ADDITIONAL MEMORIES OF SUMMER 1931

                               By: Joseph M. Carr

                     Salem, Oregon, Pacific NW, USA - 1-1-99

 

At the risk of repetition I will state it again: 1931 was a long year; it was so filled with events.  In my memories of Grandpa Johnson as put together in 1998, there did not seem to be room to include a number of events not directly connected with him.  I therefore now change course slightly to recount stories which occurred in related areas that summer.  There was a trip way out into South Dakota.  There was construction of a new highway through the lowlands to the south of us, and there would be a wedding as well.  Mabel Kellogg, John’s daughter, would “get hitched” to Dick Greenough, a handsome young fellow who had so many “pluses”.  Among other things he owned one of those flashy Model A Fords, a two-door sedan.

Maybe it was only coincidence.  At eleven years old my horizons were spreading and expanding; that’s tantamount to growing up.  But then, perhaps there were unprecedented things going on, both current events and otherwise.  If so, the assumption of its being a busy year would “stand as read”.

School was out for the summer and we were into the month of June.  I have no memories of my birthday that month, only that I had passed a major time barrier.  On the ninth day I would be eleven years old, and as such I would be well into my second decade.  I’m rather inclined to believe that our trip that month followed my birthday, because in after years I would look back at my South Dakota adventure as having occurred when I was eleven years old.

That’s right, we were out of state for a few days in early summer, 1931.  Dad had been anticipating, really planning for this trip.  It was the culmination of a cherished desire.  Now was the time, if ever, to break loose and go.  He had the car that would get him there and back, and he had money for gas, etc.  Dad had strong attachment to his family circle, far stronger than he had realized.

Thus, Dad had been preparing as time would permit, and I had been more or less putting the pieces of the puzzle together.  Our neighbor, John Kellogg, was around more often than usual, and as I listened to remarks that passed between him and my father, I was quite certain that John would be with us whenever we went.  John and Dad were best of friends and they “got on well” when working together.  Rural families depended on exchanging help in those days.  American people were intensely independent characters from their very beginnings; and yet when required in earlier times we instinctively knew how to cooperate and “pull together”.

In preparation for our trip the two men appeared to be doing some rather strange things.  It could be that school was still in session and therefore I was unable to observe the entire process.  When they had finished the particular project I could begin to appreciate what it had all been about.  They had taken the horn off our older Overland and installed it on our “new” car.  Today that old horn would be a monster, but the men had been able to fasten it securely alongside the motor and still have room to properly close and fasten down the hood.  The “button” which activated the horn had been placed way down low to the right of the brake pedal and above the “foot feed”. (Accelerator in modern parlance).  It was not easy for the driver to see it from an upright position behind the steering wheel.  Add to that, this electronic device protruded into the driver’s compartment at the end of a short piece of pipe a full two and one half inches from the firewall.  As a kid I thought this “horn blowing” arrangement to be an outrageous climax to an otherwise neat project, but it worked.  The operator had to give it time; the switch button had to be pressed firmly in place; but when that old horn began to sound its warning the noise could be awful, even dreadful.  Thereafter Dad would “try” the horn occasionally, just to be sure it still worked, I guess.  My father always would “come up” with unorthodox ideas.  While he was inordinately proud of his innovations, others often failed to see the “wonder of it all”.  Of course, that could be frustrating to Dad, even disappointing.

As to the location of this horn button, Dad figured he didn’t need to see it anyhow; he already knew where it was, and he planned to use the toe of his shoe to “make contact”.  I now outrun our story for a brief preview.  We were, while on our trip, in a public picnic ground one day.  Dad was maneuvering away from the Sunday crowd at Cottonwood Lake in South Dakota.  I am sure this antic of his vehicle was accidental, but it still involved that old horn.  Inadvertently Dad’s toe must have hit that horn button at the wrong time, and as decibels began to gather momentum it also became quite obvious: the thing had stuck in the “blow” position.  Oh Boy, Oh Boy!

