The Holland Press

Aunt Myrtle married the handsome, dashing Dan Ricketts in a lovely parlor ceremony in my grandparents' home. Grace and I (about five and six or so) had been chosen as flower girls. We wore white, full skirted gowns with huge puffed sleeves, white long stockings and "once in a lifetime" white babydoll slippers! We had flowers in our hair and carried beribboned baskets of rose petals. Mama said to Aunt Ora, who was directing proceedings, to put "a little rouge on Geneva, she is so pale". Grace and I walked daintily (I hope!) down the stairway, preceding the bride, and when we reached the bottom of the staircase, we dropped rose petals here and there to the smiles and nods of our huge family and friends gathering. How important, beloved and precious we felt! We tried to steal the show, of course, but the bride's appearance on the staircase, on the arm of our grandfather, took all attention away from us. After the ceremony, there were long tables loaded with cakes, punch, lemonade, and dainty sandwiches without crusts. It was the first time I had ever seen sandwiches without crusts and I thought it was the height of fashion.

The Gentry City Band was there to play and Papa had long been a member of the band, and of course they wanted to play for this function. I don't remember that there was any dancing at this wedding and I suppose not, for our church did not believe much in dancing. But it was a grand affair and a high point of Gentry society at that time. Especially so because Grandfather Russell John Maxson was the mayor of the city at that time.

Just a week before that, I overheard the grownups laughing as Dan Ricketts related to the group (Papa wasn't present) that when he had asked Grandpa Maxson for Aunt Myrtle's "hand" in marriage, Grandpa had replied: "No, Myrtle is too young. You can have Ora if you want.”

Later that summer, in a family gathering after church one Sabbath, Grace and I sat in a lawn swing with Aunt Ora and Aunt Myrtle and Aunt Ethel, and they taught me a little poem to say. It went like this:

I love my papa, that I do;

My mamma says she loves him, too.

They both love me, this I know,

or in a thousand ways, their love they show;

But papa says he fears some day

with some mean scamp I'll run away."

Then they sent me in to say it to the grownups, all the while they giggled and laughed. But I confused "scamp” with "tramp" in my mind and could never figure out why I would ever run away with a "tramp", many of whom had come by for a handout.

Our social life, in those days, was mostly with our relatives, and church friends. I went into Carpenter's store one day to use the phone to ask Imma if I could go home after school with Myrtle Bruce, and come back to church that night with them, to the "Good Will Society Social". Roy Carpenter laughed, overhearing my conversation, and said, “We all need good will." Our family bought many a dollars worth of groceries at the Carpenter Brothers Grocery. There were Roy and Ray, and a younger brother Ross. Roy was married to a Carl, another of the leading families of Gentry, and they lived in a lovely brick home just west of ours. Evans’ fancy home right on the corner. Next to the Carpenters was Taliman's, the newspaper editor's family, and across the avenue, the Baptist Church, and a block south, the Public School that we all attended.

Several times, while visiting Grandparents Maxson's, when Russell was just a toddler (and Grace and I not much older), we got Russell in the next room from where the grownups were, and coached him, saying: “Now, Russell, just say I want some bread and butter". We'd make him say it a couple of times, then push him toward the door, and he'd go to Grandma and say, "Now Russell just says I want some bread and butter.” Of course she would laugh, and lead him toward the kitchen and we'd follow, and we'd all get some bread and butter.

Grandma Maxson always had good homemade bread and butter. When I was older and baking for my family, I asked her why hers was so much better than mine. She answered, "Practice, I suspect. And I add water for the liquid, and I beat the batter for at least five minutes before I add the rest of the flour — then, too, I knead it a lot." My bread did get better with the passing of the years.

I think Mama, in her lifetime, must have baked several million cookies, as well as good bread. She always had cookies and milk for her grandchildren when they came. I know she made them by the dozen when her own children were growing up.

There was always a crock full of molasses cookies in the pantry which we could eat at any time, by the handful. She also kept a cookie jar of sugar cookies on a high shelf in the closet under the stairway. Now, on the floor of that same closet was kept sorghum molasses. Perhaps a barrel or keg or two and two or three 50-pound lard stands full of sorghum. Dad at that time, ran a sorghum mill where everybody for miles around would come to bring their sugar cane to be made into sorghum molasses, and most often he would take sorghum for pay, money being scarce at times.

Since there was always an abundance of molasses for cooking, making ginger bread, cookies, and to use for syrup on hot biscuits and hotcakes, there was always sorghum on the floor of that stairwell closet. (There was a beautiful dark blue and gold syrup pitcher always on the table at breakfast.) One day the folks all left for town, leaving Grace and I to play with our dolls in the shady front yard. Our cousin, Charlie, about sixteen, was nearby in the garden, doing some work for mother. The two little girls decided to have a tea party, and since there was no one to say no, we thought, why not get some of the special sugar cookies that Mama kept for special treats, company or school lunch. So Geneva (of course) was sent to get a few cookies out of the stairwell closet. Whether the lid was not on tight, on the barrel of sorghum setting on the closet floor, or whether I was just heavy enough to smash down into the Gooey Liquid, I’ll never know, but while I was reaching for the sugar cookies, standing atop the molasses barrel, the lid suddenly gave way, down I plunged into the molasses, stuck firmly, and could not extricate myself.

