Roy's Memories - longer version

START FARMING:
a. My parents built a house, barn, granary, chicken house, etc in the first 2 to 3 years. Dad needed more open field to grow grain and hay for livestock. He would follow a practice that was common in those years of taking in one or two young men to stay at our place during the winter months and work for room and board. These men would cut wood for $1 per day to buy tobacco and clothes. They would make “cord wood” – lengths 4 ft. long which they split lengthwise and piled into a 4’ x 4’ x 8’ cord. These men would very seldom leave our place and dad would buy the tobacco and other need when he went into town.
b. Dad would load up a cord of wood on a sleigh pulled by 2 horses and take it to town once a week, along with his 5 gallon cans of cream and a case of eggs. The cream and eggs had to be covered well with heavy blankets to prevent freezing. Blankets, called horse blankets, were taken along to cover his horses when he arrived in town to keep them from cooling off too fast in cold weather.
c. The cord wood was sold to the McIntosh Creamery where it was used for fuel both to heat the buildings and feed the huge boiler that created the steam pressure. Lots of cord wood was used by the creamery so many other farmers also delivered cord wood.
d. The 5 gallon cream cans were unloaded onto the loading shelf so the “butter maker” could remove the cover of each can, dip his pencil into the can, run it across his mouth and then proclaim the grade as: #1 sweet, #2 common or sour. As the grade was entered into his book the cans were dumped into a hopper scale of the proper grade, the cream weighed and weight entered into his book. The farmer would get his cream check once a month along with a record of each sale and grade.
2. SELLING EGGS AND PRODUCE FOR GROCERIES
a. The eggs that were taken into town were delivered to the local grocery store. A clerk would carry your case of eggs into the back of the store into a “dark room” where one person sat checking or “candling” eggs, a process to check the quality of the egg by holding it up to a tube through which light shown from a candle. Eggs that were a couple of weeks old or if a rooster was kept with the laying hens and the eggs were too old, this candling process would show the start of a chick in the egg. Of course, they only paid for the good eggs, the bad eggs were sent home in your case.
b. While the eggs were being checked you would hand your grocery order to a clerk. She would then run all over this large store picking up the items for you and bringing them to the counter. Most items were in bulk – large barrels, boxes or jars. Coffee was freshly ground through a large grinder with a big wheel that was turned by hand. It was ground according to your order: Course, medium or fine. Our biggest general store was owned by the Wichern family and stocked everything in groceries but also had a full line of clothing and shoes – no need to go to any other store or out of town. Farmers could trade eggs, homemade butter, garden vegetables, fruits, berries, etc in for groceries and clothes.
c. While the clerk was doing all of the work getting your grocery order together most people would sit in front of the store and visit with neighbors and friends. This was especially nice in winter as the store had a large furnace that heated from the basement and everyone could sit around the furnace to visit.
d. There were no credit cards, very few had monthly income, so farmers especially, would run large credit accounts that they paid up each fall after harvest or when they sold livestock. This was also true of those that purchased fuel for gas engines and kerosene for lights – most people could pay only once a year – a real burden for the dealer.
3. CLEARING LAND:
a. Clearing land of trees and stumps was very hard work. Popular trees and some ah and oak trees were cut for cord wood or heating the homes. Oak trees were made into fence posts in the wintertime, hauled home to a farm yard where the bark was peeled off in late spring. They would be sorted into piles according to size – 3 inch, 4 inch, 6 inch, etc. These posts were used to fence around the farm but Dad also sold lots of fence posts to neighbors or dealers.
b. The larger oak trees were hauled to someone who owned a saw mill, to be sawed into lumber. This mill would only operate one time a year, depending on how much timber was hauled to him to be sawed and when he could get extra help.
c. Once the trees were sawed into lumber Dad was notified to come and haul it home. This lumber was green and very heavy and had to be graded for size and piled with strips between so air could go between the boards to dry them out. This curing would take at least a year or more.
d. After the trees were removed from a piece of land, the stumps needed to be removed by explosives. Sometimes he would hire someone, but most of the time he would do it himself. Mother always worried when Dad was out blowing up stumps or rocks. He would make a deep hole under one side of the stump with a “crow bar” that had been sharpened to go into the ground. Then he would push a half stick or depending on how large a stump, a whole stick of TNT explosive down into the hole. Inserted into the stick of TNT was a cap or shell that had been attached to a 3 or 4 foot length of fuse. He would then light the fuse, get up and run as fast as he could, as far as he determined he had to go to be a safe distance.
e. This was the critical time – will it go off or won’t it? If it did not go off he would, after a long wait, go back and insert another cap and fuse. This was very dangerous and we heard of several deaths because of delayed explosions. Many times my brothers and I would be with him when he blew stumps and rocks. After the explosions we would help gather the pieces into piles that could be hauled off by the team of horses and wagons. Dad did a lot of grubbing of remaining roots and stumps.
f. After he had cleared a few acres he would rent a “breaking Plough” and use his 3 horsed to plough up the land. This was very slow going because of roots under ground. It could take several weeks to get even a small patch ready to be used as a field. Then we had to help pick roots, rock, and anything left on the field, level the ground, disk it many times, pick more roots and rock, then finally seeding in to grain for a crop.