Also there was a second transplant from our older car before we began our trip.  This time I would observe all details of the procedure.  The Overland by now was completely “done in”.  Its final trip home had been at the rate of two horsepower supplied by Babe and Fan, our team of heavy work horses.  They may have been Percherons, I’m not sure.  At a distance from home the older car had “given up the ghost.”  A connecting rod had left its proper orbit around the crankshaft and a huge section of the cast iron crankcase, triangular in shape, had vanished.  This old “six” motor was heavy, far more bulky than those now used in light farm tractors.  It was a “Red Seal” produced by “Continental”, famous for “Liberty Motors” during World War I.  However, there was a clock on the old car’s instrument panel which Dad really liked.  Similar to the clock in our house, it needed to be rewound at intervals.  It could easily be removed from the “dash”, not only for access to the winding key but also for adjusting the hour and minute hands.  I thought the men were really making a mess this time as I watched them cut into the dash panel beneath the windshield of our “new’ Chev.  They were doing their “dirty” work with a hand crank brace and twist drill.  They made a rough circle of holes through the sheet metal approximately where the clock would be.  When they finally got it installed in our good car it didn’t look “half bad”.  The design of the clock was round, and there was a wide flange about its face which fairly covered the ragged edges and sharp projections left by the men’s processes and crude equipment.  In fact, if I had not watched their imperfect efforts, I don’t think I would have noticed anything in their finished work except a nice, smooth job.  After all, they had done their best with “what they had to do with”.

We were on our way quite early as we began our trip.  The morning was cool and overcast.  Dad and John occupied the front seat; Margie and I had the back to ourselves.  Our mother had decided to remain at home; travel for two days would be a long, tedious experience with a baby boy, still in his first year, along.  Forest and Ruby had agreed to be on the place during our absence (house guests), and of course, Clyde was there; he was already familiar with things, and he was “good with the stock”.  We would probably be away for a week.

During our first hour on the highway I heard Dad remark to John, “A car seems to run so much better when things are cool, even a little damp.”  Dad liked Citie’s Service and their Koolmotor gasoline.  Ordinarily he brought regular, but he was definitely in favor of filling up with Ethyl now and then.  In later years this idea would be questioned.  Earl Kellogg, John’s youngest son, knew all the pro’s and con’s.  He had heard it straight from a most persuasive “authority”: Ethyl gasoline did horrible things to a motor; it burned tiny holes, like pinpoints, into the pistons! (No mention of leaded gas in those days, nor of exhaust emissions).  Then as now, superior knowledge of automobiles carried high priority; but try as he might, Earl could make no progress in impressing my father.  Poor Earl, he missed the fun when the horn button stuck; and Earl would have laughed last and loudest.

I had previously been out of state but once; that had been in June, 1927.  We had on that occasion stayed overnight at Batavia in northern Illinois.  Our journey had been in an open Model “T” Ford having the typical fabric top which folded to suit the whims of its owner-operator.  Now we had set out for a destination which would take us clear across Minnesota, and ultimately far out on the plains of South Dakota.  Afterwards Dad would refer to this adventure as “I drove eleven hundred miles on that trip and still had change from a ten dollar bill.”  To me such vast distance was overwhelming.

That forenoon we followed US 12 north from Tomah through Black River Falls.  There were small towns every few miles.  One named Fairchild has been retained in my memory, but the name is all; everything else about the place remains a blank.  We proceeded westward from Eau Claire, Wisconsin in the general direction of the twin cities, St. Paul and Minneapolis.  Much of this highway had recently been renovated, reconstructed, or otherwise improved.  Sharp right angle turns were being bypassed in those days with longer curves.  Another change was apparent when travelers were approaching bridges.  New spans were being constructed at grade level, whereas earlier bridges were often made obvious by a “hump” in the road, something like going up and over a small hill on the roadway.  Our attention was attracted to heavy stands of rye which had been seeded along the shoulders of the fresh grading.  This grain was really spectacular in its growth; tall, dark green and standing right up to the edge of the new concrete pavement.  Sometimes it was like following the bed of a deep channel, or maybe a canal.  That rye was really impressive; it must have been planted in an attempt to hold the new grading in place during heavy rainfall.

We passed through another small town, and John recognized the name on the sign, Menomonee.  He had been here before, but at an earlier time when this newer road had not existed.  And there was confusion in my thinking as well.  According to my grade school geography this town was supposed to be over in the northeast on the shores of Green Bay on Lake Michigan.  And across the mouth of the Menomonee River from it was a sister city of Marinette in Wisconsin.  At this point I made no cognizance of any difference in spelling.  Anyhow, here, on the maps at least was another pair of towns similar to the twin cities in Minnesota on the upper mighty Mississippi.  And here was also an example of the help Zip Codes would bring in the then distant future.  Actually I didn’t worry too much about the apparent contradiction; there was insufficient time.  After all, the names sounded alike.  And now, 1999, so many years later, on a Rand McNally highway map published in 1975, I discover a Menomonee Falls way down near Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  We better stop at this point, or we will be over into the “Brewing Capital”, sampling the one that “made Milwaukee famous”.  Please understand, I’ve consumed very little beer over the years.  My first introductions were to “home brew” during childhood in prohibition days and I never developed a taste for that stuff.  If that makes me a misfit in modern society, so be it.

