My parents, Ted Kramer and Veronica Foley, were both born in rural Meeker County. Ted grew up in Forest Prairie Township near Watkins. Veronica was raised in Manannah Township near Watkins.
On Oct. 17, 1933, they were united in marriage. The couple settled one and half miles south of Eden Valley, one-quarter mile south of the farm on which Veronica was raised. What they actually farm was 80 acres of land without any buildings. A small house was built in which the two of them could comfortably live; that was all or maybe more than they could afford. At that time the country was in the middle of the Great Depression.
Just to the south of their parcel stood a large two-story granary, which was a common sight in those days. My father was told he could have the building. Buy how to get it moved onto my father’s property? Money was short, and it would take a few hundred dollars to have a building mover do the job. That’s where Joe Westrup, Sr., came into the picture. He happened to be Veronica’s godfather. “Old Joe,” as he was called, along with his sons, jacked the granary off the ground. Then long logs were rolled under the elevated granary, and the elder Westrup put his “30-60” Rumely Oil Pull to work. The Rumely was a huge tractor that normally powered Old Joe’s Red River Special threshing machine. The great Rumely was hitched to the granary and began pulling it across the logs. It was a tedious process, as each few feet the log coming out from under the back of the granary had to be carried around to the front and used again. Moving the building a quarter mile was a laborious task.
Because Ted wanted the building to face east and west (the same way it originally stood), a huge 180 degree turn was made. This added to the already difficult job, as the building wasn’t always sitting squarely on the poles. Going downhill at one point, the granary went too fast for the poles to keep up, and completely rolled off. Thus, it had to be jacked up again, and the process continued.
Finally, arriving where the granary was to permanently stand, Ted saw that it wasn’t a very big building to be used as a barn. But he had a solution. Frank X. Nistler’s farmstead was about a mile and a half southwest of the Kramer farm. (Nistler’s farm is now owned by Mark and Linda Ruhland). Ted had become acquanited with Frank as children as both were relatives of John R. Vossen.
Frank was moving off the farm. He had built a large tobacco shed that was without a foundation, so it was moveable. Ted and Frank struck a deal. Frank and his brothers took the tobacco shed apart, and hauled it to the Kramer farm. Then the parts were used to build a large lean-to on two sides of the granary. This more than doubled the size of the structure. Win-win. Frank was able to sell his building that he had no use for, and Ted had a low-cost, yet adequate barn.
Thirty-three years later, long after the new barn had been built in 1941, the lean-to was taken down from the granary, and parts of what was once Frank’s old tobacco shed were once again used to create a lean-to for the new barn. That lean-to still stands today.
Leonard Nistler, younger brother of Frank, is still alive and vividly remembers walking to school every day and observing all that had happened. His reflection of the Depression was “Everyone did what they had to just to survive.”