Mary Michaelis

      Mary with gun
               In California

 
Hibben-Hollweg - 1924

Mary and Pete Richter

Fred Richter
Singleton Street, Indianapolis

Son Joseph

Mary C. Michaelis Richter was the daughter of Joseph and Theresa Stich Michaelis.

This story was transcribed May 18th 1988 by her son Fred.

I was born February 13th, 1902. Doctor Moore came to the house on South New Jersey Street on a bicycle at 4:00am in the morning to deliver me at home. I have been told I was a tiny baby. My sister Marguerite was born July 17th, 1903. She was born at home when we lived on South New Jersey Street also. That's how they did it in those days.

I only remember one of my grandparents, the others had died. Floribert Stich, my
mother's father, died when I was four years old. About all I remember about him was he was a small man.

We went to California for my mother's health and lived in a tent on a mountain in an
orange grove. My dad's brother, Uncle George Michaelis, owned a resort on Catalina Island. We went there on a boat to stay a few days, and ride the glass bottom boats. My Dad says we all got sea sick on the ride over and back. Mother became pregnant and wanted to come home to have the baby. My brother Joe was born September 14th, 1906 at home. We lived on North Jefferson. I was four years old and remember them coming down the stairs and saying I had a baby brother.

My mother had reddish brown hair, and her hair was beautiful. My sister had hair like hers. She wasn't very tall, about 5 foot 4 inches and slight build. She wasn't very big, but of course she had been sick for several years. She had TB, and she slept on a screened back porch for three years. I was seven years old and my sister Marguerite was six and my brother Joe was three when she died in November 1909. My mother was thirty-seven years old when she died of tuberculosis, and at that time we lived in the 1000 block of Broadway. It was a big two story house.

My father was a big man and there were times when he weighed around three hundred pounds, but he had a big frame. He had bought a saloon about 1900 at 241 North Delaware Street, which is now the home of the Wheeler City Mission. The saloon was on one side of the building and he had a pool hall and barber shop on the other side. He was born in Kansas and attended school on an Indian reservation; he never went to high school. When he came to Indianapolis he worked as a carpenter for Floribert Michaelis. My Uncle Flori was a building contractor. Dad went to North Carolina to work on the Vanderbilt mansion for
several years. He came back to Indianapolis when he got Malaria, and it settled in his legs. He had bad legs, and that's when he bought the saloon.

We lived up north, but we still came to the south side because we had friends there. We went to St. Catherines and joined their dramatic club. Charlie Richter belonged and my sister Marguerite went with him. That's how I met Pete, he came over there one night. He was working; his dad got him a job as an apprentice bricklayer. We used to go on dates and take the street car and go downtown to shows, or else we would take a walk. We would walk up to Central and Fall Creek. Pete didn't dance. When I went with other fellows we went to dances, real nice dances. We didn't drink. What we used to do a lot, there was a neighbor next door, his name was Stockman, and he had a dance studio. He said to me, "Mary,
why don't you come up and bring some of your friends." It was opened on Wednesdays, so we went there every Wednesday, a whole bunch of girls who were my friends, we had more fun.

I was kept out of school until Marguerite was old enough to start, as we had quite a distance to walk to school. I was eight years old at the end of the first grade, but later the sisters realized the situation and I made two grades a year twice. In those days there were two and three grades in one classroom. So the nuns worked with me and I graduated from the eighth grade at fourteen like most of the class.

While my mother was still alive we had a horse and buggy. The horse and buggy were kept in a livery stable. We would call up and have the livery man bring the rig to the house. He would have a bicycle in the back seat. It was a two seat buggy with a fringe on top. And he would come back on the bicycle and take it back to the livery stable. People didn't have their own livery stable in those days.

In 1911 my father bought his first car; it was a Buick. I don't remember how much it cost. Indianapolis had a bad flood in 1913. I can remember we drove out to see White River. It did not have the flood levees at that time, and we were watching when a levee broke and water came down the street. Also in 1913 my dad bought a place at Spring Lake; he also bought a 1913 Buick. I have a lot of pleasant memories of the lake. We kids learned to swim in Sugar Creek as the lake was too deep for us. We used to swim a lot, I swam side stroke because that was easy for me. I just wonder if I could still swim? I used to drive once in awhile, but Bud taught me how to drive in one day on the little streets around Beech Grove. In one day I had to get out and drive on the busy streets, and have been driving ever since.

