Seven

Jennie's 1913 Yearbook
had several sections delineated
by cardboard with artwork

Orval did not return to his parents’ farm house that January. His whereabouts were something of a mystery to Jennie, but she had plenty to keep her busy. She had one semester left to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree, and her grades were not where she wanted them.

At this point, Jennie knew she would not be winning any awards for academic excellence. No, she aimed for survival. But she and her brothers were exceeding what those looking in from the outside might have expected.

1902 Book, Gift from
Joyce Harding

Jay was back home for the month of January, maybe longer. It was a slow time at the farm where he worked and he could not live on the wages his employer could afford. In Columbia, however, some of the old jobs his father once had were willing to hire him instead.

From "The Book of Cheer"

A senior in high school, Jennie’s youngest brother John, just wanted to complete his courses satisfactorily, collect his high school diploma, and be on his way to the St. Louis Coal Mining Company. He learned of the opportunity from one of his cousins and hoped to take advantage of it in late May.

The siblings did not know when, or if, their father was returning. Jennie received a letter the second week of January stating he was hanging paper in Chillicothe, and that for now, that was the best place for him to be. Not communicated was whether his wife—the siblings’ stepmother—Nancy, or “Willie” as some called her, was there, too.

Jennie felt a pang of guilt when she thought of Willie. She recognized she and her brothers—Jay more than John—had never fully welcomed her. Jennie was eleven when her father remarried in 1902. The fact of his nuptials was not shared with his children until a couple of weeks after his honeymoon.

During their father’s absence back in 1902, Jennie and her younger siblings remained with their Stark grandparents on the farm. Life for them was uninterrupted. Their father often was off somewhere else,

Orval Stark

usually Chillicothe, and usually painting or wallpapering. But sometimes, he had better employment as a carpenter. He rarely helped at the farm any longer. Their Uncle Dave was the one who long before took over the tasks. David left school after the eighth grade in 1888 and became a full-time farm laborer at age 14.

All of Jennie’s aunts except Aunt Ella had married before then, in a steady succession it seemed. For five years, one aunt after another left each year. And as they did, Jennie had more room to have her cats come sleep with her.

Jennie’s Aunt for whom she named, but who went by the name now of “Jane”, married before she was born. Her father was the next to marry, and then no one wed until after Jennie’s mother died. Then, boom! Off they went, like a horse race at Churchill Downs.

Of the girls other than Aunt Ella, the next oldest was not the first to go. That honor belonged to Aunt Effie who married Harry Landree in 1897 when she was 21. That year would always be etched in Jennie’s memory, for her mother died in March and then her baby sister followed their mother to the grave in December.

Uncle David married the radiant Carrie Temperance West in 1898 when he was 23. They moved to the farm house where Orval once lived with Jennie’s mother, Hester, and where Jennie and her siblings had been born. But in 1898, their father was off to the Spanish-American War, and Jennie and her younger brothers moved to their grandparents’ farmhouse close by.

Jennie often wondered—obsessed—over what life would have been had their mother not died. They would still be at the little farmhouse, their father working with their grandfather, and their Uncle Dave and Aunt Carrie would have gone elsewhere.

Was that true? Jennie would challenge herself. Her father later preferred other types of employment after he returned from the War. Would he have stayed on the farm? Was there some reason he had tensions with her grandparents after her mother’s passing which kept him from the farm? Or had he been on the farm only out of duty?

Jennie finished ruminating on her father and aunts and uncle. Enough time was spent on that, and she had calculus homework to finish and a German quiz to prepare for. She put the kettle back on the top of the woodstove in the kitchen. That was where she lit the fire each afternoon when returning from campus. John was off at high school and Jay had employment hauling trash, so after her morning classes—a mile’s walk from home—Jennie had afternoons and evenings to study.

Sometimes, Jennie had empty classrooms and little nooks here and there where she could study on campus. But at home, she had peaceful solitude until her brothers came home. They knew to find other ways to occupy themselves when her nose was in a book or her hand was busy writing.

From Jennie's Yearbook
A Place She Might Have
Studied in 1912-13

Jennie glanced out the window. Snowflakes were fluttering down, and the skies were darkening. She hoped this would not be a long day for Jay, because the dark gray clouds were showing signs of a heavy snowstorm to come. And John would soon be home. With a sigh, Jennie set aside her German textbook and arose. There was soup to make.

It was cold enough outside to keep a steel box where they could place food. It was in a hole Father dug into the brown earth (he called it “the rich black soil of the Missouri river bottom land” but it wasn’t really that dark). They covered the box with 2-by-4 scraps Father once brought home from a jobsite.

Jennie removed the boards, lifted the lid from the box, and took out a hambone with some meat clinging on it. This was the fourth day of eating on that ham, and it was nigh time she made it into soup.

Though she usually was the one who cooked, it was more because she was at home more than the others than because she was a woman. Her father learned how to cook while in the army and found he excelled at it. Upon his return, he decided all three of his children should learn how to take care of themselves, including cooking.

Only recently did Jennie have the insight that her father likely knew he would be leaving his children home alone a lot. Fortunately, for many years their grandparents intervened. Unfortunately, when they did so, the more traditional male-female roles resumed: the boys took care of most of the farm; the girls cooked and cleaned and mended.

But for a time when their father moved his children to a place in Chillicothe so Jennie could attend a better
school, they were largely on their own again. John showed a talent for cooking, and Jay learned how to

Part, Chillicothe
High Jr. Class 1909
Jennie 2nd from Left

mend, though not very well. Now, with Father gone again, Jennie and John cooked and cleaned, and Jay tended to most of the other chores.

From a wooden crate near the back door, Jennie retrieve an onion and a carrot. There was just enough meat to carve off the bone for a half sandwich apiece; the rest stayed on the bone which went into a large pot.

From another pot, Jennie retrieved white beans which she left soaking overnight. She had considered pintos but preferred the taste and texture of the ones she chose. She chopped the onion coarsely, along with carrot and a stalk of celery, and threw both in the pot. Then added a little salt, but not too much because the ham was already pretty salty. She decided they could add pepper to taste later.

Jennie pumped enough water to easily cover all the ingredients and set the iron pot on the stove. They did not have a fancy kitchen; just the woodstove which also could burn coal, and an icebox. The stove had places for two pots, so Jennie could keep the teapot reheating while the soup simmered. Both implements could be shoved from one side to another or placed upon contraptions they rigged up to allow for variances in cooking temperatures.

The pump in the sink was a luxury, especially in winter. Fortunately, their modest cottage was recently built and included it.

There was one thing Jay excelled in cooking, and that was biscuits. Grandma Stark noticed when he was a lad that he loved when she baked, so she always allowed him to help. He could bake loaves of bread, but biscuits and cornbread became his specialty. Jay had prepared plenty of biscuits on Saturday for almost the entire week, so she knew they would have those with the soup. Unless, of course, he came home early and decided to make cornbread. What a delightful addition to ham soup that would be!

Book of Cheer