It seemed that year by year, Florence took on more responsibility, learned the lessons of life, absorbed tragedy and challenge, hones her ferocious work ethic and physicality. She seemed to always be exploring the physical world, learning to ride horses, to swim, to soak up the chores of life and conquer them. Her journals show the evolution of a determined, tough and almost brutally hard-working human being. They also so a young woman who loved to have fun, and who compiled a trove of rich adventures and memories, almost unimaginable to children growing up in our world.
“I learned to paper by doing my room and later did rooms Mother wanted done. Dad always had colts to train. I helped with them. I helped bring in wood from the woods. We then sawed it and later I would split and pile it in the wood shed. It took a lot of wood in those days to heat the large house altho we closed off the front rooms in the winter. We had a stove in the cellar to keep the apples and potatoes. What fun we had on Sunday mornings putting apples and potatoes in the coals to bake. No wonder we were never hungry for dinner. We always ate our special baked potatoes which Mom did not find out about for some time. I cleaned the cellar while they baked…
The Coulter family were great friends of the family. Their children and the four of us were about the same age. Many a happy memory of their place. Lou was a man so full of fun always joking. The swing he made for all of us and he use to wind two of us up so high that when he let us unwind we could hardly hang on. Then there were the trips we took, both families in his truck, off somewhere to a creek or lake on a Sunday picnic. A good ball game after dinner. One day I was out in our boat and lost the oars. The wind was taking me down the lake. Kendall jumped in and swam out to pull me in. The early mornings that Lou let us ride with him to the milk factory, all the way singing such songs as “The Old Gray Mare ain’t what she used to be,” or telling jokes.
We always took a walk over to the neighbors the McMorris. There were six children and Mrs. McMorris was a very dear person. She always had cookies for all. I enjoyed her friendship all thru her life.
Lou’s mother stayed the last few yeas of her life with them. She was a wonderful person. I loved to hear her tell of the many things in life she did. I have forgotten but I think it was in the forties of the babies she delivered into this world. Along the last, I would go over on horseback to stay with her while the folks went somewhere. The last time she said you wave to me before you go out of sight. They opened the door, pushed her bed near, she watched me ride up to the bend in the road, there I turned and waved. The next day she passed away. I would have been nervous had I known the end was so near.”
Next: Always getting hurt.
