Topeka, Kansas. She married David Aitken in 1950. He is employed in construction in Topeka. Reva taught school around Denison for five years and was married to F. Pickens Bledsoe in 1939 and went to Littleton, Colorado to live. They now own and operate a Piggly-Wiggly grocery store in the Brookridge Shopping Center in Littleton, Colorado.
Edna became afflicted with arthritis in their early years back In Kansas. One summer she shocked oats and did not tire at it as the hot ground felt so good to her swollen feet. Her children cannot remember when she did not limp. Her affliction became gradually worse. One spring she spent some time in Soldier staying with Kate and John Vermeberg and taking treatments from a colored woman osteopath, Mrs. Pugh. When one has pain, one tries every suggestion he hears. Edna wore copper wire around her ankles and wrists, and she drank lemon juice every morning, etc., etc. But the best relief she ever got was just heat, from any source, electric, water, or woolen blanket. While at Kate's she was amused at the activity of Lou, Grace and Henry. Henry was a normal boy, and took out his normal activity in teasing his sisters. At least three or four times in an evening one of the girls would come to John and say, "Pa, Henry's pestering again."
When John and Edna moved to the north edge of Denison, they found they had many friends, but to help them with necessary duties, and just to visit, relatives came often. At one time, Clare Clements, Arthur and Clarence Kroth, sat in their front room. As all were big men and John being large himself, Edna said, 'it surely was a room full of Kroths.' Edna's arthritis continued to spread until in the fall of 1929, she gave up trying to walk and was confined to a wheel chair the rest of her life. John went to Arch's and brought home the wheel chair that Elsie's mother, Luch Shove Watts, had used for so many years. And even though modern chairs seemed to be improved, none felt as comfortable as the old chair, over a century old. Faye Zinn, a friend and companion of Edna and Roselle for years, helped with the Kroth housework off and on for twenty-five years.
John was a quiet, "slow to anger", man. The youngsters can remember only once of his taking the hair brush to them, and that was for stuffing the Indian neighbor's mail box full of rocks (when they had been told not to do it.). There probably was some racial feeling against the red men. (There were no doubt many times they should have had the hair brush.) John always enjoyed entertaining youngsters. Reva had the chickenpox when she was quite small. Dad rocked her and said, "You old chicken pox, you better go way and leave my baby alone". He always found time to play a little ball with his own youngsters and anyone who came to visit. He had several tricks he used to amuse all kids. One was a button on a string, which when spun around would hum from vibration. He showed all kids how to blow a blade of grass to make it whistle. Each spring he made sling shots for the kids by getting a fork of a willow limb and using59 Next Page
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