Dorothea

Her Story

Dorothea was born in a small town in Iowa. The county line ran through the middle of the town and depending what side of the street you were born on determined which county courthouse your dad or the doctor registered your birth.

Terry: Farmers would often plant a few rows of sweet corn among their field corn. Mom was fortunate to have a really good friend whose husband did this. Mom would be invited to go and pick corn so she would load us all up in the station wagon and off we'd go into the country. Okay, we didn't have to drive too far but it was still out in the country and it was always the hot part of the summer. We would use John and Chris' newspaper bags slung across our shoulders and hike among the rows looking for and picking the big ears of corn. The little ones played at the end of the rows near the car and we'd take turns watching them. The corn was put in the back of the car and we'd fill it up. Everyone then piled back into the car to head home. Mom turned the kitchen into a minature cannery. She had big pots of water boiling on the stove. Stations were set up at the table. Stations for cutting corn, stations for putting it into bags to be frozen, and a station to put them until they were carried out to the freezer. Surprisingly, none of lost any fingers. The older ones usually cut the corn. The younger ones got the bags ready. Mom helped with the packing and directed everything else as well. The corn had to be timed just right in the boiling water so that it wasn't overcooked and tough. We enjoyed the corn all winter long. There's nothing better than Iowa sweet corn picked that same morning. (Dec 2006)

Terry: Ok, no one is sending in any stories. So you'll have to hear another one of mine. This doesn't involve our mom too much except that we kind of borrowed one of her blankets from the baby crib. We lived one year in Bryan, Texas,1965-1966. Texas weather is so different from Iowa but we made the best of it. We were still living on North Ave. A two story house was east of us and on the other side of that house was the tail end of a dead end street. It must have been late winter or really early spring because it was still getting dark early. The weather had warmed up some so that we could run around outside without our winter coats. John, Chris, Sue and I with a few of the younger ones took a small blanket down to that little street. The wind was a strong southern wind with lots of gusts. Two of us would hold the blanket between us, holding each corner with our hands. Then raising the back side so that it was like a vertical wall between us we would run against the wind. Those gusts were so strong that sometimes we couldn't make any progress forward and once in a while we almost fell backwards.
We laughed, yelled and had the best of time. I loved the challenge of going against the wind. Tonight I was outside with my granddaughter and we felt the southern wind in our face and hair. I brought out a small fleece blanket and she laughed and ran with it. The fleece was not airtight like the blanket we had so we didn't get pushed backwards. Even so she enjoyed it as much as we did 40 years ago. (4 Feb 2008)