.

This is my brothers and me at the house where our great Aunt Lorene (of bladder training fame) was working as caretaker for an elderly woman in Beaver County, Oklahoma, probably about 1964. Check out the wallpaper in the background.This picture re-appeared out of my grandmother’s things–it was probably one my mom had sent her and she had it enlarged and framed which is how I found it.

The gifts aligned in front brought back all sorts of memories. The basket of apples, the horse and the clock, which also helped me date the picture, reminded me of Mom and Aunt Lorene “decorating” the room for the boys that had been built on the back of the house we moved into when we moved back from South Dakota. The year I was in the 6th grade, and that Thad was in the 5th, and that Mike went to kindergarten, we lived in an apartment above our grandmother’s country store in Canning, South Dakota. When we decided not to buy land there and stay, we moved back to Perryton to the small house my folks had lived in right after they married and that I’d come home to after being born. It was two bedrooms, and now it was too small for we three, so a room and (I think) another bathroom had been built on the back for the boys.

This mean bedspreads and curtains had to be made, so Mom and Aunt Lorene sprang into action–I don’t know if Aunt Lorene already had the fabric–it’s possible, but it was red with insets of horses and apple trees–hence the things under the Christmas tree. It was certainly a different time–I’m not sure 8 and 12 year old boys would go for that now. (Maybe they didn’t then, but they certainly didn’t say so.)

It looks like Mike and Thad have also been the recipients of an ear of corn with a harmonica implanted. I think the transistor radio was Thad’s, though I’m pretty sure I coveted it. And the walkie talkie-was undoubtedly theirs as well. The game of Concentration was undoubtedly a family game–I remember playing it a lot–it took forever to set up, but it was fun. I really didn’t have much call to use a muff in that part of the county, but I liked having it as a fashion statement, along with those glasses, don’tchaknow? Don’t think I wore the hat much–it would have mussed that great hair. I think there’s also a photo album of some sort and a some sort of Christmas ornament. Mike’s truck is red–to match their room, no doubt.

I wish I could seee the boys’ boots better–those and the Levis and the buzz cuts were constants for them. I sort of remember getting that lavendar outfit–out of some sort of polyester, as I recall, which was great since it meant no ironing–”wash and wear” we called it. And I’m pretty sure there was an argument about the hemline.

Youngest brother Mike recently told my sons that he’s looking at me like that because I’d just hit him and he didn’t know why–hmmmmm. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have done that.

Here’s hoping for the generation of some great family memories for you and yours this holiday–and that someone’s taking pictures.

I think most families had picnics or barbeques for July 4. My dad always said he worked outside all day and he wasn’t interested in eating out there, too. He had a point–it was usually 110 degrees and not many shade trees in the Texas panhandle.

But I was lucky enough to be in South Dakota staying with my grandparents on July 4 most summers. We still didn’t have a picnic, but we did get to go to the rodeo in Ft. Pierre. Ft. Pierre was just across the really big old metal bridge over the Missouri River from Pierre, but it seemed further away than that because it was such a different place. It was a fairly rough town–lots of bars and cowboys and such. Sometimes my cousin Willie rode the bulls in the rodeo, and then eventually he was one of the clowns. I don’t think they call them clowns any more, but that’s how far removed from rodeos my life is these days. Do they call them bull fighters?

The rodeo was the highlight of the summer, though. Usually we got to go to town and buy some new cowboy duds. My fave was the summer I got to buy red jeans and a red checked, ruffled shirt. I tried every year to wear the boots that were in the upstairs closet at my grandmother’s, but they were just too big. And while my brother got boots, I couldn’t talk my grandad into buying me some. I don’t think I actually tried too hard as it wasn’t all that cool for girls in the early and mid 1960s to wear cowboy boots.

That rodeo has been held every year since 1832, according to this website. I wouldn’t doubt it. Ft. Pierre has been there for a very long time–early fur traders were there by the late 1700s and by 1830, there was a trading post there. Of course, before that, the Sioux were there–one of the confrontations that Lewis and Clark had in 1804 with the American Indians on their journey west happened here.

