January 30, 2015
My mother, Winifred Crawford Comfort was born in Martinsville, Indiana March 10, 1899 to George William Crawford and Lila May Cramer Crawford. She had 1 brother, Horace Donald Crawford.
It is unsure where she was born. She lived on a farm 2 miles north of Morgantown while in elementary school. I can remember her telling about driving a horse and cart to school. The house they lived in was north on Church Street about 2 miles on the right. The house burned down and a large auction was held in the fall of 1910 when the farm was sold. She and her family moved to Monticello in White County about 7th grade and moved back to Martinsville towards the end of her junior year. She graduated from Martinsville High School in 1916. She had mentioned that she didn't feel she had good friends, since she hadn't gone to school very long with the ones she graduated with. Her father was a farmer. He would buy farms that were run down and build them up again. My mother never worked outside the home, since her father didn't think that young women should work. She did work at home. She would tell about picking produce from the garden to sell. There would be a big pile of muskmelons in the yard that she helped pick and were ready to sell. She also told how her back used to ache from picking strawberries, etc. She also helped in the house washing and ironing and other jobs.
Her family did not go to church in a church building, but used to hold church services in homes and at the County Farm.
My mother came to Adrian to visit Aunt Minnie and Uncle Charlie, who lived on Locust Street close to Church Street. Aunt Minnie was Grandpa Crawford's sister. While here she met Leroy Comfort, who went to school with her cousins. They used to write back and forth. They were married in Martinsville in her parents home on Rt. 252 close to Cramertown Loop on the south side of the road on October 4, 1923. A new home was built on part of the Comfortdale farm at 1497 East Valley Road, by my dad, Grandpa Comfort and his brother Uncle Fred Comfort.
My grandmother Comfort died the summer of 1935 and my family moved to the farm house to have more room, since they now had 2 boys and expecting another baby….me.
My mother became a widow when my father died of a heart attack in September 1941. What a hard time that must have been for her with 3 children, a farm to run, no insurance money, no experience working outside the home, but a big God, who was her provider. She was a hard worker doing what she could to take care of us. I don't ever remember of going hungry, but I do remember George telling about her having us kneeling around her and praying for our needs. We had a hired man, Earl Fruth, who lived with us and did the farm work for several years.
Feed for the animals used to come in flowered or figured material, so my mother would pick out some pretty ones for later use. She would make skirts for me, dish towels, pillow cases, etc. from these feed bags on an old treadle sewing machine.
Her hair was long and she wore it in a bun at the back of her head. In the evening she would braid her hair before going to bed.
Mama worked hard keeping her family. She had customers that she sold eggs, canned corn, canned asparagus and dressed chickens to. She sold asparagus to markets in Adrian. We had corn, asparagus, blackberries, cherries, apples, grapes, green beans, sweet corn, carrots, peas, potatoes, squash. One memory concerning the squash was of a big pile of green and white striped squash in our barn. She spent many hours canning. She cleaned chickens to eat, sell and can.