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The Spirit That Binds Seven Siblings
Bernie reflects on the powerful love binding seven siblings, considering their shared blood, close quarters in a tiny house, and individual relationships. Bernie invites readers to listen to each sibling's story and discover the common hidden truth underlying their family bond.
Barbara's Chapter · 1945 and early childhood
The Baby of the Family
Barbara recalls being born on May 26th, 1945, the fifth daughter and youngest of seven children. She slept in a baby bed in her parents’ room for six years. Her earliest, hazy memory is playing school with her sisters on a blanket beneath a large tree in the front yard.
Barbara's Chapter
Christmas Goodies and Mom's Handmade Ornaments
Christmas was Mom's favorite holiday. She decorated every room and made cookies or candy daily from Thanksgiving onward, storing them on the tiny back porch beside her small bottles of Pepsi. Christmas Eve morning brought thin slices of fried cornmeal mush. In the evenings she made distinctive Christmas balls, which Barbara still hangs on her tree. Barbara misses Mom most at Christmas.
Barbara's Chapter
The Everyday Care That Made a Home
Barbara gathers memories of Mom's familiar sayings, childhood in Dunseth at the foot of the Turtle Mountains, and skiing over fences to school with her brother. Mom treated colds with crushed aspirin, sugar and water, and Vicks covered with flannel. Before Dr. Menton's house calls, Virginia McFarland helped tidy the house. Spring cleaning and Saturday chores kept the home spotless despite the coal furnace. Barbara recalls a music box bird she thinks Bernie bought in Paris, Mom's treadle sewing machine, the girls' Peppy Steppers 4H projects, and handmade Easter outfits for Sunday School. She adopted Mom's red-ribbon suitcase custom. Jennifer passed along Gramma Guild's recollection of tonsil removal before telephone work, and Barbara remembers Mom's lifelong red hair.
Barbara's Chapter
Daddy’s Lap, Garden, and Backyard Workshop
Barbara warmly remembers curling up in Daddy's lap and describes his old-time remedies, including cigarette smoke for earaches, hot lemonade with booze, Samon Salve, and an overpowering experiment with menthol crystals in a furnace-connected vaporizer. Family activities included drag races, wrestling, golf, gathering nuts and grapes, and working hard in the garden and orchard. She recalls reading in an apple tree, his embarrassment-inducing old cars, his objections to girls attending college, Friday grocery and library trips, Christmas gifts, singing, trading, and inventive repairs. She also remembers helping him adjust and repair the television and his name for homes south of Coal Town Road: “Frogtown.”
Barbara's Chapter
An Oak Table Becomes a Punching-Bag Support
Barbara recalls Dad chopping up the pedestal of the family's round oak table and burning it out back. He nailed the tabletop to the basement ceiling and attached a punching bag for the boys.
Barbara's Chapter
Cards and Pantry Shelves in the Basement
The family sat in the basement playing cards during tornado warnings. Shelves held home-canned and store-bought fruits and vegetables, and a small room behind the furnace had formerly stored coal.
Barbara's Chapter
The Wringer and the Scent of Summer Laundry
Before the automatic washer and dryer, the family used a round agitator machine with two rinse tubs, one containing a wringer. Everyone feared getting an arm caught in it. Clothes dried outdoors on lines in summer, acquiring a smell Barbara loved, and on basement lines in winter.
Barbara's Chapter
Fluffy by the Chimney and Animals Around the House
Barbara recalls Fluffy, an outdoor cat who liked sitting beside the warm brick chimney. The family also raised pet rabbits in hutches behind the shed. Mom kept parakeets in a cage by the living-room window, and there were lots of mice.
Barbara's Chapter
Tin-Tub Baths and Saturday Night Movies
Barbara recalls Saturday baths in a kitchen tin tub with stove-heated water before Daddy and the boys built an addition with a bathroom. She describes crowded sleeping arrangements, a two-seater outdoor toilet, brown-painted iron beds, wool army blankets, and chenille bedspreads. Other memories include late Saturday movies while her parents played cards, Sturdevant Milk advertisements, visiting salesmen, and listening in on party-line conversations.
Barbara's Chapter · Barbara's childhood
Neighborhood Friends and Games for Every Season
Barbara remembers her closest neighborhood playmates and the pretend games she shared with Margie Britz. Childhood pastimes included swimming at Riverside Park, Popsicles, catching lightening bugs, lemonade stands, jump rope, cards, treasure hunts, yard games, and Jacks at school. She describes the frightening nighttime chasing game One O’clock And The Ghost Isn’t Here. Winter brought snow games, sledding, cocoa, and warming up on the register; fall brought leaf piles and Halloween treats and pranks. Quiet pleasures included reading Little House in Big Woods and watching clouds beneath sheets on the clothesline. Children also played in summer rain, although they were warned about “Night Air.”
Barbara's Chapter · Barbara's childhood; television received at age ten
Radio Evenings and the Gift of a Television
Before television, the family gathered around the radio for The Lone Ranger, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, and The Shadow, while Mom listened to My Gal Sal as she ironed. Iris and Bill gave the family a black and white TV when Barbara was ten. Barbara lists many favorite shows and remembers having a screen placed over the television to draw on for Rudy Kazootie.
Barbara's Chapter
Sandwiches, Sunday Chicken, and Treats from Mom's Kitchen
Barbara recalls radish, fried bologna, and sugar sandwiches; gravy and mashed-potato dishes; homemade cocoa; garden vegetables; cookies dipped in Daddy’s coffee; Sunday fried chicken; Swiss steak; stovetop popcorn; vegetable soup with rutabaga; coffee cake; and cherry pie. She remembers fearing the pressure cooker and Dad’s saying, “The more white bread the quicker your dead.” As a very small child, she saw rabbits hanging from the clothes-line pole for Daddy to skin; despite assurances, Mom’s fried rabbit never tasted like chicken to her. She also remembers squeezing coloring into oleo, possibly putting it into a form afterward, and hovering around Mom for jelly roll cake trimmings, raw potato, or cabbage heart.
Barbara's Chapter
Thanks for the Memories, Bernie
Barbara thanks Bernie for encouraging their recollections and says remembering the early years has been fun. She also describes a few of her quilts, her siblings Diana, Bob, Carol, Iris, and Dee on her staircase, and Bernie in his kitchen.
Diana's Chapter · Early childhood through grade school
Strawberry Patches, Saturday Baths, and Childhood Play
Diana recalls Carol’s frightening knee injury, punishment for charcoal writing and throwing rocks, and fear during her mother’s pneumonia. She describes the small house before bedrooms and a bathroom were added, Saturday baths in kitchen tubs, outdoor games, dolls, jump rope, and Jacks. School memories include crying on her first day, health inspections, and a sixth-grade ribbon.
Diana's Chapter · Childhood through college, with later reflections
A Car for College and a Family That Always Helped
Diana recalls demanding study habits, family gardening and tomato sales, and her anxious departure for college. Iris and Bill’s gift of a car made nursing school feasible. During an earlier John Deere & Company strike, Iris brought groceries when the family lacked money. Diana describes her scholarship, difficult college years, friendship with Martha Kawada, and graduation. Memories of planting a flower garden and helping haul water from the water works lead to gratitude for the family’s enduring support and resourcefulness.
Diana's Chapter · Through January 28th, 1995, and afterward
Cherished Ornaments and the Comfort of White Birds
Diana remembers Lee's warmth, generosity, love of babies, and reverent annual unpacking of Mom's Christmas ornaments, especially the shamrock and gold fish ornaments she made him. Lee died of lung cancer on January 28th, 1995, Mom's birthday. Two hours before his death, Diana watched white birds fishing in the lake behind their home and felt Mom was coming to take Lee with her. White birds continued to bring Diana comfort in her grief.
Dee's Chapter
Lessons from Daddy’s Shed and Garden
Delores spent hours with her inventive father in his shed, where he named her Sputnik and improved tools and Saturday auction finds. His demanding plowshare work at John Deere was followed by meticulous gardening. The children helped harvest and sold polished apples and tomatoes at Sam’s Market, keeping the proceeds. Delores remembers shelling homegrown popcorn and picking walnut meats with him, his humorous nose-straightening pose, his unusual favorite foods, and the elk he brought home from a western hunting trip that her mother refused to use.
Dee's Chapter · Mom’s childhood
Mom’s Lighthearted Memories of North Dakota
Mom grew up by the Mouse River in North Dakota and told even difficult memories lightheartedly. Blizzards buried the house and required an exit tunnel, but she enjoyed skiing to school, where she did well. She also remembered the deafening arrival of grasshoppers that stripped the countryside of green leaves.
Dee's Chapter · After Mom’s marriage through her senior years
Flour-Dusted Hands, Pretty Nails, and a Day of Curls
The narrator remembers Mom’s full-time work at home, her habit of dusting off her hands after tasks, and her lasting pride in her appearance. Susy recalled how Mom displayed polished nails but concealed damaged ones. Mom taught the girls beauty tricks, and she and Virginia spent a whole day giving five girls home perms. The narrator refused school the next day because her hair was too curly, though she later loved curls.
