Formica Fire

My grandmother’s log home still had old amenities. My mother had grown up there with an outhouse. I don’t know when the bathroom was installed. It was straight across from the entry with the kitchen to the right and the living area to the left. It had a bathtub without a shower. With my parents getting ready for work and me for school daily over the past winter, it was getting a lot of use. My mother was worried about mold and mildew setting into the walls. If any repairs were to be done for the rest of my grandmother’s life, it would be my dad doing them. My parents decided to install a Formica tub surround.

The day of the installation, I played outside in the grass under the pine trees. My parents busily prepared their work areas and my grandmother fussed around them. It was my job to stay out of the way, so I casually watched. I sat in the grass pulling out strands and tying them into knots. I could hear the adults talking through the door left open for ventilation. “Here is a bucket you can put your paint brush in.” “We’d better put our cigarettes away, no smoking near the glue!” “Can I help? What do you need?” “No, Mom, we’re fine. We’ve got it.”

I found a ladybug and carefully lifted it on a piece of grass, let it crawl onto my finger, then onto another piece of grass until it flew off. Suddenly, there was a low, loud, “Whoosh” which caused me to look up. The window to the living room glowed orange. My mother yelled, “Jim! Jim!” in a scared, panicked voice I had never heard from her. I ran to the door. To my right, my grandmother was at the phone pushing buttons, “Hello! Is anyone there?” She clicked the receiver down and tried again, her fingers shaking and glancing off. To my left, I watched my father pick up a large rectangle of flaming Formica while my mother opened a door leading out to the street side. Dad carried it out yelling “Damn it!” He dropped it onto the ground. Then he was flapping his hand and grabbing it. My mother rushed by his side and they headed into the kitchen. “Run cold water on it!” My mother turned on the faucet while my dad put his hand under the water. “Ahh! Jesus Christ!”

The linoleum in the living room was singed brown over about four feet. My mother’s eyebrows were singed off. My dad had large blisters on his hand. The gas forced air heater which I loved to sit in front of had set the fire. My parents had forgotten about the pilot light. My mother worked in front of it, spreading glue across the panel with fumes filling the room. Fear was replaced with humor. “Aren’t we so smart, get rid of the cigarettes but forget the pilot light!” “How do I look without eyebrows?” Out of earshot of my grandmother, Dad said, “A lot of help she is when she is scared! How could she mess up dialing the phone?” They laughed together about Granny being flustered. Added to it, they had taken care to shut down the entry furnace but had forgotten the one in the living room.

My Dad had a bandaged hand and blisters for a week or so. At that time and whenever the story was re-told, he was the Hero who rescued my mom from certain injury. The fear and danger were real, as were his gallantry and bravery.

Three Generations of Lucretia, About 1975

My mother, her mother, and myself are all living in Hailey:

                   Joe Anne Lucretia (Donahue) Reed, age 40

                                    Lucretia Reed, age 8

                         Lucretia (Tribble) Donahue, age 80

                             Spending time at Grandma's

                           The day of my first communion

Riding Bicycles with the Neighbor

I was at the neighbors’ house playing. There was a five-acre field between our homes. The neighbors had six daughters. Well, at that point in time, they had five daughters. I was used to a quiet house with a slower pace. When I walked through the entry of their home, I was met with a number of coats, hats, boots, scarves, and gloves, bags stuffed with stuff all strewn around, piled on and falling off of a bench. You could tell that people came and went in rushes. To the left were split stairs going up to the main living space and down to the basement family room. Already, there was a decision to make. When I was there, I was generally half confused, trying to take it all in.

         (Me becoming a country girl. The tree from my house is behind me as I sit on the neighbors' fence. 1975)

This day, we were outside. Their home was set far back from the main road and had a long, paved driveway with a circular turnabout in front of the house. We were riding our bikes fast down the driveway and whipping round the turnabout. My bike had a hard plastic molded seat and pedals of the same hard plastic. It also had training wheels which rattled as I road it. This bike had been fine on city sidewalks. Now, I lived with a dirt and gravel road in front of my house, no sidewalks. Others had ridden their bikes off to the side of the gravel road and worn trails. These trails were more solid, but they also had a lot of rocks sticking through. When I road my bike on the trail, I hit these rocks and bounced up and down on that hard plastic seat. Or, my wheels glanced off of rocks and jostled me side to side. I frequently had to stop and get myself going again.

