Towards the End

During the summer months, after he had eaten his supper, Uncle Carl sat on the front screened porch of the home. He would “digest” the local newspaper, various farm periodicals, and the Lutheran magazine. As long as it was published, he also read the “Augustana,” a Swedish language church magazine. In later years he owned a small radio, but television was never part of his life. The old oak rocker that he sat in for these times of reading became blackened with age. It is now in my son’s possession. I refinished it, and it is still in good condition. The winter months forced him to be indoors for his reading time.

I had returned to farm my father’s farm south of Gowrie in 1951. During the first years that I was farming, I worked with Uncle Carl during harvest season for several years. This was of benefit to me since I had neither a corn picker or a combine and his, though aging, were available for use on my farm. It was difficult at times to work with him since he wanted to be in charge. As years went by, I acquired the necessary machinery and worked with him only occasionally.

After the Peterson estate was settled, the farm being sold, Uncle Carl continued to live in the large family home in Gowrie with his unmarried sister, Esther. The machinery that he had brought in from the farm cluttered the back yard. His time was spent gardening and taking care of the lawn work. I can’t remember when the chore of hauling cobs to town for use in the furnace ended, but some cobs were hauled from our farm. The heating system in this house was a hot water system, and it was a continual job to fill the fire pot of this furnace with cobs. He had a special “banking system” of the cobs to keep the furnace heating at night.

Sometime in the mid-sixties it became apparent that his sister Esther needed medical attention. She had had a mental breakdown earlier in life, and had recovered from that. A recurrence of this necessitated placing her in a rest home in Des Moines. After some months there with medication, she became well enough to become a resident at the Lutheran Home for Aged in Madrid, Iowa. Uncle Carl, who was never a “housekeeper” or cook, found it difficulty to continue to live on in the big family home alone. He walked across town daily to eat dinner with my mother. This arrangement lasted for a short time, and then a decision was made for him to also reside in the Madrid Home. He did not require a lot of care at this time, although he had developed heart problems typical of many who reach their 80s.

The one condition that he stipulated for the move to Madrid was that my mother take over the Peterson family home. She had lived alone in her own home since my father died in 1961. Mother did not particularly want to move, but decided to do so for the benefit of Uncle Carl and all concerned. Uncle Carl gave her his shared of the value of the house which was owned at that time jointly with his sister. This was an incentive for my mother’s move. Uncle Carl moved to Madrid where he lived the remainder of his life.

Before my mother could move to her new home, considerable repair had to be done. The house had not been painted inside or out for many years. The walls in the kitchen were greasy and black from years of smoke from the kitchen range. New aluminum storm windows and doors needed to be installed, and the walls and attic needed to be insulated. Along with a new boiler system for heat came a new radiator for the kitchen. The old boiled had been patched and waterproofed by Uncle Carl way beyond its normal life.

The yard full of machinery and tools that had been brought in from the farm were sold at auction. There was very little saleable furniture, dishes, etc. in the house, but these were sold at the auction also. His 1942 two-door Pontiac was put for sale. All of these possession brought less than $1000. These were the last of Uncle Carl and Aunt Esther’s earthly possessions, other than their clothing.

I can’t recall the year of the move to Madrid but it was sometime in the mid-60s. Carl and Esther lived on there until they died in 1968 — Carl before Esther. They had adjoining single rooms, and Uncle Carl spent his last years looking after the special and financial needs of his sister. A poignant memory of them is when we came one evening to visit, and they were having evening devotions and were singing from the “Hymlan Songer” — the old Swedish Lutheran hymnal.

Not one to live easily under institutional rules and regulations, he continued to decide things for himself. Although not permitted to have food in his room, he would bring excess food from his meals in the dining room and hide it in his shoes for a pre-bedtime snack. He continued to go for daily walks and would walk on the highway early in the morning. Calls would come into the Home from motorists who thought the Home should keep him off the road. He would take walks to downtown Madrid to mail cards and letters. One card that came to his brother Lawrence indicated that he didn’t write the card until he came to the post office. He wasn’t feeling well, and thought perhaps he wouldn’t make it to the post office. But he did, and he lived on for a few more months. His heart finally failed after several sessions in the Boone County Hospital.

Uncle Carl dies just short of his 90th birthday, and his funeral was held at Zion Lutheran Church in Gowrie where he had been an active member all his life He had led about as disciplined a life as any person I have known. He had been a hard and steady worker. There were no frivolities in his life. He ate sparingly and never drank coffee or tea that I know of. His earthly possessions at the time of his death were the few clothes he had, and miscellaneous personal possessions. He had planned financially for his declining years with little extra to spare. What was left of his financial resources were designated to take care of Esther for the remainder of her life. Everything else he had given away to family, Missions, and to Zion Church.

The Peterson family burial plot was his final resting place in the cemetery west of Gowrie. This plot included graves for his mother and father, three sisters, a brother, and himself. He had made the decision that he should be buried behind the Peterson monument. There was some irony in this, since Grandfather Peterson was really the Patriarch of the family. But Uncle Carl had taken over in this capacity for many years, and although the gravesite in front of the J.P. Peterson monument was available, it could just as well have been the final resting place of one of his sisters or his brother.

It was our responsibility to return to the Madrid Home after the funeral to be with and console Aunt Esther, who was much like a wife to Carl in the years after grandmother died. Among his few possessions was a cardboard box of alarm clocks, parts of clocks, and various small tools. He had become the clock repair man for many of the residents of the Home. It was impossible to find out who owned what in regards to the few clocks that were still intact. Whether or not he actually had repaired very many, I do not know. But even to the end of his life he was ever one to tinker and to fix.

When Jean, my wife, and I were first married, I had rescued an antique clock from my father’s garage that belong to my Great-grandfather Strand. We asked Uncle Carl to restore this clock for us. With adjustment and lubrication he coaxed it back to life. It was in good running condition for more than forty years before wearing out. Now the mechanical mechanism has been replaced by a battery operated quartz mechanism and is still the time keeper in our living room — a gentle reminder of Uncle Carl.

As I have written this story, it becomes very evident that Uncle Carl influenced my life more than my own father did. Since my dad worked day and night during my growing up years, we saw little of him except at mealtime. Uncle Carl was always there, if not with meaningful tasks, creating work to keep us busy. There was in him no time for idle chatter or play. This was no doubt due to a great extend as result of being the oldest of eleven children under very severe financial conditions. Not that he did not have compassion and love, but it could be said that his was more of a “tough love” kind. I cannot recall ever seeing him express his love of siblings, nieces or nephews by hugging or kissing, but the love was there! His financial resources throughout his life were shared generously with others, He was truly a very fascinating and giving individual.

Shortly before writing this recollection of Uncle Carl, Jean and attended the 125th anniversary of the Zion Lutheran Church in Gowrie where Uncle Carl had always been a member. One morning we took a walk through the Gowrie cemetery. It was truly a historical reminder of events in the Gowrie community. Many who are buried there have made an impact. Not only on this community, but on us personally. Parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, distant relatives, friends, and neighbors. Uncle Carl was an important part of our lives and his community.

He left no direct descendants, but did in a very real way affect in many ways our perspectives and attitudes towards life. He could possibly have been in any one of many occupations. I could picture him as an engineers or a pastor (as were three of his brothers). I could not visualize him as a doctor (heaven help his patients!), but he was a farmer of quite varied interests. Not exceptional many times in quality, but assuredly interesting in scope. I can never remember him voicing great religious beliefs, but if the phrase is true that “you shall know them by their fruits,” he was definitely a man of deep conviction.

