MY LIFE BY Estella (LONG) COLE

    March 7, 1975

I was born April 2,1906 this being March 1975 you can see a great deal of
time has elapsed. I will try to tell you I'm sure not in sequence. As they
come to my mind. The very first thing that I can remember is my brother
William being very ill and how my mother never left him day or night.  My
little cousin choked to death (Berlin Long). That was my uncle Al's
grandson.  Then my brother passed away July 6, 1911. Seems like all I can
remember in my early childhood is some one passing away.  My grandfather
passed away and dearly beloved Mrs. Brill I guess because of her I lived.
My mother was very tired her health was very bad and Mrs Brill came over
about noon.  I had never been fed or put on the breast until she came.  My
mother said if it had not been for her I would not have lived.  We were of
a large family, Laura, William, Sarah, Russell, me, Chet and Paul. My
mother and father was from large families.  There were always, plenty of
aunts, uncles and cousins.  We were all very close.  I can remember quite
vividly my cousins who lived up the road from me.
We use to meet half way and play the afternoon away under a large tree.
When I was old enough to go to school we had to walk a mile on a dirt
road.  Sometime it would rain then Dad would put us on the horses and take
us.  I can remember the big snows my father and all the neighbours would
dig a path to school.  I shant forget the very early spring we had to go
by a big woods going to school.  The wild flowers would be in bloom.
Spring Beauties, Sweet Williams, Blue Bells, Dutelman Breeches, Violets
and a small yellow flower we use to call them Lambs Tongue. The tall
beautiful White Birch.  In the fall we had Persimmons, Hickory Nuts,
Walnuts and Hazel Nuts that grew on small bushes.  In the summer we had to
work hard, hoe corn to keep the weeds out.  Many times we would hoe corn
all day from early morning until late in the afternoon when we hoed corn
for our neighbours.  We got fifty cents a day.  In the summer my dad would
plant cane (Sorghum). That was the real job it looked so much like grass
you would have to get down on your knees and separate the cane from the
grass.  Some how none of us ever seemed to mind it was a part of our work
to be done. My mother and all of us would pick beans and corn to can.
potatoes and sweet potatoes and turnips had to be dug and stored away for
the winter.  My father would dig a hole in the ground.  I really cant
remember how deep.  Then he would line the hole with straw.  Put the
potatoes on one side turnips on another.  Another big hole for the apples.
Then were covered with straw very thick then the dirt was put back on top
of that.  In the winter when we had used all the vegetables that were out
we had to dig in the hole for more.  This was a very cold job as the
winters we had then were very severe.  We always had snow by the first of
November and lasted until early April.  I can remember seeing the snow as
high as the fence posts.  To a small child this is a lot of snow.

