Chapter 22

We had lots of relatives in Minnesota. Mother was the second oldest of seven siblings. And there were her aunts and uncles and cousins, too.

Her older sister, Doris, had died young and left a husband and two boys behind, but he had remarried and we seldom saw them.

Her sister Jeanne had four kids; Tootie (childhood nickname for Eileen) had at least seven kids, I think. Dona had two, Audrey had two, Glen had two (at that time) and we saw all of them regularly.

We didn’t like strangers – even if they were related to us, so we didn’t really like most of our cousins, who were interlopers on our planet when they came – usually on Sundays. We’d hide from them sometimes. But we did love one cousin – we lovingly called her Crazy Connie, because she had a great, infectious laugh, was so good at heart, and she did such funny stuff!

One time, her mom, Jeanne, handed her a kitchen garbage can and a box of matches and told her, “Here, go burn this.” And Connie was gone a very long time. When she returned from the incinerator (people had them in their back yards in those days), she asked Connie what took her so long.  And Connie replied, “That garbage can just wouldn’t hardly burn.” 

At least that’s how the family story goes.

Another time, after they had moved into a new house with an unfinished upstairs (her dad, Uncle Louie, was going to do the work himself, to save money), Jeanne sent Connie upstairs to fetch something from a storage box. Connie went up and spied the box in a far corner. She decided to leap from rafter to rafter to get there, but she missed one and came crashing through the kitchen ceiling, scaring her mother half to death. Luckily, she wasn’t seriously hurt.

At least that’s how her mom told the story.

When Connie was a teenager, Jeanne went to work at the Sears Outlet Store in Minneapolis. It was summer and Connie got bored. She decided to make sugar cookies.  When Jeanne got home, the house smelled like fresh cookies.

“Wow Connie, she said. “Did you make these?”

Connie was so proud, but then she frowned.  

“I didn’t think they’d turnout,” she said. “The recipe called for cream of tartar and we didn’t have any, so I just used tartar sauce.”

Jeanne told Mother: “They probably were good cookies, but I just couldn’t eat them knowing at some point I’d bite into a piece of pickle.”

The unfortunate thing for Connie was that she had really bad allergies and our farm was full of things that triggered them —animals, alfalfa and goldenrod, everything that could set her off.  A couple of times, they left our place and headed straight for the emergency room, she was wheezing so badly.

As she got older, she stopped coming out with her parents because it just made her too miserable. We missed her a lot.

When I graduated from high school and was headed to college, I needed a good paying summer job. Aunt Jeanne and Uncle Louie let me come live with them for the summer and work with cousin Jeanette, who was my age, at the local Bridgeman’s ice cream store and restaurant. I did make good money and although Jeanette was occupied most of the summer with her boyfriend, Connie and I spent a lot of time together and laughed ourselves silly. She was great company and I still love her to death! To this day, the only cousin I stay in touch with is my sweet, lovely, crazy cousin Connie!

With lots of relatives in the vicinity, we saw a lot of them in our growing-up years. Especially on Sundays.

Sundays were not so much fun for Mother, though. Here’s from her memoir:

“When we moved (to The Place), different ones (family members) started coming on Sundays. Pretty soon, there were more and more and more. At times there’d be 20 or 25 people, adults and kids. Nobody brought a scrap of food. Nobody helped but Mom. She stayed behind to clean up stuff. By the time we got Sunday dinner cleaned up, it was time to make supper.  They all stayed for supper.

“I did fried chicken every Sunday – Grandmother Pigg taught me how and hers was the best. It was so good. We had the grill outside so in the summer we did it outside. We all ate out in the summer house when the weather was nice. Every Friday, I’d get groceries for Sunday, I cut up three whole chickens. I’d cook and bake all day Saturday. At least 3 kinds of pies and a cake. I’d set bread. In the summer, I made this huge bowl of potato salad and had lots of garden stuff.

“For supper I made a big pot of sloppy joes. Potato chips and the leftovers from lunch. By the time Sunday night came there was nothing left. Monday, I had to go grocery shopping again.

“That went on for several years and finally one Sunday morning I got up and got you kids ready for church. I sat down in a chair by the table. I told Don “I am so sick and tired of cooking every weekend for all those people and nobody ever brings anything to help.

“Don said: ‘I wondered when you’d get your belly full. From now on we go out to
dinner on Sundays and we’ll do it till they get the hint.’ He must have been tired of it, too, because he never wanted to go out to eat!

“I spent every weekend working alike a slave. Cooking my head off. I got fed up with it.  It’s not like they were invited. They just came. I could hear everyone outside laughing and talking and playing with their kids and I was inside working.”

It took her a while, but when she’d had enough, she’d had enough!

EPILOGUE: On Daddy’s side, we had fewer cousins. Daddy’s older sister, Aunt Olive, never had children (lucky for them!). His older brother, Frank, had three – Dixie, Merilee, and David.  Uncle Russell had one boy, Jimmy. And Aunt Josephine had two, a boy and a girl, Jim and Mary Jo. We were especially excited the first time we met Mary Jo. We knew she was born in Japan after the war and we were so excited to meet our Japanese cousin! Boy, were we disappointed when a tall, blonde and blue-eyed Mary Jo showed up. For some reason we thought being born in Japan meant …well. We were very ignorant of the world. And genetics.