Stevens Farm: A Collections Memories

By Cindy Stevens

This collection of short stories relating to the growing up years of a little girl living with her parents and grandparents on a small New England farm has been read and enjoyed by people of all ages. They were written over twelve years by the gran

• Language: English
• Publisher: Leap Write Literary
• Release date: Jun 16, 2024
• ISBN: 9798893760644

Cindy Stevens

I grew up on a small family farm in rural New England. It was usual in those times to live in extended families and ours was no different. I lived with my mom and dad along with two younger sisters Joanie and Margaret. My Aunt Cile was just a short walk away with her husband and my cousins, Edie, Bill, and Jane. As playmates we had a lot of fun and were the cause of good clean trouble. Our Grandparents, Bill and Mae, lived in the farmhouse on the other side of the vegetable garden.My teen years were spent in the orange groves of central Florida where I cared for my aging grandparents. Caring for my grandparents in an elder community is where I gained my love for seniors.After graduating school, I moved back to the farm and went to work for a local insurance company where I met my lifelong love, Bob. Together we raised a family of two girls and two boys. Before all the kids were in school, I began delivering meals to seniors that were homebound. I would take our youngest son along with me and the seniors loved seeing him.As the senior community grew, I was hired to work with the director developing programs and delivering them to those in need. As Director of the Center, I published a monthly Newsletter sent to all the seniors. Many of the stories included in this book were read and very much enjoyed by the Seniors.I also traveled to the sugar cane villages in the plantations on the eastern plains of the Dominican Republic. There we provided medical care for all, especially the children. We also built schools and churches for community use. The major accomplishment was the construction of a 50 bed hospital to serve the sugar cane workers and their family.

Book preview

Introduction

This collection of short stories are my memories of growing up on a small New England farm in the late 1940’s and 1950’s. Farming was something we did, along with many other post war families, to make ends meet. What made it special to me is my family extended to my father’s parents.

They were born in the late 1800’s and grew up in an entirely different time than the 1950’s.

Many of the ‘old ways’ of doing things were still in use. Perhaps more so in my family than in others but everyone that reads my stories finds something about their childhood to relate to.

I hope you enjoy these short tales, but more than that I hope they bring back some of your memories of the ‘good old days’ regardless of when those days may have been.

Cindy Beck

Forward

When I was growing up my Nana always pushed me toward a career in social work. She said I was made for the job. Her home was always open to those a little down on their luck, or were having other difficulties keeping their life together. I think because she enjoyed this type of work so much she was recruiting me into following her lead.

Well, I grew up, got married and had four kids to care for. I was fortunate that my husband’s salary was sufficient for me to be a stay at home mother until our youngest was in the first grade.

Tired of staying around the house, I began working part time at the local Senior Center. The hours were ideal as they allowed me to be home each day when the kids got out of school.

I didn’t realize I was starting my career in Social Work. As the years rolled by and the kids graduated and went on to college I moved up the ladder so to speak and finally arrived at the top rung, Senior Center Director. My Nana would be proud.

I became the director about fifteen years ago, just when the first wave of seniors began making a big impact on our community. I needed to update a lot of the programs that were being offered as well as communicating our new offerings to the retirees. When the newsletter was reformatted there was space reserved on the upper left corner of the first page. I used this space to write my little monthly story and that’s how they became known as ‘Cindy’s Corner’. Well, these little ditties caught on with the seniors and I’ve been doing them ever since. Over the years I have quite a collection.

About three years ago I was diagnosed with brain cancer and had to take a year off from work while going through treatment.

During that time my friends and family encouraged me to edit the stories I had written over the years and publish them to share with other families and seniors.

Please enjoy.

Acknowledgements

I need to say a big thank you to all the seniors that read my stories over the years and continually told me how much they enjoyed them. Their support gave me the strength and inspiration I needed to continue my writing.

To my children, sister, and cousins who provided me with the memories, without which these stories would never have happened, I hope I faithfully recalled the events..

To my daughter Christine Lindberg, my sister Joan Hume, and my husband, for providing the illustrations and hours of editing.

January

Nana’s cold remedies

There’s nothing like a hot cup of tea on a cold winter’s night. Each sip warms you all the way down to your toes! It is also an excellent hand warmer.

Some evening’s Grampa would go into the kitchen and make steaming cups of bullion for my Nana and me. I loved the salty taste. Sometimes I would put a spoonful of minute rice in the cup for a heartier version.

Of course there was always chocolate, Ovaltine and Bosco, that we would mix with hot milk fresh from Old Bossy herself.

Nana’s favorite winter drink was hot malted milk. There was no chocolate in it, just malt. I wasn’t too crazy about it but there was another concoction that I loved, cornmeal gruel. I usually had it when I was recovering from a cold or nasty flu bug.

That, along with milk toast, was a sure fire way to get back on your feet again.

Another cold remedy Nana would fix for us before we went to bed was a hot toddy. She would take a teaspoon full of her brandy (for medicinal purposes only) hot water, honey and lemon. I felt very grown up when I drank it. It was supposed to make you sweat, and it surely did!

Now with all the medicines and new fangled products out there, we’ve forgotten the good old home remedies we used during the long months.

Scared Stiff

We had a large pond behind the barn, and across the railroad tracks. In the summer we would walk through the woods, pick wild flowers and fish for hours at a time.

But in the winter, people would ice fish (I always thought it was pretty silly to sit for hours, freezing, just waiting for a fish to bite) and of course go ice-skating.

The first time I ever went on the frozen pond was with my Grandfather. He put me on a sled, and pulled me across the field, over the railroad tracks to the frozen body of water. Well I’ll tell you I wasn’t very happy about going out on the ice. My Mom and Dad had told me never to get too close to the water when we went fishing, and here my beloved Grandfather was trying to DROWN me!!

I screamed bloody murder the whole time we were racing across the ice. When I grew up a little I use to love to ice skating with my cousins. I even got brave enough to go out on the ice with my father in his blue Henry-Jay.

I was really scared and just knew that we were going to fall through the ice and some ice fisherman was going to pull us out on his fishhook.

Well, needless to say the ice was safe and we did that trick a few more items before I grew up. But one thing I never tried was ice fishing!!

Sweet Smells

Memories are triggered by the strangest things. Take for instance the smell of wet, frozen wool. I remember being outside, playing in the snow for hours, and sucking the frozen globs of snow off my mittens.

That taste and smell was unforgettable. The other day, I was brushing the little bit of snow that fallen off my car and the memory of those fun filled days in the snow came back to me.

The smell of lemon reminds me of the pitchers of iced tea my grandmother would make on those hot summer days during haying season.

Perfume has to be one of the fragrances that bring back our fondest memories of special people. When I was a young woman, I loved Blue Grass which was made by Elizabeth Arden. I thought it was a wonderful scent. When I first dated my husband he told me that I smelled like his Grandmother! I have to say at that time I was a little bit hurt by his statement and stopped wearing that perfume. Now that I’m a Grandmother I think that I’ll look to see if Elizabeth