This story starts out in the northeast corner of Iowa. There are two towns that play a prominent role. One is a little rural town of Freeport.My father was born of Norwegian parents. They were born in Norway and came to this country and settled. His parents were Andreas and Paulina Anderson. They had three children, two sons and one daughter. The boys were Andrew and Bennie,and the girl was named Lily. Andreas, my grandfather died when my father Bennie was nine years of age.
That meant my father had to quit school and go to work. He only had a third grade education, but you would never know it. He had a good vocabulary and good penmanship even though he was left handed. He wrote and ate with his left hand and did just about everything else with either his right or left hand. My father worked on the farm and had a partner.
My mother's parents were what you'd call American. They were both born and raised in the states. My grandfather, Joseph Miller, was a mixture of several nationaliaties,while my grandmother Mary was of Irish descent. Her maiden name was Mary Magdalene Monihan which is as Irish as you can get. They had six children, Louella, Cornelia,Blanche, Hazel,Garfield (known to us as Buzz),Maybelle and Lola. My aunts and uncle are all gone now, but I correspond by e-mail with my cousin Beverly. Beverly is my Aunt Hazel's only child.
They lived in Decorah,where my grandpa worked for a draying company. They did the same thing that trucks do now. They would meet the trains and get the freight and deliver it to the stores.
I don't recall how my dad, Bennie, met my mother Blanche.I believe it was at a dance and there are no records of how long they dated. But they got married on a dare on December 29, 1920. A year later my oldest sister was born. She was named Pauline Melvina after my father's mother. When Pauline was a year and a half old, my parents bought a forty acre farm in central Wisconsin. It was located between the little towns of Jump River and Sheldon. They moved there in May of 1923, the spring before I was born. I believe it was the 19th of the month and believe it or not it snowed that day.
The farm they bought had no buildings on it so they lived in a house on a piece of property about a half mile away which was always known to us kids as the Smith place. They lived in that house until some time after I was born. I don't remember how long it took to build the house on our farm. That September I was born 2 months prematurely and weighed in at 2 and 1/2 pounds. My bed was a cigar box and my incubator was on the oven door of the ktchen stove. Of course, I don't remember all this but I am telling it as I remember it was told to me.
The house that was erected on the property that my parents had bought was little more than what is known as a tar-paper shack. The house was built to be used as the chicken house. My parents planned to replace that when they could afford it. But that day never came. You see this was just before and during the depression of 1929. So we lived in that house as long as I lived at home. It was our home and we had many happy times there even though they weren't all pleasant. By that, I mean there was a lot of work to be done. They say a woman's work is never done--well neither is a farmers.
The house was very simple, mainly one room upstairs and one down. The downstairs was one room with a divider between the two rooms. The divider was two by fours nailed to two others. Like it would be if you were adding wallboard. So it was all open, I can remember standing between those two by fours and being able to watch what was going on in the kitchen and living room. We could keep it warmer that way as we would have the heat from the kitcen stove and the wood stove. Of course, in summer it wasn't so good as the cook stove that we needed for cooking also added more heat to the rooms, both upstairs and downstairs.
I don't remember too much of my younger days before I went to school. I know my older sister always tells about the time we had a bear come up and look in our kitchen window. She thinks I should re- member it, but I just remember everyone talking about it. Our neighbor came and shot it. Maybe that is why I always dreamed about bears when I was younger. I believe there was a disagreement as to who should have the bear skin. Kinda seems like the neighbor got it as I don't remember of ever seeing it around our house. Note that I am not stating any of these things as fact. I could be off on my dates a few months.
--To be continued--
