Month: November 2015

 

 

On Friday, November 22, 1963, the political landscape in our country changed forever.  President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.   I was 17 years old and a senior at Juniata High School.  As soon as the faculty heard of the shooting in Dallas, which occurred shortly after noon, high school classes were dismissed and the student body was sent to their desks in the assembly room.

Perhaps some explanation about Juniata High School is needed here.  It was a small high school, with about 65 students.  All the students knew each other, many having lived all their lives in that small town.  The Assembly was a large room in the northeast portion of the building’s second floor.  Every student had a desk with space under the seat for textbooks.  We did not have lockers.   Freshmen were seated on the west, progressing to seniors along the east side of the room.  We assembled there in the morning, pledged allegiance to the flag, listened to any announcements, and then went to our first classroom.  Study hall was in the assembly room. On Fridays the last item of the day was a pep rally, led by the cheerleaders, in the assembly for the team playing that evening.

When we were all seated in the assembly, wondering what was happening, it was announced that the President had been shot.  A television was brought in, where from I don’t know, perhaps Coach Jones’ house across the street.  There normally was no television in the building.  At about 1:30 Walter Cronkite announced that the President had died a half hour earlier.  Some girls began to cry.  I don’t recall if we went back to classes or spent the remainder of the school day watching the TV, but I think we watched TV.

As soon as school was dismissed, I drove out to District 35, one mile east of our house, where Agnes was in the 8^th grade.  I do not recall which car I drove.  I usually drove my folk’s ’49 Plymouth to school but sometimes got to drive the ’59 Plymouth with push-button drive.  Mildred Grabil was the teacher.  She had been my teacher at District 28 for several years and also had given Agnes and me piano lessons at her house.  She had not heard about the assassination and was shocked when I told her.  Agnes remembers that on the way home from school I said to her “You will remember this day the rest of your life.”

We spent the next three days glued to the television.  On Saturday the President’s body lay in state in the East Room of the White House.  On Sunday his flag-draped coffin was carried on a horse-drawn caisson to lie in state in the Capitol rotunda.  The procession included a riderless horse with boots backward in the stirrups.   Mrs. Kennedy, holding her two children by the hand, led the public mourning.  In the rotunda, she and her daughter Caroline knelt beside the casket, which rested on the Lincoln catafalque.  I remember her kissing the flag which draped her husband’s casket.  Mrs. Kennedy, the most beautiful and dignified First Lady in my memory, maintained her composure as her husband was taken to the Capitol to lie in state, as well as during the memorial service.

The state funeral was held on Monday, November 25^th  at St. Matthew’s Cathedral.   Monday was a national day of mourning; schools, government offices and many businesses were closed. We spent the day watching the unfolding events on television.

A funeral procession, on foot, from the White House to St. Matthew’s Cathedral, was led by Jacqueline Kennedy, wearing a long black veil, and the president’s brothers, Robert and Edward. This was the first time that a first lady walked in her husband’s funeral procession.  The two Kennedy children rode in a limousine behind their mother and uncles.

Following the funeral Mass, the casket was borne again by caisson to Arlington National Cemetery.  Moments after the casket was carried down the front steps of the cathedral, Jacqueline Kennedy whispered to her three-year-old son, after which he saluted his father’s coffin.  The image, viewed around the world, became an iconic representation of the President’s funeral. The children did not attend the burial service, so this was the point where they said goodbye to their father.

 

 

 

At Arlington, following the burial service, Jacqueline Kennedy lit a taper from a candle held by a nearby soldier, bringing the eternal flame, marking the President’s grave, to life.

Pat Renschler was in basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri in November 1963.  The day of the assassination he was standing in the rain in a water-soaked fox hole.  Suddenly their sergeant ordered them to double-time–a slow run by troops in step–back to their barracks some miles away.  They ran in wet clothes covered by ponchos.  He remembered that as they ran steam rose from under the ponchos.  When they got back to the barracks, the fort was in lockdown—no one entered or left.  They weren’t told anything about what was happening.  This was during the Cold War and his first thought was that there had been a Russian attack.  Thoughts of being sent to war went through his head.  Eventually, the soldiers learned that the President had been assassinated and the military was on alert in case of an attempt to overthrow the government.  They were eventually allowed to watch some of the mourning and funeral on TV.

