Name: Mary Ann (Heck) Robertson

Relationship to Grandma and Grandpa Heck: Child

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As the 10th chilf of a family of 12, you might imagine there was no fan fare or special treatment for birthdays. We all knew when our birthday came around, but it wasn't because there was going to be a party or Birthday cakeor a present!! It was just another day!EXCEPT, the morning of my 8th birthday,my Dad came to our bedroom where the three of us girls slept in one bed, and said "Come. Mamma has something for you". At last, I thought,it must be my birthday present!!

 

I followed Dad into the back bedroom where Mom and Dad slept and there she waslaying in bed with a baby in her arms!!! I was surprised,but not overly pleased. What was I to do with a REAl baby??!! That baby turned out to be my youngest brother,Bill. I have many memories of my childhood on the farm. I remember when the barn burned down early one morning. How all the neighbors rallied to help, how Dad and the boys got al the animals out; how one of the horses wanted to go back in! It was a school day,so we had to go to school,even if the barn was burning down!! I remember the new barn being built in a different place and Mother fix meals for the building crew. I remember having to go to the out-door toilet in the middle of the night with a kerosene lantern. I remember when Dad decided to quit frming and had a farm sale. Again, it was a school day ,so we had to go to school so the sale didn't mean much to me. NOW, I wonder what happened to so many things that I remember being in that farm place; like the old Victrola record player, the many crocks Mom used to soak cucumbers for canning pickles. The large garden we had and all the picking of cherries and apples from the trees and shaking the mulberry tree and catching the mulberries on a canvas sheet. I'm not sure what Mom used the mulberries for. I don't remember a mulberry pie or canned mulberries; maybe my older sisters know.

 

WE also went out to the timber and picked gooseberries off the bushes. Sticky things, I never did like gooseberries!!! When lived on the farm, we had no electricity or in-door plumbing.When we moved to town and light by flicking a button,I thought it was magic!!!I don't know how Mother did it all those years without an electric washer for all the clothes she had to lauder. She did the laundry on Mondays, ironing on Tuesdays. Baked bread several times a week and that odor of fresh bread when we came home from school is one that can never be copied!! I don't think any of us ever went hungry for there seemed to be plenty to go around,but I wonder so many times how she did it!!! These are just some of what I remember as a child growing up on the farm!