[Vision2020] Thank you

[Janesta Carcich]

Thank you for the interesting post about your
childhood, and bringing back memories that make me so
very thankful for what I have.

Born in 1929, my mom was the youngest of 21 children,
born and raised in Kentucky
 Seven  children from
Grandpa, seven from Grandma and seven together

Grandma’s first husband died in a coalmine cave in... 
Mom grew up two hollers over from Loretta Lynn
 back
in the 30’s when a young man courted a young lady,
both sets of parents would require the dating couple
to take along a younger sibling. ~HA~ so no hanky
panky would transpire! Two aunties of mine married the
Webb brothers, cousins of Loretta Lynn
 When her movie
came out my mother wept for days.

Life was hard. Layers and layers of newspapers covered
the walls of their home, to keep the cold out
 for
years, the floors dirt
 Of course no screen door...  A
garden, deer, raccoon, and possom was the source of
their food... I lived in the country for quite a few
years, with a huge garden and would can everything.
One late summer mom came to visit and wept! She told
me she worked hard all her life so I would not need to
can my vegetables and live in the country! I loved it,
but then it was a choice for me... The Holbrook family
was dirt poor, and didn't have many choices.

Mom to, only had shoes in the winter
 they walked five
miles to meet the school bus. I can’t imagine walking
though fields and in the dirt for five miles barefoot!
She once told me her reoccurring nightmare was walking
all that way, only to miss the bus! Of the very few
photos we have of her younger years, one is of she and
her classmates of the one-room school she attended.
The only ones in the photo who wore shoes were the
banker’s children.

One day when mom was around five, Grandma became very
ill. Grandpa took her to town in the back of his
wagon. As they were so poor, the hospital turned them
away
  poor sick folk who could not afford a hospital
were sent to the mortuary. Family members would nurse
their loved one, the Doctor coming once a day. My
grandma died there in that mortuary, and was taken
home in the wagon to be buried on the homestead. Mom
was five. 

Grandpa worked the coalmines, and had a still for
extra money. Even though 50# bags of sugar sat in the
pantry, sugar was not allowed on oatmeal
. Except for
my mom, because she was “the baby”. The sisters still
alive, tease her to this day, about being "spoiled".
Grandpa died from Black Lung, six months before I was
born. 

I went to the Holbrook family reunion a few years ago

Over 200 relatives showed up. Hal Holbrook is moms
second cousin, he didn’t show up, and never does

guess he is too famous now. 

When people ask me my nationality, I tell them
Yugoslavian, German and Kentucky.

*gentle smile*

We have much to be thankful for,  don't we? 



Janesta Carcich

  
"Peace is not won by those who fiercely guard their differences, 
but by those who with open minds and hearts seek out connections."

~ Katherine Paterson ~

***Because I am finding my words on the blogs of organizations I do not support***

~~~~~ Original material contained herein is Copyright 2006, Janesta Carcich ~~~~~ 

~~~~~ Do not copy, forward, excerpt, or reproduce outside the Vision 2020 
             forum without the express written permission of the author~~~~~

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