Madeline Bedal: Whitefish Stories

WHITEFISH STORIES—FIRST DRAFT


REPEATING THE FIRST GRADE

Lots of things I have never told anybody. When I was young, I didn't talk much. I didn't know why I didn't have many friends in school. Everyone would always run away from me. Every time I opened my mouth, they'd run away. Then one day one of the parents finally took me aside and told me that my voice was so loud, I was scaring al the children away.

Then I decided to change my ways.

When the flu epidemic came through, it settled in my ears, in my eyes. I couldn't hear anything at all. They sat me in the corner in first grade. I was a dreamer. I wanted to be back on the homestead. I couldn't hear—I didn't know what was going on unless the teacher took me for a special session in the front of the room. Then I did perfectly well.

My mother took me to the doctor and he said, "you'll grow out of it," and eventually I did. But my mother took me back to the school, to first grade the second time around. The other teacher, she straightened me out. They got me glasses too.

After they knew what was wrong, the kids came back. They understood what was wrong. I never told anybody that story, that I repeated the first grade or that I had those problems.

My hearing is just fine now. I grew out of it all right. Just in time to grow back into it.


DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION

During the Great Depression, our town pulled together. In some ways it was the nicest of times. We all shared what we had. Men brought in their produce. Women got together and canned everything and passed out food to everyone. No one went hungry. You thought of others, you shared what you had.

At Christmas, they went around in their sleigh to gather up goods. Whatever excess you had—a book you enjoyed, clothes, whatever you wanted to share, they collected all our things. Then they’d come around again later and ask us what we wanted for Christmas.

The feeling was beautiful. We shared everything, farm equipment, resources. We had a sewing room and if you needed something, it was made for you. The men gathered together. There were no jobs. They had to create them.

There were armies of men straight across America, back and forth, armies of them tramping back and forth. They’d come and knock on the door and you’d feed them. We had plenty of deer and fish, and we canned everything. Despite the hardships, everyone seemed happy during the Great Depression.


ANGELS

I remember my first Christmas in town. My parents took us to a Christmas program at the Moose Lodge and everybody was there. Fred, my brother, and me—we were all dressed in our best of clothes. My mother was always working so hard, caring for us, she didn't dress up much, so it was a real treat just to see how beautiful she really was.

My father was so proud of us all, dressed up in our high-top shoes. My brother in a stiff white shirt. Normally everything was dull and drab. They'd boil and starch the clothes. I had on a white dress with ruffles

I stood out like a statue but I didn't care. I didn't stand still long enough for it to bother me.

We walked two blocks to the hall. My friend was at the door waiting for me saying, “Hurry up! Hurry up! We were all sliding around on the dance floor

until it was time to settle down for the program. There was a Christmas tree right in front of me. It was so beautiful I looked up in awe. I couldn't even hardly breathe it was so beautiful. There were angels all over it.
Gangster shit in deed
I'd never seen an angel before. I looked at it and asked all kinds of questions. I thought they were so beautiful, the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. I wished I could have one to hold. They became a part of me. If this was Christmas...I was in heaven!

We got up to sing and all through the song, I thought of those angels, like birds in the tree. After the program was over, it was time for gifts.

I'd never even thought of getting gifts. I got a box, I took off the paper. I'd never had a gift before like that, all wrapped in Christmas paper.

Inside was the most beautiful doll I'd ever seen. It wasn't like the angels. I wished I could have one to hold.

Then they gave away the ornaments. I watched them for the longest time

until there weren't any more angels left on the tree. I didn't notice that I got a second box. I opened it and there was my angel inside. Someone had heard my wish and I got my angel. I kept that angel for a long, long time

It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.


GRIZZLY

When I was about 22, we went huckleberrying with my friend and her mother. We kept in contact with signals. I had picked a lot of berries when I heard this crush, crush, crush of the leaves behind me and I felt breath on the back of my neck. I turned around and stared at him. He just stood there and looked at me, with both front paws resting on the rotted log. A great big black grizzly. I just went back to picking berries. What else could I do? He climbed up on the log and he got down and took off. Then the others started calling me: “There’s a bear! There’s a bear! Time to go home.” Then I told them that the bear was right there with me the whole time. They didn’t believe me but we all got into the car real fast.



UNTITLED FRAGMENTS


When we got smallpox or chickenpox, they put mittens on our hands to keep us from scratching.

Once my older brother got the exlax out and chewed it all up. My mother found the empty box but he said, don’t worry mom, I spit the juice out.


RECYCLING MY DRESSES


During the summer, I used to have to cook a lot. I had t two dresses one winter, one summer. They were both made out of the same color material. The wood stove crank stuck out and burnt my new dress.

When people got tired of seeing me in a dress, they’d give my mother a new one to make over for me....remakes were clothes made the second time around. You’d turn everything out on the wrong side, and they’d be as good as new. I always had the nicest dress in class. Mother would have to make up the style with what she had. We had an old Singer treadle sewing machine, we were lucky to have one.


WINDY CITY

After I finished high school, I’d been home for a year with nothing much to do. I went to a friend’s farewell party. She was going away to Chicago to a college. We got to talking and I thought, that’s just up my alley. I never thought that something like this would happen. Before the evening was over, I was going to Chicago too. I went home and woke my mother and said I was going to Chicago. She didn’t say much. What she did say was: “You don’t have anything to wear!”

It happened on a Friday night, and by Monday noon, I was on that train to Chicago. The fare was $29.33 and that was about all that I had saved. It took every cent.

We arrived early in the morning after riding on the train for two days. When we got there, it felt like I was still riding the train. Coming from a very small town in Montana to the big city, now, that was really something. I remember looking up at all those big tall buildings. I was like a mouse.

We went to the school, it was a Christian college, and I met the dean. I was admitted. I don’t remember much about it because I was still riding that train. We got our rooms and slept straight through to the next evening. We had dinner and there was a music solo, a song about going home. We’d only just arrived and I had tears running down my face, I was so homesick. We went back to our room.

Next day, we were well together and where we really wanted to be. We got our classes, met our teachers. My mother had said, “I don’t know how you can go to school. You only have one dress.” Well, that dress got me through school. If it got me through high school, it can get me through college. It got me through all right and I got three new dresses as a graduation present.

I had to work my way through school. The college had lined me up some work. They said, oh, you go this way and you go that way... Here I was, from a small town, and I didn’t even know one street from another. I had an interview. I asked everyone for directions. Somehow I got there and I got my first job as an assistant housekeeper.

They gave us a home to live in, a family, it paid our tuition and gave us a little change to spare.

I was there to become a kindergarten teacher. Every morning, I followed the other girls out to Oak Park. We’d have to go out and pick up the children and bring them back to school. I collected 4-6 children each morning. I learned much by going out into the suburbs.

