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My mom was Anne, number five of the Buenting children. After four boys I would imagine Grandma and Grandpa were happy to have a new daughter. She had five more brothers before a sister came into the family. 

As a child I have fond memories of my grandma and grandpas farm. We often went there in the summer time when there would be other cousins there. Remember the old buggy in the grove; the many baptisms and church services on the cave door. Our pastors were usually Harold or Howard. They did a good job.

I loved being out and about at chore time, milking time, to watch the kitties catch milk and sometimes we got some, too.  I remember the all day mission festivals.  There was a lot of playing and tables spread with much food outside of the church.

Personal memories: When Uncle Henry took my socks away from me and later pulled them out at school for his handkercheif. Remember Harold, when grandpa gave us salt in our hand to go to the oats field to catch a rabbit. Grandpa loved to tease, I got caught only once to take a candy bar from him only to have it be some of his chewing tobacco wrapped in a candy wrapper.
Another memory was the long table in the kitchen, with a bench on the north side where we children had to

sit; not only to eat, but for the night-time devotions. They were in German, which we didn’t understand, but did learn to be quiet.  I sometimes wonder how they ever put up with all of us. There were three bedrooms upstairs with two double beds in each room, and sometimes they would get a bed made up in the hallway, too.

I remember the pop-pop of the wind charger that generated light for the house, and now we have gone back to this type of energy.

I marveled at the food that was prepared for all of us. There always was a great plenty.  Grandma always had a big garden.  If you went into the basement there would be many jars of canned food. They did their own meat processing, some canned, some put in crock jars, etc. There was a large orchard to the east with a lot of fruit, there were grapes with which they made wine; and grandpa had bee hives, which provided yummy honey for our bread. In the house yard was what they called a wash house.  By it was a wheel on a post that we liked to go around on, but that was a no-no; for that was where my aunts put the separator parts to dry. We remember grandma always had beautiful flowers through the center of her garden and the pretty moss roses around the house.

Some summers, we Flessner sisters had vacations at Pomeroy, but I think maybe our mom needed the vacation too. Can you imagine today sending a couple little girls on the train from Parkersburg to Pomeroy. Oh what joyous memories!  And then, in these later years, for our Aunt Frieda to send us some of the letters she had saved that were written to us from our mom while we were there as young girls and some that we wrote too.