The assassination of President Kennedy was one of those momentous occasions about which people will always remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news.   I will always remember my shock and sorrow, and also the grace and dignity of Jacqueline Kennedy.  Little John-John saluting his father’s coffin is a picture burned into my consciousness.

Corn picking was an annual autumn and winter job for our parents and grandparents who lived on Nebraska farms.  However, few people today can remember when corn picking by hand, one ear at a time, was the fall harvest ritual.

Corn picking was hard physical work requiring tough hands and strong shoulders. As late as the 1940s most corn picking in the Midwest was done by hand.  It wasn’t until the early 1950s that machines were commonly used.  Picking began after a killing frost when the corn was ripe and dry. A wood wagon with high boards on one side, called the bang board, was pulled by a team of horses.  The team walked slowly down the corn row to the end where they were turned into the next row.

Most corn pickers used a husking peg or hook.  A husking peg and a husking hook are two different devices for removing corn shucks from the ear of corn. The peg fit across the palm of the hand just below the fingers.  A small curve in its pointed end was fastened to leather that fit around the finger bases and buckled on the back of the hand.  The device fit over the husking glove.  The corn husker stabbed the peg into the corn shucks with one hand, slid the peg down the length of the ear and ripped the husks away, using the other hand to grasp the ear, break the ear’s shank, and throw the ear into the wagon.  There were right and left handed pegs and hooks.

The husking hook was probably the more popular device and fit the hand differently.  It was fitted to a metal plate that curved to fit the lower part of the palm.  The hook protruded from the palm and curved toward the wrist.  The picker had greater hand usage with the hook as it was fit to the hand with leather fittings and straps.  The straps buckled on the back of the hand.  Some hooks also had leather straps around the wrist.   The husker reached forward and sharply drew the hand back toward the body as the bent hook hit the ear ripping away the shucks.  The second hand grasped the ear, broke it from the stalk, and threw it into the wagon.

 

Some people wore shucking gloves. They were made with a thumb on each side so both sides could wear out evenly. When they became worn through from the rough corn kernels, they were turned over and the other thumb used.

If the picker was right handed the wagon would be on the right side and the row of corn on the left side as he faced forward. The left hand grips the ear first, with the thumb up.  The hand with the hook moves across the ear to open up the shucks.  The left hand thumb pushes the shucks toward the fingers of the left hand so it can grip the shucks. The right hand pushes the ear forward and down while the left hand pulls the shucks back and down. The hands work in opposite directions to clean the shucks off the ear. Then a quick jerk breaks the ear from the stock.  The ear is tossed into the wagon with the right hand while the left hand is reaching for the next ear.

The work of corn picking becames a rhythmic movement of the hands and body down the rows of corn.  A picker usually picked two rows as he moved across the field.

When the wagon was full, the farmer drove the horses to the crib where the corn was scooped from the wagon. The crib could be a building with walls of narrow boards spaced about an inch apart. The space between the boards allowed air to circulate and dry the ears of corn. Wood slat corn cribbing, also known as snow fencing, was also used to crib ears of corn.  In later years round cribs of heavy metal wire with tin roofs were used.  After the corn had dried in the crib, farmers shelled the corn.  At first, shelling corn was done by a hand-turned machine. Later corn shellers used a power machine with sharp wheels to separate the kernels from the cob. Shelled corn was sold as a cash crop or used for animal feed. Leftover corn cobs were stored in a cob house or in the crib to be burned in the kitchen stove for heat and cooking fuel.

Recently I called my Uncle Vern Trausch to ask him about his memories of picking corn by hand.  He is 97 years-old, born in April 1918.  This is his reminiscence:

”During the 1930s our corn dried up. 1934, 1935, 1936, we raised absolutely no corn.  I worked out wherever I could find work.  I worked for the neighbors for $1 a day shocking wheat, doing odd jobs, repairs on buildings.  I helped Dad when he had a carpenter job.  A tornado took John Schifferns’ barn and I helped rebuilt it.  Dad was the supervisor.