I remember going downtown and seeing the skyscrapers. I couldn’t fathom living there. The parents usually had their children waiting for us outside on the street. Many of the families lived in those apartments way up high. And if they forgot to bring their children down, I went through door after door after door, 15-20 stories to the top floor (no elevators in those days). It was quite a sight for someone like me from such a small place.

It took me 2 and a half hours getting home on the “L” car. That cold wind off the lake was brutal. Sometimes I’d be so tired, I’d fall asleep on the streetcar, I’d wake up at the end of the line and didn’t know where I was.

Our minister came to see us. He asked us, “What do you want to do today, where do you want to go? We went to the stockyards, we three girls from Montana wanted to see the cows.

I graduated and went back home with my three new dresses. I started my own kindergarten school, It was the first one in my part of the country. It became my life’s work.


FISHING

I was home from college one summer and I took a job as a governess to an 11-year-old girl. Her parents worked for the government on a Blackfoot Indian reservation. Everything I did she was supposed to do. Everything I learned, she was supposed to learn. We’d go camping every week.

One night we were going into Glacier Park. My boss came home to tell me how to fish. I read up on it before I went to sleep and thought, “I can do that!” That night I dreamt I was fishing just like what the book said to do, I threw in my line and caught a fish. I threw it over my shoulder and the fish landed right in the paws of a cougar on a branch above me that I didn’t know was there. In the morning, we got down to the stream, I was telling them about my dream.

That morning, we found an ideal spot to go fishing. I thought, “here goes nothing” so I threw out my line and darned if I didn’t get a fish! I remembered my dream. The fish was so huge I couldn’t handle it. All the fishermen were telling me how to bring it in and it was flopping all over the place. I finally put my foot on it but it slipped away so I sat on it until I was almost as wet as the fish. And after struggling with it for 15 minutes. I finally hit it with a stick and a rock. So, I had my fish for breakfast, a big rainbow trout. But all the fishermen left, because I’d made so much noise, they said that all the fish had gone away too.




Madeline was born in 1914 and moved to Whitefish in 1923.)




THIS WAS FROM ANOTHER FILE, SOME REPEATS. I need to compare them


A LIFETIME OF TREASURE


Why am I here?
It was not a choice of my own
The last thing I knew
I was being released from the hospital.
On arriving home, all my things were packed
and I was on my way to Fremont, California,
to the Country Inn where I am now
Everything was planned for me
I didn’t know what I was in for
We had garage sales
I watched everything walk away.
My life disappeared before my eyes.
What little was sold didn’t amount to much.
The rain came down, it didn’t amount to much.
When it was time to close
I rolled up the tables full of a lifetime of treasure.
There were organizations aplenty waiting
church people, group people and people people
all waiting to reap the spoils of my history,
of my life.


Madeline Bedal





DREAMS


I’ve dreams that come true,
places I’ve been, places I’ve gone.
I’ve found myself in these same places
and things happen just like in the dream.
I take them as signs. Good signs.
I’ve never had dreams of not going somewhere
or of premonitions.
My dreams are pleasant, of beautiful places.
A real dream actually came true.
I was awake, I was there, just like in the dream.
I would see a place traveling or in some park.
But I’d never been to htat place.
The dream was so real,
it was just as if I was there in reality,
and reality was just like in my dream.
Once I dreamt of a bear coming from Fielding to Whitefish.
It came over the mountains.
It came down the mountain.
It came straight for my bedroom window.
It was years later, when I was in college,
and this bear came down the mountain
and crawled up into the tree by my bedroom window.
We called the authorities to take it away.
I’m a dreamer, a dreamer dreaming the dream.
The luck follows me. A dream come true.


Madeline Bedal





MADELINE


My mother named me Madeline
because she didn’t like nicknames.
She searched and searched,
she went through names and more names
asking everyone questions:
what should I name my baby?
She and my Aunt Gertie were having a cup of tea
Well, my aunt wanted to help my mother,
she saw it in a magazine and liked it,
and so I was named Madeline.
Everything went fine until I went to school.
One day my mother was shopping with me.
A girl from school shouted. “Hey Mad!”
When my mother heard that,
boy, was she ever mad!
I was never called Mad after that
All my life I’ve been called Madeline.


Madeline Bedal






GOIN FISHIN


My brother, who was older than I,
got to go fishing with our uncle.
I wanted to go fishing too.
But I always had to stay at home.
One special morning it was my turn
to go fishing with my brother.
I’d been waiting a long time. I was so excited.
Off we took early one morning
to Stannard Creek—it was named after my father.
There was a bend in the stream with a log over it.
My brother took a willow branch,
tied strong packing string on it,
he took a straight pin, bent it almost double
and put a worm on the end of it.
I sat on a log, quiet and peaceful,
my line, with my worm wiggling in the water...
All of a sudden there was a yank,
I screamed, “I caught a fish!” And I fell into the water.
My brother came running, he pulled on the pole
and on the other end was a frog
And that was the end of my fishing days.


Madeline Bedal


SWIM LITTLE FISHIES!


When my grandfather went fishing,
he never killed the fish.
He’d bring them home live
and give them to my sisters.
They’d put them in the bathtub,
fill it with water.
They’d pat them as if they were pets
and say, “Swim little fishies, swim!”


Madeline Bedal






HUNTING LODGE


When we lived on the homestead in Fielding, Montana,
my father would take people from back east
on hunting trips in the wintertime
In a photo, I remember visitors from New York—
they were all lawyers and doctors—
I remember they had pictures taken of their hunting trip
I got to observe them setting it all up.
The animals they shot were hung on the fence.
He’d gather them all up together for a photo.


We had a log fence, we’d throw saddles on it and sit on them.
He took the animal rugs from the livingroom and the hides,
hung them over a stump some bushes
to make them look real, like live animals.
They all got their guns out—you had to have a gun in those days—
and dressed themselves up in their hunting outfits and boots
and alldraped with our living room rugs...
it made for an authentic looking background of their hunting trip.


They used a big old-fashioned black box on stilts.
The photographer covered up his head with a cloth
and he’d look out these two holes...
In one hand he held a tray trough filled with white powder
which made a flash of light when it was lit.
It was all such a mystery to me.
They took the camera with them back to New York
and used to phiotographs for advertisements for future trips.


Those pictures were in an album for years
but my brother was leaving home, so they went with him...
I would love to have some of those photos now


Madeline Bedal






FOUNDLING


I’ve been grateful for and thankful for my friends.
I worked with children for many years.
I even worked in Sunday School.
I’ve always had good friends.
I’ve traveled from place to place
And no matter where I went
I always had good Christian friends—
especially the children.
I survived four operations.
Their thoughts and prayers brought me through.
Friends, they hold together—
regardless of circumstances.
I worked with the women of the church too.
They also brought me through.
The Lord searched me out and he found me—
or, I found him, working with the children.
It was my calling. I did find Him
and I found my place all the way through.
He found me when I was 7 years old
I needed someone,
I needed a friend—
we’d left the homestead
for Whitefish, Montana—I was lonely.
I couldn’t have been more lonely
if I was all alone in the world.
He was my friend all through school
and I found my other friends through Him.


