Martin and Eldora Trousil's youngest child, Merle, grew up to work on the railroad. You're reminded of that when you look across the road from our old place and see the lovely rustic fencing with the antique railroad tie accents inserted every so often. What you don't see is the mustard-yellow farmhouse. It's gone.Before there were Martin Trousils in that farmhouse, there were Frank Hochstetters. Frank got polio and we never saw them again, but before the dear family left, my big sister Becky Rolfsrud had an idea to surprise little Ruthie Hochstetter with a visit from the Easter Bunny. Somebody got into a homemade bunny costume and four or five of us kids trooped over there early Easter Sunday circa 1952. But we were too shy to make an actual appearance at the farmhouse door, so we left the Easter Basket, filled with eggs and goodies for Ruthie, on the top step, banged on the door and ran.
Peeking from the corner of the house we could see that, in all our excitement, we had left the handle of the basket blocking the door. Too late. The door swung open and Ruthie's goodies scattered helter-skelter all over her yard.
Mrs. Hochstetter scrambled to recover the eggs, calling out thank yous from her knees to the hidden donors. We were not only shy, but now too embarassed to acknowledge her.
We argued all the way home. I think the Easter Bunny got most of the blame.
