Tag: farm

Mom, Meet Butch!

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One afternoon when I was five, my mother put me down for an afternoon nap and decided to join me.

We were both sleeping soundly when we heard those words:

“Mom, meet Butch!”

We didn’t know anyone named Butch.

Mom opened her eyes.

She was face to face with an owl.

Butch the screech owl. And my brother was holding him.

Mom wasn’t amused.

It was well-known in our family that she didn’t like birds — at least not in her face. Or in her house. Or anywhere near her. Or near us kids.

She didn’t mind them from a distance, but she said they were dirty and carried mites. I wasn’t sure what mites were, but I got the idea they were some kind of crawly bug. Turns out I was right.

I don’t remember actually seeing the bird myself. I always took my glasses off when I was sleeping so I wouldn’t break them.

My brother wasn’t in the room much longer than it took to say those few words before Mom sent him scrambling back to the barn to put the owl back where he found it — cautioning him never to do that again.

Loudly.

Butch must have been a juvenile or Monty likely couldn’t have caught him. It never occurred to me to ask.

I do know Monty never brought a bird in the house again — or any other stray animal.

Sometimes I wonder if his ears were still ringing when he got back to the barn.

A Little Dab Will Do

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In the 1950s, Brylcreem was as common in Midwestern households as toothpaste.

One morning while Mom was getting Monty ready for school, she was combing his hair and absent-mindedly reached for the Brylcreem. She started distributing it through his hair and realized something was different — it was thick and white and did not blend into his hair. 

Glancing at the tube she held in her hand, she discovered she had rubbed toothpaste through his hair.

What to do? The bus would be there any minute. 

I was watching them from across the kitchen. She looked at me, shrugged, and quickly washed his hair. 

In those days, we didn’t have running water. We also didn’t have hot water. What we did have was an old hand pump at the kitchen sink that only brought in cold water. Cold well water. 

Monty went to school with wet hair that morning. I expect that was the only time in his life he had his hair washed with shampoo and cold water. Brrr. 

Brylcreem, a little dab’ll do ya — that is what the television commercials said. That morning, a little dab definitely did not do. 

Two Longs and a Short

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Two Longs and a Short

Party lines were a fact in the 1950s, and many rural areas didn’t convert to private lines until much later — around 1990. 

We didn’t have phone numbers in those days. We had rings. Ours was two longs and a short. 

Whenever the phone rang, everyone in the household listened carefully to see if the call was for us. When the phone rang at our house, it also rang in every other house on the party line. 

Sometimes it was hard to tell who the call was for. If you were just coming in from outdoors or another part of the house, you might not hear the entire ring.

Mom taught me the difference between our ring and those of our neighbors. I appointed myself the household sentinel to announce to the house in general — and Mom in particular — if it was indeed two longs and a short. 

The polite thing to do when answering the phone was to pick the receiver up and listen carefully for a moment to see if anyone else was already talking, then hang up if the call wasn’t for you. 

Not everyone was polite enough to follow this protocol. Some people would stay on the line and listen, a practice often referred to as rubbering. The people the call was for could usually tell someone was listening in, but only had suspicions as to who it might be. 

I wasn’t allowed to use the phone in those days — yet somehow, that old black box still found its way into my childhood.

It was a heavy, black desk telephone — the kind that seemed as solid as a small piece of furniture. A sturdy black base anchored it in place, and the handset rested across the top in a simple, unpretentious cradle. In the center sat the familiar rotary dial, its round finger holes lined with numbers that circled back toward you as you released them.

There was nothing delicate about it. The phone felt permanent, rooted to its spot on the phone table, as if it had always been there and would always remain. The cord, still straight then, stretched toward the wall in a quiet promise that this was not a toy, but a tool of connection — dependable, familiar, and woven into the ordinary rhythms of home life.

And when it rang, it carried its own unmistakable voice: two longs and a short, a sound that announced itself clearly and left no doubt that someone was calling.

Where’s Brenda?

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Every family has that one child who tends to do a disappearing act sometimes. In our family, that was me. It wasn’t intentional, but that’s how it turned out, anyway.

