The following recollections are from Mary Kaiser Conard, written in 1988, she describes her memories of her maternal Grandparents as well as her mother and each of her Aunts and Uncles. Please do not copy these or otherwise distribute them without permission from Mary Kaiser Conard.
This, of course, is the one of Klara and Ferdinand's children that I would know the most about. She shared my life since birth and I called her "Momma" when I was little and Mom later.
The bridal gown that she wears in this photo, she made herself. It is of silk crepe, embroidered with white seed pearls. . waltz length. Her tiny feet are encased in white satin pumps adorned with a white silk "pouf" . Her jewelry is a locket, given to her when she and Dad were courting, but I am getting ahead of myself in the stories. Their wedding was a simple affair, Aunt Clara tells me. Mass at St. Mary's in Ellis in January. Snap shows wind-blown dresses, but no snow on the ground. Their "carriage" was Uncle Mike's new car (which he drove) complete with glass instead of isinglass windows. They were attended by Gottleib Heinrich (Dad's nephew) and Aunt Barbara (Mom's sister). Aunt Clara says they just had a nice dinner with the family. She didn't say if or how many Kaisers were there, as Schuster's didn't seem to be given to "big blowout" celebrations.
She went to work of an early age. She spoke of a time when she was eleven, working for a farm family. She'd been home over Sunday, and this family came to get her and by the time they reached that house it was past sundown. The chicken house was dark, but she was sent to collect the eggs anyway, without a lantern. She reached into the nest, and to her terror, she grasped and let go quickly of a large snake, filled with swallowed hen eggs. In my growing up years, the hoe was always very handy during the warm weather, and no snake of any size was given quarter or mercy in our yard.
When she went to Ellis to work, she first worked for Waldo's then in time began to work for a banker's family named "Nichelson". Aunt Clara tells me. "Theresia had it good there, She had her own room, with a nice crochet white bedspread on her bed. She learned to cook "good" because the Nichelson's had everything to cook with. They let me come in and spend the day with her sometimes, and play with the kids. There was only three kids at first then a fourth.
I am guessing alot more rubbed off on Theresia ... how to set a table properly, the graciousness of a lovely big home. To use linen tablecloths and silver service ... Yes, she probably ironed those tablecloths too ... different from farm kitchens that mostly had oilcloth. These people also encouraged her to read, not only in the more familiar German but English as well.
Grandma Klara collected Theresia's wages every week when she brought the cream and eggs to town. This money helped out to raise the younger children, and I would guess defray the cash costs of the farm. Because it was custom, Theresia was given one day a week and church time off, as well as an occasional Sunday. She stayed at Nichelsons on her days off, and Mrs. Nichelson gave her extra money for doing such things as crocheting edges on linens, embroidery and cutwork, hemstitching and such. This money she squirreled away and in time was able to buy herself a White Rotary sewing machine, a dome topped trunk which she filled with nice things for herself (a hope chest); a set of silver flatware; a Kodak Camera with bellows and fabric for her own clothes. She was a valued employee, for it was told to me that the Nichelsons offered her lifetime employment with them and a stipend for care in her older years if she would stay until the family was raised.
Theresia and Nick were introduced by Mom's friend, Mary (Ziegler) Rengel. Aunt Clara called Mary Rengel, "an untiring matchmaker". It is assumed that Mary (a German Russian) probably knew other German Russians among who were Uncle John and Aunt Theresia Kaiser. They lived and worked for a time in Ellis ... John with the railroad. Also assuming Daddy visited Uncle John's for I have no knowledge that he ever worked in Ellis. Transportation from Park to Ellis was not too much a problem by then, as train rides were very available, however by this time (1920-21) Daddy had his own car ... a Dodge. I have heard Dad referred to as "a high-stepper" and Aunt Emma called him, "quite a lover-boy."
His photos show a good-looking man, and I understand, quite popular. Popular enough to have had a paternity suit slapped on him, and spent some time in the hoosegow, because he refused to. . ."Marry the mother of someone else's kid." This is probably a good reason why he sought a wife outside of his own "Kamradschaffen". He was a generous man, sometimes to a fault. He bought his bride to-be a ruby ring, a wristwatch and a locket, all of which she wore when she went to church at Park with him on the third Sunday of their announcement of Banns. He gleefully reported a whisper he overheard "She must anyhow be a school teacher, she wears a wrist watch."
