Click herHELLO AND WELCOME TO MY LIFE IN ART  CREATIONS BY ALEETA RACHEL SLEYSTER HALL /LONG

I MADE THE NEWSPAPER'S FRONT PAGE HEADLINES IN THE FIRST DAYS OF MY NEWBORN LIFE ON THIS EARTH....

THE HEADLINES ACROSS THE FRONT OT THE KANSAS CITY STAR, NEWSPAPER OF KANSAS CITY MISSOURI READ

"GIVE ME BACK MY BABY"...... These were the words of Helen Uman, a young 19 year old new mother in General Hospital of Kansas City,Missori.  
The problem arose when Dr. Webster delivered 2 babies, 5 minutes apart and the nurses confused the babies in the basinets.  One 43 year old mother , Odell Sleyster was listed as having a little girl, and the 19 year old mother , Helen Uman
was listed as having a baby boy.   Had the sexes been the same, the babies would never have been switched back to the other mothers.

Both mothers breast fed their babies, and thought they had the right babies,.Then  the nurses caught the sex error on the charts with the evidence in the diaper changes  and switched the babies back to where the medical charts filled out at the time of deliveriy stated, where they belonged.
General Hospital  did not tag the babies back when born with any kind of identification. 
And sadly to say, they did noty have DNA testing then either.
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My earliest memories are of my Mother's death, and the chaos that followed.
The neighbors wanted us 3 youngest siblings put in an ophanage.  They were taking up a petiton to do so, when the childless neighbors behind us, ,moved the 3 of us in thier tiny 2 bedroom home.  They got foster papers on us , and my natural father paid support on us until we were married.

One of my first miniature paintings that I ever created was of my sister and I on Easter Sunday , about a month after our Mother's death. I have painted several over the years as commissions, and tell the following story behind the creaion of "SISTERS".



SISTERS MINIATURE PAINTING 2 BY 3 INCHES AND THE STORY BEHIND WHY THEY WERE CREATED TO MAKE THE ART MORE INTERESTING AND VALUABLE AS A COLLECTOR'S ITEM.
This last painting shown above , was one of  my first little paintings...I created to sell on ebay.
I was forced by UPS shipping service out of business, { because they kept destroying my large art furniture painting, and then would refuse to pay for the insurance.}...
When I started to have a following on ebay,  I wanted the purchasers  of my tiny art  to know a little about me as a person. Typed personal  stories behind the paintings were added on  the ebay  These stories revolved around my memories or Parkville, Missouri where I was raised as a child.

All of the paintings that are shown above depict my   sister and I on Easter Sunday  in 1947 ...This was around month after our Mother had died. We lived  in a foster home.  We wore new clothes and Easter bonnets for the first time in our lives..
. In preparation for the Holiday, we had our hair rolled in rag curls the night before.  For those who do not know what a rag curl is, before commercial rollers, one would  take old sheets strips  and tie them at the base of the head...and wrap the hair around the one strip of sheet...then when you get to the bottom and run out of hair...you wind the other strip back to the base of the head... and tie a knot.. It iwas like sleeping on wet rocks... however by  the next day ..we both had Shirley Temple curls.. and we each wore a white carnation ..to symbolize the death of our Mother.
Click here to add text.When I first started selling tiny miniature paintings on ebay, I  painted one that depicted my sister , Dorothy and I feeding our chickens.      We were ages 7 and 9 years old.  We had  the complete care of carrying and nuturing the chickens from their birth,  (from the bulk of tiny eggs, that came from the hatchery}, to collecting thier eggs, to their demise on butchering day whereby Dad and my brother chopped  off their heads on a old wooden stump.


On butchering day, there was a large old tin  washbucket full of boiling water, that  was heated over a homebuilt log fire, to the degree that bubbles and steam were coming out like a witches brew on a cold halloween day.
My foster mom , would hold them by their lifeless limp orange yellow colored scaled legs and forcefully dump  the headless white feathered  bodies  into a big old tin washbucket. After the feathers and skin were very hot, then it was up to my sister and I to pull out the feathters. and then spend more time removing the tiny pin feathers.

My mom would gut the now still bodies, being careful to not puncture the gall bladder,as she said, " for fear of turning the meat acidy tasting, 

My sister and I  loved these chickens, who depended on us  to carry buckets of water from the well to their chicken house, or as some farmers called it a coop.
At dusk ,we had  to shoo the chickens in the house at night to roost, for their safety from foxes, wolves, wild dogs , or anything that would have had them for their midnight feast. 
About once a month we had to go out and scrape off the chicken doo from the broomstick roosts, and shovel out the hay and straw.  Then we would scrup down everything with Clorox with hand brushes.
After several rinses of fresh well drawn water , we lay down fresh straw on the old wooden floors. We would then   open the side windows,  to dry the place up, before it would be needed again, that evening.
A few years back, I went back to see the homeplace that my Dad and Brother had built.  It had not changed much, except for the new roof.
The now defunct chicken house across the bridge over the creek was still there too, nestled beneath the tall walnut trees.
PARKVILLE, MISSOURI, LINE CREEK NORTH KANSAS CITY , MISSOURI
THE FOLLOWING STORY IS ABOUT THE , PAINTING THAT YOU SEE BELOW, THAT  I  AM DEPICTING FROM ONE OF MY CHILDHOOD MEMORIES IN MY NEW PAINTINGS OF MY LIFE SERIES.
THIS ONE IS TITLED," SWIMMING AFTER SCHOOL IN LINE CREEK POOL".
WHEN WE FIRST MOVED TO PARKVILLE, MISSOURI, WE ATTENDED A 2 ROOM SCHOOLHOUSE WITH A COAL FURNACE FOR HEAT, A WATER COOLER FOR DRINKING, AND 2 OUTSHEDS WITH HOLES IN THE GROUND FOR BATHROOM DUTIES. WE WALKED SEVERAL MILES TO AND FROM SCHOOL EACH DAY. 
ONE SPRING DAY BEFORE SCHOOL WAS OUT,MY SISTER , DOROTHY, MY BROTHER VERNON, CHARLIE, DONALD AND SOME OTHER CLASSMATES WERE ALL TAKING A SHORTCUT THROUGH  THE WOODS,  INSTEAD OF TAKING THE LONG ROAD BACK HOME, AND WE DISCOVERED THIS SPRING FED , LARGE , POOL OF WATER WHERE THE CREEK WAS DAMMED UP WITH ROCKS.  
IT WAS ONE OF THOSE HOT SWEATY DAYS, AND IT STARTED OUT WITH ALL OF US, JUST WADING INTO THE WATER'S EDGE.  THEN WE WERE ALL IN THE POOL, SOME OF US FULLY CLOTHED FROLLICKING IN THE WATER