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The price of farm products did not remain where they had been during World War I. There was almost an immediate decline. Times were not kindly for anyone attempting to start farming under the economic conditions at that time. Even many of those remaining at home and buying or expanding farms experienced economic disaster. Especially when there were years of crop loss due to weather events. Then as mother said we children started coming along. Myself arriving in the fall of 1919 and Lois in the spring of 1921 to be followed by six others until 1934.
Lois and I were both born at Edgeley and both delivered by Dr. L.B. Greene. Sometime in 1921 we moved to the farm at Sydney. Mother answered my question of why the move to Sydney: "Well it was a better farm." Grandpa held the title to this farm, I do not know whether he ever fully owned it or not. During the years we lived there he was the landlord. It was less than ten years before that this farm was located on land that was virgin prairie. This land had been purchased by Grandpa in 1913 and that same year our Dad and Uncle Oliver broke some of that land using one of the huge Twin City 2 cylinder large round radiator tractor to do the job. I have a picture, not a good one, but a picture of the outfit and both Uncle Oliver and Dad are in it. Grandpa bought this farm and another about four or five miles away in Woodbury Township. Each farm a section of land purchased from a man by the name of Beck who seemed to have owned a good deal of land in the area. Beck lived in Washington D.C. Grandpa had a dream of being able to give a farm to each of his sons. It never materialized. He may also have purchased the land as an investment in view of the rising prices expected with the building of the Midland Continental Railroad in 1912-1913. The building of the railroad was a speculative adventure that had arisen from dreams of a railroad from Winnipeg, Canada to somewhere in Texas. The rails were laid from Wimbledon, North Dakota to Edgeley, North Dakota. It never got out of the state and a great dream came to an end. About the only evidence still extant of that railroad are the graded roadbeds along the right of way.
In 1922 there was land that was still virgin prairie. There was good deal of unploughed land in the area. The open prairie was criss-crossed with various wagon and buggy trails usually the straightest distance between two points frequently traveled. There must have been such a trail between Sydney, North Dakota and the Blind Ditch that flowed into the James River to the east. These paths were later abandoned as roads and bridges were built to accommodate the automobile. The modern highway 281 was called the Sunshine Trail.
In renting the farm at Sydney grandpa made some kind of arrangement with our father and with Uncle Willard. It was not a good arrangement according to our mother. Stories show Willard as doing some strange, perverse and dangerous things as well as being motivated for selfish reasons, I don't know. Mother expressed it as "Willard was always for himself." If mother is correct he did some things that were thoughtless and dangerous to others. There will be more later on Uncle Willard.
The sharpest of all my memories was the day I came alive, in spring or summer when we went to the Blind Ditch for a picnic. I can still remember a kind of canopy formed by the trees coming together overhead and of the two horses tied to the wagon eating hay we had sat in on the way to the picnic area. I also remember something else about this day. We went with another family who had a boy about my age and somewhere on that trek he and I got out of the wagon. After we got out of the wagon whoever was driving that wagon, My father or Uncle Willard, started the horses at a trot. Of course, we could not catch up and we were falling farther and farther behind. I ran in one wheel track and my companion ran in the other as fast as we could go. I think we were both crying as we ran through the tall prairie grass higher than either of us. I know, I remember this because of the horrible feeling of abandonment and loss and fear all in one. This incident possessed me right to the core of my being that anyone could do this to me. I do not know what the other boy was feeling. I do not know how far we ran until they stopped the wagon and let us catch up. I now have a suspicion they stopped the wagon because mother protested what they were doing. That wagon seemed an awfully long distance away as we tried to catch it. I did hot know where we were going that day. That image and experience stayed with me and I often reflected on it. One day when I was about sixteen, I asked my mother about that experience, describing to her the place we went to and the ride across the prairie. Her first response was I could not possibly remember that event. I assured her, I did remember, and how could I describe the place and the team and wagon and that someone else was with us if I hadn't remembered. Mother had remembered the incident. The family that was with us was named Boden and he was a railroad Section worker for the Midland Continental railroad. I was about 2 and one half years old and my third birthday would be in November and the year'was 1922. I think my memory retained that event because of the terrible feelings that were awakened in me.
