Stories of My Early Childhood

The earliest recollection I have is of a Christmas day, very long ago. Apparently my mother's family was at our house. After dinner, most likely, when the men were sitting around in the living room, and the women clearing the dishes, I was sitting there on the floor, perhaps six or eight feet from the door to the kitchen, playing with some wooden blocks. Some big person came along and asked me if I know who gave me those blocks. Was it Aunt Esther who asked me? I indicated I did not know. They told me, "Grandpa Bender." I was named after him. It was special to him that I had his name and thus he blessed me with that gift. I know that was a very early Christmas for me, as soon after my third birthday in May the following year, Grandpa was gone.

Life wasn't easy for me in those days. Other things happened which I know about only by hearsay and family legends. They say I did not look like the rest when I was born. I had light brown hair and all the other children had dark brown hair. I was different! The first time I went to church, we had a wild horse that was so unmanageable, they stopped on the way to church to get a sharper bit so they could control the horse. Obviously I survived. But I was very sick my first winter, perhaps of pneumonia. I was so sick they had to hold me a lot, and the doctor said I would not get better until spring came. My sisters would hold me sitting, in the sun when it was warm enough. On the lighter side, at least to others, once when a pet rooster died and my siblings were burying him, I insisted, actually with crying and screaming (according to Sister Miriam), that they bury him with his head out of the ground so he could breathe! This was after they had had a funeral for him. It is not known who preached at that time.

Another story was what happened when my baby sister died. She was only about 6 months old, and two years behind me. Such a lovely baby with long dark brown hair, very responsive to everyone. I really don't remember her. But they say that at the grave, I was very agitated. "They dare not put her in the ground," I cried. So I was left without her, again the youngest child, being cared for by a grieving mother, who after all was very hopeful for the baby girl. In the rhythm of boy/girl again and again, I had broken the regular cycle. Now she had had the little girl I wasn't and she lost it. How despairing it must have been for her and for also losing her father that same year. Fortunately a year and a half later, she had another baby girl who seemed to her to be a replacement for the one she lost. I believe I remember when she was born. I was about 4 and a half and recall going upstairs that morning telling the older brothers that we had a new baby. Now Mom felt a little better.

Sometimes I was treated like a baby even when I was no longer one. Once I was with my older brother and sister walking in the back lane, back there close to where there was a patch of tea along the lane. For some reason, they were carrying me between them, whether it was my idea or theirs, I don't know. There was always conversation on those walks, although I wonder what they were talking about. It was probably above my head.

I also remember that in my preschool years, we would put Mom's wash tub out in the yard and fill it with water. How we "suddled", splashing each other and just having great time jumping in and out of the tub! It may well have been in my 3 year as I recalled that first happening.

In those days also, once I was entrusted to carry home from Daudy's (Grandpa Hochstetler) something special. Somewhere from the deep recesses of my memory, it seems it was goat meat. I carried it in a small granite bucket. I think it was a speckled bucket, as I know they also had a dark blue bucket. Anyway, after I had walked through the big field and was nearing our house, I stopped to play at a trash pile where we disposed of some things like old tin cans and junk. I set the bucket there on one of the large rocks, right by the fence. When I left, I forgot to pick it up. Mom, likely, asked me about the meat. I told her it was by the rocks at the trash pile. She sent someone to fetch it. They couldn't find it; so I had to go and show them where it was. I don't remember how we liked the goat meat. It must have been OK.

We were close to our Miller cousins who were about the age of us children. Once we were back in the truck patch where we had crops such as sweet corn and behind where we had a big raspberry patch, and we were all discussing deep things of interest. We wondered about God, what was he like or where was he? I just remember that we agreed that he can see us but we cannot see him. My mother taught us to pray as well. We would kneel at the bedside by her knees as she sat there and said the prayer that she taught us. I don't remember praying after I had learned the prayer, if I prayed it by myself. Every morning and every evening Dad read a chapter of the New Testament, usually without comment and then we all knelt for prayer. If he was away or traveling, Mom would read and pray. Dad could probably have told you what was in every chapter of the New Testament. He read it so much and so many times from beginning to end- in German.

