When Levi's family, my grandfather, left Tennessee or was it Virgina, they put their furniture on a railroad car. Grandma Katie baked a large can full of cookies and put it on with the furniture. But, Fred Stoltzfus, Grandma Katie's nephew, got on the car and ate all those cookies. At this time, Fred's mother wasn't living, and I guess he looked out for himself.
I remember some of the chairs we had around our kitchen table. One time, Aunt Mae or somebody like Aunt Mae said that they were their Tennessee parlor chairs. But, at the time, as I recall, to me, they were old-fashioned in the wrong sense of the word. At that time, for the most part, things that were old-fashioned were considered second-rate.
When the family got here to Summit Level Farm, the buildings were in pretty good repair. One of the buildings had a corncrib on one side and pig pens on the other. At that time, I suppose the average weight for a pig to be butchered would have been between 350 and 400 pounds. They didn't know about feed conversion but they knew it cost money to buy young pigs and the bigger they got, the more they got out of them. These days we know that if a pig reaches 250 pounds, from then on, the profitable feed conversion goes down. Meat quality would go down too.
All of the uncles would come together for butchering. They would usually butcher four to six pigs. One of the jobs for the ladies was extracting the leaf lard from the innards of the pig, which was done in the kitchen. I could hardly stand the strong smell of the intestines. One time Anna Yoder, who was often rather sassy with me, knew how I couldn't stand that odor, and she helped me put my coat on so I could go outside. In those days, lard was an important part of the diet.
Daddy had a 22 rifle and he shot the pigs. One time, we butchered at Uncle Milford's and they only had two pigs. That seemed strange to me-only two pigs! They butchered the pigs in what they called "Country Style." They didn't split the backbone and make pork chops. They took out the tenderloin in one piece and they cut the backbone out and cooked it in sections. They were brought to the table in sections and people would eat the meat off the sections of backbone. I didn't like meat much anyway, but my little sister, Martha, really liked it. They called that bone meat.
The uncles knew how to butcher. Uncle Gene had been a professional butcher. They made lots of scrapple. One time, the men who helped Uncle Jake butcher, asked him if he wanted lots of scrapple or if he wanted it rich. In other words, how much corn meal should we add. But he said, "I want lots of it and rich."
We always made souse for Grandma. That was pickled pigs foot jelly.
We didn't have it much on our table. I never learned to eat fish and oysters. Daddy said, "That was because we couldn't afford to buy that when you were small. The only extra we bought, other than what we raised, was jellybeans at Easter." At Stiteler's store, they had black ones available, but I liked the colored ones better.
One of the remembrances I have of my mother was being with her in a market when she bought spinach. I didn't like spinach.
There was a lady who came to our farm with a horse and wagon with yard goods and also finished garments. She opened up a little boy's suit that was my size-shirt, pants, and a tie. It looked so nice to me. I remember how my mother looked at it and I am sure she wanted to buy it for me but she knew we couldn't afford it. The lady folded it up and put it back in her wagon. But sometime later, I came into the kitchen, and mother had a little pair of dungarees warming on the oven door. I was so happy to know they were mine. She smiled and said that I could put them on right away, which I gladly did.
I always treasured what other people told me about my mother. A lady who spoke highly of her was Oliver Shenk's mother from Ohio. Some said she had no faults. Many members of Grandpa Shenk's family used to get together at the Shenk home in Denbigh. Oliver Shenk's mother said that a number of them were cooking on the stove at the same time, and somebody pushed aside the kettle my mother had put on the stove, and she accepted it quite patiently. At Uncle Ray and Aunt Clara's 50th wedding anniversary, Mrs. Jacob Shenk from Harrisonburg, told me that my mother had introduced her to my mother's cousin, Jacob Shenk, and later they were married. One of the best things was what Bishop Truman Brunk said of my mother years after she died. They had been in the same age group at the Denbigh Mennonite Church. He said, " She was a peach of a girl and a real saint."
She was frail of health in her youth, and asked to be anointed with oil. She envisioned having a mission outreach at Newport News and gave a dollar to the ministers for that. The church was established. As far as I know, it is still there.
I remember my brother Paul, 2 1/2 years old, and I, four years old, had to take an afternoon nap, which we didn't like. There were some chocolate covered pills on the mantel above the fireplace in the bedroom. I had Paul help me pull the bed over to the mantel and I got down the pills. I sucked the chocolate off mine, and spit out the pill. Paul chewed his down. I remember the lady that was helping my mother tried to make us swallow raw eggs so we would vomit. I really didn't need to because I hadn't swallowed the pills and I suppose it was too late for Paul. They took Paul to the hospital, but he died. Later, I asked my mother, "What's Paul doing up in heaven?" She said with a smile, and she always smiled, "I guess he's singing." Even though I got the pills down, nobody ever laid the blame on me, to my knowledge, for his death.
Not long before my mother's death, which occurred in May, she set me on a little child's chair we had, and read me the Easter story. The name "Barabbas" stuck in my mind. I didn't remember hearing it before. I guess I didn't get much from the story except that, but somehow, I remember my mother's care in doing that.
My mother died from pneumonia. As I have the story, she planted some strawberries in wet weather. After she was bedfast, a lady was staying here with her, and I think my father was staying up with her the night she died. But I suppose, he thought it was safe to get some sleep and went upstairs to bed. I suppose that the lady saw that my mother was near death. She called my father, and he hurried down, but my mother was gone.
Our family was always close to Uncle Paul Sauder's family in New Holland. Aunt Alice was my mother's younger sister. My father asked Uncle Paul to tell us that mama was gone. He said it was one of the hardest things he ever did. I remember it as a sort of belabored situation which didn't seem any use to me. He said, "Your mother looks as though she's sleeping." My father had Uncle Paul speak to us to shield us from the shock, I guess. Of course, we knew our mother was gone. I was five years old. Dan was nine, Kit was seven, and Martha was one. Near the time of her death, my mother gave birth to a baby girl, who also died, and was buried out of sight in the same casket with my mother.
My father gave himself for his children and wanted to spare us grief. He lived by principles. I think it would have been good if he had cried with us. I remember how he cried at the grave which was the only time I saw him cry. At a funeral of someone who was not so close to us, he cried, but I think he was remembering my mother's death.
Many years later, on one occasion, he said, "I gave myself for my children," and shed tears as he said it. He never remarried.
Immediately, after my mother's death, Aunt Mae Hershey came and took care of us for awhile. Her ideas of child discipline were a little different from my mother's. She gave us food once between breakfast and lunch and once between lunch and supper. I was used to asking my mother for food when I was hungry. I was irked at Aunt Mae's schedule.
Later on, Lydia Stoltzfus, a maiden lady from Conestoga congregation, came and took care of us for some time. I remember her reading stories to us and she talked about the 'House Amish' which was a new term to me. But she evidently remembered when the 'House Amish' and the 'Church Amish' separated. The Conestoga Church we went to was the 'Church Amish.'
Then, Mary Yoder, from Denbigh, came and took care of us for over a year. She was a daughter of my father's cousin, Irene, who was a daughter of Grandpa Levi's brother Isaac-one of the founders of the Denbigh Mennonite community.
Kathryn Mast came to be our housekeeper in 1937. My mother passed away in 1935. Kathryn stayed with us until 1965.
To be continued...
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