Not The Way I Want To Go

by Moe O'Brien

I remember Woody Allen saying “I’m not afraid of dying; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”  Like Woody, I have no fear of death, but unlike him I do want to be there.  And, I do have some preferences about the how and where of my demise.  One of my favorite death scenes is on the golf course.  I’ve just hit the longest drive ever, the ball soaring down the middle of the fairway.  I hear myself whisper “Wow,” and then I hear the polite applause of the spectators.  Here’s another one:  my baby puppy girl is smothering me with kisses and I tell her how much I love her. She gives me one more slobbery kiss and I say, “Thank you, good girl.”

Please, don’t think that I am obsessed with death and dying. I am not. It’s just that what happened yesterday got me thinking about how I don’t want to leave this good life.  My doctor ordered an MRI because I had been having some serious back pain.   I do have to mention that I am a bit claustrophobic but I have made it through many an MRI.  I hum and sing right along with the rhythm of the knocking sounds  In fact, I’ve written a few songs while in the tube. 

Yesterday was different.  Kelly, the technician told me that the first part of the test would take about forty minutes.  I don’t know why, but all of a sudden, I decided that more than forty minutes had gone by.  In fact, I was convinced that it has been at least an hour.  Every minute after that felt like ten minutes.  My heart began pumping overtime and the sweat accumulating on my face was dripping down my neck.  The washcloth Kelly had placed over my eyes was supposed to provide comfort.  Instead, it felt like a searing, hot compress.  I considered squeezing the ball she had placed in my hand so that she would come and check on me.  But I didn’t want to stop the test, for fear that I would have to go through it all over again.

 I’ve never had a panic attack before but now looking back, I think I was having one. 

These are the thoughts that were swimming through my head.  What if Kelly has fainted or has had a heart attack?  Will the machine stop by itself or will it keep going and will I then be magnetized to death?    I don’t want to go like this, Dear Lord.

I was reading my obituary “died peacefully in an MRI machine,” when I heard Kelly’s voice.    

“You did very well.  I’m going to bring you out now and we’ll put in the contrast.” She took one look at me and said, “You don’t look very well.  Are you alright?”

“No, I’m not.  I don’t feel well at all.  I was afraid that you had fainted and nobody would come to get me out of here and the machine would go on and on and I would die and this is not the way I want to go and were you back there all by yourself,” I rambled on and couldn’t seem to stop.  She immediately started to douse my face with a cold compress, in an attempt to calm me down.

“Yes, I was running the test by myself.  But I was watching you all the time, dear.  Believe me, you were in no danger. 

“But who was watching you?  Shouldn’t there be two technicians running the test?  I mean what if something happened to you?”

Kelly never did answer that last question but she did allow that there are usually two technicians.  Apparently, someone had called in sick and so they were understaffed.  I was so grateful to be alive that I didn’t demand more answers. 

Lesson learned:  I will never do another MRI unless there are two technicians present.  

 
Maureen “Moe” O’Brien moved from Bethel, CT to Myrtle Beach, SC in 1988.   Her “claim to fame” as she likes to phrase it, is that she played professional basketball, touring with the Harlem Globetrotters in 1959. She is an avid golfer and won the SC Senior Women’s Golf Championship in 1993 and 2004.  Her book “Who’s Got The Ball?  And Other Nagging Questions About Team Life”, was published in 1995.  It is a “how to” book for team members in all work environments.  Maureen is the proud Grandma of eight granddaughters, ranging in age from fifteen to twenty seven.

Dad's Letter: The Last Flight

Captain Ed Kieselbach

There are two stories in this post, maybe more eventually. On the mornnig of August 26, 1944, Captain Ed Kieselbach pulled back on the column and launched his B-24 into the air from the air strip in Italy headed for Romania.His and a group of other bombers were headed for the oil fields near Bucharest.  The plane never made it home. Ed and two others eventually made it back to America.  The rest of the crew found eternal rest beneath the ground in what is today the Republic of Macedonia.  Before Ed's death he penned the following acount of that day to his family.  Captain Kieselbach's daughter, Cindy Kieselbach Dister, has graciously allowed us to publish it..

It turns out that the brother of a woman who regularly writes for The MoreStories Place was on the plane that day.   June Tuthill Bassemir's story about her brother, Bruce Tuthill, was previously published here, but it certainly will come alive even more so when you read it again following The Last Flight by his captain.  But first, Captain Ed Kieselbach.
 

