Following is a transcription from the 'A Grandparent's Journal' as written by Zella McAlister Schoaff Sill, written in the late 1980's.

My Mother, she was born in Peoria Co., Illinois north of Trivoli and south east of Elmwood, in August of 1908.  Her parents were Clarence and Clara Bertie McMeen McAlister.  She married Clyde Ignatius Schoaff in 1927 and they had three children, Elva, Marvin and Paul Schoaff.  Clyde and Zella divorced around 1950 and she remarried Charley Sill.

In January of 2004 she passed away suddenly at the home she shared with Elva Schoaff Harper, in Peoria, IL.
paul schoaff



page 1…..Dedication…."Christmas 1985 my grandchildren Douglas and Janet Harper gave me this book in hopes that I would write things I recall about my life experiences.

"I'll begin with something about my parents, before my birth; the things that were told to us so many times that we feel that we lived at that time too.

"I shall dedicate this book to all of those wonderful grandchildren and their children - the people I have been allowed to enjoy for many years."

"Zella McAlister Sill"


page 2…."My father was Clarence Emmet McAlister, born 6/27/1885 in Logan Twp., Peoria Co., IL., son of John Walter McAlister and Druscilla Adeline McAvoy McAlister.  My mother was Clara Bertie McMeen McAlister born 12/16/1887 in Trivoli Twp., Peoria Co., IL, daughter of George Irvin McMeen and Clara Esther Albright McMeen."

page 3…." Horse and Buggy Days"

"The oldest of his family, my Papa became a bachelor farmer a couple of miles southeast of Elmwood, IL on a rented place.

"His sister Fern, later Fern Gibbons White, became a schoolteacher in a neighborhood close to where my Mama lived.

"In those days the young people had play-parties in their homes - not dances, but games like 'Skip-to-my-Lou', 'Drop the Handkerchief', 'Upset the Fruit basket', etc…  That's the way my folks met.  Also Papa told about the young fellows driving their horse and buggies to some neighboring church on Sunday evenings - going in a group - they were out to find the girls.  After the last 'Amen' they jumped into their buggies and raced each other home - firing their revolvers!"

page 4….continued…"The summer before my folks were married, Mama and her sister Pearl, who was less than two years younger, were sent to Pennsylvania to work for their Uncle Elmer McMeen who had a dry goods store.  They lived in his home and helped in both places.  But the girls were homesick for Illinois and their boyfriends there and shortly after their return, Mama and Papa eloped!

"By that time Fern was teaching at (?) High School near Papa's home and living with him.  So Papa took Mama home with him one night and the next day four of them; Fern with her future husband, John Gibbons - took the train to Peoria.  Mama bought a new white blouse, and with her ankle length skirt, that became her wedding dress.  She wore a big white ribbon in her hair.  Papa wore his suit - I think it was blue serge and a white shirt and necktie.

"At that time it was the custom to go to Erler Studios on South Adams Street and have a wedding picture taken that day - Papa sitting in a chair and Mama with her arm resting on his shoulder."

page 5 …"As a wedding gift, Grandma McMeen always gave each of her children a featherbed and pillows - homemade from her flock of poultry - and a dresser with a big mirror.  Papa had an iron bedstead, no need to look for that word in the dictionary, but that's what we called them.   It had a straw tick instead of a mattress - and each year the straw was emptied and fresh straw put in.
"In the living room was a heating stove, two rocking chairs - a little round table on which lay the family bible and the picture album.

"The kitchen was heated, both winter and summer, by the range, which had a warming oven, and a reservoir to keep the cistern water warm.  There was a square table that could be extended to seat a dozen people - and a few straight chairs and later a highchair for me and a white iron bed which was passed on to my brother and four sisters.  There was some kind of carpet on the living room and part of the kitchen tacked down and stretched over straw."

page 6…continued…"Our house was a lot like the one that Charlie Sill and I lived in…low - painted white - with porches front and back.  

"  Papa's folks lived south east of us over by Eden and Mama's were south of Trivoli.  I expect each was about 12 miles away.  Oh, yes, there Were telephones, party lines.

"When Mama was expecting me, it was a long hot summer, and she became homesick to see her folks, so one Saturday night Papa hitched up the horse and buggy to take her to her folks to stay all night.  By morning, they knew that I was on the way and hurried home followed by Grandma McMeen in her buggy.  Dr. John Plummer of Trivoli was called and met them there where I arrived on a Sunday afternoon, 8/9/08.  8 lbs.  Grandma stayed awhile, after all, the new mother had to stay in bed for ten days - she must not raise her arms above her head - or lift the baby!

page 7…continued…"I had very little hair, white and wispy.  Mama tried to wrap it in rags to curl it but it was very stubborn and finally got long enough to braid.  Mama kept pieces of our hair and our 'baby rings' in her trunk.  The babies wore rings tied up around their wrists with ribbon - by the color of the ribbon you knew if it was a boy or girl.

"When Grandma McAlister saw me she said my nostrils weren't big enough to breathe through and they should be stretched!

"I don't remember my brother's arrival 22 months later but when he was still in the wicker baby carriage I recall going to visit our neighbor "Mrs. Nick".  The Nickerson family lived a short way around the corner across a bridge.  I screamed and refused to walk over those boards - I was sure I would fall through the cracks!  

"About that time, Papa hired a young fellow who had just come from England, named Alfred Manuel.  I can see him sitting by the table holding baby Everett while Mama finished putting the food on the table.

page 8…"When I was about 3 1/2 years old, Papa rented a different farm, the Seltzer place, southwest of Trivoli about two miles.  It was the custom for farmers to move March 1st but one evening, after Papa and Alfred had taken a load of machinery to the new farm he came in yelling "Get Ready!  We're going to Move in the Morning!"  It was cold weather and when one heating stove was moved out you wanted to put up another one to keep the house warm.

"I can still see Papa as he gripped the edge of the carpet in his big hands and gave it a jerk to loosen the tacks.  He was soon rolling it up.  

"They said Mama was up all night cooking things to feed the neighbors who would be going along with wagon loads of our things.  I remember "Mrs. Nick" and Mama and Everett and I going in a surrey and how they heated bricks to put under the blankets to keep the baby from freezing.  The new house was quite a lot like the old one but had an upstairs and at the foot of the stair was an alcove called my "bawly corner"  Whenever I was unhappy I ran to it there to hide my tears.  Mama's way of punishing was to saw "Now aren't you Ashamed?"  I needed lots of spankings when I pestered my brother, but I didn't get them.

page 9…"Later on, Everett and I each got one spanking when we loitered along on the way home from school.  He always said it wasn't fair because Mama spanked me and Papa spanked him and He could hit harder.

"Someone who had lived on the Seltzer Place - I always thought it was one of the Seltzer's - had left some beautiful text books in the upstairs hallway, and a set of maps showing the USA in earlier times when it was divided in strange ways.  Of course, I couldn't read or understand it but as I remembered it later I often wished Mama hadn't been so honest as to leave all of those things right where she found them.  And, there was the extra bedroom that Mama fixed up for the hired man and in another room was the adjustable dress form on a stand.  Papa was a practical joker and I felt sorry for the hired men - One night he fixed up that guy's bed with this dress form under the covers to look like a woman lying there.  There was a terrible clatter up there late that night when he threw that out on the bare floor.  

"Papa needed help for we had more livestock and land to farm.  He rented extra pasture land, too.  He always went to salt the stock on Sunday mornings, so we seldom got to go to church.

Page 10…"The McAlister grandparents were only four miles away now, so it was convenient to exchange work at busy seasons.  I remember going to Pleasant Grove Church to an ice cream supper.  When it was time to go home, Grandma McAlister asked them to let her take Everett and me home with her.  After all, Mama and Papa would be coming over to help make hay the next day!
"I was so tired and just wanted to go to bed but little brother started bawling, so I cried too.

"Our young uncle Enos was just coming home from taking his girlfriend home from the social so he and Aunt Nellie were ordered to take us home.  Uncle Enos was about as upset as Everett was and I felt very unwanted, just trouble for everybody.  When we finally got home Uncle Enos yelled at the folks, "Come and get your kids!"  Driving a horse in the dark wasn't much fun if  you had to haul your brother's brats around…

page 11…"The McMeen grandparents lived closer now, too, and it was only a short drive to the Penn Ridge Church (Lutheran).  We went there sometimes on special occasions.  I can see Uncle Aldo and Aunt Blanche Erford there, too.  She was one of the trio singing "Blessed Assurance" by the old pump organ.  Grandpa and Grandma had always taken their big load of children to services there.  My youngest aunt was only 3 years older than me.

"One Christmas time, brother Everett and I remember going there in a bobsled with a horseblanket tucked over our heads to keep warm.  Poor Papa had to stand up and drive the team and he hated to get dressed up on those special occasions.  I know now how much work it was to harness up the teams and to take care of them later, and how you had to brush Papa's clothes and clean them up after each trip.

page 12…"In the church stood a big Christmas tree with popcorn strings and tinsel trimming.  The kerosene lamps with their shiny reflectors lined the walls.  It seemed such a large place then - how did it get so small when I saw it last Christmas? - How did they have room for a large heating stove in there?

"Gifts were hung on the tree - not wrapped as we do now.  There was a beautiful doll almost as big as me - and a tricycle and Grandma kept telling me the doll must be for Rosalee who lived across the road - How did she dare lie like that, right there in front of God and all of us kids!

"I don't even remember, now, the name I gave the doll but Everett and I had so much fun with his tricycle.  We hooked our old wagon behind it and went out to pick up kindling for Mama in the summertime.

"I remember the evening some neighbors came calling and when we stood on the porch to bid them goodnight, they talked about the sinking of the Titanic - I looked and looked and couldn't see it out there!

Page 13…"Then, suddenly, we were a bigger family!  Uncle Charlie and Aunt Lizzie had gone out west for his health with their two boys.  When he died of consumption she had no where to go..  Their household goods were shipped back on the train and Papa offered her a home with us in exchange for her big beautiful cookstove.

"Aunt Lizzie was a small Dutch lady about the size of our Mother.  Her oldest boy Ralph was a little younger than Everett and little Georgie was only a baby.  We thought she was mean to him because he cried so much.  I now expect it was because Lizzie cried, too.  But she worked hard and was a big help to our folks.

