From Joanne Jacka (Anna)
VISITS TO GRANDMA’S HOUSE
Once a year we’d step up on the running board of our old black Ford with winged windows and drive a long ways down the State to Grandma Brown’s house. Actually it was Grandpa’s too; as they’d bought their house back for $5,000 after the great depression had temporarily taken it away.
During his annual summer vacation Grandpa Brown would drag out the forest green paints, enlist all the grown children and they would slop paint all over the house (“to refresh it” he said.) But this day Grandma would be waiting for us on their huge veranda, rocking and knitting when we drove up. After hugs and drinks I would grab my suitcase and trudge up to the upper floor “girls” room while catching up with giggling cousins: Eileen, Sally & Donna. When I was 10, my uncle Mike was 8 and my cousins & sisters Nicki & Kathi were 7,6,5,4, & 3. Mother & Dad stayed over at Aunt Leah’s house, and the others came from all around. It was confusing to have so many aunts and uncles all talking at once, but you’d get used to it after awhile. After being patted on my blond locks and told how big I’d grown, we’d scamper off to the basement to explore the coal bins, or run across the street to the park or walk on the 6’ high block wall along the back of the house. Mike knew where there were always new things to explore, especially in Grandma’s garden.
Inside, as we climbed up the tall crooked steps to the kid’s rooms (and the only bathroom) we’d pass the huge iron tub with little feet and a step stool next to it; peek into the “boys” room (off limits to us girls) and settle into an enormous room with 5 beds. They were almost side-to- side with the smaller beds (more like cots) down at the end near the attic entrance. The small door to the attic had roped clotheslines where all the girls clothing drooped on hangers. We climbed up on the big beds to peer out the clearstory windows, but saw nothing but trees and an occasional squirrel. We’d jump and flop and toss pillow back and forth till exhausted, and would later be awakened for meals. Down those crooked, steep stairs we’d slowly tromp, one step at a time – holding onto the wall for fear of falling. While we were all fairly little, all the adults were big and I wondered at the time how they fit going up and down that curving stairwell.
At the bottom was a hallway with a door to the coal basement (always locked). Back down the hall were 3 rooms, an old nursery with 3 cribs in it (for grand babies now), the grandparents’ room with a bed so big that you had to squeeze around it just to get to the one side of the bed. And a very special room which in the old days was probably a bedroom, but now was a room full of boxes, junk, sewing machines, ironing board and working tables. An original “all-purpose room. This is the room where you went when you needed some quiet from all of the uproar. One time when I had rescued my 8” storybook doll from my little sisters, my grandma sat me down on a bench and began to make it a doll dress. She crocheted in powder blue, the loveliest little dress I’d ever seen, whipping her hands so fast that you’d think it was a machine. In no time at all while she listened to me intently, finishing the doll dress complete with loops for buttons. She pointed to a big bag of buttons and told me to get out two tiny ones and to sew them on myself. “I don’t know how,” I whispered. “You’ll figure it out” she said and was gone – back to the kitchen where the others were starting dinner. I’ll never forget how she listened with her eyes. It made me feel really special, like I was now part of her pack.
The kitchen, back behind the living & dining rooms, had a huge breakfast table with benches on either side, 3 ovens, (wood, gas, electric), 2 refrigerators and a temporary island. The aroma from all those stoves was heavenly to say the least. Tall burly uncles wandered in sneaking a taste, the aunts patting them on their backsides and shooing them away. There was a pretty curtain around the big sink, which hid the bigger pots and as-sundry canning supplies. The refrigerators were stocked full of homemade goodies, which if they weren’t watching you could grab a coke or a muffin and scoot away.
Beyond the kitchen was a small covered porch, formerly an outdoor entrance, but now converted to a laundry room with a toilet (for the boys). Grandma got tired of the boys always peeing into the bushes, so eventually Grandpa installed one of the smallest toilet’s I’d ever seen, not that I’d seen all that many. Grandma’s washer also had rollers, which Uncle Mike, too, got his hand caught in, just like I had up in Casper.
At bedtime, after communal baths, and totally exhausted, all of us girls would lie in the big beds – three at the top and three at the bottom (head to toe), and after the requisite pillow tossing, would fall asleep. And, when we awoke the next morning, every bed was full. “
Sometimes when we went down to the Grandparents house in Cheyenne Grandpa Brown would take us for long rides in the car. He drove it like it was the train he conducted - full speed ahead and everybody else look out! We once went to Aunt Vivian & Uncle Bob’s sugar beet farm - and it’s a wonder we all didn’t fall out of the back of the truck or get wounded on the tractors they let us ride on. I’ll never forget the smell - a cloying yucky sweet smell - that permeated our clothes and hair. But Aunt Vivian was a jewel - and so calm and quiet compared to her elder sister Anna - at least around us kids. She too could cook like a dream - as all the Brown girls could. After all they all lived through the great depression and all cooked from scratch (not these convenient box mixes that I’ve been lucky enough to help with my hopeless cooking skills). At the Brown house, that huge rambling dark green two story Craftsman - complete with huge front porch, we kids had the run of the place. There were two big bedrooms and a bath upstairs (the girls room and the boy’s room). We had lots of pillow fights and playful arguments. They put us in bed like chess pieces - one head at the top, the next head at the bottom till there were 5 or 6 of us to a bed - with the blankets in the middle. The stairwell (even then) was curved and the smallest stairway I’d ever seen. I don’t know how the grownups got up and down those stairs. In those days there was only the one bathroom, although Grandpa built a toilet and sink off the laundry downstairs for the “boys” maybe in the early 50’s. In the kitchen there were two huge stoves - a wood stove - where Grandma baked her pies, and an electric stove - where she cooked everything else. At Thanksgiving or Christmas the aromas emanating from that kitchen were heavenly. My favorite time was real early in the morning when only Grandpa and I were up - (early birds) and we would have Quaker Puffed Rice or Oats and berries and real cream from Great Grandmother Edam’s cows. She lived in a huge boarding house just outside of town and had the scariest geese imaginable. They would chase us kids and bite our legs till they bled. Nasty creatures those geese!