Madeline Bedal






HAPPINESS POINT


Happiness was one of my wishes
all through life. I never had to have very much
when I was small—it might be a rock
or a flower or even a butterfly to be happy.
I always loved flowers .
We always had a bouquet on the table
We’d pick wild roses
but the petals fell off so easily.
We’d take the petals to make perfume sachets.
We’d let them sit in the sun for a while,
or we just laid them on the porch, or on a stone
so the sun would get to them.
Then we’d crush the roses, we’d put them in a jar
and then we’d carry them around with us.
We’d take a nail, punch holes in the top of the lid
and we’d sniff them all day long.
We’d make our rounds, six of us girls
with our jars of roses, this was our happiness.
This made us comfortable to smell the roses.
We’d put them in among our clothes.
We really loved the roses, so beautiful.
Happiness every day as we skipped
down the road with our jars of roses.


Madeline Bedal




A REAL CALIFORNIAN


When I was 18
it was the year of the Great Depression
I worked as most people did
in the sewing rooms
I made pants and coats,
making clothes for everyone
when I was 21


When I was 25
I met my husband in Glacier Park
We looked int each other’s eyes,
we just couldn't say goodbye
so we got married instead
when I was 25
We moved to California
and I was a new bride
when I was 25


When I was 35
my three daughters and I
we made our home in Campbell, California
We bought an orchard
we picked apricots and prunes
I was finally a Californian
when I was 35


Now the years have passed
The children have all grown
married with families
and children of their own
We sold the prune orchard
we built on Bedal Drive
and moved to Lake Tahoe
my husband and I,
he retired
when I was 55.


Madeline Bedal






We could sing patriotic songs
and sing religious songs
we could sing songs of joy and happiness
we could sing songs of love and home
or songs of the blues


We could sing Stormy Weather,
or Summertime or
if we were feeling patriotic
we could sing God Bless America
Or America the Beautiful
for all the lives that are lost in war


Sing your song all day long
Sing your song
The songs I love best
are straight from the heart
So sing your song all day long
sing your song
sing your song


Madeline Bedal


What the world needs now is love
I would like to see more love in the world
I’d start with myself, I’d show my love for others
And maybe they’d show their love for all of us
I never make New Year’s promises
because I always break ‘em
I would like to see more love in the world
I’d start with myself, I’d show my love for others
And maybe they’d show their love for all of us






DARLENE


It was early springtime
It was early in the morning
The sun was shining
Trees were blowing in the breeze
It was a lovely day
When my father came in from the barn,
he announced that Bessie was ready.
We didn’t have any shoes or stockings on.
We ran to the barn to see what was going on.
Bessie had a twinkle in her eye.
Quite nervous she was, pacing back and forth.
She was usually so calm and contented.
We all gathered round her.
Mother went to Bessie’s head
and told her to be quiet.
Everything would be all right.
Bessie said Moo! And there was Darlene
in my father’s arms.










TINKERBELL


I was born in 1914. My youngest years, before I went to school were spent on our homestead in Fielding, Montana, just below Glacier Park, in the Rockies. When I was young, I had one brother, Fred, who was my only playmate. There were only about five homes within miles and miles. So we made our own fun with what we had.


Each year, in the springtime, the shepherds would come through our valley with their sheep and lambs. The youngest lambs were weak, couldn’t take the travel, so the shepherds would leave us the little lambs. We cared for them, we put them in a box with comfortable things, like our blankets and pillows, and we kept them warm behind the old wood stove.


We would be feeding the lambs all day long, feeding them, little lambs, with a bottle and a rubber nipple. They followed us everywhere, when we played. They’d stay around the house waritng for us to come outside..


One night, the coyotes came down from the hills. One frightened little lamb, Tinkerbell, jumped through the window into my bed. It was safe for that one time. But another time the little lamb strayed a little too far from our loving care. The little lamb came up missing. We didn’t have anyone to play with.


We went out looking for that little lamb, my mother, my brother, me. We searched and searched and searched. We were so tired. We looked and looked, we searched the hillsides, we searched the fields, and the meadows, we searched the creek beds. I got so tired my mother sat me down by a bush and my brother went on ahead searching. It wasn’t long before he came back carrying the collar with a bell, Tinkerbell’s bell.


I was never told what happened to that little lamb. Later, when I was older, I found out that my brother had found the remains, but no one ever said anything to me.


Madeline Bedal






ANGELS


I remember my first Christmas in town. My parents took us to a Christmas program at the Moose Lodge and everybody was there. Fred, my brother, and me—we were all dressed in our best of clothes. My mother was always working so hard, caring for us, she didn't dress up much, so it was a real treat just to see how beautiful she really was.


My father was so proud of us all, dressed up in our high-top shoes. My brother in a stiff white shirt. Normally everything was dull and drab. They'd boil and starch the clothes. I had on a white dress with ruffles
I stood out like a statue but I didn't care. I didn't stand still long enough for it to bother me.


We walked two blocks to the hall. My friend was at the door waiting for me saying, “Hurry up! Hurry up! We were all sliding around on the dance floor
until it was time to settle down for the program. There was a Christmas tree right in front of me. It was so beautiful I looked up in awe. I couldn't even hardly breathe it was so beautiful. There were angels all over it.


I'd never seen an angel before. I looked at it and asked all kinds of questions. I thought they were so beautiful, the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. I wished I could have one to hold. They became a part of me. If this was Christmas...I was in heaven!


We got up to sing and all through the song, I thought of those angels, like birds in the tree. After the program was over, it was time for gifts.
I'd never even thought of getting gifts. I got a box, I took off the paper. I'd never had a gift before like that, all wrapped in Christmas paper.
Inside was the most beautiful doll I'd ever seen. It wasn't like the angels. I wished I could have one to hold.


Then they gave away the ornaments. I watched them for the longest time
until there weren't any more angels left on the tree. I didn't notice that I got a second box. I opened it and there was my angel inside. Someone had heard my wish and I got my angel. I kept that angel for a long, long time
It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.


Madeline Bedal




DARLENE


It was early springtime
It was early in the morning
The sun was shining
Trees were blowing in the breeze
It was a lovely day
When my father came in from the barn,
he announced that Bessie was ready.
We didn’t have any shoes or stockings on.
We ran to the barn to see what was going on.
Bessie had a twinkle in her eye.
Quite nervous she was, pacing back and forth.
She was usually so calm and contented.
We all gathered round her.
Mother went to Bessie’s head
and told her to be quiet.
Everything would be all right.
Bessie said Moo! And there was Darlene
in my father’s arms.


