As I came into the kitchen that day there they were, seated at one end of the table, Gene holding Alma on his lap. They had eloped and come home to tell the family. It was August 31, 1938.
Certainly this caught everybody by surprise. I noticed Mom’s usual bustling about the kitchen sounded a bit more like clanging. Daddy sat quietly at the other end of the table with a soft smile on his face. Don’t remember seeing Hike, he must have been at work. As for me, I was delighted and I’m sure my happiness must have shed some sunlight on those two, for they seemed genuinely glad to see me as I settled in a chair next to them.
Gene, temporarily out of work, had been helping the folks with the remodeling of the front room, so Daddy insisted they stay at the house. I now had a sister in residence, and I couldn’t have been more pleased.
Whatever mother’s first reaction to the elopement, I will give her this, she didn’t make it a family issue, and soon she and Alma were working together about the house. I have a feeling that was due to my Dad’s special leveling ability. He could bring almost any situation into focus.
As for me, though aware at the time that Hike and Lorene were planning their November wedding, it seemed perfectly all right to me that Gene and Alma had married as they did. It was their choice to make. By the end of September, Gene was re-hired by the Bureau of Reclamation and they moved to Moses Lake. They never lived at home again, but visited often, so we still had some special times together.
On November 6, 1938, at 5 pm, Hike and Lorene’s wedding was held in her family home. It was my privilege to play a few bars of the wedding march as Lorene and her father came from another part of the house to the living room. Now I had two sisters, albeit in-laws. They were totally welcome to my life.
It wasn’t as if I didn’t know these girls. They came upon the scene as early as 1936, Lorene Roloff being the first. The Roloff farm, though between Othello and Warden, came within the boundaries of the Othello School District. Hike met her at school.
Alma’s last name was Roth. She lived with her family in Warden. She and Gene first met when she attended a school play in Othello. As their associations became more involved the girls were in our home a lot.
When Lorene was still in school and Hike wasn’t he’d bring her home for lunch with us. It was my duty to make them peanut butter and sweet pickle sandwiches (Wilson’s Sweet Pickles, to be exact), while they sat close together on the living room couch. None of this seemed unusual to me, so I guess they weren’t too improper. They had a rocky romance at times. Once, I let Lorene get me in deep trouble. Angry at Hike, she gave me a list of her things and asked me to get them from his room. Vaguely aware of the real situation, and wanting to please, I did what she asked. Hike didn’t have too much to say, but Mom didn’t let me off easy. She sat me down, made me understand what really had happened and informed me never to interfere again. She was right, and I knew it. After that I became very protective of both my brothers’ things and their privacy.
Of course their romance made it over the rocky spots and their marriage brought to our family a new set of friends. Often the families had dinner together in each other’s homes. As the years went on Lorene’s mother and her sister Bonnie became very dear to me. What delightful ladies.
On the very cold evening of January 1, 1937, Gene and Alma were in a head on collision on a hill between Warden and Othello. This was before their marriage, of course. I don’t remember now, whether they were coming to Othello or going to Warden, but there were four of them in their car and a young man and his grandmother in the other car. There were very serious injuries, and three deaths. Such a sad way to bebin the New Year.
Chills return when I think of that night and their close brush with death. Late that evening they arrived at home after being treated by the town doctor. He’d released them both, along with the other young woman in their car. The driver of their car and the two from the other car were badly injured. They were to be taken to the Ellensburg hospital by train.
Alma was badly bruised from her waist up, some of her teeth were knocked loose and she had some stitches on her forehead. Gene had bitten his tongue when the cars hit and because of the cold and trauma, hadn’t started to bleed much. As the evening wore on he became calmer and warmer, and began to bleed slowly but steadily. Mom decided he needed to get to Ellensburg too, so they got on the train with the others. When they got to the Hospital, they treated him immediately as he’d severed the arteries in his tongue and was slowly bleeding to death. The other three died in the hospital within a few days of each other. The grandmother woke long enough to say it wasn’t the young people’s fault, that her grandson had gone to sleep.