The Last Flight

by Captain Edwin C. Kieselbach

Dear Children: this is an actual experience in the life of your father, grandfather, (great-grandfather) and Uncle Edwin Carl Kieselbach. Captain Edwin C. Kieselbach #076118 USAF assigned to the 15^th Air Force 455^th bomb Group, 732 Squadron, based in Italy near Bari which is near the east coast of Italy. All of this was routine assignment for a pilot during World War II.

Captain Kieselbach, top center, Bruce Tuthill, kneeling, far left.

I had completed 43 combat missions. If you completed 50 combat missions you could be rotated home for a rest. After that you would probably be assigned to duty in the Pacific. Our country was also at war with Japan.

The morning of Aug. 26, 1944 our target was Bucharest, Romania, a marshalling yard “Train Depot”. Oil shipments, munitions, and troops were passing through this location. Our mission was to destroy and harass the enemy.

Take off and assembly went well. Our group consisted of four squadrons with 8-9 planes each. There were about 40 planes that proceeded toward target at an altitude of 22,000 feet. Each plane carried about 6000 lbs (anti personnel bombs).

Enemy anti aircraft fire was heavy although no enemy aircraft were seen. Unfortunately my B24 Bomber the four engine Liberator was struck by anti aircraft fire. The missile was about 18” long and exploded above and below the plane. One engine was damaged. This caused a decrease in airspeed. The rest of my flight proceeded on, leaving my aircraft to become a straggler.

A straggler is considered easy prey by the enemy fighter planes. Soon five ME 109 German fighter planes attacked from directly behind. The first burst of machine gun fire hit the tail gunner. All we heard from was “here they come. I’m hit, I’m hit”. No one could help him. Then the waist gunner was struck. My copilot slumped in his seat and considerable blood flowed from his wounds. He died in his seat. 

 

Enemy machine gun fire penetrated the length of the B24 from the tail coming out the windshield. This fire passed through the Ball Torret gunner’s position. He never made a call through the intercom. We never knew how badly he was injured. The five German fighters each made a run on my B24, rolled over on their backs and dove toward home. My battered B24 was still in the air. I continued to wrestle with too many mechanical problems to relate to you.

The mountains were high and rugged. Mountain tops seemed to be too close. I maneuvered to avoid these mountain heights by flying over valleys, which was unwise. Before long my plane was being blasted by anti aircraft fire. The noise and explosions were very, very awesome and frightening! I could only try to sustain control but soon the plane was spinning out of control. I hit the Alarm Bell. This signals, “Bail Out”. Evidently the top turret gunner went out. I saw his badly battered body later in the day. The other waist gunner was never accounted for. The bombadier, radio operator and I found each other at a prison some days later. 

 

My predicament: the anti aircraft fire blew off the two vertical tail assembly rudders. The B24 started to spin in a flat motion. At this time I was certain life would be all over for me. I do remember thinking. “My Mother will never know where I am.” I made my move. The centrifical force held me as I crawled out of the cock pit, pushed away from the controls pedestal and flopped into the bomb bay. I had already opened these doors when I hit the alarm Bell. I was out on my back, looking up at the belly of the B24. That is how I knew the tail was gone. At that instant I pulled the rip cord on my parachute. With a jolt it opened. Right then tree tops engulfed me. We were instructed to ball up when you hit the trees as you could lose an arm or leg tearing through the branches. Minutes after I thought my end had come I was on the ground. I am not overly religious however I knelt and thanked God for his protection. Just think how close we ALL came to not being on earth. 

 

I was alone. I saw the top turret gunner’s badly bashed body. His chute opened but his body struck the steep mountain side. I was above because exiting the spinning plane I was thrown between the sides of steep mountains. We had been told that in an event such as this we should go higher into the mountains staying away from farms and towns. Soldiers and civilians were out in force looking for the crew of the downed B24.

Hours passed. At one place soldiers came so close I could see their shoe laces. They fired into bushes. The sound of this gun fire was everywhere indicating they were panicky. I went from tree to tree putting my back against a tree or a rock. I was afraid that someone would shoot me from behind. I was armed with standard issue 45 caliber automatic. Suddenly two soldiers confronted me. They jabbed and lunged at me with their bayonets. One put the point against my chest and pushed. The leather of my jacket probably saved me. They were so close I count’s miss. I fired at them. Both went down with loud grunts looking more surprised than in pain. To this day I don’t know if they died or were just wounded. 

