MORE LIFE ON THE FARM

Farm life was never easy, but as children, we knew no other way of living. Before we were of school age we drove horses and wagons and pitched in doing all kinds of related farm work. We had no power tools or anything like a front end loader. Everything was loaded or unloaded by hand with a fork or shovel.

Cows had to be milked by hand, twice a day, at five thirty AM and five thirty PM. Because there were no milking machines, we developed very strong arms and hands. After morning and evening milking the cream had to be separated from the milk, because it was the cream we had to haul to Essig to the creamery which was two miles away. There is would be made into butter. The separating was done by a Delavalle separator which required someone to turn the handle to make it work. This job usually fell to one of us boys. The trip to Essig which was usually made on Monday, Wednesday and Friday was shared by our neighbors, the Mecklinburgs and the Roloffs.

After the cows were milked we needed to feed all of the animals. We had as many as 16 or 18 cows, 4 horses and some calves. Our ten or fifteen hogs were fed with a mixture of milk and ground up oats. Having this many animals in an enclosed barn created a nice warm sanctuary. We were always involved with manual labor, feeding the animals and cleaning their stalls.

THRESHING OF GRAIN

When threshing time rolled around it meant a lot of hard work, usually in the hottest time of the year. It also meant that we boys were asked to help. Usually there was one man to a bundle team. A bundle team amounted to two horses and a hay wagon, and it had racks on the side to hold in the bundles. Willis and I were only 13 and 14 years old so we handled a team together. We were not quite big enough to make it a one man job. Neighbors, the Mecklinburgs and Rolloffs, brought bundle teams with some of their boys. We may have had as many as 5 or 6 teams and all would be out in the fields early in the morning to bring in the grain bundles to the threshing machine which usually was set up in the barnyard. There we usually built a large rack where the straw from the thresher would be blown by a fan in the machine. This formed a shelter for our animals during inclement weather.

The threshing machine was powered by a large steam engine which came onto our farm from its last job, pulling the threshing machine, a water wagon, and then a tool and supply wagon. It had a loud steam whistle and made a lot of noise when it arrived. It scared us when we were very young. This engine had to have a lot of water and wood burning logs to make steam to move this machine. The engine had a large pulley for a belt which ran to the threshing machine to make it operate. I remember the man who ran this project: his name was Jim Case from Essig.

At this time there were a lot of hungry mouths to feed. My mother, along with the neighbor women, would do all the cooking on a wood stove. She also had a kerosene-burning stove to help out. This meant lunch for all in the fields, with lots of drinking fluids around 10 AM, then dinner at 12 noon (we called the noon meal, dinner) and at 3:30 PM there was another lunch. It was at this time we boys were so happy with all the cakes and pies which were baked especially for the workers.

Usually threshing started at sunrise and continued until dark. While threshing was going on the wheat or oats, whatever was being hauled in was placed in sacks, which then had to be unloaded in our granary. This required a lot of back breaking work. I remember my father carrying sacks of grain up a flight of stairs to the second floor of the granary.

After our grain fields were finished, the threshing operation moved to our neighbors, and we would help out there doing the same types of work. Remember at all times we had to take care of our horses by feeding them and giving them lots of water. On hot days we tried to keep the animals in the shade to try to keep them cool.

MODERN CONVENIENCES

In 1922 we got our first automobile. Until then all travel was by horse and buggy. In the winter we used a sleigh. After automobiles came into being the roads were not very receptive to this mode of travel. There were no paved roads and most side roads were muddy in wet weather making for slippery driving. Autos got stuck a lot and the cry would go out to the unlucky person, "Get a horse"!

DRIVING THE MODEL T FORD

We got our first automobile in 1922. I believe it was a Model T Ford "touring auto" no side windows or curtains. I have a picture of it with my mother sitting in it with me to her right and she is holding my brother, Willis. I learned to drive this vehicle when I was 10 years old. My father placed a pillow beneath me so I could see through the steering wheel.

On the farm there was plenty of area to try driving this vehicle. On my first try I ran over the front steps of our house. The model T Ford was a very interesting vehicle. It had four cylinders, and there was no starter; you had to crank it. It had no battery, but a magneto which consisted of several strong magnets placed around the fly wheel. As you cranked the engine, a small electrical current would flow to four coils, one for each cylinder, and from there a charge was sent to the spark plugs via a "timer" in the front part of the engine. That would start and run the engine. Cranking the engine was often dangerous. If you did not set the spark lever all the way in the up position, the engine would turn violently backwards and cause a fracture of the arm. In cold weather, you could hardly turn the crank because oil in the engine would become very stiff. In the early days there was no "winter grade" crankcase or transmission oil. Many was the time I helped my father jack up a rear wheel. My father would leave the transmission in drive which made cranking a little easier if the entire drive train was allowed to move while cranking.

