Junental J. (Ledbetter) DeGeare Reflectins of childhood around Qulin, MO. 12/1/2006 On June 24th 1931, my parents William Patrick (Pat) and Minnie Opal (Hall) Ledbetter were married and made their home south of Qulin east of highway 51 on a farm, owned by the JC Penny Company as an investment holding. I was born in 1933 on this farm as was my two sisters, Patsy and Mary Agnes. From this location I started school. My family continued to make their home here until the middle of 1940 when dad built a home on our own farm on the west side of highway 51 on what was known as the Old Tram Road. The house is still standing and has been enlarged. In those days there was no kindergarten in our town, so we started in the first grade at Qulin elementary school. In the 1930’s before the depression years Qulin had a bank. Later after the bank closed it was turned into a mattress factory. When the women came home from the mattress factory you could smell the moisture of the cotton they used to build the mattresses. At that time we lived next door in a house Dad had built for us. All the time you could smell the stench from the cotton. Oh by the way I am proud to say that house is still standing. Grandpa and Grandma Hall lived down the road from us. Their crops were cotton, sugar cane, small patch of popcorn and of course grandpa’s little peanut patch. Grandpa and Grandma Ledbetter also lived close by on a part of the J C Penny farm. Our grandparents and our family had gardens for fresh vegetables with an abundance to store for the winter. Layering potatoes in straw they would keep until the winter was over. Apples were kept for long periods of time stored in barrels. Although I do not know the process for keeping them this way, but fried apples were a treat and still are – recipe at end of this document. They were also made into apple sauce and mouth watering pies. Pigs were raised for meat and when the hogs got ready for slaughter, they were dipped into hot water by a couple good sized men, even though they used ropes to dunk the hogs in and out of the hot water, they had best be the two biggest old boys in the family. The hair was scraped from the pig after it was dipped into the scalding hot water. Nothing was wasted from the animal. Grandma made head cheese, cracklens made from the skin when rendering lard used for cooking were a treat, the guts were washed and cleaned to hold the sausage, some people cooked these guts which were called chitlins, I don’t recall us ever having chitlins. A milk cow was also a part of the farm life, from which there was milk, and butter. Grandma Ledbetter made home made cottage cheese and was the only person I ever knew to do that. Chickens were raised for food and eggs. One did not always have frying size chickens available when wanting to fry a chicken. But they could be bought at the store in Qulin. When you bought a chicken it was purchased live, the feet were tied together and you killed it after returning home. Most all of the feed for the animals was in large sacks. Our Mom made our dresses out of the clean and washed sacks. SOmetime the women would trade off their bags so they would have enough to make a dress for someone. Mom was a good seamstress she never used a pattern, not even for our coats. I believe the first store bought dress I had was one I bought at the age of 15. I don’t want to not mention the hitching post in front of all the business in Qulin, until the late 1940’s. The farmers used horses to farm with and few had an automobile (car). The family went to town on Saturday to make purchases from the local merchants, and to church on Sunday in a horse drawn wagon. Thus, the need for the hitching rails to tie the animals to. Although dad did obtain a car before WWII, that too was much different from today. To start the car you had to pull the ‘hand’ choke, set the ‘throttle’ and stand in front of the vehicle and turn a crank inserted into the front of the car above the bumper. It took a man to turn the crank. The crank feature was replaced with the starter and electrical system on the car. Few if any cars in those days had a key to lock it with. Air Conditioning was rolled down windows so the outside air could flow through the vehicle. With the roads being gravel and/or dirt you had as much dust coming in as air. By the time you had gone a mile you looked a mess from the dust. If you had a flat tire, you just pulled to the side of the road and changed it or fixed it right there. Everyone carried a jack, tire pump and patch kit to fix a tire with on the road. Also, dusting in the home had to be done twice a day if you lived in the town of Qulin. The streets were dirt and each time a car came by there was dust got into the house. With no air conditioning in those days the front door and all the windows were left open for ventilation, sucking the dirt from the street right into the house and it settled on everything. Daily food preservation of leftovers and milk was kept in the ‘ice