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Memories of Golde Dicks Markham (1996) Golde Markham Dicks 46/125

was always good to have a change of meat from that old sow belly. We had more birds than
a hunter would kill in a whole season. No laws for trapping or hunting back then.

Ma used all sorts of tricks on us kids. She would tell me to bring in stove wood until I
filled the woodbox. My arms would be full of wood that I had gotten from1 the woodpile.
She looked down at me and smiled, “My, you can bring so much wood at one turn!

How can you get so much?”
Oh, that would really please me, and I’d go again and'pile so much wood in my arms
that I couldn’t hardly see my way back.
When I reached the kitchen again, she would say, “Get one more turn like that one and

you’ll have that box full!”
Ma took me into the woods to show me how to pull down a little pine sapling. To­
gether we would pull it over, and then I’d straddle it and ride it—up and down, up and

down. I felt like I had been horseback riding. That was lots of fun for me. Spending this time
with me probably helped Ma pass away a long, perhaps lonely, Sunday afternoon.
Ma made doll beds out of little boxes. She took a scrap of material and tied a hard

knot for the doll’s head. How I enjoyed playing with my doll and doll bed.
I remember one day I told Ma that I wanted something sweet so bad. She said that she
didn’t have any sugar, so she couldn’t make a cake or pie. Then she started cooking what I

thought were biscuits. She rolled dough and cut it into triangular pieces. Next she rolled
those pieces and placed them into a baking pah. She then made a mixture of syrup, beaten
eggs, and a little butter and poured this mixture over the rolls. She always saved orange
peelings and hung them on nails behind the cook stove to dry. She got one of those peelings,

broke it into little pieces, sprinkled1 it over the dough and syrup and placed the pan in the
oven. Those things browned, and the syrup cooked real thick.

Now, doesn’t it make your mouth water just to think of that orange flavored concoc­
tion? It was really delicious!
Along and along, Ma and Pa made improvements to the house. Ma painted the entire
outside of the house, even the gable ends. There was never ah end to the work Ma would do

to improve her home.
Ma was a wonderful person, and everybody loved her. No work was too hard for her.

For many years she not only sewed and made all of the clothes for our family, including Pa’s
work shirts, she also made all of our underwear. Ma always saw to it that her children were
the best dressed kids everywhere we went. In the summertime, she made our underpants out
of the most durable material available^-old yellow homespun. This material was woven at

home for many years. It was cooler for the summer, and the more it was washed, the whiter
and cooler it became.

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