Growing up on the Stroh place.

According to records in my geneagloy collection and stories handed down, my dad had gone to work as a hired hand for Josie Haas, a widow woman.  My mother had eloped and gone to Chicago with a man named Jack Walden, who was rumored to be a criminal who worked for the "mob".  She was 19 years old at the time.  She escaped in the dark of night and came home to grandma.  Or so the story goes.  

At that time Reuben Bartholomew was the handyman for Josie Haas.  Christine Haas was her daughter.  Christine and Reuben soon fell in love and married.  What followed is history.

 Of course, I was not born yet when that happened, so I can only surmise!  My first memories are of life on the Stroh place outside of Nickerson before I started school.  By coordinating my memories to what I recall I can figure out, I must have been about 6 years old when we left there and moved across town to the Ailmore place.

The big book that shows my genealogy is screwed up and shows my sister Mary married Tom Shea when she was 2 days old.  So I am going to forgo  dates and jump right into my memories.  According to the birth dates that I am sure are correct, I was six years old when Dorothy was born.  I remember momma bringing her home and she was crying all the time.  Harvest was about a week away and when it came time to drive the truck that hauled the wheat to the silo in town, Dorothy went with momma.  She was nursing and there was not much she could do, but take her. 

So the dynamics of the home at that point in time were these:  

Josephine, my half sister from mom's first marriage was 12 years old.

Jake was 10.

I was 6.

Donna was 4.

Mary was 2.

And Dorothy was new.

I did not like her because Momma always babied her.  Of course, she was a baby, but that was not taken into consideration.  My dad worked as a farm hand for a man who owned bottom land named John Britain.  We did not know him very well., but sometimes Dad would take Jake and I to work with him.  There was a slough that ran through the farm and sometimes it would have water flowing through it.  The water fed through to the Arkansas River which was next to the land.  If Jake had been lucky in his foraging he would have enough scraps of wood to build me a boat of sorts to float in the slough.  If not we just poked around to find crawdads.

I recall one time when Donna who must have been about 3 years old at the time poked her finger at a turtle, which latched right on and would not let go.  It was rumored that it would let go when the sun went down.  Donna screamed he head off until John Britain took his pocket knife and severed its head from its neck.  It let go then and I do not think Donna ever did that again.

As I recall, momma had geese and one time John Britain and dad snuck a goose egg into the chicken house and when John's wife found it, she was very excited!  "Oh look at the size of this egg my chicken laid!"  Not sure if anyone ever told her!

I started school on the Stroh place and one time it snowed very deep and Jake Stroh brought his horse to the school so he could bring us kids home to momma.  People used to help people like that.  It was called "helping your neighbor".  It must have been one of the memories that makes me help people today.  It was just "doing the right thing."  Helping your neighbor.

We need more of that today.  We need more kids playing with crawdads in a slough.  We need more walks in the woods and more helping each other and less television time.  I guess even televisions are going by the wayside and being replaced with computers, cell phones and the internet.

I may have outlived my usefulness!

Peace!

South of Nickerson?

When dad worked for John Britain, it seems like the farm was South of Nickerson.  When I look at a map of anywhere, I immediately become directionally challenged.  Seems the only time I was sure which way I was going was when we pulled off of 50 Highway into South Hutch, crossed the river and drove North on Adams to mom's place on Jackson.  When we left Hutch to head west to Colorado, I was fine.  As long as the sun was in my eyes and I knew what time it was, I was good to go.  When we pulled into Pueblo, I was fine in my house, but when I leave, it is God only knows what direction I am headed.

So when I talk about across the river in Nickerson, I am pretty sure it was south of town.  The only time my dad had much to do with me was when he took me, and sometimes Jake, to John Britain's farm when he went to work.  It was not really a farm, it was an acreage that was used to grow crops.  The crop it grew was wheat.  When the rains came, there was a slough that filled with water and ran across the land.  Jake and I liked to play there and he built little wooden boats for me.  Jake was actually 4 years older than me.  I think his job was to keep me amused while dad was busy doing whatever it was he did.  I think it must have been either planting the wheat or getting the tractors and combines in running order for when the harvest came.

