Tag: Dad

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.  

The Old Red Pump

Brenda Stratton

I remember it like it was yesterday, a moment caught in time. I was nine years old.

It was a cool, sunny day in spring. Dad was standing beside the old well, the sun at his back, creating a halo effect around him. 

He was shirtless, wearing only a pair of muddy jeans and work shoes, holding an old bucket with a rope attached to it. 

We had just moved to the Millersburg property, which was my mother’s childhood home. The only available water source was the old shallow well. We lived too far out in the country, so city water wasn’t available. 

The well hadn’t been used in nearly twenty years, since my grandmother moved into the city. 

Dad knew he had to clean the well and purify the water to make it safe before we had any usable fresh water at all. 

The well was hand-dug and approximately thirty-five feet deep. The sides and bottom were dirt, so the bottom of it was muddy. 

Dad repeatedly climbed down the ladder he had placed in the well, and brought up the mud bucket by bucket. 

He brought up other things, too: an old bucket and a wrench that had been lost down there many years before. 

After Dad cleaned the well, he began lining it with reclaimed bricks.

I know the weather was still cool because Mom had been cleaning the bricks with a wire brush and water they brought up beforehand. I remember her mentioning how cold her hands were, and I also remember how red they were. 

Once the brick lining was finished, Dad treated the water to make sure it was safe to drink. He said he put lime down the well to purify it, which is how they did it back then.

When that was all done, the last step was to restore the hand pump, which he had pulled out of the well before he started cleaning it. 

After cleaning it, he replaced the leathers, applied a fresh coat of red paint, and reinstalled it when the paint was dry. 

For several years afterward, before Dad built the new house, we had to go out to the well, pump the water we needed, and carry it into the house.

At age nine, I wasn’t strong enough to carry a full bucket of water, so the job mostly fell to Mom and Monty. Sometimes Mom was busy and Monty was off carrying his paper route, so Mom would ask me to bring in a half bucket. Once in a while, if she needed more, I had to make two trips. 

I remember hanging the bucket on the pump spout, having to pump it three or four times to prime it, the squeak the pump made, and the clatter of metal on metal as I brought the handle down and it hit the pump body. 

Later, when Dad built the new house, he installed a jet pump in the basement and connected it to the well. After that, we did not use the hand pump nearly as often.

Even so, Dad—and later Carl—kept the hand pump in good working order.

Dad’s reasoning was simple:

A family’s source of water should not depend entirely upon electricity if another choice exists.

Where They Are Still Alive

Brenda Stratton

So many of my childhood memories are anchored to the farm where we lived until I was six. I have already written many of the stories that happened there, but there are so many more to come. 

I find myself coming back to them often. I think it is at least partly due to the fact that my parents were still young, and so was my big brother. My brother and I hadn’t grown up yet and found our ways in the world. We were all still  together. I can go back there in my memories, where they are all still alive.

The farm is where I began to learn about the world. It was the setting for so many firsts—first adventures, first friendships, first discoveries.

A few years ago, my daughter, Liz, drove me by the farm. It is all gone now—the buildings, everything. It has all been turned into pasture. But to me, it lives on in my mind, just the way it was in the 1950s. 

I can still point out where the barn was, the garage, Dad’s fuel tank, and the chicken yard. I still know exactly where the house was, and I can see the interior as if I was standing in it right now. I know the furniture placement, and I remember how Mom had it decorated. 

It has been sixty-eight years since we drove out of that driveway for the last time.

The buildings are gone.

The people I loved are gone.

But in my memory, the farm is still there—just like my family.

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.

Army Beans

Brenda Stratton

A Dad Story.

When Dad was in the Army back in World War II, the soldiers took turns cooking. None of them liked KP duty. In fact, they had a rule that whoever complained about the cooking was to be the next one to take over the chore.

One night, the soldier who was on KP duty made navy beans and over-salted them on purpose to avoid cooking again the next night.

When meal time came that day, the soldiers took turns filling their plates and settled in to eat.

It was immediately apparent what the cook had done, but the soldiers continued eating stoically.

But one guy just couldn’t hold it in.

