I was almost 4 years old when Elizabeth was born and have a few early memories of her. The night she was born, Aunt Cindy took Dwight and me to Grandma’s and Grandpa’s. I don’t remember how I felt about having a baby sister. I remember I slept in a trundle bed that slid under her crib. She was about 2 when she had a pole high chair that Daddy made. And when she was about 5 or 6, Aunt Sofe gave her a little quilt that she made with something about Queen Elizabeth on it.
When Elizabeth was about 4, she joined in with Dwight and me in “inventing” an imaginary family. The three of us were eating raisins and acting silly, making funny faces while we were chewing the raisins. Then we came up with names for our faces, like Pig Face with our lips pulled together, Funny Goo – by wrinkling the nose. They became the parents of Big Goo, using the corners of our mouths, then Little Goo - one corner of the mouth tightened and Little Goo (twin to Little Goo) with the other corner – you had to watch to see which one was speaking. Then there was Smiley Man – a hired man, you guessed it, big smile. And last came Squeaky Man, another hired hand. But we fired him, it was too hard on the throat to make his voice. With this imaginary family we made up all kinds of stories for months, exciting adventures, some in far off lands, and even in an underground city.
Elizabeth was a part of all that, but later, when we were living in Ralston, Dwight and I gave her a bad time with our telling her about the time we had gone to France and had a friend named Pierre and made up all kinds of stories about him. She was not sure if she should believe us, but we were very convincing. She asked Mother if it was true, but Mother just smiled and wouldn’t say. I don’t remember how long we got away with it.
It wasn’t long, though, that Elizabeth and I began to do things together and made a lasting friendship. First, it was paper dolls that we played with by the hour, sitting on our bed and laying out the dolls and clothes and play acting. We played school, using some of mother’s things from her teaching. I was the teacher.
We went for cows in an upper pasture, and it was a time of sharing secrets. Elizabeth was a good listener. She patiently listened when I was determined to write the “Great American Novel” at age 12 or 13 as I read to her my silly attempt.
When we were in our teen years there were two occasions when something special came in the mail: The Spring and Fall “Monkey” Ward catalogue. There was a particular protocol in looking at the catalogue. In order to keep anyone from being the first to look, we sat on the couch, with Judy and Elizabeth on each side of me, and the catalogue on my lap, and we solemnly turned the pages.
One of both Elizabeth’s and my special memories was doing the dishes together. We didn’t necessarily like doing the dishes, but we would talk and giggle, which sometimes disturbed Daddy’s after lunch nap.
The last several years our friendship grew even stronger as we shared our accomplishments in making quilts. She had a special talent in creating artistic masterpieces. One of the best times was when we worked together in making a quilt for Dwight’s retirement, and spent many happy hours hand quilting it.
I will always treasure the long phone conversations when we discussed important things, like our favorite movies or tv shows; and there were memories, to which I was always amazed at her incredible memory of people and details of events. And of course, we solved the problems of the world. The best part was laughing together.
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