My Worst Christmas Gift Ever

I asked my seventh grade students about the worst present they've ever received at Christmas time. The discussion came up while reading my favorite tear-jerker holiday story, "A Christmas Memory" by Truman Capote.

Responses: a phone book, a sack of dog poop, a gift card with $1 on it. Not the greatest of Christmas gifts.

After hearing those, my worst-present-ever story isn't so bad, but I'm going to tell it anyway. Not out of ingratitude, out of humor.

I'd asked for typewriter one year because I loved to type. I had the "every good man must come to the aid of his country" phrase down. Piano playing from age eight came in handy when typing. After counting my errors on an exercise one day, I had typed 90-some words a minute in Mrs. Zieman's business class at HHS. 

So, I wanted a typewriter. Bad. Begged for one. Really begged. I knew that's what was in the rectangular heavy box under the tree when I was a young high school student.

To my dismay, that's not what was in it. No modern Smith Corona for me.

It was an electronic foot soaker. My dad's idea.

Grandma Katie, my mom's mom who'd lived with us when I was younger, frequently soaked her feet in a tub of sudsy hot water. I would do it too. Read more about Grandma Katie here. Long after Grandma was out of the house, I still soaked my feet. In fact, I still do it today. It's especially relaxing with a cup of hot tea, a dog or two, and a good book or the remote tuned to the Lifetime Movie Channel.

With the foot soaker gift, my observant father believed he was giving me, his teenage daughter, a present she'd appreciate, but the snotty only used it once. Mom was scared I'd electrocute myself.

So that was my worst Christmas present ever.

I did end up getting a typewriter—maybe for my birthday that summer—and in typical Dad-fashion, it was the Cadillac of typewriters. He tends to go overboard on things. Gets the deluxe version when the typical will do. I married a man just like him. I'm lucky, but I admit, the unappreciative girl comes out in me sometimes.

My best Christmas present? If we're taking about material things, I'm not sure I have one. But the best present was Jesus Christ whose birth is celebrated by Christians around the world. I call Him Savior. He is the one still shaping this girl into the woman He wants her to be.

And with that I say, Merry Christmas!


How about you? Want to reveal your least favorite Christmas present? Who was it from? Why did they give it to you? Or, maybe you want to share the worse gift you've ever given. 

Thankful to be a Child of the 70s: Round 2

The 1970s don't get enough credit, so I'm here again this Thanksgiving to point out some of my childhood favorites. To read last year's piece, click here.

My Room Decor

graphic from http://mama-ilse.typepad.com

When Grandma Katie was put in the nursing home, Mom redecorated the downstairs bedroom for me. Dad purchased a single bed from an auction at neighbor Pauly Walter's. Read about him here and read about Grandma Katie here.

Mom bought a Holly Hobbie bedspread and matching window shades. This was the first bedroom that I remember calling mine. Prior to that, I slept in the living room. A crib was in there, and when I got older, I slept on the pull-out love seat because I was too chicken to sleep alone upstairs.

It was in this decorated room that I developed my fear of lightning storms and Big Foot. Long story.

My First Record Album

picture from http://www.denverpost.com

I bought a 45 of the Carpenter's "Top of the World" hit at the Ben Franklin store in Huron one Saturday morning. Mom had given me two bucks spending money while she got her hair done.

A few years ago, I bought a Carpenter's greatest hits album and loaded it on my iPod. When I played the song in preparation for this post, I remembered almost every word.

If someone had told me to write down the lyrics, I'm not sure I could have. But the memories flooded back upon hearing the music. Funny how the brain works. Click here to hear the lyrics. 

For those that don't know, the brother-sister duo of Richard and Karen Carpenter were known for the harmonic tunes. Karen Carpenter died in 1983 with complications due to anorexia. Read more about that here and here. It was during the 80s, my high school years, when eating disorders became a topic of public concern. The Denver Post ran a book review piece about the Karen Carpenter story. Click here to read it.

A Candy My Family Liked

picture from https://s-media

The combination of chocolate and caramel was found in a Rothchild's nugget. The tasty tidbit is similar to a Rolo.

The company's marketing campaign including a silly saying performed in a British accent. Click here and here for a couple of those commercials. I know, corny, but catchy.

My dad and brother Elliott would often repeat the famous line, "Not now, I'm right in the middle of a Rothchild's" to anyone they talked to. They even answered the phone that way sometimes. Read more about my brother's antics here.

