Classic sayings

Susan Doak

Southwest Nebraska Genealogy Society

It seems in the summer with the marina open, I am running around like a chicken with its head cut off. That picture I remember well from my childhood, along with the pungent aroma of pin feathers being seared. Mom raised the chickens and when it came time to put them in the freezer, it was a family affair. Nancy, who was living on a farm south of McCook, my grandmother Flora from Dalton, and sometimes my Aunt Jessie from Sterling, all came to pitch in.

My father always said you didn't want to go into the kitchen when the Davison women were working with knives. All of us were grandiose talkers, flourishing in the air whatever was in our hand to emphasize what we were saying. Consequently when we were butchering chickens, only the person burning the feathers off didn't have a knife in their hand.

Chicken with its head cut off would probably get me in trouble with PETA these days....after all it's so much more humane to put them in a cage and fatten them up? Our chickens had a good life, free run of a huge area.... and they tasted great at Sunday dinner when we got home from church.

My father-in-law, when something didn't make sense, said it was about as useless as a "screen door on a submarine." That's a pretty good picture in your head when you think about it. There is another saying concerning boars and worthless appendages that only people as old as me would probably remember. (I can't print it but I certainly understood the meaning when my elders said it!)

Grandma Flora hosted most of the big family dinners that I remember. Since there was 25 years between the oldest cousin and the youngest cousin, you can imagine how full her house was! She also was the go-to person when someone was coming home with a new baby. But I would never have known that she taught school at 15 years old, carrying a seven shot revolver with her as she traveled to work each day, if someone had not kept that story alive for me to hear.

Unlike myself, my children did not get to know their great-grandparents on my side of the family. If you question why stories are part of genealogy, stories are how you keep children interested in their family history. When I was showing one of my younger granddaughters a picture of my great-great grandmother, she commented that she wasn't very pretty and I replied, "Pretty is as pretty does." Then I told her a story about the life that she led and explained that old saying because her countenance may not have been pretty, but her heart was beautiful!

Sherrie Dack, Southwest Nebraska Genealogy Society's secretary/treasurer, is also a very experienced researcher. If you don't have the time or desire to do it yourself, she can help. She also is posting on our SWNGS' Facebook page several links to genealogy sites that are free. Like Southwest Nebraska Genealogical Society on Facebook and ask to join the page.

SWNGS July monthly meeting will be July 11 due to the Fourth of July holiday. Join us at 1 p.m., 110 West C Street, Suite M-3.