Newly Published!

1971 - 1973

Carroll Apartments.
Newlywed.

We were married in July 1970, lived at Jackson Street Efficiency apartment just a month or so, then moved to Carroll Apartments for not much longer than that. 

  

Yes, I did know how to turn on a gas stove (and even light it with a match!).  No, I really didn't know how to cook.  I could boil potatoes, brown hamburger, fry me an egg and make tuna salad.  : )  That was about it.  Can you believe that refrigerator? 
You stepped out that back door behind me onto a porch three stories above the parking lot.  Every apartment had a front door from the stair well, and a back door on to the porch.  I do not remember anyone spending time sitting or lounging on the back porch.  I do not remember, even, seeing neighbors.  I think we all shut ourselves into our apartments.

Imagine Chicago tenements and Carroll Apartments comes to mind -- only not so run down. It was a huge brick building, with 3 or 4 stories. Our apartment was up 2 flights, I think on the front entry, a one-bedroom, living-dining room, an old fashioned bathroom and a tiny kitchenette. We weren't there long when we moved here (below) to a 2-bedroom, upstairs furnished apartment at 1503 Rebecca Street.

This is Himself in the early days when he still smiled.  Isn't he handsome?  He is on the vinyl couch in the living room of Carroll Apartments.

Our bedroom faced Jackson Street and we had a couple of bats in there, in the bedroom.  That makes for exciting times!  A bat at bedtime! About that time, we started reading "apartments for rent" ads and found this. 

We moved to 1503 Rebecca, upstairs.   About December 1970, I think.   

This is pretty much our decorating skills.  That fish net and the wooden spoon and fork were ours and  I made those blue curtains.  What was I thinking!  They were room darkening, for sure. 

Here we still are when Kristy is born (see the utensil above my head? lol)
There is a big bedroom behind that forked wall.  There are living room windows to the right, south.  There is a little bedroom to the left and there is a kitchen with table and chair behind the photographer.  The entry/porch is behind (west) of the kitchen.  You step out of that entry/porch onto a landing, turn left and go down about 20 steps.  It is a lonnggg stairway. 


Hi, little Kristy!  We see you down there! 
See?  down there?  that is a lonnnggg way down!  There is Mama folding laundry.  The washer/dryer was in the basement so sitting in the yard folding laundry didn't seem so bad.  Just think if I had carried it from the basement up that long flight of outdoor steps? 
Oh well, I guess I did.  I just had a "sit down/fold down" in the middle! 

Lanny would have carried that folded laundry up the stairs for me and helped with Kristy and the folding director's chair. 

Summer of 1973

CaCa and WeWe : )

This is facing the kitchen on the west and beyond the kitchen was the entry/porch.  The entry was a good size room, almost as big as the kitchen plus it had good storage rooms on either side.  Well the storage room on the south was ample . . . and maybe the storage room on the north had utilities?  We'll have to ask Himself. Was there water heater in the north storage room?  Too bad there wasn't a washer and dryer in one of those rooms! 

Meanwhile, we had a rectangular dark or medium wood table and four chairs that usually set up against this cute decorative wall.  Guess we put it away in one of the storage rooms when we needed to set the play pen up! 

See that little jumper chair with the two cuties?  that was given to the Austin's when Mary was a baby or Dad (Gramps) bought it at a sale.  Aunt Kate sewed the second seat onto that jumper chair for K'Lea and I think I put the third set on.  Then it went to Aunt Mary.  I don't know where it went after that.  But that was about 30 years worth, anyway.

This "big chair" matched the couch that was upstairs at 1503 Rebecca.  They both were in good shape, if unattractice.  This chair is sitting opposite the last picture -- on the west wall of the livingroom.  The kitchen is beyond, or behind the wall in this pic.  Cute girlies! 

I made those green/blue bug curtains.  TG&Y fabric.  89 cents a yard.  You'd think I would quit that --  making curtains.

This is a classic photo. Kristy Noel is sooo pleased at what she sees in the mirror!  I did love this vanity.  The mirror broke and your dad tossed it out . . .

Pretty little Erica Jo.  This is pic was taken March 2, 1973. 
Erica, Newborn. 

We took Erica home to 1503 Rebecca Street, upstairs.

Erica, Kristy and Craig were all born at St. Lukes Hospital, Sioux City, Ia.

