By Velma M. Rose Smith, 1991

I remember well the summer I was thirteen years old. In April, one morning my Grandma Rose, whom I loved very much, said to me as I was getting out of bed “This is the last night we will sleep together. I’ve felt badly for sometime and this morning I feel worse. I’ll have to have a bed downstairs”.

A bed was put up in the corner of the living room and from then on she grew weaker and weaker, getting so thin I could pick her up and put her on the toilet chair by the bed. She had been a woman as heavy as I became, probably 173-183 pounds.

Merritt was 2 1/2 years old but he can remember her being sick in bed. She needed much care, so it meant Mama had to be in the house. Papa called me at 5:30. I got up and helped with the chores, milking by hand 6 cows. After breakfast I did dishes then went strawberrying until 11:00 a.m., came in and hulled the berries. Mama made shortcake for dinner, big pieces and lots of berries. If I had good luck and there were lots of berries, she made jam or canned them for winter use. In the afternoon I raked hay, drove to pitch off, etc. If there was more hay or Papa went to Uncle Jay’s place, I did the milking alone. After supper Mama and I weeded in the garden, while Papa sat with Grandma.

After the strawberries came the red raspberries. I picked them and Mama made a pie for dinner and made jam or canned them. I picked peas, string beans, swisschard, then Papa and I shelled peas or cut up beans.

There were oats to set up and buckwheat and corn to hoe, etc. Papa and I drove a horse to Landrus and picked pail after pail of black long berries and Papa went huckleberrying with the neighbor men.

There were baby chicks to care for and chickens to feed and gather the eggs. We washed by hand on a washboard. I helped with the wash and hung the clothes out.

On Saturdays, we cleaned house, and Mama baked cookies, bread, pies or a cake. Papa would kill a chicken and Mama dress it for Sunday dinner. I brought a cabbage in for salad, we always had peas and new potatoes in season. In early spring we had dandelion greens. I hated washing them. Another job I hated was filling the kerosene lamps and polishing the chimneys. I was kept busy, but that was good, it kept me from thinking of Grandma, knowing this Grandma I loved so dearly was going to die.

Mama and I hadn’t been to town all summer, so one day, Mama called Aunt Martha and asked if she could come and spend the day with Grandma. She came and I was so excited that I fell and cut my knee, quite badly, coming back from the (outside) toilet. I cried and went in to show Grandma. She felt sorry for me and told me how to doctor it. I kissed her goodbye and we left. When we returned she was in a coma and never came out of it. She died a few days later. Mama and neighbors laid her out, in a casket in the parlor. Aunt Florence came over to spend the night, she asked if I wanted her to go upstairs with me. I said “no” and I went in alone and told my Grandma a last goodbye. The funeral was held at the house and we walked behind the casket to the cemetery. She died August 14, 1914 and I was 14 in October and Merritt 3 years old in October.

I forgot to mention that on Sundays, I walked to the Methodist Church in Cherry Flats for church and back again, over 2 miles each way. Aunt Ella made me a pretty blue plaid gingham dress to wear. The new style was long and had a narrow skirt.

We helped Uncle Jay and Aunt Anna in the sugar bush, so we had our own maple syrup.