Helen was named after her Grandmother, Helen Jondle. Perhaps because of that, Helen Jondle showed more attention toward her namesake. Like Pauline and Jim, my sister Helen told me stories about visiting Grandpa and Grandma at their farm northeast east of Clare.
Helen repeated what Jim and Pauline had said, that they were not allowed in the living room. But one time Grandma took young Helen into the living room to show her a wooden dollhouse that the elder Helen had put together.
I asked my sister Helen if this was a dollhouse that Betty might have played with when she was a girl. She said no, she thought that Grandma Jondle had made it after Betty had married and moved out of the Jondle house. She said that it had wallpaper on the walls and tiny furniture. Something Helen thought was funny: while Grandpa and Grandma’s real house did not have an indoor bathroom (like a lot of farmhouses it had an outhouse) the doll house had a toilet and to make it look realistic Grandma put a raisin in it.
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