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Chuck Hinman: Life in Gage Co. NE, in 1930s IT'S JUST ME AGAIN Chuck Hinman #067, was sent May 4, 2005 Life in Gage County, Nebraska in the 1930's The next earlier Chuck Hinman story is All kinds of challenges Reader comments to CM are appreciated, as are emails directly to Mr. Hinman at: charles.hinman@sbcglobal.net By Chuck Hinman Life in Gage County, Nebraska in the 1930's Growing up on a Gage County, Nebraska farm in the 30's was an experience with many memories -- both good and bad. It was a BAD, BAD time like no other, characterized first by the famed stock market crash followed by an unrelenting order of natural disasters, years of droughts with accompanying blinding dust storms, various insect plagues such as the grasshopper invasion, the locusts, the corn-worms, wheat-rust, sun-flowers, and cockle-burrs and on and on. When a whisper of a cloud visited the parched dusty skies, everyone sighed and prayed that FINALLY, there was a chance of some moisture relief but WRONG AGAIN. If anything, it was a hailstorm or a cyclone. It was as if there was a curse on the land!?ENOUGH ENOUGH! It was the combustion agent to "burn--out" the spirit of any farmer! It was a particularly bad time for mid-westerners That period of bad times was one of the reasons so many mid-westerners, particularly "Okies," migrated to California in droves in search of a better life! Every time our family makes the trip from our home in Bartlesville, Oklahoma to visit my brother Bob or sister Joy Ann or their families who stayed and raised families in Nebraska -- I always look with nostalgic interest at the sign as you enter Nebraska south of Wymore. The sign boasts -- "ENTERING NEBRASKA THE GOOD LIFE." I have no doubt the sign is now appropriate. But I can remember a time when some Nebraska residents including my parents may have had nagging questions where the good life had gone! In 1915, my dad had opted for a farming career after having nearly completed a civil Engineering Degree at the University of Nebraska. His Dad, my Grandpa Lansing Hinman who had lost both legs in a mowing accident, helped in setting my folks up in farming. With Grandpa's financial help, my folks bought a 160-acre farm with a nearly new farm home with all the bells and whistles of the time, in-door plumbing, carbide lights, central heat via a wood-burning furnace in the basement to both floors, running water -- you name it, we had it! Our place was 4 miles northwest of Liberty, Nebraska. Parents were the young married professionals of their time It was something hard to turn down even for an aspiring engineer! Mom was a country-school teacher, having gone to college at Nebraska Wesleyan in Lincoln. They were the "young married professionals" of their time with their own youthful dreams. And things were wonderful for a few years as my folks, were getting their lives established -- starting a family. Things couldn't have looked rosier! Well, fast-forward a few years to the early '30s when "all Hell broke loose".... A vital part of making a "go of it" in these days without a dependable cash crop or crops, such as corn, wheat, or oats, was keeping some kind of cash-flow in tact. That's just to provide the barest of life-sustaining things. What a revolting change!! Even in the worst years, you could generally count on having a decent garden, which was harvested and canned before the devastation caused by the summer sun set-in. The garden provided the major part of the foodstuffs required for the coming year. We had a nice cave or root cellar for our hoard of food for the coming year. Mother should have had honorary doctorate in economics The women of the family were indispensable in this matter of cash flow. My Mom should have received an honorary Doctors Degree in Economics for her skill. She purchased around 200 baby chicks in the very early spring, raising them in a brooder house -- snagging some of the prize young roosters for a delicious summer meal with a 6 foot wire hook -- and having enough pullets left (Leghorns, Rhode Island Reds, Buff Orphingtons) to begin their work as soon as their little egg plants matured -- laying eggs for Mom's cash flow till the next year when new "cash flow producers" would be added to the flock. Mom would gather the eggs in the afternoon (after the "egg-factory" had shut down for the day). If the eggs needed "tidying" she would do that before placing them in a compartmentalized egg crate -- 36 eggs to a layer with about 8 to 10 layers per crate. Good time of bad times was Saturday night The "good" part of these BAD BAD times was Saturday night. After a Saturday night supper of navy beans, sliced onions in vinegar, com-bread and a small bowl of canned fruit -- each of us "men" took our turn at a much-needed "Saturday night bath"! Mom and my sis Joy Ann had their baths earlier. After getting cleaned up we all headed off to Wymore for our Saturday night Bash! Farmers shut down work a little early on Saturday afternoons. Albert Hurtz, the neighbor north of us was the first of our neighbors to get to town on Saturday evening. Albert liked his beer so he headed for the tavern while wife