Nicknames
My mother wouldn’t let us be nicknamed
because she had a horrible nickname
They all called her Babe.
and it wasn’t just within the family.
All the different cousins had nicknames
Her real name was Katherine—with a K.
Katherine came down in the family
My grandmother was Katherine with a K
and so was my mother.
But when they got to me they said
they wanted to make a difference
and they spelled it with a C.
We wanted to keep Katherine in the family
I’ve a daughter, her name is Kathleen
and my great granddaughter is Katelyn
My mother was a Red Cross nurse,
and when people would come up and say,
“Hello Katherine,” it sounded so strange
that they’d call my mother Katherine.
—Catherine Schuler
THE PICTURE NOT TAKEN
It was Feb. 27th, 1935, Kansas City.
They couldn’t take a picture of me
at my wedding because I fell
all the way down the church steps,
down every single step, I tore my veil
They had thrown rice on the steps
my new shoes were slippery
They rushed down and picked me up
I went to the reception but I was bruised
my knee swollen for a year
Whenever I ironed I had to put my knee up
Everywhere we went—
my husband was a salesman for Lone Star Cement—
they wondered what he did to me...
Now they won’t let them throw rice anymore
That was all because of me.
—Catherine Schuler
FALLING
I can remember a house we lived in
It had three stories with heat & water in the attic
I remember we used to play up there
But one day I walked off the stairs,
there wasn’t a rail on the stairs
So I fell down two flights
I must’ve been seven or eight
I didn’t want anyone to know
I remember that I just lay there for a long time
trying to breathe
When I finally got my breath back
I told my sister and she said,
“Don’t tell Mother!” And so we didn’t
I wonder if that’s why
I have a curvature of the spine
from falling down the stairs like that.
—Catherine Schuler
VENERABLE AGE
It's not readily apparent
I’ll be 95 in December
Every time I go to the Sr. Center Birthday Party,
I win First Prize. I was born in 1909.
I’m amazed by the way my mother
used to take care of us,
the way my father was so much in favor
of us not having any pain.
When he came to the hospital
he cried to see me in pain (I had appendicitis).
I’m amazed that the world is as good as it is.
We’ve had far too many wars
and too many poor people
That nobody seems to care about.
I’m a veteran of life
I don’t know what all I could tell you
but I was a nurse and every one of us,
after we graduated, we always said:
“Don’t lose your first patient
because you’ll lose them after that.”
We had to sleep in the patients’ rooms.
We didn’t want 20-hour days,
We wanted 8-hour duty.
All we got was 4 hours off in the afternoon.
You felt like you were half there
walking around without sleep.
My husband insisted that I quit work
and stay home with my children.
—Catherine Schuler
NEW YEAR CUSTOM
We had a custom when the old year
was going out & the new year was coming in
We had a special kind of fish,
A kind of herring that was smelly
But we made it taste so good
With sour cream we ate it for luck
That was what would make you wealthy
I remember even if we were at a hotel
At dinner we’d always ask for fish
For the New Year, for luck, eat fish
You’re supposed to have wealth
When the New Year was coming in
We’d also go out into the streets in Kansas City
and shoot off all the guns to bring in the year
But now you can’t do that now because of planes
Early childhood memory is like lighting candles
on the Christmas tree, my mother & grandmother
they’d each go round the tree & light each one
fast as they could & we’d all hold our breath,
afraid the tree might catch fire.
It was such a sight, we’d hold our breath.
Oh, what a beautiful tree.
—Catherine Schuler
MANLESS WEDDING
When I was young, we once put on a manless wedding
We called ourselves the Kiwanas Queens
I was a very pregnant bride It was a formal wedding.
Even the shotguns wore white. We were licensed by …
—Catherine Schuler
ALL THESE YEARS
When I was 17
I went to a girl's school
I went a very long way,
I took a bus and a streetcar too
We played games until late into the night
When I was 21 I got married
They threw rice in my hair
my new shoes were so slick
and I tumbled down the stairs,
it wasn't a very good year
When I was 35
and added 2 children to my list
it was about the time the war broke out
I was glad to exist
I was a nurse riding the ambulance
with the sirens going
and the red lights flashing above
when I was 35
I'm mighty glad I've had all these years
like a nice summer's day
with a glass of lemonade
made in the shade
It was a very good year.
—Catherine Schuler
JULIA DEMPSEY’S HOT BREAD
I had a maiden aunt who worked for the telephone company. She had cute little things to play with, a wooden horse, a hen in a basket with baby chicks...She was an only child, we were her family. She was the one who’d light the candles on the Christmas
She went to school with my mother. We felt sorry for her; her mother wasn’t like ours. tree. She was the one who saw that we had a celebration for all our birthdays.
