Ethel went to work for a Charles Kelly’s, a neighbor farmer. She tried to help out at home, by buying us things, she bought me a sweater and a toothbrush, the first I ever had. We all hoped the depression would soon be over. Then one day mother was hurrying around, gathering eggs and getting them ready for the huckster, (a man that traveled from farm to farm buying up as many things as they had to sell). Mother didnẗ have her shoes on, but a pair of rubbers that she wore in the morning outside to keep her feet dry. I don’t know why she didn”t put the rubbers on over her shoes as she was supposed to, she just put them on and tied a string around her foot to keep the rubber on. I don’t know how it happened , but she fell down the porch step and broke her leg in two places.
Father was away building a barn, there were just my sister Dora and I at home. I ran to the neighbors for help, while Dora tried to help mother. The huckster came along with the neighbor, they got mother in the house, as all the beds were upstairs, she had to lay on the floor. While door called the doctor, mother told me to hitch up the horse and buggy and go get Ethel, I had never hitched up the horse to the buggy, but I had helped mother and Dora do it many times. I ran to the barn, thinking only of mothers broken leg, I don’t remember to this day hitching up the horse to the buggy, but I remember running the horse down the road, the buggy bouncing over the stones on my way to get Ethel.
Ethel, Dora, and I got mothers bed downstairs, they put mother to bed and gave her some ether to put her to sleep. So they could set her leg, the smell of that ether made us all sick on our stomach.
They sent word to father to come home, but he only stayed a few days. This was early spring, and alot of work on the farm. The sow had pigs and she laid on one crippling it, so Ethel put the baby pig in a box, and brung it to the house, I went to the store and got a baby nipple, we bottle fed little Porky, as we named him, then one of the ewe’s (female) sheep, had twin lambs, but she would only claim one, as often happens with sheep, so little Molly, as we named her, came into the box with Porky and they both got bottle fed. As if things wernt bad enough, mother had a sitting hen that had four peepie’s, a fox got the hen, leaving the peepies motherless. Another box was placed in the kitchen for the peepies.
Mother was in alot of pain, and started running a fever, Ethel called the doctor, he said mothers leg wasn’t healing. They would have to take her to the hospital. They called Glenn, but Glenn’s car was too old, but he got a friend of his that had a new car to come take mother to the hospital. While mother was in hospital, it rained, and rained, the roof on the peepies house leaked real bad, mother had near a hundred, month old chicks in the peephouse. We always put the chicks in boxes at night, because they hadn’t learned to go on the roost yet, and they would all pile in one corner and would suffocate. One night the roof was leaking so bad, Ethel and Dora decided to take the boxes of chicks in the house. This was well and good, but the didn’t hear the alarm clock go off, when they awakened, it was daylight, we hurried downstairs, the chicks had got out of the boxes, and were everywhere. There was chicken dung all over everything. What a mess, it was a good thing, the rain barrel was full or we wouldn’t have any water to clean up the mess. Mother came home, everything was just fine, the farm was running smoothly, the crops were all planted; by putting her knee on a chair, mother was able to get around and do the cooking.
Ethel went to live with Ruth, where she got a job working in a boarding house, boarding men that worked for the lumber company. There she met and married George Ritchey. Finally the timber was all cut and George was out of work, he went to Akron, Ohio. Where his brother was and got a job with firestone rubber company. Ethel sold all her furniture (she had three kids by this time) and went to join her husband in Ohio. There she raised seven children. George Ritchey died in 1971 at the age of fifty seven.
My sister Dora Guthrie McNair.
My sister Dora was two years younger than Ethel, and five and one half years older than me. I was the baby of the family, so Dora and I grew up together, not like my other two sisters, Ethel and Ruth, but together, we slept together, eat together, went to the barn together, school together, we worked the farm together, everything we did was together, it was always Dora and I together.
I’ll tell you about Dora as I tell you about me. Dora was always short and chubby, when she was full grown, she was five feet four inches tall, and weighed over a hundred pounds, she had brown eyes, and brown hair.
When I was three years old, mother asked me to help her pull weeds in the garden. She told me to pull every weed, well I did, including the tomato plants, mother was so angry she made me get the hoe, dig a hole and plant them back again, every day she made me get a bucket and water the tomato plants. I watered those tomato plants until they had tomatoes on them. That same summer, mother had four little ducks, they kept picking at my toes, one day I picked one up by the neck until he stopped kicking, mother came around the corner, just then, and seen what I did, she was so angry, she got a stick and hit me on the legs, then made me get the hoe and dig a hole and bury the little duck behind the granary.
Even at the age of three, I was made to get out of bed at 6 Oclock in the morning. Dora and I slept together, as soon as we got out of bed, we made our bed, got dressed, went downstairs, where we washed our face and hands and combed our hair. Mother had a good breakfast on the table. Father was there waiting for us to be seated. Father always said grace, at mealtime, so we folded our hands in our lap, and listened to his words. As soon as breakfast was over, we got the milk buckets, and went to the barn to milk the cows. Mother, Ethel, and Dora, would milk the cows, and I would wait along aside until mother was finished with her cow, then with a tin cup, I would finish milking her cow. She always saved my milk separate from the rest, she always said it had more cream on it.
Farmer Charles Kelly, Clara Bell Maust Guthrie 1889-1965, James Guthrie 1879-1965, Glenn Ralph Guthrie 1910-1986, Dora Guthrie McNair 1916-1982, Ruth Guthrie Seese 1912-2007, Ethel Guthrie Ritchey 1914-2008, George Ritchey 1911-1970.
This is amazing. I love it