Summer 1934 and Winter 1935

That summer was also the summer of the drought in Iowa. The oat crop was relatively normal as it had matured before the drought set in. June and July were hot with many days 100 degrees of more. Vincent and I shocked oats for uncle Carl, but we went out to work only from very early morning until about noon. Because our bedroom was so hot in the evening, Vincent and I slept on the back door screened porch (where the pump was) and I vaguely recall the reluctance with which we woke for our daily stint of oat-shocking. It is a commentary on the resilience of youth that a couple of months after having my bout with appendicitis I was working shocking oats. The corn suffered most from the drought and the yield was only about 25 bushels per acre — about half the normal yield for those days.

The next winter by contrast was very cold and snowy with quite a few days when the temperature did not get above zero and with low temperatures of 30 degrees below zero or even colder. During this time my father had to stay in Fort Dodge while he was working there as it was impossible to drive between Fort Dodge and the farmhouse. It devolved on me to take care of the chores in the bitter cold and I was quite disheartened at times. Perhaps what was most difficult was keeping a supply of water available for the cows and horses. Uncle Carl did not have a heater for the water tank as most of the farmers did and toward the end of the winter the tank was almost a solid block of ice.

During this period there were several blizzards that had us snowbound for days at a time. It was a source of concern having enough fuel (coal) for use to fire the furnace with. I recall on once occasion we received a supply of coal quite fortuitously just before we were about to be hit by another blizzard. On at least once occasion we were sent home from school about midday because of a developing storm. Once the school bus got as far as about a half mile west of our home, at which point it could proceed no further. Our neighbor Carl Anderson came in a bobsled drawn by a team of horses and we rode the rest of the way home in the sled. The school bus stood where it had stopped for the next week or ten days.

It was during this storm that the snowdrift in the lower garden area was perhaps 6 to 8 feet deep — deep enough so that standing on it our heads were well above the top of the shed housing the threshing machines. That year because of the days lost from school closure due to weather, school weeks in the spring were lengthened to 6 days a week to make up for the lost time.

The commute that my father had to his work in Fort Dodge was always a worry to my mother in the winter months and I can remember the anxious waiting on occasion. I vividly recall one time when my father went in the ditch a couple of miles west from the farmhouse, having even taken a roundabout route to avoid snow-drifted roads. He arrived at the house finally walking.