My Life in the Little Brown House, part 21: Barn, Cow, and Chickens

Besides the house there were three other structures on the lot, the largest of the three being the barn. The barn was always there in my memory so it must have been constructed when I was quite young. The west end was the stall where the cow was kept (and milked in the winter months). There was a small loft or haymow in the overheard part of the barn where the hay to feed the cow during the winter was stored. I recall vaguely the hay being unloaded from a hayrack into the haymow via a small hay door at the east end of the barn. I think that Uncle Carl provided the hay but I’m not certain.

























Outside the barn on the west was a small lot where the cow was let out during the winter months — it was shielded on the north (and west?) by a board fence for protection against the winter weather. My father always did the milking; only once when he had one of his “sick” headaches did I try my hand at the task, without too much success. It takes a little practice to milk a cow with any degree of proficiency and it wasn’t until we moved to the farm that I really achieved the skill. I don’t recall specifically when I last milked a cow — whether it was the last summer I spent on the farm between my two years at the university, the two-week vacation I took after finishing school in the summer of 1942 and before I left for work at Shell in California, or on one of the annual vacations that I spent back in Iowa during the war years or the later years before my parents moved back to Gowrie. Milking a cow, or being faced with the prospect of needing to do so, has been an occasional, rather unsettling dream I have experienced in the past, although not in recent years. I have had similar unsettling dreams about having to harness a team of horses. Why I should regard these activities as unsettling dreamwise I don’t know. Both were accepted and normal tasks during the years on the farm.

The cow the family had during the early years in Gowrie was usually, if not always, a Holstein. Periodically of course, my father would need to take the cow off to be bred, and I recall wondering what was going on when my father, late in the evening, went off leading the cow. We had no need or use for the calf that was produced; I remember that on at least once occasion it was given to my Strand cousins, and I seem to have the memory of it being pointed out to me on a visit to Uncle Reuben’s homestead.

















Holstein cow

The remaining part of the floor or ground level part of the barn was originally divided into a room for chickens, a little storage area for garden and lawn tools and the garage for the car. The room for chickens was on the south side of the barn, sandwiched between the area occupied by the cow on the west and the small room for garden implement storage. Outside the barn there was a small yard for the chickens to scratch around in. It was not long tough before my parents acquired the lot (or lots) just north of the little brown house to be used as pasture for the cow. When this acquisition was made the chickens were moved to new and larger quarters in a separate chicken house located on the south edge of the pasture, not far from the barn.

Before the lots could be used for pasture they needed to be fenced in and I have a vague recollection of this happening. Inside the pasture there was a further fenced area for the chickens along where the cow was excluded; the chickens however also ranged all over the pasture. The pasture was never seeded to any particular grass — I think it was just the naturally occurring grasses. During the summertime the cow was also pastured at times in part of a community area called “Lindquist’s” pasture which was located across a lane north of the pasture belonging to my parents. Lindquist’s pasture was a large L-shaped piece of land, extending to the M & St. L tracks on the north and the road along the west end of Gowrie leading to the little town of Callender six miles to the north. It could easily have been 20 acres or more in extent. Various townspeople used it for summer pasturage for their cows — I guess having a cow for family milk was fairly common in the town. I recall one man Moberg having a rather obstreperous animal, with horns. This beast attacked one elderly person, by name Julander I believe, and I seem to recall he expired because of his injuries.

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 20: Canned food

Beyond the laundry room, in the southeast corner of the basement was a room where various food staples such as potatoes were stored, also where my mother kept the fruits and vegetables she had canned. The Mason jars were arrayed on a number of shelves lining the walls of the room. The potatoes may have been what was grown in the garden in the west end of the lot, or I suppose may have come from Uncle Carl’s crop, although I have no recollection of this activity on his part until we moved to the farm. My mother canned a lot of fruit and vegetables to economize as far as the family food expense was concerned. Fruits included rhubarb, apples, cherries, perhaps very rarely some kind of berries. The cherries were the sour red kind and the pits were always removed before the fruit was canned, so putting up cherries was a time-consuming activity and not as many jars were “put up” as for apples and rhubarb.

I think the preferred apples for canning were what was termed “harvest” apples. These ripened, as the name implies, about the time of oat harvest which normally would by in late June and early July — threshing would be later, in the latter part of July and extending into August. Harvest apples were a soft, somewhat mealy apple, and in flavor (to me at least) when cooked resembled that of Gravensteins. The latter I knew nothing of until days in California, and indeed then only after Jean and I were married. Gravenstein applesauce was something that Jean’s mother made all during her married days — indeed while she was still relatively active she would can a dozen quarts or so and given them to us, say as a Christmas present.

The vegetables my mother canned included sweet corn, string beans, tomatoes. The sweet corn was “blanched” and then the kernels were cut off before being “cold-packed.” I think the string beans similarly were cold-pack but the tomatoes were always open kettle. Tomatoes were the most canned vegetable by her.

On further recollection, I should include peaches in the fruit my mother canned, although in this case it was fruit that was purchased. Iowa winters are too cold for peach trees to survive. We never had apricots — this also was a taste that I acquired after I moved to California (along with persimmons). There are varieties of persimmons, rather small fruit, that are native to the Midwest but we never had them.

Another fruit I neglected to include was Concord grapes. At my grandmother’s house, along the driveway on the east side of the lot was a long row of Concord grape vines, and I believe that the grapes were shared with us. The vines were quite prolific producers as I recall. I have never liked Concord grapes to eat raw, but the grape juice when used in such desserts as grape sago pudding is very much one of my favorites. When my mother made greda kaka (literally “cream pudding”) and served it topped first with thickened Concord grape juice (I suppose with cornstarch) and then with whipped cream, I had another of the desserts I treasure in memory. Jean has tried on occasion to make greda kaka but the result was not was lingers in my memory. Perhaps once difficulty is the lack of a source of unpasteurized and unhomogenized whole milk. The curdling agent, rennet, she did locate after some inquiry but I don’t think the raw milk was to be found.

