From the Editor: These vignettes were written by Betty Louise Clark Nicolas. The dated diary entries were written by Mary Rowenna Boardman. The stories, written by Ms. Nicolas, have been separated by headers which were placed by the Editor.
Part 1 can be found HERE. This is Part 2.
June 19, 1951: Picked 19 boxes of pie plants
Pie Plants
Aunt Hattie wrote several entries in her diary mentioning how she picked pie plants. I had no idea what a pie plant was until I mentioned it to Aunt Mary. She said Oh those were rhubarb plants. I loved the lovely slender rhubarb stalks, especially the new ones. I liked seeing how the pink, cream, red and light green colors blended into one another so perfectly. Perhaps it was the artist in me showing up already. Most people associate rhubarb with the sweet and sour flavor of a pie or cobbler made from the stalks. Grandma made her pies with meringue on top. Sometimes she let me beat the egg whites into frothy peaks to pile up on the pie before she let it toast in the oven. Something like life I’d say. Start out with some sweetness and some sourness, hope for a good recipe, add just the right ingredients, use some elbow grease, and you just might end up with a good dessert.
Summer Storms
Weather always plays an import role, in the growing of a garden. Sometimes in Indiana, we got periods of not enough rainfall. We had just been through such a time. My mother, sister and I were returning from a trip to town. We were just making our way around the curve in the gravel road, by the garden, when we saw the funnel cloud swing out of the clouds overhead. Mom stepped on the gas and headed toward the driveway. The wind pushed the backend of the car sideways a little, but we made it. After the car doors were open, the wind helped push us across the yard and up the porch steps. Grandpa was waiting for us with the front door wide open. After the passing of the funnel cloud which actually never touched the ground, the much needed rain came down steadily, for the rest of the day and most of the night. I still associate the wonderful fresh, earthy smell of a summer rain, with those summer storms of my childhood. The train patted down gently and gave new life to our garden and the crops in the fields. It still does and always will.
September 15, 1950: 16 ladies at club
Quilting
When Grandma wasn’t gardening, she was busy with her quilting guild. These ladies met at different homes, working on the quilt until it was finished and then moving on to the next meeting place. The guild was established to create warm, beautiful blankets to auction off, raising money for worthy causes. My great grandfather had made a quilting frame hewn from an oak tree for my great grandmother. It was used to stretch the patchwork material, sewn together by hand, so the ladies could stitch around all the intricate patterns in the cloth. In earlier years the quilts were an absolute necessity needed to keep the family warm as well as to hang on the walls to keep out the draft.
The frame was set up in the living room, which opened up from the dining room through a wide entrance way. There were two large windows set together in the front wall off the porch. The light streaming in helped the ladies see the tiny stitches being sewn through the fabric. They wore thimbles on their first finger so they wouldn’t prick themselves when the needle came through from the other side of the material.
One of the patterns the ladies used was named the log cabin, another was the schoolhouse, and there were many others. Paper patterns and rulers were used to cut out the desired shapes. It was fun sneaking in to listen to the ladies talking, I won’t say gossiping, and watch those silver thimbles on their fingers go flying along.
After the ladies left for the day, we got to sit under the quilt that was on the frame, and pretend we were in a tent, with our dolls. Some of those quilts are still in our family. In some respects it is like reading a diary to look at the squares of material sewn together. I can identify periods of time in my life. Some of the pieces came from dresses, skirts and blouses my sister and I sewed for 4-H projects, others came from outfits worn by my grandmother, mom, and aunts to church and school functions.
March 11, 1953: Trimmed grape vines
Grape Vines
The grape vines ran down the hill toward the raspberry bushes. My great grandmother, Mary Rowenna Boardman, left her beautiful mountain village of Napoli in New York to move to LaPorte County, traveling down the Erie Canal by barge. She would have passed many grape arbors as she floated down the canal. I think my grandparents would have been very surprised if they had known that they were descendants of Nathaniel Burbank, the famous horticulturist, and found of Burbank, California.