We lived in an apartment above the saloon. We kids were not allowed in the saloon. Next door to us was a Chinese laundry, it was a house, and they had two kids, Rosie and Newton, and we played with them. The boy was about Joe's age and the girl was our age. I've often wondered what became of them.

I made my First Communion when they first made it that you could make it at seven. There were about three hundred kids in my First Communion class. I was in the third grade, and eight or nine years old. That was the first year they changed it for seven year olds; up to that time it was fifteen year olds. We moved on the south side and I was in the eighth grade. We wore uniforms, middy blouses and skirts, and even wore that when we graduated. I only remember one nun in grade school, Sister Imelda, and Sister Blanch in High School. I was never punished in school; I was a good girl. We never had any sex education in school. We got that outside. I worked with a girl, Bertha, she started going with a fella and they went canoeing. She came to work the next morning and said "oh Mary, I bet I'm pregnant, Alex kissed me last night." That girl didn't know anything.

We were out at the lake and we had a bicycle between us, Marguerite and I. It was pretty much like the bicycles today. We didn't ride it much. We didn't have any modern conveniences at our home on the lake, electricity or flush toilets. Of course our home in the city had these and we had two phones. One phone was Central, and I don't remember what the other one was called. It was two different phone companies.

I never had chores to do or baby-sit my brother, Joe. We had all kinds of help. My cousin came from Kansas, just to take care of us kids. There was a nurse for my mother and a housekeeper. We never got an allowance. We just didn't have spending money. If we needed money, sometimes my dad wouldn't be there, so we'd go down to the saloon and call the bartender out and he'd give us money. We would get money to go to the show or something. The shows were downtown on Illinois Street, and cost ten cents. They showed one movie and didn't have cartoons. After my mother died, my stepmother never wanted us in the kitchen
and I didn't know how to cook. We were never disciplined or grounded, and never got to drive. My dad wouldn't let anybody touch that car. We didn't have a radio until we lived on 19th Street and I was eighteen or nineteen years old.

My dad met Margaret Lawler, who was a friend of my mother and he was telling her the situation, someone to take care of we kids, because we had had all kinds of help: colored help; everybody; and we were having problems. She said she would come and take care of us, which she did. We lived on Broadway then, but when they got married we lived on Kenwood. She was a good mother, and she was from Ireland. Once in awhile she would whip us. We would be at the lake and we had Willow trees and I can remember she would get a Willow switch and switch our legs. My dad; I never remember him ever whipping us kids.

My dad and Mom Lawler got married in 1910. We kids didn't go to the wedding, they went to Cathedral and the Bishop married them. My mother had been dead about a year. But Mom always said that she did it to take care of us kids and that our dad used to say it saved him her wages. She was a friend of my mother. She was strict but a wonderful mother and a good cook. She had come over from Ireland with her family when she was twelve years old, and I think they were two weeks getting here.

The families never had any reunions, we had cousins like George Michaelis and Albert Stich we used to see. My father never went back to Kansas that I know of. He came to Indianapolis after his parents died. He was only about sixteen years old when they died.

My dad sold the saloon on Delaware and bought one at Madison and Lincoln on the south side. We went to Sacred Heart, and I was there in the eighth grade. They had a two year business course which wasn't a regular high school course. Sacred Heart wasn't an accredited school then. After that, I got a job at the Prest-O-Lite, across the street from the Speedway.

The only dates I had in high school was with a boy next door, and we went on picnics together with a group on a truck. His name was Joe Wallheimer. They had hayrides but I never went on a hayride. We would go ice skating in the winter time at the lake. We went down the embankments on a sled and would go clear across the lake. The people at the lake used to cut ice and store it in sawdust in the ice-house at the end of the lake by the dam, to be used in iceboxes the next summer.

We wore bloomers, which were just like panties only there was elastic in them. We wore high top shoes with long stockings and long underwear. We girls had to wear hats to Mass and school. We went to Mass every morning and you couldn't go to Mass without a hat. Mom took us to church every Sunday but Dad wouldn't go. He got mad at the priest and refused to go. Although he went to church in later years.

