Meet Rose. Born late in the year in 1900 she was the 7th child in a long line of kids. Ten. This stroller had been around the acre a few times by the time it got to Rose. In fact Rose’s eldest brother had fashioned it with with an arm on the front so she could be pulled by the animals on the farm. Kept her content for hours.
Rose didn’t smile a lot. It wasn’t because she wasn’t happy. It was because she needed to concentrate on eating food when it was in front of her and that house was very loud and staying upright around the hustle and bustle of a family of twelve took a lot of thinking and effort. If you add in a grandparent or two and an old aunt who lived in the house too at any given time, well, then, there was a lot hustle and bustle.
A typical day for Rose would be playing with one or 6 of her siblings. When she was older she attended school, but only until 8th grade when most of her siblings finished, especially the boys, so they could run the family farm. It was a good life on the farm. When you are 7th in the family you get used to being carried or rolled around unless someone in the family decided to drag you around, which turned out to be quite frequently.
Rose went on to marry a fine young man from the town next to hers and have a few kids of her own, but 10 was never a goal. Early in her marriage she’d heard about counting days in an effort to not become with child and she was able to encourage her husband have a few sips of the alcohol on those nights, helping him lull to sleep without touching her. Those months, confirmed not pregnant, made her glad she paid attention to the math lessons and the nurse that was explaining the counting method to her sister.
When Rose was older she found this picture and she thought to herself that she wished she hadn’t been wearing a sheet dress, or sleepwear on the day this picture was taken. But she didn’t think that anymore. Rose appreciated her mother like she never had since she became a mother. With just three kids, she came to completely understand why her mother might dress her that way. Actually, she was impressed she had on any clothes as all.
Written by Julia Roberts, Kidneys and Eyes
