Recipes for Living Tim and Beva Lupkes

Both Tim and Beva of are German descent. Tim's sister has been to Germany to look up the place of their origin, and an uncle Paul, who is a minister, has traced the family history. Groups of Germans used to come to America together, and Tim’s great-grandfather, George, was in a group that came in 1880 or 1881. He had served in the German army and grown tired of "serving the Kaiser." George was a painter by trade and he and his wife, Geske, had eight children, one of whom was John, Tim's grandfather. They started farming in Butler County, Iowa.

John also had eight children. Tim's father, Walter, was number three. He also farmed in Butler County, starting in 1953. He retired four or five years ago and two of his sons farmed the home place. One son, Tim's uncle, was killed during World War II, on April 6, 1945, just inside Germany.

Tim’s entry into the world was unusual. Prematurely, his mother experienced labor pains and went to the doctor, who determined it was false labor. He told her to return home but on that trip Tim was born in the car, delivered by Grandma Krull. Instead of a sterile delivery room, Tim made his entry in the back seat of a '56 Ford.

Tim was the fifth of six children. He has two brothers, three sisters. They grew up on a farm where they mainly raised beef cattle and hogs, "lots of hogs." Everybody had chores to do, and this was a priority in the Lupkes family. Extra-curricular school activities were not encouraged. Everybody came home and worked. "We walked beans, pitched manure - anything that took place on the farm, we did."

In 1975, Grandpa Krull got sick with cancer and Tim’s older brother and he went every Saturday to clean the chicken house and every other Saturday they cleaned the hog house. No matter how much time they spent or how much work they did, they received the same amount. Tim got $2 and his brother $5.

Tim’s schooling, kindergarten through second grade was at Geneva. He went to Ackley for third, fourth, and fifth, then back to Geneva for sixth, seventh, and eighth. From ninth through twelfth he was in the Ackley school and graduated from Ackley/Geneva in 1980. His farm involvement carried over into school. In earlier grades, Tim was involved in 4-H, showing cattle and hogs at county and state fairs, which he really enjoyed. In high school his extra curricular activity was in FFA.

The family was very much involved in the RCA, the Reformed Church of America, this was about a mile from their home. The denomination is very strong in northwest Iowa and in the vicinity of Pella. Attendance was Number One in the thinking of Tim's father, who was a strong Christian. "If you were not on your death bed, you’d better be in church." Tim’s mother has been the church secretary for probably 50 years. Her salary has been $250 a year for as long as Tim can remember, and she won't take a raise.

There was also family fun. On Sunday afternoons neighbors joined them for softball and other games in the summer and sledding in Bear Grove in the winter, or games of Fox and Goose. They are also great campers. The parents tried to plan one trip every year. They went to Colorado, the Black Hills, the Ozarks, and others. Tim's father and brothers are history buffs as is Tim. They spent their days in presidential libraries, museums, and seeing battlefields.

After graduation from high school, Tim couldn't farm independently because his dad was still farming, so he took a job with a local farmer, Darrell Johnson. This was mostly seasonal work, spring and fall. After seven years, Tim moved to another of his dad's farms and started raising pigs with his father. In 1986, Tim had the opportunity to rent a farm. He used his dad's machinery and helped him. In 1987, he had a chance to rent another farm on which he raised a lot of hogs. He had up to 130 sows and grew seed com for Crow's Hybrid.

Everything was going really well and Tim bought that farm, but in '93 disaster struck. It was a very wet year. He couldn't get a crop in the ground or sows bred. To add to the misery, in July of that year the barn burned with the first decent batch of pigs in a year. His corn averaged about 30 bushels to the acre, beans about 13. "It was a terrible time! I hated every day of it!"

Tim quit farming and took a job at an elevator, where he ground feed, sprayed crops, and did other such work. It was very low pay and in '96 he took a job with the city of Aplington. There he did all kinds of work including water treatment, waste water treatment, and electrical work. It also was a low paying job and in a couple of years, Tim decided that he wanted to focus on the electrical aspect, which he enjoyed. He took a job with a local electrician and gained experience with all kinds of wiring.

