| Description |
: |
SPECIAL: In Memory of Ora Dot Bartholomew/Pennington, Wauneta, Nebraska
She departed this life at the Imperial Community Hospital at 11:00 PM,March 22, 1951, age seventy two years, eleven months and eight days. She had been an invalid for over 5 years. Last week when she asked for a sleeping pill I looked on the box and it was dated Jan. 1945.
A week ago today (it was March 18, 1951) Mother lost all control of her limbs. I'd been dressing and undressing her for some time. And even with Mrs. K.'s help we almost dropped her...
Read More
|
SPECIAL: In Memory of Ora Dot Bartholomew/Pennington, Wauneta, Nebraska
She departed this life at the Imperial Community Hospital at 11:00 PM,March 22, 1951, age seventy two years, eleven months and eight days. She had been an invalid for over 5 years. Last week when she asked for a sleeping pill I looked on the box and it was dated Jan. 1945.
A week ago today (it was March 18, 1951) Mother lost all control of her limbs. I'd been dressing and undressing her for some time. And even with Mrs. K.'s help we almost dropped her so I said hospital and so did Mother, but when Iola came into our room Monday morning and said she was ready to give Mother a bath she started to name the reasons why she didn't want a bath. But we said we were the boss and Iola had just got her ready when the undertaker got here . His helper Robert Lee. They put Mother on the stretcher and put her in the nice ambulance and took her to the hospital. She had wanted to go Sunday but changed her mind by Monday morning. I had persuaded her to lie down almost flat the last three or more nights. That took the weight off her broken tail bone. Iola told the undertaker about her condition and he said his sister....(sentence finished on later page)
Thursday night the hospital called and no one heard the phone ring and Bradley come up and he pounded and hollered and come inside and he was so drunk he could hardly talk. But he kept talking anyway. "You know who I am?" Yes we did. Then he'd go over the whole thing again . He claimed Mother had died and that they were trying to get us. But finally he got around to tell me to go and phone. Ivo came down and we dressed and drove up to Imperial. Bradley had finally gone and was at the Plains Oil Co. Restaurant when we stopped there. I'd been up to the hospital that day and had put five gallons of gasoline before starting up. The car had been driven some after I got home and Ivo thought we ought to have some gas and I do not know why he didn't drive back home and get the key and get some gas but he didn't and drove around Wauneta awhile and then after we had been to the hospital he drove around Imperial, finally went to a dance hall and got Standard Oil Station man and got some gas. The station had been open only two weeks, they have a time keeping the Standard Station open in Imperial.
We got to the hospital a little after 11:00 PM and as we went up the stairs we met a couple of nurses who cabbaged on to us and took us back to the office and seated us, maybe they thought we would put on a scene when they told us that Mother had died. But I'd heard her pray to " Please take me--Please take me" and I knew she had suffered long as she could stand. Her voice had been so hoarse awhile back but the last few days her voice got gentle and so weak she could hardly make me hear. As we drove home from Imperial the wind come up and it was dusty and I feared a bad day for the funeral but the storm went on south and we had a nice day Saturday , March 25th for the funeral. The minister didn't want the funeral on Sunday account of the Easter program.
Ivo drove to Bud Johnston's when we got home from Imperial and arranged for Bud to bring the body home. Bud told Ivo that Clara Huff had a stroke that Norm and Bud had taken her to the hospital ( I think McCook) and she was in critical condition last word we had. We went to the funeral home Friday 10:00 AM and Ivo and Iola chose a casket. They had about twenty arranged the high priced ones first and on down the line. They got one out of the side room at last . As we drove away Ivo said that Sim Thomas used to work in a funeral home and he claimed that $35 would be enough to pay for any casket. Of course that was years ago when unions didn't strike at ever chance and of course metal caskets would cost more than $35 but a person don't think they should cost thousands of dollars. They ordered some flowers and the Venice daughters sent some and I believe the boy scouts etc. etc.
