Eight Beautiful Dolls - written in 2000

Introduction

          One day as my nephew and I were talking, he said it would be good if someday I would write about my memories of my father and mother.  I couldn’t help but think how good that would be, although it might be difficult as one skips to different times and years so easily, but I will try anyway.  I have many wonderful memories that come flooding back, hard for me to put it all on a sheet of paper.

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My Parents

          My mother and father were Frank and Agnes (Degroot) Benjamin.  My mother was such a quiet sweet-natured person.  She never raised her voice in reprimands to the children.  When I was young, my father was often very strict with my brothers and my sister.  They used to think he was mean.  I never saw that side of him so much.  But I remember when he and Mom would talk loudly in the evenings after we children went to bed.  After I got a little older, I learned why.  There were times when my mother’s sisters sent big boxes of Christmas gifts.  I don’t know what happened to most of the things, but I do remember that the boxes of chocolate covered cherries would be thrown in the pot bellied heating stove in the parlor.  Years later, my brothers told me that when the coals cooled in the night, they would go scrape out all the sweet cherries and syrup that had melted down through the grating. When it had cooled, they would eat it.

          Well, all those years were a puzzle to me until I got a chance to visit with my cousin Mary, Aunt Harriet’s daughter, at my sister, Anne’s, funeral.  Mary told all the family about how Grandpa DeGroot visited his daughter Ardelle’s apartment and saw some red books on a book shelf and read them.  They were about being a Jehovah’s Witness and he was convinced that they had the right ideas.  He joined them and pulled his wife and children into it.  On one of the out of town meetings, which happened to be in Saranac, my father met up with Agnes DeGroot and they eventually married.

          My father was a Christian and his doctrine was against the Jehovah’s Witness’ beliefs.  I believe my mother never really went along with her family beliefs either.  All those years my father would not allow anything in the house that had anything to do with that cult.  This now explains the things I always wondered about, why there was such a rift between the two families.

          I can remember my Mother so well with her well-worn Scoffield Bible in her lap, sitting in the sun parlor, reading.  She told me stories about all the prophets and Daniel and the lion’s den and Jonah in the fish’s belly.  Years later, when my father passed away, Mom came to live with my family for 15 years.  She could always be found sitting on the couch with a children’s Bible on her lap and the children crowded around her listening to Bible stories. 

Winter Evenings

          I was the youngest of five children, born on May 3, 1918.  There was Lester who was thirteen years older.  Then came Sherle and Lyle, and then a sister, Anna, who was seven and a half years older than I.  When I was young, I was always treated special .  It was because I was the youngest - the late, late one.  Ha!  My brothers and sister always treated me like I shouldn’t learn how to do things, like buy something at the store, so I never understood the value of money.  I guess that was OK, because when I got older, I was especially anxious to learn how to do everything by myself.  As you can imagine, the others were so much older in what they were interested in, that most of the time they were busy or away from home.

          In the winter it was a special time, being in the house more, and in the evenings it was very special to me.  We would all sit around a big round dining room table by lamplight.  My father bought an Aladdin’s Lamp with two globes that burned brightly, and the lamp was hung above the table so the whole room was brightly lit.  It was so much better than a regular table lamp, which burned dimly with a yellowish light and was hard to read by.

          My father would sit and peel a big pail of potatoes ready for the next day’s meals.  My mother would be mending, and the children would be enjoying playing games at the table.  Sometimes we would all have a drawing contest.  An object would be set in the middle of the table and each one would try to draw it to the best of their artistic ability.  I believe that is where I got my love for art.  Even though I was young then, I did my best and enjoyed it.

          My brother, Lester, sent away and got the components of a radio, which he assembled and put into working order.  We had headphones and would listen to ‘Amos and Andy’ and many other programs.  His radio was the first in the Saranac area.  Many friends came to the house to listen on the headphones.

          Sometimes my father would ask mother to read a story from the Saturday Evening Post.  These were very exciting stories about animals and nature and everyone enjoyed listening to them.  Many times they were continued into the next week’s magazine and we could hardly wait for the evening that mother would read again.  My mother was a good reader and used much expression and made the story real to us.  My father never read the stories, but he was very good at business and kept all his business papers.

House on the Farm

          At the time I was born, our family lived in an old, but nice farm house in Saranac on the corner of David Hwy and Jackson Rd.  It was a two story house with a parlor and living room at the front.  A  dining room, a bedroom, and a summer kitchen were behind them.  We only used the summer kitchen in the summer when cooking a meal or canning was too warm a job inside with the wood burning range.  It had windows, with screens, all along the back and side. It was kept cool by the shade of a big walnut tree behind the house.

          In the winter the large wood burning range at the back of the dining room would keep the room warm enough to enjoy sitting around the dining table.  In the living room was a potbelly stove which was kept stoked to help keep the house comfortable.  My parents slept downstairs.  The upstairs had two bedrooms, boys in one and girls in the other.  We had a feather tick comforter on the bed.  In the winter, we filled two quart jars with hot water and put them in the bed to get it warm before we got in.  Those winter nights could get really cold.

          There was a porch next to the dining room where my mom grew vines on strings to keep it shady.  One time when I was very young, they fixed a board all around the edge of the porch so it would keep me safely inside the porch to play.  Since I was a very inquisitive little tot, I leaned over the high board and fell head first into an old pail of stale rainwater.  If someone hadn’t found me, I would have drowned.  They had to pump the water out of me and get me to breathe again.

          My father would take all of us children out to the gravel pits to look for pretty stones.  He wanted oval or round ones that were pretty colors.  Later he would use these stones in making all kinds of planters and cement ornaments decorated with them.  Many people would drive by our place and see the arches with hanging baskets of flowers and order some for themselves.  He even made tombstones for the cemetery.  I believe that is the reason I like to go along Lake Michigan looking for stones, especially Petosky Stones.  They have a honeycombed design and people make jewelry out of them.

          In 1922 and 1923 my father bought some brick and block forms.  He sent away for them and all the family enjoyed making cement bricks and blocks.  In 1924 my father made a two stall brick garage and my brothers helped make it.  It turned out to be such a strong, nice looking building, that father decided to build a home too.  He tore down the old house and we lived in the basement of the new home until the upper part could be finished.  It was a beautiful home with a large front porch.  All along the front of the porch, he made designs of baskets full of flowers, using the stones we had picked up from the gravel pits so many years before.  My father built a 3-foot brick wall around the sides of our lawn out near the road.  The lawn was graded and beautiful, with maple trees planted along the west edge.

The Long Trip

          My memories take me back to when I was very young.  I am thankful for a good childhood.  My parents would take me to church

and many times in the winter we would walk to church.  When we would return home, often there had been a heavy snow fall and my brothers and sister didn’t mind the walk.  It was almost a mile, but my legs were short and it was hard to keep up, so finally my father would pick me up and carry me.

          Also, there were visits to our friends, who lived many miles away.  We would take the horse and wagon.  My parents rode up on the seat in the front and they filled the back with straw,  We would leave home in the middle of the morning and eat a 2:00 dinner with our friends and later on, there would be sandwiches, cake, cookies, and cocoa.  By the time we would start our trip home after the grownups had finished a long afternoon of pleasant conversation, it would be getting toward sundown.  The long trip home went for hours into the night.  I would get sleepy and curl up with an old blanket under the straw and would not wake up until we had reached home.  I never really knew it my brothers and sister had stayed awake or slept as I did.  Our trips usually were in the fall or spring and the nights were cool.

The Cracker Jar

          During the winter months, my father had to get all the tools for the produce farm repaired and sometimes new ones were needed.  As he received these repair bills, he would fold them several times and put them in the Cracker Jar.  The Cracker jar had been a wedding present and it was kept on a shelf next to the mirror on the sideboard, which would now be called a buffet.  Father would keep all the bills in this jar until spring, when the early vegetables such as peas, asparagus, onions, etc. would be picked and put on our produce truck.  My brothers would drive early in the morning to Ionia, which is a town larger than Saranac, near where we lived.  There, they would sell the produce along the streets.  They had a route to take where the people expected them to come regularly and everything would be sold before noon.  My mother made cottage cheese balls and wrapped them in waxed paper and they would sell quickly.