I went to work when I was sixteen at the Prest-o-lite. I paid a few dollars room and board to the folks, I only made eight dollars a week. I didn't have to pay any taxes but I had to buy interurban tickets because I had to ride the interurban to work at the Speedway. It was a long ride. I would have to take the streetcar and then the interurban. We had moved to 19th and Park, because Mom didn't like the south side, and that's where I got married from. But, Pete, being a south side boy, we moved on the south side. I worked at Prest-o- lite for six years, and quit when I got married. In those days most places didn't allow you to work if you were married. We had a POL button from Prest- o-lite and we would go to the Speedway track at noon and watch them practice, and to the qualifications. We met a lot of the race drivers because they had a railroad into our factory and they would bring their race cars there. Some of the girls had dates with them - I never did. I met Ralph DePalma and several others but I don't remember their names.

I started buying my own clothes when I started to work at sixteen. We used to have them made. We had a dressmaker who made our clothes; we even bought hats that she made. Our swimming suits came down almost to our knees. When I got married I had plenty of clothes, and it's a good thing, because then I couldn't afford them.

I went to work at Lilly's. I was in charge of the Billing Department at Prest- o-lite
and Lilly's was training me for billing the exports of Insulin, which had just been
discovered, and was being shipped all over the world. I was running a billing machine. I never did use my shorthand that I had learned at school. And then I became pregnant with Fred. Oh! That about killed me - I had to give up that good job.

I made extra money by doing typing at home, envelopes mainly. I would do a thousand which would take half the night. I don't remember what I got, but it was cheap. When my sister Marguerite was sick, she needed special medication. I typed two different times to get the $90.00 to pay for each series of dosages. And when she died I did some more typing and bought her headstone. My stepmother died on the 13th of December, and my sister died the 13th of January, 1949, a month later to the day.

I worked awhile for the Arcade Letter Shop. It was downtown in the Arcade Building at Washington and Virginia Avenue. The Arcade was a large building with an arched roof and was lined inside with a lot of different shops. I don't remember how much I made there. It wasn't very much, but I used the money for other things.

I was working at the letter shop and met Jane Summers (Harrington) downtown and she told me Hibben Hollweg was looking for a bill clerk. So I went over and got the job for $15.00 a week. After a few years I just went in at their busy season which was from August to the first of the year. I don't remember when I started there, but the kids were big enough that I could leave them. I got pregnant with Joe and they wanted me to come to work. I was home and Pete and the kids had gone someplace, and in the meantime this "'Ol Jake" who worked at Hibben decided to come down to talk to me. I had broken my little finger and I thought "Oh no I couldn't work with this." I knew he was coming so I tied it up and Pete and the kids came in and Fred said, "Mom what's wrong with your hand?" It was funny, so finally I had to tell Old Jake that I was pregnant, and that was the end of that job. I always did manage to have extra work to count on. During the depression when we lived on Singleton Street, we all made baseball tickets.

Before I was married we were at Aunt Mary's cottage on the river. There was some boys next door, and they said they wanted to take us Snipe hunting. They gave us sacks and we went across the river into a corn field. They left, there was three or four fellas and five or six of we girls. They said, "Now you stand here and hold the sacks and we'll go and chase them to you"; Well anyway, this Voss'es mother had told us what they were going to do. As soon as they left we beat it down to the river and got a row boat, and went back across the river. Then they couldn't find us, they didn't know that we had come back. We turned the tables on them, let me tell you - that was funny.

I went with a fellow from Sacred Heart for two years, Walter Metzler. And then I met Pete. My sister Marguerite was going with Charlie Richter and we belonged to a dramatic club down at St. Catherines and that's where I met Pete. I was out of school and working. I only went with him about a year, so I was about twenty years old when I met him.

Pete and I were married June 13, 1923, and we lived in an apartment. I don't remember when Pete asked me to marry him, but he always said that when he first saw me, "that's the girl I'm going to marry." Course I didn't say that about him. We had a big wedding, the Bishop married us. My sister was the maid of honor and Laura Krebs and Margarete McGlocklin were bridesmaids, Charlie Richter was best man and Francis Hellmer was the flower girl. All the Richters were there and a lot of my relatives. Aunt Mary, my mother's sister, was there. She was my favorite Aunt. We got presents from them, but I don't remember what they were, that's been a long time ago. In those days you went early, and had like a breakfast instead of these big receptions, I never had a reception. I paid for my own dress, and my folks gave the breakfast. Mom had hired somebody to cook it, but I don't remember what we had. Then we went to Chicago on our honeymoon. Pete had an aunt there that owned a hotel. We had a nice honeymoon and they showed us a good time. Maybe I shouldn't tell this, but my dad said "Well, I'll give you money." And he handed me money. Pete was standing there and I gave it to him. I don't know how much was there, and I never saw any of it. I imagine it was a hundred dollars or so and that was a lot of money in those days.

