July 30, 1945

July 30, 1945

949 W 12th St

San Pedro, Calif

Dear Father, Mother and the rest of the folks at home,

Since I wrote only last Friday I thought I would wait till tonite to write to you. My cold is just about gone now and I feel pretty good again. It left just about as fast as it came. In the morning I am still a little hoarse for awhile but that passes off very soon. Various other people out at work have also been having colds so that is where I may have picked it up.

Saturday night I went down to the library and took out a couple of P.G.Wodehouse [books] and loafed around most of the evening reading them. I hadn’t been down to the library for some time and it was fun to browse around in it. Yesterday afternoon I went to a show called “AThousand and One Nights.” 

 

It was a take-off on the story of Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp and it was really quite funny. I enjoyed it very much. In the evening Mrs. Johnson had company but I didn’t visit with them but managed to escape since they were people that weren’t very interesting.

Tomorrow the Petersons are leaving. I had thought they were going to stay longer and don’t know why they are leaving so early. It will be sort of peaceful around [here] again when they are gone.

My work continues about as usual; I have finished the report writing that I have [been] doing the past week and will resume some previous work that I dropped and try to get that completed. I think I will work up at Dominguez at the setup there since it is less crowded. Today I got a draft reclassification card again this time classifying me as I-A. Since I had previously been deferred twice till this fall I don’t know what this latest development means. I suppose they do what they think they should but it would improve my opinion of them if they could make up their minds. It would be a laugh if I got in the army now.

It is nice and cool outside. I think I shall take a little excursion down to the post office with this letter.

With love

C.P.

P.S. Of course I always forget to say so, but you don’t know how much I appreciate letters from home. I think one reason is that they portray the farm so much. When you’re in it I suppose it sounds very hustly and bustly bit to me it just sounds peaceful. It probably would be just as much fun to carry leghorns even tho it was hot and dusty as to sit and write a report. You’ll probably say I’m wrong etc etc but there isn’t a more physically enervating and tiring work than using your mind; physical work beside it is almost tick tack toe — and I’m not forgetting the exquisite torture of that last row of potatoes, or that last load of bundles.

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!

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.

Financing the Farm

Before we bought the place I can recall only one encounter with the Joe Johnson farm. On one occasion my mother was involved in some church activity at one of the farmsteads near the place and for some reason I was to join her there after school let out. To get there I took the school bus. The bus driver was rather inept and in turning around in the farmyard got stuck in a snow drift. Perhaps the incident served to fix the whole event in my mind.

Harris I knew of course — he was my age and he and his twin sister Deloris were in my confirmation class. A likable enough individual but quite mediocre in capability.

Old Joe was a rather large, blustery sort of man. On one occasion he bought 10 bushels of potatoes from my uncle Carl. It was well along in the spring so the potatoes he bought were quite small, really the dregs of the crop. As I recall they were the small potatoes that had been sorted out from the general run. He paid $1 per bushel. I guess he must have been trying to provide cheap food for his rather large family. He was not a particularly good or industrious farmer (I don’t think Harris was either and the farm was on the weedy side when we bought it).

The acreage we had in the Joe Johnson farm was augmented when my mother died and my father’s estate was settled. He had willed the farm to his children with the proviso that my mother would have the income from it as long as she lived. My inheritance amounted to about 40 acres and we purchased the rest of the 80 in which it was a part (the north half of my father’s farm) to help in settling the estate. We assumed a debt to Marold as his share of the estate and as I recall we paid it off in a few years.

The loan we took from my mother we had paid off 3 or 4 years after buying the Joe Johnson place. She wanted the money back to be used in constructing a new house on the farm. As I recall we came up with the repayment, in part at least by refinancing the debt we had on 411 Bonnie Drive. The loan to Prudential was paid off in 1980; there had been periodic payments over the years and finally a “balloon” payment of $15,000 in March of 1980.

There was a curious occurrent in connection with the last payment. I kept expecting a final notice from Prudential (their Minnesota office handled the loan payments) and none came. Usually the notices in previous years of the principal and interest due would arrive a month or so before the March 1 due date. I wrote several letters and finally was in telephone contact with someone in Minneapolis (for some reason I remember writing their office in Fresno earlier).

