Living in the Big Woods

My parents were still in the process of building the house we lived in when we moved in 1961.

The house had three bedrooms, each bedroom had a large bed with a cotton mattress and metal springs. 

The large living-room, had a sofa, a television with rabbit ears and in the winter a wood heater. 

In the kitchen was a large sink, refrigerator, stove, and a large bar for storage.

In the dining room was a table large enough to seat ten people. 

All the floors were wooden no flooring of any kind, most of the walls had unfinished sheet rock. 

We had a set of step that lead to the basement that was located between the kitchen and the hallway.

We had a very high wooden back porch with railing and wooden steps. 

Our front porch was level with the ground and we had a wooden swing that hang from the rafters.

Dads car was always parked in the gravel drive.

Our house sat on the side of a hill, the front side was level with the ground and the backside of the house was several feet from the ground. 

The house had a flat top roof, the outside of our house was covered with black tar paper.

The house had no inside bathroom.

We had water pumped from our outside well to our kitchen sink. 

I remember watching the large machine dig deep into the ground until it found water and then a well was placed above it.

My parents would put a large tube shaped bucket into the hole in the ground, that was attached with a long rope, to get water from the well. 

The tube of water would then be pulled back to the top of the well where the water was emptied into a pail that  could be carried inside. 

Bath time consisted of a large washtub, shared by all the children. 

I remember one time when I was taking my bath that I put my bride doll in the tub with me.

All my dolls hair fell out and I was sad.

My bride doll was a beautiful doll, she was wearing a long white wedding dress with a white veil.

We could make alot of noise at night even though our bedroom was on the opposite side of the house as our parents.. 

I love to make up stories to make my siblings laugh.

Sometimes we would get into trouble, because we made so much noise laughing.

We had two very large beds in our room where all the children slept and every night it was a struggle for bed covers.

There was no need for curtains to be put on our windows because no one lived behind us and our bedroom was very high off the ground.

On a clear night the moonlight would shine into our bedroom. 

At night it was hard for us kids to be quite for outside we could hear the hoot from owls. 

Oh my gosh! At the frogs & crickets, there were many, many frogs that we heard crocking and thousands of crickets rubbing their legs.

Ever now and then we would hear a mountain lion it sounded like a woman screaming.

Actually the noise relaxed us and we would drift off into a deep slumber.

Our neighbors owned a saw mill with mounds of sawdust piles we loved to climb into. 

Almost everyone grew a garden and we would buy fruit and vegetables from them. 

I remember one time my sister and I went to our neighbors to buy a watermelon we paid twenty-five cents.

We could choose any watermelon we wanted. We chose a big one but we had to carry it all the way home. 

We had to stop several time before we reach home. 

The sweet watermelon was worth the trouble to see the look on the faces of our siblings as they eat every slice of the melon.

Another time my sister and I had to walk to the store which was about two miles round trip.

Our family was like the old woman in the shoe she had so many children she did not know what to do. 

Our cabinets was bare and mom could not make the trip because she had too many children. She would look like a mother duck with all her duckling following her. 

So my sister who was a couple years younger than me, and I made the trip. 

We took the gravel road with all its curves, up and down hills to the country story for bologna and bread that we charged to my dads account. 

My grandfather had started building a house next to ours house. The outside of the house was complete. The roof on his house was arched not flat like our house. 

The inside was framed up and the rooms was divided with walls.

It had wood floors and a basement full of lumber.

My grandfather never finished the house but we made it our play house and we spent many hours in this house. 

Most kids have a small playhouse but our playhouse was a real unfinished house.

I remember once my dad brought home a trunk from Helen Keller home and it was filled with books.

I picked out two of the books one was a blue book of Grimm’s Fairy Tales and the other a book about a boy and his hoop.

The fairy tale book contained many different short stories such as Rapunzel, The Frog Prince, Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Rumplestiltskin, Snow White and Rose Red.

Lynn and Glenn Kimbrough were  our playmates. 

One year Lynn got a bicycle for Christmas, we never owned a bicycle. So when Lynn offered to let us ride her bicycle we said yes. 

Both my sister  and I climbed on the bicycle with Lynn. My sister was on the handlebars, Lynn was on the seat paddling and I was on the back fender.

Away we went speeding down the gravel road.  Lynn lost control of the bicycle wrecked spilling us on the gravel road. 

Luckily no one was badly hurt, only a few scraps on the knees and elbows.

In the spring we would pick Polk Salad take it into town and sale it.