Ready for Sunday School. Delbert (9), Doris (6), Donald (8) Wilson.

Clabe Wilson was a tenant farmer for B.C. Hemphill SE of Dexter, Iowa, and lived in the two story home there. Because Mr. Hemphill was a member of the Presbyterian Church in town, they were allowed to use Nancy the horse.

Delbert and Donald rode Nancy to school, which was near Mr. Hemphill’s acreage at the edge of town. The kept Nancy in one of his barns. 

With little Doris along, Nancy pulled a buggy to church. I don’t know whether their mother Leora went with them or not. There were three younger children still at home.

That’s why, decades later, when Doris had a chance to buy a little Sunday School chair from the, she did. I have it now, as I also went to the same Sunday School as a child.

Their Mother Leora had just ordered a new treadle sewing machine through the catalog. While the kids were at school, a note came in the mail that a package had arrived at the post office that was too large to come on the route. She waited for these three to bring the buggy home, then she drove it in to town to get the sewing machine. She made Doris an Easter dress of light green pongee. The fabric was soft and had shiny figures in it.

Doris’s cherry hat came from the Sears Roebuck catalog. She asked if she could wear the hat to school. But, she had it on while she rode on the giant strides and lost the cherries.

Delbert and Donald have new suits. Through the years the hems were let out and let out. And a good thing, too, as Wilsons would soon feel the squeeze of the Great Depression. Delbert and Donald even wore those knickers in 8th Grade.

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