The Holland Press

Our home, when I first became aware of it, seemed always a happy home; if I had a dime for every time I ran up the stairs singing, (at least belting out the words) at the top of my voice, I'd have a tidy sum. As we came into our house, entering the front door, we were in the front hall; on the left was the door to the parlor; and just beyond that, the stairway. On the right was the door to the "cry" room, as Grace and I called it, for it was the room where Mama sent us when we were crying unnecessarily and making nuisances of ourselves. It was at various times an extra bedroom or used for the incubator, which hatched out 350 baby chicks. Those eggs were carefully tended and kept at the right temperature. Mother turned each one each morning and before bedtime. After the three weeks and the baby chicks hatched out, they were often kept in that room on the floor in brooders until Papa could prepare a warm place in the woodshed for the brooders and chicks to be moved outside.

We had chickens to fry in plenty, to roast later, and many of them to keep for layers. Mama sometimes kept 300 laying hens. Dad built six henhouses in the orchard, with trap nests so they could tell which hens were the best layers. The water was piped down there and a small room was built for the 100 pound sacks of feed. At one time when Mama was in the chicken business, Papa had five milk cows, and Mama kept track of expenses; she said the hens fed themselves, the family, and the five milk cows. There was a buyer from Tulsa who came to the house once a week and collected and paid for the eggs that had been packed in cases or crates holding twelve dozen each.

But I started out to tell about our home! Beyond that door on the right was the hallway the led to the kitchen. Just before you reached the kitchen was the door on the left to the closet under the stairway--(that closet that held the sorghum molasses kegs!) Just inside the kitchen was the corner shelves large enough for a six-year old girl to climb to the top shelf, near the ceiling, and hide after she had taken a sheet out to the front gate to scare cousin Russ as he came home one night after dark. Instead of a joke on him, it spooked his horses, making them run almost down to the creek, and it scared me nearly to death.

I was as quiet as a mouse, hiding up there when he finally got the horses quiet and into the stable. He came in to eat and fuss about the near accident, and saying some stupid kids should have their hides tanned. Finally, after he'd gone to bed, I climbed down and told Mama I was sorry. (I was glad Dad had gone to some meeting uptown!)

Opposite the door into the kitchen was the cookstove. It was a big, comfortable stove with a reservoir to keep an extra supply of hot water. The firebox had a door opening on the side, as well as two stove lids on top, and four other stove lids that could be removed and a kettle or pot set directly over the flames. Up above were two warming ovens, which were supposed to keep food hot until ready to serve, and probably would, but they certainly dried out biscuits and made them hard as rocks, if left in the warming oven too long.

It seemed that Papa always had the Sabbath Recorder by his plate, and we would sit and wait for breakfast until he had looked up the daily reading, read it to us slowly and thoughtfully, then he made the comments, and asked for the same from us, and then he said the morning prayer. When finally we were ready to eat, the oatmeal was cold and the biscuits hard. That was good spiritual discipline.

In the kitchen there was also a table, similar to the one in the dining room, which we often used for breakfast. After supper in the dining room just south of the kitchen, the table was cleared and we did our homework, before bedtime. Just before we went upstairs to bed, we had more Bible study and prayer, and we called this the Family Altar.

The dining room in the southwest corner of the house was the most lived-in room. Besides the long table, there was a secretary that held some books, writing materials, and a secret drawer that Mama kept coins in. For years I didn't even know it was there. Next to the secretary was a magazine rack Dad had built and attached to the wall. It was somewhat like a ladder and many times I climbed up that far enough that I could reach the hands of the huge old clock that hung on the wall over the dining table. I often listened to the ticking of the clock as Papa paused sometimes in our mornings, or evening prayers. On the opposite side of the dining room, a gigantic map of the United States was fixed upon the wall. There is where we learned where the states were placed and other things about this great country. We often traveled “in our mind's eye" as Dad was fond of saying, to different parts of the United States, and we discussed what each part was like.

Under the map was a lounge, the kind without pillows, sides, or back, but with an elevated end upon which one could rest his head without use of pillows. I seem to remember it was of some sort of smooth leather, and brown in color. One of the men Dad had hired had an epileptic seizure there one night. Mother sent us to bed when this happened and Dad called the doctor.

