Immigrants' cultural loss. Longing for folk culture of Bimolten
2. Folk Culture
Immigrants' cultural loss. Longing for folk culture of Bimolten
Icy and Teresa Carter attended Roottown School 70 years ago. Children of Will Carter, one of the few non-Dutch family heads in the school district.
The Carters moved to the Grant area about the same time we moved tO the Brickyard.* It was about 1914, I should guess, that we (our family) piled into the surrey one evening and journeyed a couple of miles to visit the Carters. I do not recall in detai l how the hour of visiting passed. What I am coming to is a discovery I made: namely that these so-called "Yankees" had a kind of history behind them that was different from and much more significant, somehow, than the "history" I could draw on.
*In 1913.Albert's father bought a brick yard and drain tile plant at Grant. For the next seven years, the family (and their livestock) moved loach andforthfifteen milks, speeding summers at the brick yard, winters at the farm at Fremont. The tile-makin g venture did not thrive, and the property at Grant was sold in 1920. —MH
The culture—the literature, the music, the traditions—was theirs, not ours; they had a continuity with their past which was the past of America, whereas we Hollanders had no such consciousness, no such continuity. We had no entertaining songs in Englis h which might speak to us of deeds and passions with which we could identify. What songs we might have had were of course in Dutch—and forgotten on crossing the Atlantic, at any rate suppressed in the spare culture permitted outside of church.
This discovery came to me as we journeyed home from the visit. Contact with the Carters ceased, though we kidded George about being stuck on Icy, and John the same with Teresa. Years later we came across Teresa, married, and operating a roadside busine ss on the old road from Grand Rapids to Sparta.
It was this yearning for a sense of vital continuity with a viable past which began to be satisfied with the discovery of our German relatives. (For "German," read Grafschafter, more Hollandersch than Deutsch). It will be fully satisfied when I hear (r epeatedly) the folk songs current in the Bimolten area, songs which my ancestors fashioned, after the manner of popular ballads of Europe and England, songs which carry the feelings of the Stevenses and Kunnens of past centuries, songs which they may well have known still as they stepped off on American soil but which they forgot. (Or, more likely, suppressed as they concentrated on the long-meter psalms they turned to so reverently as best strengtheners of the bond holding together a group of migrants in a strange land, a land whose culture they feared and pretty consistency rejected.)
The single most effective introduction to our lost culture has been, for me, the Yearbook of the Heimatverein of Grafschaft, and in particular the pieces in the Platt Deutsch dialect, the language of our Dutch neighbors when they were not in church, th e language of Uncle Gerrit Wever as the Wevers paid us a visit of an evening and the conversation flowed melodiously. Uncle Gerrit was himself an immigrant, if I recall correctly.
9. The Barn Raising
Odor of the wood. The tools. Joining and raising the beams. Henry Luchies. Mrs. Lurbies. "Hey!"
The Summer of 1906 was particularly wonderful. The front barnyard was littered with fresh-cut logs that were presently being transformed into beams for the framework of a new barn. The logs had been ash and maple and oak trees only a few weeks earl ier, and as Henry Luchies trimmed and squared and the chips covered the ground, the odor of fresh wood filled the air, night and day, an odor that still beckons, still rouses happy memories.
The tools the carpenter used were simple: axe, adze, auger, hatchet. They were sharp and though the stern warnings I received would have been adequate, the men kept a close eye on me, the four-year-old, lest I sever a finger or a leg.
The beams were twenty feet in length and ten inches square, cunningly notched and grooved so that purlin. A would fit like the toy Lincoln Log into the slot prepared for it in upright B. Furthermore, the tenon of A had a large hole drilled through it b y the handoperated drill or auger and the receiver slot or mortise a similar hole to the end that when tenon entered mortise full length and tight, a peg just the right tight size could be driven through the matching holes, to hold the two beams in rigid embrace. In like fashion all the beams for what was to be a tremendous barn. These were all laid out on the ground and as many as possible joined as they lay.
On barn-raising day men came from near and far and maybe thirty of the strapping farmers lined up along the purlin beam, to raise it to shoulder height. Then, following rhythmic shouted or chanted directions, bellowed by Luchies, short pikes were thrus t from underneath by a Second Team and these new men heaved upward on them. Then in the hands of the First Team long pikes supplanted the short as the beam went the last arc of its 90 degree journey, Luchies chanting "Yo Heave ho, yo heave ho!" and the me n
thrusting in unison. Came the crucial moment when the three logs thus erected as one piece had to be steadied and held upright while assistant carpenters scrambled to fix the piece temporarily in place so that another purlin might be slipped into in no tches and pegs driven.