After working there a couple years, Tim took a job wiring hog buildings. The pay was good but he was troubled by what the hog confinement business was doing to farmers. In the back of his mind was the desire to work as a lineman. He and Beva talked about it for a couple years, deciding that after their youngest was in kindergarten, he would go to line school. This he did in 2000. It had its down-side. It was an 11 month course, 3 1/2 hours away from the family but he completed it and graduated in July, 2001.

Beva

It is fascinating that Tim and Beva lived only 10 miles apart their whole lives and never met until Beva was waiting tables at a Pheasants Forever banquet, and when they moved to Osceola they discovered that Bub Peterson's sister, Judy Mehmen, lived in back of Beva's family in Aplington all her life. As she remarked, "It’s a small world!"

Beva was born in Indiana, the fourth child of eight - five boys and three girls. She felt hemmed in by boys because there were two older and three younger than her. The family was far from well-to-do. Her dad worked on the pipeline, but with that many mouths to feed, the budget was stretched. After moving several times, and adding more children, the family settled in to a former two-room school house. Even though they added a couple rooms upstairs, the house was still too small for 10 people, so in 1972, they bought a huge house in town. They still had to share rooms but at least not all the girls were in one room and all the boys in another.

They moved to Aplington, Iowa, and Beva’s dad took a job for the city of Cedar Falls. One of his main jobs was operating a machine for digging graves. He worked there until he suffered a heart attack and died in November, 1997. There is something poignant about losing a loved one during the holiday season, and as this story is being written in November, 2002, Beva remembers that the five year anniversary of his death was this past Sunday. Her dad was so looking forward to retirement in May the following year.

Beva’s mom was a nurses' aide for about 30 years. From the time Beva was a little girl, her mother worked the third shift - from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. and loved it. With that schedule they didn't need to hire sitters. Additionally, during the day she baby sat for various people teachers, friends, anyone who needed her. She was and is a very giving person, always doing something for someone. Three years after she was widowed, she remarried a man the family had known. He went to the same church and has children similar in age to hers. She has now taken a job on the day shift.

The financial situation affected the children's lives as well. Each summer the parents contracted acres of corn to detassel. It was good money for a short period of work but the children hated it! It was hot, dirty work, and they all vowed that when they got older, they would not detassel. The parents passed along the pay to the children, but from the time they were in third grade, they had to use the money to buy school clothes.

Unlike Tim's family, Beva's didn't go on regular vacations. They went one time to the Wisconsin Dells and she remembers it as a load of fun hiking, taking boat rides, and looking at rocks. They stayed in a hotel that had a little kitchen in the rooms, which helped with the overall expenses.

Beva doesn't remember the arrangement for 10 people to ride in the car but she does recall their all going to church in one car. Church was very important. They were there every Sunday for worship and Sunday school. "Whatever the church offered, we did."

Beva's schooling was in Aplington, Ellsworth Community College, and the University of Northern Iowa, where she earned a degree in elementary education. During her earlier school years, the children were encouraged to participate in extra-curricular activities, and most of the time they were in something - usually sports - basketball, volleyball, and track. All five brothers played football, but none were ever in the baseball programs. Beva hated track, even though in her early years, she ran well. She went to state two times, but her endeavors were nothing compared to those of two of her brothers. "They were awesome! Both had big boards full of medals!"

Her employment as she got older was working as a waitress. "I enjoyed it because I liked being with and talking to people. I am a talker so I was probably quite good at it." Between her sophomore and junior years in college, she went to Florida and lived with her brother and his wife. She also worked as a waitress there. There were lots of vacationers and she particularly remembers running onto people from Iowa. In spite of the heat and humidity, she loved living there. She worked mostly at night so she had some time to spend on the beach.

In her college senior year, she did her student teaching in Hudson, Iowa. It was at that time, in May, that she and Tim met. Beva was impressed with his manners. "He was so nice and so good to me." He asked her out a few weeks after they met and they became engaged quickly, which made her mother "a little leery," because of the shortness of time. They were married in August of the next year in the Presbyterian Church in Aplington and lived on the farm Tim had rented in 1987. That was their home all their married life until moving to Osceola in October, 2001.

