Barb Colleary with her daughter, Barb

Grassy lawns eventually replaced muddy yards, to the delight of Barb Colleary and her daughter.

Barb: Oh that red mud. Oh [emphatic] the mud. Everything was dyed red. The children immediately of course went out and fell in it. Didn’t take them more than a minute. Of course, we didn’t have steps at the front at that time we only had steps at the back but we didn’t have the front ones on. Both Kathleen and Maeve were at school. … we had a big plank down the front [where the steps would have been] and Barbara the little one, decided she wanted to go outside and play and it was rotten weather so it took me about half an hour to get enough clothes on her to get out there. She put her foot on the plank and of course immediately fell down and rolled in the mud, balled her head off, came back in and we started all over again. In those days I didn’t have a dryer either, it got to the stage where those suits they wore, we didn’t have those nice nylon things that dry in a moment, they had the leggings that had the straps over and then the coat. I got so I just used to dry them downstairs by the furnace and just bang them against the wall to get the dust out of them. [laughter]