The Red Flannel Rag

sentiment by telling the stories of how she took care of three small children and went to

the barn to milk while Dad was in Germany.

She told me, “After Brenda got a little older and Larry started walking, I got me

two little baby bottles. I took you, Larry, and Brenda to the barn with me. You and

Larry stood by my knee, and I laid Brenda across my lap. She lay there while I milked

the cow. Before I started milking in my bucket, I filled the little baby bottles with warm

milk straight from the cow. I handed you one and Larry one. I kept y’all suckin’ warm

milk from the bottles while I finished milkin’.” I have faint memories of those times

and got quite a loving picture as I heard Mom repeat that story many times.

Her sentiment was also expressed in other stories about her cows. Each cow had

a name — Ole Jerse was her first cow. Ole Jerse had a female calf; Mom named her

Hommy. Hommy had Nanny, and Nanny had Betsy. She often bragged that she had

four generations of cows represented in her herd beginning with her first cow. She

could relate stories of e ach cow’s birth—how she had to “pull them out” of their mother.

She knew each cow’s milk output.

She related stories of “drenching” them— giving them medicine when they were

sick —and how she figured out how to handle a cow without any help. “I stuck two

fingers in the old cow’s nose, put my hip against her front shoulder, and pulled back on

her nose,” she bragged. “When her mouth came open, I stuck the medicine bottle in

where her teeth couldn’t bite it. I poured the medicine down her throat, so she ha d no

choice but to drink it.”

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