My Family: Chapter 22

Aunt Eloise’s husband left her and went to Ohio, so she couldn’t support all the kids. Dad went to get Aunt Eloise and her eleven children to move them in with us but by time he got to her house she had only seven living with her . Aunt Hannah had Janice Sue, Uncle Richard had Glenna Lou, Uncle Bud had Jeanette, Sandy, and we already had Ronnie. The seven children with Aunt Eloise were Tommy, Danny Joe, Helen, Abby, Freddie, Mike, and Russell and they lived with us for a year. Tommy and Danny Joe, Aunt Eloise’s two oldest boys, had a pair of roller skates which they let us play with; we would roller skate on the hard road, this was before the rolling rink came up the hollow.

We had a hard time having enough food and a place for everyone to sleep with 18 people in the house. We only had four double beds; two beds for all the kids (we slept six to a bed) the girls in one bed and the boys in the another. One of Aunt Eloise’s boys was a bed wetter and since my sister, Bonnie Sue, was still a baby she also wet the bed, so we had some pretty miserable sleeping arrangements. Eloise slept with her baby, Russell, in one of the beds.

When supper was on the table, you had better be there to eat because if you got there late you didn’t get any supper. I remember one time, Shirley got home late from school and it was after supper time she went to bed crying because she was hungry.

Dad got Eloise a house up Macbeth hollow and moved her into a three-room house. After she moved, Aunt Wanda came up from Columbus, Ohio to live Aunt Eloise. Uncle Bud and his wife, Marie, had lost their oldest son in an accident in Germany where he was stationed in the Army. Aunt Marie was taking his death real hard. I heard Aunt Eloise tell Aunt Wanda that she was going to give the newest baby, Sandy, to Uncle Bud and Aunt Marie to raise. Aunt Eloise thought if Aunt Marie had a baby to take care of, it would help her take her son’s death a little better.

Shirley,  Lucille,  Aunt Eloise

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