I treasure the memories!

—Vincent T. Strand

Christmas

Christmas was a very special time for the Peterson family. Christmas Eve was always spent in Grandmother Peterson’s home. After the usual meal of lutefisk, sylta, potatoes, assorted goodies and fruit soup, the gifts were distributed. Uncle Carl sat in his big leather Morris chair (the forerunner of the present-day platform rocker). The “height” of the evening was reached when the little white envelopes from Uncle Carl were distributed. During the war years, each of us kids received $18.75 to buy a war bond. The adults received larger amounts.

One year an envelope appeared with the caption “Ego” written on it. We didn’t know what it meant, but soon figured out that it belonged to Uncle Carl. This was one of the only times that I can recall when there was a sign of levity on his part. On Christmas Eve, it was his responsibility to read the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke at our family gathering in the Peterson home. I can still hear him reading in a somewhat monotonous tone of voice “And in those days there went out a decree . . .” Following this reading, we sand Christmas carols and a Swedish hymn, “Glada Julafton, Harliga, Klara [Happy Christmas Eve, My friend, Clara”].

Christmas morning the schedule was to go to the early 6:00 a.m. “Julotta” service. In earlier years, this service was preceded by a Swedish service that began at 5:00 a.m. I can remember sitting through that service not understanding a word, and then after that, sitting through the English service. The one thing that stands out in my mind about the English service was that as the first strains of “AllHail to Thee O Blessed Morn” were played on the organ, Uncle Carl, who sat in the front pew of the church, would rise to his feet. In those days most all hymns were sun sitting down, but Uncle Carl rose up to sing this meaningful Christmas hymn.

Travels with Uncle Carl

There were two side trips with Uncle Carl that “livened” our lives. One was a trip to the Agronomy Field Days at Iowa State University. Ever one to try to raise new crops and learn new farming techniques, he would make the trip to Ames with some of us boys to tour the test plots and listen to the learned agronomy professors. The highlight of the day was to eat our meal at the Memorial Union buffet — a great treat for us who seldom ate anywhere except at the family table.

The other trip was one to the Iowa State Fair. This was also to be a learning trip for agricultural endeavors. The main interest there was in the farm machinery exhibits. Acres of machinery from various manufacturers were displayed and we got to inspect most of them. My interest in farm machinery was heightened by those trips, and probably influenced my college major in agricultural engineering. At the fair was also a chance to eat at some of the eating places if a picnic lunch was not brought along. The trip to Des Moines in Uncle Carl’s Essex Super Six was by present-day standards a tedious trip. At 35-40 mph, it took several house but was a treat from the days of weed pulling that was so much a part of the last days of summer.

This and That

Uncle Carl was a slight man of build, but could work harder and steadier than any man I have known. As I have noted, he ate sparingly and never to my knowledge did he smoke or drink alcohol. The only alcoholic beverage that passed his lips was the communion wine served in celebration of the Eucharist in church. By the time I knew him well, he was quite bald, and as the years progressed, he needed glasses, a hearing aid, and dentures. All of these aids to human frailties were obtained with a great deal of confrontation with the doctors. The local dentist gave up on supplying him with dentures, and calmly broke apart those he had made.

Later in life, he was picked up by a patrolman for not wearing glasses. Up until this point, he never wore glasses except for reading or close mechanical work. His glasses were kept in a case in the upper pocket of his bib overalls. His driver’s license was suspended for this laxness for a period of six months. Since he was not farming at that time, he decided to help me on the farm. He borrowed the Lutheran pastor’s son’s bike and pedaled the four miles down to the farm where we lived to help me pick corn. He was in his late 70s or early 80s at that time, but was undaunted by the trip. The offer to go into town to get him and bring him home went unheeded. At this time of life, it was hard for me to tell him what to do, even though I had received instructions from him so often in the past.

At sometime earlier in his life, Uncle Carl had purchased a 120-acre farm in Texas. The details of this business transaction I do not know, except that I recall some mention that he had attended a church convention in Texas. Also, on Grandfather Peterson’s side of the family, there were relatives who lived in Texas. I don’t think it was a very lucrative enterprise from the rental income standpoint. However, there was the possibility of an oil strike on the land, and there was great speculation among the family about a possible rich “oil baron” uncle in the family. But nothing ever came of that, and the farm was sold.

Tractors

After driving the tractor on the oat binder and disking in oats, the Strand boys were given the job of cultivating corn. This was a job with the main focus on dexterity — the turning on the ends of the field without knocking down the corn. As I recall, it was my brother Carl who came in for praise from Uncle Carl for doing the best job. Since praise was not forthcoming very often, brother Carl must have done a much better job that the rest of us.

Uncle Carl had been the instructor for us as we learned to cultivate, but when it came time to train my brother Verner, I was designated to train him. I imagine that by this time he was tired of seeing corn being covered or plowed out in the first few rounds. Uncle Carl seldom made mistakes, but once he got off on unmatched rows while cultivating. I then spent half a day walking on the south forty uncovering corn.

I was probably the only one of the Strand boys to use the little Hart Parr. This was an 18-36 H.P. tractor designed mostly for tillage use. I disked and plowed with it, and because of its sharp exhaust bark, you could hardly hear when you quit for the day. The hearing loss of Uncle Carl might be attributed to this tractor noise. I had several harrowing experience with this machine, particularly when trying to start it. It had a side crank outfit for starting and occasionally the crank would stick as the tractor would start. The instructions, if this happened, were to run like “hell” when it came off.

There was a water feed to the cylinders to take out the ping or knocking. So we would go out to the field with a ten-gallon can of water to replace the water used for the cooling system. On a trip to disk on the east side of the north forty, I forgot to engage the cooling fan and ran out of water in the cooling system. The Hart Parr got too hot and died. It was a long mile hike bak to the farmstead to tell Uncle Carl. Not a word was spoken by him. We brought water back to the tractor, and lo and behold, the tractor started and was not damaged.

It would have been better if he had said a few harsh words, but that was not his style. The only time that he came close to cursing was once when I heard him say “Sam-Hill.” He must have been mighty provoked to use this expression.

Different Crops

The Depression years brought the AAA programs and some definite changes in farming. One of these programs was the “ever normal granary.” Always the one to take advantage of a money-making endeavor, Uncle Carl proceeded to store corn. The hog house and the chicken house were lined and strengthened to hold corn for storage. Two new single cribs were built alongside the double crib. I don’t know how much income was garnered from this, but I do know that through the years following the Depression, all the remaining Peterson children would receive a check from the farm income each year.

It was Grandfather Peterson’s wish that the farm not be sold as long as Grandmother lived. She received an allowance for her personal expenses and the remained was shared with her children. When the Peterson family estate was settled in 1959 — forty-four years after Grandfather had died — the lawyer was astounded that there had not been a suit for partition of the estate. Knowing Uncle Carl as I did, I doubt that any one of his brothers or sisters dared question his authority as financial manager! Needless to day, the yearly checks were greatly needed by my folks during those years, and also needed by the others of the family as well.

During those years of the AAA programs, there was a trend to plant other crops. Always one to try something new, Uncle Carl planted a variety of crops not common to our area. Several years he raised flax. One year it was popcorn. During the war years he tried to grow sugar cane, but I think it froze and went for cattle feed. He also planted and harvested a number of grass seed crops. These were red clover, sweet clover, and alsike clover. Since these needed bees for pollination, he contracted with the Soder brothers of Stratford, Iowa, to place bee hives on the lower farmstead. They didn’t bother us much (the bees) but occasionally would swarm or seek water at the cattle tank.

