My parents were Dick and Lula Ross Clausen.  I had a brother that was 18 years older than I, Elbert and another brother Howard, 16 years older than I and a sister, Helen, that was 9 years older.  I was born on Tirbracken Lane, off Hwy. 42.  Nana Lampton now owns the house, but they have added a lot to it.  I was born April 11, 1932 and lived there until I was four.  All the neighbors came to help us move and all I had was a little tricycle and wanted that moved, now!  I got in the way and Daddy gave me a spankin- and that was the only spanking I ever had!

My great-grandparents Ross came up the river from Texas with the Meade family.  They were talking to them on the boat and the Meade’s said they had a farm they wanted to sell (in Oldham County).  Daddy’s uncle, Uncle Pemberton, who came with them, said that they came up that hill (Meade’s Landing) and the most welcoming sight was this fireplace, in a slave’s quarter.  And the man in the cabin gave Uncle Pemberton a stick of candy- Uncle Pemberton said he always remembered that and hoped he would see that man in heaven!”

I have the hub to the wagon that the family bought with them from Texas. Then they moved and owned a house in LaGrange- this was the Ross family on my mother’s side.  On my Daddy’s side, the Clausens,  my grandfather came here from Germany with two other brothers.  They settled back on Shiloh Lane.  They were farmer’s.  The two brother’s didn’t like here- one died young.  My Daddy had the one brother, Fritz and he had sisters,  Amelia Shields, Minnie Leet, and Lizzie Hoops.

We moved to Skylight when I was four and lived there until I was married.  We lived two doors down from one of the stores.  In those days there were two stores there, a blacksmith shop, a filling station, a car dealership…..Hwy. 42 was a booming place- traffic between Cincinnati and Louisville.  A greyhound bus ran every three hours, both ways.  When I was a teenager we would take the bus early in the morning to Louisville, stay all day and ride the bus home at night.

There was Peacock Cottage down the road by the Shiloh Methodist Church. In fact, I worked at Peacock Cottage when I was thirteen.  It had eight cottages- the two story big white house still stands and that was the dining room.  Miss Maude Bottoroff had that restaurant.  I would go to work at 6 am and we would put flowers on the table, clean up and put on white uniforms for the lunch crowd and about 1 o’clock she would make us take off our uniforms and go upstairs in our slips and take a nap!  Hot as heck, no air conditioning.  She didn’t want us to eat the restaurant food so she would have the cooks fix us stew or soup.  Derby Time she would have the funeral homes put a tent over the front door so if it was raining people wouldn’t have to wait in the rain.

Later on the Plaza Cottage Restaurant opened on the county line and I went to work for them for a while- it was a booming little restaurant.  Elbert and Lucille Wilhoyte owned that.  Lewis Leet, my first cousin, would take me down there on his way to work in Louisville.

And the car dealership, Smiser and Carter, they had cottages there also that they rented.  And of course, behind the filling station there were four or five little cottages.  In those days, everybody would put their signs out that said “Rooms for Rent” at Derby time.  We put our sign out and we would sleep in the kitchen and rent out the rest of the house, and made money!!

I was on the farm with Daddy a lot- I didn’t like housework.  Daddy had teams of horse and an old mule that plowed the garden every spring.  I drove all of them and learned to drive the tractor by the time I was 11.  He had the team of horses, Thunder and Lightening, the mule’s name was Old Bob and another horse names Coley.  All the farmer’s would take turns helping each other.  The Barrickmans, the Hoops, the Shields, all called me a tomboy!!  We raised grain, wheat, barley, oats, had hogs, sheep and cattle.  He had 160 acres and had two cows at Skylight- we lived there and the farm was on Liberty Lane so he traveled back and forth, just a few minutes.  We worried about Daddy as he got older because he never gave a car signal and we thought someone might hit him.  He would say, “They know who I am and where I am going!”.

I went to Liberty School and I got interested in 4-H because my sister was in 4-H.  Miss Hembree was the 4-H Extension Agent and did all the 4-H programs.  She would come to our house- she let me join 4-H when I was 9 but you were supposed to be 10.  I started out making a towel and then an apron.  Miss Hembree kept ripping out the stitches in my apron until I got it right.  I hated it but I survived.  She really was super and I took her classes for many, many things.  I took canning and foods and home improvement under Miss Hembree.   I went to 4-H Camp Bingham every summer.  The only thing I hated about 4-H was that you had to do a report at the end of the year.  Miss Hembree’s office was up in the old courthouse building, upstairs.  My brother would have to take me everywhere- he was so much older, a lot of people thought he was my Dad. The 4-H classes were composed of students from all over the county.