I continued to walk up into the mountains but civilians came with shot guns and pitch forks. I hid in a rock crevice and time went by. It was still. It was then I realized that I had been wounded. My back at my left shoulder was sticky. It still has a bothersome feel to it. People with hound dogs on leashes were on my trail. I knew this was it. I called out “Amerikanski” in a low voice so as not to alarm them. They had me. 

 

Kieselbach kneeling, in overseas cap; Tuthill standing far right

I could not understand their language. One man who appeared to be a civilian spoke English. He had lived in Detroit Mich. He said the war was over for me, that I would go to prison, rest and read books. He was very wrong.

Soon the civilians were outnumbered by German and Bulgarian soldiers. The Bulgarians took me prisoner as I was in their country. The Bulgarians are harsh, mountain people with long bushy mustaches. They marched me away. I wondered why they did not disarm me. I still had the 45 cal. Automatic in my shoulder holster. Again I did a dumb thing at a resting place. I thought it wise to surrender my gun. When I pulled it out they shouted and ran around in all directions. Now this was dumb if anyone of them had been front line troops I am sure they would have shot me. But I was wounded, nauseated and feeling lost and scared. I held my weapon by the barrel and waved it at them. Lucky for and you all they understood and accepted my weapon. 

 

On the way to my eventual prison a strange thing happened. Soldiers woke me at night threatening me again with bayonets. They took my watch, etc., led me out of the stockade, marched me ahead of them across a valley of farms. We were halfway across when the station we had been in blew up with a loud bang! Smoke poured up. The guard hastened me onward. I never understood what caused the explosion but the guards did not want to go back. Neither did I. 

 

I spent time in jails and insane asylums until I ended in a prison atop a small mountain. It looked like a stone castle, big wood door and all. The commandant would ride his horse around it every morning in full uniform. He was so proud to have 201 American “gangsters” (that is what they called us) in his charge. We slept on straw with no blankets. Our food was potato soup or bean soup and one small loaf of rye bread each day. We used tin cans for utensils. The camp was near Schumen, Bulgaria close to the Black Sea.

One night we saw flashes in the sky and heard booms. It was canon fire. The next day all the guards were gone. The Russians were coming towards our prison. The Russians were our allies in World War II but we were told not to wait for them to liberate us. It was the practice of the Russians to shoot any people in uniforms that they were not acquainted with. We scattered and were on our own again. 

 

I made my way toward Greece riding a train on a flat car that was strafed by US B51’s. Then on to Turkey, then to Syria hitch hiking on British trucks all the way around the Mediterranian Sea to Cairo, Egypt. Once in Cairo the American ground troops radioed my group in Italy. They sent one of our B24’s to take me back to my home base. They were glad to see me! It was one heck of a party!

It's been reported that the debris field for what might have been Captain Kieselbach's and Bruce Tuthill's plane, has been found near Vratnica.   We'll keep readers posted as that story unfolds.  Meanwhile, here is Bruce's younger sister's account of a terrible day in her life when she found her brother was not coming home.

A Case For Peace

by June Tuthill Bassemir

This is 2009.  Sixty five years ago in 1944 my brother Bruce W. Tuthill gave “the supreme sacrifice”…his life for his Country in WW2.  It was supposed to be the last war.  We lived for about a month with the “Missing in Action” notice until the final dreaded telegram of “Killed in Action” came.  As hard a blow as it was for us to bear, the taxi man who delivered it had just as hard a time.   He tried for as long as he could to delay the news of the delivery.  Mr. Miller was the husband of Bruce’s first grade teacher and his job was to relay these telegrams as they came in to the parents in our small town.  It was a dark day in November when we received the news.  Its devastation is no less potent today than it was then but there are fewer and fewer folks still living to remember him.  Gone are his Mother, Father, his oldest brother; both Grandmothers; the only Grandfather he knew; Uncles and Aunts…. Gone are his two closest buddies; his first girlfriend and his admiring Floridian cousin who thought so much of him that she even named her son - Bruce.

