I think this is a wonderful idea.Hope everyone joins in.I love to read about all Cady's. Marietta E. Cady 1916 - 1997 My favorite Cady is my Mother Marietta E. Cady [ born 1916] daughter of Ira and Elizabeth Spaulding Cady.Growing up with this Cady Lady I knew her well and loved hearing her tell about the days gone by when she was a kid.Counting her there was eleven children in her family.Two adopted whom were first cousins.She worked beside her Father in the fields and in the barns hand milking the cows. Quite often alone with him.Most of the older children seeked outside jobs by this time.I thought it was unreal when she had to empty the straw out of her bed wetting brother's mattress and dry the cover on the line. From there later in the day when dried she refilled it with clean straw. She would talk about it being the greatest thing when Christmas came that her Father would buy oranges and hide them in the cellar along side of all the jars of canned food her Mother put up for the winter.She also helped in this garden to produce the food for canning.Presents for Christmas was few but to her the oranges was a big thing. She was a brave child when she had to help her two brothers clean up their father's head when he either shot himself or the gun went off by accident in the barn. Back then the family usually had to do this. They never knew what really happened.She talked about the Docter giving her grandmother whiskey and then operating on her on the kitchen table while all the kids had to stay outdoors and still could hear her screams. She carried the fruit idea down at xmas time to her seven children. In our early years we had few gifts but lots of fruit and a large dinner.We never went hungry.She could take what little there was in the cupboards and make a good large meal.When she married for the first time,her and her first husband worked side by side on their farm plus raising their three babies.She was married less then five years when he died in her arms on the way to the hospital at the age of 27.She continued on running the farm with her babies at her side.The children she would send to school, do the milking, go to the house make biscuits and put together other food for the children's lunches and have them delivered to school by lunch time on horseback.She would do her own deer,squirrel,rabbit hunting for our meat supply.She had always hunted as a kid at home so this wasn't new to her.She remarried [ another farmer] and had a total of seven kids.Every home she ever moved into she had to wall paper and paint the whole inside.That was the first thing.Then she always cut wood on her land to keep us warm.She had us children involved in this along with the dairy farming as we grew older.The wood she would say kept us warm in three ways,cutting it,carrying it and sitting next to it in the stove.She never knew what it was to have inside plumbing for years.I still can see the hand water pump over the sink and not far from it was the old kitchen cookstove. In another corner of the large kitchen was a sewing machine that she made most of our clothes on out of feed bags that came in very pretty material.I was always proud to wear my new dresses. Never once in my life did I ever hear her complain.She was always happy and showed it.This marriage lasted ten years and her husband [age 38] was killed in a car accident.Deputy sheriff at this time.She took this very hard also but kept the family going like it had to be.She ran that large dairy alone other then the help from us children again.Then she decided to take on two more jobs.She worked as a waitress at night and in the vineyards during the day.She never got much sleep.If any homeless child came along she took them in.Just doubled us up in our beds.She finally had an auction sold the cows [ about 35 ] and the farm equipment.There was only four kids left at home at this time.She never bought herself anything that I can ever remember but her car when she needed to update it.We later in years had very nice xmas's with several gifts she worked so hard to get.She was down to two of her children at home yet when she remarried again. Back to dairy farming again.Two years later he was killed in a car accident.It was sad that she collected so little insurance money for the loss of her husband's deaths and the most of it went into a fund for the kids so they could have a car when they got out of school. She said she would never marry again and she never did. When ever she walked into a room it would light up.Always a smile on her face.My aunts and uncles said she was always the ball of any get together in their younger years. She sat in the hospital next to my sister for days watching her first grand child die of cancer of the blood.Later in years she never left me with my son dying with a brain tumur. She already had watched several of her siblings lying in the hospitals dying of cancer.She tried to stay brave but would find her crying when she thought she was alone. When ever her children or anyone else needed her she was there and never to complain.She stayed with her grandchildren while us mothers went in the hospital to have another baby.We never had to leave them with an outsider.When she finally could live on social security she still worked in the vineyard running it for a farmer.In her spare time when she would go to town she checked with all the neighbors on the hill that had a hard time getting around and others that could to get their list of what they wanted from the store or where ever.I never seen a mother like my Cady mother.She was still deer hunting and shoveling snow in her eighties a few months before she died. I guess I have wrote enough but could go on and on about so many good things she done. She still could remember her dad's horses names and loved talking about the old cars compared to how they are today.She faithfully visited her far away Mother and Father's graves until her death.I now faithfully visit her grave that is always covered with several flowers and look at the beautiful lady's picture on the headstone.I know she knows I am there and that she hears me talk to her.I can hear her say in my head for me to go home and not to worry about her because I have better things to do.That was my Cady mom. Thank you for taking the time to read this.I put together 25 Cady family tree books for the family last year in her memory.She would have been so proud.I think. Shirley J Cleveland