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By: Jim Fitzpatrick |
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Email: jim@nunica.com |
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Local Farmer in Polkton Township writes for the Coopersville Observer. |
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Along Brandy Creek By Jim Fitzpatrick
The Coopersville Observer January 27, 2014- - No. 122 |
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Some of her teaching years in the township were spent with the children at South Evergreen. During the school term Ester was a welcome resident at the Baldus farm adjoining the school property to the east. Great Grandfather Simon died at an early age leaving the farm to his daughter Minnie and his wife Pauline. Room and board income from teachers at the school was a welcome asset. Ester’s family home, up in the “six corners” area, was a bit far from South Evergreen. She needed a place nearby. Minnie and Ester, each being in their early twenties, cemented a friendship that was to be lifelong.
Ester, at some point, married one of the local Ruoff boys. Bill and Ester lived out their married life back at her family home. Ester returned often; however, over the passing years to visit Minnie. The grandchildren of Minnie recall hearing stories of how the two old ladies would stay up late into the night playing cards. Grandma Minnie told grandson Jimmy what happened one snowy, wintry, card-playing night.
The hour was getting on, their game of cards nearing an end. Minnie had returned from the basement after firing the wood furnace one last time; to play out her final hand. Then – there was a rap tap tap….. another rap tap tap….. on the window pane in the living room. The two women’s eyes met; in silence! The snow falling in the early evening had stopped. The air outside was still, the thermometer near zero. Ester, in an unusually nervous voice, suggested that two of them share the same bed for the night.
In the morning they checked for footprints in the snow outside, under the taped on window. There were none. Again the two women stared at one another in disbelief. An hour later they learned that old mister Rice, in the house across the road, had died in the night. Ester later told Minnie that she had seen a faint glimmer of light, from the direction of the Rice home, a short time before the tapping on the window pane. |
