One Christmas Grandma Med bourn stayed at our house.  She was to sleep in our guest room, which just opened from the living room.  My father had to stay late at the grocery store as it was Saturday and the farmers gathered there to trade and visit.  We had a gate across the wide doorway so that my baby sister could not crawl into the bedroom.  Grandma and Mama could not get the gate unlatched and I remember they put one straight chair in the bedroom and one on the living room side.  Then we helped Grandma up on the chair so she could step over to the bedroom chair.  It was such a small event to stay in my mind for so many years.
On Sunday afternoons my father usually went to the store to sack potatoes and get ready for Monday deliveries.  There were three trucks that delivered groceries to homes.  One truck was for the south end of town and lake, one for the east side of the lake and one for the Culver Academy area.  I loved to go along and help put the potatoes in the sacks.  When we were finished I could take a sack to the candy counter, which had a beautiful assortment of goodies, and pick out some to take home.  After supper we would go to the living room and Mama would bring the dish with the delicious candy.  Papa and I would play Pollyanna (like Parcheesi) and Mama would do her handwork.  This was a very pleasant ending for our Sunday.
My father worked for the Medbourn Ice Co. on Lake Maxinkuckee, Culver, IN.  His Uncle Sam owned the company.  I loved to go see the ice being cut from the lake.  It was quite an operation.  When the ice was thick enough, the ice harvest would start and work went on day and night.  Farmers in the area would come in to work and there would be be a couple hundred workers.  The ice field was plowed and scraped free of snow.  The ice was cut into large squares and floated through a channel to where a beltway carried it to the large icehouses.  These were three stories and the elevator carried the ice past open doorways where men with spikes pulled the ice inside.  When the first layer was filled, straw was put on it and the elevator carried the blocks on up to the next story until the icehouse was filled.  In the summer freight cars were loaded with the ice and sent to cities.  I was at the icehouse often and all the regular workers called me “Billy.”
Later, when I was twelve, my Father was sent to Logansport to operate the Maxinkuckee Ice Co.  This was after he and Uncle Will had sold their grocery.  My Father hired me to empty the boxes and count the tickets from the ice delivery trucks.  I was paid the large sum of $5.00 every two weeks.  Then my Father took me to the bank to open a checking account in my own name.  Thus I learned to think about saving and spending wisely.