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 19: Laundry

Washing clothes was a major, all-day operation and quite different from the washer and dryer operation of today. It was done on Mondays as I recall, and being a once-a-week operation entailed 8 to 10 “tubs” of wash in the washing machine. Normally the washing itself would be done by noon or shortly thereafter, ending up with using the water in the washing machine to wash down the floor of the laundry room, with the water going down the floor drain in the southwest corner of the room. Almost always the wash was hung outside to dry, even in the winter, I can vaguely recall my mother bringing in the clothes, stiff and frozen from being outside. Further drying may have been done on the clotheslines in the laundry area. The next steo in the process was to dampen or sprinkle the clothes and linen, rolling the pieces of laundry up and stacking them in the wicker baskets. After standing awhile or overnight, the laundry was ready for ironing, either late in the day or on Tuesday.

Washing clothes was such a major household task that often one of my mother’s sisters (either Aunt Ruth or Aunt Esther) would walk across town from Grandmother’s house to ours to spend the day helping my mother. Mostly I think it was Aunt Ruth was early in my days in the little brown house Aunt Esther was off working at the Deaconess Institute in Omaha. It was while she was working there that she suffered her mental breakdown and was institutionalized for awhile at the mental hospital at Cherokee. It was never clear to me the cause of her difficulty, but it may have been the kind of mental instability that I always thought characterized the Seashore side of the family (my grandmother’s side) plus the kind of standard of perfection in work and purpose that was engendered growing up in the Peterson household. So it was only after her return from Cherokee that she would have come to help.

It was on one of Aunt Esther’s visits (I suppose it was for helping with the wash) that for some reason or circumstance, she and I were having lunch together. We were having potatoes and gravy, with not much in the way of potatoes but considerable gravy. Aunt Esther said she would supplement her share of the potatoes with bread and gravy and I thought this peculiar indeed, never having encountered this before. I suppose that Aunt Esther had had bread and gravy in her childhood — perhaps potatoes were scarce in the household at times but there was always bread.

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 18: Basement, Heating, and Laundry

But to return to the subject of the little brown house. I’ve covered to this point the main floor and the upstairs, now for the basement. The steps to the basement, leading from the landing outside the back door to the house were rather steep and narrow, and closed by a door at the top. At the bottom of the stairs to the left was the small pressure tank for the soft water system in the house. Beside the tank was the small motor-driven pump that drew water from the cistern outside the house and charged it under pressure to the tank (so that it would flow to the faucets in bathroom and kitchen upstairs). The cistern was supplied by water from runoff from the roof, via eaves troughs and downspouts. Being “soft” and uncontaminated with calcium, magnesium and iron salts it was preferred for use in laundry and washing dishes, also for bathing uses.

The soft water also made its way through the heating tank associated with the cook stove — the hot water was a byproduct of the use of the stove for heating and cooking. So the supply of hot water was somewhat limited and dependent in any event of the cooking done. The “cold” water taps in the house were connected to the town water supply which came from a well, and was accordingly charged with dissolved salts. It was used for cooking and drinking. My mother had of course the ubiquitous “tea kettle” sitting on the stove at all times and it was naturally cared with city water. A layer of precipitated salts would gradually build up in the kettle and periodically my mother would chip away at the layer (my recollection was she used a large screwdriver and a hammer) to remove it to a workable thickness. I may have assisted her in this task as I recall that the layer was really not hard, more like a rather soft friable rock. Unless I had actually worked with it, I can’t see how I would have been aware of its consistency.

The pressure tank for the soft water was only supposed to be charged to a certain pressure level, so the pump and motor charging it needed to be shut off when this level was reached. This was done by someone watching the pressure gauge and pulling open the open (uncovered) switch when the appropriate level was reached (if there was an automatic cutoff it had over time ceased to function). I recall that this task on occasion fell to me. I had doubtless been warned about the switch and the bare copper contacts, but with nothing to occupy me as I sat watching, my thoughts were captivated by the switch and what I had been told about its function. Anyway, once when I shut it off I decided to touch the bare copper legs of the switch — fortunately on the side next to the motor so there was no potential involved. Nothing occurred of course. For some unfathomed reason I didn’t pursue the investigation any further.

The basement generally was divided into two parts longitudinally. The north half contained the furnace (convective hot air) which was located about in the middle of the room. On either side were the areas where either coal or corncobs were stored — for use either in the furnace, the stove in the kitchen or in the small stove in the laundry section. The coal was kept in the west end, the cobs to the east. The coal was of course purchased but the cobs came from farm sources — I remember once assisting my Uncle Carl when he was delivering some cobs to the house. One had to be careful in charging the furnace that the fresh fuel did not snuff out the actual flame. If the flame went out there was a source of ignition, the fuel smolder for awhile, generating a combustible mixture of air and gases which when it got hot enough (from the underlying bed of embers) would burn suddenly, generating a pressure surge in the furnace fuel box. My parents referred to this happening as the furnace “puffing.” I think I was asked to charge the furnace on occasion (thought not to the extent that this was my duty when we were living out on the farm).

The south half of the basement was divided into two rooms, the larger of which (on the west) contained the laundry equipment. This consisted of a small stove which my mother used to heat the water for the washing process; for this she used a large copper wash boiler. The boiler had a lid, stood maybe 15 to 18 inches high and was roughly rectangular in horizontal cross sections, with rounded corners.
















Copper boiler

Some of the clothes were literally boiled in the wash boiler, mainly I suppose white items. The washing machine had a wooden tub, made of staves like a barrel. The agitator was electric motor-powered. After the washing in the machine was complete the clothes were put through a wringer into the tub of an old, manually-powered washing machine for rinsing. And, my recollection, from there through the wringer again into the wicker basket from which they would be hung out to dry. The white or light-colored items were washing first, followed by progressively darker and dirtier items, ending up I suppose with the coveralls my father used in his milking chores. For the white clothes a treatment with bluing was always in order, to counteract a tendency for white items to develop a faint yellowish tint.
























Wooden washing machine

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 17: Newspaper Comics and Crosswords

About the only feature of the Messenger that got much attention from me aside from the comics was the daily crossword puzzle. I recall attempting them, although how often or consistently I don’t know. As for my parents I really wonder if they ever really had the time or leisure to sit down and really read the Messenger (or the weekly Gowrie News which they also subscribed to). This was certainly the case with my father. I have the vague recollection of my mother sitting down with the paper in the early afternoon when there may have been a lull in the daily schedule for her.

