Read an Excerpt
The Cowgirl Princess and Starwalker
My Mother's Story
By Dianne Brown
Balboa Press
Copyright © 2012 Dianne Brown
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4525-5442-6
Chapter One
My Autobiography By Lorine Blanche Pfeiffer Greulich
(From Lorines Journals)
I was born on April 2, 1922, about a mile from Harrison Township, Fulda, Spencer County, Indiana. I was born in a big white house with a big yard that had several big trees. I had one sister, father, mother, grandmother, and perhaps a dog and a few horses lived there too.
My birth happened on a Sunday morning. My dad went to church and when he came back he was sure surprised to see he had a baby daughter. Doctor Switzer helped my mother, and my Grandmother Pfeiffer was also there to help. The day was nice and probably warm.
My father was born August 10, 1890 in Indiana. My mother, Susie Schaefer Pfeiffer was born in Indiana on February 19, 1891.
I was four years old when we moved to Tell City, Indiana in 1926. We lived on the corner of 9th and Schiller Streets. The house on 9th and Schiller had four rooms downstairs and three rooms upstairs. It had a nice back porch, and from the alley up to the house and around the house we had a high shrub that grew green and had to be cut now and then. It was very nice.
I don't remember too much of my young life. I remember playing with a black girl whose name was Mary Florence. They lived on Main Street. She was a little older than I was.
Lorine told me that in those days the Afro-American citizens of Tell City had to be indoors by 6:00 PM. I couldn't imagine having a curfew that early for anyone.
When I was young and in elementary school in Tell City, the only black person living in town was Henry. Henry was the caretaker for the Parkview Hospital and Dr. James' house, which was next door to the hospital. This was on 9th Street, the same street where Susie and George and the library lived.
Often Pat and I would walk to the library and if Henry happened to be outside doing yard work or tending to the koi pond, he would always stop working and chat with us when we stopped to watch what he was doing. The koi pond was in the yard between the house and the hospital. Henry would often motion us over to him and then point at each of the fish and tell us their names.
There was a store across the street from where we lived and the Marchand sister ran it.
My sister Jo was eight years old when we moved. She went to school in Fulda, Indiana for three years before we moved to Tell City.
The farm that my father had was no good any more, so he sold it to Mr. and Mrs. Ed Brockman. I always liked the home place. Later on in life they changed the place, but I still like to go back and see it now and then.
When I was two years old I ran away from home. I went up the road and then I was going to take a short cut. I got stuck in a wheat field and got myself in mud up to my knees. A neighbor of Mom and Dad's just across the field from us found me and took me home. Mom cleaned me up, and I went back over with them and played with one of the boys. We made mud pies and put real eggs in them and set them out to dry.
Oscar Zogleman was a few years older than I was, and he had two brothers named Raymond and Clarence. Clarence played with my sister some times. Jo and I didn't have any brothers.
Our house in Tell City was a larger place than our home in Fulda, with an upstairs that had much larger rooms.
My Grandma Pfeiffer lived with us. She was my Dad's mother. There were ten children in her family, and my father was a twin. Two of my Dad's brothers were blacksmiths, and the rest were farmers. They all had families.
I went to St. Paul's School, but I sure didn't learn much. I didn't like arithmetic at all. I just couldn't understand it, and it seemed like no one wanted to help me with it—no wonder I failed in it. But I did like reading very much.
One girl in school used to make me mad. I thought she always thought she was better than anyone else, although She didn't seem to have much of anything—money either. Some times we got along OK though.
I remember one Christmas my Dad got me a new gray winter coat, and it had a little red hat and purse to match. It was cute, and I liked it very much. I was maybe eleven or twelve then, and I was tall and long legged.
I used to come home from school and help Mom, and then I would listen to the radio. I listened to "Jack Armstrong, The All American Boy." I used to eat my supper by the radio—I just had to listen to it.
Years later, after I was out of grade school, I didn't go to high school. Dad said I didn't have to, so I didn't go. You didn't have to go to high school in those days.
If I didn't work out, I stayed home and helped Mom. Then I would listen to "Our Gal Sunday." That was a very good show. I also liked "Ma Perkins" and "Helen Trent." This was all on the radio.
On Saturday nights when we were older, we girls: Marty Burns, Juanita Miller, and maybe a few others, would go dancing. Or we would go up town to the show. Margie Kimmel and her sister used to go with us once in a while. I just didn't go out much on Saturday nights. I would rather stay at home and listen to the radio.
I remember one winter night when Mom and Dad were gone somewhere, and Juanita and Marty and I were at home. We had to keep putting coal in the stove to keep warm. You had to go down into the basement and shovel the coal-clinkers into a bucket and then pour it into the furnace. It was so spooky down there at night especially with Mom and Dad gone.
