BIOGRAPHIES
MEMORIES...FROM NANCY ( MOSS ) CARVER
I think mom & dad's years around the depression, must have been like "The Grapes of Wrath", but maybe, even harsher since they were living in Alaska. Even when we lived in Lewiston, Idaho, I think we lived very poorly. I was about seven years old when we moved to the Lewiston Orchards (a suburb of Lewiston). Lewiston had only about 20,000 population but seemed much larger because all of the small farming towns came there to do business. We lived on a 10-acre fruit orchard. It was mostly apples, but also had peaches, pears, apricots and cherries. I never appreciated how good the fruit was until I moved away. Looking back, I also appreciate what a good upbringing this was to be free to just play in this beautiful setting and not have to worry about much of anything. I ran around and played with the neighbor kids a lot. I did help pick cherries and apples too though. My father also grew a large vegetable garden every year and mom always complained about all the work of canning the fruits and vegetables. Nothing went to waste. She even made pickled watermelon rinds. Her dill pickles were very popular. She also baked bread when she had time. She was very domesticated.
We were really poor, but since I was so young, I didn't realize it, and it was probably a very good experience since I now appreciate everything more and am more thrifty.
We lived in a shack, which was originally a fruit stand I think. Dad added a frame to this and put a large army-type tent over the frame. It was just heated by a small wood stove. I used to worry that the tent would catch fire. We had no indoor plumbing and I remember the cold nights and trips to the outhouse. Dad constructed a frame for us to use as a shower. It had a canvas fabric hung around the outer edges but the top was open and a big steel oil drum was fastenened on top. It used solar heat to warm the water. I always thought that the airplanes flying over would see me. We slept on cots in sleeping bags. It was like a two-year camping trip. My sister and brother were young teenagers at this time and were embarrassed to bring home their friends. Mom was ashamed of this place too so I don't have any pictures taken of the shack.
I remember one Easter we had my Aunt Alice, Uncle Chuck, Aunt Marge, Uncle Boots and all their kids visiting. We had a picnic style dinner out on a blanket outside our place. We had just put the ham down on the ground and were getting the other food set up when our dog, Patches ran off with the ham. I'm sure mom was pretty upset about that. I don't even remember the outcome of all this.
My father was often gone on heavy construction jobs. He was a carpenter so had to go where the work was. (Mom seemed to think that he wanted to get away). He helped build The Grand Coulee Dam in Washington for a long time and even went to Alaska for six months at one time. He usually got laid off about Christmas time every year since this type of work is seasonal. I remember mom crying about the layoffs and saying we couldn't afford Christmas. Dad did some work cutting and bailing hay for small farms in the area also.
After a couple of years in the tent/fruit-shed arrangement, my parents planned to build a house. They got as far as the basement when the money ran out. So, we lived in this underground place with just an entrance sticking above ground. This looked pretty strange too. We had water coming in, but no plumbing out so we still had no bathroom or laundry. We had to carry the water outside in large buckets. In order to take a bath here, they heated the water on the stove in a large steel container. It would often spring leaks and someone would stick a match stick or something in the hole until it could be soldered or fixed more permanently. I had to share the bath water with Larry so I always wanted to be first. We didn't even have a telephone until I was about 10 years old. I remember getting excited about getting a new toaster and a refrigerator. Mom tried very hard to keep us well fed and kept us and the place looking nice and clean. She sewed all of our clothes and made curtains, slipcovers and all.
She had to do a lot of the heavy work on the orchard since dad was gone so much. I remember her driving the tractor, pulling a spraying machine. (This was before they were aware that DOT and other chemicals were harmful). She also did a lot of the pruning, thinning apples, and picking them. I helped pick up the prunings to be burned. I also worked in a cold packing shed one year polishing these huge red delicious apples and wrapping them in purple tissue paper for gift boxes. Some of my other jobs as a child were feeding the chickens, gathering the eggs and even plucking the feathers on the ones that were to be eaten. I had to go about a block down the road to the neighbors farm to get a gallon of milk about two or three times a week. I remember the large amount of cream on top. I picked cherries and got paid by the bucket. We made apple cider to sell and I helped with that. I cleaned house and helped mom quite a bit when I was a teen ager.
Mom had rather poor health from as early as I can remember. During her later years, she was in chronic pain in her hips and back and had a lot of pain in her hands from arthritis. She hated to give in to it, but finally had to go on disability. She kept moving though and tried to take a walk with dad every day she could. They were sweet, usually walking hand in hand.
She had breast cancer, requiring a mastectomy but she recovered from this.
Our family social life consisted of visiting with friends occasionally for dinner in our homes. These would usually be on Sunday afternoons -after church. We rarely had a vacation, but I remember a couple of long car trips to Minnesota. We camped out along the way. We also drove to Santa Cruz, California once when I was 13 years old to visit my Aunt Alice and Uncle Chuck. I loved it there and that probably influenced my desire to move to California.
We often took drives on the backroads just enjoying the scenery and small farming towns. These were usually taken on Sunday afternoons after church also. My Dad liked the Nash cars but I thought they were so ugly, I was embarrassed to be seen in them. Later we had a 1953 Buick Roadmaster. That was nice, but I was almost never allowed to use it. I rode the school bus to school. We never ate dinners out that I remember but just had picnics or dinners at friends or relatives. Sometimes, if I had nothing better to do, I would go grocery shopping with mom and dad just for a weekly outing.
