We by Ruth Long

Editor's note: This little booklet was among Ruth Gillooly's keepsakes. I found it a long time ago, and I made copies of it for each of Ruth's children. Peg, Kay, John, Nancy, and Mike all have a copy together with copies of the pictures Ruth included (that I will also try to reproduce here). As far as I can tell, this was a project assigned to Ruth her senior year at Elkins High School. I think it is fascinating. Little Grandma Ruth graduated from high school in 1928, and this booklet is her autobiography up to that point. She dedicates it to her sister, Jane Long Kerr. I have typed it here exactly as she has written it -- before computers, electric typewriters with correct-tape, or even eraseable bond paper. There is not a typo in it. That alone is amazing.


Being only seventeen years old and having spent the most of my life going to school, naturally I haven't much of a history. About the most important thing that ever happened to me was being born a twin. Nearly everything that happened to me has happened to us both, and so I think the best title for my autobiography would be "We".

Our father, John Allen Long, was descended from Scotch-English people migrated from the north of England. They (Alexander Long and his only brother) settled in Virginia. The one brother left no male descendants, the other brother Alexander married Emily Richardson. They moved from Virginia to the Middle West in a covered wagon. They settled at Davenport, Iowa, where my father, John Allen, was born. He was the second of nine children. After a few years there the family moved on to Kansas. It was about the time that Jesse James and his brothers were terrorizing the neighborhood in which they settled. While there they owned a ranch and were interested in cattle raising. After John Allen Long was born, the family moved back to Virginia. Here he, at the age of twenty five, married Vonnie Zeiler who was twenty. Vonnie Zeiler was next to the youngest of eleven children. Her parents were both of Dutch descent. During the Civil War her father fought with the Union Army for four years. Her mother took care of five children and ran a large farm. They lived near Winchester, Virginia, where a lot of fighting took place. Her mother, Jane Boor, was the daughter of Elizabeth Jolly, who owned a farm where the city of Baltimore now stands.

Our father and mother were married at Cumberland, Maryland, September 5, 1893. They lived in Virginia about eight years. From there they moved into Maryland (Kitzmiller, Garret County) where they have lived ever since. My brother John was born in 1897 while the family were living near Winchester. Fourteen years later, November 16, 1910, my twin brother Frank and I were born at Kitzmiller.

Twins were quite a novelty there, and from what people say I think everyone in town must have called to see the Long twins. We spent the first few years of our life having all the ailments and illnesses that infants can have. When it was thought we had had all that we could get, I had typhoid fever at the age of two. When six years of age I had my tonsils and adenoids removed and got my first glasses which I have been wearing ever since and I suppose I always will. Our mother died when we were four years old. After that every one seemed even more interested in us. But Dad did the thing which most fathers wouldn't do, for instead of sending us to an orphan's home or shipping us off to some relatives who wanted us, he kept us and was father and mother both to us, which he did remarkably well, I think. Of course, it wasn't the same as having a real mother, but it was the next best thing to it. I suppose Dad missed Mother as much as we did or more for there was no one to take her place for him as he did to us. A neighbor, a friend of the family, did more for all of us than we can ever repay. She seems more like a member of the family than just a friend, yet she did more than any of those could have done. I think everyone who knows her thinks she is the most wonderful woman in the world. It was she who did most to guide the family craft through the storms.

One thing that Dad doted on, was that I should learn to cook, and do all the things it takes to run a house. We had a housekeeper all the time, but that didn't exempt me. I had to learn just the same.

Most people say their early schooldays were their happiest, but they weren't for me. I think that the teachers had a great deal to do with my dislike of school. We had a few good teachers, but we also had a few who were flops as school teachers. I see that more now than before because my lack of training in English and spelling certainly have caused me a lot of difficulties.

Our house faced the Potomac River. It really seemed like having the river in one's front yard. The river there is rather swift and the banks are covered with big rocks with just occasionally a tiny sandy beach. In some places the river is stiller and deeper tha in others. These places we used to learn to swim and played in all our lives. I don't know when we really learned to swim. We just grew up along the river. Just above the town the river is wider and much deeper. This was our bathing beach after we had learned to swim well. There was no sand there, but the river was bordered on both sides with large flat rocks. The rocks were every bit as good as sand because they were almost always warm even at night. After a swim we would come out of the water on to the rock and in a little while were dry. These rocks afforded a fine place for a picnic and campfire at night for a swimming party.

