Barbara's Chapter

The fifth daughter. The seventh and last child.

ON MAY 26TH, 1945 I WAS BORN. I was the last of seven children. The baby of the family. I was put in a baby bed in Mom and Dad’s room and slept there for the next six years. The very first memory I have is hazy. I’m sitting on a blanket spread in the front yard under a big tree, playing school with my sisters. The next memory is vivid. I’d started Kindergarten at Roosevelt grade school. I cried every day asking to see one of my sisters, Diana, Delores or Carol, who would have to come to my room to comfort me. I finally adjusted, but I still missed being with them. Another early memory is the night Diana came home from the hospital. I remember feeling very shy with her but also very jealous. She was getting all the attention.

No matter what time we’d get up in the morning, Mom was always sitting at the table crocheting and drinking coffee. Mom loved to play cards. We’d all get excited when it was Mom’s turn to have Club. She’d usually make tuna casserole and homemade yeast rolls. At each card table there would be bridge mix and nuts bought at the dime store from bins where they roasted all day and made the store smell wonderful. Dessert would be angel food cake with a very thin butter frosting. Once, she gave us the money to walk up to the dime store in Highland to buy the prizes for Club. I’m sure we bought some awful things, but we felt so proud of our purchases and Mom said she loved them. We all loved the yearly Club picnic at Riverside Park. Mom would get up early to make fried chicken, pineapple upside-down cake and scalloped corn. I remember cases of flavored pops—grape, creme, strawberry and orange. The ladies would play cards and kids would play in the park or swim. Later, we would have watermelon. We spent many hours playing 500 with Mom. She’d sit with her hair up in pincurls, smoking and drinking Pepsi and say every time, “Are you girls going to talk all night or play cards?” Not long before her death in 1988, we were playing cards at Carol’s house. Diana was home for a visit from Florida. When Mom made a trip to the bathroom, we decided to fix the hand she was dealt to give her a perfect 500 hand. She suspected nothing and was so excited by this hand that we didn’t have the heart to tell her about our dirty little trick. Mom’s favorite holiday was Christmas. She decorated every room in the house. She made a batch of cookies or candy every day from Thanksgiving on—fudge, toffee, Spritz cookies, Hedgehogs, frosted cutout sugar cookies and Thumbprints. To top all this off, she made a big batch of cornmeal mush to slice thin and fry up on Christmas Eve morning. Delicious! Mom kept all these Christmas goodies on the tiny back porch in tins and Tupperware along with her ever-present case of Pepsi in the small bottles. In the evenings, before Christmas, Mom would work on her Christmas balls. Every one was different and special. I still decorate my tree with these balls and marvel every year at how beautiful they are. I miss Mom most at Christmas. As kids, we had a doctor named Menton. He would come to the house when one of us got sick. Before he came, Mom would call Virginia McFarland, her best friend and closest neighbor. They would buzz through the house to make it presentable for the doctor.

SOME OF MOM’S FAVORITE SAYINGS

“Busier than a cranberry merchant.” “Dutchy” (Now, isn’t that just Dutchy?) “Out of this world.” “Now, we’re cooking with gas.” “Little as a minute.”

I always remember Mom talking about living in North Dakota. She lived in Dunseth at the foot of the Turtle Mountains. The snow would pile up so high, she and her brother could ski over the tops of fences on their way to school. When we had a cold, Mom would give us aspirin crushed between two spoons with a little sugar and water. She’d grease up our chests with Vicks Vaporub and cover them with flannel. Gruesome story: One of Mom’s Club ladies (I think Olene Allerdyce) lost a finger in the Mix Master. This story haunts me to this day. I’m always very careful with my own mixer. When Mom traveled, she always tied a red ribbon to each of her suitcases, so she could easily pick them out. I do this, too. Mother kept a very clean house. We would all be involved in extensive spring cleaning: Changing the paper in the cupboards, (I will always remember the little mouse holes chewed in the back corners) cleaning out all the closets, washing windows and curtains, and on and on until everything was sparkling. This ritual was especially important when we had a coal furnace that coated everything with a dingy film. Every Saturday morning, under protest, we would have to help Mom clean. I especially remember dusting the little bookcase in the living room. She always kept a wonderful little music box bird on one of the shelves. It was in a gold cage. I think Bernie bought it for her in Paris. On her treadle sewing machine, Mom made most of the clothes we wore. She said that machine kept her legs skinny. All the girls belonged to 4H—The Peppy Steppers. Mom would generally end up finishing our sewing projects. She made us beautiful little Easter outfits. We’d wear them to Sunday School with white gloves and hats. Mom didn’t go to church until late in life, but she always encouraged us to go. My daughter, Jennifer, told me that Gramma Guild once told her that she had to have her tonsils removed before becoming a telephone operator.

