• Jan. 13, 2009
The Relatives Came
If you haven't read this book you should I think. It's written by Cynthia Rylant and it is so down home. It truely reminds me of how many of my relatives are, right down to sleeping on, "Pallets," on the floor.
I also remember going to visit relatives and packing food to take along, including a cake with pink frosting. I road in my great aunt's car and the cake sat on the floor behind her seat. I couldn't wait to sample some of that cake, but I think before we had a chance to eat it one of us kids stuck our foot in it!
I love stories like this. I remember my mother telling of moving to Washington state when she was a girl of 7 or 8 back in the forties. The family moved out there for a better life and my mother's father was to be a mechanic in a relatives garage. They drove a model T I believe or some such car with running boards where their dog road.
When they got to Idaho there was a forest fire and her father and uncle stopped to help. They were traveling with her aunt and uncle who drove their own car. They also had a mattress tied on top of the car which they took down at night to sleep beside the road.
My grandmother has told me the story of how they stopped one night and the weather was pretty fair, but when they woke in the morning they were covered in a blanket of snow on that mattress!
I've been told the trip took them about two weeks to travel that far. After two years they decided to return to Oklahoma much to my mother's disappointment but my grandmother's delight.
Anyone care to share their family stories of the same nature?