"When the menfolk were gone on the 'threshing ring", Mama and Lizzie hitched up our driving horse to the buggy and took we four kids and the butter and eggs to Farmington to go shopping.  There were no paved roads then, just dust and dirt and weeds and telephone poles along the ways.

Page 14…"We were on our way home that hot afternoon when one of the boys lost his hat right down at Topsy's heels, Mama told us later that she thought she could have stopped her if Aunt Lizzie hadn't grabbed one of the lines and tried to help stop Topsy as she lunged down the road.  All at once we were over against a fence and a buggy wheel caught on a big telephone pole.  The singlet broke loose and Topsy ran as far as the next farmhouse where the man happened to see her coming and caught her.  What a thrill when he took us home in his automobile…But, when Papa came home and had to go about five miles to bring that horse home, he was MAD.  The horse got spanked but we didn't.

Page 15…Aunt Lizzie and the boys went to live with some of her folks who needed her and Mama, Everett and I tried to get the chores done when Papa would be working away from home.  That's when we learned to milk a cow.  Everett and I used a tin cup and took turns on a tame old cow while Mama did the others.  We were so proud if we could get everything done except the hog feeding…Papa wanted to do that himself.  
1914
"That fall Papa traded a cow or something to the landlord for an old Maxwell car.  Of course he had to take us all for a ride and he didn't know how to drive it, but he cranked it up - we piled in and away we went a mile down the road.  At the next intersection, when he slowed down from the snail's pace he was going, the engine died, and wouldn't start, so he had to walk home and get the horses to pull it home…

page 16…The car had carbide lamps.  I don't remember that they were ever used.  When winter came the Maxwell was put in the shed with the wheels blocked up to save the tires…the battery was taken to the cellar to keep it from freezing…the radiator was drained…who ever heard of antifreeze?

"I was finally six years old and got to start to school - a one room, named Higgs, and there were several Higgs children there.  My teacher was Miss Emma Higgs.  The folks and Everett all took me in the buggy the first morning with my new school books, a tablet and pencil, a slate and slate pencil.  I think there were less than a dozen of us there.  We each carried a dinnerpail - that gave us something to swing around and fill with pretty pebbles or wildflowers on the way home.  Ours was the third house down the road but it seemed a long way when Miss Higgs sent the first graders home early and I was all alone going up and down the big hills.

Page 17…"Great Grandpa Enos McAlister was 89 years old when I remember seeing him.  We were invited to his home for Thanksgiving Dinner.  He lived a couple of miles south of Eden and Aunt Lou - his daughter, was his housekeeper.  All I can remember about his looks is that he had a long white beard like Santa Claus that was stained from chewing tobacco.  He was sitting in a big rocking chair by the heating stove and the floor all around him was covered with newspapers so he could spit in the coal bucket - and sometimes he hit the bucket.

"Louisa was my grandpa John Walter's sister.  She was a BIG woman and as I was growing up my folks kept telling me to eat and get big like Aunt Lou…Everett was only three but he says he also remembers that day.

Page 18…"We had our orders to behave ourselves.  Papa wanted to show off his wife and family to his grandpa.

"We were very careful at the dinner table with the starched tablecloth and the huge goblets of water.  I don't know what we ate but the dessert was dried apple pie and I dared to say I didn't like it.  My parent's were so ashamed of it, but they told me later that they didn't like it either…but they ATE it.

"Greatgrandpa didn't live long after that.  I'm glad I got to see him.

"I was too young to remember when Mom took Everett and me to visit the Great Grandparents McAvoy down in Hancock county - she went on the train from Elmwood down to Plymouth, IL with us two babies!

Page 19…"When Great-Grandpa McAlister died, Grandpa J. W. and Aunt Louisa were his only survivors, so my grandparents moved to the old home place.  Aunt Lou bought a place in Eden on a large lot where there was a barn for her horse and buggy.  She had a big garden and she planted a real jungle of fruits and flowers.  On her own for the first time, she took a trip on a train to visit some cousins in Nebraska.  There she found little Emma McAlister, whose mother had died, and she brought her back to Eden where she lived until she was a teenager.  She was a red-headed, freckle-faced girl.  Big boned and strong, she could soon be a help to Aunt Lou.

"Emma still had brothers in Nebraska and she went back to live there, married a man named Everett and had a baby boy.  I recently learned of her death.

"Aunt Lou lived to hear the first radios, and they were a great worry to her.  Her health was failing and papa took her to Norberry Sanitarium where she died in 1924.  

Page 20…"When Grandpa John Walter and Grandma Druscilla Adaline left the home place near Pleasant Grove where they have raised their six children and moved to Great Grandfather's place, our folks were asked to move to the farm near Pleasant Grove southwest of Eden.  157 acres mostly in farm ground - a large orchard - a huge 13 room house with green shutters.  Grandpa had a local carpenter, Henry Stuck, build a big hip roof barn and lots of other old barns and shed were there too.  There was the horse barn, cow barn, sheep barn, hog house - corn cribs…machine sheds...wool carding shed...the milk house beside the well at the back door where water could be pumped through a concrete cooling tank.   Two chicken houses and the usual outdoor toilet.   There was no electricity there -- the board walks had been replaced by concrete when we moved there.  

"In the northwest corner of the yard was the coal house and smoke house.  Large trees surrounded the house on the south and west.  There were 3 wells.  When I was quite young the square wooden pump at the back door was replaced by a metal one which of course made the water taste rusty!

"A big cistern was under the north two rooms of the house with a cistern pump and long sink in the hallway over the cistern.  One wall was covered with hooks to hold our chore clothes and coats -- It was our bathing room in warm weather, where we washed our feet before bedtime or when Dad said we are going somewhere...

page 21..."Grandpa J. W. had bought the farm when our Papa was a youngster -- and maybe Uncle Roy was a baby -- There were Clarence, Fern, Roy, Nellie, Enos and Mary.  Also baby Grace who died suddenly at age 2 when Grandma had just given birth to Enos and the shock of Grace's death gave her milk fever.  After that she had a stiff knee.  The way she walked she called 'pudging' around.  And she always said she wished some old woman in town had all her illnesses so she could work harder and then when they retired to live in Hanna City -- she told that over and over and laughed about it.  Papa and All of our aunts and uncles and my brother and sisters and I had attended school at Pleasant Grove -- about a quarter mile from home.  There was a Methodist Church there, too, where Papa was a janitor as a young man.  That building is gone but the cemetery around it is the resting place of seven generations of McAlester.

page 22..."When we moved to the Pleasant Grove farm I was still in first grade and my Aunt Mary was in the eighth grade there -- that helped a lot.  This was also a one room school with John V. Troth as our teacher of eight grades and a course of 'teacher's training' for the older ones.  He wouldn't tell us his middle name so some secretly called him John 'Vinegar'.  He was very sweet and didn't deserve that nickname.  The school building was built of native rock.  There had been a rock quarry down the hollow from the school.  There was a building for coal and corncobs and two outhouses.  There was a red-haw tree on the south side and hickory nuts - acorns - plenty of room to play games.  

"The next year we had Fulton Miller and he was also very nice.  Early in my third year he decided to put me in the fourth grade because I could work the fractions just as well as his 4th graders.  My Papa was furious --- meanwhile I spent every waking moment trying to catch up with the class, doing pages and pages or arithmetic.  I loved it but Papa was even angry because I needed so much tablet paper.  And, maybe, the folks were right .  When I graduated from 8th grade at 12 years of age, just a tomboy -- and going to live with grandparents in Hanna City to attend 9th grade.  I was her bashful little housemaid.  I had won a Normal scholarship by having the best grades in the county, but my folks wouldn't let me use it by going to Normal to live with their friends.

page 23..."New babies were always a big surprise at our house.  Baby Pearl arrived July 31, 1916 while Mama was supposed to be cooking dinner for the threshing crew.  So a neighbor, Olive Kyle, got the meal for her and the next year when Olive's baby girl Elizabeth came, Mama did the same for her.  Sister Eleanor was born in 1920.   Aunt Velma had been our teacher that year, boarded at our house, so she was a help to Mama.  We had a week of snow at Easter Time and couldn't have school so "last day picnic" brought Eleanor and I was so disappointed that Mama wasn't at the picnic.  We always had a potluck dinner out of doors to celebrate and teacher always furnished a treat of ice cream for the whole crowd!

page 24..."Meanwhile, Grandpa J. W. and Grandma Druscilla had moved to a house on S. Runkle St. in Hanna City, leaving Uncle Roy and Aunt Blanche to move to the old homestead south of Eden.

"Grandma's health was bad -- she had several surgeries -- a breast was removed in 1921.  It was cancerous but they must have gotten it all for she lived to her 80's and died of pneumonia.

"Grandpa was a wiry little man; he had spent a lot of time painting and repairing on his farms but we didn't really know him!  He was landlord, instead of a loving grandfather.  He got a job at the Alexander Lumber Company and worked very hard.  He was an "Odd Fellow" and he and a friend would walk five miles down the railroad track to go to lodge in Trivoli.

"Grandpa drove a model T Ford Car after they moved to town.  If Grandma rode with him she stayed in the back seat and held on with both hands -- her sunbonnet flapping in the wind.   Grandpa started out with a roar and never slowed up until he hit the brakes to stop.

"Aunt Mary took piano lessons and worked enough to buy herself a piano.  She gave lessons and one time borrowed Grandpa's Ford to go give a lesson out of town.  The car stalled on the railroad track when a train was coming so she jumped out and pushed it off into a ditch...and that was her last trip with it.  It was still easier to take a horse and buggy.

page 25..."Grandma Druscilla's mother was Martha Jane Frame McAvoy who was born in W. Virginia and married James McAvoy.  He went away to the Civil War when Grandma was little but you can read all about that in Aunt Maggie Scott's book "Memories".

"In the later years they made their home in Hancock County near their son, Emmet.  I can remember one visit from her in about 1917.  She was 82 years old and seemed  Very Old and feeble to me.  Our Papa was one of her favorites because he bought her tobacco for her corncob pipe and asked her to bake cornbread for him.  She rolled up pieces of paper to use to put into the cookstove and then light her pipe.  We watched her closely, afraid she would burn herself.
"Mama got her to sit in a rocker and took her picture and beside her in the little rocker was our little sister, Pearl.

page 26..."Funerals.... Going back to when I was perhaps 5 years old would be my first recollection of a funeral.  That would be when Uncle Charlie McMeen died out west and was brought back to 'Lie in State" in the middle of Grandpa and Grandma McMeen's parlor.  Aunt Lizzie (his widow) sat outside the parlor door, dressed in black, wearing a black hat draped with a black veil and SCREAMED!!  My folks wanted to lift me up to look at Uncle Charlie and I refused.  I heard them say something about Nora and Grace Albright, who were cousins, had made a hair wreath to take the place of real flowers.  I don't remember the trip to the cemetery in the horse-drawn carriages but I do recall all the black veils the women wore down past their chins.

