Harold and I were born on the Blanton farm. The Blanton farm was in Pocahontas county, Bellville Township. near Palmer, Iowa. Violet was born southwest of Fonda, Iowa. Here are a few things I remember.

One morning Harold and I went to the corn field to help pick corn, and to get us out of the house. We would pick one row while mom and dad probably picked three. Some times we would get so cold that Dad would get some corn husks and set it on fire to warm our feet and hands. One morning I got to go home and warm my feet in the oven. I was about four years old, and as I was going back to the field I saw a baby lamb out in the lot.. I told my Dad and he didn't hardly believe me, but he went on home and put it and the ewe up. As you know lambs are born in the spring and not in the fall.

My Uncle Hajo told me all about the apples on that place. He said they were stacked in high piles. They hauled them to the hogs by the wagon loads. I do remember when the folks borrowed a cider mill and we made sweet apple cider. It was real good. They kept it in the cellar in a wooden keg, it had a spigot, so we could help ourselves. If it got old or stale, it would turn to vinegar. I don’t remember if many apples were canned or not. I know they did dry a lot of them. They wrapped some in paper and put them in a barrel of oats and they kept till spring, so we ate raw apples in the winter.

We didn't have electricity, and you know how kids always wait till dark to go to the outhouse. We always had a flashlight, so as usual Violet and I had to go out one night. We put the light between us and guess what happened, it fell down the hole. We had to get Dad to fish it out with a garden rake. It was a one-cell battery operated kind. Dad used it at night if they went out after the cows.

On the Mullen farm we milked 8 to 10 cows, that is where learned to milk a cow (I was four years old). I think most of the farmers took their cream and eggs to town once or twice a week.

On this farm there was a creek. The Hohensee kids and us used to go down there and find a snake. We liked to throw stone or pebbles at them, just to see their forked tongues at us.. Once we caught the poor old mother cats and milked them, it is a wonder we didn't get the dickens scratched out of us.

I remember my sister, Eva's funeral. Our cousins were all there and we were all dressed up and told not to get our clothes soiled. We found a screech owl nest in a tree. What fun we had throwing things at them and watching them blink their eyes.

My Uncle Otto was sick with pneumonia. I worshiped the ground he walked on. I wanted to be tall like him, he had dark curly hair. He would tell me to do something and I would do it.

In that orchard, Harold and I had picked our own apple tree. We would set in those trees and daydream. My tree was a very large tree in the corner, with only a few apples. Harold’s was a summer apple and very mealy.

My Dad made a trip to Wisconsin to see his sister and her family. Grandpa stayed with us and Mom said I had to sleep with him. Would have been bad if I woke up and found him in bed with me. I was sick the night my Dad came home. Mom said I kept saying that I wanted to go get my Papa, it was only a couple of meals (German for miles). When he got home it didn't take me long to get up and set on his lap.

About our cook stove or range as some called them. It had 4 or 6 lids on top and a blank space next to the reservoir. We kept water in the reservoir for washing dishes, hands, face, hair, taking a bath and any other thing that need washing. In these stoves we burned mostly cobs. 'They gathered the cobs out of the hog feeding lot, sometimes they were stacked pretty high. I bet an awful stink went along with them. We picked up cobs on the Jordan farm too.

We carried all the water from a well about 40 feet from the house. In the summer time we caught rain water in a large tank,, that was to do the wash. The baby clothes, were washed everyday by hand on a scrub board in a tub, we used bar soap.

We herded the cows on the roadsides because the pastures were short or we had too many cows and horses for the pastures we had. We had plenty of water on this place. It had a creek that ran through the pasture and it had a live spring that ran the year around. Dad and Uncle Otto had to dig it out once, because the darn kids dropped small rocks and pebbles in it.

We moved to the Jordan place in the middle twenties. Harold, Violet and I had gone to a county school. As I remember Fred and LeRoy went there too. I don't think they entered the Public School until that fall. In the mean time the Fonda Public School had burned. We were all put into make shift rooms. Harold and I in the K.C. building and Violet in the Parochial School building. What a change from one teacher for eight grades in the country school. In the Public School there was one teacher for two grades and the lessons were a lot harder to do,

On this farm there was a nice big barn, and all the hay was put up loose. It was pulled into the loft by a long rope, some times this rope got thin or grayed, then my Dad would take it over to Grand dad and get him to reinforce it In other words mend it. Grand dad used to be a sailor and I think he used to do work like that on the ships. We had two sets of slings for each wagon then we put more hay on top, which was taken off with a hay fork. This was pulled up into the barn on a track, by a team on a long rope , (50 or 60 feet 'Long) my job was to drive the team on this rope. The flies were so bad, the horses would step over the traces and I had to pick up the double tree and turn the team around at the same time. That was better than pitching it all up there by hand. What fun we had playing in the hay in the loft, burrowing and digging tunnels, playing hide and seek. One time we thought we had lost Fred by tramping his entrance hole shut and suffocating him, he wouldn't answer us, scared the living daylights out of us. I wonder if my Dad ever wondered how them holes ever got there.