I was playing outside by myself one summer day. When Mom went to check on me, I was nowhere to be found — or so she thought.

I was dragging a small doll blanket around with me. I had been playing with my doll — and probably the cats and dog, too.

The bridal wreath bushes around our front porch were in bloom. As a little girl, I loved flowers, and I had been admiring the bridal wreath. I loved them so much. 

I laid down on the porch with my doll and doll blanket. I was looking up through the branches — and fell asleep. Mom had apparently been calling me, but I didn’t hear her. Because of the bushes, she couldn’t see me until she came outside and stood in front of the porch — and there I was. 

The Asian flu pandemic of 1957 swept through our little town that winter. Mom and I were both sick at the same time, which is why she was in bed the day I disappeared the second time.

We were taking a nap together in her big bed. I woke up before she did. I wasn’t used to her being in bed in the daytime, and I wandered around the house a little. Then I got sleepy, and decided to go back to bed, but I didn’t want to wake her. 

The bed was high off the floor, and the pretty pink nubbly carpet under it felt soft and safe, so I crawled under it and went to sleep. 

When I woke up, Mom was leaning over looking under the bed at me. She said I scared her. I never meant to. I just liked quiet places.

You’ve Got Mail!

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When I was a little girl, my paternal grandmother used to send me things in the mail.

Sometimes, she tucked a piece of chewing gum into a letter that she wrote to my mom.

Several times, she sent me handkerchiefs that she crocheted pretty edgings on. I still have all eight of them.

It was always something flat that would fit neatly into an envelope so it would go through the mail for the standard price of a three-cent postage stamp. (I can still remember the displeasure my mother voiced when the price went up to four cents!)

It doesn’t seem like much by today’s standards to get a piece of gum in the mail. But at five years old, receiving an unexpected treat in the mailbox meant my Grandma was thinking of me.

Now, as an adult — and someone who made a career out of being a fiber artist — I can fully appreciate the time and care it took to crochet the edgings on those handkerchiefs and to knit the many pairs of slippers she made for me one Christmas long ago.

Moving from the Farm Into Town

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In early summer of 1958, after school was out for Monty, we moved from our farm in Wanlock, just outside Viola, Illinois, to Galva — about 30 miles east — where my world expanded in ways I couldn’t yet begin to imagine. Life would never be quite the same. 

There were so many “firsts.” For the first time in my six years of life: 

– The wide open spaces of the farm were replaced by  houses that were built closer together with a state highway outside our front door that I was forbidden to cross. 

– We had indoor plumbing! I was fascinated by the bathtub, which Mom let me play in sometimes. That meant no more baths at the kitchen sink, and no more trips to the outhouse when it was raining or in the cold of winter. 

– I was finally old enough to start school that next fall.  I had been begging for this for a couple of years, and now my fondest wish was granted. It would impact my life in ways I could not have foreseen, and set me on a journey of learning that continues to this day. 

– I lost my best friend and constant companion —  Brownie, our farm dog. City ordinances said he had to be tied. He was clearly unhappy, so he went to live on another farm with new children to play with. 

– Monty and I had a little more freedom. The town was small, but it had a candy store in the center of town. We were occasionally allowed to walk there to spend our nickels and dimes. There was also a concrete wading pool nearby which was open to the public — but couldn’t have been more than a foot deep. I had to sit or lie down to get wet all over.

– I made new friends. Susie lived a short distance away. The Mohnen twins (both boys) lived across the street. The lady who lived opposite us on the other side of the state highway liked to hold me on her lap, but I could only go see her if Mom was with me. 

I missed the farm, but there were so many new experiences that I also enjoyed so I adjusted quickly. 

The move into town was only the beginning of a lifetime of learning and growth. 

I would never visit the farm again except for two or three times as an adult when we were in the area, a nod to the nostalgia of my childhood. But sadness in losing it never truly came, because it is deeply embedded in my memory and lives on in my stories. That is why I write them — to remember, and for them to live on in the lives of my children and grandchildren and all who come after. It is also to leave behind a small bit of history —  to tell what life was like on a northwestern Illinois farm in the 1950s.