When we came back we lived with Anna Metzger. She lived in a double and we were supposed to get one side, but they were having trouble getting the people out or something. We went and bought furniture on time and moved into an apartment on Prospect Street.

We lived in an apartment at 1244 E. Washington Street when I got pregnant with Fred. There had never been any babies. We didn't know anything about having babies, but we raised them and they survived. When I got home from the hospital with Fred, Grandma Richter came over a few times and clothed and bathed him. It didn't take me long to get onto that. I learned how to cook from a cook book, but I learned. Mom used to say I didn't know how to boil water. I wasn't scared when I got married or had babies, you didn't think of those things. Fred was born June 16th, 1924, and weighed 7 pounds 4 ounces. We named him Joseph Frederick after the two grandfathers. When Fred was about two days old, Mr. Richter came to the hospital all upset; said "the first Richter boy in a family was always named Frederick." He had one grandson named Frederick, so we thought one was enough. He said he wasn't a Richter! (Fred Hellmer). We were told we had to move because they didn't allow children in the apartment building. We moved to a small double on Hoefgin Street, and a short time later moved to the Richter's on Singleton Street where Bud was born. He was born in St. Francis Hospital September 27th, 1925, and weighed 8 pounds. A good healthy baby, we didn't have the trouble with him that we had with Fred.

Pete gave me most of his money and I put it in the bank and we wrote checks. And, I always was earning a little bit. There were times during the depression, course, we moved back to the Richters, when Rose and I did the ticket things that made us a little money. We were living at Richters when Bud was born. Fred was a year old when Grandpa Richter became ill and died at the age of 55, he had a sleeping sickness. I forget the name of the disease.

He didn't have any insurance. They didn't have Social Security then and Grandma didn't have any income. All she had was the house on Singleton St. Pete went to a meeting of his family and came home and said we would move in with Grandma. So we moved back to the Richter's. At that time Charlie, Susy and Urvin were still at home. I think Susy was working then. Urvin was about twelve years old. Anna came back after a few years because she and her husband, Howard Metzger, separated. We stored our furniture in the garage, none of us had a car. We stayed there four or five years. Bud was born that September, 1925. He was a lovely baby. Fred was so proud of him. Fred was 16 months old and every time someone came to see the new baby, Fred would want them to see his baby "butter." So we started calling him Bubber, which became Buddy.

I can remember, Anna wasn't there just then, and Howard had some hogs out someplace, and he'd go to a bakery and they would give him all this day old stuff to feed to his hogs. And you know who got the rolls and donuts. We were glad to get them.

I remember the iceman. The kids used to get up on the truck and get ice. We had a
window box in the winters to keep things cold. We didn't have a car and I pulled the two boys in a little red wagon when we went anywhere. As they got older the wagon got bigger.

When I came home from the hospital and we lived in an apartment, I washed the diapers in the bathtub on my knees and I could take them down in the basement and hang them up. We got a washing machine when we lived on Tabor Street that agitated, it had a wringer and two tubs on it. I remember my mom used to boil the clothes.

We stayed at Grandma's for a few years, then bought a house on Tabor Street and moved about 1927. The boys started to school at St. Catherines. They graduated from there and both went to Arsenal Tech. Fred graduated in 1942 and had to go in the Army. Bud graduated in June of 1944. He wanted to go in the Army but his eyes were bad and they didn't take him at first. They finally took him and he served about a year and a half. My brother, Joe, was also drafted. He went to England and was gone about three years.

When the banks closed my dad lost all his money, and I lost a couple hundred dollars. We gave the house on Tabor Street back to the bank, even though they didn't want to take it back. We paid $3500 for that house and our payments were $35.00 a month. But we rented the house furnished when we were over in Chillicothe with Pete. They were in there over a year, and then we took the furniture out and rented it again. I wanted to get rid of the house then but the mortgage people said, "Oh keep it and pay us just what you get." I think we were suppose to get $15.00 a month. The family we had in there only paid for three or four months, and we would go over there and they would have all the blinds down like they weren't at home, and we couldn't go after them. We got a statement that showed we owed more on the house with the interest, insurance, and taxes than when we started to pay, and we had it several years. We weren't getting anywhere and it wasn't big enough, it only had one big bedroom. So we let it go back.

