Saturday, May 26, 2007

A CORRECTION IS NEEDED HERE

AS YOU KNOW OR NOTICED THERE WAS NO PLACE FOR A COMMENT. MAYBE I CAN PROVIDE A PLACE HERE FOR ANY COMMENTS. MIZ MICKS WELL GUESS THERE NO FIGURING THIS ONE OUT. THE REASONS I LOVED MOM WON'T HAVE COMMENTS , SO YOU ALL PLEASE WRITE TO ME AT MY E-MAIL THANKS. MIZ MICKS P.S. JC, YOU DID FINE

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Mom, One of the Reasons I Loved Her...

I should say, one of many reasons. When mom and dad separated, we were in a tight spot. We didn't have a place to go or to live. Mom had James, Buddy and me to make a living for. Dad took Eva and Joan. It was decided that we would go to Modesto, so this is where we wound up.

Mom found a small one room cabin out on Crowslanding Road. At that time it was called Pates Store, on the corner of Crowslanding and Hatch Roads. Even late at night the music and noise was very loud, but we were so glad to have a place to stay that it didn't bother us much.
Mother found a job in the potato dehydrater. Boy, it sure did stink! They put her to lifting and cleaning slats or flats. Hard work for a man much less a woman. It didn't pay much, either. She started bringing home the slats that the dehydrater didn't want and soon had quite a few.

After a while Mom went to work in the cannery. It was hard work but not nearly as hard as the dehydrater had been.

I can't really remember Buddy being there most of the time but he must have been because our parents decided Bud needed to help Mom make some money when he wasn't going to school, doing yard work and so on. I don't remember it working out that way though.

I had one school dress with a patch on it and some of the kids made fun of me at school. I was supposed to ride the school bus home but I didn't know which one, so I walked each day. I sure was tired. Mom couldn't do any thing about that, but if she could have, she sure would have!

At that time I had developed the cigarette habit smoking grape vines with Buddy. Of course, I couldn't inhale because it burned my throat too badly. I started smoking Chesterfields but Mother made me quit them. She said I could only smoke one of the new brands that had a filter so I started smoking Viceroys. I had one cigarette(Viceroy) a day but, by the time I got home, I was too tired to smoke my cigarette. (well, almost) 'chuckle'

One day Mom had to go to the doctor and later she told me that Dr. Czatt was talking about a lot he knew about near the airport. It had been sold to MR and Mrs Ray by Mr and Mrs Benson and they wanted to sell it so mom said she would buy it. They went down town and fixed up the contract and mom paid $10.00 down and $5.00 a month until the sum of $400.00 dollars was paid off.


The place had a one room structure on it which was sturdy, so mom moved us over there.

It wasn't insulated so mom took card board boxes and lined the whole thing. Then it was snug and warm. This trailer wasn't there until much later (my husband is standing at the trailer door). See that old washing machine? It had no wringer but the washer worked good. I did the washing while mom worked. The wringing by hand was hard. Mom finally found an old wringer and put it on the machine and it worked fine.

Mom got jobs easily but had siezures and when she did have one, she usually got laid off. Then she got a job at tri-valley which lasted until her retirement. She got a medicine called Dilantin,from a doctor and it controlled the siezures. We didn't know that was possible; Dad thought there was no help for it. Thank the Lord that he was wrong.

Mom, also, worked at Hedley Hospital. It was a hospital for mentally retarded people when she first started working there. Later, after the World War II started, it changed to an Army hospital.mom worked for a while helping feed the soldiers,

The thing James remembers most was Mother bringing home cooked turkey from the Hospital kitchen. they meant to throw it away the day after it was cooked. Sometimes that turkey was the only meat we would have all week. It sure was good!

We met the other half of our family when we went to Planada. Our family knew each other years ago but I only remember seeing them at Planada. Well, Mom and Pop met again at California Lands and the next time I remember seeing them, we were in our own house. Pop had five children and Mom had three with her. WEll, the oldest one was named James so we said Big James and Little James. Next was Bobby. He was younger than me and we teased each other about that for years. Then there was Betty Jo. We girls had fun trying to find the boys. They hid from us and fussed because we followed them and eventually found them. They never dreamed that we wouldn't have followed them if they hadn't cared. We girls thought it was so funny!

The last two were Floyd and Joyce. We left those two and Joan out because we thought they were to young to play with us. Kids are so mean sometimes or I should say thoughtless. This was in planada. We didn't play when every one lived there in the little house. I guess we were to old by then.



Mother had a large space at one end of the lot and she spaded that part of the lot up and we had a big garden. It was the prettiest one in that part of town! One reason it was so pretty is because we had built a picket fence around the yard and Mom planted Virginia Climber and Kentucky Wonder green beans at the bottom of the fence and the runners and vines climbed the front garden part of the fence.

We had a grapefruit tree that Aunt Lola (Mom's sister) gave her. She was really proud of that tree from texas. If it got a little chilly, out would come the oldest worn out quilt to wrap the tree up with. Years later, the tree was still thriving. maybe I'll stop here and start another part.I'll call this Part 1 and start on part 2 soon. Miz Micks

See Ya...