
# Table of Contents

  * PREFACE
  * ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  * ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  *   * 1. INTRODUCTION: THE EARLY YEARS 1933 - 1943
  * 2. OCTOBER 10, 1933: A SON IS BORN: NORBERT MARTIN JADIN
  * 3. MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS
  * 4. LEARNING TO WORK
  * 5. LOCATION OF THE FARM...THAT LONG DRIVEWAY
  * 6. OUR FARM HOME
  * 7. ELECTRICITY - SOMETHING NEW TO US
  * 8. WATER, WATER, WHERE DOES IT COME FROM
  * 9. WOOD BURNING STOVE...COAL TOO!
  * 10. ASHES, ASHES "WHOSE JOB IS IT?"
  * 11. COAL BIN...WATCH FOR THAT COAL DUST
  * 12. HUMIDITY DURING THE WINTER MONTHS
  * 13. WASH DAY "ALWAYS ON MONDAY"
  * 14. BASEMENT...SERVED AS OUR REFRIGERATOR AT ONE TIME
  * 15. BEDROOMS...AND THAT CORN HUSK MATTRESS
  * 16. SUMMER KITCHEN, "TIME FOR A CHANGE OF SCENERY"
  * 17. SATURDAY NIGHT BATH - "OH, WHAT FUN"
  * 18. A NEW RADIO - "A PHILCO FLOOR MODEL AT THAT"
  * 19. THE OUTHOUSE, "THOSE GOOD OLD DAYS"
  * 20. LAWN CARE - "A WALKING LAWN MOWER"
  * 21. APPLE ORCHARD - "THOSE BEAUTIFUL, SMELLY BLOSSOMS"
  * 22. GARDEN - "O HOW MY GARDEN GROWS"
  * 23. OUR FLOWER GARDEN
  * 24. BAKING BREAD - "7-8 LOAVES AT A TIME"
  * 25. THE WATKINS SALESMAN "SPICES, PIE MIX, ETC."
  * 26. GROCERY SHOPPING - "SUGAR, FLOUR, BUTTER"
  * 27. DANDELION WINE "MMM-GOOD!"
  * 28. COTTAGE CHEESE - "IF YOU COULD ONLY SEE HOW THIS WAS MADE..."
  * 29. HEAD CHEESE - "ALL THOSE SPARE PARTS OF THE PIG"
  * 30. BELGIAN TRIPPE - "GET THE SAUSAGE GRINDER READY"
  * 31. BELGIAN PIE...WHEN PRUNES WERE PRIME
  * 32. BELGIAN WAFFLES - "A SPECIAL TREAT AT NEW YEARS OR ANYTIME, REALLY"
  * 33. PIE MAKING - "HOW ABOUT EGG PIE?"
  * 34. THE ROLLING PIN "THE VIRGINIA DARE BOTTLE"
  * 35. BAKE A CAKE -"SPICE CAKE WAS AUTOMATIC"
  * 36. ICE CREAM - "A SPECIAL TREAT"
  * 37. MAKING RUGS - "TIME TO GET THAT SEWING MACHINE REVED UP"
  * 38. MAKING A QUILT –"CUTTING OUT THE PATTERNS"
  * 39. WARD ROBE - "LIMITED EDITION"
  * 40. MY FIRST HOLY COMMUNION - "A SPECIAL OCCASION"
  * 41. HOLY WATER FONTS - "A NEW SUPPLY OF HOLY WATER AT EASTER TIME"
  * 42. THE LENTEN SEASON - "TIME TO SAY THE ROSARY AGAIN - EVERY NIGHT"
  * 43. UNCLE MELVIN - "MY DAD'S BROTHER"
  * 44. MILKING COWS - "BY HAND...EVERY SQUIRT COUNTS"
  * 45. THE MILK HAULER - "HERE HE COMES...TIME TO HURRY UP!"
  * 46. MILK HOUSE - "HOW ABOUT SOME REAL WHIP CREAM"
  * 47. FLOCK OF CHICKENS - "ALMOST AN EGG A DAY"
  * 48. A LIGHT BULB IN THE CHICKEN COOP..."WOW"
  * 49. CHICKEN FOR DINNER - "ONE RECIPE - ROASTED CHICKEN"
  * 50. RAISING PIGS - "EVENTUALLY BACON FOR BREAKFAST"
  * 51. THE BULL - "SORT OF A TOUGH GUY TO HANDLE"
  * 52. WATER TANK IN THE BARN - "NEED WATER TO GET MILK"
  * 53. MORMAN SALESMAN - "A FRIENDLY SORT OF GUY"
  * 54. LIVESTOCK DEALER - "THAT BIG CATTLE TRUCK"
  * 55. WHITEWASH THE BARN - "TIME TO GIVE IT A CLEAN LOOK"
  * 56. DEHORNING CALVES - "ROUGH JOB BUT IT HAD TO BE DONE"
  * 57. FLY SPRAY - "NOT JUST FOR THE COWS"
  * 58. CORN BEE - "HUSKING THOSE CORN COBS"
  * 59. THE GRINDSTONE - "TIME TO SHARPEN THE KNIVES"
  * 60. THOSE BELGIAN HORSES - "ALL SIX OF THEM"
  * 61. THE HORSE DRAWN SINGLE BOTTOM PLOW - "NO NEED FOR A TREAD MILL IN THOSE DAYS"
  * 62. KEROSINE LANTERNS FOR BARN USE - "SATURDAY, REFILL AND CLEAN"
  * 63. PING PONG TABLE - "SUNDAY AFTERNOON FUN!"
  * 64. THE EGG SCALE - "SMALL OR LARGE"
  * 65. A TRIP TO THE FEED MILL AT NEW FRANKEN - "VERY INTERESTING!"
  * 66. THE LOCKER PLANT - "OUR FIRST FREEZER BUT A FEW MILES FROM HOME"
  * 67. THE CORN HARVEST- "EVERY YEAR IN FALL"
  * 68. FARM CROPS: HAY, CORN, GRAIN - "PLANTING AND HARVESTING"
  * 69. CASH CROPS...PEAS, SWEET CORN, GREEN BEANS and SUGAR BEETS
  * 70. STEEL WHEEL WAGONS...NEVER A FLAT TIRE
  * 71. THE STONE PILE..KEPT GETTING BIGGER EVERY SPRING
  * 72. PICKING MUSTARD WEED...USUALLY AFTER A GOOD RAIN SHOWER
  * 73. THE WOODS...WAS OUR PASTURE FOR THE HORSES DURING THE SUMMER
  * 74. RAISING A YOUNG COLT...TIME TO GET BROKE-IN
  * 75. MAKING FENCES...AND DIGGING THOSE POST HOLES
  * 76. THE GRANARY...HARVEST TIME, THEN YEAR ROUND SUPPLIES
  * 77. YEARS OF DEPRESSION, 1930'S...WE ALWAYS HAD PLENTY TO EAT
  * 78. CHRISTMAS EVE...THE ANTICIPATION WAS ALWAYS EXCITING
  * 79. RAISED DONUTS...AND OTHER VARIETIES TOO
  * 80. OUR MODEL T FORD...WITH PULL DOWN SHADES IN THE BACK SEAT
  * 81. OUR NEW 1939 CHEV...TRADED IN A HORSE AS PARTIAL PAYMENT
  * 82. TIME FOR A PORTRAIT...AT SCHNEIDER STUDIO IN GREEN BAY
  * 83. A FEW WILD RABBITS AROUND...HARD TO CATCH
  * 84. TIME TO WASH DISHES...WHOSE JOB IS IT?
  * 85. MANURE HAS TO MOVE...A DAILY CHORE DURING THE WINTER MONTHS
  * 86. LOADING THE MANURE SPREADER IN SPRING...ONE FORK-FULL AT A TIME
  * 87. FIRST GRADE AT SUMMIT SCHOOL...WITH MRS. KENNEDY
  * 88. OFF TO SCHOOL IN A SNOW STORM...A RIDE IN THE MANURE SLEIGH
  * 89. PITCHING CORN SILAGE OUT OF THE SILO...A DAYTIME JOB
  * 90. OUR DRIVEWAY BECOMES A TOWN ROAD...HERE COMES THE SNOWPLOW
  * 91. THAT NEW JOHN DEERE MODEL A...OUR FIRST TRACTOR
  * 92. A VISIT TO GRANDPA & GRANDMA VINCENT'S HOME
  * 93. GRANDMA JADIN PASSES ON...March 21, 1941 AT AGE 59
  * 94. GRANDMA VINCENT PASSES ON...July 10, 1944 AT AGE 56
  * 95. PICKING MILK WEEDS ALONG THE RAILROAD TRACKS
  * 96. HAVING A VICTORY GARDEN
  * 97. AIR RAID WARNINGS...A REAL BLACKOUT
  * 98. FLOUR SACKS...TURNED INTO KITCHEN TOWELS
  * 99. LYE SOAP...WASH DAY SPECIAL
  * 100. COHEN'S DEPARTMENT STORE...X-RAY MACHINE FOR SHOE FITTING
  * 101. THE COWS AND HORSES ATE HAY...WHERE DOES IT COME FROM?
  * 102. IT'S KERMISS TIME...TIME TO CELEBRATE THE HARVEST SEASON
  * 103. A HOME REMEDY FOR "THE COMMON COLD"

PREFACE

This Is My Story...Growing Up On The Farm takes place on the family farm where I was born in 1933 and covers the first ten years of my life. The reason for selecting this time period is based on our farm not having electricity until 1943 nor having a telephone until the summer of 1955.

As shown on the cover, this is my First Communion picture taken next to our home with our farm buildings in the background. I was about 8 years old.

The idea for writing this book is to share this type of information with our children and grandchildren. I felt that some of our friends and relatives also might be interested in this book too.

As you will notice, it has taken from the year 2000 up until now to get this book completed. There were some real gaps of time along the way...and that's how life goes.

Enjoy!

Norb Jadin

January 2008

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My sincerest appreciation to my wife Joan, for typing this material and making necessary corrections. Her patience in seeing this project to completion is really appreciated.

Special thanks to Jo Ann Jadin (our son Ron's wife) for proofreading this material. She added some humorous comments too, but these are not included in this book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Norb was born on October 10, 1933 at home on the family farm located in the town of Humboldt about six miles east of Green Bay. He graduated from Summit Grade School, Central Catholic High School in Green Bay (now Notre Dame Academy) and St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin in 1955 with a BA Degree in Economics/Business. In 1955, he married Joan Van Lanen from Bay Settlement at Holy Cross Church. In 2005, they celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary. They have six married children and sixteen grandchildren. Their family includes: Tom (Ann Gilles) Jadin: Katie and Mark – Julie (Rob) Sperber: Mike and Brian – Ron (Jo Ann De Groot) Jadin: Andrew, David, Rachel and Ellie – Dan (Dawn Flynn) Jadin: Danielle and Derrick – Cathy (Rick) Ripley: Kyle and Kevin – Mike (Lynn Gokey) Jadin: Mathew, Sam, Danny and Adam.

In 1955, Norb started working at Kellogg Citizens National Bank (now Associated Bank) in Green Bay and continued there until his retirement in January 1999.

Over the past fifty plus years, he has participated in several community organizations and served as a Board Member or Officer. At the present time, he serves as a Board Member and Officer of Villa West Housing in Green Bay starting as a charter member in 1970. He is an Associate of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Cross in Bay Settlement. He has been an active member of Holy Cross Parish at Bay Settlement going back to 1955 when he and Joan were married there.

Family gatherings are an important part of our life. A few years ago, Joan came up with return address stickers that include the following message (author unknown):  "Our family is a circle of strength and love. With every birth and every union the circle grows. Every joy shared adds more love. Every crisis faced together makes the circle stronger."

1. INTRODUCTION: THE EARLY YEARS 1933 - 1943

This being the year 2000 and with the new millennium at hand, it is time for me to write down some thoughts about life's experiences, places I've been, people I've met and then to serve as a linkage to our previous generations. Hopefully, some of this will help future generations of our family to appreciate their family heritage and then build on it. A family tree is a critical part of tying together one generation to another. Unless we have some stories to tie all this together, a family tree will generally show the blood lines of parents, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, brothers and sisters; also dates of birth and death, place of birth, date of marriage. So, along with all this factual information, I look to add additional information about our family... about the people, type of work they did, where they lived and human interest stories wherever found along the way.

This past Christmas (1999), Joan and I along with some of our children and grandchildren visited a nursing home in Green Bay where Aunt Lena was staying... recuperating from a fall in her apartment. Aunt Lena is really my Great Aunt in the Vincent family (my Grandpa Martin Vincent's youngest sister) who was born on May 28, 1901. By May 2000, she will be 99 years old and by May 2001, she'll be 100 years old. Since Aunt Lena is my Great Aunt, she then becomes a Great/Great Aunt to my children. Then taking this a step further, she then becomes a Great/Great/Great Aunt to my grandchildren. And there we were, singing Christmas songs to Aunt Lena...our last link to a generation from time past. With this set of circumstances in place, the question arises: What about Aunt Lena... did she too, have any Great/Great/Great Aunts or Uncles? How about her parents, grandparents and great grand parents? To what extent did she know any of them or was she aware of them since her parents were immigrants from Belgium during the 1850's or so. Aunt Lena was the youngest in a family of 14 children, 7 brothers and 7 sisters. She married John Cravillion. They had no children. John died as a result of a farm accident over 60 years ago...he was trampled by a team of horses. John served in the First World War (1914-1918). As a result, Aunt Lena still gets a pension from his military service. During the years I've known her, she was always a mild mannered person and still has a good frame of mind. As of this date, she is still in therapy from the fall in her apartment. She has a strong desire to get back to live in her apartment but with certain health issues that age has brought on, she will likely not be able to live there on her own. So life goes on as we approach the closure of another generation, at least on our family tree. (Lena H. Cravillion died on Nov. 29, 2001 at age 100)

And My Story goes on...because this type of story can go on and on, just as life continues onward, I would hope to have the major portion of this completed by the time our oldest grandchild becomes 16 years of age. At that time, I would like to present a copy to him or her and each grandchild as they get to be 16 years of age. Why did I choose 16 years of age? First of all, this gives me time to get the bulk of the material assembled, but in reality, I feel that at 16 years of age, a person is still at the threshold of adulthood and is still receptive to listening along with a sense of appreciation. This would be a one-on-one session at an appropriate spot on some sunny day, hopefully under the old oak tree in our back yard where our home on Bay Settlement Road stood for many years. Many of our grandchildren will be able to remember having played in our backyard under that old oak tree. Not sure how old that tree is, but it's branches reach out at least 30 feet from the trunk of the tree; thus, a full 60 feet of shade during the summer months.

2. OCTOBER 10, 1933: A SON IS BORN: NORBERT MARTIN JADIN

It was on October 10, 1933 that I got my start in this world. My parents were Ed and Tillie Jadin. I was born at home on the family farm in the Town of Humboldt in Brown County, Wisconsin. Our mailing address at that time was: Route 2, Green Bay...and that was before zip codes were ever used. I had an older brother named Donald Louis Jadin who was a couple years older than me...more about him and my other brother and three sisters later on.

Being born at home required the local Doctor to make house calls and that is what took place when I was born. Dr. Joseph Looze was a family doctor in New Franken, a nearby, rural community. He worked all alone and lived in the same house as where he had his doctor's office. We didn't have a telephone at that time...so, somehow Dr. Looze got the word that he should get to our home for this BIG EVENT!

My parents were both of Belgian ancestry. My father's regular name was Edward but he also went by Ed as well as Eddie. Most people called him Ed. His middle name was Joseph but he seldom used his middle name or initial. How was his middle name, Joseph, selected? I never really found out but in those days, it was often the custom to use the godfather's first name. If that were the case, his godfather could have been Joseph Jadin who would have been my Dad's uncle who lived in Tonet, WI, a small cross roads town where the original Jadin family farm was set up by my great grandfather, Adolph Jadin.

My Dad grew up in Sugar Bush which is located on Highway N east of Green Bay. My grandfather's (Louis Jadin) farm was the first farm in Kewaunee County on Highway N, just over the Brown County line. They had a Luxemburg mailing address. My grandparents on the Jadin side of the family were Louis and Mary (Mathu) Jadin. They had seven children. Ed was the second oldest. Louis and Mary Jadin were members of St. Hubert Catholic Church in Sugar Bush.

My mother was usually called Tillie but her formal/baptized name was Mathilda Vincent.  I'm not sure if she had a middle name but it didn't seem to show up along the way; possibly her birth or my birth certificate of baptism records may clarify this...but it's not all that important at this point. My grandparents on the Vincent side of the family were Martin and Alice (De Peau) Vincent. Martin grew up on a farm in the Champion area, another cross-roads community east of Green Bay. Alice De Peau also grew up on a farm in the Champion area. My grand parents operated a farm in the Champion area for several years. My mother, Tillie, was their oldest of six children. Others were Norman, Willard, Wendell, Laura and Arlene. All of this leads up to my baptism which took place at Holy Martyrs of Gorcum Church, about three miles from our farm and is still in use today. It is on Finger Road on the east side of Green Bay. The cornerstone of the church indicates it was built in 1886...so, it's been around for many years. My godfather was my grandfather, Martin Vincent and my godmother was Mary Jadin, my grandmother. Not to be shortchanged, my older brother, Donald, had his grandfather, Louis Jadin, as godfather and his grandmother, Alice Vincent, as godmother. And that is the background on how my middle name is Martin and Donald's middle name is Louis.

My parents, Ed and Tillie, were married on August 27, 1930 at St. Joseph Catholic Church at Champion. The church still stands there and is covered by the pastor of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Luxemburg. The church cemetery has a good number of our Vincent and De Peau relatives buried there. The custom was then and is generally followed those days is that the wedding would usually take place at the bride's home parish and that happened to be St. Joseph's.

3. MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS

Donald Louis Jadin attended the Summit Grade School near our farm, about one mile away. Then he went to Central Catholic High School in Green Bay which was operated by the Norbertine Fathers from St. Norbert Abbey in De Pere. After high school, he joined the Norbertine Order, attended and graduated from St. Norbert College in De Pere and then went to Rome, Italy to study theology for six years. He was ordained in June 1955 and served in various capacities over these many years. At this time, he serves as a chaplain for the Franciscans Sisters of Christian Charity at Manitowoc, WI. many times referred to as the Silver Lake Sisters because their motherhouse is located on the shorelines of Silver Lake.

Bernice M. Rukamp is my oldest sister. She is five years younger than me. She attended Summit Grade School like the rest of our family. Then she attended and graduated from St. Joseph Academy in Green Bay, an all-girl Catholic high school on So. Monroe Ave. After high school graduation, she started working at the Kellogg Citizens National Bank in Green Bay where I had already been working for a couple years at that time. Her husband, Clarence, worked most of his years in the trucking business in the Green Bay area. They have four children - Keith, Gail, Lisa and Kevin, all married and living in Green Bay or the nearby area.

Gerald W. Jadin is my younger brother and is 10 years younger than me. His middle name is Wendell which comes from our Uncle Wendell Vincent. Like the rest of us in the family, he also attended the Summit Grade School. After that, he attended and graduated from Central Catholic High School, following the pattern of his older brothers. After high School, he attended Northeast Wis. Technical College (NWTC) in Green Bay to take up the tool and die trade. Upon completion of that, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy for three years. After that, he worked at machine shops in Green Bay doing similar type work. Presently, he works at International Paper Co. in De Pere, WI. He married Sandy Delwiche and they have two children, Jenny and Ryan. They built their home in the Flintville area several years ago. Sandy worked in the Green Bay school system as a teachers' aid; more recently, she started working in child care near the area where they live.

Donna Mae Daniels is my second oldest sister and is 15 years younger then me. She, too, went to the Summit Grade School and St. Joseph Academy. After high school, she attended courses at NWTC in the field of nursing. She has worked at St. Vincent Hospital in Green Bay; also, at nursing and health care facilities in the Green Bay area. Presently she is a nurse for the Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Cross at Bay Settlement, assisting them in the health care needs of their retired and elderly members. She is married to John Daniels. The have three children, Kristen, Jackie and Carolyn. They live in the New Franken area. John raises animals for research laboratories and has been doing that for several years.

Linda Puyleart is my youngest sister and she is 20 years younger than me. She attended the Summit Grade School, and then attended Preble High School on the east side of Green Bay. By that time Ed and Tillie had sold the farm and built a new home on Highway 54 in New Franken. When they purchased land for their new home, Ed & Tillie were concerned they would be in the Green Bay school district because that would be where they wanted Linda to attend school vs. going to the Luxemburg school district. As a result, the border for those two school districts is at or near the home Ed & Tillie built in the l960's. Linda went on to school at NWTC in the nursing field and worked at nearby nursing homes in the Green Bay area. Presently she works in the Green Bay School System as a teachers' aid. She married Larry Puyleart and they have two children, Lori and Eric. They live on the east side of Green Bay. Larry has worked at Fort Howard Paper Company, also known as Fort James Paper, and now known as Georgia Pacific Green Bay Mill for all of his work years and continues to do so. (Larry retired in 2004 from the mill).

So that sums up the brother and sister parts of my family...in a rather brief manner because I could go on and on about each one of them...some of these stories will likely surface as I move on through this material.