Mom had red hair until her dying day.

My fondest memory of Daddy is that I could always curl up in his lap. When we were sick, Daddy had some old-timey remedies. He’d blow cigarette smoke in our ears for earaches. He would add a tablespoon of booze to hot lemonade to treat a cold. He thought Samon Salve could cure anything. He also told us that lying out in the sun would cause cancer. Turns out he was right. I remember one time he put menthol crystals in the vaporizer connected to the furnace. We about died from the fumes in the house. Daddy would tell me to hold my nose down with my finger to make it straight. For fun, Dad would take us to the drag races. Or, one time, he took us to see midget wrestling or as he called it, “rassling,” at Wharton Field House. When I was older, he would force me to go golfing with him in Orion. The course there had sand greens and he’d carve a furrow to the hole so my ball always went in. When we’d go out to get a watermelon, Daddy would take out his pocketknife and cut a little triangle out of the melon until he found one that didn’t taste like a “pumpkin.” Each fall we would go into the woods to gather walnuts and hazelnuts. Dad would throw the walnuts on the roof to dry. When they were dry, he’d run over them with the car to crack them out of the tough green hulls. We’d sit around on winter nights and pick out the walnut meats. We’d also gather wild grapes in the late summer. Daddy would make wine out of them in the basement. I never did taste any of it, but I do know some of it turned into vinegar. Daddy had fried eggs, rye toast with lots of butter, bacon, and tons of coffee every morning for breakfast. With our help, Daddy put in a half-acre garden every year. We all worked very hard all summer and fall to keep up with the produce. When the corn was ready to eat, Dad would make sure the rest of the meal was almost done and a big pot of water was bubbling on the stove, and only then would he go out and pick and shuck the corn. He said that otherwise the milk in the corn would go sour. He would have us shine up a box of tomatoes to sell and he’d tell us to put the bad ones on the bottom. The apple orchard was also a great deal of work. We especially hated to sit and pick the stones out of cherries. We’d use bobby pins to accomplish this task. There was a big sprayer in the orchard that we thought looked like a stagecoach. We’d climb up on it to play every time we could get away with it. I loved to climb in one of the really big apple trees back by the Peterson’s house. I would take a book and sit there and read until somebody found me. Seems like there was always the motor of some old car or other hanging on the tree limb out back. Until Dad bought his light green Comet, all the cars were old and embarrassing to us. We could always leave the keys in the cars in those days. When Mom and Dad took me to college for the first time, Dad threatened to bring me back home if he didn’t like the looks of my roommate. He didn’t think girls should go to college. Every Friday night, Mom went to the A&P for groceries. Dad would sit in the car and honk and honk until she was ready to go. When we got to the store, he would sleep in the car while she did all the shopping. After that, we would go to the library. I heard stories of Daddy being a Water Witch. We always gave Daddy a carton of cigarettes for Christmas. He’d give us money to buy Mom nylon stockings for him to give to her. Daddy sang a lot. His favorite song was The Tennessee Waltz. The shed out back was Dad’s hideout. He tinkered with all kinds of things that needed to be fixed, or, in his eyes, improved. He was famous in the family and neighborhood for putting together a riding lawn mower out of lots of old junk. He loved to trade things, thinking he always got the better deal. I would often be called on to help Daddy fix the TV. He would go on the roof and move the antenna around and I had to watch the picture and scream up to him if it was better or worse. When he worked on the TV itself, he would put a mirror in front of the screen to check on his progress. A lot of swearing usually went along with this procedure. Daddy called the homes just to the south of Coal Town Road “Frogtown.”