Erica Jo, upstairs at Rebecca Street, 4 or 5 months old.  What a cutie!  Erica moved from room to room with me.  Where Kristy wouldn't just sit and go to sleep, Erica learned to do that in her baby seat.  (infant chairs, we called them.)  Or rather, I should say, I learned to let Erica sit and go to sleep. 

Kristy and Erica and Mama, about March 5, 1973.  Kristy took one look and was enamored!  She wouldn't leave the poor baby alone!  Kristy tried to pick Erica up when Erica was a month or so.  They both ended up on the floor.  That's when Erica became attached to my hip.  Where I went, Erica went! Even then, Kristy got lots of chances to hold and hug and boss. 

Kristy, about 9 months or a years.  I do not know the circumstances ?

or even the where! 

Pretty sure I had two little girls in this pic.  I went and got my hair cut off.  My hair was thick and heavy and took hours to dry when I washed it.  (unlike today).  So I went and got a "shag" . . . but my hair had been so long for so long and parted down the middle that it didn't do much of any- thing for quite awhile! 
This is the kitchen, looking west, onto the entry/porch and beyond.  We can actually see through the outside glass door in this pic.  In the kitchen we can see a crooked clock on the wall.  A "keyboard" where we hung up important things (this, after Kristy threw my key ring away never to be found again).  The cooking range is on the left.  The kitchen sink is on the right.  There were cupboards above the counter on the right and cupboards below.  There was a table to my immediate right, a cute little table with stenciled flowers and decoration and four chairs.  Where is that pretty little table now?  Dad re-did it, re-finished it when we lived in Orient.  I know it is here, somewhere.

yep; here is the "before photo" of me. 

Before I cut my hair and delivered that baby! 

In the kitchen. 

Washing dishes. 

With a full head of hair

and a bun in the oven. 

                                      Love ya all!  Mama

Janice Coe Austin's Spring

February 8, 1920 - March 14, 2011

October 3, 2008

As we age and get older,

the winters get longer.

Spring comes slower.

We plod through winter

knowing life will be better.

Come Spring.

The load got too heavy

the walk way too long.

The burden's beyond her.

She longed for release,

to meet with her Mama,

Come Spring.

Mama made it thru winter
hoping life ever after was better.
Come Spring. 

 

Never before published!

I'm sure I have photos that you all have never seen.  Even if you have seen these, perhaps they bring back pleasant memories and may even spawn more memories.  In order to remember things, I have read, we have to find one memory and concentrate on it and let other memories come back.  So practice this!  And when you do, write them down and share them with your Mama, who is a "Keeper of Memories"! 

This was taken at 1503 Rebecca St, Sioux City, Iowa, in the back yard at the foot of the tall wooden stairs.  Kristy and Erica are swimming in a poor man's swimming pool, lol!  The inflatable raft!  Well it did work good as there were handles on the side . . . and Erica is itty bitty to be in there at all.  If memory serves me right, that was a hot summer.  We didn't have air conditioning upstairs, only a fan in the window so this was our way of cooling off.  Perhaps at some point your dad put a window air conditioner in the west living room window. 

See what happens when I keep typing and remember, more memories come back.  At first, I would have argued that we NEVER had air conditioning upstairs at 1503.  You know, tho, we didn't need it much.  We had windows on all four sides of the house and some great shade trees.  I loved that upstairs apartment !  <3

The Omaha Zoo, about 1974.  Erica and her Nana.  : )

Actually, that is a Billy Goat!  This day was hot.  The temp was 100 degrees but Erica looks cool as a cucumber in the little sun dress.  We had a stroller but neither girl would sit in it very long. 

What a pretty Gramma you all had!  She was the best mother-in-law anyone could have invented!  Aren't these two young rascals precious?  This photo is taken in the "Klinefus" house, on the school grounds about 1984. 

I did not like this kitchen.  Well, it was big and that was okay.  I did like the bottom freezer on that refrigerator.  Do any of you remember that the freezer was a drawer on the bottom?  Do you remember we took out the old worn out linoleum and we lived on that old wooden subfloor?  I did like the arch between the kitchen and the dining room.  I did like the window above the kitchen sink, I could look out to the west side yard and see the redbud trees and the big shade trees and maybe catch a glimpse of a child riding a zip line down thru the yard! 

I have heard tales of children riding mattresses down the enclosed stairway and hitting the wall at the bottom???? remember there was one or two steps up then a quick left turn to go up the rest of the way?  Who can tell me more about this? 

