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The Memories of Irene Whitfield Chisholm |
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In 1979, I gave my mother a hardcover blank book and asked her to please write down all the stories of her childhood that she'd been telling me. She claimed she couldn't think of which stories I could possibly want written down. So, I sat down and made a list. I gave her the list and then she gave up and started writing. She didn't write everything on the list, and she wrote a few things that weren't. But she wrote down things in more detail. At first, they were merely interesting. But now, more than fifteen years after her death, they are a treasure trove of history and family knowledge.
Uncle Glennie was always doing interesting things, like fetching water from The Spring,
chopping wood, and sliding down hills on a sled. Once we found a tiny humming bird's
nest on the way to The Spring. Sometimes there were flowers. One, he called Butter
and Eggs. Weird. There really is a flower by that name, too, but I have never
seen it anywhere else.
Sometimes, Glennie let us slide down the hill with him but
generally not. It was said to be too dangerous for little kids. His ma said so
and probably he didn't like to be bothered. I didn't really like sliding anyway,
too much walking back uphill in the snow.
Some days he read stories to us and
sometimes showed us how to draw pictures. He was a never failing source of
entertainment and information. He knew everything from how to make a snowball,
any size, to how to balance a broom on you finger.
Glennie was my stepmother's
little brother, about twelve at that time. I was six or seven. Gracie was Glennies
little sister, maybe ten or so. She too, was very good to us and read stories and
made doll clothes and helped us find the baby kittens and other important things.
Katie was older. She was nice, too, but generally too busy to be bothered with us.
Uncle Alvie was always busy, too and a bit grumpy at times, but grandfathers are
expected to be.
Gram was the nervous excitable type, but always very good to her
step-grandchildren as much as if we were her own. She had several large white cats.
All of them had more toes than cats are supposed to have. But I remember mostly the
hair they left on all the cushions and the fact that Gram used to throw feed out
on the snow for the birds and the big white cats would hide in the snow, waiting
for the birds to come.
The kittens I do not remember, except for finding them.
Glennie had to take them out and drown them and I was not allowed to go along.
Sometimes Gracie took us to the library. It was a long way, at least a mile.
It was summer and sometimes we got too tired and hot, so we sat down by the road
and read our library books. When we got home Gram would be nervous and fluttery
worrying if something dreadful had happened to us. I can understand that now,
Gracie was only ten and we were younger but hen, resting and reading seemed the
natural thing to do. The library was very little. Not near as big as our own
library, now, but fascinating, none the less.
I liked Vaughn. The stores were built on piers so that sometimes they were out
over the water and sometimes you could look for pretty rocks and shells under them.
There weren't many of those, though, except for barnacles and mussels which are
on all pilings.
The pilings were a good place to look for fish worms.
The boys broke the barnacles off and picked out the worms. They were horrid looking
things about three to six inches long and all legs like a centipede. They called
them pile worms. They boys didn't seem to know what angleworms were or maybe they
did not like to do all that much digging. Anyway pile worms were standard fish bait
at Vaughn. Periwinkles were used, too.
We went fishing on the wharf near the store.
It was fun, but sun was so warm and the water smelled so nice and besides I never was
allowed to go fishing at Fall City, because I was a girl. We hardly ever caught
anything, but fishing was fun anyway.
One time, Kenny did catch a fish. He put
it in a shady place near the edge of the raft-like wharf we were fishing from.
Soon he hooked another one.
In his excitement he stepped on the first fish
and plunged into the water. None of us could swim. He disappeared beneath
the clear green water leaving only ripple marks. The water began to churn
and I was scared, then his round dark head appeared in the middle of the commotion.
He kept all four limbs in violent motion but couldn't get anyplace.
Then Johnny found an oar which he reached out to Kenny.
So we hauled Kenny out
and he went dripping home. Johnny & I elected to stay and fish some more.
Bobby Bill went home with Kenny.
