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Memories of Golde Dicks Markham (1996) Golde Markham Dicks 49/125

We learned a lot by having the preachers and1 their families at our home. One preacher,

taught me the rhyme about the number of days in the months which I’ve probably said more
than a thousand times in my life time: “Thirty days has September, April, June, and Novem­
ber. All the rest have thirty-one except February alone which has twenty-eight in fine and

each leap year twenty-nine.”
Ma received so many recipes from the preacher’s wives. She used them as long as she
lived, and I am still using them. Ma became close friends with many of the wives. We all felt
perfectly at ease with them and developed friendships, that lasted for years.

Ma usually didn’t go with Pa when he went off for the weekend to preach. She had
too much work at the house: milking the cow and feeding the chickens and hogs. There were
so many of us kids that Ma felt that it was too big of an imposition on others to put up so

many of us as extra guests.
But, I confess, there was one other reason why we didn’t travel with Pa. Since my
grandchildren want to know all about me, here is the truth-^and nothing but the truth: I wet
the bed nearly every night until I was probably close to 11 years old. It was a problem I had

no control over, and I don’t think there is a cure to this day for bed wetters.
Ma and Pa took me to every doctor in Lake City, including a black doctor. He told
them to tie something around my waist and make a big knot on my back so I wouldn’t be

able to sleep on my back—and this stopped my bed wetting. I can’t sleep on my back to this
day. I was so ashamed, embarrassed, and self-conscious. My parents never allowed me to
spend the night with any of my cousins or friends. I thought bed wetting was the worst

problem I ever had.

Hardly anybody had cameras back in those days, so it was a rare thing to be photo­

graphed. One of Pa’s relatives, Bob Dicks, who lived somewhere in the southern part of
Florida, had a camera outfit, including a tripod. When he visited us, he decided to take our
pictures. He got us all fixed with a smile and told us to be still, then he’d «run and stick his
head under a square black cloth and snap the camera.

Bob Dicks took all of those pictures of me as a child. I think he spent his vacations just
taking photos of the extended family. Everyone fed him and gave him a bed. He didn’t ask

for money because nobody had any.
Years later Uncle Press and Aunt Ruth took Eric (my future husband) and me to visit
Bob Dicks who lived in Bradenton, Florida. I don’t know if he was the same person.

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