She was my godmother, Julia Dempsey She always had something nice to tell us—stories—and she had such patience. She’d bake us wonderful hot bread. I can almost taste it still.
—Catherine Schuler
RAINY THIEBAULT
My grandfather on my father’s side, “Rainy” Thiebaut, was from France, but he spoke French but he never taught us. He had the strangest habits: if we made ice cream, he’d want it for breakfast the next day.
He was a sextant of the cemetery in Ft. Scott, Kansas, and every day he went for a swim in the cemetery pond regardless of the weather. He loved to argue with my brother out in the fields about potato bugs. He had an edge to him; Eventually one of them had to give in and admit they were wrong. My brother was really upset. He’d come in and put his head down and pretend he was asleep
Rainy used to come and trim our fruit trees—they were beautiful trees. He did a great job. He knew a lot about gardening—something he learned to do in France? There is so much we assume—these things, facts of his life—we assume because he made us feel like he knew what he was talking about, when he didn’t.
—Catherine Schuler
RABBITS
We had a man who boarded at our house and at Easter, he gave each of us a rabbit. Well, you can imagine what happened. Soon we had rabbits all over the yard. But then they began to disappear, one by one We made a cage. My father dug a hole and put screen wire down so they couldn’t escape. But one night the dogs got in and next morning the yard was covered in fur. No more rabbits. We decided that was plenty and enough. My mother was really relieved.
—Catherine Schuler
NO MAN’S LAND
I remember a song
that keeps going through my head:
“There’s a rose growing in no-man’s land,
that’s wonderful to see.
She’s a Red Cross nurse, a soldier’s dream
on the battlefield.” Flanders’ Field.
There was a cemetery there,
where the soldiers remained.
After the war they came back to visit the graves
and it was all ablaze with poppies, red poppies.
red of the blood of the soldiers.
Just like when we visited LBJ’s grave
It was a sea of flowers, blue bells everywhere
as far as you could see, in a sea of blue.
That song keeps running through my mind
I can’t get it out of my head.
I wish I could get all the words to it.
—Catherine Schuler
My mother lived to be 103.
And whenever anyone asked her age,
she’d say: in my 80s. S
he broke her hip and died of old age.
—Catherine Schuler
MOUSE HOLE
I went to an all girls’ school, St. Aloisius Academy in Kansas City. I had to ride a street car and a bus to get there. We lived in a 3-storey house, with all 3 storeys finished. We hung our coats under the stairwell. One morning I put my coat on and left for school.
When I was on the streetcar, I felt something moving in my coat sleeve between the coat and the lining. I wondered what to do. I didn’t want a mouse jumping out of my coat when I got to school. So I leaned against the seat and I held it there a long time, smothering it. When I got to school, I told my friend, “I’ve got a dead mouse in my sleeve! How are we gonna get it out?”
We found a hole in the lining and we worked and worked it out until it fell on the floor. We had to get rid of it somewhere. So we found a knothole in the gym floor and we shoved the dead mouse through the hole. I thought about it the whole day. We never heard any more about it. When I graduated I got an A for perfect attendance. I sure didn’t want to find another mouse.
—Catherine Schuler
MR. SLICK
We owned a team of mules
And we had a hired hand who took care of them
My folks rented them (the mules, not the man)
To the telephone company
Building the rural lines
But he went along with them
To make sure they weren’t mistreated
One mule’s name was Gen
The other mule’s name was Maude.
The mules and the man went together.
They were a matched pair.
Gen & Maude, they were stubborn
The way mules really are stubborn.
When they made up their minds
The just wouldn’t do things for certain people
The hired hand had a way with them.
He was the man who brought us all the rabbits
Mr. Slick like to be involved in many things
He would sit down and tell us children funny stories
He could whistle bird songs too.
I don’t know if the stories were true
I guess he told the mules tall tales too
That’s why he got along so well with them
So very well with them.
—Catherine Schuler
JOE HORSE
My mother had a buggy horse, called Joe Horse,
that once belonged to the fire department
and whenever it heard a bell or a dog barking,
or a horse going fast, it would race.
There was a drugstore at the end of the street,
in Kansas City, and when she’d go shopping,
the horse would take off & race all the other horses.
They used to always say: One day she’s gonna go
right through the drug store and upset that buggy.
It would have made a terrible wreck
but she never did. I think she enjoyed the idea t
hat the horse would run so fast,
more than the horse did.
—Catherine Schuler
TORNADOES
I’ve seen cars on top of electric wires in Kansas
I’ve seen straw driven right through fence posts
and telephone poles in Kansas
I’ve seen houses turned inside out,
I’ve seen houses completely destroyed
and all the sirens going, warning people in Kansas.
We had a full clothes line out back.
Next day, we had somebody else’s laundry
in our back yard.
We saw the impossible made possible.