At one time he contracted to raise waxy-maize instead of regular corn. This maize was used in the manufacture of food stuffs such as macaroni and noodles. He was also one of the first to grow soybeans which have since become a major crop in the Midwest.

Uncle Carl’s interest, as mentioned before, was not in livestock but in grain crops. During one of the last years of his farming career, he raised a mixture of flax and oats. At the time of the settlement of his estate, this combination was still in the bin. He took them as part of his share of the estate and sold them to a hog farmer. The Book of Leviticus in the Old Testament (Chapter 19:19) states that “you should not sow your field with two kinds of seed.” I doubt that he had an inkling that what he had done was such a statute of the Torah!

Farm Machinery

As you have already surmised, Uncle Carl would try and did perform most everything from being a tractor mechanic, to being a carpenter, to painting, to patching for further use anything from a leaky roof to a machine part. Baling wire was always at hand to keep things tied together. Late in life he decided to paint the house on the farm. His idea of paint was from yesteryear and was a mix of white lead, linseed oil, and bluing. The big problem was that he put too much bluing in the mixture and instead of being white, the house had a bluish tinge. About that time he also climbed up, and with the aid of another elderly gentleman, re-roofed both the house on the farm and the house in town. his tool shed on the farm was a conglomeration of buckets, pails, and boxes filled with every imaginable item. From old, crooked, rusty nails, to obsolete tools, nuts, and bolts. There was no chance that anything was to be thrown away.

One of his endeavors later in life was for Uncle Carl to dig in another outlet tile from the east forty to the nearby dredge ditch. As boys, we helped dig in tile in the lower end of the south forty. But they were only branch lines. Uncle Carl had the expertise to use a tiling leveling instrument and lay out this tile line. He dug it all by hand, up to the road, across the road, and then to the nearby drainage ditch. As I have stated, there were few tasks that he would not try. I recall once helping him in changing the motor assembly from one small Hart Parr to another. There was a near tragedy as the hay rail on the barn tore loose where he had hooked the block and tackle to raise the motor. But all of us boys survived the years that we worked for and with Uncle Carl!

Ever the one to find a way to save money, he purchased a Model A Ford truck from a coal dealer in Fort Dodge. With a modified box, he continued to haul grain to the elevator. In later years, this truck was used to haul cobs to town for burning in the furnace there. Since he owned his own corn sheller, we would spend a full week or so shelling corn. The truck would be loaded with about 100 bushels of corn. He would take off for the elevator and the Strand boys who were present at the time, would haul cobs to the basement of the house on the farm. The Model A truck went with the home eighty when the farm was sold.

The Day the Corn Crib Burned

The burning of the corn crib was the great destructive event on the farm. The day before it burned, we had shelled corn and there was a huge pile of corn husks left piled up. I had taken Marold to Iowa State University for the fall quarter. Uncle Carl had gone to Gowrie with several wagon loads of cobs. My sister Vivian was home with our Mother who was recuperating from surgery.

A strong wind from the south started up a fire in an old husk pile that we thought had been burned out. The first worked back against the wind to the recently piled up husks and thus un turn was close to the crib, and it caught fire. Since the crib was far to the north of the building site, Vivian didn’t realize what was happening until the neighbors saw the blaze. So the crib burned along with the elevator and the old gasoline engine.

I returned from Iowa State and Uncle Carl came out from Gowrie to find quite a mess. There were oats in the overhead bins and they were in a great charred pile on the ground in the midst of the debris. I worked with Uncle Carl to try to salvage some of the oats. It was kind of a hopeless task, but as usual, Uncle Carl’s frugalness made the task essential. I think the salvaged oats, with burnt flavor and water soaked from the fire department, were sold to some hog farmer.

Life is full of events that happen without regard to reason. This was one of them. Later, Uncle Carl built two new single cribs on the foundations of the old crib. I think that they were still there at the time the farm was sold.

Uncle Carl was also one of the first to decide that plowing was bit the best tillage practice. He bought a John Deere Van Brunt field cultivator and tried to use it. This was before the days of stalk cutters and straw shredders, so the trash problem made the use of this machine unsatisfactory. But as we well know, present day chisel plows and V-rippers have pretty much replace the plow on the Iowas farm scene. These tillage tools were an outgrowth of the field cultivator.

Ss time went on, the purchase of new machinery waned, and Uncle Carl continued to farm for many more years with patched up machines that he had originally purchased new. One item of interest was the F-20 tractor that he bought in 1936 and had moved into town in 1959–60, had never had the transmission grease changed in it. Not only did he or we not abuse this tractor, but it was made to last. when it was sold at an auction of his possessions when he went to live in a retirement home in Madrid, the F-20 was still in running order except that it did need a new clutch.

Uncle Carl's Farm Machinery

Which bring me to the subject of Uncle Carl and his farm machinery. Shortly after we arrived on the farm, he purchased on of the first rubber tired tractors in the neighborhood. The thought, of course, was that there would be took much slippage with them versus the older steel lugged wheels. But they proved quite satisfactory.

He purchased one of the first power-lift cultivators which we boys appreciated as we saw the neighbor boys lift the cultivator sections by hand at the end of each set of rows. About 1938 he purchased one of the first small combines in the neighborhood. He took us boys to see various models in the neighborhood, but none pleased him as much as the Case A-6 that he bought. This machine with many of its modifications, was still operating in 1959 as the last crop of soybeans that he raised was harvested. It was a cold snowy day in December of that year. The farm had been sold and his soybean crop was unharvested. I took my combine from where I was farming, and went to the Peterson farm to harvest the beans. Water from the snow got into the main gear case and my machine broke down. So we cranked up his old 1938 combine and combined the last two rows. So ended his farming career.

He was the first during the prewar years to purchase new machines. He became one of the first owners of a plow with throwaway lays. This plow also survived his farming years, although the moldboards were worn clear through in places. This piece of machinery plus the combine, the 1936 F-20 tractor, and other items were pulled into the back lot of the Peterson house in Gowrie for what turned out to be one last attempt at a farming operation. The locala small town newspaper came out with an ad wanting to rent forty acres. Needless to say, no one would rent to a near eighty-year-old man with 25-year-old (and more) machinery.

Uncle Carl was one of the first to own and operate a two-row mounted cornpicker. It is interesting for me to reflect on the fact that after graduating from Iowa State College in 1948, my first job was designing a mounted cornpicker for John Deere. It was my duty during some of my high school years to haul corn from the cornpicker to the corn crib using Birdie and Barney to pull the wagon. This was not an easy task since it was usually late fall before he came home from doing custom work for others to pick his own corn. In 1940, the year of an Armistice Day blizzard,  he had harvested little corn and we “worried through” the drifts at the ends of the field as we tried to harvest the corn after that snow.

The unloading of the corn at the crib was an exercise in patience. The double crib had been built by Uncle Carl some years before, and included a homemade inside elevator. It did not always function well, with the elevator chain periodically coming off the track. Instead of a wagon hoist, the wagon was tipped up using dump logs. It was a miracle that no one was ever hurt in this operation. The elevator was operated with a one-cylinder 6 H.P. engine. The trick was to get it started in the morning and then let the motor run all day. It had a low tension ignition system with breaker points instead of a spark plug. Of all the machines on the farm, I would life to have kept it, as this would have been a relic. It, however, was destroyed when the crib burned in 1947. But that’s another story!

