The start of Riverview Farm
John Sr. built the first house in 1866; it burned in 1899 and the present house was built.
The first barn, located north of the present buildings, was a pole barn with hay on the ground in the center of the barn. There was a spring in back of it that they used for cooling cream.
The horse barn was built around 1880. It has a big square timber frame that is notched together and pegged. It had a hand dug well in it.
There was an ice house northeast of the house, and the driveway ran between the two structures.
After 1880, the granary was built using square nails. The grain had to be carried upstairs and dumped into the bins. I thought it was pretty neat that they had wooden tubes to run the upstairs grain down with wooden boards that slid up and down to control the flow. The granary was set on large field rocks.
The red barn was built in 1914.
I don’t know about the chicken house; only that is was a clay block building.
The well east of the house was hand dug about fifteen feet and then drilled another one hundred feet. They put in a pressure system about 1920; all it required was air to work. There was a big 500 gallon air tank by the milk house with an air line running to the well. The milk house had a cross shaft with pulleys so that you could run the compressor or water pump with the same gas engine.
There was another drilled well in the milk house.
We had three small corn cribs (you had to shovel corn in by hand). Then, in about 1946, Slim Wier helped us build a big double crib with an alley running between the two cribs. The cribs were constructed using all home-sawed oak lumber. That type of lumber was about all that was ever used to build hay racks, stanchions, partitions, gates, even a shed that Glenn built by the granary in 1925. By that time, the windmill was gone and there were only one-foot high legs that showed where it once was.
The house on the hill was built in 1926.
Robert and Lucile married June 30, 1926, this was their first home. It had a front and back porch.
Center heat came from the furnace that was in the basement, with heat coming up through the floor through a four by four foot grate that you could walk on. Later, Peggy had her bedroom where the bathroom used to be. There was a chemical toilet in the basement and a cistern under the kitchen. The kitchen stove and fireplace shared a chimney along with the furnace.
There was no electricity in the house until Grandpa and Grandma moved in. The kid that had homework earned the use of the Aladdin lamp (much brighter).
Dad would carry some water up from the farm everyday: on Monday and Saturday, which were wash days, he would bring water with the horses and the wagon. On bath day, we heated up lots of water (ha!). Actually it was only about four inches in the bottom of a big galvanized tub placed by the stove in the kitchen. The bathing started with the cleanest kid first, then maybe add a little warm water for the next cleanest.
There was a rain barrel used mostly for washing hair; and a reservoir on the end of the cook stove used mostly for washing hands. Mom had an aluminum tea kettle on the stove most of the time.
Dad bought Mom a Maytag washer with a wringer that had a little gas engine that ran it. They ran the exhaust out the window. It sure beat a scrub board! Mom hung clothes on a wooden rack over the furnace in the wintertime.
Robert and Lucile moved their family down to the big house in 1941
We moved down to the big house when Mom was expecting (Judy) in 1941. When Grandpa and Grandma moved into the house on the hill, they finished the bathroom and put a small pump in the cistern for very limited water.
Mom inherited some money when her dad (Hugh Piper) died (1945), and she did some extensive remodeling of the kitchen, bath, and basement. Mom wanted the basement steps moved from the dining room to the kitchen. After I (abt 16) dug the basement out, I made a big hole in the north wall, and backed a wagon in with dump planks. The clay had been drying and settling for one hundred years so a pickax would only loosen up about a tablespoonful. I used the dirt to make a driveway southeast of the house.
The house on the hill burned down in 1946
Grandma was in the hospital with pneumonia in February 1946 when we had a bad thunder and lightning storm. Dad was milking at the time. Lightning came into the house on the hill through the telephone and electrical wires. The telephone wires started the curtains on fire. We saw Grandpa coming to our house about seven a.m. with his strong box and wearing his bedroom slippers; he told us the house was on fire. We didn’t have a working phone so I drove to the neighbors for help. The operator put out ten short rings for emergencies to everyone in the area. They had put a cotton mattress over the stairway to the attic and Dad pulled pieces out of it and tried stomping the fire out. When the fire truck got there, the operator started the pump before Dad got the suction hose in the cistern so they had to carry pails of water to the truck. The house was a complete loss.