We should have been ready for the grim reaper after 5 years but we were not and didn't tell people about it, but some way they found out some way (some of them did any way and Saturday's mail brought some sympathy cards. We get our mail on route 2 at the garage and Ivo had instructed the two Russians to accept mail and give the carrier the letters to go out so he wouldn't have to stop on his way back, he isn't required to stop but does. We were to go to the funeral home at ten to see if Mother was prepared to suit us and we did and she look so sweet, we had been down at 1:30 the afternoon before. She was dressed but on the bed in the "Slumber room " and we got back to the garage before the carrier got there so I took the mail and knew nothing about orders to give him the outgoing mail on his way out, but Iola had taken Ruth to her music lesson and was going after her and she took the letters down. We never imagined that there would be sympathy cards in the mail before Mother was laid to rest and the first one I opened was from Doctor and Mrs. Carlson the home doctor who Mother would not let treat her. Then there were cards from the Handels and the Dillahays etc. etc. and then I started irrigating my cheeks from my eyes. I had some trouble when I bid Mother good-bye and she said I guess so when I asked her if I could take her home from a party at Al Abbots this spring of 1897--but there was no guess so about this deal. Mother had to quit wearing my ring when she got her hand in the clothes wringer but later was able to get her Mother's ring on but had to give that up before she died. And I kept thinking I'd like for her to wear my ring when we said good -bye and I asked the undertaker about it and he wasn't enthusiastic about it but said he'd put it on at church and did offer to try and get it on her hand after the crowd was out of the church and just family there.
But I'd changed my mind and had it on my watch chain. I wish there was some way to wear it without wearing off the engraving inside "From Walter to Ora I love you". But I tried to get the jeweler at Imperial to weld it to my chain but he didn't think it could be done. Gold runs when heat is applied he claimed. I was telling Ilah about it and she showed me that the engraving is worn off her ring (the inside of her ring) but it isn't on Mothers.
Bud Johnston is sure nice (and so was his father) with their undertaking. He wanted to know about Mother's hair. I was so glad she didn't let me cut it off. She was always so proud of her hair and had aright to be but when she got infection on and I had to handle her I sure hated to think I might get it on me and some spots on me look like it might be that but I guess not.
Mother's left elbow swelled so bad and it would have black specks on it and when I'd get her sleeve off she would start to scratch and I'd holler stop that and I'd get the medicine and she'd rub that on till she lost the use of her hands and then I'd rub it on. One of the hardest things to see was Mother kind a leaning to her left and holding her body from falling with her weight on that left elbow. I keep trying to figure out some way she could rest without having to lean over so far to the left. But she couldn't sit flat on that tail bone and Iola told the undertaker about it and he said his oldest sister hurt hers playing basket ball and he claimed "You cannot operate on that for there is where so many nerves are, makes Zepha's head ache".
In the night Mother would get her head clear down onto the bed and sometimes I'd sit on my bed and watch to see if she was breathing and she would be. But even then I'd often waken her and get her to straighten up for her neck would get so stiff and I'd rub alcohol on it and even if I'd take my hands right out of hot water she'd claim they were cold and of course the rub would be cold and I'd try and cheer her up and tell her we didn't want her to get so tender that we'd have to carry her around on cotton.
But the way she had to sit or try to half recline wasn't as sorrowful as hearing her pray so sweet and gentle. "Please take me, please take me." I believed her time was about at its end for I'd did more to care for her brother Burt than all the rest and he spent his last breath as king "Oh! Jesus take me home, Oh! Jesus take me home". But maybe after several days of blues Mother would surprise me by saying that when she got her strength back she would do so in so . But another hard thing to hear was her suggestion that some one, she never named any certain one, "Why don't some one take me out and knock me in the head?"
I tried to do ever thing I could do and do it cheerfully but I felt like I had to get out and get my mind on something else or I'd be like my grandfather Thompson, born in 1797. He had to care for a brother who wasn't strong minded and grandfather was afraid he'd break down and he ran away from Virginia to Tennessee.