          During the fall season, my brothers and sister and I would walk through the woods and pick bittersweet branches and make them into bouquets and hang them upside down to let them dry .  The berries would pop open and reveal a beautiful orange red inside.  We would put these on the truck along with jars of nuts, walnuts, hickory and bitter nuts that we had shelled during the winter.  They would be sold out very quickly.  My father allowed us to keep the money that came in from the bittersweet and nuts and this made us very happy.  We each would keep a small bank and keep our money in it until some special occasion came along such as the Ionia Free Fair.  Then we would have fun on the rides and buy special items offered there.

          All the money that came in from selling the produce would be used for food for our family, and part would be used for paying up all the bills that were in the beautiful Cracker Jar.  As the money came in, one at a time, each bill would be unfolded and paid.  My father was very dependable.

          Finally, when all the bills were paid, the family could start to use some of the money from the produce sales for buying new clothes, which were sorely needed.  New shoes, overalls, and denim shirts for the boys and for the girls there was material to make some pretty dresses and also some dress shoes.  It was a time to enjoy.

          In the morning my father would call us early, before the sun came up, and we would eat breakfast and hurry out to pick the produce while it was crisp and fresh.  We also picked quarts and quarts of strawberries, red and black raspberries, and purple berries, which were a cross between red and black raspberries.  No one else grew them but the Benjamin Berry Farm, a seven acre farm.  Later, more land was purchased to enlarge the farm.  My father was so proud.  He even grew vegetable oysters, they looked like parsnips but when floured and fried in homemade butter, yum, they were really good.

          The Cracker Jar still exists in the home of Joyce (Swanberg) Goodwin.  In all these years it has never been cracked or chipped, which seems like a miracle to me.

Eight Beautiful Dolls

          My first memory that stands out in my mind was as a very young child.  I was in my Mother’s lap as she rocked in her old sewing rocker while my Mother and Father sat on the front porch enjoying the beautiful evening.  It was cool and past the heat of the summer afternoon, after the family had finished working on the produce farm.

          My sister, Anna, and I were never very close to each other as children because she was 7 1/2 years older than me.  My sister did not like dolls, which I adored.  I never had a real doll when I was young, but my Grandma Benjamin made me a Santa Claus doll and it was very special to me.  One day as I had grown a little older, my father had heard that Lake’s Store was going out of business.  Mr. Lake was getting too old and couldn’t handle running a big store anymore.

          My father was in need of new tools.  He had heard everything was on sale so he took my hand and we went down to the store.  While he was busy looking at tools, I was looking up at a shelf high on the wall where 8 beautiful dolls were in boxes.  There were all different kinds and each one so beautiful.  I noticed a big ‘for sale’ sign on them.  I went to my father and showed him the dolls and said, “I’ve never had a real doll of my own.  May I have one of these?”

          My father was looking up at them and Mr. Lake, who was a very kind man, said, “Mr. Benjamin, your little girl needs these dolls.  You can buy all 8 of them for only $2.00.”  The transaction was made and I don’t remember anything more about the trip downtown except the excitement of arriving home with 8 beautiful dolls.

          My Mother wiped the dust off the boxes.  In the first box I opened there was a soft cuddly doll like a real baby, with eyes that opened and closed.  Each doll was different, just like having a real family.  I’ve always wondered if that is why Bob and I had eight children.  It was a dream come true.

Early School Years

          I was so anxious to get older like my brothers and sister.  I just knew that getting old enough to go to school would be more fun.

          I really enjoyed kindergarten.  Mrs. Carpenter was our teacher and she was so kind and gentle to the children.  In the first grade, I had Mrs. Wallington.  She was stricter, but I liked her, too.  One time I reached over and leaned my arm on a big post that was next to my desk.  It reached from the floor to the ceiling as a support.  Quick as anything, Mrs. Wallington was there and hit my arm with a ruler.  She thought that I was passing notes, but I wasn’t and when she found out, she said she was sorry for hitting me.  I learned right then not to ever pass notes.

          My fifth grade teacher was Mrs. Hughes.  She was also the girl’s basketball coach.  I enjoyed practicing basketball with the other girls for several years, although it meant going home after dark.  On those nights, I had to walk nearly a mile and it was past a cemetery.  The cemetery vault was right next to the sidewalk with only a grated door to separate me from the bodies in their caskets.  The caskets were placed on shelves during the winter until the ground would soften in the spring.  Then the men could dig the graves and bury them.  I would always leave the sidewalk and walk in the road until I had passed by the vault.  It was sort of spooky.

Gypsies

          Our home was nearly a mile from town and I usually walked home from school alone.  My Mother had always warned me of gypsies and told me I should never get in and ride with anyone.  One day I was walking home with my girlfriend, Margaret, who walked with me as far as her grandparent’s home, which was just before we got to the cemetery.  From there on, I walked alone all the way along in front of the cemetery.  I was skipping and singing and enjoying myself.  Just as I reached the place where the beginning of our farm property started, a car full of people stopped near me.  Two ladies dressed in bright colored dresses came to me and asked me to get in their car.  They said they would drive me home.  Just when they reached for my hand, I bolted to the ditch and ran as fast as I could across the field and up the lane through the cow pasture.  I never looked back until I came within sight of my house.  When I looked, the car had turned down another road.

          I took a deep sigh of relief and ran to the house.  I told my mother about it.  She said that I did the right thing and that after that someone in the family would watch for me when I came home.  I’m glad it was the only experience I ever had with gypsies.

A Special Birthday Party

          When I was 10, I had a special birthday party that I will always remember.  One time my mother fixed a basket of goodies, sandwiches, cookies, apples, and lemonade.  There were six of my girlfriends and we planned to go to the little creek that was not far from the house.  Back in those days it was safe for little girls to hike across the woods and fields.  There was a high bank where we stood looking down at a beautiful sight.  The ground down by the little winding creek was covered with all kinds of May flowers.  We found a nice grassy area and we spread a cloth and put all the food and drinks on it.  We just sat and ate until it was all gone.  It all tasted so good.  Later we decided to take off our shoes and stockings and dangle our feet in the water.  We quickly remembered that it was only two weeks since it had been snowing.  We picked bouquets of spring flowers.  We each brought them home to our mothers.

          Another special time was when I turned ten years old.  My father and brothers were building us a new house.  It was all framed in and the roof was on.  My father had told me that when I had friends over, I couldn’t play in the house.  This time it was special and he said we could, if we picked up the nails off the floor so we wouldn’t step on them. We played in the house all afternoon and had a great time.

High School Days

          When I was in eighth grade, the girls needed an extra forward for the basketball team.  I always liked playing a forward and could make baskets from a distance as well as close up.  Even though the team was supposed to be only ninth graders and up, I joined.  My father always liked to come to the games and cheer when I made a basket.  I was so proud of that.

          In high school, our classes put on many plays. Since I enjoyed art, I was asked to paint scenery for the backdrops.  I remember being ‘Merilee’ in one of the plays called “A Ready Made Family”.  I still have the book from the play.  We also had operettas and one time I sang alto in a sextet.

          I liked high school and enjoyed the new school that was built.  While it was being built, we had to attend school in an old factory building downtown near the railroad tracks.  I was in seventh grade then.  Our new school had fire escapes.  You just jumped into a big tube slide and ended up outside the building.  We enjoyed fire drills.  In the early 1990’s, the school was turned into an antique store.

          I also remember some of the teachers, Mr. Southwell, Mrs. Trumbul, the principal, Mr. Sikkema, and Miss Nellie Hutchins.  She had one brown eye and one green eye.  She was so nice and always hosted all our parties.  She made the parties so much fun.

