A Farley Easter

A Farley Easter
by Mary Farley
April 10, 2020

As a Catholic family we observed Lent.  We abstained from meat on Fridays*, did the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday, and celebrated Easter Sunday.  Jim, Jerry, Kay and I went to Catholic school in Fort Dodge, Iowa.  There were special celebrations in the church and school.  Easter was an important holiday in Bothell, too.  All of us got new clothes, Baby Jane's in black patent leather for the girls, new hats for church, and a new spring coat.  I remember a striking soft blue, gray and pink plaid princess style coat that Kay got one year.  Jean had a perky navy blue one.  They were quite a pair, Kay with her pale blonde hair and big blue eyes and Jean with her dark hair and olive toned skin.  One year, Jim and Jerry who were serving as altar boys for mass at St. Brendan's Church got new dress shirts.

It was the mid 1950's, pre-hippy era, pre-age of everything liberating.  The standard of dress for well dressed young men was ironed white long sleeved shirts, tie and black pants.

Mother had gone shopping with the boys at Penny's or Rhodes and bought them lovely tailored cotton dress shirts.  They had complimentary ties and new black slacks. Mother sent the boys into their bedroom to put the new clothes on and model them for Dad.  She has a curious smile with a little tongue in cheek slant while waiting for them to emerge.  They looked great.  Jim in a pale blue shirt and Jerry in a nice soft pink.  Dad was a little taken aback and looked  shocked.  Dad might have been considered a 'conservative' dresser, and he wanted us to reflect his status as a solid citizen.  Mother explained that the shirts were very much the current style (they were the first males in Bothell who wore those colors and were for some time to come) but the boys were okay with them; Jim might have been a little embarrassed but Jerry was ginning ear to ear.  As long as the boys didn't mind, he told them to go ahead and keep them. The test would come on Sunday as they were both serving at mass.  They would be wearing surplices over the shirts.  The priest and altar boys dressed in the same area and he was bound to notice.  Dad was anxious to hear our parish priest's reactions.  I guess it was a little underwhelming, something like "very colorful".  The shirts were a couple of years before their time but they were worn until they were outgrown and the guys were very handsome in them.

When Candy and Cathy came along, they got wonderful dresses and hats and looked like dolls.  Black patent leather shoes remained the ultimate fashion statement.  There are many grown women today who long for the same thrill of those shoes.  Hats were essential for the females and there was a variety over the years, usually straw or rattan and sculpted but unadorned with anything but ribbon bands around their crowns.  The church was packed with large Catholic families in their finest.  There were lilies on the altar and sometimes in the vestibule of the church, organ music and someone from the congregation singing.  I don't remember a choir until the late 1950s.  Jean and Candy would eventually sing in a choir.

The dining room table had a large basket of jelly beans, chocolate mini eggs wrapped in colorful foil, and colored eggs that we might have helped mother color. I vaguely remember some kind of malt ball candy too.  I think mother eventually bought jelly beans in individual packages.  Jerry would divide his and save them until long after all of us had eaten ours, and then he would eat them one at a time and imagine we were jealous. (I never liked jelly beans until the gourmet flavors came out when Reagan was President).  Sometimes, Jerry could be found sitting on his bed having jelly bean wars smashing one into another and eating the crumpled loser.   

There would be pancakes or waffles for breakfast when we got home from church.  No one got to eat until after church because we had to fast for first communion.  Jim, Jerry and Dad often made Sunday breakfasts (I have never made pancakes in my life because I still expect someone else to make them).  Easter dinner was Ham, candied sweet potatoes, green beans and salad.  Mother probably made pie or a cake for dessert.  The garden in Bothell was full of color; hyacinths, forget-me-nots, daffodils, tulips, flowering cherry trees, and grass that had probably been mowed and was in much better condition than the stuff growing in it's place now.  Entertainment was all of us in the living room watching  a small TV (black and white until the late 1970's) with  "I Love Lucy," Ed Sullivan, "Make Room for Daddy" (with Danny Thomas), "Leave it to Beaver," "Father knows Best," or some similar  God/positive thinking message show (Delmar Farley's criteria for a choice of show).  It was a time of family and tradition.

