_Albert Marion KIZER _
_Ora Albert KIZER ____|
| |_Hannah Ellen BLAIR __
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|--Bonnie June KIZER
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| ______________________
|_Edna Laura BARTLETT _|
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When I was very small, we lived at the Fleming farm near Upland,In.and when it burned, we moved in with our grandparents on the Kizer farm. It was during the depression in the 1930's and there was no money but always plenty of food because we canned and stored food for the winter. There wasn't any electricty or running water. We had an outside pump that had to be primed to give water. We had an outside toilet. A Roosevelt toilet, built later, that we thought was quite fancy in comparison to an older one. We had 100 acres and the fields were plowed with the horses. Later on a tractor. The neighbors all got together at threshing time and moved from farm to farm. We spent all morning preparing huge meals for everyone. We usually had a farm hand. There was four of us girls and we worked as hard as if we were boys. There was wood to chop, water to carry in, yard to mow, cows to be milked twice daily. Summers were long and hot and we had rows of corn to be hoed by hand to remove the weeds. We had a huge garden to weed plus a watermelon and pickle patch. We had sacks of sweet corn to can, peas to shell, swiss chard and all kinds of vegetables to can. We put up hundreds of quarts. Also jams and jellies. In the Fall it was butchering time. We smoked and sugar cured hams. We rendered our own lard. Pounds of fat had to be cut up and boiled in iron kettles outside. We also canned many quarts of beef. Winters were long and cold. Snow never left the ground the whole winter. Many times it was up to the tops of the fence posts. We churned our own butter. Sunday meant big Sunday dinners and homemade ice cream and playing with all the cousins. We played as hard as we worked. We had a huckster wagon that came with groceries and candy. We produced everything we needed except we bought flour and sugar and spices. Mother baked all of our bread. When I was 12 my father died. He had been sickly all of his life but died of TB. My grandfather died of kidney disease, my grandmother of cancer and our baby brother had whooping cough that went into pneumonia. All of those deaths within a few years. When I was 14 we moved into Upland and lived for about a year in a house across from the Upland school. It was owned by our uncle, Guy Broyles. The farm was sold. Merrian and Myra were married when we lived in Upland. Mother bought a home in Marion,In. when I was 15 years old.