Drazaing By Eric Sloane
The inevitable keg of beer stood on a low platform, its spigot in place and all manner of cups ready for the rewarding of the men. Luchies had to have the next unit ready immediately, to keep the men from getting too beery and thus unfit for the st raining and the hazard.
After the raising of the frame came the setting of the rafters and nailing on of the boards that made the walls. Finally the red paint—and the drilling of the numerals, "1906" in the gable end fronting the road. The holes proved too much of an invitati on to pesky sparrows, so they were soon covered by a wooden plaque onto which "1906" was painted.
Henry Luchies was the community's leading carpenter. Largely self taught, he was proud of his skill and willing to let his attempts at farming remain feeble and ineffectual while pursuing his trade. He always talked in a near shout, as did his brothers and sisters; their mother must have been practically deaf and they had to shout from babyhood. She was reputed to be bossy. There is the anecdote which has her yelling across the fields to her easy-going husband, "Henrik Jan! Henrik Jan! hey!!, zaaien, z aaien; Harmsen zaait ook!" In English that would be an admonition for Henry John to get going on the spring sowing, for neighbor Harmsen was already planting.
Above left: The Stevens Barn, built 1906.
Left: The Stroven Barn Addition, built 1907, on neighf~oringinrm— same carpenter, same style. Photo courtesy of Harley Stroven.
14. School
Founding of Roottown. Roottown school building. O, school vacation days!
Roottown School was the most visible survivor of the dreams of a man named Root. In his day, nearly 150 years ago, most anybody could settle down at a cross-roads and give the place his name—a sweet temptation, forsooth. All he had to do was induce his neighbors to help him diversify the businesses he had started. The only remaining evidence— remaining in my day, 1906 on, 'til maybe 1907—was a blacksmith shop, in later years known as a carpenter shop by the people who came to own the place, namely my Lummen grandparents.* The building had subsided into decay by the time I was old enough to go to school and to view the structure from an uncomprehending distance.
The building remained, carved out of a corner of the (later) Lummen farm. Cheap poplar trees edged two sides of the lot. A well and pump; no running water. Two outhouses, differentiated according to sex, the boy's facility quite primitive, still able t o give me the "horrors" from memory (but taken for granted then).
The building of the school proper was originally sheathed in wide boards, placed vertically, the crackes or joints covered by narrow slats of lighter color. Early on the whole was imporved by sheathing of brick, at which time a basement was finished, a furnace installed, lots of cement work at the rear, with room for coats, etc. and a way to the basement.
Somewhere along this time, the one-room school was transformed into a two-room. The simple stratagem resorted to by the thrifty school board was the building of a floor-to-ceiling partition across the middle. This was hollow, to permit the raising into it of huge that served as dividers most of the time, raised when major events, such as Christmas, Patron’s Day, 8th Grade plays required more space.
Alas, the designers of the original structure were so obtuse, as adults, as to place the windows at a height which forbade a child a view of the outdoors. All we could see was sky and the tops of the poplar trees. Maybe this was a good thing, promoting studiousness. It also promoted boredom.
My memories are best apropos the Big Room (grades six through ten). When it pleased the teacher, we were issued dog-eared copies of Pat's Pick a collection of singable songs without music. How I wish I might get my hands on a copy!
"O, school vacation days.
When we wander in carefree ways,
Have a charm I'll neter forget..."
you see, memory fails, but the magic lingers on, and always as the lines, however imperfectly recalled, haunt my hours, I am looking again through the impossible windows of Roottown School. I am again with Dick Stroven, Johnnie Smoes, Otto Lubke and ot her buddies of the school play-lot, but headed now for the annual flower-gathering traipsing down the road east, plundering the environment (as we now know) to return to our mothers a couple hours later with a wilted bouquet, proudly offered.
Francis Ritchie came into the circle of school kids, sponsored by Otis Shear*, the teacher. Probably the difficult child of a widowed mother, he was farmed out to our country school for cooling down (?). He alienated brother John, the very first day, a s they sat together in the double seats, by running his hand into John's pocket. So John asserted; so Francis denied. On the rebound, he cultivated me and together we planned and brought to half completion a racing sled. But warm weather overtook us—and
Francis went back to his strange city.
