"Back Home Again in Indiana" in February, 2008.
A sad return to bid farewell to a grand lady who lived 91 remarkable and memorable years.
He wanted to accompany her back to her home to honor her beloved aunt.
While there, she took him on a tour of her own life reliving memories and, all the while, picking up new pieces of history about herself through stories from her family and retracing the steps of time.
This house is the first home she knew. Her very first memory was on the porch of this house where she lay in her mother's arms after falling into a neighbor's small burn can that had been left smoldering. At the age of 3, she had friends visiting and she was walking backwards while unrolling a ream of weaving material from her father's furniture factory. Her friends gathered the paper at the end of the parade. She backed into the burn can, falling down into it, burning the backs of her legs and arms. Sixty years later, she remembers first the fire truck then the ambulance coming to the house and the children staring at her as she lay with her mother on the porch swing. Her next memory is of the brightly colored balloons tied to her hospital crib. She was hospitalized for two weeks with 3rd degree burns.
She still remembers her mother rubbing her legs with baby oil after each bath. This was to lessen the scars that remain with her to this day.
A few miles from this house was the Columbus Hickory Furniture Company. She spent much of her childhood playing in her family's furniture factory that smelled of fresh cut hickory and the lacquer that was used on the newly woven chairs.
Behind the furniture factory was the Round House where the train engines came for repair. She spent much of her time climbing up into the train engines. On a lucky day, she was allowed to ride the newly repaired train engine out of the round house and back onto the train track.
A rainy day would find her in the office of the factory playing 'office'. She loved to lay out stacks of paper and pens, pretending to be the "boss". She was allowed to play with the 100 key adding machine, pulling it's handle to give the final total of the many numbers punched into it.
A sad return to bid farewell to a grand lady who lived 91 remarkable and memorable years.
He wanted to accompany her back to her home to honor her beloved aunt.
While there, she took him on a tour of her own life reliving memories and, all the while, picking up new pieces of history about herself through stories from her family and retracing the steps of time.
This house is the first home she knew. Her very first memory was on the porch of this house where she lay in her mother's arms after falling into a neighbor's small burn can that had been left smoldering. At the age of 3, she had friends visiting and she was walking backwards while unrolling a ream of weaving material from her father's furniture factory. Her friends gathered the paper at the end of the parade. She backed into the burn can, falling down into it, burning the backs of her legs and arms. Sixty years later, she remembers first the fire truck then the ambulance coming to the house and the children staring at her as she lay with her mother on the porch swing. Her next memory is of the brightly colored balloons tied to her hospital crib. She was hospitalized for two weeks with 3rd degree burns.
She still remembers her mother rubbing her legs with baby oil after each bath. This was to lessen the scars that remain with her to this day.
A few miles from this house was the Columbus Hickory Furniture Company. She spent much of her childhood playing in her family's furniture factory that smelled of fresh cut hickory and the lacquer that was used on the newly woven chairs.
Behind the furniture factory was the Round House where the train engines came for repair. She spent much of her time climbing up into the train engines. On a lucky day, she was allowed to ride the newly repaired train engine out of the round house and back onto the train track.
A rainy day would find her in the office of the factory playing 'office'. She loved to lay out stacks of paper and pens, pretending to be the "boss". She was allowed to play with the 100 key adding machine, pulling it's handle to give the final total of the many numbers punched into it.
Labels: Columbus Hickory Furniture Company, Indiana, memories, roads, Southern Indiana
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