THE HORSE AND OXEN PARADE

I recall a large picture I used to look at hanging on the wall in the living room. It showed a bright red chariot with 8 teams of German Rhine Horses with decorative harnesses pulling the chariot. One day when we had just come up on the [John Ginther] farm from Sioux Falls, I saw something that I thought looked like a Merry-Go-Round on a wagon. And sure enough it was what I had thought it was. We got a ride on it around the farm with a couple of horses pulling it. Was it ever a fun ride!

This Merry-Go-Round [Grandpa John Ginther made] was one of the wagons that was in the parade that I was in.

Well, there was a lot of work to putting a parade like this one together. The harnesses were all decorated up, and polish was used quite a bit to polish the copper and silver plated parts. To the harness red strings were tied hanging down from the bottom of the harnesses on the sides of the horses. The horses were worked and curried over. The manes were all braided up on the top of the horses' necks. Their tails were braided up in bobs. The wagons were painted in bright carnival colors, red and white and blue. Crepe paper up on the Merry-Go-Round from the top to the bottom of the wagon. The spokes in the wheels were painted. There were several wagons and buggies in the parade line up.

THE HAYTI, SD, PARADE!

The day had come for the parade. This parade was held in the small county town of Hayti, South Dakota, known as the County Seat right next to Marsh Lake. My step-grandmother [Anne Ginther] and me were to lead the parade with the Shetland ponies pulling us in the small rubber tire buggy [Grandpa made these special buggies with parts from the dump he found discarded from old cars and carriages].

Grandpa drove a couple of teams with a large circus wagon. There was one entry besides all the wagons, horses, ponies and floats that Grandpa had in the parade, and this entry was several young oxen that a farmer had brought to be in the parade. I remember petting the oxen and the farmer didn't appreciate me petting them after he had curried them, so he spoke to me to quit petting them. They were very attractive, these oxen.

I remember all the people from towns around and farms standing watching the parade as we all went by.

In the Merry-Go-Round there were several beautiful high school girls having a good time on that float as it was pulled along by a team of horses. This seemed to be quite an occasion for such a small town, as I never did hear of another parade in that town of Hayti again. There was much excitement and enjoyment being in the parade. I remember seeing the sheriff waving to us as we went by.

So we came to the end of the festival--the horses and oxen parade which is now just memories in the minds of boys and girls, who are now grown up and perhaps will tell of this to their children.

CARNIVALS AND FESTIVALS

There also were many carnivals that came to these towns and still do even today. They would get up their Ferris wheels in the Main Street and run for about a week. So circuses and carnivals wre kind of a break after harvest time was over on the farms. There were watermelon festivals that most people would attend. I remember hearing once of a family that had gone to one of these watermelon festivals, and when they got home that same night all their chickens, cows, horses, and household items and valuables were stolen by a caravan of gypsies that made a practice of stealing when everybody was away from their farms and attending these watermelon festivals.

LOCAL COMMUNITY WILD ANIMAL HUNTS

Sometimes the population of foxes and other wild animals got to such an enormous size that the farmers from surrounding farms would get together and circle these animals and kill them with their guns, as especially foxes, skunks, and weasels would kill the chickens and the wolves would do the same. There was a bounty on these and during some of the years you could get quite an amount of money for the pelts. These pelts would be made into gloves, ladies' coats, etc. They were very costly and still are when bought at a store. Fur coats are prized by women who wear them. [Some of Grandpa Stadem's relatives, the Jensens, are still in the fur coat business, and make many other fur apparel items too for sale--Ed.]

FISHING AND PICNICS

I'm sure you can remember picnics that you have been to. Well, I remember my Grandpa who was Norwegian [Grandpa Alfred Stadem] tell me of the picnics they used to have on the Farm.

These were Sunday School picnics for those who attended Sunday School at the little Norwegian Lutheran church in town. I asked Grandpa what all those different swings were for, hanging in the tall trees. And he said many years ago they had Sunday School picnics under those trees. There was a tire swing, a chin bar hanging from one of the trees, and the regular wooden boardseat swings. So in the years long ago children were just the same then as they are today. They all like to swing and teeter-totter. Of course, there were softball games and cricket was played, all kinds of lawn games. My grandfather didn't have to mow his grass. The best lawn mowers in the world he owned, and could you guess what they were? The grass was aways short, almost to the ground level. His sheep would trim the grass so good a lawnmower wasn't needed.

Fishing was always fun to do in the good, old summertime, and we got to do lots of that. One time I heard my grandparents talking Norwegian. And what they were talking about I found out later. It was about taking a trip by car over to Lake Norden, which also is the name of the town that is nearby the lake. A lot of the towns in this district of South Dakota are named the same as the lakes. So we all including my cousins, parents, uncles, and aunts all went to Lake Norden. Of course, there were sandwiches and lemonade brought along, and at the day's end the fishing had been good, a hundred bullheads were pulled from Lake Norden and my own father Bob had the job of cleaning them. It didn't take long for him to do it as he was a butcher by trade and he knew how to filet them.

So we had a delicious fishfry dinner the next day. About all the fish you would think that were in that lake you would think were bullheads. Honestly, I never did find out if there were other species of fish there or not. This was just one of those fish outings we had, but the most profitable of all I had ever been on at a lake. These fish had been so hungry, I could practically catch them on an almost bare hook.

MONTHLY FELLOWSHIP MEETINGS

Being brought up in a Lutheran church, there was a need for laymen to have fellowship with other Lutheran congregations. So began these all-day Church fellowship meetings. Christians could give their testimonies. Hymns were sung, scriptures were read, duets, instruments were heard. A message was delivered by one of the men or pastors. There was a children's service and the ladies of the church where the meeting was being held would serve a fellowship dinner which was very much appreciated. Delicacies that were brought by the Norwegian ladies.

This Lutheran Fellowship Meeting association is still going on. A lot of the Bible verse signs that are seen on the highways of South Dakota were put up by the funds that were donated, given to the sign project. There was an evangelist that did this sign making. And the fellowship took it on as a project.

There is a tract project for the distribution of Christian tracts for the salvation of souls. A bulletin is sent out once a month to those who are members of the Fellowship and who support the work. Mexican young people have been able to go to a Christian high school known as Augustana Academy, located at Canton, South Dakota. Some of the Governors of South Dakota have been speakers at Commencement Day services at this Christian high school. I myself attended this school. These same Mexican young people have gone back to be a witness to their own people in Mexico. A mission has been established at Laredo, Texas, on the border of Mexico and America. A blind man [Claire Hobart the classical piano music composer and his wife Norma, whom you can read about on Plain View Farm on the Plain View Heritage domain] runs the mission and many souls have been saved through this mission station on the boarder. Many farmers have supported this mission work for years. God bless them!!!

After these Fellowship Sunday meetings were over, we would go home to the farm and would have to milk the cows, which was a job because sometimes it would be raining, and we would have to milk them outside as we had lost the barn during a severe storm that had swept through the farm one year.