Alma stayed overnight at our house that night. Somehow, I don’t remember much about the following day, except the solemness and being very worried. Alma’s sister and a friend came and got her that day and she went home. The next day Mom and Gene came home. In the following days a numbness lived with all of us. Gene and Daddy attended the funerals in Moses Lake. Then they stopped in Warden to see how Alma was doing. Gradually things got back to normal.
In Alma’s words, “after the accident we went together for keeps.” Sometimes she would stay overnight at our house and we slept together.
Gene got a job with the Bureau of Reclamation shortly after the accident, and he worked for them until they cut back in the first part of 1938. During that time he paid me 50 cents a week to pack a daily lunch for him. A neat job for someone just past eleven. When I added that to my small allowance, I felt rich. I remember even trying to make a budget to save a little but Power House candy bars, occasional movies and my dealings at Mr. Reynold’s store got in the way.
There were many times during 1938, I went with the four of them to Saturday night dances, even to other communities. The boys would tell me if I cleaned the car and polished their shoes they’d ask Mom if I could go with them. By this time I’d had my twelfth birthday and I loved to dance. I’d work hard doing what they asked. True to their word, they would convince her to let me go along.
She always admonished me never to leave the dance hall. I never did, nor even wanted to. All the action I wanted was right there in that hall. I danced with other girls, boys my age, my brothers and some of the railroad med that worked with my Dad.
At that time Hike had a coupe. When we’d start out of town for a dance, the three of us would be in the seat. When we got to the Roloff farm to pick up Lorene, I’d curl up on the narrow shelf above the seat by the back window. I rode there until we picked up Alma and got to the dance hall. When we were ready to go home, I’d be back up there again, until the girls were both home. Sometimes, I felt a bit squashed, but getting to go along was worth it, so I never complained.
Mom always had big, Sunday dinners. The girls were there a lot. Often Grandma Donley and other relatives would be there too. Everybody helped. We had fun together setting the table, clearing up after dinner, doing dishes, etc. Such memories of delicious dinners and good company are a pleasure to recall.
Added to all of this activity was school, piano, and changing growth for me. Between the two weddings, on September 23, 1938, I turned thirteen. New discoveries about myself were beginning to emerge. I began to believe there was more to Lena Marie than freckles, hair that was too curly and a skinny frame. My freckles were beginning to fade, my curly, golden brown hair looked shinier and my skinny frame began to look more like slim and trim. I liked it.
My girlfriends and I were learning all kinds of things about being young women. Not the way my girl did, in a classroom at school with some discussion after at home. Instead, in the classroom of girls, enough older than us to be some wiser. They were only too happy to clue us in. I never felt comfortable asking my mother about such things. Evidently my two friends didn’t either, so we accepted what was available to us.
That’s where I got my first mixed up enlightenment about how babies were made. What I heard bothered me for a few days. In the end, I decided if that was really true, then my parents were involved and so, it couldn’t be a bad thing. Eventually, my Aunt Jeanetta, mother’s younger sister, using good common sense, gave me the entire picture of human sexuality and what goes with it. I have always been so grateful to her for that gift.
Then, there was my fashion wise Aunt Marie who, always there for me, gave me help with fixing my hair, the use of make-up, and how to use the clothes I had to the best advantage. My mother was a very stylish lady, also, but our ideas of dress were not the same and Aunt Marie seemed to understand my needs.
There were three of us girls in the neighborhood that walked to school and back every day. I was the last one to start my menses. We had promised to tell each other as soon as it happened. The other girls accused me of holding out because I was the oldest. When it did happen, mother handled it as simply as possible. It was no big deal and I never considered it one. How often we laughed together about it all later on.
As I progressed through the difficulties of adolescence, I enjoyed countless memorable times with my brothers, my new sisters and the babies that came along for them, while I still lived at home. The best part is, those times continued through the years eventually to include my husband and our family.
Now, though we are missing our grandparents, parents, those two dear Aunts, Gene and others. We still have Alma and maintain a close contact with each other. At this stage of our lives we all fall under the term “Senior Citizen”, yet somehow, as I reminisce, those early years don’t seem so long ago.