Just the Three of Us

From the time I was 13 months old until my own daughters were old enough for overnights at the local Girl Scout camps, I rarely slept away from home. One of my best childhood friends lived down in Dutch Hollow, just a few miles away from us, but every time we begged, pleaded and cajoled our parents into letting me stay all night with her, I'd have an asthma attack in the middle of the night and have to be taken home.

It was so aggravating. All day long we played like frisky puppies, my brothers and I, Judy Ann, her brother and sister, and their cousins from one house down. As soon as it got dark and the mist fell in the valley, it was all over for me. My breathing got labored, her parents panicked, and my parents would have to come back and get me. Sometimes I'd start to feel better as soon as the car left the lowlands, and other times I'd be sick all night and into the next day.

Imagine my delight, however; one monumental year in my childhood, when my mom and her sisters-in-law decided it would be a wonderful experience for their oldest daughters to have a vacation together at our Great-Aunt Gillie and Great-Uncle Frank's old farm in Carbondale.

The three of us were a year apart in age; I was in the middle, but outside of our family reunions at Thanksgiving, we had never spent much time together. I was around 10 or 12 when we went to this equivalent of a two-week summer camp; our hosts were very near their 70s. It was a match made in Heaven because all of us kids adored them and were on our best behavior when we were with them.

A high point of our trip was that we were being allowed to take the passenger train from Belleville to Carbondale without parental supervision! It was a two-hour journey with worried, weeping parents at one station and a calm, joyful aunt and uncle at the other stop.
We felt so grown-up traveling ALONE!

After a ridiculously expensive, long-distance phone call back home, lots of quarters when a local payphone call cost a nickel (keep in mind this was the 50s), to let our parents know that, yes, all three had stayed on the train the whole way and survived the trip safe and sound and fully intact, we were whisked off to the grocery store where we were asked what our favorite foods were! This was another big event to us; our moms just bought and fixed whatever they thought was good for us, but I don't think any of us had ever been consulted about our preferences before, at least I hadn't.

We also made a stop at the dry goods store, either that day or shortly thereafter, to pick up a few yards of material. Here, too, we were given a choice about the color and pattern of the yard goods. My cousin, Nancy, was in 4-H and her latest project was making a skirt with a matching shawl. Dear Aunt Gillie decided she would teach all of us how to sew; what a brave woman she was! She even taught us a kind of sign language since she couldn't wear her glasses and hearing aid at the same time while she was sewing.

I wish I had kept a journal about this visit. I had such a wonderful time.

Gillie gave us impromptu biology lessons when she picked vegetables and cleaned chickens for our dinner. Frank taught us animal husbandry when we helped him feed the chickens and cows, gather eggs and crank the cream separator after he milked his small herd, twice a day, every day. (He let us and Gillie sleep through the morning chores, though!)

We watched birds from the kitchen windows through the binoculars that were kept, next to the old cowbell, on top of the antique cupboard made from trees cut down on her grandparents' farm in Belleville. Then we'd look for their pictures in the big bird book she kept close at hand for us for us to use.

Throughout the day we'd be busy picking berries and grapes and roses, and dressing the kittens in doll clothes. In the evenings we'd read, or be read to, from our great-grandparents' novels, Erie Train Boy and Swiss Family Robinson, Tom Sawyer and Little Women, played Old Maid and Authors or picked threads loose from our frayed-edge shawls.

The days flew by,
each one as good or better than the last.

Despite all this, there were a few flies in the ointment of our bliss.

My cousin, Sherry, suffered from terrible homesickness. She'd never spent much time away from the rest of her family and cried for them every night.

My cousin, Nancy, was very unhappy about sharing her "special" time with Aunt Gillie, and took every opportunities that came her way to tease and torment Sherry and me.

It might have been on this visit when she turned the wooden peg that locked me in the big chicken coop, and then conveniently "forgot" where I was. Just for the record--chickens are mean. When the posse finally found me, I was pecked, crying my eyes out, almost hysterical, and I have eaten fried chicken in revenge ever since. To this day, I'd still rather stare down a snake than a chicken!

I don't know what I did to annoy them, but I'm sure if you asked them, my cousins could tell you tales about me, too. I certainly was no angel, but the one thing I did not do was have a single bout of asthma the whole time I was there!

Our idyllic sojourn came to an abrupt ending one night near the end of the second week when Nancy got sick. We all piled in the car and made a hasty trip to one of the nearby relatives because Aunt Gillie didn't own a thermometer. We arrived at this old, dark farmhouse and were led through rooms filled with stacks of newspapers and magazines and boxes of who-knows-what.
It was my first glimpse at hoarding.

Sure enough, my cousin was in a lot of pain and running a high fever. I don't know if it was her appendix or not, but it was pretty clear that she was very ill that night.

Another long-distance call had to be made to her parents, and mind you, not everyone had phones in their homes back then, especially in the country, but my family did. Her mom made the trip down there in under two hours, and made Sherry and me go home with her as well. So much for our return tickets for the train and the few remaining days of our country vacation.

For the most part, Sherry was relieved to come home to her family, and I stayed mad at Nancy for a long time for getting sick, not that she could help it. Overall, though, it had been a wonderful time, but one that was never repeated.

My cousin, Nancy, went home to Freeburg where she graduated high school, and then attended college in Carbondale and lived on the farm with Frank and Gillie while acquiring her teaching degree, as did her younger sister.

My family moved out of state soon after, and our visits down there became few and far between until we moved back home.

My other cousin's family eventually moved back and forth across the country as my uncle's Air Force career progressed. I don't know that any of her siblings were born in the same state, but none of them came back here to live or raise their families.

Many years later, when I had a family of my own, I made that trip down Highway 13 many, many times so my children could get to know the great-aunt and uncle I loved so much. I know my cousins and second cousins did the same thing.

There was something so special about that couple, their unusual love story and all they could teach us about life. I owe them for so many of my best memories, for their nurturing and encouragement, and for bringing out the good parts of who I am now.

Today when so many grandparents and great-aunts and uncles are too busy with their own lives, still work at 9-5 jobs and live in small homes or in retirement communities, children don't get these kinds of opportunities. They don't get to learn life lessons at the knees of their elders and hear stories they'll remember forever.

Aunt Gillie was the family mentor and historian. She sent each of her great-nieces and nephews books on our birthdays that reflected our interests and hers. From her we learned to love reading and games, and to observe and interact with nature. She taught us practical skills and how to use the talents we were born with. She told us stories about our family's history and antics, and taught us to be proud of who we were and who we could become.

Today the family is scattered to the four winds. It's been years since the last funeral that brought us all back to our hometown. It's a shame that's what it takes for us to reconnect.

I still remember the family reunions we had at their farms down in Carbondale, the house brimming with people of all ages, from Uncle Charles LeTempe who lived to be 104 or was it 106, to the tiniest, newborn baby. It was a house and a world and a family filled with sharing, happiness, and love.

All of those children are old enough to be grandparents now, and some are.
All are old enough to have been married, divorced, and remarried. Some are.

Some have had great joy.
Some have had great sorrow.
Some have been close to dying.
Some have lost children in tragic ways.

All have been loved.

Mine is a family that is a privilege to be part of.

I'm glad I'm part of them and
that they are a part of me.