The reason I selected this 10 year period of time is that growing up during those years without electricity or telephone required a whole different way of living that most of you are not used to. In many ways, our way of life on the farm was very much like the Amish people today. There are some Amish farmers here in Wisconsin near Bonduel and also near Stevens Point plus a number of other areas around the state. Also, there are a large number in Northern Indiana and Lancaster, Pa. One major difference is they still use the horse and buggy as

compared to us using a car during the period of time we will be looking at.

4. LEARNING TO WORK

This was just "a way of life"...we did whatever had to be done. We learned as time went on. Close family involvement took place both in the house and outside doing farm work.

5. LOCATION OF THE FARM...THAT LONG DRIVEWAY

It was about the spring of 1931 when my parents purchased the 120 acre farm in the Town of Humboldt of Brown County. Our farm was about 6 miles from downtown Green Bay. This farm was previously owned by John Zolper. There was a long driveway with land on each side owned by two separate neighbors. On the one side was Ben and Ceil Vanden Avond and on the other side, Ralph and Mabel Van Pay. That portion of the driveway was ¼ mile long (l/4 mile was the length of a 40 acre field). Then there was an additional 200-300 yards of driveway that came up to our farm buildings. This last portion was at a right angle to the l/4 mile driveway. Overall, it was probably about 3/8 mile long which seemed awfully long when we had to walk to the mailbox to mail a letter or pick up mail. We didn't have any bicycle in the family until I was in the eighth grade. That was welcome news because it was easier and faster to ride the bike than walk.

6. OUR FARM HOME

Our home was made with brick exterior. It was made at two different times so the original/earlier part of the home was really quite small. The original part had a tin roof. The second portion was built as a square unit with a four sided roof of shingles. Then there was a 12 foot porch across the front which faced our driveway. This porch had round pillars, about 8 inches in diameter. There were four pillars with a set of steps between two of them.  There were three steps about 6 feet long. There was a white wood railing with spindles around the porch. The area underneath the porch was a haven for our dog, Rover, who found this area to be a shaded area, especially during the warm summer months. We also fed Rover in this area. We didn't buy dog food in those days. Usually he got meat, meat bones and left over scraps from the kitchen. Also, he got milk if there was some extra around. During the summer months and at other times when the weather was warm enough, the porch served as a play area for the younger kids. We would use large cardboard boxes, egg crates, wooden chairs etc. along with several hooked rugs, maybe a bed blanket or two, possibly some bed sheets...then with all those things we'd build a fort or for the girls, they would play house. When the fun was over, we'd have to bring all these items back to where they belonged or came from.

7. ELECTRICITY - SOMETHING NEW TO US

During those early years, we did not have electricity or a telephone. Without electricity, things were quite different than what we are accustomed to using today. For household lights, we had two kerosene lamps. One had a wall bracket in the kitchen above the kitchen table and had a large Aladdin type globe with a silver base to hold kerosene. The wick was quite large so it gave a good amount of light. The other lamp was a table type lamp with a wick that turned up or down as needed. Kerosene was in the glass bowl portion of the lamp. Here we could tell when the kerosene was running low. Saturday was generally the day when we put more kerosene in each lamp. It was also the day for cleaning the globes which many times showed signs of blackness from burning kerosene all week long. The second lamp was considered a "table lamp", because that is where we would always end up using it. Also it was easy to take it from one room to another for light.

Our farm was wired for electricity in 1943.

8. WATER, WATER, WHERE DOES IT COME FROM

When it came to water for household use, this came from two sources. For drinking water, we had to haul water from an outside well located at the milk house. We used milk pails that probably held about three to four gallons of water. The water pail was kept in the kitchen for general family use. We had one ladle that was kept in the pail, so we really didn't go running for a separate glass every time we wanted a drink of water. It was always great to get a new pail of water from the well because it was always cold water... so good.

The other source of water was from our cistern which was built in the basement of our home. Water in the cistern came from rainwater off the roof of our home. As rain came, it would go into the eave troughs around the house and then into the cistern in our basement. There was an over flow pipe just in case the cistern got full. As far as using the water, we had a cistern pump (hand pump) in the kitchen which would be used to draw water from the cistern. The primary use for cistern water was for washing clothes since rain water is soft water. Cistern water was also used for general household use such as for washing the floors and other household jobs. Cistern water could not be used for drinking water, generally not even for washing dishes because there could be sediment in the water that would not be desirable for those purposes. As a result, we had to haul in a lot of pails of water for various uses. Back to the cistern, there would also be some household chores that would have to be done periodically, like cleaning out the cistern at least once a year. This cleaning job was usually done during the summer months. There was a trap door in the living room, not very large either. So, it was usually up to one of us children to go down into the cistern to clean out any sediment that may have accumulated over the past year. Because we had to scoop the remaining water and dirt into a pail with a rope on it, this job took a fair amount of time. Obviously, we would wait to do this job when the cistern water would be at a low point. The trap door was near a window, so all we had to do was open the window and pitch the pails of water/sediment out until the job was done. We had a wooden ladder that would fit in the trap hole so we could step down in the cistern.

Once we got electricity, we had a water line installed/piped in from the well near the milk house. Then the cistern was no longer needed. More about the home remodeling and addition later.

9. WOOD BURNING STOVE...COAL TOO!

In our kitchen, we had a wood burning stove which was made out of cast iron, so it was really heavy. Next to the stove, we had a wood box which was used to store wood and kindling that would be used to keep the fire going. We called it a wood stove, yet we used coal to make a fire along with firewood. We usually cut down trees in our woods to make firewood. These were elm trees which we would have to cut down with a cross-cut saw, no chain saw at that time. We did have a saw rig that was powered with a gasoline engine to cut up the logs and branches into firewood lengths. Eventually the pile of firewood made its way into our basement for our winter needs.

Then we had a stove in our living room which was used to heat the rest of our home - it was called a heatrola. Here we also used coal and wood. Many times by morning, the fire would die out, so it would get pretty cold especially during the mid winter months. There was no insulation in the outside walls of our house, so it took a lot to heat our entire home. The upstairs got heat through a heat register in the ceiling of the bedroom below. When we had a new baby in the household, we needed to keep as much heat as possible in the primary bedroom...so, we would close off the heat register with a floor rug. There was no carpeting on the floors, so these hardwood floors could get pretty cold during the winter months.

10. ASHES, ASHES "WHOSE JOB IS IT?"

Having two stoves that burned wood and coal, there would be a steady accumulation of ashes. Among the many household chores, one of us kids had the job to clean out the ashes from each stove. Now ashes can get to be a little dirty and messy to work with. Each stove had an ash container which we usually allowed to get as full as possible before carrying it outside and dumping it on the ash pile. To cut down on the number of times this job had to be done, we would use a metal rod to level off the ashes,  which meant, we could stall on hauling out the ashes for a day or so; depending on the time of year.

What happened to the ashes once they were hauled out of the house? Once in awhile they were used to put on the ice on our sidewalk leading to the house...we never heard of salt crystals to put on an icy sidewalk.

11. COAL BIN...WATCH FOR THAT COAL DUST

A basement was pretty useful and important to have in our home. Most homes in the area had a basement. The coal bin was a separate room which we tried to have sealed off as best as we could because every time we had a load of coal delivered, coal dust would find its way through the smallest cracks and crevices in the other basement areas. Our coal man was Victor Laurent who lived in the Champion area. Eventually his son, Norman, took over the coal delivery business. There were two kinds of coal delivered to us. They were briquettes which were small round nuggets made of coal dust/particles. These were used in our kitchen stove because they would easily fit into the fire box along with pieces of wood. The other type was called Pocahontas which was large/irregular chunks of coal which appeared to be in the sizes and form that were originally mixed. This type of coal was used in our living room stove which had a large fire pit and could hold more coal for a longer lasting fire.

Besides keeping the wood box filled with firewood, we also had the job to keep the coal pail filled with coal for continued use.

12. HUMIDITY DURING THE WINTER MONTHS

Having two stoves in our home made for dry heat. In order to gain some humidity, there was a water container near the top of the living room stove which would evaporate at the same time the fire was burning in the stove box. Another one of the household chores was to keep the water box filled with water. It probably held about two gallons of water so we had to pay attention as to when the water level was low. It also was a weekly duty, usually on Saturday to check the water box to make sure it was filled...if not, then do it.

13. WASH DAY "ALWAYS ON MONDAY"

With so many things that had to be done on the farm, some had to follow a regular pattern. One of these was wash day which usually took place on Monday. We had no laundry room so this entire process took place in our kitchen. We had a Maytag wringer wash machine. It had a metal pot with an agitator in the center. This was powered by a 2 cycle gas engine, so we had to mix oil with gasoline to run the motor. Then we had an exhaust pipe that was placed through the storm window opening made for this purpose. To start the engine required a step down motion on the starter peddle. The wash machine was usually kept in the kitchen and had a cloth cover so it would not be so noticeable. More equipment needed...a wash machine by itself would not get the job done. We had two wash tubs to rinse the clothes once they were washed. With all this equipment ready to go, there was more work to be done. First thing, we needed hot water to wash clothes...so, we would get the copper boiler which was about 15 inches high and covered two burners on the stove, fill it with cistern water and make sure the stove had a good fire going. In the meantime, we would put water in the two rinse tubs so we'd be ready to get things going once we had hot water. For soap, we used bars of home made lye soap, but we had to shave the soap so it would suds up in the hot water. Now we were almost ready to get started but if we were going to wash white shirts or white blouses, we would put some "bluing" in the first rinse tub. The brand name was "Little Boy Blue". I believe the bluing was used to get white clothes whiter. Bluing came in small bottles and looked like blue ink. Needless to say, it didn't take much bluing per rinse tub.

So the washday process moved on...with all the batches of clothes in separate piles on the floor. Farm overalls and farm stockings were kept for the last batch because they probably had some pretty rugged use out in the barn working with cattle especially when milking cows or during the summer harvest season.

Once the clothes were washed, then moved through the two rinse tubs passing them through the wringer each time, we would be ready to hang these clothes out to dry. The clothes lines were near the house so we would not have to go too far to get this job done. With a good supply of clothes pins, all this moved along fairly smoothly. HAVING A GOOD BREEZE WOULD HELP TO DRY THE CLOTHES MORE QUICKLY...SOME BRIGHT SUN WOULD BE VERY HELPFUL TOO. All this could work quite nicely during most seasons of the year but when it came to the winter months, we'd try to have the clothes on the line but many times the clothes would freeze before they could get dry. With bad weather, we'd skip the use of the outside clothes line. How to get the clothes dry? Well, we would run a clothes line from one side of the living room to the other, criss-crossing the room so we could hang up a lot of clothes. Nails were placed above door frames, window frames etc. and be kept there for future use. Once all the clothes were dry, down would come the clothes lines until another wash day and this whole process would go on again. During the winter months, humidity in our home also came from drying out the wash day clothes in the living room. Sounds like wash day was now done...well, not quite. We had to empty out the wash machine with the now dirty sudsy water and also the two rinse tubs which by now also had a fair amount of suds from the rinse process. There would be several pails of water which we would haul out of the house and pitch somewhere near a fence line where it eventually drained away.

Another part of "Wash Day" was to get the clothes ironed that needed this attention such as dress shirts, blouses, etc. Realize without electricity, this became another involved process, but not too bad either. To iron clothes, we had a handle unit into which a heated iron would be latched on to. Three irons were heated up on the wood stove. To iron clothes, one would take the handle unit and change it onto the hot iron, then iron the shirt or whatever. As the iron would cool down, another hot iron would be used, etc. until all the ironing was done. Dress shirts and blouses were starched too so as to give that dressy look...no polyester during that era.

Yes, wash day was quite a process back then, especially because we did not have electricity, indoor plumbing or running water.

14. BASEMENT...SERVED AS OUR REFRIGERATOR AT ONE TIME

Our basement had many uses.  Even though it was not heated, it didn't freeze down there either. The cistern was located in one corner, the coal bin in another closed in area, stacks of fire wood were lined up in the fall season for the upcoming winter's needs, canned goods of almost every type of fruit, vegetables and meat, jams, jellies etc. were on storage shelves for the upcoming seasons. Then in another corner there were potatoes and carrots stored with some ground covering them to hold their moisture longer, hopefully until spring and summer. By that time, the old stuff had to go and make room for the next seasons goods. The basement was also a place to store food such as butter and milk because it was always cool down there...remember, we did not have a refrigerator or ice box at that time. We had a large crock jar in the basement, about a 30 gallon size that was just to keep salt pork for on-going use. This usually took place at the time that we butchered a pig and this was the way we could keep it for a longer period of time.

15. BEDROOMS...AND THAT CORN HUSK MATTRESS

We seemed to have plenty of bed rooms, three on the first floor and four on the second floor. Mom & Dad had one bedroom with a closet; Uncle Melvin (Dad's brother who lived with us until he got married at about age 39) had another bedroom with a closet. Then Donald and I had the third bedroom but no closet, yet it all worked out. As time went on and our family grew, some of us moved to the upstairs bedrooms. We always had plenty of blankets because it could get pretty cold at night. For a bed mattress, I recall for a period of time, ours was a large bag filled with corn husks...seems like it would bunch up pretty easily. I'm not sure how often the mattress bag was refilled but there was plenty of corn husks around from the previous fall season's corn harvest.

16. SUMMER KITCHEN, "TIME FOR A CHANGE OF SCENERY"

We had a summer kitchen attached to our regular kitchen through a doorway. It was about 7 feet wide and almost 20 feet long. The summer kitchen really was the primary entrance to our home. In this summer kitchen, we had a Hoosier Cupboard for dishes, a place to put butter, jams, sugar etc. for day-to-day use.  There was also a set of table and chairs along with a kerosene stove that had four burners on it. Using the kerosene stove in summer eliminated the need to fire up the wood stove for day-to-day needs. Also, it gave instant heat when you wanted it. Another one of those household duties was to keep enough kerosene in the small tank so as to not run out when you needed it most. There were a few windows plus the screen door in the summer kitchen, so we had some cross ventilation to keep it more comfortable. Also, it was located on the east side of our home so it was fairly comfortable during the daytime and had the early morning sun.

17. SATURDAY NIGHT BATH - "OH, WHAT FUN"

The Saturday night bath routine almost seemed like wash day all over again but somewhat simpler. Of course we needed hot water...so, we'd get the copper boiler out, put enough water in it to fill the round galvanized wash tub which was about 10 inches high and about 30 inches round. During the warmer months, the summer kitchen became our "Saturday night bath" room. Pull the shades, lock the front door, put hot water in the tub and there you were with a bar of soap...pretty easy, really! Well, who gets to take the first bath and how does all this work out? Well, the youngest usually got to be first and then the sequence moved up the family ladder with Dad being last. Did we change water after each person's bath...answer NO, but it all worked out OK.

Now with all the baths completed, there was the job to empty out the wash tub with a pail and pitch it outside...job finished. During the 1940's & 1950's, there was a song on the radio about the Saturday night baths routine and it was quite hilarious.

18. A NEW RADIO - "A PHILCO FLOOR MODEL AT THAT"

As a youngster, I recall when we got our first radio. It was a floor model. It was battery operated. That battery probably weighed 25 pounds and really needed a floor model unit to hold it. During those years, I recall listening to baseball, either the Chicago Cubs or the White Sox. Andy Pafco was one of the star players. Also, we got the evening news. The commentator most renowned at that time was Gabriel Heater who usually reported the latest news from the war front during World War II,  1941-1945. President Roosevelt was on the radio fairly often and would give his "fireside chat" as he called it. Maybe he had a fireplace but we didn't even know what one would look like. None of our relatives had a fireplace so we really were not aware of that type of thing either. To have the radio give us reception, we had to run a copper wire outside the house for about 50 feet...that seemed to work pretty well.

19. THE OUTHOUSE, "THOSE GOOD OLD DAYS"

Our outhouse was located about 100 feet from the front entrance to our home/summer porch. This was a two seater, one for an adult and one for a youngster, with a step in front of that seat. This is where the Sears or Wards Catalog usually ended up, becoming a practical part of life. Eventually, life improved and we moved up to having Northern Tissue which was being made here in Green Bay. Sure, there was a path worn out in the grass that led from the house to the outhouse...it was a busy place. In winter time, it could get pretty cold and breezy out there...so, one moved along pretty quickly. In summer, it could get sort of hot and sultry out there...so, one moved along pretty quickly too.

20. LAWN CARE - "A WALKING LAWN MOWER"

During those early years on the farm, we didn't have a lawn mower of any kind, at least for what a lawn mower is usually known as. We had a wire fence around our yard/lawn area around our home. Also, there was a gate near the garage. This is where we would lead two of our farm/work horses into our yard and they would eat the grass and do a pretty good job of that too. During the day, we would need to walk these two horses to a nearby water tank so they could fill up on water. Now these horses were not in our yard daily but we would bring them in when it looked like our lawn needed attention. Fortunately, enough horses used the back end of our yard under one of the apple trees for there favorite dumping site...so, that never really posed a problem.

Yes, times did change. We bought a Jacobson gas powered lawn mower, no self propelled at that time. Now with this new toy, we had another job that had to be done and the horses were moved out to a wooded lot for their summer pasture. The fences came down and now we had a pretty nice lawn.

21. APPLE ORCHARD - "THOSE BEAUTIFUL, SMELLY BLOSSOMS"

We had at least 5-6 apple trees in our orchard with a variety to meet our needs. Among these was a crab apple tree which bore apples early in the season. Most of the other trees bore apples later on in the season and were good for apple sauce or general eating. Several bushels of these would end up in our basement for the fall season or as long as they would last before spoilage set in. Beyond all these apple trees, we had a plum tree in our garden...pretty good plums too. Mom would can some as whole plums and also use some to make plum jam.

Now having all these fruit trees also required extra work too. Periodically, we had to prune these trees to keep them in line. Also, we had to spray an insecticide at least 3-5 times during the early season so as to eliminate insects/bugs/worms from getting into the apples and spoiling the fruit. Just having a few trees, we had a hand powered sprayer which seemed to work pretty well. If the seal on the sprayer dried out, it would leak air and this whole process could become time consuming and frustrating.

22. GARDEN - "O HOW MY GARDEN GROWS"

Our garden was always a major production, at least when I think about that now; yet, at that time it was just part of the overall goings on. We raised a wide variety of vegetables so that we could have fresh vegetables during most of the summer and leading into the fall season. Also, we did a lot of canning of these vegetables so that we would have a good supply to carry us over to the next season; thus, always carrying a greater supply than what we would probably need. The canning process also included a whole variety of fruit too. As could be realized, our basement had quite a sizeable set of shelves to hold all this canned food. Before the spring planting season, we would buy garden seeds in small packages from one of the local stores. The likely planting time would be in May or early June depending on the category being planted. Our garden was worked up/tilled using a team of horses and a spring tooth harrow. This was Dad's job to get the soil ready so that the ground was almost pulverized, well not quite that fine but we wanted all the lumpy ground broken up in order to seed the garden. This garden was quite sizeable by our standards, about 75-100 feet long by 40-50 feet wide. We had sort of a routine for where different seeds were planted. Just to give an idea of all the types of items that were planted: lettuce, carrots, radishes, red beets, parsley, onions of various kinds (usually onion sets), green beans, yellow beans, sweet corn, dill, pickles, cantelope (we called these musk melon), water melon, red and white potatoes, pumpkins, navy beans (to make pork & beans), tomatoes, cabbage, sweet corn, red beets and ground cherries.

Then along the fence line, we had several rhubarb plants that came up every year. From this, we made fresh rhubarb pie and also made some rhubarb jam.

Along with all the above, we also had a patch of strawberries and a patch of raspberries. We also had ground cherries which seemed to come up from year to year. These were plants, much like bean plants; however, they produced yellow type cherries with tiny yellow seeds inside. The ground cherry developed as a membrane with the cherry inside. It would grow and mature during the summer. By late summer or early fall, the membrane became more like a husk covering the berry. We would pick the husk/berries, pull the husk off and end up with these yellow berries. These were used to make ground cherry jam; also, we would can them in a type of sweet preservative and keep these in our basement for use over the winter months. It seems that ground cherries are seldom seen anymore but I've seen them at the farmers market during the fall of the year. Whenever I see these, it reminds me of "the good old days", as the saying goes.

Planting potatoes was another involved process. First off, we always kept some potatoes from the previous fall that were intended to be used as seed. These potatoes would develop sprouts or eyes as we called them. A potato could develop several sprouts depending on its overall size. We would remove the sprouts, leaving what probably looked like an eye and that's where the name came from. We would cut up the potato into pieces, making sure that there was only one eye per piece. Before planting these, we would put the potato seeds into a burlap bag, tie it and then put this bag into a barrel that contained a special treatment, disinfectant called Black Leaf 40. In a day or two after soaking, we would pull the bag out of the barrel and leave it to dry out before planting. We would spread these on the garage floor and then re-bag them once they were fairly well dried out. Each potato eye was planted 4-5 inches deep and then covered with loose ground. The potato eyes were planted about 10-12 inches apart so that once the potato plant developed, there would be room to hoe in between the plants. Hoeing was meant to keep the ground lose and eliminate the usual weeds that showed up every year. The potato plants developed blossoms which had to be dusted with insecticide so that insects/potato bugs would not eat up and destroy the leaves/plants. Sometimes there were just so many plants that had potato bugs on them that we would take a pail and a shingle, go up and down each row and lightly tap each plant so that the bugs would fall into the pail. Then we would pour some kerosene on the bugs to kill them. By late summer or early fall, we could start digging up the potatoes for our household use. We could get 3-5 or up to 6-8 potatoes per plant.

