W-1896RI-2327.DOC

  

                     New BB carriage, good for two more   Darrell 6 mo & Nola Vernon    Darrell & Ila

  

                        Nola Vernon                                                                                      Hazel (Bobbitt) Kump

  

 

  

                      Darrell & Ila                          Anna & Olieta                               Darrell & Lucille Landau

  

                                                                                                                

   

                                       5 mo                                               5 ½ mo                        

I recall mother taking the tub photo. She debated and rearranged several times to be sure to get the light right.  This was in the living room with light coming in through the front door.  I’d just been given my bath and was told not to splash on the rug.  I’ve always been curious how far back we can remember, to me this is proof positive as I remember the event very well.  It was different &  Mom, while talking with herself was talking with me, as if I could help her decide the best place.  Ever since I’ve known it requires good light to take a good indoor photo. This was before flash cameras. Those oak chairs are now David’s.

 

                                                                                   

  

                     Max Bobbitt & Darrell                Sunday July 22 1923           

 

                            Margaret, Darrell, Julia, Max, Hazel                             Edith, Ray, Ila, Rell

  

                                                                                                                

 

                      Anna (Wilson) Mabin, Olieta 14 mo  Darrell 7 mo  Ila                        

 

                                                                                      Darrell 1st BD, Noel Thompson Max Bobbitt Club at Ila’s

 

                        at 1 year                                           

I recall when this set was taken; I was not happy with the horse or the doll, in fact I didn’t like to play on the front porch because the boards were rough and hard on knees to crawl.  The wheels on the horse didn’t work well, making it difficult to negotiate.  I was told to play while mom took photos.

 

If you look closely the floor boards run from house sloping to front, they’d get wet and warp.  There was always grit on the boards, not polished like inside.

  

               Wet sand was the “play-do” of it’s day           Myra Redman & Darrell            At grandma Landau’s

In back at right was Lee and Hazels home when they first got married.  In later years only the top of the fire hydrant was above ground.  Buffalo street in front became US highway 83.  About 1975 the house was damaged by fire, the house and fire hydrant were removed about 1985.  I later took piano lessons from cousin Myra – she was excellent teacher, I was poor student.  My pre school story tells of this sand pile and grade school story of piano recital

  

                        with Evalyn Gage                        with Maxine _____                   18 mo

 

                                  Max & Mildred Miller, Darrell,  unknown         

  

                                                                                     Max holding Marba Jean 

That tire was stiff and hard as a rock – early day rubber hardened and deteriorated fast.  The tire would not spread open to see inside, the bead was thick and fit close as did most of the early ones that used “clincher rims” which were separate from the wheel. They rims came apart to remove then be clinched back together once the tube was placed inside.  The tire, inflated tube and rim became “the spare” – the tires were frequently going flat – Goodyear had not yet invented galvanized rubber by adding sulfur.  At the time I was unaware grandmothers house needed painting.

  

                     Aunt Ruth Sept 24    The stork is bringing a baby      The first “company” car

            Earl Bobbitt’s wife Ruth (Pool) died a few days after this photo, a shock to everyone.  We kids liked her very much, I remember the teasing spanking and her attention.  It was my first awareness that people died!  The adults discussed, “why Ruth, at such a young age with no apparent health problem?” 

            I have vivid memories of that first model-T with it’s top down.  The folks were playing cards on a Sunday evening and there was nothing for me to do.  I sat in the front seat and took a “play like” drive, wiggling the steering wheel while making sound effects of: “Roodin, Roodin . . .  Roodin”, as if the sounds made the engine come alive.  After a while of not actually going anywhere I laid down in the seat and looked up at the stars.  The sky was clear as a bell – and I looked carefully to see as far as I could see.  Then I noticed the stars seemed to move!  I indexed a star to the spoke on the steering wheel -- it did move!  I concentrated almost breathlessly to make sure.  Though I knew the sun and moon crossed the sky, this was a new and startling discovery to me the blanket of starts moved!  I wanted to know more and more, there were so many questions.  I went inside to ask the “grown ups”, my only source of information.  They were busy and politely brushed aside my sudden interest in the stars.  When I pressed I was given the standard answer for the unanswerable – “because”, that’s the way it is.  That was my first really wanting to know, and realization that there were many things the adults didn’t know – “because” was their quick way of saying I don’t know.

 

              Darrell, Max, Edith Grandma Julia & Hazel on back porch at Max’s place   Oberlin Mill before it burned down

 

At left, City water for lawns, a new thing for our part of town!  Grandmother was not connected to city water for her lawn.  Mother seeing me standing when dad stood, squatting when dad did – got the camera.  It was my first awareness of imitation -- I wanted to do what dad did.

At right, looking SE from grandma’s.  The recent drainage ditch on far side of road diverted rain water from open space on other side of the road.  Those were The Chautauqua Grounds -- circuses came there each summer at that time.

