Kinexxions ~ Tales from the Life of Hazlette Brubaker

Kinexxions

~ Tales from the Life of Hazlette Brubaker ~

Part 7 ~ Special Stories about Mama

It seemed we were always poor but Mama was able to get us what we needed. I had started school in Columbia City in the fall of 1908 when I was just five years old. On Valentine's Day I just had to have some Valentines to give to my friends. Now, I don't think very many kids could buy Valentines but you always had one or two boy friends and you just had to give one to them. So Mama took some paper and cut it into heart shapes and she took a begonia blossom and used it as a pattern and decorated the heart with these. She made beautiful Valentines for me to give. I don't remember who I gave them to, but I'll never forget how lovely they were.

Once when we were in Traverse City, it was Decoration Day of 1909 and an old Civil War soldier was to talk to my second grade class. Our teacher asked us all to bring flowers. We had no garden at the time and I didn't know what I could take. I was just mortified to go to school without any flowers so I told Mama and she came through. She took two white Geranium blossoms, one red one and a leaf or two. She found some blue ribbon to tie them together. And the next day at school the old soldier took my red, white and blue offering and held it with all the other beautiful bouquets about him - I was so proud of it.

Mama had always been very small, she only weighed 98 pounds when she was married and a year later when Papa was away in the Spanish American War she was down to 89 pounds. But in 1908 she had a hysterectomy and started gaining weight. When we lived in Traverse City she weighed 150 pounds. In an attempt to lose this weight she decided to sell magazines. Well, she did very well with selling the magazines and had a fine time but didn't lose any weight. In fact, she always said she ate so much more because she needed it to work! She gave up selling magazines but had a lot of samples left over. There came a time when we kids needed some money for something and there just wasn't any. We took those sample magazines around the neighborhood and sold them for a few pennies each and soon had the money we needed.

Part 7 ~ Special Stories about Mama

Tales from the Life of Hazlette Brubaker