The day for going to the farm was always planned well ahead, as was the date of harvest.  I have always been fascinated with the wheat because that was at that time the mainstay of Kansas agriculture.  The fields would turn green in the springtime of the year and everyone watched the progress of the tiny green shoots.  They soon covered the ground and then began to grow upward towards the sun.  The fields were checked regularly for progress and soon the wheat would begin to "head out".   As it began to turn from green to an amber and then to dry, it was checked more often.  Dad would rub a head between his hands to determine several things.  One was how full the head was.  Another was how dry the wheat kernels were.  And then the time came that he and John determined that it was ready and harvest would be in so many days.  And then the work began.

The combine was greased and readied for the field.  Trucks were lined up and every man, woman and child had a job to do.  Dad and John ran combines.  Mother drove a truck.  I remember that one year she had to take one of the younger girls with her (I think it was Mary, but it could have been Dorothy.) She had to work.  Josephine stayed home with us younger kids.  Hell, she was just a kid herself, but that was back in the days when about the only thing to worry about was starving to death.  Jake carried fresh water to the workers.  He had to pump it with a hand pump on a well in the yard.  Somebody brought sandwiches at noon and again at night to keep the job going.  The process was slow and the old trucks crept into town and lined up with the other farm trucks to dump their grain in the elevator.  I never knew how they kept it all straight, but some how it worked.

Harvest is a damn serious business in wheat country.  I think now it has been mostly taken over by custom harvesters.  The farmers just have to be able to predict a year ahead to know when their crop will be ready.  They plant in cycles which vary by just a few days depending on who your harvester is.

Somehow it never left my mind and when I go down in the Spring, I watch to see how far along the wheat crop is.  If I go later in the fall the fields looked like they were raped.  And then winter the fields are barren.  I am not sure, but I think they used to plant in the fall and then graze cattle on it.  Then the wheat would "spool" and make double or triple the crop.  One seed would produce several stalks of wheat in the spring.  Not real sure about that because my job was to play in the dirt and watch the chickens lay eggs.

I have been gone from Kansas over half of my life, but some how I know life is going on without me.  Out here, I watch the chile pepper plants and the workers in the fields bending over in the hot sun, nurturing the plants that are so vital to this area.  Home is where the heart is and sometimes I wonder just where my heart actually lives.

It is a conundrum! 

Oh, the things in my mind.

Click here to listen  I woke up this morning with this song on my mind.  Then I went to facebook and some one had posted the same link.  Small world.  However the context the person had posted the link was far different than the link in my mind.

Like most, actually all, people, I had a father.  I knew him.  Or I thought I did.  A very wise woman once told me, "You never really know anyone, you only know of them.  You know what they let you see."  And so it was with my father.  He was a lot older than my mother, but the wedding picture shows a very happy woman.  My mother was very well liked in high school and married soon after she graduated.  Sadly that marriage did not end well and soon she returned to her roots and married my father.  He was a widower (? but some secrets are best left untold).  He had 3 sons that were past their teens.  They had been put into an orphanage when Dad's first wife died.  2 were adopted, one was not.

Jake was the first born to this union followed by me, Donna, Mary and Dorothy.  We were all as different as night and day.  Jake was the only son and he was a screw up according to my father.  Of course I was perfect, but he never did particularly like me much.  He was of the old school that kids were to be raised and leave home.  Now just look at me!  Wasn't I the cutest thing you ever seen?

Donna was smack in the middle so she had middle child syndrome.  Dorothy was the baby, so she carried those tendencies throughout her life.  Ah, but Mary.  Mary was cute and delicate and everyone loved Mary. Now you must understand that this is being written by me and is my feelings.  I am sure if the other sisters were alive they would dispute my findings, but you must realize that we are all a product of our raising and I never at any time ever in my life ever thought my father cared about me in any way shape or form.  It was as if I existed in a vacuum.  If he was there he ignored me.  He refused to attend my first marriage.  I simply did not exist.