Planting

I find now that I have gotten ahead of the farm seasons and failed to mention the planting seasons. The first crop to be seeded was the oat crop, but before the endgate seeder mounted on a two-wheel cart was used, the oat seed was prepared by use of a fanning mill. This was used to take out unwanted weed seed, foreign material, and light kernels of grain. It was one of our duties to crank the mechanism of the fanning mill. This was a long and tedious job that was eventually taken over by an electric motor. Then, Uncle Carl with the unmatched team of Birdie and Barney, would seed the oats. It was then the duty of one of us boys to disk in the oats with the tractor and old tandem disk with cutaway blades. The tractor duty was a step up from pulling the binder and was quite thrilling on a cool spring day.

The next step was to roll the ground with a cultipacker. The main thing to remember when doing this was not to turn too short so as to tip over the wing sections of this implement. The admonition from Uncle Carl in this regard, was not always heeded and led to a struggle to get it back in alignment again.

Through the years, Uncle Carl had various corn planting ideas. The first years on the farm, he planted two rows at a time with a Moline planter pulled by Birdie and Barney using a check wire. He made a bog jump to a four-row mounted planter sometime in the late ’30s. It was not a blazing success, since the runners kept getting clogged. I spent hours planting in corn by hand where there were vacancies in the planted rows.

The year that I was discharged from the army and before I started back to college, Uncle Carl had rigged up a corn planted underslung under his F-20 Farmall, with the cultivator mounted on the tractor also. The contraption took so much time to invent that it was the last of May before we started planting. We took turns planting and cultivating at the same time, driving from dawn to dusk. I can’t recall what the crop was like, but the apparatus was a forerunner of present day minimum tillage practices.

Threshing

Another of the farm devices that was periodically giving trouble was the pump on the barnyard well. It seemed that every year, Uncle Carl would be called on to repair the well pump. There again, the well pipe and rod were in need of replacement, but not before the failed to operate completely. Added to Uncle Carl’s resume, was the job of plumber as we hoisted the forty-foot extension ladders in a tripod to pull the 100-foot pipe. Yes, the pipe rusted out, the piston rod failed, but it would always be patched. Never replaced!

Probably the main activity of the summer season on the farm in those days was the harvesting of the oat crop. First it was to cut, bind, and shock the oats, and then to thresh them. Uncle Carl was one of the first to purchase a ten-foot power-take-off binder. This was necessitated by the demise of the old Acme binder. One of the first tractor driving jobs that we had was in steering the tractor pulling the binder while Uncle Carl sat on the binder seat. We didn’t always drive straight or turn the corners right, but the oats were cut. Then it was to place the tied oat bundles in shocks. This usually came in some of the hottest days of the summer. There was always an earthen jug wrapper in a wet gunny-sack to quench our thirst. We boys drank from it often, Uncle Carl sparingly.

Then the threshing season began. There were eight to ten farms involved. Uncle Carl was the owner of the threshing rig, a huge 48-inch cylinder Huber threshing machine, and a mammoth Hart Parr tractor. At one time he owned and operated as many as four of these combinations. When we moved to the farm in 1933, there were three remaining, but only one in operating condition. During World War II days, all of them were junked and went into the war effort. There was a lot of steel and cast iron in them.

Each year the procedure to get the threshing rig ready was the same. The threshing machine (or separator) was pulled out of the shed at the lower farmstead. This took some doing since it had sunk into the dirt floor of the shed. The small Hart Parr (a smaller version of the big one) was used for this. The separator was pulled up to the location of the tool shed where various repairs were made. Then it was to go to the cow yard where the big hart Parr had been parked since the last threshing season. Most years it took quite a bit of effort to get it running. There were prime cups to fill with gas to get it started, and as it warmed up, the fuel was shifted to tractor fuel. The cranking mechanism was a five-foot-diameter cast iron flywheel that Uncle Carl would climb upon and use his weight to get it slowly to move. At times we would have to belt the little Hart Parr to the bigger one to get the big one started.

So now the rig was ready and the threshing season began. If good weather prevailed, it would last about two weeks. Uncle Carl was in charge since he owned the rig, and it was done according to his direction. One year my older brother Carl and I hauled bundles. My job was to place the bundles on the hayrack as my brother pitched them up to be placed on the rack. I had specific instructions from Uncle Carl as to how to place the bundles since he was the one who unloaded them at the threshing machine. My brother Carl remembers quite vividly the day on the Peterson farm when going through a gate by the barn, the hayrack tipped over dumping the whole load. That night one of the team of horses, Barney, took off into the neighbor’s cornfield and died from sleeping sickness. It was felt that the reason for the tipped rack was that Barney was indeed quite sick at the time.

My next job on the threshing circuit was to be Uncle Carl’s tractor man. The job was pretty well laid out for me with the usual explicit instructions. Uncle Carl and I were the first on the scene in the morning and the last off in the evening. The instructions included filling grease cups on the separator a very certain way, installing the belts on the separator, pouring fuel from the tank-wagon into the tractor fuel tank, and in general doing “flunky” work. As the threshing day evolved, it was my job to watch and shut down the tractor if things went wrong. The specific instructions were to see that the bundles were going in, tailing belt working, and that the oats and straw were coming out of the machine. More than once I was not alert and Uncle Carl came running back to shut off the rig. Not a word was said!

There were times of repair which were time consuming with fifteen to twenty men and boys standing around waiting. Many times it was to repair belts. One time, the head of one of the two pistons of the tractor broke off necessitating a major tractor overhaul.

I recall several instances that have stuck in my mind. One was at a neighbor’s place who had planted oats on a particularly rich piece of ground. The bundles that the binder had made were quite large and fluffy. Two of the farmers wanted Uncle Carl to take out the dividing board in the feeder. He would not do so. One of them handed Uncle Carl his pitchfork and told him to pitch the bundles. He did it, but not without considerable effort.

Another time was on a Saturday evening. Two of the young men were throwing bundles into the feeder. No doubt it was time to get the job done quickly so they could get home and get ready for dates with their girlfriends. They were overloading the separator and Uncle Carl reprimanded them and stood at the top of the head and made them pitch the bundles in at an extremely slow rate. I’m sure that they did get home for their dates, but Uncle Carl did assert his authority in a “take charge” manner.

I did put all the belts on each morning except for two that operated the straw racks. Uncle Carl wanted them put on a certain way. I could put the, on, but he would chem them and then drop the tighteners. One morning we were blowing the straw into a barn, and he forgot to drop the tighteners. Since we couldn’t see the straw coming out, everything seemed okay. All of a sudden reality set in, and about half of the two bundle loads of straw were packed into the inside of the separator. That time it was not my fault.

The tractor had one belt that ran the governor. The belt, as many of Uncle Carl’s belts, was a little beyond normal usage. My instructions were that if the belt should break, to cut the ignition switch, grab a pliers and wrench, and hold down the valve arms to keep them from operating. This was to keep the tractor from dieseling, and theoretically, flying to pieces until it cooled down. Fortunately, the one time that the belt broke, Uncle Carl was at hand and took care of the situation. I guess I had a picture of the tractor flying to pieces, which seemed impossible, but the idea had been instilled in my mind.

