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Uncle Mahlon’s Story (part 2)

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My earliest memory of my mother, Teresa, was how every child had a job. Marjorie was responsible for looking after me. Marjorie also made clothes such as dresses or shirts for Cleopha. My favorite memory to share about my mother is one time we were playing a game of hide and go seek after supper. Beatrice decided to stand on a five-gallon bucket in a dress, which hung all the way down to the floor to wash dishes. No one could find Beatrice, but Teresa was in on the joke the whole time standing outside in the cold. However, the real joke was on Beatrice because she ended up washing and drying all of the dishes!

My earliest memory of my father, Adolph was there is not much to tell about him. When father hollered at you, you got up and when he was tired, he would go to bed. This memory of his father led to another about how life was as a child…

Aunt Lolly’s Story (part 11)

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When I was small, I spent many hours sitting on Daddy’s lap combing his hair. He had lots of patience and endured a lot. He taught us to play blind pitch, and then regular pitch. He played the harmonica and I played my drum sitting by the old wood stove in the wintertime.

On cold winter weekend nights, we would run upstairs where the peanuts and popcorn were laid out to dry on papers on the floor, dip up a big pan of peanuts and grab ears of popcorn and take them to the kitchen. We put the peanuts in the oven to bake and shelled the popcorn. We would pop a big dishpan of popcorn. Then Mahlon, Cleo, Naomi and I would play cards or Monopoly till midnight.

Aunt Naomi’s Story (Part 31)

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Mahlon fixed up an old bicycle for us to ride.  It was hard because there was no money to buy new tires, but I all of us little kids got a chance to ride it some.  He made a wooden gun for Lloyd when Lloyd was about eight.  I remember how lucky I thought Lloyd was because he got to play with that gun.   The hoodlin’ wagon was the best invention.  He made a cart that had two big wheels.  We used this for everything, to haul milk cans, garden produce, flower bed clippings and everything that required something bigger than our Radio Flyer red wagon.  We often pulled each other around in it also for fun.  There was a shed in the west field that was divided in half.  There was a square cut in the bottom about 15 inches square for the chickens to go from half to the other.  This shed was used to store junk and machinery.  Mahlon bet me I couldn’t crawl through that square.  I did and to this day I have nightmares about being stuck in that square.

We used to all play hide and seek – “Ollie Ollie oxenfree, who’s all out, come in free” – indoors as well as indoors.  Playing this game inside with dim visibility of coal oil lamps, so one night, my brother Mahlon picked me up and put me in daddy’s overalls that always hung behind the door.  Being very small, I just sit there, hanging inside the overalls, and no one ever found me.  Very imaginative!

Funny story about Cats

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Everyone knows that Grandma was not a big kitten fan. I’m sure Uncle Bud knew that very well. Ha Ha. That’s a good one. That was a topic of late night discussion for several of us regarding Grandmas love of cats at Heits Point this year. Not! But, it never seemed to keep her from having a good supply of kittens hiding in the fork of the old hollow tree that was between the house and the garden –somewhat close to 3rd base in the backyard. We never could beat Julie to the tree first to get a kitten to hold. Julie was mean when it came to her cats.

Just a thought about the game Andy Over –who was Andy– the guy the game was named for anyway? Ha. Another memory is, I think that you had to catch the ball on the fly to be able to go to the other side of the house to catch someone. If the ball hit the ground then you had to wait until your side caught it to go get someone. Many times when we were younger we couldn’t throw the ball much over the big house and the ball ended up rolling down the back side so it was easier to catch.

Does anyone remember the chicken soup Grandma used to make where she put all of the chicken into the pot except the beek and the BOK BOK BOK? I remember looking into the pot to get that great soup out of it and seeing chicken feet.

I love the old photos and stories. A friend that I got to know, Dennie Spalding, told me many stories of the Adolph and Teresa Sommerer family. He was a neighbor that lived were the Schellbargers lived, right? He told me how he used to go over to Grandmas and Grandpas farm and used his tractor to plow sometimes when he had his work done.

We keep praying for our families and we love you all. Thanks for the great link this internet site gives us to our wonderful past. –Danny

P. S. Can you all believe Julie is old enough to have a grand-baby and at the same time her baby is a freshman in college? I know I’m old but I’ll always be younger that her. Sorry Julie I haven’t given you a hard time for a while now.

Ollie Ollie Income Free!

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“Ollie Ollie Income Free!” LOL. Just thinking of those words takes me back to grandma & grandpa’s house .It would be summertime just as it started turning dark. The grownups were entertaining themselves singing or talking. It was probably the 4th of July. Lots of kid would be there.

We had lots of fun playing hide and seek. After several people were found and the rest could not be found you yelled OLLIE OLLIE INCOME FREE! So you could get on with another game and maybe see where someone came out of to steal their idea of a hiding place.

What was the game we played where we split up half on one side of the house half on the other… then someone would throw the ball over the house to the other side and yelled something as they threw the ball.