Gunder's Goose

Years ago, our family had summer places in on the east slope of the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming.  My Uncle Joe, my Uncle Arch and my Mom all had places.  Gunder and Carol lived across the road from our place and were always good neighbors and good friends.  They had a lovely place with a little man made lake and a big two story log "cabin".   And Gunder had a flock of geese.  A small flock but geese just the same.  They looked really good paddling around the lake.  One time Gunder and Carol were going away for a week and asked my Mom if we could look out for the geese.  She, of course, said sure.  So the first morning after they left, Mother and I went over to feed the geese.  I had no great experience with geese other than they were pretty but I had kept and ridden horses since I was very young and always had cats and dogs.  I was an animal lover from the word "go".  And so I really thought nothing of it when the big male goose started toward me.  I was going to reach and pet his sleek head and neck (or so I thought).  Then I realized that was not a spark of admiration in his eye.  It was something more of a glint.  Possibly even an evil glint.  I asked my Mother if she knew what he was doing.  She looked up and said, "Well, I never.  I'd heard they do this but I never saw it before."

"SAW WHAT?!", was my instantaneous reply.  "You'd better get behind that tree," she said and moved a bit in front of the tree.  That goose now had a look of hatred gleaming from his eyes aimed straight at me and he was picking up speed.  I got behind the trees as fast as could, no more questions asked.  My Mother moved in front of the goose's path and he stopped.  Apparently the hatred he showed for me did not extend to family members.  It was personal.  Mother finished passing out the goose food and I waited behind the tree with the big goose keeping a close eye on me.  On the trip home I walked directly in front with Mom bringing up the rear so the goose couldn't get a parting shot at me.

The next day it was pretty much the same routine.  That big goose saw me and headed for me.  I got behind the tree.  Mom passed out the food while I waited, hiding, sort of.  So, why you ask didn't I just stay away?  HA and leave my Mother to the mercy of that big monster??!!  No way.  I'm not called a hard headed Swede for nothing.  I went back every day and irritated that darned goose with my presence.  We tried to wait until we saw them out on the lake so I could help Mom get the feed and stuff out before he spotted me.  But as soon as he spied me, he came in on the double.  The odd thing was that as much as that goose hated me, he would not cross the road to get me.  I was safe on our place even with the evil thing staring at me and wishing I would just cross the road.  He stayed at his own place.  I don't think Mother ever knew the mean faces I made at him when I was out in the yard.  The old termagant (the goose, that is, not my Mother).

That was a LONG week.  And I was just ever so glad to see Gunder and Carol arrive home.  They were kind of pleased that I missed them so much.  Later Mom explained to them about the goose.  I hope they weren't very disappointed.  I don't trust geese much to this day though.  I never learned of that goose's fate.  I know I had day dreams of a platter and roasted potatoes on the side.  But, knowing Gunder, it probably has a proper tombstone somewhere on the east slope of the Bighorn Mountains.

There Goes The Judge

My grandfather, A.J., was the judge in our little county seat in Iowa.  He had been an attorney who handled everything as attorneys must in rural areas.  But he did have a specialty in accretion and evulsion law which was still being developed as our county bordered on the Missouri river.  And he did have a rather good reputation in the Midwest for that specialty.  The great dams that came along later made most of that area of law irrelevant.  But in my grandfather's time it was a big deal.  My grandfather was also a Methodist and a teetotaller.  Now the law of our great land has always had a little problem with private stills.  Martinis come and go but White Lightning always seems to have it's problems and it's following.

My grandfather also followed the stills, except that he had an ax in the trunk of his big Buick Roadster.  A bootleggers blood would run cold at the sight of that big car going down his road  And Grandfather did personally go out and bust up a good many stills.  He always took the sheriff along with him to observe the proprieties.  The problem was that Grandfather didn't really trust the sheriff.  He was pretty sure that the sheriff was just a bit too friendly with some of the bootleggers.  On the occasions when A.J. had told the sheriff ahead of time when and where they would be going, they had arrived to find an empty clearing just once or twice too often. So Grandfather started showing up at the sheriff's house just a bit late for supper and saying, "Let's go!"  The sheriff had little choice but to grab his hat and go with the judge.  And down the road they would go in that big Buick.  And another still would be in pieces by dark.

So the big thing was, if you were a bootlegger in our county you tried to figure out if Effie was fixing supper early.  And if she was, you might give some real thought to moving your still.  It might not survive the evening.

