My Two Moms Growing Up:

One of the precious gifts that I think our generation has lost is the ability to be story tellers. My memories from childhood are that my grandparents and all my aunts and uncles were story tellers. I would sit on the front porch of my grandparents home and listen to hours of stories about when they all grew up on the farm. As I remember, each had a little different twist to the stories from their perspectives.
So - here goes my memories from some 60 years ago - yours may be different.
Mom and Aunt Winnie always called their parents "Mom" and "Pop" and I was to call them Grandma and Grandpa.
There were 8 children with the last named "Charles" born stillborn. There then were 3 boys and 4 girls. There names were Thelma, Truman, Willis(Cotton), Fleta, Winnie (Bill), Floyd and Betty Lou.
It was a very hard life on the farm, always trying to make ends meet. Grandma had been a school teacher at Sunny Lane before Grandpa and she married. Mom always said that Grandma never liked to work inside and much preferred to be out in the garden or working with the chickens. She also commented several times that the chickens were better off than the kids.
Education was very important to both of my grandparents and Grandpa was for many years "the school board", responsible for hiring and firing the teachers. Thelma was always considered to be the "smart one" and was always staying up late to do homework. Mom could remember Grandpa hollering out math problem answers from his nightime bed - she was always amazed at his brilliance.
Each of the children was paired with another for chores and Mom was always paired with Winnie. Mom referred to Winnie "as being as slow as molasses" and she was "spit-spat" get it done fast kind of kid. One time they were sawing a log with a long cross-type saw and Mom got so angry with Winnie that she slammed her side down hard and Winnie's handle came up hard under Winnie's chin and knocked her out.
Mom also told about the time Winnie talked her into riding the hogs after Grandpa told them not to and they both got caught because they were covered with lice from the hogs. Below you will find three old pictures of the kids with Grandma, two around the pond and one by the original barn before the cyclone blew it down. Hope you enjoy!