By Velma Margaret Rose Smith

I was born October 17, 1900. My mother, Maude Jones Rose, was 20 years old. She was a beautiful red-haired young lady. My father, David Bowen Rose was a tall, thin, mustached young man. He was a school teacher with a distinguished pleasant voice. I arrived on a Tuesday, at the Bowen homestead. They have told me Aunt Helen Bowen gave me my first bath. My arrival surprised her. She was so proud, while bathing me, she held up my head so all the people in the house could see the new baby Rose. Doctor Hazlett of Whitneyville was present. Papa had ridden a horse to Whitneyville to get him. Papa’s mother, Grandma Rose was also present.

My beginning was at the beginning of the 20th Century. I was an only child in a family of adults. My Papa and Mama, Grandma Rose and Uncle Jay Rose. Uncle Jay was 16 years old. When I began to talk and get around, I found him to be my best target. One time in particular, while working with his “wet batteries”, and about to make some scientific discovery, he heard me screaming. He turned and ran up around to the back of the house. I pointed to a spotted adder snake. The snake was swallowing a toad that had just scared me. Uncle Jay returned to his project. While attending to my screams something happened to his project. He became very upset, carried his jars and test tubes to the cellar way. He stored them on a shelf where they set for years.

One of my earliest recollections was my standing at the top of the stairs in my nightshirt and calling for Papa to come and get me. He always did.

Our toilet was a small wooden building, up back of the house. I was scared to use the holes for they were really big. The Bowen’s had big bottoms. Papa made me a little special hole at one end. Mama painted it blue. Mama had told me that one day Grandma was taking me up to the toilet and I wet my pants. When Mama scolded me, I told her that Grandma did it. That was my first and last attempt to tell a lie.

I was taught to tell the truth, and also not to gossip. The Bowen’s feuded among themselves. My parents were on friendly terms with all of them, so I was drilled not to repeat anything I heard. There was Aunt Margaret and Uncle Aaron Douglas. Uncle John taught me to sing “Go and tell Aunt Maggie her old gray goose is dead”.

An American Folksong – Go Tell Aunt Rhody

Go tell Aunt Rhody, go tell Aunt Rhody,
Go tell Aunt Rhody her old gray goose is dead–
The one she was saving, the one she was saving,
The one she was saving to make a feather bed.

One day while I was playing in Uncle John’s yard, Uncle Aaron drove by. He was rather a surly man. As he drove by, I called out “Hello Uncle Aaron”. He didn’t answer, and it tickled Uncle John when I said, “The darned old fool won’t say anything”. I was the only child in the neighborhood. I was welcome in every home, and as the expression goes, “I really had it made”.

Aunt Luna and Uncle Dick Burnside lived in Blossburg. Mama, Grandma and I often went to see them with “old Bill” and the buggy. One day when we got there Aunt Luna was making noodles for dinner. I watched her. When we got home, I told Papa we had poodles for dinner.

Our family were members of the Methodist Church in Cherry Flatts. Mama taught a Sunday School class. My most vivid picture is of Grandpa Jones, going down the aisle. He always carried his Bible across his chest. My best religious training was right at home. I never heard arguing and there was always love and understanding. To me God was all around us. He works always visible: the birds, flowers, and butterflies. My prayers were “talking to God”. One night when Mama was giving me a bath in the wash tub, in front of the cook stove, I asked her if God was watching us. She said he was. I became upset. He was seeing me without my clothes on. I was embarrassed. I reached for a towel to wrap around me. There was no nudity in my family.

Papa attended Normal School. We lived on South Main Street, Mansfield, Pennsylvania. Papa received the Saturday Evening Post I wasn’t allowed to touch them. Mama bought a magazine rack as a surprise for him. I couldn’t wait to tell him. He got a Teacher’s Certificate and taught school. I was permitted to speak a piece at his school when I was three years old. “There was a little girl, had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was awfully good, When she was bad she was horrid.”

My childhood days were before electricity. We had kerosene lamps and lanterns. I was never allowed to move or carry one and was warned they would start a fire. One night I was playing around a square wooden tale in the living room. I knocked a small kerosene lamp to the floor. Instantly there was fire in the carpet. Grandma stamped it out. I can’t recall if she threw a rug over it, or how she put it out. I only remember her jumping around. That is how I learned to be careful with kerosene lamps, lanterns and stoves.

Speaking of carpets – everyone saved all worn out clothing, washed the material and tore it into inch or so strips. These were kept in a basket, they sewed “carpet rags”, and wound them into a ball. There was a woman in Cherry Flatts that had a loom and wove carpet strips. The strips were about a yard wide and any length, sewed together to fit the floors, with carpet warp. Women dyed the light materials, mostly with homemade dyes. Every spring and fall at “house cleaning” time, these carpets were taken up, cut apart and washed. The floors were mopped and when dry, newspapers were spread thickly all over the floor. My job was to spread the papers, which when I got older took a longer time for I had to read them first. Then clean straw was spread over the papers. The resewn carpet was laid over the straw and tacked with carpet tacks around the edge of the room.