January, 1981
22. Work on the Farm
Farming in West Michigan was "diversified," a little of everything—well, not everything, but of the central range of utility: corn, wheat, oats, hay, and row crops. Corn, to be sure, is planted in rows.
Many the hours I spent helping with the cultivating of corn. My memories are all tied to the summer or two when I rode the un-softened seat (no springs, no cushion) fastened to the "tongue" of the two wheel cultivator, from that vantage point to guide the team while brother George brought the two Gangs" of cultivator shares into productive proximity to the corn hills. Up and down the long rows we went, uprooting weeds, turning topsoil down and moist undersoil up, breaking the crust that inhibits growth . With what relief I jumped from my irksome perch and stretched out on the warm soil—a relief permitted perforce when a cultivator share struck a stone and the wooden peg holding it in place broke and the share was rendered "non-operative" until George co uld drive in a new peg.
It was in these tedious crossings of the field that George in casual conversation or in response to my little-boy curiosity briefed me in on the facts of life and gave me an awareness of the larger world, the interests and activities of adults. He was a tenth-grader, the most highly educated of the family (except Mena, but she was female and headed for a profession as teacher of country grade schools and thus not a source of down-to-earth wisdom. Her function was, when at the farm, to bring mid-morning lunch.) About ten
A.M., sure enough there would come Tena or Reka, trailed perhaps by a couple of the younger fry, with a fruit jar of cool skim milk and a Kellogg corn-flake-box of moist floppy home-made bread sandwiches, maybe even a cookie! Respite from toil was auto matically declared while the bonanza was ingested and enjoyed.
Another challenge of row-crop farming was the use of the single cultivator drawn by one horse. The game was to guide the horse in such a way as to keep his feet off the tender beans, potatoes, sugar beets. To this end, little Albert was hoisted atop Ol d Tinker, with or without benefit of cushion (no saddle!) and instructed on gee and hew (pull on the right rein for gee, etc. and see to it that you tend to your knittin!). Jumping off wasn't so easy, the smell of horse sweat stronger because closer, the travail more tedious. And as for the sugar beets, they came into harvest in November, in a day or week of snow and ice. The horse was made to pull a knife held at an angle so as to sever the tap root of the beet, to
loosen it, and then the family (more or less) was set to work pulling the heavy, wet, cold beets and cutting the tops off with a blow from the heavy "beet knife."
Cliff and Henry show hold to ride farm horses.
The coming of mid-morning lunch was not the only refreshment when the field was adjacent to the "line fence," for in that neglected strip between Strovens and Stevens survivals of primitive abundance yielded their bounty of blackberr ies, raspberries, beechnuts, and of course wild flowers. Mother has written of how Dad would bring home a pailful (syrup pail, that is) of berries as he brought the horses home at the end of the day. So too we younguns; we found the berries.
The lane for moving cows to and from pasture used to run right down the middle of the farm. Was this a sheer waste of land? No, for the cows used it as yet more grazing area. Indeed, they were wont to push so hard on the wire fence as to break it here and there in their search for grass. Down in the lowest point a former owner had dug a well, a pit. Dad allowed it to go to ruin, but it went only slowly and was a hazard for us kids, or so we were warned. It was useful only when the farm cats produced to o many kittens and we harder-hearted older boys were deputized to dispose of them. FINIS.
27. Fremont Changes
Ten-cent Feed Barn. The Roller Rink. Second Church Services.
Using the church barn. War-time drives, etc.
One of the last institutions of the "horse and buggy" era to go the way of technological displacement was the "Ten-Cent Feed Barn." Farmers coming to town and using horses were able to give their teams shelter by driving into long sheds and then in to a bay along the side. There the horse could be tied, for the fee of ten cents payable to the owner-manager, and could be fed hay and maybe a little grain for another fee.
Such a service was available on Main Street of Fremont, just a few hundred feet from the hopping area. It was a masculine haven, redolent of horsey and manurey smells. In winter one could sit in the heated "office" to wait for the rest of one's party, an interesting place, its walls adorned with daring lithographs of bathing beauties alluringly garbed, neck to knee, in the thick cotton bathing suits of the 1890's and looking ever so archly (daringly) at the viewer. The shed was never heated, and the ma in door, wide enough for wagons, rarely closed. The building was torn down before 1920 to make way for the Community Center.
