South Boardman

Friends of my Rolf Grandparents, Ray and Marie Hudson, lived in South Boardman, Michigan.  How did they meet, a farmer from the north of the lower peninsula, and a watchmaker from Cleveland?  I have a picture of them visiting with my grandparent’s friends, the Becksteds; perhaps that was the introduction.  My grandmother didn’t date these pictures.

Walter Rolf, Ray Hudson, Marie Hudson, Elsie Becksted, Ethel Rolf

Walter Rolf and Howard Becksted in South Boardman

Uncle Ray farmed with horses, which were still at pasture when I was a child and they had been replaced by a tractor.  I remember Uncle Ray telling me when I was twelve or so, the horses had always rested on Sunday; now they were retired, spending seven days a week at leisure for their long service.  They were big horses, and I won’t say Clydesdales, as I don’t know for sure, but they were very large work horses and had fringes of hair around their hooves.

I barely remember Aunt Marie, except as a large and pleasant woman who ran a tight farm kitchen.  She cooked on a wondrous wood burning stove with many lids that lifted up with special handles.  There was also a kind of boiler where hot water for dishes was available.  She made dinner for the men coming in from the chores or the fields.  Breakfast was not to be believed.  Every individual food I ever had for breakfast, all served up together and consumed en masse by the men.  Bacon, ham, eggs, pancakes, oatmeal, pie, toast, butter and jam, and more I’m sure I don’t recall.  Even more food on the table for dinner, this time fried or roasted meat, mashed potatoes, vegetables of every sort, custards and puddings, loaves of bread, pies.  I can’t recount it all.

Ethel Rolf, Marie Hudson, Ray Hudson and Shep, Lenore Lytle and Joanne-around June 1943

John Lytle, Walter Rolf, Ethel Rolf, Lenore Lytle and Joanne-same trip

I do remember Aunt Marie clearly from a visit when I was three or four; after that there was a slender, quiet lady named Aunt Louise.  In recollecting trips to South Boardman, the grown-ups always mentioned that no one ever knew Aunt Marie’s age, not even Uncle Ray, but they assumed she may have been as much as twenty years older.  Personally, I would have been worn to a nub by the amount of labor required of both Uncle Ray and Aunt Marie.

Uncle Ray and Aunt Marie had no children.  Uncle Ray still farmed in the ‘40’s, and had dairy cows as well.  I was sent down the lane one night to bring the cows home and was so proud, never realizing Shep, the border collie, had done the job.  They had no children, but took in and raised up children from town or from neighboring farms where there were too many mouths to feed.  I was introduced to one such young man when I was twelve and visiting with my grandmother.  He was home for the summer, from college, and visiting.

In a memorable visit when I was three or four, Uncle Ray was milking cows and I was watching.  Two barn cats sat nearby, and caught squirts of milk he occasionally sent their way. 

Not Uncle Ray, but a treasured picture, found on the internet

 When he sent a squirt at me I ran out of the barn and wiped the milk off my leg with weeds and grass!  On that same visit I was standing near him when he opened a kitchen drawer, took out a long black box and pressed a little gold button.  I was all big eyes as he took a long silver knife and closed the box.  He tested the knife against his thumb and invited me to come with him.  We went out the kitchen door onto the long side porch, down the porch, down the stairs and down the path to the chicken yard.  He caught, killed and took the heads off two chickens so quickly I did not know what had happened.  We went back up the path and the women were waiting on the porch with boiling water to scald and pluck the chickens.  I left.  I knew if anyone ever again opened a long box and extracted a silver knife, I would not go with them.

When I in my teens, on family vacations, we visited the Hudson’s on our way north.  I remember we had to pass Fife Lake to get to the farm, and there was an octagon barn near them.  We would go on north; I recall stopping for the Cherry Festival in Traverse City one year, and Uncle Ray and Aunt Louise were there.  We would go on to cross the Straites of Mackinaw on the ferry and keep on going west.  The Mackinaw Bridge was completed before I grew up.  It remained a family destination and Jan says they still took the ferry.  Mom would go out of her way to take a ferry.

When Grandma Rolf died in 1989, mom sent a note to the Hudson’s in South Boardman, with another note on the outside to asking it please be forwarded if anyone knew if Ray Hudson might still be alive.  Her note came back marked UNKNOWN.  How sad.  Contact was kept well into the 1960’s, but how could anyone have known to contact the Rolf’s on the passing of the Hudson’s.

For several years I exhibited at an art show near Charlevoix.  On the way home one year I turned off to South Boardman.  Nothing was familiar and I went up and down a few roads, including one called Hudson Road, but I didn’t recognize the farm, or even find the octagon barn.  The memories are familiar only in my mind.