Zazel and daughter June Peggy went their ways. Albert had rigged up the exhaust on his car with a muffler on the exhaust, which he controlled from his dashboard. He could make it sound like a tugboat whistle and every time he went by our house, day or night he always saluted us with his crazy whistle and we would say -- "There goes Albert and Zazel!" You could hear him for miles. As a kid, I thought it was great! Everyone went to town on Saturday nights Everybody went to town on Saturday nights! It was so common for all farmers to go to town on Saturday nights that some young unmarried, unemployed, hard-up young men of the neighborhood would take this opportunity to "swipe" (not steal) gasoline for their cars or chickens which they took to sell to the produce-man. Everybody "kinda knew" who the bad-boys were but didn't want to raise a stink over it. They were good boys just caught up "in the times." After these "bad boys" raised some cash flow from their unsuspecting neighbors they went ahead with their Saturday Night date plans. These same boys were probably the ones who "borrowed" watermelons from remote watermelon patches on moonlit nights. One such "bad-boy" lost his billfold with identification in Glen Price's watermelon patch. In these times, the victims of the petty thievery didn't like it but they complained and then winked about it. It was as though the "times" were the culprit -- not the young thieves! First order of the evening was to take the accumulated eggs to the "egg man"! He was kept busy Saturday evenings buying eggs. He would "candle" the eggs and then give Mom a check for her eggs. Sometimes a crazy old hen would find a secret place to lay her eggs and maybe she would accumulate a dozen or 15 eggs to lie in this secret place. Farmers had no way of knowing if these eggs were good or if they were edible. Candling was done in a darkened room with the egg held before a strong light. The light penetrated the egg and made it possible to observe the inside of the egg. The Candler could distinguish a fresh age from stale egg. The egg man only paid for good eggs. Mom then took her egg-check and went to the grocery store and bought the things from her list made out during the previous week. She and everyone else of that time called it "their Saturday night trading." They traded their eggs for what they needed in the way of foodstuffs etc. to go with their homegrown produce and products for the coming week. My folks never made a big "to-do" over everyone else's plight and ours in these days. If they worried it was never the topic for discussion at the dinner table. How I finally realized we were really poor I realized we were really poor one day by happenstance when Mom gave me the ice pick and asked me to go to the feedlot and chip a chunk of salt off the block of salt the animals licked. On returning to the house Mom boiled and melted the salt down for our consumption. She didn't have enough egg-money to buy a box of salt so she borrowed from the cows! I then realized that we WERE poor! But Mom was a Pro in "making do" -- a common term of the times! But more than that -- she made home life normal and happy! She and Dad were geniuses of their time as were many others! By being very resourceful, Mom was able to save egg produced money for the extras -- like school clothes in the fall, music lessons for 3 kids, a few fireworks, the coloring for the Easter eggs, always a few things in our Christmas socks hung by the kitchen stove -- we didn't have a fireplace for Santa so he had to figure a way to wiggle down the kitchen stove flue and out the kitchen stove! We did help by removing one of the steel plates on the top of the stove -- he always found the cookies! As a result of "egg-paid-for-music lessons" I have had a lifetime hobby of piano or organ playing. I am now 81 years old and still playing both the piano and organ. In 1985 after I retired from Phillips Petroleum Company, I became the accompanist for the 20-member public relations musical group for Phillips Petroleum called The Phil tones. They have performed all around the country. One time we were performing in Tulsa, Oklahoma at The Methodist Manor at Christmas. I was supposed to play a "Christmas special" on the baby grand. I was resplendent (kind of) in my formal white dinner jacket, red cumber bun, and bow tie. I decided to really "ham it up" Liberace-style by placing an elaborate 5 candle-candelabra on the piano. Instead of putting candles in the candelabra -- I placed an egg (5 in all) in each candle slot in honor of my dear Mom who had made my playing possible during the BAD BAD days. I don't think when she was yakking at me about practicing back in the dust bowl days that she had in mind that her little boy would still be "showing off' when he was almost 85 years old! I cried as I thought, "this is for you -- Mom and Dad" while I played a Fats Waller rendition of Jingle Bells. I don't know when I have played better -- I guess because my heart was in it and I was playing it as if Mom and Dad were my only audience. It brought the house down and -- then I came to! Wymore had about a 2-block long business district that was teaming with people