Memories

This time of year always gets me thinking of family and holidays past.  This is the first year in which none of my grandparents are living to celebrate the holidays with us, so the memories seem just a bit more bittersweet.

When I was a child, we spent Thanksgiving on my Grandfather's farm.  The farm was located far off the main road, and just getting there was an adventure in itself.  We had to drive for miles on a one-lane road with extremely deep ruts that forced us to drive either to the right or left of them to keep from getting stuck, and we always hoped that one of the few neighbors wasn't coming the other way.  Then there was a series of gates that we had to pass through.  My Dad would ride on the hood of the car and my mother would drive so that he could open and close the gates as we passed through.  If it rained even a little, we would have to park and walk in.

Arriving at the tiny farmhouse (there was a larger one up the road where my Great-Great Uncle Joe lived), we entered through the kitchen, which held a wood-burning cookstove, a dry sink (my Mom said that the only running water was her and her sister running it up from the spring when they lived there as children), a small metal cabinet and a very small table.  There was a little sitting room which was furnished with an armless couch and one or two chairs, and was heated by a potbelly stove, and there were two small bedrooms in the back of the house that contained three double beds.  Each room had a ceiling light and one or two outlets, and that was it for electricity.  You will notice that there is no mention of indoor plumbing... the outhouse sat quite a distance from the house, until it fell over one year.  Every night before going to bed, we would bundle up in our flannel jammies, winter coats and boots and take one last trip to the outhouse.  Good times!!

I come from a family of hunters, including my Grandma, about whom my Granddad would boast that she got the biggest deer in the family.  When Thanksgiving time rolled around and we headed to the farm, there were usually 15 or more of us crammed into that tiny house for a few days.  The house was very old, so as the Thanksgiving tradition was carried out over the years, we began signing the kitchen wall so that we could remember who all had come each year.  I distinctly remember counting 25 people one year, and I still can't figure out how we all fit into that house at the same time!  The hunters were gone most of the daylight hours, and we children would run around outside playing cowboys and Indians and Little House on the Prairie all day.  At bedtime, Grandma and Granddad got one bed, Granny and Grannyma (my Great-Grandma) got the other if they came, all the kids were piled into the third bed, and everyone else slept on the floor.  It was a tricky thing to have to use the outhouse late at night!

For our Thanksgiving meal, Grandma always cooked the turkey in an electric roaster, but everything else was made on the wood-burning cook stove.  Dinner was served on paper plates with plastic utensils, and we had to eat in shifts because of the small space.  When dinner was over, any dishes that did have to be washed were washed in a dishpan filled with water that was heated on the stove, and the water was tossed off the front porch.

Such simple, crazy fun memories!  This year I celebrated Thanksgiving with my husband's side of the family for the first time, and shared my childhood memories with them.  We laughed, and my sister-in-law assured me that there was a seat at the table for me, and that there was enough space that we wouldn't have to eat in shifts.  We then went to see our own grandchild, and as I held her, I thought again of how blessed I was to have my grandparents around me for so long, and of all the memories that I hope to build with my step-children and grandchildren, hopefully none of which will involve an outhouse!