''My story would
not be complete without a segment devoted to the Williams. Although many of my childhood memories center
around the Fergusons, I do
recall the wonderful times spent with Mom's family on the old farm a few miles
west of
Aunt Elma's pleasantly rounded body
fulfilled the myth that fat people were jolly and loving...for that she
was! When she was a teen-ager she came
for visits to our house, often bringing Dale and Arlene with her. She would pile in bed with the four of us
captivating us with her most wonderful bed-time stories. She loved telling us spooky ones and we'd be
so frightened we'd pull the covers over our heads...and then the whole bed
began to dance about from her laughter.
Her words transported us from the plains of
''Wynken, Blynken and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe.
Sailed on a river of crystal light,
Into a sea of dew.
Wynken and Blyken were two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one's trundle-bed.''
Glen, who we called ''Uncle Red'' because like my Mom and Aunt Arlene was a carrot-top, was a very favorite. He was kind and gentle and loving, always giving warm hugs and kisses and making us feel very special. We didn't see him and Aunt Vivian and their three children, Beverly Ann, Rob Roy and Jeannie often, but when we did it was a happy time for all.
Uncle Lee, the oldest of the seven, was what one referred to as the ''black sheep'' of the family. He succumbed to alcohol at an early age and was an alcoholic for as long as I can remember him. Though the results ultimately took his life, he was always a good provider for his various wives and children. He was fun to be with whether drunk or sober, and we looked forward to him infrequent visits.
I don't remember
much of Uncle Loren. He was the youngest
of the first five and was a young man working away from home when I was a small
child. He married one of the school
teachers who boarded with Grandma and by the time they began their family of
three daughters I had moved from
Mom's youngest brother and sister, Dale and Arlene, came along later in the marriage and were the same age as my brother Billy and me. They seemed more like cousins rather than our aunt and uncle. Most of my memories of the farm include the four of us as we were bosom buddies in those days of our childhood.
Bert, my grand dad, was a knarly old cuss. He took great delight in teasing us or the animals or the neighbors or his wife (grandma). We four children however, would devise ways of getting even. Once when we found his chew stashed away in the barn, we carefully wrapped it around a piece of dried chicken manure. We hung around the barn for what seemed like hours until he came in and popped that wad of soggy tobacco in his mouth. It was difficult to keep quiet and control our mirth as he began to chew and swear and spit. Grand dad liked to whittle and would sit by the hour in a chair leaned back on the shady side of the house. He made wonderful whistles from willow branches for us. He carved beautiful wooden chains from one long board. It was magical how he could make each link interlock with the adjoining one without a break. He taught us mumbly-peg, a game of skill using a pocket knife. His favorite pastime was listening to the boxing matches broadcast on radio, especially when a championship was at stake. Since most of the time his radio did not pick up the sound waves he'd make a trip into Ansley and sit in front of Shada's Grocery Store sharing a bench with several other old cronies as they listened to the fights on a more powerful radio. Grand dad had the ''wanderlust'' as Grandma described his sudden disappearances. He would be gone for several weeks or even months traveling about the country, visiting old haunts, and looking for long-lost relatives. He must have hitch-hiked or caught a freight as he left the car for Grandma's use. To my knowledge he would never call nor write as to his where-abouts and as suddenly as he left he would return to pick up life where he'd left it.
Grandma was hard working and provided the
steadiest income for the family. She
raised chickens and sold the eggs as well as milk and cream from the cows they
milked. I remember
her pet chicken ''Bobby,'' so named because of her bobbed off tail. Either from birth or by accident she lost her
tail when she was a chick. I always
imagined the sky fell on it. Grandma
kept her in a warm box behind the old wood range. When Bobby grew into a hen she would scratch
at the screen door wanting to come in the house. Much to everyone's amazement she would go to
the back room where the crates of eggs were kept and hop up on a crate and
deposit her egg there with all the rest...true story! In some of the small towns where they later
live Grandma was a telephone operator with the switch board set up in their
house. She often went the extra mile
especially during World War II when a service man called home. She sent Arlene running to fetch the parents
who had no phone to come quickly as a call was waiting from their loved
one. She also provided room and board
for the school teacher which brought in a little extra money during those
frugal times. She had big vegetable
gardens and sold the produce as well as churning butter for people who lived in
town. She had a sharp tongue and little
patience with the antics of the two children who came along late in her
life. She was a beautiful spirited lady
with black snappy eyes. She loved to go
dancing. Looking back at her life one
has to admire her for putting up with the likes of Grand dad.
Grand dad's
mother, Great Grandma Zarr visited occasionally
bringing most of her belongings in an old dilapidated trunk. I don't remember any of her husbands, 
though I know there were several. It is told that she made her last husband
change his name to hers. She feigned deafness but we children didn't
believe it and we dreamed up a way of testing it out. We stood behind her rocking chair and whispered,
''Grandma Zarr's a mean ole witch, Grandma Zarr's a mean ole witch!''
Suddenly her cane came whooshing around missing our heads by mere
inches. At least we proved to ourselves
she could hear. When she married her
second husband she told her sons, Frank who was 12 and Bert who was 8, they had
to leave home. They left never to return to live with her again. Frank worked at any job available for food
and housing for he and my grandfather.
Knowing her, one has to surmise that some of Grandad's
orneriness was inherited.
I believe Dale
also inherited some of the same. He was
the ring-leader of us four and could dream up the most interesting things to
do, some of which caused us great pain and distress. With his leadership, we were never bored nor
lacked for something interesting to do.
An example was the time the four of us slept all night on the fold-out
couch in the living room. He found a
tiny hole in the worn leather back and pulled a small wad of cotton out through
the hole. He started tossing it in the
air and soon we each had a bit of cotton and the hole grew large enough to
stick in our fists to extract hands full of cotton. Oh what fun we had jumping on the bed with a
million cotton balls flying through the air like a great
Another time we decided to hatch some chickens in the six round seed containers on the corn planter. We began by placing a layer of clean straw in the bottom of each and then we selected about 4 eggs for each box. We had fun catching six of the old Rhode Island Red hens. When we put them on the eggs, the hens were a bit large and we'd sorta stuff them in. They squawked with dismay and wiggled out. At last Dale came to the conclusion that if we mashed them in far enough we could close the lids and keep the hens on the nest until the baby chicks hatched. As we knew this would take several weeks we decided to make some peanut butter and banana sandwiches and spend the remainder of the day on our raft at the ole smelly pond in the cow pasture. The hens were soon forgotten as we floated and ate and swatted mosquitoes and shooed the flies from our sandwiches, and threw sticks out into the water for old King to fetch, laughing with glee when he'd shake the smelly green slime from the pond all over us. Several weeks later the terrible rancid smell of rotting flesh floated about the farm. Grand dad and Grandma searched in vain for the source, but to no avail. It was only the next spring as Grand dad prepared to plant corn that the mystery was solved. Again we were doomed to pain and distress as we all ''fessed up'' as perpetrators of the crime.
Many memories crowd my mind and I'm sure that Dale, Arlene and Billy could add their own versions of visits to the farm and the escapades that only four lively and inquisitive children could dream up and endure. Poor as we were, life was full of riches in those years following the Great Depression, a life that lives on in precious memories of a time long ago and far away.''
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