NORM’S FAVORITE FLOYD STORIES

This happened the first time Norm came to our house to meet the family. Dad took him over to Iris’s house so he could meet them, too. As we entered through the garage of their house, Daddy picked up an almost empty bottle of booze, tipped it up to his lips, drained it, then put it back in the garbage. All this without a word. When Norm thinks of Daddy, he thinks of him sitting in the car at a stoplight, opening the door a little, spitting, and calling the other drivers, “half-wits.”

In 1996, Captain Merlin Ringering came to Normal for an overnight visit. He had just been to Moline to see Dee. Merlin, a retired steamship pilot on the Columbia River, is Daddy’s nephew. He arrived with a companion named Dorothy, in a completely outfitted camper. His wife, Marilyn had died two years previously. He told several stories. I’ll try to relate them here. Merlin spoke of Daddy as a kind of family hero. For years, it seems Dad would go back to Brainerd, Minnesota for the Fourth of July. All the family in that area would gather for a reunion. (Merlin’s mother was our Aunt Bessie.) Daddy was Merlin’s favorite uncle and he would anxiously look forward to these Fourth of July visits. Merlin also loved to spend time with Aunt Gertie (one of Dad’s stepsisters) at these gatherings. He said Gertie was foulmouthed and lots of fun. The relatives thought Daddy was rich because he would always come in some new car. Sometime after Bernie and Bob were twelve or thirteen, Dad stopped going to these gatherings, to everyone’s disappointment. Merlin spoke of a relationship Dad had to a family that lived close to his own in Minnesota. As a child, every summer, Daddy would spend most of his time with this family. The grandfather of this family, Gus Falk, lived and worked in Moline at John Deere and visited there often to hunt and fish. He took a special liking to Daddy and told him that when he was old enough he’d take Dad to Moline to work at Deere. Finally, when Dad was sixteen years old, he quit school and came to Moline with this man. Back in Minnesota, the rest of the family, from then on, called Daddy the rich relative. Merlin disliked his grandmother Guild. (Olive Wooster Guild) He said that many times she was mean and had a long tongue. It seems she took delight in sticking it out at Merlin. She would get Merlin’s mother to switch him often. Olive had five other children before she met Dan Guild: Florence, Ralph, Mertle, Gertie and Pearl. She moved in with Dan Guild and his roommate when her husband, Clarence Vosberg, died. Dan and she were quickly married because a child (Bessie) was on the way. This was told to Merlin at a late date and he still seemed disturbed by the revelation. Dan Guild was characterized as quiet, very mechanical and a poor dirt farmer. Altogether, Grandmother Olive Wooster Guild had 8 children by 3 husbands. Daddy had five half and three full brothers and sisters. Another story was about Clarence, who was Dad’s favorite (and a full brother.) It seems that when Clarence was fourteen, he was helping the family take pigs to market. Going up a hill, Clarence jumped out and ran alongside the truck. Something happened, and Clarence fell under the truck. The tire rolled over his lower abdomen. Instead of taking him to the doctor or hospital, they took him home and set him up in a small stone shed behind the house. He lay there recuperating for nine months. It was lucky he lived without any medical care. Dee told me to watch for a habit of Merlin’s that reminded her of Daddy. Merlin didn’t disappoint me. He would lay his finger up by his nose, exactly like Daddy use to.

We had a round oak table. Dad chopped up the pedestal and threw it on the fire out back. He then nailed the top to the basement ceiling, and added a punching bag to it for the boys. We would sit in the basement during tornado warnings and play cards. The basement had shelves that were full of home-canned and store- bought fruits and vegetables. Behind the furnace, was a small room used in the old days to store the coal. Before the automatic washer and dryer, there was a round agitator machine with two rinse tubs. One of the tubs had a wringer in it. We were all afraid we’d get our arm caught in the wringer. In the summer, we would hang the clothes outside on lines. This gave them the most wonderful smell. In the winter the clothes hung in the basement on lines.

(Some stuck, some didn’t.)

