Living in the Ozarks had it’s own way of life. If you were a “move in” they showed you hospitality and then let you make your case. If you were a braggart from a big city who moved in and felt superior you could forget being accepted. On the other hand if you moved in and showed yourself to be a good neighbor they took you right in. They were not influenced by what you had but who you were.

Our mom and dad were common folks and didn’t talk down to anyone. They listened to advice and accepted many of the suggestions made. After all, Romans living in Rome ought to know how to live there best. In no time mom was known for her good cooking and dad was known for his mechanical knowledge. They became part of the landscape and were content there.

If being together makes a good family we were great. We did everything together. When we needed wood dad took his chain saw and we’d cut down a few small trees. Dad had Barney hitched up to drag them over to the saw where they were cut into stove lengths. It was my job to take hold of the short end and throw it over in a pile. Mom and I took turns doing that and piling it up as Louis split it. Sophus fit in with the piling it up and splitting. It was hard work but you could feel a personal bond with each piece you put in the stove later on.

The hardest thing for me was the outdoor toilet. Of course the smell is not a good thing but I always had the feeling a snake was down in the hole and would rear it’s head up and bite me. I visualized it so much it was almost real to me. I hated going there…in the winter it was so cold you put off going as long as you could. There was a cave dug not too far from the kitchen and once in a while a snake would get in there. It’s where mom kept the butter, milk, cream and the like. She also put her canned goods there. It took a lot of courage to climb down the ladder and get things for her.

Mom had a Daisy Churn and a milk separator. We had wonderful thick cream and good butter. In fact mom sold butter at the store because we couldn’t eat it fast enough. Tyrone had two general stores. One owned by Wayne Irwin and the other by Wayne’s sister and her husband, a Mr. Johnson. We usually shopped at Wayne’s and that is where mom sold her butter. If you’ve never been in a general store you have missed a lot. They absolutely had everything…….if they didn’t have it you didn’t need it. Anytime you went in there were always old timers sitting around gabbing to one another. In the winter they sat around a big wood stove with a cup of coffee in their hand. They always had some ‘yarn’ to tell and enjoyed joshing with the kids.

The exciting thing was to buy feed for the chickens. It came in prints and the idea was to get enough of one kind to make a dress out of them, or curtains or any other household item. They proved to be very durable and made excellent dish towels. I still have a few left of my grandmother’s. It was always funny on the school bus as many of the girls were wearing feed sack dresses that you had seen previously at the store. There was no shame to wearing them, it was better than what most of us had to wear otherwise. I have quite a few feed sack pieces in several quilts I have made and love to look at them and remember a bygone time.

Play-parties were new to Louis and me. The Aldridge kids invited us to go to a “play-party” with them several times. We didn’t know what it was so they told us there were games, singing, usually refreshments and a lot of fun. If you’ve never walked to a “play-party” on a moonlit night in June you’ve missed a lot of fun. We walked with the Aldridge kids to Tyrone where the party was. Kids from all over were there, most of whom we didn’t know, but that didn’t ruin a thing. I wish I could remember the games played but in these many years since I have forgotten. I DO remember the laughter, the smell of June in summer and the innocence. The thing that struck me so (and still does) is the lack of anything material but how happy and carefree those times were. We sang all the way home, walking down the back road to our house with the Aldridge kids, feeling very much like a native.

We walked to church on Sunday nights and during revivals. It was always fun to walk in a group, go to the service and walk back home. Church at Tyrone was much different than the churches I had been to in Nebraska. I didn’t know what a Free Will Baptist was but that was the only church so we went. During revivals the preacher would carry his open Bible around the little one room church and yell and holler about sinners going to hell. He would preach till he was wet with sweat and red faced. At the close of the service he asked all the “saved” people to stand against the wall around the room, which they did. That left a small group of us sitting there. Since Louis and I didn’t know what they meant we sat there too. After singing a song the preacher told the “saved” people to go pray with someone seated so they would “get right with God.” They all descended upon us moaning and crying and prayed for us as they dropped on their knees. To say we were mortified would be putting it mildly. To think of myself as “lost” was absurd for I knew I loved Jesus all my life. It was a conflict I had never known before……but I knew one thing for sure………my belief was certainly different from theirs. It would take some years and some maturing but that matter was settled later on………

Tomorrow, more about Tyrone.

Essentially Esther