Our Surrey
A surrey was a good method of transportation years ago. In fact, if you had a surrey, you were considered to be in style, even if it didn't have a "fringe on the top". Our surrey had side curtains to put on when it rained or was windy. It had two kerosene lamps, one on either side, to be lit in the dark.
There never was room enough for our whole family to sit in the surrey when we went somewhere. Mildred, our youngest sister, had to sit on our mother's lap in the front, and Norma and I, who were next youngest, had to stand in front of the older girls who sat in the back seat. To keep more steady, we hung onto a grab bar that was fastened to the back of the front seat.
We had white organdy dresses that our mother had made. We wore them every Sunday, and then they were washed and ironed every Monday so they would be ready for us to wear to church the next Sunday. When our dresses were ironed, Mother was curious about the threads that were pulled on the front of our dresses, both in the same place. This curiosity wasn't settled until it was discovered that the seam on the grab bar was rough, and that as we traveled along on the bumpy roads, our "tummies" rubbed on the grab bar, causing these threads to be pulled.
One windy day as we were coming home from church, our Dad's hat blew off. Since it was easy for me to get out, and since I was young and could run fast, I was elected to get out and retrieve the hat. I remember running after the hat and when I was just ready to pick it up, a gust of wind came along and rolled it a little farther. I ran after it and again and again the same thing happened. After many attempts, I finally managed to catch the hat. After we didn't use the surrey any more, it was relegated to the shed. We still found good use for it, however, as we three youngest girls, Norma, Middy, and I played house in it. The back seat was one house, the front another, and the third house was located in the milk wagon nearby, which was still used every morning to haul milk to the cheese factory nearby. On the back of the surrey there were two coiled springs to which we attached a piece of hay wire. We put a board across this wire for the seat, thereby making it into a swing. This was our park where we went for recreation. We would dress up to go out.
We nailed spools to the heels of our shoes to make high heels. After Mother discovered what we were doing, this practice stopped quickly. Some days we would take our baking powder cans and go pick blueberries. These were just little seeds that grew on a weed, and we would just strip them off like blueberries. Other days we would have to "haul in hay". After the grass had been cut, we would use empty farmer match boxes for a hay wagon, pulled by a string. Not having TV like kids have today, our creative minds took over, and we enjoyed our time for play.