Who Remembers the Lard Pail?

I've been very lax in blogging the past few months.  The weather has been oppressive and my ambition has stalled along with the weather.   Mother Nature has given Iowans a summer to remember.  We've had no rain since mid-June.  The farmers are losing their hard-earned crops and the local trees and lawns are suffering.  I can't wait for September.

How did we survive in those days before air conditioning?  Did I mention I hate hot weather?  Even as a kid, I could never tolerate the heat and humidity.  Probably all caused by my fair complexion ... complete with sunburn and freckles.  Add it all together and I became a whiny little kid in the intense summer  heat.  Especially if Mom decided to pull me away from my chosen book of the day and push me outside.

What does all this have to do with a lard pail you ask?

Lard pails came in several different sizes.  The ones we used were a little bigger than a Crisco can.  They had a nifty handle and families used them for multiple chores until they were either dented beyond recognition, rusted or totally worn out.  Grandma used one to feed the chickens and we used them to gather veggies from the garden.  Mom remembers using one to take her lunch to school.  Very nifty little things were lard pails.  My friend, Sue, reminded me that every kitchen had one setting on the stove to collect bacon grease.

I hated them ...

                                     
If  Mom said, "Evelyn, grab a lard pail...."  It always involved work and I was a typical kid.  Working was not at the top of my list.  Heck, it wasn't even in the middle of my list.

The one job at the very top of  the list (that involved a lard pail) was picking gooseberries.  Now, if you are not familiar with gooseberries, let me tell you.  They are not very big ... about the size of a pea.  Do you know how many  berries you have to pick to fill a lard bucket?   Too damn many, I can tell you.

       

They also grow on a bush with little picky things that cut your hands to pieces ... unless you wear gloves.  And then, because you are going to the woods, you have to wear long pants and SHOES.  Egad, I would have to shove my feet into shoes?  I've been going barefoot all summer.  My feet are tough and spread out in all their glory.  They do not fit into shoes until Labor Day!!  You want me to go pick berries??

No getting out of it.  My sister and I set out down the gravel road and across the bridge.  Then we turn left and into the woods along the river where the wild gooseberries grow.  Eileen doesn't want to be there any more than I do, and she will contribute to my misery by rustling the bushes and mentioning bears and assorted wild animals that are certainly lurking to take my life.

So, here I am with the darn lard pail hanging from my belt, banging against my body, while I pick berries with both hands and try to keep the bugs from flying in my hot, red little face .... all the while worrying that something or somebody was creeping up behind me.  Did I mention that I was a whiny kid that didn't like heat ... or bugs and big sisters who scared the bejezuz out of you?

Mom had sent us off on our journey with her final cheerful words ... "Don't come back until your buckets are full."  We knew that to do so would incur our having to make a second trip. Not gonna happen.  We would come dragging back up the gravel road .. sweaty, bug bitten and scratched within an inch of our lives.  But those lard buckets would be full.

Then Mom would make gooseberry jam ......  I don't even like gooseberry jam.






                                           

Batter Up!!

I had an entire blog post ready to go, checked the preview,  hit the wrong button and lost the entire thing.  Rut Roh.  Now I have to remember what I wrote and I can't even remember what I had for breakfast.  Where the heck is that little popup when you need it?  You know the one that says, "Are you sure you want to delete this, Stupid?"

I've been a bit busy with assorted springtime activities; one, of which, is my grandson's baseball games.  He plays on a team of eleven-year-old boys.  They have spiffy uniforms, caps, shoes, etc.  He'll play over 50 games between April and June, not to mention practice at least twice a week.  No longer can kids just walk down the street and grab a game at the neighborhood park.  Boys this age come in all sizes.  Some are short, quick and very agile; others are tall, lanky and a bit awkward.  It's heart-warming to watch the smallest kid on the team get the biggest hit.

Playing ball was a bit different in a small town in the 50's. We would gather at the empty lot next to the Catholic church or on the street in front of someone's house.  The size of our field depended on the vicinity of the nearest windows.  Our bases were marked with assorted rocks or pieces of clothing.  Nothing worse than the wrath of your mother if your discarded jacket had been used for second base.  Everyone would bring whatever equipment they could find or borrow.  Assorted bats and gloves were used by one and all.  Many kids didn't have a glove so they borrowed the glove of the batter until they needed it again.  Hopefully someone would bring a ball that was somewhat round and not coming apart at the seams.  Most of the time we used a softball because they were not so apt to break a window.

On days that we happened to gather at the church lot, Father LaValette would sometimes join us dressed in his black cassock standing behind home plate as umpire.  There was never any arguments or whining about being called out on strikes when Father played with us.

Most small towns had a men's team that would play neighboring towns for bragging rights.  Some churches and clubs would also have ball teams.  If there was a ballgame scheduled, they would set up an easel sign in the middle of main street that said "BALLGAME TONIGHT".  The whole town would show up.

 We also had a pretty good women's team and I can remember my mother pitched for a couple of years.  One day there was a knock on the back door and when I looked out I saw one of the big kids from the neighborhood standing there with his bat and glove.  I thought he had come to ask if I would come out and play ball.  Me??  I was so excited.  Upon opening the door, he said, "Can your mom come out and pitch for us?"  I was devastated.  They didn't want me to play, they wanted my mother!!  Did I mentioned she was left handed ... and good?

I played ball all through my grade school years and even on the high school summer team.  Of course, we played fast pitch as there was no such thing as slow pitch in those days.  We had no fancy uniforms, but we had hours of fun.  I remember playing center field at one game with only a small wire fence separating me from a flock of sheep ... Baaaa.

Years later in the late 60's while working in southern Minnesota, I played on a company team.  By that time, fast pitch ball was slowly being phased out and more teams were playing slow pitch.  But there were a few teams and I seem to remember a keg of beer was involved after the games ... loser buying.

My daughter continued the family tradition and began playing on a team when she was about 10 years old. She kept at it through high school and was lucky enough to be part of a Iowa state tournament team.  Her team was beaten in the early rounds, but the tournament atmosphere was a very special experience.

Now she and I sit on the sidelines and watch our son and grandson play the game.  I must admit it is much easier to be out on the field playing the game than it is to sit on the sidelines and agonizingly watch the strikeouts, missed throws and errors.


But there's nothing like the crack of the bat and watching the ball soar over center field....


Oh the fun of sitting in the sunshine with a hot dog, bag of popcorn and something cold to drink, all the while swatting at the bugs.  Then there are the evenings with a cold, wet wind blowing in from right field and you are swaddled in a blanket, coat and hat.  But you wouldn't miss it for the world.

Now if I can remember to hit the right button, we can all say "Batter Up."

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.