“Damn, those beans are salty!” he exclaimed. Quickly realizing what he had done he went on to add, “But, BOY are they good!”

Every time Dad told this story, it was punctuated by one of his signature belly laughs. We couldn’t help but laugh along with him.

The Yarn Box

Brenda Stratton

My interest in knitting and crochet as a child became more pronounced as I grew older. By the time I was in my early twenties, I left knitting behind and concentrated solely on crochet.

Before long, my yarn collection outgrew the space I had for it. I needed a dedicated place to keep it. Bags and boxes in a closet didn’t work very well because I couldn’t easily see what I had.

Plastic storage totes weren’t common in the 1970s, so Carl made a yarn box for me from tongue and groove lumber.

We had only been married a few years, so his tool collection hadn’t yet grown to the size it would become later. Working with basic tools, the woodworking skills he had learned in high school shop class, and the tongue and groove lumber, he soon got to work on it.

First, he asked me how I wanted it, and I gave him some suggestions. He drew up the plans and started building it.

Before long, it was finished. He added a coat or two of clear varnish, thoughtfully leaving the wood light in color to match the floors, cabinets and woodwork in our home.

You could compare it in size to a blanket box. At first, it held all of my yarn. But as my collection grew, I began keeping my favorite yarn in it and storing the rest in the basement.

When Dad saw it, he was impressed with the workmanship and told Carl so.

That meant something.

Dad had built and renovated houses, and he knew good work when he saw it.

It sat in our living room for years.

When my crochet design career took off, and my yarn collection exploded, we used it to store the assorted blankets that accumulated in a family of six living in the Midwest, where the winters get very cold.

It was his gift. Thoughtfully conceived and carefully made, it meant more to me than I can say.

He saw my yarn beginning to multiply, and without a word, he went to work and made me a place to keep it. That meant more to me than anything store-bought ever could.

That’s who Carl was. If someone he loved needed something, he quietly found a way to provide it. Sometimes it was a ride into town for one of the kids. Sometimes it was helping me finish supper after work. Sometimes it was a yarn box. Whatever the need, he simply showed up.

Forty years later, when we moved into our current home, we had to decide what we could reasonably bring.

My yarn collection had grown incrementally over the years, so it wouldn’t hold more than a small fraction of the yarn I had accumulated over 30 years of design work.

And, our kids all had homes of their own by this time, so I didn’t really have need of a blanket box.

Over time, the yarn box came to represent Carl himself. Every time I looked at it, I remembered the many quiet ways he took care of us.

I didn’t want to part with it, but there just wasn’t room for it.

Then, a solution presented itself that I could feel good about.

Our daughter, Liz, expressed an interest in it, so it went home with her.

Her father built it, and I know that means something to her.

Many years have passed, but the love continues.

My Family Garden

Brenda Stratton

I live in the home I inherited from my parents. It’s not my childhood home, but one they purchased just before Carl and I were married. 

After we were married, Carl and I made my childhood home our own for the next 32 years.

Mom and Dad both loved flowers, and they each put their mark on this yard.

Dad planted daffodils, a lilac bush, ghost lilies, roses, and peonies. He transplanted my maternal grandmother’s rosebush from my childhood home to where I live now.

Mom always loved hollyhocks, tulips, and clematis, which she planted on the south side of the house.

Over the years, I’ve added my own touches to the garden with more roses and peonies, hydrangeas, irises, two magnolia trees, and an ornamental cherry tree.

Not every flower has survived. This year I planted two light purple clematis vines where Mom’s dark purple one had grown for years.

It had been struggling for the last two or three years, and I don’t remember seeing it at all last year. I thought it was gone.

To my surprise, this spring the old vine returned. Now the dark purple and light purple blossoms are intertwined, climbing the trellis together.

On my list of flowers yet to replace are a new lilac bush, tulips and hollyhocks. 

The flowers made me think about my family and the things we leave behind.

Each generation adds something new to what was already there. New family members are added through marriage, birth, and sometimes adoption.

Just as I continue adding new flowers to the garden, each generation adds something new to our family.

It is a continuous cycle of life.