Car games

Amusing children in cars goes way back, right to the invention of automobiles and family trips, and there were children to be amused in my family cars.  First, seating had to be settled.  There were three of us, and we sat in the back seat.  The arrangement continued even after the arrival of my sister, who stood in the front seat between my parents.  To determine the back seat order, we had dad’s day of the month rule.  Divide the day of the month by three (children).  If the answer came out even, child three sat in the middle.  If the answer had one left over, child one sat in the middle; two left over, child two in the middle.  Bickering and complaining about how often one’s number came up could not continue inside the car.

The first car game I remember we probably made up.  We called it Red Light Green Light, and my older brother and I picked a color and then kept count of how many of each we got on the way to our destination.  This game was much better going to Cleveland than going to Richfield or Marlboro.  After my second brother arrived and was old enough to add, he needed a light.  Walt and I could holler faster and never gave up our red or green, so mom gave Mel the yellow light and it was worth a lot of points.  Walt and I never fell for that; the chance of actually going through a yellow light was too much of a crap shoot.

One year we were headed pretty far away, probably St. Louis.  Mom picked up a little book of games in the dime store.  One game in the book went down in family history and the other game was a staple over two generations.  Or, as long as we had mom to keep it alive, and before Ipods and DVD players captured the back seat.

The game that went down in history:  the little book had pages and pages of a bingo game, in which the player marked off squares with pictures of roadside objects.  Cats, dogs, trees, churches, gas stations, fire plugs, everything you can remember ever seeing outside a car window.  One game Walt and I were playing was coming out pretty even until each of us needed one more item to win.  His was a boxcar.  There was no railroad within hundreds of miles.  Whatever mine was, it was attainable and I would win.  But we didn’t pass it, either.  We went for miles and miles, Walt scanning the sky for a boxcar he could never find and me just waiting for my number to come up and beat him.  Then mom and dad were chuckling in the front seat.  Then they were laughing out loud.  Then dad passed a flat bed truck hauling a boxcar.

But the game of games was Roadside Cribbage.  Four legged animals were a point apiece.  A white horse was ten points.  A church doubled your points.  A cemetery wiped them out.  Mom quickly modified the rules—five or more animals were a herd and a herd counted five points.  Obviously, a fence separating herds meant more herds.  We played in teams by driver’s side or passenger side.  This was the 1950’s, there were no interstate highways and there was much more rural America.  This game got rambunctious, loud, challenging, competetive.  And, dad was not above going a block out of the way in the wrong direction to give some team the graveyard.

About 1955. Hot and heavy Roadside Cribbage years.

Who’s nuts

Jan has a dear friend and quilting pal, Patti.  Patti is more right brained than Jan.  Patti’s fabrics blend from shade to shade.  Fabrics can’t repeat.  Little bitty patches must be oriented the same way.  I used to think Jan was that way, until I saw some of Patti’s work.  Jan is all about the right fabric; Patti is the perfect fabric.

Patti lives in a pretty house with several cats and her nice husband.  Every cat has a big personality and one will not cohabit, so he is king of the garage.  Every day Patti puts all the other cats in their room and brings Kiwi out to play.  Kiwi has green eyes and is Jan’s bud.

Kiwi on one of my scrappy quilts

 

Some of the kitties escaped to wander the world one day.  What to do?  Cats do not take to calling or herding, we all know.  Quick as a wink Patti turned on the sprinklers and appeared at the back door saying “Danger!  Danger!  Danger!" They all know now Danger! means get back to Patti as fast as you can.

Of course she feeds all the wildlife. Every bird.  Every rodent.  God forbid a chipmunk or a squirrel perish if Patti can help it.  I could not put her deer in that last sentence, as they are ruminates.  And, as they can start higher and eat my rose bushes to the ground, and then eat the roots, I suppose they need a separate sentence.  I will not mention we have too many in our neighborhood.

We live with a lot of trees, many of them oaks.  The acorns peppering onto the deck caught Patti’s attention one year.  “Acorns!  Acorns!”  There are no oaks in her yard.  She took home a big bag to feed her charges.  She came back for more.  As we had visiting grandchildren that weekend, closer to the ground, we sent them to gather a bushel of acorns for Patti. 

She keeps them in the freezer (kills bugs, she says), and doles out a measure year round to her coterie.  I have a mental picture of Bambi’s woodsy friends shyly approaching.

Grandchildren have been available the last several years for Patti’s acorn harvest.  This morning Jan and I were on the deck and a breeze brought down a bonanza.  Instinctively we started picking them up.  I went in and got a container.  Half an hour later we looked at each other.  Who’s nuts?

