 We’re Goin’ for a Ride My Dad worked, pretty much, from 6 to 6 during the week, so on Sundays he dozed on the couch. Betty and I were home all week so on weekends, we wanted to get out of the house. My Dad didn’t have a car more than he did have one. He usually drove a Dunlap red, Ford pickup truck to and from work. Consequently, he did not want to drive the company truck for his own personal business. But we were kids. We took a bird feather and tickled him under his nose until he woke up. We told him that we wanted to go for a ride. He told us that he couldn’t use the company truck. Then Betty and I both cried. Who can resist two sweet, crying little girls? He was a good Dad. He reasoned that he could take us to check out some of the farms and crops. The next thing we knew, he, my mother, Betty and I were in the truck and goin’ for a ride. He drove all around the area where the Dunlap farms were located. He showed us where people lived and we checked out how the corn, wheat, and soybeans were doing. We even saw a trench silo which was filled with slop to feed the pigs. It didn’t smell good. My Dad was mischievous, so one time he drove across a small creek. We drove past a little turtle sunning itself on a rock in the water. Betty and I thought it was exciting but my mother said, “Woooo”. Of course, my Dad just threw his head back and laughed. That was why he did it in the first place. Today, my youngest daughter Melissa lives in Plain City. One of the reasons that I love to visit her is because I get to see how the corn, wheat and soybeans are doing. And the good news is that she and her children are checking them out too. ©Marilyn Francis Ferguson 2020 Photography/graphics by Michele Ferguson Schuck
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Betty and I Moved Out Betty and I moved out….into the back yard. We would get upset with my mother about something and move out. We took our toys, clothes and everything we owned. And we did it more than once. We stayed out all day under the lilac bush, roses and cherry tree. Our intention was to live outside. We made mud pies in my mother’s canning jar lids and decorated them with flower petals and dandelions. One time we took my mother’s big wash tub and pumped water in it. I washed Betty’s blouse on the wash board and hung it on the line to dry. When it started to get dark, we knew that we had to go back in the house. By that time, we had forgotten why we had moved out in the first place. What a job it was to take all of the stuff we had taken outside back in the house. Even today, I remember how we dreaded that but it wasn’t a deterrent because we did it again. When I told my daughter Michele about this escapade, she said, “Grandma was probably glad to have you two out from under her feet all day". She probably was! Children's lawn furniture built by brother Bob. ©Marilyn Francis Ferguson 2020 Photography/graphics by Michele Ferguson Schuck  Bob cutting corn with dog Jack and cat Tom And We Had A Garden……… You have probably heard many times that Thomas Jefferson wanted everyone to have their own farm. I believe he wanted that so people could be self-sustaining. One way to do that was by planting. We put out a garden on about half of the property at 309 South Water Street. Daddy brought a tractor home and plowed the garden in early spring. One year he didn’t plow it, so my brother Bob dug the entire area up with a shovel. I don’t know how he did that. Of course, my brother had to push everything and had Betty and me holding earth worms as he laughed about it. When my mother came outside, she didn’t approve and gave her usual “woooo” of disapproval. First the garden was plowed, then the clods broken up. Mama and Daddy usually made the rows and Betty and I had to get down in the dirt and cover up the seeds. Anyone who has done that never forgets the smell of the soil or what it is like to get down in it. As the song says, “Twas so good to be young then, To be close to the earth”. We usually planted on cold evenings. However, my Dad always asked Betty and me to pull the weeds while he was at work. He would come home and say, “I thought you girls were going to pull the weeds today.” Our answer was always the same, “We did….until we got hot”. Whew, there were never any consequences. We grew onions, lettuce, beets, green beans, tomatoes, corn and so on. My mother either canned or dried the results. She was very proud of her canning and preserving. We had an apple, cherry and pear tree in the yard as well as a Concord grape vine. Betty and I always had to help with picking, peeling and drying vegetables and fruits. One year we sat in the kitchen on our little chairs in front of a big tub of tomatoes. After Mama scalded them with boiling water, the three of us peeled and quartered them. I didn’t realize how much work we actually did until I started writing this. I thought it was fun though my forearms burned from tomato juice running down to my elbows. My Dad never made a lot of money during his lifetime, but we never went hungry. We were like what Paul Harvey said, “We were poor, but we didn’t know it.” ©Marilyn Francis Ferguson 2020 Photography/graphics by Michele Ferguson Schuck The Ice Box We had an ice box on our screened-in back porch. I don’t know where or when we got it. It was about five feet in height and had a wooden exterior with a galvanized, painted white, metal interior. It had a long door on the right side which was almost the length of the ice box. There were metal racks inside. My mother kept butter, milk and prepared leftover cucumbers and onions, tomatoes, etc. inside in the summer months. The left side of the ice box had two doors. The top one was to hold the ice. It had a hole in the bottom of it so the water could drip out when the ice melted. The bottom door contained a bucket so the water would have a place to accumulate. When the pail was full of water, it had to be emptied. All of the doors had latches so it would close tightly. I don’t remember how often the ice man came but I suppose it was two or three times a week. If we still had a chunk of ice left when it was time for him to come, Mama put the ice in the water bucket. Our water bucket was white enamel with a red ring around the top. The dipper matched. When you watch westerns and see everyone drinking out of the same dipper, that is what people did. We probably spread around a lot of germs. Ugh! The Iceman Our iceman was Ansel Whiteside/Whitsed. We had a card to put in the window if we wanted ice. One side of the card said 25 pounds and the other side said 50 pounds. I think Betty and I were always desperate for cold water in the summer, so we took the card and stood in the front yard waiting for him. Betty held the card up and yelled, “We want fify (sic) pounds.” Ansel drove a flatbed truck dripping with water from melting ice. The ice was covered with canvas. Ansel was a little, wiry man who looked like Jimmy Durante. He had gray hair and was wearing a white undershirt. He walked a little bent over due to the heavy load he was carrying with ice tongs. Of course, he had to walk from the street to our back porch which was no small feat. He always had a cigar hanging out of his mouth. For most of my young life, I thought ice tasted like cigar smoke. Go figure? ©Marilyn Francis Ferguson 2020 Photography/graphics by Michele Ferguson Schuck |
Marilyn Francis FergusonGrowing up in Williamsport, Ohio is a blog by Marilyn Francis Ferguson which describes small town life in the 1940s and 1950s. Blog Categories
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