| Blencowe Families' Association Newsletter | Volume 9 Number 4 December 1994 |
We were back in school in Granite another winter. Christmas was always a special time. We'd go with Papa to cut the tree. It was always large and beautiful. We trimmed it with strings of popcorn and cranberries and little things we'd make.
We had stockings with an orange and apple and usually some nuts in it too. Besides the stocking, we each got one gift One year, when we were quite small, Bessie kept saying to me, "if you could have a baby cradle or a bed with springs, which would you want?", then she'd say, "Oh, a bed would be so nice, wouldn't it?" All the time she knew what we were getting, as she had found them. She wanted the cradle so badly that it was hardly mentioned, and I kept seeing, as she wanted me to, what a lovely gift the bed would be. Come Christmas and sure enough, the bed was mine and cradle hers. Later, I learned how she kept telling Mama she would love to have a cradle for her doll.
Then I remember the Christmas that we all three got ice skates. We really were thrilled and went ice skating often on the Arkansas River that ran through Granite. Sometimes, my brother and I would cut a hole in the ice and fish. We would catch some nice fish that way.
One year, I remember getting a box with four dolls, each about six inches tall. They were of different nationalities. I thought it was a great gift.
We left Granite in the early spring on the day I was 13 years old, March 16, 1910. School wasn't out yet, and we planned to go back to Kansas. We stopped in Denver for a short time, and finally ended up in Kanarado, Kansas where we lived on a part farm and part ranch, where there was a lot of cattle, My brother and I did a lot of picking up cow chips for the cook stove there. We had'nt done that before, as we were too young for the job when we lived on the prairie before, but it wasn't a bad chore really. We wore gloves and carried the chips in gunny sacks. They make a good fire and Mama cooked many good meals with them as fuel.
Table of Contents
Blencowe Families' Association Home Page
updated: 18 January 2003