1

THE LIFE AND LOVES OF RUTHIE BELLE

By Esther Ruth Belle May-Brown-Immell

2

INTRODUCTION

Some other members of our family have written or started on their life story. I

hope they will all try to write something about their life. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could

sit down and read a real life story our grandparents, great-grandparents, uncles, aunts or

cousins have written in the long ago? Wouldn’t it be nice to know how they had lived,

loved and struggled, if they were rich or poor, happy or sad, sick or well?

Perhaps some of my distant relatives, not even born yet, will read my story and

know what I was like. They will probably think I had a hard life and I did. Still, I was

happy most of the time. I always had high hopes things would get better.

I will dedicate this, my life story, to all of my children and my nephew Dewey

Neufeld who encouraged me to write it and who has worked so hard and given so much

of his time in helping us to find out so much about our ancestors.

3

The Life Story of Ruth Belle May/Brown/Immell

This story is written by myself. It covers the period from the time I can remember

until the present time (1981). What I am writing is the true facts, as I remember them or

as told to me by my mother.

I was born January 26, 1905, somewhere near Oak Hill, Missouri. My parents

were William Logan May and Minnie Agnes May nee Muskat. My Grandma Muskat

(Emily Shoemaker Muskat) lived with my parents from the time they were married until

she died, with the flu, at Hesston, Kansas, in 1918. Granny’s husband (John Muskat) and

one son Earnest mortgaged her farm and went to the gold mines in Colorado. After a few

letters home, nothing more was ever heard from them. Granny had no way of making a

living for herself after Mom got married. Her several children all died young except Ben,

the oldest and Minnie, the youngest. Life must have been really hard for them after my

grandfather left. Ben provided for the family until all were gone and Mom was old

enough to work out as a hired girl. The farm was lost because there was no money to pay

off the mortgage.

My first memory is living in a house in the country. This could very well be the

place where I was born. I remember a big yard and a gate we went through to walk up a

lane to where there was a field, which had been cleared and grew up with sprouts. Dad,

Mom and I went to this field. Mom spread something on the ground for me to sit on

while Dad cut sprouts. There was woods all around the field. I found my first hard-

shelled turtle there. Mom called them terrapins. I was fascinated by it, but Mom warned

me it would bite and wouldn’t let go “till it thundered”.

At this same house, I gave Mom and Granny quite a scare. They had a rack,

which was made with four legs, a low shelf and a high top shelf. The rack was used to

store quilts and blankets in during the summer. There was some sort of curtain around the

outside. I crawled in on top of the folded bedding and went to sleep. Mom and Granny

said they were really scared when they couldn’t find me. I’m sure there was great relief

and happiness when they did find me. There were a lot of woods, snakes and wolves,

which could harm a small child.

I was always a restless and active person as long as I can remember although, I

can’t remember ever running off. Mom said I fell in a tub of wash water when I was little

and nearly drowned. This may account for my being afraid of water all my life.

We lived in Tea, Missouri for a time. Dad worked for Mr. Lee Robinson who

owned a farm near Tea. Mom said she would send me down to the store when she needed

something. If I was big enough to send to the store alone, I really should remember

something about living there but I don’t.

Mom said Granny went to visit a neighbor who had a child sick with the measles.

She always wore big aprons, which covered most of the long dresses they wore a long

time ago. Some of the aprons had wide hems and were embroidered. When Granny or

Mom visited, they just put on a clean apron. When Granny came home, she took the

4

apron off and spread it over a bush in the yard. They thought germs could be carried on

clothing. She told Mom what she had done and, of course, I was all ears. When they

noticed I wasn’t with them and went looking for me, they found me out in the yard

looking over the apron trying to find some measles. I didn’t find any or take the measles

until years later when we lived in Owensville. I remember the big aprons they wore, the

long dresses with long sleeves and high necks and the petticoats. I’m glad I never had to

dress like that.

However, the aprons were very handy. They carried anything in them, which

needed to be carried. They gathered eggs, picked aprons full of vegetables or fruit,

brought in chips or dry corncobs to start a quick fire in the stove in the morning. The

aprons were used to wipe wet hands, hold hot pot handles and wipe kids’ runny noses.

Who needed hankies when there was the corner of an apron handy? Those were the good

old days?

Mom had typhoid fever when we lived in Tea. The doctor rode a horse all the way

from Owensville to see her. Knowing Dad, as I did in later years, I am sure the doctors

were never paid a penny for coming. In those early years doctors weren’t called when a

baby was born. Midwives or experienced neighbors did the job.

Mom said they moved to Tea when I was a big baby. It was winter and it was

very cold. I was covered up but kept wanting to look out. I caught a bad cold and my eyes

swelled shut. I wonder why they had to move in the midst of winter?

My next memories are when we lived on the Logan Farris farm near Oak Hill. I

don’t remember the move or how long we lived there. I wish now we had started all this

while Mom was still living so we could have asked her about all these things. It was a

happy time of my life even though I got spanked quite often. I was probably a spoiled

little brat since I was the first child. They said I was sassy and this was not allowed.

Granny said, “I had to be conquered while I was young”. I was with Mom in nearly

everything she did and I think she wanted it that way. Granny was a live-in baby sitter,

which left Mom and I free to do lots of outside things we couldn’t have done otherwise.

Granny was a big help to Mom in lots of ways and I believe they got along well at this

time in their lives. Whatever Mom was doing, she took time to teach me and explain

about what she was doing. I was quick to learn. She had an old sewing machine, which

probably was Granny’s. I was always nearby when she sewed and I begged for a needle

and thread so I could sew also. She would pull a “raveling” from the edge of the calico

material and thread the needle for me. She would cut out some little squares of cloth so I

could make a “four patch” quilt block. I was cautioned not to lose the needle. We were so

poor and thread and needles cost money.

I think, by letting me do all the things she did when I was small, Mom helped me

to become the “jack of all trades” I became in later life. She let me help in the garden

would give me a few seeds and a little place in the corner to plant them. When I was

older, she showed me how to set out plants and hoe the right way so they would grow. In

5

later years, I was taught to make quilts, crochet, make clothes and cook. I still love to

garden, sew, cook and just work.

One time, Granny stood me on a chair and showed me how to iron hankies and

dish wiping rags. The irons were heavy iron with an iron handle, which had to be held

with a thick pad. The irons were heated on the cook stove. When one got cool, it was put

back on the stove and a hot one was used. There were three irons in a set. It was

dangerous for a child, but Granny stood by me and I think I only did it this one time. I

also did dishes a time or two. I don’t remember where Golda was born, but Virgil was

born at the Farris place. Earl was born in Owensville. Golda wasn’t big enough to play

with me very much. I think she was slow in growing and also in learning. One time Mom

told me to dig up some larkspur plants before Dad plowed the garden. Golda was helping.

When I started to dig, she stooped over in front of me and the hoe hit her head. She

wasn’t hurt much, but it caused some excitement for awhile.

The house had a long front bedroom facing the road. The kitchen and porch were

to the back of the house. There was a small cellar, which was used to store vegetables or

canned fruit. We had a cow and Mom carried the crock of milk down there to keep it cool

till the cream came to the top. The cream was then skimmed off and made into butter. We

never drank whole milk. I loved fresh, warm milk and sometimes I would get a sip, but

not often. They didn’t know about nutrition in those days.

One evening I went to running down the cellar steps, which went down in the

kitchen. A black snake was hanging over one of the steps. I stepped right over it without

seeing it. Mom soon had it killed. No snake ever had a chance when she was around.

There was a big shed just back of the house. A lot of weeds grew along the back wall and

Mom was out there chopping them down with a hoe. A big rattlesnake was coiled up in

the weeds. Again, there was a lot of excitement, but Mom came on strong with the hoe

and another snake bit the dust. The old-time hoes were very heavy. I have killed several

snakes in my time and a hoe is a good weapon. One good chop and they don’t have a

chance. A few days later, she killed another rattlesnake and she said she thought they

were mates.

Mom and Dad raised their own garden and grew such plants as tomatoes,

cabbage, peppers and tobacco. Mom raised tobacco because Granny and Dad smoked.

That is the only time I’ve ever seen it growing. Mom planted the tobacco seeds in a place

where a brush pile had been burned. After cutting down trees for wood, the small limbs

were piled up and burned. I don’t know why the tobacco seeds were planted there unless

it was because no weeds or grass came up. This seedbed was across the road and down a

path. We were going to see how the plants were growing. I was loping along in front, in

my bare feet, as usual and leaped right over a big rattler stretched across the path. Not

being able to see the best and not looking, I didn’t see it. Mom yelled at me to keep

going—don’t turn back and I went. Again, another snake was promptly killed.

Dad killed a big barn snake with the pitchfork. The snake had swallowed one of

our baby ducks and they thought it had eaten eggs. Dad carried the snake up in the yard

6

where he was burning a pile of brush and threw it on the fire. We know now, harmless

snakes should not be killed as they eat insects and rodents. I think, I had a guardian angel

or I would have been bitten because I was always on the go.

There was a big apple orchard back of the house and some apple trees across the

back of the horse lot in front of the barn. In front of the house, there was a row of grapes,

which stretched down to the road. Mom was afraid for me to eat grapes. She said the seed

would get in my appendix and kill me. What few I did eat, I had to spit out the seeds.

There was a tree of early summer apples across the barn lot and they were so pretty with

a yellow and red blush on one side. I wanted one of the summer apples so bad, but Mom

told me not to go over there. Well, when they were busy in the house, I went over there

and got me one apple. I hurried back and sat down at the edge of the porch where they

couldn’t see me and I ate the apple. I, never in my life, told her what I had done.

There were two beds in the front room. Granny and I slept in one at one end of the

room and Mom and Dad slept in the other bed at the other end of the room. Granny slept

between homemade, woven wool blankets and they scratched. I guess I moved around a

lot. She would scare me so I would lay still. She would tell me a big dog would come and

get me or old raw head and bloody bones would get me. You can’t imagine the things,

which went through my little mind when she would say those things. There was a man

who came to our house to visit. It was night and he told one ghost story after another. I

listened to every word and believed it all. All of my life, I’ve had scary dreams and until I

was grown, I was afraid to go from one room to another in the dark. I have always been

afraid to climb on high places. We used those scratchy blankets until I was grown and I

still hate wool next to my skin.

We lived near Grandma May’s home—about a half mile I think. I know Mom and

I walked down there a few times. One time Dad went with us. I loved to play with the

kids. George and Mary were a little older than I was. Sometimes, they came to our house

to play. Once Mom and I went over to pick gooseberries and another time I was taken to

see my Great-Grandma (Sarah Jane May), who was sick in bed. She had a bench, which

sat over the bed to put her plate and cup on so she could eat.

I liked my Uncle Jim (James Martin May). He gave me a box of crayolas, but

Mom would only let me use them now and then. It is the only gift or present I can

remember when I was small. If I had a doll or toy, I cannot remember it. I had a pet lamb

until it grew up and Dad sold it. We had a little dog too. I didn’t like Uncle Jesse (Jesse

Earl May) because he kissed me a lot. My Mom never kissed me ever, all my life, until I

was old and she came down here to visit.

Some man shot a wolf not far from our house and hung it by the hind feet on a

tree limb. Mom and I went down and looked at it. We went walking in the woods another

time and saw a big sinkhole. It looked like an empty pond, but much deeper. I wonder

what made it?

7

There was a small pond in the pasture back of the apple orchard. A peach tree

came up from a seed on the edge of the pond. One summer it was loaded with big yellow

peaches and mom was going to pick them when they got a little riper. One night,

someone came and picked them all. Mom always said it was Mabel (Mabel Francis May).

They canned peaches in tin cans and syrup buckets and sealed the lids with melted

sealing wax. She made pickled green beans in a big jar with salt—kind of like kraut.

They didn’t know how to can vegetables then and probably didn’t have jars. We hunted

the first greens that came up in the spring and Mom showed me the ones, which were

good to eat. If she said something was poison, I wouldn’t touch it. We ate wild onions,

too. One really needed something fresh after a long dry winter. Mom always cooked poke

leaves but Grandpa May (Thomas Walton May) said they were poison and wouldn’t eat

any. He always asked Mom if there were any cooked and she would say no, even if she

had put some in the greens. She told me the berries were poison. I never ate one in my

life, but my kids said they did when they were growing up.

I was getting old enough to be in school, but it was so far to walk and I had to go

through the woods. Mom wouldn’t send me. She did buy a primmer and taught Golda

and me our ABCs and how to read. We could read every word in the book. Many a time,

I would get tired and not pay attention to what she was saying and would get slapped. I

really am thankful to her, for getting me started in school. I may have grown up without

knowing how to read. That’s something else I would rather do now than eat and I do love

to eat. I can sit up half the night to finish a book I have started. Mom loved to read,

especially love stories; she could spell good and had good penmanship ability. I have

always scribbled. I guess one is born with a nice writing ability.

Sometime before we moved to Owensville, Grandpa moved his family to Oak

Hill, Missouri. They lived in a little house on a hill at the edge of Oak Hill while

Granddad built a cement house for them to live in. This house is still standing and the

walls are in good shape. We walked to Oak Hill to visit them in both houses. Mom,

Granny and us kids went and stayed all night. It’s the only two times I remember Granny

going anywhere. Mom said it was three miles. I was happy to go somewhere and I liked

to play with the kids.

Although my mother had a dislocated hip, she was always on the go and doing

something. I have always been a lot like her in that respect. It seems I am always busy at

something. One day, when our cow didn’t come home, Mom and I went to look for her.

We walked through the woods and brush. I was right behind Mom. She was pushing the

brush out of the way in front of her. Since I was short, a limb flew back and struck me in

the eye. It really hurt and I saw stars.

