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Aunt Naomi’s Story (Part 41)

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We had a barnyard between the barn and the west side of the house.  Cattle were passed from one pasture to another through the barnyard.  Machinery was stored there and our driveway form the main road (Route H) came right up to the yard gate.  Actually, the front of the house faced North, but that entrance was seldom used.  When the weather was dry the dusty barnyard was a good place to “build roads” for our play cars.  We built roads and cities and drove our cars on the fine dust.  Close to the barn the dirt was filled with little depressions.  These were the homes of the “doddlebug.”  If you put your mouth close to the depression and called doddle, doddle, doddle many times, a bug would come up to greet you.  They are dark gray and about ¾ inch long.

To the north of the house was a small field that was used for pasture, calves and an orchard.  We had pear, apple, and peach trees at one time.  There was also a large area of spearmint growing there.  We used to crush the green leaves to get the flavor out and make the best spearmint tea… both cold and hot.

Aunt Naomi’s Story (Part 36)

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Mother had a way with flowers of all kinds.  We had seven sister roses in an arch over the garden gate and the front gate for a while (the gate on the deck).  She had flowers all around the entire farmhouse and around at least one half the yard fence.  In addition, she had other flower beds and flowering bushes she cared for.  The seven sister roses always meant a lot to me as we were seven sisters at home.  Mother was also one of seven sisters. Mother had daddy build a grape arbor over the old well.  It was wonderful to sit under and eat grapes.  The old well is still there, covered by rocks.  I dropped my 10-cent ring in it one time to see if it would come back up when I pumped the handle.  It did not.

The barn had about 10 stations to chain the cows and keep them in place when being milked.  It had a wide concrete hallway and three divisions for horses.  There was a storage room and the barn loft was always full of sweet smelling hay (except when it was full of tobacco).  At the rear of the barn was a lean to that housed the bull and had another area for cows.  Behind this was the silo.  It was an exciting time when the silo was built.  We enjoyed climbing up the outside.  We had to throw the silage down a chute and then transport it to each cow’s station so they could be fed.

Uncle Vernon’s Story (part 17)

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First Bud went into the service, then later Felix, after the war ended I was drafted on April 19, 1946 and I was a military policeman in Tokyo, Japan at the war crimes trials at the International Military Tribunal Far East. I was discharged on October 4, 1947 from California. [Since] the war [was alread] over, my time in the Army was more like a vacation compared to my life on the farm. The day after I got home I was 21 years old.

In January of 1948 I went to St. Louis to work. While home that was the time that REA was building the electric lines in the area and the right of way had to be cleared. Uncle Henry Heymeyer was in charge for the REA and he couldn’t get anyone to take the contract to clear the right of way, so Oscar Goetz took it with the provision that each family that got electricity would help and that when we worked on one farm we ate lunch on that farm. I think we started clearing on the Ted Englebrecht farm and went past the Bob Bruley creek a way. Oscar Goetz did not keep any money. He was the time keeper. The pay was divided up according to how many hours one worked on the project.

Daddy and I helped Oscar Goetz build a tobacco barn one year. I happened to be home one year from St. Louis when the new silo was built. That was quite an experience. I stayed with Bud and Alma in St. Louis until April15, 1949 when Bud and Alma purchased the Ivan place that we lived at around 1930. I then went into a boarding house where I lived until I got married on February 2, 1952. We then lived on Tower Grove across the street from Shaw’s Garden in south St. Louis.