I realized that a person with heart trouble was nervous but I still couldn't stay right there by her bed all the time. Well it is over now and I'm awfully tired, not body but mind. And I remember what Father said after brother Burt died. Burt had hiccups for days before he died and father told our step ma after Burt was buried that he'd hear Burt as Father worked about his chores. He knew he wasn't hearing Burt but imagine he did. And I imagine I hear Mother saying Walter as I come in the door and she would call me over and over if I didn't answer right away. And if I did she might not hear me. But I hated to have her thank me for getting up in the night and waiting on her. "Oh! Dad" she'd say "you are so good to me". Then I'd tell her that was what I was there for. I got so she didn't have to make much noise to waken me. Saturday Mrs. Roy Crapson drove over and brought a cake and some eggs. She had been over a few days before and she had told Mother that Mother had asked to see her daughter and she brought her for Mother to see. And Mother was getting so she couldn't stay awake and talk . Mrs. Crapson walked over and brushed Mother's hair back and patted her forehead. Mother was always trying to help Mrs. Roy Crapson figure out life. She had five sons and then a daughter and then a son and then a daughter and she has just buried the baby girl a few days before coming over to see Mother. I am so anxious to see them make a go of it, they bought Sam Stinnette's farm and crop. I gave her several pairs of overalls I'd picked up in the city dump and they were not worn out. But they were too small for me,some kid gone to service and threw away his old overalls. When I got them I got several pair that I could wear. I've had to mend them but they are good yet. I sent along a pair of shoes and a pair of pants that had shrunk or I gained weight and some other junk. I even got her to
take some magazines telling her the kids could cut the pictures out.
Urban and Hannah brought Russell and Ilah, Ivo tried to call Urbans they have no phone. I tried to get them to take some magazines but Hannah says they sell them in the store. I didn't try to tell Ivo who to call and he said he didn't have Bea's address. I'd received a letter from May saying Bea had the flu. So Bea didn't know about the funeral till 10:00AM Saturday (that is 9 our time). They got here for dinner, Jack drove them in his Oldsmobile. He brought Bea and May and Addie. Bea is president of what they used to call Ladies Aid (I believe) of the Presbyterian Church in Kearney and didn't have time to get a substitute to take her place at there Easter tea party so Lois took her place and stayed home. I think Jack is homely and his hair cut was as bad as mine but I just love him. He invited me to come down and stay awhile, the others all invited me to come down. I thought afterward I could have rode home with her outfit but of course I wouldn't have been here to write this letter and I'm handling this different. I'm sending one copy around to May and one to Martha and one copy direct to Melva and Shirley and then Martha can keep her copy if she cares to. Bea told them Arthur is only 200 miles from Huston and his top sergeant lives in Huston and so they get to drive home most ever weekend. That Susie and her widowed mother live together but not in the same house all the time. Part time in Susie's and part time in her mother's, the father died here lately. Burdette is going to Minnesota to teach this summer and he asks his mother to go along. When asked about Kent for Burdette going back into service he said no they hadn't signed up as reserves as Arthur did. I told her that Kent told me he'd never go to war again and she just told us that she guessed he would rather than to have the enemy come and shoot his wife and children , etc. etc. Bea and Jack pretend to fuss. Jack complains that though there are two women there he cannot get a button sewed on his shirt. Urbans invite Bea to come over and she asks how will I get there I cannot walk that far and Jack sits there and grins. I said I used Iola's rejects as mulch on our asparagus bed and Jack said he gets the dust from the alfalfa mill , takes quite awhile to get a load but when they do have it they like to have it hauled away and Jack is farming and hauls it away. Melva called this afternoon and Shirley called (I believe) Friday evening. I could hear Melva drop coins into the slot and I wondered why the bell ringing but when the hello girls said so much more I decided it was money. I got to talk with Melva and Ivo got to talk with Shirley. "Dick" Buffington called from Benkelman, she had been in Wauneta and heard that Mother had died.