Eventually we arrived at a small town called Hudson, and we were about to cross the St. Croix River which formed a natural boundary between the states of Wisconsin and Minnesota.  The stream, as I remember, flowed at the bottom of a gorge, canyon, or coulee, call it what you will.  Off to the south the Wisconsin River wound through a similar series of narrow passages known as the Dells.  Across the chasm now just ahead of us, we could see the overhead trusses of an immense steel span which seemed to rest or to hand upon nothing at all and as we made our way cautiously across we felt that we were, indeed, “way up in ‘de middle of the air”.  There was no doubt a slow speed limit rigidly enforced upon this relatively narrow structure.  Instinctively I have never been eager to venture out onto and over installations of this kind.  A couple years earlier I had been most apprehensive when a train we were riding on was due to cross a high structure at Wisconsin Dells, formerly named Kilbourn; but new track had recently been laid, and the train itself being big, heavy and smooth riding; we had crossed this bridge before I even knew how far we had gone.

As our 1927 Chev. rolled out onto this interstate bridge at Hudson we passed an old truck parked at the roadside which was loaded down with a threshing machine, and there was also a second rig parked nearby which carried a steam traction engine.  Apparently the two vehicles belonged to the same outfit.  It’s entirely possible that there were weight restrictions involved, but I was interested mainly in just seeing equipment of that kind being transported in such a manner.  In 1931 the trucking industry was still in its developmental stage, a bit different from what we have become accustomed to in the 1990's.

After we entered Minnesota it was only a few miles father into St. Paul.  The country was still rural, and our highway now followed the winding bed of an abandoned railroad, made obvious by the rotting ties.  By this time my young sister had fallen sound asleep, a typical human reaction to riding.  John kept telling Dad about all of this country he had seen before.  As he put it, “He had been all through here at n earlier time on horse back”.  And, indeed, in his younger days John had been around a good bit.  He had been east into Virginia, and north to Alaska and the Klondike.  He had some real gold nuggets at home he had brought back from up there.

Our route led us through the city centers of both St. Paul and Minneapolis.  I don’t remember much of what we encountered.  I was mainly impressed by the immensity of the rail yards we passed.  As we were leaving Minneapolis we had dropped to the south and we were now following a different route, U.S. 212.  Not many miles west we passed through Glencoe and we now veered off northwest on a secondary highway toward the town of Hutchinson.  That would be our destination for the day.

My father’s younger sister, Alice, lived there at the time.  While I knew who she was, my contacts with her had been mostly during the first five years of my life, and by 1931 there had been a considerable gap, both in years and distance when we had been separated from her.  This situation thus had more or less inhibited any development of close relationship with our own “flesh and blood”.  The same circumstances also applied to our association with our father’s older sister, Maude, who now lived an even greater distance west in South Dakota.  We knew that Aunt “Maudie” was inclined to be heavy; just the sight of food would cause an immediate increase in her weight.  We also knew that she was a real “whiz” at the piano; we had seen and listened to her.  For these reasons it is well if we fill in a few earlier details prior to the time we were on this trip.  For now we will concentrate on Aunt Allie.  We can introduce Aunt Maudie after we arrive at Redfield, South Dakota.

While on our return from northern Illinois in 1927, we had been with Aunt Allie for several days.  She was then living with her widowed father in southern Wisconsin.  Her mother had died an early death from cancer (of the spleen) while Alice was still quite young.  In 1927 Aunt Allie was a co-ed at Milton College in the town of the same name.  My father and his forbears had grown up in this same vicinity of Rock County.