The Rothchild's saying lightened anyone's mood. I wish this candy was still around. Don't know what happened to it. Or the Marathon Bar. Or Freshen-Up gum. Or Melody Pops, the sucker with a whistle.

A Favorite Saturday Morning Show

picture from http://www.sheknows.com

The time travel show, "The Land of the Lost," started in the 70s, not the early 90s when Hollywood attempted a re-make. I never watched it; maybe I should have. Watch a trailer of the 1970s version here.

The graphics? My goodness. So fake. But back then I didn't care. I liked the story line, or should I say, the older brother.

The music? Too upbeat for what happened to this family.

My husband Chris says the Sleestak creatures still give him the creeps. You can see the critters here in the entire first episode.



What memories do you have of these 70s icons? For my younger readers, feel free to critique my child-of-the-70s favorites.

The Scariest Place in an Old Farmhouse

Our farm house cellar was a place of dread for me. Damp, dark, pungent. Cracks in the foundation floor. I didn’t dread it for those reasons though. I feared the salamanders under the wooden stairs.

Mom would tell me to get a jar of pickles, canned pears or peaches, or sometimes a few more eggs. I’d whine that I was scared of the salamanders. They might run up my leg, bite my toes, or hiss at me, I thought.

Mom would hear none of that. “Those buggers are more scared of you than you are of them. Just go real fast and they’ll run away.”

And they would. Every time.

But I still didn’t like doing it. 

Funny how the daddy longlegs that lived among the pots and pans and the store-bought canned goods in the stairway on the way down never bothered me.

That cellar, stench and all, still exists. The hot water heater is down there, and my dad put a water distiller in there years ago. One time he had jugs of extra water all over the place.

The room carries a wet-earth odor. A small screened window to the east lets in light along with a single light bulb. Maybe Mom had a board she’d put up there in a big rain storm to keep it from flooding, but I don't remember. In the South Dakota winters, Dad would pile straw bails in front of it.

The cellar houses a couple old wooden chairs and some makeshift wooden shelves for all the home canned goods. In the middle of the room are a couple poles with a table top. It is taller than counter height. Mom kept her canning supplies on it with the cleaned out jars.

I remember only one time taking cover in that basement, ah, I mean cellar, during a storm.

I was already teaching in Kansas, but was home for the summer. My sister Priscilla and her daughter Angela were up for a visit when Dad came in yelling, “You guys take cover. Get in the basement.” Then he headed back outside.

After Mom questioned where he was going, he hollered, “I’m going driving. Gotta see what’s coming around the trees.”

Typical.

We grabbed our purses, a couple of blankets, and Grandma Katie’s old transistor radio and headed to the cellar. I wasn’t concerned about any salamanders then.

We hadn’t been down there very long when a loud bang startled us.

“That’s the front door,” Mom said. “Wind must have blown it open. It’s banging back and forth now.”

Angela mentioned our family dog, Jupiter, our black and white cocker spaniel who showed up one July day in 1994 after a comet hit the planet, thus the name.

“She’s in with the boars,” Mom assured Angela.

The door kept banging, so I said I’d go up and shut it and come right back. Neither Mom nor Priscilla protested, and I don’t remember being scared to do it. After all, my dad was out in this. It was just a terrible wind, right?

I think this was the storm that my brother Elliott, his wife Doris, and daughter Suzanne stood by one of their kitchen windows and watched an old hog barn (which as little kids, we’d dubbed the Laura Ingalls Wilder playhouse), roll back and forth towards the house. If it wasn’t this storm, then it must have been another one. That building never did hit their house or vehicle, but it rolled itself out of existence and ended up as a pile of boards.

Back at our place, I was able to close the outside door and return to the cellar unharmed. When it was all over, I don’t recall any major damage to our farm.

A few years ago, the family was talking about Dad's cellar, and Angela, now a full-grown adult with a family of her own, remembered the evening we took cover. She said she was so scared. Not of the storm. Not of any salamanders. Not of the creepiness of the place, but of losing me.

She said that she thought she’d never see me again when I went up those stairs to close that door. She described her feelings so vividly. She'd never told me that.
 
Salamanders or storms, I’ve never spent much time in that cellar.

But my Grandma Elizabeth did when my two older sisters were little—just enough time for Priscilla to cut Brenda’s hair while Grandma was down there sorting eggs.
 
Oh, if those cellar walls could talk.


Do you remember a room from your childhood home that gave you the heebie-jeebies? What about now? Is there a place that gives you the willies?

Adult Reflections of Life with Grandma Katie

I only knew one of my grandparents, Grandma Katie, my mom's mother. 

