(Aunt) Carol Hoover Thompson

My grandparents Charles and Francis Thompson, Carol and Bob on wedding day, Carol's parents, Jesse Hoover (and right now I don't recall his name.) The photo taken at the Hoover farm. This photo was hand colored.


Carol and Gayle Thompson

Carol was my aunt by marriage. I've always been delighted Uncle Bob had the good sense to marry her. She was a corker. Carol was a most loving and generous person. She welcomed all comers into her life and especially made her family feel loved. Plus she was just brilliant.


Michael and I often spent weekends at Bob and Carol’s ranch in Broadbent. Poor Uncle Bob, four women in the household and only one bathroom, an array of Avon products like a yellow bottle of Topaz lotion, decorating the counter, the bathroom always smelled sweet. Broadbent had one store/gas station, a community church, and a grade school. Betsy, Jeanne and Gayle had, wonder of wonders, a charge account at the market. The market had a small selection of toys and somebody usually bought me a minuscule plastic tea set that lasted for two tea parties before coming apart at the seams. I had a penchant for tea parties. Sometimes Aunt Carol allowed me to use her “Desert Rose” China tea set for full blown tea parties.



We’d sleep in the screened summer porch, zipping two sleeping bags together. All of us kids would squirm into the sleeping bags, laughing and talking in the dark. We could fart at will so a dare game evolved where one by one we took turns at the bottom while the others all broke wind. Being able to hold my breath for a limited time I was delighted to find an air gap where the two bags zipped together. It later turned out that everyone had discovered the same gap.



We’d breakfast on dry cereal with fresh cream from the previous nights milking. We were water dogs, the river was nearby and warm in July and we’d spend most of the day diving and splashing in the water with a bunch of Broadbent kids, not a parent in sight. On the way home we’d swing by the market and buy fudge-cicles on account.

This Is A Sepia Saturday Post. Click this link for more photographic history from fellow bloggers all over the place.