We had cousins who lived across the street from us on 9th Street. Agnes, Leo, and Adolph Voelker lived with their mother Elizabeth and Uncle Ed Voelker. Uncle Ed was Aunt Lizzie's brother-in-law.
They used to live on the other side of Fulda, and when we moved to Tell City, they also moved with us. They didn't want to live on their farm in Fulda by themselves.
Elizabeth Voelker was my Dad's sister. Her son Leo and I played together when we were children.
I remember down on lower 9th Street there was a cornfield and it had a very old apple tree and a very small pond on it. I used to walk down there and climb up in the tree. I would sit there and sew when I was lonesome. I had a few friends that I played with then, but not many.
Later on they cut the tree down and put the swimming pool on the land. Everything changes—we were getting older.
My grandmother died in 1937, and her children were all around her bed when she died. I had to go over to Voelker's to stay to make room for all the uncles and aunts to sleep at our house.
Now to get back to the Marchand sisters, they were nice old ladies. One was very tall and the other was small and had white hair. The small one died first with something called yellow_________. (Fever? Jaundice?)
The other sister didn't want to stay by herself at night. First, my mother went and stayed a few nights. Then my sister Jo stayed with her, and then my grandmother stayed. And so it was my turn, and I stayed a few nights. I also got breakfast before I went home to get my schoolbooks. She always gave me candy to take with me.
I remember one night when I stayed with her we had a bad storm. It thundered and the lightning was so bad and it rained so hard. I slept upstairs, and her bedroom was down the hall from me. In this room that I had, everything was covered with white sheets. When it would lightning, you could see all those sheets lit up and flashing white—it was so eerie. And then the door opened, and in comes Miss Marchand in a white nightgown with a lamp in her hand. She scared the hell out of me. I covered up my head and she said, "I only came to see if you were all right."
That same night two of the washtubs fell off the back porch making an awful racket, and that scared the heck out of me too.
The next day I told Mom that I wasn't going over there anymore. And I didn't have to, because Miss Marchand didn't mind staying alone at night anymore.
Back in 1931 they had a story going around about someone dressed in black, maybe a man or a woman. Whoever it was, they thought them to be dangerous; so we never went out by ourselves at night.
I remember one night we were all by ourselves at home. Mom and Dad were not there, they had gone somewhere with Aunt Lizzie. It was just Jo, Agnes, Leo, Adolph and I, and we were on the back porch. The back porch had a railing all around it, and we were just standing outside in the moonlight talking. We were looking across the street when we saw someone walking toward us dressed all in black. We all ran into the house and locked the doors and crawled under the table. We were scared silly.
We stayed under the table until we heard someone knocking on the door. It was Mom and Dad and Aunt Lizzie. We told them about the person dressed in black that came towards us when we were on the back porch. "We didn't see anyone outside," Mom said. But boy we were sure glad to see them! That was so scary.
Another time when I was about ten years old, Leo and I would go to visit this old man. He lived up the street from us on 9th Street in an apartment on the second floor. I remember one particular night like it was yesterday. We climbed up the stairs to see the old man, and we flew right back down those stairs because something or someone shot a gun at us. I could feel the bullet whizzing right over my head. I can't remember how we got out on the street any more, but we never went back over to see that old man.
Leo's dad died when he was six months old. In all those years his mother never remarried. Father Pfeiffer, Lizzie's uncle, always wanted her to get married. One time Aunt Lizzie told me that a man with five children wanted her to marry him. Lizzie had three children of her own, and if she married him—they were young—they could have had more children. She said, "No thanks."
I remember when we had the 1937 flood. We had water all over Tell City. It was coming down Main Street and all the side streets and everywhere. You couldn't get out of Tell City if you wanted to, and what a mess it was when the floodwaters went down.
The water was all the way upstairs in some houses that were down by the river. For several weeks we didn't have any lights, we had to use lamps and candles. Boy! That was something else. No street lights, we had to use flashlights or stay in doors. I did stay in most of the time.
"Residents of villages, towns, and cities along the "Beautiful Ohio" in southern Indiana, will never forget the heroic achievements of WPA workmen and their leaders back in the Spring of 1937 when rampaging flood waters roared down in a swirling deluge of death, suffering, and destruction.
"Tell City was paralyzed, and Cannelton was hard hit. Other communities along the Ohio sent out desperate pleas for aid.
"Approximately one thousand WPA workers were rushed to the flood-stricken area. It was a monumental task of disheartening magnitude. Public morale faced a difficult test in the silt-covered streets, muddy homes, broken lees, twisted flood debris, and extensive damage wrought by the mighty Ohio." (Taken from the "1937 Ohio River Flood" article on the same website.)
On Main Street in Tell City, the old buildings that stood during the flood still have the high water marks etched on the sandstone blocks. Those old buildings are now eighty or ninety years old and some of them are still standing today.