Next to the feed barn was the roller-rink, a structure of multiple uses: basket-ball for high school teams; roller skating as evening entertainment a couple of times a week; and a place for largish meetings. It was the meeting-place initially of the Se cond Christian Reformed Church, which in 1913 grew out of the First Church by mitosis in order to inculcate the faith in the rising generation. First Church continued all services in the Dutch language; Second Church with some trepidation launched forth i nto American culture by using only English. Memorable to me are the movable Opera" seats (worldly connotation right there!) and the thin red-bound hymnals with exciting songs all in English. Services were held in the rink for two or three years, until the basement of a new church home was roofed over. The tiny congregation then used the basement while catching its breath, so to speak, engendering enough cash and confidence to erect the superstructure.
Memories cluster around these structures: feed barn, rink, basement, and even the horse barn at the church, for when I used horse and buggy to get to high school in town I quartered the horse in the church barn, thus saving ten cents. These were the ye ars of adolescence, when all the windows opened outward and blood pulsed warm-to-hot and girls became dazzling and meaning of the Christian faith, freed from the encumbrance of a foreign language, became clear and clearer.
These were the years of WW I. Patriotism was invoked by a clumsy America, unused to militaristic displays but energetic in gearing up every which way for war. Liberty Bond campaigns, parades, "drives" for this and that—heady excitement for teen-agers! I spent the months September 1917 through March 1918 away from home, initially a "runaway." It occurs to me now that depth psychology might reveal the part played by the war atmosphere on my conduct, my "absentee-ism." The era dosed, for me at least, with my departure in 1920 for Grand Rapids and Calvin College.
28. Typical Day on the Farm
Getting dressed. Milking. Feeding the animals. Breakfast.
Field work. Dinner. Back to the fields. Supper Chores.
So few of the potential readers of these "memoirs" live on a farm that I am going to recount the events of a typical day in 1910.
The hour for rising from sleep was earlier in summer than in winter: say five-thirty. Dressing was simple and swift. I suppose I slept in a nightie, but I'm not sure. I do not recall, either, whether I wore underpants as a lad; later, it was BVD's. Out er garments were shirt and overalls. Shoes and socks were standard beginning in adolescence; earlier, barefoot as soon as weather permitted. We loved the feel of earth and willingly bore the interval of pains as tender soles became tough and calloused. Lo ok out for broken glass and boards with nails!
Mother would be busy in the kitchen, to which all reported. Dad and/or the older boys picked up the milk pails and left for the barn. Milking had high priority, twice a day, and see to it that you left no milk in the udder, lest you hasten the "drying- up" of the cow. Dad often came along after the boy had done what he could, to do the "stripping," getting the last drops. The boy graduated into responsible manhood when Dad acknowledged that the boy had effectively drained the udder.
The cows were given their feed: ensilage or moistened hay, with a dollop of grain and a shake or two of salt to make them thirsty and thus drink more and thus expedite the formation of milk. Ensilage was preferred, being chopped corn. Toward the end of the supply in the silo fermentation of the Juices caught in the cement base had begun. It smelled good, we boys agreed, unaware that it was "corn likker." Horses had their mangers filled with hay; a scoop of grain (oats) in the small box nailed in the ma nger; how the horses rushed their noses into it, getting in the way of the scoop! Feeding went on all down the line: pigs, at times sheep, chickens. The calf had to be trained to drink from a pail (rather than continue draining the mother cow), for the pa il contained skimmed milk.
After the "chores" were done, all gathered again in the kitchen, for breakfast and its routine of prayer, pancakes, Bible, and closing prayer. In harvest season, Dad pushed back his chair as soon as the prayer was finished and adjured his sons to hurry , harness the team and get out onto the fields. There the work
was interrupted only for the ten-thirty lunch break of big moist sandwich of home-baked bread and cool skimmed milk. At twelve noon the canning-factory whistle sent its good news over the two-mile interval and we were allowed to unhitch the team and he ad for the barn and presently the house, confident that dinner was ready. Conversation was sprightly, particularly if Dad had been to town or had enjoyed a prolonged "interview" with a passing neighbor; he was a good reporter of news.
If the, work was particularly strenuous, we were allowed a brief snooze after the noon meal. Otherwise it was back to the cultivating or the haying, etc. until time for supper. "Chores" could be tackled before supper, as time permitted; certainly they had to be done right after supper, lest the cows go too long unmilked. Eggs were commonly gathered by Ma and/or "the girls"—or boys while still little. This required diligent search in summer for hidden accumulations by choosy hens who preferred laying th eir treasures under burdock leaves to using the nests provided in the hen-coop.