Now there were eight children at home. Hubert’s business was going well, so he added a "front room" to the house. It was separated from the original part of the house by a wide covered porch, like a "breezeway", and had a wide porch all around it. It was a large room with a door in each end and two windows on the front, a nice and much needed addition.
As this room was being added, two special events were being planned. Maud was expecting her ninth child, and their first child, Elva, was planning to be married. Elva and Earl Stuart were married in that new front room October 25, 1919. Mildred Ward Reed (Earl’s niece, daughter of Rosa Stuart Ward) remembers that Maud was a little sad to be losing her first child to marriage, but said that it was a good thing she was marrying, that Elva hadn’t done anything while Earl was in France in World War I but "sit around and cry." Well, she undoubtedly didn’t mean it literally. Elva was in some ways like having another mother in the house. Cleston remembers that Elva dressed him for the wedding in a "little white suit." I’m sure that Elva’s presence and the work she did to help was missed.
Clelan Eugene was born December 6, 1919. Raymond Clinton was born May 2, 1922 (called Raymond, the first boy not to be called by a "Cl" name.) Their last child, Thomas Hoyle (what, no "Cl" name!?) was born December 27, 1924. Clee married Opal Collard January 24, 1921 and Cloyse married Alta Bell January 1, 1924, so by the end of 1924 there were seven children still at home. Clyde was not married yet, but left to go to St. Louis to work.
Myrtle and Lorene were old enough to be helpful, but there was a tremendous amount of work to make a home for the family, including five little boys from newborn to nine years old. As the boys got older they too did hard physical labor at the mill and on the farm. Can you imagine the food that had to be produced and prepared?