The Middle Years of a 90-Year-Old's Life

Dad has always seemed old to me since he was 41-years-old by the time I came along.

So when we celebrated his Christmas Eve birthday a couple weeks ago, his white hair and 90 candles made me realize that now he really is old.

A family picture before me. Standing man: a German foreign exchange student.

What follows catalogs Dad's mid-life years as a 40-50-60-year-old when he raised his last child (me) and began his role as a father-in-law and a grandpa. These are some of the advancements and changes a middle-aged farmer from east central South Dakota experienced from 1954 to 1984.

For Dad's younger years, read the earlier post, First 30 years of My Dad's 90-Year-Old Life. 


Part II: The Next 30 Years


Developments on the Farm: 1954-1964, Decade #4
TV Enters the Home 

After Mom and Dad poured the cement foundation for a granary all by themselves, they weren’t quite sure what to do next until neighbor Josh Hofer came along and offered to help. They paid him a dollar an hour in 1954. When the job was done, Josh earned a $500 bonus.

the granary: the building with a smile, according to my nieces who lived nearby

 

In 1957, a telephone company installed phone lines, quite different from the farmer's lines I wrote about last time. A party line consisted of ten homes per line. Each home had a different ring, so if you wanted to eavesdrop, quietly lift the receiver.

Also in that year, Dad purchased the family's first TV, a Silvertone. Before that, Uncle Jr. was the first one with a television. "The picture was just white fuzz up at Jr.'s," Dad said. "By the time we got ours, the reception was better."

Is that a Silvertone TV behind me one Christmas? (I have stitches by my eye, long story)

In this decade, Dad also bought two 560 International tractors, two cultivators, and two five bottom plows. The landscape of the farm changed in 1963 when two white concrete silos were constructed.

Not long after my Grandma Elizabeth's death in '55 (I wrote about her in Namesake), neighbor Dave T. Decker sold his farm to Dad in 1958. This farm, with one white silo, was a little over a mile away from the main place and would eventually be my brother's home with his wife and five children, the nieces and nephews with whom I grew up.

Elliott's farm in 2011 ~ currently only a sheep barn, not pictured above, remains

Growing Family: 1964-1974, Decade #5

Lots of Lambs and Hogs ~ in other words, a ton of work

A highlight of this decade was witnessing the 1969 moon landing. The folks saw it on TV with Warren and Mary G Wipf while stopping to eat at a truck stop in Mitchell. Mary G was Mom's cousin whom I wrote about here.

The Marken family moved onto the other farm as Dad's hired help, and Dad began raising sheep. Before I was born, the Marken's left, so Dad hired Roy Horsley. Roy raised sheep too, so this was a big help. Dad recalled driving with him all the way to Hutchinson, Kansas, to purchase more sheep. The barn on the second farm was full of them. So full, that they took turns pulling all-nighters to keep an eye on them. 

Sheep, when born, need to be in a small pen with the mother. They can't mingle like calves do, Dad said. They must be given time to adjust. Out of room in the main barn, the men had to shuffle pens around inside and out. It was such a struggle that Roy said he wouldn't go through another lambing season like that. So, not wanting to lose an expert sheep farmer, my progressive father built another barn.

the sheep barn on Elliott's yard in 2011

A problem arose one time when it was time to sheer the sheep. Cold weather arrived, and the heat of the sheep rose to the frosty roof consisting of only plywood with no shingles. The dripping from the roof made the sheep too wet to sheer. Dad rounded up all the Nipco heaters he could find from the neighbors. He hung them from the rafters to dry off the critters, so the scheduled sheep sheering day could proceed.

I barely remember those sheep days. I'd fall asleep on an old couch in the barn after I had been told to get off the bus at Horsley's because everyone was over there tending to the lambs. Ironically, as I was working on this post, Roy passed away. Click here for his obituary. 

here I am bottle-feeding some lambs

In July of 1970, a few days after I turned 4-years-old, the family took their first commercial airplane trip. It was to Detroit for my brother Elliott's wedding. Read Curlers, a Bra, and an Airplane Ride for details about that wedding and others. Elliott eventually moved back to farm with Dad about the time the Horsleys moved back to Wessington Springs, Roy's hometown.

But before Roy left, Dad got into hogs, since Roy was a hog man too. A hog farrowing barn was built, and they'd planned to furrow four times a year. "The first time we weened 400 pigs," Dad said. I wrote about this building here in my Why I Hate Birds series last summer. But by the time Elliott returned to South Dakota to farm with Dad, the building had been sanitized and locked up. He was done with hogs—for now.

In 1973 and 1974, a slick salesman talked Dad into putting up two blue Harvestores with an automated feeding system. I enjoyed the smell of silage and would pretend I was an assembly line worker at McDonald's—only I'd be serving cattle. These blue tubes forever changed the landscape of the farm. Dad now says, "I would have fared very well without that purchase."

the silos and the Harvestores

Trying Times: 1974-1984, Decade #6
Drought & Debt

Had the worst crop in 1976. Dad suffered from migraine headaches.

Pastures were bare. One time he closed off the township road and put a up a "disaster area" sign so the cattle could graze the ditches. By the end of the day, those were bare too.

These are the years in which I grew up.

Dad ended up selling all the cattle. Mom stood at the screen door and cried as the semi trucks drove off with the livestock. But like all farmers, Dad still had hope. Hope for rain, for a crop, for an income.

In retrospect, Dad said he wished he would have kept and cows and sold the feeder cattle, but he followed the predictions that the following year was going to be dry too. It wasn't. The grass grew three feet tall. 

