A couple more things

Hearing stories brings back memories of other stories I've heard over the years.

In my mother's basement is a large table we use to fold clothes. It has been painted so many times and always white. It used to be the kitchen table in the farmhouse where she grew up and is also where she learned to walk. (Not many people learn to walk on a table - I wonder why SHE did.)

Mama remembers walking around and around the table one day when there was an iced cake sitting on the table. With every pass she took her finger and swiped off some of the icing to eat. I don't think Grandma Willis thought it was as funny as I do!

The table is very roughly made as if done in a hurry. The legs are square posts (4x4) and the top is made of three wide boards. Each board is over 12 inches wide and is about two inches thick. There is an apron of 1x4's and it was put together with large nails. No wonder the table is so heavy. Mama's second husband, Charlie Lashley, said it was made of poplar. He should know since he ran a lumber mill for years. (That's another story.)

Charlie suggested that we take the table apart and rework it into another piece of furniture. However, we found that the boards were too wide to fit into his planer. We had to scrap that project. Somehow, it seems fitting that we fold socks and placemats on that table.

During the Great Depression, when work was hard to get and money scarce, my grandparents moved to Cincinnati. Grandma ran a boarding house and Grandad worked in a factory. When Grandad decided he was ready to go back to the farm Grandma was disappointed. She loved the boarding house, cooking for other people, and being closer to her other two children who were both working in Cincinnati at the time.

There is a picture of my mother on a tricycle that was taken on the sidewalk outside the boarding house. She looks to be about four or five. I believe it was soon after that picture was taken that they moved back to the farm and the farming that my Grandad loved.

He grew crops but what I heard about most was the sheep. Quite often a ewe would give birth to more lambs than she could feed. Then, that lamb had to be bottle fed. I guess that was my Mama's job, and joy, because to this day she loves sheep. She had a couple of sheep that she raised on the bottle that became her pets. They would come to her call and she treated them like big fluffy dogs.

One evening there was a ewe missing when the rest came back to the barn. Grandad got a lantern and went to the barn to get a lamb. The premise was that when the lamb would cry, the ewe would answer. My mother told him to let her come instead of bringing the lamb. She said she could cry just like a lamb and did so to prove it to him. He decided to take her instead of the lamb. She called as they walked along and after a while they heard the ewe answer. They found her and brought her home. I guess Mama made a great little lamb.