Ulmer Ancestry

Short, True Stories - of the Ulmer brothers

(These stories were previously placed on the Ulmer forum, before it was removed)

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"Race Car Driver"
This first one is a true story, written by my younger brother, Gerald. I, Ron, was 11, and Larry was 14 at the time this happen.

When I was about seven or so, Larry and Ronnie came up with the crazy idea that they could build themselves a go-cart. It wasn't anything but a board with wheels and an old gas washing machine motor fastened to the back of it. (Small gas engines once powered Washing machines. Just about everyone had one of those old motors stashed somewhere).

The only way a person could steer the contraption was with their feet and with a rope tied to either end of the front axle. Anyhow, the thing had no clutch; it was direct drive to the rear wheels by an automobile's fan belt. The way they planned to start it was by pushing while someone drove. There was one major problem to this theory, the cart was geared too high so they couldn't get it moving fast enough to pull either of them as drivers. They were too heavy!

Ronnie would push Larry and then Larry would push Ronnie and the results were always the same. They couldn't achieve a fast enough speed to let the motor unwind enough to reach full power. It just turned fast enough to make a "pop, popping" noise, but wouldn't keep going. Nether of the boys were strong enough to push it alone and achieve a speed that allowed the motor take over. Solution!; Get someone else to drive it while they both pushed. Someone light enough to allow the motor to unwind and achieve full power. And, someone stupid enough to get on the thing! They needed a little brother like me!

I was too young to realize that they had the motor's carburetor wired wide open, it had no brakes, and that the hi-way we were on had no place to turn around for about two miles! I was just thrilled to be part of this project at last, where as before they wouldn't even let me near their contraption.

So, I climbed on and they began pushing. Steering it with my feet and that rope. The cart and me headed south, and out of town, as my brothers pushed for all they were worth.

The motor began it's familiar "pop, pop", as the cart began to gather speed, but this time, the cart was moving fast enough that the motor began to take over the job of pushing as it began to unwind.

Faster and faster the cart and I traveled. So fast that Larry and Ronnie could no longer keep up and began to fall far behind. It seemed to me at the time, that cart would never stop gaining speed. That motor was really purring now! The hi-way flew under my rear! The wind in my face, the road flying by, Oh what a thrill!

Just when my joy was at its peak, it dawned on me that I was all alone out there on that hi-way, and my home and family were falling fast behind! I looked for a place to turn around but there was none! I knew this road well from so many trips to school on the bus and there was no place that I would be able to turn around at this speed!

It was about this time that I also discovered that there were no brakes on the thing! My brothers had failed to tell me how I was supposed to stop when needed, and I had failed to ask. At the time, we were all consumed with the thought of how to make it go, not stop!

So now, I did the only thing I could do at the time, I began dragging my feet against the blacktop road! Smoke began to boil from the heel of my shoes, but I was desperate, so I kept on dragging.

At last, the damn thing began to slow and I gained control of it! Finally, it stopped and I gave a sigh of relief! But, the strange thing was, the cart's motor kept racing on while it's power belt was doing a little smoking of it's own! As the motor's pulley kept turning the friction between it and the fan belt was beginning to cause a lot of heat and the belt was melting away; blue smoke streaming from it! But, I kept my feet planted so that crazy contraption wouldn't run away with me again!

I was at least a half a mile from town so it took my brothers a while to reach me. Larry was the first to arrive on the scene. He was jumping around, and cursing, all the while yelling at me to turn off the motor because it was ruining his new fan belt! He was neglecting the fact that he had never showed me how to do that. And besides, if I had gotten up from my seat to go to the rear of the cart to shut down the motor, it would have continued its journey on its own with no one driving it! (At least until it crashed!)

As Larry shut the motor off himself I decided that I was done with that project and got up to began walking back to town. But something was wrong with my gait, my shoes didn't feel quite right!

Looking down to ascertain what the problem was, I noticed that the heels of my shoes had been ground off to a nice forty-five degree angle. That was why my walk was so off balance. That didn't make me happy, but what really ruined my day was when I realized that those same shoes were my new shoes; the same ones that my mother had bought only days before for me to wear to school!

She had told me, "Under no circumstances are you to wear them for every day!" Well, there was three spankings given that day! I'll let you guess the names of the boys that received them.

___Gerald Ulmer

"The Pee Pot"
(One of my favorites)

My grandparents, on my mother's side of the family, owned several stores in the small town of Nelson, Missouri. They had the complete section of buildings that were all joined together in what was the downtown section of this small town of around 500 people in the late 1950s and 60s. The only buildings that my grandfather did not have on the block was a Post Office, and an empty one, that for a while someone had tried to run a cafe in for a short spell.

They had the grocery store, next was grandpa's hardware store, next the Post Office, then the cafe (which later became Grandpa's used furniture store), and
then Grandpa had a feed store. Grandma and Grandpa ran these stores mostly by themselves. If someone wanted something from one of the other stores, one of them would walk down to that section of their business and unlock the door and sell them what they wanted.

Their living quarters was at the back of the main store. It was the "Nelson Cash & Carry" and people from some distance around Nelson came to the store for their needs.

My older brother and I would spent most of our summer vacations with these grandparents. My younger brothers and my sister were to young for my very
busy grandparents to watch close. They opened the store around 6:30 most mornings and didn't close until late at night. Locals used the store to have card
games, and to catch up on the local news. They'd also sit for hours on the "log" benches at the front of the store and visit every night. If it was cold they'd gather around the large pot-bellied coal stove that grandpa used to heat this large brick building.

The building had a large section at the front, maybe 100 feet long by 40 feet wide. This was the grocery store area. In the back were two rooms, Grandma's kitchen, and their bedroom. This was a two story building and the upstairs was laid out just like the downstairs. A long stairwell, running from the front of the store end, through a door, took you up toward the back and joined the two floors. The stairs had a landing about halfway up it's distance, and then it continued on up to the next floor. This stairway was about 6 feet or so wide.

