To say that I had an unconventional childhood is putting it mildly. You hear about the stereotypical “growing up poor” children who had to walk miles to school. While not quite that bad as I was able to ride a bus to school, we did grow up financially stifled. But that didn’t stop my sister, brothers and I from having wonderful childhoods. There were eight of us children in all, two girls and six boys, and our childhoods were akin to those of earlier times, even though we grew up in the 1970’s.
There were very obvious differences between my childhood and the childhoods of my friends. The first big difference was that they had indoor plumbing. I guess you could say we did too, if you consider a hand pump in the kitchen as indoor plumbing. Our house had 5 rooms, 3 of which were bedrooms, and an outhouse in the back yard. Our weekly baths took place in a large washtub in the kitchen with a blanket over the door for privacy. We would fill up all the pots and pans we could find with water from the pump and put them on the stove to heat up, but it seemed that no matter how much hot water we added, the water in that tub was always cold. I remember the first time I was able to take a real shower. It was after a sleepover at my cousin’s house and I was around 12. I was just amazed that the water flowed out of those little holes, covering my body completely with soothing, warm water. I wondered where all that water was stored because it just kept coming and coming and never got cold.
The second big difference between my friends and I was that my family had a small farm to supply our food and spent very little at the grocery store. Our farm consisted of chickens, pigs, turkeys and rabbits. While we weren't allowed to play with the other animals, the rabbits were my pets and we only ate them if one suffered an early death. My dad hunted pheasant, deer, rabbits and squirrels and I spent many an evening in the kitchen with my father, both of us hunched over a squirrel or rabbit carcass. When I tell people now that I have cleaned and eaten fried squirrel or creamed rabbit, they look at me as though I was from Mars. But, there was always plenty of food on the table and we ate very healthily.
In the spring, Mom and I would take a paper grocery bag and a large knife and head for the woods where we would collect an assortment of “spring greens” and wild mushrooms. At home, our large garden supplied all the fresh vegetables we needed in the summer and even enough to can and freeze for winter. We also had an abundance of apple, plum, cherry, pear and peach trees so fresh fruit was available in the fall and canned fruit all winter long. Also in the fall, we would collect wild huckleberries, black walnuts and hickory nuts, and shell the popcorn grown in the garden. There was always some chore to do on the farm and we were kept busy spring and summer. We never went to movies, ate at restaurants or shopped at the mall. The winters were pretty quiet so we were allowed to spend more time playing winter games outdoors. We would ice skate on the pond in the woods in front of the house and use old boxes to slide down the hill beside the house. And, of course, there were always snow ball fights and Christmas to look forward to.
Another difference in our family was that we all worked on an onion farm in the summer. And when I say all, I mean all. Even the little ones were in the fields, sometimes helping, sometimes playing, but always there. My parents worked on the onion farm all year, spending the winters in the storage barn sorting and bagging onions. In the summer, our parents would take us to work with them and we all worked alongside the migrant workers in the fields. We would start the summer weeding the onions and later on our job was to “top” the onions. We would pull up a handful of onions, suspend them over a large wooden crate and use shears to chop off the green part. We were paid by the crate, so the harder we worked the more money we made. Sometimes the onions were large and you could fill a crate quickly, but most of the time they were the smaller varieties of onions and seemed to take forever. Of course it was easier to fill the crates with large onions but they didn’t pay as well as the smaller ones. Either way it was hard work and we worked 6 days a week, only getting a day off if the temperature was above 100 degrees. At the end of the week the older kids that actually got paychecks would hand them to our parents. There were school clothes and new shoes to be bought. The smaller kids would work alongside our parents adding their crates to Mom and Dad's totals.
We were taught to be careful with the tools of the job, but occasionally an injury would occur. Once, my friend Beatrice and I walked through the fields, she in the front and me behind her, carrying our shears. She had a cursing habit that she was trying to break so she told me to give her a kick in the pants if she used a bad word. She did, I kicked, and then the blood flowed. She had swung her arm back just as my leg went up and her shears had harpooned my foot. My mom, not the least bit disturbed by the sight of blood pouring out of a hole in my foot, checked the wound, washed it out, and decided I would live. She wrapped a piece of tape around my foot to hold the wound closed and we went back to work, bloody sock and all. I recovered from my injury quickly and completely.
Another of our differences was that we had an extended family. Every Sunday there was either someone coming to our house for dinner, or we were going to someone’s house for dinner. We grew up with our cousins as brothers and sisters, and our unts and uncles as moms and dads. Family was important and you went out of your way to be together often. Some evenings we would eat together, play together and, when the signal would come in, watch TV together, and if someone needed disipline, it may be an Aunt, Uncle or Grandparent that dolled it out. My dad would play the banjo on the front porch most evenings and all my brothers taught themselves to play the guitar, drums or banjo. If you wanted a kite, you made it out of sticks and paper. If you wanted a boat, you made it out of old boards. If you wanted a go-cart, you would find old bicycle wheels and lawnmower parts and make one. It was a self-sufficient life full of learning, hard work, adventure and fun.
I am now married with two grown sons, both college graduates. I have attempted to give them an idea of the childhood with which I grew, but they just can’t comprehend the simplicity of such a life.
Through the years I have looked back at my beginnings and have decided that though there were some hard times, I really had a magical childhood, something I fear is missing in this technical world we have created.
As children, my brothers, sister and I had parents that loved us and taught us the meaning of family. We got to live an outdoor adventure every day, and learned to work for what we needed and respect those who did the same. My childhood may have been different than those “richer” kids around me, but I wouldn’t have changed it for the world. It helped me appreciate the simpler things and made me the woman I am today.