Effie's Quilts

My Grandmother had a huge bedroom in the old house.  It was part bedroom part work area.  And it seems now to me that there was almost always a quilt frame up there.  Her quilt frame held about a half of a double bed quilt.  And something was always going on there. Her name was Effie.  No bit of fancy or bright or unusual material escaped Effie's stash box.  Effie made quilts.  She called them "crazy quilts" but each was a witty, whimsical piece of original art.  My father and grandfather's old neckties were a favorite material of hers.  I remember in particular a little black felt Scottie dog on the satiny background of a red necktie that I had always loved to see my father wearing.  His tail was up and you could tell it was just about to wag and his little button eye had a glint to it.


As a young woman Effie had gone to "normal" school.  That's what they used to call teacher's colleges.  And, yes, there were institutions of higher learning that just taught how to be a teacher.  They were nearly all women's colleges.  She was a teacher and a very good one.  Her best friend had been Katie, the wife of a local attorney.  Katie had many children (eventually 10) and all had been Effie's students at one point or another.  All except the last one.  And baby Katie and her mother died within a few months of each other.  Katie's husband Alfred was just decimated.  And Effie mourned for her dear friend.    Effie helped A.L. (as he  was known) with the children as much as she could.


A.L. and Effie were married about a year and half after Katie's death.  If they weren't head over heels in love with each other then love surely grew between them because by the time I came along they were certainly devoted to one another.  My mother, Harriett, is their only child together.  Elizabeth is the daughter of Effie's sister who died when Elizabeth was just a baby.  And then Elizabeth was theirs.  She just came by a little different route to get to be their darling daughter.  So Effie came home from her wedding to a household with 6 children still at home.  If she wasn't accomplished at household skills then, she got that way pretty fast.  But she was teacher and a good one.  And she could manage children.  Two essential points for her situation.


I asked her once why on earth she would marry a man with that many children?  She looked at me and said, quite honestly I believe, "I was either truly in love or just plain crazy, don't know which."


We have already talked about her stationery.  And how she wrote to everyone and kept up with them.  She also volunteered at church and was in the garden club and the ladies aide society.  And she had all those children to raise.  And this woman had a husband who by that time was the district judge.  And whatever social obligations attended with that were taken care of in good order too.  He was a very happy husband.  How she did all that I don't know.  But I do know that I don't complain about having too little time without thinking of her.  There was always time to talk to a child, I know that.  My Uncles and Aunts have told me that.  And she made quilts too!  Wonderful magical creations.  One for each of her children (she had no "steps" in her mind, they were hers).  


I learned how to embroider and do hand stitching on one of those quilts.  Don't know which one.  But there was plenty of practice to be had.  I imagine quite a few other little girls in our family did as well.  "Aunt Effie" (and she was everybody's Aunt Effie) never turned down a little girl's willing hands, trained or not.  She was always happy to show another one how thread a needle and hold it and how to stitch.  


My Aunt Ruth, Uncle Arch's wife gave me hers after I was all grown up.  She found out that I never got one.  Effie ran out of time finally.  And I treasure that quilt and I love my Aunt Ruth for her good heart and treasure her memory right along with my Grandmother Effie's.  Just a memory, but a very happy one.


Until next time, happy searching!

Learning in Lousiana

For a couple of young people from California, Louisiana can be an excursion into the world of insects and other leggedy pests that is a true odyssey.  The first night we spent in our new home a mouse ran up my arm bringing me awake with a shriek.  My husband, Bob, swore he didn't know I could levitate that high in a horizontal position.  And when we got our puppies, I had never removed so many ticks from a little wiggling body in my life.  My husband began collecting ticks as well outdoors with the puppies.  They have mosquitoes in Louisiana too, in California we call them small aircraft and limit them to airports.   Also, at that time (this was ahem years ago, you know), there was a very nice man known as the Standard man.  He came to your house every 2 weeks and he had every product you might ever need to make life possible.  And one thing he had was a bug spray that really got rid of bugs.  So, silverfish and flies and mosquitoes and 17 other brands of flying, creeping and scuttling things left my house.  Except the ticks.  They were outside and I couldn't command them.  So I just got a really good touch with the cotton ball saturated with isopropyl alcohol.  You hold the cotton ball over the tick just a second or two and the tick thinks it's being smothered and backs out.  You don't want to kill the tick with it's head inside your skin because you can get really sick that way.  Who wants a dead tick head stuck in their skin anyway?


And so Bob and the puppies would go out for walks and then line up for tick inspection upon their return.  And we all rocked along pretty well.  Louisiana truly is one of the most beautiful places on earth once you deal with the 4, 6, 8 or more legged critters.  And thanks to that spray the Standard man brought, my opinion of the place was rising every day as I was finally able to sleep at night.


