I, Mae Janice, third child of Russell Dean Adams, II and Ruth Gladys VanDyke, was born at Huxley, Nebraska, on January 22, 1919. I joined my brother, Wayne Kermit, and sister, Margaret Ann. This was the winter of the flu epidemic of 1918-19, and because my mother was ill with the flu, I was born two months prematurely, causing me to be a small baby, weighing only four and a half pounds at birth. The story is told that I was snuggled into a shoebox to keep me warm.
Memories are made up usually of especially happy or especially unhappy times. I have many of each and will try to relate a few of them.
My earliest memory is of the day our family moved from the "Horne" place in Bethel Union to our new home in Senate Valley. I believe I was about four years old, and by this time I had one other brother, Russell Dean, Jr. There were a few pieces of furniture in the house. Wayne, Margaret, and I had charge of caring for Russell, so we took turns sitting with him on the bare springs of the lounge in the living room, while the others explored our new house.
My family lived in this house from the time I was four until after I left home, so most all of my childhood memories are connected with it. To me, it seemed like a large house, but in reality it was quite small. There were two bedrooms upstairs, one for the boys and one for the girls. A "cubby hole" under the eaves was used for storage. With eight children, as there eventually were, it must have been almost like a dormitory. Downstairs was a living room and dining room with a double archway between them. A large kitchen served also as a washroom, cloak room, and cream-separator room. A storage pantry between the kitchen and bedroom contained the "up" stairway and an entrance to a steep, narrow stairway to the "cellar". Of course, there was an outside entrance also to the cellar, a full, unfinished basement under the house. This is where the potato harvest and canned goods were stored for the winter. A wood or coal-burning stove stood in the corner of the dining room next to the entrance to the living room, in about the center of the house. This and the kitchen cook stove were our sources of heat in the winter. The cook stove was too much heat in the summer! As I remember, we cooked mostly with corncobs and some wood, instead of coal. Perhaps I remember the corncobs because it was one of my jobs to help pick them up after the pigs ate off the corn; put them in bushel baskets; and carry them into the house. It was an easy job, and I don't remember disliking it.
In this home, we had no refrigeration, not even an icebox, and no electricity or telephone. There was an outhouse. Baths were taken in the kitchen. Water was carried for household use from a well that seemed a mile away, but probably wasn't fifty yards. That was a backbreaking job, and I hated it. We kept buckets of water for drinking and washing hands on a washstand in the kitchen, and filled the reservoir on one end of the cook stove and boilers to heat for baths and laundry. Of course, all appliances were run by hand: the washer, cream-separator, butter churn - everything - and we all had a part in it.
When we first moved to this farm, there was a shell of a sod house in the same yard. An old buggy sat by a fence near the windmill, and a hedge of lilacs ran along the road. I remember these things because we played in and around them. I don't know when the sod house and buggy disappeared. I expect the lilacs are still there.
As children, we had many chores. Also, in a large family, it's necessary for the older children to help care for the younger children. I don't remember caring for the younger ones, so I must have just taken it in my stride. Jobs I do remember, in addition to those I've already mentioned, are washing and drying dishes, milking the cows, "slopping" the hogs, thinning the corn, and cutting sunflowers. I remember my mother would leave the noon meal (dinner) dishes for Margaret and me to do when we got home from school. We would either stand on chairs at the kitchen worktable to do them or put the dishpans on chairs because we weren't tall enough to stand and work at the table. Perhaps that was only me, as I was always short for my age. I never had to do much milking, but when I did I'd swear they gave me the "old strippers" to do. I never could get much milk in my bucket! Now, my guess is that I wasn't really needed for the milking job. However, in order to give me a part in it, these were the cows I was given, as they were going dry anyway.
For some reason, some years the corn was planted too thick, so the job of going through and thinning it was given to us kids. We would carry a corn knife, a jar of drinking water, and sometimes a sandwich, to the field. We'd stash the drinking water somewhere in a bit of shade and go through the rows cutting out some of the cornstalks as we'd been instructed to do. We kept track of the numbers of rows we each did, as our parents paid us so many pennies per row, or, more likely, so many rows per penny. This was a big thing for us - earning money. We got paid at the end of the week. Then, when we went to town, we were allowed to spend all or none of it. I can remember buying a bottle of cologne for 10 cents. It took nearly all of my earnings! But that bottle of "perfume" was very special.
In the summer, the stores stayed open on Saturday night, and all the farmers went to town to do their trading. We didn't get to go along every time, but the times we did are especially memorable. The band played in the park, I loved that, and the grocer gave us candy.
My brothers and sisters and I must have had many arguments and fights, done a lot of teasing, and got into a lot of mischief, but I don't remember that. I do know we played games together: hopscotch, anti- over, hide-and-seek, pom-pom-pullaway, marbles, and so many others. We played house and enjoyed our dolls. We had one special doll, not a whole family of them as little girls now have.
