baby sister Ann

I was asked about my sister Ann---asked to write something about her and boy here it comes!!
Ann was born May 12th in 1929. I am wracking my brain to dig up my earliest remembrance of her as a baby. It comes to mind now that we had visitors from Dady's side of the family nd Ann was in a basket wrapped in blue shall we say, 'swaddling clothes". Everbody was ga ga about her and I remember them saying she looked like Daddy a lot. Most of the tidings of great joy was spoken in Croation language but I understood. I remember I touched Ann to make sure she was alive because she made no noise at all. I also remember getting a scolding--"Keep your hands off"! Okay okay---.
Then as the year crept towards winter, we all came down with some sort of illness--someone said it was "Scarlet Fever". I as usual got it first and was in gracious to pass it on down the line. I don't remember if John or Ella ever had it, but Donald and Ann sure did. Ann was just a teeny baby yet too,
One morning in the cold kitchen Ann passed out--my mother was changing her at the time--then I saw Ma frantically kinda spanking Ann to make her cough up what ever was choking her. I'll NEVER forget this next scene so indelibly etched in my mind---Ann turned all blue--she was naked now and face down on Ma's lap. Ma was shaking her and really in a fright while we watched. Then Ann went into a spasm. Yes, she was all blue and she urped up what ever she had on her stomach amd also shot a large amount for her bottom---I was narrowly missed by the stream . Then in a miracle she got back her pinkish color and was breathing again---. I am crying as I write this---I can hardly see the keyboard---.We got Ann back again. That was just one of the episodes in Ann's life. It is really a miracle that she is now over 80 years old, Thanks to God for that,
As Ann grew up, we were somewhat mean to our little sister--I mean that we teased her because she spoke 'baby talk'. It's our fault though because that's what she was being taught--never teach your child to talk 'baby talk'--it's a language hard to over come.
The seizure that Ann had was caused by her high temperature --the scarlet fever---this damages the brain if it is not lowered. In Ann's case I think her being naked in a cold house helped keep her fever down. But Ann had other seizures in her youth. She would actually die in front of us and we couldn't do anything except to try to shake her to bring her back to life. She didn't know this was happening.
I remember once we had to stay home from school because Ann had one of these seizures. When I was asked by the teacher Eyler Elliott, why I missed school, I blurted out, "because my sister almost died". There was a hush in the schoolroom in which were 4 grades. I spoke with the teacher later and he diagnosed the ailment as "Worms". But I can't believe that. There is a problem like that with worms but in this case it was damage to a small part of the brain.
Daddy and Ma took her to the doctor in Ellensburg. I think that doctor's name was Taylor. He prescribed a medicine which was oh so darn bitter but cherry red with a cherry flavor for Ann to take twice a day. Somehow, Ann over came this seizure problem but missed a lot of grade school. Gee she was quite old by the time she got out of that two room school house at Peoh Point.
But we teased Ann a lot and mimicked her as she spoke her baby talk. I'll try to write some here--when we did something to her, she'd say, "Mama GiGI koo"--she meant she would tell Ma and she'd give us hell for that. And it did happen.
Ann overcame her baby talk as she got older and went to school where she could learn real English. When I went to high school , Ann would ride the same bus--she would get off at the Peohpoint gradeschool and I would go on down town to High school.We sat usually together in the bus. She was quite pretty I must say.
For a reason I think is genetic, she had a beautiful voice. I remember my Aunt (we called Tetah Fannah) said, in croatian, "My mother had a beautiful voice". I'll write it in Croatian as best I can. "Moja mika imala ljepo grlo"---that's it. and also our cousin Frances Morin was a diva . She sang at masses too and had extensive voice lessons--being an only daughter they could afford lessons.
In about 1936, my sister Ella married Eldon Morrison. I don't remember any particular ceremony for that, but Ann liked Eldon a lot and lived a lot of her life with Ella and Eldon and away from our farm. Even though Ella was a half sister, she took good care of Ann--clothing too.
