Current Gaul News Page 9

Larry

Memories of Laura

In response to your family’s request for stories of Laura growing up. As Laura’s twin brother, I have many memories of Laura’s younger years.

I will try and put my memories down on paper. I will try and make this about Laura and not me, understanding that as twins we were very close growing up and perhaps it will be impossible keeping me out of it totally. I apologize if this sounds rambling. I will put my memories down in chronological order.

On February 15, 1938 in the east bedroom on the farm in Iowa, twins were born to Alphonse and Regina Gaul.

They named the Boy Lawrence. (Later called me Larry)

They named the girl Laura

Times were much different back then.

1938 prices

-Average income $ 1.731.00

-New car $ 860.00

-New House $ 3.900.00

-Loaf of bread $ .09

-Gallon of gas $ .10

-Gallon of Milk $ .50

I can remember us being dressed alike only once. We must have been about two and mom dressed us in identical red snow suits. Having a twin gives one a perspective others don’t have. Especially when we were young seeing Laura in that red snow suit was also seeing myself.

Laura and I played together all the time, some times with tragic results. Our farm did not have electricity until we were about 7 or 8 years old. We always had a decorated Christmas tree candles were held onto the tree with clips. The tree must have been dry. (You must understand before electricity we had ready access to matches. Adults had to light fires often as well as kerosene lamps. For convenience every house had a metal box on the wall with 100 or so stick matches. Unlike book matches of today, to light them you could strike then on almost anything.) At any rate we were about 4 or 5 years old and set the entire Christmas tree on fire. I remember the whole thing on ablaze. We ran and told mom who with the help our brothers put out the fire they managed to put it out but not without damage to the room.

A couple years later we tried to light a perfumed alcohol lamp standing on the windowsill by lace curtains which caught on fire. That time five gallons of sour milk was used to put out the fire. (Those days 5 gallons of skim milk was left standing to sour for the laying hens.) The sour milk must have been handy but you can imagine the mess it made. That room also needed to be repaired. That must have been another day we were not very popular.

One year the folks were gone around Christmas time and Laura and I found the Christmas gifts behind the bed in the folks room. We carried them out and put them all on the kitchen table thinking Mom and Dad would be happy we found them. Of course they were not happy at all. We were threatened with “now Santa may take them back because you were snooping.”

We started school, first grade in 1945, (there was no kindergarten those days) learning came easy for us both. We enjoyed reading I think our grades were about equal until the 4^th grade. Then I discovered basketball and study was not my priority.

Often times I didn’t know what the homework assignment was but it was no problem because Laura always knew. Laura had much better report cards then me from the 4^th grade on. I started to study again in the last part of the 8^th grade and worked really hard in high school but never caught up. From my parents point of view Laura must have been an ideal child. Responsible in every way. I don’t ever remember her getting spanks. I am sure I received enough spanking for both of us.

Laura and I grew up in a very religious family. First Communion and Corpus Christi and other Catholic Church celebrations we dressed all in white and as a class processed around church. In my minds eye I can see Laura as a little girl and mom fussing over her dress.

Laura and I spent a lot of time together. I remember going for walks around the farm, picking flowers along our little creek. Finding frogs, tiny baby rabbits, fox dens, groundhog burrows etc.

One night we were all gathered around the supper table. Laura sounding upset stated that Larry was always betting at school I piped right up I’ll bet you $5.00 I don’t bet. Laura must have been embarrassed with her twin brother at school. My Brother Gerald loves to repeat that story at our family gatherings.

My mom and dad had lots and lots of married brothers and sisters, we had loads of cousins many about our age. Almost every Sunday there were visiting aunts and uncles at our house or we at theirs.

We played typical games of softball, hide and go seek; one of our favorite games was ghost. When ever my one uncle would visit in the evening, we kids would go upstairs, turn out most of the lights, put white sheets over our selves and run around scaring the wits out of each other. I can remember our parents sometimes yelling upstairs for us not to make so much noise.

Picking up the eggs

To understand this story you may need a little background. When Laura and I were growing up, the egg money was very important, especially to our mother Regina. Back then I am sure the egg money was very important to all farm wives.

This was before women’s lib, but even then it was understood the egg money belonged to Mom and she could spend it as she saw fit.

A common topic of conversation among mothers back then was, “how are your laying hens doing?” The answer to this question determined how much money there would be to run the household. It was the egg money that had to pay for the groceries, clothes and everything that was needed to run the house.

If the hens were lying well there would perhaps even be some money left over for the nice things mothers like to buy for their home and family. It was the egg money that gave moms a small measure of independence.

