GRANDMA AND GRANDPA'S HOUSE

I remember Grandma Baker's house. The kids played out front or on the front porch which seemed huge at the time. There was an enclosed side porch where the kids could play and it also had a dining table when there were more people than the kitchen table could hold. I remember the outhouse, the chicken coop, the basket ball hoop on the side of the smokehouse, an orchard with apple and pear trees and a big garden out back. We would play hide and seek and I'd wedge in behind the fireplaces or go up in the attic to hide. The attic was off limits but I never got caught.

I remember the men working somewhere close building a barn or a house or something and they’d walk back to the house for lunch. There’d be like 10 or 12 men, and the women, including Frank Baker’s wife Mary, would cook for them and serve them. The women and children would eat after the men or in the porch off the kitchen. We also had big Sunday dinners where the women would work all day to make meat, vegetables, mashed potatoes, lots of food! - Dan

PORCH MANIA
Grandma and Grandpa Baker's front porch was a version of today's back yard decks. Kids played in the front yard too. The swing was always in use. Grandma always sat in the chair next to the door. Notice she's holding a baby and Grandpa is two seats over. It looks like Uncle Frank is in the swing and probably some of the older boys are his. Maybe that's Paul and Kathy H. sitting on the front steps. Perhaps the younger kids belong to Paul and Kathy.

WINTER SCENE

Winter Scene of the Old Homestead in Stanton
(an older picture because the fence out front is different)

A picture of the Stanton home in the mid 1960's

THE FIRE
Do you remember when there was a fire underneath the house? It was sometime in the 60's. Someone saw something dripping under the crawl space and got Grandpa. Grandpa couldn't see very well. Do you remember the dark glasses he wore? So, he couldn't see what they were talking about. He lit a match to get a better look and something ignited. Don't know if it was fuel or wood that caught fire but a bucket brigade was set up and well water was passed down the line and was thrown on the fire until it was out. Kids were crying and upset, men had their sleeves rolled up passing buckets, and the women were all in the house in the backroom talking and didn't even know what was going on!

My favorite memories of grandma's house are of me, Ruth Ann and Bitsy climbing the tree in the front yard and swinging on the porch swing. I also remember the great Easter Egg Hunts and looking for the prize egg with the dollar bill in it even though I was never lucky enough to find it!! We also thought the upstairs was haunted and we would have to go up there by ourselves while the others counted at the bottom of the stairs. I don't remember how long we had to stay up there but it seemed like forever!! - Pam

I remember some things I've heard Alice talks about. Grandpa and the applesauce. It was said that he'd come home with bushels of apples that he got somewhere and Grandma Baker, Alice, and whoever else was there would have to peel and cook the apples outdoors in a big iron kettle. It was hard work. You stirred it with a wooden paddle and once it started boiling it would pop and spatter and burn the heck out of you. Thus certain people said they always hated seeing him come home (with apples!).

The outhouse brought out mischievousness in some people (Richard and others). The game was to lock an unsuspecting victim inside. There was a lock on the outside as well as on the inside of the door. They would lock the outside lock when no one was using the outhouse so the door wouldn't flap around and get damaged. So sometimes you'd get locked in and you'd have to beg, cry, and threaten to get out. You also learned to always carry something to slide through the crack in the door to unlock it . -Patsy

Moving from Boston to Stanton was quite an experience. One experience that my sister and I really enjoyed was church singing. We were introduced to choir singing because we went to the Presbyterian Church where Aunt Alice sang in the choir. We learned about "parts" especially soprano and alto. I sang soprano and she sang alto. It was so much fun sitting in Grandma Baker's front porch swing singing "Trust and Obey." - Mary Ellen

It was culture shock moving to Stanton. Grandma and Grandpa Baker's house didn't have an indoor bathroom! We had to use the outhouse. It was shocking to a little 7 year old city girl. Mary Ellen and I would hide out back and watch Grandma Baker picking out a chicken for Sunday dinner and wringing it's neck. She seemed so stern. We were scared of her at first. As the years went on we grew to love this gentle but strong woman who read the Bible every day, welcomed everyone to her home, and never seemed to be ruffled by anything. - Patricia

I was inspired to write more by my sister's remark of how it was culture shock for us Riley Kids, moving from Boston to KY (especially Stanton) and all those new relatives that we heard of but didn't really know. But after recovering from the shock of the well (that Mom put the fear of drowning in if we leaned over it around a cousin who was a little slow: and the open sewers that ran all over town, and the wringing of chicken necks and axes chopping off heads (Oh My God!!!!the chicken body ran around with no head and blood spurting out), and the outhouse with a double seat and flies always buzzing or maybe bees down in it......after all that and more, ...The freedom of running around and learning to ride a bike finally and just going anywhere a kid would want to. Our Mom wouldn't even let us go off the small street we lived on in Boston. I'm sure the big city of Boston was hard on her considering where she grew up and she was very protective of us through no fault of her own. Anyway, just to be able to walk anywhere and run and ride a bike wherever you pleased was a really great thing to a kid who finally got to be kid. That's a really big memory for me there at Grandma's house and Aunt Alice's house too. - Mary Ellen