I REMEMBER

Excerpt from:

Memories of Jennie Browne Truesdell

Collected by Roberta Schweitzer

 

           

 

Banker Meade had the only bank in Waupaca.  Once my father was called out of town for a week.  Before he left, he instructed Mr. Meade to give our mother as much money as she desired.

“If she asks for a hundred dollars?” Banker Meade asked.

“Yes, give it to her.” my father replied.

“Five hundred dollars?”

“Yes!”

“One thousand dollars?”

“Yes, give her any amount she requests.”

Banker Meade was worried.  “Tisn’t often men would do that for their wives.”

“If I can trust my children with her, I can also trust my bank account.” my father told him.

My father at 95 years of age had out-lived my mother by five years, dying in 1925.  My brothers lived long and useful lives for better than three quarters of a century.  Time has spared me beyond all members of my family, and as I sit reminiscing, an old poem returns:

                        “Backward turn backward

                        Oh!  Time in thy flight.

                        Give me my childhood

                        Just for tonight”.

 

Note:  The preceding story was recorded by me as part of a project to show how local history can be written by remembering the “Old days”.                                                        Roberta Schweitzer