He tried to stand Darlene on her feet. She’d kneel and fall many times before she was strong enough to stand. Mother kept petting Bessie trying to calm her. Bessie was really contented and delighted with her newborn child.


It was time for Darlene’s first meal. My father guided her to her mother’s udder and tried to get her to drink. But Darlene wasn’t about to nurse. A bucket of milk was filled. It was quite a chore to get her to eat. My father dipped his hand into the milk and into Darlene’s mouth. She took to his finger, he replaced it with her mother’s teat. Darlene had her first meal. I was five.


Madeline Bedal






WHAT IS LOVE?


What is love? It could be many things.


What comes to mind is the dear old lady we called Grandma Armstrong. She wasn’t my grandmother by relation, but she was the only grandma I really loved. She was always there for us. We lived just south of Glacier Park. Every job that was around, that had to be done, that was her job.


She was the station master, she lived in the railroad depot, and she was also the postmistress. Anything of importance she would deliver to us on foot, any time, anywhere, throughout the valley. If there was anyone ill, she was the one who took care of them. If there were any deliveries to be made, she made them on foot—it was 5 to 10 miles between homesteads.


She always had time to stop and have a conversations with you, or if there was a message or a return post, she’d deliver it personally. If you stopped by the depot, there was always a pot of coffee or tea on the potbelly stove in the center of the room. I remember the blue and white plates with flowers on them and the snow-white ruffled white curtains framing the windows, and the table laden with crumpets ready for you.


What I remember most was when she delivered our Christmas gifts in the snow. We always knew when she was coming. grandma Armstrong was like Santa Claus. She brought cookies and candy. She came cross-country in snowshoes with a pack on her back.


This is what I call love.


She lived alone in the depot. I don’t know how many years she did this, but she was so faithful and devoted, our lives were so much more beautiful because of her continuance. Her smile and being was angelic.


She was both the doctor and the nurse of the Valley, she was the one who was called up when babies were born, when people were sick or injured.
There was a flag train that didn’t stop but it would blow its horn and it would echo all through the valley, a long, lonesone sound. One time when the train horn blew, it spooked the horses my brother was driving and he fell off the buckboard and split his head open on the tracks. My father let the horses go, they ran crazily off until the buckboard overturned. He picked my brother up and carried him to the depot. Grandma Armstrong administered to him, flagged down the train and took my brother to the nearest town that had a doctor, that was Whitefish.


Years later, when we all moved to town, she moved with us, and retired from the life of selfless love. But she continued, even in town, to care for others—just the same as she did for us on the homestead.


Madeline Bedal









DANCING WITH BEARS


It was in the fall of 1919-1920. I was about 5 years old, my brother Fred was 7, there were no more huckleberries left in the mountains. My father and mother had some very important business to take care of in town and Fred and I went to stay with Aunt Gertie and Uncle Fred.


We had just gotten up in the morning quite early and finished a great breakfast of pancakes and lovely maple syrup, bacon and eggs—our favorite breakfast. Aunt Gertie always did special things when we came over to see her.


We’d just finished eating, and we were sitting around the table making plans for the day, when some strange noises came from the back of the cabin. Tubs banging. It didn’t make an impression on my brother or me but a worried look came over Aunt Gertie’s face. We’d begged her to play the gramophone many times. This time she let us play with it.


She showed my brother how to crank the Victrola and she soon had us settled. I was dancing with delight. We were having a great time, it was so splendid that we could do it ourselves—we had begged her for so long. Fred was delighted to crank and crank and crank. Aunt Gertie took advantage of the time while we were preoccupied with the gramophone to slip away.


Unbeknownst to us, she went into the other room. took down the shotgun from the rack above the bed, loaded it with shells from the dresser and slipped out the door behind the cabin to confront a grizzly. She waited for her chance, aiming very carefully, she took one shot and got him right between the eyes.


We were still dancing to the funny music. We didn’t hear anything. My aunt came in with the gun, she was white-faced and shaking all over. She didn’t tell us what had happened, how dangerous it was. She just sat at the table a long time composing herself. When she got over the shock of it, she knew she had a real bear story to tell.


And all the while, we just kept on dancing and cranking the phonograph. If she hadn’t shot the bear, it would’ve torn the whole cabin down looking for food: the bacon, pancakes, the eggs and the syrup.


She didn’t know that I would also have a bear story to tell too like the one I’m telling you right now.


Madeline Bedal






GRIZZLY


When I was about 22, we went huckleberrying with my friend and her mother. We kept in contact with signals. I had picked a lot of berries when I heard this crush, crush, crush of the leaves behind me and I felt breath on the back of my neck. I turned around and stared at him. He just stood there and looked at me, with both front paws resting on the rotted log. A great big black grizzly. I just went back to picking berries. What else could I do? He climbed up on the log and he got down and took off. Then the others started calling me: “There’s a bear! There’s a bear! Time to go home.” Then I told them that the bear was right there with me the whole time. They didn’t believe me but we all got into the car real fast.


Madeline Bedal


FISHING


I was home from college one summer and I took a job as a governess to an 11-year-old girl. Her parents worked for the government on a Blackfoot Indian reservation. Everything I did she was supposed to do. Everything I learned, she was supposed to learn. We’d go camping every week.


One night we were going into Glacier Park. My boss came home to tell me how to fish. I read up on it before I went to sleep and thought, “I can do that!” That night I dreamt I was fishing just like what the book said to do, I threw in my line and caught a fish. I threw it over my shoulder and the fish landed right in the paws of a cougar on a branch above me that I didn’t know was there. In the morning, we got down to the stream, I was telling them about my dream.


That morning, we found an ideal spot to go fishing. I thought, “here goes nothing” so I threw out my line and darned if I didn’t get a fish! I remembered my dream. The fish was so huge I couldn’t handle it. All the fishermen were telling me how to bring it in and it was flopping all over the place. I finally put my foot on it but it slipped away so I sat on it until I was almost as wet as the fish. And after struggling with it for 15 minutes. I finally hit it with a stick and a rock. So, I had my fish for breakfast, a big rainbow trout. But all the fishermen left, because I’d made so much noise, they said that all the fish had gone away too.


Madeline Bedal


OLD CHIEF


It was one morning in the fall of the year. My father saddled up the horses to get our provisions at the railroad station way up the mountain. We had two horses, Old Chief, the Indian horse my father bought from the Blackfoot Indians, in Browning, Montana. The pinto was my brother Fred’s horse.