Meeting Bob

          I’ll have to tell how Bob and I met.  For some reason, he left Ionia High School and came to the new Saranac school.  He drove a car and had riders from out in the country ride with him, Ruth Prichard, George Arnold, and Rachel Huffman.  We got to know each other and became close friends.  I had many other boy friends who were just friends.  Bob and I became steady and dated.  When we went for rides, I always had one of my girl friends go with us, usually it was Edith Bixby.

          One warm spring lunch time, we were always eating out in Bob’s car, Bob said he was going to drive out into the country to park.  Edith and I thought that it would be OK if we got back to school before the bell rang.  The three of us drove out and parked under a big tree that had snow melting off the branches.  Snow chunks kept falling on the canvas roof of that old car.  It was so pleasant that we stayed too long.  When we returned to school, classes were already in session.  Mrs. Trumpour, our teacher, stopped everything when the three of us walked in the room.  All was quiet for a moment, as we sat quietly suspecting some kind of an explosion, and then it happened!  The teacher yelled at us to tell where we were.  We all tried to explain what happened.  She exploded again and Edith came right in with, “If you don’t believe us, then ask us”.  (I never could figure out what that meant)  She said it so definitely, that the teacher didn’t talk about it anymore but went right on with class.  We were not punished for being late, but were always on time after that.

Jelly Beano

          Bob’s boy friend, who lived out near him in the country was called George Arnold.  He even came to visit us in Lansing one time.  His nickname for me was “Jelly Beano”.  I guess it was short for both my first and last names.  So many of my friends would call me that.  They would yell it when I was on the basketball court and the score was close and they wanted me to make a basket.

          On our 50th class reunion, we were at Deer Run and I was standing by our class’ table, when I heard someone yell “Jelly Beano”.  It was real loud over all the noise in the room.  Then as I looked way across the room, I could see George Arnold waving his arm at me.  It was so good to hear that name as it brought back so many good memories of school days and the fun we all had.  I had a lot of really good friends.

          In the winter months, the Mill Pond would freeze over solid.  Many of my friends would bring food and we would all skate on the pond in the evenings.  We would build a bonfire, roast marshmallows, have hot chocolate, tell stories and funny jokes, and just have fun.

Eloping

          One day Bob came to our house and told me he had a fight with his parents and they told him to get out.  His first thought was to come to my house and ask me to go away with him.  We were only 17 years old then and so much in love that I agreed to go with him.  Can you imagine how ignorant we were?  I felt so sorry for him that I went with him.  He decided we needed to go out of the state of Michigan.  This was scary to me.  I was such a home girl.

          Away we went, driving all the way to Indiana.  We slept in the car that night and continued the next day.  On April 2, 1935, we drove into Bristol, Indiana where we saw a house with a sign on the front lawn, “Marriage Licenses and Weddings”.  We went up on the large old fashioned porch and were greeted by a nice couple in their late 70’s.  We told them that we wanted to be married.  They had a little ceremony and she played the piano.  I believe we felt we were married.  I’m not sure how much they charged us, but when we left we didn’t have a paper, a marriage certificate, to bring along.  I guess we didn’t know the difference.  We were young and inexperienced, but the absence of a paper made me wonder.  So I just prayed to the Lord and asked him to bless us in this marriage.  I felt a peace about it and we drove to Frankfort, Kentucky, where Bob looked for a job.  I don’t believe he was successful, because we still slept in the car.  Bob had made the back seat let down and form a bed and he had blankets and pillows in the trunk, so we were comfortable.

          One night we drove until dark and finally, getting very tired, Bob pulled the car into a little two track path where we parked and went to sleep.  The first sign of daylight came and when we heard a noise, we looked to see a big ugly face looking in the car window at us.  The farmer wanted to take his team of horses and wagon down this lane and told us, in no uncertain terms, to move on. It had rained and we were stuck in the mud.  The man hooked the team to our car and pulled us out onto the road.  We thanked him and drove on.

          I am sure we must have been getting low on money, because Bob headed back to Michigan.  When we arrived home, everybody greeted us as if we hadn’t been gone long.  Bob’s parents invited me to stay at their house and I got a job at the Sugar Bowl Restaurant in Ionia for $10.00 a week plus tips.  I would go home weekends and my folks were happy to have me there.  Bob got a job in Lansing, so I moved back with my parents and continued with school.  The teachers helped me make up what subjects I had missed and I still have my history test paper B+.  Bob would spend the weekends with me at my folks home in Saranac.  He stayed and rented a space to sleep at my brother’s house, Lester and Bea’s, in Lansing during the work week.  When school ended, I graduated and we moved to an apartment in Lansing. 

          Now that I am older and writing this all down on paper, it seems like an impossible thing to venture like we did.  One thing I have thought about a lot since I got older and can see things in a more rational light, I wonder why neither of our parents seemed to question where we went or what we did or anything.  I guess they just all knew how much in love we were and trusted us to do the right thing.  We were always in love and never imagine anything keeping us apart.

Cosmetology School

          In 1937 we were living in Lansing.  Bob had a job, so I decided I had time on my hands and could be holding down some kind of job, too.  I signed up to take a course in cosmetology.  I did so well in my training that Mrs. Fisher, the owner of the school, asked me if I would be a junior teacher for the rest of my training time.  When I graduated from Fisher’s School of Cosmetology, I got a job offer right away, with a former student of the school.  Her name was Mary Bush and the shop, Melba’s Beauty Shop, was over a store in downtown Lansing. 

Surprise Trip To Sandusky

          One time on a Friday night, I had just bought a pretty ruffly dress and Bob came by the shop and suggested that we take off for the weekend and go to Sandusky, Ohio.  We drove almost all night on roads with water on each side, until we reached Sandusky.  It was 3:00 AM and we found a room right close to downtown.  The lady said she would keep it quiet so we could sleep late.  We woke up at 8:00 AM with a bright sun coming in the window.  We showered and walked across the street to a waterfront restaurant.  We ate at a table out on the verandah where we could watch speed boats zipping across Sandusky Bay.  When we finished eating, we took a ride in one of the speed boats and they took us all the way out to the open waters of Lake Erie.  The whole experience was so special.  It stays in my mind as something magical that I will never forget.

John’s Birth

          While working at the beauty shop, I became pregnant with John, so we moved to a better apartment on Garden St. where we had the upstairs.  A couple owned the house and had a young son.  Because of my pregnancy, I would get real sick in the morning.  I had to walk half a block to the corner to catch a bus.  I would be very sick by a big tree at the corner before the bus would come, but then I was OK from then on to ride the bus and work all day.  Because I didn’t eat very much, I got very thin.  I finally started to feel better after a few months.  We looked around for a house to rent and found a one bedroom house located just over the railroad tracks on the north outskirts of Lansing on Hungerford St.  It was just a few blocks from where my sister Anna lived with her family.  We could walk back and forth to visit each other.

          We had a small pot bellied stove in the living room which heated the whole house.  We walked along the railroad tracks and picked up pails of coal that fell off the trains that passed.  We used it all winter to heat the house.  There was no running water in the house but there was a well with a pump operated by hand, that we would get our water from.  I had an old washing machine with a wringer and tubs to rinse the clothes in, but all the water had to be hauled by hand.

          When it was time for John to be born, I was taken to the St. Lawrence Hospital in Lansing, a Catholic hospital.  The care was very good.  The only thing I didn’t like was when they wheeled me into the delivery room, I was given medication that put me to sleep.  I never awoke to see my baby when it was born.  I kept asking to see my baby but they ignored me.  I was afraid that the baby had died.  I covered my face with a blanket and cried for hours.  Finally, Bob came in after he got off work and he was caring a big bassinet with two handles.  That made me laugh.  I knew that my baby was fine and we could take him home.

          Bob said he had called his mother, who was a Registered Nurse, and she was coming to stay with us for a while.  We decided ahead of time to name the baby John Robert if it was a boy.  Bob’s mother stayed two weeks and fixed lots of raw cabbage because it had niacin because was healthy for me.  I chewed on it all hours of the day.  She was a very good cook.