4. MILKING COWS:
a. Our barn had stalls for 11 cows, 4 horses, several young calves, and a large pen that was used as a maternity ward for mother cows and/or pigs. It was a good barn, built in 1920 by the local Bjella and Olson Co. with all concrete floors and mangers, steel stalls and stanchions. In a few years an automatic water drinking system was added. A gas engine ran the pumps that pumped the water into an overhead tank in the barn.
b. My Dad’s preferred breed of milk cows was “milking shorthorn” mainly because they could be sold for beef meat and while the amount of milk they produced was less than some other breeds, the butterfat test was high. The cows were milked by hand by Dad and Mother while us boys played in the hay with the cats and the dog. The milk put through a cream separator which was cranked by hand to separate the cream from the skim milk. It was very important that the cranker keep an even rhythm in order to remove all the cream. The skim milk was fed to calves, cats, dogs, hogs - even some cows, and if we still had milk left it was dumped on the manure pile outside.
c. Grinding the grain that was used to feed the cattle and hogs was a never ending job. Dad would bag up 10 or 15 sacks of grain, haul it into town to the mill where it was ground and the proper concentrates added. In later years after Dad passed away we stripped the body off our 1923 Model T Ford and mounted a grinder on the chassis so we could grind and mix rations right at home. Even after grinding the grain we would have to get it into the feed boxes in the barn. This was done by carrying several wash tubs full into the barn every day – no easy job.
5. GRAIN HARVEST:
a. Grain was harvested with a McCormick-Deering grain binder. This machine cut the grain with a 6 ft. sickle, moved it up with canvases to a knotter which tied the grain into bundles. These bundles were then set into shocks, by hand, butt ends on the ground, grain tops up, usually 8 or 10 bundles to each shock.
b. After a couple of weeks of drying, these shocks were hauled into our farm yard were they were stacked. Dad usually had a neighbor help with this as exchange work, although my Mother also would help pitch bundles off the horse drawn rack. Dad would make a beautiful round stack, starting with bundles laid in a circle about 12 feet in diameter with butts outward, layer upon layer carefully overlapped to hold together. The stack went up about 10 feet before each succeeding ring would be drawn inward until a peak was reached, making the stack about 25 or 30 feet high.
c. Depending on how much grain each farmer raised, several stacks were make, then left to cure or dry. After a few weeks a neighbor would bring his Threshing Machine and thresh the stacks.
d. As long as Dad lived we always stacked the grain bundles. After Dad Padded away in 1934 we decided to join a shock threshing “run”. I was going on 16 and Lloyd was 14 so the neighbors asked us to join this run with one team of horses and to two of us working as one man. The run included nine or ten farmers, each contributed the number of teams and men they could furnish.
e. The custom thresher, Oscar Jones of Erskine, had a large 42” thresh machine, powered by a big “oil pull” tractor. To me the drive wheels were at least 8 feet high although I never measured them.
f. This machine required 10 teams to haul the grain bundles from the fields, two or three “spike pitchers” who helped load in the field, two men, extra, at the machine to help the man unload his bundles into the machine. Two teams unloaded bundles into this machine at a time – one from each side of the conveyor.
g. Since our team was supposed to be up to unload into the machine every fifth time, we had to hustle out team back to the field to load – sometimes a half or three quarters of mile away – load quickly and get back to the machine. Every teamster tried to load his rack as high and as quickly as possible, and sometimes there would be trouble. Some loads had their bundles side off the rack, wagons tipping over going on steep side hillsides, wagons getting stuck in wet grounds. Then other drivers would come over to help reload the rack, or pull out the wagon.
h. This machine had 3 men with grain wagons to haul the grain to the granary. All grain was run into bags in the grain box wagon. The machine was set to dump ½ bushel of grain at a time so three dumps or 1½ bushel was usually put into each bag. The grain wagon was driven along side of the granary unto a raised area. This raised area was so the grain hauler could hand each sack onto a side shelf, the man on the inside of the 2nd story of the granary would pull up the sack, dump it through a hole in the top floor to fill the downstairs bins – then fill the bins upstairs.
