Juanita The Mother

Karen went to 1st grade at Dillon School, a one roomed country school.  She continued her elementary days at Freedom where she rode a school bus that was a pickup with a sort of camper shell the first year.  There were a few older boys that teased her to tears, tying her shoe laces together etc. nearly every day.  Mother helped milk twice a day.  She said she often returned to the house to find the baby had awoken and was crying in the crib.  She always regretted that.  Mother encouraged all her children in different areas of their lives.  She washed and rolled Karen`s and my hair every day from an early age.  I had a professional perm by age 3.  She tried her darndest to mold us into good cooks, housekeepers, and stylish dressers.  The law was enforced with a supply of tamerack switches from shrubs Grandma planted years before for that purpose.  It worked on Karen and Becky.  I was more like Grandma Balk(not so domestic).  Mother sewed many lovely school dresses for me.  I came home from school several times with the skirt torn off from catching it on the slide 'ops'.  She got a new zig-zag machine about the time I was in grade school and tried it out on me.  Grandma Phillips made me a quilt of the scraps of fabric.  Mother was active in her Home Demonstration Club "The Willing Workers" for 60+ years.  She enjoyed entering food in the fair nearly the whole duration.  She laughed about the year she ran short of time to can peaches and opened store bought ones and put in the canning jar.  She won grand champion on those and vowed never to do that again.  She helped form a Freedom PTA and helped wherever she could.  She hired a friend to make me the "perfect" First Communion dress.  She hosted Sat. night card parties that was the mainstay of their entertainment.  She hosted many slumber parties for us.  The girls loved the country and the hamburger picnics she cooked for us.  After Marty was born Karen and her friends surprised her with a baby shower slumber party.  She took the extra cooking and cleanup in stride.

TBC