My mother was not a very good nurse. She tried to ignore any illness we had up until it was impossible to do so. She was full of advice like, "You' ll feel better in the morning" or, "Go lie on your stomach for awhile and it will pass." It usually did.

With eight children to care for I can understand why she didn't want to make a big deal out of one of them needing extra attention. Until she was really sure that we were really sick she was almost cross with us, urging us to snap out of it.

However once she was convinced that we actually were under the weather, she would put us to bed and feed us milk toast with a soft boiled egg on top of it. I still like that combination but some people think it is awful. In Washington she would sometimes call Dr. Bateman who had offices over on Connecticut Avenue. He would come to the house to tend to us if we were too sick to come to his office.

In the summers if we got sick we were taken to Dr. Ammerman's office which was under his hospital on the corner of west Cherry and north Ash in Nevada.

One time when the family was planning to take a trip to Colorado to visit Uncle Will's family I had a very bad stomach upset and was sick all night.

Mama couldn't ignore that as she had me sleeping with her at the time. Dr. Ammerman told her that I had Malaria from cleaning the water out of an indentation in the yard that had mosquitoes forming in it. (I now think it was nothing more than what we now call stomach flu). The family was not about to give up their trip to Colorado so Mama had my oldest sister, Miriam stay home with me and asked Mildred Eaton to come over and keep her company.

Miriam had already been to Colorado and was old enough to be responsible.

The family took the car, of course, so we three were left at The Wayside with only the party line phone and a bottle of pills, which I couldn't swallow.

My brother Vernon bought me a new book of paper dolls before they left and I was on a quilt out in the lawn with Miriam and Mildred standing by the gate watching the rest of the family leave. As I remember it, by nightfall I was feeling fine and I am sure Miriam could have cheerfully broken my neck.

However I had a good time with the two older women paying attention to me.

It was many years before I ever got to Colorado. Miriam traveled extensively all her adult years and probably didn't miss that one trip too much.

My sister Ellen got the same treatment when she got the measles just when the family was ready to come back to Vernon County for the summer. She was in quarantine and couldn't travel, so they left sister Kathryn with her and the two of them came home along with our father who had a business trip to Chicago the next week. Ellen got to ride a speedboat in the lake in Chicago and I came down with the measles after we got out here. I never did think that was fair! Now that I am being the caregiver for my husband temporarily I think back to my mother's methods. I can't very well tell him to lie on his stomach and it will feel better when he has a foot long incision down his chest. I did make him milk toast one time but he didn't care for it then. But one thing we are both hoping for is that he'll feel better in the morning soon!