Christmas 1955

Christmas 1955

I do remember snow and cold that winter even though I was only four years old.  We lived in our cabin in the woods my momma, sisters and cousin.  Daddy was with us only on the weekends and I don’t know why.  My cousin, Patty, was a few years older than me.  She even went to school  I can remember walking to the bus stop and splashing through the puddles and snow.  at the end of our road was a big hill that ended up at the beach.  But in the winter it was the best sledding hill around.  We didn’t have to worry about any cars either and momma would let us go sledding all by ourselves.  Patty’s friend Roxy would come over to go sledding with us.  It helped to have both the big girls when pulling the sleds back up the hill.  

the cabin wasn't really very big so my daddy built double bunk beds in the back room for us to sleep in.  since we were all girls it worked out perfect, two on top  and two on bottom.  however there wasn’t any room to play in the rooms and I don’t remember but one dresser in the corner of the room.  no place to hang our clothes either.  the other room was the one that momma and daddy shared.  the rest of the house was one big room.  we had a big oil drip heater in the middle of the room and we could put our wet mittens on it to dry out after we played outside.  we didn’t have any running water and no bathroom so it was a  cold run to the outhouse and a chamber pot under the bed at night. Daddy had moved the pump to inside the house at the kitchen sink but we still had to work the pump handle to get water and all the hot water had to be heated on the stove or the furnace.  we used a basin in the sink for dishes and a big round laundry top for bath time.  

we spent christmas in the cabin in 1955.  daddy was there for christmas like he was there every weekend.  for christmas  My sisters and I each got a new doll.  Sherry got her first raggedy Anne doll that year.  

Fish Shanty

It was during the long winter of  1955 and we were living in a cabin in Lupton, MI.  Daddy was still working in Flint and always came up on his days off to be with us.

On one of his weekends, before he left to go back to work, he told mom he was going down to the shanty for an hour or so to fish.  I remember the smell of that old canvas shanty to this day.  It was so dark inside and yet the  light coming through the big hole in the ice was very bright.  I can still hear the hiss of the kerosene heater that was used to keep it warm.  We could look through that hole and watch some fish swim by, but we had to sit very still and that wasn't fun.

This particular day daddy went to the shanty for some quiet fishing.  I am sue he sat there just waiting for some big Fish to swim into his view and then he would throw his spear in hopes of impaling a fish for dinner.  He was in luck as he was able to spear four pike.