When I was ten

When I was ten, the family farm had a very bad year.  We didn't have any money.  We spent the winter with my grandparents, who lived in Phillips, Nebraska.  We went because my parents could find work there.  All six of us lived for several months in their mobile home.  My grandparents had the back bedroom, my brother and I shared the pass through bedroom and my parents slept on the fold up sofa.

My grandmother taught school and it was a big secret that she smoked.  She thought she would be fired if they knew she smoked.  My grandparents and my parents all were heavy smokers so the air must have been bad with all of us packed in there for the winter.

I ran across these photos which are very much like that trailer.

This is like the pass through bedroom that my brother and I shared...

I remember my grandmother had a Hudson.  She drove it to school every day even though it was only a few blocks.  She threw hot water on the windshield to remove the ice.  It seemed easier to walk the short distance.  But that was the fifties mentality.... drive everywhere.

Her car looked like this one.