The Crops Look Good
The Crops Look Good
The Crops
Look Good
News from a Midwestern
Family Farm
Sara DeLuca
©2015 by Sara DeLuca. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, write to the Minnesota Historical Society Press, 345 Kellogg Blvd. W., St. Paul, MN 55102-1906.
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The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1984.
International Standard Book Number
ISBN: 978-0-87351-975-5 (paper)
ISBN: 978-0-87351-976-2 (e-book)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
De Luca, Sara, 1943–
The crops look good : news from a Midwestern family farm / Sara DeLuca.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-87351-975-5 (pbk.: alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-87351-976-2 (ebook)
1. Farm life—Wisconsin—History—20th century. 2. Farm life—Middle West—History—20th century. 3. Country life—Wisconsin—History—20th century. 4. Country life—Middle West—History—20th century. 5. Rural families—Wisconsin—History—20th century. 6. Family farms—Wisconsin—History—20th century. 7. Farms, Small—Wisconsin—History—20th century. I. Title.
S521.5.W6D45 2015
636.0977—dc23
2014038089
This and other Minnesota Historical Society Press books are available from popular e-book vendors.
For the letter writers,
past, present, and future.
Contents
Genealogy
Map
Prologue
Directly as a Stone, 1923–24
Bread and Butter, 1925–29
What One Has to Do, 1930–35
A School in Patience, 1936–39
A Thousand Thoughts, 1940–42
When Sorrows Come, 1943–44
The Beautiful Country, 1945–46
Back Where I Belong, 1947–49
Love Made Visible, 1950–55
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Source Notes
The Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins
RAYMOND. m. Ethel Michaelson: sons, Robert and John
MARGARET. m. Melvin Gorder: son, Charles
ADELE. m. Maurice Fleming: son, Robert (Bobby)
LELAND. m. Violet Jensen: daughter, LeeAnn; sons, Raymond and Carl
CLARENCE. m. Louise Holcomb: son, William (Billy); daughter, Joyce
WILMAR. m. Gladys Larson; sons, Gary, Alan, and Vern
DONALD. m. Vera Bengston Nelson: daughters, Renee and Kay; son, Steven (Vera’s sons from a previous marriage: Elroy, Murrell, Gary, and Rodney)
ALICE. m. Eyvind “Pud” Rostad: sons, James (Jimmy), Donald, and Dean;
daughters, Carole and Jeanne
Polk County, Wisconsin
Courtesy Polk County (Wisconsin) Department of Land Information/Division of Geographic Information Systems.
The Crops Look Good
Prologue
History is a pact between the dead,
the living, and the yet unborn.
EDMUND BURKE
MY MOTHER CAME from a family of storytellers. I didn’t know they were writers, too, until one autumn day in 1995 when I was visiting my elderly aunt Margaret in Mesa, Arizona. The goal of my visit was to help her prepare for a long-overdue sorting and dispersing of her household goods and memorabilia.
“I’ve saved a lot of letters over the years,” she said, “and because you are so keen on family history, I want you to have them. You’ll know how to put them to some good purpose.”
I read all night—letters from my grandmother Olava Williamson, from Aunt Adele, Uncle Raymond, and my mother, Helen, all to “Dear Margaret,” the daughter who had moved away in 1923 to Minneapolis and in 1935 to Los Angeles. I read letters from Margaret to her husband, Mel, detailing her summer visits to “the homeplace” in Wisconsin. I met my elders, including my own mother, as they were in the mysterious years before I was born. I saw my own childhood through the eyes of those who had nourished and supported me.
Then I put the letters away, for nearly twenty years. They were a burdensome gift. I had been given an assignment I could not fulfill.
The farming culture described in these letters has passed into history. I wanted to bear witness to that time. But any book I might create from these writings would require skillful narration, and I did not feel up to the task. My work would not be equal to that of the letter writers, whose words fell from their pens—or pencils—so freely, so directly, without artifice.
All the writers are gone, but their words remain. Now, as a family elder, I feel compelled to share them. My reasons are best described in this excerpt from Soul Mates by Thomas Moore:
The culture of a family is not only a shaping influence—it is also a resource into which a person may dip throughout her life for direction, meaning and style. People living the modern life often complain about a loss of traditional values or about feeling aimless, rootless and adrift. If we were to see the family as a wealthy source of traditions, stories, characters and values, we might not feel so alone and abandoned to a life that has to be manufactured every day.
We can’t make a life out of nothing. Our families, even though they rarely seem to be perfect models for us, offer plenty of raw material that we can shape into a life in our own creative fashion.
Here is the raw material that was given to me. It is presented chronologically, taking the reader through the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, World War II, and a period of relative calm and prosperity at midcentury. The location is dairy farming country, Polk County, Wisconsin.
As compelling as an individual’s private hopes and struggles, triumphs and tragedies may be, it is the setting—time and place—that deserves a starring role in this family drama, written by those who lived it.
