Excerpt
On the way home, we both noticed we had a number of bites and decided that the bed we slept in had bed bugs. Grandmother gave us a quilt and when we moved in our house near Buffalo Center, we put the quilt on our bed. It was all right at first, and about six weeks later, just when we thought we were rid of them, I said I would try sleeping in that bed again. But at two in the morning, I woke up with my little toe about twice the size as normalit was full of bites. We thought we had done about everything, but decided that maybe the bugs were in the house. So, Steve took the bed apart, it was a wooden bed. He sprayed all the creases, and around each button on the mattress. A week later, when we tried the bed again, it was all right. That was when we knew we had brought the bugs in that quilt.
My folks had given us six cows that we could have until we sold them, and then we were to give the money to them. We got three from Steves folks which added up that we had nine cows to milk. In May, we bought 300 baby chicks, had to get a brooder stove and learn how to run it and find out what we had to feed them. There were so many new things to learn.
I also had not done much cooking when I was at home. As I remember one Christmas, when my sister Margie was born on December 16th, Sylvia got sick and had to go to the hospital. There, she had surgery for a tumor. That year, for Christmas dinner, we had wieners, because I didnt know what else to fix. At night, when the neighbors came over, I asked the neighbor lady to make the tea. But Steve never complained about my cooking.
One night in January, my family was invited down to Tjadens for a party, and when we got there, I wondered why they had invited so many people, since the yard was full of cars. We played games and danced. Then they had me to sit on a chair to the side of the room and brought Steve over to sit by me. Then I asked, What was the idea? I meantdidn't they think that he didnt know I was there? But he didnt answer because he knew what it was all about. Thats when they started bringing in presents. It was a shower! In those days, they didnt have showers, at least not like they did in the latter part of the 20th Century. So I never dreamed that they would have one for me. I still have some of the things we received, such as the pie plates.
We went to the Ramsey church each Sunday, and afterwards, we usually went to Steves folks for the noon meal. This was our routine for a number of years. She always had such good meals.
We also went to choir practice every Tuesday night. One night in the last part of June when we came home from practice, our cows were out in the oat field. We quickly changed clothes and went out to get them. The grass was wet with dew, and soon we were soaked to our hips. It was not a very nice night, but I was glad that they were back in the pasture, and not tramping down all the oats.
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