We moved from Tennessee to our house, RR 1, Kokomo, Indiana. in 1936 when I was almost 2 years old. The barn was built in 1910 and the house was built in 1880’s It was 120 acres, it was laid out in a perfect square. We grew corn, beans, tomatoes. We raised mainly pigs, a cow for milk, two horses (Jim/Maude) for pulling cart, didn’t have tractor until after the war.
Growing up on the farm our house was very cold, it had 5 room with a screened in porch. It had electricity but only one light in each room. There was only a coal stove for heating house, and coal oil stove for cooking. We had register in bedroom where heat from stove was piped in which wasn’t that great. Some mornings, it was cold and there would be snow inside the windows. I would run downstairs to get dressed behind the stove. Later on we put a light in the barn and new floors in the house. There wasn’t a bathroom inside the house until 1952 when I was out of high school, 19 years old. If we had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night we would have a “slop jar”. We’d only “wash up” there was no showers or a bathtub. We had a wash tub where we would wash up. When I got to high school I could take a shower one day a week but it was at the YMCA so we’d walk back to school freezing. There was no telephone until I was a senior in high school.
At Christmas time I would get a small bag of treats from my bus driver. My sister Sissy would give me small presents. Dad would buy fruit; apples, oranges and tangerines. Mother would make banana pudding, with wafers (which Luke still loves). My Mom would kill a fat hen, and make cornbread dressing for Christmas dinner. “We made due with what we had”
We had breakfast, dinner and supper. Big meal at noon because of the farm workers. Neighbors would help neighbors with farming. We always slept on a feather bed in the winter but in summer we would clean them outside.
My pets were Teddy, fuzzy balls, all sorts of cats. Teddy was a miniature collie, he just showed up one day to the farm. Teddy was with us while I was little in the 50’s. Then we had Laddie, yellow lab, our neighbor had puppies. He’d be so happy to see me after school. He ran off one day and never came back. Fuzzy balls our cat would come up and wake me up by meowing. Our dogs weren’t allowed inside. Fuzzy balls was the only animal that Mom would every let into the house.
My brother Russell played baseball, sportsman of the year. He was a pitcher for Clay High School and brought them to a championship. The Boston Red Soxs wanted to give him an offer but it was at the end of the war and he stayed to help with the farm. He got married in November right out of high school.
