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Farm life was simple, happy time for her

When I look back to the time when I was growing up, I have very happy memories, and I wouldn't trade them for anything.

I grew up on a farm. As I look back, we may have been considered poor, but I never realized it. We had cows for milk, and chickens for eggs.

We always had a big garden. My mother canned a lot and put the jars down in the cave. We raised potatoes and ate them twice a day. We also had pigs and steers, which we butchered for meat.

Until I got into high school, my mother would let me pick out the chicken feed sacks I thought she should buy. The chicken feed came in cotton sacks, and my mother would sew my clothes from them.

I had some chores to do. I would go get the cows up from the pasture when it was milking time, and I helped milk and run the separator.

We always had to separate the milk from the cream because we sold the cream. I washed the separator and sometimes the dishes. I also helped feed the chickens.

My mother would let me have the money for any eggs I found outdoors in the nests the hens made.

I remember I hated to gather eggs in the hen house if the hens were sitting on their nests. Sometimes the hens would peck at me.

We kept the screen door on the hen house shut at night so wild animals couldn't get in. I thought it was so much fun to see them fly out in the morning when I opened the door. I liked seeing which chickens came out first. I even named some of them.

Some of my enjoyment came from the animals. We had chickens, ducks, geese, guineas, cats, dogs, goats, cows, pigs and horses.

I liked to watch the ducks go down to the dam in the field. They would waddle down in a straight row quacking all the way. A wild duck came and joined them two summers in a row.

We always had a lot of kittens, and I enjoyed playing with them as well as the dogs. The goats were my pets, and I would milk them along with the cows.

I also had a pet pig, Pollyanna, who came when I called her name.

We lived on a corner, and the road north of our house was a dirt road. I would ride my bike back and forth on that road.

We had a basketball pole out in the yard, and I spent hours shooting baskets. That paid off later when I played basketball in high school. I was known for shooting baskets, and I was on many honors basketball teams.

We learned to roller skate in the granary when there wasn't any corn in it. When a skating rink opened in a town five miles from us, I got to go skating twice a week.

This town also showed movies two nights a week, and one night was free. It was before drive-in theaters, but we could park on Main Street and watch from our car.

When I was in 10th grade, we got a television set, and I was fascinated with it.

My mother always got me a subscription to Jack and Jill magazine,and I would read the entire magazine. I also checked out a lot of books from the library because I loved to read.