She was born before the Great Depression, into a poor family, the oldest of 7 seven children. Her name was Alice Addie Brannon, and she was one of the strongest and smartest people I have ever met, and I am so very proud to have known her. I am even prouder to be her daughter.
She was funny and kind in her own way! If she had been allowed to continue her education beyond grade school, she might have become a Doctor or one of many professional people. She was selected to quit school to help take care of her younger siblings.
I was born at home in the little town of East Corinth, Maine, and delivered by a midwife, I think. Of course, I don’t remember because of my age. I usually tell the tale; that she had me and then went to the hospital to make sure she didn’t have anymore like me.
She consistently won games of Double Solitaire and Double Nine Dominoes, and for years, she didn’t share with me her secret of how she won. It was amazing how she could pick a four-leaf clover the first time she walked into a field, while others would spend hours searching.
Growing up on a small farm, she developed immunity to many childhood diseases despite nursing her whole family through them. She passed that immunity to me, and it was nearly impossible to tell I had them at all. However, it delighted me that my two tormenter brothers had the full range of childhood diseases and looked like chipmunks with mumps and some horribly diseased monsters with measles!
As an adult woman, she found herself alone in a small cabin with three small children in the middle of winter. She managed to keep us warm, clothed, and fed by doing men’s jobs. Those jobs were not offered to her; she had to seek them out and fight for equal pay with the men. She picked beans, peas, and potatoes and cut seed. I once watched her cut seed potatoes, and it scared me to my core. She straddled a potato barrel that had a wicked sharp knife attached and facing her! She swished potatoes on that knife, making sure each slice had an eye to seed new potato plants. At least she was sitting down, but one slip and there goes a finger or a hand. She was very fast with her hands, and that is another thing she passed to me. I am also left-handed and ampidextrous, nearly equally good with either hand.
The job that ignites vivid youthful memories is picking potatoes! Potatoes are planted in long and wide rows and divided into sections. A picker could demand as many sections as they could manage. They were “picked” and placed in bushel baskets. The baskets had a sturdy handle to keep them moving ahead as they were filled. They were then picked up and dumped into the barrel placed at the end of each section, and each barrel would hold 4 or 5 bushels.
When she applied for the job, she was told she was hired, but at half the pay of the men. She challenged the owner with, “I will work one day for free, and if I beat all the other pickers, you will pay me the same wage as the men.” The owner took the challenge, and she beat them all with over one hundred barrels!
On a good day in my youth, I could pick 20 barrels!
By the way, she did this while keeping an eye on three kids sitting in the shade under the trees.
One of my fondest memories of her was a day when she was walking back to the field. One of the young men, who had obviously drunk his lunch, walked over to her, saying, “Hey, sweetheart, how about a little kiss?” As he swung his arm over her shoulder, she didn’t miss a step as she cold-cocked him, knocking him over three potato rows. None of the guys approached her again and treated her with the respect she deserved.
Fishing was her favorite pastime, and it didn’t matter whether she was in a boat or a brook. We brook fished as often as we could. I was 6 months pregnant with my daughter the last time. I fell into the brook a couple of times, and we caught a bunch of “Pocket” fish. If caught by a warden, we would have been busted.
We stopped at a farmhouse and asked the farmer, sitting on his porch, for permission to cross his land to go fishing in the brook. He smiled and said, “Sure, Sweetheart!” He even held the barbed wire fence up so we could climb under safely. As Mom crawled between the vicious prongs, he patted her on the ass, and I nearly fell over, trying to keep from laughing out loud. But I also knew that my turn was next! I was amazed that he didn’t get his head knocked off.
When I laughed and told my Doctor about my adventure, he almost choked. He told me all the bad things that could have happened to me. I answered him with, “How much trouble could I get in, I was with my Mother!!!!
One day, I told her my teacher wanted to know how old she was. Bending over a ringer washer, she was not in the greatest mood. She said, “Tell her I am 104!” That is exactly what I did! And no amount of talking from the teacher could convince me she wasn’t. If my Mother said she was 104, she was 104!!!
She met the love of her life when I was a very young child, and Lloyd was the best! He took on the responsibility of three little kids and a wife without hesitation! His job was working on the railroad, laying and repairing tracks. It was hard physical work! Lloyd wasn’t very tall; he and Mon were about the same height. Popeye would be envious of his set of shoulders and arms!
They bought a 15-acre farm when I was in the 6th grade. The seller had sold it many times and repossessed it each time! They were the last ones to buy it, which I am sure was a big disappointment. We lived off that land, and it saved us! Until that time, I was the smallest kid in class; however, the following year, I gained so much weight that I developed stretch marks. My mother had an acre garden, and we kept a cow and chickens and raised a steer for beef. Lloyd hunted, and we always had Deer meat.
We sold hay from the field and stored some in the barn. My job was to stomp the hay in the mow to pack it down because I was the only child who didn’t have hay fever. Later, we shared half of the hay in payment for having it baled. I wasn’t sad to lose that job.
The farmhouse was over 100 years old, and after I got married and had a daughter, it burned down. They put a Single-wide Mobile home on the foundation and added a room. Many years later, when visiting Maine, I drove back to our farm and was disappointed to see that the owners had allowed the field to grow up into trees.
It was sad to see my childhood dreams gone. I now know, “You can never go back!”
Maye West Mysteries Book 1 Murder on Lake Haverly
Maye West Mysteries Book 2 Options
Immortal Enemies
Spirited One Book 1 The Protector
Spirited One Book 2 James
The end of the Road
Ruby & Nolan’s Great Adventures in Space Book: 1 The Science Project
Ruby & Nolan’s Great Adventures in Space Book: 2 Dragon Flight
Ruby & Nolan’s Great Adventures in Space Book: 3 The Keep
Ruby & Nolan’s Great Adventures in Space Book: 4 The Others
Ruby & Nolan’s Great Adventures in Space Book: 5 Wormhole
Ruby & Nolan’s Great Adventures in Space Book: 6 Merpeople
Ruby & Nolan’s Great Adventures in Space Book: 7 Decisions
Ruby & Nolan’s Great Adventures in Space Book: 8 Irus
Sleep Travelers Book: 1 The Story of Ning, Dog, & Boss
Sleep Travelers Book: 2 The Amusement Park
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