In winter the big wood heater stood in the corner, next to the parlor. Having no electricity in the early years, we used kerosene lamps for lighting..."coal oil lamps" we called them. Later, we got aladdin lamps and I thought that lamp, which cast out so much fine, bright light was the wonder of all wonders. However, I shall never forget how Mama looked, like a goddess, carrying the kerosene lamp up the stairway to light our way up to bed, how the shadows moved and shifted all around us and, walking behind her I noticed how the light silhouetted Mama's proud head with hair piled high on top and her fine features softly touched by the yellow light.

I have mentioned earlier how the family would gather in the parlor around the organ and sing hymns and have evening devotional. The organ was of some sort of dark wood, intricately carved and trimmed, with two round "arms" that held out a small round platform on which the lamps could be set, so that Mama could see the music. Mama had to "pump" (we called it!) or work the pedals at her feet and I loved to watch her hands lightly touch the keys to bring out the music. I have already mentioned the hymns we sang, and the voices of our family. Later, when the boys, Fitch, Russell and Paul were older, they played along on their musical instruments, filling the parlor, the whole house, with a mighty sound.

There were small tables, or "stands", as we called them, about the parlor, one table on which stood a huge fern near the window with its white lace curtains. There were other chairs, the one I remember most was the "morris" chair, which, when you pressed a button on its arm, it laid you back into a comfortable resting position.

In recalling the two uncles of Grandmother Maxson who lived with us at different times I am having difficulty. I must have been four years old, so I don't remember clearly, except for one vivid incident! One of the uncles, (Uncle Tom Hess), told the future by feeling the head bumps. He described himself as a phrenologist. He did Ruth's and Grace's readings by having them sit on a stool at his feet as he felt the bumps on their heads. He told Grace she would live to be one hundred years old, and a lot of other nice things.

I can't remember what he told Ruth. When Grace got up, I popped down onto the stool, but he refused to “read me", said he was too tired and he'd do it some other day. That other day never came.

I suspect he just ran out of something different to say. Uncle Tom stayed around awhile, and not long after he left, his brother John came to visit. Uncle John paid Mama some for groceries, and Papa allowed him to build a cute little one-room house for himself down in the edge of the woods, not far from the brick kiln. He had a nice horse and buggy, and one afternoon, took all three of us girls for a buggy ride. Ruth and Grace sat on the seat, one on each side of him, and I sat on the floor. I'll never forget the shock and repugnance I felt, looking at him as he suddenly opened his trousers and exposed himself to we girls! I looked away and heard Ruth say, "we want to go home." I have forgotten exactly what happened next, but obviously, Ruth went straightway and told Mama, and we never saw the uncle again. The next day, he was gone from his little "dollhouse" in the woods, bag and baggage, little buggy, horse and all! I imagine Papa dispatched him speedily with no mincing of words!

Then I was about nine years old, and in the fourth grade, Papa had the brick kiln operating. It was located down in the pasture, west of the apple orchard. There were two square mills, or mixers of the clay from which the bricks were made. As it was mixed with the water which they got from five ponds they had made, it was pushed out by paddles into molds--(trays with brick-size pans), four at once; then these were carried into the level brickyard to dry in the sun. After they were solid (several days later) they were picked up and carried into the huge, round kiln, stacked just so-so, and fires were maintained in the fireplaces that were built around the outside until the bricks were very hard and glazed. They were called fire bricks. Dad operated this kiln for about three years, in the summers. I don't really know why he quit making bricks, but suspect it was because he ran out of suitable clay in that location.

The ponds were there for years, and we loved to "sail" on them in a big wooden box. They were not deep, the box was stationary on the bottom of the pond, but when the breeze rippled the water past the box, it appeared as if one was moving across the water, and many summer afternoons I sailed away to faraway places with strange sounding names, all alone in a lovely dream.

Dad was known all over that part of the country as a skilled house-mover (also!) He had many trades and skills, and used to say he was "jack of all trades, master of none" so he took a lot of house-moving jobs from other towns. He would go down to Westville (Oklahoma), or up as far as Gravette, on the train, look the job over, name his price and make an agreement. Nearly always, he would take two or three of we children along. How we loved that ride on the train! Then, if he got the job, he would take his teams, wagon, and all his equipment and drive down Monday, usually coming back on the train on a Friday night to go to church on Sabbath Day and be at home over Sunday.

