Christmas at Honey Creek Immanuel Church was the best and took quite an effort. Adolph’s cousin Mary and Leona told us there was candy and peanuts and oranges there for all school children so we were eager to get there. The tree was a tremendous size and beautifully trimmed. It was lighted with real candles, when I smell wax burning it still takes me back all those years. The Immanuel school children sang all the pretty carols, and the service was in English and we got to hear the story of the birth of our Savior from sin. “Momma and Daddy used, THE STICK often, so we knew about Sin.” The ride to church, 8 miles by horse and buggy seemed forever, except coming home the sky was full of dazzling stars and it was so cold we covered with Adolph’s heavy lap robe to keep warm. We had our goodies in our arms and listened to the horses shoes hit the flint stone rocks on the road, and the sparks were as pretty as the stars in the sky.
Sommerer Family Website
Good enough for who it's for
I enjoy Lillians writings about her childhood. I didn’t realize that Honey Creek Church was that far from the Sommerer homestead. I wonder if they went to Honey Creek School and How they got there if it was 7 miles.Uncle Herbert was one of Lillians sponsors. I think that is why he gave her a violin and his camera before he disappeared. I found Uncle Herbert on the 1930 census in Galveston Texas Dist. 10. On 23rd Street. He was a cook, He was a white male age 34 and single. His name was Herbert J Sommer. He was not a veteran.I couldn’t read it very well. it said something about US Engineers Quarter Boat.( I think , not sure)
In 1940 I found Uncle Herbert in St Charles Mo. on Washington Street and close to Jefferson Street. He was living in the home of Cletus McMenamy and wife Marie, and children Norman, Martha, Jane and Bobby. Herbert Sommers and Dany Vetch were 2 roomers living in thier home and It didn’t say anything else about them, Nothing.The house number was 708
I don’t think it was 8 miles one way, I think it was 4 miles going and 4 miles back home. which would have made 8. Lillian should have been a writer. She does it so beautifully. I can’t immagine what it was like at that young age to ride in a horse and wagon to church at night in the middle of winter. It must have been so cold. I have the same memories of Christmas Eve services at Honey Creek growing up, but we got to ride in an old car.(that didn’t have a heater) and santa clause would always come while we were at Church. The house would be warm, and we got to stay up all night and play with our toys, and eat lots of good food. Wonderful memories.
Thank you Cleo, for the information on Uncle Herbert. I never knew much about him at all. This is very interesting. I was wondering if anyone in the family knows what happened to his violin. My “bucket list” has riding in a one-horse open sleigh in the snow sometimes. Our younger generation missed out on the most delightful activities.
Do you remember when our car axel was broken and we didn’t have a car for I don’t know how long. The neighbors had a picnic and fish fry down at the Osage river, Maybe at the Ordnum farm. I am not sure. We took the horses and the wagon there, through back woods which I had never seen or been on before. That was close to being on a sleigh ride. Not the same but close enough. Are you old enough to remember that?
I remember being there, but not how we got there. I remember some of the Ordnum girls (they were probably teenage or older) playing with me and I wanted to go in the river, but Mom wouldn’t let me.
I can remember the long dirt road that led to the Ordnum house down to the river. We were also taken by boat to the other side of the river, by the older neighbors girls, to swim, There was a nice gravel bar over there. Alma and Clara Goetz were playing with me in the water. I went under the water, and that was the first time I was tramatized by water. I will never forget that. I remember Dady and Vernon bring back a big wash tub full of the biggest fish you ever seen. Mother cleaned them. I guess we ate them. I dont remember her canning them. I don’t remember us having Lloyd so it much have been when I was 4 going on 5 years old.
We canned those fish. They were a real blessing.
THIS IS FROM MAHLON – The Fish Fry was every 4th of July so it could have been either family and who knows which year. Along about the first of July the neighbors would put out trot lines and catch fish for the fry. On the morning of the 4th the menfolks would start cleaning the fish. The women would start frying. One year on the first of July it was Daddy’s turn to set out trotlines and run them every two hours. So Mom packed the stuff for us to fry fish for our eating. We never caught any fish until 10 o’clock at night. It was a carp and we took that one fish back to camp and Daddy cleaned it and fried it while we finished running the lines. When we got back we were really hungry since no food all day and that was the BEST fish I ever ate.