i. This was the only means of elevating grain until a few years later somebody heard of a stat conveyor, powered by a gas engine that could convey the grain up to heights of a two story granary. Our threshing run convinced the owner of the threshing machine to buy a conveyor and rent it to each farmer to use for $.01 per bushel.
j. The going rate for threshing was $.02 for oats, $.03 for barley, and $.04 for wheat. This was fairly standard around the country but each fall farmers would check around to see who would do the threshing the cheapest.
k. A few weeks after the early grain was threshed, the machine would come back to those who had later crops like flax, clover, buckwheat and late grain. Then would come time to “settle up” between these ten farmers who were in the “run”. Each farmer had kept record of the hours he had furnished teams and men. At an evening meeting they would turn in their records. They appointed me to do the calculations because I was the” only one who had more then 8th grade”. Each man received $.35 per hour, each team was worth $.25 per hour. After all figuring was done each farmer would settle up with his neighbors.
l. The best part of threshing each fall was the good home cooked meals provided by the house wife at each farm. Since most farmers slaughtered and put up their meat in the wintertime by canning it or smoking, fresh meat was on the menu at every farm at threshing time. It was purchased in town for as many meals as was needed. This was the case at every farm and it was a big deal for the wife as well as the entire thresh crew.
m. Breakfast was served at 5-6 AM, forenoon lunch at 9 AM, a big noon meal in the home, lunch again at 3 PM and supper as late as the threshing continued into the evening – usually 9:30-10:00 PM. Lunches were many good sandwiches, bars and cookies with lots of coffee and cool aid. Threshing was stopped at noon dinner so everyone could take time to eat, relax and have a smoke. Evening meals were as large as noon meals and would start when the farmer decided not to send out the next teams into the field for more loads because the bundles became too damp from dew.
6. TELEPHONE SERVICE:
a. We always had a telephone on the farm as far as I remember. But just when my folks had it installed I do not know. My father had purchased a “share” in the Garden Valley Telephone Co. of Erskine in _____________. Until later years each city or town had a local telephone office with one or two operators on duty from 6 AM to 10 PM. McIntosh had several lines, each party line had 10-15 neighbors on it. One of the best features of a party line was that anyone could ring 6 short rings which was general call to all on the line to make a public announcement. This was great to have a birthday party, dance, public meeting at the Lessor Town Hall, or to get a crew together to open up the roads in the winter, etc.
b. Another good (or bad) use of the line was to “rubber neck” to hear what others on the line were talking about. When they would ting for a neighbor your phone would make a vibration with each ring so you know who they were calling. Then you could lift the receiver and listen. If too many people were “rubber necking” the signal would weaken, the two parties that were talking would get upset and say for all to hear “get off the line you rubber necks”.
c. My Mother, who spoke good German, would talk in English to her German friends until she would hear the receivers going up – then they would switch to German which very few on our line could understand.
d. Having the telephone operator in town was also very helpful. My Mother could call her and ask if she would contact my Dad who was in town to pick up some item to bring home. She could see every thing from her location as well as hear everything.

7. HORSE RIDE AND OUR FIRST CAR
a. Our means of transportation and field work in the first few years of my life was by horses. Dad was a lover of fine big horses. He always had at least 2 or 3 very large gray-white horses which he said weighed 1700-1800 pounds. His friends and neighbors could never figure why he, a man 5’ 4”, 135 lbs. wanted such large horses. However, he did buy a smaller horse, Dell, for pulling our buggy and snow cutter to travel with to town and to neighbors when he did not have a load to haul. Dell was a trotter who had been used as the local race track on the north edge of McIntosh, now the Bicentennial Addition. She had run many races and liked to trot, going from our farm to McIntosh (about 6 miles) trotting all the way and not even breathing hard. She was also a good saddle horse that us boys used to ride around the farm and to the mail box.
b. I can still remember (I was about 4 years old) a trip into McIntosh with my parents and brothers to attend church. Dad was driving Dell and the buggy. I was sitting on a low stool. As we entered town and rounded the corner unto Broadway, I rolled off the buggy and the back wheel went over me. The end of one of my ribs was broken. No one knew it at that time but it healed up and I still can feel the break.
c. In 1923 Dad figured it was time to buy a car - a 1923 Ford Touring. Side curtains were purchased for it later. As memory serves, he paid $525 for it at the Ford garage in McIntosh, owned by a Joe Espeseth. The Ford was our summer transportation but in the winter when roads got too much snow, the cutter with Dell, or the two big horses on the sleigh were used when loads needed to be hauled.
