I first remember riding in a buggy, Merril was driving the horse, Lester and I’m sure Tret was there too. It was dark and I don’t know where we were going or coming from but the fireflies were flying around the horse and I was scared of them and started crying. I had to have been around 3 or 4 at the time. Merril stopped the horse and Lester caught one of the flies and cupped it in his hand to show me it was nothing to be afraid of.

I’ll tell here what I remember of the Snyder’s, which is not much. Mother’s name was Ada, she had a sister Alta and another I never knew (Olie) who married Dad’s brother, Uncle Harry and they lived in Indiana.

There was an Uncle Clem Snyder, also Rosco and Nelson. Uncle Clem worked on the railroad where he lost one eye. He married Aunt Rose, the most memorial thing about her was she had a black mustache!!!  They had no children.

Uncle Rosco never married, he stayed home with Grandma.

Uncle Nelson’s wife’s name was Clive, funny name for a woman I think or maybe it was short for some thing else. They had three children as I recall, Dorothy, Margaret and a son I can’t recall his name right now. He was deformed with a hunch-back but the few times I can recall being with him, he was very much a tease and I liked him.

Aunt Alta’s married name was Johnson or Johnston, can’t remember, they had children but can’t recall how many. This is the Aunt, I think I told you, she made bread and washed her feet in the same dishpan and when dad found that out he wouldn’t eat at her house anymore.

My most remembered things of Grandma Snyder was, she had a Victrola and we girls, Tret and I, used to play her records a lot. My favorite was "Three O’clock In The Morning", I would play it over and over until she made me stop. She always had a bed of Moss Roses in the summer and I would almost drown the poor things. I thought I was helping her. She made the best big fat sugar cookies and kept them in a covered crock in the cellar way where they stayed cool. Tret and I did away with a lot of them, she would make us stop but we managed at times to sneak in the outside cellar way and get a cookie or two.

In those days the stores had Round Soda Crackers, kept in barrels and sold by the pound. Grandma always had some on hand, she would let us girls have a cup of coffee that was more milk & sugar than coffee and we would soak crackers in it and eat them by the spoons full.

Tret and I would spend a week or two with Grandma Snyder every summer after Dad married the second time, until Grandma passed away. I only went back once after that, It was to one of Uncle Nelson & Aunt Clive’s anniversaries, you were a baby at that time. If we were to go there today, I could point out Grandma’s and Uncle Clem’s homes. I pointed them out to Red one time were down there.

Merril always put flowers on Mothers grave. After he passed away I took over that job. Didn’t get down there this past year.

There used to be garters that pinned to your underwear that held up your long stockings. I didn’t like them so I would take them off and manage to loose them some place. My undoing of that little trick was when I threw them down the toilet hole in the Out House. Aunt Hazel saw them, made me fish them out and wash them, so no need to say that was the end of loosing garters.

I used to wet my pants and I would have to lay across a chair with my hind side to the steam register to get my pants dried. One time (I’m not proud of this) while in this position I pooped my pants too. Uncle Alvin was working at a desk in the same room and it wasn’t long before he was asking Aunt Hazel what was burning. It ended up my butt was burning some from Uncle Alvin’s hand. Another time I messed my pants and hid them in a crate of onions in our bedroom, the onions were there because that was the coolest room in the house, got blistered again. Oh Well!! I guess I just didn’t want to take time to go to the john. Got my mouth washed out with soap for sassing the mailman.

Got thrown out of a car one time. Aunt Hazel was learning to drive, Tressa sat in the middle, Uncle Alvin by the door and me sitting on his leg next to the door. Aunt Hazel drove over the curb while turning a corner, the door flew open and I landed on the ground, no harm done. Uncle Alvin drove the rest of the way home.

Tret and I spent a week with Merril on the farm where he worked in the summer. Again, naughty me!! We were playing in the yard, I didn’t want to take time to go to the toilet so - - - I pee-ed in a dust hole made by chickens. Got caught and I found out my big brother had awful big hard hands. My butt burned good.

The only memory I have of Grandpa Sheckler (George) was him setting on the front porch one day (in BattleCreek) when I came home from school, he had a big black mustache that curled up at ends. He must have passed away shortly after that. Grandma Sheckler (Hannah) lived until some time after the folks built the house at Hutchins Lake. She lived some times in Battle Creek with Dad’s sister Hazel. They later moved up north. Grandma used to make rag rugs, I can see her sitting on Dad’s back porch at the Lake, she would be whistling away and crocheting on a rug. This was after you and Jean were born and I was carrying Arleen at the time. She and Grandpa were buried at Colon, I don’t know where. There are no head stones, I asked about that one time when I was down there. (This was because records were burned up in town hall fire. We found all stones the next year).

Uncle Bruce, Dad’s brother, lived in Petoskey. He worked at the Post Office until he retired.