Before I started school, we had a big patch of pickles in the 20 acre field west of our house; 2 acres. They had to be picked every other day. Usually I would help my father, taking the other half-width of a row with him. It was a whole family endeavor. As an incentive, or encouragement to all of us, Dad gave us a cent per bucket. We had whole wagon loads of pickles in feed bags. I don't remember whether we hauled them to the house or if a truck came to pick them up in the farm. I just know that a truck came and picked them up.

Once Uncle Elmer gave us a pony. There we were right in front of the house, circling it and admiring it. Apparently I was too close at the wrong end and suddenly became rather dazed. They supposed the pony had kicked me in the head as I seemed a bit stunned, No one saw it happen. But now you know what happened to me!

It seems I was not very responsive to my mother's requests for doing something. Probably I was usually engrossed in my own day dreaming or playing and did not find it easy to shift and listen to her. She felt it was her duty both to teach me and train me to obey her like all good children should obey. I was more independent than she felt I should be. I know it was hard on her and she did not like to spank me although she felt she had to train me right. One time she insisted that I take the strap and spank her and we were both crying. I doubt that I struck her. Often her threatening to get the leather "strap" was enough to bring me to compliance- but not always. (The strap was kept handy in the compartment above the stove where food was kept warm until meal time.) My sisters agreed in later years that I was disciplined more than any other child. At times my mother told me that my oldest brother was never like that. For a variety of punishment, at least once each, I had to sit in the stair entrance or on a chair for an hour to learn a lesson, no doubt on obedience.

I know that I was also a restless child in church which was a problem for my mother. Once she warned me about taking me outside and spanking me if I didn't behave. I suppose I teased my younger sister or something. But what was a kid to do in a 2-3 hour service that had nothing for children? One person from church said he never saw such a restless child like me. Fortunately, they usually did pass around white crackers and cookies somewhere in the middle of the service for children. I remember once I was so tired and as mom had another child to hold, a woman offered to let me sleep with my head on her lap. I just remember that it was fairly comfortable, probably a bit more cushiony than my mother's lap.

We knew that my father loved us very much. I remember him bending over a small child, cooing something like "beloved child". As Christmas neared each year, I would sit on his lap and he would ask us how long it was until "Silent Night". Then he would sing it to us in German. I was often with him as he was out working. Once as he was repairing or building a fence between the house and barn, he taught me a Bible verse in German I still know. Seems he was often talking to himself, or to some imaginary person which seemed a bit odd to us.

It was always special when church was at our place, like the Amish still have church services in homes. The benches were brought to our house on Saturdays before church on 

Sunday and the furniture set off to a side or stored elsewhere. The benches were stacked in the living room and we might make our bed under the benches for the night. The next day, after worship services the benches were made into tables and everyone sat to eat the simple meal of peanut butter on bread, pickles and red beets. Coffee, if you were big enough. The preacher would announce that everyone should "hold quietly" for prayer- a silent prayer before we dug in. It was amazing how many slices of bread a small boy could put away. I know my father would buy a large box of loaves of bread on the Saturday before to feed everyone. It probably took more bread because the services were so long! After dinner there was time for the big people to talk about anything they would think up while we children were somewhere else playing, perhaps out in the yard or in the barn in the hayloft until it was time to go home.

When my next brother was born, when I was 7, Grandma Hochstetler was there to deliver the baby that night. They just lived up the fields from us, "up", as it was a slight upgrade in the field between our farm houses. We were there overnight and coming back from Grandpa’s that morning where we had been kept out of sight overnight. Daudy wanted to tell us that we had a new baby, but couldn't just come out and tell us. "If you had a new baby," he teased, "would you wish for brother or a sister?" I don't remember our response. We soon found out about that. There is the story that when Mom would go into labor, she would hang a white sheet on the wash line behind our house as a sign for "Mommy" Hochstetler that it was time to come and help.

It seems that even though I was slow in minding my mother, I did have some motivation for doing what was right in my childhood. On my eighth birthday, May 8,1945 I sat down and wrote my commitment for life. Basically I wrote that I want to be a better person than I had been before. Someone, probably Uncle Elmer, had told me that when there is a sameness of the birth date and your age, that is a critical time of life; I took it seriously. I can't say I was converted then, but at least I made a determination about my life that I was going to seek the better way.

Certainly my most memorable story of my childhood is of a trip to the East coast when I was 5 years old. But that is another story.