Guest post by my Aunt Ginny

[Sometime last spring, a year ago now, my brother, sister and I were sitting in my living room for a visit. It was a very special time -just the three of us - unhurried. We were talking about our childhood and the things we remembered. I told them I didn't have any memories of our mother and dad ever coming to any of my school concerts and wondered if they had the same memory. None of us could recall them having come to hear us sing or play in the band. A few days later, I spoke to my Aunt Ginny and related to her some of our conversation. She wrote back to me with the following, which I have gotten permission from her to print here on my blog.]

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Donna, I have thought a lot about your comments about not knowing your mom. It brought me back to the time when we were all three still living together outside of St. Peter. At that time I wasn't in school yet (we moved from there after your mother and dad were married when I was about 8 years old.) We were all children of the "Great Depression."


Times were definitely different then. I do not recall ever being hugged by my dad, a little by my mom. I never felt that I wasn't loved. Allan says the same thing. His parents found it very hard to show their emotions, we finally got hugs when we left them after we were married. Perhaps it was our ancestry of coming from English, Swedish, Norwegian, German - who seemed to be very stoic, not like Italians, etc.


My parents were so busy just providing a home and food for us. As I said earlier we were in the midst of the great depression. That is how they showed their love for us. We never went hungry; mother made our clothes. The work load as I remember (being about 2 - 8) was Mother and Dad were working outside - Dad had poor eyesight from birth, some have said he was given bad medicine for eyes, others said he had an illness, I don't know the real reason. He chose farming as an occupation. Had it been in our lifetime I'm sure other work would have been found for him. He graduated from Lake Crystal High School so I know he was a good student. As long as we used horses he did very well, but mother still worked alongside of him most of the time. This left your mother, Dorothy, the oldest of the three, having to do the housework, cook meals for us, etc. I know mother also did a lot of work too. Mother always had big gardens, canned, etc. I'm sure Dorothy was put to work then too. Meanwhile, that left me shadowing Liz, which I seem to remember doing as long as she was home. We had fun wandering around the farm, our work was to go with our parents to the fields and stomp hay (You may have heard her telling of that.).


There was quite a difference in our ages. Dorothy was 11 years older than me, Liz 5 years older, It might have been hard for Dorothy to all of a sudden having to be put in the place of being in charge of the house. It has only been in recent years where so much has been made of parents spending time with their children, etc.


When I look at some of the statistics it looks like our "great generation" didn't turn out too bad compared to some of what is happening in today's world.


As you say, it doesn't change things but perhaps it might give you a clearer picture of how things were then.


Hope this helps a little. We love and care for you.


Aunt Ginny and Uncle Allan