Letter dated Sept. 2, 1980-Nicki Rolf Lytle recalling memories----written to Kathleen

My cousin Kathleen, Aunt Laura and Uncle Frank’s oldest daughter, started tracing family history more than twenty years ago.  My daughter Shelly did the same, about ten years ago.  Each of them asked mom for some “memories.”   This is mom’s letter to Kathleen.

As Kathleen was born around 1933, the ages mom cites for the three sisters is incorrect.  But, the rest is “facts,” and it’s interesting to see how I put together what I knew to conclude mom and dad met at her home on Christmas Eve and dad was fresh off the ships.  This is the real story (and just as good!)

Another great story:  Lenore Caroline Rolf was known to most as Nicki.  My aunts, my uncles, my cousins, my dad called her Nicki.  Only Grandma Rolf called her Lenore.  Her father intended her to be a boy.  To make up for her failure of sex, he called her Nicodemus. When I think back and consider my grandmother used no nicknames, and the grandmother I knew was a strong personality, I can only marvel that he did it and that it stuck for life.

Letter dated Sept. 2, 1980-Nicki Rolf Lytle recalling memories----written to Kathleen

There is no “painful” part in recalling the good old days.  It may be your Mom and Dad would experience more pain in remembering the depression years—the doing without, hardship, debts etc.  However, the depression years did bring them three lovely girls—Kathleen, Patty and Ellen.  They also had a lot of good friends who helped them before I came on the scene.

Let’s set the stage:  W. 21^ST St., Cleveland, OH-1937-38-39-Daisy and Don Haupt, Michael Boehm, Henry Rolf and Elmer White.  I do not know how Daisy met your Dad.  Daisy was a nurse and your Dad was on WPA.  This crew went to Independence to see your parents regularly.  Finally, Henry persuaded Iris Mielke and myself to come along to play Armbuster.  Made you all about 6, 4 and 2.

Uncle Jack was in the Army, he’d gone to Tri-State and was a radio operator on the Great Lakes when he broke his ankle (1940).  He stayed with Daisy and Don and came to my Dad’s shop on 21^st St. nearly every day.  I worked at Bailey Wallpaper on W. 25^th St.  Never saw him in all the time he lived with Daisy.

Daisy and Don were building a house on Creston Ave.  Uncle Jack helped design and wire it.  The first time I saw your Uncle Jack was when he came waltzing in with his fiancée at Daisy’s (1941) and walked out of my life with nary a glance.  (Anyway, he was too old for me?)

If you remember, Iris and I made clothes for you girls. Should be some pictures someplace to prove it.

Things in the world moved along to Dec. 1941.  Your Dad was employed at Hauserman by this time.  You lived in Richfield and we were all going to be at your house Xmas Eve.  Your Uncle Jack was now  employed at B&W in Barberton and was also going to be there, because he was dis-engaged.  That year for Xmas I made a number of men’s scarves (basket weave pattern) and made one for your Uncle Jack because he was going to be there and Iris and I decided he needed a gift to open.  I am now officially an old maid at 23, going on 24, so it was safe to do this.  I had no boyfriend and no prospects of marrying.  I was a very shy and hard-to-know person.  Your family were my friends and girls I had known in high school.  No boyfriends though.  I had about 3 dates by Dec. 1941.

I can remember where Uncle Jack kissed me and how I felt but I can’t remember when we had our first date in 1942.  I know we went roller skating a lot and by Easter we were engaged and were married June 20, 1942.  You were 15, going on 16 and Bobbie is 9 months old.  Now your memory should fill in some of the many pleasant times we had together.

Don and Daisy Haupt stood for my parents at their wedding.

My youngsters talk of instances when we came to supper-Melvin trying to eat a hard marshmallow when he was about 2.  Melvin also proved to your Mom he could touch his nose with his tongue with teeth in his mouth.  Bobby’s “darned” socks were the pride and joy of my boys when they were handed down.

P.S.  Time proved that Uncle Jack wasn’t “too old” after all.  We did make 35 years which was more than I ever hoped for.  Uncle Jack’s famous line was that 1932 was the year he didn’t eat.  Most of the tools in the basement were bought that year!

I came across the directions I had to puzzle out to finish the scarf. 

Nicki Rolf’s basket weave scarf

Worked on a multiple of 8 stitches.

Row one:Row 1: *P6, K2, repeat from * across.

Row two: *P2, K6, repeat from * across.

Row three: Repeat row 1.

Row four: Repeat row 2.

Row five: P2, *K2, P6, repeat from * across, ending with P4.

