Alice

One of the very first memories I have of Alice is her suffering from headaches as a pre-schooler.  Her head would roll back and forth in pain no matter where she was.   I felt a concern.

She was born in Appleton Wisconsin.  I recall Mother saying theirs was one of the few houses with an indoor bath and people would appear at the door with a towel rolled up under their arms to take a bath.  When they moved to Robinsonville, it was among Armenians (or was it Belgians?)  Mother said the women would stand over her and squeal with delight at the lovely baby.  She felt it might be responsible for her stuttering.

Every time I am in a photo as a baby, Alice is either holding me or holding on to me.  I was surely her first “charge.”  We must have played together constantly.   Mother related how they got up in the middle of the night in Hannibal and we were playing with our dolls on the front porch.   I remember playing on the teeter totters and swings at the school ground nearby.  When some boys came and ran across the top of the equipment, we felt very brash, calling them “crazy- ikes.”  At one time she got in trouble while visiting a home nearby with the kids there.  The parents weren’t home apparently and the kids dropped matches down the furnace grate, trying to light it as the house was cold.  As I recall the fire truck had to come and there were some serious faces and discussion at our house about her possible part in the event.  I don’t remember the outcome.

While living at Wakhon, Mother arranged for us to go on the school bus to a home out along a lake road to  get some lessons in knitting.  Alice must have caught on, but I didn’t.  We dawdled on our way home and were late.  Dad must have been quite concerned about us because we were reprimanded worriedly.  I don’t remember if there was punishment.

Dad would often take a couple of us or so when he had errands.   Once we were left in the car at a garage, or maybe on the street next to a garage.  Time stretched out and we needed to use the facility.

We couldn’t remember if we should ask for a restaurant or a rest room.  Being a bit desperate we went into the big garage doors.  There was a woman sitting on a table with a mechanic type man standing by her “sporting.”   They looked quite surprised when we asked if there was a restaurant there.

When we moved and went to a new school she said her name was Rhoda, and then had trouble remembering to answer to that name.  I think it was when we moved to North Dakota and she would have been about 12.

We sisters were given the task of cleaning the house on Saturdays, and then waited tables at church dinners in the evening.  We were sent to homes to clean on do housekeeping early.  In North Dakota Alice spent more than one summer on a farm where the woman taught her some finer points of housekeeping, like how to iron embroidered works.  Alice was good at ironing and became the official ironer of Dad’s white shirts etc.  They had to be done just so and each part in the proper order, the collar first etc.

And, she loved deeply,  including me, for which I am eternally grateful.

We must have had some sisterly arm wrestling, because I had the disadvantage of wearing glasses and getting them broken in the fray a time or two.  We were generally the best of friends, but when cousin Lois would come around they would pair off.   Another cousin about her age was Don Brinks.  They were the youngest of the Brinks cousins.  We didn’t really know cousins on Mother’s side of the family.

We knew Mother’s sister Helen, who would come visit on occasion.   In later years Alice and George were faithful in bringing her to their home when she lived in Oregon City and mother had moved to California.


Grace