Tag: 1950s

The Calf in the Kitchen

Brenda Stratton

A calf was born one bitter winter night when I was four years old. Dad was in the barn feeding the livestock when the cow came wandering in. He was alarmed—she had been due to calve, but it was obvious she was no longer pregnant. Her calf wasn’t with her.

He knew he had to hurry. A newborn wouldn’t survive long on its own in that weather. The cold would take it fast. 

It was the kind of cold that made every breath sting and froze water in minutes. He followed the cow’s tracks through the snow and was horrified to find she had dropped the calf in the slough at the bottom of the pasture.

When he found it, the calf was barely alive. Only its nose was above the black water. Dad scooped it up—thirty or forty pounds of soaking wet calf—and hoisted it onto his shoulder. Its body was soaked and heavy, the slough water already stiffening in the cold. 

By the time he reached the barn, both of them were drenched and freezing. 

He knew he had to get the calf warm and the only way to do that was to take it in the house. He placed the calf in a metal bushel basket with handles to make it easier to carry.

I couldn’t figure out what he was doing when he came in the back door with that basket. I recognized it from the barn—the one he used to take corn to the livestock. I had never seen him bring it into the house before.

What I remember next may be something I truly saw, or it may be the way the story settled in my mind after years of hearing it told. Either way, this is how it lives in me now.

It wasn’t until he set the basket down that I could see what was inside—a tiny calf, cold and shivering, barely alive.

Mom hurried for towels and blankets. Dad lifted the calf out of the basket and laid it in front of the warm oil burner while they rubbed it gently, trying to dry it and bring some life back into its stiff little body.

Dad didn’t want to take it back to the barn that night. The cow was a first-time mother, and after what had happened, he wasn’t sure she could be trusted to care for it.

So they left the calf on the kitchen floor beside the stove, where it would stay warm through the night. If it rallied, they needed a way to keep it from wandering through the house—so they tied its feet together with a pair of Mom’s nylon stockings. 

They went to bed, hoping the calf would still be alive in the morning. 

Imagine Mom’s surprise the next morning when she found the little Houdini had slipped free of the stockings and was strolling around the kitchen like it lived there.

Fortunately, Dad was able to reunite the calf with its mother. He kept them together in a stall he prepared in the barn until the weather warmed and they were both stronger.

Looking back, I think that little calf taught me something before I was old enough to understand it. Sometimes life hangs on because someone refuses to give up.

The Pink Piano

Brenda Stratton
Pink upright piano with family photographs and pink roses displayed on top.


I will never forget the pink piano. 

Yes, you heard that right. 

A. Pink. Piano. Baby pink, to be exact.

I was five. Things like that make an impression when you are five.

It was an old upright piano, and it wasn’t pink when we first got it. 

That came later. 

I’ve told you before how much Mom loved pink. I don’t know for sure what led to the decision to paint it pink, or what whispered in Mom’s ear to convince her it was a good idea. 

I seem to remember the wood had been damaged, but I can’t say for certain. Whatever the reason, it remained the only pink piano she ever owned.

I’ve seen people paint them white. But that was the only one that was pink.

It sat in our living room for a long time, next to the television. 

You could see it from almost anywhere on the bottom floor of the farmhouse, except the kitchen. Unless you stood in the doorway. 

I remember people coming to the house. They almost always commented on the piano.

“It’s pink,” they said. 

“Yes,” Mom answered.

She never explained why she painted it pink. She let them draw their own conclusions. Maybe even she didn’t know why. 

Eventually, someone gave her an old pump organ.

That’s when she decided she didn’t want a pink piano anymore, and its fate was sealed. 

Dad pushed it out the front door onto the porch. 

After moving it outdoors, he hooked a chain around it and dragged it with the tractor down to the slough at the bottom of our pasture. 

I wasn’t allowed to go down there, so I never saw it again.  

Living on a Working Farm

Brenda Stratton

I lived on a small working farm until I was six years old. It is one of my most treasured memories. There were so many things to do and explore in my small world.

Mom taught me my ABCs, my colors, and how to count long before I entered school. She applied for a library card in my name when I was four. I couldn’t read yet, but the picture books introduced me to ideas beyond the farm. By the time I started school, my education had already begun.

She also encouraged me with art projects. I remember fondly watching her mix flour and water together to make paste, something she had watched her own mother do for herself and her eight siblings.

