Levi and Clara--Part 3

Personality and Character

Clara.  Much of the information here comes from memories that Mary Mast has from hearing her mother, Emma (Yoder) Mast, recount what she remembered from having worked for Levi and Clara when their family was young.  I'm impressed that, in these very hard times, Levi paid someone to help Clara in the house.

Emma Mast also told her daughter that at the time she decided to work for Levi and Clara she had another job offer--at a place where the mother was sick in bed.  Emma was thankful many times that she chose to work for Clara, where she could work alongside an experienced homemaker and learn from her, without the full responsibility of running a household.  She loved working for Clara.

About the children, Emma said--

--Paul wasn't always a good boy.  Emma said this in response to some of his students, who hoped to dig up some "dirt" on their teacher.

--David was a question box.

--Lizzie was a very sweet child.

--Mary was a good baby.

--The boys often had to be reminded to "go on and gather the eggs" or something similar--when Willis or one of the others would get distracted on their way to do some chore.

Emma described the family as being very poor.  The children,  now grown up, remember hard times, but didn't feel that their situation was much different from the people around them.  Times were hard for everyone.

Clara was very frugal and hard-working.  When Emma thought the boys' pants were beyond hope, Clara would say "Mih duhn isht noch un flick doe druf."  We'll just put on another patch.  When Levi was gone over lunch, sometimes graham crackers and milk made up the entire lunch.  Raw oatmeal was a common snack for Clara and the children.  Vera Mae Nisly says Clara's craving for raw oatmeal disappeared after her goiter surgery.

Emma had a very high respect for Clara.  Other people described her in the following words:  Calm, cool, and collected.  Easily entreated.  Kind.  Not high strung.  Quiet.  Friendly.  A person to be admired.  In temperament, among her daughters, Emma is perhaps most like her mother, although Clara had a slightly less robust sense of humor.

Paul remembered that Clara could get giggling fits, especially the time when someone wanted to say belt pulley and spoonerized it by saying "pelt bully."  Willis Becky remembers that her mother, Clara's sister Edna, would help Clara sew school clothes for her children.  Later, daughter Mary did a lot of the family's sewing.  Becky remembers staying at Levi and Clara's and sitting beside Mary at the sewing machine and learning a new song from Mary.

Someone who was a homemaker at the same time as Clara reported that Clara always needed help to get ready for church at their house.  (It wasn't uncommon for others to help each other at such times also.)  Perry once said he used to want to hide when they got company because the house was frequently not company ready, but Clara was always very welcoming to whoever showed up.  I get the impression that relationships was her specialty--rather than household management.

At earlier family gatherings, I've heard my aunts and uncles say that Clara loved Saturday evenings when all the children who were gone during the week came home.  The children were ever-so-happy to come home too, it turns out.  These times apart because of economic necessity were not easy for anyone.  Daniel told Myron earlier that he was often lonely and missed being part of his family's activities when he was a child and was sent elsewhere during the week.  Harry said to Yvonne that he went through some hard times of questioning during the time he worked away as a child.  On weekends, when he got to go home, he regained his equilibrium, and felt OK about life again.  Outside the reunion memory time, one of Harry's children told my brother that Harry was working and living in a household where the man of the house degraded Levi.  This was understandably devastating to a ten year old.

The children's jobs away from home included herding cows along the road, helping in the garden, babysitting, and later, driving tractor (Perry, who was crippled from polio and could not walk behind horses.).  Ann said that Dan remembered having to be boosted onto a horse's back because he was too small to mount by himself.  Then off he would go to herd cows, taking a book along to read while he did his job.  (Someone remembered that having good reading material for the children was important to Clara.)  Typical wages were a dollar a week for this "child labor."

Perhaps the highest tribute to Clara came from Levi, who once told Myron that "God blessed me with a wonderful wife."  He went on to talk about what a wonderful mother she was, and how much of the good that came out of the family he attributes to her.  He also spoke of how much he still missed her--probably at least twelve years after she died.  Emma, talking at the reunion after the reminiscing time, said she wasn't surprised that her father felt that way about her mother, but she said,  "You know, he would have never said that to her, or to us."    The passing of years and the listening ear of a grandson drew that out of Levi in time for us all to hear those kind words again all these years later.

Mary Mast told one more story about the friendship between her mother and Clara.  Clara gave Emma a sugar and creamer set as a gift, and Emma treasured it.  Later, however, when Ollie and Emma's house burned down, and none of the best dishes were saved, Emma Mast gave Emma Troyer the sugar and creamer so that she would have something from her own mother.