It turned out that the individual handling our final payment (as well as several others) had left the company, leaving the files as unfinished business in his desk. What would have happened had I not investigated the lack of action by the company I don’t know. The lackadaisical performance by Prudential only emphasized in my ming the quality (or lack of it) in the typical insurance company. I have had similar experiences with the Equitable Life insurance company with whom I have two small life insurance policies.

So in the end I had my desire for the ownership of some Iowa land fulfilled. When Vincent decided to sell out his farming operation, he first offered his half of my father’s farm to us and I thought about it for awhile. Had I been younger I think I could have taken him up on his offer but at my age at the time I decided not to. Since then I have wondered if I made the right decision or not.

Out with the Old

Although neither I nor Jean was present at the closing of the purchase, I remember being in Iowa sometime later (whether it was a stopover on a business trip or on a vacation I don’t recall) and Vincent took me to the farm and we looked the place over. Although Harris and his mother rented the house for awhile, they didn’t happen to be at home while we were there, so we went into the house and looked around. The only item that sticks in my mind was the upstairs bedroom where Harris had several guns lying on the floor. I guess he hunted.

The farm buildings were in rather dilapidated condition, particularly the corn crib. The first year that Vincent farmed the land, uncle Carl actually came out during corn-picking and did some of his makeshift repairs on the crib to make it serviceable. Ironic in a way that after all the time I had worked under him, that in our last work contact he as doing something for me.

One interesting feature of the place was the well which had been dug, not drilled. It was 3 or 4 feet in diameter and the sides were lined with stone or brick and mortar. I would have hated to have been at the bottom while it was being dug. With the top off one could look down into the well and see the water. Probably the best building on the place was an airplane hangar — Harris had had an airplane.

I think it was during the first year we owned the farm that Vincent suggested that we sell off what we could from the farmstead and clear the land. This would reduce the taxes somewhat and increase the usable acreage by several acres; there had been a long lane from the road leading to the farm site and this plus the building site comprised several acres. So he arranged for a sale, I think it was in the spring after we bought the place. Altogether I think we realized something over $1000; the house actually sold for $275 and was moved off the place. The airplane hangar also went for a good price but the barn went only for scrap lumber.

After the corn in the crib was disposed of Vincent arranged to have the site bulldozed. He burned up the crib, the trees were cut down and the person clearing the site bulldozed a big hole, pushed all the debris into it and covered it up. The lane was plowed up and for 50-odd years the site has been indistinguishable from the land around it. For while the old hog pasture was weedy but that too has disappeared with time.

Buying the Farm

Though I had, after the move to the Bay Area, pretty much committed myself to engineering as a lifelong occupation and had dispensed with the idea of farming in the Midwest, I continued to be attracted to acquiring some property with an agricultural aspect to it While I was residing at the Reymanns’, the subject of a 17-acre prune ranch near Morgan Hill came up. Morgan Hill is a San Joaquin valley town on Highway 101 located some 10 to 20 miles south of San Jose. The ranch belonged to some relative of either Mr. or Mrs. Reymann.

I drove down to see it and I recall looking at the house and other buildings (this was after I had the green Chevrolet sedan). It even seems that I may have had a meal there with the owners but I doubt that it was an overnight trip. Whether I seriously considered it as an investment I really can’t remember now but I must have had some thoughts along those lines to drive down to look at the place.

While the prune season was on, Mrs. Reymann would get fresh prunes from the ranch and she would make an upside down prune cake (like an upside down pineapple cake) and which she treated me with on more than one occasion. Maybe having the prune cake was what brought up the subject of the prune ranch in the first place.

Another place I looked at was a 7-acre parcel up in Sonoma County. This came through a realtor I think. The place had been used for growing rabbits but a windstorm (tornado?) had more or less wrecked the structures on the place. When I looked at it, it was mostly just a grassy area, not very many trees and I was not attracted to it.

The urge I had in me to own some land continued at a low level during the rest of my bachelor days and during the first years of my marriage. Mostly this was evidenced in writing for various listings of farm property, such as was put out by the United Farm Agency or Strout Realty. None of these ever developed into a purchase although we did inspect several pieces of property such as the small ranch growing watermelons near Turlock and the alfalfa ranch in the Chico area. In both of these cases we had several of our children along when we looked at the property. Of the Chico property there are several slide I took for later review. These trips were probably coordinated with other sight-seeing activities.