The passing attraction to the crossword puzzle for me was indeed a forerunner of the interest in them that has developed in retirement years when there was more time for such frivolous pursuits. During my bachelor years, after the move to the San Francisco Bay Area, I subscribed for awhile to the Saturday Review of Literature (during the tenure of Norman Cousins as editor and I believe owner) and I would do the double acrostic puzzles occasionally, but they have never had quite the hold on my liking that the simpler crossword puzzles have had. Actually I got started on the double acrostics when a Shell colleague of mine, Del Ryvring [sp?], also a bachelor, indicated that doing them was one of his hobbies.

In thinking back on the possible reasons for the development of the activity which I have had in retirement of drawing, water-coloring etc., I wonder if my interest in cartoon strips at an early age was the root cause. One of the cartoon strips of the time was Flash Gordon (drawn by one Alex Raymond) and the pictures he drew were far beyond the level of the rest of the cartoons of the time, and indeed truly works of art in the pen-and-ink medium. I recall admiring them at the time, and I still marvel at his virtuosity. The full page Sunday section was a real panorama of pictorial skill. Raymond’s drawings were, in my opinion, much more works of art that the vapid offerings of most galleries of today.











Flash Gordon comic strip

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 16: Friends, Bicycles, and Newspapers

Another friend I had was Everett Johnson. He was an only child, his parents operated the local IGA grocery store. In one of the rooms upstairs in their home he had all his toys — cars etc. — and this is where he played with them. Again I was entranced by the extent of his toys, but I was struck by his dismissive attitude toward the lot. I guess he had long since tired of them. His interest at the time lay more in adapting his wagon etc. into a simulated car, resembling one of the little cars in the Sears or Wards catalogs that one could pedal and steer. I guess it wasn’t only adapting his wagon for this purpose but actually constructing the vehicle from pieces of wood and wheels. They were steered by having the front wheels turn as the axle to which they were attached swiveled, actuated by ropes (which in turn were either pulled as with the reins on a team of horses or alternately coiled or released from a rotating rod attached to the steering wheel).

There was another aspect of my young life which in retrospect I find somewhat surprising and that was the extent to which I reached out for social contacts. This is certainly different from my personality as an adult which was always characterized by a certain diffidence and indeed a preference for solitary pursuits. I recall a number of times when I spent a short visit in the homes of my young compatriots, overnight or maybe even two nights. The two I specifically recall were with Leland Christianson and Vernon Telleen — both families represented lived on farms and I was introduced to the farm regimen, although I don’t have any specific recollection along that line. I have remembrance though of the bed I shared with Leland during the visit with him; also the outdoor plumbing the family used.

Of the visit with Vernon I only remember that, as a person interested in athletics, he had constructed a high jump facility. During the visit to use it he donned a pair of shorts and his mother on seeing this said it was too cold for that kind of attire and made him change. I recall Vernon on a return visit to my parents’ home. I also have a vague recollection that I may have also similarly visited overnight with Arthur Holmer — his parents lived on and rented my grandfather Strand’s farm. Whether my sisters or brothers ever had similar visiting experiences I don’t know.

One “toy” I had was a bicycle, and this came about because when I was born on my Uncle Carl’s birthday (and therefore perforce acquired his name) he must have felt a certain affinity for me because he gave my parents $25 for me. Somewhere along the line this became known to me and when my desire for a bicycle developed my parents agreed that the money could be used for it. The bicycle I finally selected was one offered for sale at the local Lennarson & Johnson’s hardware store. I remember my first tries at riding it, on the road in front of the little brown house. I would quite often accompany a young friend, Harris Magnusson, when he made his late afternoon rounds delivering the Des Moines Tribune or when he was making his weekly collection from his customers on Saturday morning. At that time the Des Moines paper published the morning Register and the evening Tribune. Sometime over the years the two “Tribune” may have now been dropped.

One noticeable characteristic of the Register was the color of paper used in the sport section — sort of a buff-orange. The papers were first delivered to the local M & St. L. [Minneapolis & St. Louis] Railway station but later on (perhaps as the passenger service on the line was reduced) they were delivered by car. One of the local Gowrie residents, one Ed Wynn, distributed them to a number of towns in the general area. I think there were at least two Tribune routes in Gowrie in addition to the morning Register routes. The Sunday paper was the Register and was delivered by Harris early in the morning; I was never allowed to accompany him on this delivery. I believe I broached the subject of having a paper route, but I seem to recall my parents not being receptive to the idea, perhaps because of the Sunday a.m. commitment. Sunday morning was not the time for such activity. In retrospect I have the feeling that my parents were more protective and restrictive of their children’s activities than were other families in the community.

The newspaper that my parents subscribed to was not the Des Moines paper (either of them) but instead the Fort Dodge Messenger. It was a smaller paper than the Des Moines paper and its circulation areas was probably pretty much restricted to Webster County. It arrived in the mail each day — no local paper boys. At that time in my life I was mostly interested in the comic section — I can’t ever remember actually reading the news items in the paper. I recall that the Messenger at one time revamped and expanded its comic section and I greeted this change with considerable enthusiasm. Amongst the new strips was one entitled “Scorchy Smith” — sort of a barnstorming air pilot of the (much later) Steve Canyon genre. I don’t remember the others.

















Scorchy Smith comic

Before and after the change there was one strip that somehow sticks in my memory, but I can’t remember the title now. The two main characters were sort of a bumbling man and his rather sharp-tongued wife, and the continuing low-level contest of wills between them. It was actually one of the better cartoon strips of the day and had a subtlety of humor that mostly escaped me at the time. But it did penetrate my understanding enough to be marginally attracted to it.

Although the Messenger did not have a Sunday paper we were not bereft of the multi-colored Sunday comic section. Several doors away from us lived Albert and Molly Rosene and when they had finished their leisurely perusal of their Sunday paper they gave it to us (mostly to me I think, I was the one who was mostly instrumental in getting it). The Sunday paper was their paper for the week — they didn’t get the daily paper. At that time, several of the comic strips would have paper dolls and these were eagerly cut out to supplement what we got out of the old Sears and Montgomery catalogs.

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 15: Paper dolls, Erector sets and electric trains

Sometimes the bedrooms also served as playrooms. I have mentioned the use of the window seats as storage places for toys. Even at this early stage in our lives, toys were sometimes things that were devised from materials at hand. One example of this was the cut-out paper dolls that both I and my sisters played with. I really don’t know if this play project extended to Vincent and the younger brothers or not. The dolls, and any appurtenances such as furniture, playthings for the dolls and anything else, were cut from out-of-date catalogs from Sears Roebuck, Montgomery Ward or National Bellas Hess.
