In the fall of 1912, my mother decided to move to Owensville so I could go to

school. She told Dad she was going and he could go along if he wanted. They loaded up

two wagons and moved to town. The family rode on the wagons, too. It was quite an

experience for me. I doubt if Mom had ever been to Owensville before either. We moved

into some rooms in a big, old building on main street downtown. It was called the

8

“Gottenstroeter Building”. It had probably been used for business at one time. There was

also another family living there.

School had already started when we got there, but as soon as we were settled, I

started to school. This was just before I was eight years old in January. There was a

Stevenson family living in town, who were cousins of our family. They had two boys,

Andrew—the oldest and John—who was a little older than me. Mom sent me to school

with him (John), my first day and I was scared to death. I think it was the hardest thing I

ever did in my life, mentally. I walked as far behind him as I could. The only people I had

ever been with were my own relatives. Mom went across the street to a little grocery

store and bought a big red apple for me to take to school to eat at recess. I did live

through it, but when recess came, I took one bite of apple and threw the rest away. I

simple could not eat in front of the other people. I went through the primmer and first

reader that winter. After the first few days, it wasn’t so bad, but I never made friends easy

when I was young.

Dad worked at odd jobs or whatever he could find to do. He even cleaned out

toilets at night. My dad was never lazy. Wages were very small and work was scarce. I

wonder how we ever lived with a new baby every two or three years? They always

bought groceries on credit and I bet Dad never paid any house rent. We were always

moving. I know we lived in three and maybe even four different houses in Owensville.

We lived there three years before moving to Kansas.

Grandpa May moved his family to Owensville sometime after we moved. Jerry

(Geraldine E. May-Reed) said when we left there they went back to Oak Hill. Later, they

too moved to Kansas. I think we didn’t stay long at the first house we lived in. At the

next house we lived in, we could see the train passing across the field from where we

lived. I had never seen a train before. Mom told Golda and I we should never go over

there—it would run over us.

I did well in school and liked to go after I learned the ropes and got acquainted. I

told Mom I wanted to be a teacher. I couldn’t see the words or numbers the teacher would

write on the blackboard. I never told anyone I couldn’t see good. They probably thought I

was stupid. I didn’t even know my eyes were different from other kids.

One time when I was in the third grade, a line of us kids were standing up in front

of the room spelling. When we missed a word, we went to the foot of the class. Without

even knowing what was happening, I fainted. When I got over it, the teacher sent me

home. Another time this happened was early one morning. Granny was out of tobacco

and Mom sent me down to the store with Dad who was on his way to work. He bought

the little bag of tobacco for me to take home. When I got home, I sat down on a cot

behind the stove and promptly passed out. I have fainted a number of times in my life,

usually when I get hurt or am sick and try to walk around. Mom had the weakness of

fainting too and my son Alvin does the same thing.

9

I remember more about the last house we lived in at Owensville, than the others.

It was a two-story frame house, which had two rooms downstairs, and two upstairs. A

grove of trees was across the street and in front of the house.

In the meantime, Grandmama’s family had moved to town and that is where

Mabel died. She had the black typhoid. They said her fever was terribly high and her

tongue swelled out of her mouth. We children weren’t allowed in to see her, as typhoid is

very contagious. She was a beautiful, tall, slender, dark-haired young girl. I can’t

remember her ever coming to our house. My mother did not like her. My Mom was a

jealous person. Carrie (Sarah Caroline May/Thomas) came home on the train. Mom and I

went to meet her. I had never been to the depot before or close to the train. When it

pulled in puffing out great puffs of black smoke and throwing sparks I was so scared. I

backed up as close to the depot as I could and, as far as I was concerned, I was still too

close. Carrie had come home for the funeral. Mom and Dad went, but I was grown before

I ever went to a funeral or saw a dead person.

Mom had a big loom in one of the room upstairs. She wove carpeting for other

people. They tore up old clothes in strips and sewed the ends together. The strips were

wound up in balls. The loom was strung with cord in different colors. The rag strips were

wound on a wooden shuttle, which was passed back and forth between the strings. The

strips were about a yard wide and very long. Later they were hand-sewn together and laid

over straw and papers. Mom only did the weaving. I’m sure woolen blankets were made

in this same way, but I can’t remember us making them. Mom also did washings for

people. She went to their homes and it was all done by hand on the washboard. She

would get fifty or seventy-five cents a washing. Mom would come home from doing a

wash and hurry to the store to buy something to fix us to eat. Quite often, some of their

country friends would come to town in a wagon and the women would stop at our house.

They never brought us anything from the farm and we could have used almost anything

such as a piece of home-cured meat, some homegrown vegetables or a chicken.

The cistern was under the back porch at this house. It needed cleaning out and

Dad decided to let me down on a rope to dip out the dirt and water and to wash the

bottom of the well. Again, I was scared to death, but it never entered my mind to refuse

to do it. I just knew I had to do what I was told. Jerry said she was there when this

happened and she was scared too.

It was in Owensville when Granny and Mom quarreled so much. Maybe Granny

wasn’t happy in town and maybe Mom changed too. Us kids were growing up and it’s

not easy for an older person to live with a house full of noisy brats. Mom was always

nagging Granny about her smoking, which was the only pleasure in life that she had. Her

eyes were going bad and all she could do was help with the housework. I think she did

her share. Again, I say Mom was lucky to have a live-in kid sitter. It left her free to go

whenever she felt like it, but Granny never had a chance to get away from it all. I really

don’t think Mom appreciated all Granny did for her room and board.

10

Mom went to a tent revival meeting and got “saved” as they used to say. She later

joined the Baptist church. One day they had a quarrel and Granny called Mom a

“sanctified devil”. Mom said, “You’re another”! They would call each other “liars” and

they really got loud. I think they got along better in Kansas. Dad went to Kansas, to work

in the wheat harvest the last two summers we lived in Owensville.

The last summer, he started a shoe repair shop out in Hesston. Again, Mom

decided to move—this time to Kansas. It was in the fall. I had started school in the fourth

grade and was nearly eleven years old. Earl was a big baby, about two and a half years

old. We never did have much furniture—just enough to get by. Mom shipped most of it

out there on the train. I had a pet rabbit and gave it away. Dad had brought two home, but

one rabbit had died. We sold or gave away what we couldn’t take along. I had been on

the train once before when Mom had taken me and Golda up to Bland one Sunday. It was

quite a thrill. It was probably her first ride too. It was a long and tiresome ride to Kansas.

They fixed a big box of food to eat on the way. I had to open my window. Coal smoke

came in the car and I had a terrific headache. We went through a long tunnel, which was

scary to me.

Mom only had enough money to buy tickets to Kansas City and Dad was to meet

us there with more money to go the rest of the way. He did meet us, but Mom and I

walked around quite awhile before we found him. That is a big station in Kansas City.

We would have been in big trouble if he had not come. We had no money to go on or to

go back. We changed trains in Kansas City and again in Newton to go on to Hesston.

Kansas seemed so desolate and I was so homesick I could hardly stand it.

We had no money to buy schoolbooks so we couldn’t start to school for awhile.

We moved into a four-room house about a half block off Main Street. It was owned by a

family named Rapp. They lived in a big house on Main Street, which had been a hotel or

maybe a house for ladies of the evening. It was very fancy inside. Mr. Rapp owned a

bank and his two daughters helped him. Their names were Daisy and Mae. Mae was the

youngest and was my Sunday school teacher for several years. It was an all girls class

and we stayed in the same class as long as we lived there. Later, after we moved to the

country, this big house burned down one night. It had been a real landmark.

The first house where we lived had a shed-like room on the back of the house. It

was three steps lower than the kitchen and had a cement floor. A small cellar was under

part of the shed. The cellar was small, but had cement steps, walls and floor. It was nice,

but had water in it. The following spring Mom had Virgil and I bail out the water. We put

buckets on ropes and pulled it up. The deep well was under this room floor too and it had

a cement box with a drainpipe in the bottom, which drained outside through the wall.

This was under the well where the water came out so it drained away. We poured the

cellar water in this box as we brought it up. We thought it was fun. However, we both

took typhoid fever. I had it real bad, but Virgil had what they called “walking typhoid”. I

think that was a mild case of it. I was very sick and it lasted several weeks.

11

Granny was sick at the same time. They said she had bronchitis. She coughed a

lot and had to sleep propped up on a lot of pillows so she could breathe. Mom was

pregnant again so this was quite a load for her, but she always managed some way. No

one could come in to sit up with us or help out because typhoid was so contagious. There

are many deaths caused from this disease. I remember the day it started. Mom had fried

rabbit for supper and begged me to eat some. I was so sick I couldn’t eat a bite. I lived on

beef broth and sometimes buttermilk all through my illness. They bought dimes’ worth of

beef each day. Someone told Mom if she had some carrots to boil with the beef it would

taste better. The store didn’t have fresh vegetables in those days, but a family near

Hesston had some home grown ones, which had been buried for the winter, and they

offered them to us. The broth really did taste better although, I could not have a bite of

solid food. The doctor said there was more to the nursing of this disease than the

medicine. I only had one small pill to take.

I was thin to start with and I was just bones after I got well. I could only eat a few

bites at a time because my stomach had shrunk so small. My hair was dead white and

mom bobbed it off so new hair would grow out. I felt awful with short hair and was glad

when it grew out again. Nearly everyone had German measles while we lived in Hesston

and I was included. They weren’t very bad. I didn’t even have to go to bed. Some kids

broke out in school and were sent home.

There was a fence around this house and a nice yard in back. There was also a

small barn from the days when most folks had a horse. There was a room for wood, a

back house or toilet and a chicken house all connected together across the back end of the

lot. There was another lot along side, which was also fenced in and planted in alfalfa.

This was a chicken pen. We played many hours in the barn. At the end of the barn was a

woodpile. One day, near noon, we kids were standing on this wood pile watching a small

herd of cattle being driven down the road about a half block away. They called us to

come to dinner, but we were so interested in the cattle we didn’t come. In a little while,

Dad slipped up behind me with the razor strap and hit me across my bare legs. It drew the

blood as wide as the strap. I screamed. Mom just looked at it. She didn’t seem to care.

I’ve thought about this since I got older and there was no reason we had to come in that

very minute to eat. They didn’t have to wait for us. We wouldn’t have cared if the food

had cooled a little. We were at the age of learning, being interested in everything, and we

were in no danger.

Soon after we moved there, someone from each church came to invite us to

Sunday school. There was a Methodist, Evangelical and Mennonite Church. There was

also a Mennonite College (Bethel) with dormitories for students to live in. Young folks

came from all over the country to attend. We went, one Sunday, to their Sunday school.

They had no music except singing in their church and no flowers for funerals. They

didn’t wear bright colored dresses. Their clothes were only black, gray, brown or dark

blue. The women wore a white net cap with long strings on their hair at all times and

wore a black bonnet for outdoors. If one of their church members did a wrong, they had

to stand in front of the congregation, confess and ask to be forgiven. The Rapp family

belonged to the Evangelical church so we went there. Golda and I went to Sunday school

12

and Mom sometimes also went to Sunday night services. When Golda and I were old

enough, we studied the catechism, were baptized and joined the church.

We lived next door to a family named Tatro. There was a girl, older than me,

named Augustine; a girl younger named Delia and a boy who was a brat. Golda was

always overweight and he named her “slop-bucket”. All the boys in school called her

that. All of the boys in town had nicknames, but Golda was the only girl. Mom kept us

clean for school so she didn’t deserve such a name. My entire family wasn’t popular. We

were so poor and also Missourians or newcomers. Grandpa Tatro lived with his family at

least part of the time. When I was sick, he brought me a beautiful doll with a china head,

kidskin body and china hands. It was the first doll I ever had and the only once except

later when I had a very small doll, which came from the dime store. It came in a shoebox

and I was so proud of the doll Grandpa Tatro gave me. Mom made me let Golda play

with it and she broke the head. I kept the body for years, but eventually, it disappeared.

Golda was always so destructive and careless with her possessions. She didn't take care

of her clothes or anything. I was completely different from her in every way. Needless to

say, as we grew older we didn’t get along at all. She was really jealous of me. Virgil and I

were more alike. We did more things together, after he got bigger, than I did with Golda.

We moved from this first house to another several blocks away. It was across

from the school playground. We lived there when Grandmama May and her family

moved to Hesston. They rented a little house not far from where we lived. Jerry and I

became good friends and remained such until I moved to Missouri.

It was in this house that Earl started the fire. There were two bedrooms upstairs. A

stand table with a cloth over it and a lamp was just inside the door. The one wall sloped

down and our clothes were hung on a line on this side of the room. The bed was on the

other side. He lit a match and started a fire on the cloth over the stand table. Earl got

frightened, ran out and shut the door. The fire only burned the tablecloth and made a lot

of smoke, which blackened everything. The room was closed so the fire didn’t spread

because of the lack of oxygen. When we noticed the smoke, Mom went into action.

Golda, Virgil and I grabbed buckets and pumped water. Mom soon had the fire out; the

neighbors did not help. It was all over very quickly; Mom didn’t fool around. Nothing

was ruined. The clothes all had to be washed and we did that the same day. I missed

school one day because of not having a clean dress.

The war was now on and the older men had to sign up. Dad did sign up, but there

wasn’t much danger he would have to go because he had such a big family to support.

We were patriotic in school at this time and the flu was spreading. I came home from

school one day, and told mom about the influenza going around. She said there was no

such word. They really did call it that and it was going around. My Granny (Emily

Shoemaker Muskat) got it and died. With her other chest ailments, she didn’t have a

chance. Ida had been born and Alma was on the way at this time. Mom and Dad sold two

fat hogs they had planned to butcher to get the money to take Granny’s body back to

Missouri to be buried. Granny always said she didn’t want to be buried in Kansas,

because the wind would blow the dirt off her grave. Mom took the flu while they were in

13

Missouri and she said she believed all that saved her was a little bottle of whiskey Dad

bought and she drank.

