Lillie Mae Dean, son Elbert
A couple of years later, and the old piano stool became dad's favorite indoor toy. "Round and round, and round and round. Up to the top, and clunk, clunk, clunk as the stool topped out and kept spinning. Then reverse, round and round, and round and round to the bottom. Repeat." (recollection by Elbert Dean, Jr.) "Our dad always saw that we had a yard full of playing equipment. One side of the house we had a croquet court, on the other was the baseball area. Each Sunday p.m., we always had a yard full of kids from the church to come and play in the summer months." (recollection by Maureen Dean Jaynes) I churned milk to make butter. Mother owned a 1 lb. rectangular butter mold which I would fill by pressing the butter into it. We sold our butter, which was high quality, to the butcher at Carson's grocery store in Merkel. Until we sold it, we kept both the butter and milk in our ice box. The ice man from Merkel delivered ice weekly. (recollection by Elbert Dean, Jr.) We butchered hogs in the fall to take advantage of cooler weather. At first we cured the meat with salt, wrapped it in paper to keep the flies away, and hung it with binder twine from the roof of the barn to keep it from mice. We opened the upper windows in the barn to ensure air circulation. Later, we used a new product, Martin's Sugar Cure, which was better than salt. We used every part of the hog. Dad even said he'd eat the hog ears, but I remember that he ate any other part of the meal first. (recollection by Elbert Dean, Jr.) Mother canned with metal cans and would get more than one year's use out of the can by cutting off the end and reusing the shortened can until it was too short. Mother kept these cans in her root cellar. I don't remember any food ever spoiling. (recollection by Elbert Dean, Jr.)
Lillie Mae Dean
with Row Binder (about 1930)