We are nearing the end of the eNews series of Anna Mary Etter’s memories – there are only a couple more. Jean McKibben has shared these memories that her mother recalled when she was 84. This article shares Anna Mary’s life as a young mother with her husband back home from the war.
THE WAR IS OVER
Grandpa (Howard) called me late one night to say he would be coming home for good the next day. I stayed up until two or three o’clock cleaning the house and getting things ready for his homecoming. He returned from the war on November 11th. When I got ready to go to Toledo, something was wrong with the tire on the car so I had to get that changed. He came in on the train and arrived in Toledo before I got there. I had distant cousins, Tony and Dorothy, that lived in Toledo that I had remained in contact with since I was a young kid. I met Grandpa at their house. It was such a relief to have him home and such a happy event when the war ended.
It was a big event when Grandpa got our first car. I remember that if I wanted to go anywhere, I would take Grandpa to work and the tires were forever going flat. I would have to jack that old car up, take off the tires, take the tube out, and put a patch on it.
Although we didn’t have big celebrations like they do now, we always did something special as a family on the 4th of July. We would get our kids up early in the morning to weed our big garden. While they were doing that, I would be in the kitchen fixing food for a picnic. When all the weeds were out of the garden and the meal prepared, we would all get in the car and go for a drive until we found a nice shade tree to have a picnic under. We would spread a table cloth out and enjoy the 4th of July
When my kids were young there weren’t places to go and pick strawberries and we couldn’t afford to buy the, so we would walk along the railroad tracks and pick wild strawberries. I taught them just to pick the berries and not the stem. I would make strawberry jell and jam when we got home and we always made ice cream. It was a real treat for the kids to have ice cream with strawberries. (Cont’d)