Dee's Chapter
Sunday Chicken and Cakes from Scratch
The narrator recalls Mom's weekly fried chicken dinners, believing the fresh chickens came from their own chicken house. Daddy dipped the slaughtered chickens in hot water to ease plucking. Ruth Reichenberg's pursuit of a headless chicken frightened the children and became a humorous memory. Mom browned flour-seasoned chicken in a cast-iron skillet before baking it in a blue roaster, serving it with potatoes, gravy, rolls, garden vegetables, and homemade dessert. Carol took charge of desserts when old enough. Everyone ate the same meal at assigned places and on time. Alice Atchison shared memories of coffee-cup measurements and testing oven heat with her hand; the narrator wonders whether Mom used such methods but remembers her insistence on exact measurements except for pie dough.
Dee's Chapter
Diana, the Dishes, and the Party Line
Dishwashing was assigned to the girls, never Dad or the boys. The narrator says Mom never had to wash dishes because she had five daughters, then jokes that only four did the work: Diana never washed or dried a dish, being occupied with friends on the telephone, reading in the bathroom, or homework. Their first telephone shared a three-way party line with two other residents; three rings signaled a call for the family. The narrator recalls the possibility of listening to others' conversations and wonders what the other subscribers could have said about Diana's frequent telephone use. The claim that Mom never had to wash dishes contrasts with the subsequent recollection of Mom doing dishes with her parakeet on her shoulder.
Dee's Chapter
Pretty Bird, Fluffy, and the Attic Mice
Mom's green parakeet, Pretty Bird, perched on her shoulder while she washed dishes, chirping with the clanking dishes and repeating his name. Mom loved him, but he flew away when the front door was left open. The narrator also remembers Fluffy, a big white cat who chased mice, joking that he kept them from eating Barb. Barb feared the attic mice would climb into her bed, and she and Diana heard them at night. The narrator was more disturbed by mouse droppings found while searching boxes of hand-me-down clothes in the attic.
Dee's Chapter
Mom's Quiet Hour Before the School-Day Rush
Mom rose early, dressed, got Dad off to work, and packed lunches from supper leftovers. Before the children got up, she enjoyed black coffee, a cigarette, and crocheting doilies that became family treasures. She served hot breakfasts individually around the children's schedules. A timed bathroom routine followed Dad's installation of a new bathroom. The children rode the bus in grade school and walked in junior high until Bob got his first car and drove them. The narrator affectionately marvels at Mom's orderly management of the household.
Dee's Chapter
Monday Laundry and a Fright at the Ringer
Monday laundry required Mom to haul well water, heat it on the stove, and carry it to the basement. She washed whites first and Dad's dirtiest clothes last. While helping, the narrator had her hand and arm pulled through the ringer; Mom released the top immediately, leaving her more frightened than hurt. Mom cooked starch, hung loads outside, and folded dry clothes into ten piles. Embroidered initials helped identify underwear and socks, while at least three baskets were sprinkled with water for ironing.
Dee's Chapter
Tuesday Ironing and the Intriguing Mangle
Mom ironed on Tuesdays, working late at night when the children were young and during the day with their help when they were older. Listening to the radio, she pressed household linens and clothing, including Bob and Bernie's white shirts. Grampa bought her a mangle to ease the workload. The narrator describes its revolving padded barrel, foot pedal, and heating panel, wonders whether it really helped, and remembers that the fascinating machine was strictly off limits to the children.
Dee's Chapter · Club began in 1945; continued 55 years later
Club Days, Secret Pals, and Midnight Friendship
Mom’s eight-player club met on the second Wednesday of each month, rotating homes to play 500. Alice Atchison recalled its names changing from the Pregnant Women’s Club to The Hot Flash Club. Mom prepared with meticulous cleaning and dessert making; prizes and annual Secret Pals added to the fun. After Daddy had his stroke, he mistook a Secret Pal card for evidence of a secret lover, a story Mom later told with amusement after his death. In her widowhood, Mom enjoyed supper, cards, and midnight snacks with Ruth, John Reichenberg, and Florence Britz. She also played Euchre through Friend’s Circle and the Community Center, preferring the Circle’s company.
Dee's Chapter
Friday’s Shining Floors and Poker Nights
Friday began with thorough housecleaning and waxing the kitchen floor. Mom then dressed for grocery shopping at the A&P Store in downtown Moline while Daddy napped in the car and the children chose shopping or the library. Supper was pancakes, bacon, and eggs, followed by hurried dishwashing before poker company arrived. The Cordinglys usually joined Mom and Dad for games played with chips, never money. Drinks, midnight snacks, and Mom’s seemingly tireless work rounded out the weekly routine.
Dee's Chapter
Saturday Baths and Mom's Banana Curls
With no running water, the family pumped water from an outside well and heated it on the stove. Saturday baths took place in a gray metal tub beside the kitchen heat register, screened by towel-covered chairs. Mom scrubbed the children, cleaned and clipped their nails, shampooed their hair with Halo, and set it in rags for banana curls before Sunday School. Despite over 30 years as a hairdresser, the narrator still marveled at Mom's curls. She also remembered Iris rinsing her hair with lemon juice and brushing it in the sun.
Dee's Chapter
Buttered Popcorn and Cool Sheets on Summer Nights
After Saturday baths, Mom served a big blue roaster of popcorn with plenty of butter and salt, or a large batch of fudge on a buttered platter. On hot summer nights she spread a clean white sheet over the living room rug, where the children fell asleep with a fan blowing on them.
Dee's Chapter
Mom's Top-to-Bottom Spring Cleaning
Every late March or early April, after the coal furnace was shut off, Mom scoured the entire house to remove black soot. Curtains were washed and dried outside on an adjustable wooden stretcher fitted with pins. Cupboards were emptied and washed, dishes cleaned, and shelves lined with fresh paper, including decorative scalloped borders. Winter clothes were stored with mothballs and hand-me-downs set aside. Storm windows came down, windows were washed before screens went up, and mattresses, rugs, and the family's one carpet were taken outside and beaten. The narrator remembers that Mom maintained this annual routine throughout her life, whether it was needed or not.
Dee's Chapter
Mom’s Sewing and a Sewing Machine’s Second Life
Mom sewed the girls’ school and Sunday school dresses, full circle skirts, shorts, and halter tops for Camp Shebonie, as well as sewing for the McFarlands. Virginia did Mom’s ironing while she sewed. Delores recalls Mom’s ease and speed at the pedal machine and humorously suggests it helped keep her legs and ankles trim. After Mom replaced her White sewing machine with an electric one and discarded it, Mrs. Poston rescued it and turned it into a marble-topped table for her restaurant, The Hasty Tasty, where the narrator says it remained at the time of telling.
Dee's Chapter
Summer Nights and Apple Butter Sandwiches
The narrator recalls her parents working hard to feed their children: Dad grew vegetables and fruit, and Mom canned over two thousand jars each year around harvest time. Mom worked mostly at night when it was cooler and the children were asleep. The narrator thinks Grampa sometimes stayed up to help. Mom made many preserves, pickles, and canned tomatoes; her apple butter was the narrator's favorite. Thousands of Ball jars and huge crocks filled the basement.
Dee's Chapter · After the children were all grown
The Canning Jars Dad Hauled Away
While Mom was at card club, Dad decided she would no longer do any canning. He packed up all her jars and large crocks and took them to the junk yard. Mom was furious when he told her, and the narrator is unsure whether she ever forgave him. The narrator reflects that those jars and crocks would be valuable today.
Dee's Chapter
Christmas Cookies, Stocking Oranges, and a House Full of Gifts
Dee recalls a Christmas season filled with Mom's cookies, candies, fudge, and carefully chosen gifts. Dad bought the real tree at the last minute; Dee speculates that freshness and fire safety were his reasons. Bernie decorated outstanding cookies and called the children to the window to see Santa, who was always gone before they arrived. Daddy filled stockings with large oranges from Lagomarcino’s, especially treasured during wartime scarcity. Dee carried the fruit tradition forward with Susy and her grandchildren. Carol's Christmas Eve birthday brought a homemade angel food cake, with the leftover yolks used for noodles served with chicken over mashed potatoes. Christmas gifts included homemade clothing, dolls, sleds, BB guns, and school-made presents. Daddy continued Grampa's gift of twelve pairs of stockings to Mom after Grampa died. Dad's insistence on slowly fried mush and his breakfast invitations added to Mom's work while she also prepared turkey dinner. After Iris married, the growing family gathered at her larger house on Christmas Eve, where gifts piled toward the ceiling.
Dee's Chapter
Pudge's Memories of a Lovable Grampa
Delores remembers swinging on Grampa's leg and sitting on his lap. He called her “Pudge” for her dimpled cheeks; Bernie says she was his favorite, probably after Bob. She recalls his horseradish garden and his grinding radishes outdoors because of the smell. She also witnessed his sudden fatal heart attack in the hallway on a Sunday and remembers her panic as the ambulance took him away.
