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Nancy Hernandez |
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| Woman won sports honors |
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| By Sean Galloway, Community Media center |
Friday, October 09, 2009 |
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Helen Dickens has lived in Carroll County her entire life and claims to have loved every minute of it. The 10th child of 11 siblings, Dickens says she’s an expert when it comes to remembering the good times she and her family had.
“I could write a book,” Dickens said with a smile on her face. “We just had lots of fun.”
Helen was born outside Manchester in Miller’s Station in 1934. She recalls life on the family farm and the heavy-duty chores that came with the lifestyle.
“We lived on a big farm. We had to milk cows twice a day and worked in the field after we got out of school. But it was a good time,” she said.
Dickens said she and her siblings never had good toys growing up, not even a bicycle, so they often resorted to their imaginations for fun.
“We played a game called tin can turkey lurkey. We’d put a block of wood up and set a tin can on it. Then we’d take a stick and whack it as far as we could, then we’d all go run and hide. The last person found had to go and get the can.”
The end of the game was a prank that always fell on the youngest person playing.
“Every night just before we were done, we’d get the youngest kid to get the can,” Dickens said. “They would think we were hiding, but we were really sitting in the house.”
Helen was quite the athlete in Carroll County, winning many honors and getting much gratification for her softball skills.
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“We got a team together to play the Lutheran church women, and that was a riot. When I hit, I just cleaned the bases. I’d try to pass them all on my way to home. It was hilarious,” she said.
But not every softball story Dickens told ended with her being the hero of the game.
“I was pitching one time, and I bent down to grab the ball after a hit and the ball went down my shirt. Everybody roared; oh, my, it was funny. They still talk about it,” she said.
Video
To watch a streaming video of Helen Dickens’ interview, visit www. carrollcounty.tv/cmc.
The Carroll County History Project is an initiative to document the history of the county and the memories of its residents.
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