A baby was probably the last thing my parents needed during the Great Depression, but I surprised them. They already had an 18- year old daughter and a 13- year old son. All four of them took my arrival in stride. My father explained that their close friends had no children my age because they were either too old or knew better.
To say that I was indulged is an understatement. The term used then was “spoiled.” I essentially had four parents. One time when I was refused something, I told my mother that I would just ask my brother for it, and if he didn’t get it for me then my sister would. She applied a little behavior modification to my backside and I never tried to play them off against one another again.
They took my antics in stride. My Dad was a dairy farmer who took a supplemental job working for the WPA, one of Roosevelt’s New Deal projects. He operated a motor grader doing road work. He brought the grader home every night. When I was about two years old, I was playing outside shortly after Dad had done some maintenance on the grader. He had drained the crankcase oil into a bucket. I found the bucket and pulled it over into my lap. I was having a wonderful time smearing oil all over myself when I was discovered. Into a tub I went. All of my clothes had to be thrown away including a new pair of shoes. I found the soap and water as fascinating as the oil and laughed and splashed. The oil was hard to remove from baby skin and some of it even had to be trimmed out of my hair. My mother and sister said that they would scrub for a while, stop and laugh with me, and then resume the scrubbing.
Another time my brother was in charge of me as we waited in the car while my mother went inside the post office. He turned his back to me to watch something across the street. I managed to get a large jar of Lady Ester face cream out of a shopping bag and open it. It was almost as fun as oil. I was very quiet. When my mother returned, I had smeared the cream all over myself, the seat of the car and my brother’s back. Mother had to hold me in front of her all of the way home. To my embarrassment, they laughingly told several tales of this sort about me through the years.
My mother made most of my clothes. She complained that as surely as she made a cute frilly dress for a special occasion, I would invariably have scabs on one or both knees showing beneath my hem. She remarked that she would like to dress me up “just one time” without skinned knees. The ground around the house and the dairy was hard packed. I thought that it made no sense to walk anywhere if I could run. I would take off running, stumble, skin my knees, get them cleaned up, and take off again.
I wore Shirley Temple curls and I disliked shampoos and having those curls rolled. I had to sit on a stool while mother rolled them around a pencil. It was hard to sit still. I was given a mirror to hold in hopes that I would amuse myself and not wiggle so much. It didn’t stop the wiggles. I preferred braids to curls.
I had an assortment of toys including the usual set of little pots and pans. I had a sand pile and loved to make mud pies. They said that I was adept at sneaking into the hen house to get an egg to go in my pies. I had to sneak because this was forbidden.
My mother had a large garden and I trudged behind her with my little basket as she gathered vegetables. . My favorites were green peppers and raw potatoes.
They all took my care very seriously and kept very close watch over me. It is likely that I was over-protected. I grew and thrived, the economy got better, and we all survived.