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Grace Slinkard has been saving her most treasured family possessions all of her life. Every item hanging on the walls of her home, every piece of furniture, every framed painting, every knick-knack, every handmade quilt tells a story.
"I look back and I see that the hard times have a way of fading and softening as time goes by," Grace said. "The good times blossom out greater than ever."
Grace does not want her life stories to be lost. She wants them preserved, not because anything spectacular has ever happened to her… "I’m just an average person who has lived the same life most have lived at my age."
Not because she considers her own kith and kin superior to others… "None of us are rich, none beautiful."
But because her story provides a link to the past that connects with the future of her family.
When Grace celebrated her 90th birthday on Saturday, March 15, she was asked to make a display table of favorite heirlooms. Grace set out a quilting book; a wedding dress she made herself with purse and cap ("The second one, the other burnt up."); several intricately stitched quilted vests — and her memoirs.
About three years ago, at the age of 87, Grace decided to commit her memories to paper.
"I add a little bit now and then," she said. "It’s not everything that’s happened. I wrote the conclusion. But, who knows, I may write a lot more conclusions."
The memoirs include those stories passed down to her that will help future generations know where they came from and how they got where they are. Grace’s father’s father was a coal miner in England.
At age 18, her father came to America and went to farm in Iowa with his already settled brother. From there, he went to Canada and got a job as a fireman on a train. There was a wreck and he was badly injured. He was in a coma for 30 days and had to have a silver plate put in the back of his head. With the money from compensation from the wreck, he bought a farm near Osceola. There, he met his future bride. A year after they were married, the couple moved to Dearborn.
World War I had just ended when Grace was born on March 15, 1918.
Grace’s own memoirs go back to her earliest childhood, before she was five-years-old.
"One thing that sticks out is my older brother taking me around the house in a little red wagon. I’d fly out at every corner, but I’d get back in."
And, of course, Grace recalls the "good old days" of the one-room schoolhouse. Those were the days before big yellow busses and kids either walked or rode a horse to school. They dressed in long stockings and high-topped shoes.
The school had no electricity and no inside plumbing. The outhouse was way down in the corner of the yard. The building was heated with a huge, round coal furnace. The teacher did the janitor work and fired the furnace. Lunch was a slab of meat on a biscuit and a piece of fruit.
At recess, kids played games of tag or ball. There was no TV, no computers, no cell phones. Few had a radio and it was new and not very good.
"It was not what anybody would call exciting now," said Grace. "We made our own adventures."
Grace recalls events that affected the world in her memoirs. The Great Depression was going on during her high school years and she offers a personal perspective.
"We’d never been rich and so didn’t miss not having much spending money," she said.
Clothes were made out of older clothes. The farm was self-sustaining. They had a garden and could raise their own food. They had chickens, hogs, and always a milk cow.
"The Depression didn’t touch us as much as it did the people in the city. We never went hungry. We never had exactly what we wanted, but we had plenty."
Among the collected stories are some interesting and unusual incidents. At least one of those also commemorates a major family event.
Grace was married in 1936. World War II ended in September. Their daughter, Cheryl, was born in December on a snowy, snowy day.
The baby was coming and they had just called the doctor. But the baby came before the doctor arrived.
"A few minutes after that, we realized the house was on fire! We had to retreat right fast."
Cheryl now lives in Kansas City. Grace also had two sons, Stanley of St. Joseph, and Dale. Dale, her youngest, passed away. He died of a massive heart attack, like his father. His birthday was March 14. A day before hers.
"He was the nicest birthday gift I ever had."
Grace’s first husband farmed until 1956 when he went to Eldorado, Kan., to work as a car salesman because "that was what was available." He died of a massive heart attack while only in his 40s. That tragedy helped shape Grace’s life as she was forced to reevaluate her situation and forge ahead.
Grace was left with three kids and no job. She had never worked out. She found jobs at housework and sewing. Then she was offered a job as a secretary in a Baptist Church. She had to turn it down because she didn’t know how to type. Shortly after that she was cleaning a house and the lady who owned it sat typing.
"If I could do that, I would have had a good job," Grace told her.
"You can learn," the lady said.
She went straight to the phone and got Grace enrolled in a class only one and a half blocks away from where she lived. Grace does not account such things to luck.
"God watches over us," she said.
In time, Grace married Ernest Slinkard, who worked in maintenance. In December of 1964, they settled south of Winston and then bought the present property.
Her second husband died two years later after suffering his fourth heart attack. He died in 1977 at the age of 69.
Once again, Grace found herself shifting gears and along the way gaining valuable insights. She worked in the kitchen at a nursing home in Gallatin for six years.
"It was August when I started there and it was a hot kitchen," recalled Grace. "I soon realized I had to stop feeling sorry for myself."
Not long after, she opened her antique shop.
Grace was able to take a trip to England over the next years. She saw the white cliffs of Dover and the English Channel and toured a couple of castles. Across the states, she’s been east to Maine and also saw Niagra Falls and to Williamsburg, Va., and Washing, D.C. and west to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Her husband was from Colorado. They went to the top of Pikes Peak.
Grace closed the antique store four years ago in December 2003 after 21 years. She had to quit because of her failing eyesight.
"I met a lot of people, made a lot of friends, dealt with a lot of pretty things."
Because of her hearing, Grace eventually had to stop teaching Sunday School, which she had done her whole life. Her hearing hadn’t been what it used to be for several years.
And that brings Grace to another story. One day she was siting in a chair watching TV. It was thundering and lightning out.
"I think I was struck by lightning," she said. "Not in a natural way of being struck. There was a burst of lightning and the telephone and TV went out. I coughed and it sounded strange in my ears. I said a few words out loud and I couldn’t hear them. After that, my hearing was much less. The lightning was all I could lay it to."
There have been no ‘best’ years for Grace. "They’ve all been good. There have been hard times, rough times, mistakes and failures. And there have been good times and good times and good times. Good friends and good family."
She’ll let people read her memoirs if they want to. She wrote it all down in long hand. Her daughter typed and printed off copies.
Grace recently came up with her final conclusion.
"Of life’s greatest gifts: 1. Salvation by the blood of Jesus Christ. 2. Family and extended family. 3. Home. 4. All of God’s beauty around. 5. Friends. 6. My church and church family. That’s enough. What more could anyone ask for?"