One day I went shopping leaving my husband in charge of the puppies.  I figured they would go for a walk and a romp and I would check them for ticks when I got back.  When I arrived home, Bob was, in fact, laying on the sofa contemplating his navel which was filled with clear liquid.  Now you just have to ask what that is all about, it's not something to you see when you walk in the door even in the strangest of households.  Holding very still he began to explain to me that he and the puppies had indeed gone for a walk and a romp.  He got back before I was home and he very thoughtfully began the tick check to save me the trouble.  He had found a tick in his belly button.  Knowing that I would apply a cotton ball saturated with rubbing alcohol, he figured if some is good, more must be better so he just laid down on the sofa and filled it up to the rim.  I grabbed some cotton balls quickly and absorbed all the alcohol from the area but, alas, it was too late.  The tick had drowned.  And was still stuck in his skin.  So the next move, much to my poor husband's embarrassment was the emergency room.  After they shooed me out of the little curtained space I did hear recurring giggles, but they must have at least given Bob enough local anesthetic because he didn't howl while they extracted the tick.  After the ER nurse had brought the paperwork over to the station, the desk nurse said, "Thank you, honey, they haven't had that good a  laugh in months!  Please bring him here the next time he does something."


The lesson to be learned here I think is that with ticks as with many other things in life there is too much of a good thing.


Until next time, Happy Searching!

Effie's Stationery

Effie loved flower arranging.  She was quite good at it too.  In fact, she was artistically talented and very inventive.  One day as she was in the back yard "visiting" with her flowers she spotted a small feather in the flower bed.  She picked it up and, looking at it, decided it looked like a flower.  She put it in her apron pocket where it stayed until later in the day.  With Alfred gone, Harriett and her husband, Deke,  had moved into the big old home place with her.  It was too big for her to keep by herself.  Then those horrible days when Deke became ill.  And then too quickly he was gone. Then it was just her and her girls. But she once again had a family to care for.  A very small family but she was glad to have her girls there.


Christie came home from school later that afternoon.   After Christie had her snack, they both went to the big work room for homework time.  A quilting frame was set up in the middle of the room and Alfred's old partners desk sat down at the end.  Christie put her homework down on her side of the desk and Effie got some stationery out of the drawer along with her old fashioned quill type pen and a bottle of ink.  It was then she remembered the feather.  Quickly she made a few light strokes in the upper left hand corner of the page and glued the feather at the top of one of them.  And sure enough.  It looked like a fluffy little flower, quite a pretty one too.  And the first letter was written on Effie's stationery.


That stationery would be treasured and coveted by most of the family in years to come.  But for that day, it was just something a little different to do with a piece of paper.


Her home had a huge back yard.  At the very back was a fenced in chicken yard and Effie kept chickens.  Each spring the new chicks would come (much to Christie's delight) and were kept in an incubator on the enclosed back porch until they were ready to move into the chicken house.   Effie kept a large vegetable garden and each fall vegetables were canned and put into the big freezer in the basement.  Kettles of the best cream of tomato soup in the world were made and canned in the big pressure canner. She had lovely flower gardens with fruit trees and grape vines and gooseberry bushes.  She fixed breakfast, lunch, and dinner for her little family because in a small town people go home for lunch.  Effie made crazy quilts.  As a former teacher she tutored her granddaughter in special subjects and projects.  And, of course, there was the church, the garden club and her canasta club, all which received her willing and unstinting efforts.  If you asked her, she would tell you that she didn't work, she stayed at home.


She bought stationery at the Rexall drug store down town.  The kept a nice line of boxed stationery.  And now she bought a couple of extra boxes and began to experiment with the feathers and light wispy pen strokes.  She began to hear back from recipients of her letters asking where she got that lovely stationery.  They wanted some.  She made a few extra sheets of stationery every time she sat down now.  Slowly, slowly a couple of extra boxes accumulated.  Over the years, if you were good, very good, if you graduated high school or college with honors and you were also very lucky, you would get a box of that stationery.  Most family members upon receiving their longed-for box of stationery would would lock it away with the other valuables with one exception.  They would use just one sheet.  That was the thank-you letter to Aunt Effie.  Well, if you were even luckier you might get to use a second sheet.  But that's a story for another day.

~~The End~~

Crandall Note:  My box of stationery is locked away with valuables in a safe.  I get it out and look at it once in awhile and I see my Grandmother sitting at that partners desk with her old fashioned pen and her jar of ink and the feathers scattered out.  I didn't get many of her letters because I lived with her.  But those who did treasure them.  Written in Spencerian script and containing a wealth of homey information, they are each one priceless. 

Until next time.....Happy Searching!

