The Ggma Chronicles, part 2: Papa’s Death, Farm Auction, Empty Cupboards, Awful Blizzards, and an Averted Amputation
My Grandmother’s account of when she became a Half-Orphan at four years of age
The following was written by my maternal grandmother, Alice Green-Kollenborn (1911-2005). “Mama’s Kitchen,” an earlier account of hers, can be found here. She greatly (in both senses of the word) edited her original draft, the first page of which is:
“What will we do without our Papa?”
I had always asked Mama: “Won’t he come back?”
I rode on a high-wheeled wagon tucked securely between Papa’s brothers Mort and Silas. Smoothly shaven except for neatly trimmed dark mustaches and wearing dark sere suits, they sat tall and erect on the big wagon seat.
Two shiny black horses, velvet nostrils expanding from excitement, crunched loose gravel under their newly shod hoofs as they slowly drew the wagon bearing the long black box to the nearby churchyard. The aroma of lingering goldenrods and withering wild asters hung on the autumn air as the lazy whir of grasshopper wings echoed in the tall dry grass along the dusty roadside.
It was early October in the Ozarks, a time for leaf fires to embroider the hillsides, with glowing yellow scallops. V-shaped flocks of wild geese were winging their way southward while a glorious riot of flaming red, orange, and gold pumpkins lay pungent among the golden shocks of corn.
This was papa’s favorite season, a time for laying the harvest by. “Autumn is a peaceful time,” he often said, “A time for giving thanks. Even so, there is a sense of sadness in seeing plants wither and die, and watching the birds flock and fly away.”
Papa wouldn’t be here for the harvest this fall to enjoy his favorite season. I felt a great emptiness as Uncle Mort lifted me from the high wagon, took me into the strange-smelling church, and deposited me gently beside Mama on the hard wooden bench.
Mama’s face only reflected sadness. Her eyes weren’t laughing today. I was only four, but I knew something awful and terrifying was happening. “Why are all these people gathered here?” I wanted to tear away from this frightening sea of faces and rush back to the familiar smell of our big friendly kitchen and find Papa sitting in his big rocker, reading the paper, and hear Mama hum softly as she often did while preparing the evening meal. I could feel Papa’s reassuring arms enfolding me like they always did when I had been having a bad dream.
“Wake up, little one, this is only a bad dream,” I could hear him saying. But I knew this wasn’t a dream. It was real. My world had fallen apart. Papa was never coming back again. Our lives would never be the same. Nothing would ever be the same again.
Mama’s gentle hands stroked my yellow curls and she hugged me close as I huddled beside her.
Mama was a widow at thirty-five. She would now have to be both mother and father to seven young children.
Uncles and aunts, grandparents, and well-meaning friends were willing to lend a helping hand by taking us children to live with them. Fearing I might be separated from my Mama and brothers and sisters, I was terribly frightened. Mary, my 6-year-old sister, was aware of my fear and tried to explain to me that she would not ever let me be separated from mama.
One of these benefactors was our family physician, smelling of drugs and strong cigars, holding me on his lap and looking at me through horn-rimmed glasses hanging on the end of his big nose. “If only we had a little girl like you, we’d give her everything her heart desired,” he said. Didn’t he know that all I really wanted was to have papa back like he used to be? Just papa, mama, and our family together again? Aren’t doctors supposed to know all these things?”
Mama explained to each kind person: “My goal in life is just to keep the family together like Papa would want me to do.”
“I know the Lord will show me the way,” mama said.
Looking at her in the dim lamplight with her long dark hair loosened and falling softly around her shoulders, poring through the scriptures of the Bible, I believed her. Gradually and for the first time, I began to feel a little secure again. But that was before the farm sale, which is almost like separating the family itself, but 360 acres well-stocked with horses and cows was too much for mama to handle alone. There were also obligations, such as the medical and doctor bills and other expenses to dispense with.
The day of the auction came all too soon. There was an air of apprehension and sadness that day. All the livestock were confined to their corrals. The horses whinnied and the cows lowed softly as though they were aware of the sad experience ahead. The auctioneer came early, appearing anxious to get the sale going. I had never seen a real auctioneer before and he looked important, dressed in his big white hat, cowboy boots, dark trousers, and vest over snow-white shirt. Especially fascinating to me were his glistening gold teeth matching his shiny watch fob and chain that dangled across his dark vest. Often removing his watch from his small vest pocket, he glanced impatiently at the time as he paced nervously around the barnyard. ‘He looks different than grandpa, our papa, and our country neighbors,’ I thought—they wore blue shirts and overalls with suspenders. ‘He must be from some far away place, out of the hills and hollows.’
