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Memories of Golde Dicks Markham (1996) Golde Markham Dicks 17/125

had four round holes sawed out in the center of the two boards where they were put to­

gether. No modem toilet paper then. We used outdated Sears-Roebuck catalogues or even
corncobs. Not many newspapers then—so we used what we had.

The nearest store to us was located in either Watertown or Lake City. Watertown had

a big commissary store which sold groceries and fruit such as apples, oranges, and bananas
plus ready-made clothing, bolts of materials, hardware, tobacco, and snuff. The commissary

used token coins for money. I don’t know whether or not the sawmill owners paid their
employees with these tokens to force them to buy from their store. And I don’t know how
people got the metal tokens, but I managed to save one all these years.
The lumber company owned a bank in Watertown. Grandpa Dicks lost all of his

savings when it went bankrupt. I never knew how much he lost because I was pretty young.
We would drive to the commissary to buy a block of ice because there was no refrig­
eration in the early 1900s. Pa put the ice into a burlap bag and shoveled sawdust around all

of it. But it would be half melted by the time we reached home. After Pa got his old Ford, he
would pick up the ice just before going home.
Back at the house, he dug a hole in the smokehouse using a post hole digger and lay

the block of ice in the hole. The next day, if we were lucky enough to have a big chunk of ice
left, he would make a chum of ice cream—a treat good enough for a king and queen!

A few years later, Pa got called to pastor the little church in Watertown. The lumber
mill was just about closed down when he was called to preach there. We got to know many
families there—the Wheelers, Pauls, Lakes, Rawls, and Tutens.

We enjoyed some joyful Christmases when Pa was pastor at the Watertown Church.
About three or four nights before Christmas Eve, people from the church would drive out to
our house and' give us a shower. They gave Pa and Ma a little donation of money, candy, and

fruit. Those were bountiful gifts considering that at that time country folks didn’t have any
more than we had. This was the only time I had enough bananas to fill me to capacity. Ma
always had enough to make banana pudding.

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