Bellas Hess catalog, spring/summer 1931

Each of these mail order companies would send out at least two catalogs every year (winter and summer) and perhaps there were actually four, with editions for spring and fall as well. My mother did a fair amount of shopping from these catalogs. I think this reflected a lack of availability in the stores in Gowrie, the relative cost of the items (tending to be cheaper in the catalogs) and the infrequency of any shopping trips to Fort Dodge, the nearest town of any size. Other families in town might even travel to Des Moines for shopping but we did not.

My mother favored Sears over the other two with National Bellas Hess as the least desired alternative — they also did not offer as wide a selection of items as the other two companies. The arrivals of new catalogs were also happenings of interest to us children. Looking into the newest “wish” book, particularly the winter catalog with its expanded toy section (for the Christmas season), was always an anticipated event. And of course the arrival of the new editions provided us with fresh material to add to, replace or augment our existing collections of paper dolls. Actually for me at least, the paper doll game consisted mostly in the cutting out etc. I don’t even recall playing with them very much once they had been prepared.

For me the toy section of the catalogs was a dream that was never fulfilled. I was attracted for example to the display of Erector sets and my parents did provide me with some of the smaller sets, but I never had the largest set with its little electric motor that ran off dry cells as I recall. Another toy that caught my eye was the electric train items. I was always entranced by the train that the Lennarson & Johnson hardware store set up in their store window before Christmas. As I remember it, it was a green Lionel passenger train and often they would have it running round and round on its long oval track. I don’t remember what they were asking for itm but apparently it didn’t sell at the price they had put on it, as it reappeared year after year. There was another store, a drug store, that would have an electric train display before Christmas, but it wasn’t on the same scale as the one at Lennarson & Johnson.

During my young years I did have a subscription to the American Boy magazine, whether my parents paid for it, or whether it came out of my allowance I’m not sure. The magazine would carry ads for Lionel and American Flyer trains, and you could write in and get their free catalogs. I did this and I spent a lot of time poring over the trains shown in these brochures. Most of them were far beyond any possibility but I recall one of the smaller sets for $13.00. I calculated that by saving my 25¢ weekly allowance for a year I could reach this goal but of course I never did. As it was, the weekly allowance was already committed in part for certain things (such as the weekly Sunday School 5¢ offering) and whatever my goal I’m sure that I could never have kept it in mind for a whole year. So I treasured the catalogs and dreamt my dreams.

























American Boy magazine, August 1930

Though I had these longings for a larger Erector set and an electric train, I can’t say that I was really envious of those of my young friends who had them, and I feel that I was happy with my lot. I recall playing at the home of one of my friends — one Clare Johnson. He had a large Erector set with the small electric motor and seeing it certainly increased my desire for such a set. In retrospect though I consider myself much more fortunate that Clare. His father was a postal mail carrier who started speculating on the Board of Trade in Fort Dodge, and managed to lose the farm they had and their home; he ended up shooting himself. Clare, his mother and his sister had to move into their grandparents’ home.

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 14: Upstairs

After the upstairs bedrooms were constructed, the stairway came into daily, even hourly use. It was a narrow staircase, with a turn at the bottom and rather steep as staircases go; like many of the features of the little brown house it was functional but without any pretense of being more than that. At the top of the stairs was a short hall leading on the left (to the east) to the bedroom for the girls and on the right (to the west). The former for the boys’ room faced north — it would have been impossible structurally for it to have faced south as the roof for the sun room extension would have interfered.

















The room was light and airy — there were two original windows facing west and the former had windows more or less all along it. Along these windows was what was termed the window seat, about chair seat height; the top of the seat was hinged so that tows etc. could be stored in the cabinet area provided. My recollection is that most of the time the bed was backed up against the west wall, although on occasion it may have been against the inner wall of the room. In the northwest corner stood my dad’s roll-top desk which had been moved up from its earlier site in the west end of the sun room; there was also the little bookcase holding his National Geographic magazines.

The clothes closet was a walk-in one, just inside the entrance to the room, to the south (left). The dresser, as also the dresser in the girls’ room, had been purchased by my parents at an estate sale. Some elderly couple at the west end of town had both died and their furniture was being disposed of. The dresser in the boys’ room had been modified after purchase. The lower portion was still intact and had 3 or 4 large drawers at the bottom with two little drawers on each end of the dresser above. Originally there had been a relatively large mirror above the drawers but this had been detached. During the period directly after the dresser bottom and the detached mirror part had been moved into the bedroom, I sat in the mirror part in such a way as to crack the mirror. As a consequence a smaller mirror was made from the salvaged mirror, [and] framed with wood from the original mirror frame. This mirror hung on the wall above the dresser where it stood on the east, inside, wall of the boys’ room. In retrospect I’m not sure there would have been room for a high mirror from the original dresser where it stood. My impression of the boys’ dresser was that it was a real antique and the original piece may have been quite tall. It was hardwood (oak I think), well made and basically a better, more attractive piece of furniture than the dresser the girls got.

At the southwest corner of the room were some low doors that led to a storage area formed by the gable above the sun room. The headroom was a little low though ample along the ridge of the roof and under the dormer; on the inside (south) side of the room it was probably not much more than 4 feet so that even at a young age we could not stand erect against the wall. The floors were oak, stained a light color and partly covered by rag rugs. These area rugs were made by some local lady who had some sort of loom for making them. My mother would accumulate rags, cut them into strips and stitch them end to end and these strips were the material for the rugs. I can still see the balls of these strips wound up that my mother took to the lady who made the rugs.

The short hall at the top of the stairs had on the south side some cabinets that my mother used for storage of bed linen, blankets etc. Then on the east side of the upstairs was the girls’ bedroom — I think it was slightly larger than the boys’ room — I recall seeing it with two large beds in it, whereas there was never more than the one bed that I slept in with Vincent as bed companion in the boys’ room. In the girls’ room the beds had the headboards at the north wide of the room with its low headroom. The walk-in closet was a little larger than the one in the boys’ room and was located just inside the doorway to the room, on the north side. To the other side of the entry stood the dresser, along the west wall. The room had the same window and window seat arrangement as in the boys’ room. In addition there was a small catchall cabinet tucked in the southeast corner of the room. I remember sleeping over in the girls’ room, whether this was occasioned by the earlier completion of that room relative to the boys’ room I don’t know.

