Geneseo Farmhouse

Chapter 1: Left Behind

Life at the farmhouse was temporary. We moved to Geneseo so my dad could start a Nazarene church there and of course teach school to support our family of 8. The farmhouse was provided by a doctor in town who was a member of the church. My first memory of Geneseo as a 3 year old was shortly after moving there, the family parked in front of a store after church one night where my dad was talking to the owner. I got out to play with the owner’s daughter in front of the store. The next thing I knew my family was gone. We were new in town and the only place I knew was the church. I walked around the corner to see if they had gone back to the church for something. It was all dark and no one was there. The only other thing I remember is my parents showing up while I was crying too hard to even talk and being carried around by the owner of the grocery store on the corner who was asking people who I belonged to. My parents had driven all the way home to the farmhouse before realizing I wasn’t with them. They immediately turned around and came back of course and I’m sure it didn’t take that long since the farmhouse was close to town, but it seemed like a looooong time to me.

Chapter 2: The Old Rusty ’37 Chevrolet Coupe

For some reason that first year, my dad worked on the railroad so he was gone during the week. We had an old ’37 Chevrolet coupe as a second vehicle…that at one point the brakes went out and yet my mom had to take my older siblings to the two room country school down the road. Mom loaded all 6 kids in the coupe, baby sister sat on one of the 3 older sister’s lap next to her and my younger brother and I squeezed into the window shelf behind the seat. Off we went out the long driveway….turning onto the dirt road….praying there would be no traffic on the highway when we got to it…turning onto the highway and going a short way to the school. When we turned into the school, there was no stopping in front to let the kids out….so we just circled the school house a few times until the car came to a stop. My embarrassed older brother and sisters got out and we made the same trip back home. Dad got those brakes fixed pronto.

About a quarter of a mile from our driveway in the opposite direction from the school, the road ended in a T-intersection to the road going into town. At that intersection directly in front of our road was a barbed wire gate going into the neighbor’s pasture. He didn’t have any cattle in the pasture so the gate was usually open. One day my big brother who was all of 10 years old asked my dad if he could drive the old coupe down the road and turn around in the pasture. When my dad said yes, all of us younger kids wanted to go too. My baby sister got inside with big brother and the rest of us just stood on the outside running boards and hung on. Big brother did a pretty good job in view of trying to work the clutch (no automatic transmission back then), brake, and gas pedal while steering…according to big sister’s help since he couldn’t really see over the steering wheel that well. All went smoothly going down the drive, turning onto the road and heading toward the pasture to turn around….all until big sister mistakenly said, “The gate is open.”. Brother drove right through the closed barbed wire gate. Big sister at the last minute saw the gate and jumped off while the rest of us just hung on and rode right on through. We were all scared and crying…dad came running down the road from the house. Fortunately none of the running board riders were hurt, not even my sister who jumped off right before the gate parted in front of us. Dad went back later and repaired the gate.

Chapter 3: Co-inhabitants of the Farm

The farmhouse was really huge, at least from the perspective of a 3 year old. It had a basement, and 3 stories on top of that. But we weren’t the only residents on the place. One morning we were walking out the door to take the older brother and sisters to school. My sister walked out and screamed! There was a snake right in front of the door. Now it made no difference to my mother whether a snake was poisonous or not, she didn’t like it and she was getting rid of it. (When she was young a poisonous snake had bitten and killed her cousin while playing in the yard.) This particular snake crawled right in between the screen and window of our basement and before mom could get to it, it was gone…right into our basement. I’d say game on but it was not a game to mom, it was life and death…life to her and her kids meant death to the snake. Mom got her hoe and went down into the dark basement to do battle with the snake. She did find it and the battle was over quickly. I can remember at least 2 other times specifically when mom took on snakes close to the house…with the same outcome. We had a little black rat terrier dog named Chocolate. Two different times she got rattlesnake bites on her nose while sniffing around rocks and woodpile. Her nose swelled up as big as her head. We didn’t think she’d make it…my big brother stayed up all night with her trying to encourage her back to health. She survived but each time got scars where the fangs penetrated her nose.

Chapter 4: Adventures on the Farm

Most of my adventures were with my little brother while playing in the dirt under the back porch with our toys. But occasionally I tagged along with my big brother and sisters exploring the pasture and the creek that went through the property. My brother acquired a couple of rabbit traps and set those out in the pasture. I don’t remember how but one time I was the one who got caught. It snapped shut on my foot! Ouch!

I had adventures in the house as well. I think we all slept on the second and third floor of the house. One night I woke up downstairs just standing at the foot of the stairs. I was scared and cried for dad. He went into my bedroom and came out saying, “Where are you?” I said, “I’m down here and I’m too scared to come upstairs.” Have you ever walked in your sleep and woke up in a strange place in the dark? That’s what I had done. My dad picked me up and put me back in bed. I don’t remember ever walking in my sleep again.

I don’t know if you would call it an adventure…it was definitely a learning experience for me. As a 3 year old I found it entertaining to tease my sisters by laying on the floor and try to see up their dress. I’m not sure what other instructional methods my mother tried, but I definitely remember her saying, “Since you like little girl panties so much you can just wear a pair.” And she put a pair on me over my little trousers. Uhhhhh that cured me. I don’t think I did that anymore.

Another time my mother had a new sewing machine in a nice cabinet. My mother did a lot of sewing, making clothes and other things for our family. Somehow my name got scratched into the nice finish of the cabinet. I still don’t ‘remember’ how it got there but it was pretty hard to deny who did it.

We lived in the farmhouse for a year and then we moved into town.