There were only two horses and four people to ride them. I was told to ride behind my mother on Old Chief. I held onto the back of the saddle. My mother was in front, with my younger brother Jack, in her arms. We had to ride to the railroad station. We got there just fine. My uncle loaded the supplies onto my brother’s pinto. My brother was laden with all the supplies, and the rest of us were all on the broad back of Old Chief.


The railroad station was half way up the mountainside and there were so many switchbacks you’d go sideways just to go forward. We were about half way down the mountain when Old Chief’s saddle began to slip and slide. My uncle hadn’t tightened up the cinch. Old Chief knew when things were wrong. He was careful. But we were half way down the mountain side when the saddle began to pitch. I’d slide from side to side on each turn.


Soon the saddle slid clear under his belly and my mother landed on the ground sitting upright holding the baby in her arms. Old Chief, he just stood there stock still. But me, all fat and roly poly, I tumbled and tumbled down the steep mountainside. I found a bush and held on for dear life and there I was, dangling on the edge of a precipice. Otherwise I would’ve landed in the river below.


A fisherman heard the ruckus. He dropped everything, his fishing pole, his creel, and he pulled me to safety. He carried me the rest of the way back up the mountain too. He resaddled the horse, cinched it up tight. I climbed back on again. I wasn’t afraid. We started down the trail toward home, in time for supper, in time to meet my father who was on his way home too. I was only four.


Madeline Bedal






--------------------------
When we got smallpox or chickenpox, they put mittens on our hands to keep us from scratching.
Once my older brother got the exlax out and chewed itall up. My mother found the empty box but he said, don’t worry mom, I spit the juice out. Madeline Bedal


MADELINE: During the summer, I used to have to cook a lot. I had t two dresses one winter, one summer. They were both made out of the same color material. The wood stove crank stuck out and burnt my new dress.
When people got tired of seeing me in a dress, they’d give my mother a new one to make over for me....remakes were clothes made the second time around. You’d turn everything out on the wrong side, and they’d be as good as new. I always had the nicest dress in class. Mother would have to make up the style with what she had. We had an old Singer treadle sewing machine, we were lucky to have one.


REPEATING THE FIRST GRADE


Lots of things I have never told anybody. When I was young, I didn't talk much. I didn't know why I didn't have many friends in school. Everyone would always run away from me. Every time I opened my mouth, they'd run away. Then one day one of the parents finally took me aside and told me that my voice was so loud, I was scaring al the children away.


Then I decided to change my ways.


When the flu epidemic can through, it settled in my ears, in my eyes. I couldn't hear anything at all. They sat me in the corner in first grade. I was a dreamer. I wanted to be back on the homestead. I couldn't hear—I didn't know what was going on unless the teacher took me for a special session in the front of the room. Then I did perfectly well.


My mother took me to the doctor and he said, "you'll grow out of it," and eventually I did. But my mother took me back to the school, to first grade the second time around. The other teacher, she straightened me out. They got me glasses too.


After they knew what was wrong, the kids came back. They understood what was wrong. I never told anybody that story, that I repeated the first grade or that I had those problems.


My hearing is just fine now. I grew out of it all right. Just in time to grow back into it.


Madeline Bedal






DRIVING THE SNAKES


I had two great-great uncles who came over from Ireland after it was run over by snakes. It seems they had a lot of snakes in Ireland in those days. My family, they came in twos, 2 x 2, and they settled in Colorado and Montana to homestead.


My grandmother on my father’s side was thrown from a horse. She died when he was only 10 years old. The father left the two boys, they wereleft with cowboys to be raised. Of course, they grew up to be cowboys, driving cattle. So that’s how my father and his brother, they settled in Montana—my father and brother, not the snakes.


So there are no snakes in Ireland? All this time I believed that... I guess you can always learn something new. That’s what I learned today.

Madeline Bedal




OLD CHIEF AND THE LYNX


It was the fall of the year, around 1918-1919, we were on our return trip from receiving our monthly supplies at the station, and the horses were going at a very easy gait, going homeward. We were all relieved that everything was taken care of for the month and we were on our way home.


We came to the beginning of the forest and Old Chief, the lead horse, stopped abruptly and he would not move a muscle any farther. Mother patted his head, coaxed him on, but he still wouldn’t move. Mother never had to use a whip on our horses, they always went without too much urging. They always did what the were supposed to do.


But Old Chief wouldn’t budge. So as Mother raised the whip, she happened to look up, and there on a branch above the trail, was a link ((she says it as link vs. lynx), ready to pounce upon his prey. Horses have an extra sense about them, they sense things before they happen. And once again, Old Chief had saved our lives.


Mother threw down her whip and gave Old Chief his head. We returned safely back to my uncle’s place. We retraced our steps back to safety, back to our Uncle Fred’s cabin back up the mountain, in Fielding, Montana, you’d think it was heaven in the Rockies. She threw down her whip and gave Old Chief an apple.


When we didn’t return home, my father came looking for us at his brothers place. Uncle Fred kept his rifle on a rack high up, near the ceiling. He filled his coat pockets with ammunition and my father and Uncle Fred took us safely back home. It was about an hour’s journey. We returned safely home.


I was about four or five years old, I remember that, because my aunt lived there too on the homestead. My aunt was left alone all day with little or no conversation. She was so lonely, she’d talk and talk and talk, that’s why I remember the stories so well. She’d come to town, we’d sit at her knee, and she’d tell us the stories again and again and again.


(That’s why I’m telling these stores now for my little brother, Albert, who didn’t grow up on the homestead. That’s not his real name which is William Henry Stannard but we didn’t like it. We thought he was too grand for that.“Prince Albert” we all called him. And it stuck to this very day.) But the story doesn’t end there.


For the next six months, my father began to carry his rifle with him daily as he walked back and forth to where he worked at the railroad depot in Fielding. It was about an hour’s journey each way on foot. He saw signs of the lynx following him. If my father happened to stumble and fall when he was walking, then the lynx, thinking he was injured, would attack. That lynx followed my father for six whole months. My father laid traps with meat to catch that big cat but a lynx won’t attack unless its prey is wounded.


One morning, shortly after my father left for work, he returned home to get more ammunition. We went through the fields to where the forest began, a clump of trees, bare-branched poplar. And there was the lynx in his trap, caught by one of his back legs. We could hear him crying, screaming in pain. When he saw us, he reared up on his hind legs, hissed and clawed at the air. We backed off to a safe distance. My father loaded his rifle and got close as he could and waited patiently for the lynx to calm down. He aimed carefully, and with one shot, he shot him between the eyes.
We had the lynx mounted on the living room wall of our cabin where it hung for years above the couch. I used to love to pet it. The fur was so soft. Who knows, it still might be mounted on someone’s wall to this very day.


