From the moment we pulled into to town, the people were
amazing. Neighbors came and introduced themselves and eventually we began to
know a few people around town as well. These were country, down-to-earth,
God-loving people who were always ready to lend a hand. They were farmers whether
they lived in town or not. Many were elderly; most were elderly. The majority
of the little town’s population was elderly as more and more the young folks
left for the cities to find work or to live a life differently than what their
families had lived. Some wanted to escape the hardship of country life yet in
their escape they were truly leaving behind some of life’s simplest pleasures.
Not remembering who came first but in meeting our immediate
neighbors, there was Sue, an in-town farmer’s wife who raised a family of nine.
Her husband farmed for others, paid a portion of the crop and kept some for his
family. Sue was an avid gardener herself and her garden looked more like a
professionally farmed square of land. She would be out in the Missouri black dirt, sometimes near
knee-deep as her bare feet sank in the dirty black mud while she worked,
weeding and nurturing her crops that would help to feed her family each year.
Sue told us that she too was from California
(convinced as was everyone else that we were from California) and this seemed to increase her
affection for us. She would reminisce about her days growing up in a town near
the Redwoods with a slight longing in her eye that expressed that she had not
returned home in a long while. She was in her fifties with only two children
left at home, one of which was a boy just a little older that my oldest son and
the two immediately became best friends, they were inseparable.
Sue was always there to visit with and she stopped over regularly
to bring us some of whatever she had extra. She also never failed to invite us
to Sunday service or an occasional church picnic.
Then there was Wanda. Wanda was about ninety. She and her
husband had owned a farm outside of town and when he passed away she had moved
into town for convenience and bought a nice little house. The woman could work
circles around me. I was thirty, she was ninety. She still drove and her car
was a turquoise fifties model, maybe a Ford, still in mint condition. She and
her husband had bought it new. It shone in the driveway outdoing anything else
parked in the neighborhood.
Wanda would visit with us a lot in the yard because she
lived right across the street so we saw her frequently. Some days she would
come in and we would have a cup of tea. Other times I visited with her in her
home. She was a character and pretty much had an answer for anything you wanted
to know, or at least an opinion, she was strong-minded and determined (probably
the reason she had lived so long, that and good fresh farm food). She was a
stickler for watering the yard and I must say her yard was immaculate. Green and lush with flowers in every corner, by the
road, in containers. “Always water in the morning,” she said, “nobody should
have to go to bed with their feet wet.” She pulled, weeded, hoed, shoveled,
watered, transplanted, dead-headed, all day every day. If you didn’t see Wanda
in the yard then something was wrong and there would be cause for concern. Other
days you would see her in her big old car heading down to the little grocer.
Wanda got around. She rarely showed emotion but she was extremely fond of the
kids though she was stern about it. In winters she would hire my oldest boy to
shovel and clear her drive or to help her around the yard in the summer. She
almost always had a trinket for me or the babies.
Then there was Ruth. Ruth lived up on the corner and was in
her late eighties. Ruth also could work circles around me and possibly around
Wanda. It was common place in the spring and summer to see her out with her
push-plow plowing her garden. She would be adorned and covered in an old-timey
bonnet that was no doubt a hundred years old. She was short and a little stocky
with a dowager’s hump, so there she would be, bent over nearly parallel to the
ground but holding up that plow. Most of the neighbors used power plows but
not Ruth, she was old-school.
Ruth would have us over and when we visited Ruth there was a
more formal air. Her house was nicer than the others, it was big and rambling
and in near perfect condition for its age. An old two-story with a barn shape,
original wood trim and beautiful molding, French doors, a formal living room,
out-buildings, a lovely old kitchen, herb garden, pathways, and though formal
still a very homey feel. We would dress up a little, just a little, to visit
Ruth and I would force my husband into a white shirt (which he did not like to
do but was willing for Ruth). Ruth was very moral, very old-fashioned. It was
kind of like visiting with one of the Baldwin
sisters from the Waltons; it just had that feel. Ruth also was widowed and had
a son who visited on occasion from Colorado.
He was a nice man and treated his mother well when he was in town but that was
only on occasion and otherwise Ruth just didn’t have anyone much to visit with
so we spent time with her when we could. She loved the babies too.
