My sister Jane was born in 1950, the fifth child in the family. She was four years older than me. We slept in the same bed in the basement house. My two older sisters and I shared a small bedroom with a curtain door and one small basement window. The walls were built with field stones and we painted the stones with pastel blue or light green paint. The paint didn’t last long, as the moisture would make the paint peel off within a few months.

Pa had built a full-size bunk bed frame with 2×4’s and wooden boards to place mattresses on top. Doris slept in the top bunk, Jane and I slept together in the bottom bunk. Jane had the aisle side of the bed, and I crawled over the top of her to get to the back side of the bed. It had very low head room and I was adept at not hitting my head on the top bunk when I got in or out of bed.

Along the outside walls of the room there were two dressers (one with a mirror) and a makeshift closet with a few hangers for our dresses. I had a drawer assigned to me for my clothes. We might have had a small desk or table with one wooden chair.

Mostly Jane and I laid in bed and read books when there were not chores that we were assigned to do. In the living area of the house was a large oval wooden table with nine chairs, a big wood box, the kitchen wood cook stove, a small heater, a kitchen sink in a wood frame cabinet that had curtains below the sink in place of doors, a large chest freezer, a free-standing kitchen cupboard. There was no sofa or large comfy chair.  Between our bedroom and the small toilet room on the other side of the house was an upright piano along the north wall. On top of the piano was a stack of hymnals and a stack of all of our bibles.

After Jane graduated from high school in 1969, she was hired as a secretary at a local casket manufacturing company. Jane worked in the office and assisted with the purchasing and inventory. She was cute, long red hair, fair skin with freckles on her nose and a slight build. Jane now had money to buy her own fabric for her dresses. She began using different patterns than we had used before, and her hem length got a little shorter with each new dress. She was always creative with style and color. She would wear ribbons in her hair and let her hair hang loose instead of putting it up in a bun.

Eventually she had dresses with the hem line at her knee. This was an unacceptable length according to Pa’s rules so she was not able to let Pa see her in the short dresses as she walked out of the house to her car. In the winter, she had a long coat, so Pa couldn’t really see the dress underneath. In the summer, she devised a method of putting on her short cute dress, then a modest, longer dress on over the top. As she drove to work along the back roads, she would take off her modest dress and arrive to work in her cute, short dress.

Jane was a free-spirit and more spontaneous in her decisions than Doris. One day the three of us went to Eau Claire to do some shopping. As we drove by a car dealership, Jane decided she wanted to stop and look at cars. That same day she drove home with her new used car.

On another day when we were shopping in Eau Claire, she stopped by the music store and purchased an electric organ on the spot. The organ was too large to transport in a car, so she arranged for it to be delivered to our house.

On our way home, Doris and I were worrying about how she was going to tell Pa about this purchase and where on earth we would put it in the small basement house. Jane didn’t have a plan, but she was laughing, didn’t seem worried. Jane was confident it would all work out.

She never did tell Pa about her purchase. About a week later the delivery truck drove in our yard with this brand new electric organ. Jane met them in the yard with a smile. She had them haul the organ down into the basement. The table was usually smaller by this time because Larry, Wayne and John were not living at home. The organ was placed on the inside wall by our bedroom door, and the big table was moved closer to the other bedroom door. Once the organ was plugged in, Jane began to play. We had learned to play the piano a little bit, so the organ was similar except you had to figure out how to use the bass foot pedals.

The organ came with a couple instruction books. I loved playing the organ too. I still remember learning how to play “Little Brown Jug” using the foot pedals along with the keyboard. It was such a rhythmic, happy tune with naughty lyrics. “My wife and I live all along in a little log hut we call our own. I love her and she loves me but the little brown jug don’t I love thee. Ha, ha, ha, ha, you and me, little brown jug don’t I love thee.”  I only played that when Pa was not in the house.

I had a big knot in my stomach when the delivery truck arrived and worried that Pa would not allow the men to move the organ into the house. Pa didn’t say much as I remember and allowed Jane to keep the organ in the house. In his older age, it seemed Pa was moderating his control of the family.

Doris and Jane remained living with our family in the basement house, even though they had the resources to move out. Doris seemed content to abide by Pa’s rules, but Jane was eager to modify her clothing and hairstyles to be more fashionable. She was very resourceful in finding ways to do those things without Pa’s knowledge.

I fantasized about living someplace else, wearing blue jeans and trimming my hair. It would be a few years before I was able to act on those dreams.