When word came the war was over, people shot off guns and made noises. We

kids, at school, were given little flags and paraded up the streets. It was a happy time!

Sometime after this we moved to a farmhouse in the country about a mile and a

half north of town (Hesston). Dad had quit the shoe shop some time before and was

working for this man who owned the farmhouse. He lived a mile from us and his name

was Bob McFarland. The McFarlands had four little girls. Dad still worked in the wheat

fields and became a separator man at thrashing time. A big steam engine was used to run

the separator, which set back away from the engine and was driven by a long belt. Dad’s

job was to keep everything oiled. He crawled all over the big machine, squirting every

hole with oil. Sometimes, if the bundles were thrown in to fast, it would choke up. It was

also his job to get this loosened up. I know, now, it was a dangerous job, but he loved it.

Just one slip and it would have been all over. Even the long belt was dangerous. If it

would have broken or slipped off the wheel it rolled on, it would have been a deadly

weapon.

We had a good walk to school from here, but I didn’t mind. There was nearly a

half-mile of railroad track we used as a short cut most of the time. Someone said that if

we would walk seven rails without stepping off and make a wish it would come true. I

walked a lot of them and made the same wish. It did come true. No, I’m not going to tell

you what I wished.

Us kids were growing up and we had to help a lot with the housework. I have

always liked to work, but Golda was lazy. She wouldn’t do anything she didn’t have to.

She would say, “Make Ruth do it”. Since it was easier to get me to do it, I did a lot of her

jobs. It just didn’t occur to me to say “no”, but as I got older, I did resent it very much.

When Golda did do anything, she did it so slow and sloppy. We quarreled a lot and, I

guess we made life miserable for Mom lots of times.

We had a cow and a horse at this place which was nice. We also had chickens and

a garden.

One evening, Mom, Dad and the babies got in the buggy and went to visit the

Clinton family. All of us kids played until it was dark. I was afraid to go in the dark

house to light the lamp, so we all sat at the side of the driveway until they came home

much later. Of course, they wanted to know why we were all sitting outside in the dark.

There was a deep well close to the back door, but it as alkali water and we

couldn’t use it for the house. The livestock drank it. Mom tried to use it for wash water,

but the soap would not make suds—it curdled. There was another well down in the

pasture, which was good water. I carried many a bucket of water from there to the house.

We carried all of our wash water, too. Can you imagine how much water it took for our

big family? Alma was born at this house.

14

It was at this house that I got my eye hurt. Each of you has a different version of

it, but I know the real story, because it happened to me. It happened in the summer after I

had finished the seventh grade of school. I was fourteen years old. The screen door on the

kitchen door had an old-fashioned shoe button hook put on the door to hold it shut. It was

at my eye level, probably put up high, so the small children couldn’t unlock it. Instead of

it dropping down against the doorframe like a regular door hook would do, it stuck

straight out with the hook part up. Mom was cooking a meal, supper I think, and sent me

to the garden for an onion or something. I went on the run and my eye hit the hook. It

went under my upper eyelid and I jerked and screamed. It tore the lid. The doctor came,

stitched it together and told her to keep cold, wet cloths over my eye. We did and it didn’t

get infected. After the wound healed, the eye seemed weak and if I did much close work,

it would get red and water. It wasn’t strong enough to start school in the fall, so I stayed

home until after Christmas. I started and went to school three days, but had to quit. My

eyes were so red and the tears ran until I couldn’t study, so I quit.

Golda was always a year behind me in school and before this happened, she had

said, “I wish to God that something would happen to Ruth so I could graduate when she

did”. Well, she went through the seventh grade that winter while I stayed at home. The

next school year, after I was fifteen, we both started school in the eighth grade. Before

school started, I had a small ulcer to come on my eye. Doctor Weedel gave us a tube of

black salve to put in my eye. This happened two or three more times. The doctor said one

day I would get an ulcer, which would not go away. Several years later, this happened.

I think we moved to a house north of Hesston that summer. We had become

friends with a family named Clinton. They had lived in the house we moved into. The

Clintons had moved a few miles west of there. Some time before this, Albert (Brown)

had come to Kansas. He had planned to go on to California, to his brother Jesse, but for

some reason, he stayed with us. I like to think it was me, who kept him there or maybe it

was FATE. We all liked him a lot. The Clintons had a girl named Ella, who was older

than I and a boy, about my age, named John. We all had lots of good times together. One

time we went to Hutchinson to the state fair. Albert and Ella paired up and John and I.

Golda went along, too. Another time we went to something at Newton. I can’t remember

what it was, but we did go to a show that night and stayed all night in a hotel. Ella and I

had a room and John and Albert had one. This is the only time, in my life, I have ever

stayed in a hotel.

One time Mrs. Clinton got sick and Mom sent me over there to take care of her

and do the work. Ella was gone somewhere and Mrs. Clinton had two small children.

They were relatives she was caring for. She had the smallpox and when I came home, I

took them. About the time I was over the smallpox, the rest of the family took them. We

were pretty sick, but got over them okay.

Jim May visited us here and, at another time, Jesse and Hilda may came to visit

us.

15

Dad and Albert worked at cutting down hedge fences for farmers who didn’t want

them anymore. Dad made fence posts out of every part, which was big enough and sold

them. He shipped them out by the boxcar load. We used every scrap that was left for

wood. The name of this tree was “Osage orange”. The inside of the wood was an orange

color and the fruit was similar in looks to a green orange. The balls were full of seeds and

very bitter. If a cow ate them, and they always did, the milk would be so bitter it couldn’t

be used. The early settlers had planted these hedges, because they made a tight fence,

which nothing could go through. The hedge trees had big thorns. The fences, especially

those running east and west, would catch the snow and the roads would drift full. Cars

were coming into use more and more and I guess there was more money to buy barbed

wire, so the hedges were being cut down.

Dad taught me to pull a cross cut saw when we lived in Hesston. He and another

man had been cutting wood and he said I pulled the saw better than the other man did.

There were a lot of cottonwood trees around this house and they grew really big. The

wood was soft and spongy. It burned up fast and didn’t make much heat, but in Kansas

one didn’t have much choice. I wonder if Dad ever longed for Missouri, with all of the

oak and hickory trees? I wonder why oaks didn’t grow out there in Kansas? I’ve helped

him saw off many a big block of wood from a cottonwood log. A cross cut saw was a

long saw, which was higher in the middle and tapering off on both ends. It was heavy and

had a wooden handle on each end. One person held on to each end of the saw and pulled

it back and forth across the log. The weight of the saw was enough to do the cutting. My

arms were a lot weaker than Dad’s was, and I would start letting the weight of my arms

push down on the saw. He would yell at me “to stop riding the saw”. We never rested

until the block was sawed off. The blocks were then split, either with an axe or wedges

and sledge hammer, so they could be put in the stove.

Dad loved to hunt rabbits and squirrels and we ate them. We didn’t have much

meat in our diet and this helped out. I always had to hold the legs while Dad pulled off

the skins and took out the guts. It was a messy job, but I had to do it. Golda was plenty

big enough to have helped sometimes, but he always asked me. Needless to say I never

had a weight problem when I was young.

It was here, Dad gave Virgil an awful beating. It was in the kitchen and we all

stood around and watched. He used the razor strap and hit him on the back as hard as he

could a lot of times. I thought Dad would kill Virgil. We were too scared to say a word

and Mom watched too and didn’t say a word. I bet Virgil had a bloody back, but I didn’t

think about looking. I can’t remember what he had done, but it couldn’t have been that

bad. Dad had a quick, violent temper and Mom wasn’t much better. If anyone would have

beat one of my children like that, I would have knocked hell out of him! It’s true my kids

got spankings when they needed it. I think kids do need to be punished when needed, but

in a humane way. I will describe a razor strap for those of you who have never seen one.

It was made of two pieces of heavy leather fastened together on both ends. One end had a

handle to hold and the other end had a ring to hang over something to hold the strap tight

while the old-time razor was whetted back and forth to sharpen it. Mom whipped a lot but

she never used the strap; Dad always did.

16

Mom always said I was Dad’s favorite, but he had an odd way of showing it. He

teased me all the time, until I got mad and sassed or cried. He would grab me and say,

“Love I hun – cause I does – Buff I den”! Then he would kiss me. I always got mad.

Golda and I went through the eighth grade the last winter we lived there. I

graduated, but she failed. The teacher told Mom Golda didn’t study. I swear I didn’t wish

her any home. I had passed sixteen years old when I graduated. Albert gave me a gold

wristwatch when I was sixteen, asked me to marry him and go to California. I was too

immature to say yes. I didn’t come to womanhood until after I was sixteen. I didn’t tell

Mom he had asked me to marry him. She wouldn’t have let me go any way.

One time during this period, Mom made a wish on me, which came true. I always

had to help take care of the little kids and I disliked it very much. One day I was trying to

make them mind, she got mad at me and wished I would have a lot of children when I got

married. Now I know babies don’t come from wishes, but do you think it may have

helped things along?

Albert bought an old Motel T Ford car during this time. There still weren’t very

many cars. I wanted to drive and Albert showed me how. It was hard to drive and I never

got very good at it. The cars were hard to start. They had a lever to set the gas and one for

the spark. Then an iron crank was inserted in the front and wound up. If the spark was set

too far, the crank would fly back and break your arm—if you didn’t get out of the way

quick enough.

Albert, Dad, Mom and the two babies, Ida and Alma made a trip in this car to

Oklahoma, (Bartlesville) to visit Mom’s uncle, Mr. James Shoemaker. We older kids

stayed at home.

It was Albert who started calling Alma “Shortie”. It was later shortened to “Short”

and she has been called that all her life. I was called ‘Bones” sometimes, because I was

skinny.

We had an old pump organ when we lived there. I learned to play some, but never

had any lessons. I was too restless or busy to sit and practice.

Dad always got up very early and he got every kid up too. If we didn’t hop out

when he called, he came in our room and jerked off the covers. They had to make fires in

both stoves and Mom always made biscuits for breakfast. Lots of times I had to churn

butter before breakfast, so we would have some butter to eat. After we ate, we would sit

around waiting for daylight, so Dad could go to work and we kids could go to school. I

hated to get up so early, but what Dad said, we did. I was always a little bit afraid of him.

I think maybe he wanted it that way.

Albert and Dad decided to start farming, so after school was out, we moved south

of Newton, Kansas. Dad rented a farm near McLain and Albert rented a quarter section

17

four miles from us on Highway 81. It was the Eli Lagree farm. Albert’s mother came out

from Missouri, to keep house for him. She never dreamed he planned to get married, but I

will tell you more about this later.

We got settled in our new home. Golda finished her last year of schooling at a

country school and graduated. She had gained more and more weight, as she grew older

and continued to do so until she died at about forty years of age with diabetes and heart

failure.

I helped a lot in the house and helped Dad on the farm. I even chopped wood and

sawed some with a bucksaw. If we needed it, I milked the cow and did most of the

washing. Mom was pregnant, again, with Myrtle. Dad borrowed money from Albert to

buy horses and machinery for farming. He only paid Albert one fifty-dollar payment on

the loan. Dad never paid bills if he could possibly help it. He left grocery bills wherever

we lived. My parents always sent me to the store. I was to say, “Dad will pay you when

he gets some money”. I got so ashamed of buying this way; I came to hate owing anyone.

I would rather do without than buy on time.

I helped Dad put hay in the barn. He would pitch it in the barn loft from the hay

wagon. I had to throw it to the back of the barn. Of course, I couldn’t keep up with him

and he nearly covered me up then laughed about it. Golda and I cut a field of Kaffir corn

heads and put them in a wagon. Dad tried to teach me to run a two-row corn cultivator,

but I cut down a few corn stalks. He got mad and did it himself. I would have got on to it,

if he had had a little patience. One time I took a wagonload of corn to the man who

owned the farm. It was several miles and he wasn’t at home. I waited a while and then

raked the corn out on the ground and went home. It was part of our rent.

I went to Newton to visit my Aunt Mary Brainard and Grandmama (Ellen

Vandora Wonders/May). I asked my aunt to cut my hair and she did. Boy, did that stir up

a hornet’s nest when I got home! Albert didn’t like it a bit either. The cut or bobbed hair

was spreading like wildfire, but the old-timers thought it was a sin. I didn’t get it cut

again until after I was married.

One time in the spring or summer before I was married, it had been along, rainy

Sunday. Us kids had been cooped up in the house with nothing to do so we all went for a

walk down through the pasture to where there was a windmill, tank and to where a large

puddle of water had collected from the rain. It wasn’t on our farm, but was nearby. We

were just standing there talking, when Dad came down to us as “mad as a wet hen”. He

had a switch and switched my bare legs all the way to the house. I was so mad, I hated

him! I was seventeen and a half. There was no reason in the world we shouldn’t have

taken a walk and I was old enough to take care of the smaller ones. I remember a few

things about Dad, which were good. He always brought home over ripe bananas. In those

days, they were hung in a bunch in the store and sold by the dozen. They were pulled off

the bunch as they were sold. The ones he brought home had been taken off the bunch and

put in an empty orange crate. They were too ripe to sell, but we kids really gobbled them

up. I still like them very ripe.

