Mrs. Knox visited Leora often. “You folks don’t need to go out for entertainment,” she said. “You have it at home.” Aunt Georgia sometimes stayed with them. Once after Delbert, Donald, and Doris had baths in a tin tub with Cuticura soap, Georgia lined them up in Mrs. Knox’s old-fashioned ferns for this well-loved photo.
Riches - 1920s Soft black soil curls behind the plow’s blade. Squeak of leather harness, links a nickering brown horse to Dad’s guiding hands.
His workshoes trod new furrows in the garden, causing a commotion. The black richness reveals fat earthworms. Swooping robins follow Dad’s big boots, then wing away with their prizes. I caught a robin once at Grandmother’s, and took it to bed. “Lawsy, girl.” She came to tuck me in. “You’ll have lice.” But a robin of your own is a fine thing for a girl of four. So is a ride on Dad’s shoulders when he’s done ploughing the garden.
Oh, I wish someone had taken a photo of Doris on her dad’s shoulders! She said that after the twins were born, she rarely got to sit on her mother’s lap anymore, so the attention from her father was probably especially welcome.
After Danny was born in 1923, they moved to a farm near Dexter. Doris talked about her father allowing her to help feed the livestock, especially the cows and horses. Precious memories.
You can find more stories from the years the family lived in Stuart in Leora’s Early Years: Guthrie County Roots. There are few photos of Clabe Wilson during those days, except for when he wore a badge as a nightwatchman–after the last one had been killed in a bank robbery attempt.
Rich, black soil! How often we’ve wished for such soil instead of our red clay!
Oh my! Do earthworms like red clay?