Her husband was Jacob B. Hofer. Yes, my mom was a Hofer before she married my dad—and they were not related. And those middle initials were just that, initials. Usually given for a parent's name. 

Grandma Katie, Aunt Bina, Grandpa Jacob

Grandma Katie lived with us when I was in lower elementary school. We did not get along one bit. She was an old lady who had a rough life and mainly spoke German in the Hutterisch dialect. 

She'd race me to the one bathroom in the house and get mad when I beat her to it, slurp her food, and leave pee droplets on the toilet that she rarely flushed.

And me? I was a cantankerous snot.

Dad enjoys telling the story of me throwing a fit one time at the dinner table. I got down on the floor, laid on my back, shook my fists and legs in the air and screamed. Grandma Katie said to him, "Hit her on the ass."

Dad said he thought he heard her wrong, so he asked her what she said and she repeated it. Then he scolded her, "Grandma, we don't use such language in this house." 

He said that Grandma shrugged her shoulders and put her hands up and innocently replied, "Doesn't seem so bad to me. She got a ass."

Bad grammar and all. That's how she responded.

Katie & Jacob, my mom's parents

And it was true. We didn't use language like that, and I did I need a good spanking.

Maybe that's why I irritated Grandma Katie so much. She thought I needed more discipline. But my parents did believe in spanking (one time I threw Dad's watch and boy did I get it).

I do have a couple of fond memories of Grandma Katie though. She would share her dried fruit with me that she got on birthdays and at Christmas.

I guess that's the reason I eat like a little old lady, for I enjoy tasty prunes, dates, and dried apricots, dried cherries, and the like.

One time I was home alone with Grandma in the evening. I watched her count her money in her coin purse. She would often go in her room in the middle of the day and close the door. Mom said she was counting her money. 

Then she told me a tornado story. She claimed they had to shut a rooftop door, certainly not a sky light window but something like that, and they saw the twister up in the sky.

I don't remember enough of the details to say she was fictionalizing this for my young ears or if it really happened.

That is the fondest memory I have of my Grandma Katie. In fact, it's the only conversation I remember having with her. 

Grandma Katie laughing with Mom

When I shared that with my students this school year, one of the boys said, "I feel sorry for you." I assured him that I had three aunts that spoiled me to make up for not having a grandma who made me chocolate chip cookies.

Maybe that's why being an aunt has always been a big deal to me.

I never saw Grandma Katie in a pair of pants; she always wore dresses. Always covered her head with a scarf when in church. And she wore bloomers. Real bloomers. 

She had her quirks too. The night before a trip to town, she'd set out her coat with her purse all ready to go. My mom was similar, a planner. I can't say that I am not like that. Young eyes are impressionable.

She enjoyed sitting outside with a flyswatter and killing any bugger that got close enough.

She'd yell at the television when her soap opera characters were stupid. She'd say, "He'll get his." Can't say that I don't do the same thing. I do talk to the TV whether it's the characters, politicians, or basketball players. Young ears are impressionable.

Grandma Katie's maiden name was Kleinsasser, and she was her husband's second wife. Jacob B. Hofer had been married before, to Katie's sister, but she'd died.

Grandpa passed away when my mom was nearly 15-years-old. Grandma had an auction and sold all they owned. And when she paid all their debts, all she had left was $40.

Forty Dollars.

Forty Dollars to your name. In 1940.

Probably why she always counted the money in that coin purse of hers. That'd be only $670 in 2015 according to saving.org. That would barely pay one month's rent in some places today.

Aunt Bina, Aunt Grace, & my mom Stella with their mother

So Katie moved from the country into Doland with daughters Bina and Stella, my mom. Read more about my mom here.

Aunt Grace, her other daughter, was already married. Aunt Bina worked at the Red Owl grocery story, and while in high school, my mom worked at the cafe.

Grandma Katie picked turkey and geese for Walt Hofer of Doland who owned a produce company. She didn't have a car, so people would have to take her to work. She also painted and shocked bundles.

Dad said people in those days would take a jug of water and sew a gunnysack tightly around it to insulate it. After one shock was bundled, they'd set the jug inside to keep it out of the sun. After a hard day of work, Grandma told Dad she would say, "My feet didn't carry me home. I had to drag 'em home." 

Later, after Aunt Bina married Jean Board, Grandma lived with them for many years. In her later years, Mom agreed to take her in, for Aunt Grace had taken care of her mother-in-law, so my mom only thought it was fair to take her turn looking after an aging parent.

