Some more history ramblings

I found this file I wrote in 2001:

Some things I remember about my Mom & Dad.  Lynn Miles  June 21, 2001

I barely remember the moving day when we moved from south of Callaway to the farm about half way between Callaway & Oconto.  It would have been March, probably, of 1947.  Dad had gone down earlier and helped get the barn and house moved from the ranch to where we lived in it later.  I remember that he either built or bought a new brooder house that had simulated brick on the outside.  He had lived in it while staying down there before we moved.  After we moved they got little chicks and with the kerosene heater in the middle, raised laying hens and fryers.

I recall that there were a lot of people around and that I had a hard time getting our dog off another dog that was there.  Mom had me go around and look for dirty socks and underwear.  Later I rode in a red truck with cattle sides on it with just the driver.  The tall yellow cabinet was on top of the load.

            I recall one time when we came home from church to the new (to us) house Dad couldn’t get in the front door.  I don’t remember if he didn’t have a key or what.  Anyway, he was wearing a suit, from church, and crawled up on the two-wheel trailer on the center window on the west side of the house and went in and opened the door.  For a long time, we didn’t have any steps on what we called the front door.

            We had an all black tarpaper covered back porch for a long time, that was not too big.  Mom had the Maytag washing machine in it.  I remember she had to step on the pedal several times to get the gas motor started.  It had a long flexible exhaust pipe that wound out the door and over the steps.  One time I sat down on it and burned what I sat down with.  

            The outhouse sat several places.  I recall it being up the hill to the south.  The clothesline was between the house and the toilet.  Mom always had Hollyhocks growing around the clothesline poles.  The outhouse was moved to a few different locations fairly close together.  Later it was moved down to the north-east, at the edge of the trees.

            When we had a basement dug under the house (and I got to ride the horse some to pull the slip out full of dirt) we would go down there when it stormed.  The basement doors were on the west side of the porch.  One time there was a Nebraska windstorm and we all went to the basement.  Just as we went in or when someone opened the door and look out, they yelled “There went the outhouse!” as it blew over.

            Dad liked to tinker with getting the different fences and corals set up around the farm.  He built the East Barn where we had a place to feed the cattle.  He fashioned the north side of the barn into a milking room.  The gutter was made of railroad ties.  The haymow had an opening where hay could be thrown directly down to the head of the stalls.   On the west side of the barn there were two bins where the corn and rye were kept for feeding the milk cows.  Later a door was cut into the east bin and we went into it to get feed supplement, etc., and out into the alleyway and over to the west bin which was usually kept full with ground ear corn, or ground shelled corn.  One time there was ground rye in it and Cherry the black white-face milk cow got in it from the outside alleyway door to the west and ate until she bloated up and died.   One time when we were cleaning out the barn I threw a shovel full of manure out the door and Darrell walked into the doorway at the same time.  He got a gash on his forehead.

The floor of the haymow had four holes cut in it to let hay down to where the horse stalls were.  If you weren’t watching when you walked in the haymow with a lot of loose hay on the floor you could fall right down into the horse mangers.  Later they became feed mangers for cattle.

I remember cleaning out the East Barn.  One day we were cleaning the manure out of it and Donnie was talking about driving to Merna, NE, that night.  It was a Saturday and he said he could even drive the road in his sleep.  The next morning, I found that he hadn’t made it home that night, but had fallen asleep and gone in the ditch.  The 1954 Pontiac had a tie rod on the front end bent so both tires aimed out.  He had caught a ride home early in the morning.  Guess he couldn’t drive in his sleep.  Another time I remember that Jack’s were there for a Sunday dinner and the guys ( I suppose I was a pretty small part of the guys) went out to the East Barn where they told some dirty stories.

Dad built a loading chute on the east side of the East Barn at the north end.  You could load right onto trucks into the yard between the house and the barn.  The barn was located pretty close to the house – maybe 100 feet.  The story was that when they were moving the house from the Ranch it got dark on them, or rainy, I don’t know which, and they set it down.  They intended to move it another 100 feet or so to the east, but it kept raining and they finally just leveled it there.  The concrete block foundation was laid after the house was there.  When the basement was dug, they left about 4 feet of dirt on all four sides so it wouldn’t disturb the foundation.  They then just plastered right over the dirt, making a sort of shelf where things were stored.

The house measured something like 24’ x 28’ and had 5 rooms.  The two bigger rooms were the kitchen on the southeast and the living room on the northeast.  On the west were 3 small bedrooms.  Mom & Dad were in the middle bedroom, Roger & Don in the south bedroom and Darrell & I were in the north bedroom.  When Louise came along and was out of the bassinette, she slept on the couch in the living room until Don went to College in Lincoln and Roger was away from home on Active Duty with the Army National Guard.  Then Darrell & I got the south bedroom and Louise had the north one.  During the winter of my Senior year, Jim Cornish, the Landlord, had the house worked on.  About 12 feet was added to the north of the house creating a large bedroom in the northwest corner.  It had windows right at the corner and gave a view both to the west and the north.  It also left a narrow addition to the living room where the piano was moved.  This left the original center bedroom to be made into a hall to reach both other bedrooms and the west side of the hall was a bathroom.  We had running water, but no indoor bathroom up to that time.  I recall when we got electricity run to the house in 1950.

Dad spent a lot of time and energy working with his cattle.  He always had cattle, usually Herefords.  Springtime, when the cows calved, was a favorite of his, even though it was a lot of work.  I recall, especially during high school years, working with him before school and after.  We usually fed silage in the mornings and checked for new calves.  After school we usually took hay over to the cattle and spread it out with the Farmhand Loader on the John Deere.  Any cows having trouble with calving were brought home.  We always earmarked the calves and put rubber bands on them for “elastration” which was castration without a knife.  The day Dad died of a heart attack in March of 1978, he spent time feeding the cattle hay and getting ready for the farm sale that was to be the next Wednesday.

     He always said raising a family and raising food for the family and the country was important to him.  Mom & Dad celebrated their 40^th wedding anniversary at Roger & Carolyn’s in 1974.  Roger & Dad had farmed together for many years and after Dad’s death Mom lived in a trailer house near Roger’s house until she passed away in 1986.