Elinor B. Amstutz
By
Casie, Kim, Rohith, & Chloe

On January 22, 1918, Elinor Brownlee was born. At the time she had an older brother named James Albert who was three and soon two more siblings Dorothy and Lawrence. 

When she was four, she attended first grade in a one room country school, only because her mother was pregnant and not able to tend to her. She never had her hand slapped but witnessed it many times. Discipline in her school included walking in a line during which one had to have contact with the student in front of you. In ordered to be acknowledged one had to raise one's hand. She would hold up one or two fingers if she had to go to the bathroom. When she was older, Elinor went to Roosevelt Junior High which was not very far away. Elinor drove a car to college when she was older and was one of the only ones lucky enough to have one. A car was usually five hundred dollars. 

There were girls' teams in Elinor's school. She played baseball and volleyball. To play these sports, women would wear knee long bloomers. Uniforms had to be ironed and were usually made of wool or cotton. 

When Elinor was in high school, her teachers were hard on her because her father was a teacher there, and he would know everything she did from her teachers. He taught chemistry but she never took chemistry until college. 

A big event in Elinor's school life was the school field event. The school would go to Linwood Park. A thing they would do was push a ten-foot ball and would have a competition to see who could get the ball over a line first. At home she had some chores to do. She would have to wash the dishes and iron the clothes. Her father had farmed through the war and had nothing but failures, so through Elinor's childhood her father worked hard to pay off the debts. 

Whenever there was a contagious disease in the family, the rest of the family would leave so they wouldn't catch the disease. The city would put a plaque on the home to warn everyone the person inside was infectious. Once when Elinor's sister was sick, she and her father went to a relative's house. Her mom stayed at home with her sister. Most quarantines lasted three weeks.

In the Depression Elinor recalls growing potatoes, tomatoes, peas, and corn. They would can extras for winter and if they had enough for winter, they would walk down the street and sell them. 

As a child Elinor remembers money was tight, but in high school her father bought a trailer. Her family would drive to Colorado and at night her family would sleep in tents in farmyards, schoolyards, wherever they could find a vacant lot. They would warm food on the manifold of the trailer. Once on the way to Colorado, the beans wouldn't cook. These were some of the interesting events and thoughts of Elinor Amstutz.