Polly put the kettle on

Polly Kay (1904-1997) vividly and with humor describes her life in Richland Center, Wisconsin, in excerpts from letters to her son Skip written after 1949, including her 5 last years in an old folks' home.

December 1, 2013

Isolated

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(Fragment 3) It was small wonder that my father began walking down the road to Taycheedah to play cards with the men. He accused her of be...

November 28, 2013

Sleeping porch

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(Fragent 2) After about two years [at the sanatorium], when my mother learned how to make a place to sleep outdoors in the cold no matter w...

November 27, 2013

Breakup

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(Final fragment 1) [When Minnie went to the TB sanatorium, Polly went to live with her Aunt Olga] and my father gave my brother to his moth...

November 25, 2013

Moral

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(Lyndon 24) So this is the life of one who had no steady influence to guide him and who had not enough ambition within himself to make some...

November 23, 2013

Funeral

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(Lyndon 23) I think I went to the funeral alone. Daddy phoned and told me to keep my chin up and he'd be home as fast as he could; he ...

November 21, 2013

The accident

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(Lyndon 22) A storm blew up fast and the boat turned over. As I remember it, Lyn let the friend have the gasolene can to hang on to as Lyn...

November 19, 2013

Circumstances

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(Lyndon 21) My father went on to say that Lyndon and a friend were working at a resort on Lake Winnebago (I think) [Beaver Dam, actually] a...

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About Me

Polly: A lifelong Wisconsinite, Carolyn Parsons (1904-1997)got a B.A. in English at Ripon College, taught high school, and in 1930 married Lorin L. Kay, a lawyer first in Milwaukee and from 1938 on in Richland Center (he died in 1970). Their children: Mary Margaret and Richard/Skip, editor of this blog.

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