Author Eva Whitehead
I was next to the last child, both of us were girls. My sister is about 18 months younger than myself. We would cut out paper dolls and make their dresses from my mother’s wallpaper books she received through the mail. We had some well-dressed paper sack and old newspaper dolls we would cut out ourselves. A head, 2 arms, a small neck, and a flared body with two legs. Then we would cut the dresses to where they would go over the head and hang over the shoulders to below their flared body. The others were cut out the same way.
We would play in the cellar and make houses with Mother's fruit jars.
We also played in the pasture on a small sandy creek that ran through the property; there was a huge elm tree we played under and when the sand was damp we built houses over our feet, tamped down the sand, then pulled our foot out and had a house. We made many buildings like that.
We also played under a large Post oak Tree that gave us a great shade. We made mud pies in the canning jar lids that were no good to use any more for canning. We would decorate them with the mesquite tassels, and of course they looked wonderful to us. We also made hats and belts out of leaves put together with small weed twigs we used for pens. I am sure you know what I am talking about.
After the old model T car stopped running, Dad parked it down below the turkey pen and we played down there some, making houses out of rocks and or laying out rocks to use for our house inside. Just squares really, but it was something to do.
We also drew hopscotch in the yard with a stick and used pieces of glass, (which was always plentiful around the place) each of us having a different color to use. We also played with jacks when we had them. Each of us would get a set each spring and, of course, that went on off and on all summer. We played marbles some, not like the boys would play at school, but just draw a small square and place the marbles in the center to see who could knock out the most.
There was a lot of mesquite trees where we lived and we climbed those trees and sometimes we would either get stuck with a thorn and it would break off and we would always go to the house crying. Sometimes stepping on one on the way to the house making it worse than it was. They doctored them with kerosene. The same kind they started the fires with in the wooden stoves and our coal oil lamps we used for lighting at night. (The kerosene must have been much cleaner then than it is now, as it was used for snake bites and everything.) If we cut out leg on a barbed wire we go a good dousing of kerosene.
In the winter months when we caught a cold, we would get a spoonful of sugar with a couple drops of turpentine or kerosene on it. I know I spit many spoonfuls our in those old flannel sheets. It tasted terrible. Then they would put Vicks salve on our chests and cover it with a warm cloth to try and stop the flu. That wasn't so bad though.
When we got a sore on our knee or arm or hand they would take the yolk of an egg stir it up with a tablespoon of salt, put it over the sore and take a couple of pieces of cloth and fold it to cover the sore place, and then take a rag and tie it over the sore. The next morning it would be almost well. The salt would draw the poison out of the sore place.
When Dad would go into town for staples or something he needed, he would bring back a large box of raisins and make us eat some every once in a while to help keep our blood clean. He didn't go very often but would always ask my sister and my self what we wanted him to bring us back. She said candy and I said bananas. He never failed to bring them back. Back then you could get a large sack of candy for a nickel. He always brought back cheese and crackers and peanut butter also. I don't remember what else they brought back but probably the things they needed, we were getting older by then though. That was before WWII.
Everyone was coming around the place to try to get all the iron and steel they could find to sell and he would not sell it, because he said they would make shells out of it and shoot it back to us. After the war started he sold it though or I guess he did.
I think everything almost was rationed during that time. In fact you couldn't hardly buy anything even if you had money to pay for it because of the war effort. The Americans certainly pulled together. We took a dime each week on Monday morning if we could to buy a war bond. When we got enough to buy a bond we would get to keep it. (I don't remember ever getting enough to buy one though.)
Eva Whitehead
Published in U S Legacies Magazine May 2004
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