Uncle Stewart and the Strawberry Shortcake

In 1963, Harriett took her daughter, Christie, back to Iowa for one of their frequent visits.  This little incident happened during that visit.

~~~

Elizabeth and Harriett were together again at Elizabeth's home in their old home town in southwest Iowa and enjoying every moment of it.  Harriett, now a school nurse in California, was visiting with her teenage daughter, Christie.  It was almost lunchtime and the three of them were in the kitchen fixing lunch and giggles kept  erupting like bubbles coming up out of a thermal spring.  Sisters, Elizabeth and Harriett, had been victim to uncontrolled fits of the giggles since girlhood.  Their Father was an attorney and a judge.  He was known to be quite strict and tough.  If giggling erupted at the table, the girls were sent to sit on the stairs until the fits were under control.  Now, Harriett's daughter, Christie, was just as vulnerable to the giggles as were the sisters and the three of them happily shared their senses of humor.  

"Stewart said he was hungry for strawberry shortcake for dessert so I got some strawberries this morning.  Sister Mildred still had some she would give me so I picked them up while I was out." said Elizabeth giving them to Christie to clean.  

"It's August!" said Harriett, "I'm amazed you could find any.  Stewart is working so hard during Rodeo Week, he deserves a treat."  

This small town in southwest Iowa hosted a world class RCA Rodeo in August every year.  Stewart was the chairman of the Rodeo Board and his duties kept him at the Rodeo grounds many long hours during rodeo week.  Stewart was a large man with a gruff exterior.  A Swede by ancestry, his language and public persona were rough.  But there was a diamond under the rough exterior, a diamond with the heart of a marshmallow.  Stewart and Elizabeth had married twelve years before and were very happy together.  The entire family loved Stewart though the adults gave him a wide berth when his usual grumble moved up to a roar.  Children, however, ignoring the noise walked up to him and tugged on his sleeve.  The child that did always got whatever it was he wanted too.


Christie had risen early to fix fried chicken in the cool of the morning as had generations of women before her in the summer heat.  The chicken was crisping in the oven now as she mashed potatoes.  She had made gravy as well and that was keeping hot at the back of the stove.  Elizabeth was setting the table as Harriett poked around the refrigerator looking for something.  "Elizabeth," said Harriett, "do you remember where we put those baked beans I made.  We were going to heat them up for lunch."


"I put them in a dish and in the oven about 20 minutes ago, Mother." said Christie.


"Well, that's good, because I forgot all about them until just now," replied Harriett.  And she went in to help Elizabeth set the table.


"Harriett, when you went to the store this morning did you get the whipping cream I asked for?" asked Elizabeth.  "Christie could whip that while she has the mixer out."


"No need," replied her sister, "I got a can of whipped cream, no whipping just shake it and squirt it out."


"Oh, no!"  Elizabeth cried.  "I just can't do those can things.  My finger isn't strong like yours and Christie's, I didn't play piano.  I've never been able to do them right.  Well, you will just have to put the whipped cream on the shortcakes right before we serve them."


"You're just being silly," urged Harriet, then looking at her sister's face said, "Alright, I'll do that.  Don't worry.  I'll do the whipped cream.  He is in for a real surprise."  And smiling to herself went into the kitchen.


And just then a car door closed in the driveway and the three ladies went into motion as one putting the food on the table.  And by the time Stewart got inside the back door his lunch was on the table.


Lunch was very pleasant.  The food was good and Stewart told them of all the happenings at the Rodeo that morning.  He told Christie he would take her to the Rodeo with him that afternoon.  Christie was 16 years old and very attractive.  Stewart wanted to be around whenever she was anywhere near any of the cowboys.  He just felt better that way.  And soon it was time for dessert.  Dishes were cleared from the table and good to her word, Harriett put the can of whipped cream by her place at the table and went back to the kitchen to ladle strawberries over the cakes.  With a big smile Elizabeth put Stewart's dessert down, "Surprise!," she said happily.


"Strawberry shortcake!" exclaimed Stewart.  "I've been wishing for this.  Put some whipped cream on mine, Elizabeth, I can't wait!"


"Harriett is going to do the whipped cream, you know I don't do that well.  Something about my fingers...." said Elizabeth, her voice fading as she gazed at her hand


"Oh don't be silly dear, you need to get over that idea.  Come on just squirt a little bit right there on top," Stewart said a bit sternly.


As she started to shake the can, Harriett and Christie came into the dining room with the rest of the desserts.  Elizabeth started to put the can down for Harriett to do the whipped cream but Stewart interrupted the move saying, "Just put some whipped cream on there Elizabeth.  Just do it!".  And so as Harriett and Christie sat down at the table Elizabeth began to put whipped cream on Stewart's dessert.


To this day nobody can explain exactly how it happened but that whipped cream must have ricocheted off a strawberry and hit Stewart right in the face!  Elizabeth looked up to see what had happened to the whipped cream that was supposed to be on the dessert and saw it on her husbands face and froze on the nozzle.  She began to kind of rock up and down saying, "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh......".  And as Stewart's face got redder and redder she covered him deeper and deeper in whipped cream.  Up and down, pass by pass ..his face, his glasses, his hair, shirt, pass by pass deeper in whipped cream.  Harriett came out of the shock of it first and grabbed the whipped cream can out of her sister's grip, running to the kitchen for a dish towel for Stewart.  Harriett returned a stack of towels in her hands and saw her daughter, blue eyes big as saucers but with the beginnings of a grin on her mouth.  Harriett knew that if any one of them even snickered, Stewart would explode.  He was red as a fire plug and just barely holding himself together.  At the moment that Harriett gingerly reached over with the towel to begin to dab at the whipped cream on his face, Stewart took his hand and cleaned some whipped cream off his face and flicked it onto the table in the classic comic movie gesture.  Except he wasn't being funny, he was trying to see.  Christie was young and couldn't control herself any longer, as the snork began in the back of her throat. she ran out of the dining room, through the kitchen, around the corner and half-way down the basement stairs and there she sat collapsing into body shaking giggles.  She knew where she belonged.


Meanwhile, back in the dining room, Stewart had grabbed the towel out of Harriett's hands and mopped at his face, removing his glasses completely.  Once he could see, he VERY quietly excused himself and went into the bathroom.  As soon as they heard the door shut, Harriett and Elizabeth ran for the basement stairs!


"You RAT!", said Harriett looking straight at her daughter, a big smile spreading on her face, "deserting us with the dessert!"  And that was the beginning of one of the longest group giggles in family history!

~~The End~~

Crandall Note: The strawberry shortcake caper became famous in the family.  And this visit was always remembered because of that.  But it was momentous for Christie because she got her first car.  Uncle Stewart bought Aunt Liz a new car (believe it not, after the great shortcake caper not before!) and sold their old car to Christie.  Hope you enjoyed this little family story.

Until next time.....happy searching.

FIRE!!!

This story takes places in the early years after WWII.  Prosperity reigned and the store owner's problems were in getting the goods to sell to the soldiers now home and beginning their families or starting afresh with  loved ones that had been waiting anxiously for them.  Baby girl Johnson would later be called a Baby Boomer.

