It makes me sad.

 As life goes on, so does my memory, which is actually a good thing until it wakes me up in the middle of the night.  Last night I woke up remembering my oldest sister and, of course, Nickerson, Kansas.  I was 15 years old and my sister, Josephine was pregnant.  She had a little girl who was 3 or 4 as I recall.  Her husband was at work in the oil field.  As I recall his shifts were 24 on and 24 off, but that could be just something that came into my head, because I never really paid much attention.

On this particular day I had been sent to stay with her to keep an eye on her daughter, who shall remain nameless for this story.  I liked the little girl so it was no problem to entertain her.  Josephine was another matter.  She stayed in bed and appeared to be in some sort of distress, but how was I to know what was actually happening?  I had no idea where babies came from and was not interested in learning about the birds and the bees at this point in my life.  I was there to entertain my niece, and that was what I was doing.  But Josephine had other ideas.

She called me into the bedroom and told me to take her daughter, my niece, and go get help because the baby was coming.  I grabbed my niece and ran next door to the preachers house.  He called the grocery store and told his wife, who was a nurse, to come home right now.  He assured me it was all under control and that I should take my niece and go to my house where mother was and send her to Josephine.

It was only 3 blocks, but it seemed like it was miles.  I carried my niece most of the way which was not easy as she was heavy for me.  But we made it.  Mom left on foot because we had no car.  To make a long story short, the baby was stillborn.  It was a little boy.  

The next day, Jack Lamb, the mortician, brought a tiny coffin to the house.  He brought it in and set it on the coffee table.  He opened the lid to show us a very tiny little boy wrapped in a soft blue blanket.  His little hand was positioned to hold the blanket closed and I would have thought he was only sleeping had I not known.  That was so sad and a picture in my mind that will never fade.  

Since that time, I have attended many funerals, but I always see that tiny baby in my mind.  I went to visit the Nickerson cemetery several years back and visited the tiny grave of Baby Boy.  He did not have a name, but he will never be forgotten.  Although he never breathed a breath on this side of the veil, he still lives in my mind and my heart.  65 years later he is still in my mind holding his blanket together under his tiny chin.

Some memories never die.

Danny was a horse and baby mice hid in the vacuum cleaner.and a death in the family.

Our floors in the house were wood covered with linoleum so I never did figure out why we had a vacuum cleaner or where it came from.  I do recall that Mother kept it in the corner of her bedroom.  One day and God only knows why, she decided to pull it out and look inside the bag.  Ah!  Mother's  have a way of knowing things that mere mortals do not!  Inside the bag was 7 tiny, pink, hairless mice! She was aghast!  We gathered around and thought they were very cute and they would make lovely pets since we had no dog and Dad never let us have a cat.  This, however, was fuel for the argument that we needed a cat.  If we had a cat the mice would not be ensconced in the vacuum cleaner bag.
(Brief aside here.  We did eventually get a cat, which could not just content her/himself with mice and would eat Mother's Canary while home alone with me!)
But in the meantime we were faced with the 7 tiny mice and no cat.  Mother put them in a can and told us to go out to the front side walk and put the mice down and mash them with a brick.  Now, I hear your intakes of breathe that a mother would direct her young children to do this, but you must remember the times we grew up in.  Mice carried all kinds of diseases and something had to be done with them.  We were given the option of filling a bucket of water and drowning them.  Well, you know what good little kids we were and always did as our parents said.  This time we deviated from our chore by going instead to one of the empty buildings and made a nice nest for our new pets.  When mother asked if we had killed them, we of course lied.  Sadly when we went back to check on the mice several days later the nest was empty.  I think those things grow really fast and they moved on before we changed our minds.
Josphine was the older sister.  She had been born to my Mother and her first husband so was actually my half sister.  I found this all out later in life because it was never discussed at home.  Mom and dad had 6 kids and that was how it was.  We knew Dad had been married before and had 5 kids with his first wife.  Two of the kids, Daisy and Willie (?) had died of sand pneumonia when they were very young.  His wife had also died and he had placed the three boys in an orphanage.  Richard and Earl were adopted, but Gene was not.  What this has to do with anything completely escapes me at the moment!
When we lived on the Stroh place Dad had brought that Shetland pony home for us kids and after he kicked Jake in the head we were all afraid of him.  But Josephine was not.  She would throw a saddle on him and ride away.  She was probably 13 at the time.
Dad got a chance to pick up a brown saddle horse for next to nothing, so he brought Danny home for Josephine.  No one could ride that horse but Josephine.  Well, not that I wanted to any way.  See, my dad was in the  Army during World War I and served in the Calvary part.  He had a big hole in the bicep of his right arm.  He was bitten by a horse and if you think I wanted to be bit by a horse you are nuttier than a fruit cake!  As long as the horses stayed on the other side of the fence, I was good.  Josephine got married when she was 15 and moved with her husband to a house in the country.  She took Danny with her since that was her horse.  I do not think she rode much because she right away had a baby.  I do not know what ever happened to Danny.  I am sure when she and Charles moved into town that he went to one of the neighboring farms.  I did go stay with them sometimes and it seemed that Danny was always getting out of his fence and going visiting so some one always had to go catch him and bring him back.  They may have just quit bringing him back.
Josephine and Charles had a little girl they named Mary.  When I stayed there it was my job to take care of her.  Charles was a "rough neck" which meant he worked in the oil fields. Seems the reason they moved back into town was that Josephine was expecting another baby.  Back in those days things like having of the babies was not discussed.  I knew she was fatter than I thought she should be but did not know the reason.  They moved into a house about 5 blocks from the Strong Street house.  It was located on a corner just past the Baptist Church.  The parsonage for the Baptist Church was on the other side of the church.  I must have been about 15 at the time and so unwise to the ways of the world and where babies came from that I might have been called "stupid".   I remembered Dorothy being born while we were on the Stroh place and how I hated her because Mother had to stay in bed for 10 whole days and take care of the screaming baby.
Anyway, one day I was sent to Josephine's because Charles had to go to work and Josephine did not feel very good and I would need to take care of Mary while Josephine stayed in bed.  To make a long story short, she was in labor at 6 months!  She went to the bathroom a lot and kept crying and I just wanted to go home!  When she announced "The baby is coming!  Do something!  Hurry!"  I did the only thing I knew what to do and that was run to the parsonage and blurt out to the minister what was happening.  He called the grocery store and told his wife, who was a nurse, to get home quick.  It was very clear that he was not going to stay with Josephine and I would have to go back because Mary was there.  I lived 16 lifetimes standing by the front door with Mary waiting for the ministers wife.  When she pulled up outside I grabbed Mary and ran to my house where there was no crying, screaming sister.  
As soon as I blurted out to my mother what was happening she headed to Josephine's.
To make a long story short, the baby was born dead.  For years I lived with the guilt of what I should have done, but in the end there was nothing anyone could have done.  We had the funeral in the front room of thier home.  The funeral home guy brought the baby over in his car with the tiny coffin placed on the back seat.  Baby Boy Burch lay swaddled in a blue blanket with a tiny hand holding the blanket in place.  He looked like he was just sleeping.  That was so sad.
That story always upsets me so that is the end of the writing for today.