box’ in the kitchen. Ice for this box was delivered by an ice man. Every home had a sign with a number in the center of each side. As 25, 50, 75, or 100. you turned the number you needed to the top and when the ice man drove past your home, be it in a wagon pulled by a horse or a truck, he knew you needed ice and how many lbs., you needed when he looked at your window. The ice man did not come around every day, so you better figure it out when you put the sign out. Food was prepared on a wood stove in the kitchen, winter and summer. Hot water was heated in a tank on the end of the stove. Not all stoves had the water reservoir, but if yours did you were lucky as you always had warm or hot water. Mom was sick a lot and I had to start learning how to do house hold chores before I started school. By the age of 6 I had already learned how to cook a pot of beans and look after the corn bread in the oven. Mom would have me bring her the ingredients and together we would mix corn bread which I put in the stove and watched after. By the time I was ten years of age I knew how to do a good part of the canning when preserving garden food. I loved visiting with the Wynn family who lived on highway 51 because they raised honey bees and we were always given a treat made from honey. When Mr. Wynn would be stripping the hives he would caution us not to get near the hives or excited. If we followed his instructions and we could have part of the honey cone right from the hive. My uncle Bill had married one of the daughter’s of the Wynn family and they always made us feel like we were also a part of their family. Before moving into town, Grandma and Grandpa Ledbetter had a large garden area along the side of the house and she raised baby chicks purchased from a mail order catalogue. She would let me help her with the new chicks. Some times she would have to start them in an incubator and she trusted me to help her with that also. Once they moved into town all she had was her little garden along the side of the house. However she could raise enough for the family for the winter. Grandpa Ledbetter after leaving the farm was a Justice of the Peace in Ash Hill Township and did carpenter work until he was well into his 80’s. Their home was in the center of Qulin, across from the Bolinger store ran by sisters Alice and Pearl Bolinger. Oh that was our favorite place to shop for penny candy. My grandparents, Julius and Estella Hall, lived on the north end of Qulin after leaving the farm. Their home was the distance of four city blocks from my Ledbetter grandparents. When living on the farm grandpa Hall raised peanuts and sugar cane for sorghum molasses along with other paying crops. When the sugar cane was cut and hauled to the molasses mill, it was then stripped of syrup and cooked down into molasses. Grandpa had a horse turning the still and the men/boys would feed the cane into the machine to extract the syrup. That old horse would walk round and round in a circle all day long turning the wheels and gears to extract the syrup. What the family did not keep for their own use they sold to neighbors who did not raise sorghum cane. Along with the sorghum molasses was fresh maple syrup made from the sap of the maple trees. When grandma Hall made biscuits and they were covered in either the molasses or maple syrup it made lasting memories for her grandchildren. Grandma Ledbetter made buttermilk biscuits and streaked gravy. With both grandparents living only four blocks apart in a small town it was always easy to pick up a biscuit with a treat to go along with it. Sundays was spent in church. Grandpa Hall was deacon of the Baptist church in Qulin until his death and that was the church my family belonged to. When a visiting minister was in town, Grandma usually left after Sunday school so she could get the fresh killed chickens ready for a great big meal. If I was able I would tag along to help catch the chickens and ring their necks. Drenching them in& out of the hot water so we could pluck the feathers easier, was a chore for a little person, but those chickens sure were good later on.That along with the fresh peach pies, not to mention all the other goodies Grandma would fix the visitors neve left the table hungry. Entertainment was a movie in Qulin for a dime with a nickel bag of popcorn and if you still had a nickel you could get a cold soda to wash it down with. The only movies my grandpa Ledbetter allowed to be shown on Saturday night was a western. That is the night the kids went to the picture show. Once he came in and they had a Tarzan show and he had a fit. He said it is indecent to have a necked man on the screen with children in the audience. Being a Justice of the Peace his voice carried a little authority in the small town. After that they reserved other than westerns for Sunday when the adults went to see a show. Other entertainment brought into the theater was some of the now country music legions like ‘The Carter Family’ and a few others. Not