Last night I showed you this picture of the Old Home Place, where my dad grew up. I wish I had some photos of the old buildings, like the dairy barn, the cherry tree I loved so much, the little house at the end of the road that was occupied at one time by my Uncle Damien and Aunt Hilda and their family, and at another time by Uncle Ed and Aunt Lucille and their family. They were all in and out of both houses so much that they just seemed to be interchangeable to me.
This is Mom Kleumper Goetz on her wedding day. Since she was an accomplished seamstress, as well as being a school teacher, I am almost certain she made her dress herself. Somewhere I have a photo of Mom and Pop together, but have been unable to download it to this site. One of the many annoyances with my computer, but one I seem to have to live with, at least for now. My cousins, Doris Goetz Clark and Bill Oberjohn have both sent me photos of the Goetz family, but again, a lot of them I have been unable to download. Tonight I will try to retrieve them again, but possibly will have to wait for a geeky brother, nephew or grandson or granddaughter to come home and help.
I love this photo of my Aunt Bertha Goetz Payne. She was my dad’s oldest sister, and the christening gown, I am sure, was also made by Mom, and probably used for all of her seven babies. She had five daughters and two sons, with my dad being the baby of the family. He wasn’t interested in farm life, so left the farm as soon as possible after high school and got his first job as a bag boy at A & P grocery store. I can remember him telling us the manager told all the new employees to eat all the candy they wanted when they started working there, because he knew that after a week or so they would all be sick of candy, and would never be tempted to steal it. Dad said it worked well, and candy was never high on his list of favorite treats.
This is a photo I treasure. Aunt Bertha and Aunt Olivia. Aunt Olivia, whose name I love, grew up to become Sister Mary Benedict, a sister of Providence at St. Mary Of The Woods Convent in Terre Haute, IN. She had such a beautiful, peaceful face, with a perpetual smile on it, and was always making gifts for her nieces and nephews. The girls all got Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy dolls, with hearts embroidered on them, and dressed in matching outfits. I think my sister still has hers, after all these years. But as the youngest in the family, Elaine didn’t have the brothers tearing her things up the way Sylvie and I did. Just sayin’.
I think Aunt Hilda was next in line. I’m not really sure though. I do know, however, that she married my mom’s brother, Damien Blandford, and my mom married her brother, Bernard, so her kids and our family are double first cousins. My mom tells a funny story about a time when we were all visiting my mom’s aunt at the Mount, and she gave Tony and Dan, our cousin, apples. Mom had always sliced the apples Tony ate, while Dan was used to grabbing them off the tree in the orchard and biting in to them. So Tony stood there turning it over and over in his hands while Dan started eating his. After a few minutes, Dan apparently realized the problem, so he grabbed the apple out of Tony’s hand and took a bite, then handed it back. Tony got the idea then and managed to finished it off okay.
Well, looks a lot like bedtime, so more tomorrow about my Old KY Home.
A.
Angie's Place 
I was in CO for my grandma’s 90th bday celebration back in december and had an opportunity to go through some old family photos! i found some really awesome ones, including one of my gma on her prom day! it’s such fun to looks back on these 🙂
I just got a cousin to send me some of the old photos, so got one of Mom and Pop’s wedding day. Mom died in August of 1964 at 96 years of age. Pop died in 1954, but I don’t rememeber how old he was. I do remember that he was laid out in the parlor of the old home place. I was 12 years old at the time. I love those old photos too. 🙂