Uncle Hajo showed us how to put up a stack, by raking our, hay in shocks and putting a team of horses on each end of a long rope -(50 --60 ft). Standing on the middle of the rope and catching these shocks of hay with our bodies and pulling them up to the stack. When the stack got high enough we put planks on the end and pulled it up to the top.

Mom had a wooden washing machine. We did the big weekly wash on Monday, if it wasn't raining. In the summer time this machine was set under a shade tree. Dad rigged up a gasoline engine and belted it to this machine. What they did in the wintertime, I don't remember. Maybe they washed everything on a board. This machine had an agitator made like a four legged milking stool. The agitator was fastened to the lid. Ours today is on the bottom of the machine. 'The wringer was turned by hand.

We never had a water separator. Far as I know, we always had a separator. It separated the cream from the milk. This machine was turned by hand. It was kept in the pantry or, in the cellar on the Mullen place. On the Jordan farm it was in the basement, and run by a gasoline engine. Also on the Jordan farm the washing Machine was in the basement, it was belted to this engine to do the washing. Dad milked around 10--16 cows. We would get 30-40 gallons of milk, which we would separate night and morning. The cream was kept in 5 and 10 gallon cans. 'The skimmed milk was put in a wooden barrel, which was on a two wheeled cart and taken to the hogs. A truck from Newell Creamery would pick up the cream twice a week. In the summer we bought our butter from them. In the winter we would churn our own butter. We would put 5 gallons of cream in a barrel churn. It was turned by hand. When it was done we would run off the buttermilk and save it. Dad, Mom, Harlold, Grandma, and Grandpa sure did like their buttermilk. It either had rice or oatmeal cooked in. When we got through we would have about 2-3 gallons of butter, which we kept in a crock.

At one time my Dad had around 20 hives of bees. We had plenty of honey to eat and cook with. The year Eileen was born (1935) we -picked strawberries in bushel baskets and sold them for $3.00 a bushel. I was working for Martin Seehausen for $3.00 per week. Mom canned 80 quarts of strawberries that year.

Mother would set many setting hens every year. It was our, job, to take them eggs out of the nest that didn't hatch. We would throw them out into the hog lot, some had dead chickens in them and some were just plain rotten, how they would pop and smell.

Then there was the time the folks kept some oats in a barrel. LeRoy got into that barrel to get some oats and the mouse ran up is pant leg, there was some dancing and taking going on. Dad soaked some oats in kerosene. Violet found some matches and set them on fire. Good thing someone found them when they did, d)ad had a new Ford truck in a shed close by.

Fred and LeRoy went to the dredge bank and cut a lot of cotton wood trees to build them a log cabin. Our neighbor was cutting some trees for winter wood and he took the trees the boys had cut. They went over there and told him about it. He admitted that he took them and cut the boys some more in place of them . They built themselves a log cabin, plastered it with clay, had one window and door, which were open. In the Fall they covered it with leaves. Donald and Raymond Hohensee, Fred and LeRoy cooked their dinners on a stove they had in the cabin. No salt or gravy mostly boiled potatoes. Several years after that, they tore it down on account of the snakes.

We had a spotted pony with a short shaggy mane. Mom said my first pony ride was very exciting. They put me upon this pony and it took off like 90 mph, it stopped and I didn't, over it’s head I went flying. I don't remember this, that was not the spotted pony I remember. When we moved to the larger farm, our pasture was a good 1/2 mile from our house. Dad always kept a bull, Mom was afraid for us kids to go after the cows, since Dad's uncle, John got killed by a bull. Dad went to a sale and brought this ½ Shetland and 1/2 something else (horse I guess). She was mean as all get out. I went out to the grove to catch her and when I got her by the halter she reached over and bit me. She le-Ft her big teeth marks, it sure hurt. I don't think I ever told the folks as we were raised to be tough. When you got the saddle and bridle on her, got her out of the barn and one foot in the stirrup she was off and gone, then you threw the other leg over. She didn't let ant grass grow under her feet. It’s a wonder someone didn't get hurt by her. She wasn't the kicking kind. Brother Harold fixed up a one-horse shay. It had two shafts, one had to back up a horse into this and let me tell you this pony was very touchy. If you know my brother, he wouldn’t let anyone touch his stuff. One day I talked Violet into going along with me and we got the harness an this wild animal. These harness had breeches (backup' races) on them and that pony was not used to them. We got that old devil hooked up to the shay and we got in it and we sure had a ride of our life. She kicked at one shaft and broke it. We couldn't get her stopped so Violet got out and caught her by the bridle and held on to her so I could get her unhitched. We put the pony in the barn, unharnessed her and turned her out to pasture. We then put the one horse shay back where we found it, stuck the shaft together and never told anyone about it, but we did not try that again.