Pottersville

          We rented a little one bedroom house between Lansing and Pottersvllle while John was little.   It had shiny floors, nice furniture, and lace curtains.  The house was in the country and the soil was so rich that I made a big garden.  It produced so much food that it fed us and all the neighbors.

          One time, we had a small house trailer Bob had built, and had it sitting in our back yard. John was in his walker and was pushing himself through the long grass and reached up to touch the trailer.  Bob was working on the other side.  It suddenly came off it’s supports and the corner fell on John’s walker, bending it down onto his legs.  When he cried, Bob and I ran and lifted it up.  He just missed having his legs crushed.  It was very close.

          Soon after that we moved closer to Pottersville into the front half of a two story house.  The lady who owned the house lived in the back half.  Bob’s parents brought us two bushels of fresh picked corn and I was so blessed that the landlady knew how to can corn and had all the empty jars in her cellar.  She had a big steam cooker to fix the corn.  It certainly tasted good and none of it spoiled.  I think she said to use one teaspoon salt and one teaspoon sugar and fill with hot water and pressure cook.  It’s been so long, I can’t remember any more about it.

          Before we lived in the two story house, we lived on the second floor of another house for a short time that was on the other side of Pottersville.  There, Bob built a whole model (perfect to scale) of a house he wanted to build.  He did it because he needed to learn how to cut and fit boards for rafters and all the other details.

Building our First House

          Bob was working at the Luce Factory in Lansing all this time.  In his spare time and weekends we looked around and found an empty lot next to the school in Pottersville.  Bob’s father had a life insurance policy and he borrowed $400.00 from it for us.  Bob bought all the used lumber he would need for the house.  He later paid him back.

          We built a house on the lot.  It was a very small cute house.  We didn’t have enough money to put siding on it, so we put waterproof paper on the inside and tar paper on the outside walls.

          During the whole time we were building the house, I was pregnant.  I mixed all the cement for the whole basement, while Bob built the basement walls and threw in huge rocks that we had spent the summer bringing from farm lands.  When we moved in, we got a neighbor boy, 15, to help me.  We moved our furniture from the place we were renting, including the pot belly stove.

Joyce’s Birth

          By the time it was finished, I was nine months pregnant with Joyce.  I had just hung the curtains to the windows when my cousins, Roy and Iva Train, came to visit.  We all had a good supper and I was doing the dishes when I felt pains and went to the hospital in Charlotte.

          The doctor had his own hospital and one nurse.  It was an old mansion with a huge curving staircase.  I had to manage to walk up it.  When John was born, I was put to sleep and didn’t wake up until the following day.  I told the doctor I wanted to be awake when this baby was born.  The nurse told me to picture swimming on my back in a river with a slow current.  We sat and had a cup of tea and crackers together and then I said the baby was coming.  I did just what she said and with each pain, I would swim with the fast current and there was the baby in only 3 pushes and no bad pain.  Bob built a porch for the doctor for the price of the hospital and delivery.

The Store-front House

          When we lived in Pottersville at one time, when John was 3 and Joyce was 1, we rented a little store front building.  It came right up to the sidewalk but we had heavy drapes so no one could look in.  By the time we paid the rent, there wasn’t much money left.  One time, Bob’s brother, Ed and Pauline, came to stay with us.  They slept on a let-out couch in the living room.  They didn’t have much money, either.  We put our money together to buy a little hamburger and I fixed potatoes.  Somehow we made a meal every day.

          A very big house was next to us and I guess the people had plenty of money.  The lady was real nice and brought over clothes that they didn’t need.  I sat and sewed dresses for Joyce and made little pants for John from the fabric.  I enjoyed sewing by hand.  On Thanksgiving, they had a big turkey and when they cut all the meat off it that they wanted, they brought over the whole roaster to us.  It had meat and dressing in it.  I cooked vegetables with it and fixed baked apples for desert.  It was a really good meal.

          I really believe people need to go through some hard times to appreciate the good times.  God always looks after us.

Galloping Tea Party

          While in Pottersville, we lived on the second floor of another house for a short time.  Bob was working in Lansing and the town’s people asked me to be in a town play.  They were all so nice and it was fun being in the play.  Later on in the summer, a group of ladies asked me to bring John and Joyce to take part in a “Galloping Tea Party”,  which they held about every two weeks.  We would start walking with our children in buggies and strollers until we got to a house where the lady had tea, coffee and a snack.  After visiting a little while, we would continue walking to another home and there we would have another treat.  Finally, we would get back home and prepare supper for our husbands.  It was very pleasant and we all got to know each other.  The streets were all lined with huge shade trees and the lawns were beautifully edged with flowers.  It was pleasant to walk together.

Carl’s Birth

          When we lived on Alpha street, I was pregnant with Carl, and when he was born, he was so large, he weighed nearly 10 pounds.  The nurses loved Carl.  They would carry him all over and show him off.  They called him “their little elephant”.  All the neighbors had a nice baby shower for me.  We received so many useful gifts.

       

Tap-dancing

          When Joyce and John were young, we decided to let them join a class of dancing, tap and ballet.  They learned very quickly from a real nice young teacher.  When they had improved to the point of Joyce and John doing a duet of tap-dancing, I made them costumes.  Joyce’s was a jacket and shorts and John’s was a jacket and long pants, all in black satin.  The collars were covered in silver metallic material and the jackets were split in the back and had tails.

          They went out of town with the dance group to perform quite often at different cities.  I can’t remember how long they were in the dance group but they had fun.  I don’t know why I never took pictures of them.  I wish I had.  I don’t believe I took any pictures myself but I’m sure that the young teacher took many.

Many Exhausting Moves

          Bob built many homes and duplexes around the Lansing area, while we lived in a tri-level on Maycroft Street, in NW Lansing.  Then we moved to Alpha Street, off Mount Hope Avenue. While living on Alpha Street in Lansing, John got real sick and was in lots of pain.  the doctor came to the house and told us he had appendicitis.  He was taken to the hospital right away and he didn’t develop anything more serious.  He had his appendix removed and was soon well again.

          Then we moved again to Brookfield Drive, just off Cedar Street.  While we were living there, Bob built a cottage at Lake Lansing, which we used only on weekends.  With three children and Carl in diapers, we were showing the house to sell.  While we were at the lake on the weekends, a Realtor was showing our home.  Washing and packing clothes for the lake, making the house spotless clean, and preparing food made me exhausted.  I can’t remember any other time I would get so worn out to go to a lake to relax and in two days come back home again.  Ha!!

          This was also when all three of the children had both chicken pox and measles at the same time.  It was very bad.  They were so sick and I had no one to come and help me.  Finally, they all got better because of lots of calamine lotion and story reading.  I would read if they promised not to scratch.  They never had any scars.

The Little Red Rowboat

          While living on Alpha Street, Bob built me a little red rowboat for my birthday present.  When spring came and he tried to get it out of the basement, where he had built it, it was not possible.  The boat was so big that he had to tear the stairway apart.  Then he could get it out.          We enjoyed my little red rowboat on Lake Lansing.  I would get up at 4:00 AM, while Bob and the children were asleep yet, and go out fishing.  I knew a special place to catch northern pike.  I also caught bluegills and sunfish.  We had lots of good fried fish suppers.  We also bought an old used launch and used it on the lake.

Lake Lansing Peanuts

          In the year 1945 our family lived at Lake Lansing, near Lansing, Michigan.  Bob had built onto our small cottage, making one bedroom and a library down and two bedrooms upstairs.  The cottage had originally had one large room with a fireplace and small corner kitchen and a large screened in front porch facing the lake.  It was a very pleasant place to live.  On one side were cottages and on the other side were woods.  Beyond the woods was the well kept county park.  At this time our family consisted of Bob, Me, John (age 8), Joyce (age 6), and Carl (age 3).