Riding bikes at the neighbors was much more fun. This day, one of the older daughters, Mary, asked me, “Don’t you want to get those training wheels off?” “Uh, I don’t know,” I mumbled. “Here, you can use one of our bikes. I’ll teach you!” she said. I was terrified! But I didn’t want her to know. My shame at being afraid was stronger than my fear of getting hurt. I didn’t say that I didn’t want to do it. I found myself on a bike with a cushioned, banana-style seat. The handle bars curved back towards me and the pedals were rubber. It was so comfortable, I was happy just sitting on it. Mary had me at the end of the driveway and explained that she would hold the back of the bike as I pedaled. We got going, as the bike wobbled, I could feel her hand on the back edge of the seat helping to steady it. “Keep pedaling and don’t stop,” she urged me. I kept pedaling and it smoothed and straightened. “Keep pedaling,” she yelled. I kept pedaling and the smoothness felt good. Then I realized she was hollering at me from a distance behind. She was no longer holding onto the seat and running with me. I don’t remember stopping. I don’t remember crashing. I must have done ok.

I tended to play with one of the other daughters, Angie, who was closer in age to me, just a year younger. I became proficient at riding and had my own purplish, wine-colored bike with a banana seat. We rode our bikes downtown in that small country town. It was only two or three miles. We rode to the library to return books and to pick out new ones. Then Angie wanted to go to the store and buy some candy. “I don’t have any money,” I said. I knew I was dampening the fun. “Just go ask your dad for some!” she exclaimed. She was matter-of-fact, casual about it. That is what other kids did, they asked their parents for money. I never had done so. I wondered if he would get mad at me. I had a sense that I shouldn’t ask for money. She waited for me as I rode over to my dad’s store. Since we were living in what was supposed to have been his shop, he had rented a store space on a side street off of Main Street. My parents had painted the outside in wide red and white stripes and named it Reed’s Appliance and Repair. 

When I rode up on my bike, my dad was standing by one of the front bay windows talking to a man. Dad was relaxed, shirt sleeves rolled back, occasionally smiling as they talked. I waited patiently. He turned to me and asked, “What are you up to?” I explained I was with my friend and “Could you give me some money to buy some candy?” I asked. He hesitated. I knew I was putting him on the spot by asking in front of the man. It felt wrong. Dad looked serious. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a quarter which he handed to me. This was a grave transaction. I knew I shouldn’t ask again in the future. I joined Angie and we bought our candy. She enjoyed hers without a care. I enjoyed mine, but knew this would not become a habit.

                       (You can see the corner of the TV here in the lower left of the photo. Close living space.)

We lived in the small space that had been meant to be my dad’s repair shop. I would come home from school and sit on the floor to watch TV.  At one point, the TV stopped working. It was the old kind which had a fuse. I think the fuse went out. Whatever the cause, my parents couldn’t afford to fix it right then. We went at least a month, maybe two, without a working TV. Even when it was working, it received its signal from an antenna on top. I could barely get three channels clear enough to watch. A year or so down the road, my teacher at the time wanted us to watch a certain TV show and do a class assignment. I went down to my friend’s house to watch the show because I couldn’t get it. She also could watch the Muppets and I could not. Even though the Muppets show was popular at the time and it aired for several years, I only saw it a couple of times total. I told myself it didn’t matter.

One day after school as I sat and watched TV, I heard a loud pounding on the wall to my left on the other side of our entry door. Then a cracking sound and part of the wall board pushed through as a jagged arch. “What is happening?!” I thought as my heart stopped for a moment. The pounding continued as well as ripping and tearing. When enough of the wall was removed, my parents’ friend, Jim Riggin, looked through with a smile and said, “Hi, Cretia! How are ya doin’?” Jim had managed the construction of the original shop section and he now was managing the construction of an addition to the home. He was friendly and nice, so I figured him tearing our wall to pieces was ok. I went back to watching TV.

Children of Great Grandpa Peter Donahue

My cousin, Lyn, recently went onto ancestry.com and found this family photo of my Great Grandfather, Peter, and Great Grandmother, Julia, and their children including my Grandfather, Joseph James Donahue (farthest to the left). This sparked quite the conversation between several of us cousins through Facebook messaging! The consensus was that it would have been nice if my Uncle Paul and my mother, Joe Anne, had told us more about their aunts and uncles and explained the relationship dynamics in the family. Writing it down as a family record would have been useful. In any case, we could see how certain names had been passed down through the family. I am sure my mother would have been thrilled to know we were all taking such an interest in our ancestry.

Joe Anne Returns to Hailey, Reviving Her Angst

Joe Anne returned to Hailey, Idaho. Hailey welcomed her as if she were that little girl sitting on her daddy’s lap. All of her memories of her dad were in this town. Her mother still lived in the house they had all lived in together. There were old timers that had known her father and could tell her their memories of him. Joe Anne had graduated from Hailey High School in 1952. Several of her classmates and friends still lived in the area.