 

Rell, inspecting water meter.  Rell was on city council for water & lights -- water had just arrived at this part of town, not yet to grandmothers.  An inside toilet was added at our house.  Dad also made a new kitchen table using excellent pine wood that had been shipping crates for the new Fairbanks Morris diesel engines at the power plant.

Uncle Earls new car” 1928 Model-T. Note the larger 4.50X21” tires vs  3.25X21” tires on previous cars.  Four lug bolts clamped the tire, with rim, to the wooden spooked wheel.  Model-T’s came in one color, black.

 

Max Bobbitt & Bobby Sawdon came to pick me up so we could go out and play.

            Max and Bobby are wearing boots.  Mom rolled my pant cuffs up and said stay out of the mud.  We had a scraper for cleaning mud off our shoes, so it wasn’t a catastrophic infraction to come home with muddy shoes.  Dad laid brick for walkway, a cement side walk would exceed his budget.

            About this time I helped Bobby eat some apples growing on their tree.  They had a very tarty tase but we got used to it.  I over did it, felt full and told Bobby I’d better go home. I barely made it before doubling over with cramps.  Mom called Dr Reeves who came rushing.  Right away Dr Reeves wanted to know what I’d been eating.  Shortly after I was trying to swallow some large pills, but only spit them up.  Dr Reeves didn’t wait telling mom to see that I took the pills.  I knew I had to learn how to swallow a pill and proceeded to practice till I could in one gulp – it seemed an essential thing to know how to do.

 

                     Max, Darrell & Marba Jean                                                               Ila 28  Rell 30

            All cars had a “running board”.  Cars often had to be pushed to start, so pushers ran and jumped on the running board, grabbed the steering wheel, then into the car as the engine caught on.

 

Don Claussen, Dale & John Cook, Darrell (3rd BD party), Warren Claussen

Don became County Engineer, learning from Francis Barclay; Warren an excellent football player died young, their older brother Vick was killed in Europe in WWII.  Dale and John’s mother was Lee Kump’s sister.  The older neighbor boys played “pass” football in the street, Vick taught me how to play center for the big boys -- I continued playing center in grade and high school – I’d become good at throwing the ball from between my legs.

 

                             Earl Bobbitt holding Darrell                                       Darrell after “playing ball” with Dad

The neighbor gang in our back yard.  It was from these porch steps, with “war whoop” I threw my new Indian hatchet, end over end though the kitchen, landing blade embedded on the good dining room table.  The moment I let go of it I knew I’d done something very wrong.  Mom never scolded me, but her obvious grief was enough punishment.   I also cut my hand with a knife on those steps. Mother saw me watching the blood drip from my hand.  I’d never “leaked” blood before?  Mom grabbed me, scaring the dickens out of me with words that I could die if the bleeding wasn’t stopped.  From then on the sight of blood caused me to faint – that event had conditioned me to a sense of pending disaster.

Our garden was on the other side of the Trellis

The swing on the front porch was an excellent one, but suspended by wire link chains that hurt the hands to grasp.  Buffalo the name of the front street dead ended at a drainage ditch with parallel rail road tracks across an alley next to the house.  The small building in back was the garage with chicken pen to the right of it.  The mill behind had multiple floors of flour rolling mill machines on the left with grain storage on the right. The spout on the right side dropped grain into box cars below.  The extension to the left side of the house was added after the photo below, in preparation of Phyllis’s arrival.  The street in front was graded by Claud Pettis using teams of horses or mules.  His son Ted was in my class.

This view is from the edge of the garage, looking at the garden. Below the corner water spout was an oak “rain barrel” where mom caught “soft water” for washing our hair.  The wood side walk is where I snagged my “knicker pants” so I’d not have to wear them to Sunday School.  In the summer we enjoyed eating roasting ears and drinking ice tea on that back porch.  That’s also where dad let me listen to the ear phone on the first radio in the house, a set he’d borrowed from Elwood Brooks at the bank.  Later we had an Atwater Kent with tubes numbers less than 10.  It was out of that back window that I saw men chasing chickens when a box car full of wheat ran off the end of the track and into the chicken house.  Marjorie was born that night.  Lee Kump from near by was helping gather the loose chickens.  The night Geraldine was born Ray arrived at the front door wanting safety pins for diapers.

 

Railroad tracks on other side of dirt road and deep drainage ditch on other side of tracks.  House across the way is where Gages lived then Lee & Hazel Kump when first married.  Slats at left are in chicken pen wire.  I’m dressed in new Indian Suit, that included the hatchet I buried in Mom’s precious dinning room table.  I’d put nails on those tracks and let grain cars full of wheat flatten them – it was a dead end spur that went nowhere.

 

Darrell on horse at John Kumps, Lee Kump’s father.  “Grandad” John’s father homesteaded this place when John was about 7 years old.  They were running the rail road through at the time.  Warren Kump has written the story of his Grandfather’s adventures in getting started.

            This horse was one of a team that had been plowing all day.  I watched as they arrived, homing in on the water tank – I was amazed at how much water they could let drain out as well as suck in.

 

                                    John Kumps Model-T in the garage, now owned by great grandson John Kump