Row six: K4, *P2, K6, repeat from * across, ending with K2.

Row seven: Repeat row 5.

Row eight: Repeat row 6.

Repeat these eight rows for pattern.

Here's my scarf:

At the end of my resume….

My sister is the last gainfully employed person in this house.   Her husband is retired and putters in the yard.  I’m retired and putter in government, until someone runs against me some election and I’m turned out.  She runs a quilting business.

Jan and I actually retired at the same time, me altogether and Jan because she was done weaving.  Just like that.  Digital.  She went quilting.  We were weaving all around her in the studio and she was sewing little squares on the sewing machine and quilting little quilts on a pretty little frame.  She came home from a quilting show and said there was a big machine there but she stayed well back so she wouldn’t swoon.   “Just buy the damn thing, we’ll figure it out.”  We had to sell three looms to make space for the Gammill.

Jan is an award winning quilter in this amazing art form. 

Some of her ribbons.  Transparency woven by Taria Kubini.

The studio is lined in quilts.

Actually, she no longer enters shows.  She realized her customers were not entering shows with quilts she had quilted for them because they could not compete against her quilts and quilting.  Now the customers win the ribbons, which is perfectly all right with Jan.  She has moved on to being an organizer of a teaching venue for quilters, QuiltingwithMachines.

 (In the event I never mentioned it, she is the right brain, I’m the left in our long business partnership.) 

The looms and weaving equipment were sold, the studio gradually filled up with quilting paraphernalia, and she set about establishing a customer base for her new art.   I was busy figuring out how to make my little chunk of government more effective, and really didn’t get far into the studio.  But when I did, holy cow.  When we were weavers either one of us could say “It’s only thread” and put a failed warp straight in the trash.  Apparently quilters are not able to do that.  There were bins and bins of scraps.  Apparently you never know when you will need to root through five pounds of scraps to find the perfect one inch square.

“What are you going to do with all this,” I asked one day.  Well, sometimes she used them for scrappy borders and she was thinking of a scrappy quilt in her spare time.  These are rudimentary paper piecing techniques, I learned.  Well, any fool can sew fabric to paper.  I commandeered a scrap bucket, reduced a phone book of pages to squares by the time honored method of folding on the diagonal and cutting off the excess.  When a page is covered with sewn on scraps it gets a final press and trim to the proper size.

Behind my sewing machine a quilt from odd sizes and colors.

A phone book or so later I still couldn’t stand the chaos of either the mix of colors or the mix of strip sizes (oh, be still left brain!).  So, I sorted it all by color into drawers and cut everything into one and one half inch strips.  And kept on sewing. 

Proper sizes and colors for a scrappy quilt, thank you very much!

 Both my daughters and all my grandchildren got quilts for Christmas that year.  My friend Ann has a pile of quilts that she graciously continues to accept. But the scraps never went away.  Jan’s customers would leave the studio and I would find a bag of their scraps discretely abandoned behind my chair.  One time I was so frustrated with my inability to tame the scraps that I went drawer by drawer and sewed all those strips end to end (yea, just like denim!), packed them into half a dozen thirty gallon garbage bags and hauled them off to Linda, who wove them right into rugs that now live on floors.  I had done it; the scraps were gone!  I returned to a new load of stash culling by a dear customer.  Sigh.

About a year and a half ago Jan asked me to help her figure out how to maintain her profit if she offered customers some discount on their regular quilting for every baby quilt they gave her to quilt for charity.  Now, Jan has done acres of charity quilting.  Quilts for soldiers, quilts for schools, quilts for orphans, all done by various guilds as projects.   But this was a personal challenge.  One of her guilds had asked the members to each produce one charity quilt over the course of the year for Ronald McDonald House or Pregnancy Care.  One year later one quilt had been turned in—Jan’s.  Fine.  Apparently it was down to her.

People being the busy folks they are, I doubted she’d get much for her offer.  With a gleam in my eye, I also saw a way to get rid of those pesky scraps.  To hell with asking people, if she was willing to keep on backing and quilting them, any fool could sew five inch blocks together.

Well, I’m ahead of her.  I’m closing in on quilt 150 and she has quilted and bound about half of them.  Pregnancy Care got the first fifty and Ronald McDonald House will get the next fifty.  And, you guessed right—bags of fabric continue to be abandoned in the studio.  It’s a good thing—those little suckers eat it up.

The left brain has to know this stuff.

 Good quarter inch seams + good pressing = good quilt.

More to press behind the iron.

A tub of pressed tops.

Another tub of pressed tops, and a tub of backings.

Quilted and bound, Jan will fell the binding soon.  Nice red flannel back.

Another stack for McDonald House.