In 1927 I had just completed my first year in grade school.  I had heard of college, sure enough, but largely because of environment, the idea was far beyond my sphere of existence.  My mother had actually completed grades one through eight; but that was all the formal education she or her parents considered necessary.  With Dad it was a little different, but not much.  He had encountered the advanced level of high school, but during his second year he had become what is nowadays called a “drop-out”.  And now in connection with this Milton College, our Aunt Allie was making a few casual remarks which farther supported my negative attitude toward the idea.  Apparently she was taking some class in biological science, generalized no doubt, and perhaps required as well.  Anyhow I heard her say it point-blank, “I don’t like college”.  “Why”?  “Because you have to pick up snakes by their tails”.  And that was sufficient to turn me off for keeps.  There was also something else from Aunt Allie which really impressed me and my sister.  There was a telephone in Grandpa’s house, think of it!  Being queen of the place, Aunt Allie took special pains to tell us youngsters, seven and five, that we were to leave that phone strictly alone - emphatically.  At the time I was either bold enough or just plain dumb enough; and I wanted to know “Why”?  “Well”, I was promptly informed, “Central will get after you”.  Need I mention?  This was not a dial phone.  So I persisted, “What is Central”?  Promptly the answer was fired back, “Oh, she is a big fat lady”!  I got the point; from that time and onward telephones were not for me.

And there were other things about Grandpa’s house on the open edge of town.  Asparagus grew wild along the fence rows and the roadsides, and how I loved the flavor of that stuff.  As I am nearing the end of my first eighty years I still consider it to be the king of vegetables.  Grandpa also had a car.  In 1927 his ‘26 Chevrolet coupe would still be akin to brand new, a real mark of status in those days.  Grandpa was conditioned to horses and buggies, and he seldom attempted to drive his car.  Like as not, when those older people wanted to control the car they would be inclined to talk to the thing like they did to their horses: “Whoa, Whoa”!  Verbal commands to automobiles, of course, were quite futile; they lacked any sensitivity at all to the human voice.  Mind you, I’m not saying that Grandpa Carr ever fell into that trap; and yet, he could have!  Funny thing, but so far as I know that coupe was the only car Grandpa ever owned.  I have no memories at all of ever having seen him behind a steering wheel; and yet when he died sometime around 1950, it was a violent death in a highway accident involving only one vehicle.  However, Aunt Allie, the co-ed really had a knack of putting that car through its paces.

Now as we approached Hutchinson, Minnesota in 1931, things had changed somewhat with Aunt Allie.  She had finished her liberal arts course in college a couple of years earlier, and about the same time she had acquired her MRS.  There had been in her class at Union College in Nebraska a young man from far to the northwest, Stanley, North Dakota; and the two had exchanged their vows, probably in 1929.  While she still responded to “Allie”, the official name was now Alice E. Fowler.  I was now anticipating what my new uncle, Ray W. Fowler would be like, for as yet I had never seen him.  His picture I had studied quite closely, and I was even wondering what he might think at his first sight of me!

In 1931 Aunt Allie and Uncle Ray resided at Maplewood Academy on the elevated edge of town.  Being a boarding school, Maplewood was high school level.  They had a tiny apartment in one of the dormitories where Uncle Ray was “preceptor” in charge of the boys who roomed there when school was in session.  He also taught at the school; a science class was one of them. (Extremely “knowledgeable” people are quick to point it out: teachers “teach lessons, not classes”) Anyhow, because he did teach he was also knows as “Professor” Fowler.  All this tended to add another dimension.  Not only was he my new uncle, but he must also be very important.  This was probably his first position as an educator, and it was also the time of the great depression.

Because it was summer and school was out until fall; there was plenty of room in the dormitory, and we were provided good beds for the night.  My sister remembers being very homesick that night, but I guess she got over it.  We were fed in the school’s main dining room.  While most students were home for the summer, there were a limited number retained during the slack season.  These teen age boys and girls were employed by the institution in various ways.  There was maintenance etc., there was a farm, there were chickens, and there was no doubt a dairy herd.  The place remained quite active, and the obvious place to assemble was in the dining room - at mealtime.  Along with other items I was given a generous serving of “hash”.  At least that was what I thought it to be, but along with the browned potatoes, onions, and other ingredients, I soon discovered no flavor of hamburger, or any other meat product.  I took that in stride, I never was inclined to be a “fussy” eater; I may even have asked for a “second”.  Maplewood was a Seventh-Day Adventist school, and to the best of my knowledge it is still in operation.  Prior to the depression it had operated as a seminary for training church workers and leadership.  It had previously catered to students of Scandinavian background.

