Mom's Story - Installment #9

Well, hello again. It's time for another "Mom's Story" installment so here it is. This one is a little shorter than most, but there just was a good breaking point. Enjoy the continuing adventures of Helen Gertrude Adler Howard.

When we got our 1949 Ford, Les and I took a trip to Minnesota to see John and Vivian Yancey.
Donna was only one year old and Mom Howard and Dad came from Fond du Lac and stayed on the farm to take care of things. I got lonesome for the girls so we came home soon, but Donna didn’t know me. Joan was 4 and she was glad to see Mom and Dad. I told Les right then, "No more trips without the girls." and we didn't.

Joan started accordion lessons when she was 7 years old. We bought an accordion from Gigante Music and Shirley Polzean was her teacher. There were six or eight kids taking lessons when she started, so Shirley started a small accordion band, and it was good.

When Donna was about 5 or 6, we bought her a snare drum. She got really good on it and could play with Joan real nice. One fall Shirley took Joan and Donna to the Slinger Fair to play together – Joan on her accordion and Donna on her drum. I couldn’t go to hear them as it was milking time, but Shirley said they did good. One of the legs on Donna’s drum stand broke right in the middle of one of their songs, and the drum fell. So she had to prop it back together to keep going.

We had a group of neighbors that got together every so often for a card club. When it was our turn to have everyone over at our house, the girls always had to entertain. They would play and sing and everyone really enjoyed it. They really made Les proud with their music. Years later, whenever the family got together, they would sing and Les would sit there smiling. My favorite song for them to sing was "Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine" because Les's hair was snowy white in later years.


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Well, that's about it for this post.

JB