My brother Myron remembered being very troubled, as a three-year old, about having discovered a button missing from his coat while he was playing at his grandparents' house.  When he showed Clara, she matter-of-factly searched through her buttons for a suitable one, and then sewed it onto the coat for Myron.  He remembers her moving deliberately, probably because she was already ill with the cancer that claimed her when he was four.  That simple act of kindness endeared Clara to Myron.

Levi.  Aunt Edna told me once that she doesn't think Levi helped in the house much, but he did help the whole family a great deal by keeping order in the family.  As Edna said, "Mitt so un grosse family, vonn muh kenn order huht, huht muh fuh sure disorder.  With that big a family, if you don't have order, you for sure have disorder."

I've heard Levi described as a good (if strict) disciplinarian.  I remember that at his funeral, Henry Yoder from Oklahoma spoke and said he remembers hearing someone speak of Levi as "that man from Kansas that has a whole row of well-behaved boys."  Fred remembers that when he knew that discipline awaited him after Levi got home, the waiting was a painful discipline all its own.  To Levi's credit, the children do not remember having been disciplined in anger.  I suspect that Levi was usually consistent and fair, and that  made the punishments he dealt out effective, if perhaps greatly feared.

Amos Nisly often quoted Levi as having said about church services:  "Crying babies are like New Year's resolutions.  They should be carried out."

Levi was apparently careful in what he exposed his children to.  Vera says that on the January night  when Emma was born it was very blustery, but the children were roused from bed to be taken to Ed Nislys for the rest of the night.  Vera thought they probably would have slept right through the night and never found out what transpired till the next morning, if they had been left in their beds.  Dr. Barnes, who attended the birth, called Emma "Snowbird," in reference to the weather at the time of her birth.  That gives credence to Vera's memory about it having been a good night for children to stay in their beds at home instead of being taken to the neighbors.

One person described Levi as having a good dose of self-confidence, fairly secure in his opinions.  At the reunion I suggested that there may well be people sitting here thinking so that's where I got it.  Or spouses may be thinking so that's where he/she got it.  We Millers are not a retiring bunch.

To balance that picture perhaps, my dad said after the reunion that Levi was not a noisy campaigner during church or community deliberations.  People seemed to consider him to be a person of sound judgement.  Twice he was in the lot when a minister was ordained.   

Last fall when my composition class was doing a community writing project, we came across information about a beef ring that operated here for some time.  About 16 (?)  people took turns butchering a beef every three weeks, and each time the beef was divided among each of the families.  With no refrigeration, this enabled everyone to have fresh meat frequently.  Levi organized the beef ring and figured out how the beef should be portioned out each time so that everyone got their turn at each of the cuts.  He must have had some good organizational ability.

Levi apparently was a good horseman.  Myron remembers Mahlon Stutzman quoting his grandfather (John Stutzman), who described an uncooperative horse this way:  "Selluh gahl is aynuh fuh duh Levi Milluh.  That horse is one for Levi Miller."

I remember hearing from someone who worked at the nursing home where Levi spent his last days in Florida that the whole staff loved Levi, partly for his wonderful sense of humor.  Myron recounted that, when one of Levi's sons was there to visit, someone came breezing in and asked cheerily "How are you doing?"

Levi's answer:  "Vouh vill vissa?  Who wants to know?"  --his way of making clear that he knew he was being "treated" to small talk, and he wasn't much impressed.

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Random memories:

My sister Lois remembers hearing from someone that "Kansas had one pretty girl, and Joe Beachy got her."

The self-same Joe Beachy said in our reunion gathering that he once asked Harry, during CPS days, about his sister Mary.  Harry replied, "She's like a beautiful dish, but what good is an empty dish?"    I take it he was going to leave Joe to his own devices if he wanted to court Mary.  Joe must have been up to the challenge.  (Joe is a brother to my mother, so I am a niece to both Joe and Mary.  They live in Iowa.)

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I'd be very pleased to hear it if anyone has a memory to share about Levi and/or Clara.  I'd also be pleased to know that you are writing down your own stories about your grandparents or other family members who lived in an earlier time.

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Joel and Hilda are, at this very minute en route by air to Wichita from Houston, if all went well.  Joel called me as they were boarding  It's the last leg in a very long trip that began in Bangladesh approximately 30 hours ago.  Hiromi is waiting at the airport to pick them up.  I'm sorry not to be there too, but Hiromi left from work to make it to a pottery supply store in Wichita before closing time.  I couldn't leave school that early, and missed out on the event.