My friend Kim, who is always full of good ideas, told me about something she is doing with her mother-in-law. Kim came across a booklet with a "life inventory", which is a list of questions often used by hospice workers to help people look back on their life. Kim is using it as a way to get to know her mother in law better. They live far apart so Kim sends one question in an email and Alan's mom thinks about it and sends back her response.
I thought this would be a great way to learn more about my own father and your Grandmother, Fern. So I am emailing them questions and they are emailing back their answers. I am printing out the emails and keeping them in a binder, as a record of our "conversations". We are only on the 2nd question, it's going to be a slow process, but very interesting for me!
The first question I asked them was "What is your earliest memory as a young child?" I used my own answer to that question in my post about Grandma Renshaw. I thought from time to time I might use the questions in my blog to tell you more about me. The second question asks to "describe your family, brothers, sisters, etc." This could take a long time to answer! However, I thought it might be fun to give you a quick look back at my sibs as I recall them from our childhood.
Our family had 4 children; Charles Lee, Janice Elaine, Shirley Marie & me, Lori Beth. I have always thought of our family as 2 separate families because Chuck and Janice are separated from Shirley and me by six years.
Chuck is 10 years older than me. The only boy in a house with 3 sisters and one bathroom! I remember the stories he told me, designed to keep me from using the bathroom too long:
*the strange mark in the bottom of our bathtub was left by Grandpa Renshaw's foot after he stayed in the tub too long and his foot started to attach to the tub!
*the water from the bathroom taps is "witches water", don't drink it, it will make you sick!
*if you sit on the toilet too long the devil will reach up and pull you in!
It's amazing I ever went into the bathroom!
We lived in a big old farmhouse, Shirley and I would get sent to bed first at night since we were the youngest. I would lie in bed and listen to the sounds of the house, the TV downstairs, quiet voices talking, the occasional creak of an old house. Chuck would come up the stairs to use the bathroom snapping his fingers and clapping his hands in a rhythmic way, or taking the stairs 2 at time, then going back down the steps in 1 big jump. Sometimes we would hear a creaking noise and lie in bed terrified, was it just the house or was Chuck sneaking up to scare us? Suddenly in our doorway was what looked like a huge gorilla! It was Chuck with the back of his shirt pulled up over his head, arms swinging, knuckles dragging, jumping about, making ape noises. Shirley and I would scream in fright and pull the covers up over our heads!!!
Chuck graduated from high school when I was 8 years old, in 1968.
Janice is 8 years older than me. She was the "perfect" older sister. Perfect hair, great clothes, pretty nails. She had a watch, a manicure set, read teenage magazines, etc, etc, etc. She had a shower cap, set her hair on big plastic rollers and used a hairdryer with a hose, so grown up! She had her own perfect room and we weren't allowed in very often. She had a boyfriend. She got good grades, had the coolest notebooks and really neat-o handwriting. She did things we were to young to do. I wanted to be grown up like her!
But...... could she crack a whip! Shirley and I hated it when Mom put Janice in charge of cleaning up after meals. She watched to make sure every dish was clean and dry, or back in the sink it would go until we "little girls" got it right. Shirley and I would try to get out of helping when Janice was in charge by going to the bathroom. Whoever got there first, stayed until the dishes were done, which left the other one to deal with Janice on their own!
Janice graduated from high school when I was 10 years old, in 1970.
Janice and Chuck both got married in the summer of 1972 when I was 12.
Shirley is 2 years older than me. Since we lived on a farm with no other kids nearby, Shirley and I were everyday playmates and best friends. We did most everything together. We helped Mom together in the house. No electric washer for us, Mom had a ringer washing machine! Plus, Mom grew her own vegetables and canned everything, including chickens! At least we didn't have to churn our own butter! We helped Dad with the chores, gathering eggs, feeding the cattle, and slopping the hogs. We worked pretty hard for little girls!
But we had plenty of time to play and very active imaginations. In the summer we played house in the grove of trees around our farm. In the fall we raked leaves into elaborate floor plans on the lawn and continued playing house. In the winter we played outside in the snow till our fingers and toes were numb! When the weather was bad we spent hours cutting out paper dolls from the enormous Sears catalog. I'm so glad I had a big sister who loved to play!
Shirley graduated from high school when I was 16 years old, in 1976.
Mom died later that same year.
I graduated from high school in 1978. Dad and I got married in 1982.
Shirley got married in February of 1988, when Emily was 1 year old.
Wacky Cake
This is a simple cake that Mom often asked us to make. Even little girls couldn't mess it up!
3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 tablespoon cocoa
2 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoon vinegar
3/4 cup oil
2 cups water
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift dry ingredients into a greased 9X13 cake pan. Make 3 depressions. In one put the vanilla, another the vinegar and in the last one the oil. Pour water over all. Mix well with a fork. Bake for 30 minutes.
