Birthdays and Admiration

 

 

This week the writing prompt was to write about the person in your tree that comes the closest to your own birthday (not the year - but month/day). I have two people in my tree whose birthdays are the exact same day as mine. One was my 4th great grand aunt, born in 1857, the other is my grandmother's older sister who was born 56 years before me. I'm going to choose her. I loved this prompt because it gave me an excuse to reach out to some distant relatives that I'm 'friends' with on Facebook, but I don't interact with them any where else. I started out by sending them messages asking about their favorite stories about our ancestor. To some she is a sister, others a mother, some grandmother and others still an aunt. I found myself asking questions about so much more. I am honored to share a birthday with such a remarkable person from such a hard working generation.

Merle Iris Stepp was born on April 30th and was the eldest of 7 children born to Newell McKinnley
and Zula Jane (Acord) Stepp. She was named after Newell's mother Rebecca Matilda Merrel, and was delivered at home by Zula's mother, Inda Acord. The house she was born in was built by her father in the middle of the Arkansas Ozark Mountains in a little community known as Spokeplant, in Madison County. He had bought an old house about a 1/4 of a mile above the post office in Spokeplant. He tore it down and moved it and rebuild it at what is now known as the Bob Eaton place. Newell and Zula lived there for 16 years and 5 of their 7 children were born there. Then they moved about a mile down the road to what is known as the Karr* place where the two younger boys, Dwight and Tooter, were born.  The two homes Merle grew up in didn't have electricity. So she grew up watching her mother cook on the old wood cook stove and eventually learned how to herself. And laundry was another thing all together! When laundry was done in those days, it went a little something like this:

Build a fire in the backyard to heat the kettle of rain water.  Set tubs so smoke won't blow in eyes if wind is pert.  Shave one whole cake of lye soap in boiling water.Sort things, making three piles: 1 pile white, 1 pile colors, 1 pile work britches and rags. To make starch, stir flour in cool water till smooth, then thin down with boiling water, take white things, rub dirty spots on wash board, scrub hard, and boil, then rub colors... don't boil, just rinse and starch.  Take things out of kettle with broom stick handle, then rinse and starch. Hang old rags on fece. Spread tea towels on grass. Pour rinse water in flower bed. Scrub porch with hot soapy water. Turn tubs upside down. Go put on a clean dress, and smooth hair with hair combs. (Taken from an article written by Lisa Kelly and published in the Benton County Daily Record).

One story that my grandmother recalls that includes Merle and laundry was the time their mother, Zula Jane, and the two oldest girls, Merle and Argie  were doing the wash and a coal popped out of the fire and into the Sunday clothes. It ended up burning holes in some of them. Grandma remarked that they didn't have very many Sunday clothes.

There was a lot of hard work that had to be done back then just to survive, and children were expected to do their part. There were only a couple years difference between Merle and two of her younger siblings that were twins, Art and Argie. So the three of them worked together to take care of the farm. They would mend fences, repair the barn,  feed and water the livestock (cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, horses and goats). They would also pick beans to sell to the canning factory. Times were lean back then and they only had shoes in the winter. This meant they did all this farm work with bare feet during the warmer months.

My grandmother, Reba, said that because her sister was so much older than her, nearly 15 years to be exact, she didn't have too many memories of her at home. My grandmother would've been six when Merle got married. She did however, remember a time they were in the back of the hay wagon and Merle was standing up when the horses decided to bolt! Merle fell backwards and out of the wagon, but thank goodness she wasn't hurt. She also remembered another time when she and her older sisters, Merle and Argie Jayne, were in the barn milking. This was during WWII and they heard an approaching airplane. When they ran out to see it, it was a P38 flying so low that they could see the top and could hear their mother crying out that she was afraid those poor soldier boys were going to die. She was certain the plane was about to crash. Then suddenly the plane gained height and flew off. Remember the family homestead was located in the hills of the Arkansas Ozark Mountains and as the crow flies they were only a short distance from Fort Chaffee, where Elvis's sideburns were shaved off and he was given his famous GI haircut. Imagine if Elvis was in that P38!!

Speaking of WWII, Merle's soon to be beau, Willard Roy Denzer, who had lived just a mile or so away "over on the creek", was serving in the US Navy. When he came home on leave he and Merle began courting. They had met each other a few times before when the Denzer's would host a barn dance and the Stepp's would attend. They soon became engaged and after two years when Willard was out of the navy, on October 18th 1945, they were married at the Clarksville courthouse with Merle's mother, and her sister, Argie Jayne as witnesses. The happy couple lived with their parents for a month after they were married.

