My Croatian Mother - Part II

As a young woman, Helen, my mother, worked at a candy factory for a time and I remember her telling me that, at first, it was great and she enjoyed the candy they were given as employees.  After a while, that enjoyment turned to nausea; Mom said that just the smell of all that sweet sugary candy would turn the stomachs of those that had been there a while.  Eventually, she went to work at the Simmons Mattress Co. plant that, I believe, was in the Fairfax Industrial District of Kansas City, Kansas.  Mom walked about 5 blocks to catch the bus to go back and forth to work.  While at the Simmons plant, Mom met my Dad, Wilbur.  I don't know what year they met or how long she worked there.  They eloped in Sept, 1937 and my older brother, Richard, was born 12 m and 3 wks later.

When I was a small child we lived on 33rd Street in Kansas City, Kansas and it was wonderful; my paternal gramma and grampa lived behind us on the next street and my paternal aunt & uncle and cousins lived 4 houses down from gramma and grampa.  A maternal aunt and uncle and cousin lived directly behind us.  A lot of family to watch over all the kids, and a lot of family to go to for snacks! 

While we lived there in that small house, I started watching Helen work her food magic and learned the taste and flavors of many goodies.  She would make the most delicious coconut cake; Dad broke open the fresh coconut and I would watch Mom cut and scrape the coconut for that cake.  She would prepare the fish, rabbit, and ducks that my dad brought home from a hunting trip.  We always had fresh made pies, cakes and cookies.  She gave us cabbage rolls, sauerkraut, sausages, roast beef and potatoes, cole slaw, and quite a few Croatian dishes I don't remember the names of anymore.  When times got tough she would get a piece of bologna, put it on a rack in the oven and pour a catsup sauce over it.  She was an expert at making vegetable beef soup, potato-bacon soup, ham and beans, potato pancakes, and on and on.  Mom worked very hard to give us the best meals she could make with the budget she had.

Mom would take me to dancing lessons every week and spend hours sewing costumes for recitals.  I think she wanted me to be more of a girlie-girl than I was, but she never made me feel inadequate.  And, Mom seem to know that I had a perennial shyness that was not to change.  She would sit me on the vanity bench in her bedroom and curl my hair; when she was done she always let put on one spray of her cologne and at the age of 5 or 6 that was really something!

In the Spring of my 3rd grade year, we moved to Bethel, Kansas which seemed to be way out in the country.  It was sad to leave my gramma and grampa and cousins, and gramma didn't like that we were moving all the way out to Bethel. (It was actually only about 5 miles!)  At that time, 1951, it was an all day trip.  Life changed...