Remembering Eileen

Today is the second anniversary of Eileen's death and I still think of her every day.  Her death was the impetus behind this blog.

I have been blessed with many dear friends and have a sister-like relationship with a handful of them. They have helped so much in the past two years as I've trudged ahead.  We share our deep secrets, fears and desires; but nothing will ever fill the deep void in my life that Eileen's death left behind.  I did love her so.

"Perhaps that was the worst of all. Not having someone to remember things with."
     -  "Winter Solstice" by Rosamunde Pilcher

Where Did I Put My Keys?

I love old keys.  They hold such mysteries.  What did they open?  Did they hide a precious secret behind a tiny door in a cabinet or open the door to an old mysterious house?

My mother loves old keys also and she gave me her collection. I've added a few.  They are fascinating and I find something new every time I look through them.

I don't remember that we ever locked our house when I was a kid.  Nobody locked their house in the 50's in Rockford, Iowa.  If there did happen to be a key to the door, it would have been just a skeleton key. Everybody probably had the same type and you could have picked one up at the local hardware store and opened every house in town.

We would leave the house with all the windows open to allow the breeze to blow through the house.  Not a thing to keep anybody out except a piece of screen.  Now we shut everything up and pull the shades.

The most important key in my life during my childhood was the roller skate key that hung around my neck on a dirty white shoelace throughout the summer.

It used to hang on a nail by the back door so I could grab it and go ... on the run.  My friends were waiting and there was no time to waste.

I don't even remember there being a key for the old Chevy.  You needed a key to lock it, but if you were just turning it on and off, there was no need for a key.  If you did drive a car that needed a key, you never took it out of the ignition.  Everybody left their keys in the car.  That way you always knew where they were!  You could walk down main street and almost every parked car had their keys hanging in the ignition.

Now we are a country of keys.  We need them for everything.  We lock up our house, our garage, the cars and boats.  You even need a key to get your mail out of the mailbox.  We carry around an assortment of keys that would make a school janitor proud.  Times were much simpler in the 50's when a key was just an added bit of fluff .... not really necessary, but it looked efficient.

Our world will never return to those simpler times when a small, freckled Iowa girl could grab her skate key on the way out the door, letting it bang behind her, with never a care in the world.  I'm so grateful to have lived in those times.  Keys?? Who needed keys?  Our door was always open ....

The doors were open all over town and people were sitting on their porch and grabbing a cool breeze.  Now we are locked behind doors with the a/c blasting and the shades drawn.  Maybe it would be nice to return to those times, but would I want to give up the comforts of modern times?  Maybe if I once again had a skate key around my neck and scabs on my knees.  At this stage in my life, my memories will serve me well as I sit in the comfort of air conditioning on a hot, muggy evening.

Let's Go Skating

The madness that surrounds the month of  December definitely took a toll on the blog.  Now that old man winter lurks in the corner and January approaches, I'm reminded of one of my favorite things about growing up in northern Iowa ... ice skating.  Of course, back in the 50's, we were not surrounded by umpteen electrical devices to play with as the kids are nowadays.  We had to use our imagination and find something to do.  In my case, if you hung around the house too long, Mom would find a chore or two so I tended to drift out the back door.

There was an empty lot between our house and the neighbor.  It had a low spot that would tend to fill up with melted snow, which would then freeze into a pond.  Just the right place for a young girl to practice ice skating.  We had an old pair of hockey skates hanging in the cellar and I would put on about 3 pair of socks and stuff the toes with newspaper to make them fit.  I spent hours clunking around that small patch of ice while teaching myself how to skate.  Now that I think back on it, I'm sure my trials on the ice provided the neighbors with several hours of entertainment!

One wonderful Christmas, there was a pair of beautiful, white figure skates under the tree.  Lordy, it was fun to actually have a pair of skates that fit.  It's amazing how much easier it is to function on the ice when the skates actually lace up nice and tight.

My hometown of Rockford, Iowa was nestled between two rivers.  Lime Creek (aka Winnebago) was just two blocks down the road, but it never froze smooth.  All of my friends would trudge to town and skate beneath the bridge on the Shell Rock River just north of the dam in the area of the old mill pond.  The water was very deep and still in that area and most winters it froze perfectly smooth.

The father of one of my old school friends owned a service station and he had an old willys jeep.  Every winter he would plow the snow off the river and make a nice rink for us.  Then he would plow a long, curved path so we could play "crack the whip".  You never know real terror unless you've been at the end of the "whip" and went sailing off onto uncharted ice.  Yeeowee...

