I overlooked this odd distant view of the first Knox County home of Laurence and Fern, Velma's favorite house, probably because it's taken from such a distance, and I cannot reconcile it with the second, a very battered photo of Velma and puppies. At first I thought it was taken from the east, looking west, from the Andrew Schainost place, but the trees aren't right, because I know from my own memory that a lane ran out to the county road between rows of eastern red cedars. Running north and south, the county road itself had big cottonwoods along the west side (Nebraska's state tree for a reason, most frequently seen in such roadside rows). The house also had other trees, including a small apple orchard, because one of Mom's favorite anecdotes was about the drunken chickens. She claimed the chickens ate so many fermented apples, they went staggering around, and she'd go into hilarious drunken clucking and kabawking that always made me laugh. From those clues I'll let you draw your own conclusions. Obviously, there is a front and back porch.
Being a diehard dog man, I love these old photos of Mom and puppies or dogs. Grampa always had at least one dog on the farm, and then he and Gram even had P.T., a little Boston bull terrier, when they lived in the trailer and moved to Center behind our house. The photo below, such a favorite I have a framed copy, is Velma and Audree at the corner of the brick house. I assume the black stockings had something to do with Grandma Koftan's stern Methodism at the time. Mom said Grandma was very strict in the Twenties and always wore black stockings, just as a fundamentalist sect did we called the Holy Rollers when I was little, a nest of them out north on Howe Creek. The subject came up because members of this sect would come around asking for donations and selling religious tracts, and my curiosity sparked at their black stockings. On the other hand, Mom may just be wearing some kind of long johns (?).
This is clearly taken somewhere in front of the brick house. It's L.J., Grandpa K., and the view is northeast. That's the row of cottonwoods I was talking about, running along the west side of the north-south county road. He's standing in the garden, flowers at the left, dill, I think, in the background. Gramma always canned plenty of dill pickles, Mom's favorite, sweet pickles for such as me. That's a weedy garden, on second look, though some rows are visible, with much grass. Actually, I think it's either potatoes or tomatoes at the lower right.
Both of these photos of Mom and her sister were taken at the Old Brick House, because Audree's birthplace is Morrillville, not Mariaville, and that's where Mom was a teenager. Notice how thick the trees are.
I suppose "Grunts" is on the photo because these are bigger than newborn pigs. We called the tiniest baby pigs unable to compete in feeding runts, and Gramma would coddle them in the kitchen. They were like pets. I remember them, wrapped in blankets to keep the undersized babies warm near the stove or under it, fed with a nippled baby bottle. That was their only chance at survival. Ella Mae would be George Koftan's wife, L.J.'s sister-in-law, as far as I know.
A word about the Schainosts: they spoke German at home, and Andrew had a thick accent. I knew him when I was very little. He was a lively little fast talker. They were good neighbors across the road to the east, for more than card playing. The most memorable detail about him I recall was that he made his own beer, which he kept in a large crock behind the stove. When he wanted to get a drink, he would sweep aside the flies and other bugs on top, and dip into it. That made a very lasting impression on Mom, besides the smell, and she could never abide beer because of the memory.
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