Bruce Tuthill, standing far right

He was born on April 18th 1924 and died twenty years, four months and eight days later – in 1944.  He was very proud of his birthday and never failed to let people know that it was the date of the ride of Paul Revere – no less a hero.  He graduated from H. S. in 1942 and after working at Grumman Aircraft for a short time, he enlisted in the Army Air Corp in 1943.  His basic training was at Camp Upton, NY and from there he went on to Miami FL; Tulsa OK; Las Vegas NM; and Sheffield, TX.  In Tulsa he met “Billy” Emmons, a nice girl whom I am sure he was planning to come home to.

Finally, he was ready to be shipped out and the Army gave him a “Ten Day Delay en Route” to visit the family in the spring of ’44.  The pictures of that time are curled and yellowed now, but oh how the memory lingers.  All four siblings lined up in profile for that picture – from the tallest and oldest brother; then the second oldest brother, then Bruce; then me his only sister.  That day he showed off his bulky brown shiny flight suit and his khaki uniform with the Staff Sgt. Insignia on the sleeve.  At one point he noticed I was wearing the gold plated locket he sent me.  Someone snapped a picture of us just as he said, “Oh… you’re wearing my locket – and my picture is inside”.   I still have that picture with the locket attached to the outside of the frame. 
I look at it and see two young people unaware of the photographer …absorbed in the joy of the moment.

He loved his family and his home town and wrote frequently from the day he enlisted to the bombing days while stationed in Italy. We didn’t know then where he was but afterward we learned that he was part of the bombing raids that targeted the Polesti Oil fields in Poland.  I became the recipient of all his letters and tried to put them in a book but reading them with his hope of what he wanted to do when he came home expressed in all the letters caused my heart strings to stretch and the tears to flow.  I put them aside thinking that time will ease the sorrow.

We now know that Kieselbach saw but couldn't reach the body of top turret gunner Bruce Tuthill.

My life went on; I married; children were born; houses were built; moves were made – and still the letters followed with me.  Now, my oldest son in his 50’s is interested in his Uncle Bruce that he never met.  I dug out the letters to read and to supply the information my son wanted.  What kind of a plane did he fly; what was his position in the plane; did the plane have a name; what was the number of the Bomb Squadron; how many missions did he fly?  I found that even though tears flowed again, the more I read of Bruce’s familiar hand writing, the closer I felt.  He lived in a tent and frequently he would write his letter as “the candle is getting low” or “I’m writing this by flashlight”.  He had adopted a dog, a mutt really, and the guys called him “Elmer”.  Elmer slept with Bruce on his cot. At one point he and his crew went to the Isle of Capri and he thought it was “the most beautiful place he had ever seen”.  When servicemen wrote home they only had to write “Free” where the stamp would be and V-mail was another method of receiving mail.  One sheet of writing was photographed and sent in a small envelope.  While it was good to receive those letters, it was less intimate than a regular hand written one.  Quite often the letters were censored if something was said that would imperil the safety of the soldiers or give information to the enemy.  He said, “After fifty missions, we get to fly to Miami Beach for a 21 day rest”.  I don’t know if that was a rumor or if it was really true.  Fifty was the magic number. - But he was on his 35th mission when his plane was hit.  All but two of the crew was able to parachute to safety but Bruce was not one of them.  He occupied the Top Turret Gunner position on the B-24, having proven himself to be a good marksman.  One of the crew, who lived in Brooklyn, came to visit us after he was sent home.  He told us more than we wanted to know of that last flight.  Too late to stop him, he said my brother’s chute failed to open.

I have come to the end of this writing… my eyes are swollen again but this time it has been comforting to share my brother’s thoughts and activities with my interested son…. sort of a visit with my brother “Bru” and his Uncle.   Maybe some day wars will cease but I doubt it.  There always seems to be another generation in the wings that has not learned that hatred, revenge, envy, greed and fighting only lead to bloodshed and heartache for those left behind.  Of course, they say that WW2 was “an honorable war” but really in the end “honorable” or not, if you have lost a loved one in any war the sadness never really goes away.

          copyright February, 2009, June Tuthill Bassemir

June Tuthill Bassemir is the widowed mother of four and grandmother of 10.  An artist and writer, she  volunteers as a docent in a 1765 farm house.   June loves old cars and antiques, and has also enjoyed furniture stripping and rug hooking.  "I used to say I was a stripper and hooker.but with so many trips around the sun, no one raises an eyebrow anymore. They only laugh."  June has given up furniture stripping, but is still an avid rug hooker.

