Helen Woodcox story pg 2
The CROSBY’S, their dad had the drug store and they must
have had a little money, because the kids had everything
imaginable to play with. They had a tent in the back yard
and it was such fun to go in there and play with their dolls
after school and they had a little toy stove that had a
little boiler, there used to be water. We'd put on there....
and dishes. There was a lady whose name was EMMA CLARK and
she lived next door to them and she would call my mother and
say, “Do you know HELEN is up at the CROSBYS?” and then
mother would say, “Well, you go tell HELEN to come home.” And
then I’d go home and as many times as I can remember, dad
would be standing at the door and my coat would be over his
arm and he’d be holding my extra pair of shoes and he would
say, “Now you can go and live with the CRQSBYS if you want to.
Otherwise, you are to come right straight home from school.”
C: And you were about six years old. You were born in 1911,
so that would have been about 1917. They had a lot of toys
and they had a little stove.
H: Oh, and they had a baby buggy too.
C: How many dolls, do you suppose?
H: Oh heavens, I don’t know. But I remember that baby buggy,
and that little stove, and that little boiler.
They used to have a traveling show called a Chatawkwa, that
would come there in Lewellen, and we would always go to that.
C: How big was the town?
H: Well, you know how big Lewellen is.
C: Was it the same size as now?
H: Oh, no. I suppose 250—300 people. I really don’t have
any idea.
C: Was that little girl in your class at school?
H: She was in MARGARET's grade. She was a year younger.
We always took our lunch and played there on the grounds.
I can remember one boy whose name was FRENCH, and he had real
curly hair. We had slides where you climb up on the back
ladder and slide down. We had boys slides and girls slides
and this boy was coming down the slide and 1 picked up a rock
and threw it at him and hit him in the forehead and boy did
he bleed.
C: Why did you do that?
H: Well, because he was coming down the girls slide, I guess.
And then I remember the pond in the wintertime; it wasn’t on the school
property, it was between the school property and the church. We walked on that
ice and it wouldn’t be frozen
deep enough yet and the water would still make it rubbery. We’d get our feet wet
and then we would go in school and the
teacher would make us take off our shoes and put them by the stove, so they
would dry out. We had those awful black
stockings. We had to wear long underwear in those days and the
legs would get stretchy from constant washing, arid you’d have to fold those
over at the ankles and then pull up your socks and we had shoes that laced.
You’d have to take off those
shoes and let them dry.
C: What did. you have for your school lunch?
H: Peanut butter sandwiches. That is all I remember. but
after I got older, mother would let me beat an egg white and
put sugar on it and nut it on a cracker and in the oven to
toast it. It must have been good. I remember doing that.
Can’t remember packing my lunch and whether it was in a
dinner pail. It must have been.
C: .Did you take milk?
H: Oh, no.. There was a fountain, one of those big black...
was there or not, I can’t remember the fountain. but we had a
little tin cup that collapsed. One big ring, and the rings
got smaller towards the bottom, so you could. put that in your
desk.
C: Was the bread homemade?
H: Oh, yes. We never had "boughton" bread. I can remember the
first loaf of boughten bread. I was over to the BROWNS and
Mr. BROWN brought it home and he said, “You will see the day
when this loaf of bread. will cost $1.OO.” And it only cost 10 cents then.
Mr. BROWN was quite the man in the community. He had the
first car, and he and PAUL had. the first radio. He and PAUL
got that thing wired up. I never remember hearing anything
on it. And they also had a dumbwaiter in their house, which
I thought was out of this world. The dumbwaiter was just like
opening your cupboard and there were shelves in there, only
it had a rope on it so you could let things down into the
basement where it was cool. I suppose they kept their
butter and milk down there. I thought it was wonderful.
H: I could go over to BROWNS. I can’t remember going anywhere
else to play in later years except for the Browns. One time
I went there and Mrs. BROWN had made a lemon pie.
C: How old were you?
H: I don’t remember, but I threw the pie at CHARLES. They
always teased me unmercifully and I remember I threw that pie
at CHARLES.
ROBERT (grandson): What happened?
C: I’ll bet you got in trouble.
H: I’ll bet I did too.
C: It sounded like, when you were talking about your parents,
that as a rule your dad was more lenient than your mother was.
H: Mother sat me on the chair till dad came home and then he
spanked me with the razor strop.
C: Did that happen often?
H: Well it must have.
R: Did that hurt?
H: Well of course it did.
R: What was it?
H: The men used to shave their faces with a straight edged razor.
They would sharpen their blade on that strop. That’s what you call
honing. And it is not “strap.” It is spelled “strop.”
C: And it was like a belt, about two inches wide.
H: And there were two of them together, and they hung on a
doorknob. I think that is where they secured one end of it. They
would hold the other end as they sharpened the blade.
C: I can still see DaddyJack doing that