Milk was delivered by the milkman (Art Deffler) who put it in the refrigerator if we weren’t home. The door was never locked. We bought our groceries at Andersons down town in Tecumseh. We didn’t have a car so the groceries were delivered by horse and buggy by Ernie Van Vleet. Mother would usually go to the store on Saturday nights and give them a list of what she would need to have delivered on Monday for the week.

One Saturday night Bob and I talked her into getting a big watermelon. But we couldn’t wait until Monday to eat it. We insisted that we could carry it home (about three blocks). Of course, we couldn’t and dropped it before we got out the door. Needlessly to say we didn’t have watermelon that week.

Also because we didn’t have a car we walked to church (about eight blocks) for church service, Sunday school, evening service and again on Wednesday nights for prayer meeting, no matter the weather. And we won many pins for perfect attendance.

Mother sat Bob and I on either side of her in service and if we couldn’t sit still and behave, she would twist our ears until we settled down. And if she noticed that our faces weren’t quite clean enough, she would give us a spit bath. She would spit on a hanky and then clean the offending smudge on our face.

We also had Vacation Bible School for two weeks every summer. Eva Clausen and Celeste Richardson were usually the quest presenters of VBS. Celeste Richardson was the first and only black person we ever knew for many years, and we were thrilled when mother would invite them to come to our house for dinner. We learned many Bible verses and got coveted prizes for memorizing them. In the winter there were always revival meetings for two weeks. We went every night, no matter the weather.

We always had a large garden and I didn’t like it one bit when mother would send us out to pull weeds or pick the vegetables. Probably because Bob and Ashley would throw rotten tomatoes at me. We also had chickens until the town ruled that they couldn’t be raised in town any longer. But we could keep the ones we had until they were all eaten. The last one became a pet and would eat out of my hand. I’ll always remember the day it laid an egg in my hand when I fed it.

Marilyn (Manley) Kilbourn – Childhood Memories

Ashley Chase’s mother was Mildred (Maynard) Chase.  Ashley’s father was Sheldon Chase.  Mildred and Elizabeth Maynard were sisters.  Sheldon Chase and Charles Manley were half brothers. 

Therefore, two sisters married two half brothers making Ashley and Marilyn one-and-a-half cousins.

Bob is Robert Manley, my father and Marilyn’s brother.