All in all, the threshing season was one of community endeavor. The meals were good, and a certain amount of “horseplay” took place. There were years when the season was long because of rainy weather. One year especially when the bundles were taken out of standing water to be threshed. My one claim to importance was that I was Uncle Carl’s tractor man. I have understood that I followed in the footsteps of Uncle Carl’s brother Milton, who became a Lutheran pastor. He had an earned doctorate in theology, and was a teacher of Old Testament at Luther Seminary in St. Paul. I did not follow in his footsteps as an adult, but from what I have heard of his discipline in the classroom, I am sure that some of it came from the years that he was under Uncle Carl’s tutelage.

Cows

Although Uncle Carl was not a livestock man, he did acquire a herd of cows for we Strand boys to milk. Our dad had brought a cow with him from the small town (Gowrie) that we lived in. Uncle Carl had one too, a brown Swiss, which soon had a calf, “Susan,” which was raised to be an addition to the small herd. As time passed, two Guernseys, a Shorthorn, and a Holstein were added to the herd. Unconventional as he was, he did believe in diversity When we Strand boys get together in these years, there are many talks of this rather nondescript group of cows. Sanitary conditions for milking were atrocious, and the feed for the cows was meager. Since we had no bull, we soon learned the facts of life as we chased the “bulling cows” to the neighbor’s cow yard for the necessary act.

The winter months with cows around brought a pile of manure (“joy”) heaped up behind the barn. One of the jobs we boys were assigned to was to pitch this into the manure spreader and haul it to the field for spreading. This would have been simple enough except that the spreader was continually breaking down. Not an implement of high priority, Uncle Carl kept patching and fixing it beyond reasonable time, and we had special instructions from him as to how to load the contraption to alleviate any undue strain on its mechanical parts.

Uncle Carl: Potatoes

The major part of this description of Uncle Carl’s life has to do with my experiences and recollections of my life on the Peterson farm from 1933–1942 and from 1951 to his death in 1968. During these later years, I returned to farm on my dad’s farm. The years from 1942–1948, I was in the army and in college. I then worked in Des Moines, Iowa, from 1948–1951.

In order to orient oneself to those earlier years on the Peterson farm, a description of the farm is appropriate. The farm consisted of 200 acres of good Iowa soil purchased by Grandfather Peterson while raising a family of ten children. One child died early in life. The home ’80 was the original purchase on which my grandparents started farming. As the years progressed, an east ’40, south ’40, and a north ’40 were added. The building site was rather large for the size of the farm. It consisted of about eight acres. The large rambling house that we moved into in 1933 was located on a knoll close to the road. Out-building consisted of a granary, barn, chicken house, tool shed, hog house, machine shed, corn crib, and threshing machine shed. At the time that the Strand family moved onto the farm, the farmstead was scattered with a variety of usable and obsolete farm machinery belonging to Uncle Carl. There were assorted garden patches, fruit trees, and on the northwest corner of the farm place was a windbreak of closely planted walnut trees, presumably planted by Uncle Carl.

Onto this rather extensive and fascinating environment, the Clarence Strand family of eight descended, and into our lives came Uncle Carl with all of his personality traits. Having been raised as the first of eleven children in a very meager life style, he was the very personification of a WASP (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant) with a work ethic that was ingrained in him from childhood. As I worked for him and with him, there was no time for idle hands or speech. The job was to be done with as little fanfare as possible.

One of the first activities that I became involved in (with him) was on one of his “jerry-rigged” potato planters. My sister Vivian and I were chosen to ride on a modified two row corn planter, each of us sitting on a seat over a row. Our duty was to, at regular intervals, drop a potato seed piece down a section of rain-spout to the opening made by the corn planter runner. It did not take long for Uncle Carl to see that we were not qualified to do this job, so our dad and a neighbor, Will Lines, took over for us. A year lated the planter was modified with a moving, flighted chain as that there was no mistaking the correct interval. Vivian and I got our jobs back!

Potatoes were very important to Uncle Carl, and I imagine that he saw in the Strand “brood” plenty of unused labor. Through our growing-up years, the numerous jobs associated with the potato crop were assigned to us, from sorting, de-sprouting, cutting for planting, the actual planting, and then the harvest season. At harvest time, we were instructed many evenings after school to use pails and pick up the potatoes after the potato digger, and then dump them into the horse drawn lumber wagon. In the evening, it was to scoop them into a basement room, rolling them down a steel roofing sheet formed as a trough. My brother Verner reminds us often of the rumble of potatoes down the trough.

One of the places that potatoes were planted was in a drained peat pond rented from the neighbors. The peat might have been good for potatoes, but not for a pleasant environment. After picking potatoes at harvest time, the peat dust caused a lot of itching. As I have noted, Uncle Carl was not the conventional farmer with cattle, hogs, and chickens. He was the only one in the neighborhood that raised field potatoes. One thing for sure, the Strand clan would never go hungry with a room full of Early Ohios or Rural New Yorkers in the basement! Much of Uncle Carl’s winter activity went to the sale and distribution of this crop.

Uncle Carl: A Unique Individual

[In the course of going boxes looking for family photos with which to illustrator Naomi's family history, I found a copy of the reminiscence that my uncle Vincent compiled about his uncle Carl.]

CARL ALGOT PETERSON

1870-1968

Memories by Vincent T. Strand

Uncle Carl Algot Peterson was born in Illinois in 1879. His mother had been sent there from Gowrie, Iowa, a year after her marriage to her step-uncle (my grandfather). Grandfather Peterson had returned to the goldfields of Montana, presumably to earn funds to start farming northeast of the village of Gowrie. He had worked there for some years prior to the marriage.

Upon his return from his year in Montana, Grandmother Peterson insisted that Grandfather stay on the eighty acres that he had purchased, and there become a farmer. So Uncle Carl was the first of eleven children born to this family. The Peterson family history has been chronicled by my mother, and it is not my purpose to expound upon that. I was the one of the nieces and nephews who had the most contact with Uncle Carl during our adolescent and growing up years. Upon the suggestion of my brothers and sister and several of my cousins, I will attempt to relate remembrances from his life. I am sure that my recollections will not always jibe with others in the family. Our perceptions of events and people are quite varied, so I hope that I do not seem too positive at times.

In the spring of 1933, my own family of Dad and Mother Strand with six children made a move to the Peterson family farm home northeast of Gowrie. This move was necessitated by the fact that my dad had lost his job at the local bank due to the Depression. The decision was made to move to the farm and into the large rambling Peterson farm home. Grandmother Peterson had moved to town some years before, to a large, square, two-story home with a large attic, where she lived with several unmarried children, including Uncle Carl. As far as I know, Grandfather Peterson never lived in that house. He died on the farm in 1915.

At that time, I assume that Uncle Carl became the masculine head of the family which he held until his death in 1968. Since he was only 17 years younger than his mother, he was often mistaken for her husband in later years. I am also assuming that the house in Gowrie was his home from the time that it was built until he moved to a nursing home in Madrid in his later years. The house in Gowrie was built on a lot purchased by his father many years before. My understanding is that the plan of the house was much of Uncle Carl’s idea, including a sleeping porch on the south side, with casement windows on the southeast and west. This was Uncle Carl’s sleeping quarters.

Until the time of our move to the farm in 1933, my contact with Uncle Carl was typical of that at family gathering and the first years on the farm were similar also. We were four Strand boys ranging in age from four to twelve at that time. Looking at his nephews, it probably became apparent to Uncle Carl that he could use us on the farm. My father soon got a job in nearby Fort Dodge, leaving his sons to the instruction of Uncle Carl as to farm duties.