Ah, but he had a weakness.  He liked babies. Shortly after the birth of my first daughter he paid my older sister to sew her a pretty red dress and he bought shoes and a hat to match.  Some where I have that picture of him holding Debra when she was about a year old and wearing that outfit.  That is the only one of my children he ever touched.  I don't recall him ever touching me in anger or love.  I never actually had a conversation with the man.  If I fell and skinned my knee that was my problem. 

And then he died.  By this time I had the 3 girls.  I left them with my sister in law and came home for the funeral.  I remember how very sad that was.  I stood at his open coffin and cried my heart out for a man I never knew.  I do not think a child ever understands their parents and I envy the children who played catch with their fathers.  Or took walks.  Or went fishing.  That is why I always tried to keep my kids and their father in close contact.  He and I had a strained relationship, but he and the kids found a way to make it sort of work.  We sort of shared custody, but that is water under the bridge.

I do remember far in the back of my mind, that dad was a share cropper with a man named John Britan.  John had acreage across the river and sometimes (and I will never know why) I would go with dad to the acreage and John Britan would make me hot chocolate using cocoa, sugar, hot water, and Pet milk.  It was the best stuff in the world!  I have tried to make it but it is never the same.  I also remember that there was a little creek that run through the farm and sometimes it had water in it.  Jake made me a little boat out of a flat piece of wood.  He put a stick through a hole and tied a string to it so it would not get away.

So, as sad as my childhood was, I do have some good memories.  I just forget them sometimes. 

Take time to read this and save your own life!

 Gluten free recipe #1 without nuts.  Looks very good, but pretty crumbly.  Moist.  Very choclatey.  A definite to make again.

Gluten free recipe #2 with nuts.  Very good flavor.  Holds together well.  Freezes and travels well.
  This is the clear winner.





Doing the gluten free thing is always a challenge.  When I do find something I really like I make a mental note and then I forget all about it.  When I want to make it again, I can not remember what book it was in or what the name of it was, or why I even liked it.  So I am beginning to wise up.  I now have a notebook for all the little recipes that I like as well as ones I do not use and why. 
Seems like gluten free is now becoming rampant.  Ever wonder why?  I have my own theory.  Years ago on the farm we raised our own food.  Grain was grown with the seed from last years crop.  Beef was raised from the momma cow and the neighbor's bull.  Vegetable seeds were kept from year to year and if your seed was lost, you borrowed seeds from your neighbor.  We ate cream so thick you could put it on toast with a fork and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, it was to die for.  People were skinny cause the worked hard and ate natural.  My ancestors lived to be 90+ and many hit 100 years of age.  When mom died at 80 years old, they all said, "Oh!  She was so young!  Her whole life ahead of her!"  But that was then, when we grew our own food.  This is now. 
Now we have people like Monsanto helping us.  We plant thier seeds and we grow very big crops.  Used to be dad would check the wheat and pick a head and rub it in the palm of his hand.  He would do this several times in a week.  One day it would "shatter" and it was pronounced "ready to harvest."  What I am telling you is that the wheat we grew then and the wheat we grow now are not the same.  It all becomes "ready" according to when the harvest is wanted to happen, which is incumbent on when the machine that harvests the grain will be there to harvest it.  And what all that means to you and I is that the gluten is not the same and we can not digest it.  Couple that with the fact that farmers are now growing corn that will cause a worm to hemorrage inside and die, and we are in some big trouble.
It is amazing that countries over seas will not allow this stuff to be grown in thier countries and will not allow it to be imported.  We call these countries "third world" and backward.  Get on your Internet and check out cancer rates here and abroad.  Check out obesity here and abroad.  Do not take my word for any of this.  Do your own research.  Remember when cancer was something that happened to some one else?  Autism was a rarity?  Casearean births were not an everyday occurence?  Is the world really changing that fast or are we allowing it to be changed by big corporations and thier need for more money and power?
The good old days were naturally organic.  Now we have to make an effort to find organic and we pay a lot more for it then the crap they are smiling and handing to us with a glass of grape koolaid.  All I am asking is that you take an interest in what your government is doing to you in the name of Corporate Greed.  Sure they are pushing national health care.  We are sure as hell going to need it!