Dee's Chapter
Family Rumors and Grampa's Hidden Whiskey
Delores cautiously recalls a childhood rumor about Grampa having an affair and burning down a house, explicitly saying she may have the facts wrong. She thinks it was around the time he moved himself and her mother to Moline and changed his name from Lehman to Williams, and suggests Diana may know more. Years after his death, grandchildren digging in cement blocks at the bottom of the basement stairs during a holiday gathering discovered hidden whiskey bottles. Delores says her mother had kept his drinking to herself.
Dee's Chapter
A Red Quarantine Sign and Homemade Applesauce
With ten people living in the house, the narrator marvels that illness was not more frequent. Barbara contracted scarlet fever as a baby, and health inspectors posted a red QUARANTINE sign. The narrator thinks Daddy stayed elsewhere so he could work. Mom offered homemade applesauce after the unpleasant preventive medicine. The narrator also remembers disliking Cod Liver Oil.
Dee's Chapter · About age nine through high school
First Earnings and a Room to Be Proud Of
Selling flower seeds door to door earned Dee two bedroom lamps, and she also babysat for the Hancocks and Iris. She recalls Iris meeting Bill at Cozy Corners, Iris’s wedding and emerald ring, and a frightening night babysitting in Iris’s large house, when she hid a knife beneath a sofa cushion. Summer work at Tasty Treat brought unlimited root beer and paychecks that Dee and Carol pooled for twin beds, turquoise bedspreads, a lamp, and a rug; Mom made matching curtains. Dee also praises Bernie’s lasting plasterwork in his room.
Dee's Chapter · Thirteen-year marriage; February 4, 1977 divorce; through the time of writing
Family Love Through Changing Seasons
Dee recalls loving Ernie passionately during a marriage filled with motorcycles, travel, Susy’s dancing, and salon work. She tried to give Susy everything she had lacked as a child, later learning Susy wanted a sibling more than those comforts. Following her divorce on February 4, 1977, Dee did not remarry and found contentment with Susy and granddaughters Annah and Bryce. Gardening, treasure hunting, costume making, and furniture restoration enrich her life. She credits her family and the unconditional love passed down by her mother with sustaining her.
Dee's Chapter · 1942 through the time of writing
An Enchanted House Full of Family Memories
Delores remembers moving at age two into a four-room house on an acre, originally addressed 3209 39th Street. The house, garage, and land cost $2,750, with another $100 for the chicken house; payments were $25 monthly after $500 down. The orchard and yard were a childhood wonderland, while the small house eventually held ten people. She describes crowded sleeping arrangements, hand-pumped water, an outhouse, coal heat, rabbits, and time with her father in his workshed. Her father added two bedrooms and a bathroom without professional help in 1950. Later changes included removal of an interior wall, new carpeting, and white vinyl siding with hunter-green shutters. After three-quarters of the land was sold, the address became 3205 39th Street. Preserving the house helps her keep family memories alive.
Dee's Chapter · At the time of writing
A Mother and Daughter's Butterfly Garden
Delores and her daughter Susy landscaped the entire yard by hand, turning it into a bird and butterfly sanctuary. Susy helps add flowers and shrubs to attract butterflies. They hope to tag Monarchs the following season and follow their migration to Mexico, as gardening becomes an avid hobby for Delores.
Dee's Chapter
To Barb, with Love: Braids, Laughter, and Kindness
Dee's affectionate poem celebrates Barbara from her braided-hair childhood and shared fright with Diana over attic mice through marriage to Norman, homemaking, parenting, studying, and world travel. It recalls whaling in Alaska and admiration of Monet in France, and praises Barbara's hospitality, giggle, flowers, quilts, and caring resemblance to their mother.
Dee's Chapter
To Diana, with Love: Games, Dreams, and Caring
Dee's affectionate poem celebrates Diana's talkativeness and recalls shared mischief, puddles, mud pies, May baskets, hollyhock dolls, and dandelion games. It praises Diana's academic dedication, recalls her bringing home a cat to debone after driving from Wesleyan, and describes her meeting Lee in Chicago. The poem closes by honoring Diana's sensitivity and the caring conversations Dee treasures.
Dee's Chapter
A Loving Toast to Bob
Dee celebrates Robert Ray Guild in a playful, affectionate poem recalling his homemade wine, snow igloo, marriage to his high school sweetheart, dancing with Sue, successful business, coast-to-coast travels, and welcoming home. She praises his helpfulness and loyalty while teasing him about golf, gardening, and pistachios, closing with a wish that he remarry and a toast in his honor.
Dee's Chapter
A Loving Day with Bernie in San Francisco
In a poem signed Dee, Delores describes visiting her brother Bernie at his Victorian home in San Francisco. She admires his flowers and orchids, creative success, and zest for life. They visit an old-time ice cream parlor and order chocolate Yoplait with pears. His encouragement and conversation leave her inspired, and she bids him an affectionate farewell as she boards a trolley car with a fifteen-cent fare.
Carol's Chapter · Around 1943 through the time of telling
Childhood Warmth at the Old Brass Register
Carol recalls the brass heat register near the kitchen door in her childhood home's living room, installed when her father added a basement and furnace around 1943. Children warmed themselves and dried boots and mittens there. Despite repeated remodeling, the register remained unchanged, and standing before it on return visits brings back childhood memories.
Carol's Chapter · 1938 and infancy
A Christmas Eve Baby in a Wicker Basket
After her mother began having contractions while trimming the Christmas tree, Carol was born on Christmas Eve 1938 in Moline. Her father named her Carol Mae for the season. She joined Iris, Bobby and Bernie at the family's apartment; the later births of Delores, Diana and Barbara made her the middle child. Remembered as a very small baby, she was carried on a pillow and kept in a wicker basket on a bedroom shelf beyond her brothers' reach.
Carol's Chapter · 1942–1953 and later recollections
An Acre and Four Rooms to Call Home
Carol remembers moving to 3209 39th Street in 1942 at age four, running through empty rooms and jumping through windows. The $2,187 house stood on an acre in South Moline Township and initially had four rooms, an outhouse, and a well, but no bathroom, basement, or garage. Her father built a basement. A family of ten shared the small house, with the girls' living-room beds put away each morning and Grandpa Williams living there until his death in 1953.
Carol's Chapter · 1940s and later
Ice Deliveries, Party Lines, and Summer in the Basement
Carol describes well water pumped beside the sink, water heated on the stove, an icebox supplied by an iceman, and glass-bottled milk delivered during the war years. She contrasts her family's circumstances with school friends Juanita and Lavelle Nelson, who lived in a boxcar and cooled food in a hillside hole. She recalls distinctive party-line rings and secretly listening to conversations. In summer the family lived and ate in the cooler basement; her father eventually cut up their oak dining table to make a punching bag ceiling-mount.
Carol's Chapter
Washday Work and the Wonder of the Mangle
Carol recalls the all-day weekly laundry routine, usually on Monday, for a household of ten. Mom used a wringer washing machine, reused the wash water, and rinsed clothes in two tubs with bluing and Borax among her laundry supplies. She carried wet laundry upstairs to hang outside, arranging sheets to hide underwear, or dried it in the basement during winter or rain. Clothes were folded away or dampened for later ironing, and clean sheets marked the end of a hard day's work. One year Grandpa Williams bought Mom a mangle, and the children were so impressed that they fought over turns helping iron.
Carol's Chapter
Sharing Water and Learning to Save Every Drop
Carol recalls a family well that repeatedly went dry. Their water tasted and smelled good, unlike some neighbors' sulfurous water. Mom hauled water from Reichenberg’s well for laundry. Ruth and John Reichenberg and their children, Kent and Carolyn, were close friends and neighbors. Daddy fitted a wagon with a five-hundred-gallon tank he had made and fetched water from town two or three times a week to replenish the family's and neighbors' wells. These shortages taught Carol lasting water-conservation habits.
Carol's Chapter
Coal Hills and the Work of Keeping Warm
Carol recalls the family's coal-burning furnace. Daddy took Bob and Bernie to an industrial coal yard, where the car and trailer were weighed before and after loading to determine the coal's weight. While Daddy shoveled, Bob and Bernie climbed and slid down coal piles, blackening their clothes and angering Mom. At home, Daddy shoveled coal through a small basement window that he repeatedly broke. Tending the furnace required banking it every day and night and removing the cinders and ashes.
Carol's Chapter
Brilliant Colors from a Cinder
Carol recalls making cinder plants by finding a pointed cinder and putting iodine on it. She describes it growing brilliant, iridescent, multicolored stalagmites.
Carol's Chapter
Twice a Year, a Fresh and Clean House
Carol recalls the thorough spring and fall housekeeping required by the dusty, sticky residue from the coal furnace. Wallpaper was rubbed clean with a pink, gummy material, lace curtains dried on a nailed wooden stretcher, rugs were beaten, and bedding and draperies aired on the clothesline. Her mother also painted and wallpapered, teaching Carol to paint. Seasonal window changes included washing every window inside and out. Limited storage, a damp basement, and an impractical attic made clearing out unwanted belongings and rotating seasonal clothing essential. Her mother ended each cleaning season proudly admiring the home's fresh appearance and smell.