I spent my days exploring the parts of the farm where I was allowed to roam. One of my favorite places was the barn. I can still smell the bales of fresh-cut hay. Dad turned the cows out into the pasture in the daytime, so I didn’t need to worry about getting stepped on by a cow. 

Sometimes, Dad let me watch him milk the cows. We had several, so there was always a lot of milk. Dad brought some into the house for us, some went to the barn cats, and some went to the calves. He had a metal bucket with a nipple on it that he hung from the gate in the barn lot. The calves always emptied it. None of it went to waste. 

I loved playing with the barn cats, too, especially the ones that let me tame them as kittens. I almost always had one that I’d named Nosey, but it wasn’t always the same cat. 

The tame ones used to come up to the house. I carried them around and dressed them up in my doll clothes. There was always the problem of what to do with their tails. I solved that the same way I did in A Basket Full of Puppies. I put their tails through a leg hole along with one of their legs if the doll outfit had a pair of panties. They never objected and let me wrap them in doll blankets and push them around in my doll buggy. Occasionally one would jump out and I had to chase after it to get my doll clothes back.

Since our chickens were free-range, they often laid their eggs in the barn. Sometimes Mom sent me out with the little green basket she gave me to gather any eggs I could find. When I brought them into the house, Mom held them up to a lightbulb over the kitchen sink to make sure they were fresh. Dad had a stack of hay bales on the barn floor, and that’s where I usually found them. 

There were so many sounds that I remember well. The cows mooing, pigs oinking, chickens clucking, an occasional woodpecker drilling for insects in one of the tall trees, and the call of the bobwhites. 

Visiting the rabbits was always fun. They were so cute and fluffy. I especially adored the babies. I stood in front of their cages and watched them for long stretches of time. I could have watched them all afternoon.

I remember the blue morning glories Mom used to plant along the fence between the house and the empty chicken yard. They were so pretty. Mom and I both enjoyed them. I remember trying to smell them and the way the blooms wrapped around my nose, but they didn’t have much scent. 

Pale pink wild roses blooming among green leaves.


Wild roses grew in the ditch on the far side of the road that went past our house. I wasn’t supposed to cross it, but I did once to smell them. They were beautiful and smelled so good. But I learned the hard way that the stems had scores of tiny prickles growing all along them. I wasn’t tempted to cross the road to pick them after that. 

Looking back, I realize the farm was my first classroom. Long before I ever sat behind a school desk, it had already begun teaching me about animals, nature, hard work, kindness, and paying attention to the world around me. I suppose I’ve been learning ever since.

A Basket Full of Puppies

Brenda Stratton

The house next door hadn’t always been empty. Friends of my parents lived there once, so I was familiar with the house, yard, and outbuildings. 

I don’t know who the family was that moved in next, but they weren’t there very long. Soon, the house was empty again.

One day soon after, Dad was driving slowly by the house with his window down. 

You didn’t drive fast on a country road. There was too much dust, and several houses sat close together in a tight little cluster. You never knew when someone’s child might chase a ball into the road.

A basket full of small blonde puppies.


It was then he heard the puppies crying. He stopped and listened because he knew no one lived there.

Our house was nearby—what would be about two blocks by city standards. Dad went home and told Mom what he had heard. They were both upset and knew they had to rescue the puppies. 

Dad went back to the house and followed the sounds of the crying puppies. I remember hearing him tell Mom they were locked in the shed and he had to force the door open. There was no mama dog with them, and he wasn’t going to leave them there to die. Dad placed them in the box he had brought with him and carried them home to Mom.

There were three puppies. They were light brown in color with white markings, and their little bellies were round and tight—but I didn’t know what that meant then. 

They were dirty and smelly—and they were starving.

Mom warmed some milk for them—milk she hadn’t yet skimmed the cream from. They ate eagerly, but Mom only let them eat a little at a time, knowing that if she gave them too much it would make them sick.  

When they were finished, she gave each of them a warm bath, then dried and wrapped them in towels to keep them warm. Then she made a soft bed in a laundry basket and said that’s all she could do for them that night. 

The next day, Dad called Dr. Beer, our veterinarian, and asked him to make a farm call. He also had some livestock for the vet to examine and asked him to stop at the house to look at the puppies while he was there. 