There are other things of which I have early memories. I can remember my father making a wier or dam in the creek that ran through our pasture. It was called Buffalo Creek and ran into Beaver Creek. I can remember some fish in the wier which had been constructed so water could run through it. He caught fish which he put in that pool and they could not escape. I can remembers this, in fact, I have a mental picture of some pretty big fish and would now recognize them as Northern Pike although they were called pickerel. I can also remember playing on a sandpile with horses standing over me. I believe my mother found me there playing in the sand and those horses stamping their feet to get rid of flies. It is a wonder that I didn't get stepped on but those were good horses. I can remember a forge that was used for heating and bending iron. Several years later I learned that it had belonged to Uncle Oliver. I can remember going with both my father or mother to Ed Bon's general store the only one in Sydney. It had everything from groceries to harnesses, saddles and candy. There was some kind of dinner party around Christmas time at the William Long home which was perhaps a half a mile from our place.
One more memory goes back to this time and still remains rather strongly imprinted. I do not know the events but coming into the kitchen in that farmhouse one cold morning and finding almost all available space on tables and shelves covered with the naked bodies of birds. It must have been in fall and the birds could either have been prairie chicken, pigeons, waterfowl or even chickens from our own flock. I would not now even venture to guess and there is no one with whom I can review that memory. I suspect that those birds in the kitchen were the result of a hunting expedition along the creek or the prairie.
My Brother Eugene was born in November of 1922 and I have a memory of a new baby in a crib 'placed near the south window of the living room.
There is another memory that lingers from that period. It must have been the fall of 1922 but it could have been later. We rode the Midland Railroad from Sydney to Edgeley. It was Mother, Lois and myself and perhaps baby Eugene. Dad gave me two peppermint lozenges wrapped in paper. I later realized the paper was money. I was to put this in my pocket and give it to Grandpa when we arrived in Edgeley. Mother took charge of gift after the train started. I was fascinated by the watering arrangement on the train. The arrangement was a large jar or crock that must have held five gallons of water. It had a faucet one had to push to make the water come out and run into a paper cup. I was very thirsty that day and made many trips to the water fountain to relieve it. The supply of water and paper cups lasted until we arrived in Edgeley. Fortunately for other reasons the distance between Sidney and Edgeley was perhaps twenty five miles.
On arrival in Edgeley Grandpa met us at the train and I gave him the peppermint candy. He seemed pleased to have received it.
This period on the Sydney farm was a time of puzzling events that I am unable to sort out and place in any exact context. Living on the farm were my Father and Mother and my Father's younger brother Willard. I believe my child's mind found it difficult to distinguish between my father and his brother. I even wonder today what effect that confusion has played in my life.
I remember a locomotive dream that always seemed to be chasing me and I tried to hide. The locomotive wore heavy glasses. Later on I observed Uncle Willard chasing and often terrifying my own siblings or cousins. Even later as adults these persons have talked about childhood and how much fear was generated by Uncle Willard. It was almost as if he wanted to instill fear in the children. One of my brothers has mentioned how terrified he was and likewise a cousin has spoken of a like experience. I lost the locomotive dream when I was old enough to realize the impossibility of it leaving the tracks and running around a house.
Living in close proximity with Willard for a period of about two years, I wonder now what influence played itself out in my life. I do not recall or remember any incident except the wish to avoid him.
Nevertheless, I do know those were years of conflict for my mother who probably stood between her children and an insensitive uncle. Things did not go well on the Sydney farm. My father and uncle Willard did not get along very well and certainly not my mother and Willard did not. There was also resentment against a father-in-law who controlled the arrangement regarding the occupation of that one section of land owned by him and worked by his sons.