There was the time the folks went out to look at the cornfield, which was firing pretty badly. I was sent after the cows. I didn't know they were watching me. You know how pokey cows are going toward home. I turned that pony around and took an extra ride. I rode her for all she was worth. I didn't get scolded for that. It is a wonder (ha, ha), they thought I had left a cow behind.

On the Jordan farm it had a two-story house with a full basement. It also had an attic. The floors upstairs were rough and the folks were afraid we would get splinters in our feet so they got linoleum put on the floors. Us kids thought that it would be fun to slide on it. We were really sliding around and we got our hind ends blistered that put a stop to that.

We always wanted a hammock, so the boys took a bedspring and tied it up between two trees. We threw a blanket over, this and swung to our hearts content.

On the Jordan farm, Dad bought a hammer mill or he called it a burr grinder. It was used to grind ear corn for the cows. We also ground corn meal, wheat, and rye. So we had corn meal, rye flour, wheat cereal and wheat flour. It may not have been what we wanted, but we didn't starve.

When we put up hay on the Mullen farm, my Grandpa always thought he had to rake the hay. They always got a good meal that way. Grandpa never let Grandma make any pies, cakes, or cookies. My Grandma really liked them. No wonder Grandpa had such good teeth, he had a couple pulled after age 70. Grandma was toothless as long as I can remember. Grandpa always had a cigar for my Dad when we got there. Grandma would have some candy and she was always sweet and lovable. I was afraid of my Grandpa, he always looked so mean and hateful.

My Grandpa and Grandma lived off the county on twenty dollars a month. Things were cheap and they paid no rent. Dad and Mom always saw them twice a week. They took them eggs, milk and meat when we butchered. Dad hauled them cobs and loads of wood. Their other children did not take them much, saw them once every two or three months.

Us kids used to jump on the beds upstairs and broke a lot slats underneath the springs. The folks found them when they did the spring-cleaning. We never got spanked for that, they didn't know whom to blame and it was too late then. How we had those ticks, filled with straw or cornhusks. They sure were lumpy. We were to shake them up everyday, which we didn't.

My grandparents lived in a two-room house, with a lean-to porch. This was built on some land my Uncle Henry and Aunt Annie Coleman bought, but later lost. The new owners let my grandparents live there until my granddad passed on (1935). We went over to see them after we had a snowfall One day while we were there Otto Vanhoff and his family was there also. There were Otto, Lena, and their son Louie. Otto chewed tobacco a lot, so he spit a lot. He was setting by the cook stove and about to put the fire out. At the same time Fred and LeRoy were throwing snowballs down the chimney. Fred said grandpa was sure poking the fire, to keep it burning.

Then there was the time we went to uncle Walter and Aunt Rena's for a Sunday dinner. Grandpa, Grandma and Mattie were there. The boys were throwing things over the crib, when grandpa decided to drain his radiator, he got bombarded, he thought they were throwing things at him. He beat a path to the house to tell Aunt Rena. She went out to talk to the boys, they denied throwing anything at him. He was so hateful.
My grandpa had a model T Ford and Mattie drove it. Grandma always sat in the back and held the back seat down. The boys put bricks between the springs, what a rough ride they had till them brick fell out.

Fred do you remember the time Marcella fell in the watering tank and you pulled her out, and the time you and LeRoy were cutting green corn for the hogs and you cut you thumb. You were dead weight and all we could do is wait for you to come out of it. Then there was the time Marcella got into the cow lot with her red straw hat on and that old Jersey cow almost got her.

One time we were playing tag on the tie beams in the new corn crib, Fred slipped and fell across his stomach, we didn't play tag there anymore. We used to jump from the old crib to the hog house, a space of 6-8 ft. When we jumped rope we used and old barn rope. Then there was the time Fred and LeRoy dug out some baby foxes, they were so cute, looked 'Like 'Little puppies, blue eyes and all.