"When I was at Pleasant Grove School, one of Papas great aunts died.  She was burning trash in the garden and caught her long skirts on fire and they say she burned to death!  What a horrible thought!  I supposed her body was gone -- no one explained.

"The funeral was at the church next to the school and the teacher let me and my girl friend Bertie Stuck go over to it.  Aunt Mary McAlister was seated at the old pump organ playing 'Jesus, lover of my Soul'  over and over and over....Later, she said she would NEVER play at another funeral.

page 27..." And then, there was INFLUENZA...What a horrible disease!  I can still remember how I felt.  None of our family died from it, but several neighbors did.  They would go into pneumonia and there was no cure for that, then.

"Oh, yes, Uncle Mearl McMeen's wife died of it.  They had been homesteading -- I believe in Montana -- or the Dakotas -- and she brought little Guy home to visit at her parents -- When she got sick they were able to contact Uncle Mearl who came home on the train -- no airplanes then -- but she had died before he could get here.

" I think Mearl and Guy went to live wit  his folks Grandpa and Grandma McMeen for awhile.  Uncle Elmer McMeen was in the service at that time and Uncle Mearl could help with the farm work.

"Some years later Uncle Mearl and Guy went back to the North Woods for awhile to dispose of his property -- but came back to Illinois and a married lady from Fulton Co.  At our family reunion this year we were with Guy's children and grandchildren.

page 28..."Featherweight Memories"...Our Grandma McMeen raised poultry -- not just chickens, but geese, ducks, guineas and turkeys, and more of them than ever in the summer of 1918.   She was doing her part at home, as their youngest son was over in France and a World War I Star hung in the parlor window.

"When we visited Grandma on their farm northeast of Canton, if we children were very quiet, we could go into the part of the chicken house where the setting hens nested.  Grandma knew just which day each nest of eggs would hatch.  What fun it was to carry the tiny chicks into the summer kitchen and put them in a box by the big old range to keep them safe until the whole setting was hatched.  The next day the hen and her brood were taken to a little coop in the orchard.  The hen was shut in, but the chicks would come in and out, until they were old enough to keep up with their mother as she foraged all over the place.  But she knew her own coop when bedtime came.

page 29...."Big pans of skimmed milk were set on the back of the range, and the clabber was fed to the young poultry or finished off into cottage cheese for us to eat.  The goslings and ducklings liked bread and milk.  They made a lot of noise and nibbled your bare toes if you got too close.  I was afraid of the big geese and turkeys.

"I don't think Grandma used an commercial feed, just wheat, oats and cracked corn and lots of fresh water.  No fair dipping it from the horse trough, though.  We had to pump and pump and that was hard work for a ten year old.  Then, we ventured out past all those noisy birds to fill their water pans.  The ducks were experts at getting the water dirty, but if we could get out there while they were in the far corner of the orchard, that gave the other birds a chance.

"One time, I walked into the summer kitchen and found Grandma plucking the down off the old geese.  They didn't need it in the summer time.  Grandma had a big piece of canvas stretched over her lap, and held the goose over a big tub as she plucked the down.  She held the goose's head back under her arm to keep it from biting her.  The geese didn't seem to mind, for they didn't struggle much while she plucked them.  She made pillows and featherticks for all the family with a mixture of the down and feathers.

page 30..."One hot night the thunder began to rumble and Grandma hopped out of bed, threw a shawl around her shoulders and lighted and lantern to go check on the coops of roosters she had shut up to go to market the next day. She put some heavy planks over them to protect them from the rain and wind and then hurried along, stopping at the back house.  From that shelter she could see the many small coops that were stacked down.  Satisfied that they were all secure, she went back to bed.  Then came the gully washer and the next morning the coops and roosters were all gone.  It had been handy for someone to carry them across the orchard to the road, and their tracks were all washed away.  I don't know whether Grandma was more angry at her loss or more frightened at the thought that those fellows might have been lurking in the shadows as she tended her flock.

page 31..."After the Armistice was signed, it was soon Christmas and there was a big celebration with all the families there to welcome Uncle Elmer home from the war.  We grandchildren were called into the kitchen to see the roast turkey, the goose, the ducks, the guineas and chickens.  Also, the big kettles of other things, and then we were shown the long dining table set with her finest linens, china and silver.

"After that, the youngest aunts took us into Grandma's bedroom.  It looked strange in there.  The furniture had been removed, except the big round stove, and there was room to play games.  Hidden behind bedsheets was a Christmas tree that reached the high ceiling, but we couldn't see it until we had eaten a 'Second Table".

"I'm sure that Grandma made many of the small gifts that hung on the tree, and Santa came in time to see us get them.  I think our little cousin Guy Mcmeen, was the only one who talked to him.  He wanted to know why Santa's boots were just like his Daddy's.

page 32..."Christmas....when we were kids in school might have been like it is today.  There were usually around a dozen pupils.  We had a program on a Friday afternoon before Christmas.  Each one spoke a piece.  Then sang a few songs -- Santa came in and passed out the gifts from the one who had drawn your name.  We each took a gift to the teacher and Santa gave each one there (grownups and all) an orange and a sack of candy.  There was a Christmas tree that had been cut in someone's woods but of course we didn't have electricity for lights on it.   
"It was funny to see the grownups try to squeeze into the seats -- and to see all the little ones in the neighborhood, too.

"When Aunt Velma taught there she brought the tree home to our house, where she had been a boarder.  Otherwise we didn't usually have a real tree except for a straggly branch that Everett and I were allowed to cut from the only evergreen on the farm.  We trimmed it with strings of popcorn and anything bright we could find.

page 33..."We put all of our old toys away out of sight and hung our stockings on backs of chairs -- we had no mantle or fireplace -- just heating stoves.  And we were taught that Santa would come.  We usually got one gift each and some kind of game we could share and an orange and candy in our stocking.  Dad always showed us a chunk of coal that Santa had left in his sock or shoe.  One year, we got a Flexible Flyer Sled!  And had to wait and wait for it to snow.

"I don't remember ever giving gifts to our folks or grandparents or cousins!

"One year, Mama's order to Sears didn't come on time and she made doll clothes and things like that -- I remember the metal rabbit bank and the Happy Hooligan toy that Everett got -- I'll bet he still has them.  You could push old Hooley over and he would pop right back up again -- balanced so he would NOT LAY DOWN!

"One year, Mom ordered sweaters and caps for Everett and me -- but mine was a plain knit cap and a brushed wool sweater.  I was very sad about it  not matching, but never told her so.

page 34..."One year Aunt Blanche gave me a gift because I had come to take care of them when she had the flu.  It was a little compact of blusher with a mirror in it.  My only makeup.

"When I was 13, I got scarlet fever in September and couldn't go to school.  We were quarantined 6 weeks -- yes, it seemed like 6 Years, and had to fumigate the house and sleep in the barn one night.  No one else got it until the next spring when Mom went to an upstairs storeroom to get some magazines to read -- and baby Eleanor got it.

"I think that was the Christmas they surprised me with a wrist watch.  I wound it too tightly and it only ran a few hours, but it was a Watch!  Everett got a pocket watch for his birthday one time.  I think they were about a dollar then.  And another boy dropped it down in the well!  But, that's another story....

page 35..."It was hard times...the railroad had gone on strike and put a lot of men out of work.  Our land bordered the railroad track.  It was the Minneapolis and St. Louis back then.  And hobos often walked the tracks or rode the rails.   One day, Papa brought a man in to dinner with him when he came in from the fields.

"His name was Axel or Axle Nelson and he wanted work.  Papa put him to work that day but the next day he said he had to let his wife know where he was.  So, Papa took him to Peoria to tell his wife, and, lo and behold, his wife and two children came back with them.  And...it was the little Nelson boy who dropped Everett's watch in the well while papa and Axle had the top off it to fix something.

"I think they only stayed a few days but became good friends.  The man who cam as a hobo was a pretty well to do Swede who had a good job with the railroad and owned his own home.

page 36...."papa liked to visit with anyone who came down the road and often brought salesmen home for a meal -- or to spend the night.  He might not buy anything from them but he sure entertained them well.

"I remember a Mr. Kimsey from Trivoli who had only one arm.  He came by, selling needles and pins, and stayed all night -- and I can see Papa on his knees lacing up Mr. Kimsey's shoes for him the next morning, so he could walk on over to the neighbors.

"Papa's cousins from Hancock County would come driving in once a year or so and spend the night...and the Spillman boys who had worked as hired men for us would come and visit overnight.

"Art Spillman picked corn for Papa one year when he was in bed with sciatic rheumatism.  That was brought on by a 40 foot fall from the top of the hip-roof barn, and falling on the cement floor -- landing on his back.   Grandpa McAlister thought he heard them say to pull up the hay -- but Papa was up there fixing the fork that was caught...and it jerked him loose from his perch on the little platform up there.

page 37..."One of our favorite places to play was in the orchard.  We could climb in most of the apple trees and sway back and forth on the big limbs.  Papa would turn the flock of sheep in there to keep the grass and clover fairly short.  One time when he turned them in he had a big ram with them.  Two of Everett's friends were visiting him and they played in the trees dropping down to ride on the ram's back and to get him to chase them.   Papa was pretty unhappy about that.  He always said, when it came to help, One boy's a boy; Two boys are half a boy; and, Three boys are no help at all!
page 38...."Making cider......Everett and I made cider about every day, after the apples began to fall.  We hauled them in our little wagon over to the cidermill at the south side of the orchard.  It was hard work turning the crank to grind up the apples into a pulp which dropped down into a round slotted container; and, when it was full, we put the wooden lid on top and turned another crank on top which put pressure on the pulp.  The apple juice ran down a trough, then it was strained and put in a large pan which we set in the north window of the pantry to keep cool...no ice boxes or refrigerators then.  Cider getting old was poured into a barrel and after a year or more of aging became our vinegar.

page 39..."To be allowed to do more of the chores about the place and given more responsibility made us proud to be 'growing up'.