When Johnny and I got home I was soundly scolded
for pushing Kenny in, that's what he said I did. It was nonsense, of course, but
step-mom would believe Kenny, of course. I think we, or at least I, was
'grounded' for the rest of the summer. No fishing!
When I was very young, I was Papa's Girl. That was natural I think as I was the
oldest child and the only girl. When he came home from work or anytime he had been
gone, I would run and kiss and hug him, even after I went to live in my Stepmother's
house.
Kenneth thought that he should also kiss Papa and Papa very dutifully kissed
him, too, but I was always first. I started first and maybe ran the fastest. Kenny
resented that. He said he wanted to be first sometimes, but he was a slow starter and
I wouldn't wait.
Then Stepmother stepped in. She said I must let Kenny go first.
Kenny just doodled and made no move to run to Papa and I was afraid to run until he
did so Papa did not get his kiss and I felt strange and lonely. It was the same
the next day and Papa said we were too old to kiss Papa. 'Mama' was perhaps a wee
bit jealous. I am sure it did not matter to Kenny.
When Kenneth and I were in the first grade we walked to school, about a mile,
through an uninhabited stretch of mostly woodland.
There were two abandoned places
along the route. One, a large barn and some sheds, we mostly ignored.
The other
was closer to the trail. It had been a nice little house. A log house, and had
been plastered. It was said to be haunted. The kids said so, anyway. We always
hurried past, especially on dark days when the big empty windows seemed to stare
at us.
One day it started to snow before we left the school, and it was snowing very hard.
By the time we reached the haunted house the snow was up to our knees and we were
ploughing along very slowly, unable to hurry at all when we heard a weird sound
like a muffled voice. A dim figure was moving ahead [of us]. We stopped in alarm
and would have run if we could have.
The dim figure approached. Terrified, we stood
and watched, too exhausted to do otherwise.
The sound came again, and we did run
a few feet. That was hopeless so we stood again and waited.
Next time the sound
came it seemed like someone calling, calling our names. Yes, it was! It was Uncle
Glenny coming to look for us. Were we ever happy! And now with a big person
to break trail for us (he was ten or eleven) walking was easy, and of course
we weren't scared at all then.
Grownups say that the house is not haunted but we have to stay out of it, anyway.
They say there are no haunted houses.
Old Dan MacKenzie was an interesting old character though I was a bit afraid of
him. He was visiting at our house one very warm afternoon. He looked hot and tired.
'Come here', he said to me indicating a spot about three feet in front of him.
'No, I won't bite,' he sort of snapped.
I did as I was told a bit reluctantly.
'Now get me a glass of water, Child, and I will dance at your wedding.'
I felt sort of bowled over. I just stood there, probably with my mouth open. The idea
of that tired old man dancing and at a wedding at that! Did people dance at weddings?
My grandparents didn't approve of dancing, I knew. And at MY wedding? What
made him think...
Grandpa had a hive of bees, sometimes, once, anyway they didn't get enough to eat.
He tried feeding them sugared water. I don't know how successful it was. I think
the dogs got most of the feed. I saw only two or three bees eating it. I think
it was just too cold weather for them to be out.
One time when it was sunny and warm there was a swarm of bees lit on the fence.
Byrd Hume found it and told Grandpa. He had seen it from his garden. He lived
right next door.
Lewis and I came a running to see what was all the excitement.
Grandpa said the bees were Humeses because they found them. The Humeses
said they belonged Gramp because they came from there. Gramp said nobody knows where
wild bees come from and the rule was finders keepers unless you could prove possession.
They were on Grampa's fence.
Lew Hume said 'ask the kids. Kids know everything.'
We said we had never seen the bees before and 'we came because everyone was hollering.'
So Gramp says 'Get a box, Lew, they're all yours.' Someone said, 'You kids run
along now so's you don't get hurt.'
We did, but I did hear Byrd tell Lew:
'Those are good kids. They don't know nothin'.
They really wanted the bees
and in Grandma's opinion, at least, we had enough bees already.
