Old Stories from the past

These are terrific stories. Thanks to all! Andy Nonymous's post prodded me to share some of the anecdotes I recall my dad telling us.

My dad was the youngest of 12 kids, and was born in 1916. They were a farming family. His mom (Josie) dried fruit by putting it on the porch roof and covering it with screens.

She made what my dad called "lep cookies" which I'm guessing were lebkuchen --- a spicy Christmas cookie. She also would offer a treat to the kids, her homemade bread spread with butter and sugar.

The family began a dairy with a single customer and finally had a large enough enterprise to move the dairy to town. One of the cows was affectionately known as "three tit". Before the dairy moved to town, they made the 3 mile trip 2x a day over dirt roads that could be extremely muddy.

One time one of the many grandkids running around was bitten by a copperhead and my grandmother (Josie) immediately killed a chicken and put the meat of the dead chicken on the snake bite --- the meat turned black and the child did not get sick.
However, one time a copperhead bit my dad’s dog and the poor dog's head swelled up twice its normal size. I guess it did not get the chicken treatment. The whole family had a very "healthy respect" for copperheads which my dad passed on to all of us kids.

My dad used to tell us about his first "babysitting job" when he was hired to watch his nephew (just a few years younger) on a blanket in a wagon bed while his aunt rode the "go devil" in the cornfield all day. I don't know exactly what a go-devil is, some kind of a contraption that no doubt tilled and weeded. Of course that was when they didn't plant the corn as close together as they do now. Any of you hear of a "go devil"? I'd love to know more about the thing.

My grandfather had the equivalent of a 2nd grade education, but could figure the capacity of a corn crib in his head.

After they got indoor plumbing, my grandmother would not allow anyone to wash dirt off themselves inside the house for fear the dirt would fill up the septic tank. There was a cistern outside the back door with a hand cranked pump and all dirty people washed off with cistern water in a dish pan before they came into the house.

The family took in lots of "boarders" during the depression --- men who worked on the farm for food and board. I doubt they were paid any wages.

In addition to boarders during the depression, family members who were down and out "came home" as a way to survive. My dad's oldest sister was married to a city boy who once said after having lived on the farm for some time that he had participated in so many butcherings he guessed he could now easily kill a man. He was a very gentle man, so this was extra funny.

During the early 1930s the farm had to be downsized, so they saved out 24 acres and built a new house made of oak lumber cut and milled on the land. A portable saw mill came to the farm and cut all the lumber for building the house --- and I guess the barn and other outbuildings. Some of the wall studs still had bark on them.

My grandfather (and an uncle just down the road) each had a windmill on their house that powered their radios.

Before he married my grandmother, my grandfather "slaked lime" to earn a living.

These folks all lived along a major riverway, and my grandmother's family lived on either side. When she was a girl/young woman she rode a ferry back and forth across the river and would call the ferry to her side of the river by standing on the bank and "hollering".

When my dad was a boy an elderly neighbor (Austrian immigrant) took him coon hunting many evenings. My dad also had box traps he ran. Some of the more interesting visitors to his traps --- a little owl and a skunk. No one in his family was happy he had trapped the skunk.

These are just a few anecdotes ….. hope they are interesting to someone.

__________________
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring - Carl Sagan

My grandpa was a pioneer farmer on Lake Okeechobee in the 1920’s. After the humongous hurricane of September 1928, there were about 3000 dead bodies. They had to dig pits and toss them all in together, put lime on them, and then burn and bury them.

For many years afterwards the farmers on the area plowed up bones of bodies that had never been found after the storm.

When the storm started, Grandpa tied the family together in a line with rope. He put the oldest, my 12-year-old aunt, at the front of the line as she was very tall (6 feet tall as an adult). They made their way to the school house which was the only 2-story building in the area. To save time they cut through the cemetery. My aunt had nightmares ever afterwards as the coffins were popping up and floating around in the water. She had to push them aside to proceed and some of the lids had come off, and in such a small community, she recognized some of the more recently deceased neighbors.

My grandpa was at the end of the rope as he was also tall. The other 7 children and my 4’11 grandma (who could not swim) were in between. The 8th child had been just been born that April and was in a wash tub tied to Grandma. They trudged through the flood and high winds, hugging trees when the gusts were too great and moving onward when the wind slackened a bit. When they finally got to the school house, the dropping barometer registered the change in pressure and sure enough, a neighbor lady in the late term of her pregnancy had gone into labor. My grandma had to deliver the baby and made my 12-year-old aunt assist. What a dark day that was for my poor aunt.

For a few good stories ( he says humbly) Go to my website sponsered by Rural Heritage magazine. You can read from my column "Reflections" I think you all will enjoy!
Ruralheritage.com/riceland..... Or try Riceland Meadows on any search engine click on "Read Ralph's Reflections" Thanks

In the early years of my grandparents homesteading their quarter of land they lived in a small sod house, as was the custom and near requirements of the time and circumstances.

One year my grandmother decided to have a surprise birthday party for my grandfather. Under the guise of a thorough house cleaning she cleared the house of most possessions in order to make room for guests.

Guests arrived and stayed late into the evening with a great time had by all.
With the hour well past bedtime my grandparents decided to leave the items in the yard until morning since no rainfall was expected as it was a December birthday.

How saddened they were the next morning to discover that they hadn't thought to bring in their winter supply of potatoes and that they had frozen in the cold overnight temperatures.
===========
Grandfather often rode a high wheeled bicycle back and forth between the homestead and his blacksmith shop in town. The distance being 4 miles. Sometimes the fierce western Kansas wind would kick up and he would have to abandon his bicycle along the road and walk, returning in the evening or the next morning to finish the journey with it.
======
With the purchase of their first tractor, a Bull or a Rumley, they towed it home behind a team of horses until they could study out how to operate it.
I still have the owners manual for the Little Bull and a letter from the company advising how to set the timing. The letter is dated 1916. Not sure which was their first and which came next.
=======
As with most families there was always the tale about coming up to a gate and yelling "Whoa! Whoa! I tell you" to their early automobile.
=======
Western Kansas could be very harsh and dry and early newspapers showing the many, many farm auctions would attest to that. Many gave up in frustration and traveled back to from whence they came.

I remember an old letter I have telling of trading the only family horse for a milk cow because there wasn't winter feed for both and the cow was needed more to provide milk for the children.
======
Early western Kansas had few trees and people burned cow and buffalo chips for fuel in their stoves. With more people the more precious these supplies became. A local history book tells that after a trail herd of cattle had gone through people would go to the area and scratch their initials in the piles of manure, thus securing that they could claim them after they had dried. The custom was honored.
====
After moving into town my grandfather, an innovator, cast a concrete water tank near their windmill. The tank had a large floor drain which fed a series of tile blocks laid end to end forming a sub-terrain irrigation system for their garden. The tank would be filled, the plug would be pulled, and the garden would be watered at the root zone.

It is said they had some of the best gardens in the area. Cabbages the size of the old large dishpans were the norm.
=====
Life was good back then---if you didn't weaken. Both grandparents had lost parents at an early age so knew hardships.