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| Mel, John, Garrett, Ken Merrick |
Dad was a wanderer and in the summer of 1961 decided to become a Missouri farmer. So, we moved to a forty acre farm in Licking, Missouri. The old house had no indoor plumbing or furnace, but it did have electricity! It was my job to get up in the middle of each winter night to put more wood in the living room pot-bellied stove, so the fire could make it through the night. We still needed lots of blankets in the unheated bedrooms. We collected rainwater off the roof into a cistern for drinking water. We pumped it out with a hand pump, and occasionally added lime for purifying.
We had a cow, pigs in the barn, and chickens in the chicken coop. Mel and I milked the cow. We all played in the hay loft. The pond and lots of woods also gave us many opportunities for play and
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| Ken, Mel, Gary Merrick with grandmother, Eunice Conley |
exploring. We had an old horse for a short while, till it died one summer. I constructed a homemade bow and some not-very-straight arrows. Mel and I hauled hay for neighboring farmers. It was a hot, unpleasant job. For a couple summers I worked in the woods splitting logs for Henry Blankenship. I also cut down lots of trees in the woods next to the house, then chopped them up for our winter fuel supply. I loved working in the woods, summer and winter, and got pretty good with a two-bladed ax. I kept it sharp with my file.
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| Ken and Grandma Conley at well |
We had a large garden, and I spent a lot of summer hours weeding it.
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| Mel milking cow |
On one long, hot day of weeding I drank a full gallon of milk. But, that was fair, because I did a lot of the cow milking. We had one or two cows all the time. One of the cows kept kicking over the milk bucket, so one morning I kicked the cow. So, Mel kicked me. I didn’t kick the cow any more. Our cows were usually Jerseys, which give a higher percentage of cream. We filled a quart jar about 3/4 full, then shook it for a hour or so until we made butter. I soon became a butter lover and shook a lot of cream in the evenings.
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| Edith and Grandma Eunice Conley |
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| Edith and her mother, Eunice Conley, her husband, John Merrick |
We attended LDS church meetings with the small branch at Herschel Hadley’s home. Then another member built a new home, and we met there for a while. I remember meeting in it before it was completed.
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| Edith cutting Ken's hair |
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| Gary and Ken in Dad's truck; Mel in front |
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| our barn |
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| Dad's truck |
Sometimes we played in the pond. But, I spent many happy hours wandering the woods and fields by myself. Once I came upon a large stag at close range. I found a bed of poisonous copperhead snakes in the blackberry bushes near the house.
Not far from there I grabbed a fence post as I crossed the fence, and put my hand into a wasp nest that was on the backside of the post. It was quite exciting, but the sting discomfort did not last long. I occasionally got to drive the old pickup truck around the farm. Once I drove it down to Smith’s store - and met Mom and Dad coming the other way!
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| Mel with Spotty |
We had dogs, too. One of them once got sprayed right in the face by a skunk. He acted like he was about to die; maybe he was. He was stinky for a long time - outside, of course, since he was no longer allowed in the house.
(also see High School in Licking and Graduation Posts)
I visited the old place in 1994 when we came to Licking for my High School reunion
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