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I need to dedicate this story to my son Tom and daughter Stacy. Also to my sister's children, David and Sandy
This story begins November, 1934. This is the year Janice (my twin sister) and I were born. I have seen reports that while in our Mother's womb we shared hugs and holding hands. This certainly is a bond that no one can take away from us.
As we grew older, we saw many changes. The end of the depression, seeing my Mom sacrifice for us. I remember going to the store with Government issued tokens and stamps for food and shoes. Everyone had to do this. Victory gardens sprung up everywhere. Where once was a beautiful manicured yard was now vegetables, anything edible.
A man from Minnesota came to Bloomer at that time and placed an ad for a Brewery and needed men. It didn't take long at that time to fill the quota. Dad had a job, a wonderful time.
We shared one bike, one pair of skates. Sometimes we would give in to each other and allow us to skate with both skates, we shared because we had to.
Our Grandmother had a farm, she helped us with milk and fresh eggs and meat. My mom had so many friends because she surrendered her meat stamps for sugar and flour. Those were difficult times. At Grandmother's farm we played so hard with so very little. My Grandfather was blind at the age of 32. Rumor has it that the Moon shine destroyed his vision. My Grandmother's life was very hard but she endured, she was surrounded by her animals and each had their own name.
Each day that Dad would return home for lunch, we would have the mud pies ready for him to taste. In some respect, we had a good life. We had Mom and Dad, Grandparents and sisters for life. I remember the car being put up on blocks because of the War. Janice and I would welcome any animal that came along. We would save some of our dinner and later take it to the garage. Dad never went there so he didn't see how many dogs we sheltered. One day he mentioned that he needed something from the garage and Janice and I looked at each other and said oh oh! We went outside to watch and as he opened the door, out came five dogs and they scattered. We got a lecture of course, and we promised to stop doing this.
Loved going to Grandmother's at harvest time. Janice and I would jump into the oats bin and pretend we were swimming not knowing that we could have smothered - taking the rope in the hay barn and playing Tarzan. We could have fallen to our death but we were absent of fear. I loved watching the horses pull the hay into the barn. there was so much I could write about; experiences, love, laughter and sometimes sadness.
Janice and I played in the corn field. We took Grandma's scissors, comb and curlers. We cut the silk, pretended to give them perms; it was so much
We spent hours grooming the corn ladies. Finally decided to go back to the house. The following day was Sunday, Grandma was looking for her curlers for Church that morning. Janice and I looked at each other and those little legs took off and never looked back. Grandma was angry but never, never hurt us. Summers, we played with the kids in the neighborhood. A town of 1500 people, you know everyone. Street games, cops and robbers, red lite. We didn't have much but we had fun. School was St Paul's Catholic. Janice and I were the only twins in Bloomer at the time so I guess we were kind of special. Seems that we always had something to do. Busy beavers, always thinking of something to do. Play in the park, walk the water pipe across the small river. Once we fell in and we had to swing for a good hour to dry our clothes.
On our way to school one day, we saw a stray dog and invited him to walk with us. We thought we were being kind by giving him chocolate covered cherries. We finally arrived at the church and the dog followed us into the church. We thought it so cute, the children laughed and by the time we reached the communion rail with the nice white cloth, the dog threw up all over the front of the Church. I remember seeing the red cherries rolling all over the floor and the Nuns looking at us with that killer look. We knew then that we would be on our knees for a very long time. |
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