Lela and Floss were still in Elementary school. Hazel had graduated from high school and thought she wanted to be a teacher. She was trying to get a school. Gretchen decided she didn't want to go on at the University so she took a job with a printing company at $3.50 a week. I, of course, was in my first year of high school and it seemed that every class I got into, the teacher told me how Gretchen, Hazel and Walter Walsh were such good students, as if that was what they expected of me.

The Selbys had moved from McCook, Neb. to Lincoln I was given the job of sitting with Lucile and Dono whenever Libbie and John wanted to go out. They were somewhat active in the church and John sang in the choir, etc..

Aunt Rena came to see us quite often now. She was still a police matron and had experiences to tell. Also her son, Walter, often came. They were great companions and always getting jokes on each other.

Now, I was making new friends - one was Claire Blumenthal. I passed her home on my way to school so I would stop for her and we would walk together.

Now that I was getting into dating, I found it took more care of clothes, pressing, etc. - trying to keep attractive looking. We still had to heat irons on the stove. White shoes were canvas - we used Bon Ami on them. I had been the boy of the family and it was the way I wanted it. But all this fussing for appearance was a real problem for me. Gretchen tried to make a lady out of me and when it came to parties and dates she tried to make me look better.

A music store had a contest. It was counting the dots in a map of the United States. Gretchen worked at it and sent in her number. She was notified that she had won $100 on a piano and they would take in the organ. So we got a piano. Gretchen played as she has had lessons on the organ. Papa played by ear but most anything he played came out like dance music. He had a favorite, "In the Sweet Bye and Bye". I was in love with the piano and played some by ear and picked out some by note. They seemed to think I had some talent and Gretchen arranged to give me music lessons. They cost her 75 cents out of her $3.50.

When the Selbys built their house, they planned a room especially for Grandma Irvin. They added on to her room a little room with a toilet and wash bowl. Grandma thought a toilet in the house wasn't decent. They had to talk her into its use. The house was clear across town. I was appointed to walk over there and walk back with Grandma whenever she wanted to visit us for a few days. We always looked forward to her good sugar cookies whenever she came. Another thing she sometimes made was noodles. After she worked and rolled the dough very, very thin, she rolled it up and sliced it. If we washed our hands real good, we could unroll the dough and hang on a line to dry. Then Mama would put some in the stewed chicken - sure was good. When Grandma was there we had to "walk the line". We were told not to use slang, be polite, don't have a playing card in sight and don't mention dancing. When she wanted to go home, I had to walk her back. Grandma put in a lot of time cutting quilt blocks and sewing them together. She showed me how.

Gretchen never lacked admirers. She had many friends. One of her beaus Papa liked to tease her about. He never brought flowers or candy like the others - he always brought a sack of bananas. He ate most of them.

Minnie Wills was at our house often - She was a friend of Gretchen's from Plattsmouth High School days. She was going to the University in Lincoln. I liked to be where I could listen to them and their jokes. I especially remember how they laughed about a cow that died from lack of sleep because it had so much mud on its tail. Minnie always took pot-luck and always seemed to enjoy being there. One Sunday, the twins, Willard and Willis, rode their new tandem over to show it off. We had never seen one of these before.

There was "Silly Willie" - that's what all the folks around there called him. He was really a man but with the mind of a child. He would speak to Gretchen and then quietly walk along behind her. He called her "Thirty" - nobody ever knew why.

Our dog, Kruger, got sick - so sick that the folks had a veterinarian come to see him. When he looked him over, he said nothing could be done for him. He took out a revolver and shot him right there in our back yard.

The music stores were getting in phonographs. Papa brought home a little one - it was sort of skeleton-like and the horn seemed bigger than all the rest. It was mounted on a wood platform. The records were cylinder. The folks especially liked "Cohen on the Telephone" and also a silly song, "I Just Came In From A Country Town". We all got a lot of enjoyment out of it in spite of its nasal twang and having to wind it.

Hazel got her teaching assignment finally. It was a one room country school in Bennett, Neb. She would room and board with a farm family near there. Her pupils were all ages - some of the boys were bigger than Hazel and sort of the "bully" type. So she had a tough job.

We were still having to use lamps. Gretchen had a first time date one night. When the door bell rang and she went to the door, he said, "Well, did I find the right place?". It was getting dark and supposing it was her date she asked him in, took his hat, told him to sit down and then went to get a lamp. When they had some light, they looked at each other in surprise. They were strangers, so she gave him back his hat and he left

Not long after this, gas became available for lighting and cooking, so the folks put it in. Gas lights left a lot to be desired, but it did eliminate filling and keeping clean lamps.

