My Week of Making Paper

One year, my youngest brother and I were able to attend Vacation Bible School (VBS) at our Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church. It was a bit less than one quarter of a mile to the West of what I always thought of as my Grandmother’s farm.
Grandmother was no longer living, but my youngest Uncle had bought out all of his siblings to remain on the original homestead. He also promised all of this brothers and sisters that my youngest Aunt would be provided for the rest of her life. Neither my youngest Uncle nor my youngest Aunt were married. It was assumed then, that the woman needed someone to care for her.
Somehow my youngest brother and I wrangled a concession out of our parents that we could stay for a week with our Uncle and Aunt while we attended Vacation Bible School. That meant we would have one whole week away from our chores. We both loved our Aunt and Uncle. To us, they were fun to be around as they joked with us and Aunt Dorothy would always bake something special for us.
Uncle Oscar loved to joke with us and would also play card games, checkers, and dominoes. Not that my parents didn’t, but it was different when your Uncle and Aunt did. Oscar also had a fabulous Phillips radio in a cabinet so unlike that small unit we had at our house.
There were ample bedrooms. My Aunt was now using the one downstairs that had been their parent’s, then Grandma’s bedroom. It was small and set at the right side of the short hall that led to the living room on the left.
I loved going to VBS as I was in the class for the oldest students and that meant Pastor Kaning taught us. He was a fantastic teacher as he would describe the history relating to the scenes in our book and our Bible. After classes were over we would walk to our Uncle’s and Aunt’s home and have our dinner. Yes, dinner was at noon, supper at night. I’m not sure what my brother did for helping with chores as Uncle Oscar had installed a red pump over the kitchen sink. Grandma would and did consider that an extravagant used of money. It was not allowed while she lived. I, of course, helped Aunt Dorothy in the kitchen.
After dinner we were allowed to go out and play. There were not the chores for us on Uncle’s dairy farm that there would have been at home. Uncle Oscar told us he milked wood stones, but he smiled as he did so. He then explained that wood stone was the translation for Holstein.
The land between the fenced house, washhouse, and garden was open to the lane and to the fence that surrounded and met with the barn. To the side of the barn where the fence started again was a large stone enclosed tank and another pump. Water was kept there for the horses and cattle. By this time, my uncle did not keep horses. The corn cribs, garage, and granary were set towards the west in front of the fence that kept the cattle from running loose.
The crabapple tree in front of the house fence was in fine shape, but an old cottonwood that once abutted to the fence between Uncle’s property and the road had been felled by lightning. It was a huge massive trunk several feet long. Uncle was still clearing the branches away and had not started on the main portion. It was a fine place to climb and pretend. I noticed that inside of the lightning caused gash was pulp mixed with water. We had been studying about the Israelites in Egypt. Pastor had explained how they made paper from papyrus: pounded out pulp mixed with water.
I dipped out several handfuls of pinkish beige pulp and made two rather large balls after squeezing out the water. For the rest of the week in the afternoons, Gordie and I would pound away at the pulp. By the fourth day, the pulp was a beige color and fairly smooth. I used a ball point pen to write on it. It didn’t matter that the “paper” was rough and bumpy in spots. You could see my name. We went home with full stomachs from Aunt Dorothy’s cakes, pies, cookies, and biscuits. It had been a wonderful summer.
If you want to see the church, http://www.davidkusel.com/manning1/tr... I’ve provided a link. Scroll down and you will see how it looked then. The bits of the farm house and farm yard I’ve described are described more in my novel Earthbound http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00THSCXOC and soon to be re-released Gather The Children.