Nelda's Childhood Memories

The person recalls memories from their childhood, including visiting their Grandma's house and drinking green tea, crossing a bridge near Grandma's house, combing their Grandpa's beard, and losing a comb. They also remember swallowing a safety pin and drinking coal oil, as well as moving to different places, starting school, and encounters with a moose and a rattlesnake. They mention their mother's struggles and feeding bums during the depression. The person reflects on how these memories have shaped their thinking. I remember being in Grandma Jackson's house somewhere, and we were in a room in her house, and every morning she drank tea, green tea. And I remember every morning getting up, and I had to just hurry and get to Grandma's, to Grandma's place, where she was having green tea, because she'd give me a taste. And it had cream and sugar in it, and it was good. And let's see, then I remember crossing a bridge that went across a little canal down by Grandma's, and that had to be an Avon, and that little canal that runs down there by that road. Is that that old house with all the rocks out in front? Yeah, it's that old house that sits up kind of away from everything, that was her home. I'm amazed that it's still there. I guess we really ought to get a picture of it sometime. Where did you live? I think we were living in Drummond, Idaho, but I think my mother must have brought me down to stay at Grandma's for some reason, because Mother was there, and I just would get up in the morning and leave wherever the room was and run into Grandma's place and get me a little taste of her tea. And so, now that's probably one of my first recollections, and one of my other recollections was Grandpa Kidd up there on the big rock house in Horseshoe Flat. That's the same one? No, it's the same place, but a different house. Up on Horseshoe Flat in Drummond. Oh, not in Logan? No. Is that house you were talking about? Was it in Logan? Yeah, in Avon. Right. And then, I remember sitting on Grandpa's knees and combing his beard, and he had a nice, long, white beard, and he would hold me and let me comb it by hours on end. And I just remember that. It's just little skips and jumps of things I remember, and I remember something else. I remember Fern losing a comb down between the boards somewhere in the house, and he got in trouble for it, because evidently that might have been the only comb or something. But he was just a little boy, and he lost that comb down in there. You know? Those are things I remember. How strange. Oh, that was in Horseshoe Flats? Uh-huh. Where exactly was Horseshoe Flats? Well, they called it Horseshoe Flat. That whole area up there was like a horseshoe in Drummond, where we lived. Is that where the river ran through? No, you're down on the creek. Yeah. We're way up in Drummond, Idaho. The first place we went when we went on our reunion, where we said, girl went to school. Wait, Jack was down at that little old store. Yeah, Uncle Walter's store. Oh, that's something else now I remember. But that was after the next thing that I remember, is we had to move from down there. So evidently we lived down in that home for maybe two or three years. And so I was old enough to remember a few things about swallowing that safety pin. When my mom was sewing, and she told me to leave the safety pins alone. Of course, you know, kids, when you say leave it alone, that's exactly what they don't do. So when she was busy sewing, I was playing with the safety pins. I remember there was a big one, and I especially liked that big pin. So I was playing with it and got it in my mouth and I swallowed it. And it opened in my throat and stopped. And she took her forefinger and went down my throat to get that pin. And when she did, I couldn't understand. I was screaming, I guess. I couldn't understand why would she put her hand all the way down my throat. And I couldn't understand that she was after the pin. But she got the pin out of my throat. Do you remember that time? I don't remember. I was absolutely panicked. And then I guess somebody was trying to get me out of this world because earlier when I was at Grandma Jackson, I drank a half cup of coal oil. It was under, down where, in Avon. And where did the safety pin happen? Up in Drummond, after I was about four or five. Near Uncle Walter's store? Yeah. Anyway, I drank this half cup of coal oil, and Mother said I went black as I could go. There was no doctors anywhere, so she picked me up and ran all the way to the neighbors. And they had some, what they call, Epitac. And they got that down by holding my nose and forcing it down. And they got me to vomit up the coal oil. So, I guess I was probably into a lot of things when I was little. That's all you can remember? That's all I can remember of my youth. You didn't have much of it? No, I didn't. Just all tragedy. So, only your youth, that's all you want to talk about? No, what do you want me to talk about? You have to help me. What's your next memory of Drummond? What about what you told me? I guess my next memory was we moved from Drummond to what they called Hog Hollow. It was kind of out south of Farnham. And we were there, I don't know how long, but we were there and lived with Aunt Billie and Uncle Jack. And I remember Uncle Jack played his guitar and would sing something like, Nell deMarie, Caterby, Down Under the Sea. And of course, that made me really happy because he recognized me. And it was while we were out there that I was five years old when we were out there. And my mom, it's south of Farnham, out by Dave Rogers' home now. And, oh, I said I was five years old. I was five years old and should have known better than to wet my pants. But I was wetting my pants and it was a frustration to my mother. To me, I was trying to keep up with the boys and I'd have to go to the bathroom. And if I went back to the bathroom, the boys would leave me. So rather than go back to the bathroom and lose my brothers, I'd just keep going. So it was out there that I was chasing them around the house and kept stepping over what I thought was just a log. And I went around the house three times trying to find my brothers. And when Mother came out, she came out with her shovel and it was a rattler that I'd been stepping over. So somehow from on high, you know, kept that rattler laying there like he did. And I can remember, I can remember seeing him in my mind. I can remember that. And then I can remember thinking, oh my gosh. When Mother came out with a shovel and killed it. And then, let's see, then we moved to Hanson Nielsen's house down on the river bottom. And I loved it down there. As a matter of fact, when