More about Life together with family on the farm.

We had many fun times as a family together. We all went to the church in Oak Lake. I enjoyed getting to know my first niece Sharon. I remember one time the Siggelkow's were visiting us, I had a few house plants in those deep window seats, as Clara & I were visiting, Sharon was very quiet in the upstairs hall just out my kitchen door. I had a different new kind of a caucus plant called the hen chicken plant, there wasn't any prickles on it, I found her eating these smooth leaves of my rare plant, It never hurt her. Later in life, after our retirement we spent our winter in south Texas. There were many kinds of caucus growing in their pastures. I learned that in the spring new tender leaves grew on those plants, the cattle loved to eat them in the spring. In fact during lent in the spring there were caucus leaves for sale in the stores. The leaves were eaten to put the protein in the diet. A neighbor showed me how to cook these leaves with hot sauce I didn't mind it but it wasn't my favorite dish.

My sister & I became closer in our times together. Clara was expecting her second child in Nov 18, 1944. Max & I were expecting our first child to be born on May 24 1945. We were able to do many things together. I remember my cousin Cecile came to Oak Lake to visit us, we both wanted her to stay over night but she stayed nights with Clara as we didn't have a bed for her.
Darla was born in the parsonage with the Dr Purdie from the next town Griswold. Darla was a
large baby, Clara breast fed all her baby's, but Darla was a colicky baby, so they missed many nights of sleep. The Dr or some one advised her to put her baby on goats milk. Ernie was told where he could buy a goat. I believe that Max went with him to pick up this goat. He built a shed for his goat, but to milk her, he arranges a way for the goat to walk up on to a low table so he could make it easier to milking. Darla really did well on this milk, so her colic got better & she grew to be a healthy child. Both Clara & I sewed the clothes for our baby's, also knit sweater outfits our them. There were no pampers in those days. We sent away to the catalogue for enough flannelet for each of us to have a dozen or more diapers sewed for our baby. Each day we would scrub by hand on a wash board the dirty diapers, drying them in the winter time, on a cloth horse near the heater or cook stove. This was called " your daily dozen".