The following day we continued our journey westward.  We were pleased as children that Aunt Allie and Uncle Ray were now riding with us.  This meant that our car was again loaded to its practical capacity, maybe slightly over burdened.  The general appearance of the countryside was changing; we were merging into the great plains of the North Central United States.  Our range of vision was expanding, and natural woodlands were becoming limited to smaller groves scattered at random.  As usual, our neighbor and friend, John Kellogg, shared the front seat.  Of course, Dad was driving; he would forever be on “pins and needles” while riding with anyone else at the “wheel”.  John chewed tobacco, and at one point he forgot and let fly a mouthful of juice through his open, right hand window.  That was unfortunate for my sister, still eight years old, who received full benefits.  She remembers the incident to this day.  Of course, John was embarrassed, but we all understood; he hadn’t done it on purpose.

We stopped near the state line for gas.  Uncle Ray said “Yes”.  This was the best place to fill up.  He had been this way before.  We remained seated while at the station.  A couple of rather strange looking women, on foot, approached the open window where John was seated.  One of them had a penny in her hand and was mumbling something about good luck, health and long life.  It was new to me, but John had been exposed before, and he knew all about what was up.  We resumed our journey and as we crossed the state line and passed near a country school yard, we saw that a whole community of Gypsies had set up camp there.  Great surprises seemed to be everywhere.

Our route now presented longer and longer stretches into the sometimes flat and sometimes rolling distances.  As we proceeded into the arrow-straight features monotony would set in, and then it could be almost hypnotic.  Our highway was U.S. 212.  At the time it remained unpaved, but it was well graded and maintained, surfaced with light, pea-sized gravel.  As noted, there were variations in terrain.  At one point there was a sign pointing to a Lake Kampeske, which we could see in the distance; it looked like a real beauty spot.  The name was apparently Polish, or something akin to that, and Uncle Ray was amusing himself by trying to determine the correct pronunciation.  Otherwise he would sing as he rode along.  A favorite was “My Little Old Sod Cabin on the Plains”.  At the time and locality that was certainly an appropriate number.  We stopped at a tiny restaurant in the small country town of Henry.  It’s local contraction was “Hank”.  We each had a hamburger sandwich, and that was satisfying.  They probably cost no more than the inflated sum of fifteen cents apiece.  Our next stop would be our destination, Redfield, South Dakota.  There we would encounter Dad’s older sister, our Aunt Maudie Hartman and our Uncle Harvey.  Our Grandpa, Fred M. Carr, would also be there.  By this time he had retired and was living with them.

Aunt Maudie taught music, mainly piano, at Plainview Academy in Redfield, and her husband was the principal.  Uncle Harvey was also the business manager, and in addition to these responsibilities he taught German language.  As I would later learn he was qualified to teach mathematics as well.  This made them rather an important husband-wife team at this institution which, like Maplewood, was also a Seventh-Day Adventist school.  Boy, we were getting “both barrels” on this trip.  The main difference between the two schools could be summed up in a quick comparison of their names.  Maplewood was located in natural woodlands where original settlers had worked like slaves “clearing” their land.  The remaining stumps of trees were a big problem in their day.  Plainview was just the opposite.  Whether the place appeared “plain” to a visitor, or if the view from there included mostly plains and wheat fields.  By way of comparison both institutions were boarding schools and both included farms, dairy herds, manual training facilities, etc.  Both were also privately owned and operated.  In recent years my father had frequently mentioned his “brother-‘naw” who was president of that school out there.”  Whether his use of “president” was merely carelessness or if he was purposely exaggerating, I’ve never known.  It could have been a combination of both!

We had no more than pulled up and were out of the car stretching our legs when Grandpa spotted us.  Among other things, Grandpa always could be impulsive.  He was probably at the time in his late sixties, and he always had been a man of action. “Well, hello there, hello”, he exclaimed in a rather abrupt and jerky manner; and immediately he continued, “Maudie and Harvey are not home yet.”  And as he got out his old coin purse which I remember so well, “The bread’s all gone in the house.”  At this point Aunt Allie interrupted, “Oh, keep your money”; and about that time Uncle Harvey’s car appeared.

We stayed at Redfield several days and they were filled with activity.  There were tours about the school and its farm, and there were incidental trips into town.  Along with that there were ongoing introductions to associated people who lived and worked about the place.  This served to make everyone feel important, a situation of good social relations.  Uncle Harvey had a like-new Chevrolet and that really “rang the bell” with my father.  It was a black two-door sedan, either ‘29 or a’30 six cylinder model.  Uncle Harvey and his “new” car seemed inseparable.  The vehicle had hardly enough time to “cool off’.  Wherever the car was spotted it was a foredrawn conclusion; Uncle Harvey was somewhere nearby.