Ivo arranged with the undertaker (I believe) that those who wish to view the body to go to the church before the services and the family could go to the funeral home at 10:00 AM the day of the funeral. The relation were not here then and the first thing that Urban said when he got here was he in time to view the body. So Ivo said he would tell the undertaker to open the casket after the crowd was outside. But I keep thinking about it and I told Bud that I wanted the people to have a chance to view the body and he asked Ivo and Ivo said that what ever I wanted would be okay. I couldn't help but think there were those who couldn't get there before the service. And I knew I always liked to see the body even of those who had died of cancer on their face. The undertaker asked who did we want for pall bearers and we didn't know. I said Ivo would have to choose so Ivo said he didn't know any he'd rather have than the mechanics etc. he did business with. Carigan, Hamilton,Pete McDonald, Jim Parker who is manager now of the Co-op Oil, Kenneth Thompson and C. C. Peterson in the former Valentine garage, sells Fords and Case tractors and combine etc. etc.
They got Cloud Harvey's fine Buick to haul us and Rodney was home for Easter vacation and drove it. He sure is nice looking and that new Buick is just wonderful. Then Rodney's younger brother Donnie and another boy scout were there in their scout suits. We were surprised when Mrs. C. C. Peterson and Mrs. Cloud Lawrence (I guess they spell it Laurence) and Mrs. Mary Athey brought some food. I think they represented the women's society. Ivo ordered some flowers and Melva and Shirley sent some and there were others, but there wasn't a big splurge as I see some times. For some one has worked out a plan where those who wish to give something can give to a fund for something for the church. They have a committee to look after it and credit is given to the party who gives and the party it is in memory of will be listed. Ivo mentioned two articles that I could see that had been bought with that money, the money from that department. The names of the giver of flowers and of the ones who give to that fund are furnished the family. When I come home from Imperial Thursday I come by the dam and then on down the valley and saw they are graveling that road and I wondered if they would have dump trucks in the way of the funeral procession but they didn't. I drove out the Saturday morning also. Went into the cemetery through one gate and out the other. Theo Snider is caretaker and he was out picking weeds and corn husks off the fence and turning them loose to lodge some where else.
When I was at Imperial the other day I met men who shook my hand and one of them knew my name , the other my face, I used to run it, but not in Imperial. One who knew my name was a brother of Keen Tacket he said Keen lives in L. A.
On the way to Imperial I saw a man disking. I hadn't known the ground had thawed out that much. When I got home Iola was tending her early garden ground and that day, March 22, 1951 she planted her first garden stuff and some glads. I got out after the funeral couldn't keep from crying and started to irrigate, left the water running all night. Woke up early and the ground, where it was smooth, was frozen. I'd taken the sprinklers off and let the water run out the end of the hose and when I tried to connect the hose ends this morning the hose was froze up.
Mother was bound that Melva was to knit a sweater for Barbara Jean with yarn that Mother had . And she started in and demanded I give her a dollar a week to pay Melva for knitting the sweater, finally she said she had enough money. I never asked her what she did with it but haven't been able to find it and I believe she might have sent it to a family in the Netherlands . I found one dollar bill and some silver. Melva had sent us each a dollar bill for Christmas and I imagine that is where Mother got that lone dollar bill. I told her I didn't like for her to have money around in this and that, I'd read so many times about old couples being killed because the robbers were sure they had money hid. Besides I said I'd gladly pay Melva when she had the sweater finished. Mother had a box in Ivo's garage and she said I was to have what was in it. There was just old coins like Canada dimes and a few pennies and some earrings that I believe belonged to her mother. Mrs. K. started right into clean up the house the day Mother went to the hospital. All her clothes and sheets etc. and then the day of the funeral she took the reading lamp and hid it somewhere and I told Iola that I'd do the destroying. She didn't know where the lamp was but she got in touch with Mrs. K. and I got the lamp and put it in the little bedroom. Just because the stuff that Mother left doesn't seem to be valuable to the scrub women is no reason I want it destroyed before I have a chance to pass on it. S he never had much money to buy things with and she wouldn't have spent it recklessly if she had of had it. It is going to be a problem. Have I to carry all that stuff to the attic till the girls can have a chance to pick what they wish to keep? I keep trying to figure out about the room. Ivo said when we got home the other night "Now you can have your comfortable bed back again". The old couple are sleeping on my full springs but the mattress is in the attic. It is a tuft less Sealy and I always liked it, Mom didn't, she claimed. I'd like my room back, the southeast upstairs. Where I could have my window open at the top and not have the rain come into the room. And I'd get the morning sun and the heat from over the kitchen. Besides the worst winds come from the opposite corner of the house and in the summer we get cool breezes mostly from the south east. But the old couple have it now.
