Mrs. Blashsky's house was next door north (left in this photo) and shared this side garden. This area was actually a city lot -- Blashskys owned half and the Slacks owned the other half. This was a common real estate deal because the city lots were only 25 feet wide. An empty lot between homes gave some open space. It was cared for as a common area by both neighbors. Elisabeth and Mrs. Blashsky kept it as a lovely garden on the back half, and a lawn on the front half. The complete yard arrangements are sketched below:

The name Mayma came later from her grandchildren, who couldn't say Grandma. Not long after these pictures were taken Agnes married Dot's brother Herbert. Mayma became another grandma to Dot's five children. You can see in these pictures that she is very young looking, foretelling that she would live to almost 100 years old. During World War II she worked as a nurse's aid in a hospital in El Paso, Texas, where Agnes, Bert and their four girls had moved when Bert (a civil engineer) was transferred to supervise building of a prison. Mama was in her late 70's then. When Agnes and Bert moved back to Illinois Mayma went with them. She went to work in a nursing home "taking care of all those poor old people." Mayma, in her 80's then, was older than many of her patients.

When Mayma was a small child her parents took her out West in a covered wagon. Her father knew Buffalo Bill and Kit Carson. Once, the Indians were raiding and burning homes. Mayma's father refused to let the Indians scare him. The Indians sat down and smoked the peace pipe with him. They gave him the pipe and a blanket. Mayma still had them. This was all later written up in the newspaper.