Carol's Chapter
Open Doors and a Winter Skeleton-Key Rescue
Carol recalls leaving doors unlocked in the early years, opening the front door for summer breezes, and hanging flypaper to catch the flies that entered. Later, the family used a skeleton key. One snowy winter morning, while Mom was visiting Diana in Florida, Carol stepped outside barefoot in a thin housecoat to shake a rug. Chris, whom Carol estimates was about five, slammed the door and accidentally locked it. Unable to get back inside, Carol sought help at the Sajbens. Mr. Sajben opened her door with his own skeleton key and joked that it would probably open every door on the street.
Carol's Chapter
Saturday-Night Baths in the Warm Kitchen
Carol recalls lining up with her brothers and sisters for Saturday-night baths, oldest first and youngest last. They bathed in a round galvanized wash tub in the kitchen, warmed by an open oven. Their mother screened the girls with towels draped over four chairs, added hot water to the shared bathwater, scrubbed each child, and dried them with oven-warmed towels. She kept all seven children clean and groomed, with clipped nails and clean, starched, pressed clothes.
Carol's Chapter
Iris, a Big Sister and Second Mom
Carol remembers Iris, the oldest child and six years older than Bernie, as a second mother. Iris played with her siblings, bathed and dressed them, babysat, cooked, and cleaned while their mother experienced many pregnancies over fifteen years. Iris married when Carol was ten.
Carol's Chapter · 1942–about 1949 or 1950; later reflection
Goodbye to the Outhouse on 39th Street
Carol recalls living in four rooms on 39th Street and the family's happiness when Daddy added an indoor bathroom and two bedrooms. Their gray-board outhouse had two holes, no heat, and sometimes Sears Roebuck Catalog pages instead of toilet paper. Nighttime trips were frightening, and Mom accompanied the children with a flashlight. Carol concealed the outhouse from school friends because she associated it with being poor. Daddy initially kept it as a backup after indoor plumbing arrived, but her brothers demolished it while he was at work and got into trouble. Carol ends by imagining a prettily decorated modern outhouse with decorating advice from Martha Stewart.
Carol's Chapter · 1881 onward
Gramps’s Helping Hands and Generous Heart
Carol recounts Edward Williams’s birth, marriage to Agnes Tomitum, and family losses. After Agnes died of tuberculosis, he raised Mom and Lloyd alone and moved with them to Moline in 1925. Despite arguments with Daddy over drinking, Gramps was a valued family helper. He contributed two thousand dollars for a house addition, worked in the garden, helped with canning and childcare, and paid for Mom’s false teeth and occasional dresses. Mom’s “good” dresses for 500 Club meetings were cotton housedresses costing two dollars and seventy-nine cents in J. C. Penney’s basement.
Carol's Chapter
Imaginations, Paper Dolls, and the Warmth of Home
Carol remembers childhood games with her sisters and neighborhood friends when store-bought toys were scarce. They played House on an army blanket, dressed in cast-off clothes, played in a canvas tent and a deserted trailer, and enjoyed paper dolls. Quiet play in the kitchen while Mom ironed and listened to the radio gave Carol a lasting sense of security. The children made newspaper kites, Kleenex flowers, and Kool-Aid stands, played street games, and sledded through steep wooded hills before warming themselves at the brass heat register.
Carol's Chapter · The Forties
Clean Sheets, Warm Flannel, and a Family Doctor
Carol recalls doctors making house calls in the Forties. However sick the children were, Mom had them leave their beds so she could put on clean sheets before the doctor arrived. Mom also treated colds with Vicks and warm flannel cloths. Carol remembers Dr. Menton as their first doctor; he went to jail after being caught supplying illegal drugs to his wife. His successor, George Cook, provided medicine expecting more children to fall ill, visited frequently, and became a lasting family friend.
Carol's Chapter
Green Stamps and Two Brand-New Purchases
Carol recalls that the family never had new furniture, appliances, or cars, and that she was ashamed of their old cars. Daddy selected second-hand household items without criticism from Mom. Mom obtained new presents, small appliances, and accessories by saving S&H Green Stamps, and accumulated silver-plated dinnerware for eight using box tops redeemed for catalog points. Carol then remembers two things Daddy bought new: a turquoise Comet, financed with his first-ever loan through the John Deere Credit Union, and a kitchen table with three leaves and ten chairs from Phil Vinar’s Furniture Store. Her parents did not have a checking account until all the children had left home.
Carol's Chapter · Childhood and junior high years
A Place on the Bench and Cake for Supper
The family gathered around a rectangular table with three leaves and a wooden bench Daddy made. Carol remembers sharing the bench with Dee and Diana, while Mom sat beside the youngest child to help. Large homemade meals included bread at both ends of the table and dessert after every supper. Carol later thought the bread compensated for limited seconds. In junior high she made a two-egg cake almost every day, with leftovers packed into school lunches.
Carol's Chapter
Mom's Kitchen, Backyard Roasts, and a Special Sunday Dinner
Carol recalls homemade meals, sweets, Friday-night treats, and bedtime snacks, including Lloyd teaching the children to dunk peanut butter sandwiches into cocoa. She remembers coloring margarine and refusing ten cents to eat liver. After the move to 39th Street, Mom raised chickens, Bob had a pig, and Grandpa Williams raised rabbits. Watching a chicken being killed terrified Carol, though chicken dinners and competing for the wishbone were memorable. Daddy prepared backyard wiener roasts. Restaurant meals never occurred and dinner invitations were rare, making a Sunday ham dinner with Ruth and Tom Johnson especially memorable.
Carol's Chapter
Sunday Pies, Shared Chicken, and the Funnies
Sundays were reserved for family, with Mom rising at dawn to bake pies with lard crusts, crescent rolls, and cinnamon rolls. Favorite noon dinners included Swiss steak or fried chicken with mashed potatoes. Carol jokes that ten people shared one chicken, then adds that surely there were at least two. Mom ate the wings and Dad the back, liver, and gizzards, saving the meatiest pieces for the children; Carol now enjoys wings herself. After dinner, Barb usually escaped to Margie’s house and Diana read behind a locked bathroom door, leaving Carol and Dee to do dishes while Bob snapped towels at them. Afterward, they read the Sunday paper Dad brought from town, especially Carol’s beloved funnies.
Carol's Chapter · Childhood; about 1986
A Treasured Doll Comes Home Again
Carol received her last childhood doll at about eight or nine years old. The bisque doll had yellow braids, opening and closing eyes, and a pouty mouth; Carol dressed it in outfits her mother made. After years in storage, she rediscovered it while unpacking after moving to 11th Street in Moline and told Dee how remarkable its survival was. A few years later, about 1986, Dee secretly had a friend mend its body and provide a new dress, wig, shoes, and socks. Dee presented the restored doll on a stand for Carol's birthday, making it one of her best birthday gifts. At the time of writing, the doll was over fifty years old and proudly displayed on Carol's dresser.
Carol's Chapter
Saturday Chores and a Sack of Candy
Carol recalls the girls helping Mom clean every Saturday morning, including changing sheets, cleaning rooms, and washing the insides of windows. Carol disliked dusting Mom’s foot-treadle sewing machine but did it anyway. After sponge baths and dressing up, they shopped downtown, enjoying the New York Store elevator and visiting Penney’s and Block and Kuhls. At Kresge’s dime store they received a small toy and candy to share and savor. Grocery shopping at the A&P or Shinner’s Meat Market finished the day. Carol also recalls a scandal over Shinner’s selling horse-meat just after the war, when good meat was scarce.
Carol's Chapter
Clothes Made with Care on Mom's Treadle Machine
Carol remembers her mother's skill and industry in sewing childhood clothes on a White treadle sewing machine, including dresses, slips, pajamas, and coats. She especially loved an orange-and-white three-piece outfit made when she was in first or second grade. Her mother also sewed for Marilyn, Patty, and Iris' daughters and crocheted a baby dress for Linda. Virginia exchanged ironing for sewing for her girls. Mrs. Vandergeist sometimes helped with machine-made buttonholes, inspiring Carol's father to buy a button hole attachment. Carol does not remember her mother using flour sacks for clothing, although she notes that this was common in the Thirties and Forties. The family also wore hand-me-downs and used clothes from friends, with her mother reassuring her that they were fine to wear.
Carol's Chapter
Friday Nights, Fudge, and Family Games
Carol recalls Mom making a big batch of cocoa fudge after supper on Friday nights and pouring it onto her mother's hand-painted platter to cool. The family gathered around the kitchen table to play Tiddlywinks, Chinese Checkers, Parcheesi, or Monopoly, then finished the evening eating what Carol remembered as the best tasting fudge in the world.
Carol's Chapter
Christmas Records, Boxes of Goodies, and Mom's Fruitcake
Carol recalls her mother playing favorite Christmas records and baking from just after Thanksgiving until Christmas. The cold back porch served as a freezer for the treats. After the children left home, their mother mailed them large boxes of cookies, candy, and breads. Her annual Depression Fruitcake was made early, repeatedly soaked in brandy, baked in assorted containers, and finished with glaze and candied fruit. Carol and her father dearly loved it.