1922 Dad was driving truck for a living. He would come to see us as often as he could. Merril and Lester worked on a farm near Colon for people that dad had known. Dad must have met Mom on one of his trips to Allegan as I recall, being said she was divorced from her first husband (who was a brother to Uncle Frank) she was working for some family in Allegan. I was about five when they married. 

1925 We then moved east of Grandpa’s about a mile to the Hamilton farm. Dad farmed there for a year or two. Lester came home to help work the farm. I remember the haying times, we kids used to play in the new hay in the barn. Then came the thrashing of the wheat – always the neighbors would bring in food and help put on the dinner for the extra man help that was needed. Mom would be baking for days ahead, Bread, Pies, Cakes, then there was chickens killed for dinner or hams baked, maybe both. When they were through at one farm the next day they moved on to another farm.

Merril came home from Colon while we lived on this farm and soon found a place to work at the McNutt’s which turned out to be his home for life.

I remember going with Freeman Nellie Goodwin, she was one of Mom's cousin's, to Upper Scott Lake - east of Pullman, to dances.  Thats where I learned to dance and I loved it.  This was the same place where the scout camp used to be when you worked at Van's.  The scouts used to come to Fennville for there supply of groceries, remember?

I remember Dad butchering hogs and building a fire under a huge iron kettle. When the water was hot enough and after killing and bleeding the pig, he would dip them into the kettle of hot water and shave the hair off before cutting them up. Hams from the rump and shoulder plus bacon slabs were smoked. Pork chops and steaks were trimmed of their fat, the fat taken to the house and Mom would cut them into small pieces, put them in big pans and cook the fat out by baking them in the oven. This fat was used to help preserve the chops and steaks by first frying the meat and then packing them in big crocks and pouring the fat over them as the meat was layered in the crocks. The crocks were then covered and kept in the basement where it was cold in the winters. They even made headcheese from scraps of meat and from pigs jowls. We always kept the pigs brains, Dad liked them scrambled along with eggs. All vegies and fruits were kept in the root cellar, a cold room in the basement with dirt walls and floor. They would cover the produce with straw to help keep it from freezing. Farming was a lot of hard work.

Many years beyond the time of this story,  Red and I were up by Petoskey and we stopped at the post office to see if any one there could tell us if Uncle Bruce was still alive and where they lived.  We found them, they were still living in the same place as before and Aunt Eunice was still whinny.  We visited for a while and took off.

Bert also had quite a few head of cattle. He bottled and capped the milk and sold his milk house to house.  Linn Jr. tells of the times he went with Bert to deliver the milk and in the winter, sometimes the milk would freeze, pushing the caps up with the frozen cream on top of the milk.  They would cut off and eat the frozen cream and put the cap back on the bottle.

I remember one summer of our going with some friends to the South Haven Pier, fishing for perch.  Dad set up a line with two fish hooks on it and baited it for Mom.  She dropped it in the water and started visiting with the friend while Dad fixed a line for Junior and Me.  He finally said to Mom, "why don't you pull up your line and see if you've caught a fish?", so she did and she was so excited to see that she had two fish on the line, she finally gave Dad the fish pole and just sat talking.  We had two big buckets of fish when we headed home, dumped them in a wash tub with fresh water.  The tub was almost full, we had a lot of fish to clean and divide them with the other couple.  That was fun.

Another time, it was in the summer and we were all at Unk Franks & Aunt Eddies, Earl was there, he was always one for big cars and he had a big Hudson sports-open, and we kids wanted to go swimming.  So with Dad along, it was Jim, Linn Jr., and myself heading for the lake.  In those days roads were not the best - the one we had to take got to be a one track road and we had to go through a low place in the road that was covered with water and mud.  We got stuck and only buried the car more with trying to get out, so Earl and Dad left us kids in the car and went to find help.  They told us not to get out of the car, to stay in it, we didn't want to get out in tha muddy mess anyway.  They ended up walking all the way back to Unks house before they could get any help.  Must have been 5-8 miles or more.  They come back with the tractor and some chain.  Mean time it got dark and late, we three kids finally went to sleep.  It was getting light the next morning when they got there with the tractor, finally getting the car out.

1939 We then moved into a cottage in front of the folks and we lived on welfare.  You must remember our living by the lake.  The cottage was later sold and we moved into town.  Then I got to work some of the time at the canning factory.

One time while Dad worked for the county he was working with a Kat tractor south of Fennville near Bravo or Pearl.  Jim Johnson, one of the muck farmers around there and in the spring of the year, got his tractor stuck in the muck.  Dad was going to help him get the tractor out and ended up stuck himself. with the Kat.  Of course that called for bigger equipment to get the Kat out.  The guys got quite a kick from that but I think Dads face might have been a little red.  I'm sure he never tried that again.

1941 During the war we moved again, and I was working in Grand Rapids again.  We lived with Blanche most of the time, or so it seemed.  We did have some places by our selfs like when you told the baby sitter off, then when we lived near the cookie factory where you got your fill of discarded cookies and the baby sitter burnt the toast.

I hope you enjoy this.  LOVE YA, MOM!