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 13: Parlor and Downstairs Bedroom

At the northeast corner of the parlor was a small entryway having a rather large mirror just facing the front door. To the north side was a closet for hanging wraps — those that were for “dress-up” occasions. The house had a good-sized front porch that extended the width of the house and was I suppose 8 to 10 feet deep. It was bounded by a solid ledge perhaps 30 inches tall and the porch roof was supported by a number of large pillars. In the summertime screens were put up to keep out insects — these were taken down in the winder and stored somewhere out of the weather. There was some kind of furniture on the porch, perhaps a hanging swing, but I don’t recall very clearly. A sort series of broad steps led down from the porch to the sidewalk outside. This sidewalk was a place where as children we would play hopscotch, marking out on it the pattern for the game.

The remaining room downstairs in the little brown house was the bedroom my parents occupied, on the north side of the house between the stairway leading upstairs and the entryway near the front door. This room was my parents’ bedroom all during the years in the little brown house till the move to the farm, but at times it also served as a place where some of the children may have slept while quite young. I have the distinct memory of an incident as a quite young child in a crib bed placed in front o the door leading to the stairs (which was in the northwest corner of the room). From the position of the bed obstructing access to the stairway door, the stairway was not in general use signifying that the upstairs changes had yet to be made. The bed was one of the kind in which one side can be raised or lowered. I was supposed to be taking a nap and instead I was standing up in the crib. My mother came in and told me that I was supposed to be napping. I remember nothing before or after her coming in — a curious little snippet of recollection from the time I must have been not more than 2 or 3 years old. Any recollections I have before I was 6 years old are few indeed and this may be my earliest one.

Beside any crib or cribs for small children, the furniture in the room included an iron frame bedstead for my parents and a dresser. It may also have contained my mother’s cedar chest — I don’t have a very clear picture of where she had this in the little brown house. If it was in this bedroom it would have been in front of the windows on the north side of the room. On the east side of the room was a walk-in closet.

My mother kept her jewelry in one of the smaller drawers in the dresser and on one occasion my brother Vincent got into the jewelry and carried some of it out of the room, indeed out of the house. I seem to recall that the watch my mother had (which had been the gift her father gave each of his children at about the age of 21) was dropped in the vacant lot to the south of the house, where it was found in a somewhat damaged condition. The watch was one that was sort of pinned to a dress when in use and I don’t recall my mother ever wearing it — in fact I sort of think it wasn’t functional.

Another recollection I have of my parents’ bedroom was, as a young child, using it as a place where I dressed and undressed myself at the beginning and end of the day. The place where I did this was just inside the door to the room, next to the foot of the bed. When undressing I piled up my clothes in a neat little pile to be put on again the next morning. My guess is that we changed our attire perhaps once a week — maybe getting fresh underwear, stockings etc. on Sunday morning. Certainly there wasn’t the change in clothes that occurred with our children or grandchildren.

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 12: Gowrie Library

The Gowrie library did exist and function at least in the years just preceding the move to the farm. I recall one Saturday evening before the weekly bath sitting on the steps leading to the upstairs bedroom, right in the place where the steps turn at the base for the straight section of the steps, and reading from Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer. I was reading the part of the book where Tom and Becky Thatcher get lost in the cave and I was quite afraid that something dire was going to happen. I was too young and inexperienced in the ways of authors to realize that most fiction ends relatively happily with all the heroes and heroines safe and sound. The library was situated at the back of Brunson’s jewelry store (later combination jewelry and variety store) and it was open for returning and checking out books on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Both days the hours were in the afternoon, perhaps somewhat longer on Saturdays.

The elder Brunsons (old Mr. Brunson was the watch repair man) had one child, Leonard, and it was his wife who acted as the librarian. She was a dark, plump, rather short lady with rather a brusque way of meeting people, perhaps particularly the younger patrons of the library. I don’t know if the library received some financial support from town or county taxes, such as a stipend for the librarian’s time. It was not a very large library but it was a focal point of interest for me (and I think Clarice and Vivian) and I visited it regularly, even after the move to the farm. I don’t know how the books were acquired — perhaps most of the original core had been donated — but in later years there was a section of books supplied by the state library that were periodically changed. My reading was not very edifying I’m afraid. I tended to favor Westerns (the principal authors I recall were Zane Grey and William MacLeod Raine) but I also read all the Tarzan books that the library stocked. My mother didn’t really approve of the books I read, particularly the Tarzan books but she didn’t actively oppose any of them. Perhaps she had too many problems which she felt were more important to deal with.

Before I left Gowrie to go to SUI for school, the town had constructed a town hall, which housed the fire truck, provided an expanded area for the library and I think a meeting room for such meetings as the town council. I recall visiting this new location for the town library and checking out books, but I don’t remember the hours nor who served as librarian. I’m sure it wasn’t the younger Mrs. Brunson.

One of the less pleasant memories I have of the little brown house was an incident that occurred one Sunday in the interval between arriving back from Sunday morning service and the midday meal. I was lying on the parlor rug reading and not far away Vincent was squabbling with the younger brothers. My father was irked by the squabbling and misinterpreted me as being the source of it and administered a spanking to me. I felt affronted by the injustice, particularly at the time. In the long run though its main effect was to engender in me the recognition that any person in a position of authority will on occasion make a mistake, with the further upshot that no opinion from authority is unequivocally correct. I think this recognition played its part in the questioning process that went on later in my life as to the validity of the statements I heard from the clergy and relatives regarding religion in general and the Christian teachings in particular. Nothing is taken for granted as being true, even though voiced by individuals generally respected, even loved; all too often human frailty is all too evident.

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 11: Dining Room and Parlor

Though the family income was adequate for keeping the family well clothed, housed and fed (aided by the supplementary facets of garden, chicken, cow, etc.) there wasn’t much left over for discretionary purposes. One purchase that my mother did make however was a set of china, sort of intermediate in quality between the everyday dishes and her best dishes (the latter were plain white with some gold edging, and the cups were rather small and dainty and distinctive in shape). It was sort of a black and orange (or yellow) floral design and I think it was referred to as the chrysanthemum design. The plates were not round but edged with a combination of short and long straight-line segments (slightly rounded where the segments joined). She bought this set from one of the local stores — I almost wonder if it wasn’t some sort of promotional deal for some sort of merchandise. After she got them, grandmother and her household also purchased a set of the same design, motivated I think by my mother’s purchase. I always had the feeling that my mother was more receptive to new ideas and things than were the members of my grandmother’s household.