But much of that history I’ve learned since then. At that time, I knew that Casey Tibbs was from Ft. Pierre and that he was the ultimate rodeo cowboy. I assume we saw him ride in the early 50s, thought I don’t specifically remember. What I do remember is that some guy flicked his cigarette ashes in the cuff of my little brother’s jeans and they caught on fire.

And I have this picture from Casey Tibbs’ funeral in 1990. It’s from an article in the Rapid City newspaper. The man standing beside the casket is my great Uncle Velcie, a cowboy in his own right (his last name ought to be AnderTon–a common mistake). Uncle Velcie broke horses for a living, but he also worked on the Oahe Dam when they were damming up the wide Missouri. Then there was the time he broke and trained 20 mules to a hitch, driving them from the Black Hills to Death Valley. That was in 1966 when he was about 57–not much older than I am now and I’m pretty sure I’m not up to it. He was still working cattle in his 80s.

I loved going to the rodeo. I’ve heard lots of people say they’ve never been or only been to 1 or two. My husband had never been until I took him to the National Finals here in Oklahoma City before they left town. He cheered for the animals–and I’d never really looked at it from that perspective before. But I loved the grand entry at the beginning, and at the Ft. Pierre event, there was what I remember as a really great fireworks show at the end. We must have been really dusty and smelly at the end of that long evening and probably slept the 17 miles home to my grandparents’ home, but I just remember what fun it was and how much I looked forward to it every year. And I’m glad to say I’ve known some real cowboys.

I recently listened to one of Dick Eastman’s podcasts. He’s been the guru of technology for genealogists and a reliable reviewer of various genealogy publications for years in his terrific online newsletter. The newsletter that was initially delivered via email has morphed into a blog http://blog.eogn.com/, and lately he’s resurrected his dj skills and has developed a podcast as well. The National Genealogical Society’s annual meeting was in Chicago last week and he took advantage of the occasion to interview some well known folks in the field.

One guy he interviewed, however, was not as well known, at least to me. He was the dinner speaker for the Conference. And he did make an impact. His topic was excavating where outhouses had stood. When I first saw the topic, I thought surely this isn’t what I think it is.

But it was. Craig Pfannekuch is an amateur archaeologist and he encourages those of us who can do so to excavate where our family outhouses stood. He even teaches how to do it and what to look for.

I have done a lot of things that have stretched me in one way or the other since I got into genealogy–I’ve called people I’ve never met to discuss possible family connections. I’ve visited courthouses in lots of counties from Ohio to Texas and worked shoulder to shoulder with the landmen who were in there tracing mineral rights, not to mention a spider or two that has crawled out of a crevice. I’ve traveled to some pretty desolate cemeteries to take photos and check headstones.

But I think I’m drawing the line here. My grandparents in South Dakota had an outhouse until well into the 1970s. It may actually still be there. When we visited in 1981, it was still there and they still used it. They did finally get indoor plumbing sometime around 1967, but they didn’t haul off the outhouse. My grandad called it “Ike” and considered it his duty to save the indoor plumbing by continuing to use the outhouse. Truth be told, he probably considered it our duty as well, but some of us were unwilling to make the trip that was now so unnecessary in our minds. (I have no idea the origin of his name for Ike, though it must have had some connection to the president at the time he built the original one.) My grandmother loved to tell about the time she heard me screaming bloody murder out there–she thought for sure I’d fallen in (a special fascinating terror for me when I was little). When she opened the door to check on me, she discovered I’d dropped the roll of toilet paper in and was, for some reason, quite distraught. I have no memory of that particular incident though I have lots of memories of Ike.

I won’t go into details. I will share that when we visited in 1981, my husband had some definite questions about the fact that there were two toilet seats. I had no answers–it’s just the way it was. I’ve included some photos from that trip–we call them South Dakota Gothic.