We had to see there was enough wood cut for the stoves and the wood shed
was stacked with kindling.  We lived close to a coal mine and my father
would bring coal from there.  Which would help to keep our house warm  My
first recollection of our house was a large one room log house.  My father
had torn it down and hauled it the farm be and my mother had bought when
Russell was form or just before. Every thing we owned was in the large
room.  Cook stove, cupboards, table and chairs, two rocking chairs and two
beds.  A was stand for the water bucket and wash pan.  Later on, my father
built a lean to on the north side of the house then we moved the table and
chairs.  As I remember it had several windows and always real sunny and
pretty.  No curtain and no window shades just bare necessities on the
north side of the house.
We could put a ladder up to the log part and go up there to sleep some of
the older kids slept there.  But I can remember going up there it was a
peacemaking place, not pretty only the beds but they were nice and clean.
Also I remember a large candy jar full of hard candy.  Once in awhile I
would get a piece.  Then one day my father and mother decides to build a
new house.  Right in front of the old log house only a low flat porch
separated them. We built three rooms, I was born in the new part.  To my
mother it must have seemed like a mansion but only bare necessities again.
My father worked for one of the neighbours a Mr Goggin who had a very
large farm and fed cattle.  He used to go there in the winter and feed
cattle be carried his lunch and was paid (.50$) fifty cents a day. This
was all to for the new house.  My father also worked in a coal mine in the
winter. On his pay-day when he got his money we would bet a sack of candy.
I can remember him coming home his face all black and his clothes so dirty
we would have a big tub of water (wash tub) full of water and he would
bath. Then after I was born my father used to tell me he never saw me
unless I was asleep, he left very early in the morning and come home very
late at night.  Then a few years later after my brother had passed away we
built two more rooms.  Kitchen, dinning room a big family and closet and a
big porch on the south.  That was screened in and a porch on the north: by
this time we had five rooms.  But the old log house we had loved so dearly
was gone along with a lot of memories.  As a little girl I used to get
dressed in my night gown and my uncle Chris (dad's uncle) would rock me.
That was one of the memories that was gone.  I had whooping cough and had
convulsions, I'm sure they thought that I wouldn't make it if left alone.
The only thing would bring me to was cold water.  I probably got a lot of
baths then.  Laura Sarah and me would sleep together and they always went
to bed with a pan of water.  After my brother died.   Mother and Dad could
never give him up.  He was the light of their life.  They idolized him.
Living there in the house was really more than my mother could stand.
There never seemed to be any happy times.  As I said all I could remember
was someone leaving us.  In or around 1921 we sold the farm to Mr & Mrs
Stroup.  We bought a larger farm just four miles ease of Brazil, one
hundred and six acres.  By this time or much before this my
sisters were married that left my mother, father, Russell, Me, Chet, and
Paul.  My mother became much happier and her health improved.  We had a
big house, four bedrooms, dining room and a huge kitchen.  I will never
forget the day we moved (in wagons) with all the neighbours and uncles
helping. With all our possessions along with chickens and geese.  I was
sitting right in the middle of one of the wagons holding a lamb.  What we
must have looked like to people passing - I would like to know.  This I do
know I was happy at our new home I loved it, I worked very hard to keep it
nice and clean with only a broom and a scrub rag to keep the floors clean.
When I had to take care of the house and scrub the floors on my hands and
knees.  That was a labour of love.  We had lots of company all my aunts
and uncles come to see us.  It seemed like about five years some one was
there every Sunday mother and I would talk and say we wished they would
stay home and let us go see them.  We had a big fireplace in the dining
room and a big heating stove for the living room.  My grandfathers cook
stove came with us, it was very beautiful.  The steel was real blue a nice
big warming oven.  and a big reservoir to keep the water warm to wash
dishes in.  I spend much of my time trying to salvage curtains for the
windows.  The pretty unbleached muslin ones we had in the kitchen and
dining room.  My father worked very hard one hundred and six acres
compared to our forty seven was a great deal of difference. But the
faithful old horses would never let him down (Topsy and Joe) for as long
as I could remember we had always had them.  They were a part of our
family.  I use to walk out to the fields where Dad was ploughing to tell
him dinner was ready and we always get a ride back to the house.  Nice
gentle old Topsey and Joe.  I could never ride a horse without some thing
to hold on to.  We use to take the cows and horses to pasture about a half
mile from the house.  Russell and me would start out but some how I always
ended up on the ground.  When I would fall the horses would stop.  The  I
would walk the rest of the way.  This of course was in the country our
first little house and I was small.

After my sisters were married their families came along every time a new
baby came this meant my mother would go to stay for two weeks.  This left
me with my father and brothers to care for.  I could have been no more
than ten years old.  I made bread, churned, cooked and cleaned the house.
For a ten year old this was no little job my mother had taught me to cook
some but limited however making bread was an accomplishment they were also
the other chores to do.  Feed the chickens gather the eggs see that there
was kindling in the wood box to start a fire in the morning.  Getting
breakfast was a job I hated.  I didn't eat very much.  Well after we got
the kids all raised Sarah & Laura, we had a little more time to spend
together. I was almost fifteen when we moved to Brazil.  Mother still used
to go and stay a week or so with them by this time I could do everything
that needed to be done.  We all worked together and three years went fast.
Mother had completely recovered from our loss. They were both well.
However we did have an added obligation since we had bought mor ground.
There was more money. Something like four thousand dollars.  We sold eggs,
picked blackberries (for ten cents a gallon) dressed chickens and sold
them.  We sold our milk to the creamer. If we had extra butter it was
sold.  Butter milk never went to waste.  It was sold all the extra
vegetables were sold.  Corn, wheat soy beans any thing we would salvage.

