The house I grew up in was located on a knolly hilltop overlooking the west forty acres near Sni Creek. The house was a two-story, five room, clapboard siding, with a front and back porch. No basement or garage, just a basic house. The kitchen, a living room, and a front room were on the first floor. Two bedrooms were located on the second floor. No plumbing. We had a two-holler outhouse out back and a "thunder bucket" for use inside the house when we couldn't go outside. We did have limited electricity with one ceiling light in the kitchen and one ceiling light in the living room. The rest of the rooms were illuminated with kerosene lamps. Our heating system was a wood-burning cook stove in the kitchen and a wood-burning stove in the living room. The rest of the rooms had no heat source and were cold as hell in the winter and hot as hell in the summer. (By the way ... is hell "hot" or "cold?")
My brother and I slept in the same bed upstairs, my two sisters slept in a bed together ... all in the same room. My parents used the other bedroom for their own. Sleeping conditions were tricky ... especially when getting up or gowing to bed. I guess the "sleeping" part was okay.
The outhouse was a real trip. It was about one hundred feet from the house with a board walk to it. It stunk to high heaven in the summer time. You had to hold your breath when you went in to do your business. Instead of having nice soft toilet paper we had the Sears Roebuck mail order catalog ... OUCH! Anyway, I will never forget going to the outhouse! For that matter I will never forget using the "thunder bucket."
There was no insulation in the house so the wind blew through with little resistance. Sometimes the curtains would swing and sway as the wind blew. It was especially uncomfortable in the winter time.
Our water source was a fresh water well just outside the kitchen window. There a pump handle at the sink in the kitchen and another one on the back porch.
The house is still standing today and is probably near or over one-hundred years old. I can tell by looking at it from the outside it has been remodeled since I lived there. It's probably been remodeled several times through the years.
I remember good times in the old farm house and I guess that is all that really matters.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Milk ..... YUK !!!
My dad have several animals on the farm. He had milk cows, beef cattle, work horses and hogs. In addition to these animals there were also two or three dogs, several cats, some chickens, and one pet lamb named Duz. Duz was named after a popular laundry detergent because his wool was so white.
Dad kept the milk cows so we could have milk to drink and to sell milk to a dairy Co-op to generate some income. There was a milk barn where dad and my brother milked the cows by hand. Later on dad bought an electric-powered milking machine that made the milking of the cows faster and more efficient. When dad bought this machine it was "the news of the day" all over eastern Jackson county. It was a step toward modernization that only one other farmer in the area had taken.
I used to go to the milk barn early in the morning when dad and my brother were milking. And on a cold winter morning nothing tasted better than a tin cup of warm foamy milk straight from the cow. Of course my brother would squirt me from time to time and that of course made me mad and I would throw something at him. There was always a small war going on between me and my older brother. Through the years I began to not like milk and I think it is related to the "warm milk mornings." To this day I can't stand to drink a glass of milk ... even with cookies. I don't remember the last time I drank a glass of milk. It has probably been over forty years. To this day I can't stand to drink a glass of milk or watch anyone else drink a glass of milk. However, I do like milk on a bowl of cereal. Weeeeeeiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrddddddddddddddddddd !!!
Dad kept the milk cows so we could have milk to drink and to sell milk to a dairy Co-op to generate some income. There was a milk barn where dad and my brother milked the cows by hand. Later on dad bought an electric-powered milking machine that made the milking of the cows faster and more efficient. When dad bought this machine it was "the news of the day" all over eastern Jackson county. It was a step toward modernization that only one other farmer in the area had taken.
I used to go to the milk barn early in the morning when dad and my brother were milking. And on a cold winter morning nothing tasted better than a tin cup of warm foamy milk straight from the cow. Of course my brother would squirt me from time to time and that of course made me mad and I would throw something at him. There was always a small war going on between me and my older brother. Through the years I began to not like milk and I think it is related to the "warm milk mornings." To this day I can't stand to drink a glass of milk ... even with cookies. I don't remember the last time I drank a glass of milk. It has probably been over forty years. To this day I can't stand to drink a glass of milk or watch anyone else drink a glass of milk. However, I do like milk on a bowl of cereal. Weeeeeeiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrddddddddddddddddddd !!!
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Early On
Some of my earliest memories, when I was about five years old, was looking out a kitchen window and watching my dad leave to go to town on the tractor and then waiting for him to return. It was six miles to town so the round trip too quite some time. Upon his return he always brought me a pack of Juicy Fruit chewing gum. It was a real treat for me and it cost him a whopping three cents a pack.