The culmination of events leading to a move from the farm occurred in the summer of 1923. The machinery used on the Sydney farm belonged to my father. One day Uncle Willard without telling anyone hitched up the horses and took hay racks, mower and hay rake and went up near Uncle Arnold's and Aunt Elcy's farm to cut hay. As I understand our father also intended to cut hay that same day. Since the machinery was gone and apparently with little else to do, Dad went up to Sydney to help make some repairs in one of the elevators. In the meantime Mother was at home with us youngsters.
Grandpa chose that day to come up from Edgeley. He expected to find Dad making hay instead he was working at the elevator. There were some words exchanged and mother told him that Willard had taken the haying equipment and gone off somewhere and that Dad had nothing with which to work. Grandpa said something to the effect that Floyd should stay home and take care of things and if he couldn't he had better get off the place and mother said she would not like anything better than that they should get off that farm. Anyway Dad got the word, probably from both our mother and Grandpa, and started looking for another farm to rent.
He still had that 1915 Model T Ford touring car and he used that to look for another farm. He also rode horseback to look at a farm and I also rode with him both in the car and on horseback. I remember especially how pleasant it felt riding in front of him on the horse and nestled close to my father--it was a safe feeling. I did not realize until very much later ho.w difficult and how much work fell to people who had to rent farms in those days. During this time there were a great many renters in North Dakota I think it may have been almost fifty percent.
Dad finally rented a farm owned jointly by Frank Stott and Theodore Cumber. Frank Stott was a leading .Montpelier merchant and Theodore Cumber owned a hardware machinery business. They owned the south 1/2 of section 8 in Montpelier township, Stutsman county, North Dakota. This farm was adjacent to that complex of farms in the township known as the Mary Gray Lee Farms or as "The Chicago Ranch."
We moved our livestock, machinery, furniture, grain and hay that fall. The distance between the Sydney farm and the Montpelier farm was about eight miles. One of my memories serves me well for when we were about a mile and a half from the newly rented farm my father handed me the reins and let me "drive" the team. There was a piece of machinery hitched behind and there were several pieces of furniture in the back of the hay rack but the front was empty. The horses of course were moving pretty much on their own but with a very proud new driver. I was driving a team of horses---talk about a wild dream coming true. I remember that moment with startling vividness. I do not remember anything of leaving Sydney nor of what the furniture was, nor of arriving at the new home but I do remember driving that team. It must have been late September or early October, I was warmly dressed but I remember it was not very cold. In November of that year I was four years old.
As I remember back now I realize that the buildings on this new farm had not been occupied for several years. That first winter the house was cold and we used only two rooms. There were rats in the cellar. I remember our parents setting large eight inch rat traps and we caught many of them. The house sat upon a rock foundation and the rocks had fallen apart and. the many holes offered access to any creature willing to venture in. The following spring there were garter snakes crawling forth from the cellar. I suppose they found shelter in the numerous rat holes. Sometime in the spring of 1924, I stepped on one of those retreating snakes and screamed to high heaven. My mother was as frightened as I was, but by the scream not the snake.
In those days, renters had to take whatever accommodations that existed on the places they occupied. Sometimes they were not very good. I did not realize the lack of comforts at that time but I am certain it placed a considerable burden upon our parents.
Another thing I remember about that first year is that the north part of the house was closed off and we lived primarily in what we eventually called the living room and a bedroom. The kitchen was occupied with a water tank building project that first winter. The farm had no facility for watering livestock. I believe my father used an arrangement of barrels or wash tubs at first. He built a twelve foot by thirty inch wooden water tank out of 12 inch planks. The tank had to be only that wide so that he could get it through the door. He planed it and caulked it and ran iron rods through it in some way to hold it together. Once he had it filled with water the wood swelled and it became water tight. That wooden tank lasted 8 or 9 years for we were still using it when we moved from that place in the fall of 1932.