Getting on with the story, the task of gathering the eggs often fell to the "twins"

On that particular day one of us dropped an egg. Much to our surprise all the hens around the broken egg rushed over to eat as much of the egg as fast as they could.

Wow! We discovered chickens like eggs.

I am not sure who got the idea and I will not venture to guess because Laura is not here to defend herself.

At any rate one of us threw an egg against the wall, of course it broke and fell on the floor, all then hens rushed over to consume the egg.

What fun! We threw another and another…

That night mom was beside herself the chickens were down to half the eggs the they had laid the day before.

What could have caused her hens to go down so much in production.

It wasn’t until the next day that we were in trouble, because the next day production was back to normal.

Somehow Mom knew the "twins" had something to do with the mystery of the disappearing eggs.

Laura and I were grilled until we confessed to the crime. We had a finger shook in front of our face and admonished, that "That was not going to happen again!

At the time we had no idea we had threatened the economic well-being of the household.

Needless to say from that day onward we were very careful when gathering the eggs.

Laura and I traveled to school with a horse and buggy for our 1^st and 2^nd grade. Our older brother Eldon drove the horse. Eldon was in the 7^th grade. We had a beautiful racehorse named Peggy. (Dad bought her from a conductor he met on a train.) Peggy could run faster than any of the other horses taking kids to school. On occasion we would pass them with Peggy. Dad also had a team of draft horses; they were percherons named Sam and Queen.

I would always ask Laura to go horseback riding with me and she would always say "NO!”

I would tell her Queeine was old and slow, a very gentle horse. Sam on the other hand had more mustard. This happened when we were in about the 5^th or 6^th grade.

One day she must have been tired of saying no and with a lot of trepidation agreed to go riding with me.

We never had any saddles so I always rode bareback.

I remember how pleased I was that she agreed to go riding with me. I helped Laura get on Queenie back. Then we started riding west down the trail behind our farmhouse.

We rode at a walk for about a quarter mile.

Then what I did must have been the most unkind thing I ever did to her.

Well my macho self got the best of me. It was show off time for her twin brother. I wanted to demonstrate my riding skills to Laura. With out saying a word I turned Sam around and headed home in a dead gallop.

At the time I guess I did not know a horse is a very gregarious animal. At any rate Queenie was not about to stay out in the back 40 alone. Laura’s horse Queenie turned and followed me home also in a gallop.

Laura was too paralyzed with fear and too busy hanging on to do anything about it.

We went galloping home past the garden where Mom was pulling weeds. Mom was yelling at us to slow down, which I finally did. To say that Laura was angry with me would be an under statement. Laura was usually soft spoken. I don’t remember what she said to me but she made it very clear that she was not pleased. Laura probably is the only person that galloped on her first horseback ride. Thank God she did not fall off; to this day I feel guilty and shudder to think what could have happened had she fallen off.

That day I ruined it for myself. Laura never went riding with me again. In fact I don’t think she ever got on a horse again. However, she did forgive me.

Take care and don’t go horseback riding with a showoff brother.

When Laura and I got to be 15 years old the job of milking the cows was handed over to us. In the winter we didn’t milk many cows but the rest of the year we milked from 18 to 24 head. This meant we spent about an hour in the morning and an hour at night milking the cows. This gave us a lot of time to talk, about school friends etc. One night during milking we got the idea to name our cows. We thought it would be cool to give our cows the same name as out aunts, of which we had many. When we used their names to refer to the ones that had a new calf, Mom didn’t thing it was funny. The first year around Christmas time we ask for a new bike, Mom said if our milk check was 500.00 we could have a new bike. That month the milk check was $632.00 and we received a shiny new bike. The only bike we had before that was an old used one that was broken most of the time.

Laura was always popular in High School, she was president of our class, and Laura never played basketball or other sports. She always studied hard. Laura had one of the main parts in the school play. Sally, in “Don’t Take My Penny” (A Maid with a Purpose) I was Monsieur Henri (a French Designer) I don’t ever remember her getting into trouble. Since there were no buses back then, we drove Dad’s 1954 Chevy to school which was great. Sometimes we had to drive the 1942 Chevy pickup to school which was not so great.

The trip to school gave us another chance to talk about things at school, boy girl things etc.

We graduated High School in 1956. After High School Laura took a job with the phone company. Then I guess it was time for us to go our separate ways.

Laura joined the Sisters of St. Francis in 1957. She taught school for a number of years in Waterloo. Later she became principle at St. Mary's in Cascade. After 13 years as a nun she felt this was not her calling, someone once said she left because God wanted the three of you born.

And you all know the rest of the story.

Fortunate to have had your Mom as a twin.

Uncle Larry