Another early memory is climbing trees in our backyard. I remember I liked to climb as high as I could to where the limbs would actually sway, sit on a limb, and sing like a bird! I have a photo of me sitting high atop my favorite tree.
Two scary events remain in my memory. One event was my falling off the back of my dads tractor and landing on a piece of farm machinery and splitting my tongue wide open, about an inch long. I bled profusely. I nearly bled to death before my parents could get me to a hospital in Independence, Missouri. There was no ambulance to call and the 911 emergency system didn't exist. They transported me in the trusty old 1934 Pontiac that would run all of thirty miles an hour downhill on a windy day! I barely survived and was in the hospital for an extended stay. I remember drinking liquids through a straw for months because I couldn't eat any solid foods until my tongue healed.
The other scary event was when I sat down on a hornets nest on an old hay bailer. Again, I nearly died before my parents could get me to the doctor in Oak Grove. My brother rescued me from the hornets and sustained several stings himself. To this day I am extremely allergic to any kind of insect sting, especially a sting from a hornet, wasp, or bee.
Another early memory is climbing trees in our backyard. I remember I liked to climb as high as I could to where the limbs would actually sway, sit on a limb, and sing like a bird! I have a photo of me sitting high atop my favorite tree.
Two scary events remain in my memory. One event was my falling off the back of my dads tractor and landing on a piece of farm machinery and splitting my tongue wide open, about an inch long. I bled profusely. I nearly bled to death before my parents could get me to a hospital in Independence, Missouri. There was no ambulance to call and the 911 emergency system didn't exist. They transported me in the trusty old 1934 Pontiac that would run all of thirty miles an hour downhill on a windy day! I barely survived and was in the hospital for an extended stay. I remember drinking liquids through a straw for months because I couldn't eat any solid foods until my tongue healed.
The other scary event was when I sat down on a hornets nest on an old hay bailer. Again, I nearly died before my parents could get me to the doctor in Oak Grove. My brother rescued me from the hornets and sustained several stings himself. To this day I am extremely allergic to any kind of insect sting, especially a sting from a hornet, wasp, or bee.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
"In the Beginning ........"
I was born October 18, 1943 at Research Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. My family lived on an eighty acre farm located six miles south of Oak Grove, Missouri, some thirty miles east of Kansas City near the unincorporated town of Sni Mills. The farm is located on Jim Cummins Road off F highway west.
I am the last in line of four children born to my parents, Harvey Warren Grayum and Mary Aileen Lawson Grayum. My oldest sister Betty Elaine Grayum Powell, my brother Walter Edward Grayum, and another sister Norma Jean Grayum Cummins Horner are my siblings. My sister Betty died of ovarian cancer in 1972. She was just forty-one years old at the time of her death. She is buried in the Oak Grove Cemetary located in Oak Grove, Missouri.
My father, Harvey Warren Grayum, was born on a farm near Lone Jack, Missouri on November 16, 1910 and died at the age of seventy-seven in 1987. He is buried at the Holiness Cemetary near Lone Jack, Missouri in eastern Jackson County on Colburn Road.
My mother, Mary Aileen Lawson Grayum, was born on a farm in Carroll County near Bosworth, Missouri on May 20, 1913. She died on October 28, 2008 at the age of ninty-five. She is buried in the same cemetary next to my father.
My childhood years were good, fun years growing up on the farm. My life was fairly normal. (Someone told me one time that "normal" is only a setting on a clothes dryer!) My dad was a sharecropper and worked the eighty acre farm that was owned by Charles Pewitt and they split the profits from the crops dad grew and the cattle and the pigs he raised. The sharecropper deal was fifty percent of the profits to the owner and fifty percent of the profits to the tenant. The tenant bought all seed, feed, and necessary items for the operation and did all of the farming furnishing his own equipment, etc.
I didn't know it at the time but we were "dirt poor" and barely harvested enough crops, beef, pork, and garden items to stay alive. My father never had enough money to purchase things at the grocery store except for the very basic necessities. I wore "hand-me-down" clothing from my brother and my cousins. I seldom ever got anything new. Shoes were the only item I remember getting new when I was a kid.
We always had enough to eat because my mother and sisters worked a garden plot and canned vegetables from the garden each season. We had an underground cellar where we stored the canned vegetables that were "put-up" in glass jar containers. Dad would butcher a beef and a couple of hogs each fall so we could have meat to eat. My mother raised chickens so we could have eggs and she would kill a chicken once in a while so we could eat some pan-fried chicken. Dad always kept a milk cow or two so we could have fresh milk.