When I look at the flowers in my yard, they remind me of the people who planted them.

Dad is in the daffodils, peonies, ghost lilies, and roses. Mom smiles from the clematis, and Grandma still blooms in the old rosebush. 

They remind me that those who loved us are never truly gone. 

Thirty Years and a Lunch Bucket

Brenda Stratton

Dad walked into the East Moline Works of International Harvester one Monday morning carrying his black lunch bucket with the silver latches—the kind with the domed lid that held his Thermos of coffee in the top. 

He didn’t work there. His last job had ended, and he was looking for a new one. He  told Mom he would be back when he found one.

International Harvester was a big employer in our area. Getting a job there could easily become the start of a career. 

Dad walked into the plant manager’s office. When it was his turn to be called inside, the plant manager offered him a seat and asked him why he was there. 

“I’m looking for a job,” Dad said. “I’ll do any job, no matter what it is. I’ll sweep floors if that is all you have.”

The manager listened, then shook his head and said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t have anything for you. We aren’t hiring.” 

Dad stood and thanked him, then left the office—but he didn’t leave the plant. He took a seat in a chair just outside the manager’s office. 

When the day shift ended at 3:30 pm, Dad left to find something to eat. At night, he slept in the car. He returned at 7 am the next morning when the day shift began, lunch bucket in hand.

He continued this routine for most of the week.

Dad said the plant manager began giving him odd looks as he went in and out of his office. Later that week, he stopped and asked Dad, “You’re still here?”

“Yes, and I’m going to be here until you give me a job.”

Dad said the manager shook his head and walked away. 

The next day, the manager approached him with a broom in his hand. 

He handed it to Dad and simply said, “Start sweeping.”

Before the day was over, Dad had his ID badge and was an official employee. 

Dad swept floors for a few days but was soon promoted to machinist, a job he held for over twenty years. He fed sheets of metal into a machine, making parts for combines and other equipment. 

As he neared retirement age, Dad developed some health issues, so they gave him a job as a fork truck driver. 

Eventually, Mom and Dad relocated to East Moline so Dad wouldn’t have the nearly 75 mile round trip to and from work every day. They were fortunate to locate a home just outside the entrance to the plant. 

When I was in my late thirties, International Harvester hosted an open house, inviting the families of their employees to attend. 

Dad said they cleaned for days to get the plant ready.

Our whole family attended. Dad showed us around and explained what his job was. It was amazing how many processes those sheets of steel went through before they became finished pieces of farm machinery.

It made Dad’s stories about the different jobs he performed in the space of a day easier to understand. 

I was impressed. The machinery Dad was helping to build was so much bigger and more complex than the simple machinery he had back on the farm. 

The open house answered questions I had wondered about for years. 

“What was it like where Dad worked?” 

“What did he do there?”

Of course, he had shared what it was like, but that isn’t the same as seeing it for myself.

The next day, I wrote a letter to the plant manager thanking him for allowing me to see what I had always wondered about as a child.

He didn’t answer me, but I didn’t expect him to. 

However, I was surprised the next time I saw Dad. He grinned, and handed me a copy of the company newsletter. 

They had printed my letter verbatim thanking them for the open house and telling them about the questions it had put to rest for me! 

I was so surprised! And it was obvious that Dad was proud something I wrote was chosen for the company newsletter.

Dad retired at age sixty-six, after a career that spanned thirty years. 

The lunch bucket was retired, too. 

A short time later, he stopped by to visit with his foreman. They shared a good laugh when his foreman told him they had given his job to two younger men—because one couldn’t keep up.

I can picture him laughing with a twinkle in his eye when his foreman told him that, because it happened every time he told the story afterward. 

That was my Dad. He was an exceptionally hard worker, always focused on the job at hand, and doing it to the very best of his ability. 

When I was growing up, I didn’t think too much about why he worked, other than the fact that it was just something that fathers did. 

Now I realize he did it all for us—to give our family a nice home, plenty to eat, and the kind of loving home life we enjoyed growing up.

I know it couldn’t have been easy, but he did it anyway. For us. For thirty years. 

Because that is just who he was. 

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.