Before joining the navy, Willard had lived in California with an older brother, for a short time. While there he had a job working at The BOX Company. When he joined the navy he was told they would hold his job for him and he could have it back when he returned from war. This meant the newly married couple would move west to begin their new life together in sunny California. They did not own a car of their own so they hitched a ride with Willard's older brother Sherman and his wife Elsie. They lived in California for seven years with three of their five children born there, Richard, Ronald, and Rhonda.

In 1949, a mother's worst nightmare would happen - young Richard, only two years old, would suddenly experience bleeding of the brain and passed away. And three years later, Willard and Merle finding themselves homesick made the difficult decision to leave California where their baby was buried and move back home to Arkansas. They missed both of their families and the summers in Brawley were far too hot, so they headed back to Arkansas where their two younger children, Janice and Timothy would be born. The family lived and worked on a Tyson owned farm in Springdale. Willard worked hard for Tyson and became a research farm manager, and Merle cleaned eggs. Later when the Holiday Inn in Springdale was first built she went to work there helping get it in order. After they opened for business she was made head house keeper. She worked there for eleven years.

Merle grew up during The Great Depression, you learned the hard way that you do not waste anything and Merle took this with her into adult hood. One niece recalled that while Merle was working at the Holiday Inn, she would take the used bars of little soaps from work back home to her mother, Zula Jane, and they would grind it up in the sausage grinder and use the granules for washing their laundry.

Merle and Willard were from a hard working generation. They always had a garden and Merle would put up fruit and vegetables to last throughout the year. They raised their family and became grandparents and great-grandparents and eventually moved from their home in Springdale and purchased a lovely home on the lake in Gentry, Arkansas, where they retired.

This is where a defining memory of Merle and her generation would take place, at that lake house in Gentry, Arkansas, one frigid, icy, winter.

Her grandson writes: 

Merle's generation is the Greatest Generation for good reason. The resolve to do what needs to be done has carried through even into her golden years. A few years back, a winter storm struck the area, taking out power and icing everyone in for days. While the news ran stories about the elderly not having enough blankets, Merle and Willard (in their 80's) were chopping holes in the frozen lake, hauling buckets of water up the hill to the house, boiling it on their woodstove and using it for cooking, drinking, and bathing. 

Another time on a random visit we found the house empty. We heard a tractor running in the woods. We went to go check it out. We found Merle working a manual winch, chain, and come-along to right the overturned tractor in the ravine while Willard pushed. And they did it. In their EIGHTIES.

 

Last year Merle's family honored her with a 90th birthday celebration. I regret that I did not attend and that I don't have more first hand knowledge of this diligent and resourceful woman. I know she is a treasure to her family and everyone who knows her. I wish her many more birthdays to come.

Until next week,
Becky

*The Karr place was originally owned by  George Karr, the uncle of Zula Jane's brother-in-law, Hoyt Karr.  Hoyt Karr was married to Effie Equilla Acord, Zula Jane's sister.

**Caption for the family photo: Newell holding baby Reba, and Zula holding on to little Connie Betnar. Then the older three children left to right are Merle, Art, and Argie Jayne.

Please also take the time to read up on my SIL's Almost Birthday - Twin.

{ I later asked of any birthday memories she had from her childhood. This was her reply via her daughter Janice - "Mom said that she doesn't remember getting any gifts. They didn't celebrate birthdays, it was just like any other day. The meals were just like any other day also. Mom said that once in a while that her mom would make a molasses cake. That would be a special treat. They didn't have very much sugar then. It was hard to get. The molasses cake wasn't made for birthdays, just when she could make them. I ask her did anyone wish her a Happy birthday in school. She said no, they never had school in April. She said they only had three or four and never over six months of school. They would only go ever how long the money would last for their district. So never in school in April. They walked a mile to school and a mile back everyday day. Always barefoot unless it was winter. She said her and her sister Argie Jane, would have to wear a clean dress to school on Monday and wear it again on Tuesday and Wednesday, then they got to wear another clean one on Thursday and wear it again on Friday and the next Monday. They would have to change out of them as soon as they got home."}