Grandpa in early 1950's on farm NW of Laporte MN
Some time about 1950 Dad drove us down to Iowa to visit Linn Grove and the cemetery where his Grandfather is buried. I remembered the park and the remains of the old mill. We drove into the country looking for the farm and stopped an elderly farmer to inquire where it was. This man that we chanced to meet on the road remembered the family and knew where the farm was and where others of the family had farmed. I remember nothing about the farm.
The family history for the six or seven years that they lived in Southern Minnesota can be constructed from short stories of incidents that Dad and Floyd told about. I don’t recall Dad ever mentioning a memory from Iowa. He told several from the time they lived on Uncle John C’s farm. I don’t remember Grandpa talking much about those years either.
The rent was minimal, I think it was $300 per year. According to Dad the land owners expected to make their profit from price appreciation not the rent. They had a telephone. Dad’s first ride in a car was while he lived there. I think that it was Uncle Reese who had left his car in one of the sheds for the winter with the instructions to use it if they wanted to. Sometime later they decided to drive it to Mankato rather than go by horse and buggy.
A story with a not so happy ending, Dad told about a hot summer day when his father was away from home for some reason. The hogs were squealing so his mother sent him to see why. He checked and reported that they were just fighting to got to the water. He was sent several times during the day with the same observation. That evening when his father returned it was discovered that the water was either gone or had not been working and that several (maybe 6-8) fat hogs had died. All they could do with them was pull them out of the pen and burn them. Years later Dad realized what a large loss it was to loose several market ready hogs - and hogs were bigger and fatter back then.
It was at this time that “Slivers” entered the stories. Slivers was a driving horse not a workhorse. He, Slivers, apparently was protective of the children (Dad and Floyd) but a little unruly when only Grandma was driving him. Dad said that his mother liked to take one of them with her when she was driving Slivers so he would behave. At some point Dad and Floyd got to ride Slivers to school. They took a long rope along to tie him and let him graze while they were in school. During the day Slivers got his feet tangled in the rope. The teacher and the other students were amazed that Slivers let Dad untangle the rope without kicking.
Another story was that Dad stayed home from school to seed oats when he was 10 years old (I think I have the age right). Floyd had done the job the prior year so Dad insisted on doing it too. Dad was proud of the fact that he could drive a team of horses when he was only 8 years old.
In 1917 the family moved to near Laporte Minnesota. They moved by train. I don’t how many rail cars were needed but I do remember it told that they loaded the wagon by the door so that it would be unloaded first and used to help unload and haul the remainder. I assume that the horses were in a separate car. The only building on the farm was a house and it was not completely finished.
As I look back, I realize how much of an adventure this move must have been. They left a community where they had many relatives and were renting a good farm. They moved to what was a relatively new farming settlement. The land had been logged over but the stumps had not been cleared from anywhere but maybe the field by the house. They had to build barns for the cattle and horses before winter.
One story Dad told about the first winter. The barns had frost form on the inside of the walls and roof. Grandpa was proud of how well the building were keeping the livestock warm until one morning when he entered the horse barn with a lantern and the lantern went out. The horses had depleted the oxygen below that needed for kerosene to burn. If he had not discovered it in time the horses would have died. Loosing the horses would have been a severe loss.
In Laporte Dad attended school and played basketball. If I got the story right Floyd was probably the better player because he was taller. Dad was no doubt aggressive. The school won the tournament and the coach arranged a game with Bemidji College just to see what his team could do. I don’t know why but Dad never showed an interest in sports when I was young. He had the idea that games were for kids and when you grew up you moved on.
Another time Dad told me that Grandpa had planned to hire the land cleared but that WW1 broke out and labor costs went up leaving them to do the job themselves.
The 1920’s was the decade of the automobile. Dad and Floyd had use of the family auto, an ‘Overland’. Most of us have heard the stories about breaking axles and how fast they could change them. Uncle John C. worked for Wilcox & Chessley, the Ovearland dealer in Mankato at that time. Later they had a Pague (bought by Plymouth) which Floyd and Dad used. The ‘old Pague’ was the car Dad told the most stories about. He ran it until the dealer threw away the parts book. He had a contract for a school bus route with it at one time. I once asked Dad if the Pague was a good car. His answer was “your mother thought so.”
Dad told of a time when two of the aunts (grandma’s sisters) were visiting and he heard Grandma lament to them that the young people now days with cars go so far. One of her sisters responded “Lydia - remember we went as far as we could.”
When Dad was sixteen he came down with what was diagnosed as Inflammatory Arthritis. He was unable to attend school and was bed ridden for some time. Dad told how at the worst his Grandpa had to lift him out of bed and into a chair. As he was recovering he would walk the fields hunting rabbits with his 22.
After missing a year of high school Dad was reluctant to go back with the younger class. The alternative Dad came up with was to attend the School of Agriculture at the U of M in St Paul. The School of Agriculture held six-month sessions and took three years. Some of Dad’s favorite stories were from the time he attended Ag. School and lived in Pendergast Hall. In Ag. School Dad was a high jumper and missed winning the gold, one year, by a coin toss. He and the other man couldn’t break the tie by jumping.
When he completed Ag. School Dad nearly took a job milking high producing cows for a dairy near the Twin Cities. After he got the job offer Mable wrote to him and said how disappointed their parents were that he wasn’t going to come home and farm. So Dad declined the job he wanted and went home to Laporte to farm. Dad told this again, I think it was at his 80th birthday dinner.
Dad and Grandpa farmed together for about ten years. I think the dairy herd was the main source of cash income. They did raise potatoes at one time. Dad ran a school route with the Page car at one time.