Ikey Bernie Pee Wee Carol Mae and Carol Barrel Pudgie Daddy called Diana “Dolly.” Baby or Barbie Daddy was sometimes called “Casey” and I heard Mom was called “Brownie” in her youth. I was told that one time, when I was quite small, I got lost at Starved Rock Park. We use to walk a lot of places. We’d often walk up to 41st Street and take the bus downtown or to the library. We also used to walk to “the show” in Highland. The first show I remember going to see was The Wizard of Oz. I started to cry when the wicked witch and her monkeys came out. I’m told Virginia had to carry me out. On the movie theme, we loved to pop a huge pan of popcorn and pile into the car and go to the drive-in in Milan. Every Sunday night, religiously, Diana and I would make fried-egg sandwiches with ketchup and pickles and watch Lassie. We would take trips to Geneseo Illinois to visit Gramma Hobson,who was Billy Johnson’s grandmother. She was a tall and very charming woman, We loved to hear her stories about when Diana was in Children’s Hospital in Chicago. Bernie and Bob had ringworm. I can still remember how they looked with nylon hose knotted on their heads. Mom would make us rest in the afternoon during August. These were called the “Dog Days of August.” I think it had something to do with Polio. When I was in about the third grade, nurses came to school and gave us Polio vaccine, which was experimental at that time.

We had Fluffy the cat. She was an outdoor cat and used to like to sit by the brick chimney where it was warm. At one time, we raised pet rabbits. The hutches were behind the shed. Mom had parakeets in a cage hung up by the window in the living room. And mice…we had lots of mice.

We didn’t travel much as a family. Too many of us. We did go to Elmhurst once in awhile to visit Arjean and Ray Moos. We wouldn’t call. Just show up. They’d take us to Riverview Amusement Park. The adults would play Bingo and the kids would go on rides and play the midway games. Once Bob went on the parachute fall. We were all so impressed by his courage. I remember riding something called the “Red Mouse.” I was terrified and hate roller coasters to this day. Once, I went with Mom and Dad to Brainerd to visit the relatives. Don’t remember much of the trip other than everyone seemed very poor and I thought the cousins were cute.

On Saturday nights, before Daddy and the boys built the new addition with a bathroom, we’d get our baths in the kitchen in a big tin tub. The water had to be heated on the stove. In the early years, when the house had two bedrooms, as I’ve said, I slept in a baby bed in Mom and Dad’s room. The girls, Iris, Carol, Dee, and Diana, slept on roll away beds in the living room. Bob and Bernie slept in the other bedroom with Grampa Williams. The bathroom was a two-seater out back by the burn barrel. Later, we slept on an iron bed painted brown. We used to peel off the paint and stuck our gum under the rails. We covered up under brown wool army blankets and had chenille bed spreads. We loved to watch the late movies on Saturday night, when Mom and Dad would play cards with friends. One of the advertisers was Sturdevant Milk. The announcer would play some game with a viewer. If the viewer didn’t win the announcer would sing, “You missed our number by a mile. Here’s something else to make you smile—a gift from Sturdevants.” The Omar man, the Watkins man, and the Fuller Brush man came to the house to sell us bread, vanilla and brooms. “Hey Mom, here comes the Omar Man. I’m the Omar Man, knocking on your door. Taste my bread and you’re gonna want more.” I remember having party lines. Every house would have it’s own ring. Sometimes we’d be nosey and try to listen in on other people’s conversations. One of my favorite childhood memories concerns Iris. One Easter, Iris and Bill’s Ben Franklin Store flooded. The other kids remember the work it took to clean up the store. I remember all the Easter candy we got out of the disaster. Our back porch was full of chocolate bunnies, those gooey yellow chicks and any flavor chocolate covered egg you can imagine. YUM! One year, for some occasion, Iris gave us a subscription to a comic book. We treasured this present. Bernie would love to play Mario Lanza records. Especially that “Drink, Drink, Drink” song. The record player sat on a small stand in the hallway. After he left home, he would send wonderful birthday presents. He sent me a “balloon” outfit from Marshall Field’s that I treasured. I remember Bob would tease me a lot, and I would wear him out climbing up his body and doing “flip-overs” in his arms. The famous story of me stealing Carol’s dyed-to-match outfits, when she left for work, is true. I could also get Dee to fix my hair and sometimes even cut it before I left for school in the morning. I played together the most with Diana. We especially loved to ride our bikes up and down 39th Street. One time, a dog at the end of the street tried to bite Diana, but got the wrong leg. That was one surprised dog.