This must have been fall 1975 or a very early warm spring of 1976 as I am expectant with Craig.  I sewed that maternity top and I loved it with my bell bottom pants!  This swing set was in our south yard.  Your dad had put up a little fence around the swing set.  Kristy is there swinging, just a blur!  Erica is sitting on the glider waiting for a push.  I don't know who lived in that white house behind us but the Weirs lived just to the left.  That is the Weir's garage.  Dad and I planted that tree, that is growing up between the camera and the Weirs' garage.  This is early spring, I have decided, because there is a Redbud blooming across the street. 

Ah ha!  Bare cheeks!  Bare babies!  Kristy and Erica, each in their own dish pan.  Would you have thought I would have had a dish pan for Tiffany, too?  I guess the milk jug of water was to refill the dish pans after the girls had splashed out all the water!  In the back of the photo, there is a stack of shingles.  Dad and Grampa and Gramps shingled the roof of this tall, big ol gabled house.  What an ambitious project!  But all these men were shinglers.  Born and bred.  Naturals. 

This is Himself's and my Wedding Reception at Gramps and Granny's.  We are sitting in front of the fireplace wall.  look at that 1970s TV!  Look at those 1970s clothes!  Look at those chrome and vinyl dining room chairs we are sitting on!  I would have been more comfortible in my smock, bell bottoms and my leather sandals!  With my colored sunglasses and maybe even a bandana around my head! 

Oh my gosh, we were young! 

Kristy, Erica, Craig

Kathy, Martha and ??? Paul?  Ralph? 

We were living in the "Helen Speed" house and these neighbor children lived just south of us.  Look at my bathing beauties!  Craig is to the right.  You were in the neighbor's yard as we didn't have a swing set until we got to the "Lobaugh" house.  I think.  Maybe not until we moved to the "Klinkefus" house?   This is the house Johanna came home to.  We weren't here long as I think Johanna learned to walk at the Lobaugh House.  Craig, was it Kathy's or Martha's pigtail you cut off?  Their Mom wasn't even irritated, that I could tell.  She was very gracious about the "hair cut". 

There!  You children see how easy this is?  Write down one memory . . . and let the others flow in!  I'll keep trying . . . if you will start!  Love, this episode, of "down memory lane".  Hope you did too!  Love, Ma

PS:  there'll be more pics of you, Johanna, and Craig.  And of you all! 

Peru, Iowa

About 1945 or so, Gramps and Granny bought a farm north of Peru, Madison County, Iowa.  This big old 8+ room farmhouse was on that farm.  Doesn't it look magnificent!  But it wasn't.  It was uninsulated.  It had been built onto . . . but not well.  The foundation was crumbling.  It was so drafty in the winter that the wind would come thru the walls/foundation and lift the living room rug.  The folks shut the house down to about 3 rooms in the winter and still couldn't keep it warm -- kitchen, sitting room and one bedroom. 

Uncle Gary was born in this house (or up the road at Gramma and Grampa Austin's and brought home here) in 1945 so Gramps and Granny lived here with 5 children.  This house was heated with wood or oil and there was no electricity yet, out in rural Iowa.  With no electricity, the water would have been carried in by hand and that would have been a lot of firewood to cut and split and and a lot of water to carry to cook and heat with. 

Can you imagine caring for a baby thru the winter in these circumstances?  Gary, born in October, would have been crawling in March or April.  Could one put a baby down on cold, unheated floors to crawl?  I don't know the answer!  That was one question I didn't ask Granny!  I'm thinking not tho . . . so baby would have been left in the bed or sat in a high chair or there was an early bouncy seat but don't know if it was that early or not.  I asked my sibs in an email.  How do Fall babies learn to get around in a big ol' house with cold floors . . .

From Kathryn, 3/5/2012:

Sunday, March 4, 2012 11:15 PM

I don't know how they learned to get around. There was no play pen, ever. I, according to Mom, walked at 10 months--but I did not crawl. Maybe because I wasn't let down on the floor? Gary was the last baby to go thru a winter in that cold house but I think we had a pot bellied stove in the living room the first winter in the new house. Or maybe part of that first winter. (Sometime in there we all had whooping cough and Mom was really worried about Gary as he was little.) I loved that big Green Colonial furnace, the heat registers where on the inside walls, not in the floor, and when the blower was going that whole patch of wood floor in front of the register was WARM!