When I was in High School, I almost always stayed over the week end with one of my friends who lived closer to town and closer to the school activities. Since I lived about 12 miles out on the edge of town and didn't have any transportation, I would be stuck. Most of my friends had the use of a car but didn't want to drive clear out to my place to pick me up and take me back home.
When I was about 12 years old, mom was fed up with all this work We finally moved to a small house about 12 miles from Lewiston, but still in the Orchards area. This house was new but it only had two small bedrooms and one bath. With a family of six, this was very crowded. Dad built on a garage and some other storage rooms with a tiny bedroom for my brothers, Larry and Roger. It didn't even have any heat in it.
Mom got a job as a waitress at the "Corner Cafe". She made pies to take there to sell. Across the street was a pharmacy called "Dave's Drugs". They used to come to the cafe to eat and got to know her. She got a job there as a clerk. That was in the 50's when they wore neat white uniforms and gave customers a lot of assistance. I had to stay home and baby sit my adventurous younger brother, Larry. He was always running off with the neighbor boys exploring the canyons for Magpies, frogs, whatever. Mom had to work a lot of late afternoon and evening and weekend shifts so I had to cook dinner every night for my dad and brother. Later, she got a job as a clerk at the Marketime Drugstore. Marilyn and Roger had already moved out. We all moved out of Lewiston at an early age and went right to work or marriage.
Mom and dad took us to church and Sunday School every week at the Lutheran Church. We went to Confirmation classes there too.
After dad retired, they became custodians and cleaned Holy Cross Lutheran Church every week. This obligation tied them down some but they managed to take several car trips around the country in their retirement years.
After I left Lewiston, my Uncle Clint, Uncle "Boots", (Lawrence), and their families moved to Lewiston from Alaska. I guess they liked the warmer climate and liked the area after having visited mom and dad.
After High School graduation, I moved to Spokane, Washington (in 1959) and shared an apartment with my girl friend and neighbor from Lewiston. We worked at the Washington Trust Bank in Spokane. I worked in the bookkeeping area. We had a large social life there. It was a lot of fun, but kind of lonesome at times.
My sister, Marilyn, arranged a blind date with a guy (Riley Carver)who worked with her husband at General Electric in Richland, WA. It was 4th of July, 1960. She and my brother in Law, had a dinner for us in the back yard. We had a long distance relationship from Spokane to Richland and I became engaged on Valentines Day 1961. We were married August 12,1961. I moved to Richland and worked in the bookkeeping department of a bank there. Riley was a chemist at General Electric. We moved to Livermore in 1962 where he worked as a Chemist for The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for about 30 years. After an early retirement, he went to work as an inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria for two years.
I was a stay at home mom for our two daughters, Alison and Shauna until Shauna was about 10 years old. I did go to Jr. College during this time period and received an AA Degree in Library Technology. I volunteered to work in their school library every week and then had a part-time job in an elementary school library for a couple of years. In 1979, I started work at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as a Library Technician. I work in a classified document center. I retired Jan. 2005.
Christmas:
As a child, I loved Christmas. I could hardly wait until the big day. Mom kept me believing in Santa Claus until I was at least 10 years old. Mom spent lots of time baking cookies, fruit cake, making candy and other goodies. She made most of our gifts -sewing dolls and clothes. My dad made wooden toys which mom painted. In later years, mom made a big production of hand crafting gifts. We would all get afghans, monogrammed towels, pretty pillows, paintings, candles, etc. One year she made us all huge wreaths from seed pods, cones, and nuts or whatever she could collect on her drives around the country. We always looked forward to her homemade raspberry jam and the huge sticky cinnamon rolls. Even all the grandchildren usually got homemade nightgowns, pajamas, dolls, etc. One year they got nightgowns with dolls that had matching gowns. Another year, she made Ragedy Ann & Andy dolls. I don't remember what the boys got.
My dad made each grandchild a piece of furniture for graduation. (Until there got to be too many kids). He made a desk for my daughter, Alison, and Scott Gority, a cedar chest for Susan and a hutch for Tracy Gority.
On Christmas Eve, we had a tradition of driving around town looking at the lights. Afterwards, we would go home and were allowed to open up one gift. This would usually be a nightgown or pajamas. Christmas morning, after breakfast, we had to clean up the dishes and make our beds before we started to open our gifts. In my stocking, I always got an orange, apple, nuts, hard candy, new crayons and a coloring book or paper dolls.
My latest Christmas memory of my mother was in 1991. This was because of a "very special" ornament from my mother. She had planned to count stitch an ornament for each of us but, since her hands were hurting so much from the arthritis, she asked her sister-in-law, Ruby Church (Clint's wife) to help her. she took them to my aunt's house and had picked out which ones were to go to which person. She had put stickers with each person's name on them.
The next day, she was killed in a terrible automobile accident. Ruby finished all of them and stitched the date -May 5, 1991 on the back. Mine is a bell shape that I hang on the tree in a special place every year.
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