As the second World War drew to a close, my
husband and I were married. Being married to a serviceman allowed my children
and me to travel overseas to his duty stations.
When we arrived in southern Italy, scars of the bombing there
were very visible. Americans were not especially welcome at that particular
time.
We lived a few blocks from the NATO
Command. Our young children and I would walk to the military facility for some
of our needs. We would pass the ground-level apartment of an Italian family;
the kitchen door was almost always open.
Several weeks before Easter, we saw
a lamb being raised behind the kitchen stove, which was directly in line with
the open door. The floor of the apartment was earth.
The lamb grew larger each passing week.
The week after Easter, instead of
seeing the lamb behind the stove we saw the sheepskin nailed on the outside of
the house drying. We imagined the family enjoyed the fatted lamb for Easter
dinner.
This was a little difficult to
explain to our small children.
Helen L. Bean
Wayne, Nebraska
Back in 1955 a call
went out from the editors of the then Capper’s
Weekly asking for readers to send
in articles on true pioneers. Hundreds of letters came pouring in from early
settlers and their children, many now in their 80s and 90s, and from
grandchildren of settlers, all with tales to tell. So many articles were
received that a decision was made to create a book, and in 1956, the first My
Folks title – My Folks Came in a
Covered Wagon – hit the shelves. Nine
other books have since been published in the My Folks series, all filled to the brim with true tales from Capper’s readers, and we are proud to
make those stories available to our growing online community.