"Hauling in the fuel from the coal house which was in the far northwest corner of the yard was one of those regular chores.  There were two kinds of coal -- the big hard lumps from the deep mine at Hanna City -- which was used at bedtime to keep the fire burning slowly all night.  The soft coal came from small mines over by Edward's Station.  Hauling in the coal in his big wagon with a gentle team was an all day job for Papa for each load, for there were people to visit with all along the way...and the horses must rest once in awhile!  And there were corncobs or some kind of kindling stored in the smoke house to bring in, too.

page 40..."Seed Corn.....Late in the fall, before the corn was dry enough to store in a crib, papa went into the field with a big sack tied around his shoulder and picked the biggest, most perfect ears he could find.  He piled them on the hayrack in the driveway of the big barn and we all helped him put them up to dry.  Each ear had a loop of binder twine pulled tightly around the bigger end -- after the shucks were pulled off, of course.  Two ears fastened together could be hung over nails that were driven into the big 2 by 8's way up above our heads.  The mice couldn't get it there either.

"The next spring, after it had dried all winter, Papa took them down and with care, shelled off the small grains at the little end of the ear and any odd shaped grains at the big end.  Then we could help Mama shell the rest of it into a basket.  Then, it was poured into a little rack made of metal with had holes in it to let the grains that were too small fall through.  In other words, the seed had to be the right size to fall through the plates in the corn planter.  That's where we got the best cobs for Mama to start the fire in the range.

page 41..."Planting corn was tedious work.  You had to have a dependable team to keep a steady pace and to turn just right at the ends of the field.  

"A wire with loops of metal every 28 inches (or was it less?) was strung across that made the corn drop at regular intervals...corn had to be cultivated both ways of the field to keep the weeds out.  So the distance between the rows and between the plants in the rows had to be the same.
"Now we have hybrid corn grown by the big companies and you can't gather your own seed.  Besides that, it is drilled in rows so thick that weeds don't have a chance to grow between the plants.  The soil is tested,  treated with many chemicals and its all a different procedure.  Very little corn is harvested on the cob anymore -- mostly shelled by the harvester and put in a dryer before storing in metal bins.

page 42..."When we were old enough to want to make money, our folks hired us to go out with little molasses buckets and a hoe and cut weeds that the cultivator missed in the field, or gather cockle burrs or pods from the velvet leaf weed.  I think we got 5 cents a hundred.   We kept books on that, but we didn't see any money.  Papa bought War Saving Stamps for us until we had $35!!!!

"Then Papa went to an auction one day a saw a young fellow's pony he knew we would want.  He made a deal with the guy and brought 'Beauty' home.  She broke loose and ran home -- papa followed her in the car and found she was running 35 miles an hour!  Anyway, when she got home the boy's father said NO SALE!  The boy shouldn't have sold her so cheap...So, I think Papa had to pay more than twice as much but he brought her home to us and she was a big help to each of us as we were just the right size to use her.

page 43..."It was our job to carry lunch and drinking water to the men working in the field and it was nice to have Beauty to ride instead of walking up the lane and getting hedge thorns in our bare feet.   

"In the evening we rode to the pasture to bring in the milk cows.  Everett and I were soon old enough to do the milking for Papa, who hated to milk a cow.  We also threw the hay down from the mow and put it into the mangers, while Papa kept the job of feeding the grain most of the time.

page 44..."We took our little wagon down to the big corn crib and picked out big ears of corn to feed the horses.  Brought it up to the big barn and put it in a steel barrel and had to be sure there wasn't a bit of shuck on any of them.  It was our duty to keep that barrel full and to clean out each horse's feed box and take those corn cobs to be burned.  That was a nasty job if you went too soon after the horses had slobbered on them.

"When farmers there first started raising soybeans, it was only for hay and that was the hardest feed to handle.  Clover hay was easier to fork into the throw down the chute.  I don't remember ever having any baled hay while I was on Papa's farm.  When Clyde and I farmed near Edward's Station we had alfalfa hay made into square bales and that was easier to move when we moved to our own farm down by Glasford.

page 45..."Another pet we had was the dog that Grandpa McAlister left there, old Brownie.  He did a lot of barking, especially at night when we wanted to sleep.

"We had a long porch all along the front of the house and around the corner to the kitchen door.  It was my job to scrub it, and as soon as I got done, old Brownie would come walking the full length of it.  After he was gone, we had several pups that got killed or died...Then the folks had one they call "The pup"  It was a real 'stock dog' and good at bring the cows or horses to the barn without any human help.  When they saw him coming, they didn't tarry; he would nip at their heels.  They kept him until they moved off the farm.

page 46..."In the summer time I used to ride the pony to Sunday School in Eden.  Mrs. Holt was our teacher.  We would carry a penny to put in the offering -- and we always had a pretty card to carry home, with a picture and scripture text on it.

"When we were very young, I remember going to Pleasant Grove Sunday School right there beside our school house.  It was a Methodist Church and the one in Eden was a United Presbyterian.  Both those buildings have been torn down.  The Fishers? bought the one at Pleasant Grove and used the materials to build their home down near Glasford.

"The Penn Ridge Lutheran Church that Grandpa McMeen went to is still in business and the building has been remodeled and improved.  We have had McMeen reunions in the basement there.

page 47..."I remember when Lindberg was flying around Illinois and when he flew the ocean blue!  And seeing the Goodyear Blimp sailing along overhead -- what a Thrill!  And then, to hear of the explosion of the big Zeppelin, the Hindenberg, in New Jersey.

"We saw a balloon ascension at Hanna City where it took them most of the day to fill the thing with enough hot air to get to go aloft.  It only went a short way, a few miles, and Fulton Miller, my former school teacher drove out and brought the man back to town.  Mr. Miller had a car -- a Big One.

page 48..."Allowances...Money...now that was something that children heard about -- but did not touch.  I think allowances are wonderful, a way for kids to learn the value of money -- and of the silly things we think we want.

"If anything was needed from the general store, during the week, other members of the family said "Charge it", and on Saturday evening Papa and Mama took us to Eden with the eggs and butter to sell and to shop for groceries, chewing tobacco, maybe a piece of calico -- gloves -- tools -- most anything you could think of -- and when it was all totaled up -- with a paper and pencil, Papa might have to fork over a little cash to settle the bill.  But, Mr. McCullough always put in a sack of candy for us kids.

"I don't remember handling money until I was about 12 years old.  We went to Hanna City on July 4th and Mama gave me a nickel to go get an ice cream cone at Aunt Fern's place.

page 49..."When I was younger, in the summer time, our family went shopping in Farmington on Saturday nights -- that was when we lived south of Trivoli -- and that was horse and buggy, too.  When we got into town, before dark, the eggs and butter were taken to a store and then Mama and we kids went down the street to shop at dim stores, shoe stores, dry goods stores, and always at Polito's fruit store.  The band was set up on a stand in the middle of Main Street and played LOUD -- and the Italians on the corners talked in their own language, which was frightening to me.  When we finally met Papa we all went to the movies -- 10 cents admission -- and Papa always laughed so loud at the funny cartoons that everybody knew we were there.  I think we kids slept all the way home, but it was fun.

"Don (and Patsy) Zessin, my nephew, has a supper club  in that same movie house now.
INSERT regarding Ku Klux Klan and Gypsies...

Uncle Orville Glasford was joining the Ku Klux Klan and Dad thought he was going to keep him from going into it.  They met over at the Methodist Church in Trivoli.  We went over there.  Dad tood the whole family, I don't know why, maybe for protection!  We kids and Mom went along.  I got to sit in the car.  The men folks went into the chruch, or around there somewhere and had their meeting ---Dad wouldn't join them, though they certainly wanted him to.   And when we drove home -- Dad was a person who was agraid of things.  He was agraid of a lot of things, and he was afraid all the way home.  Such driving, I'll tell you.  The hard road wasn't paved up there yet...Dust! OOOH!  He was afraid of anything he didn't understand, and there was a lot he didn't understand...

Gypsies...I told you about the bypsies over at the schoolhouse?  They would go from one schoolhouse to another and camp, and they were camped at Pleasant Grove Schoolhouse, and, of course, that was just a short distance from our place, and he was afraid that they'd come over and steal things at night.  It had just gotten dark and here came a horse that they had tethered out and it had got loose.  It came up to the front of our house in the yard there, you know?  It was marked with different colors so that it looked just like a horse with a saddle on it standing out there.  Dad got us kids and took us to a room in the back of the house upstairs.  Mom was to keep us there, and he got a gun and sneaked out the back door and sneaked around there to see what was going on.  Came back and told us to go to bed, that it was just a horse.   Well!  How would you sleep after that?...The gypsies came to get it the next morning.  One of the first things we were told was that Gypsies would kidnap us...


page 50..."Getting Ready for Threshing Day"..."Dad hauled a load of soft coal from the stripmines north of Hanna City to use in the kitchen range and in the steam engine that ran the threshing machine.  He cleaned out the bins for the new grain, cut all the weeds in the fence rows and trimmed the hedge fences.

"He took Mama to Peoria to pick up a new oilcloth for the kitchen table, some new dishes, some linen to make towels and calico for bib aprons.  Some hand soap like 'Camay' or 'Ivory'.   They brought us kids home a book to read for the summer -- one was 'Curlytops on Star Island'...

"The house was cleaned from top to bottom.  Fresh curtains, etc., usually in the early spring before gardening time.  New wallpaper was hung where it was needed.  The heating stoves were taken down about the first of May and stored in the 'Butler's pantry'  The carpet in the dining room was taken up and hung on the clothesline where it was beaten thoroughly then fresh straw was put over the floor before laying the carpet and tacking it on all edges.  Papa and the hired man had to go in and scrape their big feet along to stretch it as tight as possible.  What a happy day it was when they finally got 'Congoleum' 9x12 instead of carpet.  It was quite inexpensive and very easy to clean.

page 51..."Mama baked bread, buns and sweetrolls about twice a week and with threshers coming she had to do a lot of extra baking -- usually a half dozen pies and two kinds of cake.

"The big dining table was stretched out with all its extra leaves to seat at least a dozen people, but the long white damask cloth wasn't put on until the day it was needed.  