Eight of the first ten years of their marriage, Beva substitute-taught kindergarten through twelfth grade. It was a good employment because when the children were in school, their hours were approximately the same. When needed, her mom babysat. While Tim was in college, Beva and the kids stayed home. It was a demanding time during which Beva did everything by herself, getting the kids up and ready for school in the morning and to bed at night, and all the other details of managing a home. There was only a couple times when she had to call on neighbors for help. That was to scoop snow on their quarter-mile lane.

When she first became a fulltime teacher, she would not have preferred "special ed," but that was the job she was offered. Now that she is involved with it, she finds it outstandingly rewarding. She loves helping these children who need the exceptional loving care that a special ed teacher, with fewer students, is able to give them. Beva finds that it feels good to give it to them. She likes the small setting, which gives the opportunity to get to know the kids really well. She teaches inTruro in a brand new building. Middle school and elementary was added onto the high school building. She remarks, "I love it and so do the kids."

The school curriculum attempts to provide the most opportunities they can for all children, certainly including those who need special ed. However, the average length of time before teacher burnout in these settings is about five years. It is more emotionally exhausting than the usual classroom. Beva is taking special ed classes at Upper Iowa in Des Moines. The state requirement is 37 hours for special ed endorsement. This involves five to six hours of class time evenings or Saturday every week in addition to homework.

Tim and Beva have three children - Makayla, Jacob, and Ellen-in ninth, fourth, and second grades respectively. All three are bookworms. Makayla likes to be the mother; Jacob likes to be the clown. He tries to be funny. Jacob loves the outdoors and the farm. He likes to show his knowledge of the farm by asking Beva questions that he thinks she won't be able to answer, "and usually I can't." Ellen was born with an undeveloped hand. Her fingers were connected by one web. She had to undergo three corrective surgeries in Iowa City. The first was when she was six months old. That surgery separated the pinky. Three months later, the second surgery separated the thumb, and the third was 12 months later to give her a broader range of motion. At this time she is not limited at all. Most people don't notice it unless she might be writing.

The Lupkes' live about 8 1/2 miles from town, which affects their home life in several ways. The children have long bus rides to and from school. They leave in the morning between 6:50 and 7:00, and arrive home about 4:10. That makes for a long day. Then they have responsibilities - feeding chickens, gathering and washing eggs. Distance may have a bearing on the parents' decision that the children must be limited in their extra-curricular activities, although that was in their upbringing also. "We live far enough in the country that we can't run them around to everything." Each child can choose one activity. The older two are in 4-H and Ellen can't wait for that opportunity. Makayla was encouraged to take piano lessons and did that for awhile, but when the family moved, the parents decided to let her become accustomed to new school, new friends, new church, new home, and didn't push her to continue. One of the childrens' most enjoyable things-to-do is playing ball and wrestling with their dad.

Jacob had a serious accident when he was six years old. He fell about nine feet from a playhouse, and landed on his face on the LP tank. He was hospitalized with a skull fracture, both his eyes were swollen shut, and there was blood all over his face. He only spent a couple days in the hospital.

In February, 2002, Jacob developed flu-like symptoms. When he began saying and doing things that made no sense, Beva and Tim became alarmed and took him to the emergency room. He was diagnosed with meningitis and flown to Des Moines. He was in Blank Hospital for two weeks after which the nurse that had flown with them said that she hadn't thought he would survive. He was put on the prayer chain in both the Osceola United Methodist Church and in their home church in Aplington. They appreciated it and the visits from Rev. Louk. Jacob responded and was brought home to recover, which he did remarkably soon. He was feeling well enough to go back to school on Monday for half days. There was a long weekend after which he went back on Monday full time.

There will be a time when Beva will be more active in the Osceola United Methodist Church as she had been in Aplington where she was the Sunday School superintendent, teacher, and on the Christian Education committee. When some of her present responsibilities are taken care of she will expect to be similarly involved here.

Ellen Lupkes wrote this story for Mr. Boldon’s second grade class assignment