This is dedicated to my three daughters.  I was born March 8, 1923.  I was the 7th child in a family of 9 children.  Lillian was the oldest, Harry, then Jim, Jessie (baby girl born stillborn), Jack, Betty, Bill and Bud.  This is my Story:

It was depression days but I don't recall thinking that we were poor, but looking back we were very poor.  When I was in 1st grade I had a girlfriend who lived 2 doors down from us.  I would go to her house at noon to wait for her while she ate lunch and we'd walk back to school together.  She always had a glass of milk with her lunch everyday and I remember thinking how lucky she was to have milk everyday because we only had milk on Sundays with our Sunday dinner, the rest of the week we had water with our meals.

After school I would go home with her and wait for her until she changed from her school clothes to her play clothes. She had a whole drawer of anklets.  I had never had even one pair of anklets.  We wore long tan or black stockings that came up to our thighs.  It's funny how little things impress you when you're a child and you never forget them. She shared a bedroom with her sister, where in our house there was about 4 of us to each bedroom.  Her name was Lorraine and we remained good friends all through school even though our family moved about 5 times when I was in grade school.  It turned out she was Valedictorian of her class and Home coming Queen, nothing like myself.  I dropped out of school in the 12th grade and got married at 19. 

Going back to when I was very young I recall how my two oldest brothers used to get in so much trouble with the law.  Harry and Jim and their friends would break into the corner grocery store and steal the petty cash and candy.  They were only about 10 or 12 years old then.  One day I was in our bedroom and we had a heat register on the floor.  I was standing over it to keep warm while I got dressed.  I looked down in the register and saw a cigar box.  I took the box out and it was full of pennies.  I thought I'd found a fortune!  Just then my brother Jack came in the room and I showed him what I'd found.  He told me to put it back as it belonged to my brother Jim.  He also told me not to tell anyone about it.  A couple of days later the police came to the house looking  Harry and Jim.   They had broken into 3 or 4 stores.  They arrested them, and my poor mother just sat there crying.  It broke my heart to see her cry.  I wanted to comfort her and thought if I just put my arms around her she'd feel better.  As I look back, they really weren't bad kids but they were full of the devil.

Our dad worked for the railroad and was gone for a couple of days at a time.  When he was gone the boys would drive our poor mother crazy.  Harry and Jim would get into fights and have regular fist fights!  They would knock over the lamps and chairs and anything else that got in the way when they fought.  Poor Mom would stand there and say "Now you two stop that right now!", but of course they paid no attention at all.  But, it was altogether different when my dad was home.  Everyone was good as could be.  We were all very afraid of him, although he never got after the girls too much, but he really would give it to Harry and Jim.  Jim seemed to get more beatings than Harry.  I think Harry learned how to stay out of his way, but poor Jim got a beating almost everyday.  I recall one in particular.  I don't remember what Jim had done but sometimes it didn't take much to make my dad mad.  My dad kicked Jim down a flight of stairs and then kept kicking him.  It was terrible!  I felt so sorry for Jim.  Finally my mother came in between them.  I know she was afraid he'd kill him as he had a really bad temper. As I look back, I wonder if it was just too much for him having such a large family to feed and clothe us all.  Sometimes he could be so nice, like at Christmas.  He was always nice to us, we never got a lot for Christmas but we would get presents.  On Christmas morning we'd all come down to see what Santa left us and we'd  head for our stockings first because we always got an orange, an apple, mixed nuts and Christmas candy in our stockings.  Fruit and candy was something we saw very little of.   I recall one year I worked for my own Christmas present.  In the evening paper they ran an ad---if you could get 2 people to subscribe to the paper you would get a "Flossy Flirt Doll".  I went out and got the subscriptions and sent for the doll.  My dad said I should wait and let Santa bring the doll and Santa would put a real pretty dress on the doll, so I agreed.  When I got the doll for Christmas I was so happy, not realizing I earned the doll on my own.  That was the only thing I received but I was happy with it. 

One day my dad took me with him to a friends house and they played poker. He let me sit on his lap and he must have been winning because he gave me a nickel and a couple of pennies.  I remember thinking my dad wasn't so bad after all.

Some friends of my folks ask me to come to their house spend the night.  They didn't have children and they were so nice to me.  The mom took me to the store and bought me an ice cream cone and as we walked out of the store the ice cream fell out off the cone.  I was broken hearted as we didn't get treats like that.  He took me back in and got me another so I thought he was really a rich man!  I got along fine until they said it was time to go to bed.  Then the tears came. I was lonesome for home and my mother.  I cried for quite a while and pleaded to go home but I finally fell asleep, but I was never asked back so I guess they had enough of me.  I just wasn't used to being away from home and I think I was only about 4 years old. 