We always knew we were safe if we stayed on the path Clarence had plowed.  If the ice had held for Clarence and his jeep, we knew it was froze solid and deep.  If you ventured out of bounds, you might hear that terrifying  c-r-a-c-k ...  After a while you learned the different sounds of ice when it was just making a cracking sound because it was so cold ... or the other scary sound when it was weak and giving way.

 The street lights on the bridge above the rink area provided just enough light for us to see in the evenings.  Someone also provided an old oil drum and if we were really lucky, one of the big boys would bring along an old tire to burn to help keep us warm.

Now that I look back on those days, I'm amazed at the hours we spent outside in those cold, northern Iowa winters.  We were not blessed with warm down-filled coats, stocking caps and warm gloves like you see on kids today.  Our coats were usually wool (no warm sweatshirts or fleece underneath) and we wore those butt-ugly wool headscarves. Of course, once your wool mittens became soggy, they were useless.  If you were smart, before you took off your skates, you would warm your boots over the fire before putting them on. I seem to remember someone dropping a boot into the fire by accident. Can't remember how they got home because everybody walked to the river.  No such thing as a parent dropping you off in those days.  If you wanted to go somewhere, you had two feet.

Then, after a long evening of skating, when you were frozen through to the bone, you would tie your skates together and throw them over your shoulder for the eight-block walk home ... usually into a northwest wind.  Thankfully, there was a public toilet in the old library building that was half way home and you could warm up a bit.

So I'm wondering .... when did I become such a whimp?

Sisters

I was blessed to have been raised with a big sister. Eileen was almost 4 years older and smoothed my path through childhood in many ways.  Was it all smooth sailing?  If she were here, she would fall on the floor laughing over that remark.  We fought like cats and dogs ... over everything.  There were just the two of us.  We had no other siblings to help smooth things over.

                   
                             Sisters - 1943


We shared a bedroom for 14 years.  Tough!!  We would draw an imaginary line down the center of the room and threaten death if either of us crossed the line. During the evening chore of dinner dishes, we fought and argued to such a degree that Mom finally decided the only way to have peace was to split the chore ... Eileen did dishes one night and I did them the next.  This actually worked out pretty well for me.  Once Sis got old enough to date, she would beg me to switch nights with her.  I would usually get a 2-for-1 deal. (Younger sisters have to survive somehow.)

Nobody wants a whiny, tag-along little sister.  Things got mighty mean at times.  I remember a grape jelly sandwich in my face. Of course, after she did that dastardly deed, we fell on the floor in laughter.  Then there was the incident with vanilla flavoring.  Have you ever smelled that little brown bottle of  flavoring?  Yummy...  She was baking and enticed me to smell it and taste it.  She said, "it tastes just as good as it smells."  Now, I'm about 7 years old and been fooled by this sister way too many times, so I insisted that she taste it first.  She tipped that little brown bottle up to her mouth and made me believe it was dee-licious.  Well, get out of my way ... I take a large gulp.  I leave you to your imagination as to what ensued.  Many years later, she confessed that it took every bit of her willpower to keep a straight face and convince me to do the taste test.

Through all the growing pains we shared, she was a wonderful, caring sister. At the end of the day, when two little girls crawled into that old iron bed together, she always held my hand until we fell asleep.  She walked me to school and directly to my classroom on my first day of kindergarten, trying to soothe my fears.  If spooky noises were heard in the dark, she was always at my side to keep the Boogyman away...although sometimes those noises were caused by the big sister trying to scare the bejeezus out of me.

Birthdays were not a big deal in our house as we were growing up.  There were no presents or special events planned.  But, I remember Eileen baking a birthday cake for me the year I turned ten years old.  It was my first ever birthday cake.

One of our favorite games during the long northern Iowa winter months was playing "stagecoach".  We would gather all our dolls onto the bed.  Then we would attach leather belts to the end of the old iron bed frame and pretend they were reins.  We would grab the reins and get to bouncing that old bed back and forth pretending we were riding in a stagecoach and Indians were trying to catch us.  I still don't know how mother put up with all the screaming and laughing as we tried to outrace the natives.

Eileen was the marble champion of the entire neighborhood.  She had a bag of marbles that was the envy of every kid in town.  After a couple of summers, nobody would play with her because she would win all their marbles and walk away. She also could whistle through her teeth.  She spent hours trying to teach me, but I never could master it.  Years later when she became the mother of  five, she would walk to her back door and whistle.  The kids could hear her for blocks around and head home.