Uncle Carl had taken charge of the farming of the Peterson farm in 1926, when his brother Serenus quit farming to become a Lutheran pastor. He continued to farm the land until the farm was sold in 1959. He lived in town with his mother and unmarried sisters and a brother. He drove daily to the farm during the crop season. He was not interested in raising livestock and so during the winter months, the daily trip to the farm was not made. During the years that the Strand family lived on the farm, he ate the noonday meal with us.

His usual day began at 4:00 a.m. Breakfast was of a very standard variety consisting of oatmeal, a soft boiled egg, dried hard toast, a selection of sauce, and his usual glass of water. Until later years, I cannot remember his drinking anything but water, and that had to be at a temperature that he approved of, neither too hot or too cold. There was some indication that he would drink some cocoa or maybe milk, but I never saw him do this. Leaving for the farm between 5:00 and 6:00 a.m., he usually had nearly a full day’s work dome by 12:00 noon. He would then eat the noon meal with us, take a 15–20 minute nap on the leather couch, and then off to work again. The routine did not vary much from day to day. He returned to his home in Gowrie about 6:00 p.m., ate supper with his mother and siblings, and then read from various periodicals and newspapers until bedtime at 8:00 p.m.

In all the years that I was around him, he never took second helpings at meals, regardless of the quality of the food. He loved potatoes and creamed vegetables, and because of that, our noon meal usually included a creamed vegetable. he did not converse as he ate, so conversation at the noon dinner table was quite sparse. He also moved strawberries and watermelon, and during those years that we lived on the farm, there were strawberry and watermelon patches planted by him.

To back up a bit, I must relate a story of Uncle Carl’s romantic endeavors, as related to me by his brother Lawrence. One day as a young man on the farm, Carl told brother Lawrence that he was going to hitch up the horse and buggy and go to a farmstead about two miles east to ask a young farm girl for her hand in marriage. Lawrence, being a little more “versed” in the ways of the world, tried to dissuade him, telling him that it would be more proper to court the young lady for a time before making so bold a step. But, as I have often found out, Uncle Carl was of a very set mind, and so he proceeded on his “mission.” Unfortunately for him, the lady in question had already accepted a proposal from another young man. As far as any of the family know, this was his one and only romantic venture. He must have been observing the lady from a distance for some time, and bravely made this attempt at finding a wife. He remained a bachelor all of his life, and perhaps this contributed to his “set ways” and even eccentricity at times.

Needless to say, if the young lady had been available and had consented to marry Uncle Carl, the Clarence Strand family history would have been greatly changed. Uncle Carl would have no doubt ended up on the family farm, had a family of cousins for us, and the farm might still be in the Peterson family. Life is full of “what ifs” and if this even would have taken place, I would not be writing this story of Uncle Carl’s life.

As I looked through old yearbooks of Zion Lutheran Church where Uncle Carl was a member, it is noted that at various time he was a Sunday School teacher, and also a Deacon. In the years that I remember him, he was a faithful participant in the Sunday morning worship. He sat with his mother and sister in the third pew from the front on the right hand side of the church every Sunday. He never looked at the pastor during sermon time. His stewardship to the local congregation and the church at large was very generous. I can remember one time in the years coming out of the Depression, when he was asked to give a stewardship talk to the congregation. He calmly stated at the beginning of his talk that the ushers should stand at the back doors of the sanctuary and not let anyone leave. Needless to say, he had the attention of the congregation. I do recall sitting next to my mother as he asked the ushers to allow no one to leave. Her expression indicated that even she did not know what to expect from her older brother. Whether or not the message helped the congregation’s stewardship, I do not know. I do know that because of him and others, the stewardship of Zion congregation has beenm and continues to be very good.

In regard to his clothing and how he dressed, he had some very definite ideas. His work clothes were basically striped overalls, blue work shirts, and assorted jackets and sweaters. He would many times wear two pairs of overalls, the top pair being what he called “greasers” and they were just that! As winter approached, he had a layered look of jackets and sweaters, and as really cold weather began, he was a heavy tan mackinaw. In the summer, his head gear was a sun helmet and in the winter, a black leather cap with ear flaps. In the summer he wore no underwear, and in the winter he wore the typical “long-johns.”

The idea of tight-fitting clothes was anathema to him. As he grew older, this became more pronounced, and as I went several times with him to buy clothes, it seemed ludicrous. His dress shirt collars were at least two sizes too big, his trousers for his 32”–34” waist were purchased at size 40”. He never wore a belt so suspenders were absolutely necessary to keep his pants from falling down. And even with his shoes, the size that he chose were at least two sizes too big. But for all of this “looseness,” he never seemed to be ill dressed.

As years went by, he had various forays to doctors and hospitals, I accompanied him on many of these trips and tried to be as sympathetic to his complaints as I could be. He was quite hearing impaired as years progressed, and a trip to a hearing aid specialist was not very rewarding. He was convinced that hearing aid would restore his hearing to full hearing. He was finally convinced that this could not be true, but not before giving several specialists a very difficult time. I once accompanied him to an eye, ear, nose, and throat specialist for trouble with his throat. I frankly thought that he would die in the chair as the doctor probed his throat. At one time he was in the hospital for much the same problem. After about a week stay without much help, he was highly disturbed because all that they did for him was to give him some aspirin. I can still see him in the hospital bed with his nightcap on. Since he was quite bald, in later years he wore this cap at night to keep his head warm. He slept in the unheated sleeping porch in the Peterson home, except in the very coldest of weather. And he needed the stocking cap for sleeping there.

Sunday Dinner at Grandmother's House

Grandmother’s house evokes many memories. Int he kitchen where my grandmother even in her most advanced years was the dominating figure, I can still see her washing the dishes while others took over the dish-wiping function. She almost always would have on hand a supply of her chocolate cookies, with the chocolate icing on top, and would often parcel them out to us children when we happened to be in the kitchen at other than mealtimes.

Aside from these chocolate cookies and the Christmas bakalsar (sp?) I recall only one other kind of cookie she ever made. These were a cookie that was baked over a curved surface (such as a rolling pin) and thus were not flat. I preferred the chocolate cookies. She may have made the garden-variety sugar cookie but I’m uncertain as to that. She made pies, notably apple pie and her pie-crust–making ability was unsurpassed — her crusts were always light and flaky. Cake making was more in my aunt Ruth’s realm and her specialty was sort of a brown sugar of caramel cake with like frosting.

The kitchen was the source of the Sunday dinners which we often had at my grandmother’s house. Typically they would feature some sort of pot roast and invariable mashed potatoes and gravy. On rare occasions the mashed potatoes and gravy would be supplanted with fresh boiled potatoes with fresh peas all in a cream sauce. This would occur when the first small potatoes were available from the early planted potatoes from the garden, if at the same time the first peas were ready for picking.

Sunday dinners were always later than the usual noonday time as a good part of the cooking was done after my grandmother returned from attendance at the morning church service. The service would be at 11:00 o’clock so it would be at least 12:30 before she had returned, changed her clothes and began in the kitchen. Actually I suppose the pot roast had been simmering all during the church service.

The Sunday dinners were always served in the dining room. I only remember eating at the kitchen table a few times and that was not at a Sunday dinner. At quite of few of these Sunday dinners in addition to our family and those in my grandmother’s menage, there would be “uncle” Albert and “aunt” Marie also. “Aunt Marie” was actually a cousin of my grandmother’s and “uncle Albert” was her husband. When there were vacation visitors such as uncle Lawrence and aunt Dagmar or uncle Milton’s family were in town they too would be at the Sunday dinner table.