Along with that, “Maude and Harvey” were living in a brand new house just across the road from the “main building”.  There was the day set apart to worship the Lord, and there was the outing at Cottonwood Lake (when the horn stuck).  The lake was at a distance, maybe twelve or fifteen miles, so we had a good look at the surrounding countryside.  On one of those days we all went for a guided tour of the state’s Home for the Feeble Minded.  That was interesting; I was fascinated mainly by the tunnels between the various buildings.  These connecting passages were a real advantage during severe winter weather.

Sometime during our stay I set off alone on a trip by foot across country.  My destination may have been a mile and half away, I never kept any record; but there was, in the distance, what appeared to be a steam traction engine standing by itself in an open field that seemed to be boundless.  It was an old steam tractor, alright, and by the time I got along side the thing I thought I had walked an awful long ways.  It probably had developed a breakdown and the owners had left it set there for the time.  A new grain crop was growing all around it.  In the process of hiking I had crossed at least two other fields plus two railroad tracks.  During our visit at Plainview I remember seeing no trains go through except for one daily railcar.  Aunt Allie called it the “Baa Baa”, derived no doubt from its horn’s rather weird warning sound.

Somewhere between times Grandpa gave me quite an extensive introduction to “peanuts”.  Just how he had come by his unlimited enthusiasm I never did find out.  He spent a lot of time one day explaining all about the peanut, how to prepare the soil, and how to cultivate and harvest the plant.  He even supplied me a candy-sized bag full to take home.  Later I did plant them and still later on I actually discovered a half-dozen new ones among the root systems.  Grandpa was a farmer at heart, he always had been.

Just prior to our visit the Hartman’s had returned from a trip to Kansas.  They had brought home with them a small girl, maybe three years old.  I never learned a great deal about her except that her name was Marceline Oaks (spelling uncertain).  The child became a part of their family and eventually she would be adopted by them and given their name.  The everyday nickname was “Marcy”.

Early on Aunt Maudie was showing us around her new house.  Dad was all ears and eyes to observe how “well off” his older sister was.  I don’t remember very much about the interior arrangement.  There is a snapshot which shows the outside of the building and that awakens a memory or two.  Uncle Harvey was quite particular in keeping the grass watered up front and around the ends.  I was primarily fascinated by his system of distribution of water over such a large area (the lawn really wasn’t all that big).  The “sprinkler” was attached to the end of a garden hose and to me it bore a striking resemblance to an airplane propeller.  The blade was perforated with small holes where tiny streams of water came squirting out much like rain falling from the clouds.  Simultaneously this device was spinning quite fast and the centrifugal force served to throw the minute jets of water a considerable distance.  I was ready to conclude that this was what all lawn sprinklers would look like.  I would not be at all surprised if the design can still be found in garden stores.

I liked the front porch.  Its roof and supporting pillars provided shade from bright sunshine and also sheltered the entrance from heavy rain storms.  We have a snapshot of our group seated upon the stairway leading up to the porch deck.  I haven’t studied the picture for several years now; it’s over in my brother’s house in West Salem, Oregon.  I think it was Aunt Allie’s camera that made the exposure.

Back inside Aunt Maudie was showing us through her kitchen and pantry.  She had shelves and shelves loaded with discount canned foods secured through grocery warehouses, close out sales, price reductions, etc.  These were mostly compensation benefits in recognition of valuable service they supplied through their important position.  Their salaries could not have been impressive; today they would probably seem pitiful, even ridiculous.  My father was really impressed by that bountiful store of food she had laid by.  Today I guess it would be described as sort of a “food bank”.  All in all, Dad’s relatives were experiencing a good life, quite beyond the subsistence level he had been forced into.

Aunt Maudie led us upstairs.  I couldn’t get over the wonder and convenience of electric lights.  In a yearly perspective the warm summer had set in and she was not expecting what awaited us in the unfinished attic.  The air superheated (from the sun), was fairly alive with moths and “millers” as we used to call them.  At the slightest disturbance they all sprang to life and began their massive flight, especially toward and around that electric light bulb which dangled on a cord from the rafters.  And I was in for another surprise.  Aunt Maudie had a defense against these pernicious pests.  Presently she returned with a large, flat pan, the bottom of which was flooded with gasoline, like we put in our cars.  She held that pan just a few inches below the light and moths began dropping into the liquid like falling leaves.  I’ve often had troubled feelings as I recall that isolated incident and the potential for disaster she held in her hands up there in that attic.  Ultimately she died a natural death and that helps, even though she was incapacitated during her final years; and it’s also true that back then naphta was a common household item used largely for dry cleaning.

