EARLY CHILDHOOD - Part 5 - Summers in Linton

The story of Alfred Moehlmann's early childhood continues.  Keep in mind he was raised in the city of Indianapolis where his father's family of German descent settled.  Now Alfred is going to visit his maternal grandparents, Peter and Katrina Tendick, on their farm in southern Indiana near Linton.  The grandparents had immigrated from Germany in 1889 when they were in their fifties, so they are now in their sixties.

"I usually spent summer vacation with my grand parents in Linton.  This was always a treat to me – Dad would get a pass for mother and me on the Vandalia R.R. to Switz City.  There we would catch a Monon mixed train to Linton where we were met and a ride to the county in a buggy, hack or wagon.  There was a two hour wait at Switz City and they had a turn table on which the locomotive was turned.  It took all the crew and most of the passengers to manipulate this hand and push power operation.  I could always be sure when I got to Grand-ma’s that she would have a crock of rice cooked in milk.  A few things that I remember was seeing Grandmother going to town in a 2 wheeled cart, taking butter and eggs to trade for needed groceries and supplies and she always drove the old family mare, Tammy.  Another thing, I would go to the woods or milking lot with Aunt Sophia to watch her do this chore.  I always had to be well guarded for there was a Holstein cow, called Blackie, that disliked children and many were the times that it took a lot of running and climbing to get out harms way.  It was always a treat to go to the field at noon and evening to get to ride a hose back to the barn.  Also at times to ride a harrow or drag for ballast.  I also soon got big enough to turn the grindstone and that was far from being fun.  It seemed that Grandpa could never get through sharpening an ax or a scythe blade.  I think he could handle a scythe better than anybody I ever saw.  I saw several fields of hay cut this way.  Also while quite young I saw the cradle used to cut wheat and oats.  Grandpa and Uncle Bill did the cradling and Uncle Dietz and Aunt Sophia followed, picking up mower grain and tying it in bundles which had to be put in shocks later and finally hauled to the lot where it was stacked in big ricks.  Grandpa was quite handy with wood tools, making hay rakes and various other usefull gadgets.  He used to like to hoe and always had a razor edge on this tool.  Most of the land had just been cleared of timber and was full of stumps.  After plowing a little loose dirt, they would make a furrow with a single shovel plow; I soon was big enough to drop corn in the furrow and some one would cover it with a hoe.  Of course they plowed the corn with a double shovel plow but it took a lot of hoeing to keep the weeks under control." 

Wow!  The passengers had to help turn the train around. Monon.org has a picture of the depot and the turntable that Alfred mentioned. The Monon Railroad was almost entirely within the state of Indiana and got its name from the town of Monon, Indiana which was where the four main lines converged.

Life on a farm is totally foreign to me. I had no idea what my grandfather was talking about when he said he liked riding the harrow for ballast.  Thank goodness for Google.  Fields would be plowed - the earth turned over with the sharp blade that was pulled by a horse.  Then they would use a harrow drag to break up clumps and smooth out the dirt.  It was triangular shaped and had three rows of spikes and was pulled by a horse.  

Drag haarrow, photo by Daniel Christensen.
Notice the lever that would lower the spikes.

He also talked about a cradle to harvest grain.  It was an implement that had multiple scythes that allowed the farmer to cut a larger quantity of grain and have it fall between the fingers in neat rows.  Using the single scythe resulted in grain falling in no particular order.  This website shows how the cradle is used. 

Alfred enoyed going to milk the cows with his Aunt Sophia. Sophia is the youngest of the ten children of Peter and Katrina Tendick.  She was born in 1882 in Germany.  He then mentions his Uncle Dietz and Uncle Bill.  Bill was born in 1865 in Germany and learned the blacksmith trade there and had been struck by a heavy hammer that had deformed his back. Bill was the oldest son that immigrated with his parents. Two older sons who were grown and married remained in Germany.  Diedrick (Uncle Dietz) was born in 1872.  

Alfred goes on to relate an experience that occurred after a summer vacation:

"Once time on returning home from vacation the boys had a new game they wanted to teach me called Grab. They took me in an alley and there were some newspapers spread on the ground.  On the newspaper was a cap.  It had all kinds of trinkets in it, pocket knives, etc.  The idea was that they would blind fold me and anything I could grab was mine for keeps.  What I didn’t know was they went to the Commons, got a fresh dab of cow dab, put this on one newspaper, carefully place another paper with the cap and trinkets on top of the mess and of course after I got my proper bearing expecting to come up with a prize.  I was blind folded and the top paper and cap was removed.  At the command “Grab”, I did, but instead of knives and trinkets I had two handfuls of a green colored goo that oozed through my fingers, which was nothing more than pure fresh cow manure. "

Boys will be boys, I guess.