The bouncy chair as I remember was only for Mary. Somebody loaned or gave that to us.

I think you would actually have called that washhouse a story and a half. The knee walls upstairs were only about 30 inches high, if that. But I only remember that from playing in it later. I do think we all slept upstairs and may have had only one window. I don't really remember about the hole in the south end and whether there was already a window there or not, it's more like I can remember talk about him (nh: Gramps)  knocking the end out. I do remember being in bed up there when someone came to visit and we were not allowed to get up but we were awake and that it was hot! I do have a partial memory of living in there and Granny was there and in my memory the stairway went up 2 or 3 steps on the north wall (in the north west corner of the room) and then turned and went up along the west wall. But that may not be right as that would have made the stair coming up along that short wall upstairs ? ? I do think there was an outside door downstairs to the east and also a door on the south that would have originally been from the single story room between the house and the washhouse (where we separated). Boy, I may be wrong, as I thought I could remember running clear around the house to play and hiding in one of the nooks on the south side.

Meanwhile, just to wash the clothes would have required more fire wood to heat the water . . . and more buckets of water to carry in.  Once you had all those diapers washed and the kids' school clothes, how did you get the laundry dry.  There was no dryer.  I'm surprised my Mama kept her sanity . . . but on the other hand, folks didn't know any different.  It was just a way of life.  A hard way of life. 

After World War II, the economy picked up a little but the supply and demand of building materials was at an all-time low as all the the wood and metal in the country and been used, salvaged, scavenged, bought, bartered and sold for the War Effort.  No matter, Gramps had it in mind that by guess or by golly, he was going to tear down the big ol' inefficient house and build a smaller, more energy efficient house with the wood and materials savaged out of the farm house.

So, he moved the family of 7 into a story and a half Wash House which wouldn't have been as big as a two story garage, now a days.  I don't know how they arranged the Wash House.  Where was the cook stove?  where was  Gramps and Granny's bed, where did the kids sleep?  Did they sit on the bed instead of a couch? 

Aunt Kate remembers being about 4 years old and being in the attic of the old house when they were tearing it down.  Gramps warned her and Marion only to step on the floor trusses.  Otherwise, they would step through the ceiling plaster.   They had to carefully step ON the wooden floor joists. 

The kids' job was to pick up a brick from the chimney Gramps was tearing down, carry it to the window and throw it out to the ground, 3 stories below.  Imagine the stress on a child of 4!  Don't fall through the ceiling!  oh, poor babies!  but maybe they felt totally necessary!  a part of the family?  omgosh. 

So Gramps (and 2 or 3 older children -- 3, 4 or 5! and Granny as she could) tore that house down.  Gramps' didn't get as much material out of the "Big House" that he had hoped.  He used what he could, then he chased down used material all around the area, trying to find 2X4s and boards and windows, walls and flooring material, so that he could build a 3 bedroom house, almost a ranch, on a basement with garage.  Not quite a Cape Cod. 

Right after the War, houses were built without any overhang on the roof as there just wasn't the lumber for such excesses.  There was no electricity yet, in rural Madison County, but Gramps wired the house for electric because he knew it was coming. 

Gramps' had been wiring other people's houses for electricity, for extra money.  He said he'd go into a farmer's house and see what requirements they had for electricity and all they expected or wanted was one electric light over the kitchen table.  That's where they all sat of an evening, with the kerosene lamp.  They sat at the kitchen table to do their homework or for the parents to read the daily or weekly paper.  Or maybe even the Bible reading for the day.  Maybe they played a game of Rummy or checkers.  The kitchen table with the Kerosene Lamp was where the daily recreation and family interaction took place.  Gramps would have to persuade them to put a light at the top of the stairs or an electric outlet by the easy chair in the living room. 

As usual, Gramps got her done.  He built a tidy, 3 bedroom, 2 story good looking house.  WITH a garage.  That house sat for 65 years looking good . . . usually lived in . . . until someone went to remodel it last year, 2011, and it burned.  It burned beyond repair.  Meanwhile, back in 1945, here's Gramps' pride and joy. 

And here is how it looked in 2002. 

I took Granny for a ride and we pulled into the drive way. 

Even after 50 years, the roof line is level.  Straight as a string. 

I don't see a sag anywhere, except maybe in  that lean to

built on to the east end of the house.

I won't put in the 2011 photo of the burned shell.

It was too sad.

This is this the house I came home to as a newborn baby.

I lived here until I was 18 or 20 months.

