THELMA 

by Dorothy Burdett Fuerst

When Thelma was a baby two or three years old living in Ohio she got away from her mother, Nellie Belle Bryant Burdett, who was bathing her. She ran down the street stark naked. Her mother ran after her fearful that she would get into the street. The two old maids at the other end of the block were a couple of troublemakers, so made a big deal out of it.

Thelma was, as they say, cute as a little button. When Thelma was eight or nine years old her father told her to fill the tank in the gasoline cookstove. Now this stove, a three burner, had a long pipe extending above one corner. As Thelma was filling the stove tank some gasoline splashed onto one of the burners that still had some fire in the pipe below. The fire flared up burning Thelma’s arm. She dropped the gasoline, and it rolled across the room spreading fire as it went

This happened in the little green house. The bedroom was across from the kitchen with no door or wall to separate them. Thelma’s mother and father were sitting on the bed deep in conversation. Her mother handed Thelma’s father a blanket and said, "You put Thelma out while I put the fire in the house out." William, Thelma’s father, put the blanket over Thelma’s arm, pulling the burned skin off. Her mother, Nellie, knew what to do for burns. She made a concoction from linseed oil and snake oil that she used on Thelma’s arm.

The next day at school Thelma with her arm bandaged approached a girl. "Keep away." The girl screamed. "It might be contagious." "Ha!" exclaimed Thelma’s sister, Dorothy. "Who ever heard of a burn being contagious?"

When Thelma and her sister, Edna, jumped off the back of a truck two boys on a motorcycle hit both of them. Thelma received a concussion and a broken shoulder. Edna got her ear cut into. Their father blamed Edna, but Thelma said it was her idea to play on the truck.

As teenagers the Burdett girls got babysitting jobs or housekeeping jobs for extra money. Thelma got a housekeeping job, and while washing dishes the lady of the house was gone and the husband propositioned Thelma. Her mother said to come home now. Thelma spent a lot of time helping her sister, Mildred, in the dry cleaning shop.

CHAPTER TWO

Edna, Dorothy and Thelma spent a lot of time swimming at Sulphur Springs swimming pool. Then Edna got married. She had been going with Frank Maxon. Then Thelma began going with him. Frank was more Thelma’s age, and he wanted to marry her. Thelma’s older sister, Dorothy, went with Frank’s older brother, Earl. Dorothy went with Freddie Webster, so Thelma went with his brother, George. They double dated a lot. Dorothy went with Monroe. Thelma went with his friend, Elton DuBose. Elton had polio as a child, so he was on crutches.

After Edna married Paul DuBose (Elton DuBose was Paul’s cousin) Thelma and Dorothy got bored. Since Dorothy had a steady job she told Thelma, "Let’s take dancing lessons at Sulphur Springs. I’ll pay your way." The dancing lessons were $5 each for the entire course.

A good looking boy named Raymond Simpson fell for Thelma, but he was such a poor dancer that Thelma ignored him. When Thelma and Dorothy sat on the sidelines Thelma refused Raymond (they called him Ray) when he asked her to dance. A fat Spanish boy also fell for Thelma. This boy smelled to high heaven of garlic. When he asked Thelma to dance she would say, "I have this dance with Ray." Thelma was forced to spend a lot of time dancing with Ray, as Old Garlic Breath wasn’t easily discouraged. (Dorothy spent a lot of time dancing with some boy whose name I don’t remember).

Ray asked Thelma for a date, but she turned him down. Dorothy said, "He’s a nice boy. If you don’t want him I’ll take him." That sure got Thelma’s attention, so she made a date with him. Ray was clean looking all the time. He would come by the house in work clothes and tell Thelma he was going home to clean up, and he would be back an hour later. He looked like he had just gotten out of the bath tub. It was usually two hours later. Thelma was singing, "He’s waiting for me." It had been two hours since he had left to go home to clean up. Dorothy said, "It looks like you are waiting for him." Thelma said, "The whelp!" but she still waited; something she didn’t do for the other boys. Dorothy said, "Oh! Oh! It looks like you fell for him hard."

Thelma and Ray decided to get married, and they were going to get married at Thelma’s home. One day they asked Dorothy to go to Brooksville with them. Frank Fuerst, Dorothy and Bud Burdett went to Brooksville. Ray kept riding around, and Dorothy wanted to know what he was looking for, but they didn’t tell her. Finally Ray stopped at a house, and a preacher came out and married Thelma and Ray. Dorothy said, "Mother is sure going to be mad." Thelma said, "She invited everybody in town to our wedding and had two more weeks to invite."

Ray was so nervous Dorothy wondered what would have happened if he got married with a big crowd watching. They wanted Dorothy and Frank to get married with them. Dorothy said, "I’m not ready to get married yet, and besides, Mother IS going to be at my wedding." Their mother was really mad when she learned that Thelma and Ray got married.

Thelma got pregnant really soon, and boy was she sick. She was sick the whole nine months. The baby was born April 1, 1936. Ray had gone to work that morning. One hour later Billie called to tell him to come home as Thelma had had a baby boy. "What kind of April Fool joke is this?" he asked. When he got home Thelma was in bed, but Ray thought the baby was Billie’s as she lived next door. Billie’s baby was born December 13, 1934, so was too big to be a newborn. Ray soon accepted the fact that the baby was theirs. All of Thelma’s children kept her sick the entire nine months; then she would have the baby in one hour. They are Harvey, Theron (they called him Glen later), Janet and Clifford.

CHAPTER THREE

Ray was always telling jokes on himself. He said one night that he was at a party. He reached down and pulled up his sock. A girl sitting next to him looked indignant as if that was so ill mannered. Ray said, "I’d better be careful. I might pull it out of my shoe." Another time he said he heard someone out messing with his car. He said he got out of bed, dropped one shoe, turned on the light, dropped the other shoe. "I’d rather be a live coward than a dead hero," he said. That was Ray. Everybody liked him, Once Isabelle said, "I just love Ray and Frank (Fuerst). I wish I could have married both of them."

Clifford died when he was only a year old. The baby got the flu. The next year Ray died.. Ray had gone in business with a man who turned out to be a real crook. They moved to Dade City. Ray was very unhappy. One day he became very sick. When he came home he died of a heart attack. All of the family was so fond of Ray that they were very upset over his death.

Some neighbors told Thelma that she would have to adopt her children out as she couldn’t possibly raise them by herself. Thelma said, "I’m not going to adopt my children out. I can sure try to raise them by myself." She did raise Harvey, Glen and Janet by herself, and she did a real good job as she has three really fine children. Thelma waited until Janet, her youngest child, was twenty-one before she dated. She married Bob…but later she divorced him.

(Eventually) Thelma sold her house and moved into a (double wide) trailer next to her daughter, Janet, where she still lives.

THE END