~~~

Deke Johnson loved to fly.  It was just part of his being. When he was in high school he had worked in the submarine factory to earn the money for flying lessons.  He knew that if he already knew to how to fly, when he enlisted in the Army, they would let him fly.  He was an orphan and he just knew the Army was a good place for him.  He could serve the country that had served him so well and it would be the family he had missed since he was 11 years old. So he worked in the submarine factory and saved money and learned to fly.  He went into the Army and told them he would fly anything, anywhere, just let him fly.  And they did.  He flew a C-47 over the "Hump" in Asia keeping the Burma Road open in the air.  A great world war was raging and he was doing his bit.  Then so many pilots were doing their bit that the airlines were having trouble getting troops from here to there in the continental U.S. and the Army had to lend a large group of pilots to the airlines.  Transporting the troops from one coast to the other was critical and those pilots were needed badly back home.  None of them wanted to go.  They were fighting a war and were reluctant to give that up.  They drew straws.  Pilots were drawn from air supply units all over the world.  Deke went to work for American Airlines.

The airline sent him to Love Field, Dallas, Texas.  He flew from Dallas to Chicago and back again several times a week.  He also flew a "milk" run across the southern states through Atlanta up the east coast to Washington, D.C. then across to Chicago and back down to Dallas.  One day he went into the Crew Room in Chicago to get ready for the flight back to Dallas and saw Harriett.  She was the prettiest little thing he had ever seen and no bigger than a minute.  She was an R.N., all the stewardesses had to be, with warm brown hair and sparkling green eyes.  He was a confirmed bachelor and this was a prize he was determined to win.

They were married just as the war ended.  They moved to Osceola, Nebraska, bought a hardware store, a house and a Piper Cub.   Deke and Harriett flew every other weekend to visit her family in a very small town in southwest Iowa.  The town was too small to have an airport but Harriett's brother-in-law was also a pilot and they could land at the airstrip on his farm just outside of town.  Two years later a baby girl became part of their little family.  Everyone joked that her Daddy was a pilot and her Mama had been a stewardess and she was air born.