I will have to deviate from a chronological order, to mention that Ann wanted to take Piano lessons. At this time I had just come home from the army and had bought an army truck for Daddy and Donald--but since their crop of potatoes went sour they weren't able to reimburse me for the truck--which necessitated my taking a different pattern in life--. see, how I deviate? anyway, there was an ad in the paper for sale, a piano for $150. So my mother got into her cookie jar and dug up $150 to buy that piano--I remember the house where we went to load it--across close to the Catholic church in Cle Elum.
We took planks to roll the piano up on the truck bed. My Dad came along too --we needed all the muscle we could get. Daddy left his car at Uncle Steve's cellar and rode with me. After we loaded the piano, Daddy stood behind holding the piano against the back board. We didn't take a single rope to tie it down--not needing it with Daddy holding the piano still and I drove very cautiously.
When we go to the cellar Daddy rapped on the cab and insisted I let him off to get his car. I did that and proceeded on to home. All this while a neighbor Petersen was following in his International pickup. Just at the gate I made a slow turn and the truck dipped slightly to the left side and then I heard it!!! the lost chord!! from the piano which rolled off into a heap with pieces flying everywhere. I was absolutely sick I mean SICK because I abhor mistreatment of musical instruments and guns--that's it!
The driver of the pick up said he wanted to ask me to haul potatoes for him---and he didn't offer any help at all--just, "I'll talk to you later" and he drove off. In the meantime Daddy caught up to the scene and of course he admonished me for dumping the piano off the truck--I was speechless and on the verge of collapse.
Soooo as this goes on---we got the John Deere tractor and a sled and we loaded the pieces on the sled. We took the parts into the house and it was quite quiet even though this was a cause for lots of shouting and blame heaped on me. I remember telling Ann, "If you can't play like Tchaikovsky in 6 months you'll get it from me". I was able to adequately reconstruct the piano which is still in use today and will be finally restored by Mandy. That Piano is now in the house of Nancy's, and it has never needed to be fine tuned--it was built solid. I bought that Piano from Ma at some point in time because it was in her way in the small house. Daddy could play it quite well and I learned to play it too. Imagine not needing to be tuned after being dumped off a truck!! some piano.
Ann wrote letters to me while I was away in the army. She chattered on about the days in Highschool and her girl friends etc. But little about the farm. Donald was too busy and only wrote three letters in almost 3 years and I really was disgruntled about him for not writing more to me--because his letters were about the farm and stuff I was worried about.
In high school Ann took business courses which were good for her later.She got a job over in Seattle . She met Joe Gehring some where and somehow. Joe was a salesman for a tool company--Black and Decker. An astute business man.
THis story wouldn't be complete if I didn't tell about how crazy Ann was about horse---she was the most--the most avid horse lover in the world. We had three horses at the time--Molly and Jack and a crippled horse named Mabel. I thin Mabel bit the dust before Ann got infatuated with horses.
In those days, Daddy would have to go shopping in town taking the team of horses and a wagon. Ann absolutely insisted on riding Molly the fat horse while it was in harness even. The neighbors would kinda snicker about Ann riding a horse to town.
There had to be some discipline taken to remedy this habit. So when Daddy was harnessing the horses Ann was kept in the house almost under lock and key. But she knew what was going on. She heard the wagon go down the lane past the house and calculated the distance the wagon would be away from home so she begged to be freed.Ma was not the type to actually tie Ann down--Ha! so she left Ann out of the house. Ann ran down through the nieghbor's woods and through the fields and came out of a pine forest just as Daddy came by on the wagon. So Ann got to ride the horse the rest of the way into town.Daddy wasn't alarmed all that much about her being on the horse. I think he was proud of her
Gene Autry and Roy Rogers were idols for her--I don't know which was her favorite at this time but you would get into a verbal duel with Ann if you maligned either one of them. Somehow, Ann became disenchanted with horses as she grew older. Maybe Joe took the place of the horses in her heart--that must be it. Just because Joe was a sales agent for Black and Decker drills doesn't mean he was 'boring'. He's over 90 now and I am catching up going on 88.