======MY STORY====== BY LUCY M. COMFORT POLING IVES WRITTEN 2013-2015 ---- INDEX The Story of Comfortdale Farm Growing Up on Comfortdale Farm My Father My Mother My Grandmother My Brother Charles My Brother George The Farm Kitchen Fond Memories Not So Fond Memories Fun and Games Church Church Camps School Days Jobs The Good Ole Days Life After Comfortdale Farm To My Children Susan Carol Poling Nancy Lynne Poling Daniel Ray Poling Karen Marie Poling INDEX CONTINUED To My Grandchildren Steven Robert Hess Elesha Marie Hess Nathan Alan Bush Aaron Michael Bush John Colin Bush Micah James Bush Brandie Marie Poling Charles Ray Poling David James Poling Elizabeth May Poling Faith An Poling Timothy Robert Hess My Heart's Desire My Family My Trips Overcoming Heartbreak My Life After 2013 Sharing My Thoughts ---- GROWING UP ON THE COMFORTDALE FARM My life started on the Comfortdale Farm at 1523 E. Valley Rd. Adrian, MI, when I was born January 28, 1936 at 9:00 in the morning in the dining room of the family farmhouse to Leroy Hall and Winifred Crawford Comfort. They named me Lucy May after my Aunt Lucy Downs, my dad's sister and the May after my grandmother Lila May Crawford. My mother's comment in writing to Aunt Lucy to tell her the news was “I wish you could see her. She is so sweet”. I was the baby sister to 2 brothers, Charles who was 6 and George who was 5. My earliest memory was going to Grandma Crawford's house in Hillsdale, Michigan. The stairway to the upstairs was at the end of the living room, the dining room and the kitchen. When we ate everyone else sat at the dining room table, but a bib was put around my neck and I sat at the counter in the kitchen . Must be I was just too messy to sit in the dining room with everyone else. I remember when I was 3 that my Grandmother Crawford moved next door to us from Hillsdale. I had a doll that fell off the tractor seat and it's head broke off. I used to play with that doll even with no head. Later I got a little rubber doll, which I named Betty that I played with. It is seen in some of the pictures of me when I was young. We always had dogs, barn cats and house cats. Several pictures show me holding a pet, either a cat, puppy or a dog. Our mother cats would hide their kittens in the barn. We would hear them and hunt until we found them. Sometimes the mother cat would move them after we found them. The cats would come around when it was time for milking the cows. They would sit and wait for a drink of the fresh warm milk. I had a big cat that let me put a dress and hat on her and I would take her for a ride in the baby buggy that was used for me. I loved playing with the cats and dogs. I started school in September 1941 when I was five. My dad died of a heart attack at 8:00 Thursday morning, September 11, 1941 at our home. He was born July 8, 1901 in the house that we lived in. I can remember sitting on my mother's lap in the dining room and crying. The funeral was in our living room. The casket was open and I reached up and touched my dad's face. Mr. Earl Fruth came to live with us and be our hired hand. He did the farming. His daughter, Norma lived with us during our 5th and 6th grades. My bedroom was on the main floor next to the living room on one side and my mother's bedroom on the other side. Norma and I slept together. Of course, we had my side and her side of the bed with an imaginary line down the middle. Charles and his friends used to scare us by climbing up to the window or in the window. One day someone reached out and grabbed Norma's leg when she was sitting on the side of the bed. It was my brother, Charles who had gotten in through the window and hid under the bed. Another time we were walking around on the bed with blankets over our heads. Norma ran into the foot of the bed and fell over to the floor. We laughed and laughed. One day we put on snowpants, coats, boots, scarves and mittens to go outside to play in the snow. We were told not to get snow in our boots. Sometime later we came in and when we tried to get our boots off, we couldn't get them off. We had to have help, since the snow was packed in so tight. We had waded through deep drifts back in the lane. It was fun until then. We got our water from a pump on the back porch. We would go out with a pail to get the water. We took it in the house and set it on the table. We had a dipper hanging on the edge to use for drinking. We were told to not stick our tongue on the pump handle in the winter. ---- GROWING UP ON COMFORTDALE FARM CONTINUED It was so handy to finally have cold water piped into the house at the kitchen sink. All hot water had to be heated on the stove. We had a large wooden icebox on the back porch to use when it got warm out. It took a large block of ice in one compartment to keep our foods cold. My mother would go to Adrian to the ice house to buy the ice. They would cut it out of the lakes in the winter time and store it for use in the summer. One time when she was using the ice tongs to carry a block of ice on the porch to put in the ice box the ice slipped out of the tongs and dropped on her foot. She always did think that it broke her toe, but she never went to the doctor to find out. We eventually got an electric refrigerator. I actually used this refrigerator in my home for several years. We had a coal furnace in the basement. My bedroom was moved upstairs, when my grandmother moved over to live with us. It had no register for heat. My mother would heat up a brick on the wood stove and wrap it in a towel to keep my feet warm. It was hard to get up mornings, because it was so cold. I took my clothes downstairs and got dressed standing over the register. My earliest memory of a vehicle was a Model A Ford pickup. When I was 5, I was standing up with my back to the windshield letting someone in the front seat. The car door was shut and my thumb was in the way. My left thumb nail has always been wider than the other thumb. My brothers and I rode in the back of the pickup. I was embarrassed because other people had newer cars than we did and didn't have to ride in the back. I remember one time having threshers at our farm. They put the threshing machine in the yard on the north side of our barn. It was interesting to watch them work, since we weren't used to having big equipment on our farm. Our farming was done by horses. My mother fixed dinner for the men that were doing the threshing. Some of my chores included cutting asparagus, picking blackberries, climbing the cherry trees and hanging a pail over a limb and picking cherries, working in the garden, feeding the bunnies, feeding the chickens, gathering eggs, helping in the preparation of the vegetables and fruits so my mother could can them. I would dust, sweep the floors, wash the dishes, and set the table. These chores weren't all my responsibility, but I did help with them. I learned to sew on an old Singer treadle sewing machine. I bought a new Necchi electric sewing machine for $200, after I started to work. My Grandma Crawford told me that she would think a long time before she spent that much money for a sewing machine. My mother had bought a Ford car and taught me to drive on Wilmouth Highway between Valley and Sutton Roads. It was a stretch of road that had no houses. I used her car to drive to work. If she needed the car she would take me and pick me after I got out of work. When we got a telephone it was a four party line, so you had to wait until the phone was not busy to use it. There was always the chance that someone was listening in on our conversation. I found out when I told my mother that I wasn't going to or did not want to do what she said that she saw to it that I did as she said. I find that it is still true in life now. I try not to say that I would never do something, because that may be what you end up doing later on in life. ---- GROWING UP ON COMFORTDALE FARM CONTINUED AGAIN We had a pasture field on the east side of the lane that we named “the pear tree field” , since there was a line of pears trees down the middle of the field. Years later imagine my surprise in walking back down the lane at my old home place and looking over and seeing no pear trees in our pear tree field. ----