2. Their mother? How do they think of her? What do they hate? Love? What influence - literal or imagined - did the mother have?
He loves his ma. I honestly don’t think there’s a single thing he doesn’t like about her - she was like the fairytale mother that’s perfect, just so that it’s all the worse when she dies and the horrible step-mum comes along. When he was wee, he was incredibly high-maintenance - as a baby always needing to be held before he would sleep, and for a while growing up at least needing someone in the room with him. Plenty of times it was Dell, but more so it was their ma. Dad Willy didn’t avoid the task but being that day and age, Irene was more often dealing with that kind of thing. It was definitely her influence that brought out and nurtured the kindness in him, and the understanding (except for when it comes to Adele’s boyfriends).
7. What was the economic status of their family?
Lower class, pretty much, as was the general way of things back then. A lot of what they ate they had to grow or raise themselves, they wore their clothes until every piece was falling apart. They went through a particularly hard patch when Willy was seriously injured at a rodeo, and because the boys were still very young at the time they couldn’t just take over all of their father’s jobs. They grew up fast though, especially as the incident left Willy unable to walk without the aid of a cane, and went back to comfortable living, perhaps slightly more than the average rancher, because they bred some very good horses, and supplied both yearlings and stud services - Willy had made a bit of a name for himself at rodeos before the incident, and had a few stallions that people were willing to pay good money for a colt out of. So while very frugal, they were able to splash out occasionally and did so on birthdays and at Christmas.