In 1938 we had no corn crop here.  It got about two feet tall and dried up.  There was absolutely no work here.  We heard that they had good corn in Iowa, so Al, Elmer, Floyd Weber and I drove 125 miles to Odebolt, Iowa.  I had a 1929 Model A Ford sedan.  We just sat on a corner and waited for someone to come along who needed help.  We worked for Otto Siebreck, an old German.  We got room and board, plus 2 ½ cents a bushel for the corn we picked.  We could pick 100 to 110 bushels a day, and made $2.50 to $3 a day.  We stayed about three months.  I came home with $150 in my pocket.  I used the money to go to the Los Angeles Aeronautical Institute of Technology.

After I returned from the military, I moved onto my farm north of Assumption in the spring of 1947.  I farmed for ten years.  The first two years I picked corn by hand.  Mary Jane helped those two years.  That was very hard work–stooped all day long.  The corn only made about 20 bushels per acre.  The worst thing about picking corn by hand was the smut.  If you hit that a black cloud came out.  [Corn smut is a fungal disease.  It replaces corn on the cob with large galls similar to mushrooms. The galls are filled with black dust-like spores.]   Ralph Trausch shelled my corn those two years, then I bought a cylinder corn sheller.

In 1949 I bought a Woods Brothers single-row corn picker.  I bought it at Ford Farm Equipment in Hastings.  It cost $985.  I used that three years then I got a mounted two-row picker.  In 1950 Lawrence Parr and I put in irrigation wells.  We irrigated with ditches and tubes.  That was a lot of work.  But after irrigation, I raised 110 bushel of corn per acre.  When I was farming I sold Funk Seed Corn.  The best seed corn cost $8 a bushel.”

Bob Trausch remembers that his father Elmer reminisced that during corn picking season, on a nice still morning, one could hear all around, bang, bang, bang—the ears bouncing off the wagon bang boards. He also remembered that his brother, Bert, (my father) was always anxious to get an early start at picking corn.  Sometimes when an ear hit the bang board, the milk would fly—the ear wasn’t dry.

In a 1984 interview Bert Trausch recalled picking corn–he called it “shucking” corn.  “In 1942 Mom [Edna] and I shucked 150 acres of corn.  It took all winter.  We got laid up in January of ’43 for a while because of the snow. I was out shucking corn the afternoon before the blizzard of ’49 came up.

One of my earliest memories is of my parents picking corn by hand. It must have been the winter of 1949-50, as Agnes wasn’t born yet.  I would have been 3 ½ years old.  I remember it was a nice sunny winter day.  Mom and Daddy were picking corn by hand, throwing it into the horse-drawn wagon.  I was laying in the sun along the front side of the wagon relatively safe from the ears of corn which hit the bang board and fell into the wagon.  I was warm, sleepy, and contented.   The last year Bert listed horses on his Federal income tax return was 1950 when he depreciated three.

Near the top of the wall of the driveway along the corn crib which was located in the north side of our large barn, were rows of corn ears sticking on long nails.  Each ear had the year written below.  Charles and Daddy had picked the largest ear they raised each year and displayed them.  Before the development of hybrid seed corn,  as the corn was picked, the largest ears were thrown in a box at the front of the wagon.  Those ears were used for the next year’s seed corn.

Corn Meal Mush

Because mush required few ingredients to make and cornmeal was plentiful, corn mush was the food staple that kept the pioneers alive during long winters and lean times.

Corn mush is made with finely ground yellow corn meal. Yellow cornmeal is made from field corn which is harder and more starchy.  Once you have cornmeal, mush is pretty simple. Other than cornmeal, the only ingredients are water and salt. There are variations, but here is a recipe:

3/4 cup – cold water,  3 cups — boiling water,  1 cup – corn meal,  1 tsp – salt

First make a paste with the cold water and cornmeal/salt mixture.  Then stir in the boiling water. Continue to cook (stirring often) over a low heat for about 20 minutes.  Then pour into a narrow loaf pan and let cool until the mush is set. Slice and fry in oil until crispy brown.  A breakfast dish, it was served with butter and cream, or sausage gravy, or if available, maple syrup, or apple butter.  My mother liked fried cornmeal mush. We ate it with butter and syrup, usually KARO clear corn syrup.