Early Childhood

Prior to the move from Tolland, one day my Uncle Bill Neill came over with his camera, set up a ladder, and got me to step up on it. Then he asked me to go up on a higher rung, and took my picture. I remember it distinctly, and here is the photo.

In those days, people liked to give names to their places. So our place in Tolland was called "Hollyhock Hill". In Tolland, we became good friends with our neighbors, various Clough families, all yankees (original English). One family was there only summers, as he was a teacher somewhere on Long Island. Their daughter Doris became great friends with my sister Barbara, and would often visit us long after we moved to Vernon.

Here are a couple of photos of us on the farm in Vernon during the haying season. Doris Clough and Barbara are up on the load of hay. Standing, left to right is our hired man Bill Hulse, then my Dad, then Grandpa Blankenburg holding my hand.

Here is a picture of the load of hay taken into the barn. On the left is Grandpa Blankenburg, then Doris Clough, me, and then Barbara.

One Clough family I remember visiting after we moved to Vernon were a couple probably in their 90's, and he had a white beard. They had a big grandfather clock, and the place was loaded with knick-knacks. He first heard of President Lincoln being shot by reading it in the newspaper. Other Cloughs, closer neighbors to us in Tolland had a typical yankee characteristic that slightly irritated my dad. They always wanted to know how much you paid for something, but would never tell you what they paid for something. Once my dad, who had always told them when asked, what he paid for something, asked point blank "How much did you pay for this?" Clough just laughed, and said "Oh, I'll tell you sometime, Tom."

Then there were the Emery Cloughs who lived on a hill, had a peach orchard, a son and a daughter. From Vernon, once we went over there and bought from them a peach basket full of peaches, which is 1/2 bushel. In high school the son was known as "Clutch Clough", and he died of a nose infection. The daughter, I think not quite out of high school, ran off with a man in his 40's.

The year 1927 when we moved to the old Blankenburg farm in Vernon, was during the height of a brief period of prosperity. My dad took over the farm, and my Blankenburg grandparents moved to an apartment in Rockville, where they enjoyed the modern comforts of indoor plumbing and electric lights. Some of the same animals my Uncle Arnold was familiar with, I was also, when we discussed it years later in Kansas. There was the old Holstein cow, "Crooked Face", who had been kicked by a horse when a calf.

There were the two horses, "Prince" and "Jerry", shown in the photo here, taken in Jan 1930 with me feeding them. There were the two cats, "Ougen" (German for "eyes"), and "Loungey" (short for lounge lizard).

My Dad had somwhat different ideas than my Grandpa Blankenburg. Blankenburgs had pigs. My dad wanted nothing to do with them. Grandpa Blankenburg once said, "Every fool has a dog, and every damn fool has two dogs." We got "Fido", a little terrier.

Here is a picture of our family, newly moved to the farmhouse in Vernon, all together, with my Dad holding "Fido". Then is my sister Barbara, and Mother, with me standing in front.

Did you know that dogs are liars? Fido was. There was a rocking chair he was NOT allowed to sit on. One winter morning, dad got up, came down stairs with the kerosene lamp, came into the dining room where the rocker was. It was rocking, but Fido was "sound asleep", curled up in a corner.

So I grew up the same place my mother did. She would tell me of things relating to the place when she was a little girl. There was "Old Dan Janes", who lived up the hill where the Newmarkers now lived. He would drop down and tell of bygone days when there was a terrible drought, and farmers would come from miles around to water their livestock from our well in the backyard of our house.

Here is a picture of our farm in the 1930's, with the camera facing east. Note the tall Norway spruce tree that I used for mounting my antenna. The little white building on the right is the milk house Dad built. The long building on the left is for chickens, with a grain room in the middle.

Our place was full of history. The farm apparently originally had been the location of at least 3 houses and a blacksmith shop. The blacksmith shop had been located about 1,000 feet north of Dart Hill Road, on the left side of Skinner Road. One house had been located on the same side of that road, about 1/4 mile further north. The cellar hole was still there, as was the well (but covered over with a large rock). We used to go up there and pick currents from the current bushes surrounding the cellar hole. Then my mother made current jam.

The other former house location was on the south side of Dart Hill Road, lining up directly with Skinner Road. It also had a cellar hole and a well. I believe the Blankenburgs built a "rooster house" on it, because that's how it was while I was growing up. We kept roosters there. Years later, our former hired man, John Booth and his wife build a nice house there.

We had a wood stove in the kitchen, and in the summer also used a kerosene range. It was my job to split wood, and bring it in to fill the wood box behind the stove. On the front of the stove were the words "Beacon Hub", and "Ebony Finish". Saturday night was bath night. You got out the big wash tub, took a dipper and from the hot water reservoir attached to the kitchen stove, you dipped out hot water to fill the tub. Maybe you also used auxiliary supplies of hot water from pots and pans on top of the stove. Then you would put a big container in the sink under the pump spout, and pump up sufficient cold water to add, if need be. One night per week was enough of that business.

Christmas would be with Grandpa and Grandma Blankenburg in Rockville, with all our aunts and uncles. Thanksgiving would be at Grandma Neill's, where also lived Uncle Bill, Uncle Dave, and Uncle Joe.

I must go and take care of other things now. But I have vast quanitites of things to tell.