Intro to Geography
Intro to Geography
Grandpa’s Farm in Williamsfield, OH
Wanda, Her Calf, and Me.
Summer 1942
It is late Summer 1942, and I am almost four years old. We are moving from Grandpa Woody’s farm in Williamsfield in Ashtabula County, Ohio, to a farm in New Milford, Connecticut. It is a long way.
Daddy got up really early this morning to milk Chief Ann and Queen Bess, our Brown Swiss cows. He loaded them into the big Mayflower moving van. Some Jerseys are in there, too. Our things are in the smaller gray van. It’s still dark outside and we are in the car waiting for Daddy to finish tying the cows to the wall of the van.
Mommy is in the front seat and my sister, Wanda, and I are in the back. She is eight years older than I am and will go into the seventh grade in her new school.
We wait and wait. It is starting to get just a little bit light outside.
Daddy sticks his head in the window and says, “Is everybody ready?”
Mommy says, “No, we’re Reddy’s brother!” and we all laugh-- like always.
Daddy hops in, pushes the starter button, and says, “Let’s go.”
I look out the back window at my swing on the big tree in the front yard, and wonder where I will play when I can’t play there anymore. Up the hill, near the house I see a box with my sand pail and shovel and crepe paper doll sticking out.
“Wait! We forgot something!”
“Never mind,” Daddy says, and our car follows the two vans up the Creek Road. “How’s Daddy’s Bad Boy doing back there?”
Daddy always calls me his Bad Boy, even though I’m a girl.
“Ok,” I answer, wondering why he isn’t going back to get my box.
He starts, “You are my Sunshine, my only Sunshine,” and we all sing together.
“Church in the Wildwood!” I call out when we’re done.
“OK,” Daddy says, and he starts his part, “Oh, oh come-come-come-come,” and we all get ready to start at the right time for “Come to the church in the wildwood, oh, come to the church in the dale…”
Sometimes it’s “dale” and sometimes it’s “vale,” and I never know which.
“Wanda, look at these signs,” Mommy says, pointing at a small sign on her side of the road. It was a post with a dark red board fastened to it. The board had two words painted on it.
Mommy, Daddy, and Wanda read the words together out loud:
The cream…
“Quick, here’s the next one!” Mommy says, and they all read the next sign and then all the others as we pass them.
Preserves…
Pa’s razor blade…
The jar…
Preserves…
Ma’s marmalade…
Burma Shave
Mommy, Daddy, and Wanda all laugh.
*
“Look, Honey,” Mommy says to me.
“What?”
“See that big sign? It says we’re Entering Pennsylvania—a whole new state!”
“Take a deep breath,” Daddy says. “Doesn’t the air feel different?”
We all take a deep breath and say the air feels a lot different in Pennsylvania.
We sing The Old Oaken Bucket and I learn all the words to On the Good Ship Lollipop. That one is Wanda’s favorite because of Shirley Temple.
“Look, here come some more,” Daddy says.
Riot at…
Drug Store…
Calling all cars…
100 customers…
99 jars…
Burma Shave
They laugh again, and I laugh, too, this time.
When we get to the big sign that says New York we say the air feels different again.
“Look, Honey,” Wanda says to me. “There’s a sign for Marietta—but it’s not where Mommy went to college.”
“No,” Mommy says, “My Marietta is in Ohio.”
“Look,” Daddy says,“We could go to Towanda. Wanda, do you wanta go to Towanda?”
“No!,” she says, really loud.
“Why not? Why doesn’t Wanda wanta go to Towanda?”
And we laugh and tease her for a long time, and she gets mad and cries just like she does when we tease her about burning the carrots.
At milking time, we stop near a lake and have peanut butter and apple cider jelly sandwiches. Daddy opens the big van and goes in and milks Chief Ann and Queen Bess. We drink some of it and pour the rest into the water.
“Imagine,” Mommy says, “we poured Chief Ann’s milk into the Finger Lakes! I hope nobody will mind… Oh, Amaray, look at you! Come here and let me wash your face. You look like a ragamuffin!”
She takes her hanky out of her dress pocket and spits on it and wipes off my milk mustache and the jelly on my cheek. I have to let her do it, but I don’t like it.
Daddy and the two men open the road map and lay it out on the hood of the car and talk for a while. Then Daddy folds up the map and the men go back to their vans.
When we get back in the car, Wanda puts her arm around me, and I hug Teddy Bear and go to sleep.
*
I wake up when Mommy says, “We’re coming to the capitol of New York.”
“What’s a capitol?” I ask, climbing up on my knees to see out the back window.
“Well, our country has a capitol and that’s Washington, DC, and every state has a capitol. New York’s is Albany. Maybe we’ll see the capitol building.”
“Oh.”
Then Wanda starts her 4-H song, “Oh, what did Dela ware boys, oh, what did Dela ware?”
And we answer, “She wore her New Jersey, boys; she wore her New Jersey!”
And when we finish all the states we can think of, we sing, “I’m a hayseed, my hair is seaweed, and my ears are made of leather and they flap in windy weather, gosh oh gumdrop, I’m tough as a pine knot—I’m a kid from 4-H camp.”
Daddy and I call Wanda “windy Wanda” like we always do when we sing that song, and she gets so mad she cries again. She gets big red spots all over her face when she cries. So do I, but her spots are bigger.
“Take a deep breath,” says Mommy. We’re coming to Mass-a-chu-setts, and the Berkshire Mountains. We’re in New England!”
There are a lot of hills in New England, and every time we go up over one and down again, I feel funny in my tummy.
“Oooooooh,” I giggle, and Mommy and Daddy do it, too.
Not Wanda. The hills make her sick to her stomach. Mommy gives her the pillow to hug.
“Here comes our new state,” Mommy calls out when she sees the sign for Con-nect-icut. “Ok, honey, how many different states have we been in today?”
“Penn-syl-van-ia, New York, Mass-a-chu-setts, and Co-nnect-i-cut! That’s four!”
“Uh-uh, you missed one,” says Daddy.
Wanda whispers, “Ohio,” to me.
“Oh, Ohio!” I giggle. That’s five!”
*
When Mommy wakes Wanda and me up, it is dark outside.
“We’re here,” she says. “This is our new farm.”
The 1936 Buick 2-door sedan that got us from Grandpa Woody’s farm in Williamsfield, Ohio, to the farm in New Milford, Connecticut.
My Tree, My Swing, My Teeter-totter, and Me.
Late Fall, 1942
The men open the gray van and carry the beds to our rooms. We get blankets and pillows out of the boxes and go to sleep without even putting sheets on.
*
In the morning, the men unload everything and put the cows in the barn. Daddy says he’s going to hang my new swing here in the side yard. This tree is even bigger than my old one.
I’m going to like it here.
Sunday Morning at the Farm in New Milford, CT
Late Summer, 1942
The Farmall Tractor
Daddy, Mommy, Wanda, and Me.