When Grandma came home, she stayed in the folks’ bedroom but she never did get well and died; Grandpa lived with us.
Dad's Memories, Growing up on River View Farm
A note from the "editor" (son, Mark Robert Gray): When my Dad wrote down his various memories and gave them to me to type out, the English teacher in me was inclined to organize his material into themes. So with a little shuffling and the headings given below, I have attempted to do just that. I thought about how my wife Leeann enjoys making scrap quilts which bring together random pieces of fabric in a one-of-a-kind pattern. In the old tradition of the scrap quilt, each piece could be cut of anything from flour sacks, baby blankets, a wedding dress. Mom's apron, or Grandpa's overalls. I hope that you will find these scraps of a lifetime as enjoyable to read as I did in 'stitching' them together.
A "Quilting of Memories" from George Robert Gray
Beginnings, for the children of Robert and Lucile Gray
The first three children (1927-1933) of Robert and Lucile were born in a maternity house in Dodge Center. The youngest was born in Owatonna in 1942. They tell me I was three years old before Dad cut off my curls, and, I had trouble saying my aunt’s name, Ruth, that’s how she got the nickname ‘Rudi’.
"Gram, Clare Maud"
Grandma loved all her grand-kids. She seldom got upset with me, but if she did she would threaten to give me a good-sound thrashing. I could visualize her throwing me into the thrashing machine (scary!).
She loved to bake and sent fresh rolls or some other goodies up the hill regularly. She or Mom would step out on the porch and shout “Youuu-Hooo!” for the other family to come out and talk. It was often time for Buddy (my nickname) to fetch the goodies between the houses. As the errand boy, I was often the first to sample the goodies. Neither household would send a pan back empty.
Grandma got a new 1936 Plymouth car, and by golly, she learned to drive. But she had arthritis so bad that she couldn’t let the clutch out easily so she put the gas to the floor and dropped her foot off the clutch. Jim (Gray - cousin, Reede’s son) made a big deal of this: he’d lean forward and fly back in the seat when she did this. Jim spent a lot of his summer vacation at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s.
Grandma had me promise many times never to drink or smoke.
"Mother, Lucile Marie"
Mom was very strict: “You’d better or else!” Guess I didn’t find out what “else” was. She kept her kids pretty busy.
She loved her clubs: Circle, Bridge, 500, Pinochle, Ladies’ Aide, Study.
She took good care of our health: Citrus cod liver oil must have worked, I was “Health king of Dodge County ’44. She believed in fresh air. On hot summer days she would put a mattress by the front door to sleep on for a breeze. She would open all the doors and windows for a while, even in the winter.
Before moving to Claremont, Mom graduated from the teaching school at Marshalltown, Iowa in 1922 and then from Normal, Illinois, with training at Mankato in 1924. She stayed with the Dodds family while attending there and became acquainted with Dad then. She taught in the Venture District School in Ripley Township.
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| Robert Lyn 'Bob' Gray |
Dad was an easy-going, mild man who always had a smile, who just hardly ever got angry. I only heard him swear once. It was so unbelievable that I had to tell Don.
He was very dedicated to his fellow man: he served as school board clerk of session for many years and township officer for about forty years.
He had a theory about sales people: “I was doing just fine before they came along.”
He really knew his trees. When we were cutting with the buzz saw, he’d identify every stick, even driftwood with no bark.
Dad said he’d go to the river every spring and spear pike until they put the dam in Mantorville.
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| George Alvey 'Grandad' Gray |
Grandpa also was easy-going. He liked to tease and pick on you. In church he knew when I was bored so he would find something for me to play with.
He never did drive anything with a steering wheel.
He could play the Jews’ harp or dance a jig.
He taught Don and me how to smoke grapevine.
Note: My Google search results, History of the Jew’s Harp -The Jew’s Harp Guild: The Jew’s Harp is a small musical instrument which is held against the teeth or lips, and plucked with the fingers.
"Spring and Summer Memories"
I remember Dad brought home Dutchman breeches, the first flowers of spring, and pussy willows. Grandpa showed me how to make whistles out of willow twigs in the spring while the sap was flowing.