I have one memory of sitting inside the back door

waiting for the older kids to come home from school. 

I was off to a fine start! 

Erica

Happy 39th Birthday, Erica! 

Oh wow!  I wish I was back to celebrating 39!

Oh.  errr. wait a minute. cough cough

If I were 39, you would be 16, Kristy 17, Craig 13 and Johanna 10.

okay! okay!

I would like to be back celebrating my 29th birthday!

ha ha!  lol

Anyway, enjoy each and every year! 

Celebrating Erica. 

Wife, Tourist, Traveler 

Mother of 2 daughters and 1 adorable baby boy! 

(Okay, he's not a baby any more) 

Mother of Amazing Grace!

We should make copies of this photo.   

Pioneer Woman! 

Cat woman?

really?

truly?

Amazing what a woman will do for a child! 

Sister, Cousin, Friend

(sorry Kristen,

but look at those identical chins!)

Middle Child

and

Keeper of the Score

Daddy's girl. 

Daughter, Granddaughter, Mother, Sister

Affectionate and loving.

. . .  and smoochy!
Maddie Mae's Mama 

Love, from your Mama

All about me.

Blogger is being difficult tonight.  Photos won't go where I want but I'll figure it out and hopefully the sequence will make sense when I'm done.

I hope to print you all a copy of "Nana's Views" before long so I'm trying

to incorporate some of the old photos and family history so as not to lose it.

This photo, below, was taken at the "new" Peru, Iowa house.

I was born there, the 8th of 9 children. 

I don't know where the other four children are. 

Guess they must have been in school.

My Granny, Katherine Lydia Byrd Coe,

had a camera so maybe she stopped over one school day.

My Dad and Mom, Linda and Gary.

Alan and Nancy, baby. 

 

Virginia and Nancy.

I'm pretty sure this would have been my "baby picture".

The first picture.

Taken at Peru, the new house.

Don't know why Virginia got the privlege

of holding the baby . . . but it is kind of a special photo.

I loved that bookcase, beside the "big chair".

I remember it at the Junkyard house.

Don't know where it went from there.

Wish I had it now.

This is me, Nancy,

about 1 year old

in the Peru house. 

Yes.  I am.  I sure am sitting on the potty chair. 

And pretty pleased with myself, too! 

I must have known I was a "big girl"  lol

They didn't leave babies in diapers back then, having to carry water and not having electricity for a washer and dryer.  I'm not even sure there were dryers in 1950.  Mom's dryer would have been the clothes line! 

2 years.

Afton, at the new Junkyard House.

So new that the house wasn't really finished

in August when I turned 2 years and

Mary was brought home from the hospital

to this new house. 

Three Years.

Mom and Dad's bedroom window is above me

and Mom has planted two roses already. 

One rose is to the right of me in the photo

and the other, out of sight to the left.

And I am sure getting to be a Big Girl! 

But I'm a little self conscious!  : ) 

4 years.

My Dad and I usually shared a birthday cake.

Gramps' birthday was the 17th of August,

mine the 15th so we usually shared a cake

and Linda and Mary shared a week later.

Mary's birthday was August 23 and

Linda's birthday was August 24.

oh yeah! Now I'm getting big!

Light them candles! I'm sure I can blow them out this time!

(me, wearing home made gingham dress with peter pan collar!)

1950s Fashion Fun!

Virginia in Moccasins and bobby socks.  I'm wearing a "ready-made" dress.  Oh look, Linda has her shirt tied up showing her tummy, like the big girls were doing back in the 1950s.  I'm not sure about Mary but I think she is wearing a home made sundress.  Three of us are barefoot.  And there is one pony tail and two sets of piggy tails.  Mary might have escaped Granny's head brushing.  or one of her piggy tails escaped the rubber band!   lol

Can't say much about Virginia's "1st day of school" dress as can't see it.  Beth is wearing a wide belt around her narrow waist as the girls did in the late 1950s.  Granny had been busy sewing 3 little jumpers.  I remember these dresses well.  Mary probably remembers even better as she would have worn at least two different sizes and maybe three!  I maybe never had to wear Linda's as I appear to be the taller (right) this year.  Linda, left, holding the kitty, Nancy right with the crooked bangs.  : )  granny cut!  or I should say "mama-cut bangs". 

Standing at my Gramma Austin's garden gate.

