At about 7:08 in the video, there’s a beautiful view of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, with the usual view of Yellowstone Falls. Our parents drove the family there in the old car. It was a trip of over … Continue reading
Think back, if you’re old enough to, to June, 1962 – or visit that time in memory with me. My thoughts return to my high school graduation, one month earlier. Now, on some day in June, we are loading the very … Continue reading
“Sharon, we’ll be using the sterling…..”…was the instruction I would hear on a Saturday in 1954 as I got ready to set the dining room table for the dinner guests due to arrive on Sunday after church. Many of … Continue reading
1951 was a good year. Dad sold 3,686 bushels of our wheat to the local elevator – 3,000 from the 1950 crop and the remainder a portion of the 1951 crop. He didn’t plat out the wheat acreage in his … Continue reading
These colors still fill that tapestry. Sunsets might have been pale white or pink — or blazing red, with the remainders of thunderheads stacked sky high, a magnet for the heart and the eyes that had us standing out in … Continue reading
My father bought a good camera for taking slides in the early 1950s. He had an eye for nature photography and for everyday things. Unlike today’s clickety-clicking habits with our digital cameras, he made every shot count because it was … Continue reading
Canned produce retrieved from basement cupboards in November of 1952 or February of 1954 was never gobbled. It was quietly dished up with a great dollop of gratitude and enjoyed in a way that acknowledged the heat of the summer … Continue reading
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…and sometimes that whispered challenge was all it took. The worst episodes of helpless and badly-timed snickering in our 1950s farm home occurred around the breakfast table when Dad was reading the daily devotional sheet that he took each morning … Continue reading
This gallery contains 11 photos.
Somehow it seemed that the first day of school was always a perfectly sunshiny day that still had the smell of wheat chaff in the air. The hollyhocks on the east side of the house were so tall by this … Continue reading
This gallery contains 14 photos.
Mom and I were at the regular Ladies Aid meeting at a neighboring farm where they had a phone. I was playing quietly with my friends and then the phone call drew a line through the middle of the afternoon. … Continue reading
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Around 1951, the farmers’ kitchens which had been producing the sweetest table-ready butter this side of heaven for a couple of hundred years and the farmers’ wives who were in charge of those kitchens were somehow persuaded that “there is … Continue reading
This gallery contains 4 photos.
There were seven of us siblings stretched out over 17 years: the 3 oldest (two brothers and a sister) sort of clustered at the very beginning; a brother and sister in the middle; and then, 7 years later, my brother … Continue reading
This gallery contains 13 photos.
I had equal amounts of farm toys and little girl toys and equal interest in those two areas of play. The dolls I got for Christmas on two or three occasions were amazing wonders to my eyes and so very … Continue reading
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Children’s and adults’ birthday celebrations in the 1950s were always full-blown family events and almost identical in their content for child and adult. There might be five or twenty-five guests. There were no presents, although there were cards. A child’s … Continue reading
Patches was the border collie brought to us by our older brother when he was studying electrical engineering at Montana State University in Bozeman. We didn’t know beans about the care of a dog except to feed him table scraps, pet … Continue reading
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I remember the cry room in the back of the sanctuary of the country church, a place where no child ever wanted to go. Mothers, babies and toddlers went to church on Sunday morning with the family. They didn’t go … Continue reading
This gallery contains 8 photos.
In high school I was awarded the Betty Crocker Homemaker of Tomorrow award although I was the only girl in the school who refused to take Home Ec classes. Nevertheless, I still have the proof: it’s a tidy bronze pin shaped like a heart that … Continue reading
This gallery contains 9 photos.
When the air fills with the fragrance of lilacs in the spring, I’m taken back to a warm summer afternoon and I hear the screendoor slam as someone goes in or comes out; the bike chain slips (in its usual way) when I take off down the road; the … Continue reading
This gallery contains 4 photos.
Every Saturday I changed sheets in three bedrooms, vacuumed rugs and dusted furniture. In exchange for that, I got a weekly allowance of 25 cents. The cows were milked twice a day and the whole milk processed through the separator with the resulting products of … Continue reading
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It was never called a living room. The front room had sheer curtains on the one south-facing window; an upright piano until about 1951 when it was replaced by a studio piano; a maroon patterned rug (never called a carpet) … Continue reading
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Mailboxes and Old Barns 