Carol's Chapter
Christmas Trees, Stocking Treats, and Family Togetherness
Carol recalls Daddy waiting until close to Christmas to buy inexpensive trees, once paying fifty cents, and drilling holes to rearrange branches. The family decorated with paper chains, popcorn, ornaments, saved tinsel, and fiberglass angel hair that made their skin itch. Their everyday socks held fruit, walnuts, and candy; they later learned Daddy bought the biggest apples and oranges at Lagomarcino’s. He traditionally gave Mom two pairs of nylon stockings. Larger family gatherings moved to Iris and Bill’s for Christmas Eve. Christmas was Mom’s favorite holiday: after the children left home, she usually put up her tree by early December, shopped with Barb in Normal, and enjoyed specialty shops and tearoom lunches. Norm took the group to the Apple Barn for apples and cider. Mom also finished ornament balls at Barb’s and taught Amy and Jenny to make them. Carol believed Mom especially loved the holiday because it brought the whole family together.
Carol's Chapter
Remembering the Philco Radio
Carol recalls one of the first radios they had: a large, old-fashioned-looking Philco table radio with a dome on top and an illuminated dial for locating stations.
Carol's Chapter · 1940s–1950s; around 1950
Howdy Doody and the Neighborhood's First Television
Carol recalls movies in the Forties giving way to television in the Fifties. Around 1950, when she would have been about twelve, the McFarlands had the neighborhood's first TV, a large black-and-white console with a small screen. She visited daily to watch Howdy Doody and remembers its opening song and characters. Her family soon acquired a TV. Her father watched endlessly from his reserved favorite chair, while her mother seldom watched but liked game shows and possibly Arthur Godfrey.
Carol's Chapter · 1954–1958; later reflections undated
A Gold Tassel and a School That Still Feels Like Home
Carol recalls entering high school timidly in fall 1954 and graduating boldly in 1957 in the top fourth of her class. She still treasures her gold graduation tassel and drives past the former school when returning to Moline, mourning its conversion into an architectural firm while retaining a sense of belonging. Ironically, the new Moline High School was completed in 1958 within walking distance of her childhood home.
Carol's Chapter
Carol’s Extra Basket of Back-Then Memories
After the book was finished, Carol collected memories Bernie said there was not enough room to include. Her nostalgic list moves from Mom reading the funnies, homemade treats, and Dad's comparison of a Studebaker to a two-row corn picker to Bob's Davy Crockett hat, Bernie's stilts, school dances, fashions, childhood games, illnesses, street names, music, and remembered entertainment quotations.
Carol's Chapter · 1928; the Forties; later years
A Roller-Skating Beginning and a Legacy of Care
Mary Hill arranged Ethel and Floyd's blind date, and they went roller-skating. They married in Moline on November 6, 1928, with Elva and Frank Melton standing up with them, then celebrated with dinner and a movie rather than a honeymoon. Carol remembers their independent household responsibilities, relentless work in the Forties, kindness to neighbors, and family values demonstrated through everyday actions.
Carol's Chapter · 1911; later years unspecified
Mom’s Records and a Lifetime of Devotion
Carol recounts Ethel's birth in Newburg and her search for baptismal records when she needed a passport to visit Carol in Germany. The record supplied the spelling Kathrine, listed her father's first name as Edwin rather than the family's remembered Edward, and revealed a birth year of 1911 rather than 1909. Her already-engraved grave marker would remain incorrect, but she enjoyed learning she was two years younger. Carol also honors her mother's tireless work caring for the family, her support and guidance, and her life without an outside job after her first baby or learning to drive.
Carol's Chapter
Holiday Card Games and Mom’s Perfect Hand
Carol recalls lively games of 500 whenever the family gathered at home for holidays, with improvised prizes and laughter that prompted Mom to tell the girls to settle down. Once, Carol and her sisters stacked the cards to give Mom a perfect hand. They intended to reveal the trick, but Mom was so excited that they could not bring themselves to tell her.
Carol's Chapter
Morning Crochet and Keepsakes of Love
Carol remembers watching Mom crochet at the kitchen table between Daddy's departure for work and the children's rising for school. Mom made hundreds of household pieces, individually designed Christmas ornaments, wall hangings, wreaths, and painted bread dough figures with Diana. Carol sees these crafts as expressions of creativity and treasures even the ornaments that have faded or fallen apart.
Carol's Chapter
Daddy Could Make or Mend Anything
Floyd traded with Hugh Chase and proudly repaired and resold a broken chain saw at a profit after using it. Herb Spahn remembered his riding-sprayer, motorized plow, help to neighbors, and protective rule against swearing around his girls. Carol recalls his metalwork, woodworking, car repairs, plumbing, electrical work, and walnut carving, skills that kept the household from needing hired help.
Carol's Chapter · 1940s and later undated years
Summer Visitors and Backyard Memories
Carol remembers meeting Floyd's three sisters from Brainerd and his warning that they might think the family rich and stay forever. Uncle Clarence, Francis, and their five children visited before Floyd's illness and death. Other memories include wartime hand-rolled cigarettes and smoke rings, later chewing tobacco, hunting trips with Bernie and Bobby, and playing house in Floyd's former backyard workshop after he moved into the new garage.
Carol's Chapter · Christmas Eve, 1967–May 23, 1968
Caring for Daddy Through His Last Months
Daddy suffered a stroke on Christmas Eve, 1967. Not realizing its seriousness, the family went to Iris and Bill's while Mom stayed with him. After Mom called Iris to report that he was worse, Lee and Bob took him to the hospital. Following two weeks there, his agitation prompted a search for other care. The family rejected St. Anthony's Hospital in Rock Island because patients were smoking while Daddy struggled to breathe. Mom tried caring for him at home with help from the girls and daily visits from Virginia, but the burden became exhausting. He was eventually taken to East Moline State Hospital. He died at sixty-three on May 23, 1968, surrounded by Mom and all the children, and is buried next to Mom at Riverside Cemetery in Moline, Illinois.
Carol's Chapter
Daddy's Favorite Foods and Familiar Ways
Carol recalls Daddy's food preferences, dislike of milk, insistence on Sayman Salve, warnings about sun exposure and swallowed bubble gum, control of money decisions, and objection to Mom wearing shorts or slacks. He kept canaries, bought a motor scooter, slept in a characteristic pose while watching television, and enjoyed neighborhood conversations so much that Mom sent the children to find him at dinnertime.
Carol's Chapter · 1944–1988
Chris, the Sunshine of Carol's Life
Carol recalls her 1965 marriage to Donald M. Boney, Chris's birth in 1967, and the joy her son brought her. After the 1972 divorce, she and Chris moved in with her Mom. She remembers Don as a supportive father, recounts his Navy Corpsman service and decorations, and records his death after years of cancer.
Carol's Chapter · Before July 1978
Happy Years in the Rhine River Valley
Carol remembers life in Ingelheim as the happiest time of her life. She and Charlie worked at neighboring military units, while Chris attended school, learned German, and enjoyed sports. Her memories include skiing, castles, the Fasching Parade, wine festivals, weekend markets, European vacations, and visits and touring with Mom and Bernie.
Carol's Chapter · July 1978–September 1979
A Short Florida Stay and a Return to Moline
After leaving Germany in July 1978, Carol and Charlie worked at the 31st ADA Brigade at Homestead Air Force Base in Florida. They returned to Moline in September 1979 and resumed their careers at the Rock Island Arsenal.
Carol's Chapter · 1993–present
Phase Two: Sunshine, Church Friends, and Swans
After retiring from the Rock Island Arsenal in October 1993, Carol describes moving to Florida in July 1995 and enjoying a slower life in North Port. Church friendships, reading, keyboard playing, and Christmas ornament making fill her retirement. A swan collection begun with Charlie's anniversary gifts has grown to more than one hundred through gifts from family and friends.
Carol's Chapter
A Christmas Visit Captured in Family Portraits
Bernie borrowed a Leica camera to photograph a new place in San Francisco, then brought it home to Moline at Christmas. Using orange and green fabric tacked up in the girls’ bedroom as a backdrop, Bernie photographed the family. A portrait of Bernie taken by high school chum Jerry Edlund during the same trip completed the folio. Later on the family portrait day, the family celebrated Carol’s 23rd birthday. Bernie treasured how clearly the portraits revealed everyone’s personality.
Bob's Chapter
Canning Shelves and Grandpa's Special Sausage Crock
Mom preserved the garden and orchard harvest every year with help from Grandpa Williams and Iris, reusing hundreds of jars. Jelly was sometimes sealed with paraffin or covered with waxed paper and a rubber band. Dad built basement shelves like library stacks; jars sometimes spoiled and exploded, especially peas. Iris recalled catsup, spiced pork, pepper hash, and cabbage and cucumber relish. Bernie remembered pork sausage and sage patties preserved under solidified pork grease in a decorated gray crock on the cold porch. Made especially for Grandpa Williams, the patties were eaten cold straight from the grease. Bernie still has the crock.
Bob's Chapter
A Mother's Everyday Care and Treasured Handwork
Robert remembers his extraordinary mother's work raising seven children with help from her dad, Iris, and neighbors. Childhood in the four-room house on 39th Street included Saturday baths in a galvanized kitchen tub, an outhouse, clean school clothes, cocoa with a peanut butter sandwich, and repeatedly reused lunch bags. His mother made thirteen-egg angel food birthday cakes, tended and canned a large garden's harvest, and silently taught him to pick beans thoroughly by collecting three more buckets after he said he was finished. He treasures her doilies, Christmas ornament balls, and Santa dolls; his boys Steve and Brian also have ornaments.
