Accidentally

            Here is the third (and last) installment about my great-grandmother, Dana Gage Humphrey.

Lizzie was too tired to wash so we went to dentist as our teeth needed trimming a little.  We did quite a little running around got 2 bu pears and called on Mrs. Clark.—October 11, 1937

            Lizzie, my dear little sister, married late to Henry but in time to bear one child, Harry.  Lizzie, who sometimes needed spurring on but was a good, hard worker nonetheless.  My, we were inseparable in those hard years, working hard together every day, sharing the load of cleaning, cooking, washing, sewing, doing our Christian charitable work.

            Lizzie and Henry loved to go to the country and fish.  They would bring home great catches to feed us for days.  I did try not to say anything when they would leave me in hot Tulsa; sometimes, it seemed like they planned their expeditions for when I was too ill to accompany them.

            There was the time I did not see the wire gate and fell over it and sprained both wrists.  Yes, that was when Gipsy Smith, Jr. came to our church to preach a few Sundays.  He was marvelous.  I never did see the need to be undignified in worship like the Church of God down the block.  Why, when they had their “Old Fashioned Revival” they would keep us awake at night, shouting, dancing, clapping their hands until after 10 P.M.

            My knee gave me so much trouble in those days.  I tripped over a chair once, and it bothered me for weeks.  It was about to get better when I placed a box of quilt pieces on my chair at the machine while I cut out a piece of goods.  I sat down on it and when I thought it was Bob [the pet dog], I got up with the help of my hands and how I hurt my knee.  No one was in the house and I cried for a moment or two.  I don’t remember when any thing hurt so.

            Gage and May and the children came for a visit during that time and I hurt my knee still worse.  All of us went to Sunday School.  May, the three girls, and I went into church for the opening exercise.  Edith sat in one seat, then Hazel got into the seat with her.  Because that  was hurting Edith, I tried to lift her up when something in my knee gave way—it popped, how it did hurt.  The next day I could scarcely stand the pain.  But once May rubbed the knee and leg, it gave me some relief, though I could not step on the left leg or foot rather.

            Too bad I cannot say the same about my false teeth.  They must be trimmed ever so often so they will stop hurting.

Industrious

 More from the life of my great-grandmother, Dana Gage Humphrey . . .

 A hard rain last night.  They washed a 3 week wash.  Lizzie told me she has to work too hard with me here.—October 5, 1942

 

            The word that comes to mind when I remember Tulsa is hot.  There were so many insufferable hot days.  Why, in ’35 and ’36 there were spells of 100+ degree days, one right after another.  Once it got up to 114 degrees.  How we suffered in the heat.  We even slept outside.

            But heat or no heat, I never stopped being useful.  Lizzie and I put up quarts of produce.  We picked and shelled pecans.  They’d catch fish to feast upon.  I helped clean up the rentals—my, Henry was industrious with his rentals.  We would rent out one house after another, even rooms in Lizzie and Henry’s house.  I’d move from one bedroom to the next, and Henry finally made me a wardrobe to keep my things right in the living room when the beds were all filled.  There was a time, though, near Christmas of ’36 when five of the houses were vacant.  Things did not look very bright.

            And, oh, the long days sitting in one rental or the other in case someone stopped by to rent.  I always had my crochet and needlework in hand.  In those years, I would sew dresses for my grandchildren, crochet dresser scarves and doilies and tablecloths for presents, and make quilts.  Ah, yes, the two quilts for Alene and Dana—3,380 blocks and 101,900 quilt stitches.  In 1936 or so, I cut up a black jacket I had bought in 1900 to use for sewing.  Lizzie and I had a moneymaker once selling crocheted gloves.  Industrious I’ve always been.

            Once I retired, I lived the most with Lizzie and Henry there in the ‘30s, punctuated by visits to Helena, Montana with son Gage and his wife May—and their ever-growing brood of children.  (Sometimes I thought having so many children was scandalous, but I never said a word to May about it.)  Of course, I also spent plenty of time with daughter Dana and her husband George in southwestern Michigan.  My visits to son John and his wife Alene in Chicago were always brief—it was hard to get along with Alene.  My longest stretch in Tulsa, though, was the end of 1934 right up to March 1938.

A Splendid P.M.

            Packing more boxes this afternoon, I find some stray pages from the writing project I intended to work on when I moved to Whidbey Island in 2008.  (However, I never got around to it, choosing instead to write about the daily details of caring for my mother, experiencing life next door to cougars, and finding my faith again.)  It is a project I hope to return to someday, but in the meantime, let me explain . . .

            Back in the 1990s (I think), my mother and one of her cousins took on the Herculean task of transcribing their grandmother’s daily diary entries.  Rarely more than a sentence long, the diary entries spanned the years from 1922 to 1946.  After reading through all the assembled entries more than once, I decided to write in the voice of my great-grandmother and expound upon some of the more memorable statements, drawing upon what she had written, what my mother told me, and a sprinkle of my own imagination.

            So, here is the first of the three vignettes that I completed.

            After dinner Geo. kissed Dana and we had a splendid P.M.—November 29, 1934

            “Mamma!”  My own voice wakes me as Priscilla bends over me saying “Grandma?” in a concerned tone.  She gives me a sip of that cool, clear well water.  I remember now.  This is 1946, and Priscilla is home from Oberlin College on winter break.  I’m staying with Dana and George in their farmhouse in the country, the one they built back in the thirties.

            I believe it was the fall of 1934 when George bought the farm here in Vergennes on the Flat River.  It seemed that most weekends that autumn were spent at the farm, where they worked so hard.  I came along sometimes.  Other times they would leave me at their house in Grand Rapids.  I’d sit there in the shadows during the hot afternoon and crochet in silence waiting for their return.  Or I’d mind the two youngest—Priscilla was just seven and Humphrey six.

            There was so much for Dana and George to do to get that farm ready so they could build their house.  One day we cleaned the old house and got a lot of wood.  When George pulled the roof off the old shed, we carefully pulled all the nails to use again when we built.  After dinner Geo. kissed Dana and we had a splendid P.M.

            But I did not get to see the new farmhouse built.  That happened while I was living with my sister Lizzie down in Tulsa.