words to live by - margaret frese

a few weeks ago i wrote my grandmother a letter. in this letter i explained the manner in which Bob and I were living. yesterday i received a letter back and was amazed at what i read....below is an snippet:

" You are living exactly like I did as I was growing up - Except we did have a house - It probably wasn't any warmer than your van - since there was no insulation in those old houses. No bathroom. We had to go to the "outhouse" which was away from the house. And in bad weather & winter snow + cold, it seemed like 2 miles and you almost forgot what you went there for. ha ha ha - And we carried a lantern along too. Then after you were finished - the Montgomery - Ward Catalog pages finished the "job". Oh yeah - twasn't great. No heat in our upstairs bedroom. The windows were completely covered with frost, and the top of the wool comforter was frozen from"your" breath. Those beds were so cold when you first crawled in - awful. We took irons off the heating stove to help warm up.

When we took a bath, 2 times a week, it was the wash basin behind the heating stove, with everyone else around the kitchen table, the door shut and Dad sitting on the edge of the table nearest to the door - Oh yes - I know how you are living, only it's the two of you. Multiply that by 6 children + mom/dad - we never thought there was any other way.

My job every night after school was to clean the lamp(s) chimney. Sometimes it was the only one on kitchen table - other times maybe 3. We were never permitted to touch a burning lamp until we were adults. I remember exactly the first time I carried a burning lamp. I was almost 18. It was April 1939, I would turn 18 in June that year. I got to take the lamp up to our room to change clothes for a "date" that night, with Grandpa's cousin - Paul Frese. Nothing easy back then...and we were never permitted to wear shoes/slippers when going up or down steps. to dangerous.

I never ever thought one of my grandchildren would be living like i did as a child. Grandpa also had it rough, tho, his folks had electricity by the time he was 3 years old. So that makes everything easier.

Now if you two had 4 or 5 children, you could know how hard my folks had to work. My mom baked 8 loaves of bread every 3rd day, using corn cobs heating the oven. She knew how many cobs to keep oven at 350* (no thermometer either)

p.s. If you want to remember how i grew up, keep these pages as i won't rewrite it all again. "

God Bless