We were as different as night and day.  She had dark, wavy hair, brown eyes and would turn brown as a nut in the summer.  Me?  Stick-straight, blonde hair, blue eyes, freckles and I fried in the sun. I enjoyed sports, riding bikes and skating for hours.  She became tired and usually dropped out of our games early.  Later, of course, we came to realize it was her weak heart that caused her to tire so quickly.   Our fashion sense was totally different.  As an adult, I leaned toward jeans and Birkenstocks.  She loved strappy, feminine sandals and dressy pants and blouses.

For many years during our twenties and thirties, we drifted apart.  We lived in different states and were busy raising children.  Oh, we called each other occasionally, sent Christmas and birthday cards, pictures of our growing kids, etc.  Both of us went through the good and bad in life.  We tried to meet at Mom's each summer, but that seldom worked out as family activities prevented our schedules to mesh.

And then, miraculously, our children were grown and we had more free hours in the day.  We started to call once or twice a week and a couple of times grabbed a plane and went to visit.  We developed a deep, caring love for each other.  We laughed and cried over our shared memories of childhood.  It was not unusual for me to pick up the phone and hear, "Sis, do you remember ........"  Then we would take a walk down memory lane together, sometimes for hours.

She celebrated her 60th birthday in 1998 and I flew to San Jose to spend a few days with her.  On a whim, we decided to have our picture taken together.  Little did we know how short our days together would be.

My dear sister died in February 2010 and my world fell apart.  How many times do I reach for the phone to call and share a laugh or a tear?  How many times does some little thing trigger a faint memory and I need to ask her if she remembers?   Nobody knows me like she did.  She was my rock, my Big Sister, my other half.  She was the Keeper of My Memories.

I miss you every day, dear schwester, may you rest in peace.

The Flood Creek Hermit

Several years ago, my mother and I were walking through St. Mary's Cemetery in Roseville, Iowa.  I needed some tombstone pictures. She was keeping me company and telling stories about family members. Many of my family are buried there. We were just casually strolling here and there in this small country cemetery. It was a lovely day.  As we walked along, I noticed a small tombstone by the side of the driveway.  It read:  Pete Nohs, died Feb. 17, 1903.  It was such a small tombstone, it almost made you think it belonged to a child.

My genealogy antenna went a bit haywire when I noticed the name Nohs.  I was researching the Noss line. Coincidence?  When I questioned Mom, she drew a blank and tended to calm me down with the thought that it probably wasn't a relative. Something about the poor little tombstone touched me and I took a photo of it ... just in case.  Ya just never know ...

The next day, I spent the afternoon at the local library looking through old newspapers.  I decided to see what I could find on Peter Nohs who died in 1903.  I found his obit:

"Old Peter Nosh, the Flood Creek hermit, who has been sick for sometime past, died Tuesday morning, from a complication of troubles.  Contrary to the generally accepted opinion, he was not an old bachelor, but had a wife and daughter both of whom died in the old country before he came over 34 years ago.  The funeral service will be held tomorrow."
   Rockford Register, Rockford, Iowa - Thursday, 19 February 1903

Again the old antenna immediately began to quiver (if you are a genealogist, you know exactly what I'm talking about).  Peter Nosh? Nohs?  Noss? Could this be possible?  My great-grandfather, Carl Noss, and family did not arrive in Iowa until 1886.  If Peter had lived in Iowa for 34 years by 1903, that means he came over earlier.  Could this be a relative and the reason my Carl decided to settle in Floyd County?

A couple of days later, I returned home and immediately headed for the Omaha Public Library as they had a complete collection of Iowa census records (this was pre-Ancestry days).  There was Peter Nuss in the 1880 census for Floyd County, Ulster Township.

Later I found a land record that contained Peter's signature.  This solved the mystery of the assorted Nohs/Nuss/Noss spellings.

If you look closely, you will notice he signed his name with the typical German double S, which to the eye of a non-German appears as an "hs".... thus Nohs.  

From there I followed Peter's story through census records, land records, probate records, passenger lists and German church records.  I was like a dog with a bone.

The final reward is that old Peter Nohs, the Flood Creek hermit does belong to me.  He's my 2nd great uncle.   Now when I wander through that peaceful country cemetery, I always stop and talk to Peter.  I just want him to know that he has family and we remember him.