          Bob had a large two car garage behind the house.  He decided to build a twenty five foot motor sailor in his spare time.  He was busy building houses in Lansing but always seemed to have enough extra time, especially in the cold months, to do something he liked to do, such as building a new boat.  Already, he had built me a little red row boat and went on to build a beautiful shiny speed boat, which he sold.  Then he went on to build a sixteen foot sail boat - a racer.  Soon he sold the racing sail boat to a man who said he was an avid sailor and needed the boat to enter races.

          One beautiful day I had prepared a party for our children and their friends.  There was cake and ice cream and a dish of salted Spanish peanuts in the middle of the table.  As soon as they finished eating, they asked to go to the county park where there were slides and swings to play on.  Everyone was older than Carl so it took him longer to pull away from the table and run out the door and down the steps.  He was hurrying and tumbled head over heels.  I ran out and called the others to wait for Carl but I noticed he was having a hard time getting his breath.  I tipped him over and patted his back.  The park caretaker who was there helped by shaking Carl upside down.  Finally Carl seemed to be OK and could breath better again, so he ran off to the park with the rest.

          Later that night we had all been asleep for some time when I was awakened by a strange wheezing sound.  It sounded like a person having a problem breathing.  The boys’ bedroom was across the hall so I went in there first and listened and leaned over Carl and the wheezing came from him.  He was asleep but having a difficult time breathing.

          I woke up Bob and I called the doctor.  The doctor said we should bring Carl to the emergency room immediately.  They inserted a tube with a light in it into his lungs.  They used a special instrument to scrape the sides of the lungs.  The doctor told us that both lungs were filled with finely chewed peanuts which had caused abscesses to form quickly, filling the breathing space.  The doctor said that if we hadn’t brought Carl in immediately, he would have died because he couldn’t get any air into his lungs.

          Carl was kept in a crib in the hospital for many weeks, under an oxygen tent.  Because of the surgery he developed pneumonia and was kept under the oxygen tent for many more weeks.  We could only visit him through a window to the room.  We were there every day until we could bring him home.  The doctor advised us that, with winter coming, we should take him to Florida or some warm climate until he was strong again.  We made some plans and made a trip to winter in the St. Petersburg, FL area. 

Pinellas Park

          We talked about where to move and decided to go to Pinellas Park, near St. Petersburg, Florida.  It was an undeveloped area where Bob would be able to build small houses to sell.  Also we could purchase a lot on the bay and build a dock to tie up the sail boat.  This was all accomplished with many problems along the way.  First we sold our home on Lake Lansing.  Bob bought an old truck to pull the boat on a trailer.  We packed up all our things, I drove the car, and we started out to Florida.

          The truck had fifteen flat tires on the trip plus many mechanical problems.  Bob would use the car to drive to a garage for needed supplies for repair and to get tires fixed.  It was a long tiresome trip.  At one stop John, Carl, and I waited along the roadside while Bob and Joyce drove to get supplies and repairs.  John was investigating a huge culvert and saw a big spider web with a black widow spider in the middle of the web, which was pretty scary.

          When Bob and Joyce returned with the repaired tire, they told us they had bought ice cream cones and when Bob went in to pay the man, Joyce stood outside eating her cone.  A big wild hog came out of the woods and ate the cone right out of her hand.  She was frightened and cried.  Bob got her another cone and they got into the car and returned to us.

          The country side was open range back then and all along the road every little way would be a dead cow that had been hit by a car or truck.  It was a terrible odor and we all would hold our noses until we had gotten quite a distance past.

          We were glad to arrive in Florida finally.  We found a nice two story house to buy in Pinellas Park.  It had a porch on two sides of the house that was screened.  We could sleep on the porch on really hot nights. In the back yard was a large building just right to keep the boat in while Bob finished working on it.  In the side yard was a big citrus grove, so we ate fresh oranges and grapefruit every morning.  In town there was a store of sorts, a gas station, and an old brick school building.  John and Joyce attended school there in the fall.  At Halloween time, John said the school was having a big costume party and he needed a real good costume.  We found a box that fit his head, pasted white paper on it, and painted faces on each side with eye holes.  He wore a white sheet from the neck down.  He won first prize and he was so excited.

          Around the block from our house a family lived in a broken down house.  They had a large family with some children Joyce’s age.  She made friends with them while they all rode their bikes on the sidewalk.  These people were real Florida ‘Crackers’, a slang term for people who had lived all their lives in Florida and spoke with a strong southern accent.  Joyce was playing with the children so much that she easily picked up their way of speaking.  Where ever we went people noticed that she spoke really southern.  She liked it, “You all”.

          On our drive each day, to where we were building a dock for our boat, we passed by a fish market by the bridge.  They had fresh fish brought in daily.  It was our favorite food so we brought home three kinds of seafood on our way home every day.  The lady told me a recipe for southern fried fish.  We had sea bass, oysters, shrimp, scallops, snapper, and other sea foods.  I would fix them in my iron skillet.  I cleaned the fish, dipped them in a mixture of whipped eggs and water, then into seasoned flour, and then fried them.  Nothing could taste better after a long day of work.  Carl’s health returned and he had rosy cheeks and was back to normal.

          One day Bob said, “the boat is finished enough to take it out in the gulf”.  We packed some food and motored out the canal onto John’s Pass, which was the only opening to the gulf.  We had to pass under a bridge before entering the gulf.  As we got closer, we motioned to the bridge tender to open the bridge so we could pass through.  He just stood there looking in our direction but didn’t make a move to open the bridge.

          At the last minute, as we could feel the heavy current of the rushing water pulling us toward the bridge, Bob turned the steering wheel to the left and the boat turned just in time before being pulled under the bridge.

          If we had gone under the bridge, the mast on our boat would have caused our boat to tip over on it’s side and possibly capsize.  What a lesson we learned.  All boats must have a horn and know all the rules of how to use the horn to open the bridges.  Just two blows on the horn and we would have notified the bridge tender to open the bridge.  We were ignorant of such a simple rule and could have been drowned.  That was an unnecessarily close call to death.

Carolyn, An Overdue Baby

          After 3 months in Florida, Carl seemed very healthy and robust again.  I was due to have my fourth baby soon so we packed up and moved back up to Michigan.  We rented a house on McCullough St. in Lansing, near my brother Lester’s home.  Bob decided to hire a young man and build a new home for us to move into in Okemos.  The young man’s wife came to help me, since I was having a problem with house work and the baby was overdue.

          The baby had gotten very large and didn’t appear to be ready to be born.  My doctor said it could be because of our trip to Florida and back during the pregnancy.  I had lost a lot of weight but the baby was very large.  The doctor didn’t seem to be too worried but counseled with other doctors and told me one of the doctors was from England.  He wanted to be present to observe the birth since it was now nearly 2 months past due.

          By this time, I couldn’t walk upstairs, as the baby would drop when I took a step up.  Very soon after that, I started to have labor pains.  All we had was a big old dump truck then, so Bob lifted me up into the truck seat for the ride to Sparrow hospital.  We barely made it and they were ready and transported me on a gurney to the delivery room.  Almost immediately the baby came.  It was a girl and we named her Carolyn.  Carolyn was very alert and seemed to be aware of everything and everyone around her.  The doctor from England said it was definitely a 2 month overdue baby.

          Grandma Swanberg, who was an RN came and helped at the house.  She said she had never seen such an old acting new born and Carolyn seemed so smart.  Even after Grandma had gone back to her home, I continued to have a lady help me for a few more months.

Sailing trip to Manistique

          One summer, Bob decided to take a week or two off from work and sail up to Manistique, on the southern shore of Michigan’s upper peninsula.  This trip would cause us to sail northwest across a great span of open water.  John and Joyce were old enough to enjoy being on a sailboat that long but Carl was too young and stayed with Grandpa and Grandma Swanberg on the farm.  Our sailboat was very sturdy, made of steel, and it was a motor sailor named Swan I.