we went back, we all wanted to buy it. Still think it's a good idea. And that's where I started school. I was in the first grade and my brothers had walked me up that hill to the school, which probably was, what would you say, two or three miles. And I can't imagine a little kid just starting school doing that, but we did. And it was in the first grade, I hate to tell this one, I didn't know how to write my name. And when I got up there, every other kid in first grade knew how to write their name. And because I didn't know how to write mine, my teacher made me stay in recesses until I learned how to write my name. And that was the shocker of my life. I could not believe that somebody would make me do something I didn't want to do. And so she kept me in and it took me two or three, four recesses. But I hated her after that. She really made an enemy. And I remember the next year, of course I made it through that year, but I never liked my teacher. And I wonder, I've thought about that and thought, was that a basic characteristic that maybe I carried with me? But the next year she was pregnant with a baby and couldn't teach. And you know, she died in childbirth. And as a little kid I thought, I don't even care. That's all right with me. And I hate to tell it, but I felt so badly about that. As I got older and thought about it, I thought, oh, what a terrible thing. But it kind of tells you something about what happens with little kids when they feel like they've been abused. So, let's see. Let's see. Then we moved. We had that experience down there, I guess I ought to tell you about. Because I know that, I knew that we were in trouble and that we needed food and that Mother and Dad were having a hard time. And Dad had us all gather together to have family prayer. And in it he expressed to the Lord that we had to have some food. And he prayed that food would be provided for us. And when the prayer was over, I remember thinking, well, we haven't gone without food. I wonder what he's talking about. But he went out to do the chores and came running back in and asked for his gun. And that scared me. I thought, what's he going to do with his gun? And so we went out. We all followed him out and he ran out. I say there was a moose in the river. And I remember that moose standing there in the river looking right at Dad. And I thought he shot the moose in the creek. But Jack said, no, he didn't. He had to chase that moose up over the side of the mountain. And he finally killed him. Maybe he shot him in the creek and then it ran. Maybe. That's my memory. But when you get the two of us together, we don't exactly jibe always. Anyway, we had the moose meat. And I guess we did great. I guess that did it. Because it was the next spring, I remember while we were down at Hans' place, that Mother just got to a point where she couldn't. She just couldn't take much more because Hans would come in and he'd sit right by the stove where she had to cook. And she'd have to go over there to the cabinet and back over to her stove. And she would have to walk over his feet. He'd sit there with his feet out in front, with his head back on the chair, sleeping. And he owned the place. He was not renting it, you were just living with him? We were not living with him and I can't explain that. I don't know where he stayed. But he would come and sit there. Every day? Probably not, but this is my memory as a child. And I remember Mother just saying, honestly, I wish he would just consider what it's like for me, you know. But she would feed him and that's probably why he came. She cooked for him. She would not let us feed him? No. And I think that what he must have done is come in when it was about time to eat and just sit down there by the stove, relax. Anyway, Dad started looking for a home for us. He found a cute little house that had been vacated up in Drummond. And he had them move it. And he bought this 180 acres called The Green Place and put this little house on it. But it had a little cabin, a little log cabin on it with a walkway in between that and a shed. So we lived in that for a while. And I think they had two rooms in the cabin, just the kitchen and a place to eat and one bedroom. It was torn down? No, it was torn down. And the boys slept in the little shed that had the walkway in between. Until Dad could get this other home fixed and ready for us. And then we tore down all the little sheds. The little log cabin was where Clark was born. So, let's see. I don't know how old Jack was. Jack was maybe four or five years old when Clark was born. And Andell, she came to take care of Mother during that time. And we just learned to love her little kids. And we were out playing one day and I ran up. We had a teeter-totter. And I ran up the teeter-totter and was going to run down the other side just as Marty, who was my cousin, and he was about two years old. And I ran down the other side and he stepped on that and I threw him up in the air. And he came down and broke his shoulder, collarbone. And that was a trauma for me. That was a trauma for me. I cried and cried and cried. It broke my heart because I loved him, you know. So, that was the traumatic moment when Elgie was there and Clark was born. And Mother must have been about half crazy with all the stuff that was going on. So, that's where I guess those kids really pulled together there. And much of our memories and life are right there in that place. And that was where? That was what they called the green place. The one that was really fixed up nice. Oh, yeah. The new house. Oh, did it? Well, maybe so. Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. And he had built that. Well, see, I don't remember those kind of things. I remember that Mother would get the blues and sometimes she'd walk down in the creek bottom. That scared me to death when she'd take off and go up there all by herself, you know. And I wouldn't know where she was. And I'd just be panic-stricken until I could see her coming back. It was a lot of memories there. It was a lot of memories there in that place. We lived right there on the road and it was depression time. A lot of bums came through and they would come to the house and ask for food. Mother never turned them down. She'd give them a plate of food and have them sit out on the porch. So, I was petrified. Petrified. If nobody was home, I was scared to death there was going to be a hobo come along and who knows what. And I didn't want to be responsible for food or anything. So, I would go out in the corn patch and hide. I'd hide until somebody came home. And, you know, there's just little things like that in your life that probably affect the way you think.