*Hailey High. Photo originally posted by Jeannie Savelberg Bradshaw

She took a job as a legal secretary in Ketchum, the town 15 miles north of Hailey. Ketchum was at the base of Baldy Mountain, the center of Sun Valley skiing. Ketchum catered to the tourists and to the rich. Joe Anne hated Ketchum with vehemence. It seemed extreme and stemmed from teenage rivalries between the Ketchum School and the Hailey School. While working there, she complained with disdain of the high priced amenities as well as too narrow streets and terrible drivers. She befriended Lucille, who worked as a bank loan officer. They ate their lunches together. Lucille also lived in Hailey. Eventually, Lucille and her husband, Martin, became the couple that Jim and Joe Anne socialized with on most weekends.

To ease my transition into a new school, Joe Anne tried to introduce me to a daughter of one of her high school friends. At another’s home get-together, I was taken to meet this little girl. She was shy and quiet and politely said 'hi' to me. Her mother and her aunt had been good friends of my mother. When I was older, I was told of a slumber party my mother had as a young teen in which they got a bottle of some alcohol and all drank too much. They drank themselves sick! Well, as I was just meeting this little girl, her already established friend walked up between us, took her hand from mine, and pulled her away to play in another room. At school that week, I walked up to Shy Girl at her locker and said 'hi'. Domineering Girl walked directly over, said, “Don’t talk to her. We don’t like her,” and said “C’mon,” indicating they should walk away. Shy Girl looked at me then turned and walked off with Domineering Girl. At this point, a split was put into place that lasted all through high school. Domineering Girl was part of the popular group, possibly its Queen Bee. I was not accepted into the popular group.

We attended the Catholic Church for a while. Joe Anne even volunteered and I accompanied her to the church on Saturdays to clean. I dusted the pews and she swept the wooden floors. However, I believe she never felt worthy and it was easy for her to assume she was being judged. I remember being at a church service with her one morning when the priest was trying to get everyone fully engaged. He wanted everyone to sing. My mother was insecure about her singing and thought she sounded terrible. She was singing, but quietly. The priest turned directly to her and urged her to sing louder. He insisted until she did. She was embarrassed. Embarrassment turned to anger. She never returned to the church for services. She said she couldn’t stand the hypocrisy of some who presented as good church-going Christians.

Several of her good friends were members of the Catholic Church, so Joe Anne remained connected in spirit. There were gatherings and events at the hall next to the church which Jim and Joe Anne would attend. The Catholic Church put on a St Patrick’s Day celebration annually which they always joined. My grandparents had met at a St Patrick’s Day dance, both of them having an Irish background. Joe Anne was proud of her Irish heritage and needed to honor her parents’ tradition. I had been baptized as an infant and went through the first communion ceremony when we were in Hailey. I stopped attending weekend mass, but continued to attend weekly catechism after school. I only went to mass when I occasionally accompanied my grandmother to the Christmas Eve service.

Joe Anne enjoyed her job as a legal secretary. She was good at it. Her verbal and written skills (vocabulary, punctuation, grammar, typing dexterity) were valuable. She was intelligent. James Reed started out in Hailey with his own appliance repair business. They were very poor at this stage in their lives, but they had hopes and dreams. They were very happy for the first few years in Hailey.

Halloween When I was Little

With Halloween approaching, I thought I would reminisce about this holiday when I was little and still living in Idaho Falls. I can still recall wearing the ghost mask and feeling my warm breath leave condensation inside the mask. I also remember playing with that little wand, waving it around. I thought it was great! I had a little friend from down the street who joined me in going home to home with the help of my siblings. It was a fun time.

To Grandmother's House We Go

My Dad and I walked in through the carport side-door into the dining area and I stood looking into the family room. The front door was open and there were men I didn’t know urgently going upstairs and back down to the main floor. There were large boxes. One box was tall and a man next to it asked my mother if it looked ready to go. I saw clothing from my parents’ closet hanging in the box as if it had been taken directly from closet to box. My mother stood in the middle of the room, energetically responding and giving her approval. The tall box was yellow on the side and had Mayflower printed in large letters that took up the whole side of the box. I knew the Mayflower was one of the three ships that carried the pilgrims to America. The man tilted the box onto a hand truck and pushed it through our front door onto a ramp leading to a large truck with the same Mayflower on yellow printed largely on the trailer. Another man leaning over a square box said to my mother, “I am about to seal this one up. Is everything in there that you want?”  Mom answered in the affirmative and tape cracked loudly as it dispensed across the top, sealing the box.

