Another story. I guess its ok to talk about this in this day and age... Back then it was very taboo! It was the summer of my 11th birthday. So that puts us back to approx 1957. We were visiting Uncle Ernie and Aunt Christine about mid June approximately a week before my birthday and one Sunday something occured for the first time that happens to all girls at one time or another around that age. At first I wasn't sure what it was and I thought maybe I might be dying from some awful bleeding disease but part of me knew because I had been forewarned by Mom sometime a few years earlier. I went to Mom and whispered to her what had happened and to my huge embarrassment, she said REAL LOUD: "Welllllll, my little girl has started to grow up Christine. I believe she has started her first period. Do you have anything that she can use?" Like I said, she said this really loud and in front of Uncle Ernie too. I felt like dying and I wished the floor would swallow me up. All you females know what I mean because this is a very difficult time in a young girl's life. Anyway, of course Aunt Christine didn't have anything for me to use because she was too old for that sort of thing; but she improvised and then they sent Uncle Ernie on a mission to find a place that sold kotex. And with it being Sunday, it was a mission. Stores were not open on Sunday in those days. I guess he finally found a drugstore and made the awful purchase for me. And between them all I was finally fixed up with what I needed for what I considered a very humiliating circumstance.
But you know, it's something I will never forget. The timing, the circumstance of it all.....But mainly the kindness of an elderly aunt and uncle that took care of their very embarassed niece. And they did it well and treated me so nice even though Im sure I was a little sullen and mad at Mom. Why did she have to talk SO LOUD! It's funny now, but not then. - Mary Ellen
When Aunt Christine and Uncle Ernie came to our house they never knew what to expect: hamsters, pet chickens, dogs and puppies. They seemed to roll with whatever was going on at our house. Of course there were Ann's 4 kids and sometimes their friends roaming in and out of their playing cards and having grown-up conversations the whole time too.
One time when they were visiting we found out that we were going to have visitors from Boston, MA (my father's sister and her husband, Mary and Pat.) We hadn't seen them for a really long time and our place was not very pretty. It needed a good cleaning and everything was a little rag-tag. Ernie and Christine jumped right in and helped with the cleaning. Along with some sewing help from Aunt Lila, we made new curtains, made a neat dressing table cover, and bought a new bedspread for the bedroom they would be using. Uncle Ernie and Aunt Christine were there as our guests and never thought twice about helping out! - Patricia
ERNIE AND CHRISTINE by Patricia
Ernie and Christine lived in Covington for many years. Whenever we went to Covington, Ann's family usually stayed with Ernie and Christine; and Lila's family stayed with Bill and Ruth. Ernie and Christine were so good to us. They gave us the run of the house but Mom always told us to be careful. Not too much could happen though because their furniture was covered with plastic and there were plastic runners all over the place!
In Covington they had a large house and their son Ernie Ray and his family lived upstairs in a fully equipped home and they lived downstairs. They had a basement that always smelled of peaches in the summer because they had a peach tree in the back yard and they must have canned peaches down there. I remember laying on the glider on their front porch and counting the train cars on the trains that came by regularly across the street.
Aunt Christine had a way of making us feel really special and asked what you'd like her to cook. They let us play cards with them and it made me feel important. I learned Canasta at their house. Uncle Ernie favored 4's in Canasta and you had to watch out for him. He'd play three 4's on the table but he might trick you and be holding 2 more!
In talking to Joe and Mike they remembered that we were introduced to White Castle hamburgers at their house (Joe) and Uncle Ernie would sometimes ask you to go with him to the bakery in the morning to pick out donuts (Mike).
Our vacations were spent at Ernie and Christine's for quite a few years. We'd go up to see them or they would come to visit us for a few days on their way to another vacation stop. When they moved to Loveland, Ohio, they had a huge yard for croquet and a pool table in the basement. Uncle Ernie collected clocks and they all went off at the same time which was quite noisy.
In those days people didn't have air conditioning but Uncle Ernie invented his own. In his garage, which was attached to the house, he installed screening across the front with an entrance screen door. He put furniture out there - table and chairs, a couch, etc. We spent a lot of our time out there playing cards and feeling the cool breezes. Our days were spent playing cards, croquet, or pool and just lazing around and eating Aunt Christine's fresh from the garden vegetables. They told us that you had to pick your vegetables in the morning before the dew dried and fix them that very day to get the best flavor. They sure were good.
What was it about croquet in our family? Everybody had a croquet set. And they were serious when they played too. Of course the game bug has been passed on to many of us.
ERNIE RAY AND DAN
Ernie Ray was Ernie and Christine's only child. For awhile he lived with his family in the upstairs apartment of their house in Covington. They moved to Loveland and Ernie Ray divorced and eventually remarried and continued to live in northern Kentucky. He always played guitar and was often in a band. Ernie Ray and his family would come to Uncle Bill's Campbell Co. picnics and on occasion he and Dan Harr would do a little pickin'together.
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