During the spring and summer of 1924 there was a flurry of excitement as improvements were made on the house. The foundation was cemented all around the house. This kept out the various vermin seeking shelter in the cellar. The cellar was enlarged and a new entry to it constructed. The house was painted. During this part of the project Ted Cumber decided he would rather paint the house than hire someone to do it. He came out one day, climbed a ladder and fell from it with a can of paint leaving quite a mess on the floor of the porch to be cleaned up. I do not remember that he seriously hurt himself but I do remember that blob of drying paint. An entry shed was built on the northeast side of the house enclosing an old porch and the new entry to the basement. I make a guess that this was the last coat of paint that building received.
I do not have much recollection of the remaining buildings on the farm. It seems that those buildings might also have been painted. Sometime in those years Dad moved a sheep shed from an old farmstead just north of us. He had the building on skids and moved it with horses. There was a granary with a lean-to workshop on the east side. A chicken house and, of considerable importance, an outdoor privy. There was no windmill. The hog barn was a temporary shelter constructed from poles and wire over which straw was blown in the fall of the year. The main barn was larger than the one we had used on Grandpa's farm. The hay mow was much larger but required a lot of pitching of hay and corn fodder which I well remember. This farm was to be home for about 9 years and most of my memories of childhood are of that place and period.
As an adult, each year when visiting relatives in North Dakota I would drive past this now unoccupied set of deteriorating farm buildings and each year more had disappeared or were in a more advanced stage of dilapidation. The house stood for a while---it may have been set afire---and then some of it caved into the cellar---then it was gone and only the memories linger.
, During the summer of 1989 my daughter and her husband asked to see the "Old Place" that we lived on for nine years. It seems we lived there much longer. The. only building standing at that time was the granary and there in lies a story. The building sat lonely, the distant fields In the background. It has been neglected and it doesn't seem to have had any grain in the bins in quite some time. It would need considerable repair because rodents would now have pretty free access to anything stored there. The rules and regulations for the storage of grain would condemn the building for that use.
The granary nevertheless was sufficient stimulus to evoke long forgotten memories about life about sixty years before in the 1920's and early 30's. Dad had that 1915 Model T Ford replaced by a 1925 model. He took the engine from the 1915 model and attached it to some skid timbers along with a feed grinder. He placed this in front of the granary and we ground feed. Anyone who has worked around one of those mills for grinding feed knows that one of the products is grain dust. My task when I was 8-9-10 years old was to keep the hopper of that mill filled with grain. I can remember being covered with dust and it must have penetrated almost every pore in my skin. I would itch unmercifully and no matter my complaint, I still stayed with the machine. The grain hopper had to be kept filled. They knew very little about allergies in those days.
In the spring of the year the middle part of that granary was occupied by either a Carter Mill used to clean wheat or a Fanning .Mill which could be used to clean any kind of grain. The Carter Mill was a little more desired because it required engine power to operate it. The Fanning Mill was not so desirable because the one we used had to be cranked and required boy power for interminable hours or so it seemed.
The spring was also when Dad would shovel a load of wheat onto the wagon and then sprinkle the wheat with a mixture of water and formaldehyde. The formaldehyde came in small cans and was used to inhibit or kill fungi that might later destroy the wheat.
Then, before threshing the grain in the fall, it was necessary to clean out the granary and to repair the bins. If a mouse or a rat had gnawed a hole, it was patched shut with pieces of tin to make the building as rodent proof as possible. The tin in our case was obtained from Prince Albert or Velvet tobacco cans considered especially good for this purpose. At threshing time the grain wagons would be backed up to the bin doors and the grain shoveled into the bin. This was an exacting and tedious task. Generally feed grains were shoveled into the bins as well as some wheat for seed. Most of the wheat was immediately hauled to town and sold. The wheat paid the threshing bill.
The grain was gradually withdrawn from the bins and ground into feed but always some was kept for seed for the coming year. In later years the metal grain bins came into wide use and elevators are used to load and unload grain. There is no hole in the top of that old granary and all loading was done by hand. I'm also sure that a wagon load of grain hasn't been shoveled for years, it now stands as a testimony to shovelers. So that granary now stands alone and lonely, the only building remaining on an old farmstead. It seems stark as it's roof rises above the distant eastern horizon. Its only use to revive memories.