"Silverware was polished, salt and pepper shakers were filled -- as was the big sugar bowl.  Butter was churned and stored in a crock on the cellar floor.

"When the big steam engine came lumbering slowly up the road, pulling the grain separator, Papa was right there to open gates and direct their way into a small pasture on the south side of our big barn.  The machine had to be set up level so that the straw could be blown into a stack, and if the wind changed, everything had to be turned around to keep things blowing in the right direction.  It had to be just so for the big drive belt to stretch between the engine and the threshing machine.  

"Neighbors for miles around belonged to the "Threshing Ring" and shared in the work.  (page 52)...Probably 6 or more came with a hayrack and each had two 'pitchers' to load the sheaves of grain on to the rack while the man on the wagon stacked it just so to haul as big a load as possible without upsetting it.  Those teams had to be well broken to be driven up beside that noisy machine to unload into the separator.  Then there were several grain wagons and Papa hired a couple of men who were good scoopers and could keep up with the traffic.

"If you rented your land, the grain had to be divided equally into different bins, or some hauled to market.  Then there was the waterwagon supplied by the man who owned the threshing rig.  They usually had to go down to a stream somewhere to get a load of water, but we had one well that Never went dry, and remember everything was pulled by horses, no tractors or trucks yet?

"When the machine moved on to a neighbor's, Papa had to take his turn with his hayrack and the hired hand was a pitcher.  They worked until 5 or 6 o'clock and then ate supper before they came home, so that left us kids and Mama to do the chores at home, except for taking care of the horses.  Papa wouldn't let anyone else do that.

page 53..."Back to Mama's work on the big day -- she fretted and stewed until the man came from McCullough's store to bring the beef roast and a big chunk of ice and some cheese.

"That old cook stove was stoke up, the reservoir was filled with soft water from the cistern, and we kids had to carry soft water to a tub in the yard where the sun's bright rays warmed it for the men to use to wash up at dinner or supper time.  We put out a bar of that good hand soap and those new slick towels -- and a mirror hung on a porch post with a comb nearby -- that was before WWI -- when people became aware of germs and lice -- they said the men in the service brought them home from overseas....

"Back to Mama's kitchen, Aunt Blanche and several neighbor ladies were there to help prepare the food.  Potatoes had to be peeled and cabbage cut for slaw, tomatoes sliced, (page 54)...green beans snipped and corn cut from the cob., fixed the sliced bananas on the applesauce, slice the cheese, put the beet and cucumbers in dishes and the jelly and comb-honey....

"There was ginger water to make to fill some jugs for the water boy to take to the fields.  He had plain water, too.   The ginger water was made by adding a bit of vinegar -- some powdered ginger and some baking soda.  He drove a pony to a cart and was the idol of all the kids.  They envied him, making money doing that!

"We had one well, the one by the back door that had water fit to drink.  It had a wooden pump in it and when that finally broke down and had to be replaced by a metal pump, folks said the water didn't taste right!

"My job was to keep the little cousins out from underfoot, maybe play in the orchard where we could watch the big racks of grain go by.  If the acreage was big enough or there was any trouble, the men would still be there at suppertime.  I remember when one of the operators stayed all night to get up at daylight and stoke up the engine.

page 55..."There were lots of dishes to wash, after the 1st tableful of men got out, to prepare for 2nd table.  Mama had made new dishtowels from flour sacks and many hands made light work, but, oh, that kitchen was hot with the old cookstove going full blast.  The big enameled coffee pot was kept hot and with the ice (a big treat) they could have iced tea, too.

"We kids and the women made a tableful after all the men were gone back to work.

"Remember there was no electricity, no running water and no plumbing.

"Mama always said pie was for dinner and cake and fruit for supper...I don't know what else was different.

"One year Mama had baby Pearl the day she was supposed to serve the dinner and Olive Kyle took her place, feeding them at her house.  The next year Mama did the same for her when Elizabeth Kyle was born.

"Another time I remember a carload of Mama's family came to visit because they had company from Pennsylvania, Grandpa's nephew, (page 56)  who wanted to see them thresh.  I'm sure it only made more work for mama, but she wouldn't complain.

"Big combines, balers and 'Harvesters' have taken the place of the threshing machine in this part of the country.  The Harpers drove through a part of the country out east last summer where there were shocks of grain in the fields and horses were still the main power source, Amish Country, I suppose.

"People drive from all over the country to visit the Amana Colonies in Iowa to see such things and to Arcola, Il. to see how the Amish live and to buy the things they make.  In Peoria, the Mennonites have a sale every year at the Civic Center, selling baked goods, meats, home crafted items -- lots of quilts and the money goes to missions.  They also serve meals there for several days and the quilts bring a Big Price at auction.

page 57...."Grade School Graduation"....."I know that some of this is repetition but isn't that the way I talk?  

"When I was in the eighth grade we had to go to a bigger school to take our final exams.  There were four of us in the class, two girls and two boys.  Bertie Stuck and I rode to Glasford with her father because he was doing carpenter work there.  It was comforting to me to see two of my aunts there with children from their schools.  The two boys, Lloyd Goff and Earl Kimsey, went to Trivoli to take their tests.  We all passed.  Then I received word that I would be Valedictorian in Glasford.

"Mama made me a white dotted swiss dress with a big fancy collar and bought me some patent leather shoes.

"The big day came and it rained.  and there were no paved roads and few gravelled ones.  In the new Maxwell we went miles out of the way to avoid the big hills -- but we made it -- to the big lodge hall where I had to sit on the stage with the V. I. P.'s   OH, I was so bashful!  I used a short poem from "the Public Speaker", and how I wish I could find that book!

page 58...."The Hanna City School rented an old store building -- with a furnace in one corner -- no water -- out of door toilet -- Mr. Mulvaney taught seventh, eighth and ninth grades.  Papa arranged for me to live with his folks and go there.  He had to pay tuition and board......Besides that, I had to help Grandma with the work -- for she had just had a breast removed and needed all the help she could get.  

"Although they lived in the 'city' they had no modern conveniences -- not even electricity.  There was a kitchen range -- and two heating stoves -- I carried in most of the coal and carried out all of the ashes.  I cleaned the lamps and filled them with kerosene, carried the chamber pots to the backhouse out by the alley and carried in all of the water.  And, Hanna City water wasn't fit to drink.

"I cleaned her parlor every other day, but in the parlor was a piano and I got to practice on it and walked across town to Aunt Mary White's to take lessons.  It didn't do much good for we didn't have anything to play on at home.

"Grandpa worked nearby at the lumber yard and we both came home to eat at noon.  Grandma did the cooking and I helped do dishes.

page 59...."Most of the time, I got to go home on Friday night, until Sunday night.  On Saturdays, Mama helped me wash and iron my clothes.  I had three outfits -- a plaid dress and a white blouse which I wore with a jumper or a skirt.

"I got to tell the younger kids everything I'd learned all week.  Latin -- algebra-- sentence and theme -- science -- physical geography.

"I think the main reason for starting a ninth grade in Hanna City was to encourage the miners sons to stay in school instead of going down in the mine with their fathers.  One the days when the mine wasn't working some of the young fellows showed up and Mr. Mulvaney spent a lot of time lecturing them about staying in school.

"There was no place for sports.  Horseshoe pegs were driven over across the street between the sidewalk and the side of a store building.  That was right up my alley -- I could beat all the girls -- but wasn't allowed to play the boys.

page 60..."At Grandma's I had a room just off the kitchen on the northwest corner of the house -- hot in summer and frigid in winter.  Mama gave me a dollar a week allowance and I spent it on Jergens Lotion.

"On Monday Morning I filled the wash boiler to heat and Grandpa rolled out the washing machine -- a wringer washer with a big handle that you pulled and pushed back and forth to activate the dolly.  By school time, Aunt Mary came in to help finish the wash and hang the clothes to dry.  Grandma used her homemade soap and bluing and lots of starch!  The windows steamed up and Grandma crumple up old newspapers to dry them and make them shine.

"Whenever something happened that I didn't get to go home for the weekend, I walked to church with Grandma to the same Methodist Church that Elva attends now.   then in the afternoon I would go to the Presbyterian Church.  That way, I'd get to see a lot of my schoolmates.

page 61..."It cost a quarter to ride the train round trip Eden to Hanna City.  One time papa came over to see his folks and to ride back to Eden with me.

"The passenger train was late and the Local freight came along first and asked papa if we wanted to ride with them in the caboose.  Betcha none of you ever rode a Freight Train!  Anyway, we got off at Eden and started walking west on the tracks out behind the freight train to get to the farm.  Its noise kept us from hearing the passenger train coming up behind us.  Suddenly Papa grabbed my arm, threw me down over the bank and jumped down after me!  I guess our heavy winter clothes kept us from hearing the train's whistle...

page 62..."At the end of eight months, the board of directors told Mr. Mulvaney that they couldn't afford to run the school another month -- so he told us to come back one more day for tests and he would work that day free to see that we got credit for the year's work.

"The next year those 8th and 9th graders went to Trivoli High or Peoria Manuel or Peoria High.  All but me.

" I met Mr. and Mrs. Mulvaney and family on the street in Hanna City one time and he agreed that I was getting my education in the School of Hard Knocks...

page 63..." In the late summer of 1922 I became very ill.  High fever -- delirious.  Dr. Plummer thought it was diphtheria, but next day when I broke out he said "Scarlet Fever" and he put a quarantine sign on our front door.  We were shut in for 6 weeks.

"I was isolated in the parlor where Mama had moved the spare bed and only Mama came and went in there.  Coming in through the bedroom, she put everything through a disinfectant and kept the disease from spreading to anyone else.  No produce could be sold from the farm.  Milk was fed to the hogs -- what a waste!

INSERT from an interview at another time:
Q: How long were you sick?
A: Oh, I was quarantined -- I think we were quarantined for six weeks.  Maybe my memory's wrong, but I was in the parlor of that old house down there at Pleasant Grove by myself for all that time.  Mother would come in and bring my clothes that I had used to the bedroom next to that and put them in a disinfectant.  She was very careful that she didn't carry anything back to the rest of the family.  Then, when all that was over with, there was an outside door to my room there.  I could go out after I had been in there for about a month.  I was allowed to get out to the orchard or somewhere away from the family.
Q: What did you do with your time?  Did you read?
A: Not for awhile.  I wasn't allowed to use my eyes very much.  Anything I read had to be destroyed.  One thing I did (I shouldn't mention it in front of children)  we had a thermometer that I was to take my temperature every day and I though 'I bet I can get that to go up,' and struck a match under it.  I was old enough to know better!  Thirteen years old!  Of course I broke it.  I was bored silly.  I had to do something.

