Letter from my Great Grandmother

Happy Valentine’s Day to you too….

Now that you know more about life and its demands, you have a clearer view of the struggle for existence of me and my children.  Much of it was my fault.  I was an ignorant little country girl anxious to better my situation and it was a way out to marry your dad and learn about a different life away from the drudgery that I was forced into to look after Jay and Dad’s farm interests.  I even took enough of the milk money and went by train to Chatek and wanted to live with my Mother and Dad hoping to finish High School and have a good chance for a suitable life for my early teen years.  NO pa said.  I want you to stay on the farm and look after Jay.  That is when your dad came on the scene.  Dad took me to the depot in Chatek and bought my ticket; no change in my pocket.  There on the train was your dad going down to Garden Valley to work for Jan on Dad’s farm.  He was very well dressed and had an attitude of the world I didn’t know about.  He had me sit beside him in his seat.  He had some fine luggage he moved over for a place for me and my little old suitcase.  I began to feel at ease and important.  Jay met the train in Humbard and was all smiles when he knew that Norm was coming to work on the farm which was his intention.  Norm was really fun.  He was neat and clean, had a great sense of humor.  He was quite a good cook.  He had learned to cook while on a job in the logging woods as a cook’s helper.  I didn’t know then all there was about cooking.  So he helped me some in the kitchen too.   He could bake cake, cook meat and make pancakes etc.  Jay was running after Liona and her family and was glad to leave responsibility for me at home with Norm for company and help.  I soon found your dad had itchy feet and was thinking of leaving.  I was tired of washing clothes on a washboard, cleaning, washing huge milk cans everyday, dressing chickens, gathering eggs and packing them in crates.  Jay took them to town and exchanged the eggs for groceries.  A nice lady, a friend of my mothers, told me she saw Jay in the store buying groceries with our egg money for Liona’s folks.  But he bought only part of my list.  Liona’s dad wasn’t much account.  He used to come over with his team and wagon and load up grain and feed for his two cows and the horses and his dog was all he had.  I didn’t know it when Liona got pregnant.  Soon a wedding was arranged.  I now had to make Liona a dress for the wedding, arrange for the reception – everything.  Your dad had asked me to marry him some time before that.  We went with Jay and Liona to Humberd to the justice of the peace to get married.  Nobody got any papers to show marriage.  He was a stupid old man.  However later he sent Jay and Liona a  sort of certificate but we never got one.  I think your dad knew better so much later we went by train over into Minnesota to one of those quick marriage places and were married by a judge.  Got a wedding certificate which by the way was lost on that wild trip to Arizona.  Or maybe when we went to North Dakota and worked for Bradford Ranch at AYR, north Dakota.  (now framed on the wall at Aunt B’s)  I had so much to learn.  I knew very little about a world outside of my birth home at Garden Valley and the little town of Humberd where I spent two years of high school.  I had a bad place to stay, had to go home weekends, 6 miles from home (this was all before ma and pa moved to Chatek) Jay or Perl drove a team to Humberd to bring me home weekends.  That soon wasn’t satisfactory and I was removed from high school in my sophomore year.  Then mother and dad bought the home in Chatek and moved up there and I was left on the farm with Jay.  That was when life became empty for me.  This friend of mothers, fanny Dunn, told my mother they should take me to Chatek and given me a chance to grow up and learn a better life then just staying and working for Jay on the farm.  But of course she didn’t.  Bitter disappointment.  With responsibility your dad lost his charm and any ideas of a substantial home life.  He really never grew up.  Wanted to stay young and go places and do impossible things or nothing at all.  As you will remember that ended after we finally reached Seattle.  

Meeting and marrying Glenn wasn’t perfection.  (only grandfather my own mother knew) but I was never hungry after that.  And I was always assured of shelter and kind treatment for me and my family.  Glenn was far from perfect.  He never wanted to be.  He was ready to have a life of his own making and you know all of it from there.  From his ability and my help and ability I can now live comfortably where I am.  I am told that your dad never really grew up.  Treated his second family much the same as he did with us and died penniless.  I don’t want to dwell in a hopeless past.  I read a timely article in Readers Digest.  It said remember  the past if you wish but don’t dwell on it.  The past is gone forever tomorrow hasn’t come yet today is here now live it!  Good advice.  These curiosities and conclusions brings up memories that has explanations in my mind and heart.  Heartaches better forgotten.  Some of us have to learn the hard way.  I am happy where I am and I intend to keep it that way.  A lifetime struggle is ending well and I am at peace with progress I have made.  This letter may not make much sense but it covers a lifetime of various experiences.  Norman was not gifted with feelings of responsibility.  I expect he couldn’t change his natural characteristics.  He wanted to be a free spirit and yet have what he wanted.  If this is not a good valentine letter but I have confided deep secrets that is my business and struggle and you are the only one I have confided with.  

Happy Valentines Day little love.

Mom

Good breakfast, hot cereal, toast grapefruit etc.  Going to have raviola for dinner. (mom chuckles classis Grandma)

My mom continued to speak about her own experience with her Mother also leaving her Dad and asking her to take care of her brother…