The neighbor woman we became the closest to though was Patsy
and also her husband, Roy. They were catty-cornered to us. They had also been
farmers, moved into town. Roy’s
health was deteriorating with emphysema and he was a Korean War Vet as
well. Patsy would hire my husband to do
odd-jobs for her around the house or yard. Once he was painting the exterior of
their house and was stung by a bee. We did not know he was allergic but we
found out quick! His chest swelled up, he could barely breath and it was
fearful for a time that he was going to make it. He refused any trip to the
doctor because that’s how my stubborn husband is and after a few days in bed,
he returned to his healthy self. Though he continued to help Patsy, I do not
recall that he painted for her any more, at least not near that particular
bush.
Bees were crazy there. Once we came out onto the old
wrap-around porch and there was a hive of bees hanging from the roof of it but
they had no hive, they were just all together by the thousands, suspended in
the air. Then it began moving. We did not know what to do so my husband went
over to ask Roy.
Roy said they
had lost their hive and they were traveling to find another place to build. So
we let them be (no pun intended) and the next morning they were gone. It was a
sight I had never seen and don’t care to again. I was just glad that nothing
set them off while they were passing through.
Patsy loved the kids, all of them. She came over to visit a
lot. Sometimes I got the feeling she was just coming to see if I was alright or
if I needed anything. She had three daughters and a son so she had a strong
mother’s sense. I think she picked up on our struggles, our hard times as
newlyweds (maybe even heard some of our arguing as all new couples do), or
maybe she just knew in ways that I needed a mom and I didn’t have one. Someone
to coo and guide, to share wisdom and advice or just a cup of hot cocoa. She
sewed clothes for my baby girl. She kept an eye on our house when we weren’t
home. No one locked their doors in our town, there was no need. The only key we
had to the house was one old skeleton key that fit all the locks. But Patsy kept
an eye out anyway as all good neighbors do and she was about the best neighbor
anybody could ask for.
Eventually, Roy’s
health took him away. It was a cold winter day and we had no sitter to attend
the funeral so we kept my oldest boy home and told him he was going to have to
do it. He was in the third grade and had never stayed with the babies. But he
did well so that we could pay our last respects to Roy and be there for Patsy and her family. It
was a military funeral and she was given the flag. It was a cold, blustery
winter Missouri
day and a hard one to get through. We were only gone an hour and the kids did
fine. Not too long after that we found a local girl to sit when we needed to
leave. It was hard on Patsy losing Roy
and I don’t think she ever quite recovered. We gave her space and in time she
came around again but by then her only son had moved back home along with his
troubles and it was yet another break on an already broken heart. That spark in
her eye was gone and it had left with Roy.
There were also some younger neighbors. There was Bonnie and
Hank behind us in a mobile home. Local kids who married young and had stayed.
Early twenties, maybe. They had one baby, a toddler. They liked us but they
didn’t like us. I think we bugged them for some reason. Maybe just because we
were outsiders, they weren’t as accepting as the old folks were. They started
out trying to be friendly and pretty much invited themselves over for dinner
one night. So I set dinner on my grandmother’s cherry wood table in the formal
dining room. They came; we visited, chatting politely while all the time I
could feel their eyes stealing glances around; at our things, at our life.
Books on the shelves with titles like Music Therapy, Carl Jung, The Once and
Future King, The Hobbit. Guitars and keyboards, recording equipment, and my
husband’s prized bull head which he had painted after he found it in the desert
on one of his sojourns for truth, from it hanging all sorts of his spiritual
paraphernalia like feathers and necklaces that represented his part native heritage.
Hank was just a farm boy who married too young. He went deer
hunting to feed his family. He worked at the local mill. He drove a beat up old
pickup. Bonnie had been pretty in a plain way probably before her child (back
when they were high school sweethearts) but had never lost the weight. Later
though, she became committed and did lose the weight as she began walking miles
each day, taking the baby with her in the stroller, all the way out on the
highway and before long she was hard to recognize as the same Bonnie. She lost,
toned and trimmed to a new look and with her new look came a frostier person.
They still tried to be friendly though.
When our son was born, we had no one to keep our daughter.
My older boy was back with his dad at the time so he was taken care of but
there was no one to keep our daughter so my husband could come to the hospital.