People having a natural liking for public auctions, they flocked from miles around. They came by wagon, on horseback, in buggies and hacks, and on foot. Others were there for the sheer enjoyment they get from listening to the auctioneer’s chant, and visiting with old friends they hadn’t seen for some time. Men sat high astride the corral fence while others climbed inside to inspect the stock. They pushed the horses’ lips up, looking at their teeth. They rubbed their hands over the horses’ necks and withers, they slid their hands over the cows’ udders and measured their girth with experienced eyes.
The auctioneer started his pitch; it was fascinating, with its fast, tongue-twisting rhythm. Then the bidding began. First Piney and Daisy, calves at their sides, bellowing as they were led from their familiar stalls while the auctioneer chanted, “Forty, who’ll make it 45, 45, now let’s hear 50, 50, who’ll make it 55,” etc.
Sister Mary and I stared speechless and unbelieving as we watched our beloved animals being led unwillingly away by strangers. Like the animals, not quite understanding, we thought we might be next to have to leave our farm home. It was a sad and unforgettable experience.
Mama kept two jersey cows, Pink and Brindle, for our milkers and old Beck, a slick black mare for our family workhorse. She was gentle and a good reliable horse, ready to foal. Mama also kept our brood sows and suckling pigs. Papa had built a rail fence around a big orchard and planted it in orchard grass and Jerusalem artichokes for the hogs to feed on.
After all the strange intruders had taken our beloved animals away, the corral and pasture looked deserted and desolate. We tried to reconcile ourselves to our new world. How could we ever get used to this loneliness? No more horses galloping through the big pastures, biting, kicking, and whispering in each other’s ears. The cows looked wistfully for their young companions. Mary and I held hands and cried with the animals. Shep howled each evening for his master that would never return.
No matter what happened, Mama had to keep things going the best she could. Grandpa, wanting to be helpful, insisted on moving us into town near him and Grandma. “No, pa, the children would never be happy there after living free on acres of rambling countryside. Out here, we have our animals to keep us busy, our forests and fresh streams; but most important, we have each other. Tommy gave his all for this land. It is where we belong. We will stay.” Grandpa knew she was right.
Effie, the oldest of the family, was fourteen, and being an excellent horsewoman, it was her duty to groom and care for Beck and her new colt when it came.
Together with the older childrens’ help, mama managed to grow a truck patch, her usual vegetable garden and flowers while sharecropping her alfalfa and clover fields to our neighbors. She worked from morning until late at night doing all kinds of work she had never had to do before.
Our first Christmas without papa was a lonely time, even though sympathetic friends and relatives saw to it that it was a most luxurious one, with dolls and toys peeking out of each long cotton stocking hung by the big fireplace. We had never had such a rich Xmas. That was the Christmas we learned that material things are meaningless without the warmth of family togetherness.
Mama kept busy in what spare time she had in winter piecing colorful quilt tops from cast-off clothing and scraps of leftover material. Often when we came in from playing in the snow, mama would have the big oak table heaped with bright quilt blocks, hand sewing them while a big black pot of white soup beans bubbled on the old wood range. Big loaves of light bread resting on the warming racks on the back of the stove. The cozy kitchen always smelled of homemade bread and mama’s goodies.
Next to keeping our family together, Mama’s main concern in life was our education. It was an obsession with her. She was determined that we would have every opportunity that she never had.
Just before school opened (which was August in the hill country), Mama sold chickens for extra money to buy each of us one new school outfit apiece and school supplies. It was necessary that we each had our own books; she felt this would give us pride in our school work—it did. What a great thrill when mama came home from town with a box of colorful wax crayolas, a thick school tablet, a decorative pencilbox filled with aromatic lead pencils, pen holder, and pencil sharpener for each of us . She also always bought each of us an aluminum folding cup to carry in our lunch pail.
It was almost impossible to wait until the opening day of school. The smell of a new book with its bright new cover and smooth shiny pages with mysteries waiting to be discovered was irresistible.