When I was a little tad, about eight years old, maybe, I took piano lessons from
Mrs. Raven. Uncle Bill paid for them. I think it was 25 cents a lesson.
It was a very short walk over to Mrs. Raven's. Probably about a block.
Sometimes my brother went with me. I thought it was very exciting.
Our old-fashioned music books started having little tunes right away.
Little
Ruthie Tarr also took piano lessons. Her folks didn't want her to waste time on
the music book. She had to learn to play 'America' right away so she could play
for company. She did, too, but it took quite awhile. Mrs. Raven said she could
have learned it a lot easier and better and almost as quickly if she had learned
what was in the lesson book first. I never did like to show-off for people, but
Ruthie did.
Later I took lessons from the Scavenious School of Music. In fact, from young Fritz,
himself. He had been a child genius and had played for the Queen of England. So he
came to America and was a music teacher.
He eventually married and moved to Manchester
where Jean and Howard lived. We called on my old music teacher one day. He had very
definite ideas about child prodigies. He did not approve of children having to play
piano at all. He said children should be out playing in the yard. Listen to the
music, yes, while they are amusing themselves, but play, no. Jean said he had some
queer idea, and customs, such as she could always tell when he was away because
he left a chamber pot turned upside down over the chimney. He said it was to keep
the rain out so the stove would not get wet. Very practical, I think.
Fritz Scavenious in later years taught only advanced students (piano). His wife
taught the beginners class. They took no very young kids at all.
I always practiced my music lesson diligently on Saturday. That was lesson day.
First I practice half an hour or more before I went and then again when I got back.
Sometimes a whole hour or more. In between times only a little unless someone insisted.
At the end of the course we were given an examination. Imagine my surprise when the
results came in. I was picking raspberries. I hid my head in the bushes when
Grandma announced that my grade had come in. I expected them to be purely awful.
When she told me that I was the best in the class and had won a year's scholarship
I was stunned, simply couldn't believe it.
Later when someone congratulated me
I said 'and I hardly practiced at all. What were the other students doing?'
It was the wrong thing to say, of course. To my surprise she said,
'I am one of the other students and I practiced every day.' I could have died.
We recently were discussing 'What do little country kids do?' When I was a kid
there were many things to do. There were often a few chores, feeding the calf or
the kitten. Watering or weeding the garden. Picking fruit, building irrigating
canals to easier water the garden. Washing dishes, bringing in wood, depending on
the season and the age of the child. There was an unlimited amount and variety
of chores.
Then there was free time spur-of-the-moment activities like washing the pig!
One day we asked Grandma if we could play with the pig. Said pig was bigger than
the three of us together.
Naturally Grandma said, 'no, stay out of the pigpen,
it's all dirty and she might bite you'.
However, the pig was not in his yard.
He was in Grandma's rose garden having a dust bath like the chickens sometimes
do.
Lewis said pigs like to be scratched so we scratched him with a stick.
I thought we should wash him because Grandma thought he was too dirty to play
with. We found an old brush and some corn cobs and started washing him.
He loved it.
But Grandma started to wonder what we were doing with all the water and the brush
we borrowed. Ray reported that we were playing with the pig.
'They can't be, they are right here by the porch. I can hear them,' she said.
Then she looked. 'What in the world?' she cried.
I don't remember what all the screeching was but we were dragged into the house.
The 'men-folk' were summoned the 'put that pig back into his pen. If I didn't have
enough to do' etc. 'He could have bitten your hand right off' etc.
We didn't play with the pig again, but there were lots of other things to do.
There was an old well by the haunted house. On sunny days we sometimes tried
to look down. That was a very dangerous thing to do because it was a big deep
hole and the boards that were supposed to hold the sides up were mostly rotted
away.
One day someone really heard some moaning over there, a sort of hollow groan,
if you see what I mean. They may have been scared, but they looked, and there
was a cow down there. It took several men to pull her out. They said she was
so hungry she even ate bracken ferns on the way home.
Between the haunted house and the school house was a deep gully, steep on both sides.
