It’s been a while since I posted one of these, so you might want to read some of the previous installments of Uncle Vernon’s Story to get back up to speed. –Lloyd Jr.
Relius Beck got or had some kind of political job in Jefferson City and when he lost it, he came back to his farm so we moved to Schubert, Missouri. We moved on March 15, 1933. I remember that day very well. Hink Beck, Pete Sommerer and Daddy each took a truck load of stuff.
The Schubert house was like living in a high-rent district. We were on a road for the first time in our life; had electricity; lived near a store, church and school. We had electricity in the barn, a 2-car garage with electricity, a windmill, etc. The contract on the first five years was that of a share cropper. The owner got one third of all crops. After that we paid $120 per year cash for rent for the 9-room house, barn, garage, smoke house, chicken house, outhouse, and windmill.
We rented two apartments out, one for $4.00 per month and one for $5.00, I think. One of our tenants later became the bus driver for our school. Later his father rented the same room. After that, he moved into one of Charlie Wiflort’s chicken houses.
I finished second grade at St. John’s Schubert school, then the third grade. The pastor, K.F. Schrader, was such a poor teacher that they sent us to Forest Hill School, and I was started in the third grade over again. Here are some of the things we did then to make a living: pick and sell gooseberries, blackberries, mulberries, walnuts and hickory nuts. We’d dig and sell sassafras roots in the spring (February and March). We raised and sold potatoes, corn, peas, sweet potatoes, carrots, radishes, turnips, cabbage, lima beans (shelled), tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and rhubarb. Mom would make cottage cheese, cooked cheese, butter, butter milk and cream. We raised 1100 chickens that we sold door to door in Jefferson City. They had to be dressed on Friday night to take to Jefferson City on Saturday in the morning. We also sold eggs. Mom would bake bread, cookies and coffee cake. One time we purchased one-half ton of flour (10 100lb sacks) for the bread-making. We purchased skimmed or separated milk from three or four neighbors to make cooked cheese out of it.
When the new dormitories were built at Algoa farm, Daddy worked on the project, WPA. Bud and Felix were paper boys on Sunday at Schubert. They sold the St. Louis Post, the Globe Democrat and the Jefferson City News Tribune newspapers.