Chapter 5: Birthplace

I was born near the town of Kanawha in north central Iowa in the year 1928.  Since that date in history we have traversed this earthly landscape forward approximately 65 years.  It is interesting--and surprising to me--that if we could instead travel backward in time an equal number of years we would find ourselves in the very heart of the Civil War years when Abraham Lincoln was President.  North central Iowa during the Civil war in the 1860's was a vast, flat plain with lush prairie grass interrupted by occasional groves of trees located near lakes or streams.  It would not have been scenic in the eyes of most beholders, but if you had dug down below the thick grass, you would have seen a couple of feet of black, loose soil with immense potential for productive farming.

With the coming of railroad lines to this part of the country in the l870's, settlers began moving in.  By virtue of the Homestead Act passed by the United States Congress in 1862, these settlers were able to acquire for practically nothing 160 acre plots of this land, one half mile by one half mile square.  Many of these settlers were immigrants from the northern European countries.  Especially prevalent in north central Iowa in Hancock and Wright counties were the Germans and Norwegians, although there was a sprinkling of transplanted Americans of Irish and English descent as well.

As described elsewhere, the particular 160 acre farm that would become my birthplace, had been settled first by my grandparents in 1883.  

My father and all his brothers and sisters were born there, as were my own brothers and sister.  My father took over the farm in 1916 at the time he married my mother.  I came along 12 years and 10 months later.

            
The farm was two miles north and three miles west of the town of Kanawha.  Actually, Kanawha itself came into being about 15 years after my grandparents had opened the farm.  The town was plotted out and established in 1898 at a point along the Minneapolis and St. Louis railroad line and quite near the small Otter Creek which ran somewhat parallel to its main street and about a half mile west of it.

            
The farm buildings were located in the extreme northwest corner of the farm, placed at that location probably because there was a flowing well there which provided a constant source of water, summer and winter, and without the need of a pump.  This "flow" as we called it, was roughly equivalent to a block from where our house was located up on the crest of a small slope south and east of the flow.  Beyond the flow to the west, but mainly north, was a large grove of several hundred trees, which I presume had been there prior to the farm being opened.

            

A stone's throw to the west of the grove and not part of our property was a creek which we called "the crick."  

The creek flowed through an area of permanent pasture land just west of our property.  Cattle would often graze there.  About a half mile south the railroad from Kanawha to Denhart crossed over the creek on a bridge.  Several times a week we could watch the train puffing along on its route to Kanawha or Denhart and points east or west.

           
 Denhart was a small village one mile west of our farm with a population at that time of possibly 50 to 100 people.  The big grain storage elevator was the most prominent feature of the village and was reputed to be the tallest one in northern Iowa at the time.  Denhart also boasted a grocery store where candy could be purchased, as well as a blacksmith shop where horses were shoed and metal objects repaired.  The Basler brothers also hailed from Denhart and would become locally famous for their successes in the State Golden Gloves boxing tournaments.  Vance Basler went on to win it one year.

            

Many hours were spent playing in the grove and wading in the creek.  It was in the grove, I remember, that I acquired the technique of whistling and subsequently drove my family crazy for a few days perfecting the art.  

It was at the creek that I learned to love the water, not for boating, or fishing, or even for swimming, but for its own sake.  Mom would sometimes take sister Ruth and me swimming in the creek when the water was at a decent level.  Now, lest you get the idea that we went skinny-dipping, I want you to know that we had one-piece bathing suits that covered the whole torso.  Ruth's was red and mine was blue.  They had big spaces at the top on each side for our arms to fit through, and additional big spaces just below them in case one had an extra set of arms.   Skinny dipping, by the way, a sport engaged in mostly by young males, would come at a later age in the gravel pits and swimming holes of which there were several located in the general vicinity. 

            
To reach the house from the road running east-west along the north side of our farm, one would have to enter a lane which ran along the east side of the grove.  It was a long lane.  In the winter it would often be snowed in, and in the spring, deep with mud.  At the end of the lane and across the road lived the Omvigs, people of Norwegian descent.  They were good people, helpful, and made good neighbors even though Abel, the father, sometimes drank too much; and they didn't attend their Lutheran church very regularly.  Ruth and I often played with their girls who, although several years older, were only too eager to teach us school.  One day we went there to play and the Omvigs were gone, but since people rarely locked their houses when they went away, Ruth and I went in the house anyway, proceeded upstairs and began to play school by ourselves.  It felt strange and silent in the house, like we shouldn't be there, and we left after coloring just a few pictures.  Later, the Omvigs wondered who had been in their house and had played with their school materials.

The house in which I was born, was by modern standards, a shack, having a kitchen, living room, the parental bedroom (my birthplace), washroom-pantry and entrance porch on the first floor; and two bedrooms and a hallway on the second floor.  

The upstairs bedrooms, without the benefit of insulation, air conditioning or even fans, were stifling hot in the summer and frigid in the winter.  But a lot of living and learning went on in that house.  As very small children Ruth and I would often crawl into bed with our parents in the early morning and ask questions--questions about  whether sheep came from clouds, about death, about bugs and  babies, and where God came from.  My dad seemed to be the one who did most of the responding, but when the questions became too philosophical--or perhaps, too ridiculous--he would call a halt:  "You ask too many questions."

            

The kitchen also served as our dining room.  Here we had our meals and my dad would pray before and after each meal and my mother would usually read the Bible.  