The river always played a great part in our childhood. Anyone who has never played along a river does not know how many amusements a river can offer. We had play houses in the rocks; we build domes; we caught frogs and crawfishes. Sometimes we built towns of rock and pebbles stuck in the sand. We made uncountable numbers of mud pies. We roasted potatoes in little ovens built of stone. One incident I shall always remember was this. One afternoon we were playing on the rocks and I had on a new dress of which I was very proud. We decided to make ink of pokeberries; and of course, by the time we had finished, my new dress was ruined. I got a spanking, but I felt worse about my dress than the spanking.

Our usual gang was my twin brother and I and two other boys and their sisters. They were all about our age and we played together until we got too big to play anymore. Now we are all still chums. When we were about ten years old, we began to build shacks of driftwood along the river. In them we cooked everything imaginable from fish to candy. One time we made fudge, and when it was about ready to be poured into the pan to cool one of the boys decided that some lemon flavoring would make it good. So in spite of our protests he poured nearly a bottle full of lemon flavoring into the candy. Of course, the candy couldn't be eaten eveny by us, although we ate some rather awful messes cooked in our shack. We made ice cream quite often in the winter time with ice from the river and two tin pails, one fitted inside the other. The ingredients were whatever we could find when no one was looking. We had the best skating and skiing places imaginable on the river and on the slopes back of our house.

One of the boys' fathers was superintendent of a mine near town and in the summer we went to the mine often, where we rode on the motors and the coal cars and investigated everything that went on until we would finally be sent home with our clothes as dirty as possible.

My twin and I do not look alike. We were always inseparable though we got along rather scrappily when together, yet nothing was ever any fun being without each other.

When we were twelve years old and in the sixth grade at school, Dad told us if we both passed at the end of the term he would take us wherever we wanted to go for a vacation-trip. When school was out, we both passed and then we had to decide where we wanted to go. Such a time! We finally compromised on a trip to Washington. Before we had usually gone to Cumberland for our vacation trips. To think of going to Washington seemed wonderful to us. While we were there, Dad nearly wore us out seeing everything possible during our stay. And then we did not see nearly all we intended to.

The next vacation we spent in Elkins with our married sister, and next after that, a group of twelve girls and as many grown-ups rented a cottage near Springfield, West Virginia, where we spent a glorious vacation on a two weeks' camping trip. Most of the time was spent on the river boating, swimming, and fishing. The work of the camp was divided so that no girl had the same thing to do more than one day. The grown-ups took turns being cook, and they had the hardest work of all. The most trouble we had was trying to keep our clothes dry. After the first day or two we nearly all of us had all our clothes wet all the time from falling or jumping into the river. Most of us couldn't row a boat well enough to make it go where we wanted and we would have to jump out to pull the boat to shore.

Another camping trip was in Virginia. My twin was along this time and we spent most of the time fishing.

When we were thirteen we started to high school. This is when I really began to enjoy school. We had five teachers in the high school. There were about eighty students.

The fall of my freshman year I spent a week in a hunting camp. It was great fun tracking bears, but I am thankful to say we didn't find any.

During my freshman year our housekeeper left us, and I started to keep house and go to school too. It wasn't easy but my Dad and brother were very patient and helpful. Beginning my sophomore year I came to Elkins to live with my sister. Since then I have attended high school here, and I must say it is a great change from our little high school at home to one of six hundred students.

So far I have managed to fail only one subject, French Two, which I hated more because I had not been taught English Grammar in the grades.

During my sophomore and junior years I did not take an active part in any school affairs either athletic, dramatic or social, except to attend all of the athletic meets possible. This year I have been doing a little better, though I have no talent for acting, speaking or even singing. Very few people seem not to be able to sing at all but I seem to be one of them. I think I miss it most of all for I love music, though of course, I cannot appreciate it as I should. This year I have made more friends and had a better time than ever before.

As to what I shall do in the future, I am still trying to decide. I haven't any talents that I have yet discovered. I must decide what I shall do very soon because family finances will not permit me to go to high school another year or college.

I am hoping to have a good time during senior activities this spring and can only hope it will all end well.

My ambition in life is not to have a lot of money but enough to dress moderately well, to travel occasionally, and to be able to buy all the books I want and have time to read them.


So there you have it, our mother's memories of her life written when she was just seventeen. I have always thought this little booklet provided a lot of insight into our mother's character:

Mother said she did not remember her mother at all, although Uncle Frank used to claim that he remembered their mother a bit. Losing her mother at such a young age would have had profound effects on her. It is interesting that both Dad and Mom lost their mothers at a young age, Mom at age four, and Dad when he was thirteen.

