I Garden Every Memorial Day

   

Every Memorial Day I think of going to a Veteran's Day service, but for whatever reason, I stay home.  It is a tradition that I work in my garden on Memorial Day. I put my hands in the earth and plant beautiful young flowers that grow to bless me and others. I always think of the brave soldiers who gave up their lives for their belief in freedom and their love for America.  Some years it rains on Memorial Day, and I am unable to work in the garden, but my memories and thoughts of the heroes who died for our country is with me all day.

My brother C. F. Cline died from an Agent Orange-related disease. He served in the U.S. Air Force for ten years and was Honorably Discharged in 1967. He died in 2009 and I miss him. He made the ultimate sacrifice for this country. I am proud of him and his sacrifice. He suffered great physical pain from the results to his exposure to Agent Orange. 

 I grow red geraniums at the front of my house and have pots of them at the entry way. On Memorial Day, and on other solemn days, the red flower of the plant symbolizes, to me, the blood that our war heroes shed for our freedom.  I believe that the Lord greets those heroes and says "well-done soldier."  God bless the family of recently fallen soldiers, and God bless America.

Grandma Price-Austill was a loving Grandmother

Carrie Rettig-Price-Austill was my maternal grandmother. Grandma Rettig married Henry Price in 1914.  In April 1915, they had one daughter, my mother Marie, and were expecting a second child in the month of July 1916.  On June 5, 1916, a deadly tornado dipped down on the Price farm in New Madrid County, Missouri.  It killed Carrie Rettig Price's mother-in-law and sister-in-law instantly and severely injuring her husband, Henry Price.  My Aunt Beulah was born eighteen days later, and my grandfather died twenty days later on June 25, 1916.  My grandmother was a widow at age twenty-two with two young daughters to raise. She had a hard life with much work and little security.  Most impressive, she never complained and had a warm, caring, and positive attitude about life.

She briefly married Clyde Austill and, along with her daughters, raised his two sons.  She loved Mr. Austill but he drank too much, and she left him after a couple of years and was again without real means of support.  Upon her death, her two step-sons attended her funeral.  She took in cleanings and did what she could but was often forced to live with one relative or another during her daughters' formative years. About the time they were teenagers, she was employed by the International Shoe Company in Sikeston.  That allowed her to rent her a place, and she was much happier.

 She was a quiet lady who wore a hearing aid most of the time.  When she had her hearing aid in she was soft spoken.  Once Sunday after church, I went home with her for a few hours.  I played near her with childhood toys she kept in her closet for me.  All of a sudden, she said something to me so loudly it frightens me.  My parents said I got up and ran the three blocks home.  She did not have a telephone at the time, so she walked to my house behind me to learn what caused me to run off.  I told her she had never yelled at me before, and it scared me.  My mother laughed because she knew how Grandma talked without the hearing aid.   I think Grandma was embarrassed.  From that point on she never took her hearing aid out around me and I always looked to see if it was in her ear.  Back in the 1940 and 1950s they were worn outside the ear and were about the size of a nickel.

Grandma Price-Austill lived in small dwellings in the time I can remember visiting her.  One place was a small duplex with persimmon trees in her back yard.  She told me not to eat them unless they were dark orange.  One day I was in the back yard, and I just had to try one.  I had waited a long time for those persimmons to ripen.  I got a bucket to stand on, and I picked one that was mostly orange, but it had a bit of green on it too.  Oh my goodness!  That was the worst thing I ever tasted.  It puckered my mouth for hours.  Grandma did not scold me; she just told me I should listen to her the next time she gave me instructions about something. From that day forward I listened to her every word.

In the late-1950s, she moved to an apartment in downtown Sikeston, above the Collins Music Store.  I remember taking a set of very steep stairs to reach her apartment.  Once she opened the door to her two-room, one-bath apartment one was always impressed at how fastidious the two rooms were.  She was a second-generation German-American, and they believed that cleanness was next to Godliness.  You could not find a speck of dust on her floors.  The apartment had a tiny kitchen, with a divider between the small stove, refrigerator, and dining area.  The divider was where she kept her dishes.  The dining area was small, a standard table and chairs would not fit into the designated eating area provided, because space was only about four feet by five feet in size.  Instead of a standard table, she had a fold-down table, and two thin benches, one on each side of the table, where she ate her meals.  The table and benches worked like a Murphy bed.  Not once did I ever hear her complain about a lack of space.  She loved the little place she made her home.