I guess I had more than my share of hang-ups, and Dad had a few of his own.  Shaving was one of them.  At home he would scrape and scratch and howl and curse his way through the ritual.  The bathroom in Aunt Maudie’s house had plumbing as well as electricity.  Indoor conveniences were not always as spacious in those days as are so many illustrations in today’s Handyman magazines.  I ventured into their bathroom one day, well, almost in, and it turned out to be occupied!  As usual, Uncle Harvey was in charge and Uncle Ray was also in there making a few comments of his own.  My father was the third person present.  I took one look and got as far away from that bathroom, and as fast, as I could.  It might have been an even more exciting story if Dad had been hog-tied, but I don’t think he was.  He was seated upon the closed lid of the toilet seat and both his fists were tightly clinched.  His brothers-in-law were both working on him, seems like one was wielding an old “straight edge”; and lather was slopped and splashed on everything.  I think it was by far the most humiliating situation in which I ever saw Dad trapped.  No doubt, both school teachers had set out with confidence; they could demonstrate how cool and painless shaving could be; but to this day I cannot believe that Dad was enjoying it.  Small wonder that he took to electric shavers in his later years.

During its first day our trip home was much the same as it had been several days earlier on our way out.  Of course now we were turned clear around and facing the opposite direction.  Both sisters, Maudie and Allie were always strong on packing plenty of lunch when traveling, and Aunt Maudie had sent along with us an enormous quantity of sandwiches etc.  We stopped in a country schoolyard where we ate, picnic style, beneath the shade trees.  It seems like it was the same spot near the state line where the Gypsies had previously made camp.  Then we stayed overnight at Maplewood once more.

One the second day of our return home we chose an alternate route.  We must have passed south of the twin cities, and we followed the west bank of the river for miles and miles.  Much of that distance the river was broad and spacious.  John informed us that this stretch of the Mississippi was called Lake Pepin.  Among other river towns we passed through Red Wing and farther south through Winona.  At intervals there were enormous bluffs towering above us; from my perspective they took on the proportion of mountains.  There was a fairly long passenger train on the tracks between us and the river.  When it stopped at towns we would get ahead of it; but as the train left town the old coal burner would soon overtake us, leaving us behind.  Remember, Dad’s speedometer seldom indicated anything over forty to forty-five miles per hour on the entire trip.  This game of leap frog was repeated several times before we crossed back into Wisconsin at La Crosse.  The train must have been detained at that point because I don’t remember its passing us again.  Anyhow it’s unlikely that we continued to follow the tracks as closely as we had along the river.  Another forty-five or fifty miles and home would be close by.

We now diverge briefly from the joys and frustrations of the 1930's; which were also the disappointments of those of the great depression and the disenchantments which followed on its track.  In a sense this is a difficult passage for me, because I don’t really know how to do it.  I’m grateful that when such a crisis looms there is help available.  “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”  James 1:5.  It is also obvious that my burden is both delicate and fragile; it must be handled with care.  More than that, it is temperamental; it can be the catalyst which triggers an explosion (I mean verbal, or emotional).  Don’t be surprised if the area we are entering is posted “controversial” or “limited access”.  Trusted counselors may confidentially advise their clients to either ignore the subject or find an alternate route which will bypass the region.  It other words, it’s better not to take it too seriously; just don’t be quite so “conscientious”.  Like a self-styled “authority” in an army barracks used to say, “Don’t worry about it”!  Poor old George, he was largely promiscuous in his manner of disseminating his vast reserve of wisdom.  Most occupants of the quarters were relieved when his lectures would “run out of steam”.  (As a rule he would be partially inebriated.)

I do not know how far back Grandma Johnson had been affiliated, neither do I know the story about how she had become a part of the denomination, but Jessie Johnson was a Seventh-Day Adventist.  My mother had become positively attached to Grandma’s church from childhood and this attachment she had passed along to her own children.  It was this same devotion to the church which had brought my father and my mother together.  My father’s parents were both Adventist, and Dad would tolerate no other doctrines.  He loved to argue religion, and he had a sharp mind and tongue to back that up.  As introduced on our trip to South Dakota in 1931, both my father’s sisters and their husbands had devoted their lives to Seventh-Day Adventist educational work.  This same church affiliation has more or less determined the religious orientation of me and my siblings.