When I turned five I was so thrilled at the thought of finally going to school I got up and dressed for school the first day way before daylight.  I loved school and my favorite game was "Gray Duck". 

When I was about 3 yrs old I knew a lot of the nursery rhymes and my sister Jessie took me to school with her to recite for her class.  I remember standing up in front of the kids and looking around at the kids, but I wouldn't say a word.  Jessie's teacher finally told her to bring me to the kindergarten room where my brother Jack was.  When Jessie got me out in the hall she jerked my arm, scolded me and said "Now my teacher thinks I'm lying, that you really don't know them"!  But, I didn't care, I enjoyed playing in the kindergarten class.

When I was in about 3rd grade our teacher instructed all the girls to stay after class.  She gave us a penmanship test.  The next day when we came to class I was told to go the principals office.  The principal said to me, "Aren't you ashamed of yourself"?  Of course I asked  why. She told me that someone had written on the walls in the girls bathroom and my handwriting matched it so they had decided I had done it.  Well I hadn't done it but she wouldn't believe me and I started crying.  She said crying won't help.  When I got home I told my mother about it but she said to just forget about it.  I felt so bad because I was innocent and no one believed me.  Being unjustly accused of something, well you never forget it.

Jessie came home from school one day and told my dad she couldn't go back to school until she had a new pair of shoes.  Well my dad went storming into her classroom and jumped all over the teacher, but the teacher hadn't said a word.  Jessie made it up.  She thought it would be a good way to get new shoes.  When she got home all she got was a good spanking! 

When I was in the 6th grade the school nurse called me to her office and had me try on a couple of coats, they were her daughters and were too small for her. She offered them to me as they did fit me but I said "Oh I don't need them".  I told her to give them to someone who really needed them.  I said I had a lot of good coats at home.  When I came home for lunch she had called my mother about them.  Mom was so mad at me because I really needed them, but I was too proud to accept them.

Growing up with 5 brothers I learned to play baseball and hockey and I got so I was as good as the boys.  When I was around 10 years old I would go ice skating at Minnehaha Creek.  I didn't have my own skates so I would  use my brother Jim's skates. Of course they were way too big for me so I left my shoes on and then put the skates on.  I took a lot of spills but I finally learned to skate with them.  I finally got a pair of my own and I entered a skating contest.  I took 1st place and was told to come back the next Saturday for the finals.  The grand prize was a bike, which I really wanted to win!  I came back on Saturday but there wasn't anyone there.  I never did know if they purposely told me the wrong day or if I made a mistake, but there went my dream of a bike of my own.

I went to Bryant Jr. High school and they had a swimming pool which was nice as not many of the other Jr. High's had pools.  I won 3 blue ribbons in the swimming meets.  I had to give my brother Jim the credit for my swimming ability because he showed me how to dive and taught me how to swim.  He spent hours teaching me.  I was quite a tom-boy then.  You would never guess it now.

I got a job when I was 14 years old working for a woman called Mrs. Eddy.  She and her husband had no family but they entertained a lot.  They lived across the street from the Rose Gardens on Dupont Avenue and 40th.  We lived on 39th and Blaisdell so I could walk there after school.  She had a bike that I could ride to work but by this time I thought I was too grown up to ride a bike so I would walk.  I earned $2.00 a week and I vacuumed, dusted, washed floors, dishes, cleaned cupboards and served meals every day. She would make the evening meal and then go join her husband in the living room.  Then I would ring the dinner bell and they'd go into dinner and I'd serve it.  When they had guests for dinner I had to put on a uniform and serve the meals.  I recall the upstairs in their house.  They had 3 bedrooms.  There was "his room", "her room" and "their room".  That always struck me funny.  When they entertained a large crowd they hired a caterer and I would help serve too.  Mrs. Eddy was a good cook and she made a lot of fancy hor'deurves, some of which I still make myself.  I had to do their ironing too and when I started I didn't know how to fold things right.  She showed me how to fold the tablecloths so that the corners matched perfectly and the same with Mr. Eddy's handkerchiefs, the corners had to match too or I did them over. When she did dishes she rinsed them in hot water.  I went home and told my mother she wasn't doing dishes right, as we never rinsed them, just dried them.  I learned a lot of things from Mrs. Eddy, such as how to set the table right.  I think Mom got fed up with me sometimes because I was always correcting the way she did things.  I earned my money, but she did teach me things I've never forgotten.