Driving the Model T was easy once you got the engine running. It had three foot pedals on the floor. You would press down with your left foot on the left pedal and hold it until some speed was attained, then you would release this pedal and let it come all the way back. That put your drive train in "High" for driving. All the while you were using your foot pedals you had to handle the speed of the engine with the "gas lever" which was under the steering wheel. With this lever you controlled the revolutions of the engine and the speed you were driving. The maximum speed was around 30 to 35 mph. At that speed you were "really rolling". The roads were in terrible shape for automobiles, with ruts and holes which could throw your vehicle out of control or into the ditch. The middle pedal was reverse ,and the one on the right was the brake. If the brake failed, you could hit the middle "reverse" pedal, and it would slow you down. I can remember my father coming down the hill in our yard with the rear wheels going backwards. We then knew he was using the reverse to get the vehicle to slow down. This vehicle had a disturbing fault: the rear axle had a tendency to break off while driving. You would learn about this when you saw the rear wheel drop off and run past your car, and the rear of the car drop down to the hubs.

THE PARTY LINE

Our phone service was the New Ulm Telephone Co., and ours was a four party line. Ours signal was 4 short rings, Rolloff's was 3 short rings, Mecklinburg's was 2 short rings and another Mecklinburg's ring was a short and a long. To call these party members we could "ring them" by turning the handle on the right side of the wall phone. Anyone else was a long distant call. There was a button on the left side of the phone which you had to hold in while turning the "ringer handle". This brought you to an operator in New Ulm who would try to connect you. We got a lot of local news by listening in on other parties' phone calls. Before my mother was married she worked for this telephone company as an operator. Many times during thunder and lightning storms lightning would hit the phone lines coming into the house, with sparks flying out between the two bells at the top of the phone. These lines always had a "humming noise" which was annoying at times. I remember being ill with some kind of respiratory problem and my mother put some kind of oil in my ears for earache.

RADIO DAYS

We had very little radio reception because our equipment was some of the first on the market. I remember working with an Atwater Kent radio which had three dials. All three dials would have to turned to an exact place in order to get a desired station. Signals would drift, so adjustments had to be made constantly. Reception was poor with a lot of static. Remember, we had no electricity, so our radios were powered by batteries which were always running down and had to be replaced or recharged. The nearest broadcasting station was over 100 miles distant. I remember WCCO and KSTP from the Twin Cities, and there was another from Yankton, South Dakota. Farm market news was given at noon and in the evenings. Occasionally there was music. My father ran a wire from the house to the barn. This was our antenna.

HOMEMADE FUN

It may come to mind about how young school age kids spent their recreational time. We had no television, radio, or daily newspapers. Our parents kept us busy with farm work from sunup to sunset. Many times we did farm work along with neighbor boys our age. Farmers helped each other during the heavy work loads like harvesting and butchering. With no electricity we had to do with kerosene lamps and lanterns in the house and the barn. In the house we may have had three lamps, and if you moved room to room you took the lamp with you. The light from these lamps was about as much as you get today from a 15 watt bulb: not much!

We made a number of play toys like sling shots, whistles, and small push cars. Sling shots were made from the rubber of inner tubes tied to a "Y" which we cut from a willow tree. Whistles were made from the willow again by slipping the bark off a twig and cutting holes in just the right places. The pitch of the whistle was determined by the size of the holes that were cut. We made all kinds of little wagons, some we could push and others we pulled with a rope. We had dogs and cats as pets. Sometimes we became very close to some of our hogs and horses.

HEALTH ISSUES

Medical care on the farm was very rudimentary: mustard plasters, Vicks and cough syrup for colds. Mumps, measles, scarlet fever and chicken pox led to the entire family being quarantined with a sign prominently posted on the door. Polio and diphtheria periodically had everyone worried.

As I mentioned previously, at the beginning of WWII I tried to enlist into the Army Air Corps. I did well with the written exam, but when it came to my eyes I flunked out. It was the first time I became aware of a vision defect. My right eye did not work in complete unison with my left eye, causing double vision at certain times. In those days we had no eye examinations before school or anytime thereafter. I always thought that my eyes were OK; that everyone's vision was like that. How was I to know? As a child lying in bed I would see double images of the corners of the bedroom, but thought nothing about it as I felt it was normal for everyone. Whenever I would turn my head to the right, my right eye would independently turn up, out of sync with the left eye. This caused me to have reading problems.