About May 1st the cows were put out to pasture. When the cows were first turned out, the milk sure had a grassy taste to it. My job was to bring them in for milking. One cow had a bell that would help you find them. Of course, she had to be moving to ring the bell so it wasn't always a reliable system. Grandpa used to say I could pick up a daddy-long-legs spider, and it would point to the direction where the cows could be found. While Grandpa was right, of course the legs pointed in all other directions, too.
Once we had our neighbor Sy Massey's old, swayback mare over, and I thought it would be neat to ride her to fetch the cows. We followed along a cow path but just before we got to the 80 acre field there was a stream. Well, she stopped for a few seconds and then jumped the stream, leaving me in the mud and water.
Sometimes after a heavy rain the river would be high, and the cows would have to swim through it. I would find a fallen tree to cross the river. I always had my dog Shep along. Once he got in trouble when he tangled with a skunk. He couldn't stand the smell of himself and had a terrible time trying to get rid of that smell. Another time he was stung on the end of his nose by a bee. He rooted around in the mud to cover the sting for relief. Of course when I was barefoot I really had to watch my step because I didn't care much for the feel of cow dung coming up between my toes. I also had to watch for thorns and thistles.
Both Mom and Gram had big gardens. Don and I had to help them weed. Mom would tell us to weed them "or else." Gram would give us a penny or two per row for the weeding.
On really hot, summer evenings Mom would put a blanket by the front door so we could sleep there in a breeze.
Jim, Don, and I would go to the pond and play. It was interesting to wade around in the mud bottom and feel the craw-fish squirming out from under our feet. We had lots of fun but had to constantly check ourselves for bloodsuckers (leeches) because we didn't want to let them get too well attached. We built a raft out of sticks, and propelled it with push sticks, but we had trouble making progress because the sticks got stuck in the mud. Jim would make submarines for the stock tank by weighing down peach crate ends so they would very slowly come back up to the surface. Entertainment like this was easy to come by; for example, Jim spent a lot of time simply sitting on the hammock with a stick, playing around in the dirt.
Don and I had a river sand pile in the shade under the dining room windows where Mom had her sewing machine. One day, Don and I were doing some road construction in the sand pile and needed some water. Of course, that was a precious item so I decided I had plenty I could "share" without any effort at all. Mom darn near broke the window when she saw the way that I furnished it.
Mom patched everything. Once, she patched the crotch of my bib overalls with nylon stocking material. When Aunt Rudi was visiting, she looked at my crotch and asked if I was sunburned.
We liked to tease snapping turtles; they would grab a stick, and you could drag them all over. We were barefoot in summer except for Sunday school and church. Dad said if we ran through thistle patches fast enough, they wouldn't bother us. That didn't work and was probably my first lesson where you can't believe everything you hear. Don had lots of bad luck stepping on honey bees that were on dandelions. He would do a an energetic dance, which I thought was very funny.
When Dale Buffington left for the Air Force, Grandma bought his bicycle for Don and me. While visiting Reede Gray's family in Redwood Falls, Jim taught me how to ride a bicycle. We had a lot of fun with that. Of course you couldn't just ride a bike; we had to build ramps for extra thrills.
When I was around thirteen years old, Glenn was visiting and he gave me a five dollar bill to go to the fair. I was floored; I didn't know what I was going to do with all that money. The fair was a big deal back then. When I had a heifer at the fair, sometimes I would sleep over with it. That was also my first experience of listening to mules bray.
"Winter Memories"
When there were two houses with cook stoves, we spent much of the winter making wood. Dad would chop the wood with an ax and then split it with maul and wedges. Grandpa and I would run the crosscut saw. We hauled wood with horses and sled. We would pile it up to be buzz-sawed later. Sometimes I’d tie a rope to the sled and ski along behind.
We piled wood into a big wooden box in the corner of the kitchen. Mom would heat wood blocks in the oven to put by our feet in the sled when we went to card parties or church. Sometimes the roads were impassible even for horses and sled so instead we would go out in the field.
When the weather was really cold, Mom would bring a horse blanket into the bedroom and throw it on us. We wouldn't be able to get another deep breath because they were so heavy. The horsehide had a thick, green lining and fringe around the edges.