There are also many arbors in LaPorte County. The grants from vines, grown there on my grandparents’ farm, traveled with them to their new home in Pulaski County. Running up and down between the rows of posts, strung with wire to support the heavy vines, was a delight during warm summer days. The leaves were a lovely lavender color mixed with green. The vines grew very fast and had to be trained around the wires so they wouldn’t spread in every direction causing the grapes to droop to the ground.
A lot of time and effort was spent putting up jars of grape jelly and making grape juice. After the smooth dusky purple grapes were picked, grandma dumped them into a big deep pan with handles on both sides. The pan was filled with water from the kitchen sink faucet. Then she slid the pan onto the stove burner. The grapes were cooked down and then run through a sieve to strain out the skins and seeds. The remaining juice was poured into quart jars.
The vines were never as productive, or the grapes as sweet and juicy, as those grown in LaPorte or New York, because the ground was not as fertile. But never-the-less, the tradition was carried on.
May 26, 1943: Mary O and Jay plant raspberries
Snakes!
My father Henry walked down the path to the garden and creek very cautiously, as he had a fear of snakes. The path ran alongside the arbor and raspberry bushes. The area on the other side was covered with shade from the coffee ban trees. Dad was always afraid a snake would come wriggling out of the bushes onto the path. The snakes we saw were mainly the common garden variety, although later I will have a different story to tell.
The Great Rabbit Caper
Dad was away from home a lot, so he felt we needed projects to teach us responsibility. Hence the great rabbit caper began. He purchased several breeds of rabbits. Some had long hair and droopy ears, others had straight up ears and short hair. There were white ones, brown ones, black and gray ones. Then he built hutches for them to live in, which were moved into the white horse barn. Our job was to feed and water the rabbits, as well as keeping their cages clean. The idea was to sell the rabbits and make a profit.
Rising before the light of day on a school morning during the winter was quite an undertaking. I remember waking up one morning to discover I had gotten out of bed sometime during the night in my sleep. I had put on my old chore clothes to go out to the rabbit hutches and then promptly gotten back into bed. I think my sister must have suffered from the same affliction because she woke up early one morning to the barking of our rat terrier dog, Tippy, and asked groggily, “Who’s barking?”
When spring came around to the farm, we noticed a rabbit had gone missing. The cage door was wide open. Several days earlier another rabbit had mysteriously disappeared. It wasn’t until sometime later we discovered our little brother Greg, who was about three at the time, had been setting them free. The sight of those bunnies hopping about here and there and everywhere was very appealing to him. My dad could not bring himself to administer much of a punishment.
The rabbits were never recovered, so I am assuming there were some rather strange looking floppy eared, long haired wild rabbits of various colors inhabiting the countryside for several generations of rabbits to follow.
“Song” Bird
Sleeping in on Saturday mornings was pretty important to my dad because he didn’t arrive from Indianapolis until late the evening before. There was a rather persistent bird who insisted on warbling the same tune over and over again. One particular morning we heard a thump, thump, thumping down the stairs, and then a thump, thump, thumping up the stairs.
Blam!!
Dad had gotten his shot gun from the cellar and blew away a couple of limbs of the maple tree out by the gate. The noise must have really scared that bird. We never heard from it again.
Sweet Corn
Down below the hill, past the arbors and raspberry bushes, grew the sweet corn patch. It seemed like there were endless ears of corn growing on those stalks. We picked bushels of them to husk. Ripping the husks off wasn’t so bad, but removing the corn silk was exasperating. The stuff was very soft and, yes, silky, but very clingy, so it stuck to the ears.
Grandma, Aunt Hattie and Mom got the cutting boards out so they could set the ears on end and cut the corn off the cobs with sharp knives. The corn was either spooned into canning jars or freezer bags. The bags went directly into the freezer. The glass jars were placed on shelves in the canner where they were steamed at a high temperature. They were stored for later use in the Hoosier cabinets.