When it came to planting tomatoes, we usually would buy a dozen plants at Lindsley's Greenhouse located on the corner of Mason St. and Lime Kiln Rd....and it is still in business at this time. Also, we would buy a dozen green cabbage plants and then a few red cabbage plants. Heads of cabbage would hold up pretty well over the winter months especially if they were kept in a cool area in the basement.

Raising navy beans was also an interesting process, especially at harvest time. To start with, beans from last year would be planted in rows in the garden, about 8-10 inches apart. These were looked after all during the summer with hoeing to keep the ground loose and remove weeds. Blossoms would develop, mature and then the pods of beans would grow. We would wait until the whole bean plant got dried out before harvesting. This could be in late September, early October or so depending on the season and the weather. We would look for a period of time when there was no rain for several days because we wanted the plant and pods to be thoroughly dry and in a sense brittle too. Time to harvest...we would take a hay wagon rack and bring it to the field where the navy bean plants were ready for harvest. To start, we would pull the plants from the ground and place them on the hay rack. With the rack filled up, we would bring it into one of the storage barns to let these plants dry out further and become more brittle. When the time was right and we found some spare time to get this job done, we would put the dried out plants into a large burlap bag and tie it shut. Then we would take a shovel and beat it against the bag...the purpose would be to break the brittle pods so that the navy beans would fall out. Once a bag was completed, we would pull out the broken up plants and keep this process going until the job was done. As the beans would accumulate in the bag, we would put them into another container for temporary storage. Because there would be particles of dirt mixed in with the beans, we would then wait for a windy day so that we could separate the dirt from the beans. The dirt was mostly pieces and particles from the bean stock and dried out pods. By dropping the beans from 4-5 feet above another container and into the wind, the beans would fall in the container below and the dirt, chaff, etc. would blow away. This was called "winnowing". The final check on bean quality was done at the time of using them, generally to make pork and beans.

Raising strawberries and raspberries developed into a sideline business for a few years. We would line up neighbors or relatives who wanted to buy strawberries by the crate, ready picked. There were 16 quarts to a crate of berries which at that time sold for $1.00 per crate. With a lot of strawberries, we would make strawberry jam and also can whole strawberries in a sauce for use over the rest of the year.

With all the above fruits and vegetables, there was a lot of canning taking place during the summer months. But we looked to have even more variety...so, we would buy cherries that were grown in Door County to make jam and also to can as whole cherries with the pit inside. These could be used to make cherry pies over the winter months. Then we would buy Alberta Peaches and pears from a local market that sold them by the lug. There might have been 30 - 40 pears or peaches in a lug. Here too, we made jam or canned the sliced pears and peaches. Some years we would go picking blackberries in Middle Inlet, north of Green Bay, near Crivitz. This all depended on the reports as to the availability and quality of the berries. If the reports were good on the blackberries, we would spend a full day going up to Middle Inlet with five or six in our car. A picnic lunch was made up for use on the trip, maybe with lemonade for a drink. Everyone in the car had a pail to use to go into the woods in search of blackberries. No matter how hot it was, usually in July, we would always wear a long sleeve shirt and overalls because blackberry plants have a lot of pickers that cling to your clothes and skin where exposed. As a result, after a day's berry picking, ones hands would get scratched up pretty much. If there had been a rainy season in early summer, this was good for growing berries...and picking berries could be fun. But if it was a leaner season, one had to do a lot of walking in the woods to get results. In any case, it was a change in activity from our day-to-day farm work and seemed to be a lot of fun as long as we got a reasonable amount of berries. Once we got home, it was back to farm work. The next day or maybe still that evening, it was time to clean the berries, then make blackberry jam and can whole blackberries in a sauce for use over the next few months.

Among the areas of canned goods, we had a plum tree in the garden. So, we made plum jam and also canned whole plums in a sauce for use over the upcoming months. Crab apples were canned too. These were from our one crab apple tree in our apple orchard. Then with all those apple trees, we made apple sauce and some apply jelly. Some apples were kept whole in apple baskets and used to make apple pie and apple cake up into the winter months as long as they were able to keep firm. These were stored in the cooler part of our basement.

In one of our woods, we had some elderberry bushes. When these turned ripe in late summer, we would pick them and make elderberry jam, sometimes jelly. Elderberries were dark blue or purple and grew in clusters. These berries were tiny, like tiny pebbles. Some people would use elderberries to make wine.

We had a root cellar, as the saying goes, where we stored potatoes, carrots and red beets where that section of the basement was kept cool in hopes that these vegetables would last through a good part of the winter months. In most cases, we spread them out on the basement floor and covered them with ground until we needed them. In the springtime, we had to clean out this corner area of the basement and get rid of any unused vegetables still in the ground.

To store all this canned goods, usually in pint or quart jars or larger ones, we had a major storage area of shelves that would hold the canned goods. As jars were used, the empty jars ended up back on these storage shelves for the next canning season. At that time, the Ball Mason jar was the lead brand. The jar cover had a glass-like plate inside, and then was sealed with a rubber ring for sealing purposes. You always wanted a good seal or else the canned goods could easily spoil and that was counter-productive. Eventually, Kerr jars, covers, etc. came into use and are still in use today.

23. OUR FLOWER GARDEN

Our garden also had room for a couple rows of flowers. We never heard of a floral shop because we grew our own. To add some variety and excitement, we would raise several fire bushes that were a bright red or bright orange in color. It was probably late September or early October before their real colors showed up.

The garden had to be cultivated during the summer to keep the ground loose and also hold down the weeds. We had a one row cultivator that was pulled by one horse. This job required two people, one to follow the cultivator and one to lead the horse from row to row and keep the horse from stepping on the garden plants. Also we had to hoe between the plants to keep the ground loose and cut out the weeds.

The results were great but there was plenty of work along the way.

24. BAKING BREAD - "7-8 LOAVES AT A TIME"

Usually, about once a week, it was time again to bake bread. In order to meet our family needs at that time including Uncle Melvin who lived with us, it took some real work and planning to get this job done. With a wood stove, you sort of had to plan on the fire being about right temperature at the time that you wanted to put those loaves of bread dough into the oven. With our size stove, we could probably get four single pans of bread in the oven at once. Sometimes we used a double or triple bread pan.

To start with, we had to get the large tin type "bread mixing pan" and put in the flour along with other ingredients. To make enough dough for 7-8 loaves called for quite a batch of ingredients. We usually bought flour in 100 pound sacks so that it would last a while. Taking time to mix the dough, then kneed it (we called it "punching the dough"), let it rise, then kneed it again all became quite involved. Then, we would let it rise in the bread pans before putting it in the oven. We could hardly wait until the baked bread cooled down so as to get a couple slices of bread, cover it with butter and some type of jam...wow, what a treat!

With this freshly made bread, we would naturally go for the fresh bread and leave the left over bread from a week ago waiting to be used. This older bread came in handy in a number of ways. We used it to make French toast (we already had milk and eggs from the farm). Also, we made bread pudding with raisins which became a neat dessert. We also made regular toast on the wood stove in the kitchen. No special equipment needed here...just make sure the fire was hot enough to get the job done. Fresh bread did not work very well to make toast on the wood stove. It would tend to stick to the iron surface and become a problem. Another use of the old bread was to make bread soup...sounds interesting, doesn't it? To start with, we needed a large enough kettle to hold the ingredients. First we would heat up milk, probably a couple quarts of it depending on how much old bread we had on hand, then add sugar and cinnamon to meet our taste. Then we would add cubed bread and leave it cook for a while. Now we're ready to serve the bread soup which was, many times, the main course for our supper. So you see, there always was a plan on how to use food efficiently.

Now, what if we ran short of bread and we were in the process of making bread dough. Well, we could take some small globs of dough and deep fry it. When done frying, we would sprinkle some sugar on it and...ready to eat. This was very much like the bread twists that we find in the bakery department these days.

As one can see, all through this process most of the ingredients used in our household were home grown.  Sure, we had to buy sugar, flour and spices along with some other items but we were highly self-sufficient.

25. THE WATKINS SALESMAN "SPICES, PIE MIX, ETC."

Periodically, probably every 2, 3, or 4 months, the Watkins salesman would stop in to see what products he could sell us. Because we bought stuff from him, he kept coming back. He would bring with him a suitcase full of product samples and also had a backup supply in his car of other items. The more likely items we would buy were spices i.e. salt, pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg plus other spices. Also, we would buy some pie mix. Each container had a special flavor i.e. chocolate, vanilla, coconut, butter scotch etc. This was a dry mix that would become part of the ingredients to make these special pies. Other products that we got from the Watkins Salesman were liniment and vanilla extract. Also, they carried some farm products. Among them was UDDER BALM that was used on the cow's udder, especially if they became strongly sunburned. This udder balm also was useful if one's hands got dried out in winter time...it was useful to heal cracked skin too.

The Watkins salesman really became a friend of the family and was part of our outside world. He was the first person that I ever met who had a "hair lip". Nothing unusual but it struck me that he was different than people I had come across among our relatives and neighbors or else at church or school.

26. GROCERY SHOPPING - "SUGAR, FLOUR, BUTTER"

During these early years of my life, we had two grocery stores where we generally did our shopping. There was Macco's General Store in Sugar Bush, near my Grandpa Jadin's farm and then there was Kaster's Grocery Store about one mile from our farm. The barter system was in use at that time. Both stores accepted eggs in exchange for groceries. We would usually fill a 15 dozen crate of eggs...by the way, this was our own egg crate...bring it to the store and get our grocery order filled. The value of the eggs was deducted from our groceries ordered and we owed the difference. Our grocery list wasn't all that long because we already had so many food products that came from our farm. In the meantime, the Watkins Salesman also stopped by. We had most of our own meat from the farm unless we wanted some special items ie. ring bologna or summer sausage. So, among the grocery list, we could find: sugar, flour, butter, cheese, yeast, molasses, syrup, spices, crackers (soda & grahams), peanut butter, matches, cereal, oatmeal, prunes, raisins, etc. At Macco's, they many times gave us a special treat which was a small paper bag with chocolate covered mints.

Eventually both of these grocery stores closed because they could not compete with the larger stores in Green Bay i.e. the A & P Store, or the Sure Way stores which was a local chain store in business for many years.

27. DANDELION WINE "MMM-GOOD!"

With all those household and farm activities, we still found time to make dandelion wine...not that we were that great of wine drinkers but I think it was the challenge of doing it and also to have some wine available when guests stopped in. As could be expected, there was a set time of the year to do this, obviously, when the dandelions were at their prime. Before starting, we wanted to make sure that the large crock jar was available. That was the 30 plus gallon container. OK, start picking dandelions from anywhere and everywhere around...just the flower, not the stem. After collecting a few gallons of dandelion flowers, we're ready to do it. Put the flowers in the crock jar and fill with water to the appropriate level. Now add yeast, sugar, raisins and sliced oranges. Let all of this ferment for a few weeks. When the fermentation process was completed, we would strain out all the solids and end up with the wine. Then we'd fill some used liquor bottles with the wine and put a cork in each one. Because fermentation doesn't stop as of a particular day, we would keep track of these bottles in case a cork would decide to let go...if it did, we'd put it back in the bottle and continue keeping tab on this. These bottles were kept in the cellar where it was sort of cool. Once in a while, we'd sample the wine to see if it was ready for guests...we really did a good amount of sampling...not bad stuff but it did carry the taste of yeast.

28. COTTAGE CHEESE - "IF YOU COULD ONLY SEE HOW THIS WAS MADE..."

Making cottage cheese was another farm product that we worked on. Having a good supply of milk made this all possible. We would start with a half or ¾ pail of milk and let it stand for a few days to let it curdle. We may have added some vinegar to the milk to speed up the process. Once the milk was well curdled, we put it into a cloth bag to drain out the liquid and as a result, hold the residue which was cottage cheese. We could use it as plain cottage cheese or we would drain it out thoroughly, add pepper and a little salt for seasoning and come up with a cheese spread that we would use on our bread, much like we'd use jelly. This cheese spread was much like the cream cheese that we find in the dairy counters in our grocery stores today.

29. HEAD CHEESE - "ALL THOSE SPARE PARTS OF THE PIG"

At the time that we butchered a pig, it was automatically the time to make head cheese. As the name of it goes, this was made primarily from the pigs head. After all, what else would you do with the pigs head? Well, to get started, we'd put a kettle on the stove with a small amount of water so as to get this meat thoroughly cooked. When completely cooked, we'd take this meat, cut it up in smaller pieces that could be fed into the meat grinder. I believe we'd add some cooked onion with the meat for extra seasoning and added taste...also some salt and pepper. Now with the meat etc. all ground up, we'd put it in a cloth bag so that the liquid, mostly grease, could be allowed to drain out. Then we'd flatten out the bag to about two inches high, put a small piece of wood with a couple bricks on it and let it set. Once all of this was completed and the meat cooled down, we'd be ready to eat head cheese. Usually we'd wait a couple days to sort of let it mature.

All this sounds pretty much like a home spun type of process; however, Le Capitaine's Grocery here in Green Bay's north side, used to make this type of head cheese and sold it from their meat counter. Many of their customers were retired Belgians who lived in that part of town and enjoyed head cheese. Le Capitaines was about two blocks from St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church. This church was known as the Belgian Church in Green Bay, largely because many Belgian people who decided to work in Green Bay bought homes in this neighborhood area. There was comfort to settle among those who spoke their same language. Le Capitaine's was in business for about 100 years but closed around 1999 or so.

30. BELGIAN TRIPPE - "GET THE SAUSAGE GRINDER READY"

It seems that butchering a pig usually took place during the fall season when the weather was not so hot. This was an outside job so you didn't want it very cold either. The process to butcher a pig is another whole story of its own; however, here we plan to cover the process of making Belgian trippe. Fresh pork was the primary ingredient but then we had to plan ahead to get the job done. We needed a head or two of cabbage from our garden depending on how big a batch we were going to make. Also, we needed several large onions that we had grown in our garden. Then we needed spices such as pepper, salt, nutmeg...and that was pretty much it except for the casing to make the sausage links. The "casing" or sometimes called "lining" came from the pigs intestines. Well, these had to be scraped out and cleaned to be ready for making the sausage links. My mother would handle this task, usually an evening job before the day of sausage making. This lining was one or several lengths long depending on how the intestines were originally sliced up. She had to check these linings one-by-one to see that there were no ruptures in them otherwise the sausage making process could become sort of a mess and a dragged out process. Once the linings were checked for ruptures, we would be ready to get going. Well, we needed a good fire going because we had to cook up the pork, cabbage and onions all separately. When each of these was completed, we needed to put each one through the sausage grinder, while also eliminating any excess liquid. Once all this was completed, it was time to mix them together, add the seasonings and start filling the linings. So, we would clean out the meat grinder and add the sausage filler unit to the meat grinder. The sausage filler unit on the meat grinder was cone shaped but with a 4-5 inch long tube so the linings could be slipped over it. As the sausage went through the meat grinder and came out of the tube, the lining became filled with meat...once the lining was filled, it could be 20-30 inches long, then we're ready to make links. By twisting and turning, we'd end up with Belgian trippe with 5, 6 or 7 inch links. Because we didn't have a refrigerator or freezer, these could be kept in our cool basement for several days. Later on, we rented a freezer box at the Locker Plant in New Franken or at the Northeast Co-op in Green Bay on Cedar St where we hauled our milk during those early years of farming.

31. BELGIAN PIE...WHEN PRUNES WERE PRIME

Making Belgian pies was usually done at special times of the year, generally when they could be used up, before they got too old and had to be thrown out. A batch of Belgian pies would likely have 18 - 20 pies at a time. In a sense, when you went through the work effort, you wanted it to be worthwhile. Occasions to make this large a batch of pies would be at the grain threshing season when we might have 12 - 15 men to feed for a day or so, or during the Christmas/New Years holiday season when many family members came over to visit...and have a lunch, of course. Also, if there was a wedding or First Communion celebration, these could be a likely time to make these pies.

To start with, you had to make special raised dough, much like making bread dough; however, this was a sweeter type dough. Just like making bread dough, you had to mix it and continue to kneed it, then let it rise, punch it down again (by kneading) and then let it rise. In the meantime, we'd have to get the other ingredients ready. Because we liked a variety, we would come up with different flavors of pie filling. The most common pie filling was made with prunes. Here you had to cook the prunes, take the pits out and then mash the prunes so as to be smooth. Also, we made pie fillings with raisins, cherries, apples...some people made a rice pie filling but we never got that far. For a topping on the pie, we used a cottage cheese base with other ingredients i.e. eggs, sugar etc. to come up with a type of cheese spread. Then we needed 5-6 or more pie tins.

Now that the dough had risen for the second time, we were ready to make the pies. So, you would take a wad of dough, flatten it out in the pie tin, then ladle some pie filling into the dough and put some cottage cheese topping on...all ready for the oven. When baked, a Belgian pie is fairly sturdy because of using raised dough. We'd bake probably four pies at a time, so when the first batch was out and cooled down a bit, we would put newspapers on a bed with a table cloth on top to protect the pies from the ink in the newspapers, and slide these pies out of the pan and continue with a second and third batch and continue until all the dough was used up. By that time, we would have the bed covered with pies. Well, by evening time, these pies had to be moved to other storage places like the kitchen cupboard or down in the basement where it was cool.

Having Belgian pie was always a special treat for us. Another reason to bake a batch of Belgian pies was for our church picnic which always took place on the second Sunday in August and that tradition still continues today. Holy Martyrs of Gorcum Catholic Church was about 2 ½ miles from our farm and that church building continues in use today.

32. BELGIAN WAFFLES - "A SPECIAL TREAT AT NEW YEARS OR ANYTIME, REALLY"

There are restaurants that have Belgian waffles on their menu. Those are usually made of a cake type batter. The Belgian waffles that we feel are the "Real Thing" is made of raised dough...so, it takes some planning and doing to get these made. First thing you need is a real cast iron waffle maker called a "waffle iron", at least that's the way we did it. We did not have our own waffle iron but there was one that circulated among a few families in the Jadin family. I believe the waffle iron belonged to Aunt Florence Vanden Plas (Dad's sister). On occasion, we would borrow it to make waffles. Then, we'd get it back to her or else we would move it on to aunt Anna Kugel (Dad's youngest sister) so she could make a batch of waffles. Supposedly, there were several families in the Sugar Bush area who had this waffle iron made at a foundry in Green Bay...I believe it may have been Rothe Foundry. Aunt Florence passed away a few years ago. Who has the waffle iron? I expect someone in her family would still have it. Several years ago, we came across a waffle iron and bought it. We have made waffles a couple times, once with Aunt Anna over to help us through the project.

Now that we have the waffle iron figured out...let's get started. We need a bread dough type of pan or bowl along with flour and several ingredients. Once all the ingredients are mixed together, then we have to kneed the dough, let it rise for a while, then kneed it again and let it rise again. Grabbing a small handful of dough, we then flatten it out in an oval layout, about 3inches by 5 inches. Then we'd put a towel over the dough to keep them from getting cold. A batch of dough would probably make 100 - 120 waffles. In the meantime, we had to get a good wood fire in the stove so that the cast iron dough maker would get real hot. Once we'd put the dough into the waffle iron, the heat from the cast iron would firm the dough into a real waffle, light brown in color. We would make one waffle at a time so you see, this would take considerable time to get the job done.

Now it gets to the "Fun Stuff"...eating these waffles. You can eat them plain, just as they were made or put jam or jelly on them. My memory goes back to New Years Day when we would get together at my Grandpa Jadin's home in Sugar Bush. Because of the large family, they would serve them in hot milk. To prepare this meal, they would heat up a large kettle of milk on the stove putting in some sugar and cinnamon for flavor. They would put a good supply of waffles in a large crock jar, probably a two gallon jar. Once the milk was hot, they would pour the milk over the waffles so as to cover the top ones...then leave them soak for a while. Now, ready to serve...ladle out a couple waffles on a plate and some milk to go with it, at least enough milk to fill the waffle holes...happy eating for everyone in the household and another New Years celebration moved on.

Once that we got a gas stove, there was a more steady and even heat, so making waffles became a bit easier. After we got electricity and had a freezer, we would freeze the extra waffles...so, we could spread out the time when we could enjoy waffles.

33. PIE MAKING - "HOW ABOUT EGG PIE?"

Having already covered the making of Belgian pies, we will now get into some other pies. One of those was egg pie, but these days, it's probably called "custard pie". I guess the reason we knew it as egg pie is that there were so many eggs that went into making egg pie. Also there was milk and other ingredients topped off with some nutmeg sprinkled on it to give it some character. We always seemed to enjoy egg pie...mmm...good! Another reason that we may have had egg pie fairly often is that we had plenty of eggs on hand. Now, we brought all the best eggs to the grocery store to trade for groceries but we also ended up with a fair supply of reject eggs...among those were cracked eggs, some with stains on them that couldn't be washed off, some were too small to sell, others would have no egg shell...just a membrane. When we set these aside, we knew that they could always be used to make egg pie as well as for other uses.

Beyond egg pie, we had all sorts of pies. Among them was fresh strawberry or raspberry pie in summer. Mom would make up several pie shells ahead of time. Then when we had the strawberries or raspberries, all we had to do was fill the pie shell and make a boiled type topping which was quite sweet but it made the pie taste terrific! Pie shells were also used to make banana and lemon pie with a meringue topping...mmm good! Then we had the pie filling containers from the Watkins salesman to make chocolate, vanilla, coconut, butterscotch etc. A continued treat was making apple pie because we always had a good supply of apples especially during the fall and winter months from the previous seasons harvest...these were stored in a corner of the basement where it was always colder so that they would last longer. Cherry pies were made from canned cherries that were from the previous July harvest. There was a cherry orchard in Luxemburg so we didn't have to go too far away to take care of our needs.

