Thunder and Lightning and 1955

 

Saturday night - September 2 2023 - 9:45pm

Dear Family:

It is Saturday night and I was sitting in my soft chair in my bedroom listening to an audio book that Megan recommended to me.  All of a sudden thunder, lightning, hail and rain started making all kinds of noise.  I went to the front door and watched for a moment.  Then all of a sudden a memory flashed into my mind and it was 1955 and I was babysitting my 3 little sisters in our old house in Vale Oregon.  

It was1955 and Mom and Dad were in Nyssa or Ontario at their church meetings.  Mom was in the stake Primary presidency and I don’t remember what Dad was.  But we were having a thunder, lightening and rain storm just like the one tonight.  The lights went out and Judy and Glennda were crying.  Mary was a baby and she started crying too.  I tried to be brave and comfort my sisters.  After a long while I ran across the street and up about 50 feet to the neighbors and asked what I should do.  They said that the phone still worked and that I should call someone to help me. 

I don’t know what I did after that, except that I ran back to the house and held my little sisters until they stopped crying.  I told them that Mom and Dad would be home soon and that everything would be alright.

We lived in a one room house about 12' by 20' (living room and kitchen) with two granaries which were pulled up to the back of the house and attached to form two bedrooms.  We lived there from the time I was 9 until I was 12.  Granaries were little buildings that held harvested wheat until it could be used or sold.  It was about 10x10’ with no windows. One was bigger than the other.  Mom and dad slept in the small one and we girls slept in the big one.)

Funny…..what memories dart back into my mind when something triggers it – like thunder and lightning did tonight.

Now you are going to get the benefit of my research tonight.  I never knew exactly what these granaries were or where they came from until tonight.  I just remember dad telling us that we had granaries for bedrooms.

Granary

From google:  After the end of the Dust Bowl and an extended drought, 1935-45 - Mother Nature relented and the rains came. No one, especially the farmer and the grain storage industry, was prepared for the abundance of grain harvested.

All farm storage filled quickly and grain elevators overflowed. Railroad cars were scarce, scattered across the Great Plains in the northern grain belt. The big 18-wheeler grain vans of today were yet to be invented. Millions of bushels of grain were piled on the ground in long ricks (ie rows) exposed to the elements.

One of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal policies offered temporary grain storage in the form of what were called “government granaries.” These were pre-manufactured kits, knocked down for shipment and hauled by rail. Farmers applied for and purchased the buildings through the new agricultural offices set up in each county.   Once the kit was delivered to the farm, farmers built forms and mixed and poured cement blocks on which the granaries rested. Early kit models were crude and ugly but held the surplus grain high and dry until it could be sold. Later kits improved in quality and appearance and eventually became a prairie land improvement on nearly every farm.

Our bedrooms (granaries) were about 1or 1.5 feet off the ground.  There was no insulation under the floor.  There was no door between our bedrooms.  Mother had hung a flowered drape/curtain between the rooms.  We had no indoor bathroom. 

We were dressed for Easter.  Mom had made us new dresses.  This is the front of our house.  We entered right into the living room.

Glenn

This is Easter same day Glennda age 4 on the front steps.  Nice dirt around the front steps.

I include this photo so you can see the yard.  This is the right side of the house.  The canal road is to the right and up the property to the barn that dad built in the far background.  Mary age 1

I remember that Easter hat.  It had cherries on it. Off to the left was the garden and orchard.  It looks like no trees are blooming yet. It must have been warm enough to go outside without sweaters.

This is the same day.  Mom had made our dresses and she had made herself a dress so that she could complete the requirements for her Golden Gleaner award.  She was only 32 here.  This style of dress was very typical with a belt made from the same fabric.

 It is now 11:00 and I have enjoyed learning about granaries and remembering what it was like living on an 80 acre farm on the west bench outside of Vale, Oregon.  Mom and Dad had their hands full providing food and clothes for us.  I remember an upright piano and a rose colored couch and chairs in the living room. From looking at the photos it reminds me of poor farmers in a newsreel.  But I didn't feel poor.  Maybe I was too young to understand.  I did know what I was expected to work hard.  I was tall for my age and so I guess it was natural that I was expected to be able to work from the time I was 8 or 9 years old.  

Working hard has been something that I have always done; when I was a kid; when I was a teenager; when I was a young mother and later.  Now that I'm not young anymore I still feel that I have to be productive.  

For the past couple weeks I've been trying to get Amy to take it easy and not do so much.  I told her that I think I've passed on to her this THING...............When I was younger I would wake in the morning with lots of energy and decide I could do this whole list of things.  I got away with it until lately - getting older changes things.  Now that Amy is recovering and it's supposed to take 3 months - she has my same THING..... waking with energy, thinking she can do all these things, and when she gets them done, she realizes that it was too much.  One day last week I told that I was going to take it back.  Then she said, it's too late. We chuckled over that.

 I do realize now that I have to take life a little easier.  My age is catching up with me. 

President Hinckley said: " Our lives become extremely busy.  We run from one thing to another.  We wear ourselves out in thoughtless pursuit of goals which are largely ephemeral.  We are entitled to spend some time with ourselves in introspection, in development, in thinking, in meditating, pondering things."

I think the reason that I like his quotes so much is that he was President when I was raising my family.  He helped me to see that women were valued by the church.  That we often were too busy.  I thought he knew me and that he was speaking just to me.

Alena's birthday is September 6 - next Wednesday.  Happy Birthday Alena.

Have a nice week family.  

Love Mom, Grandma, Great Grandma, Sister and Aunt Suzanne