the homesteaders daughter: One afternoon in 1948

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

A Semi in the House??

Earthquakes are not a common occurrence in the Pacific Northwest, but they do happen.. In nineteen-forty-eight we had a big one.

My mother was gone for the day and I was taking care of my 2-year-old brother. I was 17 at the time. We were in the kitchen having lunch when it started. Our old house began to creak and shudder, then the floor seemed to shift slightly. For a moment I was frozen to my chair, then I looked at my little brother and realized I had to get him out of the rickety building.

Grabbing the baby, highchair and all, I ran for the back door. Down the stairs I dashed, doing my best to handle the cumbersome chair. The Earth was moving like a sluggish sea. Trees were waving crazily and the telephone poles were leaning, first one way, then another. I was terrified, but managed to get the little guy out of the chair.

Flopping to the ground, I made an arch of my body over my brother in case something fell on us. There was a cacophony of sound around us; horns honking, people yelling, and finally the ground beneath us stopped that awful undulation. It was over.

During all of this commotion my brother hadn't made a sound. I carried him back into the house and sat down on the couch, rocking him back and forth. After a few minutes I stopped rocking and looked down at him, concerned because he was so quiet. His eyes were opened wide with uncertainty, as he said, rather tremulously, "Dat was a big twuck."

A Little bit about the grandparents

I consider myself blessed to have known my paternal great-grandparents. Allie and Knapp were a couple straight out of "Little House on the Prairie. They lost a child while still in Kansas and soon after traveled to Washington state where they homesteaded a goodly piece of land and proceeded to build a beautiful farm where the flowers bloomed with abundance to match the fruit of the orchard and the fields of grain.

Their second son, Glenn married Pearl, had a son by her but she gave her life to bring him forth. She died when her baby son, Lloyd, was born. The grandparents raised the boy while Glennn married a young woman named Beulah. They had two boys, but grandson, Lloyd stayed on with them . when he was 8 years-old his father, Glenn was killed by a truck load of logs that rolled off a train and crushed him to pieces.

Their lives seemed one long tragedy, yet love was more alive there than most any other place I have ever been. My father, Lloyd married Maudie Clark and I was their first child, born in our own little house on the Moore property. How could anything so right go so terribly wrong??

By the time I came along the grandparents were in their 80's and life happened. My parents divorced and though I stauyd mainly with my mother I spent a great deal of time with my dad and Grandpa and Grandma on the farm...or what was left of it by this time.

There never was running water in the, "big" house or an inside toilet and only limited electricity.

On most days Grandma sat in the parlor in her rocker in front of a standing radio and two windows where the honeysuckle smiled- in during the summer months; the Bible at her side.

The kitchen floor sank in a little and the oil-cloth on the big square table
was worn from the meals that had been served there. A kerosene lamp stood there also and somehow it always smelled like apple pie.

My grandma was just under 5 feet tall, with grey hair pulled back in a bun and little tiny feet. She could not see well and wore thick glasses, maybe not a pretty picture to anyone else but a matchless queen to me, and whenever she asked me to go to her closet and bring a certain box to her side I knew I was about to see wonderous things or to hear grand stories

My family's history was in those boxes and over the few years that I had my dear great-grandparents I learned who I was. Grandpa had his tales to tell also. One such story was the one about a horse kicking him in the chest and he DID seems to have a hoof print in that spot.

Grandpa chewed...tobacco that is... and watching him bite off a chunk of the rich chocolate colored stuff was very tempting. My mother told me that when she was expecting me she was so overcome with temptation that she snuck a piece of the tobacco when Grandpa wasn't looking and had her chew...and spent some time with her head hanging over the dandelion field behind the house.

Grandpa Knapp was an unusual fella. Once a year the grandparents house was scrubbed inside with calsomine, a white paint-like substance. He had to walk to the paint store which was a good 5 miles one way. His walks were going to become a problem later on after Grandma was gone but that will have to come later.