Chapter 11 of Tales That I Can Remember by Elsie Swagerty Burton
I spent about a month of every summer at Grandma and Grandpa Aldrich. These were lovely times for me. I could be interrupted at play and come back to find everything exactly as I had left it. There was ever so much solitude, but not too much. Grandma saw to it that I visited with girls in the town about my own age and over the years I felt like we were friends. The church at Hughson was a second home-church to me. Those times when I attended Church and sat in the pew, up front, because Grandma was very hard of hearing, were special times. Although I really didn’t understand the minister’s message I felt what was happening was important to my Grandparents and if I behaved myself in the prescribed way, they were pleased with me and their approval was important. I had a feeling of many eyes on me, for we did sit in the second pew from the front. It was like being observed by God and if one performs well in God’s eyes one naturally has a sensation of peace and well being. Not that I thought this through as a child but in reflecting on it that is the way it seems to me it must have been.
An incident occurred while on one of those summer visits that had profound impact on my method of evaluating temptations. It started with my admiration of the rings my two young aunts kept in a small ring box on their dresser in the bedroom they shared. I would go into their room and admire them and try them on. They were much too large, or course. Naturally, I was not encouraged in this. I remember going somewhat secretive about it although I cannot recall any commands to stay away from them. On one occasion, Grandma took me with her into a Woolworth store in the nearby town of Turlock. We went by a counter where there were trays and trays of rings. I never saw such a display before. It was bedazzling. I tried to interest Grandma in one for me. They were not very expensive either, some were as little as 15 cents or 20 cents. Grandma was disgusted at such trash and forcefully rejected the idea and went about searching out whatever item had brought her into the store. I wandered back to the ring counter determined that I would have a ring and just took one. I put it in my pocket feeling a triumph. My Grandmother said, “No!” , but I got one anyway.
When we got back to the farm and when I was alone, I put the ring on and suddenly the enormity of my actions hit me. I couldn’t possibly let my Grandmother know what I had done. I didn’t dare wear the ring then or ever, not even later at home. I wouldn’t want my parents to know I could do such a thing. Even to know God knew was over-powering. I took off the offensive ring and threw it as far as I could. Right then I knew what an awful thing I had done and that was as bad as anyone else knowing. The memory of that experience helped me over many times when I might have been tempted by situations to deliberately do a grievous wrong because I knew self-disgust would surely follow.
In Hughson on Saturday nights in the summertime, there were outdoor movies. You see, drive-in theaters are not all that modern. A large screen was set up on a vacant lot in the middle of town. Bench seats and bleacher type seats and space at the very back for automobiles to park were available. Of course, it was a silent screen but music accompanied it. During those times when my Grandparent lived in town, the sound of that music was welcome entertainment, even on the times when I did not attend the movie itself. The house was across the street from the back of the screen.
My grandmother went to a chiropractor in Riverbank which is about eight miles from Hughson. She had regular weekly and sometimes twice weekly appointments with him. One summer I was included. This was an effort to cure my bed wetting. In the process of examination an irregular curvature of the spine was discovered. It was hoped that in correcting that it would have some beneficial effect on my problem. I remember the little hospital gowns we wore and how we were layed out on the peculiar table on which there was an accommodation for one’s nose when one lay face down on it. Most of all I remember the torture chamber of a sweat box. It was a small enclosure with a seat. The entire body was covered except for the head. Heat was turned on and torture began. One perspired and perspired and perspired. I sometimes expected to die. We were made to endure that for about half an hour. That and the ride home in the San Joaquin heat in a touring car at a speed of 25 miles per hour – who needs purgatory? Aunt Lucy sometimes participated in these good times. One year my brother, Darrell, was included. He spent the summer with Aunt Belle, who lived in Hughson, while I was with Grandmother Aldrich. He had had diphtheria the winter before and had retained some respiratory difficulties. How this treatment could possibly help him I don’t know, but Grandma sure wanted to try.
Darrell and I made the trip to Hughson by train. It was my one and only experience in a train. Except for going through tunnels the only part I remember was waiting at a transfer point, Niles, and the anxiety of wondering if I were in the right place or if I had somehow missed my connection. I also felt very responsible for this little brother. He was four and I was nine.
My closest girl cousin was Iona. Her mother and my mother were sisters and her father and my father were brothers so that our parents felt very close, hence we were together more than with any other relatives. She and I are so different. We never seemed to have so very much in common, still I always felt such a fondness for her and was so delighted to see her but in thinking back I wonder why. Iona was a Tom-boy and found my brothers’ activities were more to her liking, so I was alone again. I found myself in with the adults.
One year Iona and I visited Grandma and Grandpa at the same time. When just we two were together, Iona didn’t have the alternative of the companionship of my brothers, I remember getting on very well with her. The incident that stands out in my memory of that summer happened on a Sunday evening. Light suppers were the rule for Sunday evenings and Grandma had made a very large potato salad. Grandma had asked us girls to go ahead and eat before the others because Grandpa had an extra large load of chores to do and was late coming in. The potato salad was extra, the only dish provided. We had helped make it and we were extra hungry; so we ate it all.
Grandma was so exasperated. She really let us know we behaved badly. Iona and I felt unjustly accused. We each wrote letters to our parents complaining that we were not being treated hospitably. My parents didn’t understand what was going on, but feared that I was misbehaving or had in some way created an unpleasantness. They came after me the next weekend, their very first opportunity. By the time my parents got there the incident was forgotten but I had to go home anyway. Iona’s parents waited until the next weekend.
One year on the farm in Hughson during the peach harvest, Cousin Claude, one of Dad’s nephews, was working for Grandpa Aldrich. He must have been in his late teens and I was ten or so. Claude made trips to into the orchard and loaded the filled boxes of fruit onto the flat wagon and hauled them to a convenient spot for the truckers from the canneries to pick up. It was fun to sometimes ride of these trips with him. He was a great tease and life was always lively when he was around.
It was on one of those trips to and from the orchards that I acquired a deep appreciation fr eucalyptus trees. On one stretch of the way on the property line between Grandfather’s property and his neighbor was a row of these trees. Aside from the shade the afforded, which was no small thing in that climate, they gave forth the most delightful aroma as the horses hooves and wagon wheels crushed the fallen leaves.
I remember an earlier summer when we were living at my paternal Grandparents’ home. Mother was working in the vegetable patch. She was removing the tomato bugs from the plants by snipping off the portion of the plant the worm occupied. Grandfather was vexed about this. He said she destroyed as much plant as the insects did. Twin cousins Claude and Clyde heard the exchange and proceeded to tease mother about it most unmercifully. I chased them trying to get them to stop. I couldn’t tell one from the other, they were so much alike. It was frustrating.
Swagerty-Aldrich Family Web Site 