Grandma Lu Remembers Nell

 Grandma Lu was stumped on her ability to get Zeke and Whitlee to learn how to speak and understand each other's language. She could remember having Stashia and Marlee talk to each other all the time. She had no clue how she was going to do it, but she needed to get busy and do some other things around the house. As she was dusting and vacuuming the living room she kept kicking her boxes of pictures and old newspapers away from her favorite rocking chair. She frowned when she thought of her husband calling her little area her "nest".  She picked up his slippers and moved his little Kindle table around and thought, "He's the one with a "nest". As she  turned around she almost stumbled on one of the oldest boxes and a picture of Nell popped out. "Look at you, Miss Nell. You were the one that started this whole thing. You and your sewing machine."

You had quite the journey coming from St. Louis to Iowa. It was still a territory back in those days. You lost your sewing machine in the river and almost froze to death in Marlee Ada's family's barn. Grandma Lu sat down in her rocking chair and stared at the old picture. She said, "It seems to me that Marlee Ada and her family had a big old dog like Zeke. I just wonder if I have any pictures of them together. After carefully going through the old books, papers, and pictures. She found what she was looking for. "I have this feeling that Zeke had ancestors in Iowa as well as Missouri. I think I will fix me a snack and a cold drink and do some digging. The dust can wait a bit..."

I wonder if Zeke had pups that stayed in that area. I just can't remember what kind of dog we had at the farm when we were little. It seemed like we only had strays. Grandma Lu heard a doorbell sound. That meant that someone was sending her a text. She grinned she had sent her first text just a few months ago. She was having to keep up with the new age technology even if she didn't want to. She went to the kitchen and here it was a text from her new group about ancestors. "Well isn't this something. A distant cousin I never knew I has sent me pictures of the old homestead oh so many years ago.

I wonder if they had a dog like Zeke. I'll never know. Oh my look at this little picture. This looks just like my Grandma Lulu when she was just a little girl. And those lilacs. They had lilacs on our farm way back then. Think of that. I loved them so much because they bloomed for my birthday. I used to think it was just for me. It's so hard to think of my grandma being a little girl and growing up on the same farm that I did. I just had a thought; her birthday was in May too! Oh how fun. She probably thought the lilacs were just for her too.

I can remember a wash basin just like that sitting on a dry sink out on our porch. That's where all the men washed up before they ate. My mom was a stickler about that. She could remember watching all those men at threshing time and baling time wash up to their rolled up shirt sleeves with mom's lye soap. She had old raggedy towels for them to dry off with. She chuckled and decided that she had better get busy and fix some lunch for that husband of hers. She had some things she needed him to do for her. They needed to go to Marleewood and get out her trunk of pictures. It was getting so heavy she needed him to help. The children would be getting out of school soon. She thought there might be some Mother's Day cards or pictures in that old truck that might give her an idea on how to help her get Whitlee and Zeke together for a story.