often did we have this kind of entertainment, but the old timers did their fair share of touring and Qulin was one of the stops they made: probably because we had the theater. There would be dances in town or at someone’s home. Dad and Uncle Bill loved to play music and were always ready to go to a dance. In those days the entire family went to a dance. The children learned to dance the two step and square dance often before they started 1st grade in school. Back then a wedding reception was called a Chivary. If the folks could still hold their heads up they would be up all night dancing ‘til the break of day. They loved those nights when they would roll up the linoleum and stay by the wood heating stoves to dance the nights away. Fagus was seven miles on south of Qulin, on the Arkansas state line. There they had a roller rank. It was a real treat to be able to get to go there. Back then seven miles was a long way to travel for any thing. Even though gas was in the neighbor hood of 15 cents a gallon, one just did not get out from home that far without a reason. And that meant if our family was visiting someone in the Fagus area we could go skating and stay out of their hair. I might also mention shoe skates were not a part of the hardware used for skating. You rented a pair of skates that strapped to your shoe, or they had a clamp on the sides that dug into your shoe which was tightened with what was called a key. Either way, if you could stand up on the four wheels and go forward without falling you were really skating, big time. Lavatory conditions were different when I was growing up. To use a toilet, you went outside to an outhouse. This being a smelly little building was not too near the house. Using lime in the holes did help settle the smell, still, ugh. And on a cold night there were such things as –pots - or slop jars - used inside which were immediately emptied the next morning. Believe me, NOTHING FLUSHED. Water was obtained for the inside of the house by means of an outside pump and a water bucket. A wash pan was shared by the entire family, as was the same hand towel. A dipper was kept in the water bucket from which everyone drank using the same dipper and dipping it into the common water bucket. Today we would cringe at the idea, but that was common back then and there just simply was no other way. I must not forget the bath tub. They were our family owned # 3 wash tub’s. Every person took a bath in the same tub one after the other. Adding a little more warm water or adding to what the little one’s had splashed out. Laundry was done outside the house with water heated in an open iron kettle over an open fire, if things were really dirty they might get boiled in this water before being transferred to a tub to be scrubbed on a wash board. All the water for the laundry was pumped by hand, and this task was left to the women and girls of the home. The articles being laundered were put in a wash tub of hot water, rubbed on a rub board using soap made from lye and hog lard and wood ashes to make what was called lye soap. After being rubbed, they were twisted by hand and placed in a tub which had clean water to rinse the soap, and twisted again. Quite often we had to use two rinse waters. When as much water as possible had been twisted, they were hung on a line, usually attached to two trees to dry in the air. In the winter time they would freeze on the line and could take a couple days to dry. Grandma Ledbetter would also make hominy which was done outside in the iron wash kettle. Ironing, that was a hard chore trying to keep the iron hot enough to get all the wrinkles out. There was no such thing back then as Permanent press. In the late 1940’s, they finally brought washing machines into our area, they were run from a gasoline engine under the washer and the wringer on top of the machine was turned by hand. There was no electricity in the area so the gasoline washing machine was the first improvement over the wash board. It was questionable for a while if this was much improvement over the open tub with the wash board. You still had to pump and heat the water to put the washer. You had to turn the wringers by hand using a handle on the end of the wringers. The only thing missing here was the wash board and you got to keep the skin on your knuckles. Grandma Ledbetter had years earlier broke one of the three legs on her wash kittle, which enabled her to recover it after it was stolen. The broken leg allowed her to identify her wash kittle, which had been stolen to be sold as an antique in the late 1960’s. Another luxury was in town by the ending of WWII it was electricity. The only bad storm I ever saw growing up was a Cyclone/tornado ‘as it is called now’. It came through ripping the tin roofs off the homes and twisting the material around those new utility poles and some of the electric wire that had been put up. Which all had to be re done. Our country engaged in WWII and lives changed all across this great