More fun found in Grandpa's geneology files. I found a copy of an article published in a magazine. Unfortunately, whoever made the copy did not include the magazine title or date in the copy. The article is a story written by my father's cousin Tom. I believe it's about his step-grandfather who married Tom's grandmother before he was born. I don't know where or when this story was first published. Tom would later profess vows with the Marionists in 1956.
My First Employer
by Thomas Oster
Gramp, to the average person, is a
normal man with gray hair and a dark complexion, but to me he isn't
comparable to anyone else I have ever met. He is short now, but some
pictures of the "good old days" show him to be a good two
inches taller than any other patron in Pat's Bar. His face is a dark,
reddish-brown, whereas the top of his head is tinted baby pink, for
it has been protected from the sun by an old tattered straw hat. His
hair, what's remaining, has been bleached white by sixty-five years
of work.
Grandfather is a jack of all trades
and a master of many. When the weather is good, he farms and when
it's bad he improves and repairs the buildings and equipment.
He is an old timer in some respects
but usually won't hesitate to purchase some useful new-fangled dudad
if it cuts down his work or helps him to relax. He's got a radio, a
phonograph, a telephone, a tractor, and a car, if you want to call it
that. The car he has now is a 1935 Packard Limousine. He bought it
from his brother-in-law who is a funeral director. The plans for
today's tanks must have come from the builder of this car. Any car
that Gramp drives has to be built strong. Gramp drives correctly only
when he is teaching someone else how to drive. He usually owns a big
car for he finds that such make good moving vans. When taking a small
calf, sheep, goat or bull to market, he takes out the back seat and
chauffeurs the animal away.
City people depend considerably on
other people's goods. Gramp, on the other hand, can get along pretty
well by himself except for electricity and whiskey. What electricity
won't supply usually the whiskey will. Gramp isn't a drunkard; he
just gets working power from alcohol.
Grandfather's education was very
meager, for his parents were poor immigrants when he was born and
reared on the American soil. His small list of English adjectives is
supplemented when possible by a cuss word or two. He never uttered a
vulgar word or curse, but used cuss words only for emphasis,
description, or opinion.
As mentioned before, he worked hard
and couldn't get along with any one that didn't. When I began to
spend my summer vacations on the farm, he took it upon himself to
make me a good worker, no matter how much it would hurt me. The day
began at six o'clock for me. Gramp would be up at five-thirty but
wouldn't wake me until six. From about six-thirty in the morning
until seven o'clock ay night we worked. Breakfast was at seven,
dinner at twelve, and supper at six. No periods of rest or relaxation
followed the meals, except on Sundays.
Life on the farm can be very
interesting; for there are only a few jobs that have to be done every
day. There are seldom two days alike, for a farmer has a large
variety of jobs. One day a farmer may be doing carpentry work; the
next day he may be out fixing a fence.
I got up and dressed from six to
six-fifteen. I then staggered downstairs, washed up and went outside
to do morning chores until Grandmother made breakfast. For breakfast,
we always had eggs in some form or other. After breakfast I fed and
watered the chickens, while Gramp prepared for his work that day. In
the beginning, the days I worked with Gramp were few and far between.
My main job was to keep the place clean, healthy and orderly.
When I was thirteen years of age,
Gramp began to show me how to farm. Up until then, it was theory; now
the practice began. At the breakfast table Gramp would tell me what
he wanted; then it was up to me to do it. My first jobs were small,
maybe just to harrow a field. The harnesses were heavy, and the
horses were very big when I began to work with them. Life was a
little lonely at times, for often I was out in a large field for as
long as eight hours at a stretch with no one to talk to except the
horses, and they were always too busy to say anything.
After the crops were planted the farm
work lightened a little, but there was always cultivating to be done,
either by machinery or by hoe. Near the top of the list of those
things which I don't like to do was hoeing.
When summer began to fade and
harvesting time approached, all odd jobs were dropped. The grain bags
were inspected, patched and counted. The granary was cleaned and set
up. After the machinery was put in shape the available farmers were
asked to come over on a specified day and thresh Gramp's crops.
When the threshing machine arrived,
the turmoil began. The filled wagons and trucks of grain were driven
one at a time along side of the machine. The bundles of grain and
straw were thrown on a conveyor belt coming out of the machine. From
the opposite end hung a long, large stove-pipe affair. Out of this
snorkel came the straw, chaff and plenty of dust. The grain was
separated from the straw within the machine and came out by way of a
worm gear, through a chute and into burlap bags. The filled bags of
grain were thrown on a truck and hauled off to the granary where they
were emptied. At dinner time the machines were turned off and the
crew washed up in some basins setting outside before coming into the
house to eat. After dinner the bustle began again and didn't stop
until about five o'clock.
The work was hard then, but as the
years rolled by new machinery was developed, and the farmer could
live a little easier.
Gramp "combines" his crops
now and saves himself a lot of hard work. The combine moves over the
field and separates the straw from the grain. The grain collects in a
bin on the side of the combine and then is transferred into bags.
Gramp can thresh his crops now with just two or three men, whereas
before he needed to engage maybe fifteen men.
Gramp's crops aren't as large as they
were in bygone days, for his body is worn and his movements slower.
His thoughts and actions turned more towards God as the years flew
by. He receives the sacraments often and even abstains from his
whiskey during Lent.