Elliott kept asking Dad, "When you gonna get back into hogs?" Dad said a few days would go by and his son would again ask, "Ever gonna get back to raising hogs?"

And boy did they. Eventually, a larger hog confinement operation was constructed. It included a cage room, a nursery, and a finishing house. My cousin Wilmer Kleinsasser (whom I wrote about here and here), was hired on as a farmhand, and he hauled the pork to Huron for slaughter. I always thought it was rather sad that some hogs never saw the light of day until that fateful ride. Those hogs help pay for my college education.
 

hog barns in 2011, dormant again

Another building came about after my brother-in-law Rick helped Dad and Elliott clear the spot where the Butler Building, a machine shed, was to be located. I loved that building, even though birds sometimes got in, for it was my indoor basketball court—when Dad finally followed through on a promise to get me one. He hired Gene McMillian in the early 80's to create the movable goal—and not the kind that just changed the height of the hoop. The entire thing could be moved, inside or out. It cost $300.

My dad, always the elaborate one. He never does things small-scale.

Despite the stress of the farm, Dad's always been a man of progress and dreams. Farming is a gamble. And the entire family was a part of the risk. A family, that by now, included quite a few grandchildren.

60-years-old ~ behind him is the room of his birth

Do you have relatives like my dad? Any risk takers among your ancestors? Any big dreamers? Maybe you possess those traits and would like to share.

Writer's Note: In the next post, Old Age Creeps In: Decades 7, 8, and 9.

First 30 Years of My Dad's 90-Year-Old Life

Dad turned 90-years-old on Christmas Eve. He is healthy, independent, and lives in the house in which he was born.

I was surprised he did not want to dispense advice, but like many of his age group, The Greatest Generation as fellow South Dakotan Tom Brokaw has dubbed them, Dad chose to reminisce.

What follows are some of the technological changes a farm boy from east central South Dakota experienced from 1924 to 2014. 

Part I: The First 30 Years 

Waldo ~ in his tweens

Farmers' Line: 1924-1934, Decade #1 
Primitive Living

In the 1930s, farmers formed groups and installed telephone lines. A household would agree to be a switchboard. My Uncle Johnny's parents and Mom's cousin Mary G's family were switchboard centers. If someone called outside the group, the switchboard would make the connection to the other group and could also listen in. That's how the community got news.

Dad told the story of a young girl telephoning that she couldn't find anymore cow chips. The woman on the other end of the line responded in German saying, "Dear girl, nothing to eat. Nothing to poop." It was the Dirty 30s, and cow chips were burned for heat. 

Eventually, those phone lines deteriorated, and the farmers didn't have the money to maintain or repair them. It would not be until 1957 that the rural landline telephone system was installed.

a teenage Waldo

Farming with Machines: 1934-1944, Decade #2
Rabbit Hunting when Pearl Harbor Attacked in 1941

After most of the horses died of sleeping sickness, Dad's father did not have enough horses left to pull the binder. So he traded all but two horses in and spent $200 to purchase an F-12 Farmall tractor with steel wheels that could only go four mph back in 1935. This tractor could pull an eight-foot disc and a two bottom plow. Grandpa used the remaining team of horses to make hay.

Six years later, Grandpa Pete traded in that tractor for a rubber-tired H-Farmall vehicle that could travel 15 mph and pull a three bottom plow. To finance this $900 tractor, he made payments along with the trade-in.

Also in 1941, Grandpa purchased a five-foot Allis Chalmers combine. This revolutionized the family farm, for now they could harvest without a thrashing crew. Stories about harvest work before the combine belong in another post.

Speaking of thrashing crews, seems Uncle Johnny and neighbor Elmer Wipf hopped on a train to Minnesota. They didn’t buy a ticket or sit in seats. They rode hanging onto the outside of the train or maybe even on top of it. After they arrived, they earned a dollar a day shocking bundles on a thrashing crew. This happened in '33 or '34, according to Dad, who heard it from Uncle Johnny—who was, by the way, a story teller.

high school graduation picture

Humbling Beginnings: 1944-1954, Decade #3
Young Adulthood 

Rural areas were still without electricity; however, they knew it was coming some time, so to prepare, the farm was wired and a light plant was placed in the garage in 1947. A little motor with a gas engine made the electricity. They had lights, but not much use for appliances until that year or the next when Aunt Mary and Uncle Jr. went to Chicago to purchase a truck and came home with a gift. A toaster. 

Mom & Dad

Before indoor plumbing, they did have a bathtub that was supplied with hot water from the cook stove that was heated with wood, cobs, cow patties, or whatever they could find.

"There was always a supply of warm water on the side of the stove," Dad said. "Just reach in with the dipper." 

Indoor plumbing didn't exist in the home yet because they couldn’t get water pressure until a pump was installed, and that required electricity. Once that convenience came to fruition, they went to Sears to pick out a plumbing package of a toilet, sink, and tub. Dad's recollection of this event was funny.

"Sears then sent out two old codgers," he said. "They took two suitcases down into the cellar, then went back out and returned with the cast iron pipes to install. I couldn't figure out what they had in those suitcases." After some snooping around, Dad found beer inside.

With indoor plumbing came the need for a septic tank and sewer tiles. Young people from the church helped. One such youngster was Dad’s cousin's son, Roger Wollman. He later became a South Dakota Supreme Court Justice and now sits on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. He too, had a humble beginning.
 

Dad & Mom with Elliott & Priscilla

Writer's Note: Part II, years 40 through 60, coming in the next post.


Any similarities between my dad's stories and your ancestor's? What was their first household appliance? Where were they when Pearl Harbor was attacked?