nation. Our family was not to go through these times without hardships, trials, and personal defeat. Dad left the farm for St. Louis defense plant work as there was more money to be made working in the defense plants than farming at that time. Our country was coming out of the great depression and life was still hard for common folks, therefore, making the weekly paychecks from the defense plants look twice as large as they were. Dad went back and forth between St. Louis and Qulin trying to decide which type of work he really wants to stay with causing us to move around often. This was quite a difference from living in one area near our grandparents. One of the defense plants among others, he worked for was Mc Quay Norris. I was nine years old when things started to really change came for our family. In 1942 we were again in Qulin living with our grandparents, and it was at their home our brother William Hebert (Sonny) was born. This was also the time our family personal problems started. Our parents were not getting on with their marriage and we moved every few weeks, it was difficult to get an education with changing schools so often, but I and my sisters somehow managed to keep up with our school work. It was back and forth between Qulin and St. Louis until the end of WWII. In 1944 dad was living in St. Louis and traveling to Qulin on the weekends. Mom stayed in Qulin as she was waiting for the twins, Leo Wayne and Cleo Jane, to be born. They only lived a few days and are buried in the Qulin Cemetery. Mom was buried next to the twins in Qulin when she passed away. Our Dad is resting in the St. Francois Ark. Cemetery beside his second wife Violet Fisher, one sister and his parents. In Qulin we could go to Hefner’s or Campbell’s stores at lunch time and buy a bologna and cheese with crackers lunch for five cents and a cold soda to wash it down for another nickel. A nickel was pretty big back then and a dime was a lot, I have no idea how big a quarter was. When we did not have money for lunch we carried it in a lard bucket with what ever there was at home to take in the bucket. Of course this same lunch worked if you were working in the cotton fields during the summer or fall. One hard part of the years during my childhood was a girl protecting her reputation. In a small town where most everyone was deeply religious, it always seemed to be the girls fault if she was molested and her reputation was forever tarnished. There seemed to be no forgiveness from any one even when it was gang rape. I guess they had little to talk about and a girl in this situation had no defense of her reputation. Saddest part of it all is a girl could just be accused by loose gossip from a jealous person and it became a fact. Thank goodness we do not live with those dark clouds in today’s world. My opinion it- is great a woman can today stand up for herself and not stand alone. The 1940’s era in our family history also became a nightmare for me. Being the oldest when both parents were working in the defense plants it was up to me to look after my two younger sisters and brother when not in school. Living in apartments in St. Louis, and trying to be a parent to siblings is not an easy task. We had to be quite while either our parents or the neighbors were sleeping in the day time as they often worked night shift. Along with school work, we worked picture puzzles until we knew the pieces by memory. There were no yards to play in as the apartment buildings sat with the front of the building right on the side walk and it seemed like anything that did not have a building on it was either covered over with concrete or unsafe to play on. We were not allowed to go outside any way unless our parents went with us or we were all together in a group. It was hard to buy things during WWII even if you had the money. My parents have stood in line to buy ½ packages of cigarettes. If you had a car, you could not get very much gasoline, and new tires was non existent. When we went for a weekend to Qulin to visit our parents we took the train to Poplar Bluff and a bus on down to Qulin. Often it would only be me and my two sisters make this trip. The trains would be loaded with the soldiers first and if there were no seats left we had to agree to stand for the trip. We were always looked after by the soldiers and never offended at any time, they would give us girls their seats as they wanted to be up walking around. If dad made the trip with us he took his guitar and there would be a party atmosphere on the train for the trip, which took around 3 hours. Ration coupons were issued for many things during WWII. The few things I recall was gasoline, sugar and other food items, shoes: as they were made out of leather during that time and it was needed for military shoes. This made it difficult to have fancy shoes like girls want, we had to get durable shoes to last until we got a new ration coupon for shoes. The penny loafer and saddle oxfords were popular during this