| Autobiography of Della Ann Mikesell Binder 21 July 1931 Pocatello, Idaho - 17 April 2008 Spokane, Washington Written November 1988 [Page 2] We were headed for Spokane, WA. and a new life. Aunt Mary (Mae) [Dean] was going to help us. We met her in Spokane and she took us to her home on Mt. Kit Carson. I remember sleeping in bed with her by an open window and waking up with a horse licking my face. I thought it was the greatest place in the world. She found us a house to rent a couple miles away. It had never been painted and I remember Mama sat down on the ground and cried and cried. Then she stood up and made us build a fire and boiled all the bedsteads. Then we mixed up flour and water paste and papered all the rooms with magazine and catalog papers. I loved the house. It had 3 bedrooms, one for Dad and Mom and Leslie when she was born, one for Ernie and Jimmy and one for Betty, Thelma, and I. I always slept in the middle, you know, where it sags. We played games by the hour, mainly "I'm thinking of" and there were so many things to guess. At first we had no food, and it was too early for crops. We picked pigweed and cooked it like spinach and the same with new dandelion greens. Aunt Mae gave us potatoes and beans to plant. We picked wild strawberries and finally a Dutch neighbor named Shorty Van Megen gave us plants. We played in the woods and never felt fear of wild animals. Our brothers and cousins guided hunters to earn money. Dad walked 8 miles and earned $1.00 a day on the W.P.A., bought groceries and walked home. Everyone around was poor, so all the women and kids went to a building in Chattaroy, and we all helped make quilts and pajamas. The government provided the material so all the people had the same color quilts (purple with white flowers) and pajamas (striped I think). I always remember my dad fixing our shoes on the old shoe stand. And Mama making bread and frying some for lunch. I think Dad and the boys found a honey tree and we had honey. We didn't have toys to speak of. Dad taught us to play poker with dry beans for money (or matches). Mom went to the Salvation Army and got us a set of books called "History of the Countries of the World". I read those books like a story book, all about Queen Elizabeth, King Henry and Mary of Scots. Somewhere along the way they disappeared. But I loved those books. And if any poor hungry soul came by, we fed him. One man wanted to cut wood for something to eat, but he was so hungry, when he started to eat he passed out. I know the greatest burden was on the older kids. We helped pick dry beans and strawberries and wild berries and washed dishes, but without electricity, I think most of the washing, diapers and all and a lot of hard work fell on Betty. Because Mama was sick before and after you were born. I think she must have had Toxemia. I know when she came home with you she had to stay in bed and we had to tiptoe because she had migraine head-aches. You got eczema from milk and we borrowed someone's goat. Yuk! Dad did a lot of cooking. Somewhere in that time Betty had surgery on her tendons to her toes and heels and spent a long time at Shriners Hospital [in Spokane]. Also I think somewhere in that time period, we met people from the RLDS Church. They brought toboggans up and sleds. We had a lot of fun. I remember sitting on a real long toboggan. The last of a whole row of people but when it took off down the hill, I sat down with a hard thump on the ground, and away it flew without me. Betty and I also took a bad tumble off a gentle old work horse when some dumb guy hit it and it bolted and we were not expecting it. We had really nice neighbors, especially the Marshalls. They lived down the road and had dairy cows and one mean bull. We went up to the dances at Kit Carson School, folks, kids, babies and all, and when someone got tired they just laid them down on the coats to sleep. We also went somewhere and I think it was Soap Lake, Wa. where Uncle Carlos and Aunt Nellie [Allen] lived. I remember them dynamiting the rattlesnake nests in the rocks and it rained snakes. Daddy was a crack shot and he also threw knives. He threw a knife and pinned a Blue Racer Snake to the ground. He used to have the rattles from snakes he had killed around too. We had a picnic that day. Finally Carlos and Nellie [Allen] and family moved up not too far from us. We spent a lot of time together. Aunt Nellie was strict and she had Asthma but I loved her and going to visit them. They had a lot we didn't have. Uncle Carlos hooked up a generator and they had electricity. And a Maytag gas powered washing machine. We had great big dinners up there and I still make Spaetzels (german noodles) the way Aunt Nellie showed me. All I got out of the Baked Bean recipe she gave me was 3 casseroles of hard rocks, so I think I did something wrong. 
1938, back: Ernie, Jimmy & Betty Mikesell, Carlos Allen holding son Earl, Florence & Jeff Mikesell. front: Ceathel & Carlos Jr., Della Ann & Thelma Mikesell & LaRaine Allen. Florence was pregnant with Leslie. We were still close to Aunt Mae and Uncle Gilbert [Dean] and family and I really thought the world was perfect. I liked school at Chattaroy Grade School and split my other knee open running a race to a tree that had a knot sticking out, at our picnic on the last day of school. They didn't sew that one up, just taped it. Like they did Thelma's finger when it got cut nearly off when we were cutting grass or hay or something in the fields at home. Mom was determined to get a better life for us. Thelma and I had been seriously ill with scarlet fever and they quarantined the house and burned all our books and clothes. <Back to page 1 Continued on page 3> |
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