Jim and Mary in Formal Wear

Email from Mary Farley

November 25, 2021

I was going to a prom with Butch Nichols, a real cutie, that my friends bought me at a pie auction. 

We must have been more liberated than I would have imagined in those days.  I was a sophomore in 1958.  Butch was a senior. The Junior class sold males with a pie at an auction to pay for their prom. No girls were ever auctioned!!!

I never told a soul that I had a crush on Butch.  He was cute and funny. I saw him sometimes at the tennis courts while he was throwing balls with his older brother the Greek god of the high school, the quarterback, track star and soloist in the choir.  Butch was about 5'8", his brother was over 6 feet.  

For whatever reason my friends pooled their money and bought him for me.  I had a wonderful time at the dance.

I have no idea who Jim was taking to the dance.  I wonder if he would have remembered. I had two friends who planned to marry him.  But I don't think he took one of them.

A Visit with Big Brother

Email from Mary Farley

December 28, 2021

In mid March 2021, Kelsey took Kay to the REI store in Fairhaven and I followed in my car.  I intended to go to Blaine to see Jim.  I called him every week or ten days or he called me and I was worried about him.  Kelsey and I and Oslo took a short hike in the park near Western U. and Kay slept in the car.

Kay decided she wanted to go with me, so we drove on to Blaine.  Jim met us at the door, put his arm around Kay and took her to the chair, sat her down and gave a something to keep her warm.  He talked to her for a long time.  Ever the big brother he made sure she was comfortable.  He heated up some hamburger soup that Marcia had made and made sure she ate some.  Becky came home from a hike and we visited for awhile.  

We got home very late and Jim E. was glad to see us.

Mother-in-Law Rocks

Email from Mary - January 23, 2022

After Jim and Adele separated, there were items in the house on Hood's Canal that he wanted boxed up.  Kay volunteered the two of us.  We sorted and boxed some items, walked on the beach and found some beach wood and " Mother-in-Law" rocks*. For whatever reason, we lifted the small rowboat that he had on sawhorses or a trailer.  I promptly dropped my end onto the ring finger of my left hand.  I was wearing a favorite ring, a red tiger eye stone, a fairly rare stone.  The weight of the boat cracked the stone and squeezed my finger that immediately turned blue and then purple. I was sure I would lose my finger if we didn't go to an emergency room. Kay went to the car got her Leatherman tool and slipped it between my finger and the ring and cut it off. I don't know how she found the room to get the blade in place, but it worked. My finger pinked up and I mourned the loss of the ring. I think I still have it upstairs.

Kay saved my finger for several rings that I like to wear.

* "Mother-in-Law rocks" are rocks that have multiple indentations from clam shells embedded in mud that solidified into stone.  The shells deteriorate and leave irregular surfaces.  Kay said indigenous people have a legend that a cranky or bossy mother-in-law could have the rocks tied around their neck and be thrown into the sea. How politically incorrect is that?    

I still have one of those rocks on the ledge in the kitchen.  I carried it to apartments in Seattle, to Montana and back.  The large piece of driftwood I found that day has been in the garden for years and now has sedums growing on it.  I remember Jim every time I look at them.

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.