My two little playmates

There was a house next door to us. Billy and Betty Jean Lang lived there with their three children, Alison, Janet, and their little brother, I can't remerber his name right now. I will be talking about the little girls anyway. I used to go over to play with them even though they were about 6 and 8 years younger than I was. They would stand on their front porch and call over to our house," Tootlellen, Tootlellen, come play with us". So I would go over and play with them. That is how I got the nickname of "Tootellen", which they still call me to this day when we see each other. They were two of Mrs. Langs granddaughters, the lady that put the trailor next to our house and was our neighbor until she died. My grandparents lived in the little white house a few years after the girls lived there, and stayed there for several years until they went to live my Aunt Sue in Aberdeen, Mississippi.

Interesting Neighbor

When we were growing up we had some unusual neighbors, at least we thought so at the time. One of those people was a woman named Miss Julia Lewis. What made her unusual was she had one leg quite a bit shorter, maybe about 8 to 10 inches. I am guessing trying to remember back all those years. Anyway, I used to visit her and she would be sitting in a chair by the window usuing a big embrodiery hoop, or maybe it was a quilting hoop, quilting on a quilt. She made lots of quilts like this and I thought it was interesting because everyone else used the traditional frames which were four boards held together with c-clamps. She would just be holding the hoop on her lap. I guess she wasn't able to use the usual ones as it was hard for her to get around plus she probably didn't have anyone to help her roll the quilts as she finished a side. She always let us come in and visit her while she worked. Usually, she would give us some cookies or something. She had sone black servents to help her around the house. She lived together with her brother, I don't think he ever married either.
The reason her leg was shorter she was riding in a horse drawn buggy and the horse got spooked and starting running. She was thrown out of the buggy but was dragged behind and her leg was badly damaged. She wore a built up shoe with a really thick sole. Her brother's name was Dudley Lewis. He supplied our house with water from his "ram", a water tank, to our house until we were able to have our own well dug.

Mishaps of childhood

There was a store across the crossroads and one across the road from our house as I was growing up. We always had dogs and some of them loved to drag cans and garbage people left around the stores into our yard. One day while I was playing outside, I must have been less than 5 because I don't remember the incedent, I jumped down from the fence that was in the back yard. The dog had left a cornbeef can on the ground where I jumped down. These cans used to be opened by using a key that was attached to the can and rolled around the top and a little strip of the can pealed off to take the top off the can. This left a very sharp edge along the rest of the can. Yes, when I jumped my big toe on my left foot hit this sharp edge and cut all the meat off the side of my toe but was still attached by a piece of skin. My mother must have seen what happened really quick, maybe she was close by, because she bandeged it up really quick. She cleaned it up and wrapped gause around it and the toe grew back together but left an impressive scar. If you would like to see it just ask me sometime.:)

Yellowstone Park

When I was 8 years old we took a trip out west. This time it was my family, Aunt Maggie and Grandma Langston ( MaMoo). Don't ask me how 7 people fit in a 5 passenger car but we did. Grandma was quite contrary on that trip. If Aunt Maggie wanted some air with the window down Grandma would want it back up immediately. (this was in the days before air conditioning in cars, at least ours). Just anything oppisite of Aunt Maggie.
We visited Yellowstone Park and were fortunate to see some black bears. One mother bear was out close to the road with twin cubs, they were so cute. Mama got out to take a picture, which is in her pictures some where, I will try to find and post it some day, anyway, she was standing inbetween the mother bear and her cubs. When the mother bear realized Mama was a little too close the her cubs she started running towards Mama. Fortunately, Mama wasn't that far from the car and made it bach OK.
I wanted to share my trip to the park with my friends back home so I bought some post cards and wrote a note to everyone, probably about 5 or 6 cards, all the money I had available to me. I put the cards in the mail slot at the hotel in the park and felt really good about sending my friends a card until Mama asked me if I had put stamps on the cards! I had not!! No matter how hard I cried and pleaded with the lady at the desk to have to cards back to put stamps on them she said she couldn't do that. Needless to say, my friends did not get their beautiful cards from Yellowstone Park.

Little Sister

When I was five years old my family along with Uncle Willard and his family went to Utah to be sealed in the temple. On the way home we stopped by an Indian reservation, probably in New Mexice. My Mom and Dad were told that if they could stay and extra day they would be able to adopt a little girl. But my dad and uncle had to get back to go to work so we were unable to stay the extra day. I have often wondered how our lives would have changed had we been able to stay and get me a little sister.

Maryann took this picture of us so we could put a picture on my blog. Hopefully I will remember how to put more pictures on for future use.

Christmas past

When I was probably around 5 or 6 we were visiting with Uncle Williard and Aunt Mary and their family on Christmas Eve in McCalla, Alabama. I was so worried that Santa would not know where to find us if we were not at home. Everyone told me not to worry, that Santa always knew where to find good boys and girls but some how that didn't stop my worrying. When I got up the next morning he had found us and I was so releived. Ah, the joys of childhoold!