34. THE ROLLING PIN "THE VIRGINIA DARE BOTTLE"

For many years Mom used a Virginia Dare bottle as a rolling pin to make pies or other type of desserts that had to be rolled out. I'm not sure where it came from because we never had wine during these early years, at least not that I'm aware of. Maybe it was a hand-me-down or it could have come from Grandpa Vincent's tavern. I'm not sure if he had his tavern on Highway  54 at the time my Mom and Dad got married in 1930 but I remember going to Grandpa and Grandma Vincent's home when they had a tavern adjoining their home. As a child, that was the only home that I knew them to have...prior to that they had a dairy farm and later on Grandpa Vincent had a tresh machine where he would go from farm to farm during the grain harvest season. I don't know if we'll ever find out where that Virginia Dare bottle care from, but Mom was pretty adept at using it even though it was a sort of tapered bottle. Among the family heirlooms that were divided up when settling my parent's estate, I inherited the Virginia Dare bottle and it has a place of reverence in our household now. It rests on top of the Hoosier Cupboard that my parents had in their summer kitchen back on the farm many years ago.

35. BAKE A CAKE -"SPICE CAKE WAS AUTOMATIC"

Back on the farm, everyone worked at most everything, even baking a cake. It seemed that Donald learned to bake a spice cake early on...as time went on, I also learned how to do that too. Once we had that recipe figured out pretty well, it was easy to make another spice cake. Mom didn't let us venture out too much...I think she figured that if we knew how to do one thing well...let it go at that. In the learning process, we had a cake or two where we forgot something, like baking powder and the cake was sort of flat. It seemed like it was made of rubber but we would eat it anyhow...yes, we did "eat our mistakes", not that we had to but it was part of the fun in doing it. By the way, without electricity, all this was done by hand...no mix master in those days.

36. ICE CREAM - "A SPECIAL TREAT"

One of my Dad's cousins who lived on a farm in Champion had an ice cream maker. Whenever we went to visit them, we'd hope that they would make some home made ice cream because it was really good! Well, as life goes, that probably happened only once or twice but I long remember the special treat it was. Back on the farm at that time, we didn't have a refrigerator or ice box...so, no way to keep ice cream. But once in a while when Dad went to Green Bay, especially during summer, he would stop somewhere on his way home and buy two pint boxes of ice cream...maybe two different flavors. The standard flavors were vanilla, strawberry and chocolate. Well, when he got home, it was critically important that we eat the ice cream right away or else it would melt. So, we would open up the two pints and slice it up for the number of people who happened to be there. Usually it was 4, 5 or 6 people...so, we had to be careful how it was sliced and shared. The one rule that seemed to work best was "whoever slices up the ice cream gets the last piece". Well, you can imagine, it was done very carefully. Usually it was one of us children who drew that special duty...in reality, it was one of those times when we learned to share!

37. MAKING RUGS - "TIME TO GET THAT SEWING MACHINE REVED UP"

It was fairly common during the 1930's to have hardwood floors in most rooms of the house. These were pieces of wood about 2 inches wide and with a groove on each side so that they would fit closely together. These floors were varnished many times so the color was of a dark varnish. With all these wood floors, it was the custom to use rugs partly for warmth and protection of the floor in the higher traffic areas but it also added some color to each room. We didn't make the rugs ourselves but we did sew rags (strips of cloth about one inch wide that originally came from old/used shirts, dresses, etc.) that were then brought to someone who had a rug loom and they would make the rugs. Mom would do the job of tearing the "no longer useable clothes" and then one of us children would get at the Singer Sewing Machine and sew one length to another, thus making an endless length of rags. These would be rolled up into a ball of rags ready for the rug maker to use in making the rugs. We tried to keep certain colors like red, blue, pink, green etc. in separate balls of rags. In this way, the rug maker could make lighter or darker sections in the rug and give it some design etc. If some colors of cloth were too bland or too gaudy, Mom would dye these with a certain color that she wanted in the rug and that would become a separate ball.

Even though this all seemed like a lot of work, we had fun operating the Singer Sewing Machine using the foot pedal to see how fast we could get it revved up without breaking a needle. Well, we did break a few needles along the way but Mom didn't have a real problem with that.

Once that we had a good enough supply of these balls of rags, we were ready to take them to the rug maker. When the rug maker had our project completed, we would go there and pick up the rugs. These rugs were usually about 24 - 30 inches wide and 48-60 inches long. They could be made longer; yet, we had to keep in mind that these rugs had to fit into our Maytag Wash Machine as these periodically became a part of the Monday wash day.

With a coal furnace that usually lost it's zip by early morning, especially in the middle of winter, the hardwood floors would be pretty cold...having those rugs on the floor felt pretty good.

38. MAKING A QUILT –"CUTTING OUT THE PATTERNS"

It seemed that each family among our relatives would make a quilt from time-to-time. This took some planning and preparation that eventually led to a quilting bee where several women would meet at that person's home who wanted the quilt made. This would many times become an all day project.

To start with, we needed to come up with a pattern which would probably be 10 - 12 inches square. This particular 12 inch square would generally be repeated throughout the quilt unless you were making a special type called, "A Sampler Quilt", where each 12 inch square was of a different design or pattern. I have a Sampler Quilt that my Mom made...she had some of her sisters and sister-in-laws help as well as a few lady friends who also came over to help. Joan helped on this Sampler Quilt.

Getting the 12 inch squares made up took a good amount of time. First of all, we needed to decide on the pattern layout and make sure that we had enough material/fabric. Then we would make a cardboard pattern of each piece in the square. With a pencil and all the cardboard pieces, we would draw the particular pattern piece on the fabric and try to get as many pieces as possible out of each sheet of material. Many times the fabric was left over material from making dresses, aprons, etc. As one can realize, there was very efficient use of everything we had or did. Fabric that was used to make a dress or apron usually had some left over material and it would likely end up in a quilt or rug. Sometimes a quilt would be made out of mens suit trousers, suit coats, etc. This too would make for a very warm quilt.

Once all the pieces were cut for a 12 inch design, we would start sewing them together on the Singer Sewing Machine to come up with a 12 inch square. When enough 12 inch squares were sewn, then Mom would sew those together and that became the top side of our quilt. To complete the quilt, it usually required a full bottom sheet and some batting in between. With all of that completed, we're almost ready for the Quilting Bee. Before quilting day, we would have to make sure that we had a set of quilting sticks, it would take four to make a quilting frame. When the women came over, each one brought along her needle and her thimble...maybe a spare needle or two just in case something went wrong.

Because this would usually become an all day affair, the lady hosting the event needed to prepare a noon lunch too. It always seemed the women enjoyed getting together to do this...in a sense, it was an enjoyable social event with results to show for, once it was completed. Many times a family would make a quilt as a wedding or shower gift for a newly married couple...something very practical and usually appreciated very much.

39. WARD ROBE - "LIMITED EDITION"

The closets in our bedrooms were not very large and, in a sense, they didn't really have to be. For the guys, daily work clothes on the farm consisted of bib overalls and a work shirt, usually the standard blue, Lee Brand or later on, Oshkosh B' Gosh. As time went on, we got to wear blue jeans. We didn't have the benefit of a different outfit everyday...sometimes the same outfit would go for a few days...yet, this also depended on the type of farm work going on during each season. The same with work stockings...you could always get a couple days use and maybe more. As for footwear, we had one pair of work shoes and a pair of dress shoes for going to church on Sunday or when visiting neighbors or relatives. If a pair of shoes had worn out soles, then we would get them re-soled at a local shoe store. At that time, there was a shoe store in New Franken which at one time was operated by a Mr. Simons. For dress clothes, we had one suit which was used for special occasions like going to Mass on Sunday. Now, as for underwear, we generally had the one-piece union suit, wool in winter time. I could describe it but it would be more interesting if you got to see one.

As for the women, dresses were many times used, even for outside work, also shirts and bib overalls, same as men used. Later on Blue Jeans also came into use and really were more practical.

How did we feel about all this? Well, it was the way things were and we really didn't realize how things could be different. We were a close knit family and enjoyed working and being with each other at home and with relatives. We always felt good about that.

40. MY FIRST HOLY COMMUNION - "A SPECIAL OCCASION"

I believe that I was about 8 years old when it came time for me to receive my first Holy Communion. This took place at Holy Martyrs of Gorcum Church on the Finger Road, about 2 ½ miles from our farm. This was a special occasion when our grandparents would come over for the Mass and then a family celebration at our home. This meant getting a new outfit for me. Yes, all white set-up...white shirt and tie, white trousers with white belt and white shoes and socks. Such a special outfit for one day of use; however, it seemed that I wore this to church on a few Sundays after First Communion Day.

41. HOLY WATER FONTS - "A NEW SUPPLY OF HOLY WATER AT EASTER TIME"

In each of our bed rooms, we had a holy water font where we would put holy water. We would bless ourselves with the Holy Water just before going to bed at night by making the sign of the cross on ourselves. Just like taking care of the kerosene lamps with kerosene, we also had the job to make sure there was a useable supply of holy water in the font of each bedroom.

42. THE LENTEN SEASON - "TIME TO SAY THE ROSARY AGAIN - EVERY NIGHT"

During the Lenten Season, we made it a practice to do something extra and also decide on something to abstain from that we really liked. The most likely thing to abstain from was candy because we knew that we'd really miss that. By Easter Saturday, we'd really look forward to having some candy. During Lent, we might get some candy for whatever reason but we really tried to stick to the program. So we'd put this unexpected candy in one of our dresser drawers and keep it in anticipation of Easter Saturday, (Lent was over at Saturday noon)...and did that ever taste good.

When it came to doing something extra for Lent, it was our common practice to recite the rosary every night - most times later in the evening like 9:00 or 9:30, maybe later too. We'd light two candles that were already placed in our special candle holders that were in the shape of a cross. Once we were ready to start, one of us would lead the rosary and all the others followed with the responses. Because we had the candles lit, we'd turn off any other lights in the kitchen where this nightly service was held. Each one of us would use a chair as a place to kneel at. With only the candle lights burning and after a full day of work or school, some of us could get a little tired at about that time of night and it was not uncommon for one of us to doze off into a little rest time while all this was going on. Sometimes, we'd get a prod from someone else nearby "to wake up".

Whenever we happened to go by our Grandpa Jadin's home in Sugar Bush during Lent, on occasion we'd be stopping in while the rosary was being recited...then we'd join in until they were finished. They, too, were saying the rosary by candlelight...so, we felt right at home in that way too.

43. UNCLE MELVIN - "MY DAD'S BROTHER"

When my parents bought the farm in the spring of 1931, Uncle Melvin came to help my parents run the farm. He was a couple years older than my Dad. Uncle Melvin was the oldest in their family of seven children. Because of all the manual labor, it could easily keep two men busy. Uncle Melvin stayed with us until he got married to Tillie Rank when he was about 39 years...so, he lived with us for a good period of time. They called their farm business "The Jadin Brothers" and that carried on until Uncle Melvin married and bought an 80 acre farm in the Town of Eaton from Frank Jaskolski. Because Dad and Uncle Melvin were partners in the farm I grew up on, they both worked together to get the new farm going. We moved farm machinery back and forth for a couple years. Eventually, they bought more machinery for the new farm so that would eliminate all the moving of machinery back and forth. When it came to getting milk cows, some of those cows came from our farm and they may have gone to a couple farm auctions to buy a few more milk cows.

I remember when Uncle Melvin and Aunt Tillie got married but I do not remember what church it was at. After the wedding ceremony, we all went to Mae Dury's Supper Club in the Town of Howard for a meal. That was one of the few times that we got to a supper club for a meal.

44. MILKING COWS - "BY HAND...EVERY SQUIRT COUNTS"

We had about 20 milk cows and without electricity, this meant sitting by each cow and milking the cow by hand...twice a day. The morning schedule meant that we'd have to be in the barn by 5:45 AM to get things moving along. The milk hauler would be stopping in to pick up our cans of milk by 6:45 or no later than 7 AM...and we were his first stop on his daily route. As each cow was milked, we would dump the pail of milk into a milk strainer to remove any sediment like a piece of straw or other unwanted materials. The strainer was on top of the milk can...so, once the can was full, we'd bring it to the milk house and put it in a water tank that held cold water...keeping it there until the milk hauler showed up.

As for the evening schedule, we were more flexible depending on the time of year and what other projects were also going on. Sometimes we'd start milking at 5 PM, 5:30 PM...generally no later than 6 PM. Once all the cows were milked and all the milk cans were brought to the milk house, we'd need to pump some cold water into the milk tank because this milk had to stay cool until the next morning when the milk hauler would show up. Especially during summer, we had to pump water from the well every evening to get the milk cooled down.

45. THE MILK HAULER - "HERE HE COMES...TIME TO HURRY UP!"

For many years, our milk hauler was one of our neighbors, Le Roy Reick. His daily routine, seven days a week was to stop at all the farms on his route, pick up their cans of milk, and bring them to the dairy. At that time, our milk was being sent to Northeast Cooperative also called Northeast Co-op in Green Bay on Cedar Street next to the East River. I'm not sure why our milk was being sent there but that is probably where Leroy was delivering all the milk from his numerous farmers, called patrons. To keep each farmers milk separately during the pickup and delivery process, each farmer was assigned a Patron Number by the dairy. Ours was Number 8. When the milk hauler brought all these cans of milk to the dairy, each patron's milk was weighed and a sample of the milk taken to measure the butterfat content. That is how the farmer was paid for his milk...by weight and butter fat content. The higher the butterfat content, the more you got paid for your milk.

As all of these milk cans were being emptied, the milk cans went through a rinse process and then back on to the milk truck that they came in on. Once all the milk cans were on Le Roy's truck, he would head back to the country delivering the empty cans to each patron/farmer to start this whole process over...day-by-day, seven days a week.

Each milk hauler including Le Roy had their daily schedule pretty well figured out. Each one knew that they would have to wait in line at Northeast Co-op to get their cans emptied etc. If some farmer did not have their cans of milk ready for pick-up when Le Roy showed up, they knew that Le Roy could get a little irritable because it could delay him and affect his position in the daily line-up at the dairy. So, it was a matter of personal pride to not delay the milk hauler like Le Roy, or else he'd get on you.  Being first stop on his morning route always put us in a tough spot but we were pretty good at not causing Le Roy to be delayed.

Northeast Co-op also operated a general store next to the dairy. They carried a lot of farm products but also food products. On occasion, we'd ask Le Roy to pick up several pounds of butter or some sugar for us and he'd drop it off when he delivered the empty milk cans in the afternoon. These items were paid for by a deduction from our milk check.

When the milk hauler had all his empty milk cans dropped off at all his patrons, it may well have been mid-afternoon. On many a day, a number of these milk haulers from the nearby area would stop off at a local bar for some refreshments. This could be at Detrie's Bar which was near the Summit Grade School or also at the Rainbow Gardens, a couple miles further up the highway. Because they all seemed to have a daily routine, one could guess that a milk hauler who showed up at the bar later than usual was probably ribbed about who on his route "over slept" or "was out the night before".

46. MILK HOUSE - "HOW ABOUT SOME REAL WHIP CREAM"

With all these milk cans going to the dairy every day, we also had our own supply of milk and cream for our own household use. Because this was before we had our own milk pasteurized, the milk would tend to curdle fairly easily so we would not hold over milk for household use too long. When it came to getting cream for household use, this worked out pretty well. This was usually done in the morning, getting cream from the previous nights milking. Over night, the cream would rise to the top of the can...there could be 2-3 inches of cream. Using a milk stirring ladle, we would carefully ladle out cream into another container until we had the amount needed for that particular days use. We'd keep the cream in the basement to keep it in a cool place before time to use it. Now that whipping cream was really good but it took a hand beater to get the job done. Using the beater seemed like it would take forever to get it to froth and firm up. Then with a little vanilla and some sugar mixed in...mmm GOOD! This was used to fill "cream puffs" which was a very special dessert, too.

47. FLOCK OF CHICKENS - "ALMOST AN EGG A DAY"

We had a chicken coop that was built into the south end of our second barn. The first barn located nearest our home was primarily for our horses, cows and calves. The second barn had three thresh floors along with a large storage area for hay on each side of these three thresh floors. We usually had 150 - 200 chickens. Inside the chicken coop were a couple feeders made of metal where we would put chicken mash or cracked corn inside. The chickens would have to jump up about 10 - 12 inches to get at the chicken feeder so that the chickens could keep on eating and producing eggs. Also there was another small feeder that we would fill with oyster shells. This was a granulated type of mix, almost like ground up sea shells. Supposedly, this was helpful for the chicken to eat so that they would end up with good firm shells on each egg. Oyster shells were supposed to be good in calcium and that all sounds reasonable. After all, if a chicken was going to produce an egg every day or every other day, it would take a good amount of calcium to have good firm eggs. Then there was a water container that had to be filled daily so that all these chickens could have all the water they wanted. This water container was about 10 - 12 inches off the floor so chickens had to jump up there to get a drink.

Then there were the egg nests where the chickens would go to lay their eggs. These were just about the right size for one chicken to get into and rest comfortably when she was about to lay an egg. Whenever we had young chickens called pullets, we would put a white glass egg into each nest to give them the idea that they should lay their eggs in those nests. Once the chickens became accustomed to laying their eggs in these nests, we'd remove the glass eggs and put them away for the next time we have pullets again, probably in another year. Some of the original egg nests were made of wood but then we had some additional units that were made out of metal. Most of the equipment such as the chicken feeders, water container and egg nests came from a company called Jamesway which I believe was located in Fort Atkinson, WI. We probably purchased this equipment at the Farmers Trading Company in Luxemburg. Back to the egg nests, we would put a couple hands full of straw in each nest to make it comfortable for the chicken. Also, it would help to cushion the egg that the chicken would lay. Once the chicken laid an egg, she would cackle and then probably leave the nest. Then another chicken could use that same nest but realize that there may already have been one, two or three eggs already laid in that nest from other chickens. Because most chickens laid their eggs in the morning, we'd need to go to the chicken coop a few times each morning to pick the eggs out of the nest or else they could easily break...and on occasion, that did happen which would create sort of a mess. Then we'd need to clean out that nest and put in some new straw to keep the process going. Sometimes a chicken would lay an egg that had just the membrane or maybe a thin shell. Those too could easily break...so, it was important to pick these eggs frequently to avoid some of those problems. We had an egg pail to fill with all these eggs. When the pail was full, we'd bring it into the house and down into the basement for the next process of packing these eggs into crates for trading for groceries at the grocery store.

When chickens laid thin shell eggs or those in a membrane, we'd need to keep these in a separate container and those ended up for our household use. So, it appeared that having oyster shell in the chicken coop was important after all.

Then there was a chicken roost in the chicken coop. This is where the chickens would roost over night...that was their sleeping area, yet many chickens would roost up there during the daytime too.

Well, with all these chickens, there would likely be a lot of chicken droppings (manure), and that there was. Beneath the chicken roost, about ten inches below, we had a surface built out of wood boards. As this ten inch space would fill up, periodically we'd have to clean out the manure using a metal basket and hauling it outside to the manure pile, especially during winter time. Many times, we'd pull up the manure spreader or manure sleigh in winter time to save a lot of time to complete this job. Even though we put straw on the cement floor, from time to time we needed to clean out all this straw which also included chicken droppings and replace with clean straw. This "cleaning the coop" job wasn't all that hard except for during the summer when it could become real hot and humid...well, there was a lot of ammonia smell from all that manure and it could make your eyes water...yes, a few tears were shed on that kind of project but we'd try to do that job in early morning before it got too hot.

Earlier, I mentioned "almost an egg a day". It's hard to tell which chickens were producers and which ones were not but one could sort of figure out by the size flock and the number of eggs that were picked daily to see how it all worked out. At one time, we had one chicken, during the summer, which wandered into our cattle barn and found a place to lay an egg, basically in the horse manger that was not being used at that time. So this chicken would come back daily to this horse manger and laid an egg...one day, maybe at about 6 AM, the next day at 7 AM, the next day at 9 AM, 10:30 AM, noon, 2 PM, 3:30...then skip a day. The next day, the process started all over again. In this way, we had our own scientific study based on one chicken. That chicken spent most of that summer in our cattle barn which really was close to the chicken coop.

With this flock of chickens, we also had about a dozen roosters. Of course they had that nice big red comb and made that loud rooster call, usually in early morning. They also had a reason to be there. For a period of years, we raised eggs that were delivered to the egg hatchery and that required that we have roosters so that we'd get fertilized eggs from the chickens. We delivered eggs to Rubens Hatchery in Rosiere which was near Casco. This generally was a job for Sunday morning during the springtime. Since it takes about 21 days to hatch chicks, Dad would coordinate his schedule with the hatchery. This probably started in March and moved on into April until the hatchery said they wouldn't need any more eggs. The hatchery would sell chicks to farmers in the nearby area to build up their new flock for the coming year. During that time of year, our Sunday schedule went like this...up for milking and farm chores by 5:45 or 6:00 AM, back into the house in time to change clothes for 8 AM Mass, come home, load the eggs in the car, off to the hatchery and back home for noon lunch...certainly made for a busy day already and the "day of rest" is only half gone by. For some reason along the way, we switched from Rubens in Rosiere to La Plant Hatchery in Green Bay which was located on Willow St., now called University Avenue. The hatchery building is still standing and serves as a strip mall just north of Gippers Sports Bar and Grill. Fabian La Plant ran the hatchery and periodically stopped out to look over our chicken coop operation. He always seemed to be satisfied and we kept doing business with him for several years.

