RUTH ARLENE HALL GAUMER

I am the daughter of Ed and Linnie Ries Hall and was born April 13, 1916.  My father's parents came from Ohio to a farm north and east of Murray, Iowa.  Ten or 20 acres of their property was timber that provided firewood.  Father had two brothers and a sister who all lived on farms.  They were a hard-working family.

On my father's side, I remember Grandfather Hall.  He passed away in 1922, when I was six-years-old.  Grandmother lived to be 85 years-old and every Christmas we would go to her house in a bob sled, which was a wagon box on sled runners.  One time when we went, as we turned in to her driveway, the runners caught in frozen ruts and over we went.  What a surprise! Dad wore a cowhide coat and mittens.  We had a horse blanket over us and I still have the blanket.  My youngest son wants it for a wall hanging.  The coat is in the Clarke County Historical Museum.

My mother's parents came from Germany. Mother was only four-years-old when she came and, of course, she had to learn the English language.  Her father died when she was age 10, so I only knew my grandmother, Katherine Ries.  She lived in Murray in a house that still stands. I was small when she passed away.

Mother had three brothers and four sisters, all deceased at this time. They all went to a one-room school, known as Brush College, north of Murray. It was a two mile walk from their home. That school house has been moved to Main Street in Murray, has been restored and kept as a historical piece.

I grew up in Clarke County, five miles northwest of Murray. I had two sisters, Agnes and Evelyn.  I clearly remember the Depression in 1929-1930. Father had given us girls the runt pigs to raise. We lost some but ended up with one apiece, fed and sold them.  We put the money in the bank and, of course, lost it all at the time our parents lost their 80 acre farm.  They paid off their debts by selling eggs and cream. Times were very hard then, and those of us who went through the Depression have effects that have carried over.  I am a saver because of it.

We girls grew up in a sheltered life with loving parents.  We knew how to cook, sew and to get our work done before it was time to play. I was my dad's chore girl. He taught me to be particular, as he was, with his tools and machinery. In the spring of the year, I helped my dad shell seed corn by hand from his crib. At that time it was not hybrid but open-pollinated com and the planter did two rows at a time.  It could be cultivated both ways of the corn rows.

In 1933 the chinch bugs were taking the com fields. The farmers would make deep trenches ahead of them and pour creosote oil in the trenches so as to kill them when they crossed the line.

Mother did very little clothes washing on the scrub board.  She had a double tub machine run by a gasoline engine with a wide belt to a pulley on the washer. She made laundry soap out­of-doors in a big iron kettle with a fire underneath.  It was made from cracklings after lard had been rendered.  It took a can of Lewis lye and was a little hard on colors but certainly took the grease out of overalls. In time a cold water recipe became available with plain lard and Lewis lye. This made a nice, white bar and we could even get perfume from the drug store to put in it.  I mentioned that I am a saver-an example is that I have some of those bars in the basement.  I don't know what to do with them.

Saturday night was bath time. In the winter that was in a wash tub set behind the heating stove.  In summer we would pump water in the tub and let the sun heat it, then go out to the wash house to bathe.

At that time teachers were plentiful and I was lucky to get any school at all. I taught one year in the same one-room school that I had attended.  From my first paycheck, I gave Father $25 to repay him for the tuition he had paid for me.

In 1936 I married Orville Gaumer, a wonderful fellow.  His parents were Chester and Katie Gaumer who were long-time farmers. When he was living with his parents, he had rented some farm ground and planted corn. It was a drought year so that fall it had to be cut for fodder. It was not a money-making proposition.

We were married by Rev. W. M. Brooks in the Osceola parsonage. A sister-in-law and her boy friend, Harold McConnell, stood up with us. We had very few dollars. I had saved half of my salary from teaching and with it bought a few second-hand pieces of furniture. With that and orange crates, we set up housekeeping. My mother set the incubator and hatched 100 baby chickens for us. My father-in-law gave us a cow and two dozen laying hens.  This gave us enough money to buy $3 worth of groceries and gas for the car.

Chester and Katie helped us get through some hard knocks. The first year there was a drought; the second year, grasshoppers and, in the meantime, hubby had an appendectomy. This was performed by Dr. Harken in his hospital on South Fillmore Street in Osceola. Orville was grounded for six weeks.

Orville had two sisters and one brother, Loren.  As the years went on, we had three sons and Loren and Agnes had three sons. That was six young boys, two fathers and a grandpa to do such work as making hay. We used a square bailer and those boys could put up an outside stack that would stay. We had. many good times together. The young lads would go to the pond and catch frogs-big ones. The next day at noon we would have a platter of frog legs. We had a feed salesman who dropped in from time to time. Hubby would say, "Come in and we will show you how poor people live." We were having frog legs and the young lads looked at one another and pretty soon one of them said, "Sure are rich." To this day the salesman reminds me of that meal.