We always ran through that, down one side and up the other, as fast as we could
go, partly because it was comparatively dark and scary and also mostly because of
the wild stories Kenny told about people hearing a woman scream there and they couldn't
find any woman and decided it was a cougar. A real live cougar is just as scary
as a ghost. You KNOW there could be a cougar.
I remember that Thanksgiving and Christmas were really feast days at Grandma's house. We would have every available relative [there] and probably the women helped [cook]. The meal as I remember was roast beef usually, seldom turkey. Mashed potatoes & gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, celery, pickles, oyster bisque, several kinds of pies, pumpkin, mince, apple, pineapple. Grandma really liked pineapple pie, sometimes chicken pie also. I expect Aunt Bernie made that, and some cake, too. Jelly of course, and bread, butter, & cookies. I don't remember regular vegetables. Probably they were hard to get and I was not very interested in them anyway. There was milk for kids and coffee and cream. Real cream! There were also nuts oranges & candies on Christmas, though we ate those all day. Sometimes Grandma made raisin pie instead of mince.
When I was a teenager, we went to Sunday School every Sunday where we sat on benches
in a small room in behind the pulpit in the church. There we read verse after
meaningless verse from our Sunday School lesson book. It was supposed to teach us something.
Patience, maybe? Anyway, I, for one, am still in the dark as to what I was intended
to learn.
One Sunday the Teacher wanted us all to sign the Pledge.
The pledge not to drink any, or anymore, intoxicating liquids in our whole
long life, so help me. Everyone else signed excepting me.
I got stubborn.
The rest of my life was a long time. What if I wanted to take a drink sometime.
I take promises seriously. That, my teacher said, was just the point. I knew better.
If I promised not too, I would want to worse. I would really have a problem.
She
implored I should set a good example for her teenage boys. That was a shocker. If
those boys weren't drinking already it was the only bad thing they weren't doing.
I still don't drink and I still haven't signed any pledge. What is more, some, at
least, of the pledge-signers do drink.
In the old days bridges were made of planks. The planks were placed about an inch
apart, whether to save materials or as a self-cleaning arrangement is hard to say.
Maybe both.
Sometimes things dropped between the planks and got lost, like my lovely
coral necklace did. Papa went down to the beach under the bridge but it was not there.
He did not see it in the water, either. He supposed it may have fallen in the mud or
in the deep water, but there was no trace.
Years later, I met Bernice, from Vaughn. I had known her when we were both children.
She was wearing a beautiful coral necklace, like mine. She said she had found it
on the beach under the old bridge. I was surprised and happy. I had forgotten
all about it and supposed it was gone forever. I told her I thought it was the
one I lost many years ago. She was skeptical. She thought I just said that so she would give it to me,
and if it had been on the beach so long it would have been
dirty and slimy or someone would have found it. She was right, of course, and I had
no intention of asking for it, after all these years. The rule of finders, keepers
certainly applies.
I think it had been hung up under the bridge and some little bird
or beastie knocked it loose or maybe it's sliver rotted off and let it finish
falling ten or fourteen years after it started.
Aunt Bernie had given me the necklace and it was a keepsake, but what do you say?
Bernice Kincaid lived in Vaughn across the bay. We had to cross the bridge when we
walked to her house. Usually we went across in a boat. We didn't go very often.
It was more than a mile from our place. Maybe two.
[NOTE: Aunt Bernie Howe lived in Fall City and is an entirely different person from Bernice Kincaid of Vaughn, despite the similarity of their first names.]
Here are some short family lines to sketch in who is in what generation. This does NOT include all the sibs & cousins and children! This is just who is in the stories in Irene's diary, plus any others needed to make sense of the list.
Diary: Irene Margery Whitfield Chisholm
Photographer: Jack Chisholm
Author/artist/designer/programmer of page: Rowan Ainslie Chisholm
This website and all contents copyright 2009 Penelope Chisholm aka Rowan Ainslie Chisholm
This page first posted 8 May 2007
Latest revision: 23 January 2011