I had been quietly watching over them. When Dr. Beer came, I had to move back to give him and my parents room. I heard him say in a low voice that he didn’t know if they would survive because they were pretty little and very sick. He told Mom she was doing exactly what needed to be done—little meals often. He said they would know in a few days if they would live. 

A few days passed with Mom giving the puppies round-the-clock care, and Dr. Beer stopping by whenever he was “in the neighborhood.” I think that was his way of saying he was worried about the babies. 

With Mom’s tender care and steady feedings, the puppies rallied quickly. They grew strong and were ridiculously fat and round, but this time it was because of good nutrition. 

On one of his trips to check on the puppies, Dr. Beer said they were out of the woods and would be just fine. 

It wasn’t long before the puppies were playing, tumbling, and finding their voices. Mom started letting me hold them, then. The weather was nice, and when they got big enough, she let me start taking them outdoors to play. She knew I would be careful with them. 

They were so wiggly and squirmy but didn’t seem to mind me dressing them up in doll clothes and pushing them around in my doll buggy. Most of my dolls had dresses with panties. So, when I dressed the puppies, I wasn’t sure what to do with their tails—so I put them through one of the leg holes with their legs. 

I had so much fun with them, but too soon Mom and Dad said it was time to find new homes for them. We already had one farm dog, Brownie, so these little ones would need to have homes of their own. I wanted to keep them all. 

One by one, people came to see them, and soon they all found new homes.

I missed them. A lot.

I had watched my parents do what needed to be done. That seemed to be how things worked in our house.

Looking back, I realize they were teaching me something far more important than how to care for abandoned puppies.

If something was hurting…

…you helped it.

Mom Made Ten Dozen Doughnuts!

Brenda Stratton

At least, that’s what it sounded like to me. 

Mom made a lot of desserts… Doughnuts weren’t something she usually made, which is one reason that day has stayed with me all these years. 

She also made pies, cakes, cobblers, cookies, puddings, and almost anything else you could imagine. My favorites were cream puffs and Boston cream pie, but those doughnuts were near the top of the list. Nearly everything she made was from scratch, although she occasionally used a cake mix if she was in a hurry.

We had a Crosley electric stove back then in the late 1950s. The back left cooking area had a deep well. It was simply a deep cooking pot set into the stove itself, and that’s where Mom made soups and stews, and where she deep fried the doughnuts. 

She had just started making them when Monty and I came in from school. She said we could have some for dessert that evening, but she wanted to have some left over for breakfast the next day. 

We hovered around her watching what she was doing. She let us, but kept us away from the deep well in case it splattered hot oil. 

We did get to peek once in a while, and I remember watching the oil sizzle around them.

It didn’t take long for them to fry. She took them out of the hot oil and laid them on paper towels she had spread on some plates. 

When they had cooled a little, she drizzled them with a thin powdered sugar icing. The frying bread dough and icing together scented the air in a way that any bakery would have been proud of. I will never forget how the kitchen smelled that day. 

When they had cooled enough for us to handle, she gave one to each of us. They disappeared so quickly, one might have almost wondered if they had been there in the first place, but there was the lingering taste and telltale signs of sticky fingers on both of us. 

 Of course, we wanted a second one, but she said we had to wait until after supper. 

Dad came home from work not long after, and he had one, too. I remember him telling Mom how good it was. 

After we ate supper, she gave us each a doughnut for dessert, and then a second one. If I remember correctly, we might even have gotten another one before bed, and, of course, before our baths.  

The next morning, we got up eagerly expecting doughnuts for breakfast because she had said so the day before. 

Unfortunately, she told us there weren’t any left. We ate them all the night before.

As an adult, I’ve realized she probably made only two dozen or so because that’s what most recipes would yield. Either that, or Dad had quite a bedtime snack!

But at the time… I would have sworn I heard her say ten dozen.

Your Pants Are On Fire!

Brenda Stratton

When we lived on the farm, there were only two bedrooms on the ground floor. Monty had one room and Mom and Dad had the other. 

I was only four or five years old, so they put me in a tiny room off Mom and Dad’s bedroom that I think must’ve been a dressing room. 

Because the room was so tiny, there was only a small white dresser and my single bed which was tucked under the north-facing window.

There was no overhead light, just a bare lightbulb screwed into a light socket on the wall with a pull chain to turn it on.

One evening, while Mom was busy in her bedroom, I wandered into mine. 

