| Summary: | low ground that furnished water for livestock that roamed the area. My father built a small shack and this provided shelter when he came to the farm each year. We lived in South Dakota, where father was in partnership in a hardware store. With lung trouble, the doctor advised work outdoors. In the spring of 1915, with four horses and a lumber wagon, he came to Medina. Mother was to bring Sister Beth and me to spend the summer months with Father on the farm, and return when school started. We arrived on the local train. Father met us at the depot. We climbed into the lumber wagon and started home. The road, a trail over the prairie and the ride extremely rough. It was a long trip home and, "home" was a two-room shack to which Father had added a second room to the original shack. Traveling via lumber wagon, we went to town only once a week. It was a visiting day as well, taking the whole day to make the trip. Later we bought a secondhand buggy. The trip became smoother and faster. This was real PROGRESS! 1915 was a good year. Plenty of rain at the right time. We bought milk and eggs from the Ed Zinc family, a half mile away. Beth and I walked, after the milk each evening and Emma and Olga Zinc became our first friends. Art Wallbaums lived five miles southwest of us and often stopped on their way to and from town. On one occasion one of their dogs followed them from home which they gave to me. His name was "Bismarck." We tried to change his name, but he lived to a ripe old age as "Bismarck." The dog made life more interesting. Beth and I would catch gophers, who did a great deal of damage at that time. The County paid 20 bounty for each gopher tail. We drowned out the gophers, and Bismarck soon learned all he had to do was stand near the hole, and grab the gopher as he came out, drenched and stunned! During August we began harvesting. The wheat was so high the heads hung over the horses' backs as they walked, along with the binder. There was rust but not enough to cause much damage. We helped shock, the bundles as tall as we were, a struggle, but we were paid 500 a day. We each bought a set of white Iceland Fox furs that winter with our earnings. In August, Mother cut her ankle severely and this changed our future. While she was in the hospital, Grace Higgins, now Mrs. G. W. Kanouse, Woodburn, Oregon, came to see her often and that was the beginning of a long friendship. When Mother returned from the hospital, Peter Karpens invited her to stay with them until she was stronger. Beth stayed with Mother to help care for her and. I cooked for Father on the farm. How we ever survived! Everything was either burned or half done. When school started, we moved to Medina, Beth a sophomore, and I was an eighth grader. The school was a two-story square white wooden structure. Crops were good. It became difficult to get the threshing done, so Father and three other farmers bought a small threshing rig and did their own. By this time we had built a small house on the farm. We had few conveniences, but somehow managed to cook for threshers on a three-burner kerosene stove that smoked, coating everything with soot. We had meat and potatoes three meals a day besides carrying lunches to the men in the fields. The days were long. Up at dawn, work in the field continued until dark. Chores were done after that, often nine o'clock before supper was served. We carried water, pail by pail, up a hill. Father dug a well about six feet from the back door. As a well, it was a failure; as a refrigerator, it worked fine! Kerosene lamps, carried from room to room were sufficient for our needs. Our first gas lamp hung from the ceiling over the dining room table. What a light in contrast to the yellow flame of kerosene lamps. Lanterns were used for outside work, lighting an area about three feet in diameter. We ironed clothes with irons heated on the kerosene stove, changing them as often as they cooled,, stopping each time to wipe the soot off of the bottom so as to not smear the clothes while ironing. We washed by hand, rubbing them on a board, boiling the white ones. Starting early, we were fortunate if we finished by supper time. How we ever found time to do all we did, is still a mystery! Neighbors increased, the Ford family lived north of us and beyond them, the Axtells. Jake Hoffmans lived a mile east of us, and north, lived, the Haugen family. Later we had rural mail delivery three times a week, but we had to walk a mile for it. Walking a mile was enjoyable. It was a red-letter day when daily mail service came right to our corner. During World War I, schools closed with the flu epidemic. This forced vacation gave me time to help with the fall plowing, my first experience with a sulky plow. I didn't do too well but there were few people around to see. Living five miles from school, we kept house at the Norton home during the week, going home for weekends. The following year, Beth taught country school and I drove to school with horse and buggy. That winter was cold, temps fell to 45 degrees below zero. It took an hour to drive to school. Coming home was a different matter. Surprising how much faster that old plow horse could cover the miles going home. One cold, dark winter day, coming home, I was caught in a blizzard. After repeated attempts to drive the horse a certain direction, I gave up. Imagine my surprise when an hour later, Old Prince stopped and I saw the outline of our house! In the summer of 1916 or 1917, Father came home 37 Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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