“I’ll hold my breath, you count,” I said, sucking in a huge lungful of air and puffing out my cheeks. My sister knew the drill and she started right in. ... Read more
The Country Today will be running its Christmas Memories Contest again this year.
It was back before I’d ever uttered the words, “Back in my day.”
One of the nicest aromas from my childhood was the smell of fresh baked bread on a cold winter’s day. It always seemed that the crust on each end of a loaf disappeared first (my grandkids don’t know what they are missing).
My great-grandfather seldom missed a daily entry in his six-decade long farm. Many entries tell little more than the weather and what he paid for a pound of salt. But if you look hard enough, many entries are poignant, sometimes funny and always informative of what life was like on the farm …
Dad was blessed with five daughters and one son. I am number 3. That meant as a farm family in the ‘50s and ‘60s the girls did all the farm work that most boys did.
In about 1934 when my Dad was six years old, his father decided to buy a farm in Cataract, Wisconsin. He had three “strapping big boys,” so he figured that was the way to go.
When our parents told us they had bought a farm on Goat Back, all six of us were disappointed. We lived close to Pepin, and even though we had to walk two miles to school, we were content there. I don’t think there was a kid I didn’t like.
Recently, while extracting a pan of hot, caramel apple bars from the oven, I couldn’t help but reflect upon the fall bounty harvested in the 1940s and ‘50s on our Stateline dairy farm.
In my last appearance on these pages, I introduced Country Today readers to my great-grandad, Dave Wood (1840-1927) and his 63 years of daily diaries in which he recounted the diphtheria epidemic of 1877, during which time the family lost two daughters and a hired girl. Two years later Dave …
I grew up in east central Minnesota in the small town of Almelund. My dad worked as a breeder for American Breeders Service. He always had dairy farming “in his blood” and liked dealing in the cattle business. Though he never owned his own dairy farm, he felt working on farms would instill g…
The Riverside School District began, being together with Valley View School and together had about 93 students in 1860-1870.
Editor’s note: This is part three of a three part series.
Editor’s note: This is part two of a three part series.
Editor’s note: This is part one of a three part series.
Sometimes I think a sign that says, “Warning: Farming May Be Hazardous to Your Health” should be posted at the entrance to every farmstead.
It was a rite of entering manhood when we got old enough to tend the blower on the threshing machine. The machine was usually set with the feeder into the wind for cleaner threshing. It was fairly clean on both sides of the separator, except standing on the platform to swing the blower left,…
Editor’s note: This is the second part of Jerry Rolefson’s reflections on harvest time. See last week’s The Country Today for the first part.
Ogdensburg
Hartland, Minn.
By Larry Scheckel
By Betty Lassa-Blauvelt
Hartland, Minn.
By Laurie Sordahl
Well, we wanted to see other seasons.
By Floyd Henschel
By Lucille Armstrong Anton
By Mary B. Olsen
By Larry Scheckel
By Harvey Zabel
By Charlotte Heikkinen
I’ve had an exceptionally interesting life over the boring existence of most other tables. If it were possible for me to talk, I could tell some attention-getting stories. But let it be known in history that my life as a table was formed from a huge white oak tree in northern Wisconsin.
By Will Mathes
By John W. Swenson
It seems like part of my life has run parallel to the current happenings between the U.S. and North Korea.
By Charlotte Heikkinen
Editor’s note: The Country Today reader Toni Lubich sent us this story along with the following note: “My grandfather, Walter E. Swenson, of Pierce County, recalled memories of his life, including his service in the Army. I am attaching that story. He passed away in 1986 at the age of 88. We…
Editor’s note: The Country Today reader Toni Lubich sent us this story along with the following note: “My grandfather, Walter E. Swenson, of Pierce County, recalled memories of his life, including his service in the Army. I am attaching that story. He passed away in 1986 at the age of 88. We…
When I was a kid, the bakery in Wautoma sent a truck throughout the countryside, stopping at each farmer’s place with the hope of selling bread, sweet rolls, doughnuts and much more.
By Jim Zitzelsberger
By Ronald Jansen
By Charlotte Heikkinen
By Larry Scheckel
By Marv Kohlbeck
Eau Claire
My favorite Christmas happened in the year I finally got to know my mother — and also myself.
I wrote the following embedded poem 30 years ago, although by then it was already 20 years in the making. This year marks the 50th anniversary of that Christmas in Vietnam, 1968, and, unfortunately, little has changed except the decades.