I spent hours watching the fire in the fireplace. I was also good at darning socks. Of course we had our favorite radio programs. We took our sand pile toys to the basement for winter so we could play with them there. Mom would come to the basement door, and if we were quiet she'd ask what we were doing. We spent a lot of time skiing and skating. I have a thumb that still isn't right from skiing there once when there wasn't enough snow. Mom would take us down to the river, and we would put on clamp-on skates; first we had to clean off the snow for a place to skate.
Every year when my birthday came around (December 2nd), we'd find some ice and make ice cream. We would turn the handle until you could hardly turn it anymore, and then someone got to clean off the paddle (what a treat!). Once while eating my treat, I ate too fast and fell off my chair.
"Some Family Traditions"
Mom and Dad taught us kids how to play 500, pinochle, and bridge. When Mom and Dad entertained with card parties, we kids liked to listen to their conversations through the grates that used to go through the stove pipes.
Dad and Gram were leaders of 4 H, and I joined as soon as I could. I played snare drum in the school and city band. Bill Edmond gave me a bad time that I was actually chasing bugs while playing in the bandstand. There was usually either a band concert in the park or a free movie every Saturday night. Dad would give us each a nickel so we could get an ice cream cone.
Later, when I reached the age for dating, Mom used to give me a dollar for my date that would pay for our movie tickets and two ice cream sundaes.
We always had meat; we had a locker in back of the grocery store where they had big drawers in a large room that was kept at zero degrees. We butchered both steers and hogs. Dad cut and wrapped the meat. We also butchered chickens, ducks and geese. I was big into hunting of course. Whatever I shot I had to get ready for the pan. This included squirrels, rabbits, pigeons and pheasants. Later we got an air rifle which made it possible to shoot inside buildings without damage.
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| George Alvey had a 4th of July tradition of shooting off his rifle left to right: (sons) Robert Lyn, Glenn and George Alvey Gray |
"Earning Your Keep"
When we moved down the hill to the big house, I got a lot more involved with chores: feeding chickens, gathering eggs, feeding horses, feeding the pigs slop (a mix of ground oats and skim milk). I also fed calves skim milk. I cranked the milk separator which was a long, tedious job; it had a bell that would ring with every revolution (that helped).
We let the chickens out after about ten o’clock; they were supposed to be done laying by then. Hens always cackle after laying an egg so, when we heard them cackle by a brush pile or over by the granary, we would go looking for a nest. If we wanted them to keep laying there, we’d leave a couple eggs. Sometimes they would hide them good enough so that we never did find them. Then later they would appear with a whole bunch of chicks. The hens would get very defensive, especially if they were in the setting mode (they would lose all their feathers on their breast and cluck). I thought it was pretty neat the way they came when I called them. They had a nice, clean pasture to graze in. Everything was fine until we had a terrible wind that blew the chicken house over and came rolling down by the road. Mom was real concerned and sent us kids down to the basement.
We had a reel-type lawn mower, and Don and I would help Mom with it. I would put twine string on the mower and have Don pull on it while I pushed. When the grass got too tall, it was tough and would cut hard. The wheels would slide, and then you would have to back up and start again.
When I first started the job of milking cows, I was assigned only one or two of the gentle, easy-milking Guernseys to milk at about seven o'clock in the evenings. As I got older, I milked more cows. Dad, Gramp, and I would each milk six cows for the total of eighteen cows and stanchions that we had. I liked to squirt milk into the cat's mouths. At night time we had kerosene lamps hanging in the barn, but the light from them was so poor that you had to be careful or you'd stumble over the cats.
I got very involved in harvest. Dad and Gramp would cut and bundle the grain. After the first two rounds Don and I carried the bundles into the field so they could cut the outside round. Because this work required shoes, Grandma would go up in the attic and find some of the girls' tennis shoes for us to wear. The next thing to do was shocking the bundles so the heads of grain would dry out for thrashing. We put the shocks in rows so the horses and hay racks could follow along, and we could pitch the bundles on the racks. The first few years I leveled grain in wagons or ran the blower if there was someone stacking the straw. I could adjust the spout according to the direction of the crew member who was doing the stacking. One of the stackers was mean and demanded my constant attention. If I looked away for a couple of seconds he would bang on the blower pipe. I got so I didn't care for him at all. Dad was always in charge of caring for the grain. By then they had an elevator; it was six by six inch tube with round flat paddles on a chain that carried the grain; it was run by a stationary engine.