For many long weeks they didn't make the trip to Iowa.  But as the baby girl turned 3 months old they decided it was time and the three of them flew off for the farm in southwest Iowa.  Harriett's sister, Lillian and her husband, Freese, had 7 children.  Harriett and Lillian were from a family of 12, Harriett being the youngest.  Lillian's eldest son was the same age as Harriett.  And Freese was a farmer and pilot and very good at both.  He had his own Piper Cub in a hangar up on the hill by the airstrip on his farm.  It was to this airstrip the little family headed.  It was a breezy day and the little plane bumped around through a sky that blue which only a Midwestern summer sky can be.  Past fluffy white clouds they bumped, over green fields laid out like a patchwork quilt below them.  It was a picture perfect day and the baby girl burbled happily on her Mama's lap.

"Somebody over by Lillian decided to burn their trash today," commented Harriett as she pointed out the wispy column of smoke to Deke.

"Whatever they are doing, they just started it.  It was clear up until a moment ago."  replied Deke.  He was a city boy and did not understand about burning trash on a farm.  

But as the little airplane came closer it became clear that the smoke was not coming from the Crandall farm a mile and a half away, nor from the other house on Freese's farm but from Freese and Lillian's place.  And it wasn't someone burning trash at all. The smoke was coming from the southwest corner of the house!  

Deke flew low over the house and sure enough - smoke was streaming out of the screened in back porch.  There was fire either on the porch or in the kitchen and nobody seemed to know!  There was no one grabbing a hose to spray the fire with water.  Nobody was coming out of the house at all!  

Deke turned the little airplane quickly, circled around and buzzed the house again, lower this time.  As the plane climbed out the landing gear trimmed leaves off the top of the big elm tree in the back yard.  And again they circled and buzzed the house!  More elm leaves drifted to the ground.  This time they saw Freese come out the door running for the hose.  Deke climbed up again and turning into the wind landed on the airstrip on top of the hill.

"Here, Harriett, put your feet on the pedals on the floor there.  I don't have time to tie the plane down, I have to help Freese put the fire out.  It's windy and you and the baby will have to wait here and keep the plane on the ground with the flaps until I can get back," and, instructions given, Deke ran down the hill toward the house.

Harriett pushed first one foot forward and then the other to see what happened as she moved the flaps at the back of each wing of the airplane.  One flap moved downward and then the other moved down and little plane began to rise up off the ground and Harriett quickly moved the pedals the other way.  As she did the plane settled to the ground again.  And as little gusts of wind blew up, so did the plane and she had to adjust the flaps again.  

Running down the hill, Deke saw Freese pull the hose into the house, through the porch and into the kitchen.  Deke grabbed up a bucket on the back porch and headed in there himself.  Freese was spraying the kitchen stove which was completely enveloped in smoke.  Deke ran to the pump at the sink and filled his bucket and threw the water at the stove and started pumping again.  At first there was more smoke, then less and less until at last there was just the wet smell of a fire just drenched.  As they came out of the house, they heard the siren of the fire truck pulling up the farm road to the house.  Both men went over to the fire truck and began telling the firemen what had happened.  Lillian had dinner cooking on the wood stove in the kitchen.  The family had gone to the front porch to enjoy the warm breezy afternoon while they waited for dinner.  The breeze being from the north, they had not smelled the smoke when one of the pots on the stove caught fire.  They saw the little plane buzzing the house and Freese got up and went through the house to go out the back and go up the hill and meet their visitors.  And he found the fire!  The firemen all agreed that it was a good thing that the little plane happened along when it did.  The house was a wooden farm house as most all were in that area.  They were amazed at the small amount of damage in the kitchen due to Freese and Deke's quick actions and that fact that it was a really good sturdy iron stove.

The men all came back out into the yard and one of the firemen observed, "Deke that little plane of yours sitting up there on the hill looks just like it's flying."

Freese and Deke looked at each other and said in unison, "HARRIETT!"  And much to the fire men's puzzlement ran for the top of the hill.  

As she sat in the plane for what seemed like days, the thought occurred to Harriett that she was flying an airplane on the ground.  And that thought struck her as very funny.  She looked down and said, "Baby Girl we are flying an airplane on the ground!"  And the baby girl gurgled.  And Harriett giggled.  And she kept giggling.  And then she thought, "Oh heavens, I'm sitting flying a plane on the ground and giggling."  And that was the end, she began to outright laugh and she couldn't stop.  The whole situation was just so strange.  Her sister's house had been on fire, though she couldn't see any smoke now.  And here she sat on top of hill, flying an airplane on the ground with a baby in her lap.  She laughed until there were tears in her eyes and then she laughed some more.  The breeze came up and the plane lifted up and she adjusted the flaps and laughed some more.  