The large area in the upstairs contained boxes (most of them empty), some used old furniture, old shopping carts, and some old signs that a store might have use for. The back two rooms of the upstairs Grandma had turned into bedrooms. This was where family guest stayed when visiting. Larry, and I, also used one of the bedrooms during our summer stays.

There was no bathroom or running water in any of the buildings. Out back of the store was a large chicken lot where Grandma kept hundreds of chickens and a few ducks. This is where the outhouse was at.

One very hot summer when I was about 10 years old, my older brother and I were staying with these grandparents. Grandma was cooking the noon meal. She stopped us, my brother and I, as we came through the kitchen. "You boys get upstairs and empty that pot!", She told us. What she was talking about was a large porcelain pot that we used to pee in at night. It was a long way downstairs, and then to the back of the store and out of building to go outside to pee at night. So, we used this pot. Being kids, we never bothered to worry about emptying it. And it had been sometime since we had! It was full to the brim and would hold no more. We had just sit the lid on it and kind of ignored it. It was a very hot time of the year and this stuff was getting extra strong smelling. Grandma had been upstairs to change the bedding for us and had discovered our stinking pot. She wanted us to take care of the problem. We slowly headed upstairs to the dreaded deed.

When we open the lid, the smell about knocked us down! I was choking for air, and we quickly returned the lid to the pot! "Man we can't take this thing down through the store and out back. There's customers in the store and it stinks too bad!", my older brother said. It was so full that we figured we'd spill a lot of it. We decided to pour it out the window down into Grandma's chicken yard. The problem was, Grandma was in the kitchen and she would surely hear the loud splash as it hit the ground from so high up. So we decided to slowly pour the stuff down the brick wall. That way it would not splash and make a noise that Grandma would hear. She'll never know!

After holding our breath and taking care of this awful job we were in good shape, and ready to see what Grandma was cooking us for dinner. We kind of "be-bopped" down the long stairs, without a care in the world. We were happy to know that pot would now hold more pee later that night. It was hard to hold it, or pee out the darn window, for a boy when he was half asleep. We needed that pot!

We walked from the front of the store to the back and swung open the door to the kitchen. There was that same stinking smell! And there stood Grandma! Her hair was wet, her dress was wet, and the apron she always loved to wear was soaked. She looked as if she was in shock! The table, dishes and all, she had sit for us was soaked and dripping. The wall behind us, which we had just came through the door of, was also soaked and stained. We looked beyond Grandma and saw the large fan she had always kept in the window; blowing in! We had completely forgotten about it! And the fact that we had poured the stuff slowly down the wall meant she was able to get the whole pot. We didn't waste any of it on them chickens out back!

Grandma, and us, just stood there looking at each other. The thought crossed my mind, "Well, there ain't gonna be no more summer vacations here! And we sure ain't getting any dinner from this kitchen! We probably won't have a Grandma after this one!"

Grandma, after what seemed to have been like a day passed, said; "What have you boys done?!". She almost started to laugh and begin to tell us about the young preacher that had for sometime been coming by and pressing her to come to the church, across the street. He also liked to show up about eating time to do this. This time the preacher was hanging around for his invitation to join her for dinner; standing there in his nice suit, pressing Grandma to come to church; enjoying the breeze from the large fan, when the boys upstairs were doing their chores!

Grandma said, that he never said another word. He just looked down at his soaking, stinking suit, and walked out! He wouldn't even take a towel to dry his face!

Ron Ulmer

Here is a photo of "Grandma and Grandpa" in their store. Notice Grandma is wearing that same old apron. (the other lady is my mother's sister, "Aunt Shirley".)

"The Jack in the Box"

Christmas, of the year 1959, I got my very own BB gun. I had only used my older brother's before then. My new gun was a Daisy rifle with a blonde colored plastic stock. It was a beauty! I was very proud of having my own gun. That Christmas day was a warm day for that time of year. I was glad that I could go outside and try out my new rifle.

Out in the yard was a large box. Why it was there, or what had came in it, I did not know. I thought it had probably held some Christmas stuff, and was now just trash. I went inside and got a crayon to draw a bull's-eye target on the box. I drew a real nice target on the box; I even had points for keeping score on the target. Now, I was ready to try my new gun out! I got back about twenty feet and fired my first shot.

Just as I heard the BB hit the box, the box top opened and up jumped my little brother, Gerald. He came out of the top as if he had a spring shooting him up! His back was to me and he was reaching over his shoulder swatting at his back. He'd swat one side, over his shoulder, then the other. He kept reaching farther down looking around toward his back each time. And then,...... he spotted me standing there with my new BB gun! He looked at the outside of the box he was standing in, saw the target, and looked back at me standing there with my BB gun.

He practically tore the side out of the box climbing out of it. He was like a little bull on the charge; and he was charging me! Before he got close, I took off around the house. We circled the house a couple times before I decided to hide in the old walkout basement area of the house. It was just a junk storage area, and it had an old door that was falling apart. I shoved the door shut just as I saw him pass by that end of the house again. He'd missed me! I stayed hid. But, when he came around the next time he got wise to where I was hiding. He tore the old door up getting in. By the time he got in I was crying, because I knew Mom was going to take my BB gun away. And he was crying because he was hurt, and mad! But we came to a truce, and he said he would not tell Mom I shot him, because he did not want me to lose the gun.

I have always been thankful that he was not facing the other way while sleeping in that box. I could have hit him in the eye. But, he and I still laugh, about the time he thought a bee stung him in that box. I can still see the look on his face when he saw that target, and me standing there with my BB gun!

Ron Ulmer