on Saturday nights. They had come to Wymore for their social event of the week. Mom liked to be early enough with her trading that the car could be parked in a choice spot so she could "watch people" from the "front seat by the window" in the car. She had arthritis and couldn't do the endless walking like the rest! Could hear Bohemian Polka Band playing In the distance you could hear the Bohemian Polka Band playing for the dance above the grocery store for those "wild Bohunks"! All the upstairs windows were wide open and for good reason, so they said. The benefit from the earlier Saturday night baths had begun to wear off, and body odor reigned supreme by 9:30 PM. You had to be stubborn and stouthearted to want to stay after 10:00 PM!! This was before the days of personal deodorants. A little dab of baby powder didn't get it! Beginning about July of each year during the hottest days, our pasture for our milk cows begin to burn up. The alfalfa hay crops -- if any were already put up in the haymow for winter feed for the livestock. During that dry period it was not unusual for farmers to take their cows and calves out two times during the day and "herd them" in the right-of-ways along the township roads adjoining their farm land. In our family, this chore became the lot of me and my older brother Bob. About 9 AM each day, one of us boys would, with the aid of our dog Sport, get the cows and calves out of the feedlot and drive them toward the township road just east of our house. The cattle would graze the grass along that road for a couple hours after which we would bring them back home. Then about 3 PM the other of us would take the cattle out for another similar stint of grazing the right-of-way. Obviously it was a very boring time -- trying to find something to do along a country road for 2 hours while grazing the cows, day after day. It was a job just trying to find a cool place to sit while keeping an eye on the cattle. Sport would be off chasing jackrabbits and quickly grew bored with his part of the job. Killed time vexing dung beetles Some of the more exciting things to do was to spot a dung beetle busily trying to move a cow manure ball of it's crafting to some unknown destination. I would try to vex the little critters, setting up all sorts of roadblocks to tease them. CRUEL? Probably, but at least it killed a couple of hours of drought-induced boredom. One time I had a bowel disturbance while herding the cows. I was a half-mile from home and a toilet! I had no choice but to first check to see "if the coast was clear." Many days there wouldn't be a car in the 2 hours I was on duty. Seeing that the coast was clear, I pulled my overall and shorts down and squatted near the tallest grass I could find. It didn't offer much privacy but I was in a jam! Wouldn't you know it? Roy and Mabel Earnhart chose that moment to come down the road where I was taking care of business. They were upon me before I saw them coming! I figured if I didn't stand up, maybe they wouldn't see me. They not only saw me but honked their horn, waved hysterically and said something like "Peek-a-boooo I seeeeee you"!! I never liked them very well after that. I always felt like I was blushing when I saw them. Another time I came upon a big rattle snake. The snake had caught a baby rabbit and had it all devoured beginning at its tail except the head. The rabbit was being swallowed whole but was struggling -- its eyes were blinking. It was one of the saddest things I ever saw. Life is cruel!!! Kind of a lesson in nature -- herding cows! Reading Harold Bell Bright book while herding cows One time I took a book from our library to read. It was the very popular book of the time, "The Shepherd of the Hills" by Harold Bell Wright. Mom was very good and consistent about giving good books as gifts at Christmas, usually classics of the day that we would have to "grow into." And we did!" I remember being hypnotized the first time -- while herding cows and reading "The Shepherd of the Hills." From that reading and numerous subsequent readings of that same book I became thoroughly acquainted with Old Matt and Aunt Mollie -- old Matt's cabin and the old mill in Mutton Hollow as though they were "family." It wasn't until 30 some years after my first reading of The Shepherd of the Hills that my young family took a summer vacation camping trip to Lake Taneycomo near Branson, Missouri and I finally had the privilege of seeing "The Shepherd of the Hills" outdoor play enacted on the very site of the story. What a thrill to see Old Matt and Aunt Mollie who had kept me mesmerized during my many readings of that favorite book when I was herding our cows and teasing dung beetles back in the Dust Bowl Days of the '30's. P .S. When downsizing and moving to a retirement home a year ago -- I had to dispose of things like our family library. I called my son and he informs me that my daughter has the old doctor's book -- case and books. Perhaps some day in the future, she will be "herding cows" and reading "The Shepherd of the Hills" and enjoy it like I did. I sure hope so! This story was posted on 2009-05-03 14:09:53
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