This is Peter's story:

He was born 13 April 1818 in the small country village of Bettingen in Saarland, Germany.  His older brother, Johan, is my great-great grandfather. He was married to Theresia Hermann on 1 June 1841.  They had a baby girl who died at birth later that year.  In 1844 they were blessed with a son they named Peter.  I can almost feel Peter's pride at the birth of this son. Sadly no other children were born to Peter and Theresia.  In March of 1868, tragedy struck the family with the death of their only child and then Theresia died two years leter in December of 1870. Peter must have been devastated to lose his entire family.

In the spring of 1872, a Bettingen farmer by the name of Peter Merfeld and his family decided to emigrate to Iowa and Peter joined them on the voyage. They sailed on the "Silesia" and landed in New York on 11 April 1872.  They traveled across country and settled in Floyd County where Merfeld's brothers had settled a few years previously.  

Another old newspaper article extracted from Rockford Register, dated 20 Oct 1898 gives another glimpse into the life of Peter:


  "Peter Noss, the old hermit of Flood Creek, has been sick for some time and is a hard case for the authorities to handle.  He insists on being left alone in his little hut and does not want anyone to go there to care for him, neither will he be cared for anywhere else.  The township trustees keep such supervision of him as possible and will see that he does not suffer for want of food.  The chances are that someday he will be found dead in his little home."

If you are a fellow genealogist, you have certain stories or family members that touch you deeply.  Poor old Peter Noss, the hermit of Flood Creek is one of mine.  Somehow I feel he never got over the loss of his little family.  I'm hoping he found some peace in a small house in northern Iowa.  I know I feel a connection to the old hermit when I lay my hand on the top of his tombstone in that peaceful country cemetery.

The Road to California

The 1930's were tough years for America. Times were hard and jobs were scarce, especially for young Iowa farm boys.  Mom's oldest brother, Joseph "Toby" Noss, was 17 years old in the summer of 1933 when he made his first trip to California.  He accompanied his older sister, Gert, and her finance, Don Lines. He served as chaperone and helped Don with the driving.  They drove an old Model T Ford Coupe.

When they arrived in Sacramento they stayed with their mother's sister, Mary Albrecht Smith in Sacramento near 14th Avenue and 44th Street.

At the end of the summer, Toby decided to head back to Iowa. Aunt Mary made him some sandwiches, sewed $5.00 in his pocket for emergencies and off he went.  He hitched a ride on a produce truck to Reno and helped the driver unload his produce in payment.  Then he walked three miles to Sparks, Nevada and hopped a train where he rode the walkway on top of the cars.  At one point, he fell asleep and almost rolled off the roof, but managed to crawl back to the walkway.  When he arrived in Ogden, Utah, he heard a rumor about someone being killed in the train yard; so he didn't wait around, but grabbed the next train going east and rode all the way to Mason City, Iowa and never had to use the $5.00 that was still sewn in his pocket. All he spent was 35 cents for a meal in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

In 1936, he went back to California to stay. He went to work for Aunt Mary as a truck driver.  Later he was a dispatcher and driver.  He soon married and started a family.  The young Iowa boy had found a home in the West.

Aunt Mary had no children of her own, but she helped several of her nieces and nephews by giving them a bed and jobs until they could get on their feet and off on their own.  Toby was the oldest son in a family of 11 children. Over the next few years, two brothers and a sister joined him in California.

In 1944 it was decided that the rest of the family would leave Iowa for California. This included Toby's parents, Bill and Tillie Noss, sisters Gladys and Mary, along with brothers, Jim, Jack and Kenny.  Grandpa Bill had a wee problem with alcohol and never seemed to be able to provide much for the family.  If they moved west, it would be possible for Toby, as the oldest son, to help.

Again, Aunt Mary came to the rescue and helped finance the move.  Toby purchased an old moving van in Minnesota for $1100.00 and the family proceeded to load their goods ... including an old Plymouth!  Reminds me of Ma and Pa Joad and the family in The Grapes of Wrath.  

                                                                     

The morning of departure, they stopped at our house for breakfast.  I was only two years old, so have no memory of the momentous occasion.  My mother, Julia, would be the only member of the family staying in Iowa.  By that time, she was married with two small daughters.  She fed them all and waved goodbye.  Mom was devastated as she watched her entire family drive away not knowing when she would see any of them again.