Grandpa rotated the corn crop every few years to keep the soil fertile. Delicious dishes for the dinner table came out of that corn patch. Golden fried corn fritters, corn casserole, succotash, and just plain corn on the cob, dripping with butter. I sort of wish they would have left the lima beans out of the succotash. I put them in the same category with the beets.
Acorn Squash
Little dark green acorn squashes which vined profusely grew at the end of the garden. After they were picked and rinsed off, Mom and Grandma sliced them in half and scooped out the seeds with a big wooden spoon. Pats of butter and brown sugar and cinnamon went into the scooped out halves. They were popped into the oven on a cookie sheet and baked. The flavor was a lot like that of a pumpkin.
Often times they would serve pie made from acorn squash. It was difficult to tell whether we were eating pumpkin or squash pie.
April 11, 1953: Ron planted watermelon seeds
Watermelons
Watermelons grow in assorted shapes and colors. The melons we grew in the patch next to the corn were either round or oblong. My favorite was the round dark green variety. Some of the oblong melons had a light green skin with darker green stripes, others were just light green.
The inside of the melons were red and juicy. We loved to eat the meat of the melon outside letting the juice drip down between our fingers onto the grass. Grandma taught us how to check the melons for ripeness by thumping the rind with our thumb and first finger. I never developed the knack my Grandmother had for thumping.
Native American Artifacts
Flowers, vegetable and fruits weren’t the only inhabitants of Grandma’s garden. One summer afternoon I was hoeing along the rows of lettuce when I struck a sharp object. I knelt down to check it out, brushing the earth away to get a better look. The object was an arrowhead. I dug it up out of the soil and ran into the house in search for someone to show it to.
Grandma was in the kitchen, peeling potatoes for supper. She put down her paring knife, wiped her hands on her apron, and sat down at the table with the arrow head in her hand.
She explained to me that 200 years ago there were many Potawatomi villages in Pulaski County. Grandpa had uncovered tomahawk heads, flint, and beads while tilling the soil. She said the town of Winamac was named after an Indian chief named Winamac. I could only imagine the men, women and children who had inhabited the land on which our garden was planted.
I continued to discover artifacts as I worked in the soil. It was pretty exciting when I unearthed some little round beads with holes drilled all the way through. Some of them were still connected together. I could picture the Indian child who had worn the necklace. I wondered what had become of the Indian children. Had they also found artifacts from another age while planting maize and other crops where our garden is now planted?
The creek which ran through the farm was named Mud Creek. The source was Mud Lake in Fulton County. The Indians would have launched their canoes from the banks of the creek, under the cottonwood trees, and paddled them through the water to the Tippecanoe River, which the creek empties into, about a mile away. I am sure much trading of goods was done up and down the river.
Mud Creek
Aunt Mary would meander with us down the hill to wade in the creeks’ cooling water on a hot summer day. We would catch minnows, crawdads and frogs in the little shallow areas near the bank. The dreaded leeches lived in the water, too. They resembled little pieces of raw liver and would stick to our skin like suction cups. Aunt Mary loathed the nasty critters, but she would pry them off our feet and ankles, closing her eyes and gritting her teeth the whole time.
When I got a little older I would visit the creek by myself, with my fishing pole in hand. Well, it was really just a branch from a tree with a fishing line and hook attached. I dug earthworms out of the garden to use as bait.
I could hear the water before I approached the creek. It rippled around the rocks leaving trails of froth and bubbles. Schools of light brown minnows arrowed their way through the shallow water near the bank.
The sun cast a black shadow on the bottom of the creek bed making the real minnows disappear and tricking me into thinking the black shadows were the rea thing. Where the tree branches hung over the water’s edge near the bank, the water was murky, causing the sun to cast burnished copper patches. Towards the middle of the stream in deeper water, the patches between the leafy branches reflected a bright blue. Circles formed around water bugs floating on top of the water. They would skip forward with a thrust of their hind legs and then float again.
