1931  - PART III - BARNS AND SUCH

 

Late May, 1998

 

As traditional as any other winter in Wisconsin, 1931 had begun its first season.  Monroe County was somewhere midway between Chicago and the Twin Cities, St. Paul and Minneapolis.  Actually, Tomah was about fifty miles from LaCrosse which was on the Mississippi River.  As relocated in the summer of 1931, U.S. 12 and U.S. Highway 16 would share the same right-of-way as they entered Tomah from the southeast.  From Tomah, U.S. 16 would lead through Sparta, our county seat and onward through West Salem, a boyhood home territory of Hamlin Garland, noted author of the late nineteenth century.  Not much farther west No. 16 crossed the “Father of Waters” at LaCrosse where the route entered Minnesota.  U.S. 12 had from the beginning continued north from Tomah where it led through Black River Falls, Eau Claire and other towns eventually to enter Minnesota at Hudson.  At that point it crossed the St. Croix River and St. Paul was only a few miles farther.

Winter in Wisconsin definitely inhibited highway transport.  Freezing cold, heavy snowfall, and winds of blizzard proportion ranked high among many factors.  Somewhat secondary to federal routes were state highways as well, and throughout the townships there were those designated as county trunk roads.  All listed were subject to snow plows, but we all expected such equipment only as we actually saw it coming.  And the technology in those days involved in producing highway vehicles was crude by any measure when compared to what’s demanded as standard now days.  After all, 1926-27 was just a short time in the background, and isn’t that when the Model “T”s ended their long dynasty?

Life was changing, that was inevitable, and yet there were the time-honored contrasts.  There was still a sharp line drawn between “superior” city dwellers and the rural people.  Today, the final decade, that class distinction has virtually disappeared.  Sixty to seventy years ago the agrarian society was, in general, a separated group and rather an independent element.  Any “city slicker” had the definition of a farmer at the tip of his tongue: “A man with a strong back and a weak mind.”

Our local roads were mostly one lane affairs, and in winter we depended largely on our horses and bob-sleighs.  Any attempt to plow the snow off our sled routes would almost certainly meet resistance.  We even took our horse drawn rigs into town; there were still hitching posts at various points were we could “tie up”.  On Main Street there remained a beautiful watering trough constructed of masonry.  There were still old time blacksmith shops where animals could be shod, and in severe weather, for a small fee one could leave his horse or his team inside while attending to his business.  Rural electrification throughout our area was still in the future; we depended on oil lamps and lanterns for light.  Kerosene was available at “most any grocery story (you brought your own can or jug and had it filled!).

Maybe fifty years earlier this region of the state had been offered for settlement, and that’s what had attracted Grandpa and Grandma to come up from Rock County in the southern part of the state.  Rock County was far better country than were these “wild swamps of Byron” -- a township in Monroe County; but around Tomah there was all the “new land” available that any man could desire, and its price was right -- “dirt cheap”!  A half century later the truth was all too obvious; much of that land should have been left as it had been.

Momentarily we reverse to the previous fall, 1930, and to the expectations of a good many American men of that day.  Veterans of World War I were being reassured; a bonus from the Federal Government would almost certainly be forthcoming.  The American Legion was working hard for it and many responsible congressmen believed it was the right thing to do.  Dad was so sure it was real that he began planning business accordingly.  Five or six hundred dollars was a big piece of money and even a hundred bucks carried real clout.  Pat Whistler, a neighbor, had bought into a dump truck, a Model “A” Ford; and Pat was doing fairly well on highway contracts; at least he wasn’t going broke, and it kept him off the bread and the soup lines!  All this provided the needed catalyst and pretext.  Dad had been obsessed from his earliest memories with newfangled, horseless carriages.  Spitting, sputtering gas engines; smelly exhaust; the dirty combination of mud and splattering oil and even such things as steering wheels and radiators; these items definitely attracted men and boys; moreover those mechanical critters were addictive.  Besides, they were fast!  Dad had yearned for the day when he might climb onto one of those trucks and show the world how to use it!  Anyhow, farming was becoming more and more discouraging.