Summer On The Farm

A note from Delores Miller

Here it is the first of July, 2013 is half gone.  How fast time flies.  Attached is a picture if you can open it of Russell and his garden.  Stakes hold up his climbing peas and pole beans.  The rest is lots of potatoes, carrots, beets, dill, cucumbers, watermelon, zucchini, tomatoes, onions, etc.  With all the hot humid rainy weather, everything is really growing.

Summer on the farm and the hay fields are growing.  Late this year and Russ swathed down two fields, so later in the week, we should be baling.  Even this year, I will try and hoist myself on the Oliver 1650 and run the baler.  Last year, I didn't have the strength, because I was in the midst of chemo treatment for my breast cancer.  I am feeling much better this year.

Russell tends the garden

Even my hair grew back, and I got a curly perm.  Cut the grass every few days, some places had standing water with all the rain. 

Richard and family return from London, England and Wales tomorrow night.  Talked to him briefly and he said everything was going well, had two days of rain and cloudy.  He rented a car, but didn't ask how that was going on the other side of the road from what we are used to driving here in the USA.

Went to the June Dairy Brunch on a big farm one Sunday, lots of good food, many kinds of cheese, scrambled eggs and ham, cinnamon toast, milk, strawberry sundaes, etc.  Thousands of people were there under all the huge tents.  Got my fill of seeing cows, calves and manure.  Nice operation.

Strawberry season locally here in Wisconsin, so good compared to the California berries.  Only last a few weeks.  Made 30 small jars of freezer jam, which will taste so good in winter.  Blueberries, too in the grocery stores, froze 10 pints to make pies in winter too.
 
Father's day was June 18, the children came home and took us out to eat Indian food.  Packed a picnic lunch one day and gave Keith and family the 4 hour Miller Historical tour, where Russ and I grew up.  Took lots of pictures.  Helvetia, Shady Grove School, Symco and it's antique machinery, many cemeteries, the Miller farm, Big Falls, Little Falls, Marion, the Chief Waupaca Indian burial ground, etc.

My 75th birthday was recently, got lots of cards and good wishes.  Where has the time gone?

Went to an old car show, had brats and sauerkraut.  Concert at a church, with a big lunch.  Oh, what busy people we are...

Computer is acting funny, some things disappear, never to show up again. So better quit and 'send'.
  copyright Russell and Delores Miller, 2013

In a Minnesota clime

By Kevin Schmitt

In a Minnesota clime

Where you spend a lot of time

Bending lumbars with the tire testing snow

The hardest thing I've done

Was a T.C. distance run

26.2 damn miles with a friend in tow

He was Irish more than not

From a bloomin crazy lot

Of Leavitts that had moved to Shakopee

He had many skills to show

Many trophies in a row

But he was a little daft as you will see

Gifted student with the books

But he earned some nervous looks

When he bought himself a myth of history

Fast draw holster and a gun

Gave him hours of noisy fun

Till one day he put a bullet above the knee

Never helping to forget

Always teasing you can bet

But what the hell, you gamble when you're free

But a safety tip or two

Helps with hobbies old and new

So I get to keep my limbs while being free.

Kevin Schmitt lives in Minnesota and has been a factory worker for thirty-five years. His hobbies are camping, cross country hiking, kayaking, and playing the Boehm type flute (Irish folk music and marches.) When the weather is too God awful for anything else, he writes and practices a bit of Karate kata. He is not a cool person, and he is aging rather quickly.

Editor's Note:  Kevin has also authored a number of stories and novels, including the well received (and published here)  The Bear and Eagle Affair and Boot Print in Time.

Homing Signals of the Soul

by Sheila O'Handley

Upon returning from a trip, whether short or extended, who among us have not said, “oh, It Is so good to be home.” There is something profound in that saying, as there is also, in the expression, “There’s no place like home.” The word home surely means different things to different people, just as experiences of coming home feel different to different people and feel different at different times during life’s journey. The experience of home and of home coming we can relate to, simply because they are spiritual archetypes of being human. They also have had an important place in mythology, psychology, history, religion, politics, art and literature.

 If we were to push the metaphor of home and home-coming a little further, maybe quite a distance, and ask, what the homing signals of the soul might be, what would they look like, and feel like?  What might the return to the emotional and spiritual aspects of the soul/self look like?  What would the inner voice sound like if you decided to listen and what would you speak to your inner self?   How would you remember, and what would you remember in the return to your soul’s home, your authentic self?