Bob's Chapter
Vegetables Put By and Sauerkraut from the Basement Crock
The section lists at least 200 quarts of tomatoes for Swiss steak, about 100 quarts of tomato juice for goulash, string beans, wax beans, lima beans, peas, corn, and beets. Sauerkraut was made in an open 50-gallon ceramic crock under the front basement window, covered by an inverted dinner plate. A roughly one-inch head of mold had to be lifted to reach the good kraut below. The accompanying recipe calls for cooking sauerkraut and spareribs together until the meat falls off the bone and serving them over riced potatoes with butter.
Bob's Chapter
Keeping Fruit in the Backyard
The section lists cherries, peaches, pears, and lots of applesauce. The narrator recalls Dad wrapping pears and apples in newspaper and storing them for several months in bushel baskets in a covered hole in the backyard. The family ate the apples even when they became a little wrinkled.
Bob's Chapter
Dad's Workshop, Lessons, and Lasting Tools
Bob remembers Dad as someone who could fix anything, an excellent mechanic and welder whose projects brought many trips for parts, advice, and conversation with friends. Dad worked hard at John Deere, where friends called him Casey, tended a half-acre fruit orchard, participated in Dad’s Club, and took the children to Scout meetings. He taught them to make willow whistles and homemade kites. The family visited his brothers in Minnesota without announcing their arrival. His tough car negotiations embarrassed Bob but secured good deals. Bob recalls Dad's handsome appearance and enjoyment of his motorcycle and camper in retirement, and remembers him whenever he uses the tools he kept.
Bob's Chapter
Favorite Pastimes on the Rock River
Bob says he has no particular hobby but enjoys reading, golf, fishing, boating, and woodworking. Living on the Rock River makes jet skiing, his current favorite activity, convenient. He wishes summers were longer and has become a skilled picture framer.
Bob's Chapter
Bob's Bright Fragments of Childhood
Bob lists vivid childhood memories: neighbors, a gasoline burn while playing with a toy steamshovel, Barbara refusing medicine, Bernie's skating injury, and Tom Johnson knocking out power lines with a falling tree. He recalls visiting the Rodgers in Cordova, swimming at Campbell’s Island, annual Riverside Park picnics, Iris’s wedding, and poker games with Art and Eileen Cordingly. Other memories include orchard camping and spraying, gathering walnuts, toys and homemade kites, fireworks, homemade foods, hauling water when the well dried up, building a house addition, basement heat relief and flooding, coal heating, backyard tomatoes, and the surviving mailbox millstone.
Bernie's Chapter · 1936
Bernie's Arrival Just After Midnight
Bernie recounts his birth as the first son and second child, in his parents' rented Moline home just after midnight on April 11, 1936. He weighed ten pounds. His mother later told him that after a colicky infancy he became healthy, happy, and talkative, saying “Bernie” as his first word at eight months.
Bernie's Chapter · Possibly around age three
Little Glimpses of an Early Childhood
Bernie recalls playing with the rubber buttons on his sun suit, a vague sensation of bouncing on Grampa’s Williams’ knee, a humming red top, and a wooden duck toy. He does not remember his birthplace house, but introduces the fragmented memories of the family's second house at 127 35th Street as material for a poem.
Bernie's Chapter
Railroad Treasures and Childhood Days by the River
In a sequence of childhood memories, the narrator recalls locomotives, Grampa's walks to kindergarten, gathering fallen coal for Mommy's stove, and finding treasures near the foundry. He remembers his fifth birthday, first-grade lessons, a printing prize, and a teacher locking out Arnold for lateness. Life in a big white house includes celebrations, baby Carol's arrival while Mommy is sick, Mommy returning with Baby Delores, games with Bobby and Iris, penny treats, a tavern visit, May baskets, and the fascination of a river the children are forbidden to approach.
Bernie's Chapter · July 16, 1942, and subsequent decades
The Little House That Grew with the Family
Bernard remembers the small house on 39th Street that became the family's enduring home. He believes Mom secured the loan to move the children away from the river and railroad tracks. Dad gradually transformed the four-room house with a basement, furnace, well, enlarged kitchen, bedrooms, indoor plumbing, siding, garage, and work shed. Memories of moving day, Grampa's songs and knee rides, the McFarlands, and freedom to play convey the deep closeness of the family.
Bernie's Chapter
The Homestead's Shade, Blossoms, and Sweet Fruit
Bernard recalls the elm Dad called a Piss Elm, which survived the children's climbing and sheltered Grampa Williams's food preparation and the girls' summer activities. He describes favorite bushes, rhubarb, poplars, mulberries across the road on Britz’s side, colorful flowers, and unusual garden crops. He remembers stomachaches from overeating mulberries and ends by joking that the homestead's fauna consisted of children.
Bernie's Chapter
Dirty Feet and Heavy Water Buckets
Bernard remembers getting filthy playing in the dirt. Mom did not require washing before meals but insisted on clean feet at bedtime. He thought the labor of carrying well water and heating it on the stove might explain this rule. He and Bob helped carry buckets they could barely lift. Mom kept a clean house but often said, “You need some germs to fight back with,” a view Bernard retrospectively endorsed.
Bernie's Chapter
Rainy-Day Toys and the Joy of Coloring
Bernard recalls indoor play during rainy days and winter: an Erector set, wood-burning kit, crystal set, painted figurines, and an electric train surrounded by Lincoln Log houses. He and Bob refused to box each other, disappointing Dad. He made comic books with newspaper strips and homemade paste, played Chinese Checkers with Grampa, and folded paper toys for Barbara. Coloring was his favorite distraction, inspiring a teasing aside to Diana.
Bernie's Chapter
Summer Baseball on Grampa's Philco Radio
Bernard remembers adoring Grampa Williams and following him as a toddler. His most vivid memories include Grampa's accident and death in his arms, but especially summer days when Grampa listened to baseball at the kitchen table while Mom ironed and listened too. Grampa meticulously recorded games and players on cardboard from Shredded Wheat boxes, saving every score card. The sounds of baseball broadcasts still bring Bernard an immediate, fond memory of Grampa.
Bernie's Chapter
The House and Garden He Built in His Mind
Daddy's talk of buying a two-story house on 41st Street inspired Bernard to imagine its decorations and garden repeatedly, including geese to weed strawberry patches. Talk of moving to Walla Walla, Washington offered similar excitement, though he later understood these plans as only talk. The family did not have top sheets, and Bernard retained a preference for sleeping under just a blanket.
Bernie's Chapter
Junkers, a Workshop Sign, and Lasting Gratitude
The family's troublesome cars reflected limited money and Dad's enthusiasm for fixing junkers. Bernard and Bob learned mechanical skills from him. The children struggled to contain his junk piles, and Bernard's workshop sign urging a place for everything amused Dad without changing his habits. Bernard closes with appreciation for both parents' hard work, devotion, and sacrifice, and regret that he did not do more for them later.
Bernie's Chapter · World War II
Making Do with Ration Books and a Victory Garden
The family had ten Food Ration and three Gasoline Ration books, and Bernard remembers little hardship from rationing. Iris and his mother improvised stocking seams with makeup. The family's established vegetable garden became a source of Victory Garden pride, with John Reichenberg supplying advice and shared seed catalogs. His mother displayed a blue-star service banner, his father refused to surrender potentially useful junk to scrap drives, and Bernard participated in Boy Scout paper drives.
Bernie's Chapter
A Garage Raising and a Last-Minute Ham Dinner
Floyd Guild recruited neighbors for a garage raising, promising a ham dinner but telling Mom only the day before. Virginia helped assemble and prepare the food and jokingly warned Floyd that people had better come to eat it. The garage was successfully built in a day. George Rohrer, who helped, attempted the same thing a year later, but no one came—not even Daddy. George built alone, and Daddy later contrasted George's sagging roof with his own straight one.
Bernie's Chapter
Hours Beside Dad's Forge and Tools
The garage became a well-equipped workshop with a hand-cranked forge, wood- and metal-turning lathes, grinding and burnishing wheels, several saws, a drill press, and welding equipment. Daddy made parts for his inventions there and produced excellent arc welds. The narrator remembered the forge's brilliant fire and sparks, and the hundreds if not thousands of hours he, Bob, and the girls spent watching Daddy work.
Bernie's Chapter
Daddy’s Pride-and-Joy Tree Sprayer
Daddy built an elaborate tree sprayer from an old Willys chassis, a homemade pump, and eventually a wooden tank from King’s Apple Orchard. Despite wearing a mask, he often became drenched in DDT or Malathion, as did Bernard. Daddy hoped to sell spraying services but never asked the neighbors, leaving the machine chiefly to serve the family’s dozen orchard trees. Bernard also drove it while Daddy guided a heavy scoop to level the driveway and dig a wastewater ditch behind the garage. Dale McFarland thought a shovel would have been faster, but Daddy insisted his machine saved work.