Beyond the dining room to the east was the parlor — seldom if ever referred to as the living room. It was not a room that received as much use as the others rooms of the house. For the children any play or activity there would be much more decorous than in the kitchen or sunroom for example. The furniture consisted of the “library” table which occupied a place in the southeast corner of the room, a couple of large rocking chairs (again with the seat of some leather or leather-like material), perhaps some of the extra chairs from the dining room table set. For awhile the piano was along the north wall of the room before it was moved to the erstwhile bedroom in the northwest corner of the house. After the family purchased a radio, it was placed in the southwest corner of the parlor. This purchase was made in 1929, not a particularly auspicious time for such an out-of-the-ordinary expenditure. I recall my mother commenting that 1929 was an unusual year for expenditures — the birth of Marold (at the hospital, differing from all the other children), the radio and last of all, the Essex.

I remember the folks tried out several radios before settling on the Majestic floor model they finally chose. One they tried out was a smaller one that would sit on a table with the speaker above it. The unit that was provided for demonstration developed some difficulty and the set grew hot and emitted a peculiar burnt odor. I can well recall it when this occurred; it was in the sun room, on a temporary perch on my mother’s sewing machine. I actually have little recollection of listening to the radio very much at all in the little brown house; it was not until the move to the farm that it really began to occupy a significant niche in the daily activities of the family.

























1929 Majestic radio

Both the dining room and parlor had rugs on the floor (not wall-to-wall carpeting). These were taken outside during “spring cleaning” to be laid on the ground and beaten with [the] carpet beater to remove the year’s accumulation of dust and grime. The rest of the year they were subjected to a weekly cleaning with the carpet sweeper. My parents did have a vacuum cleaner (it stood in the cloak closet in the entry to the parlor from the front door) but sometime in its history the motor had burned out and I don’t recall ever seeing it used. Both the parlor and dining room windows were curtained by the ubiquitous lace-like curtains typical of the period in Gowrie.

There was no door between the dining room and parlor. There was a large open passageway flanked on either side by another higher open area beyond two large pillars. On the parlor side adjacent the passageway on both sides were two bookcases with ornamental glass doors in front of the shelves. The bookcase on the south contained various children’s books and others that I don’t recall now. The children’s books were a compilation that my parents had purchased all together to provide for their children’s reading — I don’t really know if the Gowrie library was functional or existent when they bought them. Included were such books as A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson, Heidi and Pinocchio.

The other bookcase contained, amongst other books, two multi-volume sets of large books. One set was an encyclopedia which I remember using for reference material in my schoolwork. The other was a set entitled Ridpath’s History of the World. This too received some use, from me at least, but mostly for looking at the pictures, some pretty lurid and gory. I’m quite sure that both these large sets of books has been purchased by my father and I suspect they were form his bachelor days — perhaps even from his days in the teaching profession. Then there was also a scattering of novels — for example the book She by H. Rider Haggard was there. I don’t recall reading it though or other books of that character.

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 10: Bathroom and Dining Room

I remember one incident relative to the bathroom that provides some interesting sidelights on the characteristics of my parents. It occurred when Clarice was of an age when she was starting to menstruate and she was attending to her needs in the bathroom, having locked the door. My father needed, or wanted to use the bathroom — perhaps he had an urgent need to do so. Anyway on finding the door locked, and Clarice within preventing his access, he became quite angry and made some threatening remarks. My mother, perhaps aware, or sending the situation, immediately remonstrated, indeed informed my father that he wasn’t to carry out any of his threats. He promptly subsided. What eventually developed in the situation I do not recall. It does however illustrate the characteristic of my father, generally a mild-mannered person, to occasionally “fly off the handle.” I have observed this tendency in myself. The incident also illustrates the relationship between my parents in that my father’s basic regard and appreciation for my mother’s opinion and action would temper him even in one of his rare obstreperous moments.

Generally my parents were pretty much in accord in their thinking and actions. One of the few times when there was substantial disagreement between them was on the subject of an endowment-type life insurance policy. Fred Magnusson (who worked at the second bank in Gowrie — the Savings Bank — in a position similar to that of my father at the First National Bank and who moonlighted as an insurance agent) had convinced my father that he should purchase this $2000 endowment policy. My mother was opposed stating somewhat irrationally that what she wanted was my father, not the proceeds from some life insurance. In the end my father prevailed, but the company failed during the Depression and only part of the money invested was recovered.

Off of the kitchen to the east was the dining room. In the center of the room was, normally, a round oak table. The table could be expanded into a long table by the addition of boards at its center. Accompanying the table were six (eight?) oak chairs; the seats were leather-covered, or at least a leather-like material. When the table was in the round shape, four chairs would be arranged around it with the remainder along the wall at various places. On the west wall stood a sort of buffet, with cupboards for storing my mother’s good dishes and a large drawer at the bottom for tablecloths, napkins, etc. There were also some smaller drawers above the cabinets for storage of her silverware. The upper surface of the buffet was about chest high and along the back was a low mirror that ran the length of the buffet. Sitting on the upper surface, on some doilies, were two cut-glass dishes (maybe they were wedding presents) and in the center between the dishes was a large glass pitcher (and glasses?). I’m not at all sure about the latter, but there was something kept there.

In the southeast corner of the room was a china closet, with a glass door. It was tall rather than wide, perhaps five to six feet tall with several shelves in it. The door could be locked (as could the buffet cupboards and drawers) but I don’t remember the locks ever being used. The china closet contained various of my mother’s fancier dishes, including a cream and sugar set. The latter I distinctly recall as I remember on occasions as a young child sneaking a spoonful of sugar from it. There was a little ornamental spoon with the set for dispensing the sugar. I never gave any thought to leaving the spoon unwashed after I had had it in my mouth. On top of the china cabinet stood a clock, the striking kind, but which to my recollection wasn’t used, maybe it wouldn’t run.

In the northeast corner of the dining room was the cold air register that circulated air to the convection furnace in the house; it was flush with the floor. The floors in the dining room and living rooms, and I think the front bedroom were, I believe, maple, and stained dark. The woodwork was oak in the dining room and parlor.