8. COUNTRY SCHOOL
a. Our country school was District #189 located on the Ramse farm in Section 29 of Lessor Township. Attending school meant walking or driving 2 ¾ miles if we to go on the road. So, we walked across country about ¾ miles through fields, woods, sloughs, across Poplar River and brush. In the winter we could use skies quite well, in spring the river would become very high so we would try and means we could to cross it, lots of times coming to school or home soaking wet, and lucky not to have drowned.
b. Some of the other kids in our district had fathers who would haul them to school if weather was bad, and then we could catch a ride with them part ways in a heated, covered sleigh in the winter time. But I can say that as long as I went to the country school my Dad did not give us any rides, figuring we could walk it.
c. Our country school was a one room building which I would guess was about 32’ long by 16’ wide with attached entry about 12’ x’8’. It had a wood burning stove in the back end, the teachers desk was in the front end, with 3 rows of seats and 2 aisles. Of course every country school had a bell tower on the roof with a large, loud bell.
d. All 8 grades were taught by the one teacher. Attendance varied from 20 to 35 during my years there. My first teachers were paid $60 a month from which they paid room and board. My parents boarded teachers for several years. This teacher had to teach all subjects to all eight grades, besides music, and recess games, fire the stove, fill the water fountain, sweep the floor, dust all the desks, wash the windows, haul in fire wood, shovel snow paths to the 2 toilets that were each 100 feet from the school, at Christmas put on a Christmas program and at the final day in the spring line up a picnic for all the parents and kids.
e. Oh, some of the parents would feel sorry for the teacher and help out, and school board members would wash the school floor once a month to help out. We really had very good teachers. After all, they had gone through high school and attended 9 months of Teachers Training or Normal School as it was called. That training took place in the McIntosh school building usually attended by 8 or 10 each year, and then they were prepared to teach country schools.
f. I started school at age 6, finishing 8th grade at age 13 having skipped one grade. I was the only one in fourth grade so was advanced into fifth grade. The big advantage of country school was everyone in the school could hear the discussions in the classes in session so those in other classes learned a lot from listening. No one (hardly) ever had school work to take home as work periods in school found the teacher helping out with everyone’s next assignment.
g. No one from District #189 had ever gone on to high school so when our 8th grade teacher came to “algebra” in the 8th grade arithmetic book she closed the book and declared arithmetic done for the year because no one would be going on to high school and if they did they would get this “algebra” then. Well, I went on to high school the next year and had such a bad time trying to pick up algebra that I was ready to quit after the first 2 months. A very good teacher helped me out by working with me after school many nights.
9. TRANSPORTATION AND AIRPLANES:
a. There were many attempts to make a horseless carriage back in the lat 1800’s and some proved quite successful. In fact, I have a large photo, dated July 5, 1915, of a parade of 18 autos lead by a McIntosh Mayor Talle going down the main street in McIntosh – no horse carriages. Where these autos came from is questionable because it is sure very few were locally owned.
b. Airplanes became more popular after World War I as this war proved the plane as a weapon of war and a lot of them were used. In the early 1920’s small planes appeared at County fairs and local celebrations, giving air rides to anyone who had $5 to spend to go up and look over the countryside.
c. 1927 saw Charles Lindberg fly to Paris from the U/S/ and that was really big news, he was a hero, a very big hero in MN being a MN boy.
10. RADIO
a. The first radios that we knew of were to appear locally in 1921-22 at a couple of our neighbors. They were kits put together and operated on several batteries. I was about 4 years old when my folks went to the neighbors to listen to the radio. They were squeaky and lots of noise but very exciting. The next few years whenever there was a Tunney-Dempsey prize fight, or a Max Schaemling-Dempsey fight we were invited to go to Henschke’s and listen to it.
b. I don’t know when my folks got their first radio but it probably was around 1927 or 28. Our biggest program was every evening, get out of the barn and its chores to be able to hear Amos and Andy, a negro comedy team.
11. ELECTRICITY:
a. Electricity on the farm was unknown in the early 1920’s but some people installed 32 volt battery systems where the batteries were charged up by a gas engine powering a generator. Our neighbors William Keller’s sons put in such a system and had lights in the house and outside buildings. But very few had these systems, continuing to use kerosene lamps in the house and lanterns in the out buildings. These lanterns were especially dangerous working around the cattle barns at night because to be able to see with them they had to be carried everywhere you went even into the hay loft. If they tipped over or an animal tipped them there was a fire danger.
b. As long as I lived on the farm (to 1940) we had no electricity. The R.E.A. promoted by the U.S. Government brought electricity to most rural areas in the 1940’s.