When this quarantine was over.  Quarantine meant that they couldn't sell anything off the farm:  eggs, butter, cream -- anything.  They couldn't let anybody take anything away from there.
Q: So that was rough on Everybody?
A: It was.
Q: Did you have a red sign on your house?
A: yes
Q: What do they do for scarlet fever now?
A: Oh, they don't quarantine, they have isolation.
Q: Scarlet fever is rare now, isn't it?
A: We had one bad case here in town this year.
They thought at first that I had diphtheria because my throat was so bad, and I was delirious, and had such high fever for so long.  Then when the quarantine was over we had to move out of the house and fumigate it with these sulfur candles.  Mother had to put clothes lines in all the rooms and hang all the cloth and anything that she could so that the fumes would go through it.  Well, Mother had a magazine call 'Comfort Magazine' which had patterns and recipes in it and she wanted to keep those so she took those to a storeroom upstairs where we never went and put them away.  That night, while the fumigating was going on, we took blankets and slept on the hay in the barn, the whole family.  That was quite an adventure.  
Q: Was it summer time?
A: No, it was in the fall.  See, I had it in September, so it must have been around the first of November or the latter part of October anyway.
Q: Was it chilly?
A: Yes.

Well, as you say, no one got it from me, still, in the winter time; Pearl was in school, Dorothy was just a little thing like Sonya  (ed note: she means Eleanor when she says Dorothy several times in the narrative)  and Mom went up to the storeroom, got some of these magazines, and Dorothy got the scarlet fever.
Q: the same magazines you looked at?
A: I don't know that I had looked at them.  I suppose I must have, as they had not been anywhere to get it except from that.  Well, it was impossible for her to get it from those magazines, but she did.
Q: So, were you all quarantined again?
A: Oh, yes.  And she had such a sore mouth that her lips just turned wrong side out.  It was horrible.
Q: How did your mother handle that?
A: well, she couldn't leave a little tine kid alone all the time, could she?  She kept her right in the house with her.  Eleanor had a lot of hard things happen to her.  Mom had a great big box at the end of the porch; a sort of planter, between the porch post and the house, it was fastened in there.  It had flowers planted in it, but I can't remember that anything pretty ever grew in it.  Anyhow, Eleanor went and grabbed hold of it and swung on it and the thing came down and hit her in the head.  Split her head open, and Oh, what a goose egg she had on her head!

(Back to the journal)  page 64..."There was an outside door to the parlor and as soon as I was able, I spent time walking in the orchard and eating my apple a day to keep the doctor away.

"At the end of our confinement we had to burn sulfur candles -- hang clothes on line -- to kill the germs and slept that night in the barn -- the closest I ever came to 'Camping Out'.

"The next February, Mama went to a store room away upstairs in another end of the house to et some 'Comfort' magazines to read and baby Eleanor got Scarlet Fever.  She was so terribly ill.  Her little mouth swelled up and turned wrong side out.  I don't remember being quarantined that time.

page 65..."The next year when school started Everett and I could have gone to Trivoli High School but Papa said NO.  He called the school a 'hell-hole' because a neighbor girl who went there had become pregnant.

"Years later I overheard my folks saying that they should have sent us to school. "How would she ever get a job?"  They would never allow me to take housework jobs when people needed me -- always said they needed me at home.  Years later I understood their concern when I learned that Mama's mother was raped while working for her sister who had a new baby, and that Aunt Blanche Erford was her illegitimate child because of that Brother-in-law's meanness.

page 66..."Spring of 1924.....I was 15 years, oldest of our family of four.  Uncle Roy's had 5 children we played together much of the time, whenever our folks got together to share their work.

"It was the last of May, Gardens were growing.  The corn had been cultivated -- plowed both ways.  Aunt Blanche had a hen with baby chickens in a coop in their orchard.  House cleaning was done.  Heating stoves were taken down and stored away.  It wasn't time to make hay yet and Papa had traded cars with Alfred Manuel and felt like going visiting.

"So Mama and Papa and Aunt Blanche and Uncle Roy took the two youngest children and went on a long trip -- down to Plymouth IL to visit their Uncle Emmet's family.

"There were very few paved roads, or graveled one, stopping places were school yards which provided well water and out of door toilets -- a good place to rest and eat your picnic dinner.


page 67..."But they hadn't gone far until they had a flat tire and found out it didn't have an inner tube -- it was just stuffed with old overalls!  That's when Papa found out that trading cars was like trading horses.

"They had a nice trip, though, and a good visit with the McAvoy's.  I was in charge of things at home to feed the kids and keep them out of trouble.  I'm sure I wouldn't have known what to do if anything serious had happened to them.  No 911 then, just a party line....

page 68..."Uncle Roy had left his Maxwell at our house so that we could go take care of things at their house twice a day, with brother Everett, 13, driving!  The girls, Mabel and Pearl and I took care of the chickens and the boys milked the cows and fed the hogs and horses.

"The first day went by without anyone doing anything unusual until the girls came running in to tell me to come to the barn and make the boys behave.

"We always did tricks in the barn, swinging on a hayrope over an open space from one platform to another.  Or, climbing a ladder to a window 30 feet at the top of the haymow where we could see miles and miles around the countryside.

"Anyway, there were Harold and Ralph climbing like monkeys, hand over hand in the very top of that hip roof barn by hanging on to the braces that ran between the rafters.  I was petrified and screamed at them to come down...but they only answered with cuss words I'd never heard before.  So I had to go away and leave them with Everett watching them and no one got hurt!

page 69..."The next morning we woke up to a frozen world.  The beautiful corn was ruined.  The kitchen range kept us comfy in the house but the kids were barefoot.  I had to go to Aunt Blanche's store room and hunt up winter clothes for them.  We didn't turn the hen and chicks out that day.  The younguns were glad to play in the house that day.  I was so glad to see the folks when they drove in.  I was exhausted and threw myself on the bed, maybe appreciating what my folks had been doing for me.

page 70..."Grandparents"..."My grandmothers were both large women and both wore their hair in a bun high on their heads.  Grandma McAlister's hair was red, as was that of two of her children, Enos and Mary.  Grandma McMeen had brown hair which turned grey quite early.  She had 8 living children, besides Grandpa had those five by his first marriage.

"Grandma McMeen became his housekeeper while his wife was dying of Tuberculosis.  I think 3 of his first family had the same trouble.  Grandpa had brought them out west from Pennsylvania seeking a better climate.
"Grandpa McMeen was a chubby old "Dutchman" with a white mustache and I remember him for his quiet friendly manner, his table grace which he mumbled into his plate, and no one knew what he said.  Maybe it was in Dutch, who knows?, but the sound of it was comforting -- He always hunted up a piece of candy for each of us.  He died of uremic poisoning in the early 80's.

"Grandpa McAlister was a small, wiry man.  Bald-headed with a mustache.  He was nervous, hard working and hard to get to know.  I never really got acquainted with him even living in his house.  He didn't talk to us, only to the menfolk.  He fell over dead in the kitchen while washing up for breakfast when he was 69.  I went to live with Grandma for awhile as she was distraught.

page 71..."Grandma Druscilla had never had any money to spend, had never even shopped for groceries!  Her daughter Mary had married and was living in Hanna city, too, so she came in to help her -- whenever she could.  There  was much discussion as to what to do for Grandma.  The six children couldn't agree on anything!  My Dad became her conservator.  Grandpa had been the administrator of Aunt Lou's estate and it still had to be settled and Dad had to do that, too.  There were two farms to be sold and two houses to be disposed of.

"Grandma decided she wanted to live with her children and it was determined that she should pay her hosts $ per day -- wherever she was staying and she would take turns going to each home.  She would go about a week to each one and come right back to Clarence and Bertie's.. In order to settle the estate, Dad and Roy decided to go together to buy the place where (  ) was raised just north of Pleasant Grove and Uncle Roy's would move into it -- We would move up on Texas Road where Dad had bought a farm.

page 72..."That worked out all right -- the other 4 got money from the loan that Roy and Dad borrowed.  Aunt Lou's house and belongings were auctioned off.  
 
"So Grandma McAlister spent most of her last 20 years at my folks.   When she was about 80 years old she fell over a rug at Aunt Fern's and broke her hip.  She wound up a very unhappy patient at the Nursing home at Elmwood.

"Then, my Dad and my husband Clyde decided that I should be the one to care for her because I had a modern home in Glasford at that time.  And, Dad says "I'll give you $3 a day!" Since Elva was going to Bradley, I had a spare bed and she came to use it, staying several months until she could walk again.  She sat in the wheelchair with her feet over the heat register and whenever the blower on the furnace stopped she yelled "The furnace broke down!"  She lived several more years, dying of pneumonia in a hospital.

page 73..."World War I times again..."   Let's go back to World War I times.  Everyone was greatly concerned about doing a perfect job of farming and saving every grain of corn or wheat, killing every weed, etc. etc.  It became law that farmers had to use hayracks with tight bottoms, like ship-lap flooring.  Before that the racks had big cracks between the boards.  We didn't have hay-balers then.

"At that time, Papa wasn't much of a carpenter so Mom's cousin Alva "Budget" Wilson and wife Katie and son Joy came to spend a week's vacation with us and help build the new rack.  Joy was a little older than Everett and me so he was a great playmate.

"Two days after they came they had a phone call that sent Katie into HYSTERICS.  Her brother Otto McElhaney and his bride to be Mabel Shepherd were with a crowd on the pleasure boat "Columbia" on the Illinois River which sank.  Otto and Mabel were in a spot where they could hang on to something when the boat broke in two.  Otto save the lives of some people -- pulling one woman out by her hair.  Papa took Budget down to the river and as soon as they came back he took the Wilson's home.  Many of their friend were drowned.  Is that why I was always afraid to learn to swim?   

"Katie and Otto's mother was Lydia Albright, a sister of Grandma McMeen.

page 74..." more about George Irvin McMeen...he was a shoe cobbler and they say he walked to Illinois his first trip out here -- earning his living by making shoes for people.