18

Another time he bought a big barrel of apples. These were perfect and the biggest

ones I have ever seen. These apples didn’t last long at our house either. Dad was a hard

worker, but made very little money. Mom always said he was a poor manager. I think she

was a poor manager, also. Anyway, with such a big family, there just wasn’t enough of

anything to go around. We never had Christmas presents and a lot of our clothes were

hand-me-downs. We ate a simple diet of bread and potatoes. Dad made us eat bread with

everything else we ate. Flour and cornmeal were cheap and bread was filling. He would

see a kid not eating bread and would say, “Eat bread with it”! We had cornbread and milk

quite often for supper.

Mom and Granny were both superstitious. Here are some of the dos and don’ts,

which were told to us kids:

We must not open an umbrella in the house.

We must not bring a hoe in the house, walk under a ladder

or crawl through a window.

It was bad luck if a black cat crossed your path.

Friday the 13th

was an unlucky day.

If you laid a broom across the door and a witch came to

your house, she would not step over it.

If a dog came to your house and you wanted it to stay, you

cut some hair off his tail and put it under the doorstep.

If you put a hair from a horse’s tail in the water tank, it

would turn into a snake.

That’s all I can remember now. I never had much faith in these things then and it

wasn’t long before I quit believing any of them.

Albert and I wrote letters often and saw each other occasionally, but not often. We

didn’t have a phone then and his mother didn’t know what we were planning. One time

he walked the four miles to our house to see me. We sat in the kitchen and talked. Dad

griped, because we used his wood to keep the cook stove going so we could keep warm.

The folks always went to bed early. Albert stayed quite awhile and we made plans to be

married in January. He had to walk home. I think he had a car, but don’t remember why

he walked. We were very much in love! We did get married on January 11, 1923 a few

days before I was eighteen years old. He was forty-two.

The morning before we were married in the afternoon, he told his mother he was

going to get married. She was sick, but threw a fit. She told me later, she tried to die that

day, but couldn’t. Golda was staying with her to do the housework. Albert’s mother

thought he would dedicate his entire life to her and he did. He said he had a girl he cared

for when he was young, but he had to stay and work for his parents. His dad wasn’t well

either and I think he died young. I am glad Albert had a few happy years of married life.

19

We were married on January 11, 1923 at the courthouse in Newton by the judge.

The judge was also a Methodist preacher. It was a nice, sunny day. Mom and Short went

with us. We had supper at home then went back to Albert’s home. Golda was staying

with his mother while she was sick. Albert took Golda home the next morning. Albert

had an old Buick touring car. His mother got better after awhile and in the early summer,

made a trip back to Owensville, Missouri, to visit her son George Brown and his family.

We enjoyed this time alone together. It was as near a honeymoon as we ever had. We

were both happy and life was so different than it had been at home.

I didn’t get back to visit very often and don’t know much of what happened after I

left home. Myrtle and Velma were born at McLain and sometime afterward the family

moved to Newton. Alvin was born February 13, 1924, thirteen months after we were

married. I was nineteen years old. Grandma Brown was good to the new baby and I think

she loved him. She wasn’t one to show affection to anyone and probably never said, “I

love you”, in her whole life. I think she learned to like me. Before she died, she asked

Albert and I to forgive her—she didn’t say what for. I never held any grudge or ill

feelings against her. If I hadn’t been so shy myself, I could have shown her a little more

love and friendship. We got along okay. She did say I was a better housekeeper than she

expected of me. I don’t know why she thought I might not be a good housekeeper—I had

a lot of practice at home! She also said my legs were the prettiest thing about me and that

was a lot coming from her. However, I wasn’t ugly. I was tall and slim. My eyes were all

right at that time.

Grandma Brown died September 25, 1925. She had been sick nearly all summer.

Albert talked to me about getting a doctor to come out to see her. He said if she died

without a doctor seeing her, they would have an inquest. She was a Pentecost and they

did not believe in taking any kind of medicine. They all got together and prayed real loud.

Their church was really radical at this time. She had become a Pentecost while living in

Missouri. While down there, the church had split over some differences. One side

wouldn’t sit at the same table with the others—even if they were relatives. I went to

church in Newton with her one time. The group was small. When they prayed, they all

talked at the same time. Later, they did have a church and Mom went there for a time.

Albert did call the doctor. He examined her and said it was heart trouble. He left a

bottle of big brown pills. She cried and asked him if there was a law that said she had to

take them. He said no—only just common horse sense. Later, she said the doctor told her

she didn’t have horse sense. She never took even one of the pills. She had us call the

church group out to pray for her and they came. We lived four miles from Newton. Albert

and I stayed out near the barn while they had their meeting. They really got loud! When

they were through and came out to us, they said they thought the Lord was calling her

home. I thought they didn’t have much faith in their prayers; they never came back to see

her.

I was pregnant with Betty and I think I carried her ten months. Grandma Brown

said she wished she could live to see that Ruth had this time. The morning she died, she

20

told the lady who was taking care of her, it was her last day. Betty was born on October

12, 1925, about two weeks afterward.

Albert was raising wheat. He had some cattle, hogs and chickens. There was a

small pasture and a field of alfalfa for hay. After the wheat was harvested, the cattle were

let out on the wheat field to graze. After the field was plowed, planted and the wheat was

up, the cattle were again let out to graze. They didn’t want the young wheat to grow too

tall in the fall. We had four horses to pull the machinery. Later we bought a tractor. The

first summer I rode the hayrake and winrowed the hay—first in long rows and then in

bunches. Albert and a boy who was helping him put the hay on the hayrack, hauled it to

the barn and put it in the hayloft. It was my first time on a rake, but it was easy and fun.

On February 4, 1927, Verna was born. She was just sixteen months younger than

Betty. My sister Velma was born four months after Verna. Mom’s wish for me was

coming true—fast. The next spring we had to move. Our landlord, Mr. Lagree, was

planning to build a new house and move back to the farm himself. The house was very

old and shabby. We rented a farm two miles southwest of there, which was owned by a

woman named Mrs. C. E. W. Davis. She lived in California. It was 160 acres or a quarter

section. Again, it was a very old house with two rooms downstairs, a set on lean-too

kitchen and two rooms upstairs. It was on a higher place and not a tree around. It had a

little screened-in porch and a small cellar, which went down from the porch. We raised a

big box of potatoes that summer and they all froze in the basement. I wonder how we

ever kept warm in that house? There was no insulation or storm windows in those days.

We had a big iron-heating stove and cook stove. Most of the time, we bought coal to

burn. We lived there several years, until we quit farming during the depression.

Albert raised some wheat here as well as a field of corn and also some oats for

feed. There was no hayfield on this farm, but a fair sized pasture with a deep well,

windmill and water tank. We also had a well in front of the back door. Pushing a long

iron handle up and down drew up the water. The fresh pumped water was nice and cold.

Of course, there was no electricity in the country then. We had a nice herd of cattle by

now—several of them were milk cows. We milked by hand and I helped most of the

time. The kids went along to the barn and I had a box to put the baby in. The cows were

put in the shed side of the barn and tied up and fed so they would stand still. Milking was

one job I didn’t like very much. We had a hand-turned cream separator and sold the

cream. Cream and eggs was our only source of income. Later we sold milk for awhile.

I raised a lot of young chickens too. We bought a twelve dozen-egg incubator and

hatched our own chicks. It was heated with a kerosene burner and the tray had to be taken

out and the eggs turned every day. Keeping the eggs the exact temperature was a little

tricky. If they got too hot, it would kill the chicks and too cool wouldn’t work either. We

set it about three times each spring. We had a bunch of broilers to sell and kept the pullets

to lay eggs. I also raised some turkeys and had a few guineas and ducks. One summer the

crows started to catch our young chicks. The chicks ran loose over the yard. Albert got

his gun, shot one of the crows and hung it on the up-raised mower blade. We weren’t

bothered with crows any more.

21

I always tried to raise a garden and did raise some, but it gets so dry in Kansas, in

the summer when the hot winds blow. Vegetables don’t have much of a chance. One fall

I helped pick a field of corn. We had a little, two-wheel trailer. Albert tied it behind the

wagon and kids rode or jumped off and played while we picked corn. We just snapped

off the ears, left one the shucks and threw them in the wagon. I have always been a little

afraid of horses, but we had one very gentle, old, white mare and I worked on the side of

the wagon she was on. One summer Albert and I shocked our entire wheat crop. He was

so kind and gentle to work with. He never yelled or gripped about anything. If I didn’t

know how to do something, he showed me. Also, he was so good with the kids and they

loved him so much. Why couldn’t he have lived with us a lot longer? I was the one with

the temper and lots of times it got the better of me, but he never quarreled back at me.

Albert loved animals and dogs. He treated them very good. He always had two

dogs. One was good with the cows and would go to the pasture to drive them up to the

barn. Albert saw his dogs catch a rabbit. One dog would chase it around and other dog

would catch it. They took it to the water tank, dropped it in to cool it off and then share it

between them. They never fought. There were also jackrabbits. The jackrabbits got very

big and could really run fast. If a dog would chase one, the rabbit ran just fast enough to

stay clear of the dog, until the dog was tired, then the rabbit would run away. A dog could

not run fast enough to catch a grown jackrabbit. Albert wasn’t a rabbit hunter like dad

was. He could sit down and relax. Albert worked in a slower way, but always got the job

done. Mom said Albert was lazy, but that just wasn’t true. I was the restless one in the

family.

Dale was born here on June 12, 1930, and Elmer on March 31, 1932. All of my

children were born at home. We always had a doctor and a student nurse came with him.

Mom was always there too, except, one time, when Myrtle had scarlet fever. That was

when Elmer was born. She always made me stay in bed nine days. It wasn’t so bad. It

was the only time I ever got any rest.

While we were living there our landlord, Mrs. Davis, decided to have a test oil

well drilled on her farm. There weren’t any other wells around Newton, so it wasn’t a

surprise when it turned out to be a dry hole. Farther east, around El Dorado, there are lots

of oil wells, but water is hard to find. We had lots of water around Newton. The well was

across the pasture and field from the house. There was nothing in between and we could

see the men working. The derrick was built of pinewood and wasn’t awfully big. We

didn’t go where they were working. Albert may have gone a time or two, but we did a lot

of watching from the house. When it was all over, they tore the rig down and told us we

could have everything for wood. We hitched the little trailer to the car and picked up

every scrap of wood and hauled it to the house to use in the stoves. There were several

trailers full. Folks who have lived in Missouri all their lives, where trees are everywhere,

can’t appreciate having so much fuel for the cutting. It was a hard struggle to find

something to burn in Kansas. One could buy coal, but money was so scarce for us poor

folks and with a growing family we had to make do in every way we could. I did my own

sewing for the kids. We only had what furniture we needed and never bought on time

22

(credit). Albert paid his bills! I’m not complaining we were happy—anyway, I was.

Albert never said much about anything, but one time, he said he always wanted a nice

home.

The depression was on us. Wheat sold for twenty-five cents a bushel and that year

there was smut in ours so they docked a little for that. Cattle prices went way down. We

sold one cow for fifteen dollars. I don’t remember how the other cattle and horses sold,

but it was not very much. I was too young and thoughtless to know what Albert was

going through. He had no home of his own. All he knew was farming and the bottom had

dropped out of everything. He was too old to start all over and a big family to support. It

must have been a great load on his mind and he couldn’t let it out or talk about it. Now

we know stress, mental worries and anguish are a cause of a lot of physical illness. I

believe this is what led to his early death. He had been a very healthy man, with good

eyes and teeth and no other problems. He was a big man, who stood nearly six feet tall

and a little heavy. My oldest son, Alvin, reminds me of Albert in so many ways.

We rented a four-room house in North Newton, near Bethel College and moved

from the farm. It had electric lights, a sink, which drained out on the ground and an

outside toilet. The rooms were big and the house had a front and back porch. There was

also a small cellar. We paid six dollars a month rent. Albert got a job on a farm for one

dollar a day. Banks had closed and so many people were out of work. They had started a

government works program to give men work. They were cleaning out the creek, which

ran through Newton. Albert wouldn’t go and apply for work. If he had owned his farm,

we could have made it, but no one could pay farm rent and live too.

Jesse Brown and a man friend drove out from California, to visit us when we were

on the farm. They stayed a few days. He visited once more, when Pop (Lafe) Immell and

I were married. He stopped in Kansas, and brought Mom along. When we lived at the

first farm, his sister, Fannie came to see us. Also, his sister, Cora, visited when Albert’s

mother was sick.

We lived in this house until Albert died on April 29, 1934. Alberta was born one

week later on May 6th

. The doctor suggested we name her Alberta. I said yes and since it

was the month of May and my maiden name was May, I quickly added the second name

Mae. Albert would not agree to naming one of the boys after him; he didn’t like his

name. Albert’s death was the most tragic thing that could have ever happened to me. He

was only sick a week and at that time, doctors knew so little about the inside of a person.

It was all over before anyone knew what was happening. I was lost! At that time, I would

have gladly given one of the children instead of him. I hope when they read this, it won’t

make them feel badly toward me. He was my whole life and the kids took second place.

Now, no one except God could separate me from my family! They are my whole life and

the very best children anyone could ask for. I love them very much! I think this was all

fated to happen. I believe there is a reason for everything, which happens, but I don’t

pretend to know why it happens. We have to accept the things that come our way and try

to make the best of them.

23

We had an old 1927 Chrysler car Albert had bought, when we lived on the farm.

It was really big and I knew exactly how to drive it, but had never got behind the wheel.

After he was gone, Dad came out one day and rode with me while I drove to town. I was

very nervous and he gave me courage. I needed to drive with the small children or stay at

home; I had six kids in ten years. We moved to another small house across the river from

the park and not too far from where my folks lived. Life had to go on. I became a pretty

good driver, I think.