When I was in elementary school they had a lot of plays.  I remember they had Tom Thumb Weddings and one year I was Jennie June, the bride and Lewis Pete Bell was the groom- he was shorter than I!!  We went through the wedding, up on the stage at Liberty and had more fun running around the curtains.  One of the principals there was Viola Adams, she had to be the first woman principal in Oldham County.  By Liberty there was a teacheridge. It was a two story house where the teacher’s lived.  There were stairs on the outside going up to the second floor apartments. One of the teachers living there was my teacher, Pina May Issacs.  The principals would live downstairs.  In those days, everyone didn’t have a car to travel so living by the school was what they had to do.

When I started the Freshman Class in high school they closed the high school and was bussed to LaGrange.  There were about seven of us, country bumpkins, that were bussed to LaGrange and when we got there, there were no seats and we had to stand along the wall.  And of course, it took a little time to get there- Hwy. 53 was curvy back then!!

Some of the students in my class were Nancy Cassaday Doty, Nancy Catlett Timmons, Jean Dowe Taylor, Evelyn Rainey, and Carolyn Rankin.  The Liberty students were Glenna Anderson Felch, Hallie Davis Purvis, Doris Fendley Kriel, Anna Margaret Gowin Stewart, Donnie Hall, John Jeffries, Robert Johnston, Merle Purvis and Donald Poole. To this day we are very close.

Activities at LaGrange included sock hops at the old gym.  I don’t remember who did the music- I am sure it wasn’t anyone very good!!!  There were only about two drive-ins where we would go; there was the C54 and the old Ranch House.  The C54 was an old plane they turned into a restaurant.  And of course, there was a White Castle!!  In fact, my son, when he was about six and Debbie was four, I would send Dennis in to get coffee.  And here he came back with the coffee with sugar in it!!  And I didn’t like it with sugar and I said “Throw it out!”  but he didn’t- he fixed it that way so he could drink it!

Back in 1948 and 1949, I was State Champion in 4-H in several categories at the State Fair in clothing and home improvement.  I won a trip to Chicago and was the first time I had ridden on a train and slept in a berth.  And then I won a trip to Washington D.C. and got to see all the sights.  We got to meet President Truman in the Rose Garden.  Students from all the states were there- it was very interesting.  And then I came home and won $100 in a contest with the Courier-Journal and was honored at a lunch.  Barry Bingham gave me the check and I bought a portable sewing machine and a pair of pinking shears.  Everytime I get the machine repaired people want to buy it!!  Miss Hembree helped me through all of the 4-H activities!!  In fact, in 1967 I won Oldham County  Homemaker of the Year and I think it was because of Miss Hembree and all that experience I had filling out reports!!   I got a ceramic scoop with 1967 that I still have.

The county and state fairs were a big thing for me, because of 4-H.  I showed my canning and foods, and baking during those fairs.  I won blue ribbons but there were so many, I can’t remember exactly what all the ribbons were for!

During the Fall of 1949, the Senior Class was on the top floor of the school and Mr. Baker was the principal.  If you were late to class you had to go to Mr. Baker for a pink slip.  It was between classes and I had a class in the basement, home economics with Betty Richardson, she is Betty Stoess now.  I had to dash upstairs, and there was a study hall by the class I was going to.  Mr. Love, was very strict, was monitoring the study hall.  Ray Friebert, another student, was blocking the door and wouldn’t let me in the class.  Mr. Love saw us and said that we had to write 500 roman numerals and had to hand it in the next day.  So I wrote them down and at the bottom of the paper wrote: “Mr. Love, if you were a girl and trying to get in the class, and a boy tried to block you, what would you do?”  He asked me why I didn’t tell him in the first place.  Ray wouldn’t hand in his assignment.  Mr. Baker was upset with Mr. Love for assigning us the roman numerals.  Well all the students were mad that Mr. Baker who was going to punish Mr. Love.  So the seniors, along with some of the juniors, marched out the door of the school and went to see Mr. Trapp, the Superintendent of schools, whose office was at the courthouse.  So four students went to see Mr. Trapp and then afterwards we went to Mary Dee’s Coffee Shop and she gave us sandwiches and they opened the movie house next door, and let us watch movies all day.  Mr. Love stayed, Mr. Baker resigned and Mr. Trapp got out- so we straightened up the education system!!!

