Born in 1934, Ruthie Jordan grew up in the cabin that would one day comprise the main building of the Sedona Heritage Museum, living for much of that time with running water but no flush toilet.

“I remember a lot of work, a lot of fun, but the fun was always related to what we found around here,” Jordan said to the audience that had come to hear her address, “Kids on the Farm” — the museum’s last Living History presentation of the spring season, Wednesday, April 8.

“Where did we play?” she asked. “In the dirt, of course. That’s all there was, and we loved that red dirt.”

The audience — seated in the Apple Barn; the same barn that Jordan recalled being so happy to see built in the 1940s — laughed at Jordan’s good humor about what was, by her own account, a labor-intensive youth. From the time she was a small child, Jordan worked the family orchard.

She remembered being relegated to weeding the carrot patch by her father when she had the audacity, or simply the hunger, to come back with a nearly empty basket of strawberries.

“Well, he knew of course I’d eaten them all,” Jordan said to another round of laughter. “I don’t remember ever getting to pick strawberries again.”

To read the full story, see the Friday, April 10, edition of the Sedona Red Rock News.