That whole 20-year interval was one of hard hard work [and] worry about pregnancy. Another boy, Gifford, came in 1919, another, Richard, in 1922, another, Walter, in 1925.
In May [1927], the Old Timer expected another baby, and when it was due, "her father" [i.e. husband] had to attend a meeting at the Grange Hall. Her labor pains began and she told No. 1 son [Stanley] she had to go to the village where she had arranged to have the baby at a friend's house.
As usual there was [the] old truck, with no lights and no brakes. No. 2 son [Thomas, called Tim] had to hold a lantern, and as there was no traffic, so they reached the [Grange H]all and [her husband] was interrupted and so was able to get her there the remaining three miles in safety.
The baby, a girl [Hazel], was born at 5 a.m. How glad they were, but what a nasty money-grubbing doctor! Before three days were up, he demanded his money in such a nasty way that the Old Timer cried, and her friend, a very religious girl, said: "God damn such a man, if I may say so!"
How happy they were to have her! She was only with them a year and a half, and died on Dec. 16, 1928. The same year the other children all had chickenpox! A sad memory, how the bereaved parents were in a store to get a few things, how tragic as their eyes met over a display of dolls!
The farm had no conveniences. All water had to be hauled up in a bucket on a windlass, and washing was done on a washboard. A bath was taken on Sat. night in a washtub in front of the kitchen stove. The bedrooms were cold of course. A privy and "toilet" sets took care of other needs. And of course every bit of water carried in had to be carried out again, -- as well as accumulated slops from overnight.
Cash was terribly scarce, but when the boys' camp opened at Beaver Lake -- for eight weeks they sold their milk [to the camp] in a large can. Was it eight cents a quart? Also they all went down in the flivver to their Sat. night entertainment. As well as her own five boys, her sister's two boys, Victor and Lester Bonardel, spent some time on the farm. So the Old Timer always had 8 or 10 at the table every day. Potatoes were plentiful, but the only meat they had was smoked pork most of the time -- chicken occasionally and rarely fresh meat from the butcher. She always tried to have a dessert.
The oldest son could milk when he was seven, a twice-a-day chore with cows. They bought a team of mules and he had to mow hay with them at the time his father had a broken bone. To eke out the cash he borrowed money to buy a wood saw outfit and go to neighbors to saw fire wood. He promised solemnly he would pay it back, but he never did. Oh well!
The knobby club was wielded many times, as her husband broke his collarbone; he broke his elbow; besides, arthritis afflicted him, and sometimes she had to iron his back with a warm flat iron. The culmination for that knobby club was Jan. 4, 1924, when the husband had his left hand cut off in a corn fodder cutter. It's the only time the Old Timer had hysterics as he came running from the barn, the blood spurting in an arc from the arteries.
The roads happened to be a glaze of ice, but Fred Kellogg, the taxi driver, took him to the hospital. By spring his brothers and sisters collected $90 -- and he was fitted to a hook and artificial hand. He tried it for a few months and finally gave it up. It still hangs in the attic. The Old Timer got used to cleaning his dentures and tying his shoes; all the rest he trained to do himself.
Dr. Shannon once told her that the loss of that hand was a much greater tragedy than losing the [one]-and-a-half year old baby girl. Perhaps! In the meantime the boys were growing up -- going to High School. At the Union [School], Gifford was swinging on a grape vine -- he fell off and broke his leg.
Money was terribly scarce, and as the hens laid eggs that could not be sold locally they would drive to Montclair [New Jersey] with a 30-dozen crate full. Once a car cut in ahead of them and they hit a light pole, so that the local police were called. Of course the locals were favored, and we were fined two dollars. We had to leave the crate of eggs in payment, and how the Old Timer's father [i.e. husband] "tied one on" at the [Max] Fieg home in Montclair [about 110 miles southeast of Milford]. Whenever he did that he would yell and rave all night in his sleep!
The first car they ever had was a 490 Chevrolet, and since it was the Old Timer's money that bought [it], she was the first one to learn to drive, in early 1918. What a strange mechanism that car was! When it would not climb a hill, the remedy was to put razor blades under the leather wheel that transmitted power!
