Mom's 90th Birthday!

Today is my Mom's 90th birthday.  So I think it would be nice to take a step back in time to 1924.  A little history lesson of a little blonde girl born in Kerr Edition, PA.

She was born in her Grandmother's house.  It was right next door to the house she would live in.  The house my Grandfather built.  It is still standing today.  The house had no electricity or plumbing.  The Sunday School class from church came over to the house to help dig a mud cellar.  That's what was used for refrigeration.  A stone spring was also used to keep eggs and milk cold. Mom would not live in a house with plumbing until she was in 5th grade.  Oil lamps were used for light, a potbellied stove for heat.  Water was heated on the coal stove in the kitchen for bathing.  It was a little bit of a hike to the three-hole outhouse!  One hole for kids, one for adults, one for Great-Grandma who was apparently a rather large person!

Church was a big part of Mom's life.  Her mom taught Sunday School and her dad was the Superintendent.  Mom's family was very musical and I can almost hear the hymns they must have sung back then.  

Mom and her best friend would make a pretend house in a crab apple orchard, complete with living room, bedroom, and a playhouse.  An old tree stump was the bathroom!!!  Pretty close to the real thing back then if you ask me!

Afternoons were sometimes spent picking huckleberries, blackberries, and raspberries for Mom's mom to can.

In the wintertime, Grandma would put Mom and her sister, Ethel, on a sled to walk the 6 miles to town.  A hot brick was all that there was to keep them warm on the trip to town.  Times were tough and the girls would try to sell hand made Christmas wreaths.  Grandma also made 'Goofy Anne' clothespin dolls for them to sell.  She also made crocheted baby clothes that Grandpap would take to town and get money to buy groceries.  Mom would have deer, rabbit, squirrel, and other critters that Grandpap would bring home from a hunting trip, for her meal.  Grandma taught Mom how to cook, clean, and sew.  The one thing Mom says she learned from her parents was to always be thrifty and never be wasteful.

Life was very difficult during the depression.  Mom's grandparent's came to live with them.  There were times when there was very little to put on the table to eat.  But.....Mom's grandfather and grandmother, both from England, her mom and dad and sister, would all get together and sing.  Remember, no electricity!
Her grandfather was a tenor and her dad played the guitar.  Sounds pretty perfect.

The school Mom went to was a one room school house with grades 1 through 8. Complete with outhouse!  Mom was a great student and was passed two grades in one year.  Unfortunately, she liked to do a lot of talking, and got her hand smacked by the teacher with a ruler.  

When Mom was going into 5th grade, her dad got a job in Avis, PA.  They moved to Jersey Shore.  Life was quite overwhelming there for Mom.  She had nervous breakdown and  couldn't walk for a couple months.  It was there that she met Daddy, who Mom thought was a total pest!

Mom loved high school.  She joined the Operetta and played a Dutch twin, dancing in wooden shoes and singing.  She appeared in plays, was a drum majorette in the band, and was the Laurel Queen.  Daddy apparently wasn't too much of a pest because on January 9, 1942, Mom married Daddy.  

Well, that's just a little stroll down a small part of Mom's life.  She's got 90 years of life under her belt and that's a lot of history.  I'm sure if you ask, she'd be happy to take a stroll with you!