What was your favorite pastime as a child?

The most fun summer thing to do on our small farm near Bradford, Illinois, was “swimming” in the Spoon River down the hill and across the cornfield from the house. Mother would send David, Lois, Colleen, and me there, with David and Lois in charge. The water was probably 15 feet down from the top of the bank; David would go down first and then wet down the bank, and we would have a wonderful time zooming down our “slide” into the water. As we got a little older, we would wade or swim our way probably about a mile down the river to the farm of some friends, where we knew we would find those kids swimming in “their” river. The water was a little deeper there, and the bigger kids could spend some time really swimming.

When the gooseberries were ready to pick, Lois, Colleen, and I were sent into the “timber” to pick gooseberries for “luscious” pies that Mom would make. We always brought back a lot of them, but had such a wonderful time just exploring “our” timber. The timber in the spring was a wonderful place to be. We would head out every morning to pick the wildflowers that were everywhere. A real prize flower to find was a “Jack in the Pulpit, (so-called because the flower had a long, narrow body (like a 3-4 inch vase) with the front part lower than the back, and the stamen inside stood up tall and straight so that it looked like a person standing there “in the pulpit.” Of course, all the flowers we picked were pretty well wilted by the time we got them back to the house, but Mother was (we were sure) thrilled with her gifts and always put them in a glass of water to grace the table.

Between the farmhouse and the barn, there was a special tree that I believed had been put there just for me. I don’t know what kind of tree it was, but about 5 feet up the trunk, a large branch had grown out almost parallel to the ground. I was able to somehow climb up on that branch and it became my “pony” that I would ride for hours. It would take me to wonderful places in my imagination. On one of our trips back to Illinois from Colorado, we took some of you (I don’t know if you were all with us at the time) to show you my childhood home. The house was gone; most of the barnyard had been plowed up by my uncle Glen for crops; but most of all, I was sad to see that my “pony” had disappeared as well.

All of us children (David, Lois, Vi (me), Colleen, and Jerry) were born between the beginning and end of the terrible depression. David was born in November 1929, and I’m pretty sure that 1929 was the time the “stock market crash” occurred. Lois was born in 1932 (March 24), and I came along exactly 2 years later on March 24, 1934. Colleen’s birth was in 1936 and Jerry in 1938. The Depression was awful for the country, and many people went hungry for a long time. Living on a farm in Illinois, though, I know, helped us greatly. There were fish in the river, squirrels, rabbits, and berries in the timber. My brother, David, became a real pro at “hogging” fish from the river. He and friends would form a chain, keeping real close to the next person, and sort of “herd” huge catfish up into a hole in the bank, catch them, and toss them up onto the bank where smaller boys would grab them and put them in “gunny sacks.” I know that David also got to be a crack shot with his rifle, bringing down squirrels and rabbits for supper. I can remember Mother cooking a huge box turtle in a huge pot; Mom cooked that thing for a couple of days before it was pliable enough to chew.

The summer before the 4th grade, we moved from the farm into the little town of Bradford – a somewhat scary thing for country kids – and we (well, at least me) were kind of scared of the move. Everything was so different from the farm, but the children adapted quickly, and we got to a new school, new friends, and new experiences.