After I graduated, Miss Hembree encouraged me to go to U of K and be a home demonstration agent.  At the end of my sophomore year, I would faint at class, and at the dorm.  We went to the doctor and they couldn’t find anything wrong with me.  They did all kinds of tests, they took my tonsils out.  Dean Holmes, at UK asked for my parents to come see her and she recommended that I not come back.  She thought it was best for me to go back home- that was in September.  I was dating Bob Roberts at the time who was in the Marines in Korea.  We married the following April- since then I have only fainted one time, so I guess Dean Holmes was right!

We lived took care of the dairy with Bob’s parents on a farm where Starview is now.  I would ride the horse everyday and go get the cows up to milk. When we got married Daddy (old fashioned) gave us a Guernsey cow, a pig, and some chickens.  We brought that dairy cow up there and Mr. Roberts wouldn’t let me use the milkers on her so I milked her every morning and night.  But anyway I would take the cream up to LaGrange and sell the cream and buy groceries.

My husband eventually went to work for GE and we bought a house in Crestwood. He later switched jobs and went to work at Ford.  We built a house on Clore Lane- it was a model house and we had no neighbors.  Mother would worry about me with the small children alone when Bob was at work- we had a toddler and I was pregnant at the time! We had four children, Dennie, Debbie, Laurie and Joanie.

I became a member of the Liberty Homemakers because Skylight was my home and lot of my relatives belonged.  We met every month and Miss Hembree would have classes. One year we made aluminum trays and etched them with designs.  We always had a booth at the Oldham County Fair.  I got nominated as Oldham County Homemaker of the Year in 1967.

I was a substitute teacher for a while until John Broyles called me and wanted me to take a mail route.  I began working for the post office in 1969 and retired in 1995.  In the early days I went to the Prospect Post Office, when it was little building on Hwy. 42.  Hunting Creek was so small- it took me just 15 minutes to deliver the mail there.  My route took me all the way down to Asbourne Farms, across from Hwy. 524.  It was a long route!!!  All those years I only hit three mail boxes!!

Bob was killed on Labor Day in 1980 in a head on collision in his Ford Thunderbird- he was coming down I-71 from work.  That was the first year the Thunderbird had a collapsible steering but Bob’s didn’t collapse like it was supposed to.  The Post Office gang, my friends there, really helped me.  I also joined the North Oldham Lion’s Club and was real active with that for a while.  We had those fish frys and we had to keep up the grounds.  We always had an annual Easter Egg Hunt and we had a big Christmas Party for the Louisville School for the Blind.

I started working as a volunteer on the Cemetery Project at the Oldham County History Center with Dot Carraco.  That was enjoyable and a lot of work.  Dot Carraco and I would pile tools in the car and go hunt for graves.  And the men would go with us and do the cutting and digging the weeds.  It was like hunting for Easter eggs- you probe and probe then hit a stone and bring it up.  Sometime you piece it together and put it back together.  We always said it didn’t take much to make us happy!!

I always keep a garden and do my lawn. I put up forty or so quarts of Top Crop green beans every year. One year I ran out of Top Crop and my son came in from Montana for Christmas and he was eating the green beans.  And he said “Mom, I hate to tell you but you’ve lost something- you knack for cooking green beans!” I had bought Bush’s Green Beans because I had run out of my canned Top Crop.  This year I am going to try some new tomatoes- Rose Ethel and J.W. Hall grow delicious tomatoes and they recommended that I try the Whopper and the Roma tomatoes.

I have 8 grandchildren, 2 step grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren.  I have one granddaughter and her two year old who live with me and I take care of the two year old.  When I was growing up we had a simpler life, we appreciated more, we were more courteous.   We didn’t have much and we appreciated what we have and took care of it!

I have lived in Oldham County all my life- and I love it. I guess today it is more commercial.  I liked it when you went to LaGrange or Crestwood and knew everyone.