Dearest Family,
My life is boring!! An ache here and a pain there, so---I’m going back to yester-year and try to tell you some things that will be more interesting than my life at the present.
I’ve always tried to think of myself as “young.” However, my body at this point forces me to face REALITY. When you get right down to it, I’m a pioneer of a sort. When you remember using a rope pulley to get water out of the well, I’m sure you’ll all agree I sound ancient. I can also remember watching my mother clean coal oil lamps, (no electricity as of yet.) It was an exciting day when dad tied a string to a light bulb, pulled, and there was light. I imagine I was about 4 then. Running water in the house happened about the same time. For all youngsters this happened in the old log house that is now out in the field behind the red brick house.
I lived in that house until I was 14. Robert was 6 months old when we moved into the new house. The old house had three rooms: kitchen, front room and bedroom. We three girls slept horizontally in one bed, mom and Ken in the other, ‘till he got too old, and then it was John’s turn. There was always a baby in the crib. Dad slept on the couch in the front room and tended the fire. At first we hung our clothes on nails in the corner of the bedroom. Finally, Ether Baker built a white wardrobe. What a treat! (I think it’s still in the house.) We had a place for our clothes!
The floors all had linoleum. The kitchen was the best. It was black and red checks on grey. Mom, Sharon and I took turns mopping and waxing it. The front room and the bedroom were blue and pink with flowers. Mother kept the walls papered. She also had pretty curtains for the windows and pots of geraniums in the front room. There was always a stove in the front room to keep us warm. At one time there was a big Morning Glory stove that was big enough to sit on the top and get warm in the morning.
We bathed once a week in a long galvanized bathtub that we brought in from outside. Mother made sure we washed good during the week and put deodorant on.
A job I hated was the one of gathering chips. Sharon and I would go out in the barnyard and find a very little piece of wood to make the fire in the stove hot enough to bake bread. It seems this job never ended.
The only hardship, I felt, we every really suffered was having to go to the outhouse in the middle of the dark scary night to go to the bathroom.
The old house was located directly behind the new house. There were 3 or 4 beautiful trees on a pretty green lawn right in front. Sharon and I made beds for our dolls at the base of the trees. We also had fun climbing the trees. It was the family’s greatest sorrow that we put the new house where it now stands and moved those trees.
I dream of winning the lottery and fixing that old house up like it used to be.
I am having fun this year going to the pool at seven each morning and doing exercises with my friends.
Lots of exciting things coming up—Logan and Annie’s wedding April 30th, Katie going on a mission and Jase working hard in Texas on his mission. Josh and Rilee are working hard in school and on the job.
It will be great to see you all at the reunion.
Lots of Love, Auntie Nadean
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