Fred put some rubbers between the springs of his car, he went down the main street of Fonda, the car bucking like a bronco. Got put in jail and Harold had to get Dad out of bed to get the jailer to let him out. Fred was cutting weeds along the lane and got stung by a bumblebee right between the eyes and they swelled shut. I don't know what Mom was busy doing all these times, it seems like Violet and I did most of the nursing and caring.

Dr Peterson gave my Dad some burly Kentucky tobacco. It was in leaf form so Dad filled up is pipe, tamped it in. It was so strong he didn't smoke it very long. One day he said he wished someone would smoke out that pipe. Fred volunteered to smoke that pipe, boy it wasn't long, he was throwing up is socks, he was green around the gill, as the saying goes. Old Al Braskey got brother Ed tight when he was 3-4 years old, he was the man Dad got to help pick corn, that is when we had 120 acres to pick by hand.

Uncle Hajo would help himself to my dad’s smoking tobacco. Dad put some of that strong tobacco in a can. When Uncle Hajo got into that he sure looked funny. Uncle Hajo sent money to a girl friend in Germany, so she could come to America. She got as far as an Uncle and Aunt in Illinois and stayed there. He went to see her once, but she wouldn't budge.

Uncle John Ahrens wanted to marry mom’s cousin in Germany, but her folks wouldn't let her come to America, so that is where it stood. If he couldn’t have her, he would have no other. He never married. That is what you call true love.

When the Mercer Bros. shelled corn for us, they carried their liquor with them. We fixed a big dinner for the workers. Fred would pile his plate real full, set everything around his plate, soon it slipped off of the table unto the floor upside down. He gave it to the dog. He started over again and Dad said "Fritz, I think you had too much".

A horse stepped on Harold's hand, breaking several fingers. LeRoy was run over by a car in Fonda, received a broken leg above the knee, he was 5 years old.

We never had a Christmas tree at our house until the year LeRoy broke his leg. LeRoy's first grade class gave us their tree. We just put a few paper flowers on it. We always got gifts from Mom and Dad. There were no big dinners, as we do in Missouri.

One of the worst scares we ever had was the time we lost Ed. We searched every building, water tanks, the grove, the dredge., After three hours of searching Mom found him asleep in his little red wagon, in the boiling hot sun,, between the old crib and the -hog house.

When the farmers built a new barn, which was sometimes better than their house. They would hold a barn dance. Lanterns were used for lights. There were fiddles, guitars, banjos and harmonicas. They would play us a storm. There would be boards and hay to set on. The only one I remember was on the Anton place. I suppose the folks had to many youngsters to pack, along. We didn't know what a baby sitter was back when.

We traveled by team and wagon in the 1920's. Straw was put in the wagon and covered with a blanket and we crawled inside. Some folks had a foot warmer, it was a wooden box with holes drilled in the top and sides. Hot rocks and bricks were put inside the box and they stayed warm for a long time. My grand parents had one, it was about 18 inches high and 24 inches long.

Our mail used to be delivered by our mail lady in a one-horse shay. When some asked how she kept warm, she lifted her covers and there was a lantern underneath.

When Mom had Roland on the bottle, us kids would fix his bottle. It was about one third sugar, two thirds milk. Gosh, I bet that was sickening. We did our best to sweeten him up.

Now I'll leave you with this thought.

My hair is gray, my eyes are green
I have false teeth which don't fit
My neck is stiff, can't turn my head,
Or hear half that's being said,
And this is the message I want you to get,
I'm glad I'm living and I ain't dead yet,
My knees are wobbly, I can hardly walk,

My joints are stiff,
Won't turn in their sockets,
And nary a cent left in my pocket,
So maybe you think I'm a total wreck,
But to tell you the truth I look like heck

But still I have lots of fun,
For my heart with joy is over run,
I've lots of friends, so kind, good, and sweet,
And many more I hope to meet,
So you can take it from me, you bet,
I'm glad I'm living I ain't dead yet.

I've got corns on my toes and ingrown nails,
And do they hurt? Well here language fails,
To tell you my troubles would take to long,
If I tried you'd give me a gong.

I go to Church and Sunday School too
For I love the things that are ever new,
And when I get to the end of my road,
I hope to my heavenly Father I go,
And when I leave my house of clay,
If you listen closely, I'm apt to say,
Well folks, I've left you, but don't forget,
I've just passed on and I'm not dead yet