Pa had difficulty with a lot of the words and would often spell them out orally before attempting to pronounce them.  Sometimes the Story Bible was read and when it was we learned something.  But when the Bible itself was read we were expected merely to remain respectfully silent.  Reverence.  That was intended to be the most important part of our education; understanding was strictly secondary.  Reverence of the kind demanded, was an almost impossible challenge, however, to fidgety little bodies seated around a table; and the temptation to smile across the table, snicker and laugh was virtually irrepressible, especially when cousins or other guests were present.  But my dad, while understanding of our frailty in the above situations, was nevertheless intent upon successfully teaching reverence in the more weighty matters where it might be threatened.  On one occasion--maybe it was a birthday--I had just received a little red car and was pushing it back and forth on the table, extending that activity from the meal time into the Bible-reading time.  My dad said firmly, "Now, stop that."  I did and withdrew my hand.  But then, I thought it would do no harm to be prepared to resume that activity immediately after the reading and prayer, so I stealthily placed my hand back on the toy.  "Whomp."  His big hand slapped my little face and sent me into an outburst of extended and convulsive bawling.  He hadn't hurt my face so much as my feelings by totally misinterpreting as disobedience my expedient and innocent move. I don't know whether I ever established my innocence on that issue, or whether I learned any real reverence for God from it, but I did learn to be conservative when Pa said "Stop it."  And, in some sort of way, I probably also learned that big people considered the Bible to be very important, not to be trifled with.

            

A lot of good times were spent in the living room.  Here is where visitors (we called them "company") would gather.  

We already had a radio in those days, a rectangular box with some knobs on it and a large round speaker set to the side or on top of the box.  I remember little about the radio except that the first popular songs in my memory were heard on that radio.  They were: "Red Sails in the Sunset" and "The Old Spinning Wheel."  More used, and sometimes abused, was the old Edison phonograph, a truly amazing machine which had cylindrical records over which a needle traversed and mysterious, squawky voices, usually in music, could be heard.  There were songs from the Civil War, like "Just Before the Battle, Mother," and songs from the World War: "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again."  But our all-time favorite was "The Preacher and the Bear."  This song described the plight of a preacher who had encountered a bear in the woods, prompting him to climb a tree for safety and to send a petition heavenward which ended in the classic words: "Oh, Lord, if you can't help me, for goodness sake don't help that bear."  My parents were a bit embarrassed when Ruth and I played that record for Reverend Plesscher on one of his visits to our home.  Also exciting was the stereo optiscope, a device which enabled us to view pictures in life-like three dimension.  We spent hours upon hours going through a rather large collection of those photos covering among other things many pictures taken of battles and camps in the World War.

Underneath the kitchen was an unlighted and windowless cellar which was accessed from the outside in back of the house.  Potatoes and canned fruit were kept there and it served also as a refuge when severe storms would arise.  Drinking water was obtained from the flow, but there was a large cistern near the entrance to the storm cellar which caught and stored runoff rainwater from the roof.  This soft water was pumped by hand into our washroom and used for laundry and for washing our hands.

            
Our backyard was perhaps a quarter acre in size and was lined by box elder trees and a fence on the south, and a fence on the east.  On the east, a respectful distance from the house and opposite the prevailing winds, was also the outhouse, better known by us, but for unknown reasons, as the "privvy."  Northward and eastward of the house was a grape arbor.  For some reason I associate my first discussion of death with the grape arbor.  It was here that Ruth and I in our tender years first contemplated the rude and awesome realization that we would not live forever but would someday have to die.  How this somber thought was introduced into our young lives at that time I do not know.

            
Straight north of the house were a lilac bush and a snowball bush, and somewhere there are pictures to prove it since they formed a favorite background for my mother's photographic endeavors with the old Kodak box camera.  The lawn had grass and other green stuff on it, including little white daisy-like flowers.  Somewhere there is a picture to prove that too, showing all four of us children sitting among the grass and daisies during sweetcorn-canning time.  I have no recollection of a lawn mower ever being used on the backyard (we didn't even refer to it as a lawn).  Some farmers kept sheep to keep the lawn trimmed.  Probably the large hay mower was used on ours occasionally to keep the growth manageable.

            

The big red barn where the horses were kept, the cows milked, and the hay stored, was down the slope to the west and south of the house. 

The barnyard extended northward and allowed the animals to access the stock water tank which was constantly being filled by the flow.  This area was also often muddy because of the constant flow of water.

            
Other lesser buildings on the farm included a hog house and a chicken house south and west of the house quite near the barn, a corncrib west and north of the house, and a machine shed north of the house next to the lane about half way to the road. North of the machine shed and across the lane from the grove was an apple orchard where many peaceful hours were spent in the summer months munching on and digesting apples in various stages of ripeness.

            

A farm is in many ways an ideal setting for a boy to be introduced to the world, to life and to family.  

Where else does one have the opportunity to see so much of life and nature in one's own backyard?  Where else can a child better learn about work and responsibility?  Where could one better experience relationships with others in such a natural context?  And, where else would one be able to find the right blend of activity and solitude to discover and reflect on what life is all about?  It is interesting to speculate how much my life was shaped by the farm environment.  Would I have been a significantly different person had I been born and reared in a large city or in suburbia?  We don't have the luxury to determine an answer to that, of course.  Our very uniqueness is from a special recipe in which the inner self interacts with the total environment while being additionally impacted and directed by the gracious influence of the Holy Spirit. 

I am thankful for my rural--we called it "country"--upbringing in which my birthplace played a significant part.  The country, I think, has been good for me.  In any case, to borrow a very trite aphorism: "You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy."

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