Bernie's Chapter
Fourth of July Sparks and Childhood Mischief
Daddy brought home fireworks every Fourth of July, and the family eagerly waited for darkness to enjoy fountains, roman candles, sparklers, and pinwheels. Daddy also performed a risky trick with tiny firecrackers; Bob and the narrator burned their fingers trying it. Bobby and the narrator experimented with launching cans using firecrackers, and Bob once destroyed a model plane he had made. The narrator fondly recalls Snakes and expresses frustration with restrictions on home fireworks.
Bernie's Chapter
Daddy's Strength, Hard Work, and Playful Spirit
Bernard recalls Daddy's characteristic work clothes, muscular build, and tireless labor, both lifting plowshares at work and building or repairing things at home. He remembers how handsome Floyd looked dressed in a suit, his rose-scented hairdressing, and his prematurely gray hair. A playful exchange with Mom about shaving illustrates his love of getting a rise out of people. His happy nature and good intentions endeared him to others, and his children regarded him as a hero.
Bernie's Chapter
Peanuts, Radio, and Time with Dad
Bernard warmly remembers Dad sharing peanuts from a penny vending machine at a gas station with him and Bob, and sitting close to Dad listening to favorite radio programs until Mom called them to supper. Watching Dad tinker made Bernard want to grow up like him.
Bernie's Chapter
Three Hours Through the Blizzard
Bernard walked home alone from school during a “Blizzard of the Century,” taking a shortcut through Ferry’s Woods ravine in three-foot-deep snow. He arrived after three hours, proud of himself, but Mother was hysterical. He recalls a razor-strap spanking of one or two swats as his worst punishment. The strap hung visibly on the back porch beside Daddy’s hunting vest.
Bernie's Chapter
Floyd Guild’s Well and a Father-Son Secret
Bernard recalls Daddy locating water with a forked willow divining rod near the kitchen door, then spending much of a summer casting a dozen massive concrete rings. Daddy dug inside the stacked rings as they sank into the ground, creating a secure thirty-three-foot well. Bernard and Bob played in the rings and helped haul dirt until neighbors took over. A leftover ring became a play space in the orchard. Before water was reached, Dad and Dale secretly lowered Bernard into the cold well in a rough rope halter. Bernard recalled seeing stars in the daytime sky from the bottom. Threatened with the razor strap if he told Mom, he kept the secret until late in life; she claimed she had already known, which he doubted.
Bernie's Chapter · Childhood through adulthood; dates not stated
Mom's Firm Hand and Comforting Presence
Bernard recalls being difficult to discipline, fearing his mother's threat to send him away, and finding comfort in her presence at his sickbed and her care before school. Her tears when he left for California made him feel guilty. He also remembers her advice about marriage and keeping his personal life private.
Bernie's Chapter · Childhood, including age sixteen or seventeen, and later recollections
Quiet Kitchen Talks and the Supper Call
At sixteen or seventeen, Bernard treasured quiet kitchen conversations while his mother ate a small sandwich and drank her last coffee of the day. She spoke of missing Grampa, worrying about Diana, and Dad's hard work without complaining. Overheard parental discussions revealed a cooperative decision-making partnership. Bernard also remembers listening to radio serials beside Daddy until Mom's familiar supper call, her delicious meals, and Dad's singing and whistling. He could still recall Mom's earlier voice but remembered Dad's speaking voice chiefly from later telephone calls after moving to California.
Bernie's Chapter
Bertie’s Welcome and a New Direction in Advertising
Recently widowed Bertie Davis offered Bernie room and board near his job, reducing his commute and providing excellent meals. At her daughter’s home, Bertie introduced him to Brandy Alexanders and her son-in-law Tom Brown introduced him to advertising strategy through Life magazine. The lesson inspired Bernie to become an art director. Afterward, he drove Brown’s vintage MG at 110 miles per hour while both were intoxicated.
Bernie's Chapter · During the narrator’s two years at Ray Vogue
Finding Belonging in Art and Returning Home
Bernie enjoyed movies, galleries, beach outings, and cooking lessons with Byron while returning home whenever possible on the Rock Island Rocket and later in his Vauxhall. Art school, Art Institute visits, and parties organized by Byron brought him an accepting circle of friends. Their open conversations and diverse community helped him shed feelings of inferiority and embrace liberal ideas. He also credited his family’s love and closeness with his enduring sense of protection.
Bernie's Chapter · 1957–1961; heading and arrival date conflict
A New Home and a Life of Art with Rick
Bernard recalls meeting Rick at Kitty Sheon’s in Chicago, moving into his apartment, and later sharing a home on Surf Street. Following a farewell party, Bernard flew alone to San Francisco on New Year’s Day, stated as 1960 under a 1961 heading, and was astonished by snow. Rick followed a day later and found a new apartment with a bay view. Bernard bought a white 1961 Volkswagen convertible and received an alarming hill-driving lesson. Their shared enjoyment of travel, theatre, and fine arts enriched Bernard’s advertising work.
Bernie's Chapter · 1962–1973 and through the time of telling
A Love of Architecture, One House at a Time
Bernard describes architecture as his greatest love and recounts buying, remodeling, decorating, and selling homes at increasing prices. A loan from Rick’s father helped with the first down payment at 248 Day Street. Successive homes included 333 Laurel Street, a house in Sausalito, and 373 Cumberland Street, where he still lives at the time of telling. The profits brought investments and a sense of financial independence, while the houses themselves deepened his enjoyment of architecture.
Bernie's Chapter · 1988 meeting; 1982 departure; 1993 death (dates as written)
Remembering Life and Travels with Larry
After recalling about sixteen years living with Rick, Bernard describes meeting Larry Savitz on a Caribbean cruise with Rick in 1988. Larry brought singing, friendships, sign language, dancing, parties, and cruises into Bernard’s life. Especially treasured were visits to Larry’s Uncle Irv’s beach-view condo in Aculpolco. Bernard also states that Larry returned to Philadelphia in 1982, contradicting the meeting date. Larry died there of AIDS in 1993, and Bernard remembers him with affection.
Bernie's Chapter · 1983 onward
A Shared Home, Art, and Lively Arguments
Larry introduced Bernard to Frank, who moved in with him in 1983 after art school. Bernard describes Frank’s large family, love of reading and computers, writing talent, and studies toward a Bachelor of Science degree and web design. Their shared interests, humor, and candid arguments make them intellectually well matched.
Iris's Chapter
Little Tea Sets and Dreams of a Welcoming Home
Iris recalls being the first child and having her own room before Bobby and Bernie were born. Uncle Lloyd brought treasured china tea sets, which she carefully repacked in their original boxes after playing house. She imagined dressing beautifully, dancing, and serving tea. Looking back, she feels those dreams came true in a lovely home where she entertains friends, and expresses gratitude for God's help, her husband, and her loving siblings.
Iris's Chapter
Toasted Nuts and Grandpa's Remembered Rhymes
Iris remembers Grandpa Williams spending hours at the basement workbench cracking nuts gathered in the fall, using the metal shoe last Daddy used to resole shoes. After supper, Mom toasted the nut meats with salt and butter in a tin pie pan. The family enjoyed them around the kitchen table while Grandpa recited long limericks from memory, some sad and some funny. Iris regrets not recognizing the importance of preserving this old family tradition.
Iris's Chapter
Penny Candy, Hollyhock Dolls, and Front-Porch Days
Iris recalls a small grocery store in a converted home's front room across from 1015 29th Street, where bread, milk, and penny candy were available. Living between the river and railroad tracks, the family received visits from hobos seeking food, and Mom shared despite the family's own limited supplies. Grandpa gathered dandelion greens for Mom to cook in bacon drippings. Iris remembers River Drive, Dad's beloved Model T Ford, a short-lived rabbit hutch, and making dolls from hollyhock blossoms beside the garage. One summer she badly hurt her knee falling from her bicycle on a black-cinder-covered street and spent long days recovering on the porch swing and cutting paper dolls. After Carol's birth, Mom was ill and weak for a long time; Iris tentatively recalls Grandpa being there part of the time and remembers Uncle Lloyd's brief visits. Grandpa Williams and Dad exchanged sharp words, while Saturday evenings also brought card games with Mom, Dad, and friends.
Iris's Chapter
Hot Water and Ice Deliveries at the River Drive House
Iris remembers a large green iron stove with a hot-water tank, which supplied the house's only hot water as far as she knew, and a bathroom shared with the couple upstairs. Her mother heated heavy irons on the stove; Iris is uncertain whether there were multiple irons or interchangeable bottoms with a single detachable handle. The household also had a wooden icebox, replenished by an iceman carrying a block of ice on his shoulder with ice tongs.
Iris's Chapter
Childhood Visits to the House in the Woods
Iris remembers her grandparents’ Minnesota woodland home, built by Grandpa and divided into sleeping and living areas with sheets hung from ropes. She brushed Grandma Olive’s hair outdoors, while Grandpa Dan entertained chipmunks with sunflower seeds in his pocket. Milk and butter were kept cool in a deep well, and mutton stew simmered on the stove—a smell Iris disliked. Weekend family picnics featured strawberries, homemade ice cream, fried chicken, biscuits, and singing; she tentatively recalls the men playing horseshoes.
