Noel
The questions ask for this week are much harder to write about. I (Noel) don’t have a lot of stories that I can tell about my siblings. My older sister Pat was into music, so she did a lot of practicing on the piano and violin. Since Mom was very musical, Pat kind of followed in her steps. As I recall, she probably was mom’s helper. When she got into High School, she would type up the bulletin for the Sunday service. Then when she went on to college, that job became mine.
Paul was two years younger than I. According to a couple of stories that my folks told us, we were at our neighbor’s house in Easton, California, and got into the chicken house where they had some small chicks. They said that we were ducking them into gas and killing a few of them. ( I have no recollection of that.) They also said that we started a fire that burned the siding on their shed. That I don’t recall either. Since Paul was was lighter built, he didn’t go out for sports as I did. He did help out on the farm, mainly helped Jens feed the many cattle that he had around the home farm and on another acreage north of Ruskin. Also helped with the other farm chores.
Mary was born while we lived in Easton. I only remember her as a baby when we lived there. She was four when we moved to Ruskin, Nebraska. Started school when we all went into the town school. Don’t have any stories about Mary when she was young. Mostly because I was so involved in sports that it took a lot of my time, and then in the summer, I worked on a farm and was gone all day, six days a week.
All of us were “good sports” when it came to hiking in the Colorado Mountains. Don’t recall anyone complaining. We enjoyed the mountains and loved to hike.
As far as getting along, I don’t recall that we had any real fights. Maybe some teasing around, but as a whole, I think we got along well. I remember that Pat, Paul and I, and maybe Mary, would have to clean the church on Saturday. That just became our job. Not sure if we argued as to who had to do what. But the job got done.
Ruby
I (Ruby) was blessed with a great childhood. Raised on a dairy farm in the valley of Ferndale, California, provided me with many opportunities. I was born Ruby Elaine Hansen on August 8, 1941…my sister, Judy Eileen Hansen was born on July 28, 1943…brother Larry James Hansen was born on March 14, 1946…sister Lela Christina Hansen was born on May 23, 1948. My siblings and I had chores on the farm each day, and I can’t remember complaining about them. We fed cows, chickens, rabbits, lambs, horses, and any other animals dad had on the farm. We even had to help clean the barn pushing a shovel which wasn’t the most fun and was rather dirty. We had rabbits in cages but didn’t like to eat them because they were our pets. Sometimes I wanted to stay in the house so I could help mom and not get so dirty.
Sometimes when we hand cleaned the eggs to take to the store, we would accidentally break one…wonder if that was on purpose. Judy and I slept together in a double bed upstairs, and we would kinda fight if each other got on the other side too far. She would also borrow some of my clothes but didn’t fold them neatly, which upset me. When Judy and I did dishes, we fought about who would wash or dry them because sometimes the one that washed got done sooner…
When our family would take a trip to Nebraska to visit relatives, the six of us had to fit into the car. I remember a little conflict about who would lay in the back window or on the floor with the big hump in the middle. It must have been a long hot trip for all of us.
Our brother Larry was a big tease to all of us girls. He made our life interesting, but I don’t remember any conflicts with him or sister Lela…they were the perfect ones I guess.
When I was eight, I was responsible for driving the old John Deere tractor while the hired men loaded hay with the loader. It was a tedious job, so sometimes I would play little tricks on them, and the loader would get clogged up. They got very upset with me and would report this to dad. They wanted to put me into the water tank.
When I was a toddler, I would go outside to see what dad was doing. One time after milking a cow, he threw the bucket, not knowing I was standing there, and it hit me on the nose and left a scar…he felt so bad. It was visible for years. Dad also had several hired men during those years and told them they were not allowed to swear. One day, I came into the house and said some of the same words one of the men did, and he got fired from the job.
I wasn’t told any stories about when I was a baby, so I must have been every parent’s dream of perfection.