Preceding and following the dinner there would be visiting in the parlor, with uncle Carl ensconced typically in “his” chair in the northwest corner of the room. It was here he would relate his little story of “pinch me” and “tickle me” while holding one of us on his lap so he could appropriately pinch to tickle us at the conclusion of the story.

One of uncle Albert’s oft-repeated comments would be about uncle Carl’s hands as being “real working hands.” Uncle Carl’s hands, like my mother’s were sturdy, short-fingered and admirably suited to toil. Uncle Carl’s hands were calloused and hard — he never used gloves when he was working. I always used cotton gloves when I was using a pitchfork for example as during threshing.

During the summer months such visiting would likely be on the screened front porch, particularly after the noontime meal. Late in the afternoon there would be almost inevitably an early supper — bread, cheese, perhaps some rice dish, jello, with cooked fruit for dessert. Following the supper there would be the ubiquitous devotions, perhaps a Bible or devotional reading with a prayer being read followed by the Lord’s prayer.

Uncle Carl and His Cars

Uncle Carl had a series of blue Essex sedans during the time we were on the farm. I think he acquired them second-hand in Fort Dodge and why he favored them I have no idea. I have a vague recollection that when I was quite young he had an open (canvas top) Dodge touring car and I seem to recall getting out of it alongside the east door at my grandmother’s after having arrived from somewhere. It was after dark.

During the time we were on the farm he also bought a second-hand Chevrolet sedan as a second car — again why I don’t know. He and I and Vincent drove to Ames one of the times we attended the agronomy day there, using this car. I drove. On the way back to the farm I was driving along at a moderate speed and a car passed me traveling at a much faster speed. The driver had to cut in maybe because of oncoming traffic and as he did so he clipped the bumper of the Chevrolet. I could hear the click but that was all.

I have sometimes wondered why he took Vincent and me along on these trips to Ames. Was he envisioning a future for the two of us as farmers, possible taking over someday the operation of the Peterson acres? He never said. Vincent of course deserted John Deere for being a farmer, but I guess it was despite uncle Carl than because of him. I recall that when he was discharged from the army he worked for our uncle for awhile but he could not stand the way he farmed and went back to school at ISU and got his degree in agricultural engineering.

After I had left the farm for California, my uncle purchased a small truck to transport grain to market in Gowrie. After all, the horses were all dead by then. It was on one of the trips with the truck hauling shell corn to the elevator in Gowrie that the corncrib burned down. I guess he was informed at the elevator and he drove back at a furious speed. Not that there was anything he could do about it.

He himself was really responsible for the fire. He had been shelling corn and had elected to dispose of some corn husks from the shelling by burning them up. He didn’t adequately ensure that the embers were all out and they were apparently too near the crib. They flared up and the crib caught fire. My mother and the persons in the house (Vivian was on the scene) were unaware that the crib was on fire until the neighbor to the east noticed the blaze and called them. I believe the corn had all been shelled but the two bins upstairs contained oats I believe. I believe he sold them for hog feed.

Early in WWII he bought a new Pontiac (a two-door I think) and it was the only new car he ever bought in my recollection. As a farmer he must have been allotted the purchase of one of the few remaining new autos still remaining at the time. To my knowledge it was the last car he ever owned.

Typically my uncle’s cars were stained and characterized by grease, dirt and debris. On the rare occasions when he wanted to transport some family member (such as my grandmother) somewhere he would clean out the car more or less and cover the seat where the riders would sit with a clean tarpaulin or some such piece of fabric. I can still see my grandmother on such an occasion seated placidly in the front seat of the car alongside him. I think that on at least one occasion I was detailed to clean out the car for such an excursion.

I don’t know how he treated the Pontiac but his Essexes always got secondary treatment to his tractors. For example when he changed the oil in his Farmall he would use it in his Essex.

The large Hart-Parrs which he used for threshing were originally equipped with a magneto to generate the spark for the combustion in the cylinders. When we were on the farm this form of ignition had ceased to be used and instead he used a storage battery and an old Ford coil for the purpose. At the end of each threshing day he would disconnect the battery from the tractor and install it in the circuit of the Essex to have it recharged on his trip back and to his overnight sleep at my grandmother’s.

Uncle Carl was a master at adapting to meet his mechanical problems with such materials as he had at hand. He was great at using wire for making makeshift and often permanent repairs. The wire he used for these purposes was old check wire from early corn-planting methods. I find in a way that I have adopted this technique for fixing things and the use of wire is one of the first solutions I turn to. For example, I like to mow the grass in the lawns as high as I can so I set the mower at the extreme adjustment possible with my current mower (Sears’ lowest-priced hand-pushed model). The design of the mower is somewhat deficient in that the force transmitted along the handle to move the mower will sometimes cause the mower wheels to lift off the ground and the mower will slide or roll on the back of the mower where the roller is. This can be rectified by wiring the handle to the roller attachment, which I have done.

This is not the way that Jean’s machinist father would have attacked the problem.

In a way I think I resemble my uncle Carl in that the means are never overemphasized in pursuit of an end — except perhaps in the case with Uncle Carl and his famous potato planter. I think I may have written about the project elsewhere.

Grandmother's House, Part 2

Diagram of second floor, drawn from memory

As long as my grandmother lived and thereafter as uncle Carl and aunt Esther continued to occupy the house, the old-fashioned range was the cooking facility. It was stoked largely with corncobs (I suppose with coal or other combustibles at times) and it served not only for cooking but as a source of warmth in the kitchen during the winter months. The pails containing the cobs, etc. sat alongside the stove to the east. I can still see my grandmother taking off one of the round iron plates from the top of the range and putting in some more cobs. In the winter months I wonder if the kitchen wasn’t the place where most members of the family spent a good deal of the daytime. Probably being cooped up so close for such a long period contributed to the “winter-sickness” that the household seemed to encounter at that time of the year. The stove also served as the heat source for the hot water tank connected to it.

I believe that when my mother moved into the house after uncle Carl and aunt Esther went to Madrid, that she replaced the old range with a modern gas stove. That would seem the logical thing to do as I do know that gas service was introduced to the house (to supply the new gas furnace that replaced the old one).

Grandmother’s house was extremely well constructed, though probably lacking in the insulation in present-day houses. I don’t remember the layout of the basement — I was never in it to any significant extent. I’ve shown what I remember of the ground and upstairs floor plans in the accompanying sketches. The attic was one large undivided room. The water head tank (it had the appearance of a typical rectangular stock tank) was located close to the stairs leading to the attic. The attic was lighted by windows at the north and south ends, at the gable ends of the house.

The woodwork in the downstairs floor was all oak, stained dark. The upstairs was pine or fit, including I think the floors. There were a considerable number of built-in cupboards in the kitchen and the dining room. When the house was first built these had solid oak doors (not paneled) and apparently they warped or the component boards separated. Anyway they were subsequently replaced by paneled doors. I recall uncle Carl commenting many years later unfavorably on what he regarded as unsatisfactory workmanship. And I recall seeing the doors that had been replaced lying up in the attic. What happened to them eventually I don’t know but I’m sure they would have been good material for woodworking at school.

The doors were probably the product of John Hoff who worked at the lumberyard where my father was the part-time bookkeeper. My impression was that he always worked in the shop at the lumberyard rather than as a carpenter out building barns, houses, etc. Perhaps he was a cut above the other carpenters in ability. I think he was an immigrant from Sweden, perhaps his wife was also. Their oldest child Mary Jane, a plump happy sort of individual, was in my class all through grade and high school.