There was a pair of Mom’s black-and-white zebra striped pedal pushers hanging from the lightbulb.

I remember the light turning on, but I don’t recall who did it, although I’ve always suspected it was me. Mom would have known better.

I was fascinated when I saw the smoke starting to curl toward the ceiling.

All of a sudden, Mom was there. 

She moved me out of the way and grabbed the zebra striped pants, flinging open the front door and hurling them out onto the front porch.

If I was the one who turned on the light, I didn’t get into trouble.

But Mom never hung anything on the light again, and that was the last time I ever saw the zebra striped pants.

Waiting For the Bus in a Snow Cave

Brenda Stratton

High winds, bitter cold, and swirling snow greeted us that morning as we stepped out the back door and began the walk to the bus stop at the end of our long driveway.

It was clear the walk was going to be rough. The high winds made it hard to keep our footing. 

We could tell there was a lot of snow in the driveway from the house. But our house and Nellie’s were side by side, so it wasn’t until we rounded her house that we got the full effect of it. 

The driveway was bordered on either side by wire farm fencing. It was full of snow to the tops of the fence posts, captured there by the fences themselves. 

The snow depth was almost as high as I was tall at eight years old.

In sharp contrast, the fields on either side of  the lane were windswept. 

To get to the bus stop, we had to climb up on top of the snow which, thankfully, had an icy crust strong enough to support us without breaking through.  

We could hear the wind as it skittered snow in waves across the frozen fields and the empty ribbon of highway. 

We were FREEZING by the time we got to the bus stop, the wind in our faces all the way, tiny stinging projectiles of snow assaulting every bit of our exposed skin. 

That’s when we noticed the storm had formed a snow cave in the ditch by the highway. 

The cave was big enough for us to fit inside if we crouched down. 

We ducked inside it and realized that it blocked most of the wind. It didn’t make it any warmer, but it was a relief to get out of the wind. 

Monty was a foot taller than me. He was able to see over the  tops of the drifts, so he positioned himself by the mouth of the cave so he could pop his head out occasionally and see if the bus was coming. 

Missing the bus meant missing a day of school. And neither of us wanted to try to explain that to Mom. 

After waiting about 15 minutes, the bus finally came. 

I have sometimes wondered what the bus driver thought when he saw two children suddenly pop up out of the ditch as he approached. He wouldn’t have been able to see the snow cave because the opening was facing away from the road. 

We scrambled onto the bus and were relieved to finally be inside where it was warm and out of the weather.  

On returning from school that afternoon, the wind had calmed down some, but we still had that long walk home. 

This time, we thought it might be easier walking through the field, so we jumped over the fence and walked home through the field. 

Since there was no gate on the side of the field where it bordered our house, we had to climb the wire fence when we got home. That wasn’t easy to do with frozen hands and bulky snow boots. 

The drive remained blocked for several days, so we had to repeat that walk to and from the bus daily. 

It was hard for Dad, too. Since the driveway was blocked, he had to park the car by the highway and walk home. It might have been harder for him, though, because he had to walk to the car and home again in the dark.

After Mr. Parkinson, the farmer who farmed the ground for Nellie, dug his own long drive out, he finally was able to clear our driveway. 

Many years have passed since then, and I have lived through a lot of harsh Illinois winters. But I have never seen another driveway fill completely to the tops of the fence posts or form a crust so hard we could walk on it without breaking through.

And I have certainly never waited for a school bus in a snow cave again.

Watching Mom Crochet

Brenda Stratton

Mom was sitting on the end of our black sectional sofa, the one with silver threads running through it, crocheting a doily. It wasn’t the first time I had seen her crochet—but it was the first time I really paid attention.

I sat down beside her to watch.

She was working with dark pink and forest green crochet thread, two of her favorite colors.

I wanted to understand how she formed the stitches that made the doily grow. Her quick hand movements—and the steady progress of the piece—fascinated me.

I watched her for a long time that day. And after that, whenever she sat down to crochet, I often sat beside her to watch.

I couldn’t figure out how she did it, but I wanted to learn.

She didn’t think my seven-year-old hands would be able to manage a tiny steel hook and thread, so she gave me a blue plastic crochet hook and a ball of bright pink yarn.

She taught me how to make a chain stitch. I used up most of that yarn making one very long chain.