We’d open our new books and pencil boxes and sniff the cedar pencils and new unsoiled books over and over. They smelled even better than our new leather shoes, which were ordered from M.G. Wards and Sears and Roebucks & Co. From early spring until fall we went barefoot, but we always had new shoes for school. Mama bought the material for our new dresses from J.C. Knott mercantile store where she sold her eggs. Our wardrobes were very modest, us girls’ consisting of two simple homemade gingham dresses with matching bloomers. During a bad year, our bloomers were made of white flour sacks, and our dresses made of hand-me-downs from relatives. My two brothers wore blue denim overalls and homemade shirts.
No matter what the clothing, we were always anxious for the first day of school to arrive. The first day of school was very special for all of us. Mama saw that we were up early, scrubbed shiny and clean, hair combed until it shone with highlights, and dressed in our new clothes which were pressed and waiting for this “big” day.
Breakfast would be waiting on the huge oak table, which was spread with a bright patterned oilcloth. Our traditional breakfast consisted of hot biscuits spread with freshly churned butter that oozed from between the golden-brown crust, country sausage, fried eggs with milk and gravy.
We ate hurriedly, proudly gathered up our precious school supplies, and dashed off to meet our new teacher and friends. At 4 p.m., our school day came to a close. We could hardly wait to rush home to share our day’s experiences with mama. Dashing down the steep hill from the little white, one-room schoolhouse, we’d hasten to be the first to breathlessly relate every detail of the eventful first day of school.
“Do you have a good teacher?” Mama would ask, while removing hot loaves of golden brown bread from the big wood range oven and depositing them on racks to cool. Knowing we’d be hollow to our toes when we got home, she always baked a big pan of hot buns to munch on, with heaping gobs of freshly churned butter between the rolls; we’d lick the golden oozing drops from our fingers. We gulped down glasses of fresh cold milk that mama dripped from a big stone crock kept in the cool dark cellar behind the kitchen.
At supper time we often had deep orange homegrown yams baked until juicy and sweet and white soup beans cooked with smoked ham hocks. My favorite supper was a bowl of fresh sweet milk and mama’s home-baked light bread. Nothing ever equaled mama’s homemade bread.
But our fare wasn’t always this good. Often our cupboard was as bare as old Mother Hubbard’s. However, mama’s philosophy was to be thankful for whatever we had. She never allowed us to quarrel at the table, no matter how scant our fare. “A crumb in contentment is better than a feast with a quarrel,” she always reminded us. “As long as we are able to eat, let’s be thankful for what we have. I know the Lord provides.”
He always did! Sometimes just in time, as though he were testing our faith. During one of our worst winters in Arkansas, a blinding snow fell early and there was a bitter cold wind. We had all been down with the flu (grip). We were out of flour, beans, and all the main staples. Mama was walking the floor watching the scant woodpile disappear beneath the swirling snowflakes as the whistling wind heaped cold dry snow higher and higher on the window sills.
Suddenly, mama brushed her hands across her eyes in disbelief as she stared out across the bleak landscape at the blinding blizzard. Looking again, she said, “I do believe I see someone coming up the lane.” We all ran eagerly to the window. Sure enough, there was a figure approaching on horseback, head bowed against the storm, neck scarf blowing straight out in the wind. It was grandpa on old Bess, and heaped across her back was a gunny sack full of groceries he had brought ten miles from town, facing the fierce north wind all the way. Icicles were hanging from Bess’s nostrils, and Grandpa’s sandy mustache was white with frost. As he stumbled into the house, stomping the snow and ice from his overshoes, mama brushed the frozen snow from his bearskin overcoat. A white wool scarf was draped across his half-frozen face. His heavy wool cap, with ear flaps pulled down, had protected him from the wind’s icy blast.
“You know, Belle, I woke up this morning thinking of you and the children, and I just knew you needed help. I told mother, ‘I know Belle needs help.’”
Mama was so overcome with emotion that all she could say was, “Thank God you made it through that awful blizzard, Pa.”
‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from which comest my help’ was one of the scriptures mama believed in. The great outdoors were mama’s source of strength. She was never so busy that she didn’t have time to read the Bible daily and take us kids on nature walks through our lovely wooded hills, where she taught us the importance of life. “Even the smallest creatures have their place in this great universe of ours,” she’d say. “God made room for us all—we are only visitors here. Some get to stay longer than others, but he gave us all wild birds’ songs, the flowers, and the green trees free to enjoy as long as we live here.”