Dad had to be at the work site early to set up, and he had to work late to take care of the grain handling. I would start the milking and would hope that he would come home soon. We had one cow that was mean, and her bag was so big and low you could hardly get the pail under it, much less get your hands in there, too. I left her until the last for Dad to milk, but he didn't show up so I just started milking her. I had only started when she kicked me right into the terrible, summertime gutter. I went crying to the house to get cleaned up and met Dad halfway there. I told him he could milk that S.O.B. of a cow.
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| George Robert with the push mower. (Uncle) Glen and Gramp, George Alvey Gray |
"School Memories"
There’s a nursery rhyme that goes “Georgie Porgie puddin’ pie kissed the girls and made them cry.” So, when I started first grade, I tried a little of that and they didn’t cry, but everyone laughed. My first lesson!
The school had wooden floors and a bell tower. 1st and 2nd grades were in one room, 3rd and 4th, 5th and 6th were also combined. About 1940 the WPA built a new school.
The neighborhood parents worked together to take the kids and cream to town. In winter it was done with horses and sled. (One time) some kid pushed me out the back and the driver slapped the horses with the reins to make them run. I tried to catch up, crying all the time. They finally stopped and let me back in.
I don’t really recall walking to school, but in spring and fall we would quite often walk four miles to home. If we were going to walk home, Mom would call the Shiplocks (the Stusse farm) and ask them to tie up their dogs. They had two mean Saint Bernards, and if they weren’t tied up, we would have to walk a quarter mile out in the field.
I played basketball and football, but not much baseball. I was in both class plays and I still remember them. Our class was the first one to hold the homecoming ceremonies of coronation and a dance. While there was no king crowning the first year, I did escort the queen, Lillian Allen.
I graduated in 1947 in a class of eighteen. I went to the University of Minnesota for a short time and took Ag-Ed classes on both campuses. There was a streetcar connecting them. I lived in a room close to the U with Jim Murray. Then I worked for Oliver (a manufacturer of tractors and farm equipment), shipping parts to dealers. I would hitchhike home every weekend and then ride a bus back.
Dad needed me back at the farm so he offered me $1,000 a year plus room and board. So I moved back to the farm the spring of 1948.
Dad needed me back at the farm so he offered me $1,000 a year plus room and board. So I moved back to the farm the spring of 1948.
"Times of Change in Our Small World"
The town of Claremont was entirely different when I was growing up. There were two grocery stores with the Claremont locker in the back of one of them. We were able to take in eggs for trade to pay for groceries. There were two garages, three cafes, two hardware and implement stores, a telephone office, a newspaper business, a drugstore, the doctor's office, the lumber yard, elevator and feed store, two rural fuel delivery businesses, a bank and a credit union, a shoe store, the post office, an opera house, a central park complete with band shell, the fire station, and of course a jail. They had big stockyards with several with several pens with plank sides and big plank gates, and there was a chute for loading cattle and hogs into the train heading to Chicago. We kids considered it a playground, swinging on the gates, etc. I remember having auction sales there.
The trains driven by steam engines were a big deal back then. A couple of passenger trains would run daily. Dad used them to get to high school ballgames. There was a depot station complete with freight carts, a telegraph office, and a big wooden water tower. It had a foot wide water spout they would lower to fill the steam engine. There were telegraph wires all along the tracks. I was impressed with the clicking for Morse code, and in fact, Don and I would talk to each other in bed with Morse code flashlight signals (we had to be quiet, you know). The first diesel-powered engine pulled the "400" passenger train. The elevator hired a friend and me to unload the boxcars, coal and feed. Handling the coal and alfalfa leaf meal were very dirty jobs. Even Art Brown's potatoes were shipped by rail. The Superintendent would excuse anyone from class to help with the potatoes.
Dad spent time every summer looking for bee trees. Then in winter, with the temperature below zero, we would cut the tree down when it was that cold. If it stirred the bees, they would only make it about 2 or 3 feet and drop. Most of the honey was taken out of the comb. I also liked to eat it, comb and all. Sugar rationing during wartime would require us to sweeten things with honey. Rationing included gas, tires, meat, sugar and butter. Road-use gas was 20 cents with tax paid. Wages in the late 40s and early 50s were fifty dollars take-home pay per week at the elevator, lumber yard or creamery. There was no such thing as plastic until the mid 40s.