I can't make two many fashion statements here except that little girls wore "bobby" socks with their shoes and usually wore slips under their dresses.  My dress is Granny-made.  The top was "smocked" -- gathered up with elastic.  I remember that summer that Mama made three little smocked sun dresses.  I'm pretty sure Linda's (left) and Mary's (center) are home-made too.  I'm a thinking that Linda wouldn't have worn hers another day as it is pretty short and we didn't usually wear them that short.  I think Linda had a growth spurt as she seems taller than me, this time! 

And too bad the photo wasn't taken a little closed . . . we could have seen my pretty Mama better.

oh my, I loved the "cap" sleeves on this little number (Nancy, left, Linda center front.  Again, we are wearing home-made dresses.  Linda seems to be bare foot so I'm thinking she's four, I'm three, Mary is 1 and we aren't going to school this year as we are too young . . . on this 1st day of school picture. 

Kathryn is wearing saddle shoes.  Saddle shoes were way popular at this time.  She would have earned the money and bought them herself.  I never did own a pair of saddle shoes.  I can't believe Alan was going to get to ride the bike to school.  I think he was just showing off!  lol 

And I'm pretty positive Marion isn't going to be taking that gun to school either.  He's showing off too!  Gary has had his head buzzed and the way this photo is going, he probably has a sling shot and a rock in this hands!  Virginia is still a little girl.  That always surprises me as I always thought she was one of the "big girls".  Virginia would have been about 10 years old.   

Probably a "first-day of school" pic.  Don't know how Marion escaped, but he's not in here.  Mary, center front, blonde, blue-eyed 1-year old, sporting a diaper.  Nancy, left front, 3 years.  Linda, to Mary's right, 4 years.  Alan, left, 6.  Beth, 11 yr,  Kathryn, 12-1/2 or so.  Virgina, 9 yrs (looking like Tasha) and Gary, 8 years.  Ages are approximate!  lol 

Brother, Virginia, Linda, Nancy

I had this pic labeled "Gary" but I'm pretty sure that is Alan.  Mary must have been inside napping.  You can see the beginnings of the Junkyard, Austin Auto Parts, behind us.  Very soon after this, there was a white picket fence to screen our house and the highway from the view of the junk cars.

I have sent this photo out to my sibs asking is this Gary or Alan?  half said Alan.  Half said Gary.  I think "Gary" as Granny was soooo Good to write on the backs of her photos and I'm pretty sure that is where I got this. 

 

This might have been Easter Sunday as Marion has on dress slacks and Kathryn is wearing a necklace.  Gary's bow tie, too, indicates, this is NOT a regular school day.  This is a Sunday School Day.  My dress (chubby little girl to the left) is home made, Mary's too.  I am thinking Linda's is boughten due to those tucks across the bodice.  Aunt Beth, back left, is sure reminding me of someone . . . but who?  Kathryn's dress, I am almost certain, was made by her.  Oh . . . don't forget Alan, middle row left.  All we can see is his head and Virginia with a full-head of hair just right of him. 

Three August birthdays.

Three little home-made dresses.

Three home haircuts.

Three little bashful, barefoot girls.

 

Oh yeah. These were the good ol' carefree days. 

The good ol' days.

 

To sleep . . . or NOT to sleep!

I do enjoy traveling with my grandchildren.  I never know what will happen.  Will they get in trouble? will they chatter a mile a minute?  will they fight and wrangle or snuggle up and sleep? 

It is so sweet when they do. 

This is a classic photo.  Don't know that Joey is asleep . . .

but if not he's sure fighting it!  Good of the two! 

I've got lots of good memories of slumber parties on the cabin floor.  My children always wanted to sleep up in the loft and some of the bairns are now starting to want that -- but there's been lots of nights like this.  Of course, my favorites are slumber parties on the screened porch.  In my whole life, I have slept best on the top of the houseboat in the middle of the lake and on my front screened porch. 

Now, I don't think this is sleeping atall!  I think this is rough housing on Nana's one and only cabin bed.  I think Morghan might be honking her PaPa's nose?  And Jack must be planning his next attack because Jack doesn't just lay around doing nothing. 

Now, this sweet little dumplin' isn't sleeping but her eyes are almost closed and she is so sweet that I couldn't resist this pic. 

Nothing is as special as cousins.  Bella is clueless here . . . doesn't care if she's being mauled by her cousin Audri or rocked in the arms of her Mama.  Bella is zonked!  And Audri enthralled. 

