Georgie’s Memories – Part 11: Family

Company and Cousins

We enjoyed having company overnight.  Sometimes they would stay a few days in bad weather, when there was some school activity in the evening and the time when Uncle Ben broke his leg getting up wood and when their little brother, Donald, was sick with pneumonia.  He died (March 24, 1929), was buried on a Sunday, which saddened us all.  On March 11, 1932, our little brother, Arthur, died of pneumonia which was also heartbreaking. (Read more about Arthur here.)

We loved to go out in the country and stay at our cousin’s too.  They all helped milk their cows, and we would go with them to bring the cows from the timber.  Then we’d watch them milk and run the milk through the separator.  In the spring, we would hike to a hill that was covered with bluebells.  We called it Bluebell Hill.  It was probably an Indian burial mound.  In winter we went to the creek and tried to ice skate. 

Once we cleared the kitchen, put corn meal on the floor.  My cousin Delores could play the harmonica and she sat on the stove and played while we danced.  There was a deep place in the creek fed by a spring which we called Sophia’s Hole.  We used to go there and play in the water.  My uncle Ben had a sugar camp in the timber, and in the spring collected sugar water.  Aunt Teresa would make maple sugar candy in a pan with molds which all had different designs on the bottom.  My Aunt Teresa was an excellent seamstress and used to make dresses for us.

Grandpa Wellman’s place

Another place we liked to visit was Grandpa Wellman’s.  He lived with Uncle Al and Uncle Tony on what they called the Middendorf Place.  There were three rooms downstairs plus a pantry – a long kitchen, living room and Grandpa’s bedroom.  He had a corn shuck mattress, always kept the eggs in his bedroom – baskets and crates.  Every fall they changed the corn shucks in the mattress.  I think he had a feather bed on top of that.  There were two bedrooms upstairs for my uncles.  They had a stuffed fox which was in the closet.  I remember being a little afraid of that. 

In the living room, they had a couch, a phonograph, a table, family pictures on the wall, a picture album, and a stereoscope I think it was called.  Through this you viewed pictures in 3 dimensions.  Sometimes Grandpa would come with the team to get us.  Sometimes Uncle Tony or Uncle Al would come with the Chevy – on rare occasions we walked through the timber.  My mother helped them with laundry, at butchering time, with baking, and cooking, especially when my Dad was gone to Dakota threshing.

They had a summer kitchen with a small closet-like corner for smoking meat.  They also had a lawn swing which we loved.  However, it was easy to get your fingers pinched in it.  They had a Royal Ann white cherry tree.  At one time they kept some coons for pets in a large chicken wire enclosure.  They had hogs, cows, chickens, horses and sheep.  They had a milk house with a cream separator.  There was a big slop barrel out there for skim milk and table scraps.  Their churn was shaped like a big barrel with a lid that clamped on.  You sat in a chair and turned the handle until the butter formed.  Then it had to be worked with a butter paddle and salted.  Extra butter and eggs were sold at the grocery store in exchange for staples.