          We sailed out of Charlevoix, MI, early in the morning and headed for Beaver Island.  There was a light house there that was manned by two weather men.  They would let you know the weather report for the next 24 hours.  We climbed up the tall ladder to the top and asked about the weather.  The men called the main weather station and told us that all would be clear until after midnight.  We planned to be at our destination by 6:00 that evening so we felt it would be safe and we headed north.  The first part of the trip was so beautiful as we sailed between many small islands.  One island was named Gull Island, because it was where all the sea gulls nested.  I had never seen so many sea gulls in one place before.  I knew gulls could be noisy on a beach if someone threw food into the air and they would fight for a piece of food, but I had never heard so much noise and chatter.

          Soon we were past the islands and heading north into the open water , sailing at a good clip.  It was very pleasant.  Then we noticed it was getting very dark in the north.  That was unusual because summer storms in Michigan usually came from the west.  As the black rolling clouds moved closer, they appeared to have an orange color in them.  It gave the appearance of fire and billowing black smoke.  Bob and I were getting worried so we fastened everything down tight.  We all had life jackets on and discussed what to do if the wind was real strong and tipped the boat.  Our sails were down and fastened securely.  I was worried about John and Joyce.  If they were thrown out of the boat, they could drown in the high waves.  I decided to go below and knelt on my knees and prayed for the Lord to save us.  I had always trusted the Lord to take care of our family and he always had.  I knew he would this time too.  I went up on deck and Bob said, “Something strange has happened.  The wind stopped blowing and it is so calm.  I’ll have to turn the motor on.”  Looking ahead, it was very black on the east and on the west, toward Wisconsin, there were water spouts.  We seemed to be on a path that led straight ahead where it was calm.  It led us all the way to Manistique with no sails, just the motor.  We looked on the chart and it showed there was a river to follow that would take us to the small town of Manistique.  There was an old ice house with pilings, so we asked the owner if we could tie the boat there for the night.

          It felt good to get out of the boat so we could stretch our legs.  We closed the boat and locked it tight and walked up to the main street where we found a nice small restaurant with home cooked food.  People had seen us come in with our boat and asked how we made it because of the bad storms on the lake.  We told them it was so quiet we couldn’t use our sails, so we motored all the way.  They looked dumbfounded at us.  We said we came from Charlevoix and they said word was that there had been a fishing contest and people in row boats were caught by surprise.  Boats were tipped and many people drowned.  We felt so sorry for those people and such a thankfulness that we had a safe trip. 

          After we ate, we went to a little theater across the street and watched a cute comedy.  John and Joyce enjoyed it, too.  When we got out of the theater, we noticed branches and trash all over the street.  A man told us a small tornado had passed through.  We got to our boat and everything looked good but when we opened the hatch, what a mess!  The wet sawdust from the ice house was all over in our boat.  The bunks were full and the drawers with our clothes in them were a mess.  So were the kitchen drawers.  It took us way into the night to get everything cleaned out so we could go to bed.  John and Joyce were so tired, they were asleep as soon as we cleaned their bunks.  We all slept good that night.  The storms were all gone by then.  I thanked the Lord for such a special blessing.

The House in Okemos

          In the early 1950’s, our family lived in Okemos, MI, on Hamilton Road.  The home was very comfortable with a large pool in the back yard.  The water was pumped by a windmill, not just a regular farm windmill, but a Dutch windmill.  The base was built from split rock which we found in the neighboring farmer’s fields.  The farmers were very glad to have us pick up and remove any stones because it helped them to clear the ground for their crops.  We hand split the rocks so that you could see the real colors of the rocks.  On the outside they were just plain and dirt colored but inside some were green, red, blue, or speckled.  The speckled stones were called pudding stones.  When building the windmill base, the rocks were laid with the cut or flat side out, showing the color.  The windmill was octagon shaped.  The upper level of the windmill had a small deck around with a rail on the edge.  Above it was a shingled housing where wooden blades were mounted to catch the wind, giving the appearance of the Dutch windmill.  The blades had fins so they weren’t solid wood.  It was built on higher land behind the house and was an unusual sight.  Many people stopped to take pictures.  The pool area was fenced in with large pines behind.

          Our home was a brick two story with sandstone on the front.  It had a full basement with a recreation room and a laundry room.  A breezeway connected the house to a two stall garage.  The breezeway was nice to use on warm evenings, since it was screened in.

          In the winter, because our house was built on an knoll, there was a good view of the surrounding area.  We could look across the field to the main highway, which was a busy highway between Lansing and Detroit.  After an all night snowstorm that would close all the smaller roads, we could look over at the highway and tell by the speed of the cars what condition the roads were in and if the snow plows had been through yet.  If the highway had been cleared, we knew that soon our road would be plowed.

          On snow days when the schools were closed, the children would head for the vacant lot next to our home and build a big snow horse, so big that they could all get on at once and have there picture taken.  Those were fun days.  They would also shovel off the snow from the ice on the swimming pool so they could skate.

          Before we had the house built, we lived on McCullough Street. While living there, Carolyn was born.  She was still a baby when we moved in the new house.  Grandma Swanberg was at our home  one day when Carolyn was small and standing on a dining room chair looking out the window, waiting for her daddy to drive in.  When she saw him she said “Come Mom, here’s he.”

          We had thought we would be living in this home while all our children were growing up.  We owned a large piece of land, with our home sitting on the front.  Bob made the land into a small subdivision with a street up the middle.  He named it Swanberg Drive but years after we moved away it was renamed Seneca Drive.  He built homes on both sides of the street and sold them.  Our neighbors were all so nice and all the ladies would get together regularly.

          The children liked the school.  John graduated Salutatorian at Okemos High School and went to college at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.  All the mothers of the senior class members put our green stamp books together and bought several deep friers.  We were able to get several tubs of Smelt (a small fish from northern Michigan) and we put on deep fried Smelt dinners.  We earned money for the senior class trip that year.

          When Carl was in the 5th grade in Okemos, his teacher called me in for a conference.  She told me Carl has it all up here (pointing to her head) but he wouldn’t get serious and work for good marks in class.  We talked to Carl to get him to work hard and get the grades he was capable of getting.  I think it made a difference.

          My Mother came to live with us in Okemos.  She had been living alone in Saranac since my father’s death.  After she had visited each one of my brothers and sister’s homes, it was decided that she would stay with us because she was needed the most at my house.  She said she felt at home with us.

Mary, Another Overdue Baby

          When Mary was born, she was six weeks overdue.  I was hurried to the delivery room and the doctor said that I was ready to deliver right away.  Then he and a young nurse left the room .  I was having strong labor pains and couldn’t hold the baby back, so the two nurses put ether over my nose and both nurses held my legs together by leaning on them.  They were hoping the doctor would come back soon.  But, it was much later when he came in and I had had too much ether by then.  When I did finally start to come to, they were slapping my face and putting cold clothes on my face to wake me up.  They called Bob in and he called my mother to try to get me to wake up and talk to her.  After some time, I did.  I guess they nearly lost me and Mary from too much ether.  Later, I asked a nurse why the doctor didn’t come back and she whispered that he was having an affair with a young nurse.  It was a close call.

          When I got to see Mary, she was so pretty.  About the prettiest little baby I’d ever seen.  She had blond hair and beautiful fair skin.  My mother helped a lot to take care of her.

Arthur, A Premature Baby

          Mary was born while we lived in Okemos and also Arthur.  I was pregnant with Arthur when Bob completed the sailing ketch, Swan II, in a large building behind our house.  The ketch was 41 foot long and beautiful.  One day Bob, John, and another man, took the boat on a trailer and pulled it to Holland.  They put it in the water at a boat yard there.  That weekend, because I was 7 months pregnant and the weather was extremely hot, we all decided to go down to Holland and clean the boat and get it ready for sailing.  I invited Marilyn, my niece, to go with us.  We wiped all the inside of the boat to get the sawdust off, especially the ceiling which was covered with a white shiny pressed board.  When we finished, we decided to go for a short walk around the edge of the bay.  On the way back from the walk, I had to sit down many times on a stone wall that edged the bay.