48. A LIGHT BULB IN THE CHICKEN COOP..."WOW"

At that time, we felt that the chickens were pretty lucky...they had lights before we did in the house. To get good egg production, especially during the winter months, those chickens need a good amount of daylight. With the shorter days of light and many days that are cloudy, it seemed that we should see to it that we look at how we could gain the best egg production possible. Dad located a farmer who had a windmill type charger which we called a "Wind Charger". This unit was about 10-12 feet tall and was hoisted up on top of the roof of our barn probably with a rope...then anchored to the roof top. The fan was the source for generation. A heavy wire was tied from the wind charger and ended up down on the side of the barn at ground level so we could release it or lock it as the needs would arise. An electrical wire was run from the wind charger over to the chicken coop and onto a battery, about the size of a car battery. From this battery, we wired a light fixture in the ceiling of the chicken coop. Then we hooked up a timer so that the light bulb would go on about 5:45 - 6 AM, then turn off during daylight. About 4 PM or when darkness would set in, the light would go on again until about 7 PM, then it switched to a dimmer for about l/2 hour so the chickens could move up to their roost for the night. The light would go off for the night and then switch on again the next morning.

As you can realize, while the chickens had the use of regular lights, we were still using the kerosene lamps in the house and lanterns in the barn. It did cross my mind while filling those kerosene lamps and lanterns and washing out the globes for the lanterns that someday we would be able to just use a light switch like many of our relatives and neighbors were already doing. We used to say, "The chickens had lights before we did".

49. CHICKEN FOR DINNER - "ONE RECIPE - ROASTED CHICKEN"

When it came time to have chicken for dinner, we had our own supply of chicken...also, those roosters were available after the hatchery season. Well, between that chicken walking around the chicken coop and getting on your plate as a meal, there were a few jobs to do. If we were going to have roast chicken for Sunday noon or supper, that meant we'd have to get started the day before, on Saturday. First thing, we'd get the leg puller that was usually kept handy in the chicken coop, pull 3 or 4 chickens by the leg, put them in one or two burlap bags, tie them shut with some twine, bring them over to the chopping block near the granary where we usually had an available axe nearby, pull one chicken from a burlap bag and cut the chicken's head off...ouch! You'd have to hold the chicken legs and wings with one hand and the axe with the other. Once the head was off, you'd hold the chicken for a few minutes until it was really dead or else, letting it go, the headless chicken would ramble around and get blood all over the place...not a pretty sight. Now, with the chickens killed, we needed to get the feathers off. So, with a pail of hot, scalding water, we'd dip the chicken in and out of the pail until we felt the feathers would be loose enough to pull out. To plan ahead, we needed to see that the stove was capable of heating this hot water so that it would be ready when needed. Then, we'd remove the webbed feet. Now, with a sharp knife, we had to open the chicken and clean out the inside. Maybe there would be a few eggs inside that were ready or near ready to be laid. One or two eggs might have a hard shell, a soft shell or a membrane. These would be set aside for household use. Then there would be the heart, gizzard, liver etc. that were set aside for further use. Then the remainder would be gutted out so as to end up with a clean chicken. The next job was to use a hatchet and meat saw to cut up the chicken for table use. Over night, these chickens would be kept in the cool basement. Next day, get the roaster out and make sure a good fire was going in the kitchen cook stove. Meal time comes and here's a "GREAT MEAL" with all the other farm produce selected for that meal.

50. RAISING PIGS - "EVENTUALLY BACON FOR BREAKFAST"

There was an outbuilding located near the first barn where we kept our car that had several uses. The building was about fifteen feet wide so there was enough room to hold our car and eventually a place along side the car to park our first farm tractor. At the opposite end of this building was a section which we called the "Pig Pen"...and that is where we kept the pigs. There were two pig pens, one to hold the sow and the other for a boar. There was a trap door that we could open so that the pigs from each pen could go outside in nice weather. The pig yard was a good place for pigs to root up ground to try and find a cool spot during the summer heat. Also, if it rained, these holes would eventually hold some water so the pigs could really mess around and get pretty dirty...hoping to cool off.

For feed, we would bring them some ground up grain, sometimes a supply of corn cobs from the corn crib located next to the pig pen and plenty of water. Also we would have extra apples that may have fallen off trees in our apple orchard. These were known as wind-falls. Beyond all this, we also had a pail in our kitchen to hold many excess items that the pigs could eat like potato peelings, apple peelings and many other similar items. We always felt that we could feed it to the pigs. If they wouldn't eat it, we could still pitch it out, no harm done.

About once a year, the sow was ready to have a litter of pigs...baby pigs or sometimes called piglets. The number in the litter could be just a few like four or five, then sometimes the litter might be eight, ten or twelve. We had at least the two outside walls of the pen set up with a cedar post type of rail about 8 - 10 inches from the wall. That was to protect the baby pigs from being squashed by the mother pig, called a sow. When the mother pig decided to lie down, she wasn't very graceful about it and maybe there is no graceful way for a pig to lie down when there are 8 or 10 little pigs around trying to get milk from the mother pig. As the baby pigs grew and got large enough to eat regular pig feed, we would remove them and put them into a separate pen. Then it came time to see if we could sell those pigs. One place to sell pigs was at the farmers market which was located in the parking lot of Northeast Farmers Co-op in Green Bay. We'd hook up the trailer which had high sides to it, to our 1939 Chevy, put some clean straw on the floor and then put the pigs in there...off to market we'd go.

So, as we'd raise a couple of these young pigs for our own use over the next year to continue this whole process, we would probably slaughter one of the grown pigs for our own use and sell the other one. For some reason, we would usually slaughter the sow and sell the boar.

When the day came to slaughter the pig, we had to get prepared. Among things to do were: get a long ladder and stand it against the barn on an angle, get a larger metal drum, about a 50 gallon or larger depending on the size pig, get a couple large steel hooks that were otherwise used to grab bales of hay or bales of straw...then we needed a sharp knife or two. In the meantime, we had to get the copper boiler filled with water and put it on the wood stove to get it scalding hot. Now with all this preparation, it was time for the "kill".

This would be a "two man job". Once the pig was killed, it would take two men to pull the pig out of the pig pen and get it over to where the ladder was standing against the barn. With the hot water in the barrel, they would lower the pig into the barrel so as to get the pig hair well soaked and hopefully scrap the hair off the pig more easily. Once the hair was pretty well scraped off, then they would hang the pig from the ladder, head up and gut out the pig. At the same time, they'd save the pig heart and also clean out the intestines for further use in making Belgian Trippe. Then came time to cut up the pig into manageable pieces for home use. Among these were the extra parts like the four feet which would be made into pickled pigs feet, the ears, tail and tongue; also, the head that would be made into head cheese. The pig's brains were also used and that was made into a relish along with some onions for added flavor. We used to kid about eating pig brains because we felt that would make us smarter...now, there's really nothing wrong with trying that, is there?

So, this became a real busy day which would move into the next day too, with the making of Belgian Trippe. A good amount of the pork would end up in the crock jar in the basement as "salt pork". With a pig, there would be a good amount of lard. This would have to be cooked so as to separate the good, useable lard from other parts of the pig. This was called "rendered lard" and could be used for cooking or making raised donuts.

As I said earlier, the pig would eventually become our bacon for breakfast, sometimes at lunchtime too.

51. THE BULL - "SORT OF A TOUGH GUY TO HANDLE"

We usually raised our bull that may have been a calf from one of our top milk producer cows or sometimes we'd buy a calf from another farmer who also had top milk producer cows. Once the calf grew to be about l l/2 - 2 years old, he became our Number 1 bull and the older one was sold to a livestock dealer who'd come by, put the bull in his livestock truck and haul him to Liebman Packing Co. in Green Bay. Dad would get paid for the bull less the trucker's commission.

The bull's only purpose was to inseminate each cow when the proper time arrived. Then the cow would eventually have a calf and milk production would be on its way again.

The bull could be a little tough to handle. We would buy a bull ring which was made of metal that appeared to be copper. When the bull was fairly young, we would put this bull ring through the bull's nose, so it would always be hanging there and really would be there as long as the bull was in our barn. Then we had a bull stick, sort of a metal pipe with a hook on one end and a handle on the other. That hook would be used to hook on to the bull ring. Then we could lead the bull around the barn or outside the barn. The bull would be very sensitive to being led where ever the person with the bull stick would lead him. We were always very careful when working around the bull.

52. WATER TANK IN THE BARN - "NEED WATER TO GET MILK"

Our well was located inside the milk house, about 50 - 60 feet from the barn. There was a large water tank in the haymow that was piped to each cows stall so that each cow could drink water at any time they wanted to. There was a metal bowl called "a drinking cup" where each cow could put a little pressure on it and more water would come. The supply of water for all these cows drinking cups was the water tank in a boarded off section of the haymow. The water tank was located in the center section of the haymow so that it hopefully would not freeze during the coldest days in winter. One of our daily projects was to make sure that we pumped more and more water into that water tank to take care of those cows and also the other animals in the barn. At times, Dad or Uncle Melvin would start up the gasoline engine in the milk house. Using a series of 6 inch wide belts and pulleys, the gasoline engine would pump water from the well and move it over to the water tank in the barn by use of a two inch pipe that ran up through the milk house roof and over to the barn. The pipe was high enough so that the milk truck and farm equipment could easily move under it. There was an overflow pipe that came from the water tank and extended to the outside of the barn. If we ever saw water coming out of the overflow pipe, we knew that the tank was full and we should shut off the gasoline engine.

There were times when we would pump the well by use of the hand pump which really took some effort because we were pumping water about 12 - 14 feet up and then over into the water tank in the barn.

53. MORMAN SALESMAN - "A FRIENDLY SORT OF GUY"

Ever so often the Morman Salesman would stop in for a visit. His name was Elmer Schoen. I believe he lived on the east side of Green Bay but he had quite a clientele of farmers whom he would stop in to see about buying minerals that were mixed with dairy feed for milk cows and chickens. These minerals were shipped to our farm, usually in bags. In most cases, these minerals were taken along to the feed mill in New Franken where we would go to have bags of oats ground up. At that same time, the required amount of minerals were mixed with the ground up oats so that the dairy feed would be ready to give to the cows or chickens, as the case would be. Elmer called on us for quite a number of years, so we all got to know him pretty well. There were times when he ended up his day in late afternoon at our farm...that, many times, led into our supper time and Elmer was invited to join us for supper.

54. LIVESTOCK  DEALER - "THAT BIG CATTLE TRUCK"

As our herd of cows would continue to be replenished by raising young stock, there would be a cow or two that we didn't have room for or maybe the cow was no longer a good producer of milk. A livestock dealer by the name of Frank Zirbel from Wrightstown would stop by, usually early in the day. He would take a walk around the herd of cows while they were still in the barn and see if there was interest in Dad selling a cow or two. There were usually two categories of cows, one was for milk production and the other was for sale at a meat packing company like Liebmans Packing Company on Willow Street, now University Ave. Dad and Frank would deal on price and after some discussion back and forth, they would make a deal. For some reason, Dad and Frank seemed to hit it off quite well and Frank kept coming back. Eventually one of Frank's sons got involved in the business and eventually took it over. Most of our livestock sales took place during the winter months when the cows were kept in the barn and readily available when Frank would stop in.

55. WHITEWASH THE BARN - "TIME TO GIVE IT A CLEAN LOOK"

It seemed that about once a year or every other year, it was time to whitewash the barn. This concerned the stable part of the barn where the cows and young heifers were kept. There were a couple reasons to do this. The more likely reason would be to have a neat and clean appearing barn when the milk inspector would stop by for a visit. In any case, the barn could get pretty dirty over the course of one year. The side walls near the walk ways could get splattered pretty easily when the cows were walking in or out of the barn.

Also, over the winter months, there was a lot of dampness and humidity in the barn from the cattle's body heat, then contrasted against the cold air outside during the mid-winter months. With hay dust and all the goings on, the barn was really due for a periodic whitewash.

There was a farmer from the nearby area who would contract to do the whitewash job. Once the day was scheduled, usually in summer when all the cows and heifers were out to pasture, we had to do the preparation work. That meant two or three of us using a broom to brush out the ceiling joists and various horse stalls as well as around the calf pens etc. Also, we needed to scrape the side walls where all the crud was built up from over the past year. We tried to cover some of the barn windows with burlap bags to try to cut down on the clean-up work after the white- wash job was done.  Surely, the whitewash job gave the barn a much cleaner look; yet, it didn't take too long before the whole process had to be gone through.

56. DEHORNING CALVES - "ROUGH JOB BUT IT HAD TO BE DONE"

It seemed like we had a yearly visit from Henry Metzler from New Franken who also had a farm but also was dehorning calves as a part time job. He would stop in with a special rig on his trailer where each calf would be walked into, tied down with its head secured in the rig. Then he would saw off the small horns and paint some disinfectant in the area where the horns were sawed off. This was done for each calf that we planned to keep so that they would not develop big and dangerous horns. For the next week or so, we had to brush some disinfectant on each of those calves until the wounds got healed up.

57. FLY SPRAY \- "NOT JUST FOR THE COWS"

During the summer months, there always seemed to be a lot of flies around, especially in the barn area. Having a manure pile at the back end of the barn was a natural breeding area for more and more flies. Whether cows were in the barn or out to pasture in the fields, flies were easily attracted to the cows. In order to have contented cows, we would spray them with fly spray usually in the morning while the milking was being completed and then again in the evening. I'm not so sure that we killed a lot of flies but having sprayed the cows, the flies were more likely to stay away and not bother the cows.

With all the attraction of flies to the barn, barn yard, etc., many flies also got into our house too. The screen door may have been loosened up a bit and with all the people going in and out of the house, flies seemed to gather inside pretty easily. So, rather than use a fly swatter to kill all these flies, we would get the hand operated fly sprayer out and use it in the house. Of course, we would cover up any food in the area but it got the job done rather quickly. Then with a broom and dust pan, we got rid of that batch of flies. Also, we would use a fly-tack which consisted of a sticky tape that would attract flies. Once on the sticky tape, they were done for. As the tape got sort of filled up with flies, out it would go and we would hang up a new fly tape. It seemed that flies always liked to hang in a quiet, warm area out of the wind...and naturally our door way was that type of corner. Sure, we had a couple fly swatters in the house but using the fly sprayer got the job done in a hurry. Fly spray was another product that we bought from one of the salesman stopping by...sometimes from the Morman Salesman and at other times from the Watkins Salesman.

58. CORN BEE - "HUSKING THOSE CORN COBS"

We usually had about 150 chickens on the farm. The chicken coop could handle about that number with room for a place for them to roost at night; enough egg nests to take care of day time business and a place for a water fountain and to give the chickens feed. For feed, we'd give them a mixture of grain including corn. Because we raised most everything we needed right on the farm, we raised corn where we would eventually harvest the corn cobs in late fall. The corn harvest would take place usually after a frost or two. The corn leaves would get dried out and brittle; also, the husks would get dried out too. To harvest the corn cobs, it all depended on the people available to tear the cobs off the corn stalks. Sometimes we'd take a flat-bed hayrack pulled by a team of horses and throw the corn cobs onto the hayrack, going up and down the corn field, stripping cobs from a few rows at a time. Other times, we would strip the cobs and pitch them onto a pile of corn in the corn field; later on, we could pick up the piles of corn cobs with a large fork and fill up the hay rack. Once the hay rack was full, we'd bring all these cobs onto a tresh floor in the barn. In this way, the cobs would be out of the possible rain or snow and they could dry out further. Usually in the fall season, we would get a few people together, family and neighbors to have a corn husking bee in the barn or possibly bring these cobs into a warmer and better lit area such as the garage. The corn husking bee would go on for two or three hours during the evening and would end up in our kitchen where we'd have a lunch and time to visit further. The corn cobs were then moved from the garage into our corn crib for further storage. The corn crib was about 5 – 6 feet wide, about 12 – 14 feet long and about 8 – 10 feet high. There was a door at one end. A light screen was stapled around the inside so that the corn could continue to air out and be available for further use. Some of these corn cobs would be brought to our granary where we had a corn sheller. This was operated by hand and one cob at a time. Once we had shelled corn, we could feed it to the chickens along with wheat that we had also raised on the farm. At times this would be whole kernels or else cracked corn and wheat that we had processed at the feed mill in New Franken. We also gave the chickens a ground meal that was made up of wheat, oats and corn that we brought to the feed mill for grinding. This was hauled to and from the feed mill in grain sacks as needed. Also this was a fill-in job when needed. As for the corn husks, some of them ended up in my mattress. I'm not sure how often we got a new mattress filling but the fall season for sure.

Besides having corn to feed the chickens, we also used corn cobs as feed for the pigs (corn cob and all). The corn crib was near the pig pen so we didn't have to go too far to get them as needed. The pigs had good teeth so they could easily chew into the corn cob and get the kernels off the cob pretty easily. As a result, we didn't have to run these cobs through the corn sheller.

59. THE GRINDSTONE - "TIME TO SHARPEN THE KNIVES"

The purpose of having a grindstone was to sharpen knives...and on the farm there were many knives to be sharpened. The grindstone was made of cement and was round, about 12 - 14 inches in diameter, then about 1 ½ inches thick. This stone was mounted on a wooden stand which was about 30 inches from the ground. There was a handle on the cement wheel so that one person would turn the handle and the other would do the sharpening. Sharpening would work best when you put some water on the wheel so as to keep it continually wet. So the one turning the wheel would have a pail of water with a cup next to the grindstone.

Among the knives or blades that needed sharpening were the sickle blades that were used on the hay mower when cutting hay during the spring and summer season. The hay mower sickle bar was about 4 - 5 feet long and had blades about 3 - 3 ½ inches at the base. Each blade had two sides to sharpen so it could take a good amount of time to get the full sickle bar sharpened. Before or after sharpening, we had to replace any broken or worn out blades. These blades were attached to the sickle bar using copper rivets. This was not a hard job but like so many jobs on the farm, it just took time to get the job done.

Then there was the grain binder sickle knife bar which was similar to the one used on the hay mower but it was somewhat longer, more like 5 - 6 feet long so as to fit in front of the apron on the grain binder. The blades for cutting grain were of a smaller size and style than those used to cut hay using the hay mower. The blades for cutting hay were smooth whereas the blades for cutting grain i.e. oats, wheat, etc. had more of a serrated edge. The likely reason for the different type blades is that hay was green and juicy at the time of cutting whereas grain was dry straw...so that meant a difference.

When using the grindstone for sharpening mower blades, it also was a likely time to sharpen the kitchen knives that needed sharpening at the time when we were going to butcher a pig. You needed really sharp knives to scrape the hair off of the pig after it was dunked into that barrel of hot water for awhile. The grindstone was usually kept in the garage or a storage area because it was made of wood but also had some metal parts which we wanted to keep from getting rusty if it was kept outside.

There were times that we would bring the hay mower sickle blades to the blacksmith shop in New Franken. At that time it was the Pivonka Blacksmith Shop. Getting the sharpening done at the blacksmith shop would save us time on the farm but then we had to pay the blacksmith for getting the sharpening done for us. We always tried to be self sufficient but sometimes there wasn't enough time for us to get all those jobs done right on the farm.

60. THOSE BELGIAN HORSES - "ALL SIX OF THEM"

Having six work horses, on the surface, seemed like quite a large number but we didn't have a tractor so it really took that many horses to get all the work done. All six horse stalls along with a stall for the bull took up quite a lot of room in the barn where we had our milk cows, heifers and calves.

To operate most pieces of machinery, like the hay mower, it took a team of two horses, just like pulling a hay rack, manure spreader, snow sleigh, etc. But when it came to pulling the McCormick grain binder, it took three horses. The grain binder had many moving parts and all of that required real horse power to make everything work...and then all the tougher on a hot summer day.

Since Uncle Melvin lived with us, they usually needed two teams of horses to get most of the farm work done especially during the spring and summer season. The fall season was also quite busy during the corn harvest and also during the sugar beet harvest.

For a few jobs, it took only one horse. One of those was using the dump rake during hay harvest. The dump rake was a very light piece of machinery, about 10 - 12 feet across with a large metal wheel at each end. There was a metal seat to sit on. The purpose of the dump rake was to go up and down the hay field after all the windrows of hay had been picked, to rake up any bunches of loose hay, then dump it so as to make a long row which would eventually be picked with a hay rack and hay loader. Having a cleaned up hayfield looked good. This also made it easier when cutting hay for the next crop or else the left over hay would turn into manure and sort of mess up the new crop.

Another use for having a single horse was to cultivate the garden. It was hard enough to use one horse whose hoofs would be so clumsy going down a narrow pathway as compared to using two horses. Dad would walk behind the cultivator and one of us would lead the horse down the pathway by holding on to the horses bridle.

