FAMILY – DISCIPLINE SURE AND EFFECTIVE

Our mother, much like her father, was a strong disciplinarian. She seldom had to speak twice to get our attention; never issued empty threats. Patient and just as she was, if discipline was needed, and deserved, you could be sure it would come. Once, on a warm spring day as we played in the yard, Mother sat with Grandma and a couple of aunts on the back porch engaged in pleasant conversation and laughter. Mother told me to do some chore and audaciously I spoke up and said No, I won't do it. I knew those words should never have left my mouth and I headed around the house as fast as I could go. In a flash she had hit the ground and was right behind me but I was an excellent runner and escaped into the back door and took refuge under a bed. She patiently allowed me to stay there. But the time came there was reckoning. When the older children arrived home from school later in the day, I foolishly allowed my uncle to lure me from under the bed promising candy. Lesson learned. On those very infrequent occasions when our mother was forced to administer corporal punishment, it was done with a keen little hickory switch. Often as not we would be the one sent to fetch it for her and then to suffer the indignity of the sting. The lessons learned from our mother's switchings would last a long time in our memories and the bad behaviors would seldom be repeated.

FAMILY – IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH

I suppose life in our first home was pretty mundane; I don't have a lot of stored memories from there. One special memory I do have of this home was a room just off the front porch that was jam-packed with newsprint and Sears Roebuck catalogs – not to be confused with the "outhouse" which also had its stock of "print". Those catalogs provided unlimited hours of play as we cut from the pages our favorite images and they became our "paper dolls", as much a part of our lives as is today's generation's "Barbies"! It was in this home that red measles broke out in the family and, of course being the puny, sickly kid that I was, red measles hit me hard with its accompanying dangerously high fevers, heavy recurring nosebleeds and matted eyes rendering me blind on wakeup. It was a special time of family caring and concern as my aunts and my sisters would hover, sponging my burning body and bathing my eyes so that I could open them and see. It was during this period of time that our oldest sister would forever become the caregiver of our little family. She was the glue that held our mother together; the safe haven that we ran to; the stalwart one that we always looked to for the final word on any issue! It is thus today.