          I fixed supper when we got back .  Everyone sat down to eat but I went to lay down on the bunk because of pain in my stomach.  Soon I realized that the baby was ready to be born, two months early.  We weren’t sure where the hospital was in Holland, but one of the workers at the boatyard said he would lead the way there.  Arthur was born in just a short time.  He was so small, just over 4 pounds, so he was kept in the hospital for an extra few days until his weight reached 5 pounds.  I carried him on a small pillow, as he seemed so tiny.

          While I was in the hospital, it was very warm and there was no air conditioning, so all the windows were left open.  Small flies constantly were coming in and I was kept busy brushing them off the bed.  One night I heard a noise on the fire escape and it was an elderly man in his hospital gown, crawling down the stairs.  It was a strange sight.  Pretty soon some staff members noticed his absence, found him, and brought him back.

          The room was a 4 bed ward and one of the mothers hadn’t seen her new baby yet.  When they brought her baby in, he was a beautiful baby boy.  She lifted the blanket and cursed and said “ ----  another boy!  I already have 3 boys! I want a girl! Take him away!!”  I was so sad.  I’m sure that later on she would be pleased with her new baby boy, hopefully.  But I never forgot it.

          The doctor who delivered Arthur told me that by examining his eyes, they could tell he was retarded.  Arthur was born with a hernia.   Every time he had any nourishment, the hernia had to be held in while the food digested.  This lasted for two months until he was birth age.  Then he could have surgery to correct the problem.

          Later when we moved to northern Michigan, Arthur was old enough to attend kindergarten.  He had to repeat kindergarten because he couldn’t keep pace.  Bob and I tried to get a school started for the retarded.  It would take a lot of time and red tape.  We needed a school right away and realized that we had to move to find one. 

Bob’s Illness

          Bob finished all the homes in our subdivision.  Then he began building big huge expensive homes in East Lansing, near the college, for doctors and professors.  He had five houses under construction all at once, when he began having a serious problem with his blood pressure.  The doctor had tried many different medications but none worked.  He told Bob he had to find a job he could do that was not so stressful, possibly a hobby that he could pursue that would earn a living and still keep him relaxed.

       

Memories of Portage Lake

          Our family moved to Portage Lake in 1955.  Bob had built a 41 foot ketch sailing boat, so it was decided that we would sail north along the Lake Michigan shore line until we found some property suitable for him to have a boat yard, docks, and a nice home to live in.

          We sailed until we reached Portage Lake.  The entrance was nice and wide.  As we looked at the lake, it looked like a huge bowl with the bottom being the beautiful blue green water and the sides were the tree lined hillsides.

          I knew that Aunt Rose Fuller, my Dad’s sister, lived in a small cottage along the south side of the lake so we headed that way.  We saw a man standing back among the trees and he came out to the dock and told us the area was called ‘Weekawatchee’, where Aunt Rose lived.  We tied up our boat and the man led us to her cottage.  She was so happy to see us.  We told her that we were looking for property on the lake for a boat yard.  She introduced us to a neighbor, Mr. Hansen, who owned fifteen acres along the lake on the south side.  We walked all around the property and it appeared to be suitable so we purchased the property.  All during the next winter we enjoyed making trips up to the lake on weekends.  We rented a small cabin from the Hansens for headquarters while we cleared the land, with the help of several neighbors.  We would cook meals over the coals from the fires.  Sometimes we had hot-dogs and marshmallows in the evenings.  Everybody had a good time.

          During the summer of 1954, Bob, Albin, his dad, and a hired man were building a small cottage at one end of the property which we would live in while building the larger home.  I stayed in Okemos while the children were in school and we drove up north on weekends.  Bob’s parents put a small house trailer near our property and his mother took a job at the hospital as a dietitian.  They moved there permanently from their farm in Ionia, Michigan.

          In 1954, my father, Frank Benjamin, died and also that year Carolyn, at age 7, got polio.  Carolyn could not walk because the polio had affected her legs.  As the house was being built, I would drive the family up north and Joyce and I would walk Carolyn, holding her by her arms in the hot sand.  This seemed to help her legs gain strength and it wasn’t long before she could walk on her own.

          The house that was being built was large.  Bob had a shipment of Tennessee Quartz come by train to be used to cover the outside of our home.  There was an attached three car garage.  The house faced north, looking out over the lake.  A small clear spring-fed creek circled the back yard and emptied into the lake.  A beautiful natural wooden bridge was built over the creek to get to the yet-to-be-built boat yard and docks.

          While the house was being built, the family stayed in the small cottage that had been built already.  It had bunks enough so our family could all sleep in it.  It was a time of family closeness that I can remember well.

          Later, after we had moved into the main house, the cabin was used to rent to week end visitors that came to the church camp next door.  The camp was located farther down Ellen Ave. and was a large camp with many cabins.  Our children enjoyed being invited to attend parties, picnics, and swims over at the camp.  The managers, the Andersons, had several young children in their family the same ages as my children.  It was very helpful to get to know someone for them to be friends with, since we didn’t yet know any people in Onekama, across the lake.

          As soon as school started, as a family we became acquainted with many of the area people.  Most of these people were winter people since many left when the summer ended.  Others were just summer residents.

          During the summer, John, our eldest, would be home from college and help with the building of the boat house and docks.  Carl was five years younger and helped too.

          Bob built a big dredge and pile driver.  The dredge was used to suck the sand from the lake to make it deeper for big boats and deposit the sand through long pipes up to the low spots on land.  The pile driver was used to put all the pilings in good and deep so they would be sturdy to put docks on.

The Frozen Lake

          In the winter when big storms came, the ice on the lake would move and tip over or loosen up the pilings.  Bob figured out a way to pipe warm water out to the pilings so the ice could never form around them.  This kept the pilings from being destroyed.

          In the spring when warm rains would come, the ice, even though it was 2 feet thick, would turn to a honeycomb texture and it’s clear icy color would turn to a greenish gray look. The upper portion would melt away a little and reveal all the dead minnows and other bait and anything that had been encased in the ice.  This was a time when the gulls would come in droves and chatter and call loudly while they cleaned up every little thing they could find to eat.  They would fuss and fight over pulling a frozen minnow from the melting ice.  Their bird conversations were different than any other time of year.  They had a special language of hunger and conflict.  These are times that I will always remember.

          Later in the spring as the ice would slowly melt and disappear

from the lake, the large white Canada Geese would come floating quietly along the shoreline.  What a regal bird.  It was a wonderful sight to see.  The children grew up enjoying all these wonderful sights of nature.  I considered it a special blessing to us.  It was so different than living in an urban area.

The Elusive Morel Mushroom

          One May, as I was talking to my father-in-law, Albin, I was telling about the fun of looking in the woods and fields for the Morel Mushrooms.  He just laughed and said “I like trout fishing. It’s more exciting to pull a trout out of the icy cold waters of a creek”.  But I said there is a different kind of excitement about walking in the woods early in the spring when all you would see were brown fallen leaves and then you would notice one leaf was tipped up on edge and out from under it was growing a light brown sponge like mushroom.  Then you would run to it and push the leaf away and there you would reveal a beautiful three inch tall mushroom.  Quickly, you put it in your basket and hurriedly look for another one peeping out from under the leaves, and there would be another one.  Even Albin would let out a squeal when he found them, as did the children.  It was really different to experience the excitement of finding something coming out of the ground that hadn’t been there just one hour before and if left alone another day it would be dried up and just a dark brown crusted uninteresting piece of the wood’s ground cover.  Afterwards Grandpa Albin said, “I have to admit this is more exciting than trout fishing.  I like it better.”  We went home and cut them in half lengthwise, washed them real well, dipped them in flour, and fried them in butter.  Ooh!  How good they were, just a little better than steak.  Each morning we could go out and find more all through the month of May.