One time I was bothering Grandma and she said, “Go sit on a tack”, an expression used then to tell a child to get out of the way. I left, tripped and fell, cutting my lip on a carpet tack. When I cried, she told me, “I told you to sit on a tack, not bite it.” I thought that was funny and stopped crying.

Every family had a lounge, or cot, kept in their kitchen. Here one could snatch a quick nap or where a sick child could be close to their Mama. It had a headboard, footboard and side boards with slats. Over this was a straw tick mattress, then a pretty bright cover and pillow. Here I would play with my dolls and read my books. One night I was playing there when the telephone rang. Grandma answered and then told me, “That was your Mama, she is coming home tomorrow (from Galeton) ” I said, “I’d better pick up my truck,” a word I used for my toys. I began gathering them up and sticking them out of sight, under the lounge. My Grandma Rose was a typical Grandma. I could get away with almost everything.

My toys were a wooden doll crib that was Mama’s when she was a little girl. There was also my much loved “Susie”, a doll made by Aunt Sadie which had a cloth body and a china head. Other favorites were the blocks, dominoes, and a little car which was a 1902 replica. Papa made me toys, a Johnnie Jump Up, which was a cut out man of cardboard with strings. He would jump as you pulled his strings. Mama made paper dolls and furniture from pictures in the Sears Catalog. The pictures were pasted on cardboard so that they stood up. Shoe boxes were made into doll houses. Papa made whistles from the elders.

One day I was helping Papa pull carrots. I pulled and pulled on one carrot, but it wouldn’t budge. I said to Papa, “I guess a Chinaman has hold of the end of this carrot”.

Papa made the vinegar. He filled a barrel with sweet cider which was kept in the back kitchen. When it got hard, it was transferred to the vinegar barrel with the “mother”. Mother was a gooey mass, that forms in cider and makes vinegar. He left a pail of the hard cider setting on the floor. I loved sweet cider and had been drinking it. I drank a full glass of the hard cider. I remember Mama got quite upset and I couldn’t understand why. It didn’t make me drunk as they expected.

Another time, Mama was getting ready to wash clothes. She set a pail of boiling hot water and one of cold water on the floor and warned me to keep away from the hot pail. I don’t know how I did it, but I fell bottom down in a pail of water. I screamed and screamed. Mama, who was scared half out of her wits, ran to rescue me, and pulled me out of the pail of cold water.

In 1902, the idea of rural telephones was talked about at the Aurora Grange in Cherry Flatts. The members being farmers decided to put in telephone lines. They bought or cut their own poles, and bought the wire and insulators and went to work. So a telephone was put in our house. Bells rang and Papa or Mama would say “Keep still, Velma”. I really don’t know when the telephone was put in, but Mama told me that it made me so mad when they talked in that box. I screamed so loud that she would put me in the bedroom and lock the door while she talked on the phone.

From the time I can remember, there was Shep, our short haired dog, who was my constant companion. In the evening he would lay behind the living room stove. I can remember curling up beside him and going to sleep. He liked to go with the team of horses. If Papa planned on going out and mentioned “Cherry Flatts”, Shep went up the hill toward Scotts and waited. If he said “town”, Shep waited up toward the corner. Papa and Mama didn’t like to have Shep leave, so usually got him tied up before he caught on to what was happening. They would spell out those key words when the time came. They often spelled out words around me, like CANDY, but like Shep, I soon learned. One day they spelled out a word I didn’t know. I remember walking out past the cemetery waiting for Papa to come home. I still see the horses and wagon box loaded with bags of feed, and on top of the wagon, a little rocking chair – my little rocking chair.

One of my first memories, probably in 1903, was Papa putting on my warm winter clothes. They he would tuck me into the hand-sled box and haul me up to the corner to get our mail from the mailbox. The mail came in by stagecoach to Cherry Flatts, and then delivered around on the main roads. By 1906 the mail was delivered from Mansfield. The sled was made by a friend of my Grandpa Rose whose name was Turtlelot. He made the sled for Papa when he was a little boy. A box was fitted on with wooded pegs. When Papa was a boy going to the School, Grandma Rose would put a dog harness on their Newfoundland dog and tell him to “go to David” and Papa would come riding home. Papa was a frail lad, and the 2 mile walk through the snow was hard on him. I rode on Turtlelot until I got my own sled in 1908. It was still around when Merritt was little and I pulled him.

During the winter when I was three years old, Papa and Mama went to Galeton. Aunt Sadie was sick and needed someone to help her. Papa got work at a hardware store. Sometimes I stayed there with them and sometimes at home with Grandma and Uncle Jay. I remember the gas lights on the wall with the glowing mantels. They didn’t have a bathtub, but they had a large zinc wash tub which they used for a bath tub. Each one that used it was supposed to empty it. There were two steps down to enter the room. One night someone forgot to empty the tub. Uncle Roger was a tall, dignified gentleman, and when I saw him step into that tub of water, I laughed. Mama picked me up and quickly took me out of his hearing.

