NEIGHBORS: Nola Holtsclaw penned her life story in memoir

Nola and Charley Holtsclaw posed on their farm with their three young sons, Charles, Eugene and Lester.

Submitted photo Years later, when Nola (above) was 98-years-old and Charley, Charles and Eugene had passed away, another Charley came into her life -- her great-grandson, Charles "Little Charley" Holtsclaw.

Nola Holtsclaw passed away March 16, and her family has graciously allowed the Greene County Daily World to publish this story with information provided from her memoir.

Nola Holtsclaw was a teacher who had a birthday party last November to celebrate 98 years of life -- a long life, a good life, but not always an easy life.

She was a Greene County farm girl, born east of Solsberry in Beech Creek Township on Nov. 17, 1910.

At the age of 89, she penned a memoir of her life -- including the days of happiness, and the days of heartache.

She wrote about sleeping in a trundle bed as a youngster and what a great treat it was to get to play with tinker toys.

She remembered seeing her first car in Solsberry, the huckster wagon from Yoho's Store that came by to sell groceries, having a telephone on a "party line" and the gypsies.

"In those days we had gypsies and tramps come through the neighborhood. Neighbors would alert neighbors that they were coming and then mother would lock the house with us inside," she wrote.

When she got to go to the Hannum School with her older brother, Lloyd, she wrote on a slate and rarely missed a day.

"During the winter of 1917-18, we had 46 days with snow on the ground and enormous drifts over the fences. I remember Uncle Dexter taking us to school in a sleigh," said Nola.

They didn't have a lot and life got even harder one day when Lloyd woke up and was unable to walk -- he had the (rheumatic) fever. Other sisters were born after Nola, but Lloyd was the only son. Nola, being the next oldest, had to step up.

"When I was 7-years-old, Dad put me to following him planting corn to cover any grains that the planter didn't cover and to turn the marker. I walked many, many miles behind that planter," Nola wrote.

Nola, Lloyd and her little sisters worked hard -- they picked blackberries and sold them for 10 cents a gallon. They carried sap to make maple syrup. They fed pigs and herded cows, cut weeds from the corn crop, harvested beans and potatoes, raised turkeys, made jelly, sold eggs, fished and hunted frogs. They also trapped muskrats and mink -- the money from the pelts sent Lloyd through Indiana University.

By the time Nola graduated from Solsberry, Lloyd was a teacher and paid for Nola to go to IU to also become a teacher.

"I got my first job teaching at Hobbieville which was a walk through the fields of about three miles one way. When it became cold enough for a fire, I carried kindling with me on Monday morning to start the fire and then banked the fire the rest of the week. I was paid $5 a day," she wrote.

She taught there two years, then one year at Cincinnati where she had 48 children in one room. She also taught at the Bodwell School and Sandborn School.

In 1937, Uncle Otis asked if she'd be interested in a date with a nice man. Soon after, Charley Holtsclaw came calling -- on top of a mule.

In 1939-40, she didn't have a teaching job so she took a job caring for the children and home of Mrs. Edith Sims, the Bloomfield News editor. She got Sunday afternoons off and spent them with Charley.

In 1941, Nola started teaching second grade at Switz City. On Thanksgiving Day, she and Charley were married. Nola was 31. Charley was 40 and farmed ground in the White River Valley where they set up housekeeping.

Nola had dreamed of a career as a teacher, but after their first son, Charles, was born in 1942, she became a full-time farm wife and mother. Eugene was born in 1945 -- the same year they got electricity. Lester came along in 1946.

In 1955, Nola's heart was broken when Eugene died, but she carried on.

Nola's strength was put to the test many more times, but through it all, she kept busy with farm and family -- and a big garden plus a constant stream of visitors who just wanted to sit a spell and visit.

Charley's medical problems started in the 1980s. He went in for surgery in 1989, had a stroke while there and was never able to talk to Nola again. She was with him nearly every day in the nursing home and fed him his dinner.

"I thought he knew me but he couldn't talk," said Nola. "He lived for us to be married 50 years."

He died in 1992 and Nola carried on in the family farming operation with her sons, Charles and Lester.

As late as 1999, she started something new -- gathering persimmons, making pulp, and handing out over 200 packages a year.

Late in 2007, Nola heard a crash out on the highway -- son Charles lost his life when he was driving a tractor and was struck by a truck.

Again, she carried on but by this time, the family had grown to include Charles's wife, three grandsons, Rex, Boyd and Byron Holtsclaw and their wives, plus great-grandchildren.

Nola gave up a career in the classroom for something that was, to her, of greater value -- family.

In the memoir she left for her family, she hinted at the source of her strength.

"I have made many trips out to the back of the hen house to cry during our troubles, and talk to God."

As the sun was going down on March 16, 2009, Nola passed away quietly on the family farm where she and Charlie set up housekeeping over 65 years ago and where Nola was always a teacher.