George Brown and Golda came out to Albert’s funeral. He asked me to come to

Missouri, to live. He had a farm he said we could live on. I thought about this for nearly a

year and decided to move to Missouri. Albert had $2,000 life insurance, so we had

something to live on for awhile. Food was cheap then. One time I bought four pounds of

hamburger for twenty-five cents. However, property was still rather high priced. I think

Mom hated to see us leave Kansas, but she never tried to talk me out of it. I wasn’t happy

living in Newton. We made plans to move and I wrote George to tell him we were

coming to Missouri. I had a lot more nerve than I have now, to start out on a trip with a

car full of young children and no experience of any kind, when it came to traveling. We

got a map and Alvin helped me stay on the right road. He was eleven years old and

Alberta was nearly one. We moved in late April, almost a year after Albert died. We

packed the car full of as much stuff as it would hold. There was a lot of room between the

front and back seats. We shipped several things by train, but left our beds and springs and

mattresses and our old dog. Staley said he would take care of the dog.

When we got to George Brown’s, he had let another family have his farm so he

started looking for another place for us. I think we were there for about a month. He did

eventually find the forty-acre farm we bought. It was seven miles south of Gerald,

Missouri. The Tappmeyer Bank of Gerald had loaned the owner $1,100 on it before the

depression and he couldn’t pay the loan so the bank took the farm. We could buy it for

the loan. I told him I could only pay $550 and he said, “sold”! The house was small. It

had three rooms and a back porch, which had been boarded up, but we had always lived

in slum houses, so we didn’t mind. We had a home! There were plenty of trees for wood

and several peach trees and one apple tree. There was also lots of wild blackberries and

the renters had left a nice started garden. I was so happy and proud of our farm and the

kids seemed happy too. It was a much better place to raise the children than in town. It

was a mile to school and several other kids lived not too far away.

In the summer Mom, Dad, Virgil and some of the kids loaded up a trailer and

brought some of my things down to me. When he went to get our dog, Staley said it

howled so much he had shot it. I wished we could have had Dad make a crate for him and

we could have tied it on the car fender to bring him with us. My moving down here

probably gave dad the urge to come back to Missouri. He did after a time, but couldn’t

make it and moved back to Kansas, where he died on August 16, 1957. We bought

stoves, tables, chairs and some things we had to have. Later we added more things I

bought at auction sales. We bought a cow and a few chickens. The kids started school in

the fall.

24

We all liked Missouri. I especially loved the trees and still do. We could grow a

good garden, because there was more rainfall during the summer. What was hard to get

used to was the humidity. The yellow clay soil was so different from the rich, dark soil of

Kansas. We had some good neighbors and Mrs. Jim Rowland who was Albert’s second

or third cousin lived close. What social life we had we made ourselves. There were

programs at school and always a last day of school dinner. We took part in PTA (Parent

Teachers Association) and once I was president of the PTA we gave plays and I always

took part in them and enjoyed myself. At threshing time several neighbors gathered to

help. The men worked in the field and the women in the kitchen. It was like a big party.

When the boys got a little older, they trapped and sold furs hunted and fished with

their friends. They tried to see who would be the first to go swimming in the spring.

When Alvin was old enough, he got a job during the summer, with our neighbor Joe

Pollock, on his farm. I think he got three dollars a week the first summer. He had to learn

everything. He worked several summers there with an increase in wages every summer.

He bought a .22 caliber rifle and learned to hunt. He often brought rabbits and squirrels

home to eat. Later he bought a guitar and learned to play some on it.

After grade school, Alvin bought his own clothes, books and went to high school.

He went the full four years and graduated. Verna also went through high school. Betty

went one year and then quit school. Dale went nearly one year of school and quit. They

had to go to Sullivan to school, which was several miles away. When Alvin was through

school, he had to go in the Navy, as we were at war again—this time with Japan. Thank

God, he made it okay and came home safe!

Now I will go back to when we first came down here. This part of my life I would

like to erase, but since I can’t and it happened, I am going to tell it like it was. I expect

everyone makes a mistake or two they are not proud of as their life is lived. When we

turn to God, he forgets and forgives our sins but people never forget them.

This one neighbor, Alma Brandt, had a brother-in-law who was a bachelor. She

was determined I should meet him. We did meet and he seemed to be a nice enough man.

I later learned he was an alcoholic and very weak-willed. His name was Otto Brandt. In

the spring he proposed to me and wanted to get married right away, but I wanted to wait

until fall. I wasn’t too sure about it all. We got along okay. He said he couldn’t have

children, because he had been hurt when riding a horse. I think he really believed this. I

got pregnant in September. His folks knew about our plans and told him they would

disinherit him if we married. We were too poor to suit them. I didn’t try to push him into

marriage and I have been thankful a hundred times over that I didn’t. Opal was born on

June 25, 1937. Well, life went on; not as good as before, but it got better.

We finally used up what money we had, and the neighbors helped us get aid for

dependent children. It wasn’t much, but it kept us going. I made over clothes for the kids

and myself, canned fruit, berries and vegetables, made all of our bread and the kids were

growing up.

25

When Opal was about two years old I joined the New Friendship Baptist Church

and was baptized. It was at least two miles from our house and we walked to church.

Quite often we would catch a ride with one of the members. Before this our car had

broken down. It was a little hard to get along without a car, but we had some good

neighbors who brought out groceries for us. Sometimes I would go along to town. We

didn’t have a telephone, but the mail carrier went past the house.

I bought a saw and axe. Alvin and I cut down trees for our winter wood. We had

to hire it hauled up to the house and sawed with a buzz saw. There weren’t any small

power saws then. Anyway, we probably couldn’t have afforded to buy one. Alvin said I

used too much wood. He was then, and always has been, a very good boy and man. Dale

and Elmer looked up to him in the way they would have looked up to a father. I’m sure

they all missed having a dad who had been with them for so short a time. I talked to them

a lot about being honest, truthful and being kind to animals. We always had a couple of

dogs and some cats. I told them, if an animal had to be killed, to do it quick and as

painless as possible.

We lived there ten years, before I married Lafe Immell on April 1, 1945. Lafe was

a retired railroad section foreman. His wife had died and he lived with his small

granddaughter in his home. He said he couldn’t stand it so he bought out a package

drugstore in Gerald. The store had gone down, till there was very little to sell, when Lafe

bought it. Not having much money to invest, he slowly started to build it up. Lafe sold his

home and moved in the upstairs rooms above the store. It was in the building where

Finley has his drugstore now. It was in Lafe’s store where I met him for the first time.

When I had been in a few times, he started talking to me and acting friendly.

One Sunday afternoon, he drove out to the farm and asked me to go car riding

with him. I refused. He had the valves ground on the car and was afraid that if he killed

the motor it wouldn’t start. He went on, but another time he asked me if he would bring

out a beef roast, would I cook supper for him. I said yes. Lafe kept the store open till

noon on Sundays and we went to church on Sunday morning. Lafe came and brought a

nice big roast. He asked if I could make biscuits; I did. I also fixed some vegetables to go

with it. We ate a huge dinner and he said, “Girl, you sure can cook”! I think he was

hooked from then on. We went to the show in Owensville several times and I cooked

Sunday supper a lot of times. He always brought a roast. He didn’t come when the

weather was bad, so we wrote letters. We saw each other for eighteen months before we

were married. Betty had gone to Doniphan, Missouri, where Mom and Dad lived and met

John Tillman, whom she married. Alvin was in the Navy.

Lafe gave me a ring before Christmas. We were married at New Friendship

Church on Sunday evening, after service, in a very simple ceremony. It had rained off

and on all day. He was seventy years old and I was forty. He bought a big block building

on Main Street for us to live in. There had been a store downstairs, but had closed. There

were six big rooms upstairs with a seven-foot hall. There were three rooms on each side

and the steps went down from the hall. It wasn’t a mansion, but it was the best house we

had ever lived in and the biggest. For the first time we had plenty of room. Pop’s (Lafe)

26

furniture was much better than ours was, but we did need some of mine—especially the

beds.

Dale had a job, but was young and needed a guiding hand. Elmer had one more

year of grade school. Alberta and Opal were still small; Opal was eight years old.

Pop bought his building for $3,500, which was cheap enough. However, there was

no water, bathroom or furnace in the house. There were electric lights and a cistern on the

back porch. There was an outhouse toilet and garage. We had water put in along with a

bathroom, bathroom sink, septic tank and furnace.

He rented the downstairs to man from Chicago, who put in a small factory making

baby shoes and booties. Two months after we were married, I started working. I am not

sure how long the factory was in his building—about four years, I think. The man said he

needed more room, so Pop talked the town people into putting up money to build a new

building. They put up the money and Pop put in a thousand dollars. Mr. Delehanty moved

from our place to the new building. He stayed there about two years before the business

went into bankruptcy.

In the meantime, the cap factory from Bourbon had started a branch factory in

Gerald located in a building next to ours. After the shoe factory left, the cap factory

owners took over the new building and moved in there. They bought the building and

paid off all the stockholders with interest over a period of years. This factory is still going

strong and has given a lot of people work. I worked two years in a shoe factory in

Rosebud and two years in the cap factory in Gerald.

During this time, the building where Pop’s store was located was sold to Charles

Finley who started another drug and liquor store. Pop had to move his store to the new

building Paul Borror had just built. After the shoe factory moved from our building, we

again moved the store into our building. We kept the store open until 1960, when Pop

sold out and we built a new house where I now live. Pop sold beer, whiskey and wine.

This is where he made his money. He could not sell pharmaceutical drugs; just over the

counter packaged drugs. He also sold cosmetics, paper goods, candy, cigarettes, cigars,

magazines, soda, ice cream, sprays and animal remedies.

He also rented the downstairs side rooms to Doctor Schmidt. He had to do a lot of

remodeling to get this ready for the doctor. Doctor Schmidt stayed there for several years,

until his business out grew the room there. The doctor built a new clinic of his own. He

spent his entire doctoring life here in Gerald and only retired this past year in 1980. We

miss him.

Now back to the start of our married life and the more personal things, which

happened to our family. Dale was working at the hatchery, but later quit and worked in

the shoe factory. Elmer finished his last year of school in the eighth grade. Alberta and

Opal were in grade school. This marriage wasn’t nearly as good as the first one. I guess

27

my family was too much for a man as old as Pop; however, he asked for it. He didn’t

have to get married and I didn’t run after him.

I told him I would not give up my children or my church for any man. I said this

before he ever asked me to be his wife. We did have some nice times together. He liked

to go to church suppers and we made them all. For about a dollar you could eat as much

as you wanted. He really liked to eat. One good thing I can say, he always acted like he

was proud of me. He would get mad at the kids ever so often. Mostly, he would get mad

at the boys and act and talk awful to them. I talked right back. All of our quarrels were

about the kids. They were pretty darn good kids and I wasn’t about to see them

mistreated. One time he got mad at little Elmer and told him to leave and go back out to

the farm. There wasn’t a thing to eat out there, but Elmer went out the door and down the

steps without saying a word. I went out right behind him. When he got outside, I said,

“Elmer you are not going. If you have to go, we will all go with you”. He came back

upstairs and the old man never said another word. He found out I wasn’t the “softie” he

thought I was. He had a lot of mad spells and we had a lot of quarrels. I thought of

leaving him several times, but stuck it out and took good care of him to the end.

I made my part of the living and I paid, with my own earnings, for the kids’ food

and clothes. He was very tight with money for the family, but if Pop could do something

big for the town, it was okay with him. It made Pop look good and generous.

When we were married, Verna was working in Owensville. Verna and Roy

Schweer were married in 1945 and lived on his parent’s farm for a few years, until they

moved to town. They have two daughters and five grandchildren. Roy Schweer runs a

road grader for Franklin County and Verna works in the cap factory. They live two

blocks away from me.

Dale and Ruth Walters were married in 1949. Dale manages a cap factory and

lives in Van Buren, Missouri. He also has built a house and remodeled a number of others

in his spare time. He says it is his hobby. He could have been a good carpenter too, if he

had chosen. Dale and Ruth have four children—two boys and two girls. All have been

married, but two are divorced. They have five grandchildren.

Alvin came home from his stint in the Navy and went to work in St. Louis where

he met his wife to be. Alvin and Loretta Crabtree were married in 1954. They have a

happy marriage but no children.

Elmer went in the Army and served two years in Korea—he came home safe to

us! Elmer and Lenora Crews were married in 1954. Elmer is a very good carpenter. He

built his home and another one he rents out. They have one son, daughter and grandson.

Alberta went through high school in Union and was married after graduation. She

and Henry Moravek were married in 1952. Alberta and Henry were divorced in 1974.

Alberta remarried the same year to Donald Shanks. They have one little girl and live in

Union, Missouri. Alberta is a schoolteacher and Don works in the police department.

28

Betty divorced John Tillman and married a man from Colorado. His name was

Buck Sherman. She had three Tillman children and three Sherman children. One baby

was born dead. Betty is now divorced, living alone and making her own living. Betty’s

family is all grown and married. She has ten grandchildren. She and her family still live

in Colorado.

Opal went to work in St. Louis, when she was sixteen. She refused to go to high

school. Later Opal went to Colorado, and was married to a man named George Dirks.

They had one little girl named Pamela. This marriage didn’t work out for them. Opal

came back to Gerald, where she got a divorce. I kept the baby for eighteen months. Opal

got a job in St. Louis, again where she met her present husband. Opal and Kenneth Narsh

were married in 1959. They have two grown children and it has been a good marriage.

Kenneth is a barber. Pam is married. Linda is nineteen and single. Kenney Wayne is

married and has a small daughter. Opal took some more schooling after she was married.

She learned to type and do office work. She has a good job.

All of my children own their own homes, except Betty. They have all worked and

made their own way. I’m proud of them! I think they are the very best families a mother

could ever have. They are so good to me and the in-laws are just like my own.

