The Ward’s Way

“We played outside a lot and the neighborhood kids came and our yard was the ‘main place.’ We played Run Sheep Run, Hide and go Seek….oh all those old games…it was just great!   And our mom was so good to all the kids.  She just was great.  She was always a regular mom- she was home all the time- she didn’t want to go anyplace. I didn’t know anybody that worked outside of the home…in those days.  Not even one.  Of all of my friends the mother was always home.  Not until the War, that changed everything.  She wasn’t a ‘joiner,’ she went to church but she didn’t go to PTA and any of these things.  We were Methodist and they saw to it that we went to church whether they did or not.  They did together in our younger years but later they stopped.

My dad’s dad was still alive.  My grandmas I never knew either one of them, but my dad’s dad came a lot.  He visited a lot from Nebraska.  He was married again.  We just love her because I did not know my real grandmother but boy I loved that grandmother that came.  She was really great.”

“In school there were some things I loved.  History was my favorite.  I really loved that.  And I loved later- when I was going to high school- I loved Spanish.  We had three grade schools and then a high school building and half of it was Jr. High and then half of it was sr. high.  It burned down.  It was a brick building and burned down after.

We went in little gangs, to parties together.  I didn’t learn to dance till I was a teenager.  Of course we just played together; there was no dating till…I was sixteen till I had my first date.”

“My mom sewed a lot, she made all of our clothes, she was a good cook and I think she enjoyed that; she just enjoyed her three girls.  My dad always said ‘All my boys turned out to be girls.’  But he loved us all weather we were girls or not.  My mother always had a coffee pot on the stove because neighbors came.

I had an aunt and an uncle who lived close- they had a farm not too far- who moved to California later, but they lived there, and people dropped in to see us.  I just thought it was fun.  I can remember just little flashes.  I don’t think I’ve changed.  I was kind of shy, I think I was kind of shy but I read a lot, I had my music to practice a lot- I could read notes- and my Mother loved it so much and she could play too.”

“I was a Girl Scout at one time and before that they had Camp Fire Girls, so I was both. At eight I was a Camp Fire Girl and at eleven or twelve I was a Girl Scout.  We camped up in the mountains, stay for a week, that was so fun, that was great fun.  We didn’t go on vacations like they do now.  At one point, when grandpa came from Nebraska, they and my parents and Wilma went to Yellowstone, and left Nita and I out on the farm with the renters of the farm at that point.  And we were so, well, I was, I don’t think Nita cared but I did, but my mother couldn’t handle two of us at Yellowstone and thought someone might reach out from one of those geysers and grab us.

And then another time, we took a vacation, all of us, and we took a tent, down into Snake River Gorge where the Shoshone Falls came over, and it’s almost as good as Niagara Falls- only ten miles from Spring Falls.”