A dealer down in New Lisbon agreed to help Dad find a job for a truck in return for a down payment when the money became available.  Ford dealers were hurting in those days along with everyone else, and prospects of a couple hundred dollars or so was too great to go unnoticed.  I remember riding in the back seat, one cold day that fall, miles and miles, and I thought sure I would never thaw out again.  We were visiting highway construction projects and the dealer was using a 1926 Model “T” from his own business.  There was an arrangement in the floor to admit hot air off the exhaust pipe and muffler, but it didn’t seem to be working at all.  All that day my fingers were numb and my feet were like icicles.  I gas glad to be home that evening.

Did my father ever get the truck?  Same old story: predictable, for every opening on a project there would be ten or a dozen “truckers” already in line!  That was the great depression and it’s not easy to say as to which phase was the toughest; we were not half way through its first four years.  However, it was a boost, a real shot in the arm, when the first payment of the bonus did come through; and that was only after congress had been forced to override the president’s veto.  The final installment came five years later.  By then the depression was still tough enough and it was compounded with dust storms, drought and crop failure.

That was the year Dad made his decision and brought us to the Pacific Northwest.  In 1936 wheat farmers in Western Minnesota and North Dakota would be unable to harvest enough to replace the precious seed they had planted.  Never can I forget that summer and the golden grain on those Palouse Hills south of Spokane and north of Walla Walla.  It was unbelievable.  We settled in Washington County, perhaps thirty miles west of Portland, Oregon.  This country was and remains in every respect a better place from what I can remember of my childhood and younger adolescence.  I was 16 years old.  Dad had brought a wooden crate of dried prunes all the way from Wisconsin, maybe twenty-five pounds.  The bargain had been too good to ignore.  But out here there were prune trees everywhere and the fruit that year was abundant, scattered far and wide.  Another treasured memory: for the first time in my life I bit into a moist, juicy and delicious ripe peach -- right off the tree!  No promised land in the Middle East could possibly have rivaled this: vast mountain ranges smothered in Douglas Fir, much of it still “old growth”, and a whole chain of snow-capped peaks -- The great “pyramids” of our Pacific Northwest.

Before approaching 1931 in earnest there is yet another item that should be mentioned.  It would be easy to say that it occurred in 1929, but I’m not certain.  The thing is that Grandpa had invested in a new barn.  He must have been planning well ahead; it may have been the fulfillment of a long time dream.  To say it was erected in 1930 complicates things, considering the stock market crash of 1929, but it really fits the picture from that date.  All went well during construction and everything was ready when cold weather set in.  The existing stable had entirely depreciated over the years; it had been only makeshift form the beginning.  So all is well that ends well and Grandpa and Uncle Johnny had their new building.

We proceed rather cautiously through the first three months of 1931; although there is not really a great deal to demand our attention.  Well, of course, we would be compelled to respect the snowdrifts and we would certainly notice the bare, dormant oaks and maples, and we forever cast longing glances at those threatening clouds which foreshadowed even more snowfall.  And we would take in those bright moonlit nights when the crusted snow gleamed as though studded with a million diamonds.  That could be most enchanting, even if it were only another of Jack Frost’s tantalizing deceptions.  It was good to know that our horses and cattle, our chickens and such were stabled and sheltered within the protection of thick rock walls and adequate roofing, and supplied with all the well-cured clover and grass as they could consume.  Most domestic animals welcomed the comfort and security of being inside, away from the storms and the cold.

There are exceptions, everyone knows that; it’s those stubborn (or it stupid?) critters that always insist on proving the point.  Darkness was closing in early on a threatening afternoon, and Grandma had the farm all to herself.  She didn’t mind arranging straw bedding for the animals and she rather enjoyed filling the mangers with hay for the night.  Upon occasion she might even milk a cow or two.  It was not often that family members would spend a night away from the farm.  The where abouts of the men this particular night remains unknown, but it must have been entirely “decent and in order”.  I don’t recall that Grandma was much given to jealousy or suspicion.  She just simply knew by intuition that other members of her family needed council and constant surveillance.  We used to describe her as continually “clucking” at the kids and preaching at the grown-ups, reminding them that they had better change their ways, or else!  Judgment was sure to come.  Again we might frame the idea in yet another term.  I remember hearing on one occasion that it was her “nagging” which had driven Grandpa to the refuge of the bottle.  All that is now distant in time.  Whatever was then real is now long gone; it’s just water that has flowed beneath the bridge.  The story on that particular afternoon had as its main characters a certain pair of mules.