I saw a spring coat in a store window that I wanted so badly and I was telling Mrs. Eddy about it.  She offered to advance me the money so I could get it right away, but I had to work for nothing until it was paid off.  I was so thrilled!  It was the first new coat I'd ever had.  It was a princess style with a white peter pan collar and white cuffs.  I have a picture of myself somewhere in the coat.  I felt so elegant!  I made most of my clothes with the money I earned.  Material was anywhere from 10 cents to 50 cents a yard then.  I finally got tired of working after about 2 years and gave her my notice, but she didn't want me to quit until she could find someone to replace me.  She didn't seem to be trying too hard to find anyone so I finally said I had to stay home and help my mother.   After a few months I got tired of not having any money so I got another job, this time it was for a Jewish family and they had one boy about 9 years old.  He was a spoiled brat!  I earned $3.00 a week and worked after school cleaning up the boys room, which was always a mess. He had about 200 comic books and he'd scatter them all over his room.  I'd get them all picked up and he'd do it again.  I ate my supper there but I ate in the kitchen and they ate in the dining room.  They ate on China dishes but mine were old cracked dishes.  I was to do the dishes after supper.  So, the first day I worked there I asked where the soap was for the dishes.  she got so upset with me because Jewish people do not use soap on their dishes.  They scrubbed them good then ran hot water on them. They didn't used soap as it had animal fat in it and it was against their religion.  I had to iron clothes everyday.  I even had to iron the boys underwear.  When I first took the job it was to do dishes and look after the little boy, but as time went on she had me doing everything so I quit that job too.  I did a lot of babysitting for people for 50 cents a night and many times I didn't get paid at all.

On my 16th birthday I had to go over to my sister Jessie's house to take care of her baby.  Jackie was only a few months old and Jessie had the flu.  She was always sick with something.  About a week before Thanksgiving she got really sick and was taken to the hospital.  The doctors only gave her a few months to live.  She had a bad heart and damaged kidneys as a result of Rheumatic Fever when she was young. While she was in the hospital I took little Jackie downtown and had his picture taken in the machine that they had at the dime store.  I brought her the pictures and she was so pleased with them.  She never did see him again, she died in Jan 1939, just two months before Jackie's 2nd birthday. Jessie was only 21 when she died.  She had a short and I guess not a very happy life.  When Jessie was about 15 years old she went to a movie with a fellow who was supposedly a friend of my brother Harry's. After the movie they went to his house where a friend of his joined them. There wasn't anyone else in the house and Jessie said she had to go home.  They wouldn't let her leave and one of them held her down and the other one raped her.  When she finally got home she told my folks what happened.  She was covered with bruises and scratches as a result of trying to fight them off.  They were charged with assault and rape and were sent to St. Cloud reformatory.  Jessie was pregnant and carried this baby full-term, but the baby was stillborn.  It was a little girl.  She grieved for the baby for quite some time but being young she finally got over it.  Some years later she married a man named Jack Palmer who was a lousy husband.  She became pregnant again and he chased with other woman and worked very little.  Little Jackie really was the only good thing that brought her happiness.  My father never liked her husband because he knew what kind of person he was.  When Jackie was 10 months old Jessie and Jack and the baby came for Christmas dinner.  My father jumped all over her husband and told him to leave.  He said Jessie and the baby could stay but her husband was not welcome.  Well, all hell broke loose, a fist fight started between my father and Jack.  Someone stepped in and stopped them and Jessie turned on my father saying that if her husband wasn't welcome she was leaving too.  She also told my father that she never wanted to see him again.  She never came again unless my father wasn't home. It was just a year later when she lay dying in the hospital.  I knew she wanted to make up with my father, and he with her, but neither one would admit it so one day after I had been to see her I told my mother that Jessie had asked why he (my dad) hadn't come to see her.  She really hadn't said it but she did ask about him, if he was working and small talk like that.  So anyway, I decided if I said she asked for him that he'd go see her.  Well it worked because the next day he did go to the hospital.  The next time I went to see her she said she was so glad that he had come.  I never let on that I had anything to do with it.  She only lived another month.

When we were kids Jessie and I shared a bed and on the weekends when we didn't have to go to school my father wouldn't let us get up early. Some times we'd be awake for hours before he'd allow us to come downstairs.  We would have long talks.  Jessie would tell me about her dreams she'd had that night. She would talk for hours about her dream---making it up of course as she'd go along --but I believed the whole thing.  She would make up these fabulous stories.  She also told me about our Aunt Jessie's house.  She said that in Aunt Jessie's house the attic was filled with dolls, all kinds of them.  I used to wish I could go over there and see these dolls.  Of course she made it all up too, but I believe it all.   She also told me that my Uncle Bud (my mother's brother) was electrocuted fixing an electric wire as he was an electrician.  For years I believed that was how he died.  Some years later I asked my mother about him and she said he had pneumonia.  Jessie really enjoyed telling me tall tales!

My brother Jim was a great one to tease.  I would be listening to Jack Armstrong or Little Orphan Annie on the radio and Jim would taken one of the tubes out of the set so I couldn't hear it.  Of course if my dad was home I would tell him what he'd done and he'd make him put it back.  One day Jim came home with some peanut butter and sat in the kitchen with a spoon and ate the whole thing.  We, the younger kids, pleaded for some but he wouldn't give us even a taste.