With all those horses, we needed several horse harnesses and related equipment like horse collars etc. Because horses would sweat so much during the spring, summer and fall seasons, we needed to get the harnesses cleaned up, oiled etc. usually during the early spring season. A harness was made up of so many parts that were strapped together, some parts were held together with bolts, washers and nuts. With all these parts, we would lay them out on the garage floor in proper order so that we could clean them by scrapping and cleaning them, then oiling the leather parts and put all this back together again. Also, if some of these leather parts were broken or worn out, we needed to use replacement parts.

Belgian horses were not really a riding horse. This type horse had such a wide back that you could hardly sit on the horse with one leg on each side. They were really good work horses. Other breeds of horses commonly found in the farm area were Clydesdales and Percherons.

61. THE HORSE DRAWN SINGLE BOTTOM PLOW - "NO NEED FOR A TREAD MILL IN THOSE DAYS"

When it came to plowing the fields in the fall season, there was only one way to do it at that time...that was by using s single bottom plow pulled by a team of horses. And that meant that someone had to walk behind that plow to guide the plow and make sure the horses kept on walking in a straight line. I believe that the plowshare was 10 - 12 inches across which means that you would turn over a furrow of ground of that width every time you walked up or down the field. If you had a ten acre field, it would take quite some time to get the entire field plowed. So, whoever was plowing a field got plenty of walking exercise...and that's the reason that a farmer really didn't need a treadmill during that era.

The plow-point had to be sharpened periodically so we would bring it to the blacksmith shop in New Franken, leave it with them for a couple days depending on how soon they could work on it. So, we had a couple extra plow-points so that we could keep plowing while one or two of the others were at the blacksmith shop to be sharpened...basically the blacksmith would put the cutting edge of the plow point in the fire, get it heated to a high temperature, then he'd pound it with a hammer to flatten out the blade and point so that it could more easily cut through the ground.

The frequency of bringing the plow points to the blacksmith shop depended on the type of ground you were plowing. Black soil was easier to plow as compared to clay soil. We had both kinds on our farm. Also plowing went better if the soil was damp as compared to being dry, especially clay soil.

It was common practice that one of us children would bring a mid-morning and mid-afternoon lunch out to the field where Dad or Uncle Melvin were plowing. That also allowed for the team of horses to take a break too.

Sometimes when plowing a field, stones would come to the surface and that could become a problem if it was a larger store. Over the years, most of the large stones had come to the surface and then in spring, we would haul these to an area designated as "The Stone Pile". This was located alongside one of the roadways/lanes heading back to the farm buildings.

62. KEROSINE LANTERNS FOR BARN USE - "SATURDAY, REFILL AND CLEAN"

Not having electricity, it was critical to have kerosene lanterns for use when working in the barn or other farm buildings. We had a storage barrel in the gas house which was designed for kerosene. We had a one gallon kerosene can with a nozzle on it so that we could easily pour gas into a kerosene lamp but we usually used a small funnel so as to not spill. We had three of those lanterns so we had key locations in the barn where we would hang them so that we would gain maximum light. All this would seem to work out pretty well except when there was a draft or wind blowing through the barn...the light would likely begin to flare and cause the glass globe to get black. If this happened too many times, the globe would really get black...so black that the light would hardly come through the globe. Saturday was the weekly chore of washing the globes on all three lanterns and then filling them with kerosene...hopefully ready for another weeks use. Once we got electricity installed on the farm, we were able to retire the lanterns to a place of memory...this was welcome news for all of us, especially for us who had to clean the globes and refill the lanterns with kerosene.

63. PING PONG TABLE - "SUNDAY AFTERNOON FUN!"

Somewhere along the way during those early years, we were able to get two ping pong paddles and a ping pong ball. For a table, we had the kitchen table where we would put in two table leaves about eight inches wide so as to give more playing room. Then instead of a net, we'd use another table leaf from some other table. To make the table leaf stand up, we would get four boxes of food, like a box of prunes, dates or raisins. These were about one pound size so that they would have enough weight but not too large in size to obstruct the area of play. Now we were ready to start the game.

The best time for playing this game was usually on Sunday afternoon. Before starting the game, we'd pull the window shades down so that we could more easily see the ball as we hit it back and forth. We had our fun even though we didn't have all the usual required equipment. When we decided to end our afternoon of ping pong games, then we had to put away the boxes of food that we used to hold up our wooden table leaf (ping pong net).

64. THE EGG SCALE - "SMALL OR LARGE"

Having about 150 chickens in our chicken coop, we would get a daily supply of new eggs. As chickens would lay these eggs, we would stop in the chicken coop a few times during the day to pick them out of the nest and put them into an egg pail. Once the pail was full or near full, we'd bring it into the basement of the house. Here was another job that had to be done fairly frequently...that is, to clean and pack the eggs in an egg crate ready to bring to the grocery store. At Macco's Store in Sugar bush or at Kasters Store about a mile from home on the Finger Road, we would barter eggs for groceries. The usual plan was for us to pack eggs into the wooden egg crate that held 15 dozen eggs. At the store, they'd remove the eggs and then put our groceries into the egg crate. During those years, I don't recall having an egg scale. Once we started to deliver eggs to the A & P Store in downtown Green Bay, we needed to weigh each egg to make sure that it had proper weight as a "large egg". Once we started delivering eggs to the A & P store, we began using 30 dozen egg crates. It sure seemed like it took a long time to fill up a 30 dozen egg crate. It seemed like once we started to send eggs to the A & P Store, they became more and more demanding that the eggs be as clean as possible. Well, we tried really hard to get those eggs clean...we used a damp cloth to clean off any dirt or manure that may have gotten on the eggs while still in the egg nest. Sometimes we even wet sand paper to rub the eggs to get some dirt stains cleaned off. After all, the eggs that could not be sold at the A & P Store would end up at home and be used for our own household use in baking, cooking, meals, etc.

65. A TRIP TO THE FEED MILL AT NEW FRANKEN - "VERY INTERESTING!"

New Franken was an unincorporated village at that time and it still remains that way today.  During the 1930's, 40's and 50's, there were several businesses located there, really a crossroads type community that served the nearby farmers and others living in that general area. At the center of town was the New Franken State Bank which I believe was organized in about 1911. The bank building is still located there but is now used as a residence. It was built in the township of Green Bay but also was at the corner where the Town of Scott and the Town of Humboldt met. As the bank grew, it needed more space so they built a new building about 1/2 mile down the road and also provided space for a drive-in window. Eventually the bank was sold and has ended up today being a branch office for Bank One (more recently named Chase Bank).

Among businesses located in New Franken at that time were the A.L. Greiling Grocery Store which was located next to the bank. They carried more than groceries. They also had clothing, ladies shoes, and other necessities including work gloves and stockings. Then there was a telephone company. Also there was a tavern for a period of years (it was known as Phillips Bar) that had a barber shop connected to it. The door between the tavern and barber shop made it easy to put your name in for a haircut and then go wait in the bar until your name came up. Then there was a shoe store where they repaired shoes and also sold new ones, especially men's work shoes. Next, there was Jandrains Sausage Company where they made sausage like wieners and other meat products. Eventually it went out of business. There was a creamery where local farmers would haul their milk or have it hauled by a milk hauler who would have a daily route. There was also a Post Office too. Bastens Store was located across from Greilings Store, primarily selling food items. Pivonka's Blacksmith Shop was located near the shoe store until they built a new shop near the bank. The Cosmopolitan Hall was located near the bank and had the size and height to hold basketball games. Eventually that building was razed. On the edge of the community were two feed mills, one owned by the A.L. Greiling family and the other one owned by the John Basten family. For whatever reason, my Dad used the services of the Basten Feed Mill which was operated for many years by Carl Basten, son of John Basten who had the grocery store. St. Killians Catholic Church along with a cemetery was located about one quarter mile from downtown New Franken. Across the road from the church was a public grade school that for many years was staffed by the Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Cross at Bay Settlement. Eventually this school, like many small rural schools was closed and students attended other nearby schools either in the Green Bay Public School System or the Luxemburg-Casco School System based in Luxemburg. Dr. Joseph A. Loose had an office in New Franken. He was a family doctor and also made house calls.

Now that you have an overview of New Franken, we want to get to those trips to the feed mill. Our primary use of the feed mill was to bring oats there in feed bags and dump it into a large grinder. Then they would refill these same bags with the ground oats which would eventually be fed to the milk cows on a daily basis; also, some oats were ground up with bags of shelled corn...this became feed for the chickens and roosters. Because we raised wheat on the farm, we also had this run through a grinder at the feed mill to feed cracked wheat to the chickens.

66. THE LOCKER PLANT - "OUR FIRST FREEZER BUT A FEW MILES FROM HOME"

Next to Dr. Looze's office, someone built a locker plant. This was a one floor building which, in reality, was a walk-in freezer that had lockers with individual keys that one would rent by the month. We would rent one or two lockers depending on our needs. This was especially helpful when we would slaughter a head of beef and keep one or two quarters, then sell the other quarters to relatives who were interested in buying some meat. Many times a trip to the feed mill also included a stop at the locker plant for some meat and possibly some frozen strawberries or other items held there. During a hot summer day, it felt sort of good to be able to walk into the freezer and cool off a bit.

67. THE CORN HARVEST- "EVERY YEAR IN FALL"

We raised corn on the farm, primarily to use it to fill the silo with corn silage. Bundles of corn stalks were fed into the feed cutter, chopped up and blown into the silo. This was done while the corn stalks and cobs were still green and the corn inside had matured. The chopped corn would be blown up into the silo through metal pipes leading up to the window at the top of the silo, then the corn would go down into the silo through another set of pipes so as to control where the corn would end up. The pipes inside the silo were about 5-6 feet long and about ten inches in diameter. These were hooked together by small chains so that each pipe could be removed as the silo began to fill up with silage. One person had to be inside the silo to handle this along with putting the boards into the chute opening as the level of silage continued to rise. When a wagon load of corn stalks made up as bundles was brought in to the feed cutter area, it usually took three people to get this job done. One of the men usually was on the wagon which had all the bundles of corn stalks on it. There was a lot of weight to each bundle so it was considered "a man's job". But that didn't stop Mom from doing any one of these jobs. She filled in wherever needed. Then another person worked at the corn feeder so as to guide those stalks into the tray/trough to get them cut up into silage. The third person was inside the silo and was called "the blower man".

68. FARM CROPS: HAY, CORN, GRAIN - "PLANTING AND HARVESTING"

With our 120 acre farm we had to figure out how many acres would be used for hay, corn and grain while still allowing enough acres for cattle to graze on during the summer and also some acreage for cash crops. The key to successful farming, as my Dad saw it, was to raise enough crops so that you could get up into the next years crops without a need to buy hay, grain or corn. If anything, he wanted to have some extra which could then be sold.

When we planted grain like oats or wheat, we had to decide what each field was going to be used for the next year. Crop rotation was important to keep the soil rejuvenated. The grain seeder, sometimes called a grain drill, was used to plant oats and wheat. There also was a separate compartment to hold hay seed if that particular field would end up as a hay field for the upcoming year. Then, we had a corn planter that could be used to plant two rows at a time. We had a corn cultivator that was used to cultivate the ground along each row of corn to keep the ground loose and also control the growth of weeds. The grain seeder, corn planter and cultivator were each pulled by a team of horses. The corn planter and cultivator each had a seat for the rider; however, the grain seeder did not have a seat so that the person doing the planting had to walk behind the grain seeder. Later on a wooden stand was built on the grain seeder to cut down on the amount of walking.

As the crops grew during the summer, there was a time to harvest each one of them. The hay season was usually in mid-June or early July depending on how the weather was that summer. Once it was decided to harvest hay, we had to get the horse drawn hay mower out of the storage barn, make sure the moving parts were oiled and the cutting sickle blade was sharpened. It was time to get the team of horses ready and hooked up to the hay mower. Out to the field we'd go to cut the hay, making a five foot swath around the field at a time. Hopefully, we wouldn't run into any large stones in the hay field or else the sickle blades could get broken and delay our project for some time. Once the hay field was cut, it would take a couple days for the hay to dry out. Once it was dried out, we would hitch the team of horses to the side rake and go around the hay field to make windrows of hay. Once the field had all the windrows made, it was time to get the hay rack along with the hay loader to pick up the hay in the field and get it into the barn for use during the fall and winter season. This served as feed for the horses, milk cows and young heifers that we were raising. Once the load of hay was high enough, we'd bring it into the barn through the large barn doors and get ready for the unloading process. We had a two prong hay fork that was used to unload the hay rack, one large bunch of hay at a time. In order to get these bunches of hay up into the hay mow, a rope was attached to the two prong hay fork, then fed up to the peak of the barn and then along the hay track, with a combination of pulleys the rope ended up outside the far end of the barn. The team of horses were hitched up to the rope so that each bundle of hay was pulled up into the mow by the team of horses. This was repeated until the hay rack was emptied. Of course someone had to be in the hay mow to spread the hay out as each bundle came up into the hay mow. This whole process continued until all the hay was brought in from the field.

69. CASH CROPS...PEAS, SWEET CORN, GREEN BEANS and SUGAR BEETS

With our 120 acre farm, there was about 10-15 acres of land that was not tillable. Part of that included the two wood lot areas where the horses would graze in summer and the other where some of the young stock (heifers) would also graze during the summer. Then there was the swamp land at the back end of our farm where we could hardly plant any crops because a good part of the summer this land had water standing on it and ended up not being too worthwhile for growing anything; however, weeds seemed to grow there and also trees seemed to sprout up along the way. As a result, our 120 acre farm seemed to be cut back as far as growing crops, at least to that extent.

While growing all the needed crops to support the farm operation and keeping enough pasture land for the milk cows to graze on during the summer, we tried to grow what we called "cash crops". By this we meant that we could grow crops that would be sold directly for cash, thus bringing in outside income. Among these were peas. There were two canneries located in Green Bay. The major one was the Larsen Company located on North Broadway. Then there was the Green Bay Canning Company on Main Street on the east side of Green Bay. We would engage in a contract with the Larsen Company to grow peas as well as sweet corn. A fieldsman from the Larsen Company would stop in to coordinate the timing of us planting the peas and corn so that these crops would ripen over a period of a few weeks. In this way the cannery would not be bombarded with peas or corn all at one time; yet, the growing season had some limitations in the number of days it takes to grow peas or sweet corn.

PEAS

As far as peas, these were usually planted early in the growing season, usually late April or May...again this was all scheduled by the fieldsman from Larsens.

The peas would mature and be ready for canning during June or thereabouts. Many times peas would be referred to as "early June peas". During the 1940's when I was on the farm, we had to harvest the peas by using a hay mower that would cut about a 5 foot swath at a time. There was a metal windrow unit that was attached to the hay mower so that the peas from the 5 foot swath would end up in a windrow so that the pea vines would be able to be more easily picked up as compared to just laying all over the field. In order to get the peas ready for canning, we had to get them to "a pea vinery" which was located a couple miles from our farm. The pea vinery was owned by the Larsen Company. They also determined the day that the peas were to be harvested. Once the crop of peas were cut on the field, Larsens would schedule their flat bed trucks to come into the field. Then several men would use pitch forks to pick up the pea vines and load them on the flat bed trucks. This would go on until all the pea vines were picked up from the field. Once that flat bed truck was loaded, it went on to the pea vinery where the vines were fed into the large thresher type machine. Through this process, they would end up with peas that could be used for canning or freezing. The processed vines would end up on a large stack that could get 13-15 feet high and, of course, covered a large stacking area. With all this going on, we would be able to get a good amount of fresh peas that we would can for home use for the upcoming year. This could be about two or three milk pails full, so we had a good supply.

The stack of pea vines would ferment during the summer months and produced a strong, fowl fermented smell that you would easily notice as you would drive by on the highway near the pea vinery. Reginald Jobelius and his family lived across from the pea vinery...we always felt sorry for them living so close to this fowl smell that lasted for several weeks throughout the hot summer months.

So what happened to this big stack of pea vines? Well, during the winter months, farmers who raised peas were allocated a portion of these vines that would be used as feed for the milk cows. Each farmer would go to the vinery with a hayrack pulled by a team of horses and then load up the hay rack with these fermented vines. There were no pay loaders or front end loaders to do this loading job. It was done by pitching one forkful at a time until you got the wagon loaded with what you felt would work out to get it safely home.

Well, that's enough about raising peas but it was quite a process. Because peas were harvested in June, this land was sitting there and could have further use to grow crops that had a short growing season. Many times we worked up the soil and then planted corn which could then be harvested during the fall season and blown in the silo for silage that would eventually be fed to the cows during the winter months.

SWEET CORN

Now, for raising sweet corn. Much like raising peas, the Larsen fieldsman would stop in to schedule the proper time to plant the corn seeds so that as harvest time approached, they could spread out the harvesting of sweet corn and make sure it was still tender at harvest time. While peas were planted by a grain drill so that each row of peas was planted 4-5 inches apart, corn was seeded by using a two row corn planter. These rows were probably 20-24 inches apart. In this way, we could use a two row horse drawn cultivator to work up the ground and also kill the weeds that might have grown since the corn seed was planted. The corn rows were cultivated a few times during the summer to keep the weeds under control. When it came time to harvest sweet corn, the Larsen Company would schedule a number of large trucks that had storage boxes on them and a number of people would walk up and down the rows of corn pulling cobs and pitching them into the large box behind the truck cab. With a driver moving the truck, they would cover 10-12 or more rows of corn at a time. Once the truck was loaded, off to the Larsen Company they would go and another empty truck took its place.

Just like caning peas, we had a ready supply of sweet corn for canning purposes...many quart jars were canned to meet our needs for the next year.

GREEN BEANS

For several years, we contracted with the Green Bay Food Company to raise green beans. We usually raised l/2 acre or sometimes a little more because this crop required a lot of time to take care of during the growing season and also at harvest time. The seed was provided by the Green Bay Food Company. We planted this much in the same way as sweet corn. Rows were 20-24 inches apart. As these plants started to grow, we had to cultivate the ground between each row to keep the soil loose and also control the weeds. Whenever it rained, these plants would really develop. The bean plants were about 10-12 inches apart. Ever so often, we had to hoe between the bean plants to keep the weeds under control. We wanted all the energy in the soil to go toward the bean plants...not the weeds.

When harvest time came, we had the job, as kids in the family, to go into the bean patch and hand-pick the beans that had grown to sufficient size. As we picked the beans into pails, we would then empty the pail of beans into a cloth bag provided by the canning company. As the bags were filled, we would tie the tops together and then fill more bags. Once the days picking was done, then we would haul all these bags to Vander Kelens Grocery Store across from Holy Martyrs of Gorcum Church. At the grocery store which was a pick-up station for Green Bay Food crops, we would have these bags weighed. They would give us a receipt for the weight of all these bags of beans. Eventually we would get paid by a check from the Green Bay Food Company.

SUGAR BEETS

For several years, we planted sugar beets. These were planted in the early summer growing season by using the same planter that we used for sweet corn. Because sugar beet seed and corn seed were somewhat different in size, we needed to change the type of seed planter plate on the corn planter.

Once the beet plants grew to about 4 to 6 inches high, it was time to cultivate these rows of beets using a horse drawn cultivator. This was a two row cultivator so you had to be sure you cultivated the rows in the same sequence as they were planted. For each row of beets, there were two round disks, about 8 or 9 inches in diameter that would keep rotating as the cultivator moved along. This prevented the beets from getting covered up by the cultivated ground and also made it easier to hoe the young beet plants.

To get a good crop of sugar beets, it was necessary to thin out the extra plants so that there would be a single beet plant every 10 – 12 inches. With this much room, the beet plants could develop into beets for harvest that could be 8 or 10 inches across. When hoeing the excess beet plants out of the way so as to leave one plant, this could be a very back-breaking kind of job. As kids, it was our job to thin out the beet plants while kneeling on the ground, leaving just one plant as we went along. One of our parents did the hoeing and we followed behind them "weeding the beets", as we called it.

After a few years, we were able to grow more acres of sugar beets than we could take care of ourselves. At that time, migrant workers would move into the area and take care of hoeing the beets; later on hoeing out any large weeds that grew between the plants and eventually helped during the harvest season (usually they were gone back to Texas by harvest time). These migrants were of Mexican background and moved up to the local area for the summer season. They lived in barracks about 2-3 miles from our farm. They usually came as families and lived in very poor conditions of housing. They were always very good workers and seemed to handle the summer heat quite well.

When it came to harvest time, usually in late September or October, this became a very labor intensive job. Dad would take the team of horses and hook them up to a type of plow called "a beet lifter". There were two handles on the back end of the beet lifter to guide it as Dad would walk behind to guide it. The purpose of the beet lifter was to guide it along the side of the row of beets and break up the ground as well as lift the beets up out of the ground a few inches. With the beets now loosened up, we could pull out two beets, one in each hand, then knock off any ground still stuck to the beet, then lay them in rows for the next person to cut off the tops (a crown on top of the beets along with the beet leaves). The person topping the beets would then throw the beets into piles about 12-14 feet apart. Later on, we would load up the sugar beets on a hay rack and bring them into the farm yard. Once we had about three hay racks filled with beets, we expected the trucker who had a dump truck to show up so that we could reload the dump truck by using a beet fork. This was a hand type fork with strong teeth so as to work well with the heavy beets. If all the hay racks were loaded and the trucker was not available to pick up another load, we would fork off the beets on to the ground in the farm yard and continue to move the beet crops off the fields. The primary focus was to get the beet crop out of the fields because if you ran into a rainy season, it could be very messy in the fields and hard to get the beet crop harvested.