*  Lenten dinner meals were meat free in Iowa; scrambled eggs, macaroni and cheese, baked beans, maybe fish of some kind and sometimes Lobster on Friday nights.  It could not have been expensive because Dad didn't have a lot of money.  It came from the East coast packed in ice in wooden barrels on the railroad,  We never had shrimp until we got to Washington and peanut butter was a wonderful food made by 'Sunny Jim'  that mother discovered in Seattle.  Vatican II changed the rules to only abstaining from meat on Fridays and Ash Wednesday. 

Not the First Time

Not the First Time
by Mary Farley
April 20, 2020

We have been in Quarantine before.  I was in the third or fourth grade.  I came home a little sluggish from school and a couple of days later some of the siblings started having spots.  A doctor came to our house in Fort Dodge and put a "Quarantine" sign on the front door.  The Farleys had Scarlet Fever.  I remember Kay being covered with little red spots.  Dad was away from home when the doctor came to put up the sign, and he could not come home unless he was going to stay home for the duration, so mother was stuck at home with all the kids who were to stay in the house.  Dad was a 'traveling salesman' then and probably stayed at the YMCA downtown.

I didn't get sick so I got roller skates and I could roller skate on our front sidewalk but I could not go off our property. There was a very nasty boy next door, Dicky Miller, who didn't like me because he wanted to play with the boys and 'no girls'.  He stood on his side of the driveway that separated our property from theirs and shouted at me that "If you go over that line, I am going to tell my father."  I never did get to be a good skater because the front walk was very short and I am not a natural athlete

I was outside one day when Dad came home and went up the front walk and stairs. He had a bag of groceries.  He knocked on the door and mother opened it and handed him some ironed white shirts.  He quickly kissed her and left.  He told me not to come near him as I stood on the lawn and watched him leave again.  I remember the day the man came and took the sign off the door.

Delmar, Frank, and Mame Farley

Delmar, Frank, and Mame Farley

by Mary Farley

April 23, 2020

Our grandfather Len Farley, developed a bad infection, which probably caused septic arthritis in his knees when my father was 8 -10 years old.  Grandpa couldn't walk without crutches.  Obviously, he could not farm!  Grandma took him to Arkansas Springs for treatment.  They had to borrow the money to go by train and to stay in the hotel.   

Grandpa Len's brother Frank, an unmarried man, worked the farm, took care of the animals, and stayed with Dad.  I don't know where Lenore and Phyllis would have been, maybe with Mary and Phil.  Earl and Gene would not have been born yet. The two must have worked well together.

Frank took Dad to a fair on the 4th of July and gave him $5.00!  Dad said he ran around and rode every ride, some more than once, ate cotton candy and ice cream to his heart's content and spent every penny !!  You should have seen his face when he told the story.

One day a taxi drove into the farmyard. Grandpa got out and chased Dad around the yard.  Dad said it was one of the best days of his life.

My sister Candy told me a story that Mame Farley had told her.  Mame was Dad's teacher at RainyVale School.  I don't know how old he was but he had seen Frank and Mame together when they were first 'seeing each other.'  They were trying to keep it quiet.  School teachers didn't date in those days.   One day as he was leaving school, he said  "Goodbye Aunt Mame."   Mame told Candy, "The 'little shit' said that in school and soon the whole town started talking about us seeing each other." I know you know about the way news spread in those days. Dad admitted he did it.  I can hear Mame laughing about it but It probably gave her some anxiety at the time.

Mame was a constant delight.  She played the piano, taught school after her kids got older, and was always willing to try something.  We all know someone who was on 'The Price is Right'  because of her.  She asked me to teach her how to swim one summer.  We got as far as her putting her face in the water and almost floating with one hand assist by me under her inner tube before I came home.  She giggled the whole time.  She was a very good cook.

Frank was very proud of her but our Grandpa thought she should stay home and be a good housekeeper.  

* $5.00 in 1922 would be about $75.00 now but candy was often worth a penny and the rides were surely less than 25 cents.

The First Broken Bone

The First Broken Bone
by Mary Farley
May 12, 2020

In 1948, Dad had a thyroid problem and went to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota for removal of what I believe was a benign tumor.  Grandma Ehlert, mother's mother, came to Fort Dodge to take care of us.  Jim was 7 or 8, I was 6, Jerry was 5.  I think Mom and Dad may have taken Kay and Jean with them.  Grandma was a great cook and so patient with us. We were good kids and very comfortable with her.  I don't know how long they were gone, at least 2 weeks.

