After about a year in the new house, my first half-sister was born. She was named Leora Fern. I can remember the excitement of that night. Le Roy, Lois and I were awakened early by some commotion downstairs, but did not leave our bedroom. As the sky slowly lightened, we could make out some strange object beside the house beneath our window. It turned out to be the car of the lady who had come to act as midwife for my mother. When we finally were invited downstairs we were informed that we had a baby sister.

In those days it was customary for a new mother to remain in bed for ten days after delivery. To make things easier and avoid the stairs to the second floor, my mother’s bed had been set up in the parlor. That became the practice for each of the subsequent births.

The births followed each other at approximate two-year intervals. After Leora, Mildred Nan was born. Then came Doris Susanna. She was followed by Lillian Della. Then came the two boys, Thomas Mark and Clifton Gale.

The house was always full and active as the family increased. We shared many activities with the younger ones; especially games like hide and seek. When I wanted to be alone I would sometimes go up into the attic, where Leora was afraid to come, but if the weather permitted, I would usually go off into the woods. Sometimes I would go with Le Roy, but he frequently wanted to be by himself, too.

There was the usual teasing and sibling quarreling, but the family, as a whole, seemed to get along quite well with one another. One of the things that I remember as a family activity that involved us all was the family reading time. We had an Aladdin lamp that we kept working most of the time. Sometimes in the evening after supper, all of us who were old enough to be useful would gather around the table to pick over field beans, or some similar task. The beans, as they came from the barn floor, where they had been flailed out of their shells, would be mixed with small stones, insect damaged pieces, and sometimes pieces of stalk that had not been blown away in the winnowing. Each of us around the table would spread out a big handful of beans and remove all of the foreign or damaged pieces, put the good beans in a bag or pail, and then repeat the process. While this was going on our mother would read to us from some book that we owned or had borrowed. I remember best,” The Song of Hiawatha”. My mother also read “Evangeline” but I don’t remember it as well. Others were the Gene Stratton Porter books and “Little Women”.

By the time my second family became teenagers, I had left to go to school and eventually into the Navy. It does seem that I had quite a few years, however, to play “big mean brother” to a lot of little people.

Paul B. Campbell
January 29.

1995