I screamed for Grace who came running, but since she was even smaller than I, she could not tug hard enough to get me out. Soon she ran out to the garden for cousin Charlie. After he laughed awhile and I cried at the top of my lungs, he went out, filled a tub with water, placed it next to the molasses barrel and with the three of us struggling, managed to extricate me from the mess. I thought for sure I would be killed when they all returned and found what I'd done, but for some reason, Charlie never told on me, nor did Grace, and certainly I didn't. And for some reason none of the three of us ate any molasses either in cookies, gingerbread or syrup for a long time after that.

Late every summer, before the start of school, Mama would have Molly, her buggy horse, hitched up, and she would go to Siloam Springs for the day — to shop. Sometimes she would allow Ruth to go with her, or she would take Aunt Lizzie. She would bring back packages of goodies — always a treat of candy, little bakery cakes or pretzels to eat, but also always, the school supplies--pieces of yard goods for a new dress apiece and shirts for the little boys who were in school at the time, and tablets and pencils. I loved the pencils of all colors. After everything was unpacked and put away, she would put the school supplies on the table, clear the room of children, she would ask us to come into the room, one at a time, to choose which color pencil, or tablet, we would like. After the choosing was over, she would have us go out again and when we returned, our possessions would be in separate groups, and we would usually always get the ones we had chosen.

I loved the pencils and the fat tablets and I dreamed of the fine, inspirational things I would write upon the pages of the tablet with the beautiful pencils. One year, Papa went to Siloam with Mama to shop, and was there when the choosing and dividing up was occurring. But he gave the occasion his own special twist.

He cut each pencil in half, and told Mama to save the other half until we had used up the first half! To say I was angry, ashamed and embarrassed to bring a half-pencil to school was putting it mildly! (To this day, I dislike using short, stubby pencils!)

The fabrics she purchased on this trip for our school clothing were always beautiful to me. She had a special way of choosing just what we would like. Grace and I, being about the same size, she always bought a length of dress fabric for me in blue and the same pattern in pink or rose, for Grace. For Ruth, she always got something just a little different. Ruth, being older, did not especially like to be identified with the two younger girls, one of whom was always getting into some kind of mischief or other. Also then, Mama always got the three of we girls one good dress fabric and sewed up "best" dresses for us, for wearing on Sabbath, and for parties and such.

Here, I'll tell one small story, mystery at that, about the "almost alike" dresses belonging to Grace and me. One Friday afternoon, _ after the wash was on the line, Papa took us down to the creek for a swim and a picnic. In the Friday wash was a blue dress for me and a pink dress for Grace. Mama hung them side by side to dry, then hurried inside to prepare the picnic supper. We went to the creek, had our swim and picnic as usual, returned with our singing and good spirits as usual.

When we went to take the wash in from the line before dark, Grace's pink dress was missing. That's all that was lost, Grace's lovely little pink dress. My blue one was hanging undisturbed, clothespins in place, dry and ready to be ironed and worn to Sabbath School and Church the next day. But where was Grace's pink dress? We never solved the mystery, nor did we ever see Grace's pink dress again.

Aunt Ora, Dad's sister, was quite a dramatic artist. She first "took elocution lessons", then became an "elocution" teacher. She was in several dramatic presentations in Gentry, posturing and posing in quite a grand manner, I thought, and I determined at that time to become an actress, perhaps as great an actress as Sarah Bernhardt. But first, I must take "elocution” and practice a lot.

I had already been coached to learn little verses and to recite them to admiring gatherings of family and friends. I loved to be very dramatic as I said or did ordinary things for awhile, sometimes surprising family and teachers with my dramatic statements and gestures. I was in a special fan drill when I was in second grade, and, although dressed exactly as the others, and was drilled to move my fan exactly like the others, I tried throughout the evening to stand out just a little bit from the others by special curtsies and bows, and flutteriness of the fan I carried, twirled and swept about.

Aunt Ora had promised to give me "elocution" lessons and teach me all she knew, but then she went to Battle Creek, Michigan, and took training to become an RN. She worked at that until she married a widower named George Lowell who was a realtor and lived in Gravette, Arkansas with two daughters, one of whom was named Dorothy. I have forgotten the name of the other daughter.

Papa played the slide trombone in the Gentry Band. They had uniforms and were often asked to play for public gatherings. When I was about five years of age, a carnival came to town and set up a merry-go-round (carousel) behind the auditorium, and the band played all evening. Dad came by where Mama and we children were and said the man who ran the merry-go-round had told the band members that their children could ride the merry-go-round, free, for a couple of times. Of course, I was on in a flash, and I rode time after time. When the ticket taker came around I'd say, "My papa plays in the band!" Afterward I heard Papa tell Mama he had to pay for all of my extra rides, but he didn't scold. Perhaps he could see how happy it made me.