Immigrant Daughter #4

Back again with the saga of my family.  I ended on a sad point but, believe me, there are a lot more good and happy moments than sad.

When  dad and mom closed the store on Saturday night around midnight, his sister and husband would drive over from Vinland to play cards. They played  Pinochle, men against the women. Pinochle is a great card game and I love to play it and in later years I never could find anyone who knew how to play. I remember there were many words spoken out loud with lots of yelling over cards played. My father hated to lose especially on what he considered a dumb play. This game has bidding to find out who names trump. It is played with a pinochle deck.  In case you are not aware, there are no cards under 9 making 48 cards in the deck. It takes a lot of counting and remembering what suits were played. It is really good game using your brain.

We had a neighbor who was a nurse who ran a nursing home delivering babies. The doctors use to have their patients go there instead of the hospital. This nurse was very large and had a special car made just for her.  I would call it limousine today. It had to be roomy to carry her around.  When we got a ride in it we were impressed by all the gadgets especially the cooler, when she gave us a cold soda.                                                         

This nurse, whose name was Cotty, had a pet goose named Dilly who was mean and would attack anyone who dared to enter her territory.  I was afraid of Dilly who was no “Aflack” goose that’s for sure. Cotty watched our house like a hawk and would make sure mom and dad knew what was going on at our house.

My oldest sister never like housework of any kind and washing clothes only happened when everything she owned was dirty. It would take her all day because using a wringer washing machine had to have the water dumped out and new water added for clothes that were not colorfast. Well when she stood outside at the clothesline she would hang out about 25 panties and as many bras and slips. Cotty couldn’t stand; it she would yell from her screened porch “what’s matter Sophia run out of money to buy new ones”.  Plus she had many other items of clothing on the line. Ladies wore silk stockings then and they were easy to wash in the sink, but not Sophia she had umpteen hanging on the line.

Sophia played the piano and could sing. She had an operatic voice that was pleasant to hear. We had on old black ebony upright piano that we use to gather around to sing. Those were fond memories and I think the new generation lost the family closeness with all the new sound systems available to listen to. The Desert Song and Rosemarie and many other love songs are things of the past.  I can still hear my sister singing “I Promise You” at my wedding. Those are good memories.  Until next time, I am Immigrant Daughter’