Dad's office moved to an upstairs room and my parents made a bedroom for Grandma downstairs. She had her privacy on the west side of the house. Thus began the days of me annoying Grandma, for I remember her often saying in plain English, "Quit looking at me" when my little eyes would stare at the old woman in front of me.

Grandma Katie with five of her great-grandkids:
Jessica, Evelynn, Michael, Colleen & Suzanne

The Huron Nursing Home was her residence for her last ten years or so. Mom visited her mother each Saturday when we went in for piano lessons. She'd take her sugarless candy, for she had diabetes, and dried fruit. Sometimes Grandma would get a second visit that week if we'd be in town on Sunday after church.

When I see pictures of Grandma Katie and a picture of me where I'm pretty intense and not smiling, I look just like her. I inherited her long face and her pouty, down-turned lips.

She lived to a ripe age of 92 and died the spring of my senior year in 1984. She would have been 124-years-old this July 29, 2015. Oh, how the world has changed since her passing 31 years ago, let alone her birth in 1891.

I'm sure she'd say I still need a good swattin' because I do a pretty good job of carrying her disposition sometimes, and when that happens, I'm known to say, "I'm grumpy."

I'm thankful I got to watch my mother faithfully take care of her mother in those later years. What an example of love that was, for I never heard Mom complain or send an angry word her way. Never.


Have you ever had a cantankerous relative to deal with? Or maybe it was you? Any fond memories of old people you barely remember?

9 Tidbits About Stella, born June 28, 1925

Mom would be 90-years-old this June 28. She died over ten years ago. As a tribute, I decided to share nine things about her. My siblings grew up in a different decade, so I enlisted their help along with Dad’s.

One: her family

Mom's dad died when she was 14-years-old. My mom was the youngest of three daughters. Grandma Katie moved Mom and her sister Bina from the farm into Doland after an auction. Her sister Grace was already married to Johnny. Dad told me a lot more about the death of Jacob B, my grandpa on my mom’s side, and the financial hardship it caused my mom’s family in 1940, but that’s for another post.

While still in high school, Mom served as a waitress at the café. After high school she earned a desk job at Northwestern Public Service also in Doland. Ironically, my oldest sister Priscilla held a similar job in Huron years later.

Two: her school years

Mom won the spelling bee when she was in elementary school. One time when we were out in public, Mom had me look over at a woman across the room and then said, "That's the one who slapped my hand with a ruler." Seems Mom got in trouble or the teacher was super strict.

Three: her marriage

Mom was 19 when she married Dad. For more details about their wedding click here to read "What I Never knew about my Parents' Wedding." Mom was instrumental in Dad’s decision to follow the Lord once and for all, but again, that’s a story for another post.

Four: her first-born

My brother Elliott was around four-years-old when he went out to do chores with Mom one time. A barrel with pig slop in it caught his eye while Mom gathered chicken eggs.

Little Elliott, knowing how they’d dip a bucket in there to feed the hogs, decided to take a look, but he bent over the barrel too far and fell in—only not all the way. His head was buried in pig slot. Mom came around the corner and saw only his feet sticking out. Who knows how long he was like that.

Elliott said the next thing he remembers is walking to the house beside her. Mom saved my brother's life that day.

Five: a seamstress

Brenda, my sister, wrote this passage: 

Mom didn't do a lot of sewing, but she made matching dresses for Priscilla and me when we were in first grade. We wore them for school pictures. I wore those pop beads that looked like a string of pearls. That was always my favorite school picture.

I wish Mom would have sewn more dresses, but she had Dad's jeans to patch. That was a never-ending job with a pile always awaiting repair. My hubby teases me about how much money we would save if I could patch his jeans, for I do not sew. I only fix buttons.

I did learn to iron though, by pressing pillowcases and Dad's hankies. To prepare for the task, Mom had a sprinkler bottle filled with water that we would shake over each washed and dried article. We'd then roll the items up and snuggle them in one large laundry basket. The basket was wooden—not the plastic kind of today.

Six: her Saturday routine

Priscilla said Saturdays were for cleaning. “The kitchen floor got washed and waxed. We did it on our knees with a rag—not standing up with a mop handle in our hands. Then in the evening she made sure we did our Sunday school lesson.”

The girls enjoyed tea and homemade buns with Mom when they were done with chores. They'd use Mom's blue tea pot, an item that set around just for looks when I was a kid.