One incident concerning the dining room that I don’t recall but I heard about secondhand was the time I was discovered (by my mother?) as a young child running around on top of the table. A memory I do have of the dining room was the time when Clarice had something wrong with one of her knees (some broken or damaged cartilage) and she had to be still in bed for some time. A bed or couch was set up in the dining room near the window side and Clarice spent the time for her knee to mend there. She must have been about 10 years old when this occurred — I think it was after Dr. Borgen took over old Dr. Erickson’s practice. Dr. Erickson was pretty much in his dotage in his last years of practice and I doubt he’d have had the insight to detect what was wrong with Clarice’s knee.

I can recall the dining room being the scene of a family meal, with grandmother’s along for the occasion but it’s not related to any particular event. Somehow or other I tie this in with a couple of food items that I didn’t like, and didn’t eat, as a child. One was chicken (a favorite, particularly for the rest of the family, when my mother would fry a young rooster) and another was the scalloped ham and potato dish that she made. I didn’t like the ham. I have the vague feeling that I was a rather “picky” eater as a child, but this is one of the childhood characteristics that I’ve outgrown. I like chicken now and scalloped ham and potatoes is one of my favorite dishes.

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 9; Piano lessons, Bathroom

After the northwest room ceased to be a bedroom (I never figured out what happened to the bed and dresser that were in it — sort of a cedarwood construction) the family used it as a sort of play and general purpose room. I suppose I included it in my morning sweeping shore. The piano had been moved there from its previous place in the parlor and there it was that the older children practiced on it and were given lessons by our Aunt Ruth. I know that Clarice, Vivian and I had lessons but I’m pretty sure that Vincent never started. After the move to the farm Vivian continues with the instruction from Aunt Ruth, but it stopped for me, and I think Clarice also. I can see myself now seated on the piano bench with Aunt Ruth beside me, going through the scales and arpeggios in the various combinations of flats and sharps. She also assigned simple compositions such as “The Happy Farmer” by Robert Schumann which was a favorite of mine — indeed it is the only specific piece I recall.

I never acquired much skill but this early introduction to the piano did two things for me. First it later on led to an attempt at developing some facility on the instrument, though without any substantial success. This happened while I was living in San Pedro and I took lessons for awhile with a lady who was the organist at the second Lutheran church in the town. I continued the activity (but not any lessons) after the move to the San Francisco are and I actually rented a piano for awhile. But the activity gradually dwindled and though I’ve sat down at the piano occasionally over the years, even such occasions have become rarer and rarer. More important was the second effect and that was to engender in me a liking for piano music, indeed for other keyboard instruments also such as the organ. And in a general way for music of whatever kind. I date my liking, even preference for Bach’s music to the influence of the piano teacher I had in San Pedro.

Adjacent to the northwest room of the little brown house was the bathroom. As in most, if not all, houses in Gowrie at the time it was the one and only bathroom in the building. The bathtub was the old-fashioned kind with the claw feet and it was tucked into a nook on the east side of the room, below the staircase going to the upstairs. The headroom as a consequence was a little limited at one end. Midway on the west side was the wash basin with a little cabinet above it, having a small mirror. Here it was that my father shaved every morning, using an old shaving mug (with the soap in the bottom of it) and an old-fashioned straight razor. I remember the device he had for honing the razor. It wasn’t the usual kind of strop where the user holds the razor and moves it over the strop (as the barbers at the barber shop in Gowrie did). Rather it was a little device that he would hook onto the door knob; the razor was inserted and the stop was pulled alternately one way and then back through it. The action was such that the razor would be honed on one side when the strop was being pulled on way and on the other side when the alternate pulling step was being completed. Vaguely I recall doing the stropping under my father’s supervision. In later years he changed to a safety razor and that is what he was using when I started to shave. This was after we had moved to the farm and when I started I just used his equipment when I wanted to shave. When my grandfather Strand died his personal belongings were dispersed and I acquired the safety razor that he had used in his later years. It was a Keen Kutter brand razor of rather different design and used a special kind of blade that could be re-sharpened with a little stropping device; I used it pretty regularly for quite awhile until it was superseded by a more conventional safety razor, and later on by a series of electric razors. I still have my grandfather’s razor as about the only relic I have of his.






















Keen Kutter razor and hone

During most of the year the bathtub was used only for the Saturday evening baths. The series of baths started with the youngest of the children and progressed age-wise through the family, with my father and mother having theirs later in the evening — when most of the children if not all of them were already abed. In the summer the evening baths took place oftener, perhaps being a daily occurrence. To conserve the soft water which was used for laundry and bathing, etc., the bath water was re-used by later bathers, with perhaps some additions. I think in the years after the family moved back to town that the use of the soft water and the cistern was abandoned and the water from the town system was used. This city water came from a well, or wells, and was relatively “hard” so there was a water softener unit in the basement. I suspect also that the furnace had been converted to natural gas; with my father being incapacitated with Parkinson’s disease in his later years he would not have been able to stoke the furnace with coal and cobs.

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 8: Drum and Bugle Corps

One of the times I was disciplined as a child, that I recall, was at a mealtime. I was sent to the back bedroom (which by then had been converted into sort of a playroom) until my behavior was judged acceptable. What my offense had been I don’t remember, but I remember returning to the table and continuing the meal.

Adjacent to the kitchen, in the northwest corner of the house was the room that was initially a bedroom, and I have vague memories of sleeping in the large, double bed in the room. There was no separate closet but along the east wall of the room there was a large tall cabinet, with doors on the front, that was used for storage of clothes. When I was about ten years old I played a drum and marched in the junior drum and bugle corps sponsored by the local post of the American Legion. On one occasion for some reason I had taken one of the drums home with me (to practice?) and I kept it on top of this clothes cabinet. As I lay in the bed I heard the drum make little stress-induced noises (the tension on the head was adjusted by a number of screws along the periphery of the drum and any unevenness in the tightening of the screws would lead to slow expansion or contraction of parts of the drum). The noises perturbed me as I considered myself responsible for the drum while it was in my care and I wondered if I would be judged remiss by the individual in charge of the junior corps.

I was not in the junior drum and bugle corps at its inception but I have the feeling it had not been in existence long when I joined. There were two boys living relatively close to the little brown house who belonged to the group and it may have been through them that I joined.l Both of these friends, Harris Magnuson and Robert Blomgren, were in the bugle section. Generally, the drum section was more popular, both for the initial members and for new recruits; I don’t know how I got into it.

