Setting Up Housekeeping

 

While I happily explored my new home, my parents, with very limited language skills, busied themselves with the challenges of housekeeping in a new country.

Up to the present time, wrote Dad after the first month, we have done nothing much more than seek a house and try to settle. It certainly takes time to get straightened around so one can live decently.

Even having a mattress made was an ordeal. They had to buy raw wool, have a lady wash it then dry it thoroughly and . . . get the “colchonero” [mattress maker] to make the mattress. What a job and what a smell! The wool [was] filthy, greasy, filled with manure and everything else. They say the wool loses one third its weight by washing. You can buy mattresses all made up but then they usually have dirty wool in them and when it gets hot they smell like a barnyard.

Besides the mattress issue, Mother added, I have no stove or washer yet. . .both are ordered but haven’t come. We’ll have to pay about $175. It kinda made me disgusted to read that [my brother] Harlan paid $49 for his washer. I can still see a nice stove in Montgomery Ward’s that I wish I had brought but I didn’t. The worst part of it is that Rita has gotten such an appetite since we’ve been settled in this house, and since her stomach and eye teeth[1] are through, that I just can’t get food ready fast enough for her. She’ll climb up in the high chair that we borrowed from Dowdy’s and keep saying “I want to eat.” A lot of the time I have to get her something quick if I want any rest for my nerves.

For my parents, furniture and appliances were expensive. However, Mother found consolation in that food was quite cheap. For 2 lbs. of boneless beef we pay less than 25 cents, she wrote. For about 19 cents I got 2 lbs. of leg of lamb today. For 3 liters of milk we pay 10 cents (equals about 3 ½ quarts). At that time in the States a gallon of milk cost 70 cents.

In a later letter Dad wrote: We bought apples the other day (100 for 37 cents) and canned 14 quarts. Several weeks ago we canned some lovely pears and got 14 quarts. We did what has been done under great difficulty for all we had was this one burner, a “calentador”.

Food was very reasonably priced, but there was the problem of refrigeration. Dad wrote: we had a man to bring us ice for our icebox but now there are not enough people buying it to warrant him staying on the job anymore so that means we must go after our ice. It is quite a problem with me for I have nothing with which to carry it, not even a wagon. In a later letter he tells of taking me to the market and carrying the ice on the back of the stroller.

To solve this problem, my parents wanted to buy a kerosene operated refrigerator, but they cost between 600 - 800 pesos [170 US$]. At one point, wrote Dad: Brother Dowdy and I are thinking of looking into making an automatic one. If we knew the chemical with which they work, we think we would do it.

Both were great handymen, do-it-yourselfers. Dad spent much of his time in Brother Dowdy’s workshop. He explained, I just felt we had to get settled before we could do much of anything. I have now made two kitchen cabinets, two bookcases, a typing table and a mimeograph table. Then added, By the way, these things were made almost entirely from the boxes we brought from the States. That’s my father, ever resourceful and wasting nothing. Mother added that wood was very scarce and cabinets they could have bought were poor quality. These we’ve made we can take anywhere we go.

Mother hired a girl to help wax the floors. Dust storms are common. All of our floors are of very smooth tile that shows every bit of dust so we’ve decided to wax them and have them dusted every day. This will be easier than scrubbing them every day. The young girl began helping on a regular basis for $5 a month.

Tuesday, April 2, 1946, my father turned twenty-five. The new stove arrived that very day. My mother wrote: we had a big birthday celebration at our house.  There were ten around the table. . .we had a big beef roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, cauliflower, cottage cheese, applesauce, cake and ice-cream. Mrs. Dowdy made the three layers for the cake and I iced it. She also brought the cauliflower, and the mixture for the ice-cream. . .and some of her plates.

Lynn and Lois Schrock—the other young missionary couple we would have sailed with in September had our visas arrived in time—were the surprise guests from Río Cuarto. They stayed with us that week. It was nice to have them with us, said Mother. While here Mrs. Schrock learned to knit and Lynn made a magazine stand.

Wednesday of that week, my parents had their first official language class. For the first two weeks the teacher could only give them a half-hour lesson; they were disappointed. We need two hours a week if not more, they wrote. However, their teacher had previously given them a homework assignment—to translate an article from La Voz, a Christian magazine. Already they were using their limited language on a daily basis and Dad was even preparing a sermon in Spanish to read in church, that is, after the teacher found time to look it over and make corrections.

A week after Dad’s birthday the expensive washing machine arrived. It is a beauty and we believe we will like it very much, but right now there is some defect with the roller gears. We have the guarantee, so we feel sure they will make it right. We already had two large tubs for rinsing and so I made two small benches for them. They will be on castors, so it will be [easy] to handle. We also bought a rubber tube to run the hot water into the tubs. Right now we are washing in the bathroom because there is a mechanism there for heating the water. It operates like a gasoline stove and heats the water as it runs through a coil. It has no storage tank, but it heats as you draw the water, and it does get hot enough!

Mother was busy making her home beautiful and enjoying the process. Dad wrote: Kathryn finished the studio couch. It surely looks nice. . . I hope to make a chair to match it sometime. We have more fun studying and working and studying and working. We feel like we began our married life over again.

Few of us have our very words and antics recorded regularly from infancy and toddlerhood. However, as a first-born in a foreign land, far away from grandparents and family, mine were routinely preserved in the letters.

We had quite a scare last week when the baby fell asleep on the toilet and fell against another article of furniture in the bathroom. She broke the tips off her two upper front teeth and cut her lips just a little. She cried for a long time, but finally went to sleep. [Decades later, I tend to fall asleep at the computer!]

Rita is getting more loveable every day. She surprises us with new words and often says, excuse me, when she belches. She also says, thank you and please quite often. We told her that Grandpa made the handle to our dutch oven and for quite a while after that she pointed to everything and said “Grandpa made it.”

Rita prays for you every morning and often wants to get your picture off of the mantel above the fireplace and look at it. She’ll point to each one and say “Gampa” or “Papa” and “Gamma” and “Uncle Phil”. She knows Aunt Eleanor and Uncle Dan too. Right now she is sitting at her Daddy’s desk looking for trouble. The drawer is opening now and one by one the things are going out. -----“un momentito”-----Just rescued some nice long pieces of lead that would have been broken in a minute.

A “verdulero”(vegetable salesman) came to the house the other day and while I was going to get some money she walked to the door and said “Buenos días” just as if she were the one to tend to the business.

My parents wished they could send photos of my progress, but film was too expensive in Argentina. They asked for some to be sent and were so tickled to get it. The plan was to take some pictures of me with the lovely flowers before fall and winter set in.

In general, my parents’ life was good. They faced hardships and inconveniences, but they had the joys of family life, their work and their faith. Summarizing the experience, my father said: We are certainly happy to be here. We came because we felt that the Lord was calling us here and that it would be a place to serve where others might not choose to go. We find some distinct advantages. We need never worry about getting fired and looking for another church. The children have the opportunity to grow up bilingual and also to travel.

I am reminded of Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount. More than once he admonishes us to not worry about life, food and clothing and all the things we need to live. He knows what we need and he cares for us more than the lilies of the field!  Rather “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33).”

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[1] Lower and upper canine teeth as they used to be called.