"He had a room at the end of his granary where he made or repaired shoes for his family.  When we heard him pounding away out there we paid him a visit and he cracked walnuts for us.  He was always white haired and when he came in from milking the cows he combed his hair with a fin toothed comb.

"He had a big orchard, with all kinds of fruit and lots of garden -- it was good to visit the cellar in the fall and see the potatoes, apples, pears and all that he carried in.  And, all of the things that Grandma McMeen canned.

"She once showed us a jar of apple butter that he husband's first family brought from Pennsylvania when they moved to Illinois.

"Of course, we also had a cellar full of those things at home, but his seemed bigger...

page 75..."Our Mom, lake most all the farmer's wives, spent the summer preserving food for the winter.  

"She and Aunt Blanche McAlister (Olive Blanche Bitner McAlister) tried to learn to can corn -- and it spoiled!  All that work for nothing.  I think they tried to do too much at a time, filling a washboiler with quart jars to boil three hours.

"They had a fruit and vegetable dryer -- metal shelves with lines of water pipes running under them -- something like a car radiator.  It sat on top the old cook stove and was big enough to cover it.  The first boiled the sweet corn on the cob and then cut it off and put it on the dryer where it had to be stirred to keep it from sticking until it was hard and rattled.  Then they put pans of it in the oven to finish drying -- Oh, and they hung it up in mesh bags -- and you had to soak it all night before cooking it.  It had a flavor all its own -- wish I knew where to get some now!  Having an orchard we dried fruit, too.  We kids had to keep the coal buckets full and entertain the little kids while our mom's were busy.

page 76..."When I was out of school and Grandparents and their family got the flu I was taken down there to take care of them -- about all you could do was carry water to them and empty the pots.  I cooked for the ones who weren't sick in bed yet and I wasn't a cook, but they all survived.

"In the summer Mom would take me down to help Grandma McMeen in canning time.  They had a summer kitchen where she did all the cooking and canning in summer and burned wood in that old range.  My job was carrying in wood and washing fruit jars.

"We had apples, pears and potatoes in our cellar most all winter besides canned things.  Mom canned tomatoes in tin pails and sealed them with sealing wax.

"I remember seeing Aunt Vera McMeen (Cowser) gather cherries from the tree with stems on them and she hauled out to Polito's fruit store in Farmington to sell, to make money to go to high school.

page 77..."Grandpa McMeen lived in a log cabin when they first bought the farm they lived on.  Then they built a frame house -- a story and a half -- but it burned when my Mother was still in grade school -- Grandma and Grandpa had been down the road next door helping them butcher hogs -- came home and started a fire in the cookstove and hater and it caught fire around the chimney.  Grandma ran upstairs and saw smoke and grabbed an armload of the girls clothes from the closet next to the chimney and burned her arm.  Then, she grabbed a chest of drawers and got it part way down the stairs and it jammed.  Some men came in and rescued her.  They had no phones but rang dinner bells for an alarm when they needed help -- so the young folks ran home from school to see the fire.  

"The neighbors took them in and sewed new clothes for them, etc. and grandpa built the big house that we remember and it is still standing.  I took a picture of it recently -- 8 rooms - big closed in porch and summer kitchen and a big cellar.

page 78  "They still heated it with 3 heating stoves and the kitchen range.  When Uncle Elmer came home from W.W.I he helped Grandpa install gas lights and later, I believe, they had a 'Delco' plant.  I don't know when they got electricity but that was probably in the 1940's....

The Delco Light Plant
 
http://www.gasenginemagazine.com/archive/0104/story.asp
 
By the 1920s the stationary gas engine was revolutionizing life in rural America. Reliable, portable power for the farm and small industry was changing the American landscape. Electricity presented yet another set of power options, and it didn't take a genius to realize there was money to be made supplying electric power to rural America.
Commercially viable electric-generating units were on the market by the 1900s, and by the early teens small, portable units became available. In 1909 Charles F. Kettering, the Dayton, Ohio-based electrical engineer and inventor responsible for the first electric starter (installed in a Cadillac in 1911), founded the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Co. (DELCO). Kettering's company originally supplied electrical components for the growing automotive industry. But as electrification spread Kettering saw the promise in providing small-scale power for the farm, and in 1916 DELCO introduced its "Delco-Light" line of electric-generating plants.
From the beginning, the Delco-Light line was designed to make life easier. Power was supplied by a single-cylinder vertical engine. To keep things simple, the engines were air-cooled, and to make things easy, DELCO, drawing on its expertise in small motors, fitted its light plants with electric starters. The customer only had to fill the tank, close the switch, and the light plant did the rest. The engine started automatically, charged the lead-acid storage batteries and, when the batteries were charged, shut itself down. The engine was restarted only when needed to bring the batteries back up to charge.
The first Delco-Light plant was a 750-watt, 32-volt unit (enough to light 37 20-watt bulbs) and was quickly followed by a broad line of light plants with output up to 1,250 watts. But even 1,250 watts wasn't enough to satisfy the growing hunger for electricity, so in 1918 Delco-Light introduced a 3,000-watt light plant powered by a single-cylinder, 5 HP engine. Sales continued to build, and by 1925 more than 60,000 Delco-Light plants had been sold.

"In the dining room was a desk and a big table and sideboard and couch where Grandpa took a nap after dinner.   And the girls had a pump organ where they learned to play.  I think Aunt Blanche got it when they bought a piano for the younger girls.  Of course it went into the parlor with the big heavy chairs and rockers and a carpet.  And on the wall was a huge framed embroidered "Lord's Prayer"...

"Each bedroom had a complete suite of furniture and a clothes closet -- which was unusual in those days.

"In the dining room was the wall telephone, party line -- and if you ran a continuous ring you could get all the neighbors on there at the same time.  That house would be over a hundred years old now in the 1990's

page 79..."In the 1920's the women in Pleasant Grove neighborhood formed the Apron and Overall Club to have some social activities besides the one at school.  They knew they would never get their men to dress up to go anywhere, thus the 'Overalls' part.

"I think everyone enjoyed the parties we had, going from one home to another each month.  The hostess furnished a lunch -- usually sandwiches or soup -- something simple and we had to plan new games to play.  It was amazing to us kids to see our folks playing games or speaking pieces... They got started playing cards.  Dad learned to play 500 and each evening in the winter, Mom and Dad and Everett and I played, even little Pearl learned to play before she was old enough for school.

"page 80..."When my folks moved from the Pleasant Grove place to the farm they bought on Texas Road, Uncle Roy's bunch moved in as we moved out.

"That night, as we prepared to get a good night's sleep with their packing boxes all over the place getting mixed up with ours, here came the Apron and Overall Club to give us a farewell and Uncle Roy's a welcome and to have a dance on our bare floors.

"Dad did not approve of dancing, but, what could he do about it?  It was Uncle Roy's house now, and we kids got to learn to square dance in our own kitchen.

"Texas Road was not paved as it is now.  It was MUD.  The neighbors had been dragging the road to try to dry it out and then it halfway froze up and Dad, with lots of help, drove our cattle up over it and tracked it all up, so that the next day, when it was frozen, we went in wagons and hayracks and buggies -- it was rough enough to shake your teeth out.   That was a treacherous road -- One day it would be dry, but just a little rain and it would be impassable.

page 81..."Our house on Texas Road was 8 rooms, not modern in any way.  My bedroom had a small closet in it!  There was a cistern pump in the kitchen with no drain to the sink.  Drinking water was just outside the back door -- down a flight of steps.  The stairs to the cellar was on the back porch -- and after a tornado went nearby, Dad cut a hold in his bedroom floor and put a ladder up to it.

"Our radio antenna was stretched out near the phone line and we could hear people talking on the party line on the radio!  FUN!

"That's where I met Clyde Schoaff, a neighbor boy who had a new "STAR" coupe.  He came asking me to go to a young folks party at the nearby church -- and by the time that night came, it had rained and he had to come with horse and buggy -- He was humiliated!  And, I was thrilled to have a BEAU!

page 82..."We went to Peoria to the movies about every Saturday night and sometime Everett and Vera went along.

"About a year later, I was pregnant.  He finally decided to marry me.

"Everett took Mom and Dad and me in a wagon down to the hard road to take the bus to Peoria.  We went shopping for a suit for my wedding dress and a new coat.

"Clyde and his Dad went and got the license and met us at a Justice of the Peace office where we were wed...and he took off on the run...

"I saw him again in December when Elva was 3 months old.  He wanted to start living with us, so he and my Dad went to Peoria and found an apartment where with old furniture my folks gave me, we started out our married life.  It was a two room and bath place and I spent my time washing on a washboard and drying clothes in the attic, cooking meals and spoiling the baby.

"Every weekend we drove out to visit one family or the other.  Clyde was working in a foundry for $16 a week, but things were different then, our groceries cost less than $5 a week.

page 83..."Then Clyde found a house in his folks neighborhood would be for rent and we moved to an old brick house north of Eden -- across the road from a schoolhouse.  I could board the teacher.  She paid me $1 a day and I cooked 3 hot meals a day for her.  We could keep a cow or two and had a garden and some chickens, and a TELEPHONE so I could talk to my folks once in awhile.

"Our recreation was mostly the programs the kids put on at the school.

"This house was built just after the civil war with bricks that were hauled by oxcart from down at Frederick, IL...It was 6 rooms and a cellar with an indoor stairway to it!  It was cool in the summer and warm in the winter.  We bought a linoleum floor covering for the kitchen and a coal burning cook stove from Bergner's for about $9.00 and a couch for the living room from a second hand store for $2.  A 400 pound neighbor lady came to visit and the couch was the only place big enough for her to sit down -- needless to say, the spot she sat on never came up again!

page 84..."About 2 years later, Clyde found a place he wanted to move to on Glen Ave. in Peoria.  He was now working at Caterpillar and wanted to be nearer his work.

"We had 6 acres with fruit trees and grapevines and a barn in which we kept cows, chickens and a NEW Model A Ford....  Our drinking water wasn't good so we carried it from the neighbors.  There was no electricity or plumbing -- 5 room and a cellar.

"While there Elva and I had mumps and measles together, and she had a little playmate next door.

"I made cottage cheese for the neighbors, entertained Clyde's cousins who lived in Peoria and many of his fellow workers came to visit us "in the country".  That part of Peoria is all built up now and the house we lived in is gone.

page 85..."Then we started farming -- renting from Mr. DeVault out west of Edwards Station.  As usual, the house we moved into was a dirty mess; but, the landlord would buy wallpaper if I'd put it on , and I did.