Madeline Bedal


THE OLD 27


One morning we all got in the buckboard and went up at my Aunt Gertie’s, she lived about 5 miles from us. We passed the MacIntyre Ranch. They were well off, they had the nicest place around. They used to have a lot of family come up for BBQs or sit on the front porch.


It was a long way to Aunt Gertie’s. There were lots of ruts and rocks in the dirt road The road needed a lot of attention. We climbed up the mountain with its big switch backs, and through the forest until you came to the clearing. They had two cabins at Aunt Gertie’s A one-room for guests, that was us, and a cabin for their home. Their cabin had two whole rooms, a kitchen/dining/living room and a bedroom.


My Uncle Fred and my father and my brother, Fred were going to take a little trip to the railroad station 3/4 of a mile away to get some feed for the animals and some garden tools and seed for my mother. It was spring. We were out of feed.


Everyone would drive right down the tracks to get to the depot. It was very bumpy going over the railroad ties. The depot was a post office and a general store. It was a big platform, well built with milled lumber. All our homes were made of logs. It had real windows, pretty windows.


Grandma Armstrong, who ran the depot, had her dainty little touches, white starched ruffled curtains. A little table with a white cloth embroidered real fancy. A place that said welcome in the wilderness and everybody from miles around went there. It was the center of all things. And we’d always stop in for coffee or tea.


My mother and I were to stay with Aunt Gertie while the men took the team to the station. Old Chief and Buck were hitched to the buckboard. My brother Fred wanted to ride on the seat, he was six, he was finally old enough for it to be safe.


We heard the toot of the Old 27 coming down the tracks, coming around the last bend before the station. Where were they? Just crossing the railroad tracks but Old Chief and Buck, when they heard the train, they raised up and bolted and there was a real runaway buckboard for sure. They were on the tracks and the train whistle startled them.


Fred was thrown from the seat onto the tracks and he hit his head, it was split from his temple to his crown and back down the other side.


Now the Old 27 mail train to Whitefish didn’t stop for mail, it barreled onto the next stop. There was a bag hanging over the tracks that the engineer grabbed as it went by.


Dad jumped off the buckboard and scooped Fred up in his arms and took him to the railroad depot/station where Grandma Armstrong was waiting. She gathered up some towels and bandaged his head as best as she could and made him ready for the trip into town.


Uncle Fred ran down the tracks to flag down the train. (It didn’t normally stop there.) The horses took off and ran away. The buckboard eventually flipped over, forcing them to stop,


The train stopped and they put my brother Fred in the car. They got him comfortable while Grandma Armstrong telegraphed ahead to the nearest town for a doctor. They rode to the next town, to Whitefish, where a doctor was waiting with his black bag and all his tools ready to take care of the wounded.


They moved Fred onto a baggage card for an operating table—right at the station. The doctor stitched Fred up from his temple to his crown.


After Fred recovered from the surgery, he was given a handful of candy canes. Dad & Fred returned to Fielding on the next train going their way. Mother and Aunt Gertie were waiting with Grandma Armstrong to see how Fred fared from his experience. We were so happy to see him, with his bandaged head like a turban. Of course, I was delighted to be able to share the candy canes too.


By the time Uncle Fred corralled the horses and they had calmed down enough, it was nearly dark, we were ready to be on our way home where the farm animals were anxiously waiting for their oats and feed as their breakfast had been quite delayed.


Madeline Bedal


WINDY CITY


After I finished high school, I’d been home for a year with nothing much to do. I went to a friend’s farewell party. She was going away to Chicago to a college. We got to talking and I thought, that’s just up my alley. I never thought that something like this would happen. Before the evening was over, I was going to Chicago too. I went home and woke my mother and said I was going to Chicago. She didn’t say much. What she did sa was: “You don’t have anything to wear!”


It happened on a Friday night, and by Monday noon, I was on that train to Chicago. The fare was $29.33 and that was about all that I had saved. It took every cent.


We arrived early in the morning after riding on the train for two days. When we got there, it felt like I was still riding the train. Coming from a very small town in Montana to the big city, now, that was really something. I remember looking up at all those big tall buildings. I was like a mouse.


We went to the school, it was a Christian college, and I met the dean. I was admitted. I don’t remember much about it because I was still riding that train. We got our rooms and slept straight through to the next evening. We had dinner and there was a music solo, a song about going home. We’d only just arrived and I had tears running down my face, I was so homesick. We went back to our room.


Next day, we were well together and where we really wanted to be. We got our classes, met our teachers. My mother had said, “I don’t know how you can go to school. You only have one dress.” Well, that dress got me through school. If it got me through high school, it can get me through college. It got me through all right and I got three new dresses as a graduation present.


I had to work my way through school. The college had lined me up some work. They said, oh, you go this way and you go that way... Here I was, from a small town, and I didn’t even know one street from another. I had an interview. I asked everyone for directions. Somehow I got there and I got my first job as an assistant housekeeper.


They gave us a home to live in, a family, it paid our tuition and gave us a little change to spare.


II was there to become a kindergarten teacher. Every morning, I followed the other girls out to Oak Park. We’d have to go out and pick up the children and bring them back to school. I collected 4-6 children each morning. I learned much by going out into the suburbs.


I remember going downtown and seeing the skyscrapers. I couldn’t fathom living there. The parents usially had their children waiting for us outside on the street. Many of the families lived in those apartments way up high. And if they forgot to bring their children down, I went through door after door after door, 15-20 stories to the top floor (no elevators in those days). It was quite a sight for someone like me from such a small place.


It took me 2 and a half hours getting home on the “L” car. That cold wind off the lake was brutal. Sometimes I’d be so tired, I’d fall asleep on the streetcar, I’d wake up at the end of the line and didn’t know where I was.


Our minister came to see us. He asked us, “What do you want to do today, where do you want to go? We went to the stockyards, we three girls from Montana wanted to see the cows.


I graduated and went back home with my three new dresses. I started my own kindergarten school, It was the first one in my part of the country. It became my life’s work.


Madeline Bedal




HUCKLEBERRY PIE


It was a great day, one of those clear, crisp days when you want to get out and get going where you want to go, and to do everything all at once. You have so much energy you just wanna go, go, go everywhere. Everything just seems to be right.


We were young, around four or five, and we were going huckleberrying. We got up early and got large lard cans ready to fill up with huckleberries. We were up and ready at dawn. We were out picking early in the morning, at the break of day.


At first, we ate our fill of huckleberries. There weren’t many going into the lard cans. The berries were plentiful, juicy and delicious. We picked and picked and picked until our lard pails were overflowing. All morning long, and through the day we picked. At lunch time we ate sandwiches and apples under the shade of a tree. After lunch, we started for home, much earlier than expected, with all our berries. More than we needed.


