Growing Up on a Farm in Indiana - Part 2

In Part 1 of this sojourn, Growing Up in Indiana, I mentioned that we had a good-sized pond on the farm. In our younger years, such as tweens and teens, we made a row boat out of an old wooden box that was originally used to make sorghum. We had some paddles, and were all set to go boating. It worked quite well, but our parents warned us not to go out in our boat unless they were at home. We had many happy days in that 'boat,' rowing it around and playing pirates and other games we imagined ourselves.

When winter came and the pond was a solid piece of smooth, cold ice, we would ice skate on the pond. I remember my big brother racing with me, and he usually won because his legs were a lot longer than mine, and his strides took him a lot farther than mine could.

I had great admiration for Sonya Henny, a great figure skater, at that time in my life, and I wanted to learn to skate just as she did. I saw her in movies dressed in short skating outfits, and tried to figure a way to dress as she did. I put on a pair of summer shorts, and wore some heavier tights to cover my legs. Then when the ice was just right, and the temperatures were a little above the freezing mark, I would be Sonya Heney for awhile, especially when I had the whole pond to myself.

Since my two brothers were older and married a lot earlier than us sisters, they often brought siblings of their wives out to the farm to spend some summer time, and that also gave us some more companions to enjoy games and other fun things with. We liked to play 'hide and seek,' when we had at least five players. While one person was 'It,' that left four to hide, and we sure did find some difficult-places-to-hide back then. Places no one would think of, or so we thought, but sooner or later, we would be found.

At other times, we would play cards on the dining-room table. I recall one who often came to play cards; he was a neighbor boy named Johnny, and he and I had a sort of crush on each other. One sister-in-law's younger sister had a grandiose idea that Johnny liked her best of all the girls present. He soon set her straight when he motioned to me as the one he favored. Those were such fun days, and I do not want to forget them.

I also want to talk about our Fourth of July celebrations, and how we celebrated this holiday. My parents would kind of collect fireworks for some time before Independence Day on the Fourth of July, whenever they saw them for sale. As they accumulated the fireworks, they were safely stored in a closet off the kitchen. Then when Independence Day came around, my Dad would get them out right after supper. Of course, we had to wait until it was almost dark. Then Dad would send up the rockets, etc. We were mostly allowed to light the sparklers and run with them and twirl them around. Fire crackers were more for the older two brothers, since they were more dangerous to handle than sparklers. It was good family fun.

When the apples were ripe in the fall, it was so great to come home from school and get a fresh apple from the baskets in the barn. Then on Saturdays and Sundays we would set a lot of them out on the front lawn under huge basswood trees. These were our best apples, all sorted carefully so that they were shiny without any blemishes. People would stop and buy apples, and we usually made a good amount of money on weekends.

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Personal Information/Experience