When I got to the hospital Thursday Mother was sleeping and out flat on her back with just a pillow under her head. They had hospital oxygen tank hooked up with the tube extending into her nostril and the tube taped to her face. But she was breathing mostly through her mouth. And she moved her leg once in awhile. I didn't want to wake her so I sat down and after a long time I went down town a while and then come back and spoke to her and touched her hand but no response. I asked the nurse does she always sleep that sound and she said generally after the nurse gets her bath. I'm sure now she was gently leaving then, I didn't realize it then. The nurse said they give her dinner about 11:30 but there was a cup of something on her desk and I thought she wasn't eating and I wanted to be at the garage in time to take Ivo's place . Mother hadn't been able to move her limbs for some time I had to do that and my how heavy they were and stiff. I notice that Iola has written cards telling her family that "We laid Mother to rest" etc.
This morning I took Mother's bed down and took the springs and mattress off of my bed and put her springs and mattress on my bed. Then I brought the cupboard that Melva fixed for her cut out of the wood frame on an old folding bed, brought that cupboard into my room and a china Vaseline (or Mentholatum) jar tumbled off the shelf and I picked it up and unscrewed the top and there was a five dollar bill and some silver. I'm sure that the bill was intended for Melva and I'm sending it to her. She may use it for whatever she wishes with our love.
Melva sawed that old bedstead frame in two and used the bottom half(part) for her Mother's cupboard. Low enough so she could see out of the window and right beside Mother's day bed so she could reach out and get things. She could till she lost the use of her hands. I placed that cupboard beside my double decker and I'll step off onto it when I get off my high bed. I made the other half into a cupboard and placed it on top of my wardrobe, did that when I moved down here from upstairs, used it as a cupboard while upstairs. That Vaseline jar had a slit in the lid so Mother could poke or drop her money through the lid. Iola says I had better examine her books for money or a message. I opened a small envelope and afterward I noticed it said "Do not open while I'm alive". It was a letter to Jimmie and she wants him to have one of her Bibles and I'll mail it to him when I get around to it.
I gave Mr. K. the old electric clippers that Mom had and this morning Mrs. K. tried to tell me that she wanted Mother's yarn and that she would knit me a sweater "as a present", hard to get ahead of that woman. Ivo went down to the post office early this morning and asked for a letter that was to be in the office from Imperial and they gave him a bunch of sympathy cards, some addressed to me and some to the Walter M. Pennington family and some to Ivo's, one for me had no name on it. None of them had more than the name in the giver's hand.
I took a new jar of bismuth back to the drugstore and asked for my money back but nothing doing. It had never been opened. Just Oklahoma dirt looks like. The last days of Mother's here on earth she would forget to take her many medicines and it seemed to me that she felt better when she did forget to take the medicine.
Iola has her tractor going out in the field. After I took Mother's cupboard out they moved things around and they put the piano across in front of the double doors, it was against the north wall. I'll have to get up when that ding dong starts in the morning but I imagine I'll be up that soon anyway. Ruth is an early riser and we always waited till the piano playing was done before taking Mother out into the dining room.
I stopped at the garage and took some checks to the bank and the two Russians are still working on the old Ford truck for me to haul dirt in. I sure appreciated that Ivo didn't scold about me breaking the old truck when I was try to rest from nursing by digging in the dirt. They had taken the cab off and will rig me up a seat that will let me see where I'm backing the truck, see better. I had asked for the old farm seat (the seat off a farm machine) that I had on the first old Ford truck. It sure was springier than the cab seat and now that they removed the back end spring it might be hard, it is geared slow though. And it is hard to believe but they are fixing a box that I can dump. The little cupboard that Melva fixed for her Mother had casters to roll it on, rolls nice too, though it never got rolled while in the corner be side Mother's bed.
** Note: Written by Walter M. Pennington to his daughters after the death of their mother.
Some spelling corrected for ease of reading and clarity. Reta,1997
|