Ice Fishing

          During the summer, Grandpa , the children, and I all enjoyed fishing from a boat.  We caught lake perch, bass, sunfish, and bluegills.  They are all good when fried southern style or baked.  However, the summer is short in northern Michigan.  Much of the year is cold and the winters get very cold.  Ice on the lake can get 2 or more feet thick.  Bob built me an ice fishing shanty on runners.  It had bottled gas heat for those very cold times.  One evening, we pushed the shanty out to the middle of the lake near the opening to Lake Michigan.  I had help to chop a hole in the thick ice.  I was just getting my bait on the hook and was lowering it down into the hole, when I saw several large Whitefish swimming from the big lake towards the smaller lake waters.  As my baited hook touched the water, a large white fish came towards it quickly.  I just pulled the bait up and the fish came right up through the hole and flopped on the shanty floor without ever touching the bait.  I dropped the bait down again and another fish, like a flash, came after it as I pulled the bait up, and flopped onto the shanty floor.  This continued until the floor was covered with beautiful big white fish.  Then the door opened and Carl came out to see how I was doing and was so surprised to see the floor covered with white fish.  Carl left to get a sled and big pail so we could bring all the fish home.  He also called Mr. Johanson and told him to go out to the shanty and get some fish for himself.  He was a neighbor who loved fishing and you could always see him out on the boat fishing during the summer.

          We brought our fish home and cleaned and filleted them and put them in bags in the freezer.  Later on, Mr. Johanson told us he got enough fish to last him all winter. 

          We enjoyed the lake in the winter as well as the summer.  Some times, when the snow had been blown off the ice, we could skate across the lake.  It would be like a sheet of smooth glass.  There was always something interesting to enjoy summer and winter.

A Sailing Trip on Swan II

          Bob built a forty one foot ketch.  It was a beautiful sail boat with sleek lines and it could sleep 8 people.  In the head (the bathroom), which usually is a very small space on a boat, he built a vanity for me.  It was very special to me because when you are out on the water for weeks you still have a place to keep your personal things.  One time we took the children with us, all except the youngest ones.  They didn’t enjoy staying confined on a boat very long and could only go on short trips.  This time we made special plans to go to Mackinaw Island.  We spoke ahead to have a docking space right near the store area.

          It was so nice to have our own quarters to live in and still enjoy the island and all it had to offer.  We visited all the small gift shops and each day we bought ice cream cones from the homemade ice cream shop.  We also bought Mackinaw Island fudge, which is a specialty on the island.  We hiked on the paths all around the area and one day, it was around four o’clock, we decided to rent a horse and buggy and take the trip around the island.  The one thing the owners should have told us, but didn’t, was that there was a certain time in the late afternoon when all the horses were fed their meal.  We had been gone only a short time when the horse kept stopping and trying to turn around and go back to his barn.  The path was narrow and there was no room for the buggy to be turned around.  Bob had to keep slapping the horse with the reins to get him to keep going until we got to a place wide enough to turn around.  The horse was happy and trotted all the way back to the barn to get to his stall and his oats.  We didn’t get a very long ride and we weren’t given any of our money back.

          The next day we left the island and sailed back to Mackinaw City on the mainland.  Joyce said she had to get back to work the next morning and it would take too long to go by water and sail the boat to the town where we had left our car by the dock.  It was decided that Joyce, Carolyn, and I would get off the boat and get a train or bus back to our car and then drive home that day.  We left the sailboat and they left the dock to continue their sailing trip south down Lake Michigan.  There we were, the three of us, standing on the street wondering where we could get information about getting a train or bus ride back to the car.  Everyone we asked told us it was too late in the season and that the train stopped making the trip the week before.  Also, the bus had left early in the day and there wouldn’t be another one that day.

          We decided the only thing left to do was hitchhike back.  We prayed that the Lord would keep us safe along our way and then we stood by the road.  I held my thumb up for a ride and soon a man stopped and asked us where we needed to go.  He said he was a fisherman, and would give us a ride to where he had to turn off for his lake to fish.  We decided it was better than just standing there so we got in the car.  After about twenty miles, he stopped and said this is where he had to turn off.  So we got out of the car and stood by the road and another car stopped.  They seemed to be a very nice couple and they gave us a ride to Petoskey.  Now we were in town and wondered if we would be able to get another ride.  Soon another car stopped and they were a young couple with a small child.  They were very nice and when they found out we needed to get to our car, they told us it was getting late in the day and they wanted to bring us right to the dock where our car sat.  They waited until they saw us start the car and drive away before they left.  We knew then that the Lord had heard our prayers and had protected us along the whole way.

          When we arrived home, we were told there was a telephone call saying that the sail boat had been caught in a big wind storm off the pier at Frankfort, which was about twenty five miles north of Portage Lake.  The tornado winds had tipped the boat sideways and the big main sail had gone to the top of the mast and caught up there.  They were nearly swamped by high waves.  The wet sail was almost impossible to get loosened so John climbed the slippery mast and unhooked the sail and brought it down, risking his life while the coast guard watched from shore.

          They finally sailed into the channel and were safe.  They didn’t want to sail on home because of the storm.  Mary and I picked them up at the dock at Frankfort.  They were very thankful to get off the boat and onto solid land and were also glad that the girls and I weren’t with them.  They were really upset about their narrow escape and told us all the details while we drove towards home.  We all enjoyed our trips on the sailboat, but there is always a chance of a freak storm coming up.  You have to always be ready.

Ann’s Birth

          We were living on Portage Lake when I was expecting another baby, Ann.  It just happened that one day while Bob and the boys were in for lunch, I began to feel labor pains.  Soon my water broke, so Bob hurried me to the hospital in Manistee, 12 miles away.  We made it just in time before Ann was born.  When we brought Ann home from the hospital, each day a different neighbor would come over to see the new baby.  She was a beautiful baby but while people were visiting, they could never see her awake.  At the hospital, the nurses kept her awake all night and then she slept all day.  When we got her home, it continued to be that way.  Of course, I was the one who would be awake holding her at night so she wouldn’t cry and wake everybody.  Finally, I was so tired, that it was decided to ask Bob’s parents, who lived next door, if they would come over and take turns keeping her awake all day.  They did that for several days until she finally slept nights and was awake days.  What a relief!

Donna’s Birth

          Two years after Ann was born, we found out we were expecting another child, number eight.  I had gained some extra weight, so when it was time for Donna to be born, I had a long delivery.  Partly it was because I was 41 years old and partly because she was a very large baby and just wouldn’t come.  When she was finally delivered, she was so pretty and healthy.

          That was when we decided not to have any more children.  Eight was enough!  My Eight Beautiful Dolls!!

The Florida Move

          During the next few months, our children had what the doctor called ‘non specific bronchitis’.  They were all real sick except Mary, who didn’t get it.  It acted like whooping cough.  After about 3 or 4 weeks, the children began to get better except Arthur, who continued to be very ill for 8 weeks.  During this whole time our doctor, who lived in Onekama, would pass by our house every day on his way to the hospital in Manistee.  Every morning and evening he would stop by and check on the children.

          Arthur couldn’t eat well and became very dehydrated.  The doctor said he was better cared for in our home than in a hospital.  Later he told us that if we could get Arthur to Florida or some other warm place, he would have a chance.  If we couldn’t, we would most likely lose him the next winter.  So, in the fall of 1960, we packed up and all moved to Fort Myers, Florida. 

          What a huge task it was to do.  We only took the essentials with us because we thought it would be a temporary situation.  We left all our valuables and family heirlooms in the house.  We had no idea that we would never live there again.

          It soon became evident that Arthur would need to stay, in order to get the special schooling he needed. The next spring, Bob sold the house and had to go north early, to sign papers and empty our things out of the house.  The rest of the family couldn’t leave until school was out.  All the moving happened while I was still in Florida waiting for school to end.  By the time the children and I finally arrived, many of our possessions were lost in the move.  Bob later sold the boatyard.

          Our life in Michigan had come to an end.  We now had a new life in Florida and our future ahead of us.