Toby and Jim took turns driving.  Jim was barely 16 years old and probably didn't even have a driver's license.  Aunt Gladys told me how the younger kids would get out and walk when the truck was slowly crawling up a mountain.  It gave them a chance to stretch their legs and enjoy a bit of fresh air.

After several years, Toby and his younger brother, Jim, joined forces and formed Noss Brothers Trucking Company.  As always Toby continued to help younger members of his extended family by providing a bed or a job to get them started on the right foot as Aunt Mary had done for him back in the 1930's.

Toby & Mary Noss - 1996

Today, Uncle Toby is nearing his 96th birthday and lives on 5 acres in Elk Grove, near Sacramento, California.  For many years, he and his beloved wife, Mary, hosted the annual Noss family reunion at their home until her death in 2001. Toby loves to be surrounded by his family and friends.

He's been a California resident for about 75 years, but if you dig out your pocketknife and scrape away a bit of his tough old hide, underneath you will find an Iowa farm boy born and bred.  His values are unchanged ... frugality, family and hard work.

Now, again, we find America in tough times.  Perhaps we should all take a page from Toby's rule book and see if we can get on down the road.

(Thanks to Toby's daughter, Terry Noss Walker, for helping me with this story about her dad.)

Mother's Tree

If you have read any of the previous posts, you know that I love family history.  I'll admit to being a genealogy junkie.  I can lose an entire day by just sitting down at the computer with my morning coffee and saying to myself, "I wonder if there's anything new on Ancestry."   Pooof .... it's dinnertime!  The dog is whining, the dust bunnies have multiplied, I've forgotten to eat (not a bad thing) and I'm still in my jammies.  Holy crap, batman!

But what you don't know is that I have another passion and that is stitching.  Stitching of any kind ... knitting, quilting, cross stitch, crocheting.  You name it.  If it involves a stitch, I'm game.  My mother taught me to sew when I was in junior high school.  At that time, my older sister was taking home ec in high school and Mom had traded in her old treadle machine for a new electric model.

Mom was an excellent seamstress when she had time; but since her time was limited, she taught her daughters to sew.  Of course, I didn't realize at the time what a wonderful gift it truly was until I was blessed with a daughter who grew to be 6' tall.  Believe me I used every skill she ever taught in lengthening skirts, dresses, pants.  I even made her wedding dress as she was not only long-legged, but also had a long torso. I became a bit suicidal at that point and haven't done much sewing since.

Another gift my mother chose to pass on was how to crochet and embroider. Something to do on a cold winter night or a rainy afternoon.  I must have been fairly young because I don't remember doing either while in high school. After I left home, I taught myself to quilt and knit.  Do you remember those little green Coats & Clark books you bought at the dime store?  That's where I learned to knit. Wonder what ever happened to mine?

To get back to the main theme of today's blog, I decided to combine my love of genealogy with my love of old samplers and stitching.  I found a wonderful pattern called "Mother's Tree" by Lavender & Lace.  This was exactly what I needed to sew an heirloom gift for my only granddaughter.  The pattern records all women in a direct line.

Several years of genealogy research were completed before I even began the stitching.  In the end, I was unable to find the birth date for Anna Maria Conter Mueller.  German church records were not available for her village in that time frame, which I estimated to be around 1750.  I had hoped to perhaps find a death date that might give me a clue; but with the name Anna Mueller, I might as well have been looking for John Smith.  I began to stitch from the bottom up, hoping to find the missing data before I reached the space for her information, but no such luck. I decided it was best to finish it while I was able to do so.  Sometimes life gets in the way and I would have hated to see it end up unfinished and stuffed  in a drawer.

This week I brought it home from the frame shop. It felt like I had given birth!  It represents many years of my life.  It will hang in my home until my granddaughter is old enough to have her own home.  Since she's edging towards 15, it will be several years but hope to still be around to see it hung on her wall.  If not, she will have all my love and a bit of her family history wrapped up in thousands of stitches.  Perhaps it will be passed on.  I asked the framer to leave a bit of extra material tucked away at the bottom in hopes that maybe a future generation will be able to add a name if so desired.

Oh, did I mention that I never want to see DMC color 934 every again?

The stitching gene passed over my only daughter, but I taught my granddaughter, Reghan, to knit and cross stitch when she came to my house after school.  Of course, she's now a busy teenager with many school and sports activities, and stitching is far down her list.  But, I have faith that she will pick it up again someday just as I did.

Next up will be a sampler for my only grandson based totally on his surname.  Now if  I could just pass on the genealogy gene .....