Keith Tillotson
Harlan, Iowa (1918)
The earliest memory – which is pretty not much of a memory – I remember falling down the stairs. There was a big celebration goin' on, which was the end of World War One. [It was 1918], and I was a year old. Falling down the stairs, and all this commotion going on. That's all I can remember – I fell down the stairs.
Then the next memory I have is being on a train and going through – you know, like you go through a hill and you've got a cut that they put the train through. I remember going through places like that, and we ended up in Fort Morgan, Colorado. Dad got a job building a – I suppose it was bridge. Cause they were making big cement abutments. We lived in a little – actually, it was like a one-story thing. Looked like it had horse stalls in it. And we lived in one stall, and all the workers – everybody had a stall for their family. It was about the size you could put two horses in. That's what a stall is – for two horses. That's where we lived. I guess we had something to lay on, I suppose. I was three years old.
I remember a big fat lady who used to feed me candy. I liked her. And we had to go across the big Platte River. Shallow but wide river – pretty wide. And, to go to the bathroom – this is for the workmen who are building the bridge across here – there was a little island out here in the middle. They had a little footbridge out there, and you could go out there and go to the bathroom. And when I smell – sometimes I've had it happen to me – oh, boy, that smells just like that. I can remember that smell. You had to pick a spot, you know.
The men, a lot of them were doin' fishing out there. They'd walk out in the water and fish. That's where Kenneth started the first grade. That's about all I remember about that.
Kenneth, Keith and Edith. The only existing photograph of Keith as a child.