I never will forget, we had been up to Mary Hellmer's, she had died, that's Frieda's
girl. Fred was sick and having a temperature and I called the Doctor and he came, and lord, he had scarlet fever. They put a sign on the house in those days, nobody could come in to help me. Then Bud got it; then Pete got it; they were all sick at the same time. The milkman would leave milk, but he wouldn't take the bottles. I had library books which were overdue to go back, and I wasn't allowed out of the house, So I called and she said, "you just wrap them up and drop them off. We destroy them when they have a contagious disease." We had a basement that had a door in the floor to get down. We had company, Mrs. Weber was there and the Swalens, and we were sitting in the living room talking. I had made catsup and it was in the basement, it was one of Mom's recipes. It started exploding and went all over. What a mess!

One time I thought the house was on fire. Pete was out of town and I was there by
myself with those two little kids. I heard fire trucks and got up, and there was a flicker on the house next door like flames. I thought my house was on fire but it was in the alley, it was a garage burning. I even called the fire department and they were already there, but I didn't see any trucks in front of the house. My boys still kid me about that.

Our first car was an old Model T that Norman Suess gave Pete. It was a little two
seater and had a rumble seat in the back. Pete made a truck out of it. But our first car was a Nash, I think, and that's when we lived on Kelly Street. It wasn't new, it was a used car. We bought our first new car after the war when we lived on Hervey Street. It was a Frazer. I'm surprised Pete let the kids drive it.

We moved from Singleton Street to Kelly Street. I remember we had a pup that ran after cars like it was wild. He ran out in the street and got hit. We put a splint on his leg.

We moved from Kelly Street to Hervey Street in about 1939. Bill and Violet Knieper were our best friends and played cards two or three times a week. Then Bill died and Violet wanted something to do, so we started looking around for Dairy Queens and found one down on Madison Avenue. That was hard work and long hours. Pete was having trouble with his hip and did not work much at his trade. He did help at the Dairy Queen. I was there about thirteen years, and sold my half share to Violet's son, Billy.

We lived in quite a neighborhood on Hervey Street, we were all friends. We always said there wasn't another street like it. There was Alice Creighton, Catherine Mueller and Martha, Grace Mescall and Miss Gardner.

In the meantime, Urvin had married Caroline Achgill and Charlie had married Rose
Gootee, so they all moved out after staying at Grandma's several years. Rose had both her girls while living at Grandma's.

Grandma had no one and she decided to sell the house and move into a room. I told her she could come live with us, which she did. Rose and Charlie had her half the time and we the other half. Frieda finally offered to take her turn.

Grandma was blind and a lot of care. The time came when we had to put her in a nursing home. By this time my stepmother became sick and senile, and Dad said he couldn't take care of her any longer. They auctioned off all the furniture and sold the house at the lake.

Mom was a lot of care, she would not sleep at night. She kept calling all night, no one got any sleep and we were really exhausted. Bud was still home and working, Pete was also working and they were worn out. We finally had to put Mom in a nursing home, the doctor told us to put her there until we got rested up. She didn't last too long, and died December 13th, 1948.

When the war first started, a whole bunch of the neighbors, Miss Gardner and Grace and Martha and I, went around putting our names in different places. Bill Gardner drove us. Pretty soon Lilly's called and I could have gotten a job back at Lilly's, and I discovered that I was pregnant. Boy! But that was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me when I had Joey, I was forty almost forty-one. I remember old Mrs. Weber, Ed's mother, told me, "God's given you that baby for a reason," and I believe he did. Joe was born February 6th, 1943, and weighed 8 pounds. He was a healthy baby. I was in St. Francis Hospital for 10 days that time.

Fred went to Australia where he met Valerie and married her. We had to sign all kinds of papers, as Fred was only 20 years old, that we would be financially responsible for her. The war years were very trying. We worried a lot, as we didn't know just what Fred was doing over there; also worried about my brother, Joe. Bud never had to leave the country; he was a drill sergeant stationed in Baltimore.