I loved Oswald, a cute two year old boy. One day they let him outside to play with me. He was dressed in a beautiful white fur coat and bonnet. I showed him how to make angel wings. “Lay on the soft snow, and stretch your arms and legs out, then get up leaving angel wings in the snow”. He got his suit wet and dirty, and I got a good scolding.

Papa and Mama drove the team up to Galeton one weekend. I remember coming home thru Wellsboro and hearing the horses hoofs on the pavement. I remember the gas lights all over the town. Usually Papa went back and forth on the train. Sometimes Papa would take me with him. I had a blue velvet coat and bonnet, trimmed with white. It was very pretty. I had long brown curls in my hair. The train conductor must have thought I was cute because he carried me around on his shoulder as he collected tickets. One time he told me he was going to put me off the train because I didn’t have a ticket. But he didn’t scare me. As long as my Papa was around, nothing bad could happen to me.

One night at home, I told Grandma that I was lonesome for my Mama and Papa. I remember Grandma taking me to the back kitchen window. There was a big full moon. She pointed to the moon and said, “See that moon that God put up there in the sky? Your Mama and Papa can see that same moon where they are.” I was happy because if they could see that same moon, then they weren’t so far away.

The sound of the hum of Grandma’s spinning wheel is part of those memories. Papa had sold his sheep before I can remember, so Grandma bought the wool. She carded, dyed, and spun it into yarn. For hours she would stand and spin the wheel. I loved the hum and it lulled me to sleep. After the yarn was spun, Mama and Grandma would knit stockings, socks, mittens, caps, and sweaters.

Grandma and Mama use to make dried apples. They would peel and slice the apples. Then they would string them and hang them over the stove to dry. And they dried corn in the oven. They also picked and dried peppermint and spearmint which grew by the spring and wintergreen, catnip and sage from the woods. They boiled cider for making apple butter. Apple butter was made in a big iron kettle, hung over a fire outside in the yard.

During the summer when I was four years old, my folks worked for Uncle Richard and Aunt Florence Jones. Esther was four and Francis was five. One day when Papa was plowing the field (across from Bill Kroll’s as you may know it), he told the women that there was a big patch of lovely wild strawberries, where he would be plowing. They gave us each a milk pail and sent us with Papa to fill the pails. With Papa stopping once in a while to pick a few berries, we picked on stems and filled the pails. There was a barn there called the Rose barn. The basement was dark and cool. Papa put the pails in there until time to go back to the house.

Francis was a fat little boy. I liked to haul him around in my red wagon, then turn it quickly and tip him out. I got spanked for it when Mama caught me. One day the three of us climbed up on the scaffold in the barn. They hunted for us. Aunt Florence finally found us. She told Francis to come down. He climbed down the ladder and she spanked him. Then she told Esther to climb down. She did, and Aunt Florence spanked her. Then she said, “Velma, climb down here”. I said, “No, I won’t, you aren’t my boss”. She had to climb up the ladder and get me, haul me down screaming and kicking. Then I got my spanking.

We all went to the toilet, (called the out-house or back house by most people, but to my mother it was the toilet) together. We thought nothing of it. One day another Aunt came to visit, seeing us all run there together, and told our mothers that we were getting too old for that. They told us that Francis couldn’t go with us anymore. Our first lesson in sex. It started us to wonder why.

Shep used to come across the hill to see us. One day while he was there, Francis did something to him and Shep nipped him. Uncle Richard grabbed Shep and started to beat him. Mama ran out to see what was going on, just in time to grab the big stick which I had raised to hit Uncle Richard over the head or back. Mama told him to let the dog go. He wouldn’t hurt the kid unless they had hurt him. Uncle Richard was “the boss” and everyone was supposed to jump, when he said so. But there was one that never jumped for him and that was Maude, my mother. I remember Esther and I going with Mama after the cows for the night milking. The bull came after us. She put Esther and I over the fence, then threw stones at the bull until he left.

After the fall work was finished, we moved to Cherry Flatts. We lived in the house next to Grandma and Grandpa Jones in an apartment. Grandma sent me to the store to buy her a broom. She told me not to bring it home unless it would stand alone. I made the store-keeper, Alf Richards, make a broom stand before I would take it to Grandma. In those days, there were no dish cloths to buy, so people used pieces of undershirts or other used clothing. It didn’t take long for them to get gray. No detergents, of course, just homemade soap which was harsh. I told Mrs. Brown that my Grandma’s dish cloth was white, not gray like hers. It didn’t seem to bother her, but I got a scolding from Mama.

This Christmas was the first one I really remember. We walked over to the Methodist Church (near where Bruce Smith lives now). I spoke a piece. I looked at the tree all the time for under it was a little doll carriage, which I wanted so badly. When they gave out the gifts I was given the doll carriage and two dolls. They had hair and one closed her eyes to sleep. I called her Virginia and the smaller one May. I wheeled that carriage home through the snow with the two dolls in it. I was very proud and happy. (I wonder how they got under that tree.)

We moved from Cherry Flatts to Scodac, about three miles from home. It was probably in March for Uncle Jay drove the team hitched to the bobsled. Mama and I rode along on the seat.