The neighbor kids we played the most with were Margie Britz, Kent and Carolyn Reichenberg, and Pat and Marilyn McFarland. Next to my sisters, Margie Britz was my best friend. We loved to play dress-ups, paper-dolls, school, and house. In the evening, before there was TV, the family would sit around the radio and listen to The Lone Ranger, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, and The Shadow. While she ironed, Mom listened to a soap opera called My Gal Sal. When I was ten years old, we received a black and white TV from Iris and Bill. Some favorite shows were: Lassie, Boston Blackie, Groucho Marx, The Millionaire, I Love Lucy, My Little Margie, Andy’s Gang, Ed Sullivan, The Mickey Mouse Club, Loretta Young Theater, Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, Captain Video, Rudy Kazootie, (I actually had the phony screen you put on the TV to draw on) Sky King, The Texaco Hour, Your Hit Parade, and Howdy Doody. In the summer, we spent a lot of time at Riverside Park swimming. Before you could go into the pool, a staff person would check in between each toe for athlete’s foot. After swimming, we would go upstairs and get a Popsicle then wait for Daddy on the bench out front. We’d catch lightening bugs and put them in jars with holes punched in the lid. We use to have lemonade stands out front by the tiger lilies. The neighborhood kids would play jump rope by the hours in the street out by the Reichenberg’s house. There were unending games of War going on, especially in the summer. Other favorite card games were Old Maid and Go Fish. The big kids would make “treasure hunts” for the little kids— which usually ended with the treasure of Popsicles in the freezer. We would play on the back porch when it rained, driving everyone nuts singing, “It’s raining. It’s pouring. The old man is snoring. He went to bed and bumped his head, and couldn’t get up in the morning.” In our front yard we’d play: Spud, Tag, Statues, Simon Says, and Who’s The Prettiest? At grade school, we’d play Jacks in the long hallway on the lower level. At night, we’d play a scary game called One O’clock And The Ghost Isn’t Here. A group of neighbor kids would gather on someone’s porch on a very dark summer night. Someone is chosen to be “it.” That kid hides somewhere and the rest of the group, hanging on to each other for dear life cuz they are scared of the dark and someone’s chasing them, walks slowly around the house. While walking they chant, “One o’clock and the ghost isn’t here. Two o’clock and ghost isn’t here. Three o’clock and ghost isn’t here.” In my head I hear us chanting and each number gets louder and louder until the person who is “it” decides the time is right to run out from his hiding place and chase the group. Everyone desperately runs for the porch, because it’s “safe.” If someone is caught, they’re the next person who is “it.” In the wintertime, there would be Fox and Geese and making angels in the snow. We’d go sledding in the woods and then trudge home to thaw out by sitting on the register in the living room and drinking cocoa. I really thought Jack Frost made those pretty patterns on the windows in winter. In the fall we would rake up the leaves and jump in them. That wonderful smell of burning leaves was always in the air. On Halloween, unlike today, we could go anywhere to Trick or Treat without an adult with us. We use to “soap” car windows if someone gave us an apple. I liked getting popcorn balls. Quiet games were Jacks, Cat’s Cradle, and Cootie, or reading my favorite book, Little House in Big Woods. Or, we would lie on blankets under fresh-smelling sheets billowing on the line, trying to see shapes in the clouds. The boys played marbles and Mumbelty Peg , a scary game with knives. Remember how we wanted to order those Sea Monkeys out of the back of comic books? Sometimes, in the summer, Mom would let us put on our swimsuits and play out in the rain. However, we were always warned of the dangers of “Night Air.” One time, when we were quite young, a bunch of us were sitting in the plum tree in the Reichenberg’s back yard. Ruth and John were butchering chickens. I know this can’t be right, but I seem to remember them hanging the chickens on the clothesline, pulling down their necks and chopping them off. The chickens would run around with their heads off and we would all shriek. We use to steal kohlrabi out of the Reichenberg’s garden to eat. Looked like little space ships. Mrs. Britz grew beautiful gladiolas and made delicious chocolate cakes.