Seven: tutor to her children

Mom helped my sisters study for tests when they were in grade school. Brenda said Mom sat in the black leather chair in the dining room and asked questions. (This was that black chair I wrote about in “Mom’s Pestering Pays Off” and "Easter Tidbits” click here and then here). Priscilla said Mom would write out questions, like making up a paper/pencil test, then they would need to fill in the answers.

Eight: the field work

Mom preferred fieldwork to housework, so Brenda performed the chicken chores, and she said she must have prepared the meals. Priscilla said Mom had special field work attire: shorts that came to the knee, a sleeveless blouse, and a cap. “She’d grab an apple for lunch and would stay in the field until it was done,” Pris said.

Nine: trips to Huron

Priscilla remembered shopping at Farmer's Market for groceries. And Brenda recalled fond memories after piano lessons in Huron. “Afterwards, Mom would take Priscilla and me to the Double H to get a cone. Mom always ordered banana ice cream,” Brenda said.

Final Thoughts

It seems like Mom has missed more than ten birthdays on this earth. Each year it gets a little easier thinking about her on that day, for I know if she could, she wouldn't want to leave her heavenly home. But that doesn't make me miss her any less.



What childhood routines do you remember with a loved one? Do you have any relatives that did men's work and women's? How have your Saturday routines changed since childhood?

What I Never Knew About My Parents' Wedding

At the start of it all, Mom knew Dad was a night owl when she married him. For weeks leading up to their wedding in 1944, Dad would visit her at 10 o’clock at night. Mom lived miles away in Doland, South Dakota. She worked at the Northwestern Public Service office and had graduated from high school the spring before in 1943. 

Mom, 18-years-old, on her
wedding day when Dad, 19, came to pick her up

My dad’s dad, Grandpa Pete, had died a month earlier (I’ll explain more in future post) on March 18, so at the age of 19, my dad became the man of the farm near Hitchcock with plenty of work to do. Grandma Elizabeth, Dad’s mom whom he lived with on the farm and whom I wrote about here, didn’t like the late night visits, so she encouraged them to get married.

Stella & Waldo's wedding portrait

The ceremony took place on a Sunday morning after the main church service on April 16, 1944 at Ebenezer church. It was the custom for the woman to go with the man, so that's why the ceremony wasn't at Emmanuel, Mom's church. Dad drove to Doland during the Sunday school hour to pick up Mom, her mother, and one of her sisters. They had no car.

Back in the day, men and women sat on opposite sides of the sanctuary in the Mennonite Brethren Church, but for this occasion, the bride and groom sat up on stage in front of the minister, Reverend DJ Mendel (Smoky Joe's dad), with their backs to the congregation. It was just a regular church service until the end when a short marriage ceremony was performed.

Dad said he has no idea what the sermon was about that day. The entire service was in German and rather than say “I do,” they said, “yah” to commit. And there was no kiss-the-bride announcement either. Dad doesn’t remember where their attendants, Aunt Bina and his cousin Miller Glanzer, were during the ceremony.

He does recall; however, tears rolling down his cheeks when my mom's other sister, Aunt Grace, and neighbor lady Ruth Decker sang "Blessed be the Tie that Binds." Click here to hear the lyrics and various renditions of the old hymn.

Dad & Mom with their wedding cake on the south side of the house

So the ceremony was simple and short without a lot of hoopla. In fact, his sister Mary Ruth and mother just made sure all the important parties were in church that day.

Grandma Elizabeth invited the minister and his wife Katrina and other close family members to the house then for a celebration dinner of noodle soup. Dad remembers my cousin Judy running around and estimates she was around 3-years-old. Cousin Cynthia was there too, but younger. Maybe my cousins can fill in some blanks here by commenting on the blog as to what they remember.

Mom's family makes a visit.
Aunt Bina, Aunt Grace with Cousin Judy in front, Grandma Katie, and Mom

What about the opening of gifts? Dad doesn't remember that part. Seems Grandma Katie, my mom’s mom, gave Mom a wardrobe for a wedding gift, but it was too tall for the room, so they had to take it back to Doland. Dad doesn’t know about any replacement gift. He doesn’t remember how the item was transported either or when the exchange was even attempted.

There was no honeymoon. Dad said the next day Mom was on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor in the front room upstairs. Sounds like Mom. Work before play. Always. I am a lot like her.

Sure wish I’d have talked with Mom more about this sort of thing when she was alive because she had a photographic memory. But I’m glad that on his 71st wedding anniversary, Dad still remembers a few precious details of the day he married the only woman he'd ever kissed.




Any interesting wedding details in your families? How about the circumstances of your parents' wedding?