Some Saturday evenings in the winter, the Selbys came over for oyster stew supper. John liked to make the stew and he really did an excellent job. Often after supper they all played a popular game of that time "Board of Trade". This required a special deck of cards. They had a lot of fun with it.

We could get a room-size pattern rug now, so we got one for the living room. After the winter coal-burning for heating and cooking, spring cleaning was very necessary. We had had to sweep carpets with a broom. Mama always saved old coffee grounds to sprinkle on the carpets before sweeping - this to keep the dust and brighten the carpet. Now we could take this carpet out, throw it over the clothes lines and beat it with a wire beater made for that purpose.

Gretchen quit the printing company and went to work in the Burlington Railroad office using a comptometer. She still had to work from 8 to 6 but the pay was much better.

We had a plum tree in the back yard. one day Mama had cooked up a lot of them for jars to have later and a big bowl she put in the ice box. When I went there for something and saw them and near by the good cheese we got at Duncans, I thought how good they would be together, and they were, so every once in a while I went back for more until finally I had had it. I was sick and couldn't bring myself to eat cheese for a very long time.

In those days, we seldom had beggars at the door but we did have a tramp one day. When he asked Mama for something to eat, it was very obvious he had had too much to drink. She said to him, "Why isn't a big strong- looking man like you out looking for a job instead of looking for a handout?". He said, "Thas jist wot I'm gonna do, lady. That zactly wot I'm gonna do, but you see, I gotta git some sensibility in my stomick first." Mama gave him a sandwich and he went on his way.

Papa put spare time, (if he ever had any) on what he hoped would be a patent on a railroad coach chair that would be more adjustable and more comfortable. Since he had worked on the real things for so many years, he thought he had a good idea. He made a wood model - (it was cute) - cushion upholstered and wood parts finished then mounted on a stained wood platform. I don't know why he gave it up - whether he was turned down or someone beat him to it. Anyway, he entirely gave it up.

We received word of a tragedy in the Ingles family, our old friends and next door neighbors in McCook. Eva had a bad cold and was coughing so much in the night, her mother got up to give her some cough medicine. The cough medicine she gave her from the cough medicine bottle was carbolic acid. Mrs. Ingles said Eva had cleaned that cupboard a few days before. Apparently she had changed the contents in some of the bottles. She was always doing something no one else would ever think of doing. Gretchen took it awful hard - she said it made her feel awful when she disliked Eva so much and said such mean things about her to think she would have this terrible thing happen to her.

I was getting more dates now and more invitations to parties. We had to go to these parties by street car or walk. In those severe winters we always wore high top shoes - also it was the style. These shoes didn't look very good with party dresses so we took our slippers in slipper bags and changed there. Slipper bags were usually quite fancy and silk. Mine was pretty ribbon sewed together. We had no make- up -(that was considered theater business). We did use face powder but sparingly except when I went to parties. My cheeks were so red, I used all the powder I could trying to cover the red.

Evening dates we usually went to a show - we had an Orpheum-vaudeville, of course. Most Saturday evenings I was going with Paul Sinclair to his Lodge dances. I wasn't very enthused about this. I felt he was too old for me.

Sunday afternoons in the winter might be ice skating. In the summer we might stroll in the park listening to the band concert. We always saw other friends there. Or we might take a streetcar ride out to "Peanut Hill". This actually was a Seventh Day Adventist colony and college. This is really named College View. At the end of the street-car line was a very small sort of park with big shade trees all round and benches. There was a place to buy peanuts. So we would sit there eating peanuts and enjoying the cool breeze they always seemed to have there.

Sometimes two or three couples would get together. This happened one Sunday at our house. Two couples were sitting on the porch. Along the front of our lot was a row of shade trees making an ideal place for a hammock, so the folks put one up there. As I came out of the house and down the steps, my friend was sitting in the hammock. I walked over to him and thought I would sit down in the hammock, too. When I sat down, my feet flipped over his head and I landed on the ground on the other side of the hammock. One of the fellows on the porch said, "Do that again - I didn't get to see you." I said, "Don't try to be funny." I went around to the other side of the hammock and thought if I sat down very carefully, it would be all right. So I tried it again and again my feet flipped over his head and I landed on the ground on the other side. So I decided he was too heavy for me to sit beside him. When summer vacation came, this friend went to Kansas City to visit relatives. While he was there they had a typhoid epidemic. He got it and died there.

John Selby sang in their church choir and sometimes sang solos there and other places. He was asked to sing at a celebration in a small town not far from Lincoln. He said he'd like me to play his accompaniment so they took me along. We had a real nice day.