Maybe my second marriage wasn’t the happiest, but we did live better and didn’t

have to worry about where our next meal was coming from. Also, the kids got to meet

new people with a better chance of finding the right wife or husband. Most of them go to

church at least part of the time, now.

When Pop was eighty years old, he took arthritis. He also had been taking

‘Doan’s pills” for years. He had chewed tobacco nearly all his life and after he got the

store, he started using liquor. He was indulging pretty heavy, when he got sick. Pop took

medicine and did everything he could to shake it off. He just couldn’t believe he would

not live forever. He still ran the store, but now it was hard for him to go up and down the

stairs. I was still working in the factory, but helped some in the evening. I did all my own

housework too, in the evenings. I decided we would move downstairs to the rooms the

doctor had vacated. The kids were all gone, except Elmer. This was a lot easier for Pop to

get to the store and he wasn’t about to sell out. Finally, his friend, Oscar Meyer, talked

him into going to a clinic in Excelsor Springs, Missouri, for treatment. Oscar took him up

there and he stayed a month. They took away all meat except a little chicken soup on

Sunday. They thought meat formed acid in the stomach and caused arthritis. He had put

on quite a bit of fat and they took it all off in a month’s time. When he came home, he

was so thin and weak he had to be helped into the house.

While he was away, we locked up the store, because I was still working. He tried

to run the store, but got worse and went to bed. I quit and stayed home to take care of

him. This was December 1954. I never worked away from the home afterwards. I had

worked nine years. We got Doctor Schmidt to come back and treat him. We found out

Pop had anemia real bad. He started taking iron tablets and eating liver. Eventually, he

29

got better. He could walk around and sometimes we could go out and drive around. We

even went on a picnic a time or two.

Pop wanted me to run the store, but the Baptist Church doesn’t believe in drinking

or selling whiskey. I told him, if he would get rid of the liquor, I would try to run it. He

said, we wouldn’t make any money without the liquor, but he would get rid of it. We

didn’t have much business after that. I came to hate the store and living on Main Street. I

did a lot of crocheting and sold hundreds of doilies in the store.

We had a stoker-type coal furnace, which caused a lot of trouble. I was always

afraid of fire at night. My nerves got so bad, I nearly went under. My faith was all that

saved my mental health. I wished so many times Pop would sell out, but I never bugged

him about it. Then, in 1960, we went to a fourth of July picnic. I always carried a folding

chair for him to sit on. He got to talking to Paul Borror, who was now in the real estate

business. Pop decided to let Paul sell our building. When we got home, he asked if it was

okay with me. I said, “Sure, but are you sure it is what you want?” He said it was. Paul

Garlock had a variety store across the street in an old building and needed more room. I

suggested to Paul Borror he to talk to Garlock about buying us out. We sold and another

wish came true.

Dale used to own the house where Roy and Verna live now. I had loaned Dale

some money and told him I would like to have this corner of land. It was three-quarters of

an acre. I had owned it for five years and here is where we built our new house. It was

built in the fall of 1960. We moved into our house in December. When the house was

completed enough to be closed up, we moved furniture into the basement and went to

stay with Dale and Ruth Brown. We stayed there a month, until our new house was

finished.

Pop had several bouts with uremic poisoning. The day before we planned to

move, he had another one. We had to get the ambulance to take him out to Dale’s house.

When Pop got these spells, he always got mixed up in his mind. Pop was awful bad this

time and even the doctor didn’t think he would make it. We took good care of him and

finally gave him glucose, which helped a lot. He gradually got better and before we left to

come to our new home, he was up in a wheelchair. He was as proud of our new home as I

was. I thought it was the most beautiful house in the world. We had a gas furnace, which

wasn’t one bit of trouble. We could have sold out and built so many years before. It

would have been a lot better for us both, but he just would not quit the store. He loved

our new house, but only lived two years over here. When he could, Pop went to church

with me. I took him out for car rides. He loved to go out in the country. One Sunday, his

daughter and son-in-law came out from the city. They had a Volkswagen and Pop wanted

to ride in it, so the son-in-law took him for a nice long ride. He loved it. One time Roy

and Verna took us out riding over part of our county where we had never been. We

enjoyed it very much.

Pop died June 14, 1962; he was nearly eighty-eight years old. He had been worse

all spring and started losing blood internally. They couldn’t stop the bleeding. His heart

30

also started failing. I think cancer was what caused the leakage, but the doctor wouldn’t

say so. He was also very deaf; I missed him. It was the first time in my life I had ever

lived alone. It did take getting used to. I was fifty-seven and probably could have got

back my job at the cap factory, but my nerves were so bad, I was afraid to try. I wish,

now, I would have tried. I did some babysitting for a time and then started ironing. I

made more money ironing and it was easier on my nerves. I did this several years.

Pop left very little money. We used all of the money we got from selling the old

building for building the new house and garage. His railroad pension and social security

were small and it took it all for living expenses. He was under a doctor’s care for eight

years and I was also taking medicine. He had a small insurance policy, which was just a

little more than enough for funeral expenses.

Well, life went on. At first it was hard to go places alone in public, but I have

become used to that as well as a lot of other things. Living alone does have some

compensation. I can go and come without explaining why I wish to go. I can watch the

television show I want or turn the TV off. I eat what I want or don’t cook if I feel like it. I

can go to bed when I like and get up as late as I wish. You see it’s not half bad. I think

I’m more contented now, than I have ever been in my life. I am happy to be alive and as

well as I am. I do take medicine for high blood pressure. I love to read and do a lot of it. I

get a number of magazines and have a bookcase full of books. I still crochet some, but

the last several years, I have been piecing and quilting quilts. I love to do this and I give

them to my children and grandchildren. I hope to do this for many more years, if I keep

my health. The family loves my quilts.

We have a family gathering every year. All we need is a little excuse to have one.

Last fall, 1980, we got together and my two sisters, Myrtle and Alma drove down from

Kansas. My only living aunt, Jerry Reed and her husband Cliff, came from Arizona. We

had a lovely time together and a lot of pictures were taken. This year, we are planning a

much larger one in June with relatives coming from California, Texas, Kansas, and

besides my own, big personal family. I know we will have the best time ever.

I am now the oldest member of our big family of relatives. My Aunt Jerry Reed is

next in line. She is four years younger than I. My dad was the oldest of twelve children

and Aunt Jerry is the youngest. I am the second oldest in my Dad’s family; the oldest

baby died at birth. There were eight of us living children and now three of us have passed

one. My mother died ten years ago in 1970; she was eight-eight years old.

I am now seventy-six years young. I keep active and have a lot of things to do. I

make a big garden each summer and can and freeze vegetables and fruit. A small garden

tiller helps a lot in caring for my garden. There are a lot of leaves for me to take each

spring as I have about twenty big oak trees on my ground. I have a lot of outdoor flowers

and some houseplants. I also do my own mowing and drive my car. I have always

enjoyed working. I also have several cats and three dogs. The animals are a lot of

company to me and they love me. The dogs understand a lot of things I say too. They

31

never talk back, but give me the warmest welcome ever when I return from being gone

awhile. I love them very much.

I think keeping active and not feeling sorry for oneself is a great factor in keeping

well and staying young. I have to tell you about my bottle collection. There are at least

2,000 of them and a few are old. Several are Avon bottles. They came in all sizes from

very tiny to huge whiskey bottles. No, I didn’t drink the whiskey. Some came from the

dump and a lot were given to me. I buy some at yard sales. I think it is an interesting

hobby. I also collect vases and have a bunch of them as well.

I belong to the Senior Citizens Club. We meet once a month with a carry-in

dinner at noon and play Pinochle cards and dominoes after noon. I enjoy this club very

much. I also like to go on picnics.

I now have seventeen grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

The town of Gerald, Missouri, where I have lived near and in for so long is a

lively, nice place to live. There are five churches and three factories—a cap factory, tube

factory and a spice factory. The town has built up in every way in the last thirty years.

There is a new school, new telephone office and new post office. We have a fire

department and ambulance service as well as three parks. I enjoy living here. It’s a small

town, and for me, it is the best. We have larger towns nearby. My children come to see

me quite often and I’m always glad to see them. I used to pray I would live until they

were all grown and they could take care of themselves. Thank you, God, for answering

my prayers. A strong faith in God has been a big help in our daily lives. We can’t expect

all of our prayers to be answered. Some of them wouldn’t be good for us.

Naturally, a lot of things happened I haven’t written about, but I have touched on

most of the high points of my life. I shall try to write a page or two each year from now

on as long as I am able to add to this story. I am so thankful the Lord has let me live this

long and I will make the most of the rest of the time I have.

Thank you, Nephew Dewey, for getting me started in writing my life story. Some

of the others have written or started on their stories. I hope they will all try to write

something about their life. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could sit down and read a real life

story our grandparents, great-grandparents, uncles, aunts or cousins had written in the

long ago? Wouldn’t it be nice to know how they lived, loved and struggled, if they were

rich or poor, happy or sad, sick or well? Perhaps, some of my distant relatives not yet

born will read this story of mine and know what I was like. They will probably think I

had a hard life and I did, but most of the time I was happy. I always had hope things

would get better.

I will dedicate this, my life story, to all of my children and to my nephew, Dewey

Neufeld, who encouraged me to write it and who has worked so hard and given so much

of his time in helping to find out so much about our ancestors and making copies for all

of us.

32

Thank you again, Dewey and may God bless you.

Ruth Immell

THINGS IN MY LIFE WHICH HAPPENED IN 1981

This has been a good year for me. In some ways it has been super. We will start

from the first of the year. Of course, it's always very cold and snowy during the winter in

Missouri and this year was no exception. However, we natives get use to it.

On January 23, 1981, my good friend and constant companion of fourteen years

died. Penny was my dog and was born October 1, 1966. She was fourteen years and four

months old and we had been together since she was five weeks old. She was only a

“mutt,” but we loved each other very much. She had the dreaded cancer, which we all

fear so much. Penny I miss you, but I won’t forget you! Here is a poem that I wrote on

October 11, 1981, which describes our life together:

Ode To My Dog Penny

I brought you home when just a pup,

You left your mom without a cry.

The day was cold, you snuggled up

Beneath my coat. I wonder why?

You were so very small and cute

And very shy and lonesome too.

I know you missed your family so,

For you were only five weeks old.

You had a toy dog for play,

It was your pal at nap time too,

And so we lived from day to day

And you grew up as all dogs do.

Your love for me and mine for you

Grew stronger daily as we played,

You went with me where ere I went

And never from my side you strayed.

You helped me when I mowed the grass

Or in the garden I did work,

And when I had to rake the leaves

You thought I did it for a lark.

33

You dug up moles all o’er my lawn

You thought that was your mission here.

You chased the birds and rabbits too,

You barked a lot and had no fear.

Sometimes I had to go away

I’d say goodbye and you would cry.

You’d lay and wait till I came back,

Then, welcome me with all your heart.

Your lovely hair was soft and long.

‘Twas brown and with an golden hue.

Your waving tail was quite a sight

Your soft brown eyes so kind and true.

At night you slept upon my bed,

I felt so safe and free from harm.

You understood the words I said

You didn’t know you were a dog.

The years went by and you grew old.

Your lovely hair was growing thin.

Some gray was showing in the gold

You could not hear me when I called.

Upon your leg a cancer grew.

You slowly failed from day to day.

I knew that soon my friend would die,

And then one eve you passed away.

Then, I cried.

On January 26th

, I had my seventy-sixth birthday. Some of my family was here

and I received a number of presents. The one I was most thrilled with was a small camera

from Verna and Roy Schweer. I had wanted a new one for a long time, but had just

neglected getting it. I have loved taking pictures for a very long time and now have

several albums full of them. I can no longer get film for my old camera.

I stay home most of the time in the winter and quilt, sew, crochet, read, work

crossword puzzles and watch television. I enjoy the quiet life most of the time, but I think

we all have times when we get lonesome and long for our lost companionship of long

ago. We wish sometimes that we could live our life over again and try to do a better job

of it all. Oh well, that’s only wishful thinking. When I was young, it seemed that life

would be so very long—almost forever. Then, before I hardly knew what was happening,

I was old and it is nearly over. When I think of these things now, I feel sad and cry a

34

little. However, one must not linger over what has been and cannot be changed. We have

to be content with the way things are now.

I am now the oldest living member of our very large family.

I have a lot to be thankful for. My health is fairly good and I have an income to

live comfortably on. I have a good home and my very dear children are a comfort. My

three dogs are a lot of company to me and the children come to visit as often as their busy

lives permit.

I enjoy writing and getting letters from the distant family. Since the reunion last

summer, I have become closer to my sisters and brother and nephews and nieces—some

of them I had not even met before. We will talk more about that a little later in this story.

In April I had a bad fall on the basement floor. I stumbled over a cat. I could

hardly walk for about three weeks and my back was weak much longer. It could have

been worse—I might have broken my hip.

For months, Dewey and I had been writing about having a big family reunion here

in Missouri. It had been in his mind for years and just needed someone to set the date. I

suggested that we have it here this year, as I was not getting any younger. The idea

started growing and plans were being tentatively made between us. As others in the

family heard about it, they agreed it was a swell idea and more enthusiasm was generated

until we were all quite excited.

Now going back a few months to the year before as this is part of our story. The

first of September 1980, my Uncle Cliff and Aunt Jerry Reed from Yuma, Arizona, came

to spend a month in Gerald with my family. They brought their travel trailer and parked

in our city trailer court. Jerry is my aunt and is four years younger than I am. We had a

very nice visit and had made plans to have my children and grandchildren come for a

family get together on September 14, 1980.