Discipline, as I recall, was usually carried out by spankings or having to sit on a chair for a time. I remember only two or three spankings, although I'm sure there were many. One time, our parents came home and found us three older kids in the horse tank, using it for a swimming pool. We weren't allowed to do this, and we knew it. That night, after the chores were done and supper was over, we each received our spanking with a shingle, and were ordered to sit on a chair until told we could leave. After a few minutes, we were all giggling, including our mother, so that was the end of that discipline! But I'm sure it served its purpose.
When we were young, our parents drove us to the Bethel Union Sunday School. We had our lesson to study and Bible verse to memorize each Sunday. I especially remember the Children's Day programs, when we spent extra days there practicing, and the musical readings that I gave. As I grew older, I attended the Sunday evening youth meetings with Margaret and Wayne. Friends we made then have been lasting friends.
Senate Valley School, the school I attended from Kindergarten through the Eighth Grade, was one-quarter mile north of our house. That was close enough for us to go home at noon for a hot meal. We didn't appreciate that as we should have, for it was a great treat to us when it was storming in the winter and we got to carry our dinner to school.
My best subjects were arithmetic and spelling. One year, probably I was in the Seventh Grade, I made it to the State Spelling Contest. I didn't win, but I was one of the last several to misspell a word. Not expecting to win, I thought I did wonderfully. Unlike today, we respected our teachers as an authority figure, and we obeyed them.
At some time in my younger years, my Uncle Edgar and Aunt Hazel and their four children came to live with us for a while. My father and Uncle Edgar built a one-room house for them to live in, about where the sod house had been. This was a fun time, having the extra kids always there to play with.
We didn't have family vacations, as such, as I was growing up. But I do especially remember a trip to the Nebraska State Fair at Lincoln. There were probably only four, maybe five, children in our family at that time. We took a tent, our bedding, clothes, and food, packed this and our family into the Model A, and motored to Lincoln. How they did it, I don't know. My mother cooked our meals over a camp stove, and she dressed us in our frilly little dresses each day. Everyone "dressed" to go to the fair! I remember this as one of the happier experiences of my childhood.
People did not run to the doctor for every little thing. Home remedies were used, such as mustard plasters, ginger tea, flaxseed poultices, and a lot of T.L.C. At that time there were no such things as the wonder drugs of modern medicine. I can remember only once going to the hospital where Dr. Carothers had his office. There was a long corridor, with rooms on both sides, and a strong smell of ether. This was when I had broken my arm and had to have it set and put in a cast.
Only a few holidays seemed important. On Halloween, I was aware that outhouses were overturned and that windows were soaped, but I was never involved in that. Nor was there "trick or treat" as the kids do today. We celebrated in school, and we always had our jack-o-lanterns. Easter was always Easter egg hunts, of course.
We always observed Christmas. We had a program at school, with a tree and Santa Claus, and a program at Sunday school. At home, we usually had a tree and always hung up our stockings. As it is today, Christmas morning then was exciting. We were happy with the small number of gifts we received. An apple and an orange, and a new pair of mittens in the leanest of years made a pretty nice Christmas. And then it was really exciting other years when you got a new doll or set of play dishes.
The Thanksgivings I remember were big gatherings with relatives and lots and lots of food, so I'm assuming now that most years we did celebrate with an extended family. Also, there were some Fourth of July family picnics, but I do recall times that we spent the Fourth with just our family. Dad would buy fireworks, Roman candles, sparklers, and firecrackers, and he would bring home a block of ice, and we'd have homemade ice cream. It was always with a cooked base, for he wouldn't eat anything with raw eggs. I inherited that dislike.
My parents were always 4-H Club leaders, so I was exposed to it at a very young age and became an associate member at eight. This made it convenient for me to learn cooking, sewing, canning, etc. I stayed in 4-H Clubs until I was 18, winning a trip the last year to the Chicago Exposition for my clothing judging.
In addition to being 4-H Club leaders, my parents often did things with and for the young people of the neighborhood, such as giving watermelon feeds and oyster suppers. My dad, with my mother's help, sponsored and directed a minstrel show involving the youth. What fun!
I don't remember that my high school years were such happy times. In order to attend high school, I had to be away from home, living in Broken Bow, eight miles away, either in a light-housekeeping room or working in a home for my room and board. The Depression was on. School wasn't easy. I had to study hard for my average to above-average grades. I had little time for social life. My weekends were spent at home on the farm. From the time that I was little, I had been told that the only honorable professions for women were teaching and nursing. Since most of the women in our family had been teachers, that is what I planned to do, too. At that time, a Normal Training course could be taken in the last two years of high school to prepare for teaching in a rural grade school. The passing of State exams gave you a certificate that expired in three years. Then to renew it, college courses were required.
I taught the first year in the New Hope School south of Broken Bow. I had six pupils to start, four of them from one family. On March 1st, the usual time for farmers to move, that family left, leaving me with a little First Grade girl and a tall, lanky Eighth Grade boy to teach the rest of the term. I didn't exactly get rich on my first job. My pay was $45 a month, and I paid $12 of that for my room and board, living with a couple near the school.
