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Memories of Golde Dicks Markham (1996) Golde Markham Dicks 60/125

which the sores made. He was too sick to> make a trip to Lake City, and it was impossible to

get a doctor to make a trip out to the country.
Dr. Peeler, and old man, lived just a short distance from us. He came several times
with no results. Sam Lamb had a son who had just finished medical school, and Pa asked him

to see Tribble. His visits were also in vain. Weeks went by, and Tribble improved a little, but
his head looked like it was going to rot off. He had four or five of these big sores on his
head. Then a doctor in Lulu came to see Tribble. He prescribed a black ointment. The sores
began to heal right away.

One summer a school session was held at the Lutheran Church just below Mason City,
south of Lake City. Pa decided Tribble and I should attend, so we hitched up Old Beck, our
lazy mule, to the wagon. It was probably seven miles from our house to this school the way

the dirt road winded. Old Beck would trot slower and slower. She wouldn’t speedup unless
I took a whip to prod her along, but I didn’t have a whip this time.
I’d try to get Tribble to break a branch to use for a whip, but he didn’t want to so I
got out to get a stick. Somehow Tribble got Old Beck to trot and leave me. I 'had to run

faster than Old Beck to catch up to get back into the wagon.
The school session lasted about three months. It was held in an old Masonic building.
Finally the community built a three-room schoolhouse called “Mount Tabor.” It had a large

room with a smaller room on each side. The large room, had a porch with steps that’ran
across the entire porch.
Near the school was a big bam which had a breezeway in the center with room enough

to park five or six buggies. My uncles attended this school during their high school years.
Just a couple of years ago, Tribble sent me a letter that made me feel really proud. He
told me how much he had learned from my husband and me and1 how much we had contrib­

uted to his life. He had a long list of things Eric had taught him to do as he was growing up.
Any family member knew what an old protective mother hen I was over Tribble when
we were children. If any of the neighborhood boys thought about beating up Tribble, they

knew they would have to beat me up first—and that would have been impossible; I could
stand up to any of the boys—even if they were bigger than I was. Tribble knew this and
often got by with things because of “Big Sis.”

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