I liked to sit at the water’s edge on a sand bar shaped like a comma. It was covered with little rocks and pebbles carried there when the creek rises during a rain storm. Sitting on the sand bar at the edge of the water, I threw my hook into the middle of the stream. After a while, I felt a big tug on my line. I yanked like crazy until I dragged the hook up onto the bank. On the end of my line was a huge water moccasin. It was twisting and turning and struggling to get itself free.
I dropped the pole. It flew down the bank and into the water with the snake still trying to free itself. I flew up the bank and ran all the way home. Mom never found out about my escapade, because I was afraid she wouldn’t let me continue my visits to the creek. My love of spending time down there, watching muskrats, otters, turtles, frogs, and just fishing on a laze summer day, was a lot greater than any fear I might have of snakes.
June 1951: I picked 4 ½ crates of strawberries and got $12.67 for them
Strawberries
I couldn’t stay out of the strawberry patch. Strawberries are delicious, so red and sweet and sour and juicy. It’s easy to keep popping them into your mouth until you just can’t eat anymore. The day came when a red rash broke out on my face and elsewhere. Where did that come from? Dr. Thompson thought it might be caused from something I was eating. Mom had taken me for an appointment at the doctor’s office.
Slowly but surely the story came out. They learned of my many visits to the strawberry patch.
The rash curtailed my eating activities that summer, but I still love strawberries, especially in Grandma’s shortcake made with baking powder biscuit cough with plenty of whipped cream piled on top.
Hollyhocks
Grandma’s hollyhocks grew in stately fashion at the edge of the back yard. The plants were so tall, a child had to look up to see the tops growing up toward the sky. The blooms were shades of pink, lavender and red. When they swayed in the breeze, the thought came to my mind that they might topple over and land in the grass right at my feet.
Great Aunt Hattie picked off the flowers and stuck a clothes pin through the inverted end which resembled a skirt and made dolls for us.
My daughter and granddaughters and I attended a mother daughter banquet at their church a few years ago. The guest speaker was a lady who had collected a lot of Little House on the Prairie dolls, books and items from that era. In her presentation, she demonstrated to the girls how to fashion dolls from hollyhock blooms. It was fun for me to watch the girls share the same experience I had as a child.
Pulaski School
My granddaughters live in a very small town in south central Indiana. Their mother teaches in a larger town nearby. The school the girls attend reminds me of the small school I attended, although their school only includes the first five grades. The brick schoolhouse in Pulaski was constructed in 1921. The first and second grades were separated to the right and left of the same classroom as were the third, fourth, fifth and sixth. The upper grades and high school students had classrooms on the second floor.
My brother Ron had a close friend with some difficulty learning certain subjects in the conventional way. We were the same age, so always in the same classes. When we reached the third grade a few problems arose, because of peer pressure and his inability to grasp certain concepts.
Our teacher excused the boy from the classroom to run an errand for her. Mrs. Hunt stood at the front of the class and explained that some children have to have a little extra time than others when it comes to learning in order to make good grades, and that this is something we must all learn to accept. She didn’t single anyone out or become angry. I cannot recall the subject ever being mentioned or the boy ever being a target of his classmate’s ridicule again.
That experience has stayed with me and I wonder today, how many teachers would take the time to help a child with learning disabilities to be accepted by others, or if he or she would feel too much pressure from other parents and the educational system to conform, and concentrate solely on the children who learn in the conventional way.
My brother didn’t hesitate to inform me that his teachers always said why can’t you be more like your sister when it came to grades? I wished I could be more charming like my brother. He had the lead in the school play and played baseball, not to mention lots of girlfriends. Why can’t we be content with the talents given to us?
Mrs. Hackler, my English teacher, thought I was a perfectionist because I wrote my papers with painfully perfect penmanship. She told my mother that this would get me in trouble one day. What she didn’t realize was I was slowing down so people could read what I wrote, because thoughts tumbled out of my head so fast I tended to scribble in order to keep up. Typing has certainly helped.