A truck over-turned that was filled with pies.  They were scattered all over the street, cherry pies, apple, blueberry etc.  We thought it was wonderful because the driver said we could have all the ones that had spilled out in the street.  We all had 3 or 4 pies but Jim had about 8 pies and that night he got really sick!  He said he never wanted to see another pie as along as he lived.  (These were small 5 cent pies). 

Down about 4 houses from ours 2 fellows who had been in the army lived with their sister.  My father had told us to stay away from them because they were crazy. He said it was because of something that happened to them when they were in the service.  Well, we liked to go over to their house because they had a phonograph and they'd play records for us and that was fabulous!  One day my brother Jack and I, and some of the other kids in the neighborhood were there listening to the records.  One of the fellows told us he was going to show us something.  He took a bullet out of his pocket and drilled a hole in it with a pocket knife.  Then he took out a match.  When the kids saw the match they all ran off the porch, but I was going to show how brave I was and stay there and watch.  He lit the bullet with the match and it took off like a sky rocket.  It just grazed my knee cap but the blood poured out all over my leg.  I got so frightened and ran home screaming "I'm going to died, I've been shot!".  My mother quickly washed my knee and put a dressing on it and it stopped bleeding, but I was still convinced I would die.  It took my mother a long time to calm me down.  My father was so furious and forbid us to go near them again, but that wasn't necessary.  I wouldn't even walk by that house again.  Of course I got quite a scar on my knee.

We moved around a lot and one of the houses we lived in was not to far from Minnehaha Falls.  Across the street from the falls was Longfellow's house and in the back was a zoo.  It had a lot of wild animals; lions, tigers, elephants and bears etc.  Not having any money Jack and I, and some of our friends, decided to sneak in under the barbed wire fence.  I cut my leg on the wire but I went in anyway.  I still have 3 scars from that fun day.

We used to go on picnics to the falls and near the falls there was a place called "The Deer Pen".  The deer ran wild in it and one day while on a picnic there I got lost from the family and wandered into the deer pen.  I was terrified!  A couple (man and lady) found me crying and took me to a police officer.  The policeman was very nice to me and bought me an ice cream cone.  I knew my phone number so he called my folks and then gave me a ride home in the police car.  I felt good with all the attention I got. 

Monday was wash day and one Monday morning Mom had gone upstairs and stripped the beds and started down the stairs with her arms full of bedding and tripped on the sheets.  She fell down the whole flight of stairs, hitting her head on the open door.  She had a cut just above her eye.  She laid on the floor and I tried to pick her up but of course I couldn't begin to lift her.  I was only about 5 years old.  I got a wash cloth and tried to wash off her head.  She told me to find my sister Jessie.  I ran as fast as I could to her girlfriends house and hammered on the door but no one was there.  I made so much noise that the lady who lived upstairs called down to me and wanted to know what was the matter.  When I told her what happened she came home with me and we found my mother in the bathroom trying to stop the bleeding.  The lady made her lie down on her bed.  It's very vague in my mind as to what happened next, but soon the house was full of people and a doctor was checking my mother. I was so worried that mom would die.  Finally, the doctor came out and said she was alright.  After that incident I would listen to the family to see if they were going out and if no one was going to be home with my mother I would stay home.  I was worried that she might fall again and no one would be there. 

It wasn't long after that my brother Bud was born.  I recall my mother giving him a bath first thing in the morning.  She would block off the kitchen so there wasn't any drafts and then turn on the gas stove and get the kitchen toasty warm, lay out clean clothes for him and then lay him on a towel on the kitchen table.  After his bath she'd powder him and put corn starch on his bottom so he wouldn't get a rash.  When she finished he looked and smelled so good.  I never got tired of watching the whole procedure.  We all spoiled him by rocking his crib when he went to bed.  Well of course he got used to being rocked to sleep and of course we soon tired of the rocking but my mother said "You started the rocking business so now you rock him to sleep!".  Well then no one wanted to do it, but we had to take take turns.  When he got older we had to take turns watching him when we played outside. One day when it was Jack's turn Bud wandered away.  The whole family was out looking for him, plus half the neighborhood. After about 2 hours he was found about a mile from home sitting in his little red wagon.  Poor Jack was afraid to go home because he knew he'd be punished for not watching him better.

NOTE:  At the bottom of the last page, my mother wrote " Feb 22, 1992.  I don't know when I started this. It must have been several years ago, at least 5 or 6 years . I had forgotten that I even when I wrote it.  Well, Sandra and Claudia I hope you will understand why I can't finish this now.  When I try to write about things now I get too sad.  It hurts too much to go back in time right now.  Maybe I'll never be able to finish this but I hope the time will come when I can.  For now this will have to do . I love you both so very much, Mom."