Jim and I walked to a Catholic grade school with some other neighborhood children.  It was quite a distance but usually uneventful except for two occasions, this one in the spring of 1948 and one in the winter (more on that later).  I don't know how I arrived home from school without Jim.  There were teenage girls up the street that we walked with so maybe I came home with them.  Grandma was very worried when Jim did not arrive.  

It turns out that he had walked with two brothers who stopped at a ravine with a rope swing.  I don't know the boys names.  They lived about 3 blocks from us on the other side of the railroad tracks.  They showed Jim how to grab the rope that had knots to hold onto and how to swing out over the ravine.  You will have to ask Jim if it was his first swing when he lost his grip and fell into the ravine.  The friends got very frightened when they saw that Jim was hurt and they ran away.  Jim had broken his arm (thank God it wasn't worse ).  He crawled out of the ravine onto the street where a man saw he was dirty and hurt.  He drove Jim home and Grandma took him to the hospital that was about 7 blocks from our house.  He got a cast and sling, and wore them for several weeks including his First Communion. We have the photo.

I only saw the ravine once when Dad went to see it after the accident.  I remember it being deep.  Mom or Dad called the hospital that was near the ravine and told them about the rope.  It was removed soon after the accident.

I don't know if Grandma called mom and dad to tell them about the accident but she was really upset.  When Mother got out of the car upon their return, Grandma begged Mother, "Don't be mad at me Margie!"  I doubt that Mom or Dad were mad at her.  They were concerned about Jim.  I don't think there were any consequences for Jim but he was instructed to stay away from that rope.  The boys parents called and apologized and checked up on Jim's progress but Jim was never as close with those boys again.  

Dad did fine during and after his surgery.  I was so happy to see him be okay that I rushed to the car, and after a hug, I carried his suitcase that had to be bigger than I was to the front steps. It was too heavy for me to get it up the stairs so Dad thanked me for the help and carried it into the house.  Dad started taking the thyroid supplements that he continued to his dying day.

On the Farm by Mary Farley

My brothers Jim Farley, Jerry, my cousin Denny L. Dennis and I spent at least two weeks on our grandparents' farm in South Dakota in the summertime when we were between the ages of 5 until Jim was 10 years old.  We moved to Washington in 1952.  We helped our Grandparents and played in the farmyard.  Grandma had chickens and we had to collect eggs, we carried corn cobs from a pile in the yard in baskets into the house, because grandma burned corn cobs instead of wood for the kitchen stove.  We carried heavy pails of water from the well into the house and we watched grandpa milk the cows.  I helped grandma churn butter and it was hard work.

Grandpa loved raising pigs because they were good money makers.  One year he had a sow who had a large litter of piglets.  There were several little pigs competing for her milk and one of them was very emaciated.  It kept getting shoved aside by the other piglets.  Grandpa started making a mash of cow's milk and some kind of meal.  He poured into a  long wooden trough while  the piglets stood on their hind legs to eat it.  Again the smallest pig didn't get anything to eat because it was crowded out.  One of the boys realized that there was something wrong with it's eyes because it seemed to bump into things and had drainage or  pus around one of them.  They decided it was blind.  

Being kind hearted they decided they were going to make sure that the piglet got something to eat.  They started throwing corn cobs at all the piglets to keep them away from the feeding trough.   Jim climbed into the pigpen, picked the starving one up, and put him right into the fed trough.  The boys kept throwing corn cobs at the other piglets until it looked like the blind pig had enough.  I do not remember if they lifted the piglet out of the trough or if it climbed down by itself.  I know they did this on more than one day and the little pig started gaining weight.  As I remember,  Jim and Denny took turns climbing the fence into the pig pen while the other boys covered him with corn cobs.  I watched the heroes like a girl should do.

Grandpa usually put the sows in a caged part of the hog shed when he fed the piglets to keep them from eating the food.  One of the sows was very agitated when the boys were feeding the pig and pelting the others with corn cobs.   One time this huge pig was screaming and trying to climb the barrier that was keeping her in the hog shed.  She seemed very angry and was probably the mother of the piglets.  Grandpa didn't seem to object to the boys doing this but Grandma was terrified that the sow would get loose and attack one of them.  Fortunately after a few days the 'blind pig' seemed to regain it's sight and could compete with the others.  So grandpa told them to stop, but they knew they had saved the piglet's life and cured it's vision and they probably did.