The GGma Chronicles, Episode 23: The Old House in the Ozarks
Food, Fishing, Family, and Furry Milkaholics
This was written by my maternal grandmother, Alice Green-Kollenborn (1911-2005). This entry will be the last of the GGma Chronicles for a while, as I have temporarily run out of the archival material. There is more, though, which I will retrieve before too long.
We lived in a huge house, colored silver-gray by the many seasons, on rolling green hills. The kitchen floor showed hardwood boards scrubbed clean with a rag mop and lye water, deeply etched by 14 happy feet dancing in and out in gay parade.
Our playground was 360 acres of forest, hill, and pasture land bordered on one side by a fresh bubbling creek. Our swimming pool was a deep green hole along the creek framed with overhanging willows and sycamore branches, where birds sung. This sparkling stream also served as a fishing hole where barefoot kids spent long peaceful hours lolling on the mossy bank, catching one fish after another and stringing them on a forked stick which was stuck in the banks in the water where they stayed fresh until we took them home to clean, roll in corn meal, and fry in butter until golden brown.
All the gear we needed for a good catch was a straight fishing pole cut from willows along the creek bank, a small roll of fishing line, medium size fish hooks — several, as they had a way of catching on underwater tree roots or driftings under which the fish lay quiet until they spied a moving worm in the water. We used small lead sinkers anchored just about 6 inches above the hook which was baited with fat rainbow worms dug from beneath big rocks or along a wet water ditch where the earth was always cool, damp, and rich with fat earthworms which we packed in tin cans with dirt to cover them.
Sometimes we were lucky enough to find an old Prince Albert or Velvet tobacco can that would fit in our old overall pockets. Thus equipped, we were ready for a sportsman’s holiday, swimming and playing in the water like a pack of dolphins, diving and fishing until the sun was dropping behind the high piney hills in the west and the aroma of dry willow leaves hung heavy on the cooling evening air.
A family of 8 sat down to a big wooden table and ate fresh home-baked bread oozing with golden country butter churned in a big stone churn with a wooden dasher, with a big bowl of hot soup, beans, and plenty of fresh cold milk to wash it down.
In the summer we were often serenaded by a robin’s happy song from the top of a tall black walnut tree near the house as we sat and ate our peaceful meal.
Often it was late evening when Mama milked the cows in the corral, sitting on her one-legged milk stool, the slick cats waiting contentedly with soft paws cushioned beneath furry breasts while the warm milk splashed foamy-white in the bright milk pail. At dusk, the whippoorwills started their lonely call while the cats heartily drank their fill of warm milk from their saucer; then they shook the splashes from their soft feet and cleaned their dainty paws with rough red tongues.
When the nights grew chill we sat in the big kitchen in front of a roaring fire built in the huge fireplace, made of native stone picked up from the rocky fields.
Mama read stories to us kids by a round-wicked coal oil lamp pulled down from the ceiling over our old wooden table as the eerie screech owl wailed in the nearby woods. If we were low on oil, our only light would be the flickers of the fire reflected on the wall, and that was when we gathered around in her old wooden rocker as she told us stories of adventures about her early days in the plains of western Kansas, where Grandpa homesteaded during the pioneer movement when the west was still young.
Often when the fire flickered low Mama improvised a candle by soaking a cloth strip in lard where it sputtered and flickered long enough to light our way to bed before it left the room in complete darkness.