She tried to show me how to turn those chains into something more, but I lost interest before I had much success. It would be years before I picked it up again.

Later, when I was about eleven, a friend taught me to knit in garter stitch. I made a lot of knitted headbands that year.

In my late teens, I picked knitting up again for a while—but I was never completely comfortable working with two needles.

It felt awkward.

That’s when I turned back to crochet.

I taught myself the basic stitches from a book and quickly realized that working with a single hook felt far more natural.

As I became more invested, I learned advanced techniques and began making hats, baby blankets, purses, mittens—even rugs.

Before long, I realized I could look at a finished piece and write a pattern from it.

That led to designing my own patterns.

Eventually, I became confident enough to submit them for publication.

The first few were turned down, but I was determined. Each rejection taught me something. I studied my work, paid attention to what publishers were accepting, and adjusted.

Before long, more and more of what I submitted was accepted.

That was the beginning of what became a decades-long career in crochet design.

Rose Garden, a doily I designed many years later. Mom would have loved this one.

In 2004, that path led me to accept an editorial position with a Midwest craft publishing company, where I worked for several years before retiring.

I have long since lost track of that first ball of bright pink yarn—but I still have the blue plastic crochet hook Mom gave me.

Over the years, I’ve collected many hooks—favorites I reach for again and again—but none of them compare to that simple blue plastic one.

That one holds the memories.

Memories of sitting beside Mom as she worked with a tiny steel hook, creating what felt like magic out of thin air.

I’ve often told people that Mom taught me to crochet, because she was the first to put a hook in my hands.

She always gently corrected me, saying it was the other way around—that I taught her by passing along what I had learned.

Either way, she was my inspiration in crochet—and in so many other things in life.

And to think… it all started with watching Mom crochet.

Dancing With Dad

Brenda Stratton

Mom and Dad met at a dance in the late 1940s, after World War II.

They loved dancing. On Saturday nights, they sometimes went out with friends. Their favorite place was the Coliseum in Davenport, Iowa—later renamed the Col Ballroom.

They especially loved waltzes and had a number of records they played at home.

We were lucky to have older cousins who could babysit Monty and me.

Eventually, they stopped going to the Col when the music shifted from Big Band to pop.

But their love of dancing never changed.

Some evenings, they would put on records and dance right there in the living room. Waltzes were always their favorite.

One evening, they set the record player on a table in the little dinette area tucked into one corner of the room.

I can still see it—the black sectional couch with silver threads running through it, the arched doorways of our mid-century modern home, the kitchen at the far end.

I wanted to dance too, but I didn’t know how.

Then, to my delight, Dad asked me to dance.

He told me to step up onto his feet—we were both in our socks. Mom put The Blue Danube on the record player, and suddenly we were waltzing around the room.

I don’t know how he made it look so effortless—especially with me standing on his feet—but he did.

The next dance was for Mom.

I sat quietly on the couch, watching them, listening to the music, taking it all in.

It’s an evening I’ve never forgotten.

The Pony and the Pig Wallow

Brenda Stratton

There are some lessons you only learn once—preferably not in a pig wallow. 

I was seven when I learned that if a pony puts his head down, the rider keeps going. It was my first lesson in physics. 

One minute I was riding bareback, with nothing to hang onto but the pony’s mane. The next, I was in the pig wallow.

I did not see it coming. One moment I was upright and feeling quite capable. The next, I was flat on my back in something warm, muddy, and unmistakably pig-related.

Pig-yuck was dripping from the top of my head to my toes.

I wasn’t hurt, but I was—stunned. I had to take my glasses off so I could see, because they were covered in that same pig-yuck. 

I wasn’t far from the house, so I climbed over the fence and walked up to the back door. 

I yelled for Mom. I knew better than to walk into the house like that.

Mom came to the door. The look on her face was one of pure horror. She didn’t say much besides “What did you do?”—sort of loudly.

I tried to explain, but by then she had turned the garden hose on me…

She hosed me down starting at the top of my head, then stripped my clothes off, and hosed me down again. 

Then she wrapped a bath towel around me and carried me to the bathtub so I wouldn’t get the floor all dirty. 

By this age, I was old enough to take my own bath, but not that day. She gave me one. Then she drained the bathtub and gave me another. 

That was the last time I rode the neighbor’s pony without permission. Physics and pig-yuck are persuasive teachers.