We lived our first four years on a rented farm near Murray and in 1940 we bought a farm north of Murray. The roads at that time were primarily mud. We moved by a team of horses and hay rack. Driving the cattle required that part of the move be done on foot. We finally had water piped from four ponds to the house but that was a last alternative. We needed water so Orville hired a company from Des Moines who went down 700 feet but still did not find enough water to supply what we needed. They told us that they could go down 1,000 feet and maybe hit an underground water supply called the Jordan vein. Even so, the water might not be good for the animals, so we gave up. We had sunk a lot of money in the project but gave up and built the four ponds so water could be piped to the house.

I boarded three men five days a week all summer. It took one fat steer for meat which ate up any profit we might have had.

When I think back to how we lived with what now would be considered impossible inconveniences, I think of the pioneers who went through this part of the country on their way west. It is almost inconceivable to imagine what they went through and how they lived-and, of course, many of them didn't live. This was brought back to mind when we celebrated the sesquicentennial in 1997 and recreated the Mormon's trek through this part of the state. Various make-shift cemeteries were located.

We didn't go to town any more than was absolutely necessary. Joe Knight was a traveling peddler who sold Baker products. We called him "The Baker Man" and he came through twice a year, spring and fall, with a team of horses and buggy. He sold such items as spices, vanilla, and salves. He set out his products and left them.  If you used some, O.K.; if not, that was O.K. as well. On his next trip, you paid for what you had used. This was how we trusted one another in those days. He might leave a bottle of liniment in appreciation for your business.

He had places where he knew that he could eat his meal and stay overnight. He stayed at my grandmother's house until I was married, then he picked our home. One time when he came we had run out of home-canned meat, but I fixed several vegetable dishes and we had fruit and homemade bread.  He told his wife later, "That was the best vegetable dinner! I really enjoyed it!"

We depended upon other services like the mail delivery. Our carriers were Ray and Ethel Welker, the parents of Milan Welker. They were such nice people. They delivered mail every day by horse and buggy before they had a car. This was in the days when the motto applied that neither rain, hail, snow, sleet nor dark of night shall stay the courier from his appointed rounds.

We had neighborhood activities-for example, threshing bees. The men would cut and shock oats in the field, then go with a team and hay rack, pitch the oats on the rack and haul it up to the threshing machine, where they pitched it shock by shock into the thresher. The next process was to scoop it by hand into the granary. The same hard physical labor would be true with com. It was all picked by hand and tossed into a wagon that had bang boards, so they wouldn't miss the wagon box.  It was also all scooped off by hand into a corn crib. If a worker could pick 100 bushels a day, that was good.

The women got together and prepared food at whosever farm the threshers were working. Everyone tried to outdo the others. The plan for eating on thresher days was that the men ate first, then children and women. I still remember how the flies gathered on the screen door and someone would have to stand there with, perhaps, a dish towel and try to shoo them away when the door was opened. Grandma had no screens, so when we went there we would take a branch off a tree and try to keep the flies off the table. I suppose one reason we don't have as many flies now is that we don’t have stock around barns.  Of course, there has also been a lot of spraying done since those days.

In spite of the contrast between the ways we lived then and now, we didn’t feel sorry for ourselves. We had been brought up by hard-working parents who taught us how and to. expect to live the same way. When something needed doing, we didn’t hire it done. I redecorated the house, doing my own wallpapering and painting along with other chores. I raised 400 baby chickens, this making 200 pullets for laying hens and 200 roosters for butchering. I dressed some to freeze and some to sell. Thirty-three in one day was the most I have ever done.

During the laying season we would sell three 30-dozen-cases of eggs a week and, maybe, two five-gallon cans of cream.  This kept us in groceries, clothing, chicken mash and oyster shell. Seldom ever did I write a check.

That was another difference between then and now. We didn't need very much cash. Cash was necessary to buy fencing wire and posts to keep our livestock on the property, and pay taxes. Hubby also paid for seed corn, oats and the phone. There was not telephone service as we know it now. The farmers kept up the lines to Murray where there were switchboards and operators. It was sometimes hard to locate a problem in the 13 miles of lines.

I keep busy outside with my yard, flowers and garden.  I have an apple and a pear tree from which I canned 90 quarts of Bartlett pears in 1997. The grandchildren love them. I have five grandchildren and I have pieced a quilt for each of them as well as for my three sons.

I am a member of the Osceola United Methodist Church and the United Methodist Women (UMW). I am a 50-year member of the Order of Eastern Star, Ophir Chapter, and was appointed as Grand Representative to Nebraska. That term will expire in October, 1998.  I belong to Altruistic Club, a birthday and a coffee club. One afternoon a week I am a Pink Lady at the hospital, delivering mail and visiting with patients.

I am the only living member of my family. I tell my children there is no one left to ask questions of. I am in fair health and have many blessings for which to be thankful.  I am most happy to be in my own home.

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Last Revised July 1, 2012