Mom always prided herself on her swimming. I remember watching her swim when I was a kid. Her stroke was slow, but strong and graceful. No wonder -- after all those years on the Potomac River. It's a wonder that none of them drowned, but it was a different age, and children had much more freedom then.

I had forgotten the part about Mom's liking music so much and wanting so much to be able to sing. I guess that's why she took so much pleasure that Skip and I liked to sing and had some success with it.

Mom always seemed a bit shy socially, but with close friends she was much more forthcoming. It appears that, from the time she was small, she formed close relationships outside her family. The lady she refers to as the family friend who was so helpful was named Mrs. Pugh, and she lived close by. Mom told me she called her Mama Pugh. Her best friend in Elkins was named Hazel. She and Mom got jobs as telephone operators in Elkins, and Mom told me once that she and Hazel used to listen and knew all the gossip in town! Mom always had close female friends -- Nell McCarthy, Emma McDowel, Ann Schlueter, Betty Knight and Rosie Wilson are just some that I can think of right off hand.

Mom was a good one for keeping secrets. For example, none of us children knew her middle name until I was an early teenager. Mom and Aunt Lena (Uncle Frank's wife) took me and cousin Linda back to Kitzmiller for a visit. Aunt Lena let Mom's name slip when we were in the car. Her middle name was Cornize (a Dutch name -- I don't know its significance) and she hated it! It was also Uncle Frank and Aunt Lena who spilled the beans about "ole lady Abernathy," and the fact that Granddad Long married her then divorced her because she deserted him. Mom refers to her even in her biography as "our housekeeper."

All Mom wanted out of life was enough money to dress reasonably well, travel occasionally, and buy lots of books. She passed these aspirations on to most of the women in our family. She had limited success in these areas herself because she and Dad married during the height of the depression, they had six children, and work was often hard to come by when we were growing up; but I think she made a success of her life. She was a gracious hostess, a wonderful cook, a voracious reader, and a cherished friend. When we were children, she was not our friend but our mother, and Dad insisted on the utmost respect for her. But when we grew to be adults, she became a friend. She was warm and thoughtful and sensitive, and she loved a good story -- especially one with a laugh in it. After Dad died, she came out of her shyness a bit and began to speak her mind more often. As she moved toward her eighties, I like to think that she became more like the girl she was back by the river -- the one who swam, and skiied, and skated; the one who stole things from the house to cook up concoctions in the shack; the one who had pokeberry stains all over her dress. "Somebody check me for spots," she would say. I miss you, Mom.

Little Grandma's Orange Bread Pudding

When I was very young, I wasn't fond of this recipe. Later, as an adult, I tried it again, and I was delighted with its flavor. Moreover, there are not many bread pudding recipes out there with the orange flavor. It's really a very lovely dessert, an elegant dessert for a dinner party, and it's not hard to make.

3 cups of bread cubes (Grandma said with the crust cut off. I didn't bother, and I think it's just as good or better. The bread should not be a moist bread with a dense crumb like a challah, more the texture of a good sandwich bread. My best cookbooks say if you are going commercial, Peppridge Farm Hearty White Sandwich Bread is a good choice. The bread can be stale or fresh. Stale may absorb the liquids better, but I doubt Little Grandma had stale bread very often with all those mouths to feed!)
2 cups of scalded milk (I'm sure she meant whole milk. Grandma's recipes were written before the advent of such things as skim milk. You can try a variety with less milk fat, but it may change the dish somewhat.)
1/4 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup sugar
3 slightly beaten eggs
1/2 lemon, grated rind and juice
1/2 orange, grated rind and juice
1 orange, juice and pulp

Cut bread into cubes and place in a large bowl. Pour hot milk over cubes. Then add melted butter and sugar; cool slightly while you beat the eggs and prepare the juices and rind. Then add fruits and eggs to the bread/milk mixture. (Don't add eggs out of order or you'll cook the eggs before you get it in the oven). Bake in a greased casserole at 350 degrees for about an hour and fifteen minutes - until the top is golden. The middle of the casserole will be not quite firm.

Serve with this Sauce:

1/4 cup butter
1/2 light cream
1/2 sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla

Combine butter, cream, and sugar and heat thoroughly in a double boiler. Add vanilla and serve.

This dish is divine served warm, but it's also yummy cold. Store leftovers in fridge. Obviously this dish is not low fat -- something you'd serve often, but it's certainly a taste of the good old days.