Wanna Be a Steader!

Memories That Make You Go...Ahhhhh...

While replying to an e-mail I was reminded of some wonderful memories from my childhood of the simpler ways of life...and a simpler time in my own life...childhood.  Here are some of my favorite memories.  I would LOVE to know some of yours...

~~My mom is the baby of 14 children (and I’m the 52^nd of 52 grandchildren!) and her 2^nd-oldest sister was the only one who never left the foothills and “hollers” of VERY RURAL east/central KY.  I LOVED going to their house!!  It was like visiting Laura Ingalls Wilder.  My uncle built their little house (with the steps that went right into the wall…you had to almost jump either right or left into the room you wanted to go into) and raised 11 kids there.  She didn’t have electricity until I was in grade school in the mid-60’s, or in-door plumbing until the mid-80’s – about 6 years before she died – and she still cooked on a huge black coal/wood-burning stove!  There was NOTHING like her biscuits!  They were as big as her saucers and were meals in themselves.  Especially w/honey from their own hives.

~~This same uncle taught me how to milk cows by hand.  When we would visit I'd go out to the barn with him every morning.  He would always have me be very quiet and we would almost 'sneak' in...then he would quietly give me one of the buckes while he took another.  He would signal "1...2...3" with his fingers and on "3" we would start shaking the buckets and CATS would absolutely EXPLODE out of every crevice of the barn!  lol  He would then squirt the cats in the face while he milked...that's what they were waiting for!

~~My gr-parents' back porch went right out onto a foothill that was COVERED in raspberry briars.  My gr-pa and I would go out and pick quart baskets FULL and then we would go out to the front porch.  I'd sit on his lap while he pretended to be a baby bird - opening his mouth up as wide as he could - and I would be the mommy bird and feed him.  Hmmm...I think Gr-pa got the better end of the deal!

~~Sitting on the floor in front of my "Bigmom's" rocker and listening to her tell wonderful, funny stories about her childhood.

~~Summers at another uncle's house riding horses FOREVER! 

~~Picking strawberries in a local patch (2 for the basket, 1 for me!) and then going home to pour them into a HUGE tub and picking off the stems late into the summer evening on our back porch.  Lighting lanterns to work by and watching the fire-flies, owls and bats come out while the crickets and tree frogs sang to us.

~~Can't forget those wonderful summer nights with the windows open and the crickets and tree frogs singing me to sleep.

What about you?

Blessings from Ohio, Kim Wolf<><

Untitled Comment

10:03, 2008-Jun-25 .. Posted by gabbie427

My grandmother lived in the hills and hollars of what was then called Poosey Missouri. I still have one of the maps of the area from where she grew up and what suprised me was each and every house was labeled (Old Mac's farm, Mr Willis house and orchard, etc) and then.....each and every moonshine still was drawn in and labeled as well! LOL How funny is that??? Grandma told me of days when there were no real roads, only dirt roads or paths worn into the grass for the wagon wheels. She told me they walked to school carrying their books and poke lunches. I asked what a poke lunch was. She said in earlier years, they had small round tin lunchboxes, but in later years, they had poke lunches, brown bag lunches! LOL They even had a different language then. And she showed me the spot where her and grandpa used to spark. When I asked her what sparking was, she told me she would tell me when I was older. When I was older and asked her, she told me that was where they would kiss while on their walks in the woods, or drives in the woods!

Grandma married at the age of 15 and grandpa was 20 years older I believe. He taught her how to keep house and do some cooking and such. They tried to have children for years and could not. So they adopted a little girl, and she died when she was 2. They gave up trying to have a child, but then grandma went to the doctor one day thinking there was something wrong because her tummy was growing and she stopped having her monthly visit, as she called it. The doctor told her not to worry, it was simply a calcium deposit. LOL She said well doc, then it is the livliest calcium deposit I have ever had. LOL She figures now, she was about 3-4 months pregnant when he told her this. LOL My father was born, only 21 years after she married!!!! Two years to the date, she had my aunt. They always had to share a birthday and she would decorate each half of the cake differently! Then a few years later, another baby sister.

I loved my grandmother very much. She died when I was 19, and I still miss her daily. I never knew grandpa because he died before I was born.

Thanks for sharing your memories with us, and letting me share my memories with you as well.

God's Blessings,
Amy Jo

Untitled Comment

10:43, 2008-Jun-28 .. Posted by CandyFoote

I truly enjoyed this post.
Thanks for sharing.

Candy