Theresia, frugal and hard working was just about what was needed to try (though I don't think she ever did fully) to tame this macho, rainbow-chasing, butterfly of a man. She one time said. "He was always looking for something golden over the next hill." "I'd just get one bedbug infested hole cleaned up and livable, then he wanted to go someplace else, instead of knuckling down and making it where we were." I think the turnaround came in their marriage ... at least when he started listening to her sound reasoning ... when they'd been married for about seven years and had four children. . I was just born. There was a foreclosure on land Dad had purchased "on a handshake" the previous year. The year following, when it came time to make the payment, he was also confronted with the mortgages the previous owner had taken on the land, which of course, they could not handle. Mom told me that they were not left completely destitute. There were good people. Paul Herl just quietly came and chased the cattle into his herd. Uncle Mike Zimmerman drove off with the car. The money changers came, sold off what there was and Mom and Dad were out of farming for good. Paul sold the cattle along with his and returned the money, and eventually Uncle Mike brought their car back. Oh yes, he always longed to go back to the land, I'm sure. He enjoyed the farm jobs he had, but one must work all year around to feed and clothe a young family. Soon after, came the dust storms and the depression. Acquiring land was then an impossibility.
Mom must have, after this, kept a real tight lid on things. They seldom had much money, but they didn't have debts either, just a couple that I remember that Mom worried about. A truck that took almost all of his wages. . she bought home the beans for awhile, and a new Maytag washer. This latter because-- the Health Department told her they could get out from under quarantine after Frances had scarlet fever after the house was scrubbed down and everything was laundered. The last time was to finance the home they retired to, and she moved from, to Frances and LeRoy's before her final illness and death. Yes, a family car was also occasionally financed but payments were generally in the range that Mom's earnings could cover... if Dad decided "sousing"' with his "friends" was more important than his obligations to his family. I ask myself how many lives would have been so much more pleasant without alcohol? I'm not saying a convivial type of drinking is wrong. ..that's up to the individual. Even Jesus Christ used wine at the Last Supper. He condemned no man, for he said, "It is not what goes into the body that defiles it, it is what comes out. I interpret that to mean that it is not liquor that is wrong, but how you use it, how it makes you behave when you do, and who is affected by it's use.
Aunt Clara described Mom once as "clever", and I know she was, in spite of the fact that the cash money she brought home was from domestic work ... washing walls, mending, sewing, butchering chickens, etc. Were we poor? I certainly never felt so. We had a good up-bringing. Taught to be honest in our dealings with everyone and hopefully ourselves. This meant learning instead of cheating at school; that there was no free ride to anywhere; to save for the things we wanted; to chose when we spent our own money; the best value for the pennies we spent and that there were times you never took money for something you did for another. We always had our penny for the collection plate on Sunday, furnished at first by our parents, and later from our own earnings. We lad a little mustard jar apiece in Mom's trunk for depositing savings. Part of our sitter's money had to go into that little jar to be spent on tablets and pencils for school, and our summer's money (when we were old enough to work out) went for school clothes, and if we had enough for books. We really learned to take care of our books, for there was a good brisk trade going on in schoolbooks at the beginning of school.
We also learned valuable lessons without being aware we were being taught lessons for "life". In her book, there were a few cardinal sins. To misbehave in school; to play hooky; to take something that didn't belong to you ... and that included what belonged to your sisters and brothers ... (She said, in a good one-liner, " You KNOW what's yours, so keep your hands off the rest "); borrowing at school; to sass our elders or be deliberately unkind to other kids; to laugh at another's misfortune; to cuss or use God's name in anything but prayer. . and to leave the yard without permission. The biggest sin we could commit in her book was to do something that she didn't want us to do, then to lie about it. We could sin against her rules, but barely, if we told her we had overstepped the boundary. Then we might get a lecture, but Boy! , if we lied about it, we could expect heavy punishment. She said we needed double because we did two bad things. . we didn't mind for one, and lied for two. Paddling and sitting on the chair for a while to think about what we'd done ... and in rare cases to say over and over, "I will not lie again." when we were younger, and grounding when we were older... Her grounding really hurt, for she made it long enough for one to remember.
"Clever" I would say she was. Hand-me-downs were altered to fit each person who wore them ... and we all did. If the material was real good, she changed it with some sort of decoration she'd made herself or ric-rack or lace or something she'd ripped off something else, washed and ironed, then turned over to the brightest side. I never, as long as she had anything to do with what I put on, wore an ill-fitting garment ... or one that was spotted or dirty, or unpressed, for that matter.