When I was about nine or ten years old, I got the measles. Boy! Was I sick; I could hardly open my mouth. Uncle Ed Voelker, who lived with Aunt Lizzie and her children, came over one day to see how I was doing. He said, "You aren't going to make it; you are going to die."
But Mom took such good care of me that I finally got better. Then my dear Dad took the measles and really got down in bed sick. He was in the same room as I was—the house infirmary.
At that same time, Mom and Dad were building a new house right next door to the older one we lived in. It was going to be a big one. It had a back porch and a big front porch, a big kitchen, and a big hall. Mom and Dad's bedroom, a bathroom, a big living room and a dining room were downstairs. There was a nice staircase to go up to the two big rooms upstairs. There was a big attic that was as long as the house and two small attics. In addition to all that, we had a big basement and a fruit cellar. We had a big back yard and big place to have a garden and flowers.
When we first moved to Tell City, we bought the house on the corner from the Thomas Evrard's and they moved up on the corner of 10th Street.
The George's lived next door. Next to the George's were the Kahlbreir's, and they had a boy and a girl. Next to the Kahlbreir's were Mr. and Mrs. Ed Feix, and they had two boys: Benny and Thomas. Next to the Feix's were the Webb's. They had a house full of children, and every year they had a new baby. I remember one of the boys, Walter, telling me that the Doctor brought them a new baby in a shoebox. I believed him for a long time, and then later on I found out it wasn't so.
Some of those Webb kids got married, and the rest moved away to Frankfort, Indiana. I never saw any of the kids again after they moved away.
When I was eighteen or nineteen, I got a job at an old warehouse on Tell Street making tubes. Later on they moved into a new plant on 13th Street. I worked there for a few years.
I got one hour off for lunch, and I always walked home to eat. Then I walked back to work again.
(End of Lorines Autobiography ... excerpts in other places )
Both Prince George and Susie lived in the 9th Street house until they passed. After George and Susie were gone, Lorine and Carl moved to 1107 9th Street, and they lived there until they pared down and moved into an apartment almost twenty-five years later. I think it broke Lorines heart to leave her beloved house that George built.
Chapter Two
Prince George and Susie
Lorine Blanche was born second daughter to a royal Prince who lived incognito as George, a farmer, factory worker, and storyteller. My grandfather was a handsome man who loved to laugh and was as easy going down as soft vanilla ice cream on a hot summer evening.
The most meaningful gift he gave his second child, Lorine—my mother—was allowing her to travel across the continent with her cousins and aunts and uncles. Lorine fell in love with the West and the entire chameleon color palette, which was applied liberally to the landscape at every turn in good old Route 66. And just as capriciously, the color themes and schemes changed hourly as impending shadows turned grays and greens into purples and vermilions.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
This is a picture of the uncles and aunts and two cousins heading west. They are enjoying a picnic lunch near Rollo, Missiouri. Left going clockwise are: Mrs. Greulich, Leo, Elmer, Lorine, and Aunt Lizzie. Agnes is taking the photo.
(From Lorines Journal)
In 1940 or 41, Elmer and Agnes Greulich, his mother, and Aunt Lizzie Voelker, Leo, and I took off from St. Meinrad. We had stayed there all night and around 3:00 AM we left. We got somewhere way out of town when Elmer's mom discovered she had forgotten her glasses. We turned around and went back to get them for her.
Then we took off again, and we were driving in the lowlands. There was a funny thing; little bitty lights seemed to be floating all over the fields. It was really eerie to see. I am sure it must have been swamp gas or foxfire.
Foxfire or "fairy fire" as it is sometimes called is the phosphorescent light emitted by a certain fungi on rotting timber.
The first stop we made was somewhere in Oklahoma for the night. We got a motel that had two big rooms. They got Leo and me two cots to sleep on, and the rest were in beds.
I could have died in my sleep that night. When I laid down, I sat right back up and told Elmer to come here. I said, "I smell gas." And gas it was! Elmer fixed it. Good old Elmer.
From Oklahoma, we took off for Texas. We were heading for Fort Bliss, Texas to an army station to see Aunt Lizzie's son Adolph Voelker. Adolph wasn't married then.
We ran into high water along the way, and we passed a big truck that was stuck in the mud. We went into New Mexico; that was where all the water was—in Roswell and Clovis, New Mexico. We had to stop in Clovis. We got stuck too and had to take our shoes and hose off and help push. Agnes and I got stuck in the mud up to our knees.
We couldn't find a church on Sunday so we could go to Mass. But when you are on the go, you don't have to go to church.
We were a day late getting to Fort Bliss. It was way late on Monday afternoon when we finally got there, and we found a small house to live in and cook and sleep. It wasn't very far from Fort Bliss, and Adolph came over and we had dinner together. He really looked good.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Cowgirl Princess and Starwalker by Dianne Brown Copyright © 2012 by Dianne Brown. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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