Born and raised on the farm

By Rhea Eblen of Belgrade

My mom and dad were married in the 1930s. I don’t know how they met. After they were dead, I asked my mom’s sister how my mom and dad met.

“Why didn’t you ask them when they were alive?” she said.

My mom died when I was eight or nine – couldn’t ask her. My dad worked so hard, doing his best to raise a daughter all alone. Then I was growing up and not interested at the time.

I knew my mom was raised on a farm. It was in Iowa. They moved two or three times and ended up by Hancock, Minn.

My dad was born and raised on an 80-acre farm northwest of Morris. Hancock was a town east of Morris nine or 10 miles.

My mom had five brothers and three sisters. One of her brothers was Wayne. He loved to hunt and fish. Another was Bernard, a farmer.

My dad had three brothers and two sisters. His dad came from Denmark. His mom was 20 years younger. So, she lost him when the kids were younger and she raised them by herself. My dad was Victor. His brothers were Edwin, a farmer; Paul worked out; then the youngest was Emil. Emil loved to hunt and fish. He met mom’s brother, Wayne, and they became best friends their whole lives.

So, I suppose that was how my mom and dad got to meet each other.

While my mom was alive, we spent much time near Hancock. Her mother was an artist and painted mostly nature pictures – also deer, horses, desert scenes, forest scenes, etc. She did paint an airplane picture once that my grandson has. Each of my mom’s brothers and sisters had several pictures. My grandma had beautiful flower gardens all over their yard. My mom and her sister on the farm had beautiful gardens too.

My mom and dad married. They lived in a house owned by my dad’s uncle, in town. My dad became a mechanic, fixing trucks and farm machinery.

My mom’s sister married a man named Don. He fixed cars and repaired damaged cars. So both men thought they should get houses and buy a garage together. That takes money, so the two of them moved to Idaho to build ships.

Both sisters were upset. My mom moved back with her parents while my dad was gone.

I wasn’t born then so there is a break in time while both men made money, came home, bought homes, and built a big garage together. Don fixed cars and my dad started selling farm machinery in addition to fixing tractors and trucks.

My aunt had three boys and my mom had me. My aunt and husband, Don, built a trailer court and also sold house trailers, in addition to the garage work.

So now you have my background – I will start with me.

My first memory was sitting on my mom in the backyard of our house playing with mom’s Rat Terrier dog, Mickey. It started thundering and we went into the house.

My second memory was mom cutting up an orange for me. Her hands were turning red and I asked her why. She was allergic to oranges. I asked her why she peeled it for me and she said, “Because I love you.” I asked her about the round scar on her arm – a vaccination. My mom sewed all my clothes and clothes for herself and other ladies. She also sewed drapes for houses. She washed clothes on Mondays and ironed on Tuesdays. We had a cistern in our basement that held the rainwater. Under the faucet was a bucket with bloody rags. I now know what they were. Mom made her own soap, was a real good cook, had a washing machine in the basement, and a clothes line down there too, for when the weather was bad.

Our house was on a corner lot in town, six blocks from Main Street. Dirt streets. When it rained, my friends and I stood in the soft mud of the puddles and smashed it between our toes – fun! We had a big tree across the street that we climbed and played in.

Across the street from our house was a farmhouse. Across from our back alley was their barn. It burned one summer. They never built another. My friends lived in the farmhouse. Their mom was cooking chicken in a pressure cooker for supper. It blew up and chicken was all over the ceiling.

My dad sometimes worked late and stopped at the bar. When he came home late he would sit by the kitchen sink. My mom would wash his face, hands, and arms and feed him supper.

I sometimes would walk to dad’s garage, about 10 blocks. He had a younger man come in for parts. He looked like Andy Murphy, a movie star. I would hold on to his arm and he would swing me around.

Mom was the bookkeeper for the garage. My mom and her sister, Phylis, decided to raise Pekingese dogs. My mom had a female and Phylis had the male on the farm. He killed her chickens and he came to live with us too. They both were sold. No more dogs.

My dad and Don would go out to the dump ground and shoot rats. My dad dug graves by hand for extra money. My dad could fix any farm machinery. His younger brother, Emil, farmed. My mom’s younger brother, Web, survived the war, came home and was killed young in a cornpicker. My dad had to identify him. Then my mom died. She lived in an iron lung. Then Don died.