The next year, I taught at the Cliff School, where there were many more pupils and it was much more interesting for me. I boarded with friends of my family, who had a son in the Eighth Grade. When the snowdrifts were so deep that walking was difficult, he would come around to the door on his horse, his dad picking me up and tossing me on behind him, and we'd ride together through the drifts. This neighbor- hood had a wonderful group of young people that at- tended the church nearby. I spent most weekends at home with my family, but always tried to get back on Sunday early enough to be with them at their evening meeting. I've kept in touch with a few of these friends over the years.
My third year of teaching, and fourth, was in the Round Hill School, a two-room school, so I had the grades Kindergarten through Sixth; another teacher, the Grades 7 through 10. I enjoyed this school, had wonderful people to board with, and went to college in the summer to renew my certificate. But I knew all the time that I wanted to do something different.
So, that was the end of my teaching career. By this time, my brother, Wayne, had left the farm and gone to the West Coast, Oregon, to work. We had other relatives in that area too, so it was easy for me to head in that direction to start my transition into an- other type of work. I sorted beans in a bean cannery until that season was over, then clerked in a Wools- worth store while I went to night school, learning secretarial skills. Before fininshing my classes, I had a job in the County Clerk's Office at Salem. For the first time, I was making enough money to have my own apartment and to save a little, and even bought some war bonds. By this time, the United States had entered World War II. Well, those signs of Uncle Sam's, "We Need You," got to me. The pay they promised was more than I'd ever made in my life; the benefits sounded great; and being the adventurous kind, .I enlisted in the SPARS, women of the Coast Guard. My Basic Training and Storekeeper school were at Palm Beach, Florida, for three months in the hottest part of the summer. To me, it was a great adventure, and I enjoyed every bit of it. Then I was sent to Philadelphia to work in the supply office for the duration of the war. I served about two-and-one-half years.
This was a turning point for women. When the men went off to war, women filled the men's jobs at home and proved that they could do more than keep a home and raise a family. In addition to being the "Rosie the Riveters," they bought bonds, volunteered in Canteens and USO clubs, fed their families on what the rationing stamps would allow, and never doubted that the United States and its Allies would win. In those days, it was: "My Country, Right or Wrong."
The writing of this chapter was meant mostly to share memories of my childhood and I've gone well beyond that. To finish I want also to add a few paragraphs about my family.
While I was in the Coast Guard, stationed in Philadelphia, I met Charles Frederick Bengeult, the man that was to become my husband. He was born June 16, 1920; grew up in Bucksport, Maine; and was at this time serving in the Merchant Marines. We were married February 16, 1946, shortly after I was discharged from the SPARS. We began our life together in Philadelphia and, shortly after, moved to the West Coast, living most of our married life in or near Seattle.
Our marriage has been blessed by three children, one girl and two boys. Our daughter, Marlene Ann, was born September 4, 1947; and our sons, Stuart Frederick, arrived December 31, 1952, and Greg Alan, January 20, 1954.
Marlene Ann married David Kessler. Their two children are Michelle Lynn, born October 13, 1968, and Emily Anne, January 7,1973. Marlene and David recently divorced.
Greg Alan married Tina Harmon, and they had two children: Angela Marissa, born September 22, 1973, and Matthew David, February 6, 1975. Greg and Tina's marriage ended in divorce, and he later married Deborah Louise Bretthole from Pittsburgh. They then had two children: Jennifer Mae arrived October 18, 1983 and Kevin Charles, May 13, 1986.
As death is a part of life, no one can escape the pain of losing loved ones. Our grandson, Matthew David, died at 10 months; and our son, Stuart Frederick, died December 14, 1988, just before his 36th birthday. Stuart lived a short life, but a very full one. He had so many friends, and they now share with us in keeping his memory alive.
Our other children and their families live close by. For this, we are thankful. We enjoy the visits and make a big thing of birthdays and are together on holidays. Occasionally, we get to help with the grand- children so their parents can have free time. It's interesting watching them grow from one stage into another.
My husband, Charles, worked in the furniture business all of our married life, until his retirement in 1984. Seattle has been good to us. We have our roots in deep, and we think it's the most beautiful place in America.
In retirement, we are comfortably situated and seem to have no time to be bored. We have our good health, so we enjoy keeping up our home in Normandy Park, where we have lived for nearly 25 years. It is now the year of 1989. I am 70; my husband is 69; and our plans are to stay right where we are into old age.
We enjoy traveling, have been to many parts of the world, but enjoy mostly going to southern California or to Hawaii to relax. High school class reunions in Maine and Nebraska are great fun -- seeing old friends and visiting relatives in those areas. When at home, we gladly find time to share with friends and family and do some volunteer work.
I've appreciated having this opportunity to reminisce. Our generation has seen such tremendous changes - some better than others - but, all in all, I believe that I have lived in the best of times.