When my grandfather Peterson died in about 1915 he specified in his will that the Peterson farm not be sold during my grandmother’s lifetime. I suspect the reason for this was the wish on his part to have my grandmother provided for for the rest of her life, but I suspect he may also have recognized the trauma my grandmother went through when they acquired the various parts of the farm and wanted her top now have the benefit of that experience which at the time seemed so onerous.

The heirs did not divide the estate on my grandmother’s passing, but eventually decided to do so in the lated 1950s. Vincent at the time was looking for more land to add to his farming operation but did not feel that he had the capital to acquire any land. Some consideration was given to me (we) acquiring the Peterson farm (or part of it), using my mother’s inheritance as a loan to us as part of the down payment. The land would have been farmed by Vincent, although being 8 miles distant from Dad’s farm, the arrangement would not have been very convenient.

The possibility was never realized for several reasons: 1) the potential price was too high for us (all parts of the farm sold for $400/acre or more and we would have had difficulty in arranging the financing), 2) irrespective of the financing the price just seemed too high for us and 3) had we acquired the place we would probably have destroyed (razed) most of the buildings and the farmstead site, which my mother thought would have engendered an unfavorable response from her siblings.

Shortly thereafter however the possibility of purchasing a tract of about 125 acres near to my dad’s farm arose. This tract was known as the “Joe” Johnson farm and was the subject of an estate sale. Joe had died and his son Harris had been farming the place (perhaps in conjunction with his mother). The other children were wanting to sell the property to secure their inheritance and there had been some litigation to implement the sale of the property and distribution of the proceeds.

My recollection is a little vague but it seems there was a court-ordered disposition of the property under a court-appointed trustee — one Maurice Breen. Then there had been an interruption in the process, possibly because the heirs had decided not to proceed. Following this there was again a falling out amongst the heirs and the trustee was again offering the farm for sale. Because of the interruption there was some question as to the legality of the resumed proceedings. Vincent was of course aware of the possibility and brought it to our attention.

To aid Vincent in extending his farming operation, my mother was willing to lend us her inheritance from the Peterson farm as part of the downpayment. It would have been more appropriate for Vincent to have been the purchase but h felt he did not have the capital to proceed.

The advertisement by the trustee was made in August of 1959, I believe, about the time that Laurel was born. . . . I had contacted the trustee indicating an interest, but needless to say my attention had been diverted by . . . the change in the home pattern after Laurel’s birth [and other factors]. Anyway the trustee became irked at my dallying and finally informed me (us) to proceed if we were indeed interested. So finally we made an offer of $42,000 and made the 10% down payment. Another individual who was very important in the situation was a Mr. Johnson who was the Prudential agent who arrange the loan we eventually had (for $25,000) covering the balance of the purchase price.

Vincent later told me that toward the consummation of the deal he [Mr. Johnson?] was out at the Joe Johnson place and got stuck in the long lane leading to the building site. By the time he [Johnson?] got out he had spent most of the commission he got for arranging the loan. It was only after we had made the down payment that the somewhat shaky legal situation came to light and there was a real question in my mind whether to write off the down payment and back out of the deal.

However after consulting with the law firm of Kirchner and Kirchner in Fort Dodge we went ahead with the purchase. I well remember the long telephone call with one of the Kirchners one noon in my office at Shell and his analysis of the situation. Basically what he recommended was that we insist on separate quit claim deeds from each of the heirs, in addition to the trustee’s deed covering the sale. There was also a release of possession signed by Harris and his mother who were still actually living on the property.

The final signing of the documents and transfer of the money was made I think in the offices of Kirchner and Kirchner. Vincent I guess represented us; neither Jean nor I was there. So my long-awaited desire to own some Iowa farm property was fulfilled, albeit with an accompanying period of worry and concern. The investment as it turned out was a good one both for Vincent and me. One reason that the deal went through was that the land market was depressed at the time and we were the only individuals showing interest in the purchase.