In working with such a wealth of words, my challenge has been primarily one of omission. I have eliminated many letters and sections of letters that lack relevance to the larger story. I have used ellipses wherever sentences have been omitted or condensed. Oral narratives, recorded over a period of many years, as well as material from newspapers, magazines, and various history sources, have been included to complete a picture of the Upper Midwest family-farming culture as my elders knew it.
Directly as a Stone
When a writer has something to say, it falls from the pen
as directly as a stone falls to the ground.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
HELEN WILLIAMSON, age seven, is seated at the kitchen table, writing by kerosene lamplight on a cold winter evening, January 28, 1923. Gripping a stubby pencil, she addresses an envelope to her eldest sister: Miss Margaret Williamson, Dunwoody Hall, 52 South Tenth Street, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Helen adds her return address to the upper left corner—H. Williamson, Rural Route 1, Centuria, Wisconsin—and affixes a two-cent postage stamp to the upper right.
Dear Margaret,
I received your letter last Friday and haven’t ansered you yet so I think I had better get busy. Now I begin as follows:
Last night the furnace explowded over at the schoolhouse. Glen Kelly was sapposed to go home with the teacher and she kept him waiting outside for quite a while. She was in a hurry and she dumped 4 or 5 buckets of coal in the furnace and shut everything up so no air could get in. At half past five after school was let out Donald Jorgensen went over after his arithmetic book and when he stepped inside of the door the smoke just rolled out. He called his dad over there and when he got there the pipes were blowed out of their places, the furnace door was open and the cover of the water pan was blowed off.
When Jorgensen was putting the pipes back it explowded right in his face. The basement floor was all black and the walls of the hall-way were all black with soot and when we came to school and wawked across the floor there was a bunch of footprints. So they cleaned house today at school. Everyone helped.
I got to tell you what I got for marks: History 65, Geog. 70, Spelling 100. My average is 78½. Awful for me, aint it?
I’d like to write more but it is cold and I am tired.
Your sister, Helen Williamson
Helen’s mother, Olava, encloses this note:
That was some excitement at the schoolhouse. It was a mess all right, but could have been a real tragedy. Doesn’t Helen write the cutest little letters? Pretty good for 7 years old, I say.
Pretty good for seven years old, any time and place. Helen’s penmanship and vocabulary are surprisingly advanced, considering there is no preschool or kindergarten education provided at this time. Some early home schooling by her older sisters may help to explain it.
Helen is a second-grade student at the South Milltown Rural School, District No. 3, one of the countless country schools operating in Wisconsin in the 1920s. Since most children walk to school, even in subzero winter temperatures, rural schoolhouses are spaced only a few miles apart.
Eighth-grade commencement will mark the
end of formal education for the majority of students. In addition to the academic subjects—reading, writing, arithmetic, history, geography, and science—the curriculum includes life skills, such as health and hygiene, moral conduct, and citizenship. The rural schoolhouse also serves as a center for public life—a place to gather for picnics, town meetings, patriotic celebrations, and cultural programs.
The 1923 census lists thirty-four students in the one-room school, representing seventeen families from surrounding farms, south of Milltown village. The teacher, Hazel Benton, is paid one hundred dollars per month during the nine-month school year, instructing children in grades one through eight. The students help with routine cleaning, washing blackboards, dusting erasers, raking leaves, shoveling snow, pumping and carrying water, and assisting with the younger children. Parents pitch in for major cleaning and repairs before school commences each September.
The fall 1923 school census lists four students from the Willie Williamson family: Clarence, thirteen; Wilmar, eleven; Donald, nine; Helen, seven. (Alice, age five, will begin first grade the following year.)
Four older siblings—Raymond, Margaret, Adele, and Leland—have also attended the South Milltown School. Raymond, a recent high school graduate, is a banker in Downing, Wisconsin. Adele attends high school in Milltown. Leland, who happily left school after completing the eighth grade, is farming with Willie. Margaret has recently moved sixty-five miles away, to Minneapolis, where she works as a bookkeeper for Walman Optical Company.
This is dairy farming country, settled primarily by Scandinavian and German immigrants. Much of the gently rolling land has been logged off, the stumps blasted from the ground with dynamite, the fields and meadows divided into neat rectangles bordered by gravel roads. Tidy farmsteads with soaring red barns, silos, and sheds, protected by windbreaks of oak and elm and pine, dot the landscape. An abundance of glacial lakes and streams provides essential water for livestock, as well as recreation and scenic beauty. The soil that once nurtured hardwood forests is rich and loamy. But the climate is extreme and unforgiving, ranging from one hundred degrees in midsummer to minus thirty in the deep of winter.
This is the world that Helen knows, the world her eldest sister Margaret misses keenly. Margaret has been a second mother to the little girls, Helen and Alice. She writes often, and Helen replies.