Then the door of the little plane flew open and her husband was there looking very concerned.  Seeing the tears in her eyes he asked, "Harriett, are you alright?  I left you for so long, over 90 minutes!  Are you alright?  Is the baby alright?  I'm so sorry!"  And as Freese took the baby girl from Deke, Harriet giggled again.

"I have to go the euphemism, Deke Johnson," said Harriett her green eyes snapping, "and if I don't get there quickly you will be a very sorry man."  And as she began to run down the hill to the house, she was overcome by giggles again.  

~ The End ~

Crandall Notes:  O.K. you got me, yes, I am Baby Girl Johnson.  Deke and Harriett are my Father and Mother.  Uncle Freese, Aunt Lillian and the 7 cousins, all mine.  Bless 'em.  You won't find any better.  I have many happy memories of flying with my Daddy and my Uncle Freese.  I hope you enjoy this little flying story.


Until next time - Happy Searching!

Copyright 2011 - All rights reserved

2 Sisters, 1 Horse

This true story happened to Elizabeth and Harriett, Crandalls both, in the mid 1920's.  

~~

Once upon a time in a very small town in Iowa, there lived a very large family.  In the family there were the Father and the Mother and 6 boys and 6 girls.  Some of the children had grown up moved on to start their own lives and families, but there were still 4 boys and 2 girls at home.  The 2 girls were the youngest of the whole family.  One day as a treat for the girls, the father borrowed a horse from a farmer in lieu of a debt the farmer owed him.  And the little girls squealed in delight.  The little girls were named Elizabeth and Harriett.  The father said, "Now girls I want you to take turns riding the horse.  Elizabeth you are the older and I expect you to share and let Harriett ride her share too."  And he went inside to work on his papers.  

Elizabeth turned to Harriett and said, "I'll go first and then I'll let you ride.  You wait here in the shade of this tree."  And Harriett nodded and waited.  Elizabeth rode the horse through their very, very big back yard, past the cherry tree,  past the gooseberry bushes, down the side fence past the apple tree all the way to the chicken yard at the very back and then around the clothes line and carefully avoiding her Mother's vegetable garden coming back up the other side through the hollyhocks behind the garage to where Harriett waited.  Riding the horse was so much fun, Elizabeth didn't want to get off.  But she had promised her Father that she would take turns with Harriett. And so she did.  She came back to where Harriett waited and got off the horse.  She told Harriett to ride the same places where she had ridden and helped her up onto the horse.  

Harriett rode off.  But she was 2 years younger and not as good at riding as Elizabeth.  Harriett let the horse get her too close to the cherry tree and she got smacked in the face by the branches.  And when they passed the gooseberry bushes she got her ankles scratched.  The horse went right under a branch of the apple tree and Harriett had to duck down fast! They passed the chicken yard safely enough but the clothesline was coming next!  Harriett ducked down in anticipation of coming disaster but the horse turned and went around the clothes line.  And headed for the fence of her Mother's vegetable garden!!  "Turn him to the left," yelled Elizabeth.  Harriett pulled the reins back and to the left and the horse went a little faster - straight ahead.  At the last moment, the horse turned toward the hollyhocks.  Harriett had to grab the pommel of the saddle to stay on the horse so sharply did he turn.  And they were off for the hollyhocks.  Right into the hollyhocks and through the lovely pink flowered stalks to the garage.  Then, finally, they got to the place that Elizabeth waited.  "Oh my, Harriett, you need to learn to use the reins more, you didn't even try to turn the horse until you got to the garden."  

"I was so busy getting smacked by the cherry tree and scratched by the gooseberries and ducking under the apple branch, I forgot about the reins." Harriett said, her knees shaking as she got off the horse.  "I wouldn't have remembered at the garden if you hadn't yelled to do it."

At that moment the back door opened and their Father came out, his eyes snapping.  "Girls!  Your Mother tells me her hollyhocks are trampled flat!  Have you been riding that horse over her flowers?"

Harriett looked at Elizabeth and Elizabeth looked at Harriett and they both looked at their Father.  "I d-d-d-didn't mean to, Father, the horse just kind of w-w-w-went there,"  said Harriett in a small shaky voice.

Then as their Father took a little better look at Harriett, his eyes softened and he said, "You do look a bit the worse for wear.  Perhaps we should put the horse away now."

"Oh no, oh no, we want to ride more!" said both girls together.

"Well, alright, but I think you should both ride together and Elizabeth can rein the horse.  Maybe you are still too small to ride by yourself, Harriett."  said their Father.  

