Millie on that smooth rock. It was on the edge of the hill that sloped to the Farley road side. Mom grew flowers in this section too.
Food was never grown in this area.
When the really bad winter came with the huge and long snow storm, Ma would have us dump the slops bucket here after she dug a hole in the snow. Even in winter we had to cover it up with snow so it didn't smell. She said in the spring as it melted it would go into the soil and be dug under. It was real embarrassing to any of us who had the chore of dumping that.
When the weather was good it went in the out house and if the ground was snow covered but we had a path it would be dumped in the woods to be buried come spring. Dad usually did that till I was old enough to do it at times.
A teenage Nancy actually shoveling snow. She seldom had chores and we didn't seem to mind. It was just the way it was. She was always the baby of the family.
Snow shoveling was a family event with each of us shoveling till we were too sore and tired and frozen to do anymore. Then the shovel would be passed to the next one. I'd have said volunteered here but you never did some of these chores on purpose. You were told to do them and you did them.
Sue in the sun.
Me bursting out of my too small shirt. It was probably a boys shirt not made to have space for breasts. The spot you see on the shirt was on the negative not on my shirt. I liked wearing shirts. I think now that I'm looking back on all this that I was ashamed of them, the breasts not the shirts. It was because I felt they were huge and the other girls in my class had nothing of which to compare them.
I'm wearing a cross that I think but I'm not sure someone sent me in the mail. We also bought stuff in the bead store as we got older. Later this cross went with some other things on to a charm bracelet I had. I may still have it. I'm not sure about it.
The top I'm wearing is not only home made but Mom made it from material she got when she worked at Troy Shirt Guild. She started as a sewer and advanced to inspector. She got paid forty dollars a week take home pay. Dad would complain about the low pay but at the time he wasn't working and it was all we had till I was working or he got a new job.
Mom worked there it seems to me a long time. They let the workers buy bags of material scraps and sections of yardage that didn't make it as usable. They made shirts from a lot of expensive fabrics from around the world and were sold in fancy stores like Saks. They made Arrow shirts as I remember.
Mom would work all day and come home to make dinner and do what housework we couldn't do.
Then she'd sit up half the night using that excess material to make pot holders, aprons and what ever else she could to take back to the factory and sell to the other ladies.
Dad was recovering from his stomach surgery.
He would eat barbecued potato chips and lots of fried potatoes, boiled potatoes, mashed potatoes and that detested salt pork.
One day he was sleeping. I think he'd been working nights then. I think it was for the highway department but it could have been when he was a night watchman at Story Town in Lake George.
Mom went in the bed room for some reason while we were in school, probably and found him with blood gushing out of his mouth. She called an ambulance and got him to the hospital. I don't remember all the details here.
Dad had an x-ray to see if he had ulcers a week or so before this and it came back negative. It was wrong. The doctor told Mom it was too big to see on the x-ray. I really never understood that.
He told Mom to get all the family together just in case he didn't make it. Its been years since then but just writing this down now gives me goose bumps. It was a terrible scary time.
Anna was in South Carolina, maybe Paris Island. She was married to OC by then. She came back but she was real mean about it. She said when she left that she was never coming back again.
The Marines did something nice though. They got an OK some how to have Marines volunteer to donate 50 pints of blood in Dad's name. He didn't get the same blood of course but we didn't have to pay for the eleven pints of blood they had to put in Dad to keep him alive while they set up and did the operation. Later they told us it was touch and go because as soon as the blood went in him it came back out. I remember waiting in the waiting room at the hospital with Mom and Dad and Millie. I don't remember where the younger girls were or who was with them. What I never forgot is Mom and Millie went to talk with the Doctor I think when the operation was over. They were coming around the corner in the hall and both were crying. Millie said, "At least he'll never have to worry about it again." I burst into tears. I thought that meant he hadn't made it. It was a real relief when Millie told me it wasn't that at all.
They said after that the operation took out three fourths of Dad's stomach. For a long time he could only eat special foods and only a little at a time.