I was gone one evening and came home late. Val was upstairs walking the hall with labor pains and there was Pete and Fred sound asleep. I got them out of bed and they took that poor girl to the hospital, I didn't go. Fred wound up in the VA hospital and one of us would go to St. Francis to see Val, and the other visited Fred. Sandra Ann was born and I was glad it was a girl.

Pete was working on the new Post Office when he fell. He caught himself and pulled his shoulder out. That was awful, somebody called me and said that Pete had fallen, and of course I didn't have any details. But he was in a doctor's office downtown. Joe was in High School then, and I went over to school and got Joe out of school and we went down there and it was awful. They had Pete lying down with a sheet around him, somebody was pulling him one way while they pulled his arm the other way. I had to leave the room, I couldn't stand to watch it. That was the end of his work, he didn't do too much after that.

We bought the house in Beech Grove in about 1960. We lived there when Pete died.

When I sold the Dairy Queen I got a job right away at Sigma Kappa National
Headquarters. I did auditing and thoroughly enjoyed my work there. After Pete died I stayed alone in the house for a year and a half, when Joe suggested I sell the house. We put up a sign one afternoon and sold it the next day.

After I sold the house in Beach Grove, I moved into an apartment on Madison. I lived there seven years. My friend Jane, who lived at Crestwood West Apartments, had heard of a subsidized apartment going up in Speedway. I called and put my name in, they called me for an interview and I got an apartment. Jane lives next door. I have saved a lot of money by living here, and I like it. The people here are all so congenial. I have my car to get around in, and at 86 just passed my drivers test.

Things were different in the old days but we didn't know any difference. When I was a child my dad had money. We weren't poor, but he wasn't what you'd call rich. We had cars and things and the lake to go to in the summer. We had Christmas trees with candles instead of lights and we always had a nice Christmas. I got a doll every year. In those days girls played with dolls, I guess my favorite toy was a doll. We girls never wore pants, and I thought I never would wear slacks. One of the grandkids bought me a pair and I've worn them ever since. It's only been a few years, I think I was living in the apartment then, after Pete died.

I can't say that I've had any tragedies in my life. I went through a period with two
boys in the Army. I guess you could call that a tragedy, and I never knew what Fred was doing or where he was. He couldn't write and tell me. I finally found out, I wrote and said if he was in Melbourne to write and say something about Mel. But I never knew what he was doing, he had training to fly over an island and draw maps from that. One other thing was when I found Pete on the floor in the bedroom and he couldn't talk, and his eyes - I never will get over that. I almost ran off to work without going in there. And I wondered, what is that noise, he was kicking the bed and rattling it. I couldn't get the Doctor and called the exchange and a Doctor Moriority came who I knew too. Right away he said there's no chance for him, he'd had a stroke and there was too much brain damage. He lived for ten days. He had had a heart attack in 1960 but recovered from that.

Having three boys was one of the best thing that's happened to me. Course I would have liked to have some girls, but I'm used to boys.

Pete was kind of bossy; I don't think I'm bossy. We both took care of raising the kids, but Pete was gone most of the time. They used to fight, oh they'd have fights. I'd go in there and one would have the other one down, one time I just grabbed them by the hair. Bud's always claimed I pulled out his hair. But anyway they got raised. I don't think I was strict.

Oh, Grandma Richter! Everything meant something. Her dreams, and if a picture fell off the wall, my lands, somebody's going to die. She had a Ouija board, but the only one that could work it was Bud.

We were living on Kelly Street and Anna died in California and was cremated. When the delivery man came, it was just a little box, and I said to him do you know what's in here? And he said yes. I sat it on the post by the stairs and when I went by there I'd think, "oh my land, to think that that's all that's left of Anna." Her ashes are buried with her parents now.

My fond memories: the ones closest to now, is my grandchildren and my kids; my friends - Violet just called me and had to go for blood again yesterday, and I met Cliff and Violet so many years ago. We were together every Saturday night, it's effecting me. We would go out to eat and then would play cards, I miss all that. I have a lot of fond memories; we went through the depression and we never were hungry or cold; I remember getting six dollars when I worked at the Athletic Club, it was 25 cents an hour. And, out of that four dollars went for groceries for all week, and I'd have two dollars left over. We ate a lot of ham in those days and smoked shoulders.

I have lived a wonderful life and am proud of all my boys and grandchildren. I never thought I would have such a large and wonderful family.

Mary Richter

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