This visit (above and below), Gabby and Joe didn't sleep.  Well, didn't sleep except for Joey on the 4-wheeler.  I took the wee ones on an hour's country drive, thinking I would lull them to sleep for there nap . . .  but it didn't happen : )  And look at these faces, why would a Nana want the children to nap?  What cuties!   lol 

We are sure glad they slept the next visit!  and are good sleepers now!

Some babies don't sleep.  For awhile. After birth.

They have to get used to this earth and the new life. 

Some babies are wide eyed. 

Doesn't he just look like a little man?  lol 

Morghan Grace was a good sleeper for Nana tho she's not even thinking about sleeping here.  I've had fun looking through old photos and using some that aren't so familiar to us and reloving my grandbabies!    This one is adorable! 

And here's Maddie Mae. 

In the previous photos (saved on file), Maddie was howling and failing her arms and then her daddy talked to her and she calmed and relaxed.  Sweet!

And then the two youngest. 

This is just another classic picture

of two sweet babes.

Sweet dreams!  love you all, Nana

The Weaning Pen

Photo by Gary Austin

Chapter 1

Grampa George Washington Wilson married, had seven children and was widowed.  A few years later, Grampa Wilson married again and had seven more children.  Grampa Wilson worked hard, spent his money frugally and attained many many acres of land in southern Union County. 

As each of his children grew to maturity and married, they were put up in this little house for the first year or so.  It was just down the road a piece and I imagine it gave the daughters and or the parents some comfort to know that family was close.

The place came to be called The Weaning Pen. 

After that first year or so when Grampa Wilson found the right piece of ground, the married couple would move on to the wedding present, an 80-acre farm somewhere in southern Iowa. 

Chapter 2

Thirteen children were deeded farms after their marriage.  Some stayed on the original farm, some sold them and bought better or bigger or closer to somewhere.  One daughter married a vagabond husband, one with wanderlust and after the first farm was bought and sold for them, Grampa Wilson bought daughter Mattie and her husband Robert Austin a town house.

The house in Arispe was small, just 4 rooms with a little yard and a couple of sheds or outbuildings. And I'm pretty sure it had an outhouse out back!  The house was deeded or set up so that Mattie and Rob couldn't sell the house until all their children reached their majority.  It was tied up so Mr. and Mrs. R. B. Austin had a house to come home to.

Rob and Mattie would strike out for Pine Island, MN to homestead.  They'd live there awhile, have another child,  burn out or get sick and head back home to Arispe and the little house.  Or they would move up to Fort Dodge to barber, starve out and come home.  Lived at Winterset.  Lived on Grampa Wilson's farm one summer.  Lived at Brainerd, Mn.  but would end up back home in Arispe. 

The Arispe house might have been rented out.  There might be tenants living in it.  It didn' matter, if Rob and Mattie and seven children showed up at the door some dark, rainy night needing their house back, they moved right in with the tenants and co-habitated until the renters founds another place. 

I sure can't imagine doing that but that's the way they did in those days, my Dad told me.  Now I wish I had a picture of the Arispe house to stick in here.  Well, sometime soon, I'll get one and tuck it up in here for future reference.

PS:  not long after Jerry, the youngest son and child reach 18 or 21 (I forget which!), Gramma and Grampa sold the house . . .

DAMM CATSUP BOTTLE GOT ME!!

02/15/2012

Written by Boi
Ok, this has to be told for all to know.  The most lovely wife is a "greenie". She is into recycling, so whenever we use a can of veggies, milk bottle, containers of any sort, we have to wash them in the dishwasher so later down the line, someone can throw them into a crusher or melt them down to be made into who knows what. Anyway, I try to appease her, and mostly try to do her bidding, but once in awhile, when i'm in a hurry, i'll just throw the container in the trash, and cover it with other trash, so she won't notice the direful deed i had committed. ANYWY, a couple of weeks ago, in a hurry, i threw a plastic catsup bottle into the trash can and buried it so she would'nt find it. And it worked, I thought, until today, when she stated she was going to recycle some things. Then, she said it: I'm missing a catsup bottle!! I didn't hesitate,as I was caught. I silently laid my head on her shoulder in pretend shame and guilt, then burst out laughing, and I couldn't stop. She was missing a damm catsup bottle. We both laughed and I still laugh when I think of her digging thru the trash to see what i've thrown away. Oh, life is great!!  I can hardly wait for what is next.