JULY 15, 1923
Dear Margaret,
I love summer vacashun and right now the weather is just perfect. I rode on Fanny this morning when we put the cows out to pasture. Alice and Donald and Wilmar rode to and I was at the rear end. I just about fell off.
Olava Williamson (center) with (left to right) Adele, Alice, Helen, and Margaret, 1922
It’s Sunday and the men are haying today. Papa says he can’t afford to rest on Sunday.
Last night I saw the cutest little rabbit with brown fur and blue eyes. That’s all I can think of to write for now so I will close. Piles and piles of love from sister Helen
P.S. Mama is going to write to you now and she will put her letter in this same envelope.
JULY 15, 1923
Dear Margaret,
Received your card and see that you are comfortably located and I hope you will like it there in Minneapolis. I was so lonesome for you all last week, but am sort of getting over it now. Plenty of work and a bunch of youngsters around help to overcome a great deal of troubles. I wrote a few words to Raymond on Monday and told him you have gone. I got an answer from him yesterday. He likes his job at the Bank of Downing and expects to be promoted to Cashier before the year is through. He didn’t say anything about coming home this week. It is pretty far to come up here from Downing—more than 50 miles I think—and perhaps he is unable to borrow a car. Even when he does manage to come up he spends most of his time in Milltown courting Ethel Michaelson and we hardly see him at all. I guess the old home isn’t good enough for him anymore. Well, if those two decide to get married soon they will never know what it is to be young and have fun.
Papa wants to finish haying before he ships livestock to South St. Paul next week so he and the boys are working hard, putting up hay. They have hauled in fifteen loads and will put up that field in front of the house today.
Alice, Helen, Donny, and Wilmar on Fanny, about 1923
Next week I am going to try my luck at getting some berries in Korsan’s pasture. I have been busy canning gooseberries. I also made some jelly from the currents I picked on the back 40. Yesterday I washed clothes all day long and my back hurts today …
Papa and I went up town Wednesday evening. I had to get some groceries. I heard some terrible news. You remember H. E. Perrin that sold us the strawberries and watermelons. His eleven year old girl met with an accident on Wednesday. She picked up a dynamite cap in the yard and stuck it into her pocket and in some way it blowed off and killed her in a little while. They started off with her to get to a doctor but she died on the way, bled to death from the torn blood vessels. I surely feel sorry for the poor parents. I believe I could never stand a shock like that. We have been more than lucky raising a bunch like we have and never losing any. How thankful we should be.
Well, I must close now as I have work waiting and a bunch of hungry boys wanting dinner. I am going to make a shortcake for them. I hope you are getting lots of sleep so you will stay rested and if you do that you will get along all right.
We miss you. Your loving Mother
Olava Williamson is not quite forty-eight years old when she writes this fretful, hopeful, sorrowful, thankful letter. She writes of routine tasks on a busy summer day: haymaking, berry-picking, jelly, laundry, and a trip to town. Then, a horrific accident.
Most farmers keep explosives on hand for blasting stumps, clearing the land. Farming is a dangerous business—right up there with logging and mining. Tragedies occur, nearly every season. Sometimes they involve a child.
Olava is grateful for nine healthy children. She thinks she could never stand the shock of losing one.
JULY 26, 1923
Dear Margaret,
Well, I don’t feel so very good tonight, but I must write you a few lines anyway.
I have wondered if anyone let you know the sad news about Alva’s passing. You went to see Alva on Sunday, I believe, after she had her second operation. Did you get a chance to see her any more after that? You were her dearest friend, I know.
We have witnessed the largest funeral today that has ever been held in the North Valley Lutheran church. They picked out twelve girls to carry flowers and then the casket was loaded besides. The flowers were so beautiful I can’t describe it.
Alva was buried in her wedding dress and her casket was a bluish gray brocaded plush. Rev. Hanson made a very impressive sermon and Bakke also spoke. The choir sang several songs. I have never seen a time when everybody felt so sorry. Rev. Hanson almost broke down too.
Poor, poor Oscar, he told me he has nothing to go home for now. He caressed her before they closed the casket and they just had to take him away. Pretty hard to see him.
Alva’s mother has been crying so much. I could see she was really sick and she may have to go to bed too.
Wasn’t it strange how fast Alva went, and she was in such high hopes of getting well and coming home soon. How uncertain this life is when we think of it. How necessary it is to look into the future and have those things in mind at all times.
Alva was a good example for any girl and I wish more were like her. She was simple in her ways and always had a smile for everyone, nothing put on.
The business places in Milltown closed up for the afternoon. North Valley church was too small today, completely filled, and I think there were just as many outside. Alva had so many friends and of course many were there on Oscar’s account too. Oscar belongs to the Oddfellows and they will have a meeting tonight to see if they can hire someone to go out there and keep house for Oscar until he sort of recovers a little.
I am going to bed now and will try to write to you again soon.