When we got home, Mother went into the kitchen and started making huckleberry pies while we rested on the grass. My brother was whittling whistles from the willow tree. He’d cut the bark loose from the stick and hollow out the center and slide the bark back on again. I was looking for four-leaf clovers. I was always looking for good luck.


When the pies were done, the whistles completed, I found a four-leaf clover. We looked up and Dad was coming across the fields. We all ran out to meet him. We went into the cabin and ate a meal with delicious pie made with huckleberries we’d picked all by ourselves.


Madeline Bedal


BIG FRED: BULL STORY


It was early in the morning, my brother Fred and I went across the pasture with Dad to milk the cows. As we passed the corral, Big Fred, our steer (destined for future dinners), was wanting to get out. It was such a lovely day and he was quite frisky. We went on our way and went to milk the cows. When we were finished we headed back to our log home cabin.


But the corral wasn’t big enough for Big Fred. He wanted out, so he pushed on the log fence until it broke and then he started out after us. We were between him and his grass. We were in the way of his field. It’s their nature to charge, to want to pierce you with their horns. They seem to go mad. That’s why they’re dehorned. Big Fred still had his horns and he knew how to use them.


I stumbled on a rock and Big Fred charged me. He was after us already and we were running for dear life. My brother was faster than me and he was running as fast as he could. I couldn’t keep up with him. I had to go and stumble on a rock. I was getting up and he was charging at me with his hot breath, hot eyes and sharp horns, I felt myself surrounded by Big Fred in all directions. I was trying to get up to get away from Big Fred I turned, only to look into his fierce eyes. I was so scared, I was about to pass out. I thought I was done for.


But just then, my father was at the ready with a pitchfork and came right after him. With his pitchfork, he steered Big Fred in the other direction. I was never so thankful in all my life. I gulped a big breath of fresh air and ran to my mother’s arms. She hugged me closely I was glad that my dad got Big Fred into the barn. He tried to bash it down while my dad fixed the corral.


Later, Big Fred was put back in his corral, day-dreaming of a time when he was going to get out into all those fields of luscious green grass just there for the eating. Little did he know he was going to be on the dinner table a little sooner than expected.


Madeline Bedal




PORKY


Our pigs always ran loose, they were like dogs, they were were our pets. Wherever we went, our pet Porky had to come too. As usual, my brother Fred was way out ahead.


Porky chose to travel along with me trotting at a slower pace. No longer a little piglet, he had grown a lot but didn’t know it. We had to cross the creek at the log bridge. It was built like a raft, it didn’t have any sides. But he kept nudging me closer to the edge of the bridge. The water below was gurgling over big rocks and soon there was no bridge left and I went down, down, down into the swirling water.


Next thing I knew, I was blowing bubbles and splashing water every which way, dog paddling, trying to scream, but I couldn’t make any noise. My father came once again to the rescue. With his big strong arms, he pulled me out just in time for huckleberry pie. Mother was at the door, come running to the door.


Madeline Bedal


DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION


During the Great Depression, our town pulled together. In some ways it was the nicest of times. We all shared what we had. Men brought in their produce. Women got together and canned everything and passed out food to everyone. No one went hungry. You thought of others, you shared what you had.


At Christmas, they went around in their sleigh to gather up goods. Whatever excess you had—a book you enjoyed, clothes, whatever you wanted to share, they collected all our things. Then they’d come around again later and ask us what we wanted for Christmas.


The feeling was beautiful. We shared everything, farm equipment, resources. We had a sewing room and if you needed something, it was made for you. The men gathered together. There were no jobs. They had to create them.


There were armies of men straight across America, back and forth, armies of them tramping back and forth. They’d come and knock on the door and you’d feed them. We had plenty of deer and fish, and we canned everything. Despite the hardships, everyone seemed happy during the Great Depression.


Madeline Bedal


A KNOCK AT THE DOOR


It was the fall of the year and everyone was getting ready, thinking of Christmas. My mother was sewing away on the Singer making Raggedy Anns for gifts. We were sitting on the bed looking at a catalogue for what we wanted. It was so quiet. My father had gone into town getting supplies. He was getting my gift that night.


All of a sudden there was a knock at the door. Mother asked, “Who’s there?” No answer. Another knock. 3 times. Mother got her gun down from the mantle, loaded it, ready and prepared. When the knock cam to the door again, she said, “If you don’t answer when I count to 3, I’ll shoot. I have a gun aimed at the door, aimed at your head.”


We lived out in the wilds and thieves would come to steal your horses, steal your chickens, or eggs, steal you clean. When no answer came, she opened fire and shot straight through the door.


We hid under the table and came out slowly and ran to tour mother’s skirts. We held on for dear life. We felt so protected under our mother’s care.


We heard steps leaving the porch and you could hear the crunch of their footsteps in the icy snow as they disappeared down the road. We stayed clear of the windows and doors for some time. She made a hole right through the door.


Madeline Bedal






UNREST IN THE HENHOUSE
There was a great unrest in the henhouse. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong with our chickens. They weren’t laying. They were nervous, walking back and forth, flapping their wings, making unusual noises for chickens. Even the rooster was walking cocky and making strange noises. The hens weren’t making their quota with eggs.


We thought what to do...It didn’t seem to be animals bothering them. No sign of wolves or weasels or foxes. We kept on observing the henhouse. Mother was out looking for eggs and high up in the sky was a speck spiraling around and around in a black circle. It was a hawk.


She goes in, gets her rifle, cocks it, loads it, and went out to the henhouse to get the hawk. We’d already lost 6 of our best laying hens and that made a huge hole in our breakfast. There was snow on the ground. My brother and I stayed close to Mother, to be safe.


The old hawk came down and swooped taking a hen. It was gone so quick, my mother’s heart almost fell. To get that hawk was impossible. “He was back before, he’ll be back again.”


Mother was out, ready for him to circle. She waited her turn, and she shot, getting her hawk, but the gun backfired. She fell to the ground bleeding, It cut, her , making a “J” above her lip. My brother reached into his pocket and gave her a nice white handkerchief and pressed it on her lip. When she came to, we helped her to the house.


When you’re living in the wilds with animals, there’s always something going on. Your gun is your friend. It meets every stranger who comes to your home . And every animal. As a rule, they don’t get past the gate. They meet the gun first. She got her hawk that day.


Madeline Bedal


My mother was a busy woman, she had her work cut out raising us. When she was wasn’t baking cookies, boiling clothes, she was making pickles and canning fruits and vegetables, but the piano was her one out, her one way of expressing her feelings. After they got married, my father bought her a piano, he played a bit by ear, but she was the musician in the family.



They ordered a piano out of Sears-Roebuck catalogue and it came by freight train. She was so thrilled when she heard it had finally arrived. She was more than delighted with the thought of her grand upright piano, it was one of the best of its kind, but it almost didn’t make it to the homestead.