The Rohrers. Mrs. Rohrer had a beautiful flower garden and was generous in sharing her flowers with us. The Johnsons. Mrs. Johnson would have me come over and zip up her formals. I thought she was beautiful. Old-lady Clyde. Earladine and Jean Hoglund. The Petersens, especially Eileen. Sis Vergaine and her son, Stevie. Did he really end up in jail? Sonny Joiner. He liked to peek at us through the bathroom window. Daddy would chase him through the orchard with a shotgun full of salt. The Hancocks. They had an abandoned little house that we used to like to play in. The Ferrys and The Gillersteads are some other names I can remember.

Radish sandwiches, fried bologna sandwiches, and sugar sandwiches. Pork chop gravy on bread, Sauerkraut over mashed potatoes. Chicken and homemade noodles over mashed potatoes. Dipping bent-over peanut butter sandwiches in cocoa Mom made from scratch. Taking the salt shaker out and eating veggies right out of the garden. Dipping cookies in Daddy’s coffee. Being scared to death of the pressure cooker. Dad’s saying, “The more white bread the quicker your dead.” Fried chicken every Sunday Mom pounding meat to make Swiss steak. Popcorn made on the stove in a pan that had a built-in stirer. Mom’s homemade vegetable soup with the secret ingredient of rutabaga. Sour cream coffee cake, and cherry pie. When I was very small, I remember seeing rabbits tacked to the clothes-line pole outside so Daddy could skin them. Mom would fry one up and someone would always say, “Eat it! It tastes exactly like chicken!” It never tasted like chicken to me. I can also remember adding coloring to oleo and squeezing it until it was all yellow. Then I think we put it into a form of some kind. We would hover around Mom when she cooked hoping for the edges cut off of the jelly roll cake before she rolled it up. Or, we’d beg for a piece of raw potato or the heart of the cabbage.

Listening to KSTT—1170 AM or WLS—890 on the radio. Cruising the One-Ways in Rock Island with my girlfriends. Getting Maid Rite sandwiches. Going to Whitey’s ice cream store. (Mom would always get a strawberry cone.) Sock Hops. Poodle skirts. McDonalds opening while in Jr. High. (We’d buy the ten-cent fries after school.) Curling our hair with curling irons heated on the gas stove. Crinolines. Wearing full skirts with wide cinch belts. Saddle shoes and Capezios. Working nights as a dishwasher at the Hasty Tasty. 4-H and the County Fair. Dancing during lunchtime at Coolidge Jr. High. Working on floats at homecoming time. My first job (besides baby-sitting) at Turnstyle discount store. Standing in the kitchen ironing. (We ironed everything, even pillowcases, in the old days.) Pizza became popular when I was a teenager. Watching the high school basketball tournaments on TV. (Mom would even get excited by them.) Listening on the intercom at school as the first man went into space. Learning to drive. Here comes my shocking revelation. I took someone’s car—I think it was Carol’s. This was in the middle of the night while everyone was sleeping. I picked up some friends and we drove all the way out to The Pits (strip mines) to swim. Sorry…

In 1963, I left for Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois to become a teacher. While there, I met Norman Miller. We were married in 1965, and had in quick succession three children: Matthew, Jennifer and Amy. We moved to the Bloomington-Normal area in 1965. I finished my degree in Art at Illinois State University in 1979, after taking ten years off to raise the kids. Norm found a job he has always enjoyed at State Farm Insurance. I did all the Cub Scout, Brownie, PTA and the run-the-kids-around-in-the-car stuff for years. I am now retired from a part time job in Admissions at Illinois State University. I worked for awhile at a local art center, but now find satisfaction in my art by quilting. This is just a short synopsis of my later life. It’s thirty-three years of memories that I’ll have to expand on some other time.

My philosophy of life is just this— laugh a lot.

Thanks for urging us to do this, Bernie. It’s been fun remembering those early years.

A few of my quilts, and all of my brothers and sisters: Diana, Bob, Carol, Iris, and Dee next to me on my staircase and Bernie in his kitchen.