Recess time was spent on the big sand hill on the other side of the baseball fields. We were allowed to dig caves in the mounds of sand. I think we learned a lot about how to interact with our friends. Some kids dug, some removed the sand. Tom Degner brought a shingle of wood and twine to school. The shingle was rigged like a swing on the twine and then lowered down into the cave to haul out the sand that had been dug and piled up.
The girls, of course, in that day were not allowed to dig, but they brought dishes and silverware and household items for cave life. When recess was over the teachers leaned out the big windows and hollered out to us that it was time to line up at the front doors and enter the school to resume classes.
There were lots of sand burrs dotting the sand hill, so the teachers usually spent some time with us before classes started pulling out sand burr thorns. They stuck to our clothes and shoes and socks as well.
It was a gentle time in those years. We were allowed the time and space to problem solve. Perhaps in this day, some might think the caves a dangerous place for kids to be playing and they might have a point. In all the years the school was used as an educational facility, I never heard of an incident incurring injuring in the sand hill caves.
The school still stands in Pulaski, but it has been purchased by two men who are renovating it. The school had been used for many years to house farm machinery and tools. The marble floors and staircases are still intact, but a lot of repairs are needed.
Part of the building will become the Pulaski school history room and the other rooms will become a bed and breakfast. Fund raisers organized by the community and the owners are helping with the cost of the project. Former students can purchase a square of fabric to be embroidered with their name by the ladies’ guild and then stitched together to form a quilt. Aunt Mary had squares embroidered for each one of us. The quilt will be hung in the History Room with other memorabilia. I am grateful the school will remain intact and serve as a reminder of days gone past.
Mulberries
The mulberry trees grew alongside the gravel road just past the white barn. They were a source of delight for Sandy, Ron, Greg and me. We were allowed to pick berries from the tree, but only with permission from Mom. It was a great adventure for us to sneak through the side yard, past the red and white barns, through the barnyard filled with Rhode Island red, and black and white checkered Plymouth Rock chickens, pecking and scratching furiously in the dirt for bits of grain, and finally past the grain bin to approach the trees from the back side.
There, in the greatest secrecy, we would stuff ourselves with mulberries picked from the tree branches. Somehow, Mom always knew we had spent time under those trees. It never occurred to us that our bare feet were covered in mulberry juice.
The Farm and the House – Afterward
We had moved away to Indianapolis after my brother Ron graduated from high school. My sister and I were in college. The farm was sold to Aunt Dorothy and her husband Dave after Grandma Minnie passed away. Dave was a college professor at a college in Connecticut, and it was their wish to retire to the farm in Indiana.
The old farm house was purchased by Aunt Mary and her husband Bob, who contracted with a house moving company to remove the house from its foundation and move it to their property located on the banks of the Tippecanoe River in the town of Pulaski. This location is about two or three miles from the farm.
They renovated the house by adding a new wing, back porch and a garage. Later, after our father Henry passed, mother returned to live with her sister, who had also lost her husband.
Dorothy and Dave built a house on the land formerly occupied by Grandma Minnie’s garden. Dave was an enthusiastic gardener and planted beautiful flower and vegetable gardens down below the hill next to the creek. He devised an interesting way to irrigate the gardens by buying and old water hose system from the Pulaski County Fire Department, which allowed him to pump water from the creek. He brought in many pear, peach and apple tree saplings, which eventually grew into a lovely thriving orchard.
Epilogue
I wanted to write this book to help reserve the memories of my childhood for those who follow. Several changes have occurred since its writing in 2008, following the death of our beloved mother, Vera Marie Boardman Clark.
The old schoolhouse has been sold, and the intention is to use part of it as a chocolate factory. The museum will remain.
Gilsinger’s have renovated their old farm implement store into a museum and they have purchased the old Presbyterian Church. They also purchased Annie Miller’s old store and turned it into a community center.
It is a wonderful thing to see this lovely little town by the Tippecanoe preserved in this way.
Betty Louise Clark Nicolas
2021