On another of my visits, I remember Grandma taught me to like spinach.  When I was about five or six years old, I was spending another Sunday afternoon with her.  Grandma started cooking supper for us.  The vegetable was spinach.  After she had cooked it, she ate some of it and went on about how good it tasted.  She said there might not be enough for me.   After it had finished cooking, she put a big helping on her plate and a small serving on my plate.  That was not her normal way of feeding us.  I watched her eat it and heard her make noises of delight.  She had me wait until after everything else on my plate was eaten before eating my spinach.  When I finally tasted it, I thought it was the best vegetable in the world.  I still like it today.

She taught me many things in her unique style.  It is odd what we remember about the ones we loved after they are gone.  My paternal grandfather died when I was five, and Grandma Price-Austill was the only grandparent I had the privilege of knowing.  She was not well educated, but had good common sense; she had little in material wealth, but she was happy and a good Christian lady who I loved very much. 

Remembering 1977 TV Commercials

Do you remember TV commercials by what was going on in your life at the time?  This is a second in a series of memories of an unnamed person in various homes.  I did not put this together but received it as a YouTube shared item.  One thing that has not changed is that FOOD is still important to us all and is highly advertised.  There are many of these on You"Tube.  1977 was the year Tom, Tina and I moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Click on the following link to see how different the TV commercials were in 1977, compared to those of today.  You will need to copy the link and paste it in your browser.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zzRp-jxx0E

My Mother Had Many Strengths

My mother was born Marie Ruth Price on April 27, 1915, in New Madrid County, Missouri in the area they called Big Prairie.  She was the daughter of Henry Price and Caroline "Carrie" Rettig Price.  Her father was born in Saline County, Illinois to a farming family.  He lived there until his parents moved to New Madrid County, Missouri about 1908.  Henry's brother Hillery Price married Clara Parma in New Madrid County on 17 Feb 1909. Finding this marriage in southeast Missouri somewhat confirms family tradition that J.D. and Anyan Grandstaff Price moved to southeast Missouri around 1908. 

The Rettig family, on my mother's side, were second generation Germans from Evansville, Indiana, and her mother Carrie Rettig was born in Evansville, Indiana among mostly German-speaking family and friends.  Her father Fred Joseph Rettig, born 1868 in Jefferson County, Kentucky, moved to Evansville with this family as a child.   After marrying Anna Krieg, he moved his family to Henderson, Kentucky, and then in 1911; the family moved to Scott County, Missouri near McMullin.  Fred Joseph Rettig was a farmer and died at the age of 77 years old at his son, Otto Rettig's house. Otto’s farm was six miles north of Sikeston, Missouri, on the east side of Highway 61.

So, within three years, both the Price family from southern Illinois and the Rettig family from Evansville, Indiana moved to New Madrid County, Missouri.  One of Carrie's sisters, Katherine, met and married Isaac Brummett, who lived on the adjoining farm to the Price family in New Madrid County.  That is how Henry and Carrie met.  They married within a year and had two daughters; Marie and Beulah Price.  Sadly, Henry was killed from injuries received from a tornado two days after the birth of his second daughter Beulah.

My mother and her sister grew up with a widowed mother who was undereducated and forced to live with one relative, then another, for most of their formative years.  Marie learned many things from her mother, however, including shared values and beliefs like honesty, faith, and the Golden Rule.  Marie Price married Curtis H. Cline November 2, 1935, in Sikeston, Missouri.  They had two sons, Eugene and C. F. Cline, and a daughter Margaret Cline Harmon.  Marie's favorite roles in life was that of being a mother and grandmother.

My mother enjoyed flowers and always had flowers around the perimeter of the backyard.  In the south-western back corner were roses and a bird bath.  On the north-eastern corner, she had her prized hydrangeas. She often cut these flowers and brought some inside the house which made it smell wonderful.

She had a beautiful soprano voice, and I loved to hear her sing around the house and in church.  At one time she sang on the radio on behalf of the First Church of the Nazarene.  She passed her musical talent on to my brothers and me.

She enjoyed visual art and took my brothers and me to St. Louis at least once a year to tour the St. Louis Art Museum.  I used to go antique shopping with her, and she was always drawn to paintings and sculptures.  Today, my brother Gene and I are artists and enjoy sculptures too.

I have fond memories of watching her sew my outfits when I was young.  She sewed beautifully.  I was always well dressed, and my clothes were unique.  I remember one time she was trying on an outfit, and I can still feel the love in her hands as she tried on the dress or whatever the clothing.  That is a memory I will always treasure.

After her children were grown, she felt lost.  She gained weight over the years and was not happy for fifteen or twenty years.  Later in life, she joined the Eastern Star, and that made her happy again.  She enjoyed the fellowship and sisterhood.  It also gave both my parents a conventional outlet to enjoy.  I am grateful for God blessing me with a loving mother who did her best to expose me to many opportunities in life.  I believe she is in heaven with my father now, and they are happy.  Before I know it, I will join them.