Grandma Hornung's home: 1940-1942
Earl, Marietta, and Eileen Moening, and I stayed
at Grandma's for a few days to help her with some
chores. Marietta, Eileen and I helped Grandma with
her house cleaning. Earl helped with outside chores.
Grandma had this mean rooster and it kept
trying to peck Earl while he was chopping wood, so
he threw some wood at it to scare it. The wood hit
the rooster and knocked it out. Earl was a very good
baseball player.
I remember in the evening before bedtime,
sitting around the table, the four of us and eating
Grandma's big sugar cookies, and dunking them in
milk. We girls would get to giggling, to which
Grandma would always say "laugh in the evening and
cry before bedtime." Grandma had many "sayings"
she had aquired in her lifetime. |
Grandma Hornung's home: 1941-1944
Our family moved to Grandma's (we moved there
so mom could help grandma) Uncle Neil also lived
there. One day he brought home a dog for us.
Kenny was so excited. He named the dog Curly,
because he was HIS dog.
(click photo to view larger)
Curly had a very distinct personality and became
a close family member. He loved to go to the creek
and swim.
I remember the two big gardens, and
Grandma and Mom with their Sunbonnets on, working
in them. I don't know how much work grandma did
or if it was mostly supervising mom, seeing that
she did the garden right.
Mom always left Grandma help with the canning
process. That made Grandma feel good. They canned
and preserved everything they could.
We had fruit trees, berry bushes, potatoes,
tomatoes, corn, celery and all the other common
veggies.
We butchered, hung the bacon and hams in the
smoke house. When you needed bacon or ham, one
cut off the mold, then used the meat for what
you were making and ate it. I'm still alive, so
it proves it was okay.
We had chickens and eggs, churned our own
butter. The butter and some other cold things we
sometimes kept in the root cellar outside the
kitchen door.
Loved it when the Watkins Salesman or Fuller
Brush man came by with all their goodies and wares.
Watkins had the best Vanilla around, probably
still does.
There was an apple tree at the East side of the
house that was great for climbing and I used to
spend a lot of time doing just that.
Grandma loved flowers and under the apple tree
was one of Grandma's favorite areas, a Rock
Garden, filled with beautiful flowers.
Click to view Grandma's flowers.
Grandma had many, many flower beds. There
were flower beds all around the sides of the house,
along the outside of the gardens, two big round
beds, near the front of the house, then two
smaller ones about in the middle of yard, and two
small ones down front. I use to get so tired
mowing around them.
We played a lot of Croquet in that front yard.
When a mallot would come off the stick, we would
go out to the road, turn stick around in the tar
and put it back on the Mallot. It worked!
We were sent out to the tomato field to cut
tomato worms in half that we found on the plants.
We took along a little metal bucket with water for
drinking. There is nothing like the taste of a
warm tomato right off the vine. I loved picking
one, washing it off and eating it.
Played a lot out under the shade tree in the
front yard, near the house, toward the West. Made
Hollyhock dolls. Sat out there and read.
During the summer, one spent very little time
in the house. Outside was where one wanted to be.
We played "Andy, Andy Over", over the top of
the Smoke House/Wood Shed. We also played "Kick
the Can". We also played "Cops and Robbers".
We made our guns out in the barn. We whittled
them from wood, holding them in the vise. We
then drove a nail in for the trigger. None of
us grew up to be murderers because we pretended
to shoot each other. How sad, that boys and
girls cannot be boys and girls today!! There
was always so much to do.
As I entered high school I always mowed the
yard. The neighbors across the road had hired a
high school boy to work as a "hired hand" for a
couple of summers.
They would found out when I was to mow the yard
and would have him mow theirs at the same time.
That way he would hurry to get done in order to say
he finished before I did. Otherwise he liked to
dilly-dally and would take forever to mow. Could
not have a girl mow faster and better than he.
I also had my first date while we lived at
grandma's. Not with the neighbor's hired hand, but
with a guy who eventually married a cousin of mine. |