As grandma had opened the barn for their benefit the animals were eager to return to their shelter for the night. They had taken their fill of water and seemed to enjoy returning to their hay; all, that is, except the mules.  They were not about to cooperate, no way!  Grandma finally gave in and closed the door for the night.  “Well, all right, if it’s what you want, just stay out”.  She was absolutely sure they understood English!  It turned stormy that night, cold wind and all, a real hard deal from the forces of nature.  In the morning a pair of repentant mules stood with their heads bowed low, waiting for things to open up, and never again did they attempt to argue with Grandma.

Really, Grandma was not all that disagreeable and cantankerous.  She was human like the rest of us, and life on a farm was rugged business.  I will try not to tell anymore stories at her expense; and I did like my Grandma.  She was my “one and only!”.  My paternal grandmother had died ahead of my time with breast cancer.  Following the armistice in France, 1918, and thanks to the intervention of the American Red Cross, Dad had been returned ahead of schedule to the states, especially on her behalf.

Our neighbors, the Kennedy’s, lived down the direct road into town.  It could have been the better part of two miles.  Anyhow, theirs was the first set of buildings west of Fuzee’s, and that was at least a mile and a quarter in the general direction.  This road was known locally as the “townline”, and indeed, it had that official status as well.  Our county was divided into “towns” and this right-of-way marked the line between adjoining townships.  From what I can recall of more than sixty-five years ago, the five miles from our bluff into town was straight as an arrow save for its vertical undulations.  The townline dipped into the perpetual swamp lands and it lopped over the intervening glacial ridges.  These two ridges were sandy, sure enough, but not so in the sense would ascribe to dunes.

Brush and scrub oak grew everywhere.  Four of these townships came together near where our forty acres lay along the route, sort of a Colorado - Arizona situation.  One of them would have been Oakdale; maybe a second, LaGrange; a third could have been Wyeville; and there was also a town of Byron.  Townships did not necessarily predicate any village or town, although in many instances there would be a rural locality by the same name.  There was Wyeville, an incorporated point originally named as a junction of an early system of railroads.  While the mainline Chicago and Northwestern still made stops, the community itself had become almost a ghost town.  Off in another direction Oakdale was alive and doing well with its Community Club.  It had not been incorporated; that would come in later years.

In the past it had inherited its present name because its original post office had been too readily confused with Elroy on the rival Northwestern Line.  Thus Leroy had been changed to Oakdale.  It was really a picturesque little village in those days, and mainline passenger trains still made stops under certain circumstances, although the Milwaukee Road didn’t like the idea at all.  The station at Oakdale was right at the top of one of those pesky glacial ridges, and getting a stopped train back into motion was one of the problems.  Characteristically the big Pacific type locomotive would slip its wheels on its first attempt to start, and that was always akin to a thunderstorm; it also left burned spots on the rails.

Kennedy’s were generally known to be right at rock bottom on the poverty scale; but they, like all progressive citizens, knew what came naturally, and they certainly played their options to full advantage.  The patriarch was bewhiskered old “Wes” who talked incessantly, and forever he’d try to tell one which “topped” everyone else.  On winter evenings when neighbor’s would congregate at Kennedy’s, old Wes would drone on and one with tales of his heroic past.  Those guests busy at card games didn’t pay much heed; they had heard it all before!  Any who didn’t join with the “rummy” would quite naturally doze off.

In the local vernacular Martha’s name had been warped and twisted into “Marthee”.  It’s possible that neither Wes nor his wife had yet entered their sixties, but in circumstances such as befell their lot people can show their age quite early, especially the hard working and often disenchanted women.  Marthee’s face was all wrinkles and her dark old eyes sat way back beneath her eyebrows. (“that hungry look in Mamma’s eyes.” - - Merle Haggard). One dreary day a number of neighbors were working around Kennedy’s place.  Neighbors did things like that; it was expected of us, and we accepted such activity as a part of our moral obligations.  Naturally, Martha felt it her duty to “feed the multitude”.  She called us all at noontime, and we observed the ritual of “washing up”, all of that was outdoors, an enameled wash basin, soapless water and threadbare towel.  The best she could offer was mostly boiled cabbage.  Nobody complained, everyone seemed to understand. -- Just another of our local “ethics”.

