Chapter Two: The Home on the Prairie

Father bought the first 80 acres of the present Peterson farm for $800. In the sale was included a team of horses and a walking plow. The former owner, a Mr. Hildreth, had built a house which compared favorably with homes of that period. It had two rooms; a living room and a bedroom with a lean-to kitchen, a small cellar and an unfinished loft.

Here they established their new home. It was a lonely place for the young bride for at that time the Woodards had not yet moved onto their place so there were no near neighbors. On all sides spread the wide expanse of prairie, broken only by many ponds or sloughs. There were no trees, nothing to break that expanse of prairie. Often Mother would walk to town to visit her aunt and cousins. The distance was shortened by making a bee-line across the prairie, though the distance now by road is almost four miles.

About Christmas time the call of the gold mines got too strong for Father. Since Mother shrank from going with him and sharing the rough life of a mining town, he brought her to Illinois to stay with his Aunt Lovisa in Galva. This was not an easy time for the young wife, now expecting her first child and her husband so far away. However, in some respects she had an easier life then than later when alone with her little ones on the farm. Aunt Lovisa tried her best to make this period not too difficult for the young niece.

Carl Algot was born August 6, 1879, and about six months after this in the spring of 1880 Father returned from Montana, never to go back. It must be said here that had it not been for Mother’s steadfast refusal to go to Montana with him, there would not have been this history of life on the Peterson farm which from that time on was to be their home. Father was not a farmer at heart, but for the rest of his life he was a farmer. He was always a very hard worker ad put in almost too long days, from dawn to dusk, following the walking plow, cultivator or harrow Horses he must have in order to till the ground, but the first years they did not even own one cow. The only milk they ever had was when Mr. Knock, a good neighbor, would walk across the prairie and bring them some. Can it be that milk is so essential for building good teeth and bones? Now 77 years old, Carl, who as a child seldom had milk to drink, still has his own teeth. Some of the rest of us lost ours long ago!

Father did not care for animals and when a cow was bought, it was Mother’s task to do the milking until Carl grew old enough to help, as he did at an early age. Most farmers raised hogs, but not Father. As I remember in later years, we had a small pig-sty and pen in which was one very big, very fat hog destined to be butchered. Pork was the staple meat of pioneer days for it could be kept better than beef. Pork sausage and the lean meat could be fried down and covered with lard, while the fat was put in a strong salt brine to keep. At that, thought it often was exceedingly salty, it tasted good to hungry appetites when fried crisp and served with milk gravy. It was however, a welcome treat when one of the neighbors would butcher a hog, for always neighbors would share the fresh meat; “smakekott” it was called.

I have digressed, so must go back to the time when Father, Mother, and Baby Carl came to make their permanent home on the prairie in the spring of 1880. A neighbor, Mr. Knock, had kept the team of horses, so now on to farming. Can we envision the Iowa prairie at that time? Only small fields as yet of the virgin sod broken by a plow; the many sloughs or ponds where no crops could be raised and no trees to break the monotony of the landscape.

The Woodards had now established their home and the hours yards were separated only by the line fence. Mr. Woodard had a wonderful hobby of planting trees and he had an extra supply of seedling soft maples. In his spare time Father would go and bring home trees in his wheel barrow. These he planted around the house-yard, and to the north a wind-break.

From Sweden comes the love of evergreens, and six spruce trees were planted on the front lawn, where for many years they have stood as sentinels, a land mark of our home place. However, two of these spruce trees, and almost all of the maple trees are now gone. I wish I knew where he got the Siberian crab-apple trees which were planted in the south west and north west of the house-yard. They grew into a dense grove and provided many more crab-apples than one family could ever use.

In later years there would be very deep drifts of leaves in the fall under these trees, which calls to my mind an unforgettable experience as a very young girl. I was along at home and was supposed to rake these leaves together in piles. I presume Father or the boys had in mind to burn those leaves later. With the over-confidence of youth I thought I could burn the leaves myself and I set them afire. It was a dry and windy day. The flames leaped high and even caught in some of the branches of the trees. Terror-stricken I watched, and prayer that the fire would not spread. What a relief when the flare-up stopped.

A few other apple trees were also planted later, but nothing like the orchard that Mr. Wooded planted to the north of his yards. In later years when Carl rented the Woodard farm, those trees bore an abundance of the most wonderful apples, many of which we did not even know the name. Summer, fall, and winter there were apples, so many of them we could not even give them away. What has happened to our ground, that such perfect apples do not grow around here anymore?

Father soon found that eighty acres was not enough land for one farm. In 1884 he bought the east and north forties for $8 an acre, and two years later the south forty was bought for 420 an acre. At that time he could have bought that whole quarter section for the same money, but who wanted all that pond ground? Never did he dream that some day that land would be drained and produce good crops.

Prices were not high, but neither was the income from the farm. Mortgages had to be taken and with interest made a heavy drag on their income. Mother has told of how when the last mortgage was paid off on the land, she resolved that never again would they go into debt.

As an example of how little was paid for what farmers raised then, this story may suffice. One year they grew a very good crop of potatoes. They had a double wagon box full besides what they would need for family use. Since Mother had helped pick them, Father generously offered her whatever these potatoes would bring she could have to buy something for herself. The whole load was sold for $5.00 to a neighbor and Mother bought herself a nice little bonnet. Even in those days there was a price squeeze on farmers.

Those first years were indeed meager years. As yet only small patches of the ground were under cultivation and prices were low, far lower than farmers get today with their larger fields and more abundant harvests. Father bought the lot in town with the vision that some day a home could be built there. But in the early years he build a corn crib on that lot and in winter time he would haul his corn and store it there. That meant shoveling it two extra times by hand of course, but then he had it convenient to sell when perhaps there would be a rise in price during a busy season. It would seem as if he had the nucleus of the idea of the ever normal granary for his crib on the farm would thus be ready for the new crop of corn.

Since Father worked long days in the field, life would have been very lonely for Mother had it not been for her near neighbor. With only a fence separating the two homesteads, what a boon it was to have this good friend. Mrs. Woodard was part French and a very friendly and talkative person. At first Mother felt she waned to hide when she saw her neighbor coming, as it was still very difficult for her to understand and speak the English language. Still no doubt her familiarity with the new language can be attributed to this vivacious and friendly neighbor.

The Woodards belonged to the Dunkard Brethren Church, whose faith differed much from the Lutheran belief. Mrs. Woodard liked to discuss these differences and Mother could only listen as she had not the ability of the language to express her views. Finally she begged Mrs. Woodard, “Lizzie, let’s not talk about religion,” and with true understanding, Mrs. Woodard replied, “Alright, Emmy, you go your way and I’ll go mine. We’re going to the same heaven.”

Mr. Woodard was an ordained pastor of their Church and even though he was a farmer, he never dressed in the overalls that other farmers wore. It seemed beneath his dignity. I so well remember his broad-rimmed hat, long beard, and clean shaven upper lip. Simplicity in dress was a mark of their faith. Mr. Woodard never wore a necktie. Mrs. Woodard’s dresses were fashioned with a tight fitting bodice and long full skirt. What impressed us children was that ordinary pins fastened the bodice as buttons would savor of vanity. We marveled at how she could care for her babies without those pins scratching them! In about 1895 the Woodards rented out their farm and went to take up homestead land in North Dakota, but moved back to Iowa later. Other neighbors in those early days were the Knocks, the Lennarsons, and the Ericksons. They were all the most wonderful neighbors.