Perhaps it was in the fall of 1932, or 1933 when I was baptized into the church.  That was a year or two before I finished grade school.  My elementary grades were entirely within the public system of Wisconsin.  There were three rural schools involved; all were one room, all eight grades, and one teacher affairs.  My high school years were spent in Adventist academies; and again there were three different schools in as many different states.

The first winter I stayed with my Aunt Maudie and Uncle Harvey Hartman.  This was my first extended experience away from home.  By this time they had moved from South Dakota, and he was now the principal and business manager at Oak Park, in the town of Nevada, Iowa.  He also taught algebra and because I worked hard at that subject I earned top grades in his class.  As usual, Aunt Maude taught piano and gave voice lessons.  I took piano lessons from her, and she actually had me playing simple hymns.  “Jesus Lover of My Soul” was one of them.

My sophomore year was with Aunt Allie and Uncle Ray Fowler.  By now he was principal and business manager at Cheyenne River Academy at Harvey, way up in North Dakota.  He also taught my class in plane geometry.  Maybe it was that he was an especially good teacher; it could also have been that I had the aptitude.  Anyhow, as in Uncle Harvey’s algebra, I was again earning top grades as I was introduced to theorems, postulates, circles and triangles.  In this class there was some stiff competition; Oscar Heinrich was a part of it.  As at Oak Park, I also lived with Aunt Allie in her home that winter.  Among my treasures of memory, she remains one of the best English teachers ever.  English demanded even more study than did my algebra and geometry.  So much of the time English language and composition were not the crystal clear conclusions and logical thinking which I discovered in “math”.  Later on in college I would encounter another outstanding English teacher and again it would be another lady, Dr. Hilda Hagstotz.

My junior and senior years were at Laurelwood Academy, another Adventist community maybe four or five winding miles east of Gaston, Oregon.  Dad had moved us into the Pacific Northwest in 1936, and we located at this school, so I was with my family continuously from 1936 through 1938.

The outline extends even farther.  Early in 1939, near the end of January, I was again “pushed out of the nest” and began learning what college was like.  By now my story is decidedly stereotyped, for at La Sierra College near Riverside, California, I was again in a Seventh-Day Adventist institution.  Here, you might say, I was “on my own”, separated from my near kinsman.  Then in the summer of 1941 I returned east to the state of Nebraska.  There at College Station on the south edge of Lincoln, the states capitol city, my Uncle Harvey was now the business manager of yet another Adventist school, Union College.  I was there on December 7, 1941, when Pearl Harbor suddenly made the headlines.  From the summer of 1942 until January, 1946, I was in military service.  During that time I was in contact with Adventist missionaries and institutions on the opposite side of the world, maybe ten time zones to the east.  There was the Middle East Union Headquarters in Heliopolis, Egypt, and the Adventist college at Beirut in Lebanon, not to overlook the Advent House in Jerusalem.

In the fall of 1946, with financial support from Uncle “SAM” and the “GI Bill”, I was in college once more.  And wouldn’t you know?  This time I was at Emmanuel Missionary College, which was also Adventist!  This locality was at Berrien Springs in the southwest corner of Michigan.  This time I made my home right there and persevered until graduation in 1949.  I left there with a Bachelor’s degree in, of all things, general agriculture, and a minor in general biology.  At the time there remained enough GI benefits that I could have gone after a Master’s degree, but somehow I lacked the motivation.

At twenty-nine years I was firmly grafted into Adventist “Culture”.  Medical doctors might say there had been a “massive dose”.  That’s probably the strongest “reason” that I’ve remained with it.

I have tried to be objective in this rather short sketch of my relation to Christianity.  I rejoice when I discover Christian brothers and sisters regardless of their status in life or of the denomination of their choice.  Eternal life is based upon our personal relation to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.  First of all I would claim to be a Christian, being an “Adventist” ranks second.  If I seem to have been promoting church growth or membership, I do not believe I am or have ever been qualified.  In other words, the Seventh-Day Adventist Church stands upon its own merits.  It belongs to God in heaven and He is its architect.  He had maintained and defended it over the years and He will continue in that.

Of the principal characters in this recapitulation of 1931, but two remain alive, outside of me, my sister Margie and my brother Bill.  My Aunt Allie and my Uncle Ray are both beyond ninety years and this year it is seventy years since Aunt Allie received her MRS.  Ask them, either one or both, “Do they have any regrets”?  They have devoted their lives and God given talents to Christian education, “Adventist” variety.  I’m quite sure I know what their reply will be.

 

Joseph M. Carr

March 1999

Salem, Oregon

 

 

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