Iris's Chapter · Second World War
Garden Food and Carefully Mended Stockings
Iris remembers the family's customary large garden becoming part of the wartime push to grow and preserve food. Ration stamps were required for scarce foods, including coffee, sugar, and meat. She stood in line at the New York Store for nylon hose, repaired stocking runs with tiny stitches, and learned from her mother to draw stocking seams on makeup-covered legs.
Iris's Chapter · 1940s
Gathered Around the Radio: Music and Wartime News
Iris recalls the constantly playing radio and the Moline Daily Dispatch as the family's main news sources, including news that might affect Uncle Lloyd in New Guinea. The family mourned President Roosevelt around the radio, but also enjoyed singing and dancing to popular songs and big bands. She recounts Bill's description of overseas propaganda broadcasts mixing favorite music with frightening, specific military information; she attributes that information to spies within the U.S. government. She remembers divided reactions to the August 6, 1945 bombing of Hiroshima, her father's approval, and Harry Truman's presidency.
Iris's Chapter · 1948–2000
A Good Life in the Homes We Shared
Iris recalls marrying Bill on September 11, 1948, and beginning married life in cramped shared quarters during a postwar housing shortage. Their next home was a fifty-five-dollar-a-month upstairs apartment in Moline, where Daddy brought the kids for Monday-night wrestling, potato chips, and Pepsi. They bought a small East Moline house where Linda, Beth, Jeffrey, and Laurie were born, then built a home on 4th Street Court in 1957, where Kurt joined the family and the children grew up. Iris traces later homes in Roscoe, a northern summer place, the sale of their house in The Ledges, a newly built Arizona home, and their move to a three-level Rockton home in spring 2000, calling it a good life.
Iris's Chapter
Leaving the Rock River House by Boat
Iris has vague memories of a brief stay in a house on the Rock River with a large screened-in front porch and many mosquitoes. During flooding, the family loaded belongings into a boat and left. She thinks this may have been her parents' second house in Moline.
Iris's Chapter
Mom's Tomatoes, Pepper Juice, and Canned Pork
Iris remembers her mother sorting tomatoes on her hands and knees beneath the large backyard tree, separating them for whole canning, catsup, and juice. She fondly recalls her mother's pepper juice and canned pork, regrets not learning to can pork, and says she misses her mother.
Iris's Chapter
A Christmas Box to Treasure
Bill remembered Ethel Guild as a friend and someone he enjoyed talking with. At Christmas she prepared a special box of candy and cookies for him, which he hid under his bed to avoid sharing. He fondly recalled her other baking and the pleasure of visiting her house.
Iris's Chapter
Floyd’s Enthusiastic Batch of Glug
One Saturday, Floyd proposed making Glug. After shopping for port wine, raisins, and spices and finding a recipe, Ethel, Iris, Floyd, and Bill spent hours preparing it in Bill and Iris’s downstairs kitchen. Floyd promised it would be wonderful, but his expression upon tasting the hot result revealed that it had not met his hopes.
Iris's Chapter
Mom’s Patient Listening and Labors of Love
Iris remembers calling Mom with complaints and receiving the patient reply, “I don’t know what to say about that.” Mom never took sides, talked behind anyone’s back, or told secrets. Iris also praises her baking, especially with yeast, and recalls learning crocheting, cooking, and clothes-making from her. She fondly remembers Mom working late at night at an old treadle sewing machine in the kitchen to finish something needed the next day.
Iris's Chapter
Gus Falk's Friendship and a Fresh Start in Moline
Gus Falk met Daddy, Uncle Clarence, and the other sons through stops at Grandpa Dan Guild's radiator repair shop in Brainerd during his annual Minnesota hunting and fishing trips. He offered to help them find jobs at John Deere in Moline. Upset by Grandpa's decision to cut down and sell the black walnut trees, Daddy left for Moline at sixteen. Gus secured him a job at John Deere Plow Works, where he worked for thirty-nine years. Iris also recalls Daddy driving a truck for a WPA road-building company during some early Great Depression years. He jokingly claimed his inexperienced crew built a particularly bumpy road section on the way to Chicago, but the family never believed him.
History of the Guild Family · 1445–1676; house legacy continuing to the time of writing
Across the Atlantic to a Lasting Family Home
The family traces its line to Mr. William Fairbanks in Yorks in 1445, then recounts Jonathan Fayerbanke's marriage to Grace Smith Lee, their seven children, and their voyage to Boston in his own ship in 1633. Jonathan moved to Contentment in 1636, built the enduring Dedham house, acquired land, joined the township covenant and eventually the church, and prospered as a farmer. The house is described as America's oldest standing timber frame dwelling, a National Landmark continuously owned by the family and never mortgaged, with replicas including one at Boston Commons. The passage also describes the wider family's political activity, Patriot and Union service, and slaveholding by some landed members. It retains inconsistent arrival chronology and contradictory wording about Jonathan's death relative to Grace's.
History of the Guild Family · 1904–1925 and later recollections
Hard Work, Strong Tempers, and Lasting Family Ties
The family describes poverty, shared winter coats, uncertain meals, Dan’s mechanical ingenuity and repair shop, and the heavy household work borne by Olive and her daughters. Severe arthritis and unproved suspicions of infidelity colored Olive’s marriage and behavior. Recollections differ sharply: some emphasize harsh discipline and complaints, while grandchildren recall kindness and others see a devoted couple with stubborn tempers. Dan’s brief 1925 departure ended in his return, and they never divorced. The narrative also remembers affectionate sibling bonds, Floyd’s signature practice, and Olive’s willingness to shelter daughters between marriages. Sweeping judgments about the Vosburg and Guild children are presented as family opinions rather than independently established facts.
History of the Guild Family · Perhaps about 1918
An Unexpected Inheritance and a Granary Home
An elderly bachelor left his wooded 160-acre property and operating sawmill to the poorest family in St. Mathias Township. The township elders chose the Dan Guild family. Floyd and Clarence saw a hopeful future, while Olive feared Dan would ruin their good fortune. Dan, Olive, Floyd, and Clarence made the windowless granary livable by sealing its open slat-work. Bessie had already left home to marry Ira Ringering, recently returned from World War I, and Pearl had died of diphtheria at 16 a year earlier.
History of the Guild Family · After the foreclosure around 1918; ownership noted in 2001
A Sawmill and a Small Home on Falk’s Farm
After stating that Dan lost everything, the account says he retained the sawmill. Harold Falk let him build a small house on his farm in exchange for sawing logs into boards. Dan also used sawdust to preserve winter-cut lake ice for summer sales. Iris, Merlin, and Bernie remembered the plain two-story tar-paper house, where tarpaulins divided living and sleeping spaces. A barn for cows and pigs was added later. The 103 acre farm included part of Round Lake and two rivers and was still owned by Marvin Falk in 2001.
History of the Guild Family · 1911–childhood
Red Hair, Handmade Knickers and North Dakota Snow
Ethel's early life in Newburg included a comfortable home, her Norwegian immigrant mother's skilled sewing, and harsh winters. Agnes made her knickers from a catalog picture, making her the first girl in school to wear them. Ethel remembered tunneling through snow to the barn, skiing over fences to school and learning to walk on tiny snowshoes.
History of the Guild Family · 1926–1953
Grampa’s Helping Hands at the House on 39th Street
Ed Williams became a permanent member of Ethel and Floyd's household around 1934, helping raise seven children and handling housework, gardening, and canning. He contributed earnings and savings toward enlarging the house. A severe acid burn at work ended his later employment, though treatment healed his leg. The family remembered his affection and help, alongside episodes when Floyd had to retrieve him after drinking. He died of a heart attack in 1953 and was buried without a headstone.
History of the Guild Family · 1909–1925
Red Hair, Snowshoes, and a Mother’s Handmade Knickers
Ethel’s early life in Newburg combined material comfort and her Norwegian mother’s skilled sewing with severe winters. Ralph’s death and Agnes’ tuberculosis disrupted the family, sending Ethel and Lloyd on a frightening train journey to their grandparents in Astoria. After Agnes died, Ed’s grief and drinking left young Ethel caring for her family. Friends and dancing brought happiness, but her father refused her wish to attend college and sent her to work.
History of the Guild Family · After Floyd’s death–1988
Cards, Christmas Ornaments, and a Long-Awaited European Journey
Widowed Ethel maintained a full life of handcrafts, Christmas ornament making, evening cards and helping family members after divorces. She visited Diana in Florida annually. In 1979 Bernie fulfilled her dream of Europe with a visit to Carol, Charlie and Chris in Mainz and a family trip to Denmark. Ethel died during her 1988 Florida visit and was buried beside Floyd, with an incorrect birth year on her headstone that had never troubled her.
Our Childhood Games
A Secret Button on the Living Room Couch
Players sit on the living room couch with their palms pressed together. The person who is “It” passes closed hands between each player’s hands, secretly leaving a button with one person. Everyone guesses who holds it, including the holder, who must bluff. Whoever guesses correctly becomes “It” for the next round.