Time machines come in different forms. And they are most often stumbled upon when we least expect it. They may take the form of the unorganized ponderings of an old-timer whose tale suddenly catches fire and speaks to us, or a worn school yearbook you begin to absently thumb through. Better yet, a wrinkled photo tucked away and forgotten in a drawer until you come across it, looking for something else.
Most recently, I stumbled upon another time machine entity: old Mt. Vernon Register News issues that carried a weekly report on the Farrington Center community of Jefferson County, an area called Horse Creek by the local natives. The correspondent was a woman born in 1891, Meda Fox, pronounced Mee-dee, with the emphasis on the last syllable. She would faithfully report the goings on in the region of my youth for several decades. I had briefly scanned over this newspaper in the past, looking for articles to do with my high school basketball career. One day, perhaps out of boredom, I looked more closely at the Farrington Center report. It was a moment that changed my life, bringing me a bit of peace and contentment, a sense of grace regarding a very difficult event.
My earliest memories are powerful, sometimes disturbing, always bringing forth strong emotional responses. My mother’s stories told the same way every time about those hectic, sometimes difficult days, and the many old photos I came to possess of that time helped bring some texture beyond my feelings and memories, a sort of solid ground one would hope to find while walking through deep mud. But the Farrington Center reports added another essential dimension, information free of strong emotional elements. As it turned out, many of the old photos of my boyhood mirrored the Farrington Center correspondence. The narratives are often short, but along with the photos, and my uncertain memory, they really revved up the time machine element, adding another angle to the tale.
When my mother married my dad in 1949, she moved to where his people lived, leaving behind her world of safety in Waltonville, Illinois. That could not have been easy. However, the Farrington Center information offered many examples of my mother getting involved with her new community, and Meda Fox giving her a nice welcome “into the community” in her newspaper correspondence in early November of 1949.
Two baby boys came quickly. I was the second born, popping out eleven months after my brother, Marshall. I’m proud to say Meda Fox reported my coming home from the hospital. In fact, I got top billing that issue. My mother looked very happy in a photo taken of the family shortly after I came into the world. My big brother, however, looks a bit unsure about my presence in the picture.
With my parents now with two baby boys, the grandparents on my mother’s side got more involved. One photo showed them romping around with Marshall and I and two Newell cousins, the adventure reported in Farrington Center. I’m barely being held by Grandpa Newell in the picture while he reaches down to restring my troublesome brother. Looks like we are about to get into a box of baby chicks, and one is already loose.
Then came the really big surprise- Karen Sue. Karen was born three months past my second birthday, giving Mom three kids in diapers, more or less. And Marshall and I were a handful, as one photo demonstrates. I’m sure the community was shocked by Mom and Dad having another kid so soon, Meda Fox at least noting it was a girl this time.
Poor Karen. Poor Mom. Marshall and I were into everything. Finally, our grandfather Mills built a fence around our yard, so Mom had a place to put us, while she saw about our baby sister. Meanwhile our Newell grandparents took Karen to their place occasionally, as mentioned by good ole Meda Fox.
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There were many other odds and ends about our family in the Farrington Center post, and oddly, Meda often misspelled my dad’s first name as Kieth. Some of these family adventures I remember fondly, like our trip with the Neil Wilson family to the St. Louis Zoo in 1953. My mother always laughed when she talked about the trip. Neither she nor my dad could pull me away from the monkey cage area. I just kept running from their grasp and hollering- “Look at the monkeys! Look at the monkeys!” My distant cousin, Sherry Wilson was along then, like me, two years old but still bald headed, although she would grow to have gorgeous red/auburn hair.
There were many things mentioned in that newspaper column I do not remember. Apparently, we had the first television in the community in 1952. If so, I do not remember watching television until I was four or so. Maybe I didn’t like what was on. I do remember some of dad’s friends coming over on Friday night to play cards and watching Friday Night Gillette boxing. I’d go to sleep on the couch, trying to stay awake and listen to their laughter and interesting chatter which often made little or no sense to me, only to be awakened from a groggy sleep for an instant by my dad gently putting me in my bed.
There were other interesting writes ups, especially one about a Halloween get together at the Farrington school around 1957, my first big adventure with a communal event outside my church. It was a glorious, if a bit scary, event. Everybody was there, but almost everyone was masked. Ohhhhhhh! Marshall and I had our picture taken with our masks on earlier that day standing with Grandma Ruby and Aunt Cecil. Cecil would win one of the prizes that night, and the event was given extensive coverage by Meda Fox.
Another item in Farrington Center solved the question about an old photograph I had of my family with Chester and Mabel Knauss. Mabel would eventually grow to the status of a grandmother figure to us Mills kids. She also grew close to our mother, helping Mom connect early-on with the ladies and events going on in the Farrington community.
In the photo we our all standing outside our family car at the side of an unidentified road. Dad looks grumpy, Marshall seems to have been disciplined, i.e. smacked by Dad, Mom looks tired, Karen’s feet can be seen behind the car, and Mabel Knauss is her usual happy, beaming self.
I had no idea of the context to the photo.
Then I came across an old item in the Farrington Center, and I remembered the trip. Karen had thrown up while we were driving through Giant City Park, giving Marshall and I the exciting chance to explore a nearby cave, just off the road in a cliffside. I ran back when Dad started calling, yelling really, but Marshall made the mistake of taking his time.
In the photo, we were just getting ready to load up again. It must have been crowded in that car. Mystery solved. Thank heavens for bench seats.
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We come now to the big discovery I mentioned, the short narrative that brought me a deep and completely unexpected sense of peace and assurance. First, some important back story.
My mom’s third pregnancy and the birth of my sister brought the first remembered disturbance in my life. My mother suddenly had much less energy, and I was barely a toddler, an age when a child needs a great amount of tender attention and engagement. When our mother went to the hospital to give birth to our sister, Grandma Newell came to take care of Marshall and me. She was sixty-five and frail, two inches shy of five feet, so waif-like in appearance she seemed a little girl.
We got into the pantry that evening and tore off every can label, playfully tossing the cans her way when she tried to intercede with a whispery voice. The next day Marshall got to go to Grandma Mills’s, who lived nearby, and I was banished to stay with my half-sister’s grandmother and aunt who lived in Mt. Vernon, two eccentric women I hardly knew and whose heavily rouged faces and exaggerated eyebrows made me scared. Once there, I struggled not to have a bowel movement, afraid of how these strange women might respond. I was unsuccessful but kept the event to myself, walking as little as possible, moving stiff-legged when I did until a sour pungent aroma gave me away.
At least this was the way I remembered things happening. Then, after reading a few Farrington Center reports about Karen’s birth, I realized my Grandma Mills was too ill herself to take care of my brother. Thus, he stayed with our family and Grandma Newell. Good for him! I got the short shrift again.
But then I came across one more notice about that difficult time for my family. I was shipped off to paradise, staying with Mabel Knauss an entire week by myself. I had to read the notice several times to soak it in. I had not been abandoned but rather sent to the best possible place during that difficult time. Even though I would carry the feeling of great abandonment, in my heart I now know what a lucky, blessed break staying with Mabel was, a break that made all the difference. In the photo below, is Mabel in the foreground and my dad, in back, acting silly as my mom takes a picture outside the Wells Chapel church.
Thank you, Meda Fox.