And so the girls got back on the horse, Elizabeth in front and rode around the yard several times without incident.  And they were making their 5th circuit of the yard past the cherry tree, when the horse edged a bit too close to the gooseberry bushes.  But Elizabeth turned the reins and he went away from those thorny bushes and headed straight for the middle of the apple tree.  And again Elizabeth tugged on the reins and the horse turned and passed the chicken yard at the very back and headed toward the clothesline.  That horse headed straight for the clothesline and he was speeding up too.  Elizabeth tugged on the reins and the horse just kept going toward the clothesline.  Elizabeth said very loudly, "Duck down, the clothes line!"  And she ducked down.  But Harriett was looking at all the pretty hollyhocks laying on the ground and feeling sorry that she had not kept the horse out of them and she did not even hear her sister talking to her.  And that horse went right under the clothesline with Elizabeth laying down close to his neck.  Harriett stopped very quickly as the clothesline came up tight right under her chin and then stretched a little bit as the horse continued on.  And suddenly she was not on the horse any more,  she was hanging on the clothesline like a clean wet dress. Then the clothesline was springing back the other way and Harriett was going with it.  Back though the air toward her Mother's garden where she lit with a thump right in the middle of a cabbage plant.

Out of the corner of her eye, Elizabeth saw Harriett go off the back of the horse on the clothesline.  Elizabeth wondered that Harriett didn't even make a squeak as it happened.  As quickly as ever she could she turned the horse around and yelling for their Father and Mother headed back for the garden where the dazed Harriett was sitting on a cabbage plant. 

Their Father and Mother came out of the back door and ran for the vegetable garden.  "Are you alright, Harriett?" cried their Mother.  "What happened?" called their Father.  As they both started checking Harriett for damage and injury Elizabeth explained how the horse went under the clothesline and how she told her sister to "duck" but she hadn't.  And she told then how the clothesline went right under Harriett's chin and then kind of stretched forward.  And it quit stretching forward and Harriett flew backward into the garden and thumped down onto the cabbage plant.  Elizabeth saw that her Mother was close to tears as she saw that Harriett was not badly hurt and said, "Dear Mother,  did we break the cabbage?"  

Later that afternoon the Dr. had assured them all that Harriett would be fine.  She would have a sore throat for a few days but there were no broken bones and she would recover well.   Harriett was enjoying the little pad of paper they gave her to write communications.  And as the Dr. was leaving, she scribbled very quickly, "May I ride the horse, please?"

~ The End ~

Crandall Note:  Harriett was my mother.

Hope you enjoyed this little family story.  Until next time - Happy Searching!

Copyright 2011, All rights reserved

Stories

I just love a good story, don't you?  In putting this blog together I have done a lot of thinking about stories.  Family stories, the very best kind.  They are true, at least as true as a person's memory, full of humor, pathos, sympathy, empathy, sorrow, joy, anger, happiness and most of all love.  When I started down the path of looking for ancestors, I thought I would find a few stories and rubbed my hands together in expectation.  I never expected veritable river of stories and information that began to flow right to my electronic front door.    In fact, I was going down for the third time, drowning in new information when a cousin I had just met through her own constant genealogical search, grabbed me out of the uncontrolled flood and set me upon a nice dry organized path  I have found so many wonderful stories on that path that I will be sharing with you.  Many of them are my stories, many are your stories.  And if you have ever tried to find an Aunt Susie from Peoria, this is your personal story.  


If you start trying to find Aunt Susie with any seriousness at all, expect to meet new people, not just discover past family members.  There are cousins out there who like you want to find out about their family and they will find you!  That is a really good reason why you should always document ancestors you find before you decide they are a "keeper" for your family tree.  I had met and enjoyed so many cousins I never knew before.  And some I knew as a child and lost track of completely.  It has been wonderful.  And because I did document each new addition to my tree, I knew they really were my cousins.  Oh yes,  I went down a couple of wrong paths at the start.  It is so exciting when you first go into Ancestry.  It seems like it will take about a week and you will have your entire family history down.  WOW!  Whoda thunk it?  Then you discover there were really 3 Susies in Peoria and only one of them was really your missing Aunt.  Uh oh.  And that's when you learn about documentation and chasing down leads and census information and all those magical terms.  You are on the road to being a genealogical researcher and it's fun!  The discoveries are triumphs.  And it can get tedious too.  It's like popcorn.  Not all the seeds pop.  But the ones that do are really good.  I will look forward to your comments.  I will guide some future scribblings from them so let me know what are your likes and interests.  If I don't have direct experience with them, I can guarantee that I have friends who do.  Happy searching.