Grandmother's House, Part 1

Diagram of first floor, drawn from memory

I’ve written some before about how my grandmother’s house was designed by my uncle Carl. And how it was built on some lots that my grandfather had bought. The lots had some corn storage facilities on them. The corn could be hauled in from the farm at a convenient time (as in the winter when the ground was frozen so that the ungraveled roads were passable). The corn would thus be available for sale when the price was right. The fact that these lots were available and had been used for corn storage is I think [representative] of the business acumen of my grandfather. An acumen that was largely lacking in all of his sons. My uncle Carl was an entrepreneur of a sort with his threshing and corn shelling operations but I suspect that the investment would have been better made in Iowa farmland.

I shall now turn to a discussion of my grandmother’s house. The house was basically a rectangle in floor plan, indeed almost a square. There was a full basement, first and second stories and a full attic. The latter had restricted headroom at the eaves. In front of the house was the front porch, extending the full width of the house and perhaps 8 to 10 feet deep.

In the summertime screens were put up to keep the flies out. During the summer there were always two rockers or chairs out on the porch, painted sort of a light aqua-green color. One of these, to the left of the front door (which was in the center of the porch, looking directly at the house from the front), was typically the chair used by my uncle Carl whenever he was on the porch. It was here I can recall seeing him reading the newspaper or the Wallace’s Farmer, his lips silently forming each word, not a single one being missed. I also remember him sitting in his chair morosely viewing the assembled people who had gathered at the house for refreshments and visiting after the funerals of uncle George and aunt Ruth.

Beneath the acerbic and non-social exterior of my uncle Carl there was a sentimental nature that was affected by evidences of the transitory nature of life. Typically after a funeral there would be a later afternoon period of active visiting as relatives would be seeing each other for the first time after a considerable period had elapsed (say since the last funeral in the family). Uncle Carl would not participate in this visiting, nursing instead his private sense of grief and loss.

The house at the time it was constructed was up-to-date as to the household conveniences available at the time, but few if any changes were made over the years to update it, until my mother took over the house when uncle Carl and aunt Esther moved to Madrid. About the only change that I can recall was the addition of a refrigerator perhaps in the 1940s sometime. The refrigerator was acquired through some sort of arrangement by relatives of uncle Verner, perhaps a special purchase price etc. I recall there was some difficulty with the initial operation of the unit and uncle Carl, acerbic as always was disposed to making an issue of the difficulty. Aunt Laurine who was on the scene tried to soft-pedal any evidence of dissension, doubtless for keeping family feelings amiable. I don’t know how the situation was finally resolved.

The heating system in the house was hot-water (natural convection) with radiators in most rooms except the kitchen and the upstairs sleeping porch. As I recall the upstairs hall was also unheated and was characteristically cool in the wintertime (the doors to the bedrooms being carefully closed as a rule). I suppose the furnace was stoked with coal in part, but when uncle Carl was feeding it (at least in later years) he used corncobs as the sole source of fuel. This involved fairly frequent trips to the furnace as corncobs, though they burn quite hot, are consumed rather rapidly. For overnight periods he developed a stoking technique that involved banking a large pile of cobs at one side of the firebox, through which the fire burned more slowly. After my mother moved into the house, the furnace was replaced with gas heat, doubtless on some sort of automatic control. I think she also replaced the old kitchen range with a gas stove but of that I am not certain.

Though the house was connected to the municipal water system at least in later years, it may not have been when first constructed. The house had a cistern for collecting rainwater and this was used for such purposed as laundry and baths. There was a well on the back porch and this supplied I suppose water for cooking and drinking. Unlike the little brown house which has a pressure tank for providing the flow of soft rainwater, grandmother’s house had gravity flow, the head being provided by a holding tank up in the attic. How this was charged from the cistern I don’t know.

In later years the little brown house had used city water for all purposes with a water softener to make the water suitable for laundry, etc. My mother, on the move back to town from the farm, acquired a Maytag washing machine to take the place of the old wooden-tub washer of pre-farm days and the Hart-Parr machine out on the farm. I suspect that my grandmother and aunt Esther continued to use their outdated wood tub washer until aunt Esther stopped doing laundry altogether.

Hot water in pre-farm days at the little brown house, on the farm and at my grandmother’s was provided by a unit in the kitchen range. I suppose in later years it was provided by a gas-heated hot water heater, at least after the folks moved back to the little brown house and after my mother occupied by grandmother’s house.

Luck and Circumstance

As I stop to reflect on my uncle I realize that he was quite probably the dominant male in my early life. Much more so than even my father who always seemed to be in the background. Maybe this was due to my impressionable teenage years when I was working for him on the farm. I can’t say that I really liked him; I respected him but his crusty personality kept me from really liking him.

I realize now that he had our family and me as matters of concern to him. I recall how he took Vincent and me along with him on his periodic visits to Iowa State College to keep up on the latest developments in agriculture. Was he thinking that someday we would be farmers as he was? And sort of preparing us for that role in life?

Had it not been for the scholarship I received after my two years at Fort Dodge junior college to attend the University of Iowa, what would I have done with my life? Enlist in the military or wait and be drafted?

When I finished at the junior college in 1940, my father had inherited the basic Strand farm from my grandfather. My cousin Leonard was the tenant. Could I have started farming? I recall that my uncle Carl had helped one of our neighbors during the first year he tried to be a farmer. Would I have borrowed the wherewithal to begin farming from him? I could easily see myself as an Iowa farmer; it would have been easy for me to drift into it, even had I gone into the military and survived it would have been a path of low resistance to me.

Again I feel that events shaped my life and that I exerted no choice in the matter. I went away to Iowa, became a chemical engineer with Shell, but I could just as easily ended up as an Iowa farmer.

The Circus

The picture I have given of my uncle Carl is in large part one of a rather forbidding, iconoclastic, prickly individual. He did however have his lighter moments. One that stands out was his apparent liking for the circus. During my early youth in Gowrie, the town would occasionally be included in the circuit of the smaller traveling circuses. The name that sticks in my mind is Sells-Floto but there may have been others.



Sells-Floto circus poster

One time, I think it must have been while we were still living in Gowrie (although I can’t exclude the possibility that it might have been after the move to the farm) I accompanied him to a circus that had come to Gowrie. It was surely during the summer, which meant that he was taking time off from the ever-present round of farm activities during that time of year to indulge this simple pleasure. I don’t remember if other of my brothers or my sisters was along but I have the vague feeling that some of them were.

The circus was set up in what was then the vacant lots to the south of the Lennarson-Johnson hardware store and mortuary. I think these lots [were used?] for pasturage by the Forsmark dairy and they extended from the M and St. L tracks east for several hundred yards. I have little recollection of what transpired in the performance itself.

On another occasion he was along when the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey came to Fort Dodge. This time the whole family was along but also my uncle. Again it was during the summertime — perhaps during my father’s annual two-week vacation from his duties at the bank. I have one vivid memory of this circus. Prior to the performance we walked along past a long line of elephants. Perhaps it was on the way in and there may have been cages of other animals. I don’t remember. My uncle had me by the hand as we walked past the elephants, with me being closer to them. I was frightened at being that close to the elephants so I switched to his other side. He was amused by this and afterward related the incident to other members of the family. I felt rather sheepish.