Papa decided he wanted to build houses. There was a little building boom and he had wanted to do that for a long time. He took the whole house on contract and sub-let plumbing, foundations, wiring and things like that. This made it necessary for us to have a phone, so they had one put in. Our number was 1190. The automatic phones had just come out. This meant it had a dial so you could dial direct without an operator, then push a button to ring the bell. This way some folks had their special rings so they knew who was calling before answering. The first time the phone rang, Papa walked up to it with both hands in his pockets and said, "Hello?" Mama had a good laugh at him. She said, "You can't do that - you have to take down the receiver." With something of a red face he said, "Well, they said it was automatic."

One evening my date brought me a fancy box of Sen-Sen. These were tiny pastel colored candies considered by some to be breath sweeteners. Gretchen razzed me about that - she said he was trying to tell me something.

My friend Claire and I decided we wanted to get a few couples and have a party. It would be at our house - seemed the gang always was at our house. I guess because the folks never objected like some of the other parents. Claire wanted to ask a friend I didn't know but said she knew she would bring her own boy friend. The friend was Martha Somers - her boy friend was a good looking blond with pink cheeks and a shock of wavy hair. His name was Harold Starr. Every body seemed to have a good time.

About the folks allowing us to have friends there so much, I guess they thought they would rather keep us at home. Mama had a funny way though - when asking for permission to do something, if she said, "I reckon.", that usually meant "yes." but when she said, "Maybe" - that usually turned out to be "no". She said I once asked if I could do something and I said, "Now I don't want any maybe. I want "is" or "not". She couldn't get away much from the Scotch in her blood. I never knew her to show any of us any affection or call any of us an endearing name. Yet we knew that whatever hurt us, hurt her and if any one of us needed, she would give any part of her body. Her mother (Grandma Irvin) would say if we showed the slightest affection or got excited about anything, she would say, "Don't be acting silly." She seemed always to be afraid we would be conceited. She thought we were bragging if we told about anything we got praise for at school. One day when I was looking in the mirror combing my hair to go to school, she said, "Think you're pretty, eh?"

After the party, Harold started phoning evenings. It got to be more and more often - sometimes for dates and sometimes just to talk. So Papa got to calling him the evening star - that really was one of Lincoln's newspapers.

Grandma Walsh and her family moved to Lincoln, so we came to know them all better. There were five of them still living at home with Grandma. Ray was the oldest - a very quiet type - sort of a loner. He did carpenter work. Paul was the next - he was the literary one, having done reporting and short stories. He went to work for the Journal, Lincoln's biggest newspaper. Then came Myra. She was very reserved and quiet - self-critical, too. Then Martha - she was more out-going with lots of humor. She wrote poems but only for her own amusement except that she did sell some verses for greeting cards. But she never had the ambition to do anything more. She could whistle very nice but that was for her own amusement. She was very happy with herself and even wrote a poem about being a happy old maid. Charlie was the youngest. We felt we knew him well as he had lived with us so much in Plattsmouth. Then, too, he was so near Gretchen's age, he was like one of us.

Grandma told us stories about when they were growing up. Ray must have been a funny kid. She said when he was a boy and whatever he was trying to do didn't go just right, he would very angrily and vehemently say over and over, "Seever-seiver, beeling dough". They were all Christian Science and Paul was twice "first reader" at Lincoln's Christian Science church. Although Grandma was going blind, she never wavered in her faith and I never saw her when she wasn't cheerful. This was Papa's family except for his sisters Grace and Effie and his brother Mark, who were all married and lived elsewhere.

I have told much about Mama's mother, our Grandma Irvin. Her two sisters, Annie and Libbie, had always lived near enough to us to see often, so we felt we knew them well. Annie was the oldest. She was pretty "straight- laced". When I visited them on the farm, she didn't want me to wear sleeves shorter than the elbow or low necks. Their horse hair sofa was such a temptation, but if I was lying down and she heard John coming, she would tell me to get up because John was coming in. She could be a lot of fun, though, too. I have always had a picture in my mind of her in those years she was teaching. She always wore a white shirt-waist and a black skirt, (long, of course). But what left its impression as a kid was the long gold watch chain around her neck with its intriguing slide and the small gold closed watch tucked in her belt.

Libbie was the youngest and more liberal-minded. She always enjoyed a good joke so much. I remember how she would slap her knee as she laughed at something she thought especially funny. She wrote poetry. (Guess I have mentioned that.) She and Mama were very close through these years.

This was Mama's family except for brother John, the farmer in Iowa where we visited on our way to Plattsmouth, and another brother Ed, who lived in Kansas with his family.

(Continued in Part II)