The Story Continues

I started to school in l926 and went to Erie Township School. Since we lived a back road and we lived up a lane that was perhaps two blocks long, I had to walk almost a mile to catch the school bus. Mr. McKinley was the bus driver. The bus was unheated in the winter and it was cold. We didn't have snow plows as we do now and if we did they wouldn't plow the roads we lived on. There was a creek that run across the road and in the spring when the rains came the creek would get high. I couldn't get across to the other side. The older boys would carry me across the creek. My Heroes! Dad finally nagged the Trustee enough that he had a bridge put across the creek and the boys no longer had to carry me. Dad finally had a basement dug under the house and he built a new room on the house and we had much more room. In the winter the basement was filled with apples from the orchard and Mom canned many cans of vegetables and fruit. She also canned meat that would last us all winter. Times were hard and money scarce but we always had enough to eat. The only food we bought was what we couldn't produce on the farm. Remember this was the 20,s and the stock market crashed in 29. Banks closed and jobs were lost. My small savings account only paid a small percent. I was devastated.