Home was not a place to go when there was no place else to be .. Mom knew with seven people living together the place could become unlivable in just two days, if everyone didn't clean up after themselves. I can still hear her say, "Do you know where you got it?" We were expected to put back anything we dragged out ... I still don't do so hot in that quarter ... Dirty clothes went into the wash basket, we were, expected to hang up our coats, change our school clothes after school and get after our chores. The boys, to bring in kindling coal and water. The girls had jobs like setting the table, washing dishes, Folding clothes and simple flat pieces of ironing. Sometimes when we got home from school, and she had the clothes folded, each person's in a pile, we were expected to put them away. We each had a section in stacked orange crates. Once when I asked her to teach me to cook, she said, "No, I won't teach you how to cook. "I have to cook for Dad, and nobody I know eats like your Dad." "Save your learning for on the man you marry, and cook like he likes it." We did make cakes for Sunday dinner, and cookies for school lunches sometimes, but I'm convinced she abhorred the wasting of a grain of flour or a drop of milk, that she just couldn't stand to see us leave a tablespoon of flour spilled on the cabinet ... that should have been in the cookies or cake.
Other memorable one liners: "The winter is long." this when we complained about washing jars and helping fix produce, for winter's canning ... or picking the bugs off the potatoes with a can of kerosene in one hand, and a little stick in the other to knock the ugly beasties into the can. "if you burn your butt, you sit on the blister." A short blunt lesson in chastity. In other words ... You fool around and get pregnant, you suffer all the consequences, for there's no extra money around here to spirit you off to Denver or Kansas City to hide your shame ... or your burgeoning stomach. She said, "There's no shame in a few patches, but dirt is another story.." I can still hear her say. . ."Wash your neck and ears." That meant. . . Everything ... or "Only a slop puts a silk dress over dirty underwear." meaning the prettiest dress can't hide the grime and smell underneath. "Keep the floor swept, the beds made and the dishes washed and you don't have to be ashamed of your house, even if the priest walks in." I know darn well that meant clean curtains, washed windows, dusted furniture ... the whole nine yards ... in her book.
Another choice one: 'The cow has a birthday too." We got that in answer to, "What am I going to get for my birthday?" We celebrated one birthday ... Christ's. More: "People can take just about anything you have, but they can't take your learning." Thus she spoke of the value of an education. "Finish your High School." In other words, a college education we can't guarantee there will be money for, but get all you can, while you can. It turned out that any of us that expressed a desire for further schooling got it, for we each helped the other along. Since Frances did not want to go further, they told me that I could live and work and save, and in October they'd take what I could save to help pay off the last $500.00 of the house mortgage. (We did it the old fashioned way ... we earned it.)
On marriage: "Marry a nigger if you want to, but make sure you want to spend the rest of your life with who you choose." This was not to cost aspersions on those of another race, it was to point out that marriage in the best of circumstances was a difficult adjustment ... in other words ... We're not going to choose your mate, but you'd better be satisfied with your choices or don't make one you can't live with.'
Self educated herself ... she used the books we kids brought home, and especially with Johnnie for he was the First, she was appalled by wasted opportunities. She once said, "I did Okay, until Johnnie brought home an Algebra book, and there was something I couldn't do without someone else's explanation, and Johnnie was learning too, and he couldn't explain it so I could grasp it." She was Dad's written word, and the store clerk where she shopped for groceries always turned the pad around to her for verification of the addition. In later years she still read German script and often did read letters to other people when they had a letter from a German parent, and could not read this for themselves.
She once said, "If there's a dance in town the day I die, I want you to go to it." this expressed her feelings about a lot of mourning over things which you have no control. I think that if I could fault her for anything in our upbringing it would be this: She did not hesitate to tell us when she was disappointed, but was extremely slow, if ever to praise a job well done. She signed our report cards without comment if they were good, but if it wasn't, we heard about it in spades. "Get your books home and study harder. " And woe betide you if you didn't show up with them.
"You two girls go, and come home together." Yes, there is safety in numbers sometimes, but Gawd! How that must have often rankled Rose, a blythe, gay, laughing spirit to be inflicted with a physically underdeveloped bookworm who really didn't want to be along.
There, is so much more, but I must move along too. She was as private and devout in her last hours as she was in life. No words were spoken, she just tucked her hands, with her rosary entwined, under her cheek, and with closed eyes, she sighed, and was gone.
By Mary Kaiser Conard 1988.
Nicholas Kaiser died July 30, 1969 in WaKeeney, Kansas. Theresia (Schuster) Kaiser died at Sheridan Count Hospital, Hoxie,KS on June 9, 1978.