Over seventy-five years ago, a little girl lived in the country in the central part of Wisconsin with her parents, sisters and brothers in a little community called Globe.

Her father, Erich, had come from Germany as a young man, married her mother, Pauline, and settled down on a farm. He thought the farm was a good place to raise his family, which he was certain would be big, as most families were in those days.

The farm was a dairy farm, not too much work land, mostly wooded land and pastures where the Holstein cows grazed. If more land was needed for crops, more could be “broken” as it was called in those days. Trees would be cut, land cleared and ground plowed.

In front of the house stood two big pine trees, almost hiding the house from the small gravel road that led to the school, store, church and the neighbors to the north.

The little girl’s name was Berdina and she called her father Pa, and her mother Ma, the same as all the children did in those days.

Wolves lived deep in the woods in back of the house and occasionally a bear was seen. Berdina never went far into the woods unless she was with her Pa and Ma on the sled with the horses when they took a short cut to visit relatives in the winter. There were no cars in the winter and roads were not plowed, so people either walked or went with horses and sled to school, church, to visit folks, or to shop at the small store that sold everything one really needed in those days.

The house where Berdina and her family lived was a comfortable one. Upstairs there was a large attic, pleasant to play in when the rain drummed on the roof. There was also a big bedroom and another small one; they were above the living room and bedroom downstairs. Berdina and her sisters liked to play dress up in the attic. Old clothes were stored there, as was Ma’s blue wedding dress and veil with the green artificial flowers on the head piece. There were some old cream separator parts that served as dishes if they wanted to pretend they were cooking and serving dinner.

In the attic was a big trunk that had been brought from Germany. This held many family pictures, mostly ancestors with long dresses and stern looking faces, also a few Keepsakes that Ma and Pa had put in there. Berdina and her sisters spent many hours looking through the things and carefully putting them back in the trunk.

Berdina slept in the big bedroom, which held two beds, a small table and a dresser. Clothes hung on hangers along one side of the room as there were no closets. The room was very cold in winter, it was heated only by a hole in the floor directly above the heater that warmed the living room downstairs. It was always warm in bed as the sisters slept three in a bed, with a feather bed cover as well as many wool quilts and a feather bed mattress under them. Long johns, as well as flannel nightgowns, helped to keep them warm. In the morning they would run downstairs and dress by the heater.

Downstairs was the small bedroom where Ma and Pa and the baby in the family slept. There was also a big living room and kitchen as well as a pantry and washroom. The house had lots of big windows and three doors that led outdoors. Lace curtains covered the windows in the living room. Through the lace, Berdina could see the big lavender lilac bush as it blossomed in May.

The basement had a root cellar where the potatoes and other rooted vegetables were kept, and also another part which held rows and rows of canned things, vegetables, fruit, pickles and meat. The shelves hanging from the ceiling held apples from the big orchard behind the house.

Berdina’s sister, Pauline, was two years younger than her and her sister, Lydia, was two years older. They now spent more time in the house when they were not in school, for it was cold outdoors and the leaves were all falling off the trees. The snow would soon come. The fire in the black cookstove in the kitchen felt very good. It never went out now. At night Ma would bank it with ashes to keep the coals alive ‘til morning. She would be up early to fire it again before Berdina got up. There would be nice warm water in the reservoir at the end of the cookstove. This was nice to put in the blue enamel wash dish that sat on the stand below the mirror in the washroom. A towel hung from a ring by the side and a case held two combs. The washroom also held coats for everyday use, coats that were used for playing outdoors and for carrying the wood which had to be brought in each day after school. Enough chunk wood and small split wood for the kitchen stove to last ‘til the next night.