A number of times I have tried to discuss this eye problem with opthalmologists, but could never learn if my eye ailment was hereditary, or if it came from a head injury. One said it was not hereditary. Even to this day I have a tendency to go over the same line or skip a line while reading, even though I have corrective eye glasses. This defect makes me a slow reader. It also did not help me in sports like baseball and tennis, where it is important to see the ball. At times if a ball came to me I did not have double vision, but looking back, it seemed that each eye would see what was coming on a different plane. Then depending on which eye was dominant at the time, I would get the correct message regarding where to meet the ball. I had a lot of trouble.

CHORES

From the time I was five or six I got up every morning at 5:30 to help with the six o'clock milking. I was taught to use the separator. The skim milk was fed to the hogs. I had learned to drive a horse by the time I was ready for school. I learned to feed the animals and clean out the barn. In the winter we couldn't always use a wagon; after a heavy snow everything was hauled by sled. Winters were bitterly cold, and sometimes we were snowed-in for days. We would have to dig a path to the barn, because we still had to care for the animals and do the chores. The frost line was six feet down. In the 1930's we had days of 40 degree below weather. We had to be careful not to touch any metal outside because our skin would stick and burn painfully.

Cows and pigs were slaughtered for meat, which was either canned in jars or smoked in the smokehouse. My mother had a gigantic garden. She canned vegetables and fruits which were stored in the basement. We had beautiful apple trees. The apples were stored in straw-lined barrels. Mother made all of our baked goods. The only supplies we bought were flour, sugar, and seasonings. We would often exchange up to thirty dozen eggs for groceries. The store owner would hide a tiny bag of candy among our supplies, and we would eagerly help unload the bags when we got home. Going to the store was a red-letter event. You dropped in a penny, and after a long grinding sound, out popped a gumball.

THE FARM HOUSE

We had running water in the barn, but none in the house. Our well was 110 feet deep. Water was pumped by a windmill. We also had a rainwater cistern with a pump in the kitchen. The well was a drilled well because dug wells were too often contaminated. We carried water to the house in ten gallon drums and heated it on the wood stove for our Saturday night baths. The woodstove in the living room heated the entire house. A stove pipe went up through our second floor bedroom and then out the chimney. Mother had a kitchen cook stove which also burned wood. It had a water tank on the side which heated water for dishes and for washing our hands.

All the years I lived at home, even during my high school days, we never had a refrigerator or ice box. So any food which we bought, or produce we got from the farm had to be eaten in a day or two. Sometimes, this food was canned. We kept milk and butter by lowering it down our dug well in a pail on a rope. There the temperature was probably 55 degrees.

During the 1930's we suffered through very dry years and crops were poor. On top of that we had dust storms for days. Clouds of dust were so thick one could not see from the house to the barn. So as not to get lost my father tied a rope from the house to the barn which we followed to "stay on track". The window sills in the house were covered with a fine sand which blew in from cracks in the windows.

Our house was of frame and had 9 rooms. Four bedrooms on the second floor, and kitchen, living room, two bedrooms and room for company downstairs. This house had an attic which was loaded with honey bees. In the winter my father could go up there and pull down sheets of honey for us to eat. The bees would be inactive in the cold of winter. When weather got hot in the summer time honey would melt in the attic and run down between the walls, covering the windows on both floors. I knew it was honey because I tasted it. It was a mess.

ESSIG

I want to talk about the small town of Essig. It was started by a family with that name and many were still there when we shopped here. In its busy time it had a grain elevator and live stock yard next to the railroad. Then there was a bulk oil and gasoline business. There was Henle Chevrolet garage. Next to that was the State Bank of Essig. Then there was Shower's blacksmith shop. Across the street there were two beer joints. One run by the Lambrech family which had a dance hall in the back, and the other was run by a Johns' family. There was Hyman's general store, where you could by clothing, shoes, some non-prescription drugs and groceries. It was also the post office. Next to this store was Zupher's barber shop which was very busy on Friday and Saturday nights. Customers would stop in there to get a numbered ticket, then wait in the bar until their number came up.

There was Wagner's hardware store and Lamberton Lumber Yard. Churches, I think there were two: one was called Friedens and the other I do not recall, both were Protestant. The nearest Lutheran church was in New Ulm. One of the busiest places was the creamery, where many farmers hauled their cream to be made into butter. The operator was man by the name of Emery Johnson.

A MIGHTY FORTRESS

We were Lutherans, and of course were expected to attend church every Sunday. If you recall, when Willis and I attended Lutheran grade school, I became very disillusioned with religion. It was here in our religion class that Reverend Mr. Hinenthaul told us that Roman Catholics were bad, and we were not to associate with them. Our good neighbors, the Mecklinburgs were Catholic. I had little respect for the minister from then on. In addition, he came into our class, and for reasons known only to him, slapped four children on the backs of their heads. They never saw what was coming.

