Helen Woodcox, life story page 3

 H: Yes he still shaved like that when we moved to Lisco. I don’t suppose safety razors came in until the late twenties. And they had those mugs with the soap in them and the brush. They’d  lather up that brush and put that on their face and shave.
 

I can’t remember AUNT ANN coming to live with us, the first day of that, but I can remember her being there and the day they got married (10 April 1918), and I can remember leaving, and then I can remember him being gone, and Ann and I slept on what was called a sanitary cot in those days. It was a wire cot with springs in it, the sides let down and Ann and I slept in the front room.

C: how wide was it?

H: Well I don’t remember what kind of a mattress or what it had on it, but it must have been a double bed.

She would walk to town, which was a mile, and if she got a letter, she came home and cried and if she didn’t, she came home and cried.

C:  Because UNCLE CLARENCE had gone to war?

H: Yes, he was in France. And when he was in Texas, he sent her a sewing basket made out of an armadillo turned upside down and lined, and the tail made the handle. I was fascinated by that.

C: I remember seeing the shell of that armadillo out to the farm. Didn’t have a tail on it, just the shell. 

H: Maybe that was the one. We had a stove in that big room, where we burned coal. One time, a fellow from Lisco a friend of the folks, could not get his car started. It was snowy. They used some gasoline to start a fire under that car, someway and it exploded a little and caught my dad on fire, his clothes. We had a little calf wrapped up in a blanket  in there by that stove and somebody came in and grabbed that blanket off the calf and wrapped it around dad and rolled him in the snow. Evidently it didn’t burn him.

I can remember when my dad had the flu. And he was really sick. And TILLIE McCOY, she was a friend of Ann's and FANNIE's, came there and she took care of us. We all had it,  ANN and Dad and I.  I don’t remember that mother had it. She boiled onions and put honey on that until that was cough syrup.

I can remember the day the armistice was signed (Nov 11, 1918.) We had a row of current bushes out along the ditch in the back and I remember walking out there. AUNT MABEL had made me a little blue coat with a care on it and the care was lined with red and I had that coat on and I walked and I could hear the bells ringing. I can remember hearing those church bells right now.

TILLIE and CARL came out to the house in Lewellen, and so did CLARENCE and ANN.  I can’t remember FANNIE and JOHN (ROSS) coming. But they were there a lot, I know.

This friendship has existed since 1917. JOHN and CLARENCE were friends. This is where it started. Then CLARENCE and ANN got married. FANNIE? was teaching school up in the sand hills and we used to go up and stay all night with her mother and dad, and would have such a good time.

This is where UNCLE HOMER came into the picture. I had never known him until we moved to Lewellen and he used to come dovrn there to see us.

C: Did any of the other brothers and sisters come to see you?

H: I can remember going to Cozad and out to the farm there, and I can remember UNCLE JIM with his dogs. He had hunting dogs. That was before AUNT STELLA. (JIM HAYS md STELLA ROOT, 1 June 1921 at Kearney, Neb.)

JIM and STELLA came to Lewellen and took us to Sterling, one time and I had on a new pair of shoes. Dad had gotten these shoes for me and they were too tight. When we got
to Sterling my feet were blistered and dad took me out in AUNT DELLA[ (HAGUE PROPST) yard and turned on the water and let me stand in the water because my feet were hurting so bad.

C: Did you ever see UNCLE PAT?

H: Oh yes, Mother and I, when GRANDPA died, I was living in North Platte and Mother came and she took me to Cozad. (GRANDPA WILLIAM HAYS died 17 Nov 1933 at Cozad.) And down in Lewellen, MARGARET BROWN and I were such good
friends. The year we were in the seventh grade, they were having a picnic out to Blue Creek which was on the  BROWN’s place.

C: How far was BROWN’s home from your parents?

H: It was just across the field about half a mile. We were going on a picnic there and we had to have an excuse from our folks if we were to go wading. And mother didn't give me one and I went wading anyway and the teacher wouldn’t let me go into the eight grade. That’s the reason I was still in the seventh grade when we moved to Lisco in March 1923. I would have skipped another grade; when I got up to Lisco I would have been ready to go to high school.

C: So you had already skipped a grade?

H: I had already skipped the fourth grade.

C: And why did that happen?

H: Because.....I don’t know. I can’t remember why.

C: ‘Well, was that a common thing?

H: I suppose.

C: Because, it wasn’t common when I skipped a grade, so I wouldn’t think it was for you. So you skipped the fourth grade.

H: And I should have skipped the seventh grade but that teacher....

C: You were mad at her.

H: Well, my mother was. They put me into the eighth grade because the county schools in those days taught the even year. That was in l924  so I.would be in the eighth grade, you see. So we moved up there in March and that is all the eighth grade I had was from March to May. And if the teacher would have passed me, as I was supposed to, I would have been ready for high school instead of doing the eighth grade that year.

C: Well, I’m glad she didn’t.

H: Oh, yes! That would have been awful.

C: Yes, that would have been too much!

H: I can’t remember pacing to get ready to go to Lisco. I can remember when my mother was pregnant with Doris. We had a sick cat and I don’t know whether it made mother nauseated to look at that cat or not, but anyway, mother and I put that cat in a sack with a rock, and we went down to the little creek, just to the south of where the barn was and threw that cat into that ditch.

Robert: .What would it do to it?

C: It would drown it.

R: with dismay, Oooooh.

H: I can remember there was a rose bush to the south of the house, a wild yellow rose. Vie had a garden east of the house. One time my folks went someplace and while they were gone, I plugged all the cabbages and all of the watermelon. I wasn’t very old when that happened.

I can remember my mother making jello and setting it outside the door there to harden. I can remember that washing machine that had a tail on it; it was a gas Maytag and they put that exhaust outside the door at Lewellen.

I can remember my dad putting me on back of the horse and riding up the lane to get the cows.

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