Mama found beauty in the simple things of life and always wanted to share them. On cold winter evenings she’d gather us children around her in front of the huge stone fireplace and read aloud to us. First the Bible, then some of her favorite authors, such as Louisa May Alcott, Harold Bell Wright, and James Oliver Curwood. As the flames licked at the backlog and burned down to an orange glow, mama recited poetry she had learned as a child. Then she’d sing us old folk songs, such as Barbara Allen, Young Charlotte, Jealous Lover and ever so many more. Not until the coals were covered with ashes for starting a fire next morning did we reluctantly drift off to our cold bedroom to eagerly await another day of adventure.
In early spring after a long cold winter she’d say, “Look children, the little blue flowers are peeping out of their winter beds. Spring is here at last.” Often she’d call excitedly, “Come quickly and look at the brilliant red sunset before it fades.” We’d rush out to view the miracle of God’s handiwork. Life was one long adventure with mama.
Fall was special—it was the season to roam through the woods with its changing moods. Crisp brown leaves rustled beneath our feet as the red-orange and golden oak and maple leaves drifted lazily to the ground. Fat grey squirrels and noisy blue jays scolded harshly from the treetops, dropping acorns as they scampered playfully from limb to limb. The cottontails bounced through the yellow dry meadows waving their long hind legs as their downy white tails bounced behind them. The cheery red cardinals whistled and flitted happily among the bare willow branches along the mossy creek bank.
On warm summer evenings, in the fading twilight after the cows were milked and the cats sat licking their soft paws after their fill of warm milk, mama would remove her calico apron, pull her old wooden rocker out onto the front porch and we’d gather around her feet on the cool wooden steps and marvel at the huge harvest moon climbing slowly over the hilltop like a bright golden balloon.
Whippoorwills wailed in the giant red oak trees silhouetted against the evening sky. Quavering screech owls joined along with the insects until the forest vibrated with the chorus of nocturnal insects.
Fireflys flickered their bright sparks, lighting their way like tiny leprechauns dancing with flickering candles in the soft evening breeze. Rocking to and fro, mama told us adventure stories of Indians, blizzards, and wild prairie fires during her early days on the Kansas prairies. Quickly the night closed in, wrapping us in peace and tranquility in the bosom of our beloved hills.
Times weren’t always pleasant, however, such as the hazy autumn day about four years after Papa’s death when mama was cutting sorghum cane along the hillside for our winter supply of molasses. The knife had a sharp machete-type steel blade with a round handle that slipped, cutting into her shin bones. Sorghum cane has a white coating on the stocks which is strong and extremely poisonous to a break in the skin.
Living ten miles from the nearest doctor, the wound had turned into blood poison before he arrived. In those days, there were no such things as miracle drugs, hence the poison had spread so rapidly that gangrene was inevitable.
Pondering the next step to take, the doctor saw only one possible chance of saving mama’s life, and that was by amputating her leg at the knee before the poison got beyond control. Even then her chance was only a gamble, but the decision was up to her.
“I’ll take my chances, doctor,” she said. “I’ll keep my leg.” Dr. Hurley, looking grim, left without giving us any hope of her recovery.
Neighbors came to share our anxiety, all the while keeping hot packs on her leg and ice-cold water packs on her fevered head.
Early next morning, Dr. Hurley drove the long rough hill road again to find Mama very ill, but determined to get well. He was amazed. “Belle, it is a miracle; why, last night when I left here, I wouldn’t have given a dime for your life. Your heart was pounding like an old rusty tin can.”
Mama only smiled. She knew why she was alive. “I had prayed all that night for the Lord to save my life for the sake of you children. I had to make it or you would all be separated and I just couldn’t let that happen,” she told us later.
She lay flat on her back with her leg propped high for four months. All the ligaments were eaten away, which left her leg permanently swollen and stiff. Our family doctor was faithful and came daily to dress the wound until all danger of infection was gone.
Ruth, my older sister, temporarily quit school and took care of mama until she was able to awkwardly wobble around on crutches.
The day came when mama was able to walk to the table again. The whole room glowed as she hobbled into the kitchen. Her eyes smiled as they swept around the room as though seeing it for the first time. Looking at each of us, she said, “Thank God we are still together. My prayers have been answered.”
She dedicated her life to us children. She never remarried. Mama never made headlines by being a famous person or a great lady except to seven lucky children. We had few luxuries in life, but she gave us a legacy of love and appreciation for the simple things of life. She made living a pleasure and always found something to be thankful for. Mama was like that.