I am writing this as told to be by my Mother Evelyn J.Rogers Alexander
it is writting as though she is the one writing the story
I hope you enjoy this account of her life
Nancy Isbill
I awoke to A beautiful October day, it was cool outside, the sky was A bright blue with lots of fluffy white clouds, I knew it was my day and Momma would make sure I had plenty of free time to do the things I liked. Their were still lots of wild flowers blooming, we hadn't got A killing frost this fall, so I knew once home from school I could run through the fields of flowers and lie down on what grass was left and look up to the heavens and pick out all kinds of things in the clouds, elephants, dogs, cats and some time I even saw faces, some was ugly faces others were nice, I had thought I saw Jesus in the clouds more than once, that always made me happy, today would be my time and I always enjoyed the things that I could see and feel more than dreaming about things I knew nothing about, this would be the way my life went, no time for dreaming and foolishness, family that is what life is about family and love..I wouldn't have to take care of any kids today and my chores would be taken care of by Momma and the boys, my one day A year that was all mine, I would be 10 years old today and most of the time I felt like an old women. I didn't want to complain to Momma, she had so much to do and never enough time to get it done. We had A good life, just wish some time that Momma and Dad would quit putting out so many babies. I felt that I had been caring for them boys most of my life, even if I was only ten today. In September Momma finally had another little girl baby, they named her Elizabeth and that was such A big name for A little baby that we started to calling her Beth, some way that had already changed to Bay, which seemed like A funny name for A little girl, I didn't worry about that much cause I was just so glad their was another girl baby, if Momma kept having kids like she did now we would need all the help we could get.
Dennis was born nearly two years before me, he was very quite and didn't say much to anyone, he was like Momma, she didn't talk at all unless it was necessary and Dennis didn't either. He had red hair and that bothered him A lot and over the past few years had cause me to have fights and fusses with the other boys in town and his brothers too. All the boys kept A chew of tobacco in their mouths, guess they thought it made them look big, just made me sick to look at them, that old tobacco running out of the corners of their mouth ughhhhh that's one thing they could keep I didn't wont no chew, it was just the way boys were then and I accepted it like I did so many other things. Even though Dennis was older than me I still had to watch over him, seems like boys just doesn't mature as fast as girls and he seemed years younger than me.
Like I said before, him being so shy and quite had caused me lots of problems, I had learned to fight real early on in life, with nothing but brothers I had to learn to take my part with them. I had rather wear an old pair of hand me down overalls than A frilly dress anytime, then I could run, play, ride that old horse and our bicycle with out worrying about my bloomers showing, I could lock horns with the best of them and had more time than I could count on my hands and toes, I could get down on my knees and beat them in marbles anytime I wanted, boy would that every cause A skirmish. Through all of this we never stopped loving each other, even if love was A smack on the arm or being chased by the boys till my legs would give out and I would just fall to the ground screaming and hollering and scare them half to death.
Well them old boys loved to tease Dennis and it made me fighting mad, they would chant over and over to him,
RED HEADED WOODPECKER,
SITTING IN A PINE,
WANTS A CHAW OF TOBACCO,
BUT HE CAN'T HAVE MINE
Now you just didn't fool with my brother or you would have me to contend with, many of fights and fusses I had over that, Dennis would just drop his head and say nothing. Just once I wish he would just up and hit them boys up side the head with A pole then they would leave him alone. He had got himself A job in the summer, I think to stay away from the other kids more than anything else, he helped deliver the ice to homes and businesses, he liked it real well, all he had to do was sit on the back of that old wagon and carry in the small blocks of ice to peoples iceboxes which usually sit on their back porch, the rough streets would cause the ice blocks, some 100 pounds and some 50 and 25 pounds to hit together and make little pieces of ice, he would sit on the back of that wagon all cool and calm eating the ice slivers, some time he got A little revenge on them mean old boys, they would run after the wagon wanting some of the small ice piece, if they had been mean to him then they didn't get any, if they were nice he would throw them some out. I guess he would have handled more of his problems if I hadn't took over for him, he was my brother and we were family and no one hurts my family.