During wartime, machinery was very scarce. If you wanted to purchase something, you had to register for it on a long list. Carlos Meyers was on such a list, waiting for a tractor and a corn picker. I drove tractor for him and was a replacement for his chore boy whenever he was sick or returned for visits to Iowa. When he got his John Deere tractor and corn picker, his brother down in Omaha needed them. So Carlos rented a truck and asked me if I would drive it down to Nebraska. I was sixteen years old and, of course, jumped at the chance. I drove all night to get there. Carlo's brother asked me if I wanted to go to town, but I said I better take a nap. After that, I drove all night to get back home again.
"The Life of a Farm Boy: Getting Along with Old Horses and New Machinery"
When I was about fourteen I got my own horse team and rack. We had eight teams and racks to feed the machine from both sides. The wagon had steel wheels which really cut into the soft field and made it mighty hard for the horses to pull when it was loaded. I felt sorry for the horses when the load was heavy. I tried to carry the bundles quite a way so the horses wouldn't have to start up moving the load as often. I'd swing the horses around so they would pull the front wheels first, then all four. After a year or two of the steel-wheeled wagon, Dad got an "auto-steer" rubber-tired wagon which was much nicer. When you pulled up to the machine you always turned the horses away so they wouldn't get their tails caught in the belts. But once, when I wasn't watching, the horses' tails were swishing around and got too close. When Queen's tail was caught up in the belt, boy, did I go for a fast, quick ride! Queen was a mare smaller than Buster, a gelding. But Queen did most of the work, and Buster just tagged along. Because of the hard work, Queen would get a sore neck. She would turn around and bite me when I put the collar on her. At the start of the day the horses were in no hurry going to work, but they always saved energy to trot all the way home, and you never had to steer them.
While I am discussing horses, I had a couple of runaways who would always find their way back to the barn. I was going to the woods with a flatbed fastened onto a sled. Dad had replaced the tongue on the sled with a four by four that he trimmed off for the neck yoke, but it wasn't trimmed back far enough. So, just when I got the horses galloping, the neck yoke came off of the tongue which allowed it to go under the sled and allowed the double and single trees to bang onto the back of the horses' legs. They made a big circle and went home to the barn. Another time Don and I were coming home with just dump planks between the stakes on the bolsters. We were just talking and walking around to keep our balance. I walked right off the wagon which ran over me. I wasn't hurt, but Don was concerned enough to jump off to check on me. Well, of course, the horses took the wagon home on their own after that.
[But then again, the horses weren't all bad:] The roads back then were a mess. You'd get stuck in snow in winter. The county had only one snow plow for the county roads. The township didn't have any way to plow snow so you just drove on top of it. That's why horse and sleigh made for the best mode of travel. Then, it the spring, even though you'd try to stay out of them, you'd get stuck in mud ruts, six or more inches deep.
Dad had a Fordson tractor years ago; Virgil (Buffington) still remembers it. Dad traded four horses on a new 1938 John Deere tractor. I chose it every chance I got. I remember when I was plowing with it, the adjusting levers worked very hard and were barely within reach while hanging on to the steering wheel. Once, when I managed to reach the lever, just then, the plow tripped. I managed to stay with the plow but then had to run to catch the tractor. With a single ten foot disc we were able to cover 5 feet with every trip through the field. We had a tractor with steel wheels (no rubber) so it would about shake your teeth out going down the road. We would take it into the ditch which was a lot better until you hit a large rock, and then it would nearly throw you off. It wasn't long before Dad replaced the steel wheels with rubber.
The weed problems were quack grass, thistles, and maybe a little ragweed. There were no such things as herbicides back then so cultivating was very important. When I was older and big enough to raise the cultivator, I was given the job. We had to go through five times: three times lengthways and twice crossways. The last time we would go lengthways so that the ground wouldn't be too rough for picking corn. The tractor had two fuel tanks: one for gas with a capacity for one gallon and the other for distillate or tractor fuel. You had to drain the carburetor and fill with gas to start; once you started you would switch over to tractor fuel. When I was coming home from the day's work, I would shut the fuel off to partially empty the carburetor.
