The FARM BOY that walked many paths

Dad had been in the hospital now for two weeks and I had always helped with the cows. I probable couldn’t do much back them but I fed them and carried milk pails. I was always around the barn when dad was milking and or working. Uncle Kenny did chores until a hired man was found while dad was in the hospital. It was such a lonely time without dad and I was told I would start doing chores way to early in the afternoon as if this would bring dad back home mother said. The hired man was supposed to have said I was able tell him he did all of the chores correctly as he was learning the work load. It was many years later that I heard that the hired man was a student at the Ag school in Morris from Underwood, Minnesota. His name was John Larson no relation.

I remember trying to convince Grandma Larson to take me to town to buy something for my Dad. Riding to Morris from the school in Cyrus I asked the pastor if dad had died. He didn’t say a word. We got to the hospital and we went inside and Grandma Larson took me aside and told me my dad had died this morning. I am not sure that a 6 year old can comprehend this. I remember asking the pastor if my dad had died but what does this mean to a 6 year old.

I wanted to see my dad and again denied. My next memories are at the funeral and it was Glen Hellberg a neighbor talking to me at the funeral. Glen was older and the only one that I remember talking to me. I can still feel being so small walking around all these people and they were so big. I still sense that I was walking around and around and finding nobody. I still remember Glen saying how sad he was.

I think it was the next year Mother had a big birthday party for me. Phillip. Koehntop, Barry and Edwin Gades, Glen Hellberg, Roger Strand, Raymond Strand, Donny and Jerry Jesness were all there. The big thing back then was to be caught and have a birthday spanking and a pinch to grow an inch, which the guest had fun doing. I remember being able to run fast enough for getting away from everybody but Glen. I think it was Ruth Ann Stark and Rhoda her mother were over to help with the party. I had ran into the house to get a drink and Rhoda said I should put these aluminum pie pan in my shorts to protect my behind from the spanking. That didn’t work that well so I went outside and it was a race again and finally I was caught by Glen.

I was told by mother that Rhoda came to the rescue and she said Rhoda had brought two boxes of pop sickles and gave one to everyone and then we were told to go and wash up and the birthday cake would be ready soon. I believed this would be 1954. Rhoda was a close friend of mothers and they did a lot together.

One of the winters during this time we had record snowfall and we have a picture of railroad equipment cutting through a snow bank that was as high as our trees. I believe there is a picture someplace showing the equipment.

Christine Larson, a very distant relative came to live with mother after dad had past away. This was also the time I was moved to Grandma Larson’s to live. Many years later I found out that mother was not fond of this move but was kind of forced into the arrangement.

In those days most farms had 200-500 chickens for income. The term that comes to mind that would describe the process as egg money. Christine a lady that stayed with mother after Dad passed away, I was told she was very hard worker and she took care of the chickens for Mother. Grandma Larson had chickens too and was in charge of them at the farm were I stayed. I would do the picking of the eggs and feed the chickens for her as part of my chores.

There was a man from Kensington that would come to the farms and pick up the cases of eggs two times a week. He would also be our supplier of butter. His coming to the farm was a big event. I don’t remember seeing anyone other than him come to the farm during a whole week. If I remember correctly we would go to town every other week to shop.

Grandma Larson had relatives in Morris, Herman and Sophie Morken; I believe Herman was Grandma Larson’s uncle. Uncle Kenny would bring us to the Morkens. We would play Canasta until Kenny would come and get us.

The chores and things to do were never ending. At the time I was too young to understand that Grandma needed more help. I would run the ringer washer and hang the clothes on the lines from the house to the garage every Monday. I dreaded this chore as I would rather be driving the tractor. I was usually done by noon and would get to drive the tractor that pulled the baler. This was an Allis Chalmers WD. This tractor had a hand clutch so I could run the tractor because I was too small to use the foot clutch. Uncle Kenny would get the tractor, baler and wagon ready and I would pull in the clutch and run the throttle as well as steer. The windrows were quite big so we were going fairly slowly and I remember getting hollered at to do things right but it didn’t take long to be pretty good at it. We always had a lot of hay so I had many days of this and became very good at driving the tractor for baling. I probable started doing this at 8 or 9 years old. I was driving for baling, picking rocks, and grain wagons those first years.

Blog 3 : www.loveforbookwriting.com, www.myovercoat.com author conrad larson 7/20/09 Boomertweet on twitter