Then out of the blue, my sister Alma Partridge called me from Towanda, Kansas,

and said she and my sister, Myrtle, were coming down to visit me for a few days. I had

not heard from either of them for ages, so this was quite a happy surprise. I told Alma of

our plans and she said she would make arrangements to get her vacation set ahead, so

they could be at our reunion. Alma is a registered nurse at a very busy hospital in

Wichita, Kansas.

Alma and Myrtle arrived on Friday, September 12, in the late afternoon. Aunt

Jerry and Uncle Cliff came over and we had a big evening visiting and getting

reacquainted. I had married, when they were very young, and we were so busy leading

our separate lives that we just drifted apart. After I moved back to Missouri, from Kansas,

we just drifted farther apart with our busy lives and raising our children. With not much

money for traveling we did not get together very often and became almost like strangers.

When we were young, we did not feel the strong need of kinship, which we feel now, as

35

we grow older. I know it was that way with me. I feel that some of the family resented it,

when I left the family circle to move back to Missouri, but something kept pulling me

back. I was so unhappy after Albert died and I felt there was nothing more there for me.

Maybe this was my destiny. One wanders about these things and why certain things

happen or cause us to do the things we do. I am not sorry I made the move down here

even though life was really hard for a number of years.

I believe we should not let the pressures of life crowd out the more important

things, such as the love of our families. Now as we come to the end of our life we realize

these things more fully. I know this is the way I feel and I am glad that my love for my

family has come to life again. May God bless you all!

Getting back to our dinner on September 14, 1980, all of my children and their

families, Aunt Jerry and Uncle Cliff, Short and Myrtle were here. It was sad that Betty’s

families all live in Colorado and could not come to be with us. We enjoyed a big dinner, a

lot of pictures were taken and much visiting was enjoyed by all of us. In the afternoon,

Fred and Ruth Ann Hartung and their daughter, Carol played and sang songs. Some of

the others joined in. A very lovely day was had by all.

On Saturday the thirteenth, Alma, Myrtle, Jerry and I took a drive. We first went

to Walbert Cemetery where several of our ancestors are buried. Then on past my old farm

to Tea, Missouri. They were sure I was lost, but I have been over that road a lot of times.

We then came back through Rosebud, stopping to explore some old houses, which

interested my sisters. We came on home to have a lunch of hamburgers, chips and coffee

and much catching up on our talking. It was a hot day, but we enjoyed it anyway. Later,

we went to Jerry’s camper where she told our fortune with cards.

On Monday the fifteenth, Myrtle, Short, Verna and myself went to Oak Hill

where we met Fred and Ruth Ann. Then we went on to the Collier Cemetery where my

mother’s family, the Muskats, are buried. A few of our family graves had headstones, but

most have only a flat rock stood on edge to mark the graves. Myrtle made rubbings of the

stones, which had inscriptions on them. To do this, she placed a large sheet of white

paper over the face of the stone and rubbed with a large black carpenter’s crayon. The

rubbings made the names and dates come off perfectly.

We took along the makings for sandwiches, coffee and ice water and had lunch

under the trees nearby. It was like a picnic.

Fred and Ruth Ann had found this cemetery sometime before. It is on private

property and far off the road and could never be found without directions. We then, went

back to Oak Hill and I found the two houses, which my grandfather Thomas Walton May

had built and lived on.

We also visited the Oak Hill Cemetery, but found none of our relatives buried

there. We were hot, getting tired and the day was nearly over so back over the beautiful

hills and woods of Missouri, and once again back home. Jerry did not make this trip with

36

us. She was sick the night before and rested all day. The family day was a little too much

for her.

Then, on Tuesday morning my two sisters left for their homes in Kansas. We all

enjoyed their visit very much and wished they could have stayed longer. I think this trip

and what Myrtle wrote about Missouri, to Dewey, was why he wanted to make the trip

down here at Thanksgiving time. He had never been to Missouri, and wanted a first-hand

look at things here and also wanted to meet me and some of my family.

When, Dewey, Don and Shirley Leonard and Myrtle were here, the idea of a

family reunion began to grow—like a snowball rolling downhill. From then on serious

plans were being made by all of us. Family members were being notified and they started

making plans too. From then on, we could not have stopped it, if we had wanted to, and

no one did want to. The closer the time came for our reunion, the slower the time seemed

to pass. But as time has always done, it did pass and the big day had really come. We had

set the time for Sunday, June 28, 1981.

On the 21st, Myrtle and her small son, David, came driving in pulling a small

camper. Her husband, Bill, had to work and came on the bus later in the week. I am glad

she came early, as we had so much talking to catch up on before the big crowd got here.

We also went to Leslie, a small town nearby, to visit our cousin, Noel Shoemaker. He is

eighty-three years old and we did not know he was our cousin, until last year. He said we

had played together when we were children.

On Monday evening, my nephew, Richard “Rick” Neufeld and his small son,

Brian, came driving in from Texas. I had not seen him, or his brother Dewey, since they

were very small children. We, too, had several talks over our morning coffee while the

others were still sleeping. He did some family tree research and also mowed my big lawn

before the others arrived.

On Thursday afternoon, Jack and Alma came driving in pulling a large travel

trailer. They parked up at Verna and Roy’s, as there was not enough room here at my

house.

Not long afterward, the others came rolling in. They had all met at Doniphan,

Missouri, which is many miles south of here. Some of our family had married in to the

Tillman family and some had just lived there. They visited cemeteries, where my sister

Golda Watkins and some of her family were buried. This group was made up of: Dewey

Neufeld from Texas; Velma Hines, her son Johnny Ray (JR) and his small daughter Tina

from California; Don and Mona Smith and Mona’s daughter Nicki from Colorado; and

Shirley Leonard and Sharon Martin from Wichita.

Dewey had car trouble in Doniphan. Velma and JR had a car breakdown at

Albuquerque, New Mexico, and were held up for a few days for repairs. Mona and Don

also had problems with the brakes on their pickup and camper on this trip. My sister,

Myrtle, experienced problems with the temperature light on her car coming on and

37

looking as if her car was overheating. The mechanical problems could not stop the

reunion and our gathering together. Eventually, all was in order and now everyone was

here at last.

It was a bit overwhelming to see so many cars and trailers in my driveway. There

were two trailers and an over-the-cab truck camper and five cars. Later in the week,

short’s two families—a son and family parked at the Schweer’s home, which is just a

block up the street. From then on things took on a very lively pace. The street between

our two houses was kept busy while they were here. Someone was always going back and

forth.

On Friday, our visitors went hunting for our roots. Some went to the courthouse at

Herman, Missouri, to go through old records; some went to Steelville courthouse to

search records and some to Oak Hill to search cemeteries. Myrtle went to Owensville, to

look through old newspapers, but the editor said no, it was too much trouble for him.

They all came back late in the afternoon very tired and hungry.

On Saturday, a car and the truck camper full of us—sixteen in all—went on

another exploring outing. We went to Walbert Cemetery, then to Tea, Missouri, and to

several cemeteries, which I had never visited before. We then, went on to Oak Hill and

visited a while with Fannie Tayloe and also went to Grandpa May’s two houses where his

family used to live. Several of us took pictures. It was an enjoyable trip, but tiring and we

were all glad to be back home again to have a hot supper.

Finally the big day came and we were all busy cooking and getting everything

ready for our dinner at noon. Dewey is as handy in the kitchen as a woman is and he

helped right up until mealtime. Everyone helped and Roy was very helpful bringing

tables and chairs and seeing that all was ready out in the yard. Most of us filled our plates

in the house and ate outside under the shade trees. Dale brought a picnic table from Van

Buren where he lives.

All of my children came bringing baskets of food and even the visitors fixed food.

Soon two tables were laden with everything one could think of to eat. Some brought big

water coolers full of lemonade and ice water and we kept a big coffeepot going all day.

We left the food on the tables all day and anyone could eat again whenever they found

some room from the big dinner.

A lot of pictures were taken, and much visiting between all of us. There was even

one table of pinochle being played.

Fred and Ruth Ann Hartung, and their daughter Carol, played guitars and sang.

Others joined in the singing. We had our picnic in my big shady front yard. It was a

beautiful sunshiny day—warm, but not too hot. To me, it seemed like everything went off

perfectly. The only things missing were Betty and her family and Aunt Jerry and Uncle

Cliff. They promise to be with us next summer, when we meet again. We had fifty-three

here for dinner. All to soon the day was over and my children had to go home. Several of

38

them said, let’s do it again next year. Now we have started plans for our next reunion in

1982. Life is too short to neglect the gathering of our families they way we have done in

the past. It is too bad that we have to grow old before we think of these important things.

How my mother would have enjoyed our big reunion. My Aunt Carrie would

have loved it too. How do we know that their spirits were not with us?

We do have Dewey to thank for it all.

On Monday, the out of state visitors started leaving and by noon Tuesday, the last

car was gone. It is always a big letdown when company leaves, but this was a bigger one

than usual because there were so many here and we had such a good time. I missed them

for several days, but life goes on and I and the dogs and cats slowly got back to normal.

Then, I took a flu-like virus and was sick for a week.

I want to say, I enjoyed every minute while my company was here. Sometimes, I

forget to tell people how I feel, but I will try to be better in the future. I do love you all—

very much!

This is mid-September as I write this, and cooler than normal temperature for this

time of year. This has been the wettest summer that I can remember. I have a big yard

and a lot of grass to mow. By the time the last plot is finished, I have to start all over

again. Now that I am old, I cannot work long hours at a time anymore. The saying is, “if

it takes longer to rest than it takes to get tired, then one is getting old.” Could that be what

is wrong with me?

As usual I put in a garden this year, but it was so wet it was the poorest garden I

have ever made. The crabgrass was the only thing, which grew good and it really took

over. I will try again next year.

There were three great-grandbabies born this year. A daughter named Melissa Jo

was born to Greg and Karen Briscoe on September 5, 1981. She is Dale and Ruth

Brown’s granddaughter. A son named Michael Shane was born to Carl and Terri

Gumbenberger on August 24, 1981. He is Elmer and Leona Brown’s grandson. A

daughter was born to Kenny and Becky Narsh on November 26, 1981. This baby is Ken

and Opal Narsh’s granddaughter.

It is now October, and Indian summer time again. This is the time, in the fall after

the first frost, when we have an unusually nice warm spell of weather. The legend says

that a long time ago the Indians got lazy and were slow getting their crops gathered in

and winter was almost come. Then the Great Spirit gave them another chance by sending

Indian summer. I wrote this little poem September 10, 1943. I think it fits in here. I hope

you like it.

39

Indian Summer

Indian Summer is here again.

Air is warm and sky is hazy.

Leaves are turning red and gold,

And me I feel so lazy.

Bees are flitting here and there

To find a flower with honey.

Birds are flying south again,

Oh yes, it’s Indian Summer.

Corn shocks scattered over fields

Golden pumpkins piled between.

Smell of sorghum in the air,

It won’t be long till Halloween.

Then show flakes will fill the air,

Dry dead leaves will tumble down,

Fluttering idly here and there

To cover up the cold bare ground.

Soon the snow will cover all,

With a blanket soft and white.

Whispering softly, “Rest till spring,

You’re tucked in safely for the night”.

1981 is over and I will write a little more before closing this one-year story of

mine. Thanksgiving month was rather quiet. Only one important thing happened! Kenny

and Becky Narsh had a baby girl on Thanksgiving Day, the 26th

of November. That was

Albert Brown’s birthday and also Kenny’s sister, Linda, has a birthday on the 26th

of

November.

Opal and Ken came out in December to visit. On Friday night, the week before

Christmas, Dale and Ruth came and stayed all night and left Saturday afternoon. Alvin

and Loretta came out on Christmas Eve afternoon and stayed all night and spent

Christmas Day with me. We had a small turkey and all the trimmings. Elmer and Leona

and Carl and Terri and baby came on Saturday and visited awhile. We again took several

pictures.

Alberta came down the next week and we went shopping in Owensville. It was a

very nice holiday time and one of my presents was a tape recorder. That is something I

never expected to own.

40

I will close now and hope to write another story at the end of next year. Winter

has really settled down on us now and here is another poem I wrote back in January 1944,

which seems appropriate.

Snow Scene

As I sit and watch from my window—

Great snowflakes so soft and white,

As they slowly, silently settler down,

In a great white bed so snug and tight.

Each weed and bush and every tree,

Has a lovely soft cover of white,

And they gently lean down all snug and safe,

Like a baby tucked in for the night.

All day long, from my cozy home—

I watch as the day turns to night,

And I think how cozy the earth must feel

In this thick, soft cover of white.

EVENTS CONCERNING MYSELF & MY FAMILY IN 1982

1982 is now over, and this is the story of my life for that year.

I had another birthday the 26th

of January and I am now seventy-seven years

young. Some of the family was here to help me celebrate.

It was a very cold and snowy month—below normal as well as February. I stay at

home most of the time, when the weather is bad and when I need to shop Roy and Verna

take me. I do not like to drive, when the streets are icy. It does not bother me at all to

spend a lot of time at home, because there are so many things I enjoy doing. I quilted

some the first of the year and then, again in the late summer and fall. I sewed several

dresses in the spring for hot weather wear. Also we were all planning and working for

another reunion in July.

I am always glad, when the cold winter weather is over and I can get out in the

sunshine and start my yard work. I have so many leaves to rake each year. This is one

tiresome job that I could do without. Later, there is a lot of grass to mow as I have a big

yard.

Elmer and Mike came down on the Monday after Mother’s Day and said they

were going to paint the woodwork on my house. They also cleaned out the gutters. It was

badly needed and I was so happy to have that done. Thank you fellows, very much.