On its arrival—it was shipped by train from Chicago—they were taking the piano out of the box car (I was there too but I was a baby) one of the rollers got loose and they couldn’t handle it. The piano took off and rolled down the mountainside. It crashed through the bushes, over the trees, in the grass, and into the ditch. It was a long way down. The train tracks were half way up the mountainside. The crating was so well done, it protected the piano, there were a few little scratches.



Dad came home from lunch to tell her about it and she was almost in tears. She never cried much and that was the one and only time we ever saw her cry. She’d been looking so forward to it. And she said, “Surely, it’s a good piano, but what piano could survive a mishap like that?” They hitched up the horses, Old Chief and the pony, and down the mountainside to the piano they went and they retrieved it and took it to the homestead. It was pulled up onto a large slab of wood and fastened securely to the wagon. Mother was waiting anxiously. She wanted to make sure it wasn’t damaged.



They brought it up the road and it was moved into the center of the house, the living room near the bedroom doors. There were a few scratches on it that furniture polish would take care of. But it was such a good piano, it was so well packed and so strong, it never broke a string. It was in perfect condition. I don’t know what kind of wood it was,, it was honey colored, it was such a rich honey color you wanted to eat it Mother sat down to that piano and she played Danny Boy, she played Let Me Call You Sweetheart, she played Springtime in the Rockies, she played to her heart’s content.



After a day’s work, she’d sit down to that piano and play, it quieted her nerves after a hard day’s work When we moved, she did miss it so much, she left so much behind. We were way out in the mountains, we were real hillbillies, it seems we’d left civilization behind.



You ask how I remember so much, well my Uncle Fred’s wife, Aunt Gertie came out homesteading with us and she’d retell the stories whenever she came to our house. We children would be at her knee begging her to tell another story and she’d tell the stories over and over. The stories a child remembers everything, they were true blue, and they would tell it like it was. So they were repeated a lot. And the more they’d tell the stories the better they got We still have that piano—it’s in my sister’s family, in Montana. It went from Fielding to Whitefish to Kalispell. My nephew and my sister Maxine still play it. Mostly church hymns and children’s songs. —Madeline Bedal

10/20/06 Memoirs with Maureen PIANO Take 2



It was a very special day when the piano arrived. It was in the fall of the year. Granny Armstrong at the railroad station—— she was the sweetest little old lady—we all called her Granny, she was everybody’s grandma—the only grandma I ever knew, One grandmother died, thrown by a horse, and the other lived so many miles away, I never did see her until I was grown up. Grannie Armstrong worked at the depot. We’d have tea parties in the station. She was the information source for everybody. If there was any news, she’d tell us. If there was mail or a Sears-Roebuck catalogue, she’d bring it to us. (We didn’t have a newspaper way out in Fielding). She’d walk from place to place. The railroad tracks were half way up the mountain. She was the doctor, she was the nurse. She brought us the news that the piano had arrived from Chicago. My mother had wanted a piano for so long. My father played by ear, she played by note and they never could get it together to play together.



The piano arrived in Fielding. The freight car was put on the sidetrack and it took all the men at the station to unload it. They put it on a solid wooden slat with rollers. Grandma came down to tell us that while they were unloading it, it got loose and slipped. Down the mountainside it went. The outer crate broke loose. Pieces went flying everywhere but the piano only got a few scratches on it. My father got the wagon and hitched the horses up to it. It was a large upright piano. Not one string broke, The scratches were easily taken care of with furniture polish. They just loaded it onto the wagon. Someone tried the keys and played it while it was down in the valley and it was OK. They put it in the living room. My mother knew it was OK when she heard it. Mother was delighted to get out her sheet music and play. Music was the center of the house. Once and a while the neighbors would come in and gather around the piano and sing. It was the center of our world.

………………………….

One evening we had extra energy, we’d been in all day, we hadn’t been outside because of the weather so my brother and I were both pretty rambunctious. Our mother was sitting at the piano playing soothing music but we wanted to be in there too. When she’d finished playing, we had to get in there and play our tunes—one with two fingers.



We were sitting on the piano stool. Our energy burst loose. My brother gave me a push. I gave him a shove. We were going round and around on that stool. It stopped by turning over and there we were, sprawled out laying on the floor, my brother in one direction and me in another. We began to laugh and laugh and we thought we’d go and play the piano again but the stool kept rolling out of our hands.



Then Mother asked, “Would you like to learn a piece?” It was “Chopstick.” And that was the beginning of our fun on the piano. Oftentimes when we’d come in from playing, we’d look to the piano on that center wall and we’d play many songs round that piano. It was a centerpiece, gathering us in. —Madeline Bedal




I did a lot of walking in our little town. We’d walk and walk. We walked up to Norwood to an old broken down cabin and pick lilacs from the lilac bushes and we supplied all the neighbors with lilacs. We’d walk along the train track to Birnham’s Woods. All the men would gather along the track. There was no fear of danger. They were all looking for work. It was during the Depression. All the Westerners would come east and all the Easterners would come west and meet up there. But there was no work there either. We’d pick blackberries. There were big circles along the tracks made by falling ash and we thought they were fairy rings. Whenever we found one, we’d have to walk around them backwards three times and make a wish. I don’t think our wishes ever came true. In spring we’d always walk to Birnham’s Woods and pick the flowers but they’d be dead by the time we got home. In the winter going the other direction by the river, the pussy willows would grow in the the rocks and we decided that they were Russian castles. I called my cousin Svetlana Tatiana. We got bawled out because we stayed out after dark. We’d sneak up on the farmers with their sleighs and they’d race away because they didn’t want us to get on. I was just in Peterborough with my sister who is 89 but she doesn’t walk much except down by the river, from bench to bench. I walked for miles and miles. If I could walk better today, I’d walk for miles and mile s and be healthier for it. —Beth Spence

One evening we had extra energy, we’d been in all day, we hadn’t been outside because of the weather so my brother and I were both pretty rambunctious. Our mother was sitting at the piano playing soothing music but we wanted to be in there too. When she’d finished playing, we had to get in there and play our tunes—one with two fingers.

We were sitting on the piano stool. Our energy burst loose. My brother gave me a push. I gave him a shove. We were going round and around on that stool. It stopped by turning over and there we were, sprawled out laying on the floor, my brother in one direction and me in another. We began to laugh and laugh and we thought we’d go and play the piano again but the stool kept rolling out of our hands.

Then Mother asked, “Would you like to learn a piece?” It was “Chopstick.” And that was the beginning of our fun on the piano. Oftentimes when we’d come in from playing, we’d look to the piano on that center wall and we’d play many songs round that piano. It was a centerpiece, gathering us in. —Madeline Bedal