The homing signal of inner quiet, where one experiences  a  dis- ease, not unlike the experience of home sickness, a longing and nostalgia. What is this dis-quiet really saying, what is it about? Often it is prodding us to be real, not who we think we are, and not who others expect or demand us to be. Times of dis-ease often feel like breakdown, and maybe that also has to happen. Breakdowns are in reality breakthroughs.  We discover that the old ways of doing things, of perceiving who we are and in the world, no longer work. What is attempting to be born in the breakthrough is a return to the soul’s home.

Leaving is yet another homing signal. It might be leaving the wasteland of addiction, whatever that might be. Leaving an abusive relationship. Letting go of old habits, beliefs, and attitudes that are no longer useful nor life giving. This homing signal feels like abandonment, falling apart, emptiness, lost, you name it, we all have been there. It signals time for clearing house, assisting one to stand on the edge of a new way of being that is so much more than previously imagined, and poses the question:  ‘Have I got the courage to be, to solitarily stand on my own two feet?’

The self as home also contains those parts of us that Karl Jung referred to as ‘the shadow’. Those parts of who we are, the positive and the negative, the light and the dark which have been consigned to the unconscious, these aspects of ourselves, in some cases, are gold nuggets. The homing signal of reconciling these parts of us call forth from each of us the releasing, refining and befriending the totality of who we are. In essence this homing signal of reconciling is the living of the moral and ethical life. It requires  a life time of attending to this aspect of  coming home to the soul.

Finally, the reality of a possible life- threatening disease or impending death signals the longest stride of the soul we ever embark upon. We hone in on the meaningfulness of life.  What has my life been, for whom, for what ? Am I reconciled with all that has been both within and without, and all that will be in the leaving of the home of my physical existence. We all will be faced with this homing signal, no one escapes.  It is in choosing to live this homing reality that we come to accept, or not, the realization that we are made of spiritual energy, in unity with all, and finally at home with self, others and the Divine. It is the stuff of which we are made. It was from this point of home that we can say that we started and it is at this point that we end up at home.  T.S. Eliot in ‘Little Gidding’ in Four Quartets says it most poignantly: “ We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

copyright 2013, Sheila O'Handley

Sheila O’Handley is a diocesan hermit living at Saint Mary’s Place of Solitude and Prayer in the Codroy Valley in the southwest of Newfoundland.

When a Woman is Left Alone

by June Tuthill Bassemir

When a Woman is Left Alone…
She must learn to……
….Cut the grass;
...Remove the grass clipping from underside the
mower (& which way to tilt it so the carburetor
doesn’t get saturated with oil; or how to clean the
filter if it does get s. w. oil);
....Remove the bees nest inside the attic fan…before
it causes the motor to “freeze”;
....Turn off the water under the sink in case of a leak;
….Clip the bushes when needed;
….Know the difference between a straight screw driver
and a Phillips; (who was that guy anyway?)
….Be aware when the car needs inspection/registration;
….Change a flat tire/or bat her eyes until rescued;
….Clean the gutters five times a year;
….Understand that if she plants ivy it will take over
everything ,,likewise bamboo;
….Locate the fuse box and memorize the number of the
Fire Department.
....Keep a day book to write down the activity of the day;
when she opened a money market account or cashed in
a CD.
....File the name of a good plumber, electrician and tax
expert.....
....Visit a good shopping mall for bargains.

She should know that WD 40 is a woman’s best friend
along with a rubber mallet and screw driver to remove
stubborn screws –or learn to operate a small propane
tank to heat up the screw for easy removal.

If she can learn to do all these things and more, she can
then live alone. But on the other hand if she has a choice
she should be nice to her husband (no matter how long
he’s been there) break up his Shredded Wheat, section
his half of the grapefruit and/or serve other fruit 

every morning....

...with a kiss.

copyright June T. Bassemir, 2013
June Tuthill Bassemir is the widowed mother of four and grandmother of 10.  An artist and writer, she  volunteers as a docent in a 1765 farm house.   June loves old cars and antiques, and has also enjoyed furniture stripping and rug hooking.  "I used to say I was a stripper and hooker.but with so many trips around the sun, no one raises an eyebrow anymore. They only laugh."  June has given up furniture stripping, but is still an avid rug hooker.

On Being a Maid

by Delores Miller

A best selling novel a few years ago was 'The Help' by Kathryn Stockett about the 1960s as colored maids in Mississippi.  Read it if you can.