So, what happened to the beet tops? Once the beets were moved off the fields, the beet tops were loaded onto hayracks and brought into the farm yard and stacked near the cattle barn. These beet tops would ferment for several weeks, and then settle down. During the middle of winter, these beet leaves and tops would be used for cattle feed for our milk cows.

Back to the dump truck...once the trucker had his load completed, he would deliver it to the Menominee Sugar Factory located in East De Pere next to the Hockers Brick Company. The Beet Company, as it was referred to many times, processed the beets and ended up with bags of white sugar. Because many farmers in Brown, Kewaunee and Outagamie Counties raised sugar beets, their processing season usually ran from early/mid September to about early or mid-December.

After many years of production, the Menominee Sugar Factory shut down and that was the end of the sugar business for this general area. The huge factory was eventually dismantled and that was the end of it.

This would seem to be the end of the story on sugar beets, however, there's

more to the story. During those years, Dad and Uncle Melvin (Dad's older brother who lived with us) both worked at the sugar factory. The sugar beet season ran from mid-September until early December so it was not an all-year off the farm job. During the first couple years, Dad worked on the limestone pile which was outside, usually cold and windy. As the fall season moved on into winter, this got worse and many times rain turned into snow. Working in the limestone was tough on your clothes and hands. This was on the 11 PM – 7 AM shift, so it was not very pleasant work. After a couple years of that, Dad managed to get an inside job operating the sugar processing machines and eventually became a foreman. He liked that a lot better and continued to work there for several years.

70. STEEL WHEEL WAGONS...NEVER A FLAT TIRE

During those early years on the farm, from the early 1940's and up through the mid-1940's, most of our farm equipment had steel wheels...so, we never had a flat tire as a result. There were steel wheels on the hay wagons...we had two of those wagons. Then there were steel wheels on the manure spreader, the hay rake, the corn cultivator, the grain binder, the corn binder, the grain drill, the corn planter, plus a few more pieces of equipment. With steel wheels, you end up with metal wheels rotating on a metal axle. Obviously, dry metal rotating on a dry metal axle just doesn't work...so, we had to grease these wheels frequently. For the wagons, we had to use a wheel jack to get the wheels, one-by-one, off the axle. Then we'd put grease on the axle and then slide the wheel back on the axle. For most of the other farm equipment, there were several zerts next to the metal moving parts. We had a grease gun so we could force some grease into the moving parts areas. One of the first changes about steel wheels took place when we bought new wagon frames that would be used for rubber tires. This meant having a smoother ride when going out into the harvest fields but it also meant that the wagon rack was probably 6-8 inches closer to the ground. Also, these tires and axles could more easily be greased by using the grease gun and the zerts vs. having to remove each steel wheel from the axle.

71. THE STONE PILE..KEPT GETTING BIGGER EVERY SPRING

Even though our farm had a good amount of low land, we also had some areas with hilly soil where stone would come to the surface every spring season. Because stones could easily damage harvesting equipment, we had the usual job during the spring season to pick up stones especially from the newly planted grain fields. This was usually done shortly after the crops were planted, shortly after a rain storm so that the stones would be easily seen. We would go up and down the newly planted field with a hay rack pulled by a team of horses. Then each one of us (kids, Mom & Dad) would use a pail to put the stones into and then bring it to the hay rack, dump it on the hay rack and keep picking stones. Once the stones were all picked up, we would go to the stone pile and unload the hayrack. Year-by-year the stone pile got larger and larger. There were times when we would pour a foundation for some out-building using cement that we mixed on-site. We had our own cement mixer. With a supply of sand, gravel and a few bags of cement, we were ready to get the job done. Sometimes we would go to the stone pile and load up some of that stone. As we poured the cement mix into a foundation, we would eventually empty the hayrack of stone by throwing the stones in the foundation area. In this way, we used up the stone from the stone pile and it would take less cement mix to get the job done.

72. PICKING MUSTARD WEED...USUALLY AFTER A GOOD RAIN SHOWER

There was an on-going concern on the farm that we would have good control of the weeds that seem to grow fairly easily. Among these were thistles and then mustard weed. Mustard weed was yellow in color and very easy to recognize. We were most concerned about mustard weed growing in the grain and hay fields. If you harvested grain and there was mustard weed included, then you would eventually re-seed grain the next year and re-seed more mustard weed. As far as hay fields, if the mustard plants were allowed to grow, you would harvest hay and the mustard weed would be included. Once you feed the hay to the cows, the manure would also include mustard weed and eventually it would be spread out on the farm fields where it would come up again next year.

So, the answer to the problem was to pick the mustard weed when the ground was wet or soft...generally after a rain shower or storm. The important thing was to be able to pull the roots or else it could continue to grow again. This would become an all-hands-on job...everyone in the family became part of the work effort. During this process, we would have a horse drawn wagon in the field so that the mustard we had pulled could be put on the hay rack and then picking more mustard would continue.

73. THE WOODS...WAS OUR PASTURE FOR THE HORSES DURING THE SUMMER

We had two wooded areas on the farm. One closest to the farm buildings was designated as the "horse woods". The other woods was used for the young heifers. Back to the horse woods...in the early years, we had six horses because of all the horse drawn farm machinery that we had. Eventually as we got a tractor and farm machinery to go with it, we needed a smaller number of horses. Finally we were down to two horses and they had less and less farm work to do. During the summer, we tried to keep the horses in the horse woods day and night. One of our jobs was to get the horses back into the barn yard where the water tank was kept. In this way, the horses could get a good fill of water to keep them going. Among our many duties, we had to make sure that we got the horses back to the barn yard often enough to keep them "watered".

During those summer months, the horses usually had enough green grass growing in the wooded area so that they were easy to care for except the need to get them back in the barn yard for watering.

74. RAISING A YOUNG COLT...TIME TO GET BROKE-IN

Over many years, when we needed an extra horse, we would buy it from some other farmer or a horse dealer. There was a time when we raised our own horses. This meant that we would not have the full use of one horse (the mare that would carry the baby colt) for a period of time. First off, the mare had to be bred, so we would contact a farmer who owned a stud. They would bring the stud over to our farm and have the mare bred.

We had a section of our old garage building re-done so that the mare and her colt would have a place to stay together right after the colt was born. Eventually the colt was separated from the mare. When fully grown, the colt had to be broke-in. It took time to get the young horse to get used to having a harness on its back. Then the horse needed to be broke-in so that it could get used to pulling farm equipment etc. Part of the breaking-in process required the horse to pull something that was quite heavy like a stone boat with a lot of large stones on it or pulling a tractor with its brakes on.

We usually think of a horse being a very gentle animal because we get to see them once they've been broke-in but it was another experience to get the young horse broke-in.

75. MAKING FENCES...AND DIGGING THOSE POST HOLES

During those early farm years when we did not have electricity, it meant that all of our fences were made with barb wire, usually four or five strands, and the usual cedar posts that were about five to six feet apart. To get started, we needed a supply of cedar posts, a roll of barb wire and the usual supply of staples. Then we needed a post hole digger and a good hammer. Digging the post holes could be a real challenge especially if there were some stones or rocks obstructing where the post hole should be dug. It was easier to dig post holes in areas with black soil as compared to clay soil. Also it helped if we had some recent rain to loosen up the soil.

Even though fences were built in the outlying farm area, there was always a strong sense of pride that the fence be built in a nice straight line. So, we had to sight-in the line-up of posts to get the right result.

76. THE GRANARY...HARVEST TIME, THEN YEAR ROUND SUPPLIES

The granary was a separate building located across from the cow barn and then next to the milk shed. As expected, the granary was a place to store grain during the year. At harvest time in August, the grain bins were usually at their fullest. Oats was the primary grain grown on our farm. The other grain we grew was wheat. There was a center aisle in the granary. On both sides were two bins that each had a doorway. In this way we could get into the bin to drop a bag of oats from the tresh machine. During those early years, at threshing time, we would have 3, 4 or 5 men carry grain bags of oats from the tresh machine and dump it into one of those bins. As the bin became full with oats, we would then put several 8 or 10 inch boards in slots at the doorway into the bin. In this way, we could then fill the bin up to the ceiling. This same process took place to fill each of the other large bins. Eventually, we would fill the aisles with grain too, thus becoming another bin. The smaller bin near the doorway was usually kept for wheat. The primary use for wheat was to feed the chickens. We also fed the chickens oats as well as corn which we had also grown and then shelled the corn kernels off of each cob, one-by-one. We kept the corn sheller in the granary so that it was nearby when we would get grain to feed the chickens.

During the year, we would bag the oats and take it to the feed mill in New Franken, have it ground, re-bagged and then brought home where we then use it to feed the milk cows during the winter. By springtime, the bins in the granary were getting pretty low but we always saved a descent supply for use as seed during the spring planting season.

The attic in the granary served as another storage area for those things we seldom used or needed. One item stored in the attic was a grain cradle. I don't know if it was ever used on the farm or if it was there from the previous owner, John Zolper. The grain cradle was used to cut oats or wheat at harvest time. It had a scythe blade along with a scythe type handle. There were several laths where the grain would fall into as it was being harvested. A person could make a bundle of grain, one at a time and keep the process going. Using a grain binder to harvest the standing crop of oats or wheat seemed to be a much faster and simpler process. Some farmers in the area raised barley but we never got into that.

77. YEARS OF DEPRESSION, 1930'S...WE ALWAYS HAD PLENTY TO EAT

It must have been quite a challenge for our parents who got married in 1930, then bought a 120 acre farm and began raising a family...all about the time that the Great Depression of the 1930's got started. My older brother, Donald (now Fr. Sam Jadin) was born in 1931 and I was born in 1933 (the height of the depression when a banking holiday was declared and many banks never re-opened). Mom and Dad used to talk about those "tough times" but they always seemed to feel good about where we were at, managed to pay their bills and always had plenty of food for our family. All through this, they worked hard and managed to do well. A lot of their success probably related to growing a lot of our food, having a large garden and raising pigs so we had pork to eat. Also, we would slaughter a cow once a year or so, probably sold a couple quarters of beef to relatives which also brought in some cash.

78. CHRISTMAS EVE...THE ANTICIPATION WAS ALWAYS EXCITING

As kids, we had a lot of excitement thinking about Christmas and all the goings on. We would buy a real Christmas tree and put it up in the living room probably a day or two before Christmas. Decorating the Christmas tree took place on Christmas Eve after we were off to bed. So, as one can imagine, Mom and Dad had a busy night decorating the tree, placing the gifts around the tree, etc. Another highlight was the canister of homemade cookies that was placed under the Christmas tree. Mom had to make these cookies and frost them when we were not around. All this created a Great Surprise on Christmas morning when we woke up and found out all what took place during the night.

As for a Christmas gift, we usually got one present, then another gift that could be for all us kids. A picture puzzle was one of those type gifts that would keep us busy for quite some time. Also, one year we got a Chinese Checkers Game which we played for hours on end. Another year we got a Monopoly Game which we played often. Sometimes we would walk across the farm field to our neighbors, the Vanden Avonds. During the winter, we'd walk across the snow banks to get there, and then we'd walk home later that night hopefully with some moonlight shining.

The Christmas season ended for us a couple weeks after Christmas when during the night, all the Christmas decorations were taken off the tree.

79. RAISED DONUTS...AND OTHER VARIETIES TOO

On occasion, Mom would make raised donuts and sprinkle white sugar on them. What a treat that was. She would use rendered lard to make these. I don't recall that we ever bought cooking oil during those years. The more common type of donut she made was the cake type where we also had the donut holes. Those, too, were very special and always a welcomed treat.

80. OUR MODEL T FORD...WITH PULL DOWN SHADES IN THE BACK SEAT

During the 1930's, we had a brown colored, 4 door car. It got us around nicely but my main recollection was when Mom and Dad were working in the fields, probably at grain harvest time, they would take the Ford out to the work area and park in a nearby area. We could take a nap in the back seat of the car and also pull the shades down to keep the sun out of our eyes.

81. OUR NEW 1939 CHEV...TRADED IN A HORSE AS PARTIAL PAYMENT

As 1939 showed up, it was time to buy a new car. We really didn't know what the reason was but we probably needed a larger car than the Model T Ford which could likely hold only four people comfortably. By 1939, our family was made up of Mom, Dad, Donald, me and our newest member of the family, Bernice. When we bought the Chevy, I recall that we used one of our horses as our down payment on the car. I'm not sure if the Model T Ford was traded in on the new car too or if it was sold to someone else. During the winter months, we came to realize that the car heater really worked well, especially on our visits to relatives living in the nearby area.

82. TIME FOR A PORTRAIT...AT SCHNEIDER STUDIO IN GREEN BAY

My recollection of having a studio portrait taken was when Donald, me and Bernice had our picture taken at Schneider Studio on the east side of Green Bay. Since pictures didn't have a date on them, my guess is that Donald was about 9 years old, I was about 7 years and Bernice was about 2 years old. We had plenty of copies made and placed in a stand up folder so that most of our aunts and uncles received a copy.

83. A FEW WILD RABBITS AROUND...HARD TO CATCH

Over the winter months, there were signs of rabbits around the farm yard; yet, we didn't know where they lived over the winter months. Once summer came along and we were cutting hay, we would come across some of these wild rabbits. We sort of took this on as a challenge to see if we could corner or catch one of these wild rabbits. Once in a while we did. Then we'd put it in a makeshift cage, feed it some grass and give it water. The wild rabbits didn't seem to do too well being caged so eventually we'd let them go back into the wild.

84. TIME TO WASH DISHES...WHOSE JOB IS IT?

One of the earliest jobs of responsibility in the home was to wash the dishes. Of course we needed to have some hot water but Mom usually saw to it that hot water was available. The primary job was being the dish washer. The secondary job was to wipe the dishes and put them away in the cupboard. As time moved on, we always looked forward to move up the ladder and get the newest member of the family to be the dish wiper. When Donald and I realized that we had a new baby sister, Bernice, we could hardly wait until she would be old enough to take on these added responsibilities. This entire process moved on through our family as our family grew with Gerald, Donna and Linda.

85. MANURE HAS TO MOVE...A DAILY CHORE DURING THE WINTER MONTHS

With all those milk cows in the barn, from 20 to 24 cows until we removed some of the horse stalls and built more cow stanchions, there was a lot of manure to move on a daily basis. Our job was to use a regular pitch fork, 5 tine (that means 5 teeth), and fill the manure bucket. Once filled, we would then move it down the pathway where the ceiling track would lead us out of the barn and into the already built-up pile of manure. If the weather allowed, we would dump the manure onto a manure sleigh. Once loaded with manure, we would then harness the team of horses and pull the manure sleigh out to one of the fields that was plowed the previous fall. The more loads of manure we could move out of the barn yard, the less we would need to reload into the manure spreader in spring and then bring it on to one of the plowed fields before farm crops would be planted in spring. Unloading the manure sleigh during winter was always added manual work because you had to fork off all the manure on the sleigh, one forkful at a time. It was always quite a job to clear out the pile of manure in spring because, here again you had to load up the manure spreader, one forkful at a time...all by hand – no powered equipment to do the work. As the years went on, we tried to use straw that was chopped up using the powered corn cutter as compared to using long straw that came from the huge straw stack outside or the long straw that came directly from the tresh machine. Long straw would tend to get more tangled than the shorter straw that was run through the feed cutter.

86. LOADING THE MANURE SPREADER IN SPRING...ONE FORK-FULL AT A TIME

By late April or early May when the frost was all out of the ground on the plowed fields and before the spring crops were to be planted, it was time to haul the manure pile that built up over the winter months and move it out to be spread over the plowed fields before we could plant the spring crops. Now we could use the metal manure spreader that had a metal apron on the bottom of the manure box along with various gears. There was a metal seat for the driver who would drive the team of horses and get the load of manure out to the open field. As the apron, now set in gear to move, would move toward the back end of the spreader, the large beater would keep rotating...and, as a result, the manure would start to fly all over the field until it was entirely unloaded. Then you would turn off the gears and go back to the large manure pile behind the barn for another load. One fork full at a time...and that kept on until all the manure pile was gone.

It helped if you could have someone else in the family help to load up the manure spreader...that meant you could double your work efforts and get the job done faster.

As one can imagine, this was a smelly job but we tried to get the pile of manure moved out before the weather warmed up too much. The hotter the weather, the stronger the stench. The fermentation process over the winter months also gave off a strong smell of ammonia. If one had a cold or stuffed-up nose, maybe sinus problems, the ammonia seemed to help clear up your head. We never heard about sinus tabs at that time.

Back to the field, once you got there with the manure spreader, you'd pay attention to the direction that the wind was blowing. Hopefully it would be a mild day but if it was real windy, you wanted to head into the wind if you could or else...if the wind was behind you and as that beater was moving rather quickly, the driver could get some of that flying manure on your back or even on your head...you always wanted to have the right clothes on for that job.

By the end of the day, you had to shed those clothes and on to another set to finish off the day. During this season, the Monday morning wash had a pretty hefty amount of work clothes and there was no doubt that it had to be done.

This was a stinky job but, as the saying goes, "it had to be done".

87. FIRST GRADE AT SUMMIT SCHOOL...WITH MRS. KENNEDY

During those years, we did not have pre-school or kindergarten...so, first grade was our introduction to a school of any kind. Mrs. Mary Kennedy was my first grade teacher. Around that time, she got married to William Kennedy but her name before that was Mary Boylan. Her home area was out in the Greenleaf area, probably near Askeaton. She didn't have any children but her students really became her family. The Summit School held reunions for many years and anyone who attended the school was invited. Mrs. Kennedy usually attended those reunions and enjoyed the people and families because of her close relationship with all those families for many years.

I had Mrs. Kennedy as my teacher for grades 1 – 4. She was a big lady. During the first grade, I had to read certain lessons to her. Sitting next to her, I felt like a midget but she always seemed so nice and we all knew who was in charge. She had a strong, high-pitched ladies voice that carried real well. She didn't need a microphone in our classroom. In first grade, we were at only two students, me and Donald Horkman. So, on occasion as this likely story comes up, I mention that in my first grade of school, I was one-half of the class. By the time I graduated from the eighth grade, there were 5 of us in that class.

Being in such a small school, we didn't have a maintenance staff. All the kids in school had jobs to do to keep the place operating. The teacher had to be a good delegator and Mrs. Kennedy handled that very well. There was no hesitation or adverse feedback on any job assignment. Students handled the jobs of sweeping the classroom floor, moving the desks, washing the blackboards, dusting the erasers, sweeping the hallways, sweeping out the outside toilets, shoveling snow in wintertime in front of school and also a pathway to the boys and girls out houses. Other jobs included cleaning the ashes from the furnace in the classroom, hauling up buckets of coal from the basement, bring drinking water in from the outside pump and pouring it into the water fountain. Actually, we called it a water bubbler because the water pressure would cause the water to bubble up when you turned that water faucet handle...and the variety of jobs went on and on. Periodically these jobs were rotated so everyone got a chance to do something different occasionally. One of those special jobs was to distribute the periodic goiter pill. This seemed like playing doctor among the students. Those pills tasted pretty good too, sort of a chocolate flavor and we would suck them as compared to just swallowing them. This was probably a good thing or else all the students would have had to form a line to go to the water bubbler...we did not have drinking cups in those days.

At Christmas time, all students were involved in a series of Christmas plays. Performances were on stage in the classroom across the hallway where grades 5 – 8 had their classes. The stage had to be assembled from parts stored in the school attic area. It was the job of the upper classes to bring the stage parts (saw horses and boards) to assemble the stage at one end of the room, next to the stove. One of the special jobs was for those students assigned to open and close the stage curtain which was strung on a wire anchored at both walls so as to fit the stage. This was a one night performance for parents---and we were all so proud to do our part. Can you imagine the job of a teacher at that time of the year?  Besides the usual daily routine, they had to decide on each student's part in the overall program, selection of small group plays, rehearsals, setting up the stage...all in hopes of parents enjoying their children's performances!

Then there were the special field trips and that's what they were literally. One of those involved the students to go sledding down a hill about l/4 mile from the school. You brought your sled to school and went to the hill during the noon hour, really a little longer noon hour then usual. Can you imagine all the wet clothes in the hallway after that type of outing? In spring, we would have a wiener roast type of gathering in a wooded area just a little further down the road from the hill where we went sledding in winter. Part of the preparation was to gather some of the broken and dead wood around the area to build the fire. Another fun time!

Before school ended by the end of May, we had our annual school picnic at Bay Beach Park in a covered shelter that still stands there today. Families would all bring food etc. but the special treat was ice cream...yes, vanilla ice cream in what looked like two gallon containers kept in a cooler type storage bag so as to not melt until we got to use it. Activities at Bay Beach at that time were pretty basic...the metal slide, merry-go-round, and the monkey bars. None of these cost extra money...this was a low budget operation but it was still a lot of fun. We really enjoyed the ice cream because we didn't get this at home...we didn't have electricity, so no refrigerator or freezer at that time.

88. OFF TO SCHOOL IN A SNOW STORM...A RIDE IN THE MANURE SLEIGH

At that time, our driveway was a private road. Being over a quarter mile long, the snow plow would not come to our yard to plow it out. On those days, it was still time for "off to school we go". Dad would get the team of horses ready, hitch them to the manure sleigh, put a couple large fork fulls of hay on the sleigh for a place for us to sit and yet stay clean and then a large blanket to cover us for the ride to school. This was the last resort type of thing but Dad always felt that going to school for us was very important, probably because he didn't get much of an opportunity to attend school himself. Dad once said that it took him up till he was 18 years old to get through the 8th grade. Uncle Melvin quit school when he was in the third grade but we never asked him at what age that was at.