"That was a four room house with a cellar.  With old borrowed machinery from our folks we started in.  The banks went broke about that time but we had spent our meager savings for a team of mares and seed oats.  Our mares had colts -- one of which fell dead of a heart attack.  The oats were harvested and I had threshing crew to feed.   Two meals because the neighbor didn't want to start his job that late in the day.  Our crops all turned out well and we raised cattle and hogs.  I remember selling the big sows for $3 per hundred?

"We even rented extra ground one year down in the Kickapoo Creek bottoms where it had flooded and no one else wanted to clear away the logs and rocks that washed in.

page 86..."Elva grew up to start to school at Cottonwood with a teacher she said was the most beautiful lady in the world.  Marvin was born there just after Elva had the chickenpox -- and when he was 4 days old, I got them too and when I got the fever I was sure I would die.

"We were only about 5 miles across country to Clyde's folks, and when Mrs. Schoaff (Minnie Hofstatter Schoaff) was quite ill with heart trouble I went over there every other day to do their work, so that Velda could go to high school.  When her mother died at age 50, Velda was not allowed to go back and finish the junior grade.

"Her brother, Verne, got a job at the powder mill which was a couple miles north of us.  One day (11/5/1935) he was a little bit late getting there and an explosion killed the man he was to replace, Lewis Kimzey, a second cousin of mine.  Verne sat on our well curb and cried, realizing it might have been his last day.  

"While Clyde continued to work at Caterpillar I did the farm work until Marvin's birth when we had to hire help -- our last year there, Torris Roberson helped us.

page 87..."In about 1936, my Dad and Clyde went down to Glasford and found a small farm for sale -- the owners had lost it to the Bank.  We bought it and again moved in to a very dirty rundown place.  Clyde hired my Dad to build fences, paint and repair buildings and Clyde bought a small tractor.  I still drove 4 horses on most machinery and we had 13 milking cows!  A month after we moved in came a deep snow and Clyde had to stay in Peoria...when I wasn't taking care of livestock I papered and painted the new home.

"We started going to the Baptist church in Glasford because John Schlenker, who worked at Caterpillar, was preaching there.  I think he was at that church for over 39 years and it grew to around 200 attendance.  Elva and Charles were married there.  The four of us, Clyde and I and Elva and Marvin were all baptized Baptists.

"Paul was born in 1942.  Again we had to hire help, or rent out the land.  We had bought the adjoining place so we had enough farmland to keep one person busy.  So, Grandpa Gilbert came to live with us and take care of the White Rock chickens.  We were selling eggs to the Hatchery in Peoria.

"So, after Paul's 11 3/4 pound delivery I was in the hospital for repairs and we eventually sold the farm and moved to Glasford.  Just at that time, Elva went to Bradley U.

page 88..."Again I 'boarded' the schoolteacher, a Barb Mackie who taught at the high school.

"Back to when we were living on the farm...Grandma McMeen came to visit us about the first of July.  Grandpa had died and she was having a lady in our part of the county make her a black satin dress.  Grandma had always been the family seamstress, but this had to be something special!  She said "We're going to have a picnic here for the 4th of July" and she got on the phone, inviting our families to bring potluck and I could furnish the fried chicken...It was her birthday on July 6 and also that of Alice Roberson.  I think there were about 30 people who showed up!

"We still have our family birthday dinners about every month, but we go to Stewart's Cafe in Trivoli and someone else raises the chickens. (1997 note added...I'm now 12 years older than Grandma was when she died and I always thought she was OLD)

page 89..."The boys were downright unhappy about moving to town.  We finally brought their dog and Shetland pony to town but that only caused more trouble with lots of neighbor kids wanting rides and the boys (read Marvin, as Paul wasn't much help at that age...pes) got tired of taking care of them, especially the pony.  We sold it, I think to Charlie Sill (I didn't know him then).  We took the dog back to the farm.

"Clyde was very unhappy there in town.  His eyes turned to other women and he had the idea that all the neighbors were watching him.  That was when he brought Grandma McAlister to me to care for until she could walk again.  Then Clyde found a little house over by Mapleton and said we were moving over there.  He also wanted me to go to Barber College.  I did and had a way to make a few more dollars.

"Paul started to school at maple Ridge.  His teacher, Mrs. Jeffords, drove by our place and he rode to school with her and stayed after school with a neighbor, Mrs. Carlyle until Marvin came home from High School and took him home.
page 90..."We went to La Marsh Baptist Church and became acquainted with many nice people there.

"For many years Clyde had wanted a divorce, but I didn't believe in it; but, after he told me his lady friend was pregnant I finally relented, and we divorced in July 1949.

"Clyde had bought me a barber shop in Glasford and I continued to work there until after the divorce.  I couldn't keep a master barber with me.  One told me that people were "talking".  So I traded the little house near Mapleton for the Busy Bee Cafe and changed my profession -- I had an apartment there in the building where the boys and I lived until Marvin and Mary Knowles were married -- then it was just Paul and me.  The Doctor looked down his throat and said "All I see is ice cream cones"

page 91..."The Busy Bee Cafe had been run by the Duhs family.  She in the kitchen, he behind the counter when not at his other job, and a son who was a High School Senior to help, too.

"My teenager, Marvin, would rather work on someone's old car than be seen helping me.  He quit school in his junior year and got a job with Art Knowles in Canton, who became his father-in-law.  Paul enjoyed the comic books form the magazine shelves and the good food and the attention he got from the girls who worked for me.   There was Betty the waitress, Mary the cook, and Mabel the evening waitress.  Mabel also took our laundry to do at her house.  I worked early and late to keep things going.  Mary stayed on Wednesday afternoons so I could get my hair done, and that day's take was always very short.  Finally by planting a certain amount in the register I found out where the money was going and told Mary I couldn't afford to keep her.

"Sister Pearl came to my rescue!  She and little Lorena came each day as her husband Torris went to work at Caterpillar.  She was a great cook, Lorena had a playmate next door and all went much better.

"The high school kids descended on us each noon hour and whenever they won a ballgame they expected and got a free lunch, which meant hiring extra help every time there was a home game.  The mayor and the Coach always came in and rehashed the game, too.

page 92..."I don't know just how long I struggled along with all that, but when the Ogles came along wanting to buy me out and keep me on as help -- living in the apartment -- I took it.  

"Easter Day, I planned to go back to church.  Clyde had been picking up Paul every weekend.  Here came Charlie Sill to eat breakfast.  His wife had died of cancer in 1950 but he continued to come up to the Lamarsh Baptist Church whenever he could.  I remarked that it was so nice that he could go back to the old church, etc. and he invited me to go along.  I went, and when we came back, I treated him to a big steak dinner.  After that we dated every Wednesday night -- going to prayer meeting.

"On August 7th, we were married at the church parsonage with the other two elders as his attendants and their wives as mine.  They played the old pump organ and sang "Under His Wing" and had a big supper at the preacher's table.

"We drove down to Hull IL., to Charlie's sister Charlet's and stayed that night, then took her with us to visit the other sister Lily in Arkansas.  But we left her there.  I had moved my furniture into Charlie's house the day before and Bette and Roy had moved up to Ipava.  She still came back to do her laundry and taught me how it should be done for Charlie!  We got along fine and also with Bruce and Phyllis and all the grandchildren.

page 93..."My folks came down with a new set of dishes.  Charlie welcomed my family as I did his and he got along well with Paul.  Besides their own two kids, he and May had taken care of two foster boys until their mother married again and the moved to Texas.

"When we were married, Charlie was working for his brother, Ralph, who sold Allis Chalmers machinery.  After Ralph quit that business, Charlie and a foxhunting buddy opened a strip-mine and delivered coal.

"On our small acreage we raised corn to feed our cattle and horses (and pigs and chickens, etc.)  He finally sold them and got goats.  The goat milk made good ice cream.  When the neighbors found out that I had been a barber they started coming to the house -- often in the evening -- when I was so tired and that was the age of flat-tops.  Some thought I was a beautician and expected I would do perms at their homes.  That kept me very busy until a neighbor lady had a car wreck just before school started.  She was the Bader School cook and the directors came to me begging me to take her place.  I agreed to do it to help her until she was able, but she died so I worked there two years until they closed the school and took the kids to Astoria.

page 94..."I worked awhile in a drugstore -- then Eleanor went into the Amway business and sonsored us.  That was a happy time.  We went almost every week to get products and got to visit my Mom at the same time.  I sold to over 200 customers and we sponsored a lot of them.  Charlie had always been a salesperson, selling Mason Shoes and made to measure Men's suits, etc., so he enjoyed it, too.
"Meanwhile, I also stayed nights at Homer and Edith Beam's for 5 years.  Bother over 90 and invalid, they had to have 24 hour care.  A daughter came on Friday night and stayed through to Monday morning -- so I had weekends to catch up at home and to go to Amway meetings.

"Elmer and Eleanor took us to a big Rally in Maryland near Washington D.C. and we got to visit Paul and Eileen and boys out there.  Another trip Charlie and I took was with his brother, Jasper and his wife, Marie, to visit family in Colorado.  We also made several trips to Arkansas and to visit Charlie's brother Dan and his wife, Dolly in southwest Missouri.  You never knew just when some of his family might drive in.  When Charlet came, she always brought a perm with her and always baked a hickory nut cake.

page 95..."In 1977, Charlie had surgery to remove a cancer from his neck.  the size of an egg.  They also took his tonsils.  Then he had to go to Springfield for 3 or 4 weeks for radiation treatment.  Bette insisted on taking us every day.  When it was time for his annual checkup he kept putting it off.  Then one morning he came in and said "you can call for an appointment with Dr. Gibbs".  It was a hot humid day and he went out to mow the grass at the end of the garden.  When I heard the mower idling I went to check on him and  found him lying there, dead.

"Marvin and Joanne and kids came at once and stayed a couple weeks.  They were ready to go home when my mother died.  Later, Marvin brought me a mobile home which we moved over to Morris Cripe's place and I had a sale.  

"Some years later I moved to the apartment in Astoria where I was able to help at the nutrition center and with the Red Cross Van which took people to Macomb to Doctors appointments , etc.

"We have lived her at 1314 North Wood Road for over 9 years now and enjoy your visits ever year.

All my love,
Grandma