During the first weeks of most winters we had an ongoing commentary.  Everyone memorized it, and we all repeated it.  “As the days begin to lengthen the cold begins to strengthen”.  Kennedy’s house was about as crude as they came.  It had started out as a real ambitious dream of the “mansion on the hill”; and now, 1931, it’s sheer size was against it.  Adequate heat in winter was next to impossible.  Insulation consisted solely of an outer layer of tar paper battened down with lath.  Oh, there may also have been remnants of newsprint pasted around inside; cast off cardboard could also be worked into the “mosaic”.  Whoever sought refuge from the wind and snow would huddle close around the wood-burning stove.  It often appeared that the supposed beneficiaries were actually trying to keep the stove warm!  Obviously it was a poor place for growing children.  And sure enough, that winter there was an infant daughter, the more the merrier, you know.

Forest, the father, was next to the youngest son of Wes and Marthee.  He was probably in his twenties, and his wife, Ruby, was the mother.  She had her roots off down in the Kickapoo Hills south of Tomah.  Under the circumstances these younger parents did claim an advantage; they had arranged to live in a brand new house just below their home base and back in our direction.  This new house had been occupied the previous winter and had been the show place of the country.  The queen of the story was a local daughter in Tomah who had started life as Lucille Love.  Although she was petite and otherwise attractive, her marriage had gone sour grapes (in this case she’d been widowed by death).  She still nurtured a young adolescent whose name was Delbert Caulkins.  Delbert attended our Mound View School that winter.  (named for our bluff).  By any standard Delbert was a misfit; the fact that the older boys refused to accept him no doubt added to his problems.

To local people it seemed almost overnight the house had appeared suddenly, abruptly.  The best of lumber, etc. had gone into it and the workmanship bore all the marks of professional carpenters.  Although we saw hardly anything of the person, Lucille had remarried to a city man from one of the big centers to the southeast, either Milwaukee or Chicago.  Several times that winter all the locals were invited and entertained.  She really knew how to put on the sandwiches, the coffee and all the other goodies.  More than that she enjoyed doing it.  To us in depression times it all appeared as a case of unlimited resources.  We all were impressed and obviously we appreciated such bounty, no end.  And all of a sudden the bubble had burst.  Lucille’s second husband, Gaylord Thompson, was locked up in a state prison, convicted of forging checks.

Back then we gave no thought to a future aspect.  One day our country’s president would be a Kennedy, in name at least.  And at sometime in those days Charles Lindbergh would again dominate the headlines.  At that time we saw far more of Fuzee’s and Kennedy’s than we did of Grandpa and Grandma Johnson.

So it turned out, Lucille’s loss was in a way, a godsend to Forest and Ruby.  There was already an older daughter, Glennie, maybe four or five years old, and that in itself deserved a decent house, for awhile, at least.  And almost predictable, that glory did not last for long either.  The infant daughter had been named Mary.  True, Forest and Ruby invited us all over a couple of different times, but the original fascination of the place no longer existed.

In our rural area we had absolutely nothing in the way of telephone service, although at one time there had been a fledgling party line.  That sort of communication required a trip into town!  Whenever Forest was “stuck and out of gas and in right” he knew where we lived.  Whether it was at noon or at midnight he would never hesitate to “beat down our door” for needed assistance.  I’ll never forget one dark night when our door began to bang, echo and vibrate; now what?  It seems that over at Kellogg’s place Forest had indulged in a bit more of John’s home brew than he could handle; that prohibition period amenity could be quite powerful!  “Gosh, Jim, hick-hick-hick, I know I shouldn’t get thish way, but Shim, pleesh, hick-hick, can you help me get, hick, get Ruby back to my housh?”

Quite unanticipated, news arrived one forenoon sometime later and unrelated to the incident above.  On that forenoon when we had only bright things on our horizons, the news was of a very sober and serious nature; Forest and Ruby’s baby Mary had died during the night.  With a certain sense of duty and in due process, we all mourned their loss, but my sister, my brother, and I could soon aim our arrows back at the stars, and that would help compensate the tragic event, for our family at least.  We were soon to have a brand new cousin.  (My brother was still in the midst of his first year).  Aunt Alice Thorson was born to our mother’s youngest sister, Alice, on April 15, 1931, in Madison Wisconsin, our state’s capital.

This in many ways for us was when 1931 really began; except, of course, for the Kennedy’s.

 

End of Part III

 

 

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