Monday, February 12, 2007

Stories from my Grandpa

I wrote these stories down a couple of years ago. They are stories my Grandpa told me about when he was a boy. Grandpa was born in 1922 (or was it 1923?) at his parent's home in Rural Beaver County, Oklahoma.

When Kirby was 4 or 5, he severely hurt his right foot. His parents went to town to get groceries. Most of the older kids were at school, Kirby was left at home. He didn't want to be at home, it was boring. His parents told him to stay out of the field where his brother, Clarence, was disking, and to definitely stay out after his older brother, Joe, came home from school. Well, the boys didn’t listen and went to the field. Clarence let them sit on the disc as he drove the disc, which was hitched to horses. No tractor in the late 1920’s for the Berends. Kirby sat on the right side of the disc, Joe on the left. As they turned around to make another run, Kirby fell of. The disc ran over his foot, cutting it along the inside of his big toe. It was a bad cut. Clarence was scared, and there was blood everywhere. Clarence jumped off, and carried Kirby back to the house to call Grandpa Jacob Berends. He was the only one they could call, as the phone line only ran to Grandpa Jacob's house. Grandpa Jacob had a switch on his phone that allowed him to call others, even into town (Gate, Oklahoma.) After calling the Doctor, he drove up to the house and took Kirby to the Dr’s house, where he was treated. No stitches, but Kirby remembers having kerosene or turpentine poured on his wound. It was then wrapped tightly with cloth bandages. The lasting effect was a large knot on the side of his foot, basically it was slightly deformed. I’d like to say that this was the last time Kirby was hurt, or when he didn’t mind, but it wasn’t.

I need to ask how much trouble he was in for disobeying his parents in the first place...

Did you know that you could wipe paint off your hands by catching a chicken and using her as a rag? Did you know that your Mom might yell a little seeing her white chicken suddenly covered in barn red paint? It was Joe's idea!

Kirby remembers that one evening, he was doing chores in the barn after dark. To pass the time, he started singing. Meanwhile, two of his sisters, Vera and Ivy, went to put the chickens away. The girls ran back to the house, and told their mother that there must be a big bear in the barn making lots of noise. It wasn't a bear. Kirby said that put a big damper on his willingness to sing in public anymore.

When you have 11 children, finding room for them all isn’t always easy. When you are poor, and are trying to survive the “Dirty Thirties,” you make do. Adding a room, or rooms, onto to house was not an option. Just to expensive, so instead, a small one room building was built over the cellar. The boys all slept in this building (Clarence, Coy, Joe, Kirby and later Elmer.) This building was called the Boys house. The girls had a bedroom in the house. One bedroom. Their parents slept outside, in a screened-in back porch…that’s a story for another time.

Grandpa Ben DeSpain stayed for a while with the Joe Berends family. He slept in the boy’s house and the boys then slept in the cellar under the boys’ house. Grandpa Ben didn’t sleep all through the night and would often wake the boys up with the tap-tap-tapping of his pipe on the floor. He would empty out his pipe and then relight it, but the boys would wake up every time they heard that tapping.

Coming soon...stories about Carol and maybe Sandy too!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What great stories about grandpa. It is so good that you are writing them down. Bring on the stories about Sandy :)

Anonymous said...

Shelly, my mom would say that him getting hurt was natural punishment and that would be all the punishment he would get. That's how it usually worked in our house.

Shelljo said...

Sharon, that's probably what they said too!