Dad had been hiring some baling done, but then he bought a pull-type New Holland baler in about 1944. Then,we did some custom baling. Dad would drive the tractor, and I would load the bales. It was powered by a Wisconsin motor which became a real problem: it started cold without too much trouble, but it was just about impossible to restart after it had been running. Sometimes we had to put a drive belt on the John Deere to get it going again.
Sam Wier had a sawmill powered by a 1920 Hart Parr tractor, and we sawed a lot of lumber. We built a big, double corn crib. It was quite a challenge to drive a nail through the home-sawed lumber (the wood was very hard). It was great to get a chainsaw; it was a two man, thirty-six inch saw. Dad taught me how to sharpen all types of saws. Dad and I did quite a bit of custom sawing. You could hire two men and the saw for five dollars an hour.
I also got involved with haying. I drove the horses and helped scatter hay and pack it down on sling ropes. At the barn I hooked the sling ropes onto the carrier. Then Gramp would pull hay up and into the haymow with a team of horses. Dad would tell me when to trip the load. With three or four sling loads, we had to unhitch horses and pull the rope back so that we could pull the carrier out and back down for another sling load. This was all done in the cow yard so you had to be careful where you grabbed onto the rope. Al was visiting and wanted to be helpful so he pulled the rope back, but he wasn't careful and got both his hands full of cow dung and was shaking his hands frantically to get rid of it. Of course, I couldn't help laughing, but I told him to go to the milk house to clean his hands.
Scares and Scars: Risky Business on the Farm
There was a piece of eaves trough to carry the water from the milk cooling tank to the stock tank, and somehow Peggy fell and cut her arm badly on it.
Once Dad unloaded a new roll of barbed wire by the grainery. The roll of wire was shaped like a five gallon pail and weighed about seventy-five pounds. When the roll started down the hill towards the shed, it caught up with Don and ran over his legs; I'll bet he still has scars from it.
Gary Gimmestad did some interesting things when he visiting. He was driving the John Deere toward the arch bridge when, all of a sudden, he drove off the road at a very steep point. A tree became locked between the rear wheel and the body of the tractor and stopped it; that ride could have been fatal. Once, Don challenged Gary to paint the horse's tail on the cupola red; so when no one was around, he did. Another incident that included the John Deere involved Roger Rehman. The tractor had a buzz saw mounted on the front of the tractor. The mount was a channel iron frame that stuck out a good three feet in front of the tractor. In a panic, Roger ran the channel iron right through the side of our grainery.
Gathering Life's Lessons and Passing on the Revelations
The Rands had a hardware and International and Farmall store. They also had a stationary baler. My friend and classmate Herb Rand was part of the haying crew. One year the Dakotas were so dry that the farmers didn't have enough supply to feed their livestock. To help with the situation, the federal government offered to buy local hay and send it out there. We took a few boards off the east end of the barn and pitched hay down into the baler. I noticed Herb was chewing on something so I asked him what it was; he insisted I try some of his chewing tobacco. Boy, that didn't stay in my mouth long!
Late spring and early summer of 1941 Mom was sick every morning, and she ate lots of soda crackers. We kids couldn't figure it out because Mom was never sick. A few months later Dad would tease her because she was so big that she was going to Punch and Judy; I couldn't believe they actually named the baby Judy. After Judy was about four years old, I had a lot of fun with her. I'd pull her around in a coaster wagon in the summer, and in the winter we'd go sledding off the driveway into the horse barn. She like to help me with my feeding chores. She also rode around on my shoulders quite a bit.
Editor's note: Dad didn't really give a "conclusion" to his writings. Of course, as long as there are cherished memories, there is no end to the telling of more stories. The passage above describes how each new member of a family gives purpose to the rest of the family. I thought it was appropriate to end this memory of the last child of the Robert Gray family. Of course, there is no "last child" to most families, and it will always be the job of the elders to be the support for the younger ones. With this in mind, this last entry offers some simple wisdom that Dad shares about "following' his father:
I remember after a snow it was always easier to step into existing footprints, but it was quite a challenge trying to follow Dad's big steps.
George Gray, 2006. With some editing by Mark Gray