I did want to say when we bought out house in Brazil it was on state road
40 still a gravel road.  In the next year or so it was paved.  It could
have been around 1921 or 1922.  The road was graded and prepared for the
cement by horses and hand scrapped.
The men were looking for places to stay.  Mother and me decided we could
do something now to help with the unfinished balance on the house.  We
took in seven boarders. This completely filled the upstairs.  By this time
Russell had left home on his own this left Chet, Paul and me, Dad and Mom.
We got a cot and I slept on the floor. Do you know what seven more people
can do to a household.  Five beds and a cot.  With all the washing ironing
cooking no end , you got breakfast over with then you started dinner.
After dinner dishes washed and you start supper.  This was twelve people
to cook for an endless job of washing dishes.  Some how mother and me
survived.  Each month I would take our money uptown and make another
payment on the house.  Soon but it seemed like an eternity it was paid for
by this time most of the men were to far away to come back to eat or stay
then we began to catch our breath.  Mother and Dad had seemed to kinda go
along with all the fun we had we could have parties Halloween parties or
maybe just our dear lovely neighbours come in.  They were the salt of the
earth along with my mother and dad.  We would make ice cream or get
together and just talk and mother joined Ladies Aid so this meant one day
a week they would meet, quilt and eat.  The years went fast I had a few
dates at sixteen.  Nothing to get excited about.  Chet also was dating.
Then I came to Indianapolis for a job.  I had worked in Brazil at the
tomatoes factory also at the cigar factory.  I wanted some thing better
for myself I met a little girl at the cigar factory whose sister worked at
the telephone company here.  She was coming but some how she couldn't make
it.  She ask me if I would like to go.  She said her sister would be by to
pick me up.  Can you imagine going fifty miles from home.  I knew no one
not even the girl I was to live with.  Never been out of the country.
This was a real experience and this is what I wanted to be on my own and
many times concerned.  She was older and was dating steady.  And later on
married.  She sent me down town to put in an application at the telephone
company I must have been a pretty sad looking person only two dresses, one
pair of shoes, underwear washed out every night, one shop and probably one
pair of hose.  Any way I got the job that is in the training program. I
couldn't at first get it through my head as to what I was to do.
Telephone operation was what I was trying for.  After about three days I
was getting no where.  Then I ask my teacher if she would draw me a
picture let me take it home and study it.  When I went back to work the
next day I had it all in hand.  Everything went fine.  Soon (two weeks)
later I was sent to the Randolph Exchange on twenty-fourth street.  All
was not a bed of Roses.  The supervisors were not very kind.  But I must
stay I can't and won't go home.  And stay I did but shed many tears in the
quietness of the rest rooms.  Then one day it all changed I had cried my
last tear.  Regardless of what they said or did I wouldn't cry and I
didn't.  I began to date and they were such fun times.  Mother had never
quite got over me leaving home and each time I went back there were always
tears and sad good byes until next week.  I tried to make her understand
but my aunts and relation didn't help much as far as they were concerned -
I was just a no good - a lady of the street.  I finally convinced my
mother and I believe if she ever caught them talking about me. That
severed their relationship quickly.  As time went one

A whole New Year is mine today... May I be wiser, Lord, I pray!

I'd strengthen true friendships, old
and true and learn to cherish new ones, too:
To keep on learning and to grow a little better as I go.

To cast aside each grudge and grief,
And hold fast to a firm belief.
That life is joyous, gracious, good
When lived on terms of brotherhood!

To welcome fun and play awhile,
To lighten work with happy smiles!
To thank the Lord and every day
Remember Him, and kneel to pray,
In gratitude for strength and health
And blessing which are all my wealth!

This year gift from God to me
To spend or use, or set me free..

A whole New Year is mine today
May I be wiser, Lord, I pray.

Submitted by;
Phyllis Galloway