We’d go down to the basement when the sirens went off,
but I didn’t want to go down.
I wanted to see what was going on—in Kansas.
—Catherine Schuler
NAPS
If I could make a New Year’s resolution today
It would be not to take unscheduled naps CS
I think I’d keel over if I got the winning ticket,
I’d have to wake up real fast.
—Catherine Schuler
SPEECH
I got into public speaking because I couldn't close my mouth. Somebody asked me to do it and I couldn't say no. In the apartments where I lived for 14 years, Newark Gardens, I did the welcoming speeches, the coming home speeches, the farewell speeches too. But I was always afraid. So I took a speech class. Sometimes you don't have good sense and you wonder if people will judge you. I was so sure I wouldn't remember all I was going to say, I was so scared. I was shaking all through the speech. The instructor told me, when you get up to give a speech, look for two or three people in the audience that seem friendly and speak to them to see if they're receiving it well, and it worked.
—Catherine Schuler
GRANDMOTHER O’BRIEN
I remember my grandmother came from Ireland, from Tipperary, she traveled all by herself to America, to Omaha, Nebraska. She didn’t know anyone there. She got a job in the laundry. It was terrible work, the laundry was full of steam, so hot, they were always sweating.
She got very ill and developed scarlet fever. Some woman took pity on her and took her in. She lost all her hair, even her eyebrows and eyelashes. And when her hair came back in, it was all curly. She had the most beautiful auburn hair.
I don’t know where she met my grandfather. Her name was O’Brien. He died (?) She married a second time to another Irishman, Costello. When my mother’s brother worked for the railroad, he used the name Costello too. Costello had a long history of railroading. He was a conductor of the Missouri Pacific.
I was born in 1908, she must’ve been born in 1870? Her brothers came over first. We called them “The Boys.” They were so thin and tall. She had two sisters She came to live with us after her husband died.
I remember when we used to go to see vaudeville variety shows in Kansas City. We’d go home and act out the skits for her. There was me, my mother, my cousin, my sister—there were of us children—two girls and a boy. We had a big house on Fifth Street and she had her own apartment.
After her husband died, we rode on the train to Omaha. I remember the funeral, where my grandfather’s sisters had a sleazy boarding house for all the railroad workers. They had a big huge house and they took in as may workers as they could fit in. It was very interesting too. We got to see some of the rooms if they left their doors open.
I remember when New Years’ came, everything was changed, the linen, the sheets, the bedding, the curtains. It was a huge job and everything was scrubbed down. They got down on their hands and knees and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. My grandmother, she never did get away from the laundry it seems.
HOME CURE
My mother would make a mustard flannel packs, she’d heat them up and slap them on our chests. You had to be careful, or you’d get blisters. Then there was turpentine and sugar for a sore throat. Or Dr. Perkin’s Medicine.
—Catherine Schuler
PIKE’S PEAK OR BUST
When I was about 14, my parents went to Colorado for a month, and while we were there, some friends of ours came and asked if we wanted to hike to the summit of Pike’s Peak to see the sunrise. I’d heard of people talk about doing it. I wondered if I could make it to the top. When the opportunity came up, I jumped to it.
We stayed up all night long in order to be ready to leave by 3 AM. My 12-year old brother and I decided to take the night trip up the mountain but he became a real pain and kept wanting to lie down. We’d say, get up! There’s a bear coming. We’re gonna leave you.” He’d put his head between his legs. He’d lay downhill to let the blood get to his head. You get kinda seasick way up there.
Someone was carrying a lantern. We walked up the cog-line, the train doesn’t run at night. We had it all to ourselves. The idea was to be at the top for sunrise. And when it rose, everything was gold, the clouds looked pure gold, the sky. It was so beautiful.
When you get to the top of Pike’s Peak, you could buy a pennant saying that you hiked to the summit of Pike’s Peak. Only thing was, the gift shop was still closed so we couldn’t get one. The other bad news was that we had to get back down the mountain again. Going down the cog line, it jarred your legs so, on those rails. We were so sore we could hardly walk for a week.
—Catherine Schuler
WHEN I GROW UP I WANT TO BE A NURSE
When I was 7 or 8, I went to visit a cousin who was in the hospital and the nurses were so nice to me because they thought I was afraid. I didn’t know if they were going to let me see my cousin. In those days they didn’t let children into hospitals. They took me someplace special to see my cousin, She didn’t look too bad. She had an appendectomy. From then on, I always wanted to wear a nurse’s cap and cape. We used to wear caps at school. After I finished high school in Kansas City, I went to a nurse training program, a three year course. And that’s where you really learned something. I was a nurse for 10-12 years but when I got married, my husband didn’t want me to be a nurse because in those days we all had “private duty” where we took our cots in to sleep with our patients and there was no time off.
—Catherine Schuler