The Icy Basement Stairs

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Our farmhouse had a basement, but the only access was from the outside. The steps were concrete, but the basement itself had a dirt floor. 

One winter, the basement stairs were coated in a thick sheet of ice, too thick to be walked on. In my child’s mind, it looked like the perfect opportunity to slide down the stairs on my backside. 

So, I did. 

Once I got down there, it occurred to me that I couldn’t get back up.

The stairs were right next to the back door. I yelled for Mom. 

She couldn’t come down after me or she might have gotten hurt. So she looked around for a solution. Finding none, she stepped into the enclosed porch and brought a broom back with her. 

She extended it down to me, told me to hold on tight, and pulled me up the basement stairs. 

Being pulled up the stairs was almost as much fun as sliding down them in the first place. Having learned absolutely nothing from the first adventure, I did it again after she went inside. 

Of course, I still had no idea how to get out but, since it worked the first time, I called Mom. As before, she extended the broom to me, and hauled me back upstairs again. 

This time, rescue came with a stern look — the Mom look — and she told me not to do it again. 

I didn’t. I wasn’t about to risk getting the Mom look again. 

The Penny Jar

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One summer, a teenage cousin came to stay with us for a short time to help Dad at haying time and earn a little money in the process. Let’s call him Jack. 

Since our family was using all of the bedrooms on the ground floor, Mom gave Jack one of the rooms upstairs to use while he was with us. 

Monty and I usually didn’t go upstairs, but we must have followed Mom up there when she made the bed and tidied up. That’s when we discovered the penny jar on his dresser. 

It was my brother who began teasing him that we were going to take the pennies in his penny jar when he was out helping Dad — and of course I chimed in. 

Jack didn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor when it came to his money, which made it all the more tempting to tease him. 

So, Jack told Mom that we said we were going to take his precious pennies. We weren’t of course, and Mom told him so. 

I don’t think he took much comfort in that, though. He didn’t stay very long. 

Jack is still alive, though I haven’t seen him in more than fifty years.

I sometimes wonder if he’s still guarding a penny jar somewhere — and if he’s still mad at two farm kids who never actually took a single penny.

The Little Green Basket

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I have always liked baskets — or virtually anything I can put treasures in. That all started when I was a little girl.

Mom gave me a small green wicker basket. Sometimes I went to the barn to gather eggs when Dad was out there, because our chickens free-ranged and liked to hang out in the hayloft. Finding their eggs was often something of an exploration, and I would usually come back with only a handful.

Other times — especially in spring or summer — I took great delight in bringing Mom baskets of dandelions, though they were usually half-closed by the time I made it back to the house.

I wasn’t allowed to roam the whole farm, nor would I have wanted to. But as long as I stayed in the yard or the adjacent barnyard, my exploring had no real limits. Sometimes I visited the rabbits in the pens Dad kept beside the barn.

By the time I brought my basket home, the dandelions had left their yellow dust on my fingers — and on my nose.

Dad used to laugh and say it was obvious I liked butter.

Barn Cat Hijinks

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We had a lot of cats when we lived on the farm. Most were wild, though two or three were tame enough for me to play with. The wild ones generally stayed around the barn and didn’t come near the house except when Mom fed them.

Chaos erupted one day when one of the wild ones slipped into the house as someone opened the back door. He had never been inside before. Terrified wild-cat behavior ensued.

I remember him streaking through the house like his tail was on fire. Mom sent me into another room, but I watched from the doorway as the cat tried to escape through a closed window.

Wild-eyed, he began climbing Mom’s new sheer white curtains, shredding them as he went. She was not happy — to put it mildly.

There was no way to catch him bare-handed without inviting great bodily harm.

Careful to keep herself between me and the cat, Mom opened the door and tried shooing him onto the enclosed porch. He was having none of it.

Seeing no other solution, she grabbed a throw rug from the floor, wrapped up the cat — still clinging to the curtain — and hurled the whole furious bundle out the back door into the yard.

The curtains were ruined. It wasn’t long before we had new ones.

After his traumatic eviction, the cat was never brave enough to try the house again. In fact, I don’t remember seeing him near it after that — though Mom said he walked funny for a while.