time as they were durable and stylish if possible. Once dad took us to buy our shoes and let us pick out pretty paten leather shoes. Mom had a fit over that as she insisted we would break those shoes down and they would not last until the next coupon for shoes came in. They did not last as well as the other styles, but we managed with them. There was nothing like having to wear the soles wired to the top of your shoe or putting cardboard in the shoe to protect your foot if the sole wore through. Or worse yet was those darn blisters from shoes being too large/or the too small which cause your toes to curl up. Before the new stamps were given to us. One thing I do not want to forget to mention is the first margarine. Being used to ‘real’ butter, margarine was awful. Even after we left the farm, milk could be bought with the cream on top of the milk. We would dip the cream off and keep it until we had enough to make butter. But there was so little cream to get this way, we often purchased margarine. Margarine was a one lb., block of what appeared to be lard and a package of yellow (probably food coloring). This yellow package was mixed with the block of white stuff until it was yellow: thus creating a spread for the table. I usually was given the task of mixing this mess by hand until it was considered usable. And what it tastes like after all this is lard with yellow coloring. ‘smile’ But anything on a biscuit is better than nothing. And there was the savings bond everyone tried to purchase during WWII. This one really sticks out in my mind. Every so often you could buy a 10 cent stamp, if you had the dime, you saved these 10 cent stamps toward accumulating enough stamps to be able to purchase a savings bond. Not having the dime to purchase the stamps with, I have no idea how many it took before you could trade for a savings bond. I believe this was a project offered the school children in the ‘bond drive’ effort during the war. Where were you when Pearl Harbor was attacked? Just curious. Where were you when WWII was over? Do you recall the great celebrations? People dancing in the street, hugging strangers, feeling the great relief even as a child, knowing it was ‘over.’ As a child my thoughts was, “life will go back to the way it was,” but that too was never to happen. Like the rest of the world I learned to live with changes, some for the worse, and many for the better. I grew from a child to an adult with the new world as it became after the great depression and WWII. I will take a minute here to mention why my grandparents are referred to most in this document. We always lived near or in the same house with our Hall and Ledbetter grandparents until late 1940’s. Their home and family gatherings is the memories I reflect on when thinking of my own childhood. Especially the get togethers on the fourth of July for the big fish fries. They were looked forward to as much as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. It was during the Korean conflict I met and married Arthur De Geare. Art served in the USMC during the Korean conflict and we were married while he was stationed in California. We returned to Missouri after his discharge with a beautiful daughter. A few years later the second daughter was born and then another and another, until we ended up with four wonderful girls. One is in advertising in CA, with 2 children, she has 1 daughter and one son who is a musician. One retired from the Navy,and studying for her BA. in Physciatry. One is the mother of three wonderful children,is into her College classes full time now and with a Culinary Arts and Massage Therapist Degree, Also Accounting through H-R Block and finalizing her credits to become a teacher. One son works for Anheiser Busch, one for the MO-Dot Company. The daughter is married with 2 lovely children. and One is a Catering Representative in Hollywood CA.with 2 daughters one is an Attorney and the other in her last years of her BA in Arts and Photography. Art worked for McDonald-Douglas/Boeing Aircraft and retired from there, with 38 + years of service.Two years ago I sold my Floral business to set around and take life a little easier. We have been SO blessed with Our 7 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren. After more than 54 years of marriage, I think it went much too fast. Sincerly Junental 'Ledbetter' DeGeare Fried apples. Wash, core, slice top to bottom about 3/8 inch thick slices, place in an iron skillet on med heat in enough OIL to cover the bottom of the skillet and not let them stick. Turn often so they cook even, when softened, cover with 1/4th cup sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, sprinkle a little nutmeg and a dash of ginger. Mix thoroughly so all apples are covered, remove into a dish. Eat and enjoy, hot or cold. LEAVE peelings on for added flavor. I also like to make fried apples with pork sausage. You cook the sausage half way then add the apples with cinnamon and brown sugar. YUMMY ENJOY!!! 1