Interestingly, when we were in Germany in 1995, I learned that Lutherans and Roman Catholics now shared the same church buildings in some places. I was told this either in Trier or Speyer and that the two denominations work closely together. Recently, after many, many years, I dropped into a Lutheran church near my home and was quite surprised to see how close to the Catholic mass the service had become.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in New Ulm was huge and had a very large congregation. The Lutheran grade school building also was much larger than the one we had out in the country. Having little exposure to the world beyond our farm, we were shocked to see the large church and school buildings. Sunday English services started at 9AM and German service at 11. If my parents wanted to attend the later service it would be in German. There were hymnals in both languages, but I had trouble reading both. We had little training in reading German print. Church services provided friends and relatives with the time to be brought up to date about all kinds of personal matters like births, deaths, and illnesses.

Our social life revolved around the many baptisms, weddings and funerals which were followed by large gatherings in local homes. Funerals were almost always the biggest, with meals served at the conclusion of the services and burial. If a funeral went by our farm on highway 14 we would sit and count the automobiles, sometimes the horse and buggies. The food was plentiful and the conversation always concerned farm issues. (Think "Lake Wobegone"). The kids would play hide-and-go-seek or softball. We often felt isolated because the town kids looked down on us. They would make fun of our clothing and our accents. In high school some of the teachers did the same.

There were gatherings for picnics on the church grounds, but they were not as popular as when we had them at the Turnverein, the German Gymnastic Society's, picnic areas where beer was served: beer made by two local breweries, Schell's and Hohenstein's. We had a lot of parades on the holidays like the 4th of July. Sometimes relatives and friends would gather at a state or national park, like Fort Ridgely, which was noted for defending the immediate rural area from Indian attacks which were frequent in the early 1860's.

SOME LOCAL HISTORY

This brings me to the Sioux Massacre Indian Attacks: the Battle of New Ulm, which also involved surrounding villages, and went on from 1862 to 1865. At one crucial battle in New Ulm, a large stone building known as Crone's Store was the last defensive post for the town and it survived the attack. I worked as a clerk for Carl Crone, a descendant of the original owner of Crone's Store, in the late 1930's. In my early days I still remember some "old people", who probably were in their 70's, talk about the "Indian Wars", and the terrible things the Indians did to the white people. There is a plaque about the massacre on the outside of the Crone building today. It had a basement with an opening to the building next door. This was common in town to help occupants escape should Indians attack. Sometimes these doors served another purpose: one store in the next block, Meinie's Men's Clothing, had a hidden basement door leading to the neighboring basement. About 15 years ago a clothing merchant was arrested and pled guilty to burglary of the business next door; also a men's clothing store.

To learn more about this period of Minnesota history, you may find it on the internet.

A TRAIN RUNS THROUGH IT

Having a railroad run right through the middle of our farm exposed us to a lot to trains. We waved at the engineers every chance we could, and they would usually wave back. The steam engines were huge monsters that pulled freight cars, sometimes over a hundred, with tow locomotives pulling, and one on the back pushing. The railroad had a right of way of about 25 feet on each side fenced in to keep animals from getting onto the tracks. Sometimes we would stand at the fence and watch the train pass by. During the depression years, the 1930's, there were many men "riding the rails". They would be inside empty box cars, and many times you would see them lying on top of cars. We called them "hobos". There were times when one or two men would come to our door, and my mother would give them something to eat.

The right of way in the summer time was filled with the most beautiful wild flowers anyone would want to see. This made such a great impression on me that I have gone back in the past ten years to see this again, but I found very few flowers. I think that with modern herbicide applications we have lost this beautiful sight forever. So much for progress.

The railroad had telegraph wires for transmitting messages. There were probably 10 to 15 lines held in place with glass insulators on poles. We sometimes used our BB guns or 22 rifles to shoot at these insulators. We had a depot with an agent in Essig who would run the telegraph machine. I remember seeing and hearing the agent operate this gadget.

We had land on both sides of this railroad and one access from one side to the other. This required planks be put down between the tracks so our equipment could pass over. In crossing over with our hay wagons and other machinery we had to be careful that we did not get caught on the tracks by a fast moving freight or passenger train. When we had a fresh new young horse it sometimes would get "spooked" by the engine noise or the whistle, and we had to be alert to rein in the animal or suffer a runaway. In the cold winter when the ground was frozen we could feel the vibration of passing trains in our house which was about two city blocks away. In some winters when a heavy snowstorm hit our area this railroad was blocked by snow which closed in the high banks beside the tracks. The railroad would bring in large steam engines with rotary plows to clear the tracks, sometimes using two engines.

Sometimes, in my mind, I still hear the train whistle and the rumble of the cars.

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