Elmer found that my roof needed to be replaced, so he and the other family members got

41

together and bought the materials and put a new roof on my house. Thank you all, a very

lot. This was in June 1982. What would I do without my wonderful family?

The next big event of the year was our second family reunion held on the 3rd

of

July. There were fifty-four present this year. Some of the family came a week before and

some stayed a week after, so there was no sudden let down like the year before, when

everyone left at once. We all enjoyed a big day and everyone brought some food so there

was a huge dinner. We had afternoon music by our own musicians and singing and

visiting and just being happy. A lot of pictures were also taken. Things went much

smoother this time and this made it a lot easier for me. I had made notes of my mistakes

and errors of the year before and had tried to correct them and it all helped. Here is a

poem that I wrote which describes the day best of all:

Our Reunion Day – July 3rd

, 1982

We call the family together.

They came from far and near—

The old and the young—the fat and the thin

ALL seemed so glad to be here.

There were mothers and daddies and children

And uncles and aunts quite a few.

There were sisters and brothers and cousins

And a couple of dogs – it is true.

All mingled together and were happy

With greetings of love and hugs too.

We soon were all ready for dinner

With tables loaded with food and drink too.

With food our plates over flowing

We gathered out under the trees.

On a nice summer day we sat in the shade

And ate and enjoyed the breeze.

So much talking, you couldn’t imagine.

Each telling the other the news

Of all that happened since last year

To listen, we couldn’t refuse.

We took lots of pictures of families

Our cameras were shooting like mad,

While the kids were running and playing

All happy and friendly and glad.

There were laughing and music and singing

We were all so happy and gay

42

As we sat in the shade and reminisced

We agreed t’was a wonderful day.

Some of our family were ailing

And had to stay home – it was sad.

But we thought of them often and said a prayer

For their welfare and other times with us to be had.

The big day was finally over.

The families had to go home.

They reluctantly parted with a sad good-bye

With hopes that we’ll all meet again.

There’s always a feeling of sadness

When we part from our loved ones so dear

So until then, we’ll daydream and plan

For another reunion next year.

August 1982

My daughter, Betty Sherman, came from Colorado, this year and I was really glad

that she could come, as I do not get to see her very often. She was such a great help to me

in the kitchen, too. We hope she can make it again in 1983. Betty’s daughter, Connie

Miles, and Connie’s son, Jesse, came from Chicago for a few days as well. It had been

many years since I had seen her. Come back again, Connie. Our cousin, Noel Shoemaker,

and his son, John, came to be with also this year.

Several of our family was sick and we all had a heavy heart for them—but, God

willing, they will be with us in 1983. My brother, Earl May and his wife, Florence, had

bought their plane tickets to come from California, but her leg got so bad from an

infected spider bite they had to stay home and it was feared she would lose her leg.

Sharon Martin had to have an emergency operation—a cancerous thyroid—so she could

not come and some of our family stayed with her in Kansas. My daughter-in-law, Ruth

Brown, was very sick with cancer so none of her family was here. We missed each of you

sick folks and our prayers went out to and for each of you.

We were happy to have my Uncle Cliff and Aunt Jerry from Arizona, with us—

we hope you will come again next year. I think our next reunion will be July 3rd

, 1983.

You all come now—you hear? Cliff and Jerry brought a game of “Uno” with them and

we all learned to play. It was new to most of us. Someone else brought a “Password”

game so we had many happy evenings together playing games. Alma and Jack parked

their travel trailer at Roy and Verna’s house and it was so easy to trot back and forth

between our homes. Tuesday evening of the second week, Alma and her family gave a

barbecue supper for us all and we had a real nice time eating and playing games.

I wrote several poems early in the year and some more this fall. I do enjoy writing

them. I wrote one for each month of the year and I am happy with my effort. Sometimes I

43

surprise myself. Early in the year I had written a poem called “My State—Missouri”.

Mona Smith got a copy and thought it was really good. She wanted to send it to one of

our state legislators to see if they would put it in the state record. I told her I did not care

and so she sent it. I promptly forgot about it and when she got a beautiful certificate back

from them, she, Don and Dewey decided to present it to me at a surprise party. Don made

a nice frame and they wrapped it in gift paper. I was surprised! They had the Gerald

editor to come over and take my picture and he wrote up a nice article about me.

Mona made a cake and decorated it with red roses and “congratulations” written

on it. I just could not believe it all. The resolution had the Missouri State seal and was

signed by Bob Griffin—Speaker of the House of Representatives. I was on cloud nine for

awhile. I would like to share with you the nice resolution they sent me as well as the

poem, which created such a fuss:

MISSOURI HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, the members of the Missouri House of Representatives are fully

cognizant with the greatness of our State can largely be attributed to the many and varied

endeavors of countless individuals who take great pride in both their Missouri citizenship

and heritage; and

WHEREAS, it is a distinct pleasure for this body to honor one such citizen, Ruth

Belle Immell of Gerald, Missouri, a remarkable woman who has continually expressed

love, faithfulness and devotion to her native State since the beginning of her rich and

rewarding life on this earth near the community of Oak Hill back in the year of 1905; and

WHEREAS, a lifelong resident of the Show-Me State, Ruth Belle Immell has

distinguished herself as an individual whose deep appreciation for life and all of God’s

creations has always been reflected in her daily pattern of living; and

WHEREAS, Ruth Belle Immell has long been known by her family, friends and

neighbors as a loving, kind and compassionate woman whose tremendous faith in God

and her fellowman has given her the comfort and strength to persevere and meet life’s

challenges; and

WHEREAS, this charming woman of seventy-seven years has also earned

recognition for her creative talent as a writer of poetry who quietly conveys her innermost

feelings through the melodious rhymes and rhythm of numerous touching verses; and

WHEREAS, during the month of March, 1982, Ruth Belle Immell wrote a

beautiful poem about the State of Missouri in which she pours forth her love for her

native land and all the splendors it has to offer; and

44

WHEREAS, it is entirely fitting and proper that this legislative body should pay

special tribute to Ruth Belle Immell and express appreciation for the joy and inspiration

she has brought to her fellow citizens by sharing with us the most beautiful verses of

“MY STATE – MISSOURI”;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that we, the members of the Missouri

House of Representatives, eighty-first General Assembly, extend our hearty

congratulations to Ruth Belle Immell for the success she has enjoyed as a poet and as a

loyal Missourian, and further extend our best wishes for continued happiness and

fulfillment as she looks forward to many more years in her beloved native state; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Chief Clerk of the Missouri House of

Representatives be instructed to prepare a properly inscribed copy of this resolution for

Ruth Belle Immell, as a mark of our esteem for her.

Offered by Representative David L. Steelman

I, Bob F. Griffin, Speaker of the House of

(Seal Representatives, Eighty-first General Assembly,

Missouri second Regular Session, do certify that the above

House of is a true and correct copy of House Resolution

Representatives No. 594, adopted July 27, 1982

/s/ Bob F. Griffin, Speaker

My State – Missouri

This is my state where I was born,

So very, very long ago.

The years slipped by – the time has gone

And left me here alone and old.

I love the hills and streams and trees.

Wild flowers that grow so lush and free.

They spread o’er fields and roadside too,

In colors bright of every hue.

The oaks grow tall and thick and green,

45

With chattering squirrels on business bent

With babes in nests that can’t be seen,

And storing food for winter’s needs.

There’s cedars too mixed in between

The stately hickory trees so tall.

And e’en when winter time has come

They still are clad in robes of green.

In fall the leaves from green turn bright

In every hue of yellow and red

Till icy winds say now, “tis night”.

And they fall down and go to bed.

The trees look dead, so bare and cold.

The branches shiver in the wind.

They look so hopeless and so old,

With heavy snow the cedars bend.

But spring will come with breezes warm.

The buds will swell—new leaves will grow.

Birds appear alive with song

From where they hide from winter storm.

By Ruth B. Immell – March 1982

The surprise party happened on the Sunday before Labor Day. At our next Senior

Citizens Club meeting, I got congratulations all day. None of them knew that I wrote

poems. Dewey has been typing them for me and got a loose-leaf notebook for me to keep

them in. He also encourages me to keep writing. Who knows, I may have enough for a

book some day.

I had a fairly good garden this year with a lot of cabbage and tomatoes and

zucchini squash so I wrote a poem about the zucchini. It is included with my book of

poems.

In the middle of September, Alma and Jack and Spook (their dog) came for a few

days visit with me and Don and Mona and Dewey. We had a nice visit and I am glad you

came. I hope you do it again.

About this time, I got a new puppy dog. I had almost forgotten how much trouble

a pup could be. When I leave the house, he would do everything he could think of. It was

unbelievable how the house would look when I came in. He would empty the

wastebasket and take all the cushions off chairs and divans chew the furniture and even

chewed the plug off my floor lamp. He would drag the broom in the living room and any

clothes I would leave in the bathroom would be spread all over. Plus papers torn up

46

everywhere. Now when I leave he has to stay outside. I have raised three other dogs in

the last few years and none of them ever did anything like that. He has grown a lot bigger

than I thought he would be and has learned a lot so maybe there is yet hope for him.

Anyway, I wrote a poem about him. It seems like my pen has to keep busy.

Nothing really outstanding happened in October 1982. Verna and I got a bunch of

black walnuts given to us and I hulled and dried them and was nearly done cracking and

picking them out when a week before Thanksgiving my right hand got real sore and hurt

all night. It is not well yet and that was six weeks ago. I now think it is arthritis. I cannot

believe it has happened to me. I love to do these things and always have done everything

I needed to do. It is better now, so perhaps there is hope for me yet. Anyway, I am glad I

can write again even though it still hurts some.

December has come and Christmas was in the air everywhere it seemed. Stores,

streets and homes were decorated with Christmas trees put up and lots of colored lights

turned on at night. All through December, the weather was unseasonable. We had floods

and tornadoes and not a bit of snow and very mild temperatures for Missouri. One needs

some snow to really get the Christmas spirit. Because of my sore right hand, I did not do

very much baking for Christmas this year. I usually bake a mountain of cookies and make

several kinds of candy. I did not even put up a tree. I hope to do better next year.

Al and Loretta and Kenneth, Opal and Pam came out and had Christmas dinner

with me. I baked a twelve-pound turkey and all that goes with it and we had an enjoyable

day together. I had three invitations to go out on Christmas Day also. The weather was

spring-like. Dale and Stevie Brown came up from Van Buren and visited awhile on

Christmas Eve afternoon. They were on their way to Union to pick up Ruthie’s mother to

take back with them. Their family was all at home that day. Ruth is still too weak to

travel so far and I do miss them so much! They brought me a beautiful vase and a big

fruit basket. They also sent a generous check in with their Christmas card. I also collect

vases.

The floods here in Missouri were very bad—especially in low-lying areas around

St. Louis. In some places, the water was up to the eaves or nearly so. People lost all of

their furniture and belongings and I am sure the homes were badly damaged. Here in our

area, the Bourbouse and Red Oak Rivers were up to the bridge floor and higher in places.

Lots of roads were closed and entire fields covered with water. Gerald, where I live, is on

higher ground and several miles from the river. I would hate to live so close to water, as I

am very afraid of it.

My granddaughter, Linda Narsh, was married a week before Christmas. We are

happy for her.

I almost forgot to tell you about my Christmas toy. It is a real nice radio-type

cassette recorder with AM/FM stereo. I had been saving money gifts, which had been

given me since last summer and when the Western Auto Christmas catalog came out

there was the one I was looking for. I asked Verna what she thought of it and she said, “It

47

sounded okay, let’s go look at it”. They had to order it and when we brought it home and

turned it on we were both really satisfied. It sounds beautiful. I only have four tapes of

the songs I especially like, but plan to add to my collection. You guessed it—I had to

write a poem about:

A Toy For Grandma

Today I got a new toy

I’m as happy as a kid,

You wouldn’t think it could happen

To an old woman—but it did.

It’s a radio and tape recorder,

With AM and FM stereo too,

Now I’m playing a beautiful tape

Of hymns that thrill me all through.

I listen to Christmas carols

On the radio all day long,

And my soul is lifted up to heaven

And on my lips is a song.

Oh, thank you “dear Lord” for my toy,

Bless the ones that gave it to me.

May their days be joyful and happy

And filled with praises for Thee.

May the good Lord bless and keep me

As I worship with carols and hymns

And may all others too get a blessing

With me at this Christmas—Amen.

Albert’s niece, Elma Brown Bennett (George and Golda Brown’s daughter), died

on December 26 at Santa Rosa, California, and was brought back to Owensville,

Missouri, for burial. She has a very retarded son and husband still living, but both were

sick and could not come to the funeral. Alberta and I went to the funeral on the last day of

December. Elma Brown was sixty-two. Afterward we went to the Wal-Mart store to go

shopping. The store was having an after-Christmas sale and we both came home with our

arms full of packages. Alberta, Verna and Roy, Al and Loretta have been so nice to ask

me to go shopping with them and quite often go out for lunch. I enjoy these little trips

very much. Thanks muchly, to all of you. Hold everything—I feel a poem coming on:

My Children

They are all just regular folks

48

With hearts of purest gold –

Their kindness to me is fantastic

So much so it can never all be told.

They are all so pleasant and nice,

So loving and generous too.

With all these nice things I can’t ever find

Not one thing about them that’s not good and true.

These children of mine whom I’m speaking of

Are a gift from heaven—from One up above,

The most wondrous gift that a woman can get

Is a family of children to have and to love.

By Ruth B. Immell

That’s all Folks—I’ll write again next year!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Postscript: Esther Ruth Bell MAY/Brown/Immell died of a heart attack on March 3,

1987, at her home in Gerald, Missouri. The funeral was held on the 10th

of March and she

is buried in Walbert Cemetery.