Out of desperation, we asked Bonnie during my frantic breaking of the water.
She agreed but said she had to work so our daughter would have to go to day
care with her son. We had no choice but to agree. Our daughter was taken to
Bonnie and I was taken to a town forty-some miles away to the hospital. The
arrangement was for our daughter to stay overnight with them. It was a
disaster. Our baby girl had never been with anyone else, we had never left her
with anyone. She cried and cried and could not be quieted. The day care had to
call Bonnie to leave work to come and get her. Bonnie was not happy about this.
The next morning, my husband brought our daughter to the hospital with him
until he brought me and our son back home.
Oddly though a couple weeks later on our daughter’s first
birthday, Bonnie asked if she could give her a party. Now I did not want this
because it was her first birthday and I wanted to do her birthday. I already
did not like Bonnie and the relationship was becoming more and more tense however
I felt I could not refuse and offend her so we let her give the party. It was
simply their baby and ours but she had a little cake and whatever else she had
done. It turned out that while we were there, our daughter took her first
steps. I was happy she had walked but not happy that it had been at Bonnie’s
house. I was jealous I suppose. I felt like we were having to share precious
time with someone who didn’t really like us and I never was sure why she
offered the party.
As time passed, we spoke with Bonnie and Hank less and less.
She did invite us one evening out to her father’s house in the country. I loved
the house, it was completely rustic, full of wood-crafting which he did as a
hobby, rocks he had hounded, feathers, all sorts of nature in the decor. Bonnie
didn’t seem to close with her father; she had said he was a harsh man and would
never allow her to cry. But country people can be harsh; they had to be to
survive. Girls had to be tough to make it. And Bonnie was tough. She was one of
those types I would have avoided in school for fear she would have beat the
crap out of me.
After that, we rarely spoke anymore. Hank would drive by and
pretend to wave. We jokingly wondered if he was waving or simply swatting a fly
at his ear as he went by. It was hard to tell and he was a shy kid of few words
anyway. We never fit in with Bonnie and Hank and we never would have. We
suspected they thought us too different. I suspected Bonnie might have had a
hint of jealousy. Hank may have been offended because my husband didn’t deer
hunt, who knew. We could only speculate.
There were others nearby as well. There was Russ the
preacher and a deputy, Ken a disabled trucker also a preacher. There were Mr.
and Mrs. Oldham who were a sweet old retired couple across the street. He would
visit outdoors with my husband a lot, mostly yard talk. He did though crochet,
and I thought it strange that a man would crochet but I had never really
thought that there might be men who would crochet. He said his mother had
taught him and he enjoyed making things for his grandchildren. He always waved
when he would putt by in his little red truck.
Those were the folks we came to know well just as neighbors
and all proved to be fine people, Bonnie and Hank aside, but the real measure
was when our youngest son was born,
When we moved to the country house, I was due to deliver
that fall, in October. We had at least met most of the closer neighbors by then
but the response of the people in town was simply overwhelming. This was a tiny
town of only a little over three-hundred people, this was the country, and
these were giving people. When our son was born, they came out of the woodwork.
I had only just gotten out of the car with the baby as my husband was helping
us in and they began to come. Some we knew, some we didn’t. But they had heard
about the baby and wanted to bring something by. They had been waiting to see
us pull up in front of the house. I recall Wanda was the first over with a
handmade baby quilt and some toys. The quilt was beautifully stitched and in
light yellow colors of patchwork. The toys, I cannot help but laugh, one was a
dog chew toy, but I just thanked her and laughingly showed it later to my
husband. Bless her heart, she meant well. Others came with food; covered dishes
so I wouldn’t have to prepare a meal, cakes, and all sorts of food. One woman
in a wheelchair sent for my husband to come to her house and we barely knew her
and she gave us cash. Others brought diapers. People we didn’t even know were
just showing up with gifts. It was the biggest outpouring of love that we had
ever experienced. Their generosity and true caring was simply beyond words. We
had been accepted as one of them; we had been welcomed into the community,
though of course, we were still the people from California, we were also a welcomed family
into their community, their lives, and their homes. It was a very warm feeling.
copyright Cheryl Bruedigam 2016
