By Lovina Eicher

• 4:50 a.m. - My husband Joe didn’t have to work today, so we were able to sleep later than usual. I get up as  daughter Elizabeth is awake and packing her lunch for work.

• 5:15 a.m. - Elizabeth leaves for work,  Joe gets up to check on the coal-stove while I fix us a pot of coffee.

• 6 a.m. - I wake up the rest of the children. They want coffee soup for breakfast while they get dressed for school. Seems this hour always goes fast. Usually someone can’t find their shoe or someone else has forgotten to do their homework so that it is rush, rush to get ready for  the bus.  Joe is outside cutting a quarter off  the 1740 pounds of beef we dressed Friday night.