89. PITCHING CORN SILAGE OUT OF THE SILO...A DAYTIME JOB

The original cement silo that was on the farm when my parents bought the farm in 1930 was 36 feet high. Six feet of the silo was in the ground so that meant it was 30 feet in the air. It was about 10 – 12 feet across (diameter). In the fall season, we would bring the corn stalks that had matured but were still green into the silo area. The corn was cut off the base of the stalk by use of the corn binder and then made into bundles of corn stalks. This made it easier to load onto a hayrack. The corn binder used binder twine that had an automatic knotter once there were enough stalks to be tied.

Well, this is all background to the subject at hand. Once the silo was filled with corn, it was allowed to stand still and sort of ferment. During the winter, we would feed the silage to the cows, usually for one meal a day, sometimes two meals with hay being the other meal. Before the era of electricity and automatic silo unloaders, there was only one way to get the silage out of the silo and that was by forking it down the chute, one forkful at a time. This was a daytime job because there was no light in the silo. If you overlooked getting this job done in daytime, it was pretty hard to do when it got dark. You could take a lantern up the chute but not a very good idea. Like so many jobs on the farm, you learned to plan ahead and, if you didn't, you paid the price by doing things the hard way.

During the middle of winter, you had the extra work of getting frozen corn pulled away from the silo wall. The frozen corn, once thrown down the chute, had to be hauled into the barn area to thaw out before feeding it to the cows. All this caused more and more work of rehandling the corn before you could feed it to the cows.

90. OUR DRIVEWAY BECOMES A TOWN ROAD...HERE COMES THE SNOWPLOW

With the continued problem of having a private driveway/road, especially during the winter months with the snow problems, Dad decided to turn our long driveway/lane/road into "a town road". In a sense, this may seem like it would all be very easy, but it took some real effort to "get the job done". First, they had to get an agreement that the town would take over the l/4 mile road provided it had the required minimum width. It so happened that the road was not wide enough, so Dad checked with his two neighbors who owned the land on both sides of the road. The easiest solution would have been to get an equal number of feet from each neighbor and then the road bed would still be in the center of the present roadway. Well, one neighbor, Ben Vanden Avond was not interested in selling the needed footage which also meant that he would have to move the "fence-line". As a result, Dad then bought the needed footage from the other neighbor, Ralph Van Pay. In the end, Ralph had to move his fence to allow for the sale of the needed footage to make "the town road". Then the Town of Humboldt brought in heavy equipment, primarily a road grader to build the revised/wider road and also, they brought in enough gravel to make it look like "a real road". From then on, the town provided snowplow service for that l/4 mile road. Since there was no place to turn around for the large snowplow, they would come into our yard and of course, we benefited by having that portion of our remaining private road plowed out during the winter months.

91. THAT NEW JOHN DEERE MODEL A...OUR FIRST TRACTOR

From the time Mom and Dad bought the farm in 1931 along with Uncle Melvin, Dad's brother, as part owner, until they bought that new John Deere tractor in 1941, they had three teams of work horses. It took a lot of horse power to do the daily farm work especially during the growing and harvesting seasons. During the harvesting of grain, it took three horses alone to pull the grain binder. It also took up space in the barn for those six horses to be kept inside during the winter months. Now with a tractor, we could get by with fewer horses. That also allowed more room in the barn to hold more milk cows with less horses. All these required remodeling of the barn too...and that did take place at about the same time as we bought the tractor.

Buying a tractor by itself could also be a limited help unless we bought additional machinery to get more work done that was previously done with horses. So, along with a tractor, we bought a two-bottom plow and a quack-digger. The quack-digger was new to us. It could be used especially in the spring season to work-up the soil that was plowed the previous fall season. With a two bottom plow, we could now plow two furrows at a time while riding the tractor as compared to Dad or Uncle Melvin walking behind the one-bottom plow...a much slower process. As time went on, we bought more tractor powered equipment such as a tresh machine, a hay bailer and a corn cultivator. Some of the horse-drawn equipment had to be converted for tractor use. Among these were the hay wagons, the manure spreader, the grain binder, the corn binder as well as others. The John Deere had a two cylinder engine which used diesel fuel as compared to gasoline. This also meant that we had to set up a separate tank in our gas house to hold diesel fuel for the John Deere. As the saying goes, "one thing leads to another".

From 1931 until about 1941, our life on the farm was heavily manual labor both in operating the farm and also because of not having electricity at all. The Amish people still operate their dairy farms much like we did during that period of time. When I've toured an Amish farm, I could easily relate pretty well to how they still operate their farms.

Eventually, we bought a Mc Cormick Farmall Super C Tractor to better use our time...so now we had two tractors...what a change in our way of farming this brought about.

92. A VISIT TO GRANDPA & GRANDMA VINCENT'S HOME

Martin and Alice (De Peau) Vincent lived on Highway 54 in the New Franken area. They were my Mom's parents. Mom was the oldest of their six children. Also, there were two children who died at childbirth, as I understand it. Grandpa Vincent came from a family of 14 and he grew up in the Champion area where his father had a farm. From stories I've come across, Grandpa Vincent had a farm in the Champion area but during hard times, he was not able to keep farming. Somehow he ended up owning a thresh machine and during harvest time, he went from farm-to-farm and contracted to thresh their grain. He had a thresh crew that worked for him and went along to operate the equipment which included a steam engine to power the thresh machine. Even though the growing season for grain was a fairly short span of time, farmers would cut the grain and make grain bundles. These bundles would be stood up in the form of a grain shock (about 10-12 bundles were used to form a shock). Once the shocks were standing for awhile and fairly dried out, we would load these bundles onto a farm wagon and bring them into our storage barn...then kept them there until the thresh machine and crew showed up. The end result was a large straw stack in the barn yard and grain in the granary.

During later years, Grandpa Vincent operated a tavern which was part of their home on Hwy 54. This was a small set-up with about 4 card tables with chairs and about eight bar stools. He had an old style record player too. As time moved on, the tavern business closed and this became a storage area of their home.

93. GRANDMA JADIN PASSES ON...March 21, 1941 AT AGE 59

When I try to think back about when my Grandma Jadin was still living, I realize that I was about seven years old. Then if I think about the fact that most children would hardly remember things from before they were four or five years old, that leaves a pretty short period of time to remember what things were like during those couple of years.

Some of my recollections stayed with me all these years. So, here are a few thoughts on this. She wore her hair real long which she would end up putting into a pug. That looks like the way she wore her hair for their family picture which had to be at about the time when Aunt Anna was a teenager. Her hair was straight...so when she combed it out in front of her, she would bend forward and her hair would seem like it would almost touch the floor.

When we were young, particularly Donald and me as we were the two oldest in our family, our parents spoke Belgian around our house and also when they visited with our Grandparents both on the Jadin side and on the Vincent side. Then when we visited with our uncles and aunts, they all spoke Belgian very comfortably. So, you see, Belgian was our most used language among our family around us. We have to remember that Mom and Dad's grandparents came to this country from Belgium and all their friends, neighbors and relatives spoke Belgian too. As a result of all this, our Grandma Jadin seldom spoke English...so, we as kids could speak Belgian too, but our parents wanted us to speak English, primarily so that we could attend school and get a good education and using English was pretty important to do that. Also, most of my uncles and aunts heavily used Belgian in their conversations. As a result, many of my cousins to this day have a Belgian accent or sometimes referred to as "a Belgian brogue". Another aspect of Grandma Jadin's life was that they received carded wool from one of their friends or neighbors which she used to make wool stockings for us or wool mittens to fit into a leather mitten. These were so well made that they would seem to last forever.

When we went to Grandma Jadin's for New Years, it was the custom for her to give us a meal of Belgian waffles. These were made on a special waffle iron several days before New Years day. As mentioned earlier in this material, the waffles would be soaked in hot milk that had some sugar and cinnamon in it for added flavor. These waffles were made of raised dough so they were pretty solid and hardy so they could stay in the milk for quite some time and not fall apart.

Now we move on to Grandma's funeral. She died at 59 years of age...not sure what her health problem was. I remember that her casket was delivered to their farm house and placed in a bedroom for visitation purposes. I believe visitation lasted for two nights and then the funeral was the next day in the forenoon at St. Huberts Catholic Church in Sugar Bush, about a mile from the farm on Highway N that leads to Green Bay. I do not remember attending the funeral...chances are we stayed with someone else while our parents went to the funeral. The grave stone marker in St. Hubert's cemetery is very distinct in that it is a light sandstone color and is easily visible from the roadway.

Another aspect of the funeral was a period of mourning, that is that the family, out of respect for the deceased person, would refrain from outward social activities such as attending dances etc. About a month to six weeks after the funeral, a special memorial mass was held at St. Hubert's Church in the chapel in the lower level of the church. A black wooden box about the size of a casket called a catafaulk was placed in front of the altar and was a reminder of the recent death.

This concludes my recollection of Grandma Jadin. The saying was mentioned many times – "she passed away so young".

94. GRANDMA VINCENT PASSES ON...July 10, 1944  AT AGE 56

Grandma Vincent's full name was Alice (DePeau) Vincent. The DePeau family was also from the Champion area, not that far from where Grandpa Vincent's family farm was located. There were six in the DePeau family, namely three brothers who were Dave, Ralph and John. Then her two sisters who were Rachel (Steve) Process and Jenny (John) Mercier. As the years moved on, they all lived in the Champion area except for Rachel who lived in Green Bay near St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church.

During those early years of my life, I recall visiting fairly often at Grandpa and Grandma Vincent's home in New Franken where they had a lean-to bar on the south side of their home. Mom's family (brothers and sisters) seemed to get together there for special occasions such as birthday celebrations or for the Kermiss celebration that took place during the harvest season in fall. The Kermiss is a whole separate story. Mom was the oldest in her family of six and Arlene was the youngest. Arlene was close to Donald's age so we had further reasons to spend time there and sometimes Donald and I spent an over-night at the Vincent home.

I have a few recollections of Grandma Vincent. For the evening meal, she many times had potatoes that were cooked in a large skillet with water that ended up as sort of a gravy sauce along with chopped onions...tasted pretty good too. There was no basement in their home nor was there any inside plumbing. As a result, the outhouse was down a short narrow lane behind their home. The well was located on the east side of their home. The pump was contained inside four vertical pieces of cedar boards nailed together, about 40 inches high. Then there was the handle attached to the pump gadget that went down into the open well below. This was considered a dug well and had a four foot cover of boards to stand on while pumping water. During nice weather, this all worked out fairly easy but during the winter months, this became another challenge.

Grandma Vincent wore her hair in a pug too, much like Grandma Jadin did. When she became ill due to infection on the back side of her knee that just didn't seem to heal, we really never found out what was the real cause of her passing on. Did she get to the doctor for medical attention? I believe she passed on while staying at home. I remember her casket was set up in the room that served as their bedroom and living room. At that time, they held an all-night wake. That meant that a couple men would stay up all night to "be with the body". As years moved on, it became customary to have visitation at the funeral home which continues in practice today. Once the evening visitation is completed at about 9PM, then the funeral home is closed and all members of the family go home; thus, no longer is an all-night wake held.

Grandpa Vincent continued to live in that house along with his youngest daughter, Arlene. She was going into the eighth grade at that time, so she moved to our home for that school year. Then she moved back with her Dad and that went on for a few years. Eventually Arlene met Joe Jandrain and they married. Joe was a brother of my Uncle Norman Vincent's wife, Ida. About the time that Joe and Arlene got married, Joe decided to build a new house on the same property and that old home with aged cedar siding came down. Grandpa Vincent then moved in with Joe and Arlene and lived there until his death at age 92 – that was on October 3, 1977. Among my Mom's brothers and sisters, another era had come to closure.

95. PICKING MILK WEEDS ALONG THE RAILROAD TRACKS

During World War II between the years 1941-1945, it seemed that there was a strong hometown effort to pull together to support our armed forces in almost any way possible. One of these efforts took place while we were at the Summit Grade School. Students were expected to participate by going along the railroad tracks in the fall season and pick milk weeds, then putting them into large cloth bags. The inside of the milk weed pod had a silky substance which was intended for use in making parachutes for the military.

96. HAVING A VICTORY GARDEN

During World War II, many categories of food were rationed on the home front. The focus was to have plenty of food for the military effort in Europe and also at the Japanese front. Students in schools were expected to help promote families growing a lot of their own food in what was called "Victory Gardens". We already had a large garden so it didn't have a big affect on us but we were all expected to help out in any was possible.

97. AIR RAID WARNINGS...A REAL BLACKOUT

Even though the war effort during World War II was heavily concentrated in Europe and then in the Pacific area...Japan, Hawaii, Philippines, etc., there always was an underlying concern that the war could extend to our homeland here in America. As a matter of preparedness, we had to have test runs of a blackout at night just in case "the real thing took place". Fortunately, we never had an air attack in our country but the experience at that time was very real.

98. FLOUR SACKS...TURNED INTO KITCHEN TOWELS

Among the limited number of items we bought at the grocery store was flour. We usually bought the 50 pound bag or sack as we called it. Because Mom made bread for our family every week, it took having a good amount of flour on hand. She usually made a batch of eight loaves. We had a Hoosier Cupboard that had a flour bin in the upper part. This bin could hold about 10-15 pounds of flour. At the bottom of that bin was a flour sifter with a handle so that you could sift the flour as you turned the handle. This bin became a storage area for flour as we would use it. As the bin went down to empty, one of us would get the flour sack and fill the bin again. As for having a sifter for flour, it was not uncommon for a recipe to call for sifted flour. There may have been lumps in the flour after a while, possibly in the heat of summer...so by using the flour sifter, we solved those problems. At that time, I believe that the flour was labeled "Occident Flour". The cloth sack had the company name and related information printed right on the sack. As we accumulated those empty flour sacks, Mom would proceed to bleach them so that the ink would come out and we would end up with a pure white sack. These would end up as towels for kitchen use, primarily to wipe the washed dishes dry. As time went on, these used towels probably ended up in the basket of various materials that would eventually be used to make rugs for our home use. Having white towels for making rugs wasn't the answer, so she would tear these towels into strips of one to one and one-half inches for future rug making but first she would dye this material to whatever color she felt would add color to the eventual rugs. She would put the dye in a tub of hot water, usually in the copper boiler placed on the kitchen stove. Once the soaking process was completed, she would use a wooden stick to lift out the dyed fabric and put it in a place to dry out. Now, these strips of fabric were ready for the sewing job to make the balls of material for future rugs. The sewing of these strips was really saved for a rainy day job or for one of us who was not feeling well enough to go out and do the usual farm work. We never really ran out of work or jobs that always could be done on a rainy day.

99. LYE SOAP...WASH DAY SPECIAL

When it came to wash day, we didn't go to the grocery store to buy wash soap to do the clothes wash. We used our own home-made wash soap. Among her endless duties, Mom was in charge of making wash soap which was "the way it was done". I don't recall all the ingredients used, but I recall that there was lye and rendered lard. It does seem unusual that one would use rendered lard in the making of wash soap...someday I may come across the real recipe and that would be interesting to find out all about that too.

When making soap, Mom would heat up the ingredients (lye, rendered lard and whatever else, maybe even some salt possibly) and then when it was all in liquid form, she would pour it into a large flat pan. When it started to firm up, then she would use a large butcher knife and cut it into large pieces, about 2 ½ - 3 inches square. When the soap became hard, then she would break it apart in pieces according to the markings of the butcher knife. That became our supply of wash soap for the up coming months.

So now we know something about making wash soap, but what about using it? As a preparation for wash day, Mom or as we got older, one of us kids would have the job to take the bars of home-made soap and cut them into chips or flakes. On wash day, these were put into the hot water in the wash machine...and that's the way it was.

I still have some sample bars of Mom's homemade wash soap as a remembrance of those times.

100. COHEN'S DEPARTMENT STORE...X-RAY MACHINE FOR SHOE FITTING

Cohen's Department Store was located in downtown Green Bay near Sears, Wards, and Penney's along with many other shops. During these years, we usually shopped for shoes in one of these stores. During these years, Cohen's had an x-ray machine so that when you put on a pair of shoes, then step over to the x-ray machine, you could see the bones in your feet and how your new shoes fit on your feet. At that time, the x-ray machine was a new gadget but it wasn't around for very many years...maybe it was not good for your health.

101. THE COWS AND HORSES ATE HAY...WHERE DOES IT COME FROM?

As part of rotating crops from field to field, we would plant oats, wheat and corn for our own use to feed the cows and chickens during the year as needed. Then we planted cash crops, as mentioned earlier, like peas, sweet corn, green beans, and sugar beets.

When it comes to planting it, Dad would buy hay seed from the local feed mill or the Farmers Trading Company in Luxemburg. Among the hay seed were alfalfa, clover, alsike and then some sweet clover. These were in separate bags and Dad would put together a mixture of these so as to get the right blend for the upcoming hay crop. Among the mixture was a larger portion of Alfalfa because it seemed to grow well and the cows liked it.

As far as planting hay, there's a separate bin on the grain drill for hay seed and another bin for grain, like oats. As the horses would pull the grain drill, oats and hay seed would get seeded at the same time. The oats would be harvested in August but the hay seed would continue to grow and become a crop of hay the following summer. At hay harvest time, we would load the hay on the hay racks and bring it into one of the barns for storage until needed over the winter months to feed cows and horses.

After a couple years of harvesting hay, we would then use that hay field as a pasture for the cows during the summer.

102. IT'S KERMISS TIME...TIME TO CELEBRATE THE HARVEST SEASON

When you come across the word, Kermiss, one can wonder where it came from...is it in the dictionary? Chances are that people outside of Northeastern Wisconsin never heard of a Kermiss. So what's this all about anyway?

Well, it seems that the Belgian settlers who came here from Belgium during the 1850's probably started the Kermiss celebrations on their own; yet, they may have carried that tradition with them when they migrated to this country.

During my growing up years, that is during the 1930's and 1940's, I remember that there was a Kermiss celebration each weekend starting about the third week in August and going on until sometime in late October or early November. These were held on specific weekends each year so as to not be in conflict with other near-by Kermiss celebrations. Each community that had a Kermiss usually had a Catholic Church, a tavern with a dance hall connected to it, maybe one or two other taverns, possibly a grocery store or a barber shop, here and there a feed mill or a shoe store. Among the area communities that held a Kermiss were Tonet, Walhain, Thiry Daemes, Casco, Lincoln, Rosiere, Duval, Champion, Dyckesville, Namur, Brussels and Sugar Bush. There may have been a couple more nearby communities that had a Kermiss too, but these are the ones that are most familiar to me.

Now with all this background, what goes on when the Kermiss weekend comes? First of all, families would look at this being a time to get-together at their parents or grand parents home. Sometimes this could be a two or three day celebration, like Saturday, Sunday and into Monday. Sunday seemed to be the focal point. Generally families attended a Sunday morning Mass, then they would move on to the tavern and dance hall for a fun time with family, friends and neighbors visiting about the past harvest season over a beer or two, then on to a lunch in the dance hall. During the afternoon, there would be a dance band playing polkas, waltzes, and other tunes. Even though the farmers had to get home to handle their evening chores, especially milking the cows, there would be another dance band that same night to keep the party going.

Among food served at the Kermiss gathering were Belgian Trippe and Belgian Pie. Many families, also had these for their home meals too because it was common practice to make these on the farm. Both of these were covered in one of my earlier stories as to the ingredients and how these were made on the farm.

At these celebrations, there was plenty of beer to take care of the crowd. There were local breweries in Green Bay that had beer named after family names like Rahr Brewery located near St. Peter and Paul Church, Hockgreve Brewery and Hagemeister Brewery...all located on Green Bay's east side. There was also the Oconto Brewery in Oconto. Over the years, all of these eventually closed...but the memories continue on.

103. A HOME REMEDY FOR "THE COMMON COLD"

During those early years, it seemed that most of us children had a periodic cold over the winter months. Many times it developed into a sore throat. For a sore throat, we would use some type of salve such as Vicks or a mentholatum that may have been purchased from the Watkins or Raleigh salesman. This salve was applied to our neck, then wrapped with a small towel or a large farmer handkerchief and held with a large safety pin. This would go on each night in hope of eliminating the soreness.

For the common cold, we used a tea kettle that was set aside for this purpose. We would put about one inch of water in it along with some special medicine and then heat the tea kettle on the stove top. Once the steam started coming out of the spout, we would make a tube from a couple pages of the newspaper by rolling it up to about a two inch diameter and use a safety pin on each end to keep it from coming apart. Then we would set one of the kitchen chairs next to the stove, put our 15 dozen egg crate on it as a place to sit so we could reach the paper tube from which we inhaled the vapor. This would go on for about 20 to 30 minutes so as to get the medicated steam into our throat and lungs, just like the modern day vaporizer. This would take place for several evenings or until our cold was getting better. Sometimes we would use Ludens Cough Drops to get some relief for a sore throat.

We hardly ever went to visit a doctor for things like this. Antibiotics were not heard about during those years. If one had frequent colds, it seemed that a visit to the doctor might result in his recommendation that your tonsils and adenoids be removed. That's what happened to me. That was my first visit to a hospital which was St. Vincent's in Green Bay when I was about nine or ten years old.

If more than one of us had a cold at the same time, we took turns getting up on the egg crate to sit there with the tube inhaling medicated steam from the tea kettle.