Our means of transportation included a 1934 Pontiac with hard rubber tires and wooden spoke wheels. It rode like a broken down log wagon. Rough. No heater, no air conditioner. It didn't even have a defroster for the wind shield. You had to crank the motor to get it started. It had a gas-feed lever on the steering column. No foot accelerator. The other means of transportation was a farm tractor, an Oliver Row-Crop Model 88. Dad drove the tractor to town about once a week to get some basic groceries and other farming supplies he needed. We only used the car to go to church on Sunday's at the First Baptist Church in Oak Grove. Mother used to give me "spit baths" on the way to church because I would miss some dirty places on my face. Her spit! Yuk, yuk! When the Pontiac quit running I remember dad bought a 1933 Model-T Ford. It looked like the ones Al Capone and the mobsters of Chicago drove. It was cold black. It was cool.
I am the last in line of four children born to my parents, Harvey Warren Grayum and Mary Aileen Lawson Grayum. My oldest sister Betty Elaine Grayum Powell, my brother Walter Edward Grayum, and another sister Norma Jean Grayum Cummins Horner are my siblings. My sister Betty died of ovarian cancer in 1972. She was just forty-one years old at the time of her death. She is buried in the Oak Grove Cemetary located in Oak Grove, Missouri.
My father, Harvey Warren Grayum, was born on a farm near Lone Jack, Missouri on November 16, 1910 and died at the age of seventy-seven in 1987. He is buried at the Holiness Cemetary near Lone Jack, Missouri in eastern Jackson County on Colburn Road.
My mother, Mary Aileen Lawson Grayum, was born on a farm in Carroll County near Bosworth, Missouri on May 20, 1913. She died on October 28, 2008 at the age of ninty-five. She is buried in the same cemetary next to my father.
My childhood years were good, fun years growing up on the farm. My life was fairly normal. (Someone told me one time that "normal" is only a setting on a clothes dryer!) My dad was a sharecropper and worked the eighty acre farm that was owned by Charles Pewitt and they split the profits from the crops dad grew and the cattle and the pigs he raised. The sharecropper deal was fifty percent of the profits to the owner and fifty percent of the profits to the tenant. The tenant bought all seed, feed, and necessary items for the operation and did all of the farming furnishing his own equipment, etc.
I didn't know it at the time but we were "dirt poor" and barely harvested enough crops, beef, pork, and garden items to stay alive. My father never had enough money to purchase things at the grocery store except for the very basic necessities. I wore "hand-me-down" clothing from my brother and my cousins. I seldom ever got anything new. Shoes were the only item I remember getting new when I was a kid.
We always had enough to eat because my mother and sisters worked a garden plot and canned vegetables from the garden each season. We had an underground cellar where we stored the canned vegetables that were "put-up" in glass jar containers. Dad would butcher a beef and a couple of hogs each fall so we could have meat to eat. My mother raised chickens so we could have eggs and she would kill a chicken once in a while so we could eat some pan-fried chicken. Dad always kept a milk cow or two so we could have fresh milk.
Our means of transportation included a 1934 Pontiac with hard rubber tires and wooden spoke wheels. It rode like a broken down log wagon. Rough. No heater, no air conditioner. It didn't even have a defroster for the wind shield. You had to crank the motor to get it started. It had a gas-feed lever on the steering column. No foot accelerator. The other means of transportation was a farm tractor, an Oliver Row-Crop Model 88. Dad drove the tractor to town about once a week to get some basic groceries and other farming supplies he needed. We only used the car to go to church on Sunday's at the First Baptist Church in Oak Grove. Mother used to give me "spit baths" on the way to church because I would miss some dirty places on my face. Her spit! Yuk, yuk! When the Pontiac quit running I remember dad bought a 1933 Model-T Ford. It looked like the ones Al Capone and the mobsters of Chicago drove. It was cold black. It was cool.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
For My Sons
I'm not new to blogging but I'm new at being a "blogger." So ... bear with me as I begin to learn the process of how to do it, what to write, and how to write it so that it communicates the way I want. My wanting to blog is mostly a response to one of my sons (Aaron) encouragement to write my legacy. I tried this in book form but it just wasn't working. So I want to write this mainly for my sons (Dann, Ross, Aaron, Clayton). Dann and Ross live in Seattle, WA while Aaron and Clayton live in Nashville, TN. The blog will mostly cover events of my life as I remember them so they can know about me. To that end, I write. Thanx.
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