In the evening, we loaded ourselves into the car. I was in the back seat. We were traveling to my grandmother’s house. I had been there for Christmas the year before and we had gone during summer time. I was comfortable with the idea. My cat, however, was not used to riding in the car. My parents had heard that wrapping the cat in a towel might calm him and would protect us from thrashing claws. My Dad handed Smokey to me, wrapped in a towel and placed on my lap. It didn’t work. He yowled and cried. He sounded terrified and I felt terrible. There was no way for me to convey to him that it was alright. Eventually, I let him out of the towel and he frantically jumped around the seat, to the floor, up into the window, until he crawled under the seat as much as he could, remaining there for the rest of the drive.

It became dark. I looked out the window at distant lights of towns and houses until I became tired. I stretched out on the back seat to sleep. We didn’t worry about seat belts back then. My parents talked quietly. My mother periodically would roll the window down a crack while she smoked a cigarette. She opened the window in consideration of me so that I wouldn’t suffer from the smoke. Most people then didn’t concern themselves much with that, either. Eventually, Mom fell asleep and I watched the back of her head resting on the head rest and moving side-to-side with the car motion. My dad calmly drove, occasionally looking to the side of the road at scenery then back to the road ahead. (When I was a teen, he would explain to me that changing my viewpoint while driving long distance would help prevent eye strain and fatigue.) His driving habits were reassuring to me; everything was under his calm control. I slept until we pulled into my grandmother’s front, dirt parking area, our headlights shining on lilac bushes with pine trees over-hanging. We were there. We had left the city for the country.

I was happy enough at my grandma’s. Her house was an old log cabin that green shake siding had been placed over, while inside, wallboard covered the logs. She had a tall gas furnace that ran up one wall of her living room and it blew warm air out the front through lower and upper vents. I liked to sit on the floor in front of it with the warm air blowing on my back. I would read or draw and be disappointed when the warm air would turn off. Granny worried and fussed about my being cold. She would turn up the thermostat. I tried to assure her I wasn’t cold, “I just like the heat blowing on me. I am ok.” She never really heard and continued to fuss about her poor chilled granddaughter. The linoleum was old, worn, scuffed and it creaked as people walked across it. It just seemed cozy to me.

 

I was enrolled in school, second grade. I had to ride a bus for the first time. I had to wait at a stop about a block down. Soon, snow fell in this mountain town. City trucks would clear the snow off the streets and push it into large piles, especially at the street corners. These piles were several times higher than my height. Even the snow along the sides of the road came above me. It was amazing. It didn’t take me long to learn the joy of climbing on those piles, sliding down, digging caves. My cat wasn’t so happy though. As we became more confined to the house during winter, he became on edge. Granny would talk to the cat in a high pitched voice whenever she let him in or out and she would pat him on the head in a manner that caused him to flatten his ears and looked as if his brains were being jostled. The cat took his stress out on me.

My grandmother’s couch resided against a wall which held the opening leading past the entryway. Granny would let Smokey into the house and greet him in her cat-irritating manner and Smokey would run around the wall, jump onto the couch back, then jump onto my head with claws out on all four feet, tearing sharply into my scalp! I would scream helplessly. On more than one occasion, my Dad came running to smack the cat off of my head, leaving me crying. After one of these episodes, Dad rolled up a newspaper and placed it into my hands. He said, “Next time he does that, you take a newspaper and roll it up like this and hit him with it.” I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to hit my cat that I loved. He attacked me again, and again my Dad told me I had to hit the cat. Smokey’s behavior was becoming so predictable, I was ready with a rolled newspaper the next time he came into the house. I knocked him off my head but missed him with the paper. Dad yelled, “Hit him!” Smokey had landed with a splat on the floor and was crouched down. I hit him once on his back with his eyes meeting mine. It wasn’t a hard hit, but it was enough. He didn’t attack me anymore. I didn’t realize this was my first example that a good, nice person sometimes has to harden kind feelings and take action to protect oneself. I would come to realize this lesson a few more times over the years.

The cat wasn’t the only one being driven up the wall. Mom was also on edge living with her own mother. We had moved to Hailey because my parents had previously purchased some property there. The plan was to build a shop for my dad where he would run an appliance repair business. They would have a house on the property as well. The shop was built with a small entry facing a wall with an open window for my dad to serve customers. There was a door to the side entering a workroom with a small restroom.  My parents cut their stay at Granny’s short and we moved into the tiny shop to live. The idea of a separate shop/business was abandoned as we lived in it and they gradually built additions on to become our house.