Grandma’s Dearing was a very different kind of grandma.  She lived across the railroad tracks in Irvine.  She was bossy and very strict. I knew she didn’t like me and always wondered why.  She treated the boys well, but was always after me for little things. (Later I found out why she didn’t like me. It was because I was not really her granddaughter) at the time I did not know that pop was not my real father until I was 14 years old.

When Eddy, Jim, Gordon and I went to school in Irvine, we stayed in town all week.  We split up one week.  Eddy and I stayed with Grandma Deering and Gordon and Jim stayed with grandma Schaffer. The next week we changed and Eddy and I got to stay with Grandma Schaffer.

We all wanted to stay with grandma Schaffer as she had soft beds and good food.

At grandma Dearing’s house we slept on straw mattresses and her cooking was very basic and tasted terrible. One Friday Eddy and I were having breakfast at Grandma Dearing’s house, and Eddy started gagging on his porridge. I managed to get mine down.  I looked over at Eddy, he had quit gagging and I noticed his bowl was empty.  I thought he must have been really hungry.  Grandma Dearing was cooking breakfast for Grandpa Dearing. She usually watched to see if we ate our breakfast, but was preoccupied with something else that day.

On the way to school Eddy was walking kinda weird.  I thought maybe he had messed his pants or something.  I asked him why he was dragging and walking so funny.  He said, “I just couldn’t eat one more bite so I put the oatmeal in my pockets.” What a mess, we tried to clean them out as best we could.  When we got home we both got a good talking to by mom.