The next car was a 1923 delivery truck, and a-tooling along one day a front wheel flew off into the woods. It proved to be a lemon. That was the only brand-new car they were ever able to buy. They had a 1929 Chevy, later a '36 Chevy, a Dodge station wagon (a '31 I think), a Studebaker touring (used later as a school bus), a Ford Model A pick-up.
By order of the state department of highways, (... [husband Arthur's] employer), he was ordered to buy a new car, and he bought a Studebaker 3/4 ton pick-up. His sons chipped in and bought a radio for it, which he enjoyed.
And speaking of radio, they bought a Zenith wind charger to place on the roof [of the house]. It did charge a battery so they could [listen to] "Amos and Andy," but what a rumble it made when the wind really blew. They finally sold it and patched that hole in the peak.
About 1930 they got a school bus driving job, and the Old Timer drove that Dodge station wagon for some months. How glad they were to get the money. She drove it almost every day. No. 6 son, Arthur, was born. Some pleasure came her way, as her brother Lothar and she had a week's trip [in] the New England states in 1936. In a Dodge truck, he drove up to the top of Mt. Washington -- with one hand on the wheel, a sandwich in the other [making] wide gestures toward the scenery. The weather was perfect, azure sky and fleecy clouds, with visibility into Vermont!
Several years later, #2 had bought a car for a little pleasure trip [and] took his father, mother, and seven-year-old little brother [Arthur, called "Mike"] to Montclair. At one stop the seven-year-old, as the [car] door was closed, gave a scream of pain! His fingers were caught in the hinge closing! They stopped at a nearby doctor, who diagnosed no bones broken. They expected to pay, and he proved to be one of the kindest men in the world. When they told him they were farmers from Pa., he said he knew how scarce cash was and they paid only one dollar! This was 1938 when a ride in a car was a sheer delight.
With those six boys arriving at two year intervals they had many narrow escapes, some funny but all worth remembering. With the bread-winner rather accident-prone, the oldest, Stanley, matured very early -- learned to milk when only seven. One cow had a thing about women and was well-named Twister. They named some for birds: Robin, Oriole, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Of course, the Old Timer had to help milk, and to skim the milk ... they bought a hand-operated De Laval cream separator. No electricity until 1937. The acetalene [sic] plant proved to be a pain in the neck. What a burden it was to pay off that $631! They never went hungry, but the Old Timer recalls a Sunday dinner without meat. And company present!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 |
| 1918 Chevrolet 490 Touring Car |
As for the Zenith Wind Charger, according to GlobalWarming.com, "
In the 1930s most farms across the United States either used 32 volt DC systems or were without electric power. Those without juice managed to get along by curing meats in a smokehouse and canning fruits and vegetables.
"But what about entertainment? The thirties were the golden age of radio. Surely the farm community didn’t have to miss out on 'Fibber McGee and Molly' or 'The Lone Ranger?' America’s rural areas stayed in touch with the world by means of DC powered radios. Those on farms with direct current wired in did just fine and those without any power at all used large tube type battery powered radios. Check out an episode of 'The Waltons' and you will see exactly this type. These radios brought in signals from all across America and via short wave all across the world.
"But like all battery operated devices are apt to have happen, the batteries ran down. And when that happened what was our depression era farmer to do? He hooked up the battery to a Zenith Wind Charger. A small generator connected directly to the shaft of a spinning pinwheel of a turbine rotated and turned cranking out both RPM’s and current. In a few hours the battery was charged for that night’s radio shows and the meaning of the term 'Wind Farm' was truly understood."
Gustaf deLaval, a Swedish engineer, invented the cream separator in 1878. This device, without a doubt, did more to develop and revolutionize the dairy industry than any other. It allowed dairy farmers to sell not only the milk from their cows but also the cream, which could be quickly separated out and shipped to a creamery.
DeLaval's Poughkeepsie, NY manufacturing plant churned out separators and, later, milking machines. One of their merchandising tactics was to create The Alpha Dairy Power Plant, a generator that provided power to the separator, the milker and the DeLaval Barn Lighting Outfit and, at the same time, it heated water for cleaning the equipment!
The acetylene plant Millie refers to may have been a generator used to power lights in the barn.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment