In 1988 I ask my mother to write me stories about her brothers and sisters and the one about herself and her childhood growing upin Sedan, Chautauqua County, Kansas. She will soon be 82 years old and this is what she wrote for me at that time. The first one is about her. It will be in two parts for now and the rest that I will post will be what she wrote about her siblings. Freida My Early Years by Mary Alice (Puckett) Null Hoskins http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~ajobebrown/jobe/letters_copple_myers.html Written February 5, 1988 (d/o Mary Augusta Myers and Eddie Clarence Puckett, gd/o Sarah Ann Jobe and Simpson Myers, gt gd/o Edward Jobe and Isabelle Fincher) 1920's and 1930's in Kansas Since I�m the youngest, I can�t write to much about the early years of my brothers and sisters since there was a lot of age difference. My oldest sister �Vi� married at the age of 22, the year I was born. �Bud� was 19 years old, �Gail� 15, �Burgess� 11 and Nadine 5 years old when I was born. Mom had a boy, girl, boy, girl about every 5 years after Bud was born. I was suppose to be a boy. My brother Burgess was expecting a kid brother to play with as he was surrounded on both sides by sisters. I was a �Tom Boy�, dressed in overalls and wore a cap when I could find someone else�s to wear that is. Our dog use to dig a hole under the fence so he could follow Burgess and his friends while they rode bicycles or went to the river, after Cappy (the dog) got the hole dug I went under the fence and out the same hole. I headed for town. We lived about 3 blocks from where Dad worked at �Home Trading Store.� I never did get all the way to the store. Rita Haddican worked at the telephone office, she always managed to see me and called my Mother and she would send Gail to come and get me, but I kept trying. I can remember the year I got my red tricycle. My Dad played Santa Claus at the Methodist church that year. I can also remember the time I was baptized at the Episcopal church. The priest picked me up out of the pew, carried me under is are like a sack of potatoes to the fount. He sprinkled a cross on the top of my head, with water running all directions off my head. He carried me back and set me in the pew. I was 3 � or 4 years old. I think at the same time that my brothers and sisters were confirmed. (Bud, Gail, Burgess and Nadine.) I was wearing shoes with holes in the soles and to keep from getting my socks dirty or wear an extra hole in them I had made a card board insoles to wear until Dad had time to half sole them. (Sometimes when he half soled them he didn�t get all the tacks flattened and they stuck to your foot). So I learned how to use the shoe last and tack hammer to take care of these tacks that giving me trouble. Then thank God we staring buying �Glue On� rubber soles. The trouble with them was, sometimes they came loose at the toe, and to keep them from folding back on you when you walked, you learned to do a sort of �Goose Step� this slapped the sole back toward your shoe and if you were quick and got your foot down, it didn�t turn back on you to where you walked on it." My family was a close knit family, my folks wanted their kids to come home for Sunday dinner if they lived close enough to get there. If they lived 100 miles they came home on Saturday and spent the weekend. It was like a family reunion every Sunday. While I was still at home I helped Mom get ready for the weekend. We bakes cakes on Friday, picked chickens (Dad raised his own frying chickens). We went to the store and got the grocery shopping out of the way. Saturday Mom made pies, apple for Dad and cherry for Lee Kocher. On Sunday after dinner (during summer) we always made ice cream. Some of the son�-in-laws would go down to the ice house to get a block of ice. Someone would go to the garage and get the ice cream freezer and salt while Mom and some of the rest of us were in the kitchen. Mom made a vanilla pudding base for the ice cream. I made chocolate syrup (Ralph always had to have a choc syrup or some of Mom�s strawberry preserves on his ice cream). Nadine sometimes made apple dumplings. Gail got out the dishes and spoons. The block of ice was put in gunny sack and chopped by using the flat side of the axe, while some of the son-in-law�s took turns turning the crank, some of the kids took turns sitting on the freezer (on another gunny sack) to hold the freezer steady when the ice cream begin to freeze and the handle hard to turn. We sometimes went fishing on Sunday afternoons. One Sunday we brought home frog legs and lots of sun perch and had a big fish fry for supper. Those frog legs were weird jumping around the pan.