Holmes - Maternal Uncle, Robert Wall

After Robert and Martha were born at St. Vincent Hospital, Kansas City, Missouri, the family was forced to move to a farm near Richmond and then Millville after the closing of the Sheffield Steel Mill, where Stuart Wall worked as an electrician.

The home in Millville had no plumbing, heat or lights, but it did have an outhouse. Water was pumped by hand from a well, which was one of the best in the area until our black and white kitten went missing, and the neighbors who used our well complained about the taste of the water.

Water was heated for cooking, canning and bathing on a big stove in the kitchen. The stove also heated the only room kept warm in the winter, the large kitchen. Lights were hand-carried lamps. The bedroom windows were open all night in the summer. Bricks were wrapped in paper, heated in the oven and placed in the beds to warm the bedding. They were removed before entering the bed. Robert and Martha shared a bed. The door to the kitchen was left open to the bedrooms during the night, which helped, but by early morning the entire house was COLD. Allie Wall started a new fire in the stove in the morning with which to cook breakfast and warm the kitchen.

After living in Millville for about two years, the family moved to California in 1935 or 1936.