Practices were held on summer evenings on what was then the community golf course and involved both instruction on playing and marching; I do remember however some practices at other times of the year in the upstairs of one of the downtown store buildings. We marched and played on such occasions as the Fourth of July and Memorial Day (both of which at the time had parades and a ritual of observance) and on a few occasions on events in Fort Dodge (I don’t recall the character of these, but on one of them I came down with one of the sick headaches that I would have periodically even that early in life). The Fourth of July celebration in the Gowrie park was organized and sponsored by the local American Legion post as a money-raising activity and the men’s corps marched in the parade then and on Memorial Day. I think they used the money to fund their participating in the Iowa state competition for the best drum and bugle corps. I think they were best in the state several times.

The junior corps went on “booster” trips to nearby towns prior to the Fourth of July celebration to publicize it. We would march up and down the business section of these small towns. These trips would take place in the late afternoon, some of them before the school term ended for the spring. On one of these trips several of us were riding in the Model A Ford and the driver got up to 60 mph — quite a thrill for us and the fastest I had ever experienced up to that time. The attire for the junior corps was white shirt and pants, a white sailor cap and a red sash around the waist, long enough so that the ends hung down quite a ways. Somewhere I have a photo of me with my drum and Robert Blomgren with his bugle. I suppose my mother took it.









[Note: The handwritten caption underneath identifies the two boys as Carl and Harris, thus indicating that the second boy is Harris Magnuson, not Robert Blomgren.]

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 7: Brother Vincent, Remington typewriter

There are several incidents, unrelated to each other and not necessarily related to the kitchen and the sun room as to the place where they occurred, that I remember. Two involve my brother Vincent. The first of these happened when he was less than a year old, so I was about 5 or so. It was the spring of the year and there were some newly hatched chicks out in the chicken house (either newly hatched by a setting hen, or purchased from the local Dixon hatchery, I’m not sure which). Vincent was sitting in the high chair and I had been delegated to watch him while everyone else was out viewing the chicks. I guess I tolerated this for awhile until I could not contain my interest and I too went out to view the chicks. While all the family was outside, Vincent fell out of the high chair. I have no recollection however of being punished or reprimanded.

The second incident occurred when we were both in elementary school. One noon Vincent and I were sitting on the kitchen floor in the book where the telephone was; Vincent was telling me an “off-color” story or whatever that had been told to him at school and my mother overheard what was being said. She told Vincent that what he was doing was inappropriate. In retrospect this incident illustrates a side of my character that I have observed all my life and that is that events and understandings have tended to happen later for me than my siblings and associates. Vincent was four years younger than I but he had encountered and reached a schoolboy experience with sexual knowledge that I had not. I do recall some incidents in school of this nature which I didn’t understand at the time but all at an age when I was older than Vincent at the time of the incident I’ve just written about.

Sometime or other my father had purchased a portable Remington typewriter — I’m sure it was after he married as the design was more modern than earlier, before-his-marriage, machines. Maybe he was motivated in the purchase by the thought that it would add to his bookkeeping capability, though I’m not sure just how. Once in awhile he would get it out, as on a Sunday afternoon when he had some of the few leisure times he had, and peck away at the keys. But he never acquired a usable typing skill. When he had it out, some of us older children were allowed to try our fingers at typing — that is, hitting the keys in a hunt and peck manner. It wasn’t used until he had typing class in high school that any of us learned really to type. Eventually, Clarice took it off to school with her when she was at the University of Dubuque and I don’t know what happened to it; perhaps she acquired it by default. In my case my parents gave me a used stand-up Remington as a high school graduation present, in lieu of a class ring. I recall my going to a store on Central Avenue in Fort Dodge and purchasing it.

Another memory I have of Sunday afternoons was the occasional times that we popped corn. The corn popper was a shallow, rectangular, black, thin metal contained with a long handle and a top that would slide open. The procedure was to fire up the kitchen stove and move the popper across its surface in a way to keep the kernels inside moving. The lid of the popper had a number of small round holes in it. My father like popcorn and I recall him joining us in the treat.











Old-style corn popper

The older children had household tasks that were allotted to them. These were to be carried out satisfactorily if the weekly allowance was to be given. My duty was to sweep the kitchen and sunroom floors. I don’t remember how old I was when I started or when I stopped. It was a task that did not carry over the move out to the farm, but by then such chores as milking replaced it. I didn’t learn how to milk the cow until he had moved to the farm, or to tend to feeding it, etc. I remember once when my father had one of his “sick” headaches of being asked to try my hand at milking the cow, but I wasn’t very successful — not surprising as it takes a little practice to get the knack of it. I think I did tend the chickens we had, but my recollection there is pretty weak.

My Life in the Little Brown House, part 6: Meals

The main meal of the day was at noon and was always called “dinner.” I didn’t encounter use of “dinner” for the evening meal until I had gone to work for Shell in California. While the family lived in the little brown house during my early years, my father always walked home for the noontime meal. Generally it was a meat and potatoes meal. Now I can’t really recall what the cuts or type of meat were, but I’m sure they were not the expensive ones. Meatloaf, wieners, meatballs and such. Occasionally my mother would make vegetable soup, and accompanying this would be the meat from the “soup bone.” Potatoes, carrots, perhaps some cabbage, maybe a little rice were the main components. She would also make navy bean coup and cabbage soup. Fish, except for canned salmon and, rarely, sardines, was not on the menu. My mother would make a salmon loaf, which I still recall I liked. Vegetables if cooked were usually “creamed” — corn, peas, string beans. Tomatoes were often stewed — my mother usually canned tomatoes for use in the winter months. In the summertime there would be corn on the cob and such fresh produce as lettuce and radishes.

I think there was usually a dessert of some kind, if nothing else, canned fruit. But there would also be various puddings — tapioca, chocolate, rhubarb, apple puddings, occasional pies. The most frequent pies were pumpkin (sometimes without a pie shell) and raisin. In season there might be apple or cherry.

The evening meal was called supper and was often a lighter edition of the noon meal, sometimes using leftovers in the form of a potato/meat hash, corn cut off of excess ears and corn and heated in the fry pan, etc. And often there would be an afternoon coffee time with rolls that my mother made, or rusks [a rectangular, hard, dry biscuit or a twice-baked bread] for those of the adults who were having coffee (coffee generally was not for children); this would be along about 4 o’clock or so.
















Rusks