So lets go back to the summer of 1955.  Time for me to find a job, between my Junior and Senior years of Marion High School. 

After the fiasco of the summer of 1954 and being a hired girl, I was looking for greener pastures and easier work.  Again I did not want to pick pickles the usual cash crop in Wisconsin.   

My Aunt Alma, after World War Two found employment as a live-in maid for a rich widow in Neenah on Lake Winnebago.  This area was a snaggle of paper mills, thus rich widows with  mansions.   She found me employment  as a domestic summer help.  Armed with my Betty Crocker Cookbook, and bluffing my way through the interview bragging of all the food I made the summer before as a hired girl.  The Missus hired me, no one else applied.   White uniform during the day, black for evening serving. Pay was $16 a week.  Big money in those days.

Easy job, cooking three meals a day, all served on good china in the dining room.  Learned to make fancy foods, i.e. lime and cheese souffles, salads, steak, hors d'oeuvre, deviled eggs, creme brulee, melon ball fruit cups, tomato flowers with cottage cheese and Pepperridge Farm  toast tips, appetizers, canapes, molded tomato aspic, borscht or beet soup with sour cream, dried beef rolls, popovers, Yorkshire pudding, baked Alaska, Schaum torte with fresh strawberries, cream puffs, chocolate eclairs, key lime pie, omelets,  English Muffins with orange marmalade, eggs Benedict with Hollandaise sauce, clam chowder,  lamb chops, fresh fruit, etc.  All made from scratch.  Each morning the Missus wrote out the  menu, called in the grocery order to a store which delivered.  I could order what ever I wanted to eat, too. (I gained weight that summer.)  Dinner parties for her rich friends. Cocktail hour before dinner, a full  hard liqueur cabinet, gin, rum, vodka, whiskey, brandy, bourbon, grenadine, tonic, bitters, vermouth.  Bartender made martinis, daiquiris, Manhattens, Margaritas, Pina Colada, Bloody Marys, wine.   Nothing so common as beer or diet soda.   I never sampled.  Then came dinner.  Salad, soup, overcooked vegetables, usually asparagus,  main meat course, dessert, coffee.  Serving from the left, removing dirty dishes from the right.  Finger bowls to wash dirty hands. Candles.   Cloth napkins, lace table clothes.   Tinkling silver bell summonded me back  to the dining room for more service.  Faux pas, I once took the aluminum  soup kettle to the dining room, when I should have taken her bowl to the kitchen.   No microwave or dish washer.  Polishing the  candelabras and silverware. The Missus was gallivanting often, even out of state and  left me in charge of the house.  How did she trust me not to steal the silver or have wild parties?

My own bedroom with bath and shower.  This was a big deal for someone straight off the farm.  Granted it was next to the laundry room with an automatic washer and dryer.   What luxury.  Lake flies plagued anyone outdoors, so thick, one could not open their mouth, or they would get a meal.    Mosquitoes.   Watching the sunrise over Lake Winnebago with sail boats on the horizon, beautiful.   No television, but a radio where I could listen to all the Milwaukee Brave Baseball Games and best of all - a library filled with books, novels, non fiction.  A 1936 Roget's Thesaurus and a 1929 Funk & Wagnallis Dictionary.  And I read them all.  And a typewriter so I could  write tales and memoirs of my adventures.  Daily newspaper.  Smallish house compared to the big mansions further up town.  A gardener, cleaning lady, laundress. 

Became friends with the other maids and nannies.  We had Thursday and Sunday afternoons free for movies or shopping.  Playing badminton at a nearby park.  Polio  or infantile paralysis epidemic that summer of 1955, swimming pools were closed, quarantined.  Many people died.  Was not in the same league with other neighboring teenagers, debutantes who were presented to High Society  at a ball at the Golf Club.

Oh, what I learned that summer being a MAID, grew up and saw the 'big' picture of life.  Observed  how people in the big city lived and work.

Went back to Marion for my Senior year of high school, graduated, kicked up my heels, shook off the dust and manure and left the area forever.  Enough of picking pickles, being a Hired Girl and a Maid.

Two roads diverged on a highway,

And sorry I could not travel both.

I took the one more traveled

And that has made all the difference.

What do teenagers now in 2013 do to earn money?

Copyright Russell and Delores Miller, 2013