THE FALL OF '25 by Doris Zilpha Sisson

When school started the fall of '25 I stayed with Marcalla and Newell - no wrong. I stayed with Louie Clark family who had moved to Sioux Falls several years ago.  Dorothy wasn't married, and was home, too. She played basket ball with the YWCA so I started, too. The night I made the team I put my knee out of joint. I was no longer staying at Clarks then, as Mrs. (Grandma) Schjodt had broken her leg and they couldn't get any help, and Oscar had Ted and Leonard Davie picking corn for him, along with himself, was milking a lot of cows, and nieces, the Myrmoe girls lived there, too since their mother died. They were in the second and third grades. So when he asked me to come help them out, I didn't feel I could say "No". The aunts took the girls part of the time. In the morn I'd wash dishes after getting breakfast, set the table for dinner, peel potatoes, put a can of vegetables in a pan and slice meat to fry, and Oscar would finish. Then after school, so up the dishes again, clean up the house, cook supper, and do school work.  When the corn was picked there Ted went to Iowa, and then to Skidmore, Mo. where Dewey his brother, lived, along with Norman Heather, picking corn as they went. It was while they were gone that I put my knee out of joint at the YW. Thank goodness, Oscar had asked to ride along to town that night, so he was able to drive home, and help me up to my bedroom. I had to walk on crutches quite a while. I was sure happy when Ted came back the next week. At Mother's suggestion he took me to the Marion doctors for a treatment. The Dr. here had said my knee was not out of joint, but Mother thought it might be. Although Ted had gotten his cast off more than a year before, his knee was still very stiff and gave him a lot of trouble, so he wanted to see the doctors, too. My knee was out of joint and they put it back, but said the joint of Ted's knee was full of cartilage, to put hot packs on for a week or two and come back--that the knee was out of joint, but maybe, after hot packs they could move it. However this was not successful.

Mrs. Schjodt came home from the hospital, the girls came home, too and it was pretty difficult to keep up, so I decided I'd have to find a place in town. Uncle Newell insisted I come there, so I stayed there the rest of that term. My little old Ford gave me a lot of trouble so Ted and I decided we'd trade our two old cars in on a new Chevie coup. Then Ted got his collar bone broken. He was working for Baynard Cornue, took care of the horses. One stepped over against him and crushed him, breaking the bone. So Mother said he could stay with her while he wasn't able to work (this was before she moved to Colton, and I drove back and forth every day because they both wanted me to come home. Harvey wasn't home, then (I think this is when he was in Indiana, with Willis Dawson working in a factory), and Mother was glad to have someone besides the kids around.