When Mama was home alone with we children she always locked the doors at night. When Dad was home, they were never locked. One night when Dad was away on a housemoving job, about midnight, Mama heard the front door open very quietly, and she heard someone coming stealthily up the stairway. She lay there, terrified, wondering if she had forgotten to lock the door, wondering, Dear God, what next?

“Would she and the children be murdered in their beds? She lay quietly, scarcely daring to breathe, wondering what to do? As she listened, she heard the intruder turn at the head of the stairs and go into the little boys' bedroom. Russell and Fitch were sleeping in there. Paul, her baby at the time, was sleeping in his crib in her room. She waited a second, everything was still quiet, but knowing she could put it off no longer, frightened or not, she got up, took up the lamp and walked into the boys' room. There was Dad, just getting into bed with the boys - he had gone in there, rather than disturb her sleep, thinking we would all be surprised by his presence in the morning.

That was a terrible scare he gave Mama that night, but nothing to compare with the one that he gave both Mama and me later! The summer after Carl was born, I was twelve years old and since I was "so good with babies” Mama had made me fulltime nursemaid for Carl, I liked anything better than doing dishes, making beds, etc! One day after lunch, when Dad was out of town on job, Mama decided to go to town and told me if I'd put a clean dress on the baby and put my shoes on, she would take Carl and me along, Ruth and Grace were to look after the other children, and they were upstairs trying to make Russell, Fitch and Paul take naps. (Not that they were ever very successful at this.) I rushed to get the baby ready and after he was ready, he was sleepy so I put him on the cot in the shade in the front yard near the house to sleep while I went in to get my shoes. Mama came with the horse hitched to the buggy and said, "Come, bring the baby and we'll go." I ran out front to get him, and there was no baby! Mama was frantic, running here and there looking for her baby! "Geneva, what has happened to the baby?" she kept crying, "Geneva, were there any dogs around??" I was dying, too, frantic, looking into every bush and shrub. I was sure someone had kidnapped our precious baby, some passing gypsies, perhaps, I had heard of such things. Just then, Dad walked around the corner of the house where he had been hiding, with the baby in his arms. Dad had thought he would teach me a lesson not to go away and leave the baby untended!

We all loved books, and Mama read aloud to us at night; how we loved that, even if we did have to wait until the next night to see what happened in the story. Once, when I was being more than usual bothersome, I suppose, asking too many questions while Mama was busy, she sent me up to her room, telling me to open the top of her big greenish-gray trunk to get the little book that she had kept from her childhood, and she told me to read it. I loved getting into her trunk, it gave me a chance to rummage, see what treasures I could find. The little book was there. The title was “Curious Jane". It was about a little girl who was curious about what was down the road and went to see, thereby becoming lost and getting into all kinds of trouble. I thought at the time that I had better take a lesson and not ever be so curious, but I soon forgot about the warning and became again my old, curious self.

Another time when I was cranky and out of sorts, she sent me out to look at her pansy bed. Afterwards, she said: "See all those little shining faces, and think how cross your face looks." And she recited to me the old nursery rhyme, Cross patch, draw the latch, sit by the fire and spin; take your cup and drink it up, call the neighbors in.

Sometimes when we were too noisy going to bed, or rowdy, or after reading us a bedtime story, she would say: "Mum mum, for a plum, P., P., for a pear; first one that speaks out loud will get a boxed ear!" Then, putting her finger to her lips, she would tiptoe out of the room and we'd go to sleep.

When Paul was a baby, Mama would rock him to sleep, singing "My kitty has gone from her basket". It is sung to the tune of My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean. The lullaby went like

"My kitty has gone from her basket, my kitty has gone up a tree, Oh, who will go up in the branches and bring back my kitty to me?”

Chorus:

Bring back, bring back, bring back my kitty to me, to me, Bring back, bring back, oh, bring back my kitty to me.

The dog that lives down by the river, Will come with his naughty old bark, And frighten my kitty so dreadfully She won't come back until dark.

Then the chorus again, and

They say that when people are frightened

Their hair will turn perfectly white,

If that is the case with my kitty,

She will be white by tonight.

After three verses with chorus every time, she would keep singing, sort of like this: "Geneva, our baby is asleep, if you will hand me his blanket, we'll put it around him nice and warm and cozy, and put him in his little bed. . . (so as not to disturb the rhythm and drowsiness of the baby, I think). Then we'd put him in his bed and he would stay asleep. (Usually!)